True. But the OP called Wynalda the "first American striker in Europe" without any qualifiers beyond that. And it's not the case.
It depends on your point of view.. For MLS and American football fans, that means Washed-up Euro has-beens are no longer interesting, which is all good. For Macheda, after the failure of what we have to call the Beer-Belly Putsch he gets to live in a politically stable country
Nah, Scotty's still right about Murray. According to wikipedia, he spent some time during the American Soccer League offseason in late 1988 with FC Luzern, which was in Switzerland's top flight at the time. From what I can find though he only made two substitute appearances for the club. There's also Peter Vermes who was a starter for FC Volendam in the 1989-90 Eredivisie season. This is before my time, but he was still a striker at that point, right?
Joe Max Moore, right on the heels of Wynalda in 94, was the leading scorer at Saarbrucken and then Nurnberg. He was loaned by the USSF. Those were the days... (JMM's been my mental comp for Sargent for what it's worth)
He was relatively unknown to us. Which means he was relatively unknown to most everybody. He was mainly a late-sub with the reserve team, who scored one goal in the Regionalliga in 15 appearances. It is wise to wait and see. Now the other teams are going to know about him, and will pay him more attention. A young player can produce a lot at first due to being unknown or underestimated. The real test is to keep producing once the rivals know about you.
Kinda reminded me of watching Diego Costa. Forgive me, but I used to root for Chelsea prior to Pulisic, and loved Costa. What Costa was great at was all the striker things. Great movement. Unbelievable finisher, you just felt incredibly comfortable that the ball would end up in the net if he had a real chance. When he did non-striker things, you just kind of had to indulge him. He wasn't an awful dribbler and could occasionally make something happen, but he was overconfident and lost the ball the large majority of the time. That's kind of what Hoppe reminded me of. I didn't think he passed the eye test as a soccer player, but he did as a striker. He did all the striker things correctly, and that's all you need. It's been a while since I've watched a striker be like that with the modern game including so many technically talented strikers, but it's nice to be reminded. I almost felt nostalgic watching a tough son-of-a-bitch who knows how to score play striker.
It will be a real turning point for the US player pool when players with zero US-youth national experience start making waves...thats the final frontier, imo. That will mean that any player anywhere in the US could be discoverd - whther they have USSF belssing or not....will open the floodgates.
I must say it has been more than 24 hours and this kid has the whole Big Soccer world abuzz with his feats. He certainly has us all wondering what his follow up will be. I for one would love to see him finish around 6-10 goals. Its doable I think despite the terrible schalke team.
This performance was huge for a number of reasons but one I think bears emphasizing is that Hoppe was kind of a fringe player who nobody would have been too surprised if he had been dropped from the first team before this weekend. Now, his leash with the first team is massive and it’s likely he starts for the forseeable. That’s pretty exciting in of itself. Also his contract is up in June and this hat trick likely secures him a professional contract in the Bundesliga for next season or at worst in the 2nd Bundesliga. That didn’t seem so assured before this weekend.
Kicker cover: Monday Kicker is one the Hoppe family will want to keep. Schalke “vier null” (4:0) as opposed to the club’s official name Schalke Null Vier. “Hoppe, Harit, Kolasinac, Fährmann. 4 pillars of the long-awaited win, but is that the turnaround?” #S04 cc: @AnnaHoppe8 @MatthewHoppe9 pic.twitter.com/UUOzqR1aTR— Derek Rae (@RaeComm) January 11, 2021
Which is a reason for caution all by itself. Schalke aren't nearly broke, so buying even a BL2-quality striker, never mind a quality BL2 striker, is a real stretch for them. Promotion from the academy and the RL side is their only way forward. If they were sure that Matt was at least BL2 quality, wouldn't they have signed a contract extension already? Or at least amended it to include an option? There may be other good reasons for them not doing so (club policy, CFO-imposed moratorium on contract extensions, Matt refused to sign, etc.) but it is curious.
Gotta believe USSOCCER is blowing up his phone at the moment while Grant Wahl is trying to score a scoop.
Of note that Harit also received a well-deserved 1.0. Fährmann also received a 1.0. Not sure I’ve ever seen three on a team before.
I hate to be a pessimist, but the above now-bolded sentence says a lot, and your "wise to wait and see" advice is, I'm afraid, spot on. Put another way, it remains to be seen whether he has the enduring quality that tells other teams that they should pay attention to him. Accidents do happen, after all, especially in soccer.
My recollection was that he was a regular scorer at the u-19 level, but I could be wrong. He may have taken a little while to adjust to playing against adults. It’s too early to say, but it’s not uncommon for youth players to struggle in the first half season or more in the reserves.
Well, I am focused on the quality of these goals. I’m not nominating him for the Golden Ball but it also should not be overlooked that these were 3 VERY good goals, not 3 tap-ins. Quality is quality. He is obviously a big guy with skill!
He scored that one goal in a total of 440 minutes, or once in approximately 5 games. His output in the U-19s was a better: 5 goals in 1,280 minutes across 20 U-19 BL and DFB Junior Cup games, or a goal in just under every 3 games. He's only 19 - he won't turn 20 until March - so it's not entirely surprising that he wasn't getting a vast amount of PT in the RL. It's an U-23 league and while he may have finished growing, he may not have fully grown into his body or have acquired sufficient muscle mass for it. Like @ardubois3 said, it's not uncommon for youth players to struggle in the first half of their debut pro season (the RL is pro) and to come on stronger as the year wears on. He's at that age where he could become a goal every 3 games striker in the BL - or the RL. He's had a great debut season and he'll always have that, but let's just temper our expectations.
Agreed. But it remains to be seen if he can consistently put himself in positions to score now that he's put defenses on notice that he can be a threat.