USMNT: To Rüssia With Love

coremiller

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2005
5,846
Why would anyone who doesn't have to pick from the USA's shitty talent pool, from the USA's shitty pro league, ever pick Wondolowski for anything?

I mean, hate on Wondo all you want but when Klinsmann leaves and the next guy has to check the MLS leader boards for a back up striker, is he gonna pick anyone other than Wondolowski? Which shitty, subpar option is MLS gonna cough up like a hairball? What's Eddie Johnson doing these days?

It's the talent pool, stupid. /James Carville
Good lord, calm down, I don't actually think he would buy Wondo at Southampton, it was just a joke about Wondo being Klinsmann's binky, which he is.

And FWIW, the obvious alternative would have been Jordan Morris, whose exclusion in favor of Wondo just about everyone in this thread was complaining about when it was announced.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
The under-20 national team will play three games in a friendly tournament in Carson, CA next week.

6/29 vs. Costa Rica
7/1 vs. Panama
7/3 vs. Japan

Tab Ramos is taking a mostly domestic roster:

GK
Jonathan Klinsmann (California)
J.T. Marcinkowski (Georgetown)

DF
Hugo Arellano (LA Galaxy academy)
Marcello Borges (Michigan)
Marlon Fossey (Fulham)
Aaron Herrera (New Mexico)
Andrew Lombard (Northeastern)
Tommy Redding (Orlando City)
Miles Robinson (Syracuse)
Auston Trusty (Bethlehem Steel)

MF
Mukwelle Akale (Villarreal)
Luca de la Torre (Fulham)
Weston McKennie (FC Dallas academy)
Eryk Williamson (Maryland)
Jackson Yueill (UCLA)

FW
Coy Craft (FC Dallas)
Jeremy Ebobisse (Duke)
Victor Mansaray (Seattle Sounders)
Emmanuel Sabbi (Chicago Magic)
Sebastian Saucedo (Veracruz, on loan from RSL)


Plenty of players missing here. This camp should be a good opportunity to sort through some fullbacks and forwards and figure out what the midfield structure looks like. Redding is starting for Orlando this season and is a contender at the U20 level, but the rest of the CBs (Trusty, Robinson, Lombard) will have a hard time making the roster if everyone is healthy and available (Cameron Carter-Vickers, Erik Palmer-Brown, and Justen Glad).

It's the first camp of the cycle for Marlon Fossey, Luca de la Torre, and Weston McKennie. I find all three to be interesting prospects. Fossey apparently did well at a U19 camp; it would be great if he can stake a claim to the RB position. De la Torre is a box-to-box mid who looked classy for the U17s and who may benefit from Hyndman's departure from Fulham. McKennie is a #10 who is well regarded.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
Next up are the last two semifinal round WCQs.

9/2 @ St. Vincent & the Grenadines
9/6 vs. Trinidad & Tobago (in Jacksonville)

We are currently in second place with seven points from four matches after drawing T&T on the road and losing to Guatemala. Despite this, we will win the group by winning out. A win over SVG paired with a T&T win over Guatemala will allow the US to clinch advancement to the Hex with one game to spare.

Moving on from Copa America, it's time to make some changes to the squad. Time to jettison a few players with immediate effect:

- Beckerman - too old to be useful any longer
- Wondolowski - never was useful
- Orozco - moderately useful depth at times, but he's done now and that should have been obvious to anyone paying attention to Tijuana last year
- Castillo - good club player and not too old, but he's never performed for the US and Klinsmann clearly doesn't trust him in the slightest, so let's move on


GK

Guzan largely had a solid tournament and is a decent player, but against Argentina he showed again that he's not up to the standard of Howard/Friedel/Keller. He's still our #1 in my book, but his position is not unassailable if someone else steps up. I thought Bill Hamid was on track to be a regular part of the squad as the #3 or #2, but injuries derailed him. He's back now and I'd like him to get into a few camps. Ethan Horvath looks like a good prospect, but I think he's farther away from prime time. He already has over 40 appearances for Molde, but needs more experience.

RB

Yedlin has his ups and downs, but he's improved and is still 22. Chandler is around as depth. He's not favored by Klinsmann, but Eric Lichaj wouldn't be a disaster in a pinch, either. This is not an area of major concern at the moment.

CB

Brooks and Cameron look like a strong partnership for the rest of the cycle. I like Besler as depth, especially if he can fill in at LB in an emergency. I'm not sold on Birnbaum as actually being one of our best four CBs, but whatever. Omar Gonzalez is going strong in Mexico. Matt Miazga could enter the picture, too. We're okay here.

