The current state of our youth national teams

That tweet says the same thing because the tweeter IS HIM.

 

Wasn't there a thing a while ago about how JoGo wanted to experience both camps, so he was going to U20 camp with them? Or was that supposed to be with us?

 

99.9% of USMNT fans couldn't tell you the name of the U17 coach that didn't pick Gomez. Nor could they tell you who was picked over Gomez. The notion that we should feel bad for Bello or Tolkin because they're going to be compared to Gomez is nonsensical. By whom? The 15 people that obsess about these sorts of things on twitter?

Let me pick up my USMNT depth chart. Our starting LB, Antonee Robinson, will be in the Premier League next season. AC Milan, who lest we forget won Serie A this past season, submitted a transfer bid for him in 2020. He is good. He was arguably our most consistent performer over the course of qualifying. So what is the state of the USMNT/USYNTs if we lose Gomez? We'll be fine. Absolutely fine. We roll!!!

I no longer obsess about the guys who DON'T want to play for us. We do really, really well with dual-nationals. We have to expect the occasional loss. Our record won't be 100% retention. Not now. Not ever.

 

It’s stunning to watch people who have been here for a long while just fall for the same thing, react to the same things and have the same complaints over and over again. Stunning personal failures.

It’s the old saying some people never learn…..ever. They just want to rant, complain and angry. Sad.

Soccer really isn’t that important, then again the sport is almost always the outlet for other issues in that individuals life.

 

Just when it comes to dual-nationals, let's not be total hypocrites. We just recruited Tillman away from Germany. In their comments, did the German coaches and officials want to lose Tillman? No, they didn't. He was provisionally cap-tied to them. We recruited Musah away from England. At the time Southgate made a point of saying he didn't want to lose Musah from the pool yet. Plenty, plenty, plenty of other examples.

Let's not be hypocrites when Mexico pounces on a dual-national, that by the way.............wasn't provisionally cap-tied to us.

These dual-national battles will happen till the end of time. We'll win some and lose some. Berhalter in particular has done exceptionally well. We can't obsess about every one or we'll drive ourselves nuts.

 

I think we should NOT go overboard in giving dual nats preferential treatment in callups. It should basically be a meritocracy. If it is a very close call between two players and one is a dual nat maybe allow it a small amount of weight. I'd rather have players for whom we are their STRONG first choice.

 

Have I not already done so?

1. He should've been called into the U-17 team. They preferred Adam Armour, John Tolkin, and George Bello. The coach said as much. Is he denying that provisional cap-tying call up? Once a player is provisionally cap-tied, they almost never switch. They still can, but it's a lot harder, and it almost makes the decision for a player. This provisional cap-tying call-up for Gomez with Mexico will swing the odds tremendously in their favor.

2. Call him into the senior team right now. The back up LB on the team is George Bello. If you personally prefer George Bello right now, we can see how this discussion ages. I don't think it's going to age well for the USMNT.

 

That was supposed to be with us. Said it on the Scuffed Podcast.

 

One thing we do now is that Berhalter is very on top of things when it comes to dual national recruiting so I doubt he was asleep at the wheel here.

We also don't know if this was a final decision or a for now decision. We haven't seen any sort of announcement from Gomez. We don't even know if he's going to be on Mexico's roster for the tournament as Mexico announced a 25 man roster they are going to have to cut down.

It seems like with Gomez what people wanted is for Berhalter to have called him up for the full national team before he's quite ready. And I don't think we should be in the business of trying to lock in guys who aren't quite ready just to keep them away from Mexico.

Seems like some of the issue is here is that there's some people who view Gomez as a Pulisic/Reyna type prospect, while I think most view him as a good prospect but not one whose a better prospect than Scally, Paredes, etc.

 

What he said on the scuffed podcast was that he wanted to try out the U20s with the US so he could experience both, not that he was going with the US for the U20s.

 

1. Gomez is a talented player, and if this is his final decision, it's a bummer.
2. That said, I want players who want to play for the US, and we have talent. We will be fine.
3. There are plenty of things the USSF should be doing to better reach out to Latino Americans, and not just for dual national recruiting purposes.
4. Decisions like this have many, many factors, and we as the public see maybe 5% of the inputs into them. I don't know how people can be so certain that a U17 call up or something would be a deciding factor.

