yeah thats why i said starring. theres a risk every time you step on the field. you can mess up and lose status
Embarrassing performance by all these MLS LLC amateur players that can't even beat the Serie A Top League in the world developed players.
no one thinks reserve Serie A players who havent even debuted for their first teams are better than guys getting thousands of minutes in MLS lets see how a US team with guys who havent even debuted in MLS yet would do against this Italy team lol (I bet Italy would smoke THAT team) go down the list...almost every italy plyer in the u20 WC has ZERO FIRST TEAM MINUTES if the USA had lost to these squads it would be embarassing....but few would realize that because its "Italy" and "France"
Give it to USMNT constantly bashing their own players because they get mad US wins lol. Never fails. I've been told many times playing in Euro academies is better than playing in MLS. Another point against the "fans" that clearly don't know what they talk about but always claim Europe is better. Also....these Italian players don't debut in Serie A because they need to beat out ALL the foreigners that play in that league. If you aren't good enough to beat out foreigners then you don't play. That's how the big boy Leagues do it. But USMNT "fans" want US players to be gifted spots in MLS. Nah, they need to work and compete for their spots which is what they do and it shows. The best U20 US players are from MLS and it clearly shows. What Italy needs is some pay-to-play, charge more than in US, get rid of ProRel and make their clubs LLC. Otherwise they'll stay behind.
I don't know enough about mls, apart from the occasional match I watch and obviously have no clue about any young American player acting in the league. So my input would be useless
Poch is trying to build a TEAM, not a Fantasy Football Roster. Successful teams often don't have the most talented players at each position in the player pool. Teams need the lunch pale players, along with the superstar players. Even Real madrid has glue guys, and blue collar players amongst their Galacticos.
FWIW, the Italian squad is pretty much the U20s. Per Gemini Pro (the expensive version) I looked at the above players and they are nothing world beating. Mostly pro minutes in Serie B or C. That said, Italy are on a long, slow decline. They just aren't producing any more.
OTOH, France has a lot of U20 players missing. The issue for them is that even second division clubs don't want to send players getting minutes to the Youth World Cup. MLS clubs have been remarkedly active in allowing even starters to go.
The US has now made the last five U20 World Cup quarterfinals. This is nothing new. Each time it's an overwhelmingly domestic roster. There are two ways to look at it. 1) It speaks to how we've been building our pool. Consistently making this level of a U20 World Cup cycle means something about our project. It means something about the nature of the young players being consistently produced in our MLS developmental system. 2) it can be a false dawn because so many of the highest level U20 prospects aren't at the event. Brazil was eliminated early. But we have to acknowledge that they could have brought Endrick of Real Madrid, Estevao of Chelsea, and countless others. Winning a U20 World Cup wouldn't mean we have some sort of special generation better than Spain's. Cuz Spain could have Lamine Yamal at this tournament. You know? Would it be awesome to win one of these events? Of course!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But how could it be? A top 4 league in the world, plays in Europe where development is so advanced, prior WC champions, their clubs play in UEFA Competitions at club and national team level, they have ProRel, free academies, their best Italian players play in their own league. I was told all that is the magic pill to be successful. So what changed?
US is the only team in the world that has reached the U20 WC QF 5 times in a row uninterrupted. Any way you look at it that's pretty impressive. Not bad for underwhelming rosters and players mainly developed in an amateur semi-pro LLC league.
Sure, but I'm old enough to remember us making the quarterfinal in 1993.............before MLS even existed. .I'm hesitant to overanalyze the result in terms of what it means for the senior national team. All I know is I want to win the damn thing. Time for our program to lift one of these trophies.
One quarterfinal doesn't mean that much at youth level. Five quarterfinals in a row means we're doing something right.
Sure. It means we're consistently producing some talent. We also made the knockout rounds at the U20 World Cup 8 out of 10 events from 1989 to 2007. That includes semifinals and quarterfinals in there. In 1989 we were in that semifinal with the Kasey Keller and Chris Henderson team. Maybe I'm the only one here old enough to remember us being in extra time against Nigeria at that event. A whisker from being in the final. We've beaten "bigger" programs all along the way at this event. 2007 beating Brazil and Uruguay was my favorite U20 event. I've been watching the U20WC for a long time. It's the level we've had by FAR the most success at. There's absolutely nothing different or special about what the current team is doing. I wanna win this thing. It'll be awesome!! Of course I do. But does it actually mean anything in terms of senior national team success? No. Not really. How many of the players that played in the USMNT game against Ecuador on Friday night played at the U20 World Cup? The "big boy" nations don't send their best players. That's why its a little bit of a false dawn. WE don't send our best players. Noahkai Banks pulled out of this squad, for instance. Diego Kochen was pulled out last minute. I actually don't think there's much high, high end talent in this particular group that's playing. It's a very solid group that's playing very well as a team. I really like Cremaschi, and maybe he's got a shot at playing on a Champions-League caliber team some day. Maybe. Let's see him make an appearance for Parma first. Why do we have SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much success at the U20 level? I don't actually know the answer to that. Because by the time they're U23s only a few years later, the Olympic level has historically been our worst level.
If clubs for an U20 World Cup won't release players then for the U23 Olympic team it becomes even more difficult to have your best players released.
this year, USA had much more 1st team pro experience than their opponents. theres also the fact that the usa tends to get a higher percentage of players released than a lot of other nations. i think by u23....the other countries,with better leagues to give their players experience in, surpass that advantage also, i think the usa has talented players generally...its always been about how that talent gets developed....the refinement, not the raw produce
Where I do think it is very important is what it says about our baseline. Our very best players...are the outliers (this is true of all national teams). Our outliers often did play in the u20 world cup. Donovan, Dempsey, Bradley, Altidore are just some of the names that played in the U20 wc. That is much less so now. Pulisic, Reyna, McKennie, Pepi are just a few of our top players now that never played in the u20 world cup. I believe that some of the current U20 players will likely find their way to the full team, but we are increasingly going further down in the pool and at the same time, doing at least as well as past results. so yes, Lamine Lamal, didn't play in the U20 world cup and their U20 team was likely pulled from relatively deep in their pool...deeper than we went, but it is no longer true that our very best are competing with their 2nd? or 3rd? or even 4th? best possible (whatever may be the case). Maybe we are using our 2nd best against their 3rd best...or 4th best...whatever it is, maintaining our performances while continually moving down in our pool is a clear indication of improvement.