http://www.arsenalamerica.com/more/page.php?item=370 Danny is a really nice kid and it looks like things are falling into place for him.
From the article: "He noted a highlight was training with the vaunted Arsenal first team. "I didn’t know I was going to. (Reserve team manager) Eddie (Niedzwiecki) just said ‘Danny, you are training with the first team today.’ It was typical English weather, kind of chilly and I thought ‘This is going to be awesome,’” he recalled. “They started warming up and I see Thierry Henry (the team’s leading scorer and a striker for the French national team), Ashley Cole (English international fullback), and Patrick Viera (midfielder and also on the French national team). I kind of just joined in. Then Arsene Wenger (Arsenal manager) told everyone to partner up, and Sol Campbell (England international and recognized as one of the best central defenders in the world) asked ‘Can I partner with you?’ The whole time he was talking to me about what America was like, how I liked it here, just making me feel welcome.” Karbassiyoon said the squad went through some agility drills, and then did some striker-specific training in groups. “We were doing a four-goal drill and Henry played a through ball to me and I hit a one-time strike past the goalkeeper,” he said. “I would have been just as happy if I was on the sideline watching these guys. After training everyone goes and eats lunch together. I was sitting there and Dennis Bergkamp (famous Arsenal striker and Dutch international) grabbed his food and sat down by me. I was having a blast.” After a day like that I think you could just put me in a box and bury me and I'd be happy.
2 things stuck me about that clip - the first is that it's hard to say no to signing after a day like that. I would imagine that pretty much seals the deal. Secondly, the kid has to have some great composure and focus because if Henry slid a through ball to me, the odds of me stayiong cool enough to make contact with the ball, let alone not whiff, are pretty slim. Oh, and it's sad that the audience for this story is perceived to be so unknowledgeable about the game that the author felt the need to explain to the readers who Cole, Henry, Bergkamp, Viera and Campbell are. That would be like an article on the NBA for Brits explaining who Shaq, Kobe, Jordan, Iverson, Kidd and T-Mac are.
One thing I took from this article, and that is how many other kids like this get passed over by the ODP system in place. How can a kid this good, being offered a contract by Arsenal, not get picked to a regional team? It tells me that we need to do a much better job of identifying talent, and then of course, developing it. My son played at ESP the summer of 2001, and I didn't see any EPL scouts there....but maybe they were staying incognito. Does anyone know if the European clubs are recruiting more in the states at events like ESP?
Good god. What an experience for the boy. And then to nail the shot with all the STARS watching. I like the nerve of this kid. Sounds like he has a JOB type nutsack.
“The players who are most successful are the ones who work on their own. This is a very competitive sport and you can’t expect to have things handed to you.” This needs to be drilled into the head of every youth prospect we have.
agreed...i know that i have put one-timers past goals tons of times but if henry was on the other end dishing off the ball to me, i could guarentee right now that i would totally miss it and it would pitifully roll right past me as i land on my ass. i liked this comment too... He was being marked by Sol Campbell and it didn’t worry him at all.” said Arsenal’s chief scout Steve Rowley are you kidding me? i think i would have just turned to him in the middle of play, pulled a sharpie out of my sock (ala terrel owens) and ask for an autograph right there on the field...
Sandon - the potential readers of this piece (not the aresnal america readers, but the newspaper I edit) are about 68,000 families who play youth soccer in Virginia (and I'm aware that a certain percentage of these put take it straight from teh mailbox to the birdcage or trashcan). I've noticed that even some parents whose kids are at a very high level of play, national team players even, know next to nothing about even the development structure here, let alone the pro scene over there. More generally, Thierry Henry could walk down Independence Ave. in DC at noontime and, 9 times out of 10, nobody would recognize him. Maybe someday......
He may have been passed up for the Region I ODP squad, but wasn't this because of his injury? What I got from the article was that he was part of a State Association OPD squad, but his injury prevented any further participation. The problem wasn't whether the regional coaches could identify his talent - or any other player in the region - it was more of why wasn't any follow up done on his recovery? How do you know he wasn't under consideration for a Regional ODP squad? He was in the Region I pool of players for the 83/84 2002 regional camp. What I find interesting about this article and DK's situation is if he is this good (and hasn't had that great of a pedigree on the U.S. youth scene) and can possibly sign with Arsenal, imagine how good the likes of a Arturo Alvarez or a Kiel McClung are that have been a part of a regional ODP team and are on the fringe of the U.S. U20 or U18 squads?
No doubt about this one. Most parents don't have a clue about the European club scene etc. It's sad, but definitely true.
Aren't you assuming that just because he wasn't an ODP that these guys that were ODP are better than him? Couldn't it just mean that the ODP guys aren't quite as good as the chief talent scout for Arsenal?
http://www.region1.com DK was part of the Region I '84 ODP team last November in Florida. In fact, he was selected as an Adidas AA (top 18) after the event along with Justin Mapp, Craig Capano, and Jordan Stone.
No I'm not assuming that players selected to the Region I ODP side are better than him. What I was responding to was a post by someone that was assuming the Region I ODP coaches are not good at evaluating talent by missing Karbassiyoon - when in fact they didn't. To answer your last question - my first assumption would be that the Arsenal scout is better than the Region I ODP coaches/scouts. However, since Karbassiyoon has been on a few Region I ODP teams, my second guess is that the Region I ODP coaches/scouts may be just as good as the Arsenal scout. As I mentioned in my first post, though I didn't give dates, Karbassiyoon was part of a Region I ODP squad in July of 2002. This makes two squads in a span of 8 months or so. He was not missed by the ODP process.