LB

Fabian Johnson is our only regular starter on a Champions League club. He didn't have the impact you would hope to see from a player of that status and that's because he's been forced to fill in at LB, which is not his best position. I'd really like to find a way to get him back into the midfield, but in order to do that we need to find an acceptable solution at LB.

With that in mind, I think it's time to give Jorge Villafaña an extended shot. He came into his own in Portland and was sold to Santos Laguna last winter, where he promptly displaced Adrian Aldrete, a 28 year old with 19 caps for Mexico. Villafaña is not a guaranteed thing (how many players doing well in Mexico have disappointed for the US?), but he has a strong enough case and we have a strong enough need that this experiment needs to happen.

DM

Bradley needs to step it up because we have no obvious replacements. There are a lot of decent CMs who have developed into box-to-box types with a different skillset from what Beckerman brought to the table - I'm talking about Danny Williams and Alfredo Morales here. Same with a young player like Kellyn Acosta.

Perry Kitchen is a highly unproven option, but stylistically he fits the bill. He wasn't able to get off the bench in Copa America, but Klinsmann was generally hesitant to use inexperienced international players, so it's hard to tell where he stands.

I've long thought that Dax McCarty would be worthy of a look. He's getting older (29) but I think is worth experimenting to see if he can be a short-term bridge until the next DM emerges.

CM

Jermaine Jones is still going strong, somehow. Darlington Nagbe hasn't gotten much of a chance yet and there are others who could be tried here too, when the time comes - the aforementioned Williams and Morales. Youngsters like Acosta and Hyndman. Transitioning from a force of nature like Jones to a normal human being might be a little bumpy because there are so many things that Jones does (and some that he doesn't), but we have many options and long-term I think we'll adjust.

AM

We need to develop more depth so we can beyond worker bee types like Graham Zusi who aren't all that effective going forward. A guy like Zusi still has some use as a late-game defensive sub, but he shouldn't be starting games and ideally, we should be able to push him off the roster.

I'd love to see Fabian Johnson back in the mix here. Otherwise, we have Bedoya who can be underappreciated as a "glue guy" and who has a tremendous workrate. Bedoya does a lot of dirty work that helps in possession and in defense, but isn't much of a north-south player, so sometimes you need more aggressive options.

Everyone obviously has a close eye on Pulisic, who looks like a contributor but not a starter just yet. Zardes started to win me over as the tournament went on. He's just....surprisingly good for a bad player, if you know what I mean. His workrate and industriousness make up for some sins and even though he makes you cover your eyes sometimes, he's weirdly effective. Being a legitimate option at RM and FW means that he's going to be on a lot of US rosters, especially because he doesn't seem to get hurt much.

Vancouver's Kekuta Manneh is scheduled to get US citizenship in a few months and will be a wing option when he does so. He can super frustrating, but his speed (which is on par with Yedlin's) can really stretch defenses:


The defender he burned, Joshua Yaro, is not a slow player.

NYRB's Mike Grella plays with a certain combination of grittiness and panache that reminds me of Clint Dempsey. He's not as good as Dempsey or even the same type of player, but it makes me feel like he could translate to the next level. It's just too bad he pissed away most his career before taking it seriously.

In the longer-shot department, Joe Gyau is finally healthy again and we'll have to see what, if anything, the injury took away from him. Julian Green needs a move away from Bayern to take the next step.


FW

Wood and Dempsey are my starters. Altidore will perhaps look more appealing to people as an option off the bench rather than a lock starter. After that, we have more question marks. Aron Johannsson is a natural fit for the secondary striker role that Dempsey played in the Copa, but it remains to be seen how badly he's been thrown off by his hip injury.

For now, Jordan Morris should be a good speed option off the bench who can scare tired defenses. Seattle's roster right now is a discombobulated mess of mismatched pieces, but he's done alright. He'll need to improve a bit more to be more than a sub for the US.

Some others -- Rubio Rubin is healthy again and is possibly versatile enough to be a SS or wide attacker, but needs to earn his way in at Utrecht. Klinsmann likes Fafà Picault at St. Pauli, who finished last year strong. Dom Dwyer at SKC will be eligible for US citizenship in 2017.
 

soxfan121

JAG
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2002
23,043
The talent pool is shallow, and getting worse. I would also like to bid adieu to Beckerman and / or Jones but there are literally no other options even remotely close to being ready.

If this team gets out of the group in Russia, Klinsmann should be hailed as a genius and be made coach for life.
 

Jimy Hendrix

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 15, 2002
5,846
I'm not sure if England just made the Copa performance look better by comparison or if Iceland made it look much, much worse.
 

