If you follow the MLB or NHL, you know what this stuff is all about. I'm interested to see who everyone thinks are the top prospects in the USYNT system and in what order. Requirements for this list are players have to be USYNT eligible, so players like Julian Green or DeAndre Yedlin are eligible but a player like Juan Agudelo isn't. Set whatever criteria for your list that you want beyond the basic rule of a player being USYNT eligible.
I'm going to do mine like a draft board, which means position comes into factor. That's why Yedlin, whose the best player isn't number 1. Right back just isn't as valuable. Here would be my first round Green Thompson Hyndman Gil Trapp Yedlin O'Neill Rubin Acosta Packwood Morris Palmer-Brown Lopez Hernandez Miller Hairston Salgado Delgado Joya Miazga Gall Allen Cropper Novakovich Pfeffer Spencer Moore Steffen Horvath Dean
How do Junior Flores and Caleb Stanko not make your list? Devante Parker likely is better than 2/3 of your list as well, if not better, if he declares for us.
Also...............John Anthony Brooks. Secondly, need Tijuanamericans on the list. I take all of Arriola, Guido, Moreno, etc. than some guys on that list. [Jordan Allen for example.] Prospect lists are just sure to be wrong For all we know, the best two prospects are Pulisic and Wright. A fun exercise anyway.
I was writing the list up and my browser crashed. When I reloaded the BS site it had auto saved part of what id written but not the most recent text. Brooks was after Thompson. Flores an Stanko were after Acosta and Parker was on some German list somewhere. I didn't list the other Tijuana players (seems Arriola didn't get saved either) because I wouldn't draft players I haven't seen.
I didn't include any dual-nationals who aren't already pretty clearly with the USA. That means no Zelalem, D, Parker, S. Parker, Kenedy or whoever else you can think of that could make this list. I didn't include any players younger than the '98 age group. I've seen some of the 99's that have played with the U-17 team before and I've seen highlights of some of the even younger players like Lederman and Xuxuh, but I haven't seen enough of these players to really form an opinion on them. I see some tiers emerging within my list. The Top 5 have star potential with few question marks right now. If they reach their potential, I could see all five being among the ten best at their position in the world. The Players from 6-16 is a combination of some players who I think are sure fire good USMNT players who don't have incredibly high ceilings and guys who might have the potential to some day play for some of the biggest clubs in the world but have significant question marks in front of them. The players from 17-25 don't seem to have much star potential with the exception of one or two of them, but I see a lot of potentially solid USMNT players who play for decent clubs in that group if they can sort out the question marks in front of them. Top 20 List: 1. John Brooks('93) 2. DeAndre Yedlin('93) 3. Julian Green('95) 4. Junior Flores('96) 5. Haji Wright('98) 6. Marc Pelosi('94) 7. Rubio Rubin('96) 8. Wil Trapp('93) 9. Luis Gil('93) 10. Emerson Hyndman('96) 11. Zack Steffen('95) 12. Paul Arriola('95) 13. Erik Palmer-Brown('97) 14. Kevin Silva('98) 15. Kellyn Acosta('95) 16. Christian Pulisic('98) 17. Dillon Serna('94) 18. Tommy Thompson('95) 19. Shane O'Neill('93) 20. Tommy Redding('97) 21. Mukwelle Akale('97) 22. Matt Miazga('95) 23. Cody Cropper('93) 24. Ethan Horvath('95) 25. Caleb Stanko('93)
Solid list. If you're going to put Haji Wright as a top 5, you should probably add Joe Gallardo to the list somewhere. He's been just about as good if not better than Haji has when both were playing, too bad he had an injury in the most recent tournament.
I think there are a number of players from the U-17's that could be very good one day, but Wright, Silva and Pulisic have been the three clear standout players to me. Gallardo's probably been the 4th or 5th best player with the U-17's from what I've seen, but the broken leg has to be factored in. Pelosi was arguably the top prospect in the US system before his broken leg and it looked like he was on the verge of his debut with Liverpool, but he seems to have had a longer recovery than most expected and he might never get back to where he was.
