This Mexico team was not good at all but the theme of the summer remains and that’s okay scared and give no resistance. Good riddance to this current regime
We go through this every youth tourney. I can go back and find everyone dragging Tyler Adams and saying he was terrible when he played up a year. The team isn't stacked with talent, for sure, but there's more talent there than people want to admit, and a lot of the team's struggles were tied to the youth.
That was a terrible performance by... A) Our squad B) Our coaching staff C) The referee D) The homophobic Mexican fans E) All of the above. Pretty clearly E for me.
The two obvious ones for me are Cremaschi and Akinmboni. Other more informed posters can name others. There's also been a number of high profile 2005s who have switched to other NTs.
Hopefully (for their sake) a handful will be serviceable professional players at some level; that is the best they can hope for as I see it.
I usually agree. I don’t know whether it’s because they triggered me today but with our raised level some of these players lack the difference making needed for the usmnt
* Dual nat that may not select us Cole Campbell Noahkai Banks* Matai Akinmboni Benja Cremaschi Reed Baker-Whiting Leo Duru* Josh Wynder Gavin Beavers Serge Ngoma (hurt) Diego Kochen Fidel Barajas* Kristian Fletcher (not sure he was not released or simply not selected) Tarik Scott (see above) CJ Olney (not selected, I suspect) Matt Corcoran (not selected?) Those are all 2005s or 2006s that aren't there for one reason or another. The midfield wouldn't change that much, but the defense is better, and the attack wouldn't have been 16 and 17 year olds -- thought there's still no real striker. We're also missing Obed Vargas (Mexico, permanently), Noel Buck (England, for now), and Esmir Baraktarevic (Bosnia, rumored). All of whom start on this team.
Berchimas is going to be a star. I think Vazquez gets some caps. Habroune. Medina and Tsakiris will get cups of coffee. Soma might. Noah Cobb and Beaudry might. I thought Ramos was pretty good for a 2007, and Gozo feels like a lottery ticket but the upside is pretty strong. Figueroa is another lottery ticket just on physical tools. In terms of a successful pool, a U20 team needs to give you 1-2 starter caliber, 1-2 pool guys and a couple more for depth. I think this is somewhat of a weak group because the best are actually in the NEXT U20 group, but you really don't need a ton to make it from the U20 team, especially the CONCACAF version which is always missing a few guys.
If they were selected, Fletcher & Akinmboni were not released by DC United. They were needed by the senior team which is very under-staffed, and Fletcher picked up a knock as well.
While losing sucks, especially to Mexico, it’s really not as bad as it seems or a negative on the potential of the 05/06’s. We were missing these players: Benja Cremaschi (Olympics) Esmir (either not released or possibly defecting) Noel Buck (tied to England) Reed Baker-Whiting (not released) Kristian Fletcher (not released) Obed Vargas (defected to Mexico) Josh Wynder (not released) Gavin Beavers (not released) Serge Ngoma (injured) Drew Murray (not sure why he wasn’t called in) Rodrigo Neri (potentially declined because of a transfer?) Emmanuel Ochoa (playing for Mexico) Jonathan Villal (playing for Mexico) That’s 11 05’s right there that would have made a big difference for this team. Now we can’t forget about the 06’s not called in: Diego Kochen (not released, with Barca’s first team) NoahKai Banks (not released) Matai Akinmboni (not released) Cole Campbell (not released) Fidel Barajas (provisionally tied to Mexico) These age groups will be fine and are on track to produce their quota for the usmnt. A largely second string team with mostly 06’s, and an 07 and 08 starting just went head to head with Mexico’s 2005 A-team on their home turf and nearly won. The program is progressing. Keep in mind, most of the people who closely track the YNT pool consider the 05/06’s to be rather weak and they’re still able to pull this off with a second/third choice group
If Berchimas becomes a star and key winger for the USMNT then I will be pleased overall. This team played scared down the stretch which bothers me but it did seem like somewhat of a B team and they still would have won if the referee had stopped the game after 5 like he should have. I think tempers are high because it has been such a poor summer overall for the US but I still think there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic. Not sure there are many difference makers on this roster outside of Berchimas but it was a young squad given the U20 line.
As far as the pool, my sense is it's average to above average at every position except FB. Average in MF (which makes the most difference in results), but probably above average at GK, CB, W, & CF.
I trust we'll have a new coach for the u20 WC. A more inspired hire like Tab & Mikey were. for the pool. We often don't have very advanced CF's by this point. Our last cycle just had Pepi & then we went w/ false 9's cuz of lack of confidence, which is how we played it in the successive u23's too. This group has Figueroa. Don't know why he wasn't played much here. Neri was left off. Fletcher may be a 9 in the end. Zambrano & Gozo seem like raw guys who could mold into something.
