http://yanks-abroad.com/content.php?mode=news&id=001049 Feckin sweet. Altidore is in the squad. He could be the suprise of our team.Definitly starting to get real pumped about Peru.
Props to Hackworth for making a number of changes since the qualifying roster. At that age, the pecking order can change quite a bit over six months. Players from the qualifying roster that were dropped:Ababio, Borja, Edgar, Lichaj (injury). Players added for the finals: Altidore, Kelly, Restrepo, Kirk (was injured for the qualifiers), the brothers Farfan.
Maximum Optimal I don´t have so much idea about your U17. I follow mostly your USMNT. But maybe you or someone else here could give me quick summary about the players you are talking about. I have never seen them to play. But I´m interested to know them more since I want to be perfect at american soccer: Who is your biggest stars from U17? Freddy Adu is not 17 yet. So he might play as well. I suppose based on age. Thank you very much. bltleo GERMANY
Dear bltleo, Sandon Mibut was kind enough to provide the information you would like in this thread. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=235135 the one titled Rule of 4. Maybe the title will refresh your memory.
Freddy is barred from playing-- tourney rules allow you only one appeareance and he played a few years back (in Norway). Had a hat-trick in the first match.
The U.S. Soccer website article only lists Altidore (11/6/89) & Brian Perk (7/21/89) as 89s. I show Daniel Kelly (3/29/89) as another 89. Altidore will still be 15 at the tournament. Pretty impressive. http://www.ussoccer.com/news/fullstory.sps?iNewsid=235574&itype=113&iCategoryID=0
Just five defenders seems a bit thin. Is this team playing with three or four in the back? Can any of the mids play in the back as well? For that matter, anyone with a clue care to hazard a guess at a starting lineup?
The team plays four in the back: Alston - Sarkordie - Wagner - Igwe ...or something like that. Their are many bench players that are very versitile and can be excellence subs in the defense. Besagno, Kelly and Hall are some players listed in the midfield but will probably drop back and help on defense just as much as being a midfielder. Personally I hope Besagno sees some time in defense, I think his future is in the back with our abundence of defensive mids at different stages in the pipeline.
I know that some of them may yet get taller, but there's not a lot of height there. According to U.S. Soccer, Alston is listed at 5'7", Besagno 6'0", Hall 5'9", Igwe 5'11", Sarkodie 5'8", Subotic 6'4", Wagner 5'9". Besagno & Subotic are both midfielders.
With Gooch and Marshall, we are going to be set for a while in terms of height at central defense. I've seen Sarkodie play a couple times and he looks bigger than 5'8. More importantly, he plays a lot bigger than whatever his size is. Good in the air and outstanding when it comes to muscling a forward off the ball without fouling him.
Just a guess going by recent lineups F - Preston Zimmerman F - David Arvizu M - Ryan Soroka M - Kyle Nakazawa M - ? Maybee Besagno but didnt see anytime there with the "a" team in the recent friendlies M - Quavas Kirk LB - Blake Wagner/Amaechi Igwe CB - Blake Wagner/Amaechi Igwe CB - Ofori Sarkodie RB - Kevin Alston GK - Brynat Rueckner
Looks right to me IMOX77. I'd guess it's how we start as well. I expect Zimmerman to score a bunch....but you know me, I'm biased.
In most cases, the height and weight listed is the same as when the player entered the residency program. If you have concern about those numbers, you are barking up the wrong tree. In fact, the idea is to surprise the teams that are not as familiar with the US roster.
Final roster named for U17 National Team as team leaves for Peru, full preview here; Confidence high after good results against China and Gambia; 89s/90s continue international success in England by Robert Ziegler 9/8/2005 For Kyle Nakazawa and 19 others it’s finally time. The U.S. U17 National Team leaves this weekend for Peru where next week they will begin the FIFA World Championship for their age group. Nakazawa and a handful of other players on the team remain from the group of 1988 birth year players who first arrived two years ago at the grounds of the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, where the U17 team is in residency. [full article at www.topdrawersoccer.com ]
I haven't been following the details, but I thought that big Omar Gonzalez kid had cracked the starting lineup?
