Orejarena also got an assist on the US' opener in their 2-0 win over Peru. Wasn't very good otherwise. Don't think I mentioned it at the time, but he's the second youngest player on the roster.
Not so much recently, but I chalk that up to him doing three jobs at once (US U17 assistant, NTX assistant, FCD U15 coach). Pretty sure he's a good coach.
We must have a former FCD academy coach at the USSF at all times! I also chalk up some of the inconsistency in the FCD developmental programs to the fact they have this coaching revolving door. It's not a bad thing that they keep losing their coaches and administrators to different programs. The guys keep getting good opportunities. The first NTSC staff was Eric Quill (now a USL Head coach) with Aldaz and Michel. Michel was asked to be on the staff by then FCD head coach Luchi Gonzalez. Luchi himself had been an academy coach and director with Oscar Pareja. Pareja had been academy coach and administrator himself. Now Michel has NTSC in first place in the MLS Next Pro Western Conference as interim coach. The most points in the league. At some point, Michel is going to be out interviewing.
FCD 17s v Hornets, 9/21/24, W 5-1 Lineup (L-R, where applicable): Jordan; Vejrostek (’09), Hernandez, Easterly; Molomo, Vo, Vega, Gibson; Saucedo, Meese, Mazzawi Subs: Moreira, Alvarez, and Fuentes on for Vo, Easterly, and Jordan at halftime (FCD goes to a 4213 with Moreira and Alvarez in the double-pivot). Luna on for Mazzawi about 10min into the 2H (Luna to LB and Molomo bumps up to the FW line). Molomo, Meese, and Vega all come off after the fifth goal and are replaced by Lee, ’09 Wegman, and ’09 Martey. Goal(s): · 28:04 – Easterly on the ball near midfield. He drives forward to commit a defender and pushes wide to Gibson, who takes a couple touches before going back to Vo. Vo turns and slaps a flat diagonal out wide left to Saucedo, and now Saucedo’s driving at the LB with Molomo underlapping urgently. He (wrongly?) declines the underlap, cuts past the defender onto his right, and fires from about 15 yards into the far side netting. · 35:15 – Mazzawi chases down a through-ball in the corner before playing it backwards to Gibson, who dribbles by a defender into the same corner. He then carves out a yard and hits a cross at the top of the box, where Saucedo collects, freezes the defense, and sends Molomo down the left side of the box. Molomo takes a touch and crosses from the side of the six yard box to a wide open Meese at the back post. Meese with a nice, sharp movement to find space. · 47:03 – Molomo meandering into Hornets’ half down the left halfspace. He goes wide to Vo, who slides a ball into Vega in the pocket. Vega turns, dribbles into the box, cuts around a defender, and touches a pass over to Mazzawi near the PK spot. Mazzawi lets it roll past him and is fouled as he turns to collect. Molomo claims the PK and scores low to the GK’s left. · 1:11:24 – Hornets throw-in on FCD’s right down in FCD’s end. They manage to get possession and work it across to the right side, where Vega and Molomo get combo-ed around and allow a (deflected?) cross that goes in off the inside of the far post. · 1:15:50 – FCD throw-in on their right side near midfield. Molomo nods it down to Meese, who gets it caught under his feet and tackled away into the center circle, where Vega gets it and quickly turns and drives upfield. Hits an outside the foot diagonal through-ball to Molomo in the box down the right, but Molomo’s first touch lets him down so he has to go to the end line, put the brakes on, and find Meese arriving at the top of the six for a tap in. Favorite Vega moment of the game. Great reaction/aggression by Molomo off the ball. · 1:24:30 – Saucedo gets a short CK and dribbles through the defenders into the box before poking a pass into the middle to another Hornet. He tries to pass out, but Vega intercepts at the edge of the PK area and sidesteps the same defender, who then fouls Vega. Vega scores the PK in the same spot Molomo did. Other Key Chances: · 37:58 – Vejrostek swings a ball out wide to Molomo, who cruises through the middle third on the dribble. Mazzawi has made a horizontal run into the channel and Molomo feeds him beside the defense. Mazzawi dwells for a moment before hitting Vega’s underlapping run to the left side of the box and Vega hits a first-time low cross into the mixer. It bounces out for Mazzawi, whose first touch gets under his feet, so he has to chop right instead of shooting, but it’s stripped and cleared before he can fire. · 50:12 – Gibson cuts out a long pass over the top by back-heeling it (?) to Vo in midfield. Vo takes a few touches forward before hitting a right-footed through-ball down the left channel into Vega, who’s now 1v1 with the GK. He tries to slide it under the onrushing GK but it’s saved and cleared. Wildly … virtuosic? Is that the word I’m looking for? … play by Gibson. Vo showing why being two-footed