Youth Yanks Abroad, ‘01-‘04 YOBs (and younger): 2019/20 Thread

They would pay TC if KHF signed the letter from MLS acknowledging they see him as a pro player. Was KHF with MLS after June last year?

Either way, they won't pay it until he signs a pro contract.

 

Freiburg is also a club in the Bundesliga known for graduating academy players to their first team. They routinely rank at the top of the Bundesliga in terms of "homegrown minutes."

Of course I'm old enough that when I think of Freiburg, I think of Paul Caligiuri.

I'm not quite sure why we'd have an issue with any young USYNTer going to Freiburg. Sure, we want the elite of the elite like a Pulisic or Reyna going to a Dortmund-level club. But outside of that, Freiburg is just fine.

 

Well said. Don't confuse senior team success and academy success. Also, don't discount the success it is for a smaller club like Freiberg to stay in the top flight consistently.

Outside of Dortmund, few "big" clubs bring through young players anymore. So, is it much different to sign with Freiberg or to be loaned there from Bayern Munich? Both are good paths to reaching your ceiling.

I do think, all things being equal, that being with other American players seems to help. Schalke/Dortmund was a hub a few years ago. Wolfsburg seems to be becoming a concentration now. Freiberg is a bit off the beaten path and Mendez had problems with home sickness there.

 

This is a great trend. If the US is ever to really compete for a World Cup at the senior level it will come from guys that have been in Europe and there since they were young.

 

Unless they are a Reyna/Pulisic level player we do not want their first club to be a champions league super club level team. Haven't people learned on here that super clubs are very bad for young players to go to after constantly being burned by having promising players flame out at them? That's how they turn into Junior Flores or Julian Green.

What matters for your first club is the league you're in and if you are going to play for the first team. If you go to the bundesliga and get minutes then good for you, if you go to the bundesliga and never make a first team then you either need to move clubs or your time as a professional will be very short. Taylor Booth and Chris Richards are probably getting great practice experience at Bayern but if they do not move to a club where they can actually get first team minutes it will not matter in the end.

Sargent going to Bremen was not a bad move, they moved him into the first team quickly and he was given a fair chance to play and even though he has not gotten a lot of service he has not been good enough overall. He needs to find a new club and needs to start developing his off the ball movement and finishing which are major weaknesses for him.

 

Mendez is a very good player but we are starting to see that ball skills alone are not enough to make it into a first team. You have to have some athleticism which he really does not.

 

I think he has certain skills that are very good (technique to strike the ball, passing vision, set piece ability), but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it translate at a high level into consistent good performances. He wasn’t highly rated prior to U-17. I watched some of his games then of him. He was on the radar and got a few caps late in that cycle I believe, but he didn’t deserve to make that U-17 WC team IMO.

Then he has that great qualifying tournament in U-20 WCQ, but so many of those games were against terrible teams. I give credit for his performances against a few of the better teams, and I’m not suggesting he’s bad and incapable of playing well against a good CONCACAF nation at youth level, but his reputation was based a lot on games against bad teams when a lot of the better attacking mids in that cycle were unavailable for that tournament.

In the games I saw of him with LAG, I always thought he was overshadowed by Alvarez and Llanez. He was definitely good at that level, but they were more talented players.

Then we saw the bad U-20 WC. He was given the keys to that team in CM, and couldn’t get the job done against the best competition he had played against consistently to that point. He also struggled at Freiburg and now at Ajax.

He has great promotion from the Kleiban’s, but I don’t view him as a top level player in his age group.

 

I agree we may not want them at Bayern but we do want them in a high level environment in a big league. If they don't make it then so be it. We are talking about our senior national team. If they can't play in a big 5 league in Europe, I don't think we want them on the Senior National team. MLS level guys on the Senior National team will have us watching World Cups and/or hoping we can maybe get out of the group every now and then.

