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Sad day for the USMNT - Printable Version

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Re: Sad day for the USMNT - washingtonismoney - 10-16-2017

(10-16-2017, 10:18 AM)el mono link Wrote:Ended up winning 5-0 with a hat-trick from Tim Weah and will face Japan/England in the semis.  For those who don't know, Tim's father, George Weah, was a Ballon d'Or/FIFA World Player of the Year back in the 90s.  Obviously U-17 performance doesn't guarantee anything for the senior team, but at least there's some reason for optimism.  A handful of these guys might be on the 2022 roster as they'll be 20-21 at that time.

Yeah, I view youth team performance as slightly analogous to recruiting rankings in college football/basketball. Obviously no guarantee but it's a solid indicator. As we've discussed elsewhere in the thread there was a real gap of players born from '90-'94 in the most recent US team -- which was to some degree foreshadowed by weak youth tournament performances in the corresponding age groups.

Meanwhile the best-performing youth team ever -- the '99 u-17 team -- produced a number of USMNT stalwarts (Donovan, Beasley, Onyewu, Beckerman...). So tbd of course, but it's a positive indicator.

It's also nice to think that the indicators on talent are pointing upwards, with a lot of easy fixes that could stimulate development even more.

Re: Sad day for the USMNT - ColoradoTree - 10-16-2017

A couple of thoughts:

1. On Arena's resignation: Arena resigning is functionally meaningless, as his contract was set to expire after the 2018 World Cup anyway, and the failure to qualify may have meant it would have terminated of its own accord soon anyway.  But as a symbol, as a recognition that change is necessary--it was valuable.  I was disappointed to see Gulati signal that he'd be running for reelection in February. 

2. We play at Portugal on November 14: As we've failed to qualify, we can serve the function of helping qualified teams prepare, and we're doing that with a November 14 friendly in Portugal.  I really like the idea of European road friendlies in November, as it's the last FIFA window for a while, so it will give us an opportunity to work in some European-based players that we haven't gotten as close of a look at (guys like Horvath, Kiesewetter, Miazga, and Zelalem, plus Weston McKennie, Lynden Gooch, Emerson Hyndman, Cameron Carter-Vickers, and Kenny Saief) along with some of the younger MLS-based guys that are out of the playoffs at that point, and hopefully give us an early look at how U.S. Soccer intends to rebuild.  As long as we're heading over there, I'd like to see a second friendly added a few days before the Portugal match (the window is November 6-14, so a match on Friday the 10th or Saturday the 11th would be perfect).  As to the opponent, it would need to either be one of the UEFA teams that has already qualified or one of the teams that can no longer qualify, as that's the same window the UEFA World Cup Qualifying playoff matches will be held.  The former category is obviously full of big names (in addition to Portugal, the group winners were France, Germany, Serbia, Poland, England, Spain, Belgium, and Iceland), but the latter group has some very tough teams as well (Ukraine, Bosnia, Slovakia, Wales, and the Netherlands as notable teams that missed out).  Gulati signaled in his press conference last week that there would likely be two European friendlies, so it could help inspire some optimism if a younger, mostly Europe-based team is able to give good tests to Portugal and one of the other qualified teams.  A scheduling note: The MLS playoffs take that week off, but if USMNT players are in the final four squads in the playoffs, the yet-to-be-named interim USMNT coach is will probably leave them at home.  (Morris would probably be out of the mix anyway, though, as he's been out with an injury.  Even if he got healthy in time, you wouldn't bring a player just coming off an injury to Europe for a friendly.)