By the way, 99% of the time we tend to talk about the goal-scorers and attackers on that U17 team. Folks on these boards seem to talk about Pulisic, Wright, Gallardo, etc. Goals and fantastic assists write the headlines. We get it. However, I talked to an "insider" the other day that was very high on some of the defenders and defensive midfielders in that age group. They just don't get the publicity of other players. Barbir does because once you put a European club next to a player's name, he gets the publicity. Also the goalkeepers........................ For instance, I've talked to folks in Dallas that think Weston McKennie is potentially a better MLS prospect than Alejandro Zendejas. You never know what's going to happen. Most of us on this board aren't scouts.
Even paid scouts aren't all the second coming. Good to point that out, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and some beholders are better than others, paid or not.
The good part about prospects threads like this is nobody can be accused of being a mindless buffoon. Nobody really knows what's going to happen, so we can't really criticize too much. If we look at the much ballyhooed 2007 U20 national team, for instance........................who are the top 4 players from that team in terms of professional appearances in AT LEAST the MLS level. Bradley, Altidore, and Adu of course(although we can argue about the "MLS level" thing with a couple of Adu's stops). Fourth is Dax McCarty, who didn't start a game at the U20 Worlds. He was an afterthought to the other central midfielders like Szetela. It should be noted that one player that got a lot of abuse at the time for not "being good enough" was Tony Beltran. Folks thought he was the weak link at the time. He got a bit of "Javon Torre"-style stick. Well, he's the most accomplished defensive player on that team by some distance. I'm just saying that to point out that...................we just don't know. We just don't know. We're wrong all the time. Guys who are actually scouts are wrong all the time. Based on the percentages, most of the players on these lists won't end up being USMNT-caliber players. It's a fun exercise nonetheless.
It sounds like you're saying the mindless buffoons are the ones who think they really know what's going to happen.
We also need to understand that our system has come a long way....the way we look at players and evaluate them today is different than 10 years ago. I think we have a lot better handle on who the real talent is in our pool these days. Of course not all will turn out and keep progressing at the same rate, but we are not the same organization as 10 years ago....even back to 07 for that matter....guys like Pulisic, Flores, Perez, Haji, etc are getting recognized on a global level, and big name programs are competing for their signatures.....we had a few back in the day but nothing like we are seeing now.....there are some real prospects in our 96-97 age group, if a third of them turn out, we could be looking at the next level of american soccer.....guys like Rubin, Emerson, Akale are playing in above average leagues at a very young age and getting minutes with seasoned professionals....our future is pretty bright, or at least i see it that way....our U-17 team is just dominating people....and making it look pretty, ive been silently following our youth programs for a while, and i havent seen the vision out of our prospects like we are seeing today.....its what we have been lacking as a program for our entire history, too much was made of athletic ability, while ignoring the true beauty of the game which is vision and control......some of these kids have "it" and thats what makes the difference between a good player and a great player......really looking forward to the development of Pulisic, Rubin and a few others.....could be game changers....
My list 1. Mukwelle Akale('97) 2. Emerson Hyndman('96) 3. Julian Green('95) 4. Christian Pulisic('98) 5. Rubio Rubin('96 6. Marc Pelosi('94) 7. Joel Sonaro (96) 8. Erik Palmer-Brown('97) 9. Cameron Carter Vickers (97) 10. Russell Canouse (95) 11. Joshua Perez (98) 12. Luca De La Torre (98) 13. Brooks Lennon (97) 14. Kellyn Acosta('95) There are so many to choose from which is nice. These are my favorites and honestly there very little difference at this time between most of them but I do think that Akale, Zelalem and Hyndman all have the potential to be big time talents I would also have Gedian Zelalem at # 2 but want to wait until he is eligible first.