Infield Infidel

teaching korea american
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
11,463
Meeting Place, Canada
Not that friendlies matter for much, but USA beat Iceland 3-2 in friendly in January. They are a veteran team that has played together since they were teens and they are well-prepared and well-drilled in their gameplan, so they won't beat themselves and you have to play their game for long chunks of the match.
 

Jed Zeppelin

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 23, 2008
51,333
Lost me at this point:

But for me, this quote from the DFB’s then-director Matthias Sammer in 2006 summarizes the ruthless German approach to its youth programs that made them the machine they are today. Winning. It was about winning. You can sense the hot blood pooling and bubbling and roiling around Sammer’s steel-tipped words.

“We have explicitly stated that winning titles is our aim in youth football,” he said, “because certain character traits are part of the learning curve as well. We cannot just concentrate on conditioning, technical skills and tactics – we have to intensify our focus on a player’s personality. Players can build a winning mentality only through experience. Once you’ve had the experience of winning in youth football, you want to have it again.
The bolded sounds like it could have come from Klinsmann himself. Most conventional wisdom has it that the downfall of our youth system rests in a culture of winning over technical skills and tactics, which has helped foster our particular brand of hoofball.
 

soxfan121

JAG
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2002
23,043
Lost me at this point:



The bolded sounds like it could have come from Klinsmann himself. Most conventional wisdom has it that the downfall of our youth system rests in a culture of winning over technical skills and tactics, which has helped foster our particular brand of hoofball.
1. That it "sounds like Klinsmann" is no reason to discount it, or reject it. Also, that it sounds like Klinsmann is no coincidence, no?

2. Conventional wisdom is often wrong. I am still awaiting the 10,000 words @Titans Bastard promised me about the shortcomings of the development system, BTW. :)

But maybe @Schnerres can clarify - I think Sammer's comments are about the second step in the plan. The first being "find technically talented youngsters". I think the USA has fewer of these talented youngsters because fewer of our youngsters spend the time developing their technical skills. American kids dabble in other sports and don't spend hours juggling and developing close control; they start playing games and THEN the "win or nothing" stuff comes in... skipping the step that Sammer isn't explaining.

Then again, I could be wrong. But I would defer to Schnerres on how the German development machine works and I hope he can weigh in here.
 

Cellar-Door

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
34,464
I think there are two separate issues in the winning debate.
Winning can be important.
Playing shitty soccer to win is bad.

The Germans emphasize winning, but they also emphasize systems of good play that make for sustainable winning.
Too many US youth teams emphasize winning through bad systems that only work short term against other shitty teams.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 2, 2006
22,345
Philadelphia
1. That it "sounds like Klinsmann" is no reason to discount it, or reject it. Also, that it sounds like Klinsmann is no coincidence, no?

2. Conventional wisdom is often wrong. I am still awaiting the 10,000 words @Titans Bastard promised me about the shortcomings of the development system, BTW. :)

But maybe @Schnerres can clarify - I think Sammer's comments are about the second step in the plan. The first being "find technically talented youngsters". I think the USA has fewer of these talented youngsters because fewer of our youngsters spend the time developing their technical skills. American kids dabble in other sports and don't spend hours juggling and developing close control; they start playing games and THEN the "win or nothing" stuff comes in... skipping the step that Sammer isn't explaining.

Then again, I could be wrong. But I would defer to Schnerres on how the German development machine works and I hope he can weigh in here.
Right. And that speaks to the division of labor between national teams and clubs in countries like Germany. Its not a surprise that the youth national teams emphasize winning. Who doesn't? The key distinction is that in Germany 95% of the player development runs through the clubs, who don't necessarily emphasize winning at all costs at every level, but rather developing players with the mix of technical skills, tactical awareness, and athleticism to one day become professionals.
 

Vinho Tinto

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 9, 2003
7,047
Auburn, MA
The key distinction is that in Germany 95% of the player development runs through the clubs, who don't necessarily emphasize winning at all costs at every level, but rather developing players with the mix of technical skills, tactical awareness, and athleticism to one day become professionals.
This is also why I've never bought the narrative that the DFB made reforms following Euro 2004 that quickly transformed the national squad to Übermensch again. Players are discovered and developed by clubs, not the FAs.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
2. Conventional wisdom is often wrong. I am still awaiting the 10,000 words @Titans Bastard promised me about the shortcomings of the development system, BTW. :)
Probably going to have to raincheck on that. There's only so much I can blather on about in a single year. Maybe next fiscal year, depending on my budget.

I think there are two separate issues in the winning debate.
Winning can be important.
Playing shitty soccer to win is bad.