matters. · 1:18:23 – Hornets get tangled up clearing an intercepted cross and Vega pounces on the ball on the edge of the area, dribbles through three defenders, and forces a point-blank save from the GK. Great moment for him. · 1:23:19 – Meese takes a FK from the left corner of the PK box, popping a ball into the mixer. It falls to Hernandez in about two yards of space in front of goal. He controls and shoots right at the GK, who catches the rebound. · 1:49:11 – Alvarez gets the ball from Fuentes at the top of his box and turns into acres of space. He takes a lazy walk forward before hitting Luna out left, and Luna finds Lee in behind. Lee cuts it back for Saucedo at the PK spot and Saucedo’s first-time shot goes high. Hornets have lost all their bite defensively by this point. Notes: · Second straight year for the 2008s in the less competitive division. The shift to U16/18 from U15/17 emphasis by MLS means they’re in the donut hole again. Wouldn’t be shocked if we see more late bloomers nationally in that birth year because of this issue. · Hernandez doing a lot of stepping up into midfield so that it frequently looks like a 4-3-3. Saucedo doing a lot of dropping into midfield so that you end up with a box midfield of Saucedo and Vega ahead of Vo and Hernandez. Vega and Saucedo swap roles about 20min in. · Jaxon Meese a big winner of the season early on. Barely got playing time last year but has started every game I’ve seen this year. (Do I not understand that at all and think those minutes should be going to either Wostl or Rosales? Sure, but what do I know?) · Also early, but Vejrostek has been playing up a ton so far. Reminder that he’s a LATE December birthday. Hornets have quite a few tall players on the frontline so he often looks little relative to the imposing physical presence we expect from CBs, but he’s totally comfortable defending back there. He’s the best on FCD’s team here at getting the ball to players in the final third and it’s not close. Entry balls again and again. See 1:07:38 for example. · Maybe that NTX appearance really did signal that they’re going to stick Gibson at RWB/RB full-time? He was all over the field last year. Needs to diversify his game out there: dribble in more than one direction, pass to more than one person. · Easterly’s main typical action early is driving into midfield and laying it off for Gibson out wide. Does it 10+ times in the 1H. Both he and Gibson need to figure out how to find feet inside and forward, not just outside and back. Hernandez does a lot of the same drive-and-dishing from the RCB spot in the second half and tries more different stuff (though it doesn’t come off often). · I laughed a little at 25:47 when Saucedo goes off screen followed by a defender and comes back a few seconds later shot out of a cannon dribbling to goal. Wish we could see what he did. · Good strong catch by Jordan at 20:10. · Molomo is massively influential in this one creating threatening moments for FCD. Does a huge amount of damage with his off-ball running. Not as bad/inconsistent on the ball has he has been at points of the past (1:18:05 is a pro series of touches/actions from him). · You may remember these games (’08 Hornets v FCD) were really competitive last season. FCD subsequently poached Hornets’ best player (Vega), but still, they get up for these. Was on the way to categorizing Vega’s game as quiet, but then the fourth FCD goal and the chance at 1:18:23 happened back to back and I was like “oh yeah, I remember him looking like the best player on the field in these games last year”. · Wegman indeed looks bigger than last year (despite playing up the age group). See 1:27:37 for his first action (and an indicative one): nice job getting position to shield off the defender, nice job controlling the ball, passes directly out of bounds instead of in behind. 1:37:07 is encouraging. · First time seeing Martey play as a W as part of the Academy. Two nice dribbles down the right that lead to well-weighted through-balls for Gibson. 1:43:37 shows some maturation needs to happen technically. TBD whether the ‘09s playing up here are an indication of anything. Early in the season. FCD was likely anticipating better competition for the U16s than the U17s. Not clear.
@Agent_Orange, do you think a lot of these U-17's (08's maybe not the best example because a weak age group, but I digress) are going to accept playing U-17 year after year if this is the set-up that FCD wants to keep? They play a pretty comparatively weak schedule because no other MLS teams have a full age group for U-17 that is basically just their full U-17 age group (a few clubs have U-17 teams, but most of their good U-17's play U-18), and the exposure is obviously less than playing U-18. I'm starting to wonder if some will try to leave for this reason because they don't want to go through this very patient set-up that FCD has right now compared to every other club out there.
