I guess the interesting question for me is how much were the birth years before that thrown off due to COVID? I don’t know if 2008 and 2009 will be the new normal but we’ll definitely continue to see sustained improvement year after year.
When we say "Pulisic level" talking about future hypothetical players surely we mean "on average" but it's not like they will be clones that are the exact same level any more than they will play the same position or have the same style... normal distribution with 1 standard deviation https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/images/normal-distrubution-large.svg
When I say Pulsic level I mean a player good enough to start for a club like AC Milan, who are good but not elite club. Pulisic specifically wouldn’t start for France (because of Mbappe), but there are actually two AC Milan players in their starting 11. The rest of the eleven from their most Euros knockout game goes: Barcelona, Bayern, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, and Al-Ittihad. The last one is clearly not like the others but that’s more due to age and injury (as a healthy Kante was one of the best players in the world). And of course these guys are the best players for those clubs and every game starters. And France also has insane depth on the bench.
Appreciate you and everyone else providing info on these guys. I don’t really follow youth soccer except the occasional U- tournament game and reading here occasionally. Can you or someone else expand on Figueroa’s strengths and weaknesses? I haven’t seen much on him lately, but I was under the impression he was more highly regarded around here a year or two ago? I know we’ve had plenty of other youth prospects who looked really good with big club youth teams in the past who turned out to be pretty average or worse pros. Is he an early developer physically? Has he stalled out?
France is top 1-2 and the discussion was "top 10" which is more like Croatia - Italy (9 and 10 in FIFA rankings) or Germany - Portugal - Belgium (9-11 by Elo)... to me top 10 implies "can at least talk about winning the trophy without being laughed at even if they're not close to favorites"...
He's scored spectacular goals from distance. Fast and strong. Aggressive in taking on defenders. He's not an uber prospect but the tools are there. Liverpool seems to see him more as a wide attacking player. He's been a center forward for our youth teams.
Much appreciated. When you say aggressive in taking on defenders, does that mean he has good one-on-one dribbling to create his own shot, or more of a push-the-ball past his man and use his speed type?
Good one-on-one skills. Hard to muscle off the ball. Balogun is the best comp among recent U.S. forwards. I think Balogun is faster and has learned to move without the ball better (this may just be an age thing and Figueroa could catch up). Figueroa looks stronger to me. In terms of progression, Balogun got loaned out to Middlesborough in the Championship in his age 20 season. Then to Reims in his age 21 season. Figueroa turns 18 in August. I would expect him to be loaned out for his age 19 or 20 seasons.
I don't think any of these are done yet but I would just point out that just in the last few days we've got word of Tessman -> Inter Milan (Venezia loan), Wiley -> Chelsea (Strasbourg loan), Campbell -> Dortmund (pro contract) If we're looking overall "current state" not sure we can should even bother to evaluate or rank individual players (plus there would be tons of disagreement, increasing the younger you go), but we can look at the clubs they are with as those are the paid experts investing money and time...
We're getting into minutae but I think the point of "Pulisic level" is simply to illustrate that we have one guy and maybe one other will become one (Reyna) over like a 5+ year period and we need double that to get in the conversation and like 5x that to really be there. It's sobering for anyone who wants to win a World Cup anytime soon. The names on those lists are immaterial. We need something of a baseline increase. We're likely generations away from that. We can get good. But generations away.
I think we are around Uruguay. Our players are on a similar level right now. They are an older and more experienced team with a better coach. That’s the difference. Maybe 2005 and a little bit 2006 or 2004, but I don’t see how 2007 being an average age group has anything to do with COVID, and COVID happened all around the world.
I think 2010 is already not looking great. People don’t want to hear that and always want to remind that it’s early (which is true), but that’s what I’m seeing. Of course not every age group is going to be good. After two good ones, there’s bound to be a bad one. Who knows? Maybe 2008 ends up being average and 2010 develops well over the coming years. Tough to know. Yet, I still would bet on the general talent level of up and coming American kids. I feel like we will see over time a higher and higher level. I think that’s only natural for a young soccer country. Believe it or not, I’m already starting to hear about a 2013 prodigy who is 10 years old. Don’t ask for details. I don’t wanna shout out a 10 year old yet with any specificity to be respectful of the kid, but the point is that there will be these kids coming. I think it’s only inevitable.
I think there's a gap still. Pulisic and Nunez might be similar, but we have no Fede Valverde, Ugarte or Suarez. There's elite talent there we can't complete with.
Suarez is washed. Ugarte is a player PSG wants to sell after a year. Is Valverde even a starter anymore at Real Madrid? Maybe these players are slightly better than our best. I’m not going to make a big deal over that argument, but the idea that Uruguay is more than marginally better than us (and realistically in the same tier) I don’t agree with.
