Akinbodi got the start at CB for DC last night. He didn’t have a ton to do but thought he did pretty well considering he’s only 17. He’s quite the physical specimen, fairly strong for 17. Pace wise he definitely seems faster than most MLS CBs, but perhaps not as fast as Robinson for example. Passing wise he’s made a ton of improvement since last year. He did some hoof ball when under a bit of pressure, but that’ll improve with experience. 1v1 is also an opportunity for improvement although he may have been a bit gassed towards the end which would point more to conditioning. Positionally he seemed fine and was quite proactive in taking care of long balls from the opposition. I believe this is only his 2nd or 3rd start this year so not a lot to go off of, but I think he might be our best MLS CB prospect for the future whose gotten first team minutes. I think he has a higher potential ceiling than Jalen Neal given Neal’s injury proneness and that he’s 3yrs younger. In addition, before Neal’s recent injury it wasn’t as if Neal was a dominant CB. Of course dominating at CB at a young age even in MLS is a lot to expect, but we’ve seen it in the past with McKenzie and Trusty at Philly in their last year together. Cobb’s another player you could compare him to whose 1-2yrs older whose gotten some starts for Atlanta. His passing is extremely good for his age and for a CB, but he appears to be more limited physically; 6’0” ft which can be okay with a good vertical jump, but he seems to be more limited vertically.
I still like Neal a little better, but it’s reasonably close. Akinmboni is definitely one of our best 06’s right now. For me it’s him, Banks, and Kochen. I have him third, but that can change over time. Everyone else is a wildcard that I wouldn’t count on right now. If they bring anything of value to the USMNT, it’s a bonus. Those are the three I have high hopes for.
Gutierrez assist Koutsias opens the scoring for the @ChicagoFire over Toluca!📺 #MLSSeasonPass: https://t.co/s2OWrOjo8d // #LeaguesCup2024 pic.twitter.com/if11Bwk9vJ— Major League Soccer (@MLS) August 2, 2024
Gutierrez has so much natural talent. Not sure he's progressed a ton. Just seems very up and down, and at a certain point he's not that young and that's just what he is.
Have there ever been any credible rumors about him going to Europe? He seems like a guy who could really benefit from a change of location. We make fun of the magic Euro pixie dust but Belgium has done wonders for Yow, maybe it could do the same for Guti.
Guti’s fellow youth counterpart, Brady has been moved to the bench the last couple games. I haven’t really seen any improvement from him either since last season which is unfortunate. Reynolds for Chicago made his debut. 19yrs old (although 20 in a couple days). Looked pretty lively but on the older side of eventually becoming good enough for the senior NT. The youth players we saw for Portland seemed to have disappeared. I don’t know if any of them have made it their deep bench the last few games besides maybe a goalie.
Chicago gives the backup keeper the League Cup games. Did the same thing last year. Think that’s all it is.
Yeah, there’s interest. Been a bunch of public rumors and I’ve heard it privately too. I think just that he’s being smart about it and moving when he’s ready. It’s a fair point though that Chicago Fire might not be the right environment to hit that top level at before eventually moving.
Not a good night last night for Reed Baker Whiting who got the start but whiffed on stopping a cross from Nexaca that eventually led to a goal. Is LB his usual position? I thought he normally played further up unless I’m confusing him with someone else.
Chicago is also paying him a lot of money after his contract extension. $900k or so. Not Ferreira DP money, but still a lot of money. That's a lot more than Taylor Booth makes at Utrecht. Heck, if we believe capology, that's more than Tessmann and Busio made at Venezia last season. I mean, he did sign that contract extension thru the 2028 season. Right? Did somebody put a gun to his head when he signed it? We on these boards behave like Gutierrez should be despondent and unhappy. But there's no sign of that. He literally just signed a contract extension before this MLS season. Chicago is 2 points behind everybody's darling Philadelphia and only 3 points out of the playoffs. The bottom half of the East is very tight. The USMNT and U23 thing is another matter. Coach's choice. A different U23 coach may have preferred Luna, Esmir, and Gutierrez to Booth, Aaronson, and Paredes. But that's an alternate universe. Coach's choice.
RB is his normal position, but even RB he’s still learning and has played for less than two years. He plays mostly LB this season because that’s where they need him and he’s shown some versatility. For the most part he’s done okay defending at LB, but still a work in progress.
McFarlane suiting up for NYCFC so ManCity must not be a done deal yet or the plan is for him to stay on loan at NYCFC anyways. I really want to root for him to do well, but wish England wasn’t his preference.
Miller got the start again as expected and was subbed out for Will Sands. Thought Miller did well again, especially on defense. He has enough speed to keep up with Shaffelburg and I would expect he will gain a little more over the next couple years. His ability to defend, but also find a teammate afterwards is impressive. If he keeps improving I’d expect him to move as soon as he’s 18 assuming he doesn’t have a Euro passport. Between Miller and McFadden it’s quite difficult to decide who has more potential. Separately, I hope Barakteravic who got hurt in the 1st half is okay. He was in a lot of pain for awhile, tried playing through it and was subbed out to start the 2nd half.
22 Under 22: Which rising stars lead the pack? https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/22-under-22-which-rising-stars-lead-the-pack
Our quest to have one American forward on every Champo roster sadly comes to an end... Well this is disappointing. I think we all know that Duncan McGuire doesn’t have USMNT potential but I still think there’s a place for him in Europe, particularly in the EFL Championship. It looks like he’s going to turn into a MLS lifer, which is great for his bank account and… https://t.co/v7U05OOMsa— American Ultras Talk (@ameriultrastalk) August 14, 2024 Yapi didn't have to wait 50 games for his second goal 10:02 PM DARREN YAPI SENDS US TO THE QUARTERFINALS!!#TOLvCOL | #LeaguesCup2024 pic.twitter.com/QW5HdNnMdP— Colorado Rapids (@ColoradoRapids) August 14, 2024
Q Sullivan had a nice assist and a great goal last night. He commands the attention of the other team’s defense with his speed and dribbling which opens up space for others. If his passing and crosses in the final 3rd can become more consistently accurate he’s got a very bright future.
