USMNT: To Rüssia With Love
- Thread starter Titans Bastard
- Start date
Why not go all in on the academy then? Is it because the cost of labor for non designated players is so cheap?
Well, some clubs really are investing a lot in academies.
I'll disagree with your earlier statement that MLS teams don't have their own business plan or identity. That's simply not true. It's not 1999; the league is far less centrally-operated than it was in its earlier days. They are all constrained by MLS roster and salary rules, but they are free to use whatever strategy they want in building a roster. Some are starfuckers who skimp on the rest of the roster (Toronto, NYCFC) and/or sign players who don't fit well with the team (NYCFC and, recently, LA). Some build mostly through a few academy players, domestic veterans, and rehab projects (DC, NE). Others are very import-heavy (Orlando, Portland). Most are somewhere in the middle. Dallas has built its team mostly through academy products and cheap South American imports. Last year they were one of the best team in the league while handing the starting GK role to a 20 year old halfway through the season and using two young academy products as their midfield engine (Kellyn Acosta and Victor Ulloa).
RSL, who have the smallest metro in the league by far, decided to build a residential academy in Arizona a few years ago and have since been recruiting players from all over the country. Other teams have set up affiliates around the country to identify players and funnel them to their primary academies. Dallas has a few rostered players like this (Alejandro Zendejas is from El Paso and Coy Craft is from Abingdon in far southwestern Virginia). KC hasn't signed any affiliated players but have been moving players from Tennessee and Kentucky to play for their academy. One of their KC-area academy products is on loan at Porto and I've heard rumors they want to make it permanent.
The "homegrown rule" allowing teams to sign academy players to sign MLS contracts has been in place since 2007. It has taken time to ramp up the academies -- for most teams everything had to be set up from scratch. Coaches, recruiting players, training facilities, etc. Most weren't able to recruit the best talent in their area until a couple of years in. Then they were faced with more challenges: the jump from the U18 league to MLS is huge, so many players opted to spend years in the NCAA instead of languishing on the bench. So lately, MLS has made use of a partnership with USL, first with affiliate agreements and then by some MLS teams establishing their own USL franchises. This season, 12 of the 20 teams in MLS operate USL teams, which gives young players an intermediate step in the ladder between amateur youth soccer and the first team.
It's not easy to catch up to countries that have been doing this for much longer. The infrastructure pieces are coming into place. Players have good facilities and now most have a clear ladder to the first team. Almost all MLS academies are free. I think DC is the lone holdout, as they are the last remaining club who can legitimately cry poor. That will change when they get their new stadium.
The quality of youth coaching still needs to improve and, in some cases, teams need to have a clear organizational philosophy that incorporates the academy. NYRB and Dallas both used to have coaches who were skittish about youth players, rendering their relatively strong academy efforts pointless. That's changed now with Pareja and Marsch. It needs to change for some other teams, too. I worry about LA's parade of veterans, for example. Others need to ramp up their efforts. San Jose put notoriously little effort in their academy until recently. Portland tries, but they never seem to have anything in their pipeline. Houston -- despite being huge with a large Hispanic population -- has always lagged way behind Dallas (not just FCD vs. the Dynamo, but also as a metro area including other youth clubs) for reasons that I don't understand. Chicago should do better. Etc.
Thanks for the detail response. I'll look into everything more after work. I was seeing players listed in the MLS SuperDraft with affiliations such as "Orlando City U-23" and was thinking that Orlando was not getting a benefit of training a prospect; but I guess those guys are in a separate pipeline that what goes through the Academy.
I'll admit that my perspective is colored by the name signings at the bigger clubs. If time brings improvement with the league's player development, I'll happily admit that I was wrong with the correlation to how the league is structured. I just need more apparent results than what I've seen. I'll will say one thing with regards to how long it takes to ramp an academy up, it can happen quick if you invest enough and properly. Benfica had no notable youth presence 10 years ago, but players are now graduating from Seixal that rival Sporting's talent.
I'll admit that my perspective is colored by the name signings at the bigger clubs. If time brings improvement with the league's player development, I'll happily admit that I was wrong with the correlation to how the league is structured. I just need more apparent results than what I've seen. I'll will say one thing with regards to how long it takes to ramp an academy up, it can happen quick if you invest enough and properly. Benfica had no notable youth presence 10 years ago, but players are now graduating from Seixal that rival Sporting's talent.
This is such a great post. We should basically pin a thread with TB's best posts.
Not enough bandwith. Seriously, it's some of the best stuff on the Internet about soccer.
I generally don't post in it, but TB is the reason I read this sub-forum. I've learned a lot from it.
