I used to be one of the guys that discounted Adams but I changed my mind once I saw him outside of the RB setup and in the NT. The one thing that I saw and the you are missing from your above analysis is his insane pressing ability. It's so good that I think he could be the greatest presser of his generation in the world. In a YNT generation that is the most technical we have ever seen but a little light in their defensive ability he may be the most key player.
With the Olympics and WCQ (which could potentially have games moved to next summer) there is little chance we see these guys with the team next summer unless we want these kids to have 0 break and likely see them get injured. Gio has even publicly stated that he doesn't want to be involved with the ynt's anymore.
Erling Haland scored 16 goals in 30 games for Molde in 2018, then played for Norway in the 2019 U20 WC.
I'd say the reason we may not play certain U20 players at the U20WC is not because they are above it but because our senior team is bad at the moment. If Argentina was ranked in the 30-50's like have been lately and they had to pick between him playing U20 WC or the senior team he also wouldn't be playing for the U20 WC. Kleiban has the reasoning backwards. It is because their senior team was so strong without them that they could play in their own age groups. lesser teams don't have that luxury.
SA has 4.5 WC slots. Argentina plays teams like Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador to qualify. Concacaf has 3.5 WC slots. US plays teams like Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Jamaica to qualify.
I'm talking about qualifying. It's likely to intersect with the next U20 World Cup so it's pretty relevant.
We don’t need either for qualifying which will take place during the season. Gio and Uly shouldn’t be there
The difference between the USA and other countries who had their superstar talents play in the u20 world cup is that they aren't desperately needed in their senior side like our talents are. when people take the "oh Messi and Aguero played at the u20 World Cup" you also have to look at how countries like France withheld Kylian Mbappe and how England withheld Marcus Rashford. If you have a player who is critical to the success of your senior team already, they should not be at the u20 World Cup when there is a senior team tournament and u23 tournament that same summer. anyone who says they could play in all of them is an idiot.
I read David’s post wrong but I doubt a lot of the best players consistently get released for u20 qualifying
I'm not sure that teams (and even players) will look at global events like the Olympics and World Cups the same post-Covid. Large gatherings of people from around the world are actually quite the opposite of what one should do to minimize contagion exposure sadly.
I have the official March camp roster and he wasn't on it but I think that trial camp that is supposed to happen in the summer is fascinating. It is great to know they are trying to expand the pool.
If the leagues are willing to have people enter stadiums in the fall and nothing goes terribly wrong then major tournaments will also happen
Qualifying was supposed to be happening this summer. I suspect that'll change. I can't imagine it'll be any earlier than late Fall or early in 2021. I think this team caught a huge break with that because some of these rumored rosters, along with some of the earlier U-20 rosters from Hudson have been very underwhelming. I don't think he's added any of the real prospects from 02's yet (Reyna, KHF, Las, Scally, AOC, Bello). He added two players on the all measurable's team (Odunze, Pierre), who unfortunately aren't soccer players for this level. It looks like Busio's also there. I think what I said a few lines above stands. The '01 age group is not good enough to be the only age group to contribute to the roster, and have this U-20 team have success. Some of these names he seems to like don't belong at this level. We always see the older age group predominate at the beginning of the cycle, so I wouldn't start panicking yet, but it might be better to not have qualifying so early. With a new coach and those names as the main group, qualification would not be a certainty IMO. I think this will give Hudson some time to learn the player pool better. I don't get the sense he knows it very well. He was only hired recently. Hopefully by the Fall he has made some changes. I'm not going to say he's a bad coach before he gets a proper chance to coach the team and pick a squad. I also think it's important to consider though that he might not be any good. This team had some good success with Ramos. The team needed to change things up after a number of cycles with Ramos as the coach, but for a U-20 coach, I don't think you could complain that much about his overall tenure as U-20 coach. A lot of these youth coaches aren't any good, and Hudson might fit into that category. We can't be sure that the quality of coaching we'll get this cycle will be anything like what we had under Ramos.
