I get all that. But Mexico and the USMNT don't have some of their top talent available either. You could write a pretty good starting XI of eligible players not at this event for the US. Mexico and the US don't get knocked out in the round of 16 by also-rans at the U20 CONCACAF Championships. That result means Canada misses out on both the U20WC and the Olympics. Its not the end of civilization, but also not good. If you want to join the elite of CONCACAF, you need to make the last 8 in these events. The US, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, and Jamaica did. Then if you lose a tight 2-1 game to Honduras, then you can live with that. You're not happy, but it happens. Then you can say "well, we were without 5 of our top guys." But you can't be worse than Cuba and Guatemala without those 5 guys. Canada losing to Cuba and Guatemala can not be spun positively. If you think you're one of the best programs in CONCACAF, then this is a failure.
I'm not spinning anything as positive, but I do think you miss my point. Here's the two I think you missed since you didn't really address it: Canada can be one of the best senior team programs in CONCACAF and lose here; in fact, they just did. It does not necessarily speak to a significant decline in the future. I don't think a lot of people will care that their U20 team sucks if they keep winning where it counts, and this loss likely doesn't mean anything there. We don't even really know the talent level of this team given their lack of time together. It's a killer. Is this a terrible loss? Yes. Does it necessarily tie to talent and not something like cohesion, coaching or execution? No. It's not a good thing, but U20 performance is not as strong a bellweather as people make it.
Sorry. When the US loses to a stronger CONCACAF team at a youth event, we have months of anger and soul-searching. Take the U23s loss to Honduras in the U23 semifinal a few years ago. Canada loses to Cuba and Guatamala, and we're making excuses for them. That's called a dismal failure for a nation that now wants us to treat them like they're one of the top programs in the region. When one looks for signs of a single "golden generation" as opposed to a prolonged talent surge.................these are the kinds of things ya look for.
It seemed to me that Canada brought a B team. I didn't really know any of their players but I saw a lot of teenage talent playing for their MLS squads over this past weekend. I could be wrong though... I don't really follow their development. Overall I think the US is way ahead of Canada WRT the number of youth prospects coming up... but there are only 23-26 roster spots open on the MNT and if you get a core of standout players, fill the rest with quality and have a system that works then you can still be successful at the highest level. I think that is where Canada is at right now. Will it last? I dunno.
Strongly disagree. I believe consistent U20 performance is the strongest indicator of future success and shows a strong program overall. WC U20 success is an excellent harbinger. I think one of the nuts (I use that term nicely here) ran numbers and pulled up FIFA info several years back showing it. U20 WC (and Euro U21) success directly correlates to future Nat team success. The players at U20 are the ones that are most likely to make that leap. The Olympics are a nice tourney for eyes but mean little development wise. There will be outliers but regular U20 WC and Euro U21 success mean that you can feel pretty good about your senior program. We qualified for three straight U20 WC quarterfinals. We are seeing the fruits of that. Yes, a few of our top guys never played there but the rank and file that has given us so much depth did, and that matters. Will a poor group here and there really hurt a nation? No, but multiple cycles will. It will hurt your attempt to take that next step up. Why do we constantly make excuses for Canada here? Their gamesmanship, truly dirty play, their ridiculous fans? If a CA team acted the same way there would be negative comments everywhere. Again, one poor cycle is one thing, you have multiple and odds are your depth will be affected at the very least. When you can only count on a handful of players to perform at a certain level you are very limited as a program.
Quality is relative to what you consider your end goals. Qualify for the WC. Get out of your group. Reach the quarters. The semis. Win your regional tournaments. More excuses for Canada. They don‘t have all their players there. So? Neither do we. I‘m going to start a thread listing all the excuses people make for Canada relative to our team. Canada will continue to improve, just like we have, but my goodness I‘m sick of the coddling Canada narrative most of the US boards seem to embrace. Again, Canada‘s senior Nats were a dirty, dirty team. Do you agree? They were. Maybe we put Hondo unis on them and many will see that. Won‘t get far in the WC playing like that either. This U20 team of theirs was embarrassing. Shock of the tourney they miraculously tied us.