Setting up a full academy system ala Benfica or Premier League teams involves a large capital cost to build a facility with a dozen soccer fields, locker rooms, physiotherapy rooms, weightlifting facilities, classrooms, etc. MLS teams have been run a shoestring budget for a long time. Teams are only just starting to build dedicated training facilities.
Even its advocates agree that MLS isn't going to change things in the short term. It will take several more years for academies to start producing quality players rather than simply labeling college players like Morris as academy products. It's the only realistic chance for a sea change in the sport in the USA, though. We just have to be patient.
Ah yes, that is a confusing element. A lot of MLS organizations have "U-23" teams that play in amateur leagues like the PDL or the NPSL. If the professional minor leagues -- NASL and USL -- can be roughly termed "AAA" and "AA", the PDL and the NPSL are more like the Cape Cod League. They are summer amateur leagues and filled mostly with college players. I don't think they are particularly essential to the developmental ladder. However, they do have some moderate utility.
Most academy signings / homegrown players (HGPs) don't play four years of college soccer. But many of them play some college soccer. This happens for a variety of reasons. Sometimes players who aren't elite prospects want to hedge their bets until their pro potential becomes more clear; they don't want to blow their scholarship offer if they fall short of the requisite quality. This has been especially true because MLS until very recently offered a shitty developmental experience for players who weren't ready to play at the MLS level. Others are just marginal pro prospects who become late bloomers, etc, and the team decided to offer them a contract only later in their college career.
So these U23 teams in summer leagues are used as vehicles for teams to evaluate recent academy grads who are still in college, as well as random other unattached college players for future draft purposes. It's not essential and it's not a big deal in a player's development, but the PDL likes to hype up its involvement in the process. They'll say "This PDL franchise has produced X future MLS pros!!!" which is sort of like me saying I developed an MLB player because I played catch with him when he was a kid.
MLS doesn't allow teams to sign players via the homegrown rule unless they've spent at least a year with the organization prior to college. Otherwise it would be too easy to poach random good players from across the country, when the point is to raise the bar of player development.
There's still some poaching at the academy level -- Jordan Morris and DeAndre Yedlin only spent one year with the Sounders U18s -- but that's unavoidable and poaching good youth players is what Euro clubs do too. At the end of the day it's a good thing when talented young players have easier access to the pros. (MLS really should allow underclassmen to enter the draft, but that's another story.)
As somebody who cares more about player development than fossils like Lampard, Gerrard, etc., there's a lot of schadenfreude in watching low-budget teams based on domestic talent and academy products beat up on big-spenders.
Re: Benfica -- having top-to-bottom organizational focus on player development is essential to making it happen. One benefit that Benfica probably has is access to a stronger pool of local youth coaches. When they put their mind to it, I imagine Benfica can get anyone in Portugal they want except maybe some coaches at Porto or Sporting.
MLS and US Soccer have created some foreign partnerships (with the French fed at one point, and maybe others too) with an aim to improving youth coaching. I have no way of knowing how serious and/or effective they have been. I believe that the quality of youth coaching really is the final frontier for the US. People want a style revolution? This is where it has to happen.
@Titans Bastard - as usual, kick ass series of posts.
However, I want to return to something @Vinho Tinto said at the outset of this tangent - creating La Masia isn't cheap, or easy.
I gather - please correct me if I'm wrong - the first iteration of USA Soccer's attempt to get "development right" was Bradenton, and a country-wide training academy that would populate the needs of all the USA teams.
And that failed, either because of the wrong people in charge, the wrong mission goals OR another factor that still exists now that the development has been shifted to team academies.
At La Masia, the end goal is playing for the greatest, and most successful club in the world. The unquestioned leader of the pack.
The end goal at the Sporting KC academy is to play for Sporting KC - generously, maybe one of the top 500 clubs in the world. The ambition, and goal, is not the same.
Ultimately, this is why development is still failing and will continue to fail. Every minor league baseball player - even the ones playing for bad organizations - knows that the club's ladder leads to one of the top 30 baseball clubs in the world. This is a (small) factor in why the NFL's developmental leagues have crashed and burned - there's legit question about whether 'tis better to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars or the Alabama Crimson Tide. There's some lifetime benefits to having been part of the Crimson Tide (or THE Ohio State Buckeyes) that while not equal to an NFL pension, are arguably on par with some of the benefits of having been a Jaguar. And DEFINITELY outweigh being a developmental-roster player for the London Monarchs, a minor league affiliate of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Ultimately, any academy products for MLS teams will be still be far off the the ladder to the truly "elite" teams. This is why "we" fans are more psyched by the emergence of a Julian Green (BAYERN!!) or Christian Pulisic (DORTMUND!!!) than we are about the emergence (and development) of Jordan Morris (Stanford! Seattle!) or even DeAndre Yedlin (University of Akron! Seattle! Spurs ... wait, no Sunderland!!!)
