Ricardo Clark, 90 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists Solid game, very strong defensively and quite comortable on the ball and dangerous when going forward. Mike Magee, 64 minutes, 1 goal, 0 assists Got a chance and buried it with authority. At times combined well but also not a factor for long stretches. Jacob LeBlanc, 4 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists Came in as a tactical switch and helped wind the clock down. Didn't do too much but just the fact that he was chosen to be in there says something about where he is in the pecking order. Kyle Martino, 90 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists Played well, again, but often tried to do too much. Not as much of an impact as recent games but still created trouble for the opponent. Did a nice job at times tracking back and worked hard to show for the ball. I'm a big fan of Jordan Stone but I see why Thomas Rongen sits him in favor of Clark on the 20s. Clark is special, just a great athlete with tactical awareness, technical skill and phenomenal athleticism. I knew he was good but he is better than I thought he'd be this soon. (That's for you, Tron!) And, I gotta throw out an assist here to Richie Williams, whose presence takes a lot of pressure off Clark to handle all of the defense by himself. Martino had a bad game, by his standards, and still impressed at times, which speaks of where he is going as a player. Still needs to play faster and simpler at times but really is a true creative attacking center mid and its fun watching him develop. Credit needs to go to Greg Andrulis for having the stones to let the kid QB his attack. I have a social engagement my wife roped me into so I won't be able to see an many games as I'd like this evening so I'll need others to fill in.
i thought clark played a great game... had some solid passing and what not... didn't try and do too much i also thought martino was holding on the ball a bit long... hopefully he'll learn to release the ball sooner, even if it does mean to drop the ball back... as for magee... great one timer on a poor shot from jolley... just crushed it... loved that
I screwed up and didn’t set on of my VCRs (and the irony is I bought a second one, used, just to tape soccer games shown simultaneously!) last night so I only ended up with a tape of the Chicago-KC game, which turned out to be quite entertaining and featured several U23 players. DaMarcus Beasley – 90 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists. Playing more centrally, drew a lot of fouls and, after a sluggish start, combined well with Andy Williams in the middle. Jose Burciaga – 90 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists. Got knocked around a bit was still strong for most of the game, but made fatal mistake and got schooled by Ralph on game-winning goal. Showed well going forward, which I hadn’t seen in previous games. Kelly Gray – 3 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists. Played central mid coming in as a defensive sub to help kill the clock. Brought a lot of energy and showed good awareness, combined well with his teammates in brief showing. Logan Pause – 90 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists. Struggled some with Preki in the first half but showed nice resiliency and did a nice job neutralizing Preki in the second half. So, I didn’t see these games but here are the stats for the other U23 players in MLS on Saturday. Hopefully those of you who saw these games can offer some opinions. Kyle Beckerman – 100 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists Bobby Convey – 100 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists Brad Davis – 45 minutes, 0 goals, 1 assist Landon Donovan – 90 minutes, 1 goal, 0 assists Eddie Johnson – 90 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists Santino Quaranta – 67 minutes, 0 goals, 1 assist Casey Schmidt – 10 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists *It’s good to see Johnson and Beckerman get starts and Davis to get more minutes. *I heard Mooch talked at halftime of the DC-Colorado game. Any word on what he said? *Hard to believe a year ago we were bemoaning not having any good D-mids at the U23 level and now we’ve got Clark, Pause, Gray and Stone all playing (though Stone didn’t play yesterday) and Brian Carroll and Jesus Ochoa on the benches of MLS teams. Suddenly that position has become a strength. *I like Beasley in this new role because it will make him more dangerous and valuable to the 23s. I imagine a very fluid central MF in Athens where there is a lot of switching and guys going from place to place on the field. * Did Landon play forward or attacking mid? *Would like to see Gray get more minutes. I know as the season progresses he’ll get his chances but the kid has some promise and needs to play more than just 10 minutes per. *I wonder if Schmidt has played his way into an invite for the nest U23 camp?
i think gray's minutes are going to be determined by injury, suspensions and score as he's going to go farther down the list as razov and marsch come back from suspension and injury, respectively
Sandon, caught most of the Mooch interview as play went on. Nothing earthshattering in what he said to Johnson/Rongen, honestly.