It's okay to be disappointed without needing to rush to blame every time this happens.

And it's going to happen. Over and over and over again. We're a nation of immigrants, like 1/3rd of us are eligible for another country; and probably at least half of soccer players.

There's no magic formula, no perfect play. Dual nation panic is supposed to be a mocking term, not something to follow.

 

I never claimed he said he was officially on the team six months before the roster was selected. The way he said it made clear that if he had the choice between the two that he would play for us at that tournament over Mexico. Obviously something changed.

 

We can revisit this in a few years.

I don't think it's going to age well.

 

That's very clearly not what he said though. He never said he preferred one or the other. Just that he had been with the Mexico U20s and wanted to try out the US U20s to compare the two.

 

I'm sorry Gomez is not a Pulisic/Reyna prospect. He's a good prospect who is a good player. But at 17 Pulisic was playing and scoring goals for the second best team in the Bundesliga and Reyna was starting regularly for the same team when he was the same age Gomez is now.

Gomez has been on the bench for one game for Real Sociedad. Meanwhile Scally has played a ton of minutes in the Bundesliga and even Paredes has (along with going to Wolfsburg for a decent transfer fee). None of this is to denigrate Gomez, and he's a good prospect but on a similar level to many of our other young players.

 

Amazing how people pine after guys that don't want to play for us. Jonathan Gomez wants to play for our biggest rival. So why exactly would I as a fan care about Jonathan Gomez. Good bye, good luck. I'll see your despondent face at the U20 CONCACAF Championships trophy celebration.

Why didn't Berhalter call him up to the USMNT for this June camp? Do we know for a fact that he didn't call Gomez and talk to him? Do we know that the USSF didn't also try to invite him to our U20 team, and he picked Mexico? Or are we just doing the same-old blind USSF bashing?

 

You are misinterpreting my comment. I didn't say that he preferred the US U-20's over Mexico U-20's.

The point is that he said he'd be playing for the US at the U-20 WCQ, if he had the choice. It may have only been to experience both teams, but the end result is that he's playing for Mexico U-20's at WCQ, so something changed.

 

I don't care who plays for what team at what age. Gomez is a vastly superior talent to Scally or Paredes, in my opinion. Neither of those players are LB's either. As I already said though, we can revisit this eventually. I hope we can revisit it in good nature with Gomez playing for the USMNT, and it's not about a player that got away.

 

His father was liking my tweets that he should be called up to the USMNT for June. Seems to me like a situation where they'd want a USMNT call-up, but didn't get one.

Berhalter didn't even mention Gomez when asked who were the players in contention for this camp. Did he try to recruit Gomez and was told that Gomez has decided to play for Mexico permanently? Seems very unlikely to me. It seems more like Berhalter just doesn't rate him yet as a USMNT level player. He only played at a January camp where we had numerous players nowhere near the senior team.

 

I mean I hope Gomez plays for the USMNT as well. I think he's a good prospect with good potential. And at the end of the day you want as many good prospects in the pool as possible because it's very hard to predict which ones are going to be the ones who develop and make it.

We have a lot of players coming up at LB. Scally has played it a bunch in the Bundesliga and Paredes may or may not project there long term. Even someone like Tolkin is doing a very good job in MLS at a very young age. Long term Gomez may or may not end up being the best of them, but I don't think it's that clear cut at current.

 

I guess the question is why do you think Berhalter has been so on the ball with so many dual national recruitments, but that he's somehow asleep on the wheel on this one?

 

probably will age better than your Reyna assessment

 

Dude I respect all the work you do around these boards and enjoy reading your write ups but lets start by revisiting your 2002 list from a few years ago

Damien Las as your #1, KHF as #3 Busio all the way #23, Diego Letayf(?) in the top 10, Yow all the way at #70. Obviously no one is ever going to be 100% on prospect predictions but you would think looking back on your own rankings would temper your emotions and expectations on your own evaluations...

 

Take Gomez out of the equation for a moment.

I think if we are discussing natural RB's and natural RW's (who might eventually switch to LB, but haven't yet) as some of our options for LB, then we are struggling at the position.

Would you agree?