just from different sources i have heard the following two are pretty damn good: freddy adu guillermo gonzalez freddy. savior or the us soccer scene. well, not really, but people that have seen him play say he will be great and considering he is 2-3 years younger than anyone else on the u-17's that is nice. guillermo. has trained with the galaxy for times as he is from the area. i guess some foreign clubs has also shown interest in him and supposedly he may be training with man. city at some point.
Well being a u17 myslelf and playing with most of these guys, I would say that good players are Gaven, Germani, Memo, Ashe. I haven't played with all of them but with the ones I have played with they all stood out. I will be playing the u17' in december when I travel down to flordia. As for foriegn interest on memo I talked to one of my friends who I meet at the leeds trials and he said that manchester city is real interested in him in fact I heard that they already offered him an academy spot.
defenders that I thought were good are kyle helton hes quick, i don't know really about oot I have played him once he was ok, I heard drew harrison is good
How about Brandon Owens and Jonathon Spector? They're central defenders, so they probably don't get to show the same trickiness with the ball at their feet, but what do you think of them as defensive organizers and zone/man-markers? Thanks Brian, -Tron
Spector Coming from the Chicago area I take interest in the local youth success. There is a guy that posts here that knows the Sockers / St Viator kids. User name aznsensation24 ?? or something like that. Perhaps he will give us the skinny. I think on the Viator team last year he was a Freshman playing a central midfield role and was one of the top scorers.
I have never played spector or owens but I did see danny play once sine he is from NJ as well but an 87 I wasn't really impressed with him but maybe he had a bad game I have heard other people say that danny is a good player
Re: Spector Spector played center mid his Freshman year of high school but last year he played as a forward and was our leading scorer (He had 18 goals and around 5 assists, all while playing hurt). I honestly have only seen him play defense once, he has always been a midfielder or forward, when he played sweeper for a half in one of our blow-out games but I guess he has adjusted really well to playing central defense. I talked to him a couple of week ago and he said he would prefer to play forward but he thinks he will make his career as a defender. Spector is very good with the ball at his feet, he is the best ballhandler and dribbler I have ever played with, and since he is a big kid he is good in the air. He is just a very skilled player overall.
One other thing I forgot to mention about Spector, this really does not apply to his playing defense, is his ability to strike a free kick and his overall scoring ability. He has scored about 3 or 4 goals that I have seen in person that would make your jaw drop and have you rubbing your eyes. Of course these goals haven't been against world-class competiton but they were still amazing. One thing that troubled me a bit was when he first went into residency, it was said that he had trouble finishing. This really surprised me because I don't think he ever had trouble scoring but maybe it was the new environment or whatever. It really doesn't matter now since he is playing d.
We need defenders with skills like the ones he has. Thumbs up to Ellinger with that one. To this point there really hasn't been any Landon/SQ/EJ types for the U17s, has there? Corey Ashe looks like a player who does good at the youth level because he's fast. He does not look like a future star to me at this point. I have been wrong in the past though. I hope I'm wrong about him
Hell, I'd take some central defenders who could just pass the ball well before I worry about them being good dribblers.
Corey Ashe is definitely fast, and that won't hurt him at any level. However, he also has very good skill dribbling the ball. Really good, realy quick moves with the ball sticking to his foot. His problem transitioning to the professional level, if you ask me, would most likely come from his size. But he may still have some growing to do. He may also develop a style that doesn't require that much size (like, say, Gianfranco Zola). I guess I'm saying that he has real potential. As far as defensive players, I was pretty impressed with Danny Szetela when I saw him. Another one to watch, I think, is Mike Harrington. Reminds me of Chris Klein.