Oops, I should have stated more clearly Nov '01. So, he's been part of the ODP Regional team for over a year. Now, it's true that he was identified very late in the process by the ODP Regional staff. The other top players in his age group were already at Bradenton for nearly two years. Quaranta and Johnson were in MLS before he became a regional player. Still, Mike Magee was never even a Regional ODP pool player. He was recommended to John Ellinger by Bob Bradley. So, they do miss players that would like to be part of the program.
IIRC, Bob Bradley watched Magee playing for his club team in Chicago. Bradley's son that is currently in residency played same club but with a younger team. Bradley must have been damn impressed because he recommended him to Ellinger. Magee quickly became part of the residency program and eventually a starter on the U-17 team. Maybe Karl Keller or others will have more info. He wasn't identified via ODP though.
Injured in 2000? Isn't this when he was injured per the article? Maybe Not as good as Mike Magee, Santino Quaranta, Eddie Johnson, Justin Mapp, or Erwin Diaz? Could he have been considered one of the top 30, 50, 80, 100 84's in the U.S. back in 2000-01? Sure, but maybe, just maybe, he isn't. Remember the U17 camp back then wasn't as big as it is now. Diaz came out of the woodwork (make the short-list for a USNT) in 2001, why can't Karbassiyoon come out in 2002? How does this make the ODP system flawed (BTW, I think it could be better, so don't go there)? Why is it that when a player is looked at by an overseas club all other players - and the current U.S. system of developing players - in the U.S. are considered crap? Maybe you aren't saying this, but the original post I responded to sounded like it was. I'm not saying Karbassiyoon isn't good. All I'm saying is there are a handful (not currently on the short-list for a USNT) of good players in the U.S. ODP system that could also play for Arsenal. There is a thinking that because it's not Europe it must not be good.
I agree we shouldn't use this as an occasion to bash ODP. Some tangible mitigating factors: 1. There are A LOT of players to consider in each area. 2. He did have an injury earlier and the time he spent in Germany clearly helped him improve quite a bit. He may be something of a late bloomer, which would imply that his ability relative to his peers, was not as good a couple of years ago. 3. And again, he's an 84 (U19) as a senior in high school which would tell me he is one of the younger kids in his soccer age bracket, which we've talked about on here before (although now it's all gone and posterity will never see our comments - oh the bitter tears I weep over this). 4. As PNE notes, the residency wasn't as big for his cycle. An imperfection perhaps, but this is still a work in process anyway. It looks like now we'll be seeing 15-18 kids EACH YEAR going in, which is a much better way of dealing with. Even if half of the kids in residency won't have a dedicated world championship to play for, they should still get the development opportunity. 5. It's all about to explode.
1. As for the relative merits of Danny and the guys who made the regional teams ahead of him...one other thing to consider is that the only reason Arsenal is looking at him is his mother's lineage. It's possible that he's no better or worse than those other guys, and Danny could have just as easily been selected for ODP but wasn't. But those other kids...Arsenal can't use them. They can't get an Italian passport. I've written this before, but I wonder what the situation would be like if the ONLY nation where Americans can go and speak the language is also the ONLY nation that requires a player to be a regular for the Nats. 2. The whole time I'm reading this article's section about his training day with the big boys, I have this huge grin. I can't imagine how the kid could function. I guess after a few days training with the reserves, when he trained with Henry and co., it seemed like just another day. But good God, what a thrill for him!!!
Some comments about the REGIONAL ODP coaches missing a kid -- if the kid gets missed at the STATE level, the REGIONAL coaches won't even see him. And there are some state programs that are VERY regionally oriented (as in regions of the state, not USYSA Regions). For example, in Michigan, prior to the 86 class, it was very rare for a kid who PLAYED on a team from outside the Eastern Michigan, Detroit metro area to make it through the tryout process. In Indiana, in years gone by (hopefully -- they're saying it's changed and they certainly do have both coaches and evaluators that are new this year from all around the state), it has difficult for kids outside the Indy metro area to get through the process. My point is that it may not be the REGIONAL coaches who are poor evaluators but rather STATE coaches who succumb to local politics that cause a kid to fall through the cracks. Then there's always things like a kid suddenly maturing, blossoming, hard work finally paying off, whatever, that causes them to spring onto the scene. That does happen too.
Very good point! If California were on State Association, most kids on the ODP sides would be from the Bay Area or LA/OC. Having the State split in two helps alleviate this problem - to a certain extent. IIRC, this is a problem Steve Sampson was working on at the Cal-South Association. So that no player gets missed every kid is looked at from Club to District to Association and connecting them into a triangle, not a lineage type scouting system, and making the entire "triangle" available to the Region IV coaches.
A couple of points: All of this doesn't necessarily mean that one set of evaluator (Arsenal) is better than the other (ODP Regional) - just different. ODP teaches a certain system for all the teams. This is the way the USSF wants to play, and it is uniform from State level all the way up to Olympic. So a regional coach may be looking for a different set of strengths or weaknesses based on this system. For example, the premiership teams play more direct. So (completely hypothetical) DK may have been a better crosser, or more physical than others. He may have been passed over by ODP due to lacking some other quality, such as vision or combination play. People who have said that there are plenty of other players who could make it at Arsenal are right. Why haven't they? One, the Euro passport is HUGE. It just makes it so much easier for everybody. Two, Arsenal have said they didn't really look at American kids, but are going to start doing so in the future. I consider this a credit to our ODP, not a knock on it.