The Germans emphasize winning, but they also emphasize systems of good play that make for sustainable winning.
Too many US youth teams emphasize winning through bad systems that only work short term against other shitty teams.
Agree 100%. Winning is a good thing and should only be de-emphasized when coaches need to be saved from themselves, as has often been the case in the US.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
The under-20 national team will play three games in a friendly tournament in Carson, CA next week.

6/29 vs. Costa Rica
7/1 vs. Panama
7/3 vs. Japan

Tab Ramos is taking a mostly domestic roster:

GK
Jonathan Klinsmann (California)
J.T. Marcinkowski (Georgetown)

DF
Hugo Arellano (LA Galaxy academy)
Marcello Borges (Michigan)
Marlon Fossey (Fulham)
Aaron Herrera (New Mexico)
Andrew Lombard (Northeastern)
Tommy Redding (Orlando City)
Miles Robinson (Syracuse)
Auston Trusty (Bethlehem Steel)

MF
Mukwelle Akale (Villarreal)
Luca de la Torre (Fulham)
Weston McKennie (FC Dallas academy)
Eryk Williamson (Maryland)
Jackson Yueill (UCLA)

FW
Coy Craft (FC Dallas)
Jeremy Ebobisse (Duke)
Victor Mansaray (Seattle Sounders)
Emmanuel Sabbi (Chicago Magic)
Sebastian Saucedo (Veracruz, on loan from RSL)


Plenty of players missing here. This camp should be a good opportunity to sort through some fullbacks and forwards and figure out what the midfield structure looks like. Redding is starting for Orlando this season and is a contender at the U20 level, but the rest of the CBs (Trusty, Robinson, Lombard) will have a hard time making the roster if everyone is healthy and available (Cameron Carter-Vickers, Erik Palmer-Brown, and Justen Glad).

It's the first camp of the cycle for Marlon Fossey, Luca de la Torre, and Weston McKennie. I find all three to be interesting prospects. Fossey apparently did well at a U19 camp; it would be great if he can stake a claim to the RB position. De la Torre is a box-to-box mid who looked classy for the U17s and who may benefit from Hyndman's departure from Fulham. McKennie is a #10 who is well regarded.

They beat Costa Rica 2-0 last night fairly handily. They looked good for a U-20 team missing quite a few top players. But maybe this Costa Rica squad just sucks, we'll see how the US does in the other games.

Goals from Ebobisse and Saucedo.

 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
Not a good look:



Apparently that $4k fee was increased from around $1k.
 

Cellar-Door

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
34,464
Well, that's because most countries' FAs have the primary objective of making the sport good. USSoccer is about making the sport good so long as it doesn't interfere with profits.
 

soxfan121

JAG
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2002
23,043
Gotta start banking that money for 2020 when 35 year old Cristiano Ronaldo will become MLS's next Beckham, playing for the Miami Beckhams.
 

Schnerres

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 28, 2009
1,554
Germany
Is it 4000Dollar just to get the A-license or for everything up until and including the A-license? From what I understand now, it must be just the A-Licensing..?

In Germany, it´s a little bit more than 4k Euro for everyhing (C-course, C-License, DFB-Elite Youth License, B-Course, B-License, A-License qualification, A-License) including the A-License (but it takes years, you need 1+year of coaching with each License to apply for the next Course and License...). If you want a special goalkeeping course, you pay up to 750€ more than that (the sums vary, depending on the location of your course: this is not a central DFB paying system, it´s up to the local federations). And then of course it´s the Fußball Lehrer for 10-15.000€.
 

Hagios

New Member
Dec 15, 2007
672
Lost me at this point:



The bolded sounds like it could have come from Klinsmann himself. Most conventional wisdom has it that the downfall of our youth system rests in a culture of winning over technical skills and tactics, which has helped foster our particular brand of hoofball.
A few points.

1. The game in the US isn't as evolved so the best way to win is by getting big strong fast athletes and play long ball. But that will get you destroyed on the international level, so we are (slowly) learning to intentionally disregard winning in favor of technical development. In Europe, the youth game is much evolved to the point where playing long ball won't help you win. A good touch and possession team is the one that wins. So they can be directly incentived by winning without worrying about it harming development.

2. It's hard to win youth tournaments in CONCACAF because you can't really be sure about the ages of the players.

3. I thought this quote from the article was interesting:
In 2009, which was not so long ago, Germany celebrated a first in European history. In the span of 11 months, Germany’s U17, U19 and U21 teams all collected continental titles at once. Nobody had ever done that before, and lest we forget now, Germany had not gathered a piece of major continental hardware on the youth side before then in 17 years.
Which means that the current generation of dominant German players did not win a youth tournament. If Germany thinks they need to put more of an emphasis on winning youth tournaments, then I'm sure they're onto something. But it's clearly not essential.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,851
Which means that the current generation of dominant German players did not win a youth tournament.
Huh?