Part of a development academy is to provide a player with the best opportunity possible to "make it big" in the sport. This is why La Masia is the peak of the mountain, and why it is impossible to copy. Their ultimate reward is to pull on the shirt of the best club in the world. That does not, cannot, exist in a league that can rival the reputation of the English Championship or the Eredivisie - it is a lower rung on the ladder, and almost always (in our lifetimes) will be.
So, to answer Vinho - I don't think the USA is capable of opening and operating academies that can "compete" with even the likes of Porto or Benefica. That the players who come up through the ranks of US/MLS academies will see the "jump" to another development ladder - like Porto's - as a step up for their prospects and career. There's no chance of that changing in the next 50 years. So I can understand why prospects who get offers abroad will continue to choose those ladders over the MLS-provided ladders.
Now, that doesn't mean MLS should stop trying. Or that the effort is wasted. But it does mean that there's no chance of USA Soccer "copying" La Masia. Because they cannot possibly offer the same goals and benefits to the prospects.
I guess I'll end with an Ed McMahon quote: "Keep on reaching for the stars!" Development, as TB says is getting better all the time. It just won't get to where it needs to be for a very long time yet, because the infrastructure and reputation stuff is a really big hurdle.
However, I want to return to something @Vinho Tinto said at the outset of this tangent - creating La Masia isn't cheap, or easy.
I gather - please correct me if I'm wrong - the first iteration of USA Soccer's attempt to get "development right" was Bradenton, and a country-wide training academy that would populate the needs of all the USA teams.
And that failed, either because of the wrong people in charge, the wrong mission goals OR another factor that still exists now that the development has been shifted to team academies.
At La Masia, the end goal is playing for the greatest, and most successful club in the world. The unquestioned leader of the pack.
The end goal at the Sporting KC academy is to play for Sporting KC - generously, maybe one of the top 500 clubs in the world. The ambition, and goal, is not the same.
Ultimately, this is why development is still failing and will continue to fail. Every minor league baseball player - even the ones playing for bad organizations - knows that the club's ladder leads to one of the top 30 baseball clubs in the world. This is a (small) factor in why the NFL's developmental leagues have crashed and burned - there's legit question about whether 'tis better to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars or the Alabama Crimson Tide. There's some lifetime benefits to having been part of the Crimson Tide (or THE Ohio State Buckeyes) that while not equal to an NFL pension, are arguably on par with some of the benefits of having been a Jaguar. And DEFINITELY outweigh being a developmental-roster player for the London Monarchs, a minor league affiliate of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Ultimately, any academy products for MLS teams will be still be far off the the ladder to the truly "elite" teams. This is why "we" fans are more psyched by the emergence of a Julian Green (BAYERN!!) or Christian Pulisic (DORTMUND!!!) than we are about the emergence (and development) of Jordan Morris (Stanford! Seattle!) or even DeAndre Yedlin (University of Akron! Seattle! Spurs ... wait, no Sunderland!!!)
Part of a development academy is to provide a player with the best opportunity possible to "make it big" in the sport. This is why La Masia is the peak of the mountain, and why it is impossible to copy. Their ultimate reward is to pull on the shirt of the best club in the world. That does not, cannot, exist in a league that can rival the reputation of the English Championship or the Eredivisie - it is a lower rung on the ladder, and almost always (in our lifetimes) will be.
So, to answer Vinho - I don't think the USA is capable of opening and operating academies that can "compete" with even the likes of Porto or Benefica. That the players who come up through the ranks of US/MLS academies will see the "jump" to another development ladder - like Porto's - as a step up for their prospects and career. There's no chance of that changing in the next 50 years. So I can understand why prospects who get offers abroad will continue to choose those ladders over the MLS-provided ladders.
Now, that doesn't mean MLS should stop trying. Or that the effort is wasted. But it does mean that there's no chance of USA Soccer "copying" La Masia. Because they cannot possibly offer the same goals and benefits to the prospects.
I guess I'll end with an Ed McMahon quote: "Keep on reaching for the stars!" Development, as TB says is getting better all the time. It just won't get to where it needs to be for a very long time yet, because the infrastructure and reputation stuff is a really big hurdle.
There are many reasons why Bradenton failed/sucks, actually. Don't limit yourself!
