Yeah, I’m not particularly underwhelmed by how it’s gone for a lot of the guys mentioned. There’s guys that can make it to the Big 5 leagues and stick, and then there’s a wide Championship/Eredivisie/MLS tier below that. I haven’t watched a lot recently, but a guy like Booth feels like a guy who might’ve previously been projected at the top of that 2nd tier, but now is more towards the bottom. That doesn’t feel like a huge fall, and could easily change once he’s out of European obscurity. I don’t know if I expected any of those guys to become locked on starters in the Big 5. Maybe Wiley? I was never a Paredes guy. if anything, I’m more surprised that Aaronson and Tessmann have stuck as much as they did. I’ll say the same if Rokas Pukstas ever gets out of Croatia. I still love those Tier 2 players. I want a million of them in MLS. Every team could use more of them.
Thanks for catching that. For some reason I was thinking of 2003 as the cutoff instead of 01. Your full list shows how drastic the improvement will be if the USSF gets more A-list U23 talent on board. And of course, many Americans watch every Olympics, not just the ones on home soil.
If you were to go back in time and make the best United States 2024 Olympic team with what we know about players, it would be ridiculous. Just with the U-23 age-eligible contingent: Forwards (2): Balogun, Pepi Wingers/attacking mids (3): Luna, Reyna, Tillman Midfielders (5): Cardoso, Tessmann, Morris, Berhalter, McGlynn Fullbacks & Central Defenders (6): Freeman, Scally, Arfsten, Tolkin, Campbell, Wynder Goalkeepers (2): Brady, Schulte That's a great 18. I don't even have Musah or Paxten on the team because I ran out of room. Of course, central defense is still a disaster. I don't really rate Campbell and Wynder hasn't done much. You obviously replace them with overagers with Tessmann, Freeman, and Scally backing them up. Still, it's a team that could have done damage in Paris. It's another topic for another day, but eventually U.S. Soccer needs to hope its youth teams churn out quality central defenders. It's been a weak point for every U-20 team since 2019. You can see that with the U-23 teams struggling to find age-eligible players and hoping they get to the Olympics where they can burn overage spots.
Looking back to a couple of strong Olympic teams ... Our 2008 center backs were Parkhurst (over-age) and Edu (an out-of-position d-mid). Jonathan Spector was a highly regarded prospect but was out injured. At the time, Ream and Besler were still in college, and I don't think either of them was in serious consideration. Our 2000 center backs were Agoos (over-age) and Califf (struggled). Carlos Bocanegra and Nick Garcia had been on the fringes of our U23 pool and were dropped when they chose not to attend a training camp. At the time, Jay DeMerit and Cory Gibbs were still in college, and I don't think either was in serious consideration. Takeaways: 1. Even when we've had good U23 teams, we haven't had good U23 center backs. 2. Even when we've scouted our U23s intensively, we haven't picked our best future center backs. 3. Rather than trying to single out national team center backs early, it's better to have a steady volume of them coming into the pros and then call up the best ones as they mature.
The program desperately needs Banks to get back on board. Also the Portugal move doesn’t seem like it’s worked for Wynder. There was some chatter he was getting loaned to Columbus but that didn’t seem to come to fruition. But he needs to play first team soccer somewhere. Similarly injuries seem to have slowed the progress for Akinmboni. Neal as well. We badly need guys like Hamouda and Pierre to hit.
The moral of the story can also be that CB is a later-developing position. There can be a lot of fluctuation amongst the CBs between the U17 to U20 to U23 to senior USMNT levels. We look at our star CB today.........Chris Richards. He had no USYNT caps before the U20 level. There are some very prominent posters on this forum who were watching him as a 17-18 year old for Dallas at tournaments like the Dallas Cup and expressed extreme skepticism. He was so gangly and unpolished against elite competition at such events. Got a couple of appearances at the U23 level for the 2020 cycle, but that was too early for him. He hadn't fully broken thru as a first team player in Germany. By the time the 2024 one came around, he was really past the U23 level. After my 30 years of watching USYNTs, overhyping youth centerbacks has probably been my biggest waste of time. The amount of time I spent thinking about Tommy Redding and Danny Barbir and the countless line. Well..............other than stressing uncontrollably about dual nationals. That was clearly the bigger waste of emotional energy. What does all this mean? That maybe Josh Wynder and Matai Akinmboni will get back on track. STill very young. Or 10 years from now we'll be talking about a guy that's currently in the NCAAs as the star of the next decade. Or maybe somebody who is currently a fullback will move to centerback and play for us there in the 2030 World Cup.
