The long overdue and frank discussion about the US Midfield 2018-2022

The US may very well be biased against developing technical attacking players. Certainly the early focus on winning matches instead of creating an environment where early youth players learn to love and manage the ball hurts our ability to produce such players.

Having said that, Lletget is an average MLS player and would be considered way below average as a technical international. He came into the league in 2015 with 8Gs in 21 matches but in 2016 had 1G and 4A in 34 matches.

For some reason some seem to believe that if a player can somewhat dribble in tight spaces and can make passes under very little pressure he is international quality. In the rest of the world those qualities are entry level and a dime a dozen.

 

i dont disagree about lletget exactly....i mean i realize he's not messi.....but he's head and shoulders above some of the recent mainstays of the team....(i do take issue that he can only make passes under little pressure....he's better at that than the vast majority of the player pool)

and he's the type of player who if there are enough players like him in a team....that the usmnt wouldnt ever have to play the 25% possession game vs a good team......

like they did with 5 defenders, arriola bradley and acosta in midfield....in azteca in june 2017 wcq.....

you can get a lucky result or 2 playing that style but never truly achieve anything imo.

 

If creativity and possession are an issue then playing 4231 doesn't make a lot of sense. Playing two strikers or three forwards at least facilitates the more direct play the National Team have thrived on.

 

Please inform Greece and Leicester city that they must return their hardware.

When we have a deep pool of major league attackers who can control the flow of a game then we can think about playing an attractive style. Until then, we need to focus on being more defensively stout, not less.

 

This isn't exactly true my man. Any system can be used to play creatively and with possession if you use the right personnel and you have the better talent.

 

The problem is we don't even have proven attackers that match their attackers quality outside of Pulisic.

 

Right now I think a lot is hinging on the further development of certain guys that are on B teams and youth squads, as well as guys that have moved up to senior level but aren't quite where we want them.

Some interesting guys off the top of my head:

Central Midfield:

Roldan (will he ever be elevated and perform at the level we need?)
Hyndman: Seemingly nothing has gone right since May 2015.
Parks: Fast climber, won't be a playmaking mid, but would offer a lot going forward.

And then we've got kids :
Carleton: Most promising playmaking central mid along with Green.
Pomykal: Waiting to see.
Pynadath: The same, and I think he can play on the wings too.
Booth: Off to Europe now to train with Bayern.
Reyna: I expect the hype train to build over time if things continue on an upward trajectory.
Acosta: Moving on to Boca Juniors is pretty exciting. Wish we'd gotten a chance to see more of him in the tournament last year.

Wings:
Saief: Finally healthy and ready to help out. For now most seem neutral on him.
Manneh: Wait and see.
Arriola: Borderline adequate.
Gooch: what do people think of him?
Weah: Probably more of a forward.
Green: Seems to be playing better centrally.
------
Weah: Probably more of a Forward.
Wright: Probably more of a Forward.

And then the kids:
Taitague: I am super excited, he's the guy I think has the best chance of being an elite talent.

Akale: I just don't know enough about what's going on with him. Seemed like an excellent wing/forward prospect a few years ago. Now I just don't know.

Llanez: Can play centrally or on the wing, I'm pretty excited about him.


What to expect:

2018-2019:
Over the next 18 months or so I expect the bold type guys to be the ones added, or reinforced as the options on the wings and centrally to help out in terms of adding an attacking element. Some of them seemed to be known and disappointing quantities, others seem to be a bit more unknown in terms of floor and ceiling.

2020 or 2021+

In the next window after the Gold Cup and Copa America (if we go), I suspect we will see more kids come in, primarily Tillman, Taitague, Wright, Carleton, possibly Booth, possibly Acosta, maybe Llanez etc.

I'm actually kind of excited with the kids coming up, but right now feels a bit more like 2005-2006, whereas back then, you knew that kids like Adu, Jozy, Bradley, Szetela and the like should be making an impact by 2007-2008. Feels similar now but with a great deal more prospects than we could envision back then.

If we get a bit of a luck, in the lead up to the hex I tend to picture the midfield attacking options to be some combination of:

Centrally:

Go to options:
Pulisic
McKennie
J. Green
Nagbe
Carleton
Parks

The Kids that may make it:
Gio
Pomykal
Booth
Durkin
Acosta
Pynadath

Wings:

Go to Options

1st Tier:

Pulisic
Saief
Taitague
Tillman
Manneh
Green

2nd Tier:
Arriola
Gooch
Llanez


I'm sure I'm forgetting people, but I think for the next 18 months or so we will go with what we have with a thin sprinkling of 2-4 new guys that are quite young and then by 2021 or so we'll see a shift, where the barely adequate or borderline inadequate options now fall off entirely and are replaced by the kids that make it through to the senior level.

Honestly, I'd rather play towards where we're going then to where we currently are (that might not make sense to a lot of you) as I'm a believer that the technical kids with talent to burn are coming through over the next 3+ years, and I'd like our likely starters and bench options circa 2021-2023 and beyond trained in what we will likely be shifting towards, rather than training in a temporary system that doesn't necessairly fit where I see us headed.

