He's not on either of the current Region 2 '89 or '90 lists. I guess that this year at least, he had bigger fish to fry than to show up at ODP camps. Either that, or they cut him.
Well, either our depth of talent is far greater than we realized and kids good enough for the youth programs of La Liga teams can't get a whiff of our YNT and regional ODP programs, or.... there might be a slight problem in our scouting and indentification process.
They should be athletically far superior to an average La Liga academy 16-year old. And some of those athletically superior kids may have decent skills as well. Now, take someone like Johann Smith - his skills, after a year at Bolton, are still pretty raw but any scout would salivate over his speed. All that remains is solid coaching.
except that we have more different sports. So in that sense demographics works against us.We also have the highest level of childhood obesity in the world, by far. The idea that American kids are more athletic is nonsense. It is just not true.
I like to think positive, too. But when a player who is nearly 20 years old still has shaky technique it's a rare case that he'll improve it significantly at this point in his development.
A "slight problem"??? The YNT and ODP programs, for all the money spent, have a poor track record of producing pro players. One obvious problem is that the administrators and coaches of these programs aren't judged on their ability to produce professional talent. My guess is that the youth academies at clubs like Villareal spend much less money than ODP and produce twice the results.
I'm still not sure about this...why is Zimmerman having to wait until his 18th birthday to sign with Hamburg?
Of course, when Karbassiyoon was signed by Arsenal, people were bashing the USSF in the EXACT SAME WAY. How did that turn out?
Obviously not as well as Karbassiyoon would have liked. Nonetheless, I don't see it as a total loss. Karbassiyoon was unfortune, in some respects, to find himself at a club where there was little opportunity for him. He also apparently found out that making the transition from American youth soccer to European professional soccer is a tough go. Finally, he was plagued by injury just about the time he should have been making a step up. At age 22, a pro career is still a good possibility. I wish him well here in the U.S.
But i think the complaint has some validity to it, nevertheless....Playing devil's advocate...." Yes, Ramos, Vermes might have played second division in Spain....but have we ever had any FIELD players perform in La Liga -ie first division?-" I mean Keller is cool and all, heck he has played everywhere anyway The strides made by YA has certainly been amazing, shown especially when seeing players in England and Germany, arguably two of the big four... BUt many people would tell you -ands i'd be one of them- that La Liga is the best league in the world.... And Italy is at the very least superior to Bundesliga... So, if playing abroad is -at least in part- about challenging oneself, why can't fans, just like players, wonder whether the jump can be made by some of our pros -particularly field players- over to Spain and/or Italy? And do well there to boot? i doubt this is too high an expectation, I hope very soon we can see this.... Maybe this move to an academy by this kid can be a start....
I concede the main point of your post. I just want to point out that without the near career-ending elbow from Leonardo on Ramos in WC '04, it's likely the argument would be, "With the exception of Tab Ramos, have we ever..." IIRC, Betis was either in Primera already or had just been promoted when Tab got injured. Anyway, best of luck to Manzonelli. Nice find, ST.
You're moving the goalposts. Someone is bashing US soccer for failing to find this kid, just like a few years ago, a tidal wave of posters were bashing US soccer for failing to recognize the incandescent talent of Danny Karbassiyoon. I'm just pointing out that interest from a top flight Euroclub is no proof that US soccer did anything wrong in its talent identification process. You gotta go elsewhere to find that.
Top Italian clubs (and Juve is no longer one) are a lot wealthier than top German clubs and thus have a lot more talent. But top 10-12 German clubs are arguably just as good as the top 10-12 clubs in Serie A. This is not 1995 anymore when Parma, Lazio, Roma, Napoli and Sampdoria could compete for the world's best talent. They may not be bereft of it but it's not on the old level. Financial problems and the foreign player limitations saw to that.
i remember that, a true shame really... HAd Ramos gone on to perform in La liga's 1st div and done a decent to good job, he might have opened doors to otehr Americans as well..... Alas, that never happened due to that stupid/careless/criminal elbow.... I'd argue that Milan, Inter and Juve were every bit as challenging last season to the rest of Serie A, as only Bayern was -to such extent- to its Bundesliga foes.... As to the 10-12 top clubs, that is hard to quantify, but it seems to me Serie A is more challenging top to bottm, maybe due to tactics in great deal, but still it is very tough.... at least tougher than it has been for Bayern lately to come out on top, that is for sure....
whoa! this is a rarity on these boards, but i've stated this before. however, it might be just you and me who believe this bruce. (don't want to ignore the demographics argument, but for now our athletically superior kids are not being seen by soccer scouts across the land. they are being scouted by basketball, football, baseball and even some track agents.)
Nah. A 4 x 100 relay team of the fastest junior high aged soccer kids in our state would whup a relay team of the guys who run track, and very possibly the other 3 sports as well.
Not even remotely true, unless you are going to spend a few weeks first drilling on how to pass a baton, but I think we get your point.
If anyone is interested visit the Villarreal website to see any updates about this kid. They do seem to take some time to update the English versions but they keep good tabs on ALL thier youth squads. Villarreal also recently hosted and won an International Youth Tournament at their training grounds. The town(and city of Castellon) showed up in good support as well. FWIW he isn't listed as a member of any squad yet.