I think the fan base understands his general athletic merits, which are considerable, but in attack he lacks two elements that make up the games of most truly dangerous attacker. First, the mental, the speed-of-thought, anticipation, and vision that make attackers great, and secondly, lateral quickness that make some truly next-level attackers unpredictable and lethal with the ball. He has the technique to exploit a defender, but he lacks that laterally quick shizzle to break their ankles. Dest has it. Musah doesn't. As he gets to be a better, quicker decision-maker, and maintains focus, I expect him to be a good solid, defensive presence as a central midfielder or a defensive winger eventually. He has the technique and the general athleticism for that (speed, strength, agility, stamina).
Pretty good analysis. Although I have to wonder if the last sentence is a given. The kid has been a pro for a long time and seems to have gone backwards w/ respect to some of these important characteristics. He is such a likable guy and his physical attributes still pop... but some players just don't ever reach the top level when it comes to focus and decision-making. Now, he is only 23 (crazy, when you think about it)... so there is still time for him to take his game to another level. I think confidence could make all the difference in the world... he should look to go to a lower level of competition and become and integral part of a successful midfield. MLS could be a very good move for him IMO. At any rate, I don't think he should be called into the March camp.... ... but a player that should be really given consideration is Zendejas. When healthy, the guy is always super productive for Liga MX's biggest team... He was pretty impressive last night against the Union despite not getting on the scoresheet. He had some sic moves/passes and did a lot of good tracking-back work. Our roster is super thin at winger and left-footed danger and Zendejas can bring that.
Yeah I hope we don’t call in Zendejas. Decent player but I have too many as more talented to want to put him on the plane
This is (still!) not true. Musah went on hajj during Ramadan. As a soccer player, it is really hard for him to sync up Ramadan and his offseason.
The same poster wrote some really crazy, wild (and most importantly, untrue) crap about Reyna in the Reyna thread. It seems like his style of posting…writing stuff just to provoke those of us who know what we are talking about.
Well, I've seen people say that, but I didn't see anything specific from Musah and there were quotes about needing time off and social media posts from other places. Bigger picture, that's a once in a lifetime pilgrimage. You don't have to take it that specific summer. Yes, it's something arguable more important than simply taking time off, but it's also not required by his religion to do that summer. I'd be more forgiving, but I don't think Poch is. And I'm not entirely sure that he actually did that.
Zendejas is useful because he has a good final ball. He's very much the prototypical LigaMX player. He's perfect on América and works really well on the break and finishing in those situations. But he's not really a guy who is going to create a ton on ball against more set defenses, especially those with any size. If he's got an open shot, I'd take him over Aaronson or Weah in terms of putting a quality shot in and finishing. But those two are basically going to do everything else better, including getting that open shot.
Musah was 20 that summer, right? Maybe 21. One thing I remember about being 20 is that waiting a year felt burdensome in a way that waiting a year at my age would not. Musah could take it that summer, or wait until he is retired. Of course, when he’s retired, he probably imagines himself as starting a family. So going on hajj after retirement would mean abandoning his family for however long it took, since he wouldn’t want to take toddlers along. As a practical matter, it was either that summer, or waiting until his (imagined) children are old enough to go with him, or old enough to be left behind.
Fine, then please stop posting things like, he took the summer off. Im getting worked up about this because I agree with Musah that there are things in this world more important than sports. Like God and war and peace and racism etc.
Do we know he actually went on hajj? I've seen a lot of people say it, but I've not seen an actual source.
I don't know if he went on a religious holiday but if he did good for him. However, I'll add the timing was not right 'IF" he wanted to play on the WC team. I'm conjuring up Monty Python's Eric Idle lobbing some real insults here as to watery tarnish things as to why he couldn't't wait until later in his career or eve after his career. Will completely agree I don't know when the pilgramige is supposed to occur but if a player took off all of Lent I'd feel the same. Good for you as a human but err not so smart as a soccer player.
To be clear, him missing summer is not why I don't have him on my roster. I don't even think it's definitely why Poch doesn't seem to ... but it can't have helped.
That might've soured Poch on the personality/chemistry scale, and I'm sure that he considers having excluded him last fall as part of his "creating competition and undoing an culture of entitlement" campaign, which has mostly been very successful. For me, the problem is that Musah doesn't fit any of our roles on Poch's team very well. In Berhalter's, he was a presser and physical presence in the middle who could reliably progress the ball through the middle on the dribble if need be. But his slowish speed of thought and mediocre passing makes him less valuable to Poch. His midfielders all move the ball. Even Adams, if mostly laterally. Poch even more that most likes one-two touches through the middle
Its a little bit of both. By asking out of the summer friendlies and Gold Cup, it simply allowed others opportunities to impress the staff. Some players both in midfield and right back won jobs in his absence. He's down in the pecking order. Yes, if he was lighting it up for Atalanta............then he might have overcome that. He hasn't been. What I'm trying to imply is that it could have been HIM to go to the Gold Cup, impress, and win a position as we entered he critical fall friendlies. Instead it was others. Could the injuries to Dest and Luna help him get back in for March? Maybe. There are others in the same position.
