i think i am more strongly in the no kid should get called up twice to these u14/15 teams than one team should provide 7 players
I find that potential and current ability often goes together at these levels. There are some outliers. There are some very big players at these levels who have a lot of success due to speed and athleticism, and then sometimes there are some very small players who are good because of the technical and tactical part of the game, but can be great when they catch up physically. However, I find that the level isn't high enough that good players in any specific area can't stand out. A smaller #8 who is undersized can have success with standout technical and tactical skills, while lacking physically, for example. I also don't think there are that many players who aren't good at this level, but have a lot of potential. That isn't to say that some players don't have much higher ceilings than others, but they usually are all pretty good at these lower levels, and there's not much difference in caliber at U-15 level. The difference is usually how their game would eventually translate to higher levels.
The boys won 2-1 against Iceland. Pranav DuBroff and Francis Jacobs (The youngest player from Orange County) scored. On Wednesday they will play against Poland and possibly the game can be seen on the PZPN website.
Poland's last two games have been streamed, including today's game, so I think there's a good chance it will be.
Starters: Emmanuel Ochoa (SJE); Nolan Norris (FCD), Pranav DuBroff (FCD), Angel Martinez (Sea), Nati Clarke (SKC); Francis Jacobs (OC), Jordan Jones (FCD), Sergio Oregel (Fire); Reed Baker-Whiting (Sea), Robert Willcot (LAFC), Anthony Ramirez (FCD). Clarke was captain.
If they try to make Clarke into a RB, like they did with Araujo, I think I may quit following soccer.
One last point on the FC Dallas discussion. One player who wasn’t called in from the FC Dallas 05’s was Christopher Sanchez. I was very impressed with what I saw from him. I also saw a twitter comment from someone who evidently watched the team, and was also surprised that seven were called in and not Sanchez. I don’t know if he’s injured, not eligible or not rated by USSF, but surely he’s a top 7 prospect on that team. He’s probably a top 3-4 prospect on that team.
It’s an embarrassment of riches on this team. Cristopher Sanchez and his brother Carlos could both easily lay claim to being snubbed. The other one that people talk to me a lot about is Adrian Anguiano, who many think is their most consistent performer. Add to that, Aaron Salinas who seems to be the first choice GK this year and one begins to understand the attention this team receives. As mentioned previously, this is the first true camp and matches for this age. I fully expect each of the four I mentioned above to be called in at some point.
Yup. From everything I hear, this team is so loaded that they can't find playing time for everybody. Can't find time for guys that are USYNT possibilities. Squad rotation of really talented kids. Hence, why folks like @Runhard are suggesting that some of those kids move up to the U17s prematurely. If the staff doesn't see improvement from some of those U17s, I can certainly see that happening as well.
Does anyone have a link to the site where the Polish Fed have been streaming their U15 matches? Would like to see tomorrow’s match.
Pretty sure this FCD u15 team has Kevin Kelley, a forward from Dallas whose dad took him to Barcelona for a while and I think other stops around Europe before coming back to FCD. Should be one to watch closely.
US U15s go down in PKs (5-6) against Poland after 'giving up' a dubious PK decision to tie the game in the 70th minute... https://t.co/Yp969jI4SE— Joey (@USAprospects) October 23, 2019
Good performance from the boys. They didn't give up a goal in the run of play. Gave up two penalties and a corner kick goal and were otherwise pretty clean. Certainly a lot to work on with kids of this age, but as we all know, this isn't the age where we are behind European YNTs and European clubs. Our mission has to be to figure out how to stop falling behind in the 16-19 year old years.
From the backline, keeper and defensive mid, I liked how Hardin played. He was the only defender who didn't have significant errors. DuBroff had significant errors, but showed some good passages as well. At this age, sometimes players are going to make errors. The others weren't very good. Deziel and Hernandez were impressive as dual-10's. Deziel looks like more of a #8 than Hernandez who is a pure #10. Deziel might be capable of being a #8. He had good effort defensively, didn't look bad athletically. I thought his passing was excellent and he showed a very high soccer IQ. Hernandez can play some nice passes, has skill on the ball, but is beyond physically. Physically weak and not very athletic. We'll see how his game develops physically and athletically. Akalu was great. The best player on the field in the first half easily, IMO. He had two goals. Jenkins played very well. Held the ball up very well, and provided a good target threat with good decision making with his back to goal to bring his teammates into the play when the ball was played into him at CF. I'm not yet convinced he's more than a physically dominant player at this age group, but I wouldn't rule out that he's a real prospect. Off the bench, Clarke's play was a ridiculous level once again. Move him up to the U-15's. He needs to play against better competition. Baker-Whiting played very well out of position at RW. Oregel was good off the bench in the #10 role. Not that much different from Hernandez. A better athlete with a little more skill, but not as good of a passer and his soccer IQ looked a little lower. Jones showed some nice passages, but I always feel like he can improve and doesn't yet play as well as his talent dictates he can. Wilcott and Jacobs didn't look bad, but both were late subs, so they didn't have much chance to impact the game. I didn't like how many good players were playing out of position. There were enough bad players on this team that good players shouldn't need to play out of position, and they should be able to find some better replacements to fill those open roles. The referee gave out three penalties, none of which were penalties. Two of them were the types of calls that would get a referee a week off. I can't imagine this was a referee who referees games at any type of notable level.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The U-15 BNT is up 3-2 on host Poland at its UEFA Development Tournament!