Donovan played forward, but came back well into midfield to win the ball. Played with a lot of energy, and at one point had the ball taken from him and tracked back all the way into the defensive third, hounding the guy to win the ball back. Good game for him. Looking very strong and focused.
1. Ricardo Clark played well. He is smooth; he glides around the field. He also has good endurance, is a good passer of the ball and usually makes good decisions. He has some nice spin-moves that enable him to create space for himself in midfield. For Olympic Qualifying, Clark should be a candidate to start at d-mid. One weakness: He should try to take the ball off of players more frequently than he did yesterday. A few times, he let a player (e.g., Martino) dance in front of him with the ball. Clark seems quick and precise enough that he can just dispossess players, the way that Mastroeni does. 2. For Olympic Qualifying, Kyle Martino should receive consideration for a starting midfield position. He sometimes tries the high-risk play when, even if he were to execute the play, it wouldn't achieve much more than the simple pass. But, as Norberto Longo might have said of Martino, "El tiene ideas." He has the confidence and decision-making ability to quickly assess the field and initiate a threatening play. He also -- in just a split-second -- can get his feet to do interesting things. 3. In last night's DC United match, Bobby Convey played much better in the second-half than he did in the first. Like many flank players, the game doesn't always come to him. He gets left out on island. That happened in the first-half. During the second half, Convey hunted the game down, and when he got the ball, he advanced it with authority. During the match, Thomas Rongen, the color-commentator for the match, made a good point, namely that Convey is such a talented player that if the game doesn't come to him, he must simply go and find it. 4. Logan Pause is someone to keep an eye on. He seems to complete a high-percentage of his passes. He also takes good positions in midfield.
During the 2nd half he got to play much more centrally and then got involved in the game more. --I was impressed with Santino on his assist. It was a pretty example of build-up to a goal. Etchevarry passed to tino who had his back to goal about 35 yards from goal near the right sideline. Ben Olsen was racing down the sideline and Tino played a pretty one-time pass to him and then made a run to goal. Once Ben got to the endline Tino cut back towards him, received the ball in the penalty area with back to goal and a defender on his back and laid a pass off to Etch who hit the ball first time for the goal.
from sandon: "I like Beasley in this new role because it will make him more dangerous and valuable to the 23s. I imagine a very fluid central MF in Athens where there is a lot of switching and guys going from place to place on the field." ------------------------------------------------ sandon, we may not make athens. qualifying is in mexico, i think, and concacaf gets 2 teams and that's it. mexico, costa rica, canada and the u.s. all have pretty good u23 teams. it's gonna be tough. let's not count our chickens yet.
Ricardo Clarke looks and plays like a Brazilian or Colombian player. He has long stride and not move too frequently, but is pretty good when he took off. He will end up in Europe very soon. He is definatley a starting material in U-23.
We have to. We have to win the whole thing in Olympics and geer up for 2006. I haven't see anyone from Mexico or Canada are as good as Buddle, Donovan, Beasley, Convey, Martino who are Senior National Team players. Costa Rica may have a kid in Seria B, but US is fully loaded.
why do we have to win the whole thing? i still don't want players like donovan and beasley to play in the olympics
Is Dunivant 23 or under? Or this only a U-23 thread for players who've played on the U-23 team and are eligible for the Olympics? In any case, he had another solid game. Cobi beat him once or twice to get off crosses, but only later in the game when the Galaxy were throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the attack. He gets up and down the field well. Donovan's goal was a PK by the way. He actually wasn't involved as much in the offense as I think he should be, and Yallop in a post-game interview seemed to agree with me.