Time will tell. I think a lot depends on how successful the '07s are since they were the first "gap" group. If we see a few of those guys matriculate upward successfully (Swann, Contreras, Montoya, Scabin, etc.), later kids may be more willing to wait.
NTSC finally signed '06 W Daniel Baran. Would guess the delay had to do with waiting to clear a year with the Academy so he could be a HG. The deal is "through the end of the season", so expect him to sign with the first team this offseason. I am not as high on him as the club, but he's an excellent athlete and dribbler with a hyper-aggressive mindset on the ball.
I don’t think he’ll amount to more than an okay MLS player (and he might not even be that), but I think Baran has a chance.
FCD 16s v SKC, 9/21/24, W 5-1 Lineup (L-R, where applicable): Rios; Grimm, Drygas, Odom, Wygant; Aragundi; Vargas, Velazquez; Glosson, Sedeh, Echevarria Subs: Carrera came on at half for Rios. About 10min into the 2H, Vargas and Grimm come off for Cook and Olu. 5min later, Dias and Salm come on for Wygant and Echevarria (Salm plays RB, which is new, and Cook plays the #9). ~5min later, Drygas and Sedeh come off for Fumtim (who goes to LB and Olu goes to LCB) and Cruz. Cook comes off about 25min into the 2H and FCD elects to play down a player. Goal(s): · 34:21 – Drygas on the ball in his half after a little bit of aimless possession around the back for FCD. He finds Glosson, who’s checked over behind SKC’s midfield, near midfield, and Glosson turns and bursts forward with good speed before playing out in front of Sedeh down the left edge of the PK box. Sedeh stops near the endline and finds Glosson stepping out from the defense about 10 yards from goal. Glosson controls and blasts the ball into the far upper 90. · 41:02 – Odom on the ball in his half and hits a ball over the SKC LB’s head for Echevarria to chase down. Echevarria wins the duel for the ball near the corner of the box and plays back and inside to Vargas, who cuts right to pull in the LB before sliding the ball toward the endline for Echevarria. Echevarria pops a cross at the top of the six where Sedeh is open to nod it home. SKC’s defense was marking space, not players. · 1:05:02 – FCD CK (check the playing leading up for Velazquez and Sedeh’s touches) and Sedeh’s over it. Really hard, driven ball right at the GK and he manages to deflect it into his own net. Wasn’t much traffic in front of or around him either. · 1:16:42 – CK for FCD on the right side with Sedeh over it. He hits an outswinger that’s headed back out to him and he finds Cook checking to him on the edge of the area. Cook fakes a return pass to the endline, spins out to the top of the box, and hits a lefty schross that floats into the back post. 75% he just mishit a cross, 25% he meant it. · 1:18:46 – Cook backchecks and wins a ball off a SKC midfielder before turning quickly and carrying up the middle. He rolls an underhit ball out to Glosson on the left, and Glosson dribbles down the left channel before getting turned back by the CB inside the box, but then he flicks a ball between the defenders to an arriving Cook, who sits down one defender and chips the GK. It comes off the crossbar and down to Echevarria, who scores from about 2 yards out. · 1:46:24 – Sadly most of the action here happens off-screen. FCD is down a player. SKC LCB ~12 yards into FCD’s half hits a diagonal to the right side of the box and maybe the FW poked it past an onrushing Carrera after slipping behind Olu and Fumtim? Hard to tell. Other Key Chances: · 10:47 – SKC turns FCD over in the SKC defensive third, plays to the middle, drives forward a ways, pushes the ball out right to an overlapping RM, and hits a long early cross to the far post that bounces out beside the FCD PK area. The SKC LW goes out and collects the ball before whipping in a cross that’s headed back out to him and he heads it right back in (Wygant very passive on this play) where it floats over Drygas’ head to the crashing RW who blasts a flying volley over the bar from the top of the six. · 22:25 – Drygas on the ball near midfield. He hits a disguised pass ahead into Aragundi, who takes a touch backward and plays wide to Grimm entering the SKC third. Sedeh was checking to Aragundi, but makes a diagonal run to support Grimm and gets a ball down the line into the corner for his effort. He skips around the RB on the baseline side, carries into the box, and fires from the edge of the six, forcing a reflex save by the GK on his near post side out for a CK. · 25:16 – Odom on the ball near midfield in the right halfspace, and he pushes forward to Vargas under no pressure. Vargas turns and passes out of frame to Wygant who turns and hits Echevarria making a flat run behind the LB who has stepped up onto Wygant. Echevarria receives, dwells for a moment, and then finds Wygant’s underlapping run into the side of the box. Wygant fires low through the six, barely missing Glosson’s foot, and Velazquez collects on the