Now that the 2020/21 Olympics aren't a thing, and loads of players no longer have YNT careers to worry about/look forward to/hold out for/etc., it might be a good opportunity to collect thoughts about what we learned about four birth years of players. Thoughts? Who's on track for World Cup roster spots? Who's going to bloom late? Who got left out? Who had bad luck? And so on. Some of these questions are pretty easy. Others, less so... and, yes, I borrowed the intro to this thread from the previous post-mortem thread, right down to the bit about the Olympics. Good times.
This will forever be a special group because the 97-00’s are the players who unlocked the pathway of actually becoming in successful in Europe as a youth player from the USA. We had many trials and errors before this cycle but this was the group who finally broke through that barrier This is also the group who had their full youth development take place with a 10-month development academy season from start to finish which has led to the increase in the volume and quality of prospects. This in turn spurred the MLS academy and MLS2 teams in USL era that we currently see today While it’s very likely that 4 year cycles after this are bound to be better this group will always hold a special place for me. When I look to when in my mind things truly started changing in the USMNT/usynt player pool and development ecosystem I’ll always think back to this group
The first U23 cohort to win a CONCACAF U20 Championship and they did it twice in a row, and both made the WC quarterfinal before a heartbreaking loss. The first U20 group did it without Pulisic and McKennie, the second without Adams and Sargent (who were on the 2017 WC team). And of course without more names. It's a bit subjective but you might say those two U20 teams were B or B-plus teams compared to their eligible pools, while the 2021 Olympic qualifying team was solidly C or (at least in hindsight) D compared to the U23-eligible pool.