To a player, almost every single young player that has gone over to Europe early has said the environment is worlds apart from playing in MLS academies. Its tougher, better, faster, more intense and just a higher level. That is where we want our 17 to 20 year olds. Then we want them on the first team of big clubs. If they can't make it to the first teams of clubs in Europe, then don't put them on the National Team.

I would say Julian Green is an example of a kid that simply was not good enough. He tried, but didn't have it.​

 

How young are we talking? It didn’t hurt Alphonso Davies or Tyler Adams playing in MLS a couple seasons as teenagers.

LB was such a debacle for the Galaxy last year that I think Kobe would’ve had the chance to start and would be the starter going into this season.

I love Kobe as a LB prospect but he’s going to go quite awhile of not playing competitive matches. He can’t play for Wolfsburg in official matches until August and hasn’t played for the Galaxy since last DA season.

 

As young as you can possibly be. Sure a few will make the leap after being in MLS but that's should be the exception. If you listen to Weston, Pulisic, Richards, Durkin who just got over there and others, they realize its a different world over there in terms of growth and player development. You either grow and get better or get spit out. We need that gauntlet for our very best and the ones that may have a chance to one day win the World Cup.

I have zero confidence or even a remote hope a team full of players that grew up playing in MLS DA academies and then play first team MLS soccer will ever come close to competing for a WC. You have Matt Hedges going up against Mbappe. Not a fair fight. You have Wondolowski going up against Virgil Van Dyck...Not a fair fight. Like the Mississippi Mud Hens playing the New York Yankees. Not a fair fight. We need more kids getting in the Yankee farm system at a young age and out of the Mud Hens system.

As for any certain player like Kobe, I have no idea if it will work out. If it does and he works his way to a starter in the Bundesliga at 21 or 22, then he is the kid we want on our National team. If he gets bounced and winds up back in the USL or MLS bench in a few years, then he is not the guy we are looking for.

 

But how does Taylor Booth know he is not a Gio Reyna level prospect?

In all seriousness, it is just hindsight and staying healthy. There is usually more up front money with the bigger clubs even if your chances are lower. But I doubt any of the talent we are talking about really thinks they can't make it at 16 or 18. That kind of self awareness comes later maybe.

We have kids all over Germany in all kinds of different clubs. If you are good enough, I think you can be in the Champions League starting at any of the German clubs. If Green had signed with 1860 Munich instead of Bayern, he would still probably be at Furth. The "great market sorter" does lag, but it catches up eventually.

 

That Kobe will not play for the LA Galaxy again, is more an function of the system MLS has set up. There is no American law saying you can only have so many types of players on your rosters and you can only offer certain players a contract and those contracts have to be 5 years in length.

It is a shame that Sargent and others have to sit around until 18. We almost need to open up Bradenton again to give these U18 players a place to play.

 

Matt Hedges and Chris Wondolowski? I don't think anyone is saying that we should build our national team around players like that. Players like Davies, Adams, Pomykal, Busio, etc. are a different story -- players who start their career in MLS and move to Europe by age 22. These guys are capable of moving straight into starting spots from MLS, so why does it matter if they moved at 18 or 21? The point is, both routes are viable for top players, potentially world class players, even.

Reggie Cannon and Jackson Yeuill are more difficult cases. Hopefully they get to Europe soon, but that path will be later than would be ideal, and it's much more likely that they are with a marginal club when/if they do make the jump. I think they are closer to the Wondo/Hedges type of example who might be able to play a role on the national team but aren't really close to the level that it will take to become a top nation.

Conclusion is that players need to go to Europe, and it needs to be relatively early in their career, but there is no reason to think that a player who stars in MLS as a teenager can't become a key player at a top club in Europe.

 

This is where I feel your point of view lacks nuance.

While we all hope the final USMNT is made up of the very best players possible, and those players are highly likely to be playing in the best leagues (Landon Donovan says hi!), development is a whole different story.

Development isn't just driven by competition. It's not as simple as "put the player in the toughest environment possible and sink or swim."