Gotze was on the U17 Euro champions.
Neuer was on the U21 Euro champions.
Boateng was on the U21 Euro champions.
Khedira was on the U21 Euro champions.
Ozil was on the U21 Euro champions.
Hummels was on the U21 Euro champions.

Bonus: Fabian Johnson was on the U21 Euro champions.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
A few points.

1. The game in the US isn't as evolved so the best way to win is by getting big strong fast athletes and play long ball. But that will get you destroyed on the international level, so we are (slowly) learning to intentionally disregard winning in favor of technical development. In Europe, the youth game is much evolved to the point where playing long ball won't help you win. A good touch and possession team is the one that wins. So they can be directly incentived by winning without worrying about it harming development.
I think it's more complicated than that.

Playing kick and chase with early maturers, using a high press that looks to capitalize on defensive miscues is a strategy that will be effective at the ~U12 level anywhere. It's just that countries with higher median levels of coaching ability don't go down that route because they know where it leads. In the US, we have struggled with this because coaches are uniquely incentivized to win at the youth level to keep the player dues flowing in from clueless parents and because many coaches simply aren't good at coaching another way.


However, I think the narrative that US youth national teams only select no-skill physical specimens is outdated. Even at the youth club level, we've moved on a bit from the bad old days where there were lots of really egregious examples of Route One youth soccer. Players are even getting more technical. You can see it in the depth that shows up in MLS and in the YNT rosters. The problem is that our highest-end players aren't improving as much as we need to and that comes down to the tactical side of the game.

Recent U17 and U20 teams have had quite a few technical types. The problem is that we've traded one problem for another -- a bunch of them were lousy athletes; it's like in our rush to get more technical we forget that yes, athleticism matters too. And all throughout the tactical level isn't high enough. Players need to have vision. Players need to make the right decision, quickly. Players need to recognize where they need to be off the ball faster. There many athletic and many technical players in the world, but these are the traits that separate the elite players from the rest.

The 2013 U20 team is perhaps the best example of the "let's-try-to-mimic-Barcelona-but-actually-we-don't-really-know-what-the-fuck-we're-doing" ethos that Tab Ramos was espousing at the time. It was filled with relatively technical players who weren't great athletes who were good at smoothly knocking the ball back and forth deeper in the midfield, but had no idea how to use possession to create penetration and attacking chances.

This is typical. Our coaches aren't total idiots, they know that we need to get better technically and tactically. Many of them are quite good at talking the talk, it's just that too many don't know how to fully walk the walk. All the technique in the world won't make you an elite player if you don't know how to use your technique to effectively create numerical advantages and scoring opportunities in the attack.

2. It's hard to win youth tournaments in CONCACAF because you can't really be sure about the ages of the players.
I don't think age cheating is an issue in CONCACAF, aside from an old scandal that was a big help to the US' chances of qualifying for the 1990 WC.
 

Hagios

New Member
Dec 15, 2007
672
I think it's more complicated than that.
Recent U17 and U20 teams have had quite a few technical types. The problem is that we've traded one problem for another -- a bunch of them were lousy athletes; it's like in our rush to get more technical we forget that yes, athleticism matters too. And all throughout the tactical level isn't high enough. Players need to have vision. Players need to make the right decision, quickly. Players need to recognize where they need to be off the ball faster. There many athletic and many technical players in the world, but these are the traits that separate the elite players from the rest.

The 2013 U20 team is perhaps the best example of the "let's-try-to-mimic-Barcelona-but-actually-we-don't-really-know-what-the-fuck-we're-doing" ethos that Tab Ramos was espousing at the time. It was filled with relatively technical players who weren't great athletes who were good at smoothly knocking the ball back and forth deeper in the midfield, but had no idea how to use possession to create penetration and attacking chances.
Good post. I definitely agree that we're recovering from the long ball and have improved tactically. I was actually really happy with the MNT in the Copa. That was the highest level of competition where I've seen them play decent possession soccer (excluding Argentina, but I don't expect them to do well against Argentina).

I haven't watched any of the youth teams but that is interesting what you say about their current stage of development. I would say that there are really three skills in the soccer hierarchy:

1. Raw athleticism
2. Touch
3. Vision

The third is the hardest to teach. It might even be unteachable. It's that classic Wayne Gretzky "I don't skate to where the puck is, I skate to where it's going to be". Tom Brady is maybe the most familiar example of it. There are a lot of guys who throw a better ball, but he does a better job of seeing the entire field than anybody. Finding guys with that skills is going to be hard, but that will be needed for the US to take the next step into being a legitimate top 20 team.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
BTW, since we've had plenty of general/theoretical talk about how US youth teams play, I thought a few upcoming events of real, live youth soccer are worthy of mention.