We should expect a Canadian "B" team to beat Cuba. When the US brought a "B" team to the U23 Championships, we made no excuses for them when they lost to Honduras. That U23 team was missing most of its top 20 players. Heads rolled. People crushed the players and coaches. I get that Canada has been abysmal recently at the U20 level. Its their specialty. They failed to qualify for the U20 World Cups in 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019.........and now in 2023. So let's stop making excuses for them, and hold them to the standards we'd hold the US to. If the US loses to a much better team in the quarters, Costa Rica, we're going to consider that a failure. So Canada losing to Guatamala in the round of 16 is an even bigger failure.
Not getting beaten by Cuba but outplayed by Cuba for long, long stretches. Not able to register a shot on goal for 25 minutes up a a man with a 5 foot 5 Cuban forward playing in goal. Beaten by a truly horrible Guat team, and played evenly. I do wonder how the US will handle a solid CR because our group in hindsight looks shockingly poor.
I don't think Canada was a dirty team, but they were a team that definitely player super physical in a way that's allowed in CONCACAF, but not elsewhere. I don't think that's particular dirty though it's something that won't necessarily translate as they play teams outside of CONCACAF. I also give alot of credit to Herdman who did a really good job with their team. They were also fortunate enough to have two players like David and Davies who very much can help rise the level of the team. Those of course aren't their only two players, and MLS has really helped them as well as they have MLS or better quality now at every spot on the roster. They are also helped by the fact that they have a very young team and alot of their guys will be around for next cycle. Their U20 program has been a mess for awhile. Part of that is that they aren't a very well funded organization and they don't even have very many camps. Canada still has room for growth as well. They still haven't gotten a ton from the three MLS development academies (other than Davies who is obviously a big one) and CPL is still in its infancy, but it's going to help over the long term as well. In the short term we'll have our chance to reassert ourselves against Canada in the Nations League and Gold Cup next year.
It's also a good demonstration that the Mexican American experience is not uniform and not every Mexican American dual national is automatically going to be a lost cause or they will even for sure have grown up as fans of Mexico. There's going to be alot of different perspectives within the Mexican American community when it comes to the US-Mexico rivalry in soccer.
Yes and no. Sustained success over time, if generated from overwhelming talent, is an excellent positive. But there are programs who have disproportionate youth success due to overinvestment in terms of time and camps in youth teams. Honduras is one such team -- they absolutely spend a LOT of time with U20 and U23s in camps and those teams often outperform their senior teams because of it. The US was one for a long time. Bradenton yielded better on field results than developmental results. People would talk for ages about "why are we a youth power but then we don't do as well with the senior team" and then blame a whole host of developmental issues. But they actually were wrong with the assumption. We could play with more talented nations in large part because our team often played together every day at Bradenton. Sure, there were and continue to be developmental gaps, but it's more that we lost that teamwork/cohesion advantage. The US winning the last two U20 CCAF titles was a function of an increased talent base, no doubt, and a good sign. But Honduras and Mexico have had youth runs that are much more effective than their senior teams results, and that's not unusual. Small groups of players winning knockout tournaments doesn't always come through. Mostly because, again, a two year window of a youth team needs to yield like 4-5 good players to be valuable at a national team level. And only that. The same is true on a negative. It can mean bad things are coming. The US' lost generation was signalled by our youth failures, in part. That's true. So yeah, this could be Canada having no talent going forward ... except, we know they do? They have a number of good players in MLS. I am less sanguine about some of their talent that I haven't seen -- any US fan has been through hype of unseen European youth players -- but I know the young guys on Toronto, for example, are none too shabby. And I know that these two birth years only need to yield a few guys to keep Canada at the level they are now. They don't need it to be amazing -- just get a few guys. Losing isn't a good thing, but there are likely reasons for it that don't include "the current Canadian talent is a complete fluke even though we can see talented Canadian youngsters in other places right now." I simply don't think this loss augers anything particularly terrible for Canada. That's my point. --------------------- The rest of it: Canada being "dirty"; the word "excuses"; if the US lost how other members of the fanbase who aren't me would react ... that's all irrelevant to me. My point is simple: I don't think this loss is indicative of some coming drop in Canadian talent or will mean a massive decline in their senior team results. (I also don't think Canada is the best team in CCAF just because they won the Ocho, either, though.) I also think that the loss probably has a lot more to do with being unprepared than the talent level, though I don't think the talent level of their team is anywhere near ours at all at a youth level. Organization depth is more vital at the youth level because it's 2-3 birth years. Whereas the national team is going to be around 10-12 birth years.