<br><br>Catch the end of the game >> <a href="https://t.co/SF78XBLBfa">https://t.co/SF78XBLBfa</a></p>— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) <a href="The U-15 BNT 🇺🇸 is up 3-2 on host Poland at its UEFA Development Tournament!Catch the end of the game 📺>> https://t.co/SF78XBLBfa— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) October 23, 2019 ">October 23, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> I skimmed over this somehow. When I speak about communication (or lack there of) within the YNT system, this is exactly what I am speaking about. Most want to turn it into a dual national thing, but its not. US Soccer just sucks at communicating, simple as. Take this tweet for example. Our U15 boys are playing the hosts, Poland, which is streaming the game live on YouTube. Kick off is at 8:30am eastern time, so plenty of people in the US could watch if they wanted to. Yet, what do we get from our Fed? A fecking tweet giving the score 70 minutes in to the match. I find this comical. No proactiveness in putting the link to the stream out to the masses. It's almost if someone at the Fed found out this was being streamed half way through the match and decided, hey let's tweet out the score. If their job is to grow the game, they are failing miserably. What would I like to see? I would like to see someone that's a little forward thinking for once. How about sending an email to the 100 or so 2006 age group players they have identified with a simple message, "Hey guys, our U15 boys are playing today. Here is the link to watch. If you can, watch this match so you can see the level that is needed to play as an International." Why not send this out to the U16, U17 and older YNT ages and let these kids that are social media geniuses generate some buzz? They have an opportunity to engage hundreds of potential and current YNT players, and they let is go by. They have an opportunity to engage hundreds of fans that had no idea this was even happening, they let it go by. They had an opportunity to create a little buzz around this group of players, outside of the vanilla roster release and they let it go by. Amateur hour. Sorry - it is amateur hour for me as well in regards to figuring out how to post this tweet.
End of the tournament for the boys. They tied 2-2 against Russia and lost on penalties. According to the Russian website, Jordan Jones and Robert Deziel scored.
This question, which I am guessing is rhetorical (but I will bite anyways), hits the nail on the head. These coaches appear to be selecting players that will help them win a U15 game. Why? Prestige/positive energy for the USNT program? No one cares if the U15 team is winning, especially if US Soccer were to come out and make a clear statement about their objectives for player selection. Selections should CLEARLY be made based on potential, don't you think? Isn't that the point of the whole program? There are coaches within the US YNT program who seem very aware of this, and seem to understand, for example, that selecting a bunch of January-March birthday kids because they look bigger/faster/stronger right now is very short-sighted. Yet, that is what they continue to do. A simple glance at the game film from the Poland trip reveals several players who have mediocre to poor first touch, no 1v1 ability, but can run past people with the ball right now because their bodies have filled out early. Why is US Soccer giving important developmental opportunities to players like this?
US starting lineup vs Russia: Emmanuel Ochoa; Joshua Hardin, Edwin Avalos, Angel Martinez, Nati Clarke; Jordan Jones, Francis Jacobs, Sergio Oregel; Reed Baker-Whiting, Robert Willcot, Anthony Ramirez. Same starters as the first match except for Hardin and Avalos in place of Norris and DuBroff.
Why? Because daddy has money or connections/citizenship so the kid can play overseas? Watch the actual player and see what you think ....
A lot of hype about FC Dallas. Saw them play at Man City Cup, had high expectations and was underwhelmed. SD Surf (prior to their breakup) was far more impressive. I realize they may have added some players since May. I also fully acknowledge that reading too much into scores is dangerous, but .... how could a team supposedly as deep as this tie Vancouver 1-1 at GA Cup, no matter what lineup they used? Very hard to reconcile that with beating LAFC 1-0 the next day. They won a summer tournament with Bayern Munich, very impressive and great for a US team to make a showing like that. But, they lost the opener 3-0 in that event. They also lost a game to Miami 3-0 in mid-September. Losing by a goal or tying a game happens, players missing, lineup changes, etc., but a 3-0 loss doesn’t suggest dominance. Were 7 players selected because FC Dallas is that good, is FC Dallas considered to be good because they had 7 players selected, etc? Which is cause, which is effect? Just saying, it is very early, let’s see how things play out ....
No offense, but this is a ridiculous statement. Surf was absolutely dreadful at Man City and nowhere near the same level. Also, if you’re close to this team as you’ve mentioned in previous posts, can’t you tell us more about their qualities or struggles?
Surf did not have a good showing at Man City, but many of their players had already planned to leave at that point and they looked disjointed. If you watched Surf during the two years preceding that, as I had, this is not a ridiculous statement at all. Surf had a fantastic combination of intelligence and athleticism. Their possession was remarkable, and they were extremely well coached (so much so that LAFC academy recruited him away). They were smart enough to pass up low percentage shots at angles that most teams would take (resulting in giveaways). I expected to see this type of play from FC Dallas and simply didn’t see it. Very average. I am familiar with some (but not all) of their individual players, but I haven’t seen the team play since May. I have their scores, which admittedly don’t always tell the story. But, their scores have been inconsistent over this first two months, not indicative of a team with 7 YNT players with supposedly several more who could have been chosen. Again, we’ll see ....
Fair enough, but that’s not what you said. FCD at Man City was easily the best team with Seattle for me. FCD played Atlanta off the field and gave up a stupid goal from their own corner. Mini games always have some strange results. kids this age will always be inconsistent, comes with the territory. I think there has been a huge over reaction to FCD getting 7 kids into this team. It makes sense from a cohesion standpoint for the first tournament with no prior camp. As I’ve mentioned, there are several FCD players that were left behind that could feel a bit aggrieved. My guess would be that the next gathering for this age group could/should see 15 or so new players.