backside of the box, taking a touch and shooting from about 10 yards, but a defender clears it off the line. · 1:24:43 – Is that Aragundi on the ball near FCD’s box? He bombs a ball up the right sideline to Sedeh, who takes it down and dribbles inside past four defenders before laying it off to Cook, who turns and gets the ball to Glosson entering the box down the left halfspace. Glosson cuts back and passes into Cook’s feet near the PK mark, and Cook does his little footwork thing for a few seconds under pressure before finding a yard and firing from about eight yards out and at the GK. SKC clears the rebound. Notes: · FCD without three of their best players for (most of) this one: Cook (injured), Eason (YNT duty), and Vejrostek (with the U17s). · Maybe it’s the camera angle, but all of the SKC players (except #7) are bigger than all of the FCD players? That can’t be right. Is this a jersey color thing? · Camera is facing the sun in this one so picking out individual players is pretty difficult. Very possible I’ve misidentified someone above. · Triple-pivot kinda midfield for FCD in this one. All of Aragundi, Velazquez, and Vargas can play all three positions and do so. Lots of flipping sides and depths. Likewise, the starting frontline is three guys that are combo FWs, so they do different stuff every play. No “true” Ws or STs. Very FCD in that way. · First time seeing X for FCD: o Glosson: Really good stop-start movement (eg: 21:48), smaller than I thought, cool head around the box, willing/able dribbler. o Sedeh: Consistently gets by defenders and into good spots on the dribble. Came in thinking Glosson would impress me most of the newcomers but Sedeh looked really good (Glosson was nice too). o Grimm: took the CKs that needed a lefty for inswingers. Looks a little movement challenged. Not a ton to do in this one. o Olu: Sure enough, doesn’t have the frame to be a CB right now but he’s a jumbo fullback – classic wide CB in a three kinda player. Really comfortable with two feet or just uses his right in bizarre moments? · Poor awareness by Grimm, Drygas, and the midfield at 30:25. SKC reacts WAY quicker to a bad touch and gets a counter-attack out of the following throw in. · Cook looked pretty flashy after he came on (especially if he meant to score when he did; not impeccable, but flashy). SKC is maybe just bad but he probably shouldn’t be playing at this level (we know he trains with NTX quite a bit). Sure enough, fouled and injured at 1:32:38 – looked like nothing live but he has to be carried off. · This ’09 roster has ~30 players on it. It is too big. · Teams that use the numbers 1-11 well are very cool. It’s a bummer that FCD doesn’t / can’t do that pretty much anywhere in their org. Between the numbers and the big frames (see bullet #2), SKC definitely looks the part of a “first off the bus” team. · SKC’s GK had a tough game.
It's a nightmare for identifying players though, if you don't have easy access to find out who they are or can identify that pretty easily from watching the game.
FCD 15s v SKC, 9/21/24, W 5-1 Lineup (L-R, where applicable): Salas?; Jones ©, Guillen-Lopez, Arne, Akem; Soria, Padilla; Guevara; Gomez ©, Caiafa, Hallie Subs: 15min or so into the 2H, Caiafa, Guevara, and Akem come off for Monsivais (first time seeing him at ST), Orta, and Awad. At one point Stover came on for Salas. After SKC’s goal, Hallie, Jones, and Soria come off for Olvera (first time seeing him at W), Smith, and McDonald. Goal(s): · 13:34 – Guillen-Lopez on the ball marching it forward in his half. He womps one over the top that Hallie gets onto and touches into the left side of the box before turning and squaring up his defender. Hallie then nutmegs his defender with an inside-out elastico, pulls the ball onto his right, and fires from just wide of the corner of the six, forcing a save on the deflected shot and allowing Caiafa to tap in the rebound. · 28:56 – Soria loses a duel near midfield and SKC consolidates and plays back to their RB, but the pass goes by him and he has to turn and chase and there’s Caiafa shoving him off the ball (fouling him?). Caiafa grabs the ball and plays Hallie, who has made a horizontal run behind the defense, into the left side of the box. Hallie returns it, and Caiafa hits a bomb from the top of the box into the near upper 90. · 58:54 – Soria jumps a pass into the midfield from SKC’s LCB and gets it to Gomez, who drives at the left side of the box before laying it back to Guevara. Guevara takes a touch to the D and strikes it to the top of the goal-frame. The GK can’t grab it that high and bobbles it back into his own net. · 1:10:41 – FCD throw-in in their half on the left. Padilla heads it up the line where it’s collected by the SKC RCB and fired low back up the field and flicked inside. A CM takes a touch forward and manages to poke a ball through a blocking Arne into the path of the LW who has reacted faster the Arne’s absence than Awad and is now open in front of goal. He