Nah, they were dirty. Not two foot lunging dirty, but cheap shots galore, agitation off the ball abounded, time wasting of epic proportions.The media would soften it saying they had mastered the dark arts, but that is code for dirty. As the shine of their coming out party wears off I guarantee the narrative will change on that if they continue to play this way. Yup, Herdman did an excellent job. No argument here. Of course there will be no sneaking up on folks anymore. No 8-10 games before qualies having his team together for a month to prepare. They will be gunned for now. The real work starts for them. Still, even with their issues for the U20 those performances were embarrassing IMO. I didn‘t expect them to be very good this tourney but that was terrible.
Brenden Aaronson didn't make the U23 WC roster, nor the U20 WC roster when he was eligible..... The fact is that the best U20/U23 players are most likely already in the senior national team player pool, and are playing a lot of professional club football too. Those players aren't called up for the U23/U20 tourneys because they are playing/practicing day in and day lout against older and better competition. Before MLS focused on youth development, and fielding USL teams (Now MLS Next Pro teams) the US's young players needed these tournaments to test themselves. They were mostly playing college soccer in the fall, and some were with European Club Youth teams. IMO Paxten Aaronson, Quinn Sullivan, and Jack McGlynn would be better served staying with the Union instead of playing in this youth tourney. Playing against kids your own age isn't going to propel development as quickly as playing against seasoned professionals.
It‘s why I stressed WC U20 success and Euro 21. I actually agree with most of your points. You can even make a case, considering the insane amount of money and youth camps Mex hold every cycle, that they have underachieved on the world stage to some extent. I also agreed with your Canada point. One cycle means little, but multiple will hamper your attempts at stepping up. The whole dirty thing should mean little, but for me, there is so much hypocrisy there. Canada practices the dark arts, freaking heard and read that that dozens upon dozens of times in the press, while terminology for CA opponents wasn‘t so vague. That is what I don‘t like.
That I don't agree with. For one, none of those dudes was getting particularly strong PT. For another, and more importantly, this is a short time period where the players get to play in a high stakes, international knockout tournament where they don't have veterans and stars to carry them. They have plenty of time with the Union. But here, they are the men; the team wins and loses based on them. And that's a different experience than even MLS playoffs. If they were locked in starters, that might be different.
Not this one, but the one we will qualify for if we win the next match. Look at those rosters and look at what it has done for our depth. The last 3 quarterfinalists. EPB, CCV, LDLT to name a few. Yeah, the problem is we have to go through this region to get there. That is an issue. Maybe we are getting past the point of CONCACAF even mattering with Euro scouts all over MLS and the US now in general, but I do think there is real value in that U20WC comp. In Europe the U21‘s are considered big. It matters and is considered to be a direct extension to your senior team and what it can/will be. For countries outside of Europe the U20WC has the same effect IMO. The scouting, comp and bonds players build, along with testing themselves against teams around the world really matter. I think it‘s a very important experience.