Hudson has had some very real success at the youth level, but he was such a disaster in MLS, it's hard for me to get behind the hire. We will see, I suppose. I do think his first camps, player wise, were more of a cast a net approach than any attempt to rank players.
I disagree. The delay in U-20 WC qualifying this cycle is a very bad thing for the U.S. The whole point of moving it up so early to the summer is to make it more likely top players would be released. The U.S. benefits so much from having it early and here are the reasons 1) They have a big % of players in Europe - especially this U-20 cycle compared with the last. 2) For MLS-based players, they're not in the "playoff push" time of schedule and are more likely going to be released. This was an issue in 2018 with Durkin, McKenzie, and others. Plus, in the summer, the players are in midseason form. If this thing takes place when it used to be (late 2020 or Jan-Feb 2021, then its likely MLS offseason and not even near a FIFA window. So you're less likely to get Euro based players and MLS players are in offseason. Yes, everything is up in the air right now, but this is probably the most likely scenario. I also disagree with the how you rate the 2001s vs 2002s. I think the 2001s are pretty good. I am less sold on the 2002s. But regardless, postponing qualifying is not good for the U-20 team just based on the make-up of the player pool.
1. There’s always going to be the problem if it’s better to have it at a time the European based players or the US based players have the best chance of being released. The best possible middle-ground is probably January. If I’m projecting this correctly, we are talking about two keeper options (Lewis, Odunze), a number of fullback options (Hoffmann, Ritchie, Souza, Flach), two CB options (Sepulveda, Otasowie), three CM options (Booth,Vassilev, Ritaccio), and then a number attacker options (Hoppe, Gomez, Q. Butler, J. Butler, Hawkins). I see no reason to believe Reyna will be involved, I doubt Llanez will be involved, and I think KDLF is unlikely, as well, although maybe he plays in the U-20 WC. You might also be able to add Kayo to that list, as he was called up to the USMNT, so he could be said to be on the U-20 radar. Of that group of players, they seem to be mostly a group of back ups. That group likely includes a starting LB, one/two starting CB’s (likely Otasowie and maybe Sepulveda), a starting CM (Booth), another contributor in midfield (Vassilev), and then one/two contributors in attack (likely some combination of Hoppe and Gomez). In total, we are almost certainly talking about less than half of the starting lineup (Otasowie, LB, Booth, maybe Sepulveda, maybe the #9, maybe Vassilev somewhere). It’d be a different discussion if Reyna, Llanez and KDLF we’re guaranteed to participate in qualifying, but I think it’s more that none participate than any do. 2. I think in the summer MLS players have a worse chance of being released. If MLS teams didn’t want to release players last cycle for late Fall who played small or no role for teams at playoff time, what makes anyone think they’ll release players in mid season now when all teams are in season? I also didn’t say anything about how the age groups of this U-20 team compare to each other. In fact, I made clear that my point was that it’s the same thing every cycle where you can’t rely on one age group, and not the other(s). Its not a discussion of how does the odd year compare to the even year as opposed to the odd year can’t be the only year that plays any significant role for the team. I don’t even think the 2002’s are a strong age group, but to have 5-6 contributors doesn’t require a strong age group. I may have gave Hudson too much credit in saying he will add the 02’s later. He may have picked out Odunze, Busio, Pierre (maybe also Kayo) as the 02’s he thinks can play with the 01’s. If that’s so, that’s a group of players that, at best, get mixed reviews. I think if you made a consensus list of 10 02’s who can contribute to this age group, you’d get names like Reyna, Bello, Scally, AOC, Las, KHF, and players such as Odunze, Busio, Kayo might be in those last few slots of the top 10, but we are talking about 70% of the consensus top 10 who have no caps this cycle so far. It doesn’t seem a good strategy to think you can have success with very minimal contribution from the 02’s, and the only ones who have played any role are, at best, some of the more polarizing names. We might end up with no meaningful contribution from the 02’s, if the names circulated for the March roster and previous rosters are the main names in consideration.
I seriously doubt leagues will have people enter stadiums by the fall but that’s purely conjecture. at the very least, there are states (like mine) that almost certainly won’t have people in stadiums until there is a vaccine.