He'll get staying physically and, more importantly, match fit. The latter - touch, response speed, awareness of team-mates' positions, one-twos, handling pressure, decision-making, etc - are crucial in football, which is why reserve teams and competitions exist. Nothing beats actually playing competitive games. Obviously it would be better to be playing for the first team, but playing for the reserves away in RL beats staying at home to train with the U-17s because you ain't made the first team travel squad.
Are you open to the possibility that there are areas/weaknesses of his game that Dortmund wants him to focus on at the U19 level where he/they can do so without having to worry about the results? That if he doesn't address will limit his upside potential? First team matches, whether with the prent club or out on loan at a slightly lower level, are not the place to work on developing weaker areas of your game. You play with what you got....and develop tactics to cover for individual player's weak spots.
Good Point In theory.Just wondering what they are. In watching his games last year he was better skilled then many of his opponents where he could contribute this year if he's not getting time with a top team like Dortmund.
FYP To be serious, he's already got over half-a-dozen BL1 appearances - including starts - and scored goals. They know he's got the ability to play for the first team, but it's a question of whether he can deliver at that on a consistent basis. Training with the first team and using the reserves for competitive games to keep sharp will deliver the return they (both) want.
I agree with this. I think he's already quite good technically and has a pretty good ability to read the game. For me, his weaknesses are physicality (he does reasonably well with this for someone his age and size, but he still loses physical battles more than one would like) and speed of mental processing of the game (again, he does reasonably well with this, but has significant room for improvement). It's not like he's Jordan Morris, who has a glaring technical deficiency that might be remediated by playing at a lower-pressure level. And he's not going to improve his speed of thought playing at a lower level. The best argument I can see for keeping Pulisic with the u-19s (at least part time) is that it will give him more time to develop physically before putting him through the rigors of a full season going up against GAMs.
Starting today in the friendly. Their depth is so insane that they can play this type of lineup the day after playing against Bayern: Weidenfeller Piszczek Burnic Weigl Park Sahin Schürrle Götze Pulisic Guerreiro Mor
feels like Pulisic is being transitioned to the right side of the field. It seems like more open of a position at the very least.
It seemed like last year and continuing into this year he's being instructed to start from wide positions. So yesterday on the right it was Passlack providing the width, which has been typical of BVB under Tuchel. He's hit a handful of dangerous crosses and I wonder if that is his niche right now.
Seems like this has happened a lot throughout his short career. Didn't see this one, but on the others he made the minor errors of taking an extra touch or half step to narrow the angle. He needs to know when to speed up and when to slow down. He's a little spazzy. Possibly nerves or youthful exuberance. Also, he could turn his shoulders in the opposite direction he's going to deceive the keeper and give him more of a target to shoot at. These were his opportunities to make up ground and be part of a stacked rotation, but it doesn't seem he took enough advantage of them to meet their current high standard.
i missed the first 25, but play by play suggest gotze and mor missed easy chances that couldve been an assist. Probably shouldve had 3 assist. The miss that i saw was from a cross that was behind him he couldve scored it, but it wasnt a sitter.
On the miss he had switched to playing more of the LAM position, played in the ST down the left side of the box and made the run inside into the vacated space for the return cut-back. Pass may have been slightly behind and he had to chop at it with his left. It avoided the charging keeper but looped just past the near post. Plays like this and some of his quick interchanges along with his playing history shows that he is dangerous from central areas. He had at least 3 great entry passes into the box and a couple of other crosses that were dangerous. The one to Mor was a low driven cross that a defender deflected so it wasn't a sitter. The pass to Gotze was right to his feet about 8 yards out and Mario failed to capitalize with his left from a good situation. Outside of the finishes (Schurrle played in with a throughball and Mor won a turnover in the box) there was not much to choose from among the front 4. All of them look like quality players. They all bring different things so it's about what's the best fit/mix. Overall Pulisic didn't jump ahead of his competition but he looked like someone who should be getting major minutes with our national team.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/iCw2Ava8Bmc?autoplay=1 Chris fluffed his lines, as the English say. Wooten just fired off target when he should have ... well, fired on target. None of them was as careless with the ball in goal scoring situation as Schürrle. As the announcer said, "This is not the touch of Zidane". (or he may have meant "Zidan", an ex-Dortmund player himself)
do BVB have the best overall attacking depth in the world? obviously not as quality front end, as say, Barcelona, but their top 7/8 attacking players are pretty loaded.
They are a former CL winner and runner up in the BL. There is no reason to be surprised or doubt their quality. They would never go into a season relying on an 18 year old. If CP gets lots of minutes this year, it will be because he earned them.
Maybe I am not getting what you are going for but it seems like an arbitrary statement when they are going to be relying on two 19 year olds (Dembele/Mor) and a 20 year old (Weigl). While I understand that they have Gotze, Schlure, and Reus. Reus is fragile, Gotze looks rusty and Schurrle is just getting back in form and they sub their wingers a ton so these guys will be getting significant amounts of time.
I still firmly believe Pulisic has a big future in Dortmund and would caution some of the members ready to hit the panic button at their depth. That is all.
Dembele and Weigl they are going to be reliant on. Mor is going to have to fight for his first team spot as well.
Agreed but the point is they are going to rely on very young talent and they went into the season with that understanding. That is the point I was trying to make.