I didn't come up with many in the Dallas region. I think I mentioned Dane Agustin. There might be one or two others. In the Philly region, I see a number of them. NYRB: Copeland Berkley, Bryan Vasquez, Henry Weston, Andri Frisheri Philadelphia Union: Jaden Francis, Matt Routzahn (I believe he might be injured), Gavin Wetzel, Stefan Chirilla DC United: Dash Papez, Nicholas Beil, Alessandro Maldonado, Ethan Pendleton
Bring him back. He made some errors, but did a good job. John Hackworth informed Louisville City players that he’s stepping down as head coach, sources tell The Athletic. Hackworth won the #USL Championship Final in 2018 and led them to the final again in 2019. Louisville won its season opener 2-0 on Saturday against #ATLUTD 2.— Jeff Rueter (@jeffrueter) April 27, 2021
It was inevitable that the pendulum would swing back toward Hackworth. Can't wait for the "Actually, we need to reevaluate Raphaël Wicky..." posts to start cropping up in half a decade or so.
Nice to see someone else point this out. Reyna carries himself like someone who isn't thankful to be out there ....
It was much much worse before he made his first team debut at Dortmund. At the youth levels it was really bad. Something i still hope he outgrows today
Alessandro Maldonado was injured, don't know why Papez wasn't called up, and I believe Diego Vazquez, Noel Calix and Neil Das also should have been called up.
I see Reyna’s attitude as somewhat similar to Christiano’s. When you know you’re that good you put enormous pressure on yourself. Few are the Haaland’s who seem to enjoy everything and more are the CR’s who became that good because they are their own biggest critic.
Hearing of a west region U14ID camp coming. Hearing 3 players from Irvine Strikers 07 ECNL team invited. Quiet elsewhere. Anyone else hearing anything about the West? 04s camp is Wednesday.
It is four sessions. 04 early afternoon Wednesday. 05 Wednesday evening. 06 Thursday afternoon. 07 Thursday evening.
Nah, Reyna was known two years ago, there was a whole scuffed podcast covering the qualification campaign for the U17's and the debate over Reyna's upside was probably covered. We all knew who he was, we just didn't know if he could grow from what he was at the time, I remember watching this video in the spring of '19 after reading about him, and hearing about him on podcasts: I'll grant, totally different player at the time in terms of expectations, but we knew he was one of the highest ceiling guys in the program, he was regarded as the #1 or #2 prospect on that team from what I recall. I know I'm being a bit persnickety, it's always guess work, as we learned going through the '17 U17 after action report thread lol, lots and lots of misses, and as usual I was high on everyone lol.
It doesn't make any sense based on the timeline. It's hard not to feel that way because he went from a guy that seemed high ceiling but very low floor, to HOLY ----!!!! very fast, but that's kinda the point. Nobody developed their entire game in a July and August. That's just absurd. If you scroll back to see what he was doing once he went to Dortmund and joined their U19 squad. He scored 8 goals and had 8 assists in 15 games and 1,381 minutes to start his Dortmund youth career in the fall of '19. After transferring he impressed so much they threw him on the senior team for a bench appearance a month after his 17th birthday in December just a few months after his plane landed. To give you an idea, in August/September alone, he bagged 4 goals and an assist in 4 UEFA Youth League tournament matches, and added another 2 goals and 5 assists in his first 7 matches for their U19 squad. That's insane. You can't learn how to play soccer in seven weeks at that level, you can be trained up to be better, improved, a bit more refined, but if you're bagging 16 goals and assists combined in an August through early December, that just means you were flat out awesome to begin with, and if that wasn't happening at NYFC, it's probably because the talent around him couldn't play or think and play at his level period. I've thought about this one ever since the transformation happened because you can see from the game logs IT WAS INSTANT. He then went back to the US for the U17 World Cup and went straight back to ho hum play, failing to score with that U17 squad you rightly predicted would stink it up, before getting back to Germany and kicking --- again immediately (he bagged another pair of goals and an assist in his last game with the U19's sandwiched between a promotion to the senior side bench before winter break). Dortmund polished up a diamond that was already a diamond. This wasn't My Fair Lady/Pygmalion, he was already the prettiest player in the show before they got their hands on him, so to speak lol. No other explanation really makes sense. Perhaps they refined him a touch, they didn't develop or create him, they just gave him teammates who he could actually play with, and excel with, and he did just that.
Gio really started to emerge as a big time prospect after his GA cup MVP performance in the tournament that he tore up the Madrid 17’s. The Nike Friendlies in 2018 was where Gio really started to separate from the rest of the 02 cohort for the first time. This was the first tournament that Gio played after his major growth spurt. In that tournament he played in games for the first time since he won the DA that summer and he noticeably grew 4-5 inches and started to become a truly dominant player at that level. I don’t know what Gio did in that 5 month gap but he elevated his game quite bit. Right after that tournament he moved to Dortmund and obviously has not looked back I always had worries about his attitude and maturity (still do) but he had (and still does have) a noticeable quality in his game that was undeniable
Not all 18 year olds are moral and ethical titans, most are nasty little beasts lol. It's not surprising that he might be a bit haughty, he is basically a few days away from senior prom if he were back in high school, but instead he's probably hanging out with German Super Models lol, I'm not surprised he isn't the ideal of how we'd like our most talented 18 year olds to act in terms of maturity level, a bit disappointed, but not remotely surprised.
Figured as much, my memory is that he started bubbling up either winter '17/'18 or winter '18/'19, I couldn't remember which, but by the time of the qualifiers, I was well aware of who he was, we just didn't know yet if he would come out the chute and land in the "Superstar" pile," the "solid euro based pro" pile, the "MLS fodder" pile, or the "bust" pile. Now we know which one, at least for now.
Not quite it. Even compared to the players his age it’s been concerning. A good example is how he acted during and after the first game of the 2019 u17 World Cup that got him benched the next game