1) Coaches have ranged from not great to terrible
2) Questionable talent evaluation. Too many 15 year old man-children with okay technique and no soccer brain. It's a very tough age to judge even for good evaluators b/c of variances in when kids hit puberty.
3) Lack of competitive games outside of youth international friendlies
4) Lack of integration with older age groups....the best 16 year olds should be playing against 18 year olds for a real challenge, just like they do in club academies.
5) Bradenton's fundamental concept takes players away from the influences/coaches that made the players good in the first place
6) The first Bradenton class was a huge success (Donovan, Beasley, Onyewu, Convey, Beckerman -- that's EPIC given normal U17 attrition) which convinced the USSF that they had done a great thing. But it was a good year in talent and (crucially) since it just started the players were there for just 4-5 months instead of a full two-year cycle. Ever since, players have routinely stagnated over the two years. Fortunately in recent years more and more of the better guys have skipped town and headed to Europe (and more recently, also to MLS).
Then to make matters even worse, the U17 coaches generally pick the team almost entirely from Bradenton's roster, even though the pecking order of players can change dramatically from age 15 to age 17. So the U17 national team you see in CONCACAF qualifying and the U17 WC usually omits deserving players who didn't happen to be tagged as a hotshot two years earlier and therefore never made it to Bradenton. Living in Bradenton is pretty shitty in the way that life in Fort Myers in the GCL for rookie ball is shitty. Players move away from home at age 15, so the coach wants to reward them for their sacrifice, lest future 15 year olds decide it's not worth the sacrifice. (Admittedly, they've loosened up on this a bit lately, but it's still not ideal. Their hand has been forced by better prospects moving to good Euro clubs. They don't look much at top domestic amateurs.)
If I were in charge, I'd shut Bradenton down yesterday. The USSF is throwing good money after bad.
I don't know. There are a lot of big clubs that don't have great academies and a number of small clubs that have very strong academies. Look at all the great players that have come out of the Eredivisie. We have to ask: how the hell does Iceland -- a country with less than half the population of Worcester County -- produce an insane amount of talent, per capita? It's not the strength of their domestic league, that's for sure.
As long as the MLS remains a good ways off the 1st tier leagues, the best players will migrate to the better clubs in the world, anyway. Players can still dream of pulling on a Barcelona shirt, it's just that their path would be more indirect, going through NY or Dallas or Columbus. And while that path doesn't exist right now because US youth development isn't good enough, that's on US youth development, not because no senior-level US team is anywhere near Barcelona's level.
For the record, I thought this was a fairly reasonable post, and I also thought the reply attack was unwarranted.
I thought this was a good article that points out many of the flaws in the expectations of some USMNT boosters that the USA should be producing lots of world class players.
http://thesefootballtimes.co/2016/04/01/the-fermi-paradox-of-american-soccer/?utm_content=buffera9e62&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
The two biggest issues are money and competition from other more traditional (in the USA) sports. Soccer in the USA has mostly been a middle class and immigrant sport because you need to be on an expensive select team to get decent teammates and competition. In Germany, Spain, England, etc the cost of youth programs is subsidized by the national federation. In the USA the sport requires soccer moms.
To achieve the dramatic improvement we need to win the world cup we need improvement from the USSF regarding youth programs, and decent academies from MLS teams. Even a great men's national team head coach could not do much to fix issues at the youth level.
http://thesefootballtimes.co/2016/04/01/the-fermi-paradox-of-american-soccer/?utm_content=buffera9e62&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
The two biggest issues are money and competition from other more traditional (in the USA) sports. Soccer in the USA has mostly been a middle class and immigrant sport because you need to be on an expensive select team to get decent teammates and competition. In Germany, Spain, England, etc the cost of youth programs is subsidized by the national federation. In the USA the sport requires soccer moms.
To achieve the dramatic improvement we need to win the world cup we need improvement from the USSF regarding youth programs, and decent academies from MLS teams. Even a great men's national team head coach could not do much to fix issues at the youth level.
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Spot on. When I was growing up in NH the ODP team was a joke. My mother couldn't afford the tryout let alone the five figures it cost to play. The fact my premiere team (and most around the state) beat them regularly was just nails in the coffin for them to ever really attract top talent.
Ian Darke says there are rumors of Klinsmann as the next Everton manager. I hope Bielsa holds out on Swansea until Klinsmann decides.
Maybe we can hire someone who doesn't suck instead?
I don't see Jurgen leaving California for Liverpool and a high turnover job.
Only ways are:
a. Sunil encourages it because the decision has been made that Klinsmann is going to be fired soon.
b. The money is truly obscene (unlikely considering his current salary)
USSF announced a friendly against Puerto Rico on 5/22 in Bayamon. Apparently, the USMNT has never played Puerto Rico before.
