Yes, JK ran a diamond and didn't have width ("the width comes from the fullbacks", he'd say. My idea is that Pulisic and Morris can play wide. JK was dealing with Bradley at 10 and Jozy and Dempsey at forward. When he changed to 4231 he had Zardes on one wing and Zardes didn't want to play wide. We just didn't have wide players. Bedoya was opposite Zardes.
that's an idea. I wonder which associations would vote yes/no on that one. Who decides anyway? I have no idea.
i have zero problem with meritocracy in this context. i have zero problem with experimenting with personnel to find the best Americans. I have zero problem with competing for dual nationals and actively recruiting them, including making promises and fast tracking people ahead of their current performance level. i have encouraged all these things. the operative word there, though, is "Americans." if you aren't sure about that part then the rest is a shambles. if next month you are with Holland then in the big picture you aren't eligible for our job anymore. and with limited games and slots to play, we should favor people who are committed. we should not waste time on someone who is gone tomorrow, when we need upgrades at wingback as soon as October. fwiw you can be a dual national and commit. the two are not inherently at odds. up until he ran his mouth i would have assumed that the straight line of USA on Dest's resume made the outcome obvious. i was ok with a token cap to seal the deal. my issue comes when he puts the outcome back in question during a callup for us. literally saying while in our camp that you haven't decided. that, to me, bridge too far. i don't want you seeing my tactics. i am not giving the special favor of fast tracking to someone not sure if he will lob the favor in the trash bin next month. we should be spending our games on players relatively certain who they want to play for. once in our camp there should be no confusion at all. if there is you should leave until you do know what you want. i understand there are players on the fence. fine, recruit them. but to get the cap -- even one that's not legally binding -- promise me you're with us. particularly if i am doing you the favor of fast tracking you right into the lineup. cost of doing business. two way street.
Yeah, in this country a minor is considered legally incapable of making this type of decision. That's why they can't sign contracts!
Nobody is doing him a "favor". Some U20 kids are getting integrated and what he done in the last month is probably the most impressive out all of them. People are nuts if they dont think an 18 yo breaking into Ajax side and holding his own should be getting capped.
"most impressive" is laughable. he gave up at least one goal in the opening Ukraine match that decided the group. go watch the highlights of their opener -- it won't let me show the video. sorry, that was kid's stuff. most impressive would be some mix of richards, soto, weah, pomykal, and mendez. "breaking into ajax" is more of the same club snobbery trash plagueing this team. about every one of these kids, give or take pomykal, is someplace impressive. it's U20, that doesn't tend to make you special. he is in fact being done a favor. he was on pace to be in the October team after not even having a senior cap, straight into the lineup today. are you seriously telling me the average kid goes right in the lineup? they play 10 minutes in garbage time of the second game of the pair. and this is jumping him up the queue. he hadn't earned this yet. special treatment. and i was ok with it for cynical reasons -- cap-tie -- until he opened his mouth and put in question that line of USAs on his resume. i believe in running pulisic right into a qualifier as a kid to lock him down. i also believe in giving special players early caps to give them a try. i don't believe in the layers of guesswork that is fast tracking a player who had some U20 issues who can't even make up his nationality mind. that's a few too many speculative leaps. at that point, give me someone committed worth the attention.
You sure are fixated on that one youth game. I care more about the more recent champions league game. I guess you'd call it CL snobbery.
I've seen that stat referenced by Twellman, and tbh, it's total b.s. to me. We haven't had dual nationals taken so we won't have a problem? Nope. We haven't had dual nationals taken because by and large, they've sucked. All those guys Twellman mentioned? They couldn't start on a horrific USMNT that turned in the worst performance by a USMNT ever in qualifying. Honestly who are we pointing to amongst are dual nationals since 2000? There were a couple that were damn good, Rossi, Subotic, and there was Andy Najar, but other than that? Little to none of consequence until '15. Mexico wasn't trying desperately and failing, Mexico just flat out didn't give a damn. Why would they care to sign up dual nationals playing for US youth squads that were missing back to back to back U20, U23 and U17 World Cups while they were making the title games, taking Gold at the Olympics and qualifying consistently? Why would they want any of those guys? They correctly surmised that those players were C squaders at best, if that, and weren't worth the trouble, and they were right. None of the dual nationals that could've suited for Mexico or elsewhere from that 1989-1995 era ever amounted to a darn thing. Now? When we suddenly are seeing are guys snapped up all over the place in Europe? Being fought over between upper tier Dutch and lower tier German sides? They are ALL OVER THEM. The fact that we retained guys like Joe Corona, Rubio Rubin or Daniel Cuevas that might've been available as dual nationals for other squads wasn't a tribute to our superior talent at getting them to stick w/the program, it was a tribute to the superior scouting of other nations that recognized that these guys weren't international caliber players period. We can't rest on our laurels because we retained the loyalty of players that sucked at the international level, we have to fight fight fight to the final bell for our dual nationals because we've NEVER produced dual nationals consistently that Mexico or anyone else gave a damn about until now. This is a brand new situation. We had burbling, bubbling bits of talent in the past, but it was in vastly smaller quantities, harder to evaluate, and rarely dual national in nature. Now? It's larger quantities, easy as heck to evaluate, and many of them are dual nationals. We're now producing guys that Mexico, Chile, Croatia, France, and the Netherlands could easily want for themselves just to name a few nations. It's a brand new epoch in American soccer development not remotely analogous to our prior history in developing youth players. Mexico, Chile,and the Netherlands aren't stupid. They recognize the fundamental difference between talents like Araujo, Dest, Soto, Llanez, Alvarez, Ledezma, Mendez etc and the irelevants we were churning out ten years ago, heck five years ago. We rest on our laurels at our own risk, and they will be only to happy to snap up said talents, prior track record with non-prospects or not.