And we have a coach U.S. Soccer names coach for 2028 Olympic men’s team: Steve Cherundolo.Details … https://t.co/ZdiD7P2SFS— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) July 9, 2026
I like that a lot. .......................maybe can even start grooming him to be a future USMNT senior team hire.
Good hire. This Olympic team is massively important. There will soon be a lot of spots up for grabs on the USMNT. The 2028 Olympic team will need to be a huge feeder into the USMNT, and quickly. On point of reference: France's 2024 Olympic team has 7 players now on its World Cup team. Spain's 2024 Olympic team has 6 players now on its World Cup team (Fermin Lopez would have made it 7). Morocco has 6 players on its World Cup team from the last Olympics. The U.S. team didn't have as many openings for its 2024 Olympic team, although oddly enough, the open positions on the USMNT were filled by players who did not even make the Olympic team despite being age eligible (Berhalter, Arfsten, Freeman, Brady) But a key will also be the quality of the overage players Dolo can get.
What are your thoughts right now on this topic? Guesstimate of what percentage of the Top 20 players will be on the roster? Edit. I misread this. Overage players. But can you answer about releases for the regular <23 y.o. guys?
Depends. I'd rather not use overage players at the expense of development. If (picking a name out of a hat) Matain Aknmboni gets minutes in the Olympics but does't help the team as much as (again, hat) Auston Trusty would, I'd still rather have Akinmboni because he'll benefit from that playing time in LA. Winning a medal will be nice but improving the depth for the senior team is far more important.
I can't imagine that releases will be an issue for anyone still in MLS. But given it's 2028, there's going to be a decent number of key guys no longer there.
I think the team needs to go for it. Development and depth will all benefit if you win. Americans love the Olympics. Why not give Americans something good to cheer about and a team to fall in love with. Try to be what the men's hockey team was this year? Forget just seeing this opportunity for a means to some undefined end. Or that this could fit a few pieces in the 2030 puzzle. This is a special opportunity on its own. Gold medal at the Rose Bowl. Go for it.
Or maybe they could try not making large chunks of the country hate them for being massive chuds yukking it up about hating women’s sports and dancing around with one of the nation’s least likeable alcoholic incompetents?
It certainly has the vibe of a "bigger" hire than we've seen for a while in this spot, and also probably someone who would expect access to what would be generally considered the high end of the pool. The questions it raises about how this fits in with whatever U.S. Soccer's plans for the next MNT coach might be also seem inevitable. (Though you could argue that this could just be the Fed treating the job as more important than usual because we're hosts.)
No qualifying, so it will be a series of camps and friendlies and then straight into the Olympics. Probably a big part of the job will be negotiating with clubs over player releases. I suppose he can bring in overage candidates into camp at any time, though the best choices would be senior team guys who may be busy there.
Indeed. We're going to go for it. If we play the Copa America that summer, then that'll have to be figured into the overage player equation. We still have two years till the Olympics. There will be quite a bit of movement in the pool. Things are hard to predict. If Mathis Albert JUMPS forward, then do you send him to the Olympics or Copa America? We'll worry about it when the time comes.
I think US Soccer thinks we're going to go for it. I'm not sure they really have a plan or an idea of how we don't end up with someone like Mihailovic as the overage guys. We'll see.
Honestly, if you swapped out Mihailovic for James Sands, the overage picks would have been fine in 2024
If uninspired. The 2024 could have been absolutely incredible between overage spots and senior team players who were young enough. With the Copa likely coming back, the same question is going to come up. The 23 year olds won't be as impressive ('05 v '01) so maybe we'll get more of those, but overall, I suspect the roster ends up not nearly as good as it could be. Will see any European based players like Albert or Kochen be released? (For that matter, Sullivan and Gozo will be there as well.) Just my gut. I somewhat get it, but still, it'd be nice to have a real medal contender.
I think it's a real problem... The Olympic Squad should be prep for younger stars to play big games and get valuable experience under pressure. And this time it's on home soil. France is the current gold standard when it comes to developing talent and winning games for their nation. They hosted the Olympics last cycle (silver) and brought guys like Olise, Cherki, Doue, and Kone. It's two years later and lo and behold... those players are part of a steam train. Not sure what we can do to help get them released? I wonder if a player can put it in their contract?