Stumbled upon this youTube channel. In it are three players from last year's FC Dallas DA 19s: Judson Burns, Johan Gomez and Tanner Tessman. Check out the description of the channel: "A Pro soccer player, a Clemson football player, and an Average Joe talk all things life, sports, and comedy. Tune into these chums(and bestfriends) and keep it a buck with us. Watch all of our podcasts here, we'll be posting every Wednesday, don't miss an episode!"
Hearing that Nico Carrerra is in Germany on trial right now. Heard Nuremburg and Hamburg as possible locations for the trials. Hope it works out and we have another American in Germany ASAP to start moving up the system. Uly is setting the standard for what can happen. Getting a call up to the Senior US National team, a start ,and a goal all while playing for a U19 team in Germany shows these teams are respected and its a higher level of development.
It's starting to happen. A quick story for you guys. I am in Spain visiting with a Director of Football to go over the profiles of 4 Americans they are watching very closely. While I was there the DOF received an email with some video from their scout based in Mexico, about a young player that has been discussed on here before. The DOF almost fell to the floor when he watched the original video and asked for the Mexican scout for more footage. At the time, he wasn't aware I was familiar with the player, but let's just say he was immediately put in my list of players to watch for this club since he's in my back yard. Due to the nature of what we do and the fact that we are watching minors so often, we don't put names in the videos. We are also not allowed to promote players via social media but can give public analysis and share video. @ussoccer97531 and @ChuckMe92 will know who this player is and both rate him I believe. I'll leave it to the Social Media guys to do what they want with this. The Mexican scout has placed these in YouTube for other club staff to see, but we can share these without the players name. I think this is great that our kids (even the young ones) are being watched at the level they are. This should bear fruit for US Soccer as Europe continues to ramp up their aim on American teenagers. Apparently there are a couple more videos he is going to create. I will try and share them if/when he posts them. Its not very often we get an all touch video of a kid this age, but the scout felt he needed to put this together and get it to the club ASAP. These things get me excited for our up and coming players and the success of our National Teams.
I don’t know if I should leave the name out of it, but I’ll do that for now. I think he’s their next elite level prospect (Pomykal, Ferreira, Gomez, Pepi, etc). They don’t have anyone at that top level in ‘04 or ‘05 from what I’ve seen. As has been discussed before, he’s certainly among the early top names for the ‘06 age group around the country.
Good stuff, I watched these matches in full and also thought he stood out. Quality player but long road ahead. Curious to know what you do as I've seen you post a couple of times about speaking with European clubs about American boys.
No doubt. It is always a crap shoot when discussing kids younger than U17. I work for/with a number of clubs across Europe as an American based scout. I spend most of my time trying to identify the top U14/U15 players to create profiles for the clubs. I don't do a lot with U16/U17 but then get back involved after that when clubs need to make a decision as to whether or not to try and sign a player. Are you in Mexico or did you seem them somewhere online?
Don't the relative age effects at these ages (13/14/15) really make scouting and projecting long term success difficult? How much is a relative size advantage that will disappear at 16/17 and how much is really talent? The game is so much easier for the early developers at these ages.
You would think it would be difficult, but it’s really not, especially if you’ve done it a long time. There are so many boxes that need to be checked before a club puts a prospect in their pool. Every club uses scouting forms that differ a little bit, but most are pretty close to being identical. One of the things that always has to be asked and answered is, why is this player dominant? I’m fine using the example above for simplicity. In this situation, the player is a big kid, but looks and features don’t give any indication that he is even close to being done growing physically. If we find a player who is dominant because of strength or speed, they need to have so many of those other boxes checked. Let’s be honest, size is never a reason a kid is dominant in my experience. Speed and strength, yes, but not size. With the player above, his dominance has nothing to do with strength or speed, but neither of those qualities are lacking. His Soccer IQ is as good as I’ve seen at 13 and as you can see, the passing ability combined with technique and range is as good as it gets. Those qualities always trump physical qualities because they will continually develop, where physical traits eventually stop. You add the footballing quality to the physical quality, that’s the one we look for so hard. I can’t recall where his physical traits have ever even been brought up when speaking to people. Most see the technique, game understanding and vision and never make mention of size. We spoke about another 06 a few weeks ago in Barjung Darboe. In his case, and in my opinion, his speed is what enables him to dominate at the moment. He’s good all the way around but no where near what you see above. Totally different players to be fair. The difficult part in scouting young kids is projecting whether or not his speed as compared to his opponents will always be an advantage. These are the types of players that are hard to project. To be fair to young kids that are just faster than everyone else, 2 yards of pace is just as valuable at 25 than it is at 14. It will always be an advantage if they can keep it. Just to clarify, we miss on players often, but the ones we typically miss on are ones that dominate in the younger ages with strength or speed. I think it’s also important to realize that being tall at 13,14,15 can also have its disadvantages when it come to quickness and agility, we see it all the time. It’s only when they stop growing taller do their feet really begin to catch up. Also, keep in mind, we are geniuses if we hit 2/3 times out of 10.
Simply, I was just trying to relay that European clubs are beginning to view the US a place to find talent at earlier stages in the development process. Our top men’s talent have always had a place over there, but the more kids that go over and perform well, the more the door opens and the more it legitimizes American football.
Anyone familiar with Diego Ceja with LAFC U15? I have just seen some match film of him and think he is quite the player. Interested to hear from others. Was he a snub for the U15 YNT tourney in Poland?
Heard USYNT team player and Solar U19 Josh Ramsey is leaving Solar and going to San Antonio USL team. I think he ha also committed to play college at Notre Dame. I was under the impression FCD owned these kids pro rights but maybe not for USL. Good luck to Josh on moving up the ladder.
Prospects shouldn't get called up to the USMNT even for January camp unless they were Uly level dominant at that level. Other prospects should not expect USA senior call ups unless they look like a bundesliga level player like Uly has.
FC Dallas owns his MLS rights, but any independent USL team is a different entity like a European team so they can pick him up as long as he hasn't signed a contract with FCD. I would think the training compensation might be a fee though depending on all those factors.
is this Matthew Cochoran you're talking about? Because in the Dallas younger age group games I've watched he's the standout for me. The kid has aburd technical abilities for his age.
From what I understand, it was not an easy process. There was a lot of red tape I was told they went through to get there. It is a shame that a kid that lives in an MLS HG territory can not go find an opportunity to grow and develop anywhere else in the US without a lot of bureaucracy and red tape. Good luck to him and hopefully this works out for him.
It is a shame and for the life of me I don’t understand how there hasn’t been a lawsuit brought against MLS, even though I admittedly have no clue about any statute. My guess is single entity comes into play and since its technically one company, they are allowed to mandate where one of their employees works. It just doesn’t feel right that there may be a MLS club that wants a kid, but can’t have him because he happened to live somewhere else.