GOALKEEPERS (4) : Osmar Chavero (Houston Dynamo; Pearland, Texas), Nicolas Defreitas-Hansen (Weston FC; Southwest Ranches, Fla.), Joseph McNally (Celtic, Mount Airy, Md.), Alex Rando (New York Red Bulls; New York, N.Y.) DEFENDERS (13): Dominic De Almeida (Players Development Academy; Lincoln Park, N.J.), Cameron Duke (Sporting Kansas City; Olathe, Kan.), Paul Elliott (Colorado Rapids; Denver, Colo.), Nicholas Fernandez (Chicago Fire; Downers Grove, Ill.), Abraham Gonzalez (FC Golden State; Riverside, Calif.), Luke Hansen (Colorado Rush; Littleton, Colo.), John Hilton (Unattached; Long Beach, Calif.), Cesar Rivera (Chivas USA; Los Angeles, Calif.), Leonardo Sepulveda (Empire SC; Corona, Calif.), Sebastian Serpa (Weston FC; Miami Beach, Fla.), Travian Sousa (Ballistic United SC; Lathrop, Calif.), Elias Thomas (VFL Wolfsburg; Schwülper, Germany), Joseph Zarra (Oakwood SC, Cheshire, Conn.) MIDFIELDERS (9): Efrain Alvarez (Chivas USA; Los Angeles, Calif.), Timothy Bielic (Sockers FC; Arlington Heights, Ill.), Bryce Blevins (Liverpool FC; Plainfield, Ill.), Taylor Booth (La Roca; Eden, Utah), Roberto Hategan (San Juan SC; Roseville, Calif.), Danny Jara (New York Red Bulls; Bayside, N.Y.), Oliver Larraz (Colorado Rapids; Denver, Colo.), David Palomino (Houston Dynamo; Houston, Texas), Matteo Ritaccio (BW Gotschee; Westbury, N.Y.) FORWARDS (10): Mario Anaya (Ballistic United SC; Livermore, Calif.), Luis Arriaga (Santa Rosa; Santa Rosa, Calif.), Eduardo Blancas (Napa FC; Napa, Calif.), Konrad de la Fuente (FC Barcelona; Barcelona, Spain), Ulysses Llanez (Chivas USA; Lynwood, Calif.), Eder Mosquera (BW Gotschee; Bay Shore, N.Y.), Jose Rivas (Weston FC; Weston, Fla.), Gabriel Segal (Bethesda-Olney; Bethesda, Md.), Grant Vernon (Lonestar SC; Austin, Texas), Kejiel Watt (New York Red Bulls; Springfield Gardens, N.Y.) http://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2014/12/31/05/36/141231-u14bnt-camp-in-florida Konrad de la Fuente at Barcelona gets his first call-up among some other YA academy kids at Wolfsburg, Liverpool, and Celtic.
36 total... CA: 11 NJ/NY: 6 CO/UT: 4 TX: 3 FL: 3 IL: 3 MD: 2 Europe: 2 KS/MO: 1 CT/MA: 1 None from VA, OH, PA, or the northwest.... Biggest surprise is three from Colorado.
Hey I've seen Urinetown... Hate to say it but his dad doesn't look tall enough for him to have much of a future at goalkeeper unless he's Rimando 2.0
DA clubs dominating roster::: either scouting is lazy or talent is slowly funneling into DA at younger ages.
Rarely is everything an either or. Talent has always gone to 'bigger' clubs and self concentration of talent is a good thing. With that said we need to ensure we have methods to not only encourage talent to seek their quality development but provide a better alternative to jump to. We also need to have methods to find players from less structured backgrounds in a cost effective logical process. Players need to make themselves be seen too.
Isn't this Josh Pynadath age group too? http://bestplayerintheworld.com/2013/08/video-joshua-pynadath-at-real-madrid/
I'm pretty sure the Celtic kid is at Baltimore Celtic. The one at Liverpool looks intriguing, but I can't find much on him.
I think Pynadath's dob is 2/20/02. This current U14 camp is for '01s, although Efrain Alvarez (Chivas USA) is an '02. I expect to see Pynadath with the next U14 team, sometime in the later part of '15.
The way he controls the ball and glides past defenders with ease, it seems like the ball sticks to his shoes. Reminds me of a young Messi. Not the greatest speed, but great vision, creativity, and deadly finishing ability.
I wouldn't be surprised if its both of those. And the USSF purposefully only taking DA kids to promote/add incentives to kids moving into the DA.
Look at the cities involved. They cover large historically prominent soccer playing metropolitan areas some from great distances with the same clubs instead of many little clubs. To imply USSF is intentionally ignoring kids from non-DA teams is insulting to basic human intelligence. Unintentionally in a country our size is another story that can be improved upon.
