Again the fact that something as elementary as this needs to be stated in this thread is just ridiculous.
It could have been a severe allergic reaction as well. Not likely, since he supposedly ate the food on Friday and couldn't even get out of bed on Sunday to greet the team before they left for the game.
Out of bed? Must be more like out of the throne. Any news on whether he's ok now? Hope it's nothing permanent, like hep, or something that may leave long-term damage, like salmonella.
Jozy, Landon and Beasley are the three twenty year olds who have started in a World Cup. Their advantage over Yedlin is not necessarily talent, rather they were all pros straight out of high school. Had Seattle given him an HGP contract two years earlier then we might be seeing him in Brazil.
...and if he wasn't a defender. It's rare to have young defenders on a world cup team. When I say young I mean 22 or under.
Had Seattle given him a contract straight out of high school, I think he'd be a worse player than he is today. He credits A LOT of his development to Porter. Plus, he got an extra 50 or so games in that he wouldn't have gotten with Seattle.
I have a lot of respect for Porter. However, NCAA rules will hamper even the best coaches. Once a team is off season they can only train a maximum of 8 hours. This is what truly hampers development. As the USSF has recently mandated "The Academy's programming philosophy is based on increased training, less total games and more competitive games." The problem is that the NCAA doesn't give a rip about the USSF or USMNT.
He's back in Chicago for a local sports hero charity award ceremony. Seems to be fine and will report to camp when the fire go to Tuscon for the Desert Dimaond Cup
That 8 hours is on field training. You can work on movement in a gym with no ball. Believe me on this, from personal (different sport) and secondhand experience, coaches find ways to stretch the "allowed" time in unbelievable ways. It also doesn't prevent the team from deciding they want to play together for 2 hours a day in a way that just happens to mimic exactly what they would be doing in "approved" training. (For example, our conditioning was done after practice not on the football field. Thus, we weren't "violating" the letter of the rules, just steamrolling the spirit )
I am not arguing that Yedlin is anywhere close to ready for the WC. It is obvious that he both has a lot of talent and athleticism and a lot of work to do. Having said that, one thing that jumped out at me was how much more quickly he was able to close down attackers than Evans or Parkhurst. He is extraordinarily quick off the ball.
The bigger problem with college soccer is that there has only ever been one Caleb Porter, and he didn't stick around.
In what way has there "only ever been one Caleb Porter" in college soccer? Was not Bruce Arena an earlier version similar to Porter? (And I'm guessing there are other somewhat comparable NCAA examples.)
It shouldn't. At all. I'm just pointing out that the "8 hours" number often thrown around isn't what happens in reality.
Arena had a lot of success, but he didn't transform college soccer the way Porter did. "Play like Barcelona" eventually became a cliche, but a decade ago, no college was even trying to do that. More to the point, what Arena has in common with Porter is that they were giants on the college soccer coaching landscape and needed a bigger playground. So other college players don't get the same coaching and team environment that Yedlin benefited from.
With the numbers of former pro players who need jobs likely to continue to increase in the future, there will be others. Not that college is necessarily the best place for most of them to land, but it is one such place, and it's pretty inevitable that there will be more Arenas and Porters.
And my point is that it would have to be a very elite college program vs a very crappy pro academy for the college program to be preferable. Especially if the pro academy throws in a free college education.
But there are (or will be, as mentioned) other "giants on the college soccer coaching landscape." There are a good number of players (i.e. Edu, Goodson, Zusi, Gonzalez) who get or got "the same (very high quality) coaching and team environment" while in college, similar to those guys who played for Porter or Arena or Schmid or Yeagley, etc. Not that college is the best avenue in every case. But it is an available avenue for a good number of players. And players can develop and improve there. (And not just in those cases where they got to play for the "uniquely special" Caleb Porter.) This. And not that he fits the mold, but he's got the name -- and is (was?) employed as the head men's soccer coach at Florida International University. Although, interestingly, wiki lists him as "2014- present LA Galaxy (assistant)."
Apologies for being rude, but duh. Doesn't change the fact that Yedlin had a very unusual opportunity. Anyone who's been trained via close interaction with a truly great coach/teacher/mentor can probably understand how important that is. Was. FIU's new coach has worked his way up and seems like a better hire.
Certainly, but the broader point stands that Porter is not alone as the sole "truly great coach/teacher/mentor" within the past, present or future of college soccer.
The college coaching bar is gradually being raised, but it's slow as molasses. When ADs have an opening, they usually make a well qualified hire, but they rarely go out of their way to upgrade until their hand is forced. So there are lots of dinosaurs still around. For the most part, the developmental environment for MLSers who aren't getting first-team minutes has been awful. MLS is obviously taking steps to try to fix the problem, but it's still got a long way to go.
When I started college in 2008, I interviewed the men's soccer coach for the school newspaper. I asked him whether he thought any of his players had potential to go pro, and if his style of play was geared towards grooming players for the professional ranks. His response was something to the effect of "We're here to win soccer games and win the Patriot League to get to NCAAs." The team played Stoke-ball for all 4 years of college. A couple of kids got drafted, 1 signed with Philadelphia as a HGP (after freshman year), 2 made USL Pro for a season, 1 played in the Danish third tier, and that's pretty much it. A lot of players came into college with phenomenal resumes - time with US youth squads, high school All-Americans, etc., but the coach absolutely crushed their enthusiasm for the game and any skill they may have had. Obviously this isn't indicative of all of college soccer, just a small D-1 program in the Northeast, but the coach and his opinions were worrying at the very least.
Why would you think a college coach's job is to groom players for anything other than winning college games? Is there a college program somewhere that hires coaches to groom players to become pros?
Because for the most part, pro grooming is what today's better players want. Coaches are far better off helping them down this road than having them leave (and the number of transfers out of certain programs is so pathetic it's funny).