gets to the ball before a sliding G-L and rolls it through Stover’s legs and in. · 1:12:10 – Avalanche of errors here. SKC’s LB kicks it into his #6, who manages to control the ball and play back to a CB who plays back to the GK, but the GK completely misreads the press and passes into three FCD players. Gomez is the one to get it and he floats into the box, sits down one defender, and calmly finishes past the charging GK. · 1:23:22 – SKC CBs on the ball near midfield and try to play into a CM but McDonald contests and it rolls through to Awad, who hits a first-time pass over the top. Gomez is the first to react to it (started his run in the fraction of a second before Awad hit it?) and gets onto the ball for a breakaway before chipping the GK from the top of the box. Great awareness by both players. Other Key Chances: · 25:48 – FCD CK on the left. It’s Padilla and Soria over it and they go short to an uncovered Guevara at the corner of the PK box (third (?) time that’s been available already). Guevara goes back to Padilla wide, and Padilla plays in Gomez who slipped out and behind the active defenders. Gomez gets the ball on the left of the box, blows by his defender to the endline, and fizzes a low cross through the six, where Arne (who first gets a toe on it right in front of goal) almost scores three different times. · 38:15 – SKC tries to play into their #6 but the pass is off the mark and Padilla gets there first to pop the ball over his foot to Gomez, who drives down the middle and finds Caiafa on the left side entering the box. Caiafa cuts back to his right, fakes a shot, rolls back to his left, and zings one from about 16 yards low at the far post, missing by a couple of feet. Notes: · As mentioned prior, with someone streaming every FCD home game now I’m going to be pickier about which games I profile in this way. Mainly wanted to put out the first games I had available for each age group, but, for example, the U19s played SKC and won 3-0 and I’m not doing that one because I already did that team’s game against the Rapids. · Game footage starts in media res at about 7:30, so if something happened early we missed it. Another big skip at 15:40. · FCD is in a different class here. Many passages of play where they tiki-taka through SKC and/or just bully them physically. One of those where SKC has low-single-digit touches in FCD’s box the whole game. · Continue to think that Hallie is miscast as a W and should be either a #9 or #10. I don’t think he’s the one-man offense that Gomez is (so you can just delegate one side of the field to Gomez), but he’s a devastating amplifier of players around him (in part because he’s awesome off the ball). · First time seeing Arne in a year: fairly tall if not huge like G-L, okay on the ball despite some spacey moments. Couple of nice plays getting the ball forward quickly. Not challenged a ton. Sure feels like they’re signaling with the sub patterns that they are going to play G-L and Arne every available minute back there. · Gomez getting the Contreras treatment where he can float wherever and sometimes comes back to get the ball off the CBs. Truly hard to express how much it grinds my gears to see that. · Very strong first impression from Wally Smith. Very fast, very progressive. · Low Sock Disease has decimated this roster. Sad to see so many young lives wasted. · SKC’s GK and #6 have rough games.
Are you a little worried that this FCD age group simply isn't athletic enough? That was by far the smallest and least athletic FCD team I think I've seen in a very long time. Yeah, they absolutely played around SKC like they were 2012 Spain and SKC was some small island nation, but I thought watching both sets of the players on both sides for the first time (for the most part) that SKC had more and better prospects, and with time and equal coaching (don't even get me started on the SKC coaching in this one) that the SKC players would be better in three years, despite it being one of the most one sided games I've seen between two MLS U-15 teams in a while. The only kids I wrote down for FCD are Guillen-Lopez, Soria, Padilla, and Hallie. Hallie is the best prospect in this Dallas age group by far to me. Think he's going to be very good. The others, I'm not sure. Guillen-Lopez has some of the best ball-playing I've seen out of this academy for a CB in a long time. He has size too, but can he defend? Is he mobile? Was completely untested in that regard in this game because SKC had none of the ball. I have some similar questions for a player like Soria. Can he be a #8 in a game where his team doesn't have 75% of the possession? Wonderful playmaker in midfield, but not sure that he has the true #10 type skillset. Might need to work for him as a #8. Padilla looks good. I don't know if I have a ton of major questions about him. Not overly flashy and lacks in terms of big tools, but a steady holding midfielder. Who do you think I'm missing from that group that I should add?