These YNT friendlies will be streamed on YouTube. I'll try to remember to post a link.

7/1, 9pm (tonight). USA U-20 vs. Panama U-20. It's a friendly with largely a B team with a few A team players sprinkled in, but still. They showed well against Costa Rica on Wednesday.

7/3, 6pm. USA U-20 vs. Japan U-20.

The US Soccer Development Academy (the elite youth soccer league in the US) has its playoffs right now. 32 teams were reduced to 8 and the quarterfinals are next Thursday:

7/7:
Vancouver Whitecaps U18 vs. Sacramento Republic U18
Philadelphia Union U18 vs. PDA U18
FC Dallas U18 vs. Sporting Kansas City U18
Real Salt Lake-AZ U18 vs. Nomads SC U18

PDA is from New Jersey. Nomads SC is from San Diego.

Weston FC U16 vs. Chicago Fire U16
Real Colorado U16 vs. FC Golden State U16
FC Dallas U16 vs. Real Salt Lake-AZ U16
LA Galaxy U16 vs. Real So Cal U16

Weston is from South Florida. FC Golden State is from Pasadena, CA. Real Colorado is from Denver and Real So Cal is from the San Fernando Valley.


I'm not sure how many of these games will be streamed, but I bet a bunch will be. FC Dallas is always a powerhouse in the USSDA. LA Galaxy U16 is supposed to have some good prospects.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
Good post. I definitely agree that we're recovering from the long ball and have improved tactically. I was actually really happy with the MNT in the Copa. That was the highest level of competition where I've seen them play decent possession soccer (excluding Argentina, but I don't expect them to do well against Argentina).

I haven't watched any of the youth teams but that is interesting what you say about their current stage of development. I would say that there are really three skills in the soccer hierarchy:

1. Raw athleticism
2. Touch
3. Vision

The third is the hardest to teach. It might even be unteachable. It's that classic Wayne Gretzky "I don't skate to where the puck is, I skate to where it's going to be". Tom Brady is maybe the most familiar example of it. There are a lot of guys who throw a better ball, but he does a better job of seeing the entire field than anybody. Finding guys with that skills is going to be hard, but that will be needed for the US to take the next step into being a legitimate top 20 team.
It's somewhat arbitrary, but I've seen various breakdowns and the one I like best breaks soccer down into four components. Physical, Technique, Tactical (which correspond to your three), and also Psychological (which is basically mental toughness). We've never had much problem with the physical and the psychological.

I'll disagree that vision and tactics aren't teachable. Being able to anticipate play quickly and a step ahead of the opposition is what top teams do. It's not something in the water in Germany, Italy, Argentina, etc - it's good coaching.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,851
In the US, we have struggled with this because coaches are uniquely incentivized to win at the youth level to keep the player dues flowing in from clueless parents and because many coaches simply aren't good at coaching another way.
To play devil's advocate, there's no way to convince thousands upon thousands of parents that it's up to them to pay all this money into clubs and the goal is to make their kids better technical players through lots and lots of drilling and technical work. How do you tell a U9 kid that they're not going to play games this season, they're just going to drill and play small-sided games. That kid will leave the sport. The parents are only clueless if you think they have the same goal you or I do. They don't. These kids (including my son who played at a top travel club in this area) want to have fun and play in out of town tourneys a few weekends a year. It's not incumbent on him or my wallet to spend $$ to make us better as a country in soccer.

There needs to be a sea change at the top, not with academies in select MLS cities where the best kids can get the American version of top-level training for free. It needs to be everywhere, and unfortunately I don't know how that happens.
 
Last edited:

Hagios

New Member
Dec 15, 2007
672
To play devil's advocate, there's no way to convince thousands upon thousands of parents that it's up to them to pay all this money into clubs and the goal is to make their kids better technical players through lots and lots of drilling and technical work. How do you tell a U9 kid that they're not going to play games this season, they're just going to drill and play small-sided games. That kid will leave the sport.
They didn't play small-sided games when I was kid, but I remember spending a lot of time at midfield just waiting and waiting for our team to get possession and clear the ball. I would think that a small sided game would be more fun with a lot more action. The fewer players, the more touches you get.

I also remember doing drills where you spent a while waiting in line before you went. The current teaching is that there shouldn't be any standing around time. I can't vouch for how well most coaches implement that because my own kids are not soccer players, but at least in theory the practices and games should be a lot more fun these days, not less.

