This is actually an interesting point. Since we know from here on out we won't be getting anywhere near our best U23 players should we take our latest U17ish team that has played together and use them? I feel they'd be manhandled but at least we'd be playing our best from that age group (mostly minus a player or two) and it would be great preparation for future tournaments and they may actually surprise being better technically than than the 40-60 U23's and it's more useful if we're going to lose anyway.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but the U23 team is largely independent of the Senior team. We knew we wouldn’t have guys like Dest, Pulisic, etc. We knew well in advance. We knew we needed to play in Mexico at altitude. This isn’t a shock. We knew we’d face someone like Honduras, who have consistently qualified for the Olympics and done well at this age group. We knew all of this in advance. The fact that we failed is a massive indictment of the U23 program and USSF leadership as a whole. We do relatively well at the U17, U20, and Senior level (Cuova notwithstanding). U23 is the odd man out, and it’s pathetic that we haven’t found a remedy in 3 cycles.
Why don't you go down the list of the players who are unavailable and where they were developed? Here was a list of 30 unavailable players that I made a week ago. Only ones who didn't play in an MLS academy were Dest, A. Robinson, Miles Robinson, CCV, Musah, Pulisic, Konrad, Otasowie, de la Torre, Dike, Sargent, Gioacchini 18 of the 30 came from MLS academies, and if we talk about players who benefit from the MLS development system, you can add Robinson, Pulisic, de la Torre, and Sargent to that list. Over 2/3 of our best players are a product of the former DA/current MLS NEXT system.
I don't disagree but what's your solution? I guess we should compare to how other countries that don't most of their top players look in Olympic qualifying. If France, Germany, Brazil etc don't do well then should we be expected to do better (I'm not saying they don't but I feel like they don't or they would win some Olympic Titles).
To be fair, it’s accurate to say that these players are nowhere close to the Senior NT. And it’s correct to aim the anger at the entire U23 program and coaches, from GGG and Kreis, to the way the players played in the games. I don’t really see anyone isolating the players as the only reason we didn’t qualify. Coaching, tactics, squad selection, fitness, etc. all played a role.
So we bring a player like Benji Michel and leave Caden Clark? This mistake is made too often in this federation.
Repped. You are someone who obviously has seen a lot of international matches in this region. Hardest team to play against in this region IMO. They get the most out of their talent. They know how to play the game and get results using all available means. I think thats the biggest compliment you can pay them.
I agree, this is hard for me to understand. The team was sorely lacking in players with creativity and technical ability.
Invest in coaches that demonstrate ability at the YNT level. It’s probably a dumb idea to hire an MLS retread, or throw an assistant coach (Herzog last cycle) in at the last moment. Play more games with the marginal players that you can expect to have available during qualifying. Use U20 or U18 players if you need to. Get a core of players used to playing together. Not some weird U23/NT combo camp. The players close to the NT won’t be available. Clearly, Berhalter’s holding of those camps helped not at all. If your guys are out of season, get them in early. Make it a good experience to be on the U23 team, and a valuable opportunity to develop as a player. Right now it’s an insult to be on the U23 team, and an indictment of your NT standing, because you’re nowhere near the NT and not valuable to your club. Build rapport with MLS and USL clubs so you can get some of the guys you want! Make it worth their while by showcasing their up-and-comers, not merely choosing players cause they’re starters and as close as possible to 23.
Jon Strong said something to the effect of "Jason Kries really wants to win and enjoy this because he never got to compete with the US in a tournament before." Is this really the guy we want coaching the team then? The guy who has never been there before?
Yes, and a ton of top soccer nations both fail to qualify and/or do poorly at the Olympics. Reality is that depth has gotten better, but not far enough to reach down this far.
An organization with 100M in the bank saying they don’t have enough money to invest in youth is a joke. USSF is so, so bad.
When you take a look at the 01 and younger pool it becomes even more apparent how much of a difference that the DA/MLS has made in developing talent in the United States. The next Olympic cycle is already deeper than our current one. Just look at how many 2024 eligible’s are broken into the 2020 group as proof. But when you have a moron selecting and coaching the talent it doesn’t matter
Younger players were bullied all tourney and underperformed. Perhaps Clark would have helped but there’s a really good chance Honduras would have buried him. We got out muscled all game; I think it’s hard for 17 year old to compete. But maybe he would have.
No, I’ve had a lot of talks about this with people in and around ussf’s development brains. Their financial books are brutal right now and really don’t have much money for anything. They’re barely cash flow positive and without the upcoming slew of games we have would be cash flow negative for a second year. Combining that with MLS clubs already wanting out of the DA to start their own league it was the right time to close the DA. The plans were just accelerated by 2-3 years
Been talking about how bad American coaching is for a while. Exorbitant license fees and a lack of emphasis compared to European coaches, along with the good-old-boys club nature of MLS and the USSF due to their containerized existence means very little progress in terms of tactical thinking.
Ochoa is one of these players who USSF loves. He gets promoted above his age group to all kinds of tournaments, and then has a stretch of games where he'll play well for a game or two, and then he'll have a key error that costs his team a goal (and the game). We'll be told to emphasize the positive. He's young, has potential, all of that to keep promoting him. Ochoa is one of these kids with great promotion outside of USSF. He's not a Kleiban player, but Kleiban runs in similar circles with his agent, the team around him, the people who have coached him. He gets that extra publicity that a lot of those Southern California kids get because too many people buy into the propaganda Kleiban releases. I watched him play a number of matches last season in USL. You rarely see anyone else talk about his last club season. It's because it wasn't a good one. When you do, they talk about how he was injured and got unlucky to not play. He did get injured, which is unlucky, but he also was beat out for the RSL starting job, and then didn't play that well in USL when he returned. In his only MLS game at the end of the season, he was really bad with a key error that cost his team a goal. He was the clear third keeper on this roster coming in. Marcinkowski had proven himself to be a capable keeper in MLS. Freese was the clear best keeper I watched in USL last season. It wasn't even close. Thats not to say that Ochoa might not come good eventually, but he really had no business being the starter in this tournament. It was completely undeserved compared to the other two keepers. I thought coming in that he was probably the worst player on the team. I'm not sure that has changed either. This is the same thing as what happened with the U-20 WC in 2019. He had no business making that team either.
They lost something like $40M last year and may lose as much this year. There’s no longer $100M in the bank. Not saying they couldn’t have some camps, but there were investments planned for that money that aren’t going to happen.