🇺🇸 Isaiah Kaakoush (‘08) scores his first professional goal on his debut for North Texas to equalize at the death 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/MGyvZe5Jgc— American Ultras Talk (@ameriultrastalk) September 29, 2024
I have concerns about specific players (eg: Guevara, Jones, Orta, McDonald, the GKs), but not the group in aggregate. They're all either 13 or 14: we'll see how they develop. I think part of the reason FCD wanted Caiafa, Padilla, and Monsivais integrated last spring instead of the offseason is they contribute some of that physicality that the rest of roster sometimes lacked. Xavier Gomez. He's the starting #9 for the FMF 2010s right now (something to watch since FCD pretty much only asks him to be a LW) and he averages, like, 2.5 G+A/game for FCD. There are others I like, but if you're missing him you're missing one of the two really great prospects on this team.
He was one of the ones I had those questions about. What instantly came to mind for him was an LAFC '07 player named James Arteaga, who is a world-beater at the academy level and I was hearing about as early as U-14 as one of the best 07's in the country, but as he got older he kind of fizzled out a little and has become a solid, yet not overly high level, prospect. You might be right. That was my first impression of this group. I hope he's what you claim because there were a limited amount of players from this group I liked.
Former Phoenix Rising Academy and Barca Residency player Isaiah Kaakoush 🇺🇸🇱🇧 ('08) made his North Texas SC debut yesterday and scored off the bench! Here are his stats from the match25 minutes1 goal12/12 passing acc.1/1 shots on target1/2 dribbles2 passes into final 3rd… pic.twitter.com/nxVgr1NUzy— Zach McCabe (@zjmccabe) October 1, 2024
As amusing as that is, what I take most from that is that he's 5'10, so there's a decent chance Steel may end up in that range.
I've finished (or very close to it) watching the 09's for the Fall. I like this age group a lot. Think this and the 07's are looking like the best one's right now. Brief rankings: 1. Liam Vejrostek-I feel he has the best blend of upside, floor, and performance. Seems like he's widely rated at a decent level. He seems to be promoted to the U-17's. 2. Christian Wygant-I don't think there's overly high upside, but extremely consistent performances, plays a bunch of positions, and I feel reasonably confident he plays pro games. 3. Caleb Wegman-The biggest wild card. He could be the next great FCD product for the USMNT, but he has a long way to go. Boom or bust. 4. Luke Martey-He's a weird case where some love his game and some don't rate him. I think he's arguably the biggest talent on this team, but he's not even making match day squads right now. That'll need to change. 5. Jordyn Eason-I think he's a talented winger prospect, but the performances are so-so, it looks like he hasn't grown in like a year, and I'm worried Hallie might already be beyond him. 6. Trey Glosson-I think it's close between Eason and Glosson. Glosson has some intriguing dribbling skills, but I feel that Eason is maybe just a little better. 7. Ahmad Odom-Has a bunch of tools. Performances are only okay. Feel like he has a higher level he hasn't really reached yet. TBD if he does. 8. Ninor Olu-He's up and down, but I thought he was a good addition this year. Has upside. Think CB is going to have to work because I don't see high upside at LB. 9. Alan Ortega-Another "up and down, has upside" player. Plays more like Antonio Carrera than Juanito does, but that's the "if everything goes great" outcome. A decent chance he doesn't end up a pro. 10. Steel Cook-I'm not big on Steel at this point, but a lot of people are. There are some moments, so I don't want to completely dismiss him. 11. Juanito Carrera-I'm not sure he's all that good at this point (he appears to be the third GK), but Antonio and Nico were both late developers. Wouldn't want to dismiss that he could end up at their level with time. @Agent_Orange, where do you disagree?
My '09 tiers look like HG Likely: Cook, Vejrostek, Eason HG Targets: Wygant, Glosson, Wegman, Odom, Rios, Sedeh (?) HG Fringe: Sedeh (?), Dias, Vargas, Velazquez, Salm, Echevarria Still TBD on the new kids other than Glosson and Sedeh. For me, you're high on Martey (though I wouldn't worry about him playing more with the '08s than the '09s) and Carrera and low on Cook (and Sedeh if he's an intentional exclusion).