The Efrain Alvarez Thread

I have a hard time seeing it happen. But I hope so

 

The USL is such a low level that teenagers scoring regulalry isn't that great of a feat, imo.

 

Reminder:

he is a 15-year old. I am not eve sure he qualifies yet as a teenager in soccer world speak. more like..........Kid.

 

A pro is a pro.

And the USL is really bad. I'm not too impressed.

People complain about the quality of 2nd divisions in 2nd tier European soccer countries(Portugal, Netherlands) but USL is a couple of notches below even that, imo.

 

Well................he did actually play for USYNTs before he played for Mexico.
And we called him up to just about everything we could at the time.
Folks can't say "we were ignoring Efrain Alvarez, so he switched to Mexico." That's the farthest thing from the truth. The kid had the option and he chose Mexico.

Efrain Alvarez hasn't closed the door on the US. And that's great. Why would he at 15? But he's pretty firmly in the Mexico camp for now. And if he's as good as we think he is, its Mexico that's going to have to screw this up.

I've seen quite a lot of interviews with FCD youngsters over the years in the same position. They love both the US and Mexico. This is a very tough decision. Either way they feel like they're letting people down.

If I were to give advice, it would be to pick one and stick with it. Don't do the whole flip-flopping thing. The Sonny Guadarrama case really sticks out. He flip-flopped to the point that neither team wanted him.

For those USL bashers out there, Sonny Gudarrama (formerly of Santos Laguna and Atlante) currently plays for San Antonio. No, the level isn't great in the USL. But these academy products like Alvarez are playing against a lot of adult professionals of good standing. Sonny Guadarrama shares the midfield in Atlanta their former USYNTer Mikey Lopez and full Jamaican international Owayne Gordon. Not Bayern Munich...........but also not chopped liver. For a 15 year old to be excelling at that level DOES mean something.

 

We really need to get him back.

 

6 goals in 3 games is a bit more than “scoring regularly.” Also, have you seen the goals?

 

Our federation had been calling him up since age 12 and eventually gave him the captain's armband, #10 shirt, and the keys to the ignition for our U15s, and he still switched.




Paul Kennedy of Soccer America made a comment on Twitter that is probably correct: if Alvarez is as good as we think he is and he continues to be a regular callup to Mexico, then perhaps the only way for him to rejoin the US someday is if he continues to be comfortable at LAG (not move to a bigger club abroad) and play with Llanez, Mendez, Sepulveda, Lopez, etc. (two of them have been with Alvarez since even before LAG, at the now-defunct Chivas USA academy) and with their encouragement, he eventually feels he wants to play with them internationally too. I don't know whether Mendez would accept a Mexico callup, but we know Llanez has chosen the US over Mexico interest, I'm fairly sure Lopez has rejected Mexico callups, and then there was an article about Sepulveda and how proud he was to represent the US. That may well not work, but it may be the only possibility. The USSF alone probably won't be able to.

 

Its a great stretch of games, but do you think he's a 2 goals per game player in USL?

The last two years in the two highest levels of the DA he has 22 goals in 34 games. Thats very good, and he's a good player, but this is nothing more than a great stretch of three games. He's not improved that drastically, and I think the quality of the goals is more proof that its a great stretch of three games. Have you seen him score those goals with regularity prior to these matches? I have not. He's not good enough to do that with regularity. No one is.

 

I have with the Galaxy DA, kid scores golazos on the regular.

You have to watch this beautiful game-winning free kick from 13-year-old Efrain Alvarez: https://t.co/BSjhJV1Xj5 pic.twitter.com/kU0fbFkM6e

— LA Galaxy (@LAGalaxy) December 8, 2015

 

If the USMNT was as popular as any NFL team, he'd be playing for us still.

 

Thats not my point. He can score golazos, but this many in a 2-3 game stretch? No one does that with regularity. Not even Messi.

USSF shouldn't only now be taking notice. It shouldn't be because of these last few games where he's scored a lot of very nice goals. If they are only taking notice recently, like a lot of fans, I'd say thats problematic. But I don't think thats the case. I think this is mostly fan-driven where the fans are mad recently about this because they've seen these recent goals.

The kid wants to play for Mexico. USSF has had him in our program before. Let him play for who he wants to. Maybe that'll eventually be the USA.

 

What? Of course he'll regress to the mean, but what kind of argument to a good player playing well is 'Will he score 2 goals a game all the time? NO. So there. He's a freaking 15 yr old scoring goals regularly right now in a professional league vs players almost twice his age'
How many goals has Andrew Carleton scored during the run of play in USL?