That makes three Copa America tuneup friendlies.
That makes three Copa America tuneup friendlies.
The USSF announced the Copa America preliminary roster. It's 40 players and will be trimmed down to 23; some of these guys will be alternates who never actually report to camp.
GK
David Bingham (SJ Earthquakes)
Brad Guzan (Aston Villa)
Tim Howard (Everton)
Ethan Horvath (Molde)
Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake)
DF
Kellyn Acosta (FC Dallas)
Ventura Alvarado (Club America)
Matt Besler (Sporting Kansas City)
Steve Birnbaum (DC United)
John Brooks (Hertha Berlin)
Geoff Cameron (Stoke City)
Edgar Castillo (Monterrey)
Timothy Chandler (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Brad Evans (Seattle Sounders)
Omar Gonzalez (Pachuca)
Eric Lichaj (Nottingham Forest)
Matt Miazga (Chelsea)
Michael Orozco (Tijuana)
Tim Ream (Fulham)
DeAndre Yedlin (Sunderland)
MF
Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake)
Alejandro Bedoya (Nantes)
Michael Bradley (Toronto FC)
Mix Diskerud (NYCFC)
Fabian Johnson (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
Jermaine Jones (Colorado Rapids)
Perry Kitchen (Hearts)
Alfredo Morales (Ingolstadt)
Darlington Nagbe (Portland Timbers)
Lee Nguyen (New England Revolution)
Danny Williams (Reading)
Graham Zusi (Sporting Kansas City)
FW
Jozy Altidore (Toronto FC)
Clint Dempsey (Seattle Sounders)
Ethan Finlay (Columbus Crew)
Jordan Morris (Seattle Sounders)
Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund)
Chris Wondolowski (San Jose Earthquakes)
Bobby Wood (Union Berlin)
Gyasi Zardes (Los Angeles Galaxy)
1. A lot of MLS players will be unavailable for the Puerto Rico friendly, so a number of fringier non-MLS players are expected to be brought in for that one. One name I expect is Fafà Picault, who has scored a few goals for St. Pauli lately. Though he's been hot over the last few weeks, he's spent most of the season as a substitute in the 2.Bundesliga. But Klinsmann's been tweeting his congratulations to Picault repeatedly, which is considered enough of a tea leaf to make this sort of prediction.
2. There aren't any real surprises. Just about everybody has been looked at by Klinsmann is at least a somewhat recent camp or have featured for the U23s (Horvath). The one exception is Lichaj, who hasn't been seen in a US shirt in quite some time. There are a few eye-rollers, guys who really should have played their way out of the pool by now (Alvarado, Orozco in particular), but they don't figure to play much at all and you can't sweat the small stuff in a 40-man preliminary roster.
3. It's a solid roster (assuming a reasonable final 23 is crafted out of this group). There aren't any obvious snubs -- the most well-known players to miss out are guys like Brek Shea and the latest trendy LB option, Jorge Villafaña. But it's very hard to call them snubs.
4. I'm glad to see Yedlin listed as a defender and hope he'll be used exclusively at RB now. The question is who starts at LB. Castillo? He's the only natural left back in the squad, but there are a number of other options who can be swapped over from RB (Lichaj, Chandler), CB (Ream), or CM (Acosta)
5. Box-to-box midfielders galore, but Beckerman and Kitchen are the only defensive midfielders and I suspect Perry won't make the 23. We badly need a real DM to emerge to replace Beckerman before it's too late. Given the number of solid CBs we have, I'd be tempted to start using Cameron at DM since he has gotten a number of reps there with Stoke.
6. Pulisic gives the team badly-needed width. The best the midfielders have to offer in terms of width after Fabian Johnson are pinched-in types like Bedoya and Zusi, and Ethan Finlay (who is an out-and-out wide player but I think his ceiling is as a late-game sub type player for the US).