When I look at the combo of wings and central mids, basically the attacking players we have coming through, it's a nice combination of technical players, many with speed to burn, some, not so much, that will have the ability to take people one on one, and probably will be able to break down defenses with a deft pass here, or a through ball there. There is enough quantity, especially in the midfield, to see it happening, and with the wings we have ready (Saief, Arriola, Gooch etc), and guys like Tillman, Taitague, Wright and Weah (who have played on the wings and at forward), Manneh, even Green, and llanez, to go with Pulisic who I picture us playing all over the place depending upon opponent, even w/some guys just not making it due to plateauing, or injury or both, there is more quanity then there was in that 2008-2017 era to handle disappointments.

 

Don't forget the speed of Stewart and Jones. Later these became Donovan and Beasley and Heydude. Sanneh was no slouch either. Oh, for the days of a breakaway with our wingers taking off down the field and beating opposing team. There is something seriously wrong with a country as large as the US which cannot produce fast wingers and directors in the midfield. I know soccer has to compete with other sports here, but it is just unbelievable that we cannot find and play 3-4 of these types of players.

I do think that several of the youngster mentioned, such as Sargent and Carleton will help a lot toward this goal, but we need a midfield of Pulisics and Donovans and a general not named Bradley.

 

There were some fast wingers in the missing player group that had really bad injuries. They should have helped last cycle but couldn't. Really a lesson in that you need many more players than you think because any of them are one bad tackle away from never playing again.

 

No doubt. That's one of the reason I'm really happy about what's happened with the 1995's and the 1997-2003 generation: 1990-1994, 1996 was a problem both because of the relative quality of that generation (I think it was definitely an inferior generation, and then when so many players from it were waylaid by injury, it drove the quality down even further to the point where we got almost nothing out of a half decade worth of prospects), but also due to the quanities of prospects. No matter what prospects will be lost to injury, or a player's career track plateauing for whatever reason, what is crucial is that you have a huge depth of prospects at every level.

I hate the Yankees, but looking at the what Yankees started doing about five or so years ago clearly illustrates this. The Yankees spent the late nineties and the aughts buying FA talent to plug holes, and early on trading prospects to acquire veteran studs to win as many World Series titles as possible in that window they had (something like 1995-2011 or whatever), as that window began to close, the farm was empty of talent at all levels to replace the vets. So the Yankees essentially spent much of the last decade selling off all the talented players they had that were mid to late twenties and would be too old once their next window opened (the indians trade for Miller is an example: Miller was in his later twenties, he wouldn't be saving games of much importance for the Yanks in 2016 or 2017 so rather than burn off the last years of his contract before FA, might as well trade him to the Indians for one of their two best pitching prospects, and their best hitting prospect and a bit more). As a result, the Indians Farm system gets a bit depleted, especially of cream, while the Yankees, eschewing signing FA's, and making trades of this sort across several years turned their farm system into one that was both deep in prospects at every level from Rookie and A Ball, to Double A, and also deep in elite level prospects closer to the major league level.

This is how I see the USMNT now as compared to five+ years ago. Now, we have both elite prospects, and a rather large depth of them at every age level between the 1995's, and the 1997-2003 generation and it accomplishes just about all of our goals for a system in terms of develop:
Deep Pool
Elite Quality present
Pool is diverse (we have keepers, center and fullbacks, and midfielders)
Only one major liability: Not a lot of Forwards.

This is huge because as players fail, or plateau, we have the #'s to be able to handle these problems much more effectively than we did with the kids born 1990-1994, and 1996 when there was neither depth nor much in the way of cream.

I suppose most are already aware of this, but this is the one shining light amidst the despair of missing the cup. It feels and looks like we're entering a period where we have in place the potential talent to stand astride the region, or seriously compete with Mexico again over the next 15 years for supremacy in the region, and w/this horrifying failure shining like the brightest light in the neighborhood, comlacency will be very difficult to justify.

We just need to hire the right GM, give him legit powers, and then hire a talented, innovative coach with a legit CV. Big Ask's all. But certainly possible.

 

The wings who have been getting minutes are Pulisic, Gooch, Bwana, Shea, Amon, Arriola, Manneh, Saief, Mines, Mueller, Wenger, Baird, Pontius, and McCrary.

 

There are literally 5 names on that list I don’t know. Bwana, Mines, Mueller, Baird, McCrary.

 

Did he need someone else to make him run to the corner flag?

 

You are a little off with the hights. McKennie is 5'10 and Bradley is 6'2

 

Do you need to go back 8 years to try to make a point? I think that "Bradley" has gone in a ship.

 

I think Bradley's only 6'0. He's also very bad in the air.

 

The v Portugal match. Bradley is a legit 6'2, Dempsey 6'1" while Jones is barely 6'.

Note that Deuce, Jones, and Howard made the FIFA top 50 players of WC2014!

 

In the GC, Bradley outperformed the other center-mids. He outperformed them in WCQing. He outperformed them in MLS Playoffs and MLS Cup. He outperformed them in CCL.Yet, he doesn't have it anymore

 

Ewing theory @ work?

http://proxy.espn.com/espn/page2/story?id=1193711

 

Isn't he leading his team of Lions to 3 points so far in MLS?

 

Unfair.

TFC is favored to win the CCL by way of impressive wins vs. better-than-MLS teams.