Amon amongst boys: Jonathan at Lynbgy BK (Denmark)Nordsjælland (Denmark)

FCN is by far the most skillful attractive playing Superliga team in Denmark ... so you do not get to play for them if you do not have the skills to play a "Spanish" short passing style of football ... but due to the very young age of their players and them often selling their top talents during the season, more experienced teams like FC København, Midtjylland and Brøndby are more likely to win the Championship ... but they do have the quality and better skilled young players ...

 

Highlights from last weeks 2-4 defeat in Brøndby :




... and from todays 6-0 win against Horsens :

http://superligadk.23video.com/fc-nordsjaelland-ac-horsens-26-11-2017

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so this is the team in Denmark that you would want one your young international players at? sounds promising....

on another note, I find it somewhat curious that a player like Bill Hamid (who has won MLS goalkeeper of the year and has a handful of caps with the USMNT) is basically at the same level career-wise as a player like Amon who has 1 career professional start. Either Amon is a very special talent or MLS play means very little in Europe.

 

Wow, our dude looks awesome. FCN looks fun to watch too.

 

Interesting prospect...

 

Really impressed, actually. Caused a lot of problems for Horsens when he was on the ball.

 

You can't compare them, field players and goalies are regarded differently when it comes to development.
I'm excited about this Amon kid, he looks to be the second coming of a Cobi Jones. Is a bit early but very promising.

 

He looks very promising. Good speed, strong for his small size and quick as a cat. Where do we sign up for this hype train, I'm in.

 

I like this quote from his HS coach...“Jonathan have left Charleston as a boy, and might come home someday as a man.”

I think he is way into becoming one.

 

idk about that....if anything MLS has shown that goalies who do well in MLS translate to the highest levels of euro football....to me, the hamid move to denmark is curious when you look at where players like friedel, howard etc went....so, if anything, a standout MLS GK should be at an advantage vs a field player when going to europe. in this case, the field player got the "better" move with a "worse" resume.

on another note, what kinda team do you think Steffen would sign for if he went back to Europe after showing well in MLS? i'm thinking at least a Bundesliga-caliber team (which is what I expected for Hamid, btw)

 

Ok, we may be talking different subjects. Goalies mature later than field players, so Hamid is not old to go abroad.
In the past, USA goalies were considered very good prospects abroad because they grew up playing other sports that required eye-to-hand coordination. In contrast, our field players were thought to be below in developing because of our lack of advanced training.
Things are changing in reverse, we now have very skilled field players doing well abroad while our goalies seem to be stuck in development leagues or lower division leagues.
I suppose the better question is why our goalies haven't continued their upward trajectory abroad.

 

The Steffen situation was because of two reasons, he was homesick and he wasn't getting the chances to start in Germany. I saw him with the U-17 2 cycles ago and I thought he saved our bacon. My guess, he is going to stay put and hope to win the starting GK for our national team. If he does make it, I would guess he would go to the Premiership. I don't see him going back to Germany, German GK are known to be the best in the world.

 

cobi jones? maybe...he looked a lot like gyau on his goal.....

the problem for all americans in MLS who want to transfer to Europe is that MLS play alone isn't enough. it's almost as if european clubs look at exposure to MLS as some kind of developmental contamination.

For a decent transfer, an MLSer has to also play for the USMNT....so a bottleneck develops b/c there are only 23 roster spots at any given time.

If there were theoretically 5 MLS GK that were Bundesliga-caliber only 1 or 2 could go b/c they wouldnt have the requisite USMNT experience.

the thing that's notable to me about Hamid is that he's played for USMNT (although sparingly and he's had the MLS accolades)...he's been good enough for several years now but there hasnt been an opening at his position for USMNT...so he's had to wait his turn.

my point in comparing amon to hamid is that it is remarkable to me that a player like amon could just go straight from amateur status to pretty even footing on the euro-club-ladder with a player like hamid who has paid a lot of dues....doesnt seem to add up in my mind....unless Amon is some kind of wonder prospect.

 

You make a good point, I suppose it all boils to opportunities, some are at the right place at the right time, others like Steffen, had to come back home to prove his worth.
My other more important question is why is it that our development coaching staff are not seeing these good players that foreign teams have?

 

there are many more players that are capable than there are opportunities for players to showcase/prove themselves. many players are fighting for few spots.

imagine a job opening and 300 people apply.

the 1 who is hired is very likely not to be the best person for the job....at the very least there must be many among the 299 who could do an equal job to the one who got the job. (not to mention the other 300 that didnt bother applying)

it's a numbers game....a matter of opportunity much more than people realize.

tab ramos has commented about recent rosters that he cant believe some of the players he's had the chance to include but didnt make his rosters.....

whether there are 20 forwards across the country who are good enough for a u20 roster....or only 2.....the same number of forwards will make the roster. and when national team inclusion is a prerequisite for a big team to sign a player it creates a false notion that the players who didnt make a national team are automatically worse than those who didnt.

would josh sargent be going to bremen without having played for u-usmnt? maybe. probably not. imagine the coach of the youth usmnt for which sargent was eligible decided he didnt rate sargent....what kind of impact would that coahc's opinion have on his career arc??

which is why a true pyramid of multiple divisions is so valuable to many soccer countries...players can work their way up the divisions if they are good enough. (its still not often perfectly objective...but its better and fairer for players and maximizes the usage of the player pool more efficiently)

in the us system...decisions on who is "good" and who isnt rest on a very few select opinions....its much more subjective when you are relying on a few opinions to make decisions on which players can play at the next level...instead of having it open to the entire landscape of the sport. although, to be fair, the us is adapting and opening things up more as time goes by...but its still not here yet

 

Huge game next Sunday against back-to-back league AND cup champions as well as Champions League regulars, FC Copenhagen. Have to think that he will at least be in the squad and that the game will be, in some way, available through streams.

 

Well said, Adam. Well said.

 

FCN is a club that almost only scout and sign youth players ... especially Danish and foreign youth NT prospects, so they would hardly be all that interested in his club resume so far ... and it was the Technical director at Global Football School Kenn Schmidt Nielsen who discovered him and had him go to Denmark to attend a 5 day camp and go through trials at FCN and another club (probably Lyngby).

As for Hamid, then the Danish Superliga is full of NT keepers of which some will be going to the WC finals with their country, so why not an American too ? :

https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/bill-hamid-midtjylland.1842021/page-8#post-35989898

 

A few fun-facts ... the 6-0 win was the biggest FCN win ever in the Superliga, just as it was also the biggest AC Horsens loss ever in the Superliga.

Amon was the 30th (almost all own youth) player to get debut in the Superliga for FCN since Kasper Hjulmand returned as head coach in January 2016, after a short 9 month stint as Bundesliga head coach at FSV Mainz.

 

The fact that Amon got in the starting 11 in his only 3rd Superliga game for the club show that he is a big talent ... at least at Danish youth NT level ... unlike the Netherlands, Denmark has qualified for the past two U-21 Euro Championships in a row, just as Denmark is among the top seeded in the elite round qualifiers for the U-19 Euro Championships, unlike England, France, Italy and the Netherlands who are in pot B .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_UEFA_European_Under-19_Championship_qualification#Elite_round

.... and as written before ... FCN is pretty much a reinforced Danish youth NT.

 

https://streamable.com/n72gm

The goal

 

Physical traits remind me of Joe Gyau

 

Is he eligible for the 2019 U-20 WC?

 

Pretty good selection of wingers for the 2019 U-20 team

Taitague
Carleton
Amon
Manny Perez (I hear he's turning professional after this NCAA season. Looking at either an MLS GA or European deal)