GK
David Bingham (SJ Earthquakes)
Brad Guzan (Aston Villa)
Tim Howard (Everton)
Ethan Horvath (Molde)
Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake)
DF
Kellyn Acosta (FC Dallas)
Ventura Alvarado (Club America)
Matt Besler (Sporting Kansas City)
Steve Birnbaum (DC United)
John Brooks (Hertha Berlin)
Geoff Cameron (Stoke City)
Edgar Castillo (Monterrey)
Timothy Chandler (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Brad Evans (Seattle Sounders)
Omar Gonzalez (Pachuca)
Eric Lichaj (Nottingham Forest)
Matt Miazga (Chelsea)
Michael Orozco (Tijuana)
Tim Ream (Fulham)
DeAndre Yedlin (Sunderland)
MF
Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake)
Alejandro Bedoya (Nantes)
Michael Bradley (Toronto FC)
Mix Diskerud (NYCFC)
Fabian Johnson (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
Jermaine Jones (Colorado Rapids)
Perry Kitchen (Hearts)
Alfredo Morales (Ingolstadt)
Darlington Nagbe (Portland Timbers)
Lee Nguyen (New England Revolution)
Danny Williams (Reading)
Graham Zusi (Sporting Kansas City)
FW
Jozy Altidore (Toronto FC)
Clint Dempsey (Seattle Sounders)
Ethan Finlay (Columbus Crew)
Jordan Morris (Seattle Sounders)
Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund)
Chris Wondolowski (San Jose Earthquakes)
Bobby Wood (Union Berlin)
Gyasi Zardes (Los Angeles Galaxy)
1. A lot of MLS players will be unavailable for the Puerto Rico friendly, so a number of fringier non-MLS players are expected to be brought in for that one. One name I expect is Fafà Picault, who has scored a few goals for St. Pauli lately. Though he's been hot over the last few weeks, he's spent most of the season as a substitute in the 2.Bundesliga. But Klinsmann's been tweeting his congratulations to Picault repeatedly, which is considered enough of a tea leaf to make this sort of prediction.
2. There aren't any real surprises. Just about everybody has been looked at by Klinsmann is at least a somewhat recent camp or have featured for the U23s (Horvath). The one exception is Lichaj, who hasn't been seen in a US shirt in quite some time. There are a few eye-rollers, guys who really should have played their way out of the pool by now (Alvarado, Orozco in particular), but they don't figure to play much at all and you can't sweat the small stuff in a 40-man preliminary roster.
3. It's a solid roster (assuming a reasonable final 23 is crafted out of this group). There aren't any obvious snubs -- the most well-known players to miss out are guys like Brek Shea and the latest trendy LB option, Jorge Villafaña. But it's very hard to call them snubs.
4. I'm glad to see Yedlin listed as a defender and hope he'll be used exclusively at RB now. The question is who starts at LB. Castillo? He's the only natural left back in the squad, but there are a number of other options who can be swapped over from RB (Lichaj, Chandler), CB (Ream), or CM (Acosta)
5. Box-to-box midfielders galore, but Beckerman and Kitchen are the only defensive midfielders and I suspect Perry won't make the 23. We badly need a real DM to emerge to replace Beckerman before it's too late. Given the number of solid CBs we have, I'd be tempted to start using Cameron at DM since he has gotten a number of reps there with Stoke.
6. Pulisic gives the team badly-needed width. The best the midfielders have to offer in terms of width after Fabian Johnson are pinched-in types like Bedoya and Zusi, and Ethan Finlay (who is an out-and-out wide player but I think his ceiling is as a late-game sub type player for the US).
I was referring to none of the Saturday games being broadcast on TV. I don't have Direct Kick and certainly don't want to pay for it but there are often games Id like to see that just aren't on TV.
In regards to the roster, nothing surprising there. I wish he'd give Lletget a look in.
In regards to the roster, nothing surprising there. I wish he'd give Lletget a look in.
US Soccer has announced the roster for the Puerto Rico friendly. Because of the timing, it is made up exclusively of foreign-based players. Even then, some are unavailable because of Liga MX playoffs (Alvarado, Castillo, Gonzalez, Villafaña, Yarbrough), Bundesliga relegation playoff (Chandler), DFB Pokal final (Pulisic), or summer schedule leagues (Horvath).
GK
Brad Guzan (Aston Villa)
Tim Howard (Everton ---> Colorado Rapids)
Zack Steffen (Freiburg)
DF
John Brooks (Hertha Berlin)
Geoff Cameron (Stoke City)
Eric Lichaj (Nottingham Forest)
Matt Miazga (Chelsea)
Michael Orozco (Tijuana)
Tim Ream (Fulham)
DeAndre Yedlin (Tottenham Hotspur)
MF
Alejandro Bedoya (Nantes)
Emerson Hyndman (Fulham)
Fabian Johnson (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
Perry Kitchen (Hearts)
Alfredo Morales (Ingolstadt)
Caleb Stanko (Freiburg)
Danny Williams (Reading)
FW
Paul Arriola (Tijuana)
Julian Green (Bayern Munich)
Fabrice Picault (St. Pauli)
Amando Moreno (Tijuana)
Bobby Wood (Hamburg)
Steffen, Stanko, Hyndman, Moreno, Arriola, Picault, and Green are not on the Copa preliminary 40-man roster.