I suspect this has been going on behind the scenes for some time. ..................because we've all been talking about how it didn't make sense that he didn't play in the fall friendlies. It didn't make sense that he didn't play in October and November if he was an option for the WC. Some posters thought it was Pochettino making a poor decision. But maybe there was more going on regarding Banks' commitment level behind the scenes. if Noahkai was telling POch that he's torn and not wanting to permanently commit yet, then of course Poch was going to prepare for the WC with others.................... [There's a Euros U21 Championships in 2027 that he's eligible for. It may not be the senior German naitonal team that's recruiting hit hard. He's not in the running for their WC squad. But that U21 has games in late March, for instance.]
Makes sense. I still think it's a bad look when a player gets all of his opportunities w/ YNTs from country only to switch at the very end. I think Banks may have even captained for our YNTs before. But if his heart isn't in it then good riddance. Commitment to the cause is a bare minimum.
I'm trying not to be butt hurt about it lol, but this is always one of those knots I find myself in. I'm a big believer in treating this as college recruiting, recruit, recruit, recruit until the final choice is made (in the past, pre NIL lol), but I also just can't stand wasted minutes on players who clearly had no intention whatsoever of repping unless, unless their first choice had no interest (I absolutely LOATHE the wasted caps on guys like Obed, and Araujo, and Ochoa etc who not only turned his back on us, but also almost single handedly cost us an appearance in the 2021 Olympics and then turned his back on us). Trying to be rational, but right now, it definitely feels like while I want the TD and Coaches to continue to recruit, I also just want to move on and wave the white flag and say ---- him, too. Part of this is simply we've been hemorrhaging players since Poch took over (and at least I gave credit to Berhalter for that, and assumed Poch would be a net negative, but it's crazy just how many switches have happened since his arrival, linked or not), I'll acknowledge I do think most and maybe all of this would have happened anyway, and I understand as we get better, fewer spots are open, and other nations become more aggressive at poaching, or winning said battles, but man, it is hugely frustrating to see us at like -3 or -4 at this point the past two years, and maybe -4 or -5 if Banks is lost too.
Banks is a massive loss, but I find it hard to determine whether Berhalter and/or SEC-style recruiting would have had a material impact. If the Kicker report is right, it definitely feels like he was always waiting for Germany to notice. It can be tough to tell that from the other side, but perhaps that's why we only saw Banks in one camp. Maybe with years of recruiting and playing him up, etc., we get him. Maybe not. A lot, I think, would depend on if he bonded with some of the players. And given the transient nature of our squads recently, I'm not sure the potential was there as much as we'd like. So who knows? I think Gutierrez and Vargas are good players; I don't think we will necessarily miss them. Between their childhood allegiances and a fairly weak Mexico squad, I don't know if we were going to see them stick around ever. It's pretty clear to me that Berhalter wouldn't have gotten Gutierrez; he never really seemed to rate him with the national team and dealt him pretty easily with Chicago. Vargas seemed 100% locked in on Mexico and between all these guys seemed to be the most in the "I'm using you in that the plane flights to camps are shorter here" kind of sense. Berhalter was a good recruiter, I think, but his string of successes were in large part situational. There was a massive amount of PT available, and with that came a team where the core was all the same age and got along well. We also, I think, simply got guys who had a little more love for the US and have a little more natural loyalty to the youth teams -- both Dest and Tillman could have played for their national teams, even if they aren't going to start. But they stuck with us whereas Banks has had less exposure and he seems unlikely to do so.
Banks, though, basically stopped playing for the U20s even midway thru the 2025 cycle................and then didn't play in the U20WC. I don't know if that was part of his waffling. He hasn't played in a USYNT game that mattered since 2023. We tend to experience this with Mexican-Americans. They play with the US, because we identified them and called them up first. HOWEVER, the second Mexico came for Julian Araujo, Jonathan Gomez, Obed Vargas, etc. they all thanked our program and said their "Heart was with Mexico." They were with us until they had another option. Sometimes we don't do anything wrong. Sometimes we do everything right by calling young dual-nationals up. They have options. Noahkai Banks has grown up in the game completely in Germany. If they've now come for him, we can understand why he's torn. We haven't lost him yet. It kind of reminds me of the Sergino Dest situation once the Netherlands came for him. We assumed the worst on this board!! He said that the relationship he'd established with the US program mattered in the end.