Developing players don't need to be pulled away from their clubs more. Occasional events to give a taste of international play and to gauge development are fine. It is at the clubs where the real business happens for these young players.
I agree and will take it a step further. The pendulum has swung too far away from “the athlete type” in USYNT. Yes, we want kids that can play but it’s a contact sport and of the 4 pillars “physicality” is now way too subordinate to “technical and tactical” in USYNT. That’s a mistake. The German’s have ”physicality” and “mentailty” at the top. We have to stop pretending like many of these youth prospects will get stronger or faster. Most won’t. Many have leveraged their low center of gravity and 5 foot quickness to emerge atop the youth game with refs that call Mickey Mouse fouls, but the pro game is about proactive physicality and being fashhh. For example, the way Cowell knocked off the Mexico defender in the box for the assist cannot be overlooked, and personally allows me to overlook some of his build up limitations. Physicality, both developed and god given are essential. Hit the weight room boys!!
This type of tournaments isn't to develop players, it's for players to get to know each other better in the field for when they have to play a real tournament that counts for something. Throwing all the good players in the field for the 1st time and expecting good results when they don't know each other will hardly ever get you results.
Does anyone have a clip that starts five seconds earlier? I want to see the big brothering in action. At first, I thought Cowell mis-hit the pass and Luna had to really lunge. Watching it again you see that Cowell sent it through the legs of the defender, and it was the only window to get the pass through.
Does anyone know if any players left the team early and thus were not in the Mexico game? A tweet from Brian Scaretta insinuated this and I notice none of the Union kids were in the Mexico match?
I agree there is no development going on at this event. I said they can get together occasionally, but the post I responded to said we need to have more camps and friendlies for U17 and U20 players. I disagree because what is important now is for them to develop and that happens at their clubs, and as you say, that doesn't happen at these.
You have more YNT camps to deepen the talent pool and develop a style of play. The latter is the primary goal, but there's always unpolished gems to be found if you cast a wider net.
USYNT camps will never be to develop players. They should be 100% about developing a team. The only way to develop a team is to have them together as often as possible. Lets hope Chicago has the same thought.
We (Canada) can't blame COVID. We never have hold youth camps. We're broke! Maybe now that we're getting some $$ from actually hosting WCQ games we might hold a camp someday for a youth team.
It shouldn't be to do either. Wins in youth tourneys aren't vital. And you don't have enough time w/ individuals to develop kids. Youth comps are to identify individuals who could help the seniors later. They can ingratiate you to players for the future. And it gives their pro careers a boost.
I disagree and think we must change this mentality as I believe it bleeds into the Federation. The list of champions (outside a couple outliers) in the U17 and U20 World Cups are the same nations that advance to the late stages of the senior World Cup. The correlation is undeniable. Wins may not be vital, but success can and has been carried through age groups up to the full team.
You and I think so much alike. Winning and losing can become ingrained mentality. In team sports, winning doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's forged through countless hours of focused work at the highest levels. Camps and tournaments are important to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together. Training a bunch of individuals and throwing them together (the All-Star syndrome) pretty much always results in sloppy play.
Mikel Antonio from Jamaica is exhibit one. He not only scored a golazo against the USA, he forced them to have to adjust their defense to deal with his physicality. Dike from Orlando City is another guy that does that. Small and slow have trouble at the highest levels of play. How many point guards in the NBA are less than six feet tall these days?
The likes of mexico and africa nations regularly win (10* since 80's) the u-17 wc, and it's translated to nothing. That proves it makes little difference to culture. All it is, is one indicator of future success. If you're better when you're young to lead to winning, naturally you're more likely to when you're older as well. That doesn't there's some causation to having won the youth tourney.
Antonio is actually a great comparison for what Cowell’s ceiling may be. A bunch of people have mentioned Morris, but I don’t think that’s giving him enough credit. Morris wasn’t able to have success in MLS at 17. I think Morris is probably his floor and Antonio his ceiling. Let’s see how he improves. Right now he’s one dimensional, although what he does he does very well. If he can diversify his game a little more, he can be really good. Antonio plays that brute force game, but if that’s all he could do he wouldn’t be one of the best strikers in the Premier League.
Playing well as a team and going deep in tournaments can help in a variety of ways. One of the biggest ways it helps is getting multi-sport athletes to choose soccer. The best USA U17 finish was in 1999 (4th). The best Olympic finish 2000 (4th). The best World Cup finish 2002 (Quarterfinalist). That's not a coincidence. Several players had tournament experience in big games.
Sealy says talent was there but prep limited chemistry. http://www.americansoccernow.com/ar...h-u-20-talent-but-stresses-need-for-chemistry
It's not a question of physicality over technique or tactical sense. To play at the highest levels you need to check all four boxes- tactical, technical, physical and mental. Of course all players don't score equally on all four. Players lacking athleticism will be limited in the levels they can reach, but so too will players with limited technical ability. The key for coaches at the younger ages is to identify kids with good natural quickness and coordination and then assist them in their technical and tactical development. As players mature the physicality will get sorted out. Then it's up to YNT coaches to identify those who can make the leap into grown ass men.
I'm really curious how the momentum Canada and the US will have, and the decline Mexico is having impacts dual nationals. Will it matter at all? When Pepi moves to Europe, just like our other dual nats, and the Mexico based dual nats remain mostly stuck in Mexico, will future dual nats think twice about signing on for Mexico? I don't know. I just know Mexico's clearly in decline which is why they've sunk to poaching players they probably never would have 15 years ago. Interesting situation. In the short term it also helps that Mexico keeps pushing geriatrics out there while pocketing Araujo and Ochoa for some nebulous future date (I could imagine it's the next window, since the roof is caving in). We really need to get our ---- together so we can stop the bleeding with dual nats and take advantage of this Mexico decline in our marketing (alongside our ability to promote players in the US, and within Europe, which Mexico does a much poorer job of doing).
Not so sure, but I don't care, I fell in love with these tournaments 20 years ago and I like them, and I don't think it hurts to have guys get to know eachother and know the program through this process, I think we need to take it far more seriously in terms of coaching, and in terms of camps because of the fights over dual nationals, and to feed my passion for this tournament. I also think it's been helpful in predicting future success. It's not a coincidence that we made deep runs in the late eighties (or a deep run), and those players helped us in '90-'98, and that the core of the '02-'14 run was built around guys that made tournament runs in '99, '03, '05 and '07 and it's not a coincidence that when we sucked which was U17's '07 through U20's and U17's '13, we fell apart circa 2015-2019 (with signs of the crack up appearing as early as 2012-2013). It's not quite as predictive for future success, really, beyond former Argentine and Brazilian dominance (which has fallen off in recent years), mostly because UEFA, which has been riding high for the past 20 years, didn't really seem to care about the tournament at all (beyond the Iberian squads in Portugal and Spain) until late in the last decade (seems like starting in '13 with the French U20's European teams started to take it more seriously. Anyway, I think it's helpful as a smoke signal about potential problems in the program, about dual national recruiting and building familiarity and relationships between future teammates. The '99-'03 youth teams basically formed about half of the side that was so great from '02-'14, and today's side featured nearly half of the pool in either U17 or U20 squads from 2013 through 2019 (Dest, Richards, McKenzie, Scally, Steffen, Horvath, Adams, Pulisic, Weah, Arriola, Pepi, and Sargent were all part of those teams, and more guys I'm forgetting, like LDLT). As an example of all this, when it comes to integrating Richards, well, he's already played with Dest, and McKenzie, so he has a little bit of familiarity, and with Scally, well, he was teammates with Pepi, Reyna, and Busio, so the whole team isn't foreign to him, just the back line and his keeper.
It is with us. When we built our first powerhouse ('02-'14), it came from our U17 SF's from '99, and our '03 QF's, and '05 and '07 R16 and QF sides. When we sucked (basically around '14-'19), that team's core should have been U17's and U20's from what were our worst U17's and U20's in decades (the '07 U17's through the U20 and U17 groups in '13). Additionally France foreshadowed it's future success with the Pogba lead 2013 U20 WC Title, England's star turn in '18 and '21 was helped in part by their twin youth teams winning the U20 and U17 crowns in 2017. Turn it back a decade and you'll see that Chile's 2010-2016 power was built around an '07 U20 bronce winner. You can also note that Costa Rica's golden generation ('11-'18) that is now wrapping up is echoed in their youth qualifying and tournament performance, that golden generation kicked but like 13 years ago, and now as they're falling off, take a look at their youth tournament performance in qualifying and yep, they suddenly suck, and so does their team.
I agree all 4 pillars are tantamount but the kids need to hit SAQ as hard as foot skill training early on. Currently, I would argue those lacking athleticism but gifted technically/tactically are still given the benefit of doubt which buys development time and YNT looks. Whereas the monster athletes now in many MLS Academies (few to begin with) are being cut for not developing technically/tactically fast enough. I'd flip that. Just as bio banding gives shorty a chance, these big kids are uncoordinated as hell and have high center of gravity often limiting their early success. Later their coordination comes and they're beasts! And the small kid with great IQ is playing negative, covering no space, and getting knocked off the ball.
Neither of you in any way demonstrated senior results were caused by youth results. You just listed teams who fared decently to well in both..that had talent. They were performing for their clubs as well. Italy are an example of a team who won a major senior tourney, in part due to cohesion. And they had finished in the top 4 of a youth wc for the 1st time in decades, but none of those players even made the euros. So they developed cohesion and a winning attitude as seniors. The examples of mexico and nigeria being youth forces are damning for this narrative, cuz their skill and athleticism advantages regularly are neutralized as seniors, at which pt their winning attitude as youths have meant diddly-squat. Which is great for us, since el tri just won another tourney (albeit a fake 1 they set up).