Reading my “watched threads” I find myself more and more frequently scrolling to the top thread title to find out what the hell the topic is supposed to be as you sure wouldn’t know that from the posts.
a european player summer camp is an interesting idea as a pair with camp cupcake. it's odd that we talk about cupcake like it's getting a jump on fitness before mls spring training -- like we are doing them a favor -- but then europe, "they need their rest." why can't you do what we do with u20s, u23s sometimes, a camp just for the europeans, held there. time it right and find a friendly or two to justify it all. or maybe fly them over at the end if other teams just have to play us here. thing being those u20 type camps are not usually for the elite players, it's a tryout camp just the same. so this is to give sabbi and amon and weah and on and on some games. i am sure there are plenty of europeans who would see it like the MLS players do. give me my shot. i could use the fitness. i could use the showcase. pulisic might be with the regular team. pulisic might rest. but that doesn't really say you can't have a tryout camp for the ones like wood who could use something. you could even have the first team over here playing their own may and june games. and then instead of people get cut, ok, you can play for US B or US Europe over there, not have to travel more than a few hundred miles. have an assistant run it and then bring end the head at the end for the match maybe. i also like the split squad idea and that can be A and B or it can be even split. i kind of don't want marginal scared kids getting their only chance with third teamer no hopers. i'd rather they be with some first teamers where i can calibrate what i am seeing. i thought sargent was hard done by for the crew he was having to try and carry. you could maybe even hold a tournament. there used to be USA Cup. USA A, USA Europe, two invitees. criss-cross for a final and 3rd place game. 2 games. if the two US teams win then you get your squad scrimmage.
Italy did the B team thing when we friendlied them last year. One team played LoN. Another team played us. Two camps. Two teams. hence our game was in Belgium. I think you might have a theoretical issue on explicit B teams with securing rights if you explicitly called it B team. Maybe they might argue I don't have to release that. Ways around that: camp cupcake is an offseason camp (no release needed) camp Europe would be their own offseason camp (no release needed) have the usual two friendly international date, and call both "a" games but have two different rosters for two different games. like italy. they cannot deny a call for players for an "a" game. you just ask for different people for different games, have them released the amount of time allowed for that game, camp them for that game, play the game. maybe back of your head LoN is first team and the off-brand friendly is the second team. but if you don't say that i don't know if they can say no on an international date. teams just wouldn't think of that because they're like i need them for that full week and 2 games to milk the date. if you let go of that concept, you could literally run two teams. in some ways we already do it, send people home after the first game, run out a fairly new team. just make it literally another 18 people. and i also think that in the offseason for a set of players you could do whatever you want if there were willing participants. i am sure we could find 18 marginal senior players to play for US Europe without needing a release, same time USA A Team did official callups. a skeptic might question the value, but to me it would probably be camp cupcake across the pond, with the pluses and minuses. how do all these prospects and random guys look? we can theorize or we can run them out. i'd think a ton of teams wouldn't think of it or wouldn't bother because everyone is on the same basic schedule. it would be primarily a handful of Americas teams that could run this sort of two-track approach. US, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil.