The current state of our youth national teams

If all U23 players were available (so Pulisic et al and Dest included) how badly would the U23 team beat the over 23 team?

If Ramos coached the U23s and Gregg the O23s, how much better would they be?

 

This is obvious, but I'll say it anyway, both for myself and many others. Although youth teams can be up and down the promise of what may be is enough to keep me here, and conversely the dreary state of the USMNT and the incompetence of the USSF tends to keep me away from the various USMNT forums.

 

There were 7 U23s on that roster League of Nations roster. And we started three of them. against Canada All of them played poorly (McKennie, Pulisic, and Sargent).

I think the problems right now with the USMNT/USYNTs are much bigger than U23 and O23.

Part of the problem is that we're relying on some youngsters with the senior team. And youngsters can be inconsistent. In the grand scheme of things, a player like Josh Sargent really hasn't done much in senior football. McKennie last year was a sometimes-starter on a Bundesliga team that barely avoided relegation. Pulisic was predominantly a non-starting player at Dortmund. Adams always seems hurt. Weah was at Celtic in a bad league last season. I can keep going. Do people realize the small number of first team games that Paxton Pomykal has actually started in his career?

We can talk all we want about our U23s. Competition at the senior international level is different. Players like Mendez and Ledezma and Richards have played combined zero first team games. And people are talking about them like they're the answer to our current USMNT predicament.

I encourage the USSF to not over-react and advance kids before they're ready.

I personally am convinced the problem is the coaching and leadership (both at the USSF and USMNT)..................and not the talent level of our USMNT players when facing a team like Canada or T&T. OK, against Argentina or France we have a talent gap. But that's always existed and could continue to exist for a very long time.

 

Much like James Rodriguez was a sometimes starter for a Bundesliga team. Yet he was contributing frequently on the international level. Chicharito (Leverkusen/West Ham) is another example of why these players are effective when coached well at an international level.

Richards plays on the exact same team as Alphonso Davies, who did not seem to be a step behind on the field when he scored the game-winner against some garbage CONCACAF team the other day... who was it again?, oh right the US.

To continue, I am of the opinion that USL, where a majority of the Canadian team that won plays, is if not below at level with the Under 19/23 system at any European setup. So the argument that players need "first-team minutes" may apply in the MLS, but not when you are struggling in CONCACAF qualifying in regards to European players.

This is true, but that does not mean that the other things you posted are correct as well. Putting players that will not improve in time for the World Cup on US rosters to get results against teams like CUBA is not the recipe for success.

I also doubt that anyone is seriously suggesting that anyone over the age of 25 needs to be deleted from the database, but some roster rotation with the chance to see what changes can be made is an obvious step to if not improve the team, at least put some pressure on those players who have been less than amazing over the past 2-3 years. This will help close that talent gap you mention and allow for the best chance at attractive football that has a chance against those powerhouses in international competition.

One last point. With us trying to recruit players like Dest away from powerhouses, I do not see how a static roster of less talented players provides a good argument for staying. With everchanging rosters and the introduction of new talent, there is at least a facade of ingenuity and a desire to improve over time from the standpoint of players and coaches.

 

Chris Richards plays exclusively for Bayern Munich II in the third division of Germany (3. Liga). Alphonso Davies plays for Bayern Munich's first team. If you think those two guys play "on the exact same team," then I don't know what to tell you.

With regard to "a majority of the Canadian team [playing in USL]," Amer Đidić is quite literally the only person on Canada's 23-man Nations League roster who plays in USL (for FC Edmonton). And he was an unused sub in the game against the US.

 

What defines a latin style of play? I hear this a lot and I have an idea, but if you look at CONCACAF there's a few different styles.

Mexico, for example, has a much different approach than anybody else. They're also a lot more talented than everybody else.

Honduras and El Salvador have a style to be sure but I'm not convinced I want the USMNT to emulate that either. Costa Rica does very well without a lot of resources, but fades in competition against non-CONCACAF opposition.

Then there's the South Americans, but the best teams there have very different styles of play as well.

What defines a "latin" style of play in the context of the USMNT? Can we have that without playing solely Latino players?