Some good news on the birthdate bias front ... this is the youngest squad we've ever sent to the U-17 World Cup. When residency began in 1999, the average birthdate on the squad was in May; this year, it's in August (counting a November-a-year-up player like Altidore as if he had been born in the 23rd month of 1988). I went back and looked at all 202 U-17's in US history to check out their accomplishments. Here are the players from each group who have earned at least 10 career caps, or who have recently been called up to the national team... Oldest 25% Mike Burns, Chad Deering 26-50% Landon Donovan, Eddie Johnson, Taylor Twellman, Dan Califf 51-75% Damarcus Beasley, Oguchi Onyewu, Tim Howard, Chad Marshall, Nick Garcia Youngest 25% Claudio Reyna, John O'Brien, Bobby Convey, Santino Quaranta, Justin Mapp, Eddie Gaven Obviously, no age category has a particularly good track record, but there does seem to be a pattern where the older players are less productive. That said, Landon Donovan was only born 10 days after the cutoff for the oldest 25%, so it's not as if there's any hard-and-fast rule. Also (mostly for Sandon), the 25 youngest U-17s of all time ... 1. Freddy Adu 2. Josmer Altidore 3. Gus Kartes 4. Jason Moore 5. Imad Baba 6. Brian Perk 7. Troy Garner 8. Craig Capano 9. Lyle Yorks (now agent to Beasley, Nelsen, etc.) 10. Danny Szetela 11. Steve Cronin 12. Bobby Convey 13. John Cairel 14. Dan Kelly 15. Josh Espinosa 16. Andy Kirk 17. Chris Hillyer 18. Julian Valentin 19. Stephen Sandbo 20. Raul Palomares 21. Neil Covone 22. John O'Brien 23. AJ Wood 24. Gil Kang 25. Marshall Leonard (26. Claudio Reyna)
Soulgoal - you're only allowed to post a paragraph or so of an article, then post a link- Rob worked hard on the story - he deserves his hits.
I think it's pretty damning of the fact that U-17 (and U-20) teams and programs that are built on "current talent levels" I think it shows that the younger players who are able to play "up" with the older kids are, in fact, better - and when the age difference evens out, they'll be more likely to be better players. A lot of "plateau", but born in January of 19xx, players get into the various YNT programs due more to the fact that the extra months of physical development make them appear equal or better than players who, in fact, are likely to end up being better. Pitty the "average" player born in December.
Numerista's numbers are yet another interesting variation of the age bias issue. But as he noted the yield for each quartile is quite low--six out of 50 for the youngest quartile. Looking at relative yields, they are roughly 4% for the oldest quartile and 12% for the youngest. So it's possible if we had a "quota" system that shifted ten of the Bradenton slots from the oldest to the youngest quartile that we would uncover an extra player for the national team. For a couple of reasons, I suspect that this overstates the effect such a quota system would have. First, talent usually finds its way in this world and a "youngest quartile" kid who is really talented but doesn't get invited to Bradenton will probably develop into a national teamer anyway. Now that Bradenton has been around a while, it will be interesting to see who the first non-Bradenton impact player for the Nats will be (Ricardo Clark? Clint Dempsey? Wynne? Fielhaber?). Second, there are probably diminishing returns for all the quartiles, which means that the yield for the youngest quartile would drop if we gave more Bradenton spots to that group.
The likely fact is that Bradenton probably won't be around in 10 years - having been replaced by MLS team academies.
You raise interesting points, such as diminishing returns, but I'm not sure the numbers are as clear as you suggest. For instance, your recent "rule of four" post suggests that in the current era we might expect a yield as high as 20%. Today, our U-17s have world-class development opportunities. In the past, they didn't. There is also a possibility of more insidious effects through the birthdate bias. How much did Chad Deering's national reputation as a U-17 help him secure an opportunity with Schalke? (Unlike Reyna, he wasn't an extraordinary college player.) How much was Mike Burns' career advanced by being a U17 and the ODP's darling? At the international level, these were lackluster performers, and it's reasonable to question whether there might've been American prospects with better talent but worse birthdays. Ricardo Clark and Clint Dempsey are good players now, but neither is a shoo-in for Germany. If they had been in residency, might their careers have progressed a bit farther, a bit faster? The accounting isn't as simple as looking at numbers of players.