Not sure this is the correct place for this discussion, but I wanted people to discuss this. While I know the easy answer for most national team coaches is that Player Development is not the job of the national team manager. For a team like Brasil, England, Germany, I get that. They have the luxury of having a huge pool of talent from which to chose. Toni Kroos isn't performing right now, go to Gundogan (missed all the accents, sorry). He's not playing regularly? Go to Goretzka, etc, etc, etc. We don't seem to have that luxury at the moment, so while I get that the USMNT coach should be focused on developing his tactics and gameplan, the job doesn't seem too strenuous that he wouldn't have time to look into the player development aspect of his national team pool? Wouldn't it behoove the manager to have a deeper and more talented pool of players from which to choose? If I'm the NT manager, I'm out there trying to get my players into the best club situations they can be in. I'm calling up and playing younger players in meaningless friendlies to help them qualify for a work permit (see JK versus Agudelo back in the day). I'm talking to the fringe players about what they need to do to become national team players. At some point it would be nice for the USMNT manager to be able to sit on his high perch and pluck 23 players of international caibre from a pool thrice that size, but as this Gold Cup roster clearly indicates, we have a pool probably 1/3rd that size right now, if that. That's not Gregg's fault, but certainly I believe that it only helps him to make a personal investment of time and effort to help direct player development to some extent. What are your thoughts?
I agree with the premise of your point. What I don’t understand is that a lot of fans seem to take an overly laissez faire approach towards player development. Sometimes, patience is what’s needed. However, there are times when action is needed. I do think the implementation of the u23’s is a start towards that path. Likewise, 3G still has to build a coherent system out of practically nothing. We need to remember that Klinsi ran the program into the dirt and Arena did nothing to help it. Simply, they were throwing so much old spaghetti at the wall and hoping it would stick, but we ended up with just a mess on the floor. Believe it or not, Sarachan ultimately started the process of repair, but there is so much repair that must be done. In this regard, once a system has been established, the coach then can bring in a few youth outliers and throw them into the fire. That said, the USSF and MLS need to partner on making youth development the top priority of the league. One example might be is to USSF to offer a stipend to MLS clubs to play their American youths. Another example would be to create a development academy that is designed to help young players prepare to play abroad. Point being, there are a number of things to be done. Yet, the hard part is that the 85-00 generation of players were a giant dud.
The system is part of the problem in that when you're only getting guys for 2 games over 7-10 days at a time (outside of tournaments), you can't implement overly complex tactics especially when you aren't Spain or Germany getting 75%of your roster from 1-2 clubs.
Ive laid out what I think the USSF should do in other threads, so Ill just say I think its more on them than the coach. The coach is there to implement gameplans and choose a roster, thats where he should be judged. There is just not enough time for a national team coach to play a big role in player development. The USSF should develop a better coaching system and regionally scout much better.
I get that our players have issues and need more help developing. But, I think how a player gets better is based on what they do day in and day out. And that only happens with their clubs. It would sure be nice if our national team coach could somehow have a big impact on players developing and getting better and better, but the logistics of it mean that in reality players will mostly develop as players with their clubs. I kind of think blaming the national team coach for a lack of player development is just tasking a coach with responsibilities he has no real way to impact all that much. If a guy doesn't do well every day with his club, doesn't work hard enough every day, deoesn't see the field, doesn't have the skill necessary, etc... there's nothing the national team coach can do to make him a better player in a much shorter time frame. Conversely, if a player takes big development strides with his club, the national team coach doesn't really deserve credit either. Great example to me right now would be Adams. He's been mostly out of the national team picture but has taken huge strides over the last year. That had nothing to do with his national team experiences. On the other hand, we have guys like Lewis and Lovitz who have spent a ton of time comparatively with the national team and I don't see they are any better for it.