here is the $64 thousand question. did they ask for dispensation or did we give it without request making an assumption? i feel like we should take regular season players at will -- league's choice to operate during the window -- and only keep our mitts off playoff players, and only in friendly season. we should have the right to pull players for qualifying, tournaments, and leagues like LoN, because our "competition" trumps their "competition." i don't believe mls has to mimic europe in all facets like the snobs. but i also think fifa rules on player callups are made for this situation, and as a dynamo fan when we used to be good in the early years, most of our team were internationals then, and you know they are susceptible, and you can prepare a roster for it. to instead argue i don't adjust, you do me a favor.....meh. go sign 3 solid veterans to play the couple games they miss. run the rotation like they will miss those games.
are you seriously holding up PAOK and APOEL like that's top notch soccer?????????????? hahahahahahahahahaha. and the reality is he started one game and subbed in twice out of 4 CL games. similarly, in league, one start, two subs, four games into the season. are you seriously acting like playing early round CL ball makes you a first team fixture? you're not a very savvy fan, then. having watched chelsea in europe -- when i lived there -- UEFACL in the early rounds is a b team game. like FA cup. the idea is do just enough to advance and then bring out the big dogs in the spring. otherwise you run down the a teamers. it all lines up. he's marginal as a sub and so yes he plays CL games -- so the starter can rest. i am "fixated" on when he played a top level age group opponent -- champion of the world -- they took advantage of him. just like the mexicans just did. to me i get more from how those tough games go than whether he played 90 against APOEL Nicosia or Venlo.
Who were you calling up instead of Dest? We're calling up a prospect, an unfinished article, with the hope that he can lock down the position for the decade. Did he make mistakes at the U20 World Cup? Yes. Has he made mistakes with Ajax and the USMNT? Yes. But that's not the point. The USSF sees him as a "can't miss" dual-national prospect that they don't want to get away. We have to be aggressive. Are you this enamored with Lovitz or something? Getting games at Ajax, even games against PAOK and APOEL, immediately puts Dest near the top of our depth chart. Cuz that's already a higher level than anybody else. Maybe Chris Gloster will start excelling for PSV, and we can have a debate.
you're getting desperate now. no, i was not in the lovitz camp. as with all pure club snobs you're conflating playing in a location with playing well there. if that worked all we would have to do is show up at the soccer game and be assured of our performance. it is the similarly daft cousin of "scheduling good opponents makes me better." he is a rotational player (some sit some sub some start) in a decent league. that to me is roughly MLS. his ceiling is good but he's not near there yet. i've seen him play decent. i think he has a great shot. i've seen him exposed by better teams. that makes him a work in progress, like many players at the margins of the team. on the basis of promise i was willing to indulge him with a premature callup even though one can now see there may be some early downside to the team for doing so. however, since he's not sure if he's really dutch, and i'm not sure when he will be ready on the merits, hmmm, what's the rush?
one thing to me is the dest goals allowed i have seen are fairly naive stuff. he's not getting caught between men numbers down for a goal that's hard to stop. he got shielded off a 50+ yard longball in a one on one, and then got megged for a crossing assist when the player for a moment was even double teamed. basic positioning and concept issues. ajax has clearly taught him to attack -- as dutch teams do. but i wouldn't give up those kind of goals playing NCAA, which is hardly pro ball. on the rare occasions someone megged or faked me they didn't "get by me." i thought it was child-like defense to just watch him run by. you throw out a hip or lower a shoulder, and end of play. they get their kick, maybe you draw a card. but part of effective defending is knowing when and how to stop a break before it spirals. i realize this sort of physicality and cynicism is anathema to the snobs but it's how 95% of the world's defenses, including most elite european teams, would operate. it's how dortmund and juventus play, to name a couple, and the former plays pretty attacking soccer too. that is not the final word on his career. he is 18 and i expect growth. but in terms of usefulness to the USMNT he "is what he is" right now.
I disagree with you regarding the quality of the eredevisie and those CL games.....................but even if I did agree with you: Rotational player that is roughly MLS still puts him at the top of the pool. That's a really shallow pool. We HAVE to be aggressive with dual national we want to keep in the program. Holland wants this player. Not Andorra or Papua New Guinea. Holland. Will he develop into an international caliber player? I don't know. Nobody does. For Pete's sake, we played a young prospect in a meaningless friendly. That's what meaningless friendlies are for. Next game it'll probably be Pomykal that gets a taste. We don't know if he'll develop either. I'd rather lose with Sergio Dest than win with Tim Ream at left back. Are there other left backs to look at? Sure. Maybe next time Ryan Hollingshead gets a look. Maybe the game after that Chris Gloster gets a look. Its OK to cast a wide net at that position............or frankly any position.............with the USMNT. We're in that part of the cycle.