I believe it's Marcelo Palomino. I noticed him too. Throughout the game, he was extremely good on the ball. Changed the game.
That's old fashioned US team. Very athletic and fast. Balogun is a monster. Skill wise and tactically not that great. Booth was playing really deep, Palomino and Morris were pretty good, defense was solid. Ochoa is an interesting case: great athlete with good technique who is way to theatrical, although he has plenty of time to grow up.
I will watch Tomorrow's game, which is a interesting match up. Seems like last year we lost to Japan in this tournament.
I think there is one, but the website management is poor, so we can't find it. I keep clicking through on the Fotbal tab, where there are several live matches listed, but only up to 1500. Just sent an email in English to the contact email. Maybe they'll fix it or an archived stream will show up later.
Llanez's father confirms the US won on PKs. The Us won in pks— Sr. Ulysses Perez Llanez (@ULlanez) August 25, 2018
Enjoyed coaching the U18 NT at the Vaclav Jezec 8 Nation Tournament in Czech Republic with Dave van Den Bergh, Wayne Galloway and Dan Gaspar. Great job by the boys!!! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/O1kWksIOWA— Tab Ramos (@RamosTab) August 25, 2018
Here are lineups for the group stage games. https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...8mnt-to-face-japan-in-2018-vaclav-jezek-final
I wish we could get some info on the Japan game. Through the group stage games though, he played more minutes than any other player on the roster. I don't know if that is a sign that he is excelling at the position, that he needs the minutes there, or that an injury to another player (Otasowie only played the first 45 minutes of the group games) forced it. Along those lines, did Balogun's presence in the team have any influence on the position switch?
Reynolds was moved to right back for the Pro FCD team at practices. He hasn't been rostered for any pro games and I don't think he has played any USL games either (unlike Ferrera and Servania at FCD). The question is does FCD have enough control or sway over the youth national teams to tell them to play Reynolds as a defender or did the US National team coaches decide that on their own? I tend to think FCD told them to play him there. Either way, it looks like he has made the switch, USYNT and PRO team so he is a defender now. I hope that gives him more of a chance to play for the pro team because if they kept him as an attacker he would never see the field for Oscar.
Bayern could have advised as well. This move definitely makes his path to the first team a lot clearer, but I think he's still a ways from that level.
Since he's been around so long, I think we forget how young Reynolds is. He's younger than Thomas Roberts. Its normal for kids of that age to switch positions to see where their developing skill set fits. From everything we've heard from the coaching staff, they think he's doing well there. Still only 17, so still a while (and a lot of development) before we need to think of MLS starts. USL team will be perfect for him next year as a 17/18 year old. Gotta prove himself there. I don't know why some have gotten irked by this position switch for Bryan. Lots of young FCDers switch positions around. Kellyn Acosta was a left back at Bradenton, then a central midfielder with the FCD academy, then broke thru at right back with the FCD first team, then a central midfielder again with the first team. You either trust that Pareja and the staff see something there...............or not.
Agree. Too often in US soccer history we've seen guys switched from attacking positions to defensive positions too late in their career and they always had certain deficiencies that arguably stemmed from that late switch. If Reynolds isn't going to be able to hack it as a forward or winger at a high level, better to pull the trigger on a positional switch sooner rather than later.
Was just coming here to say pretty much the same thing. I don't have a take on Reynolds specifically, but it's hard not to wonder how different our pool might have looked over, say, the past decade if a few guys had been moved to defense at, say, 16 instead of 5 years later. You know who I always thought could've been a hell of an LB? I'll give you a guess: He played for one team that no longer exists, and another that doesn't have the same name any more. OK, enough of that -- it's Ali Curtis. He was rugged, had some technique, kind of one-footed but, hey, he was a lefty.