Honestly, so much of this comes down to the weird, modern hot take culture (or perhaps it has always been this way) that comes with a real lack of nuance in conversation, highlights unearned extremes and centers on things like blame, etc., when so much of this is small sample size and moments in time. Canada played a little dirty, but I don't think it bothers me as much because I don't really buy this idea that they were materially better in the Ocho and certainly not, as I've seen, that they dominated us or were the best team in the Ocho. I don't mean to say we performed better, but people do realize that they only beat Mexico on goal differential, right? And that we were 3 points behind ... not exactly something outside the bounds of those little points of execution that make a difference. But the hot takes are there. I think it is the same with this youth tourney -- I like some players and if we lose to CR tomorrow -- especially in a Canada-game-esque way ... I'm not sure it is changing my opinion of any of those players. I don't think we will, but I've now gone through the U17s playing poorly in the WC and the Olympic qualifying failure as clear signals we have issues ... like, not from a talent development aspect. Maybe coaching choices, maybe prep levels. But talent? Eh, I have a lot of places to look at signals there. So yeah, Canada has a bit of outlier luck with Davies and David in particular. They have a good coach and a cohesive team that got to play a TON of matches in easy qualifying to get everything together. They have a CL level GK. They actually don't look unlike so middle-era US squads with a couple of stars and a whole lot of hard working to support. It's a good combo. And you don't need every youth team to hit hard to keep that up. You do need some ... but I look at Toronto and they have Ralph Priso, Hayden Nelson and JMR there -- and granted, they aren't all going to pan out -- but like, it's hard to go "there's no way they can replace Mark Anthony Kaye out of that." Because Davies and David are young and they don't need to hit on stars for a while. We milked Dempsey and Donovan and keeping for YEARS. ------------------- I think what is frustrating for us is that we look at our development and our team didn't blow away Canada, even with all the supposed talent. But I think what we miss at times is that there's several dynamics here in terms of differentiation: 1. Lots of countries, many smaller than Canada, have great runs -- one differentiation point is being good for a LONG run like 20+ years. When you just need like 15 guys, you don't need massive swaths of talent to be good for a while ... but you do need it to always be good. 2. It's really hard to elevate from good to great. The very best teams' talent is just so much across the board. We like to hype our talent, but compare us to Morocco. We're not more talented than Morocco in our 23 best. There's a ton of teams with our level of talent. But the teams that win the World Cup ... those teams are stacked with the elite, elite, usually. And being where we are versus where we were, or Canada is ... it doesn't feel big because soccer isn't a blowout sport. It's a sport designed to allow the lesser team to compete. You need overwhelming talent to pop. Maybe when our guys grow up. 3. Canada should have always been much better than they were. People use the population argument against the US all the time -- Canada has like 40 million people. There's a base there to be pretty damn good.
Just a note. We blew away Canada. Yeah, it was 2-2, but these things can happen in soccer. The fluke of the tourney. Even in the post match thread most were happy with how we played and recognized this. 9 out of ten times we win by 2,3,4,5 goals. It was that lopsided talent/play wise.
I wanted to take this opportunity to assess whether anyone else has noticed how much Bryce Duke has improved this year with Miami? The 21-year-old has become an integral piece of an emerging Inter Miami offense. I have been very impressed with his creative passing. He is 88/89th percentile in Shot-Creating Actions and Progressive Passes. He is also 90th percentile in pressures which is pretty darn good. He is below average in some other stats though like Progressive Carries and Progressive Passes received.... so he is still a work in progress. But IMO he has come a long way in a short time. I hope he keeps it up.
I watched a little of Miami but I want to watch more. He doesn't really pop visually, but the results are there. I don't know if it's him or the players around him more yet. We get very enamored with the very young players, but Duke is two years younger than say, Mihailovic, so there's plenty of opportunity to keep improving.
He never really popped visually for me w/ LAFC... but he has been fantastic in the last few games I have seen him play. He picks out very smart progressive passes. Like I said... still has a ways to go but I have been impressed of late.
US U20s game against Costa Rica will be tonight. Winner qualifies for the U20WC. What we came here for ⚡️The #U20MYNT face off against Costa Rica for a spot in the U-20 @FIFAWorldCup! Tune in tonight at 7 ET on @FOXSports 2 and @TUDNUSA pic.twitter.com/dexk5fYl9i— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) June 28, 2022
This is a must-win game IMO. They at least have to qualify for that tourney final. If not, it will be a total failure. Would love for them to make the Olympics too as I think we could put together a heck of a U23 squad.
I am really enjoying the improvement in our player base in terms of passing nous. It feels like we are getting a lot more players who are less dribble reliant and are learning to play more tactically.