The USMNT's task is to integrate players from three very different soccer heritages: the English/German/Dutch influenced majority white communities, the African/Caribbean immigrant community players, and the Latino kids. Can we create a singular, American style from that group?

 

Agree. It is a scorching hot take to pretend a player that has played over 2 years of games in MLS and 10 games for Bayern Munich 1st Team is the same as a player who has played just over a year exclusively for Bayern Munich II.

I am not completely against playing players with no 1st Team soccer (and think the lower the league the more you should show at the 1st Team level) to their resume, but in general I think it is a bad practice that in the long-run isn't beneficial to the players. It is mainly to appease a segment of the fans.

You would also be throwing them into a system and style of play where they are set-up to fail and that helps nobody.

Do wish their was an equivalent to Camp Cupcake though for European based players where fringe players could come in for an extended camp in a no pressure environment. This would allow the coaches to better familiarize themselves with some of these players like they get with their MLS counterparts.

 

https://www.thenation.com/article/us-soccer-latino-neglect/

 

I was just coming here to post that. Good read.

Snip


“I interviewed more than two dozen people connected with soccer in the United States, including former US Soccer officials, former USMNT players, Mexican national team coaches, US youth club coaches and staff, teenage players, and sports writers. Nearly everyone agreed: A big part of the reason the USMNT doesn’t benefit from “the full repertoire of talent,” especially top black and Latino players, is that American soccer scouts, coaches, and officials neglect youth clubs and leagues that are not affiliated with US Soccer. Instead, USMNT recruiters focus their efforts on exclusive development academies and pay-to-play youth soccer clubs and leagues, which are more likely to have white, higher-income players.”

 

I don't buy it. U-XX NTs are way more Latin than MNTs.

 

It does seem that there has been a major shift to correct the issue, which is very real.

 

Good article. Before the Academy, the best players in California usually played in several leagues, for different teams (high school, club, Latino leagues) with different teammates and coaches and styles of play. Clint Greenwood taught Landon Donovan using that model. It makes for a more well rounded, adaptable player who puts his teams and clubs and teammates first, and who learns early to compete in differing conditions.

In the last decade, USSF decided that our best young players should be ushered into one league, then prevented from playing with any other teams or clubs or leagues, and concurrently assured they are the “best” despite never playing teams outside the exclusive league.

It’s non-competitive and self aggrandizing at best, and it’s definitely a waste of our vast potential. So we end up with some players who can’t adapt well when asked to play different styles against different types of teams. And ironically, we ask why with a straight face.

 

A lot of the MLS clubs mine those under the radar Latin clubs none better than Seattle Sounders.

Youth Scouting is always going to be best left to the professional clubs, but even then players will fall through the cracks in a huge country with a mediocre soccer infrastructure.

 

Correcting in which direction?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_FIFA_U-20_World_Cup_squads#_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_FIFA_U-20_World_Cup_squads#_United_States

 

You know as well as I do that that roster is a complete anomaly, historically speaking. I am not saying that is all USSF's fault, but latinos have not been widely included. Fortunately, there finally seems to be a pretty consistent latino presence on just about every youth roster.

 

To be fair, Sounders have only been an MLS team since 2009 and their academy has only become competitive very recently. They have two of the best homegrowns in history in Morris and Yedlin but I tend to consider those guys anomalies considering how little depth they've produced and that those guys spent a lot of time in other places before the Sounders as well.

There was a serious of 5 articles the Sounders posted about how their academy works a year or two ago which covered the main topics they considered important. It's a very good read. They seemed to just get it, and have a plan. It's almost like once you actually come up with a coherent plan for your academy you'll start to have a lot of success - imagine that!

Here's a post I made a while ago with links if you're interested:

 

This is so dumb if it's true. Growing up in Pittsburgh, my youth club teams were exclusively made up of white, suburban kids with English as a first language, but in college, and now in the 20 years I've played in various men's leagues after college, there have been a significant number of Spanish-speaking players on every one of my teams.

I figured it was just part of playing the game in this country at this point that everyone knows and uses at least a bit of soccer Spanglish to sort things out on the field. Why USYNT coaches would be barred from doing the same is beyond me.