USA U16s will play Turkey, Norway, and Romania in the group stage of the Aegan Cup in Turkey. First match for the US is January 19th vs Romania. Last year the US won this tournament with our present U17s, however, this tournament is made up of '99s. Carlos Avilez, FC Dallas Academy Eric Lopez, LA Galaxy Roger Batse, Capitol Area Rail Hawks Ac. Eves McKay, Real Salt Lake Academy Kyle Gruno, Leicester City Daniel Jones, New England Revolution Ac. Matthew Real, Philadelphia Union Ac. Raul Aguilera Jr., Orlando City SC Academy Jose Alfaro Jr., Monarcas Morelia JosevCarranza, DC United Academy Marty Raygoza, FC Golden State Academy Nicholas Taitague, Richmond United Academy Juan Torres, Georgia United Academy Lucas Del Rosario, Capitol Area Rail Hawks Ac. Jonathan Gonzalez, CF Monterrey Leo Marquez, Leon FC Justin Rennicks, New England Revolution Ac. Adolfo Trujillo, De Anza Force Academy http://www.tff.org/default.aspx?pageID=1305
http://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2015/01/12/13/45/150112-u16bnt-aegean-cup-in-turkey Official roster announcement is here. Seeing Shaun Tsakiris and Luchi Gonzalez in charge makes me happy, especially since they didn't seem to make homer roster picks. On the other hand, seeing 0 kids selected from non-DA US clubs makes me sad (but isn't unexpected). By the looks of things, there are only 6 non-Hispanic players in this squad, and 5 of those 6 are defenders.
U.S. Soccer YNT @ussoccer_ynt · 7h 7 hours ago U-16 #USBNT training for Aegean Cup in Turkey! USA faces Romania on Mon.
Dr Pepper Dallas Cup @dallascup · 1h 1 hour ago U16 BNT 2-0 over Romania in the opening Aegean Cup game. Justin Rennick & Adrian Villegas scorers http://fb.me/30P61gGd0
Still haven't found the starting lineup for the Romania game, but some of the players' tweets are providing some additional info. For example, Jose Alfaro, Jr. got one of the assists. Tute @Tute_36 · 31m 31 minutes ago Its always an honor to represent my country #1N1T Can anyone identify the players?
Sorry, meant to say Jose Carranza got an assist: jose c@JCarranza99 2h2 hours ago beat Romania 2-0, happy to get an assist, now preparing for our match vs. Norway tomorrow
Carlos Avilez, FC Dallas Academy 1-Eric Lopez, LA Galaxy Roger Batse, Capitol Area Rail Hawks Ac. 4-Eves McKay, Real Salt Lake Academy Kyle Gruno, Leicester City Daniel Jones, New England Revolution Ac. Matthew Real, Philadelphia Union Ac. Raul Aguilera Jr., Orlando City SC Academy Jose Alfaro Jr., Monarcas Morelia 10-Jose Carranza, DC United Academy Marty Raygoza, FC Golden State Academy Nicholas Taitague, Richmond United Academy 6-Juan Torres, Georgia United Academy 9-Lucas Del Rosario, Capitol Area Rail Hawks Ac. 13-Jonathan Gonzalez, CF Monterrey Leo Marquez, Leon FC 7-Justin Rennicks, New England Revolution Ac. 11-Adolfo Trujillo, De Anza Force Academy
Birthdates Jan - 5 Feb - 3 Mar - 3 Apr - 3 May - 0 Jun - 0 Jul - 2 Aug - 1 Sep - 1 Oct - 0 Nov - 0 Dec - 0 If this is what we continue to do at the U16 level, imagine how maturity-based our younger age selections must be.
If every other country wasn't doing this I'd call this a problem but you can just go through the rosters of this tournament and see that all rosters are skewed this way. I don't think the remedy is changing player selection. The remedy is to have proper infrastructure to develop the players that have missed out on selection.
I don't see "other countries make the same mistake" as a valid excuse. We spend lots of money scouting and training these early maturing children and then we (1) complain when they get overtaken and (2) under-fund national team programs at older, more appropriate ages
Players being overtaken is the main part of developmental scouting. The issue I have is we have no institutional method to view this common phenomena and quickly adjust accordingly. There is no way Conor Donovan should be the top CB for his age and no way Thomas McCabe is this country's second best DM for 17 yr olds in the US. We have very limited methods to see players weekly and promote and demote players. We have too much selection intertia going on.
Please watch the turnover by US CB (#16?) that resulted in the goal by Turkey. To me, that kind of player should never be selected by national team. I know he is tall, probably very fast too. But he has no soccer brain. He doesn't understand that the very basic principle of soccer is deception. His pass is so obvious. He panicked too under pressure, that should disqualify him as a CB right there. In short, he is lacking the critical quality to be a top soccer player, yet he plays for US youth national team. US doesn't know how to select players, period. It's not he made a mistake. Young players can make and will make many mistakes. It's how he made the mistake that tells me that US coaches and scouts are completely clueless on how to select players
Don't these two statements contradict each other. In theory wouldn't even the correct top young player selection make mistakes like this?
A real soccer player makes mistakes such as bad control of the ball, miss on his pass. He just made one bad pass. So how is that different? The major difference is: he passed the ball without any deception and looked at his target all the way. That is the sign of a bad player. A top player would not do that. Even worse, he panicked when he's pressed. That is another bad sign.