I do agree that we need to get rid of pay to play. It's hard for the middle class families to justify and it effectively excludes a lot of poor families. My wife teaches in an urban school with a large population of Hispanic immigrants. During field trips after lunch they'll play soccer with an empty 2 liter soda bottle. We still joke about the time one of her students breathlessly called my wife during summer vacation to announce "Paraguay is out." But none of those kids can afford to play organized soccer.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
To play devil's advocate, there's no way to convince thousands upon thousands of parents that it's up to them to pay all this money into clubs and the goal is to make their kids better technical players through lots and lots of drilling and technical work. How do you tell a U9 kid that they're not going to play games this season, they're just going to drill and play small-sided games. That kid will leave the sport. The parents are only clueless if you think they have the same goal you or I do. They don't. These kids (including my son who played at a top travel club in this area) want to have fun and play in out of town tourneys a few weekends a year. It's not incumbent on him or my wallet to spend $$ to make us better as a country in soccer.

There needs to be a sea change at the top, not with academies in select MLS cities where the best kids can get the American version of top-level training for free. It needs to be everywhere, and unfortunately I don't know how that happens.
It's certainly fair to take a closer look at the POV of the parents themselves, but I don't think that technical and tactical training has to be all drudgery and miserable drills. I could be wrong -- you are or have been in the thick of youth soccer so correct me if I am -- but I don't think many people are advocating that youth players not play games.

It shouldn't be incumbent on you or any other parent to spend huge $$$ on this. It's a tough situation. Fields, travel, and coaches all cost a lot of money in the US. From what I understand, much of the coaching at young levels in European countries is done on a volunteer basis (even at serious clubs, not just your rec leagues). Maybe @Schnerres would know a bit more about the model in Germany?
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
While we're still talking about youth soccer:


These are three prominent youth clubs. The players in question are Dempsey (Dallas Texans), Yedlin (Crossfire), and Bradley (Chicago Sockers). If this suit is successful, it would have some interesting consequences for youth development in the US.
 

Dummy Hoy

Angry Pissbum
SoSH Member
Jul 22, 2006
8,232
Falmouth
Especially at the younger age, less structure, more time on the ball. Heavy emphasis on the ball at your feet and quick passes/ball movement. Fuck winning, fuck "tactics."
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 2, 2006
22,345
Philadelphia
Recent U17 and U20 teams have had quite a few technical types. The problem is that we've traded one problem for another -- a bunch of them were lousy athletes; it's like in our rush to get more technical we forget that yes, athleticism matters too. And all throughout the tactical level isn't high enough. Players need to have vision. Players need to make the right decision, quickly. Players need to recognize where they need to be off the ball faster. There many athletic and many technical players in the world, but these are the traits that separate the elite players from the rest.
I think this nails the issue very well. Decision making on the ball and movement and spatial understanding without the ball - how to read the movement of others and figure out where space will open, how to create space for others with your own movement - are really what sets a lot of top players and teams apart. I think its mainly coaching but also exposure to other players and teammates with these skills. You need coaches who can understand and communicate these ideas. But I think it helps a lot to grow up in a football culture where you are watching top players and how they move and how they think, on the television and eventually from the sidelines, all the time. These kind of tactical aspects of the game probably are marked by network effects: The more people around you that have the abilities, whether youth teammates or first team players at your club that you watch train all the time, the more likely you are to develop those abilities. That's a tricky issue for the US, because then it comes down to the question of how you build a network from scratch when even the best national team or MLS players often are not very fluent/sophisticated in their movement and decision making.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
I think this nails the issue very well. Decision making on the ball and movement and spatial understanding without the ball - how to read the movement of others and figure out where space will open, how to create space for others with your own movement - are really what sets a lot of top players and teams apart. I think its mainly coaching but also exposure to other players and teammates with these skills. You need coaches who can understand and communicate these ideas. But I think it helps a lot to grow up in a football culture where you are watching top players and how they move and how they think, on the television and eventually from the sidelines, all the time. These kind of tactical aspects of the game probably are marked by network effects: The more people around you that have the abilities, whether youth teammates or first team players at your club that you watch train all the time, the more likely you are to develop those abilities. That's a tricky issue for the US, because then it comes down to the question of how you build a network from scratch when even the best national team or MLS players often are not very fluent/sophisticated in their movement and decision making.
That's the concern - how long is it going to take to build critical mass?

At least lower-level former pros are a much better influence than say, the random parents who coached my youth soccer teams. After all, Christian Pulisic benefited from a dad who was a former pro, but Mark Pulisic was just a guy who played college soccer at George Mason and then indoor soccer for the Harrisburg Heat. Not the world's most impressive career.