Dunivant is under 23 but he missed being eligible for the current U23 team by less than a week. Dunivant was born 12/26/80 and to be eligible for the current U23 team (and the last U20 team) you had to be born on or after Jan. 1 1981. Here are his Stanford and Quakes bios. http://gostanford.ocsn.com/sports/m-soccer/mtt/dunivant_todd00.html http://www.sjearthquakes.com/the_team/todddunivant.htm It's a real shame he wasn't born a few days later as he has a really nice left foot and is a very technially and tactically solid player. He's not that athletic but he's a damn good soccer player and he makes up for his lack of outstanding pace with smarts and he would have been a strong contender to be the U23 team's left back. Dunivant represents a real problem that US Soccer has in developing certain players. No one argues that playing on youth national teams enhances a player's development and is a great supplement to college ball and even early MLS careers. And certainly Dunivant is a good enough player to warrant involvement in these teams. But, because of when he was born, he got overlooked and passed over and missed out on these experience. The last youth national team he was age-eliglbe for was the 2000 Olympic teamm which was selected after he had one year of college. He was too old for the U18 team of a few years ago that produced Conor Casey, Brad Davis, Phil Salyer, Edson Buddle, Kyle Martino and Doug Warren. The U17 team he was age-eligible for was the one that competed in 1997 (had Dan Califf and Taylor Twellman). His group for the U20 team was the 99 group that had Bocanegra, Califf, Cherundolo, Gibbs, etc... When they played in the World Youth Championships in March of 99, Dunivant was still in high school and basically had no chance to make that team. He's basically either been too young, developmentally, to play for a youth national team, or just a bit too old to compete for the team's he had a legit chance to make. As good as he is - and along with Rico Clark, he's a frontrunner for Rookie of the Year - how good would he have been if he'd been getting time with the various YNTs while he was at Stanford. And, Dunivant isn't the only player in this boat. Pat Noonan, Matt Behncke, Matt Crawford, Tim Glowinka (Sp.), among others, are all in the same Born-in-1980-Boat and missed out on being develped by our Youth National Team system.
We see more of the birthdate bias at work here. Behncke (born in Feb) was a member of the 1997 U-17 pool and was close to making the final team. Twellman (born in Feb) and Califf (born in March) were among that team's best players, while Nick Downing was an over-rated prospect, thanks perhaps to his January birthdate. Crawford and Noonan were born in August, which didn't help them for the U-17's but probably did help their club soccer careers ... Aug 1 cut-off, right? Dunivant (Dec), Stewart (Jun), and Carrieri (Apr) are the only impact American '80s who didn't have either advantage.
I am becoming a real Logan Pause fan. He had some problems in the first half of the KC game this week, but he came back in the second and completely put the clamps on Preki. Aside from being strong on the tackle, he has good passing technique, can play fast, and takes up good supporting positions. He has been instrumental is helping the Fire earn 5 points in their first three games. I can see why the Fire brain trust were raving about him during pre-season camp.
i don't either. why would you take these guys to play in these games when they're already established at the senior level, just cause they're u-23?
In a phrase, HUGE PR value for the game in this country. The USA public goes nuts over the Olympics, and if we medal, well, the positive vibes will be tremendously helpful for the game. If we don't, no one will care. So it's win win. Beside, LD and DMB have gone on record that they are chomping at the bit to play in the Olympics, and no one's going to stop them. It's all about playing, so let 'em play.
no, but it gives the fire more options for 5 man midfields, which i think sarachan might go with more... after the kc match plus beasley will see lots of national team duty this summer... so pause will get some good playing time... imo, he's ahead of gray for a midfield starting role, although gray can be used to start on defense and as an offensive sub if needed
I orignially thought that Burciaga would get left off this team, but so far he has gotten a lot of minutes and has performed reasonably well. He will be have far more MLS experience than three of his main competitors (Stokes at CB and Lews and Salyer at LB), who have yet to get into a game, when qualifying rolls around. He could push his way into the starting line up. I didn't catch this game but the fact that he was left in for a full game is encouraging. Does anyone who saw the game have any thoughts on his performance?
I was at the game and interested to see how he would do. He played like it was the first MLS game he was starting (which it was). He turned what should have been alot of easy passes into hospital balls and ran around alot but not accomplishing anything in the first half. In the second half he settled down and looked alright in tandem with Pablo, not making as many mistakes. But he seemed to drop further and further back. Definitely nothing to rave about, but with more PT (which he didn't get much of last season either) I think he will become much better.
There's a mention of Herculez Gomez in the Seattle P-I today ... (Gomez isn't 19, though, is he?) [Sounders coach] Schmetzer said, "We're really happy with Herculez Gomez." ... Gomez, 19, perhaps the most promising player on the roster, is on loan from the Galaxy. He will miss the first month of the season after undergoing foot surgery.
Excellent observation. Throw in this birthdate bias with the Bradenton residency variable, and it's easy to see why our existing raw talent is so underdeveloped. Many people say that we already have enough players to win the World Cup and that it's just a matter of developing it the right way.