Some of these guys haven't done much to earn their way onto a USMNT roster, but given the constraints of the player pool for this friendly, it can't be helped. No natural LBs, but Castillo and Villafaña are in the playoffs and Garza hasn't yet returned from injury. There's always Jonny Bornstein, I guess....but Ream or Lichaj will get the nod instead, which is obviously fine against PR.
Moreno has gotten his first Liga MX action over the last month, Arriola finally started getting starts over the last two months after being a perpetual sub. Picault had a hot end to an otherwise mediocre season in the 2.Bundesliga. Stanko was stuck as the #3 CM at Freiburg behind two guys who never got hurt or suspended.
GK
Brad Guzan (Aston Villa)
Tim Howard (Everton ---> Colorado Rapids)
Zack Steffen (Freiburg)
DF
John Brooks (Hertha Berlin)
Geoff Cameron (Stoke City)
Eric Lichaj (Nottingham Forest)
Matt Miazga (Chelsea)
Michael Orozco (Tijuana)
Tim Ream (Fulham)
DeAndre Yedlin (Tottenham Hotspur)
MF
Alejandro Bedoya (Nantes)
Emerson Hyndman (Fulham)
Fabian Johnson (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
Perry Kitchen (Hearts)
Alfredo Morales (Ingolstadt)
Caleb Stanko (Freiburg)
Danny Williams (Reading)
FW
Paul Arriola (Tijuana)
Julian Green (Bayern Munich)
Fabrice Picault (St. Pauli)
Amando Moreno (Tijuana)
Bobby Wood (Hamburg)
Steffen, Stanko, Hyndman, Moreno, Arriola, Picault, and Green are not on the Copa preliminary 40-man roster.
Some of these guys haven't done much to earn their way onto a USMNT roster, but given the constraints of the player pool for this friendly, it can't be helped. No natural LBs, but Castillo and Villafaña are in the playoffs and Garza hasn't yet returned from injury. There's always Jonny Bornstein, I guess....but Ream or Lichaj will get the nod instead, which is obviously fine against PR.
Moreno has gotten his first Liga MX action over the last month, Arriola finally started getting starts over the last two months after being a perpetual sub. Picault had a hot end to an otherwise mediocre season in the 2.Bundesliga. Stanko was stuck as the #3 CM at Freiburg behind two guys who never got hurt or suspended.
A) I'm glad this happened now instead of half through the first 45.
B) I'm glad, period. Take this as an opportunity to do something different, something that isn't "send it long to Jozy and pray he can hold onto it long enough to maybe make something happen." And I say this as someone who has generally defended Jozy in the past. Pretty clear at this point that he's not the guy.
B) I'm glad, period. Take this as an opportunity to do something different, something that isn't "send it long to Jozy and pray he can hold onto it long enough to maybe make something happen." And I say this as someone who has generally defended Jozy in the past. Pretty clear at this point that he's not the guy.
Yeah, i'm not upset about Jozy at all. As Belichick (or Popeye) would say, he is what he is at this point. Morris isn't the guy yet, but with Dempsey starting at CF, backed up by Wood and Morris, with Zardes and/or Pulisic on the wing, I feel better about our attack than anytime since 2010. If our prospects continue to develop decently, it's not out of the question that come 2018, we have a chance to top our high water mark for the MNT.
Chiming in to agree with the chorus. It's time to see what lies beyond Jozy-ball. After the years Wood, and to some extent, Morris, have had, I'm eager to get to the next era and Copa is the perfect place to do it. I wish Jozy a speedy recovery and I think he's got a big role to play in helping us qualify for Russia. But I'm not to torn up about the timing here.
USMNT upcoming friendly games and TV.
5/22 12p at PR - fs1
5/25 8p v Ecuador - espn2
5/28 8p v Bolivia - fs1
Copa starts june 3 v colombia
5/22 12p at PR - fs1
5/25 8p v Ecuador - espn2
5/28 8p v Bolivia - fs1
Copa starts june 3 v colombia
What the fuck? There has to be an injury shoe waiting to drop with Morris, right? Is this the punishment for going to Seattle?
Am I wrong to wonder why Miazga isn't on the team as well?
All in all, it's a decent roster, though it's a little hard to judge without knowing what sort of formation Klinsmann plans to use. At first glance, some sort of 4-3-3 seems to be in order. There isn't a lot of width in the midfield, particularly because Fabian Johnson is listed as a defender and Klinsmann inexplicably took Orozco as a fifth CB instead of taking a fourth fullback. As such, FJ probably won't be an option in the midfield. On the bright side, in a 4-3-3 both Yedlin and FJ can get forward and provide width. Chandler can too, if he can be bothered to try.