I can't get too upset with McGuire staying in MLS. He likely had little USMNT future, but it is a disappointing trend where most of the secondary tier players are starting to choose to stay in a more comfortable surrounding than challenge themselves abroad. I can't say it's the wrong decision for them. What are the chances McGuire would receive that many caps? Not high, but it will help the USMNT get better to see more of these secondary tier players chance it abroad and some of them exceed their current projections in their early/mid 20's.
He's 23 years old and his best offers that we've seen were some interest at the Championship level. Which might be out of his comfort zone personally, but it's not all that much better of a league on average. If he goes over on a free, which he could do, he's not going to get paid, and he's going to be in a second tier league. If he signs for Orlando, he gets a raise, and if he performs well, he can still get sold. Either way, he's going to have to work to improve. If he needs to be in another country to do that, I guess it's a bad move. If he puts up a twenty goal season, he'll get offers anyway. And then he can choose what he wants to do. And he was making $90k this year. He's far too old to be substantially sacrificing earnings at this age.
After seeing what happened with Cannon and what McKennie and Tessmann are going through I'm wondering if the shine is disappearing from Europe. I'm not for this idea but how much better would MLS become if every player came back like in MLS year 1?
There’s always going to be down moments for each of our players. Tessmann and McKennie are coming off of great seasons and are just having a tough offseason. A down month or two doesn’t ruin a player’s career. There’s also examples like Morris whose starting out strong for a solid Championship side.
If we want to be a world elite soccer nation then the best thing that could happen would be for the MLS to emerge as a top 5 league. I watch entirely too much soccer and I am bullish on the premise that the MLS has shrunk the gap significantly over the past 5 years. I am incredibly optimistic about the growth of the sport in the US... but there are always going to be athletes that do not want to have to leave their family and possibly learn a new language in order to reach the top of their sport. A lot of the young athletes that play 2+ sports might move on from soccer because of this fact. If the path from youth to pro to the top didn't require a passport I think we would have a far deeper talent pool.
The talent pool is "deeper" if more American players go to Europe because that's where pretty much all the top USMNT players play and they can potentially play their way into joining that group, plus domestic players who leave for Europe (or even LigaMX) will on aggregate be replaced by OTHER domestic players (given the roster restrictions on total number of international players), who will then get minutes in MLS and if they perform well will make the pool deeper, and eventually could move to Europe (or LigaMX) themselves, etc. etc. Aidan Morris against Leeds #USMNT #Crew96 #boro #UTB pic.twitter.com/BOfxR7DLI1— drake maye fan🇺🇲 (@dcfcnetti) August 15, 2024 Even if McGuire isn't good enough for the USMNT A team it would be better for him to go to the Championship rather than stay in Orlando (where he's clogging up the domestic forward pipeline Dwyer - Larin - Dike - McGuire by not leaving and making room for the next guy)... plenty of people thought Haji Wright would never be relevant for the USMNT, well it's better that he stayed in Europe and continued to develop rather than go to the friggin Dynamo or wherever. If guys can't cut it they can always come back to MLS, see a long list of guys Djordje Mihailovic etc. with the latest being Nicolas Gioachhini.... This may not affect the roster status of the core players, but certainly could for players on the edge of the rosterIt wouldn't be overly surprising to see USMNT camp rosters pretty much entirely from Europe if those are the players he's watching pic.twitter.com/pw8ltqCvl0— ChuckMe92 Soccer (@ChuckMe92Soccer) August 15, 2024 Of course guys already in Europe should also be looking to move to better leagues if they can (looking at you CCV)... Hajduk Split crash out of Europe at home to Rožumberok, who finished 5th in the Slovakian league last season. I would really like to see Rokas Pukštas 🇺🇸 get a transfer this summer. https://t.co/mA9cXXnSCM— American Ultras Talk (@ameriultrastalk) August 15, 2024 .@MarkOgden_ says here that Mauricio Pochettino would be allowed to live in Europe and not have to be over here full time.https://t.co/Pxn2DZK9fcIf you want to see him being the public face of the program on American soil, that can't happen if he isn't here.— Jonathan Tannenwald (@thegoalkeeper) August 15, 2024 Hmmm... Like 28 the top 30 players in the USMNT pool all play for clubs in Europe... Would it be more important for the USMNT coach to regularly watch A team players play for their clubs, or to live in friggin Chicago or wherever and "be the public face of the program on American soil"? Although maybe guys should head back to the US if they can't lay off the ranch Heads up to all our players. You’re going to be running a lot under Pochettino so lay off the ranch. #USMNT pic.twitter.com/clyFJC3lZ1— project mbappe (@starboysfc) August 15, 2024
I agree that the MLS to Europe pipeline is important as it provides a prime career path for new players and their parents who are considering soccer as a profession. The opposing argument is that having some of our USMNT B/C players playing in MLS improves the quality of the league and in turn helps improve the younger players who are getting minutes faster. However, in a few cases that player could be blocking a new youth player from getting minutes and in other cases the foreign player who would replace the USMNT B/C player isn’t much different in quality. Not the best example since it’s a MLS to MLS move, but had Jones (formerly on NE) not moved before coming back from injury, then Miller would not be getting the minutes he has been.