Bedoya, Kljestan, Fagundez -- all guys with former pro dads who played in the old country. All have surpassed their forebears. Nagbe's dad had nearly 100 caps for George Weah-era Liberia. (Weah's youngest son plays for PSG's academy....and the US U17s.) Gyau's dad played for the US and his grandfather played for Ghana. Hyndman's grandfather is a very successful NCAA coach who also had a stint at FC Dallas. There's Bradley, obviously. And so on.

One factor that I think helps is the ubiquity of soccer on TV now. I'm 30 years old and I remember watching Champions League games on weekday afternoons on ESPN2 in the late 1990s, but there really wasn't much else. I remember my friend's family (Italian background via Venezuela) buying Euro 2000 on PPV (Setanta Sports). Folks older than me will talk about watching Soccer Made in Germany on PBS in the 1980s.

The amount of EPL, Bundesliga, La Liga, CL, and Liga MX on TV is tremendous. Even MLS is much better than it was ten years ago. In the US, we can watch more EPL on TV than they can in England. The generation that's coming of age has never known a reality in which soccer on TV was a rare and precious commodity. Also, growing up most of the kids I played soccer with never watched it on TV. Part of that was because there wasn't much available, but they also just weren't very interested. I think that's changing.

Another thing that helps us is that we don't have to be as efficient as other countries thanks to our population base. We just need to be more efficient in producing good players than we are right now.
 

JimBoSox9

will you be my friend?
SoSH Member
Nov 1, 2005
16,667
Mid-surburbia
It's huge, huge, huge. I think 2-3 years ago was the first time where, if I wanted to blow a full weekend day watching sports, I could make a conscious consumer choice to do it with futbol instead of football. I'm particularly obsessed with measuring the impact on the 6-12yo crowd that are up watching cartoons and shit. That's the reason to believe this "change is coming" era is different from all the previous ones.
 

soxfan121

JAG
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2002
23,043
I think it helps a lot to grow up in a football culture where you are watching top players and how they move and how they think, on the television and eventually from the sidelines, all the time.
There is a literal straight line from the above to "let's make David Beckham the centerpiece of our plan to sell the game, and our new league."

It's not even THAT bad an idea. I mean, in practice, it's been, at best, shit. It has proven to be much better to pursue, and procure, second- and third-generation talents, foreign and domestic.

But the more of those - the Nagbe's and the Fagundez's (and the John Brooks's)- there are, the more the next generation builds and ... maybe then there's the explosion in available talent that should arrive in our 350 million + pool.

That a generation of American lads didn't end up trying to "be like Beckham" was foreseeable, and unfortunate. But even I have to admit - it wasn't a bad idea. It just didn't work.
 

teddykgb

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
11,025
Chelmsford, MA
I honestly think the TV stuff will be the catalyst for change. These skills are learned young and watching the highest levels played inspires kids far more than a coach and his drills. I went to kick a ball around yesterday afternoon and the park had a small kid of non English speaking origin there with presumably his father. The kid was taking 30 yard free kicks and screaming Neymar! At every one that went close. The more we produce that the more I think natural footballers will follow. NBC may be creating our future National Team one weekend at a time
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
SoSH Member
Jan 10, 2004
24,483
The 718
It's huge, huge, huge. I think 2-3 years ago was the first time where, if I wanted to blow a full weekend day watching sports, I could make a conscious consumer choice to do it with futbol instead of football. I'm particularly obsessed with measuring the impact on the 6-12yo crowd that are up watching cartoons and shit. That's the reason to believe this "change is coming" era is different from all the previous ones.
That's basically how I became a fan. When Lil OCST was born, I would spell Mrs. O on Saturday mornings with the baby so she could sleep in. What's on on Saturday at 7 am? Why, the Premier League. By the time the 2010 WC rolled around, I was hooked, but it all started with Saturday mornings.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
USA vs. Panama starting in a few minutes:



USA wins 4-0, though it wasn't an overwhelmingly great performance. Panama got the best of us in the first 20 minutes and the tide turned after that. You can tell that Robinson and Trusty are about 5th and 6th choice at CB; they had some shaky moments and weren't very good playing the ball out of the back. Fossey showed some offensive and defensive tools at RB, but he's raw. He looks like a converted winger, which he is -- and he's also the second youngest player called up so far this cycle.

Very nice assist by Luca de la Torre on the first goal. There are a lot of pretty good attacking midfielders to choose from this cycle compared to the normal haul. Akale is exciting. We need a few to break out at the club level, other than Pulisic.

Some good prospects at #8 too (including Zelalem, who hasn't been called in yet), but the cupboard is relatively bare at #6. I'm not sold on Danilo Acosta, who seems okay but nothing special.






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wG2VKsbyPQ