Hey! That's me!Sad, hilarious, and humbling thread on the youth dual-nationals the USMNT has won and lost.
Hey! That's me!Sad, hilarious, and humbling thread on the youth dual-nationals the USMNT has won and lost.
Local Southend reporter, so maybe he's credible:Charlie Kelman '01 has been playing more and more for Southend United this year. He has six goals in about 570 minutes, a solid haul for a forward who just turned 19. He missed a chunk of the season with injury, but as of late, he moved into the starting lineup.
Southend are likely to be relegated to League Two. If that happens, it will be interesting to see who — if anyone — come after him next summer.
Kelman is in the mix for the center forward with the current U-20 cycle. It is difficult to compare his progress with that of other U-20 forwards in the academies of much larger clubs with significantly larger hurdles to first team playing time, like Matthew Hoppe (Schalke) and Johan Gomez (Porto).
Wait, really?Hey! That's me!
According to this, you're right, my mistake. See you in Tokyo, Zach Steffen. I guess I was thrown off my the 8 players on Mexico's preliminary roster who are 23 right now, all of them early 1997 birthdays.There's no over-age players in the qualifying tournament, I don't believe. I think that's only for the Olympics proper.
Pomykal had a great season for Dallas as a 19-year-old. He has a wonderfully well-rounded game for such a young player. Last year he played over 1900 minutes and averaged per match: 2.2 tackles, 1 dribble, 1.6 key passes, attempted 40 passes & connected on 85%, and got fouled 2.5 times. I saw him in Chicago late last season, and while Dallas played like crap overall, their attack was being channeled through Pomykal, and he was pulling the strings. He also scored a clever goal in Dallas' opening win over the Union this season.You think that highly of Pomykal, putting him up there ahead of Reyna and pushing Weah (when healthy) and Ebobisse to the bench? I'
It's all a product of quantitative and qualitative improvements in the rising player pool. There's so much more depth, and so many more interesting prospects, that eventually you (well, the manager anyway) have to make tough judgment calls. I'm not saying this cohort is a golden age the likes of which the *world* has never seen...but it might well be by the lower historical standards of US soccer.You think that highly of Pomykal, putting him up there ahead of Reyna and pushing Weah (when healthy) and Ebobisse to the bench? I'd think Ebobisse is a little more seasoned than Reyna right now today, leaving questions of peak-level potential aside.
And that little of CCV, that 20yo Chris Richards (playing in the 3.Liga) bumps him off?
Yes, they are. They took the dedicated first team spaces at the Bridgeview complex and renovated them for Academy use - what used to house the entire Fire front office is now Academy staff & coaching space, the first team locker room is now the Academy locker room. They have also added staff as well as created a full-day Tuesday program (ie, players don’t go to school but train all day Tuesdays). There may be more investments, but I haven’t come across a lot of reporting. There are positive signs.And the Fire signed another '03 midfielder, Javier Casas. I hope all this is a sign that the Fire is finally taking their academy seriously. There are good implications for the Fire and even for the USMNT if they do.
https://www.chicagofirefc.com/post/2020/03/10/chicago-fire-fc-signs-academy-product-javier-casas
Ledezma and Llanez aren't first team players, so their clubs were more willing to release them. EPB's release was a surprise to me, as he is a regular starter and he will miss club games for this.(2) Europe-based professionals were released for this roster in some cases: EPB at Wien, Ledezma at PSV, Llanez at Wolfsburg. I wonder what's different about those cases from the more significant upgrades we could have had. On the one hand:
- I'd think the hardest conversations would've been McKennie (who is crucial at Schalke, might be their best player or just behind Harit), and Adams (who was out for a few weeks and only just returned in time to come off the bench vs Spurs in the UCL).
- Just as obviously, there are injuries: Pulisic, Weah, and also Miles Robinson (ATL)
But on the other hand:
- Antonee Robinson just had a transfer fall through for timing; it's not like Wigan is guarding him jealously
- Josh Sargent is having a good run at Bremen, but he's not even the best striker on the roster (yet).
- Ajax knows they have something in Dest, but he's attracting serious transfer interest (seriously, 20M?!), and getting him showcased in the Olympics would surely help that value
- We know Dortmund LOVES Reyna, but they have plenty of depth in MF and letting a new hot asset gain a little reputation value probably wouldn't hurt.
Carlos Cordeiro has resigned as president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, effective immediately, according to a statement posted on Twitter on Thursday.
He will be replaced by Cindy Parlow Cone, who had been serving as USSF vice president.
The Fire announced a partnership with Madison Foreward earlier this month. Looks like the Fire will send a member of the technical staff to every Madison home game to monitor loaned player development and there might be more coordination & partnership between the coaching staffs.There's not much to talk about here with no games happening, but the Chicago Fire's rampage of academy signings continues even in the Age of Coronavirus. Interestingly (well, to me anyway), he's the second '04 goalkeeper they've signed, along with Gabriel Slonina. Now, get a USL team please so that these guys can accumulate pro experience and work up to the MLS squad.
https://www.chicagofirefc.com/post/2020/03/24/chicago-fire-fc-signs-academy-goalkeeper-chris-brady
The cutoff is based on birth year. Currently, 97s and younger are eligible and it's unclear whether or not that will be bumped back to the 98s and younger for the 2021 version of the Olympics.Will anyone important age out of being U-23 eligible for a hypothetical Olympic roster next year? Pulisic and McKennie both have late-summer birthdays so they'll still be 22.
Then again, it's not like the over-23 cohort is so good that competition for those three slots would be particularly fierce.
Yeah, I know they have that, but it's just not the same. Having your own USL team means that (a) you have complete control over who plays, (b) the team is in the same place, so academy kids can easily play in games and USL guys can easily train with the MLS squad, and (c) nobody cares if you lose a bunch of games.The Fire announced a partnership with Madison Foreward earlier this month. Looks like the Fire will send a member of the technical staff to every Madison home game to monitor loaned player development and there might be more coordination & partnership between the coaching staffs.
The present age qualification for Tokyo 2020 is (aside from the over-agers for the final tournament) "born on or after Jan 1st 1997".Will anyone important age out of being U-23 eligible for a hypothetical Olympic roster next year? Pulisic and McKennie both have late-summer birthdays so they'll still be 22.
Then again, it's not like the over-23 cohort is so good that competition for those three slots would be particularly fierce.
I don't know. I think there are clear positives and negatives to the DA, so it will all depend on what the post-DA system looks like.would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
For the girls, the ECNL is top dog again. The girls' DA was already bleeding clubs who were deciding to rejoin the ECNL even before this shutdown.After reading around a bit, I haven't seen much discussion of what will happen on the girl's side of things. There certainly seem like there should be some benefits to having MLS run a nation-wide league that includes MLS and non-MLS clubs - but only for the boys.