It's amazing how far Junior Flores has fallen in the eyes of some (including myself). I personally would have players like Paul Arriola on my list, but to each his own..............................there are no right or wrong answers.
Both guys came out of the box with a lot of fanfare and both have seemed to cool off recently. I think both guys are going to be quality players but I just like the guys on my list more. I think Flores lost a lot of momentum when he was waiting to make the move to Germany, he's a guy that I am constantly rooting for so I hope he proves me wrong. There so little to base opinions on..a nice write up in SI about Hyndman and De La Torre or Akale winning MVP awards against older competition or some technical director signing a players praise tends to formulate most of my views. It's too bad we don't get to see these guys firsthand more often
Based off potential 1. Christian Pulisic 2. Luca De La Torre 3. Haji Wright 4. Yedlin 5. Cameron Carter-Vickers
Is a U.S. Golden Generation on the horizon? #usmnt http://www.dallascup.com/home/dallasCupNews/845617.html U.S. Soccer fans recognize the names of long time U.S. senior squad members and Dallas Cup alumni like Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley, Bobby Convey, Oguchi Onyewu and Kyle Beckerman. Will the next crop of players be able to build upon the success of these players? There are promising signs that the latest crop of U.S. 16 and 17 year olds, several with Dallas Cup experience, are on the cusp repeating some the of glory of previous generation of U.S. soccer players. What makes these young men, born in 1997 and 1998, different from the American’s that came before them? Top elite U.S. youth soccer players in the past have rarely been offered professional contracts while in their teenage years. A watermark for progress of youth development is the interest of top professional clubs around the world willing to invest in young American talent. Never before have we seen so many U.S. youths a part of elite youth development clubs. DF- Justen Glad 02/28/1997 Real Salt Lake DF- Cameron Carter-Vickers Dec 31, 1997 Tottenham Hotspur MF- Mukwelle Akale 01/18/1997 Villarreal CF MF- Collin Fernandez 02/13/1997 Chicago Fire * FW- Sebastian Saucedo 01/22/1997 Real Salt Lake FW- Coy Craft 05/23/1997 FC Dallas * FW- Haji Wright March 27, 1998 Schalke * MF- Luca De La Torre May 23, 1998 Fulham FC * FW- Christian Pulisic September 18, 1998 Borussia Dortmund FW- Joshua Perez January 21, 1998 Fiorentina DF- Erik Palmer-Brown April 24, 1997 Sporting KC * FW- Brooks Lennon 09/22/1997 Real Salt Lake MF- Abuchi Obinwa Jan 15, 1997 Hannover 96 * MF- Gedion Zelalem 26 January 1997 Arsenal * FW- Joe Gallardo 01/01/1998 Monterrey Rayados * DF- Daniel Barbir Jan 31, 1998 West Brom MF- Kyle Scott Dec 22, 1997 Chelsea
Sebastian Saucedo should be high on that list. There is a lot of hype right now about a Canadian player going to Man U and that guy is not even as good as Saucedo.
It certainly looks that way but also because the '95 and '96 generation is also looking good. Rubin and Hyndman are going to be great players. I'm not as sure about Thompson and Green but they certainly do seem to have potential.
I really would like to see more concrete analysis on this whole theory that our guys are more in demand now by professional clubs because they are going to be stars and not just because circumstances have change in the world.
The scouting of young Americans by Euro clubs is exponentially greater than it was 15 years ago. Not just in the States, but on all of these trips the kids take overseas. That is undoubtedly a factor. Just go to the Dallas Cup and other youth tournaments and you're just wading thru a pack of scouts [in that case particularly Liga MX scouts by the way]. And as young players like Hyndman and Rubin continue to succeed (and the next group will be Pulisic, Wright, Barbir, and company)......................it will continue to build. I believe that this pack of prospects is better than we've had in previous generations, but the proof is going to be in their development into adult professionals.