Only among our fans. Not even close. With all due respect to Pulisic he is farer away from Nunez than the rest of our players are from him. No, our players not anywhere near Uruguayan, although our coach still sucks.
Fede Valverde is easily a Top 30 player in the world, and yes, he's an every game starter for Madrid. Ugarte is 22, started 21 games for PSG, and is going to Man United. And Luis Suarez, even at his age, would be the best striker we've ever had. Dude was the best player in Brazil last year. We'd kill for someone who could score like him. And he's coming off the bench for Uruguay.
And also Ronald Araujo who starts for Barcelona and Olivera who starts for Napoli. Even someone like Bentancur at Tottenham is someone we don’t have anyone like. And then they have yet another center back from Atletico Madrid in Gimenez. And career wise is there really a difference between Pellestri and Reyna? Both top prospects who haven’t done a ton at the club level. I don’t know that their depth is great, but we don’t have that level of top level talent. Pulisic is our own player who is close.
I think the goal for now is to be Croatia more than it is to win the World Cup. And I feel like that level is more achievable in the near future.
Fede Valverde is going to be a starter next season? Yeah, I don't think so. I'll also call BS on that he's a top 30 player in the world. He's a worker on a great team. Put him on like Juventus, and I don't think he's doing much better than McKennie. What's so much more special about Ugarte than Dest was? Weak first season at a big club, eventually gets a move to another big club due to his theoretical potential, so what? Is Ugarte a world class player or are you just reciting that he got some games for a big team? USMNT has players like that too. Suarez right now is washed. Two seasons ago he had 13 goals in La Liga and has only gotten worse since. No way I'd take him over Balogun or Pepi right now. Why are USMNT fans so spooked by Uruguay? They got a 1-0 victory with a phantom goal. Otherwise, they really didn't threaten and it was an even game. Didn't we also tie them two years ago? What is so special about Uruguay? Where is the lopsided game that makes me think we aren't at their level?
Well, their players aren't idiots that come to the Premier League for stupid reasons. Adams was an every game player at Leipzig. Richards was playing European competitions at Hoffenheim. Reyna was until this season at Dortmund, and then decided he needed to ruin his career for Nottingham Forest. Heck, Aaronson was too at Salzburg. McKennie is at Juventus. Where are their two Juventus players? Dest, Pepi, Tillman all played for a better team this year than Tottenham and Napoli. Musah is at AC Milan too. Where are their two AC Milan players? We could play this game until we're blue in the face. I'm not really seeing the big gap that people mention.
None of those players are on the level of the Uruguay players. Reyna has played fewer minutes combined in the past four seasons than he did in his first season with Dortmund and is coming off a loan to a relegation battling team where they barely played him, Dest couldn’t make it at Barcelona, Juventus is desperately trying to unload McKennie, Adams can’t stay healthy and is playing more midtable or worse clubs in the EPL, Richards only became the starter at Crystal Palace because of injury, Aaronson hasn’t shown anything special in the EPL or Bundesliga, Musah is a backup player for AC Milan who didn’t not have a great season, same with Weah, and PSV is not a better team than Tottenham or Napoli. It’s not just enough that you play for an AC Milan or Juventus, it’s also about what your role is at such a club. Uruguay has players at Liverpool, Real Madrid, PSG, Atletico Madrid, Tottenham, and Napoli, and unlike our guys they play key roles for those clubs. It’s just not comparable. Yeah no Valverde is a significantly better player than McKennie. He started pretty much every single game for Real Madrid, went 90 in most of them, and had an awesome season. Transfermarkt rates his value at 120 million, compared to Weston McKennie at 28 million (and they are the same age). And they have him tied for the 8th most valuable player in the world.
None are at the level of a team that had a starting lineup that had 4 guys that don't even play in Europe? I'm going to disagree. That is absolutely insane. I don't even think he'll start for Real Madrid next season. What is he so good at? He doesn't get a ton of goals, doesn't get a ton of assists, he's not that technical, not that athletic. He's a decent player. He's certainly not the 8th best player in the world. Maybe the 80th best.
Yes Uruguay by any objective just has more talent than we do. And just another data point, they had almost twice the Champions League minutes in their player pool than we did. And the difference is even more dramatic if you look at knockout round minutes. Valverde is an awesome player. Who is displacing him at Real Madrid next year? He’s going to be even more indispensable with Kroos leaving. He’s absolutely going to continue to be a regular starter for them. We have no one on our team who’s close to his level (and no one on our team good enough to start for Real Madrid). I’ll add the Guardian’s list of top 100 players in the world (which is probably the best of these sorts of lists), ranked him as the 31st player in the world in December (list here https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...e-100-best-male-footballers-in-the-world-2023).