I'll answer that one, with a resounding no! Now we're playing catch up, when we're accustomed to being ahead of the curve, and often way ahead.
You make a great point. Yeah... he may start for them... but who cares? Pretty sure they were eliminated from Euro qualifying... so really nothing meaningful on the horizon until WC 2022. Who stands a better chance at getting there? Bulgaria thru Europe or USA thru CONCACAF. It is a no-brainer... especially considering his history with our youth teams. He has literally been in every U team for the USA from 16 to 20. The threat to leave to Bulgaria seems like fiction the more I think of it.
A few thoughts, most of which should be obvious: 1.) Vassilev is a young, emerging player that is still unproven at the EPL level. As others have noted, he's getting these opportunities for a desperate Aston Villa side that has been experiencing serious injury issues. That said, he's looked decent enough in his limited minutes and his coach has praised his performances. It's also impressive to be getting any minutes at all at this level and at his age. 2.) A player with his current resume and only recent senior club success can fit into our national teams at anywhere from being a core player with the u20s to participating in the January senior camp as an up-and-coming prospect. If he continues to earn playing time at the EPL level, I'm confident he'll get his shot with the senior squad sooner rather than later. 3.) The important part, especially with dual nationals, is communicating effectively with the player and his team in terms of: conveying that he is valued; pointing out we don't want to disrupt the progress he is making at Aston Villa; and clearly laying out the expectations for transitioning to the senior side. I'm encouraged that this appears to be part of Brian McBride's job description and am hopeful that we're on the path to managing this process with a higher degree of competency. 4.) Lastly, I was not overly impressed with Vassilev at the u17 World Cup. It should be noted though that he was one of the youngest players on that squad. I often find myself underrating the less athletic players that are playing up a year as it makes it seem like they don't have the requisite athletic ability to succeed at higher levels. In Indiana's case, I'm actually pretty encouraged that his coach complimented his speed as almost all of our top players are good athletes on one or more soccer-specific dimensions.
I can't overemphasize this enough. Playing up years is a huge positive indicator but I see people count it against players fairly often when it might just be underage and not permanently lacking in athleticism (Konrad de la Fuente, Danny Leyva are a couple of players that might be underestimated for that reason). Go back to the Tyler Adams threads and see how many people thought he didn't have "elite ceiling" because he wasn't very impressive as an 18 year old at the U20 World Cup. Even though a decent portion of the competition was 2 years older. (I haven't seen any studies in soccer, but it's worth noting that in baseball, it's a better sign to be mediocre and 2-3 years below the average age in your minor league level than crushing it at age). I haven't seen any of Vassilev outside of those youth appearances, so I can't comment on him. Obviously, not all of these underage players do develop more athleticism or pan out. But we as a fanbase tend to be waaaay too hard on underage players' potential. (It's also a reason why I really am excited about Uly Llanez -- he was underage AND still showed out).
Not in the 18 for the Cup match today. The new signing Samatta is starting and Keinan Davis is back on the bench after a lengthy spell out due to injury.
i just want to say haji wright deserves to be in the national team picture exactly as much as daniel lovitz does. carry on...
I feel like I'm pretty business-like about it. I'd call him up and ask if he's considering Bulgaria. If he says yes, I call him into the next camp where he could be cap-tied and sub him on in the last minute of a match. Then put him back in line, wherever he deserves to be. If that's what the guy wants, I'm willing to give it to him.
I’m a little more liberal in the sense of call ups... If I were to give my ideal formula, it’d be 18-23 best players available, mixed in with 3-5 prospects for every camp. More so, I’d say that this next camp is essentially to me needs to be used as a Mini YA January Camp before WCQ starts. I’d call in: GK Steffen (omit) GK Horvath GK Johnson GK Hamid GK Turner FB Dest FB Yedlin (omit) FB Robinson FB Chandler FB Lichaj FB Moore (cut) FB Gloster (cut) CB Brooks CB Miazga (injured) CB Alvarado CB Palmer-Brown CB Carter-Vickers CB Richards M6 Adams M6 Morales M6 Otasowie M6 Durkin M8 McKennie M8 Mendez M8 Johnny M8 Cappis (Cut) AT Pulisic AT Reyna AT Holmes AT Ledezma AT Sabbi AT De la Fuente AT Llanez AT Saucedo (Cut) AT Green (injured) AT Miljevic (Cut) FW Weah (Injured) FW Sargent FW Vassilev FW Siebatcheu FW Soto (Cut) FW Gioacchini (Cut) FW Novakovich (Cut) FW Wright (Cut) FW Kelman (Cut) FW Wood (Cut)
You are spot on... the only cut I question is Cappis. I want to see more from him before I jettison him. He is still young and he flashes at times on what is a very poor club team. The add that I don't have a lot of info on is the Brazilian Johnny. Not sure why he hasn't played this season... just 15 minutes. I guess I will just have to trust you on it.... because the rest of the list is fantastic. Lastly, I assume the lack of MLS players was as designed... it makes the chances of this list coming to fruition on par with fantasy... but one can always dream.
Fair enough... for whatever it’s worth... my reasoning is that Berhalter has seen Cappis during January Camp and has yet to look at Johnny, who is now starting for Internacional.
The label next to his name was "Cut"... to me that sounded like "forget this guy for the foreseeable future"... The "Omit" label sounded more like "We know what we have here... lets give another guy a look". I am perfectly fine with your reasoning w/ respect to Cappis. Again, I know nothing about Johnny other than he is of Brazilian descent and has played 15 minutes for his club so far... at least as far as transfermarkt is concerned. I will be eager to see if he plays today. At any rate, I generally agree with your assessment and hope GB really starts to give some other US Intls their shot to make the squad.
@tomásbernal regarding your question in another thread about the significance of Indiana's inclusion with the U23 team. Yesterday, 10 of the 11 starters for Villa's U23 team were teenagers (and five were younger than Vassilev).
From the outside, it appears that Indiana is more the beneficiary of circumstance as opposed to a young player forcing his way into the senior squad (which i hope Otasowie is doing but it's early there too).
Of note, the only non teenager in the U23 starting lineup yesterday, Keinan Davis, went off injured in the first half. Davis is a striker who had been injured for a few months and had only recently regained fitness (he'd been on the bench for Villa's last two matches). His injury was one of the many reasons Vassilev had been called up to the senior team in January.
Loaned to Burton Albion in League One. https://www.avfc.co.uk/news/2020/september/Vassilev-joins-Burton-on-loan/ Kind of illustrates how bad the injury crisis was at Villa last season.
Cool, probably will be good for his development. I'd like to see a guy like that loaned to MLS, bet League One matches are probably more intense. There's something at stake.