Werder Bremen U-19 standout forward Yuval Ranon is on the radar of the US youth national team.Ranon, 18, currently an Israel youth int'l, but eligible for US.He had 9g/5a in 1,385 mins this year in the U-19 Bundesliga after stellar season with U-17s, w/ 15g/3a in 17 games. pic.twitter.com/vokmwNWOsj— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) May 21, 2024
Noel Buck still getting England callups. Meanwhile Christian McFarlane started for England U17s as Portugal knocked them around at the U17 Euros. By the way, the groups at the U17 Euros are comical. One group is England, Spain, France, and Portugal. YIKES. Our England Men's Elite League squad (formerly MU20) for their upcoming games against Sweden and Republic of Ireland 👊— England (@England) May 24, 2024 Defeat for our #YoungLions means it's three points from two games in #U17EURO Group D.Tonight's match report from Cyprus 👉 https://t.co/oavfvzOLvh pic.twitter.com/hnUHMaGhGk— England (@England) May 24, 2024
Atlanta United winger Tyler Wolff, son of former USMNT forward Josh Wolff, said the Philippines reached out recently to play for them 👀🇵🇭🇺🇸“We are thinking about it, it’s definitely something on the table,” the 21-year-old told Megan Reyes.“It could be a great opportunity.” pic.twitter.com/2UUuYjoNny— Anthony (@AnthonyKyaw) May 23, 2024
Former USYNTer. Former Chicago Fire homegrown, now playing in the Revs organization. We're just going to see more and more cases like this. Good opportunity for Alex. First senior team call-up ✅Alex Monis has been called up to the Philippines Senior National Team, competing in a week-long training camp in Dubai before taking on Vietnam and Indonesia in FIFA World Cup Qualifying and AFC Asian Cup Saudi Arabia Qualifying competition.📰… pic.twitter.com/PljmKNUA6M— New England Revolution II (@NERevolution2) May 26, 2024
Notable dual-national name on the pre-Olympics camp roster. Damion Downs of Koln. Good to get him in the group to see what he has. http://www.americansoccernow.com/articles/analysis-mitrovic-names-25-to-final-pre-olympic-camp Damion Downs (Köln/GER; Schwebenried, Germany)
Two 🇯🇵🇺🇲 players in the 🇯🇵U23 squad to face 🇺🇲U23 on 🇺🇲soil:GK Zion Suzuki of 🇧🇪Sint-Truiden. Born in Arkansas. Cap-tied to JapanDF Anrie Chase of 🇩🇪VfB Stuttgart II. Has an American father and spent 9 years of childhood in Texas. Not cap-tied at senior level https://t.co/E1d5AjEYUv— ChuckMe92 Soccer (@ChuckMe92Soccer) May 30, 2024
As expected, 🇺🇸-born Bryan Okoh was one of the first few cuts from Switzerland's Euro training campGiven their sizeable pool of Top 5 League CBs, his camp inclusion was very much a recruiting strategy and a nod toward the future. Still 🇺🇸-eligible but 🇨🇭are in the driver's seat https://t.co/vHZGnmwmYs— ChuckMe92 Soccer (@ChuckMe92Soccer) May 31, 2024
Finally scouted RB, Leo Duru, Blackburn (2005/🏴🇺🇸🇳🇬) and he is a pretty special player. If he is in fact U.S. eligible, he should absolutely be considered for the U19/U20s. He is an upgrade over the current RB group. ▫️ World class pace, agility and strength▫️ Very direct… pic.twitter.com/o3LSt3CtJS— Marcus Chairez (@chai_asc) June 1, 2024
Outside back is definitely the weakness of this particular U20 group I think so worth a look if he’s interested and eligible.
Obed Vargas has completed a one-time switch to from the United States to Mexico. Per a FIFA Spokesperson in an email to me: "we can confirm that a change of association request (from USA to Mexico) for Mr. Obed Vargas was accepted on 21 May 2024."— Brian Sciaretta (@BrianSciaretta) June 12, 2024 I guess he just wanted Mexico but notable to switch without a tournament lined up in that he’s not on the Copa America roster and there’s no Olympics for Mexico. Unless he’s switching to play for their U20 team. Which would be odd since he didn’t want to play at the U20 level for the US this cycle.
We've talked about how deep the Olympic team is in certain positions. So many of those guys are dual-nationals. As guys were left out and cut, there was always a chance they were going to move on. Vargas is really young. Its a shame, but also not totally unexpected. He could have been a key player for the U20s, but perhaps that level wasn't of interest. We heard he turned down a callup to the last U20 camp. Hopefully people learned from the Jonathan Gonzalez situation. There are plenty of other young Mexican-Americans that aren't going to make our Olympic roster. Luna, Gutierrez, Jonathan Gomez. The list goes on. Our coaches CANNOT pick players for these events based on dual-national status. They have to pick those that they think will help them win games in their systems.