I don't like the performance or the gameplan. I thought the overall choices of the coach didn't even really seem to make sense with each other. I also think this U20 cycle is a down cycle even if we got all the releases. Maybe closer to good if we didn't lose some guys. I just don't think it is indicative of much in the talent pool overall, and I would even be cautious with using this because the age thing is real. Of course, we're playing underage players in part because the 2005s clearly aren't deep. What I do think is becoming a habit is that despite claiming that we want to build this youth pipeline, the coaching choices don't seem to have much rhyme or reason. There seems to be no clear objective -- the roster is speculative and prospect driven, perhaps by need, but the coaching is cynical? I don't mind the Olympic and U20 teams losing in the sense that neither had a strong roster due in large part to release issues, but despite all the talk of having a vertically integrated program, both teams reeked of weird coaching-level choices. Stop letting these coaches have this level of control over player selection and strategic choices -- they simply aren't good enough to trust with that.
I don’t think it’s fair that we are too hard on this group. You go this tournament to qualify, and they managed to do that. As for the results. They snuck by Guatemala and Panama and then were thoroughly outplayed by Mexico. What stings is we could/should have stolen the result right under Mexicos nose. The naivety and lack of ability to close that out is what really hurts. Whether that is coaching or simply lack of game management by the players, who knows.
No idea. It's not just that the ideas didn't work -- they just seem internally inconsistent. If that's the gameplan, I'd rather skip the U20 World Cup.
Its not the regime, its the culture that is set by the board and the president. Competing for trophies outside the region is not a priority. This is reinforced by a generation of players who are not compelled by national team goals to do difficult things. Loser culture, loser mentality.
Wow. That was a truly awful performance. So hard to believe that the local ODP team wouldn’t be better. The added time was sus, but Mexico was so much better it’s hard to argue the outcome. Looks like another missing generation coming based on that game. Sad to see that even with all the insistence on improving technical ability, Mexico is still way ahead on that front.
I think this is giving this specific game too much credit. Mexico is not on the rise. This is close to the best they got. Maybe add Obed Vargas and Fidel Barajas to the mix (two US-developed players that quite easily could've and in the case of Barajas might be US players), and this is their group. They controlled possession today, but they did not look overly threatening. This is not a Mexico team where I'm wowed at how dynamic and dangerous they look with future top leagues talents. Some of the kids they had on the field looked like non-pros to me. Bad athletes, and not capable of making up for it with special tactical/technical skills. This US team was a C or D team. Close to like the 10 best 05's/06's weren't there (hypothetically Cremaschi, Bajraktarevic, RBW, Buck, Fletcher, Beavers, Banks, Kochen, Akinmboni). So that's 9 I just named I think are pretty indisputably at this point better prospects than any of our 05's/06's on this team. Then you can maybe say Tsakiris or Raines or Soma or Habroune are next best, so it's probably that none of the true USMNT potential players in '05/'06 are there. There's nothing to be concerned about long-term out of this game because essentially none of these guys (other than Berchimas who scored a wonder-goal and more than delivered) have a big future with the USMNT. They were just the guys that were available at a terrible time for qualifiers to participate.
I'll say this about Nsien. I've always thought he was very overrated. I know there are some people that like him, but for me it's always been an uphill battle. His U-16 teams were a disaster to watch. He'd pick every kid he can find that is a bad athlete and has very little chance to eventually be a successful pro. This current team is the most unathletic major USYNT I've ever seen. I think there are exactly 3 above-average athletes on this team (Berchimas, Gozo, and Figueroa), and there are a number of straight up bad athletes on this team. He only had mild success with the Pan Am's roster because I presume he didn't actually pick the team. Probably came from Mitrovic (as it was a U-23 "B" roster essentially and Nsien hadn't coached that group at all prior). So in a sense, he did okay with the Pan-Am team where the expectations were zero and he probably had no input on the roster, but his roster selections have always been abysmal and just in general he tries to play an unrealistic brand of football. I'd have no problem with him being sacked. Maybe harsh to do that after losing a confederation final and he didn't really have his best players available (which also isn't exactly his fault), but at the same time I'm not sure he's actually a good coach and deserved to be promoted to the U-20 coach at the beginning of the year. It just reeked of a "we have him on staff and we're cheap, so we're going to give it to him" type of decision. Similar to keeping Segares as U-17 coach after the disastrous last cycle he had. No, I think he had it right and you got this one wrong. The difference this time is that this is nowhere near our full strength team. If it was and we got these results, I'd agree, but there are always a limited numbers of players that make it big and it's probably not going to be these guys that their teams had no issue releasing in the middle of the MLS season or the Euro preseason. The players of real value to their clubs right now weren't available for this tournament.