Anyone that's actually coached anyone knows that playing time, coaching, finding a level of competition that pushes but doesn't bury a player all factor in along with the really important things like talent and work ethic.

We've seen players like Davies and Adams develop rapidly and effectively in MLS. We've seen a player like Pomykal struggle initially in MLS, but Dallas stuck with him and he broke out last year. Who knows how a European would have handled his struggles? They don't have nearly as much invested.

Development isn't cut and dry. Different players need different things. We've seen quality players come from different paths.

 

No matter what Wondolowsky and Hedges had been doing starting at the age of 2 they would have no chances against Mbappe and Van Dyck. You can switch their development paths sending let say Mbappe to MLS academy the result will be the same. Unless Mbappe prefers to play RB or Point Guard.

 

That's my point. Guys like Hedges and Wondo would never make it to the top level in a big league or on the first team of a big league team. Therefore, they should never been have been the type of guy to be on the senior national team.

Minor leagues v major leagues. We need to get more guys in the major leagues at a younger age and some will pop out at the top eventually.

 

Yueill played on the same youth team as Akale. And of course Akale was rated much higher, not even close. Then Akale went to Spain.
Ben and Xu Xu were the highest rated Klejban's players before going on European adventures.
Miazga was top MLS player when Long was nobody in college. Then Miazga got sold for $5M.
Ferreira stayed at Dallas while Wright whose youth records were close to Donovan's went to Schalke.
Donovan himself went to Germany, but was intelligent enough to realize that's not for him.

And then of course you can come up with Pulisic, Reyna, Wes etc. I mean that there is no single perfect path, it all depends on an individual and circumstances.

 

How’s Uruguay ever going to make it when Diego Rossi and Brian Rodriguez come to MLS before Europe?

Must not be a lot of talent in Argentina if Cristian Pavon is coming to MLS during the prime of his career.

 

This is not a strategy. This is wishcasting that is highly dependent on things like passport controls and European immigration and league policy, which can change easily.

All it would take a harsher restriction on foreign players in the Bundesliga, or a change in EU immigration restrictions and we'd see the efficacy of a plan cut by 70-80%.

It also does nothing to build any kind of infrastructure to improve development of our players for any player before age 16, and for the vast majority of players before age 18.

I'm not suggesting that players don't head to the best leagues at some point, and for many, the best choice may still be at age 16 or 18. But the biggest single impact on development in this country will be the influence of MLS, USL and any other professional league that gets developed enough to bring professional development. And for those to grow, there needs to be some level of payout.

Otherwise you are limiting your player pool to sons of former players who have European grandparents.

 

And a couple more ‘18 WC type performances by Germany at the Euros and Qatar, could easily see some restrictions put in place.

 

'04 W Samuel Mendoza is also at La Masia. Appears that a few Barca Residency Academy standouts were selected to train there. Mendoza has been in Mexico U15 camp.

 

'05 CM Francis Jacobs debuted today for Rangers U16 and reportedly did well. He started for the '05 USYNT at their tournament last October. On loan from Orange County SC and has had interest from other European clubs.

 

🏆LIGA

➡️Getafe 0-1 https://t.co/maggDVwaky

⚽️Fede Oliva#CanterAtletica

— Cantera Atletica (@canteratletica) February 15, 2020

Brace for '04 F Malick Sanogo brings him to 13 goals and 3 assists in 1400 minutes of U17 Bundesliga. Tied for the scoring lead in U17 BL North/Northeast. Also has a goal against Brøndby IF's first team in a friendly for Union Berlin U21s. He'd be a great addition to the US U17s.

— ChuckMe92 Soccer (@ChuckMe92Soccer) February 15, 2020

 

The year is 2020 and some accounts are still talking about “there’s only ONE path to success”

my god. Idiotic.

 

while this is certainly true, some paths to success seemingly carry a higher probability of achieving it and therefore should be encouraged?