Yup. How much of a scouting budget do we think we have for the U14 national team? I'm sure we're sending scouts to the big tournaments and DA events, but we can only cover so much. One of the reasons we set up a U14 DA division is to allow for the ability to scout these kids in that organized manner. I mean, this isn't rocket science. Do folks actually think we're able to scout teams of 12 year olds in Hagerstown, Maryland and Taos, New Mexico? Of course not. These particular criticisms are absurd to me. So what do we do? Do we throw our hands up in the air and say "The US is too large, and we don't have a U14 budget that allows us to scout in every nook and cranny!"......................or do we continue to have a U14 camp with the elite kids that we're able to uncover in the more targeted, soccer rich areas like California, Texas, Northeast, etc. Of course we choose to do the best we can and bring in the kids that we can from the DA-rich areas. And of course anybody who thinks these USYNT U14 rosters are a true reflection of the best U14 talent in the country is delusional in the first place.
By the way in case folks noticed that there are no FCD players on this roster, their U14 team will be in Bolivia at the Mundialito Tahuichi starting Jan. 4th. There's a group of players in the FCD U14 team that would warrant inclusion in a US U14 squad. Although their U14 team hasn't gotten great results this season, the FCD staff isn't concerned about results at that level. As none of us should frankly be. The star of their U14 team is Jesus Ferreira, son of David Ferreira. He's scored 6 goals in 8 games. He's likely not a US citizen at this point, though.
After reading Clint's posts, I took a peek at FC Dallas' U14 roster, and the GK who starts most of their games is listed at 5'3. Of course, at this age, there is still plenty of time to grow.
In this age group, we shouldn't be worried about size, height, etc. at all. Did people watch the Southampton special last night on NBCSN? I believe they mentioned that as a 15 year old Gareth Bale was really small (I can't remember the exact number, but I think it was something like 5'4"). You don't worry about this type of thing until kids get to be about 18.
Bryce is playing for Liverpool academy (the real one in England). He has played against other famous youth teams like Barca and Espanyol in Europe. He lives and goes to school in Liverpool. He would have been to U15 BNT CAMP, had it not been schedule conflict, even though he is very young (Dec 01). He and my son just came back from Toronto with first ever US youth Futsal national team. They were roommates together. He is a very skillful player who would do lovely moves at the game. Very likable kid too.
I don't think Jesus Ferreira is a national team material after watching him play against my son's team 3 times. You'd hardly notice him. There's really nothing special about him, slightly above average skills, speed (was faster relative to peers a year ago) and soccer IQ. Just a solid academy player and not much more than that
With all due respect, Clint, talking about a tiny place like Taos, New Mexico, is completely mis-representing the problem. Across the Midwest, there is a population of tens of millions, and there is plenty of travel soccer where kids come together and show their abilities. Yet politics being what it is, we usually select a few kids from the western/northwestern Chicago suburbs and little else. Note further that whereas the vast majority of DA U14 minutes go to 2000s, this camp is 2001s, so in picking from the DA, we're starting with an especially small pool. This camp alone will cost well over a thousand dollars per kid, and it sets the stage for the next several years, when we'll surely invest tens of thousands of dollars in quite a few individuals from this camp, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in some of them. With that in mind, the search is more important than the camp itself.
Goalkeeper is the position that probably has the greatest long-term returns to investing in kids that are raw but have impressive physical attributes, and also the position that has the greatest short-term risks in kids that are raw but have impressive physical attributes. I suspect you can tell a lot about a club--or national team--program's overall attitude towards development by looking at their goalies. As for the U14 NT camp, still not sure why it exists other than to put some coaches on the USSF payroll and provide a line in the biographies of future Guam and Philippines national teamers. Seems like the most likely effect is to bias future YNT selections in a negative manner.
How do we get a highly qualified USSF scout at every travel soccer game every weekend for a season in the Midwest or throughout our country. My question is do we want to? Its not politics its logistics. We need to ensure that scouting is a never ending ongoing proposition and doesn't stop with this one camp. Players can't expect to be playing in their local travel teams and have a USSF scout there for every game. We may get there but players have to do their part in being seen too.
I think both sides of the debate are right. There's no question that these rosters are DA-heavy, and there's a lot of talent out there at non-DA teams being left out. Its also true that our scouting department for the US U14 national team is pretty limited. So its likely that if we're going to do some scouting in the Midwest, that it would be major clubs in Chicago (for instance). In fact, its possible that our "scouting" department for the US U14s is a bunch of U14 DA coaches................................(I have no idea who our U14 scouts are or even if we have them.) I'm not so concerned about it. Its the U14s. By the time they're U17s, there's already a ton of turnover. We're ramping up our efforts across all of our age groups, and its a slow grind. Yes, we understand there are issues here.
You scout where the population is. Always been done like that. You then use other methods to find out who the diamonds in the rough are outside population centers. The basic 80/20 rule. Over time you get the necessary eyes on talent. There are many ways to scout. Not always just showing up at a game to see who's playing. It has to be directed, cost effective, referrals, at clubs that have started their own 'scouting' to determine who's good in the region.