I've seen some bitching about too many defensive midfielders, but I have a different definition of defensive midfielders than other people, I guess. (Jones and Bradley don't qualify, as far as I am concerned). Having Kitchen around is good from a depth perspective. Kitchen is not a lock to be a success with the USMNT, but we need to start attempting to integrate guys who can actually play the DM position. Test him and either keep him or move on, but the experimentation needs to be happening.
Guzan has been named #1.
I also don't get Wondolowski. He's a fine forward in MLS, but he hasn't transitioned to international play well. He's a finisher, a poacher -- he doesn't create much via distribution or via occupying defenders for SJ and he certainly won't for the US either. So if he doesn't score much, what's the point? He has five goals for the US in competitive games and all of them came against Cuba and Belize in the 2013 Gold Cup. Morris is a raw player with some flaws, but he could really be useful as a sub.
I've seen some bitching about too many defensive midfielders, but I have a different definition of defensive midfielders than other people, I guess. (Jones and Bradley don't qualify, as far as I am concerned). Having Kitchen around is good from a depth perspective. Kitchen is not a lock to be a success with the USMNT, but we need to start attempting to integrate guys who can actually play the DM position. Test him and either keep him or move on, but the experimentation needs to be happening.
Guzan has been named #1.
I also don't get Wondolowski. He's a fine forward in MLS, but he hasn't transitioned to international play well. He's a finisher, a poacher -- he doesn't create much via distribution or via occupying defenders for SJ and he certainly won't for the US either. So if he doesn't score much, what's the point? He has five goals for the US in competitive games and all of them came against Cuba and Belize in the 2013 Gold Cup. Morris is a raw player with some flaws, but he could really be useful as a sub.
I cannot wait to see Chandler guarding Rodriguez with his waddle.
Unless Morris is hurt there is 0 reason Wondo should be here instead.
Lletget? Miazga? Hyndman?
I mean this tourney is real competition but means relatively little for the US. Try some of the new blood and see what they get before we head to WCQ.
Unless Morris is hurt there is 0 reason Wondo should be here instead.
Lletget? Miazga? Hyndman?
I mean this tourney is real competition but means relatively little for the US. Try some of the new blood and see what they get before we head to WCQ.
Roster's fine, Wondo aside. Miazga isn't ready for the big time, doesn't even know how to use his size to win balls in the air yet.
Wondo in there is just dumb but as long as he isn't used any time it matters then whatever. Unfortunately they're not deep up front (surprise!) so I won't be surprised when Klinsy's blind spot rears its ugly head. Not sure how many times a guy needs to prove what he is at this level.
Glad to see Zardes listed at forward. Keep him far far away from the defensive third and let him focus on creating. Very interested to see the 11 in that first match. Will lose my shit if we see the woefully safe Bedoya/Zusi bullshit on the outside.
Wondo in there is just dumb but as long as he isn't used any time it matters then whatever. Unfortunately they're not deep up front (surprise!) so I won't be surprised when Klinsy's blind spot rears its ugly head. Not sure how many times a guy needs to prove what he is at this level.
Glad to see Zardes listed at forward. Keep him far far away from the defensive third and let him focus on creating. Very interested to see the 11 in that first match. Will lose my shit if we see the woefully safe Bedoya/Zusi bullshit on the outside.
Great rip by Morales and then finish by Ream sticking with the play. Too bad the cameras missed the actual kick. PR keeper did a pretty poor job tho.
Unreal strike by PR to get it to 2-1. Pitch doesn't look as bad in person as I guess it seems on tv.
Aside from the goal Tim Ream is... not good
Aside from the goal Tim Ream is... not good
Howard is warming during halftime, not sure if that's common for him but looks like he's getting game ready
They've already said he'll play the second half.
This is the worst camera work I've ever seen for a USMNT game.
Is it a Puerto Rican feed? There hasn't been a single shot of Klinsmann on the sidelines the whole game
No mention by the announcers that PR is defending higher this half. Thinking the US is affected by the heat? I see the US pulling back from some 50/50's after the half.
There were, they were just so blurry that it was hard to tell it was him.
They also baaaarely mentioned (only via a Grant Wahl sideline report) that the US switched to a 3-5-2.
I wasn't able to watch this one, but I can't imagine there was much to be learned from a game against Puerto Rico?
Were Kitchen and Morales really used as outside midfielders?
Were Kitchen and Morales really used as outside midfielders?