 

Did you see what I was responding to before you responded to my post? It seems like you didn't do that. How can you judge that he's scoring regularly if we are talking about 3 matches? And you seem to agree that 6 goals in 3 games isn't in line with anything anyone should expect over a much larger sample. You are barking up the wrong tree, if you think I am arguing it isn't impressive. Never something I argued.

Although I think a lot of people don't watch USL, and aren't aware of how low of a level it is. In the right situation, I think a lot of the best 02's players would be doing extremely well. I watched a game from Bello earlier this season where he was excellent, scored a goal, as well. Alvarez, Bello, all these top players are not challenged in USL from a talent perspective, so its not like if Alvarez was doing this in MLS where he's facing international footballers every match. USL is really not that much of a talent step up from the highest level matches you'd find in the U-19 DA (if some combination of LA, Atlanta, RSL, FCD were playing). The difference is that the players are professionals in one league and aren't in the other.

 

Come on Man. You have to tone down your 'smartest man in the room' routine. You're argument is just being a strawman. Setting up a false exaggeration of a post then tearing it down. No one is saying he's going to score at this rate forever. Not possible. I did watch alot of USL last year on Youtube, alot of variation. Some solid play with top teams, and alot of poor play with poor teams. Don't care. You seem to have a problem with people stating the obvious. He's not doing in the MLS because no 15 yr old could in a level as good as MLS. He's playing great and for a 15 yr old to be doing what he's doing is unprecedented and noteworthy. Even in the USL.

 

My point is: USL is indeed a league with low quality, so to dominate in the league doesn't guarantee you can have a good career in MLS, or International ball. However, the meaning of lower league all over the world is: talented players shine in the league, then brought to the higher level team to prove them. Alvarez prove he can handle USL very well, which is a exciting thing.

And for Alvarez, his super talent is there without doubts, not just show on the game states, but how he actually plays, his skills.

If Calerton get hyped, Alvarez should get more hype.

 

If Carleton was more like likely to end up picking apart the USMNT than he was to pick apart teams for the USMNT, he would be getting a lot less hype. It’s hard to root for Alvarez when he can easily end up as one of the best players for our main rival.

Personally, I think if Efra was the same exact player but played for Dallas instead of LA, these discussions would be a lot more bearable (and wholly positive). Unfortunately, a lot of the Efra hype is tagged with the corresponding Gary Kleiban tweets, and those are beyond divisive.

Everyone knows the kid is good. No one denies that. Just let him have a normal career and progress through the Galaxy system. The posts calling for him to get called up are insane (why would a kid be attracted to a team that’s so bad it can call up a 15 year old?).

I don’t think this subject warrants a thread of its own, especially in this forum, which is typically the most rational and level-headed one I can find on this website.

 

The topic of where Alvarez ranks in terms of AM prospects that have come through the system came up pretty recently around here.

It didn't seem like many were staking their claim that he was comparable to our best AM's to come through the system at that time. I think there was even one guy arguing that he was considerably overrated. Now he's all of a sudden comparable to the best ones? No, I don't see it. If he wasn't a few months ago, there shouldn't be sways with the wind now. This is what I mean with what I referenced that SuDano was calling a straw-man. I think fans are considerably overreacting to probably the kid's best goal scoring form of his career. I'm seeing a lot of the same types of overreactions on twitter, reddit.

I've stayed consistent on this. I think he's roughly comparable to guys like Taitague, Pomykal, Reyna. He's a notch or so below guys like Pulisic, Carleton, Nyeman. Anyone can obviously disagree, but where were these opinions the last time this discussion came up?

 

The first few times I saw Efrain play, I thought that he looked like a slow Maradona. I think his ceiling really high. Too bad he's not playing for us.

 

It's not that Efrain suddenly become the best of our talents in our development system. he was one of the best at the very beginning, since I watched LA Galaxy's showcase against FC Dallas and Man City.

I rate Pulisic then, Alvarez and Neyman now very high, but not that high on Wright then and Carleton now.

Btw, I actually hope Carleton becoming the future star player, that's why I watched all our U17 WC games, mainly focused on him, and had some harsh criticism on him. He had some brilliant ideas, but had very inconsistent touch and passing execution, seems like the fundamental problem. One word, Carleton's play was not clean. This is not a thread about Carleton, sorry to say that much on him.