Good place to start to get information/

Question#1: I understand that there are passwords that our troops use on the front lines. Could you give us some examples of those?

Question#2: Yeah! Are we planning an amphibious invasion of Kuwait? And if so, where?

Question #3: Sir, what would be the one piece of information that would be most dangerous for the Iraqis to know?

Question#4: Yes, Farud Hashami, Baghdad Times. Where are your troops, and can I go there and count them?

Question#5: Is there anything that you can tell us that would lower the morale of our fighting men?

 

This board is a decent resource, at least as a clearinghouse for information. It's very haphazard though and prone to tangents/overhyping/agendas/ranting, etc. But like with everything, you'll learn as you go. There's no website that covers A-Z out there, but most of the interesting stuff is linked to from this forum.

Here's a basic overview:

U-23 team. It's only purpose is the Olympic Games and only exists during the Olympics and the Olympic qualifying process. Developmentally, it doesn't serve much of a purpose, although you could argue that experience at the Olympics is valuable.

U-20 team. The U20s are big everywhere except for Europe, where they care much, much more about their U21 teams (which we don't have) and the European U21 championship. Anyway, there's a World Cup every two years, including one in September in Egypt. This cycle it's 1989s and younger. The U20s usually contain some promising prospects, but a brief glance back at old U20 rosters shows that many guys involved in the U20 setup won't amount to much (even in Brazil and Argentina, etc).

U-18 team. Not a huge deal. It's used mainly for evaluation, I suppose, but the U-18s don't play any official tournaments. For example, right now the guys called up to the U-18s are mostly 1991s -- some of them will be key players for the 2011 U-20 cycle, most likely, but they are too old for the U-17 WC this summer. It's just a way to keep the guys who are stuck between cycles busy.

U-17 team. This is mainly the Bradenton team. In retrospect, every U20 team has hits and misses. U17 is even worse. Since U17s are younger, the team is often dominated by early-developers who turn out not to be the most skilled in their class when the rest catch up in physical size. But, some guys turn out to be stars. The U-17 team is often subject to drama and BigSoccer innuendo for a variety of reasons.

U-15, U-14, whatever. There are younger youth denominations, but they aren't official teams in the same way. I think they sometimes play friendly tournaments, but they usually exist only in the form of massive camps involving dozens and dozens of players. Evaluation and training only.



As far as a breakdown of individual players....that's more complicated. Since we rarely see youth players play, it's very easy for guys to get overhyped. The US soccer system has also tended to celebrate speedsters and athletes even if they have few soccer skills -- a classic example being former DC United player Quavas Kirk. Eddie Johnson is another guy who was viewed as the second coming and while he has had a much more successful career than Kirk, he has not and will never meet the (absurdly high) expectations placed on him.


I would venture to say that at the moment, the U-20 team is viewed as a group of guys who fairly solid from top to bottom, but lack star power, which is a change from the 2007 cycle, which featured Altidore, Adu, and Bradley. Szetela, Rogers, and Seitz were also very highly regarded and may yet become stars, but it hasn't happened yet.

The important thing to remember is that we don't see these guys often so our perceptions can be dead wrong at times. Ferrari was a hot prospect at Sampdoria (or so BS claimed) but he hasn't done anything. Neven Subotic was just another youth kid at a second-tier German club and within one year of making his debut was transferred for 4.5m euros.


Our U-17s are being viewed with a lot of excitement right now. The USSF hired a Colombian, Wilmer Cabrera, to coach the U-17s and run Bradenton, which was a controversial and bold move by the USSF considering the youth soccer environment in this country. Some believe that our U-17s are a bumper crop. This could well be true, but it will be a long time before we know. The U-17s have looked really good when we've seen them play, but it's a loooong way from U-17 success to first-team football. We'll find out what the world thinks of them after the U-17 WC, when many are expected to join European clubs. Sebastian Lletget is already at West Ham and there have been a number of trials reported -- Luis Gil was trialling at Arensal, Jack McInerney at Vitesse, Joseph Gyau at Bayern Munich. Undoubtedly there has been more going on than we know of. We'll see -- don't get carried away just yet.



Anyway, tk421, welcome to the jungle.

 

wow, sudano. that was brutal.

 

wow, sudano. that was brutal.

btw, tk421, a sometime poster on bs, gersman, runs topdrawersoccer, a site that covers a lot of youth soccer.

http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/

 

There's no wiki for our YNT. This is probably because A. No one feels it's important enough to make one and B. There are so many different players that go to the camps meaning that there is no set U-17, U-18, or U-20 teams until the U-17 and U-20 Youth World Cups.

This board really is the best place to get information. Especially because information on youth players is very, very limited and only comes out if there's someone on this board that has connections with the YNTs or through blogs such as SBI and Goff. ESPN Soccernet occasionally run stories on some of our top youth prospects such as McInerney or Martinez. Coverage of the YNTs is sub par to say the most. Games are rarely televised so much of the analysis on the board is speculation, though there are a few posters that have seen the players more than a few times such as UKScouts. USSoccer.com also has their own YNT blog whenever a major tournament takes place.

 

I'm sorry. My attempt at humor. Your questions reminded me of an infiltration by the enemy to learn about our 'system'. It reminded me of a SNL skit after the first Iraq war where the enemy were the reporters asking questions of the US Army generals. You have to admit it was just a little bit funny.