It’s also just hard if someone really just prefers another country. Not a ton you can do there as this isn’t a situation where Mexico is offering a better opportunity.
I don't know if that's the case for Vargas. No idea. The idea of a player from Anchorage, Alaska ending up with Mexico is kinda funny. But his father played at Monarcas Morelia as a young player. So there is that connection to Mexico. The pool of players keeps grown and growing and growing, but the number of opportunities doesn't. They're all dual-nationals. CMs at this U23 camp. Morris was Canada, and he's cap-tied. McGlynn is Ireland. Busio was Italy, but is cap-tied. Cremaschi is Argentina. Pukstas is Lithuania. Those are just midfielders. We already have Buck in this group playing for England (although only provisionally cap-tied) Its hard. We hate losing guys. But we're going to have to have the attitude of France or Holland over time. Our pool rolls on. We're fine now and we're going to keep producing players thru our pipeline.
I don't think it's any of that, though it could be. The quotes from Vargas that came out in the past week or two really suggest that Vargas saw a situation where there is Tyler Adams, Johnny, Maloney, Tessman, A. Morris.... Dude saw a depth chart where there are starters in the EPL AND La Liga and Bundesliga who are all 25 and under, and then a pair of 23 year old Olympian call ups in Tessmann and Morris, to go with an 8 that can fill in badly in a pinch as a 6 in Busio, there's Edelman, hell in Eleven's list from 18 months ago Obed finished 10th amongst the youth options. Obed's recent quote was basically suggestive of the fact that: to paraphrase , "listen, they've got guys that are young that play in Europe and are starting and are under 25, and they also have guys in Europe who won the gig in the olympics over me who are also kids, there are the baseball equivalent of Major League, and Double A top prospects all ahead of me in the scouting reports, and it's a log jam. How do I get through? I can't see it, right now." There was no way through for him right now. I don't like losing Obed because we do have an opening for him probably by 2030 or 2034 if Tanner, and Aidan stall out in development which is still totally possible. He could break through in his mid to late 20's and earn a starting gig for us if nothing else happens, but right now he has at bare minimum five to six guys ahead of him for one position....If he has other options, it makes sense. I don't think the comparison with Gonzales from 2017 is a comp, back then our situation was dire, and we still had yet to transition to the next generation, now, Obed can see he has no way through to A team caps for literally five to six years minimum w/o injuries to like at least 6 guys all at the same time. So? Makes sense. I just don't like losing any of our talent to them, ever. The reality is, though, that as long as their pipeline is a ---- show, they're going to use our developmental program to spackle over holes, and Obed probably, for a sane manager, would jumped to top 3-4 amongst their DM/6 options which is a good 3-4 slots ahead of where he is with us, probably more.
Its the same thing that a player like Johnny sees in the Brazil squad. Tons of other examples. Or Jermaine Jones, Fabian Johnson, John Anthony Brooks, etc. etc. saw with Germany. Its just that we're now on the other side more frequently.
At the same time, this reminds me of our right back situation. Last cycle it seemed that we had right backs coming out of ears. This cycle it’s one of our weaker positions. And oddly enough, we might need to steal from left back in order to have someone play right back.
Sadly though this was also true for Julian Araujo and it’s turned out actually our right back depth chart is wide open after Dest.
Sure. Its impossible for us to get it right every time. Same as what Holland saw with Dest. They decided not to be interested in him. Later their pool opened up, they tried to go back for him, but it was too late. We'd established the relationship. We don't have Dest right now. But we're still rolling into Copa America with a Bundesliga right back. Araujo wrote a column about why he chose Mexico. It was with his heart; not his head. So I'm not sure any analysis of what he saw in terms of the RB depth charts for the USMNT and Mexico has any real relevance. Evidence of that is he's not in the Mexico squad. Clearly not with his head.................. Is Vargas using his head or his heart on this one? Who knows? What I do know is we'll be fine. Just like we're fine now without Araujo. Our pipeline will continue producing talent.
I’m just saying putting aside why Araujo did or didn’t make his decision, sometimes a position that seems like it has a lot of depth may turn out not to do so.
No we didn’t. Guys like Yedlin, Moore, and Cannon haven’t aged out of the NT. They just aren’t good enough. We have 4 guys that will be playing DM in top 5 leagues next year. 5 if you want to count Busio but he’s a different kind of player.