Norris Defender Nolan Norris is the heart and soul of the #U20MYNT, guiding the team through Concacaf World Cup qualifying and leading a young, dynamic squad! pic.twitter.com/Z6ZoIKgfH3— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) July 13, 2024 Paris is calling 📳#OlyMNT | The Call, presented by @ATT— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) July 13, 2024
Stefan Chirila's 5 goals 2-3 assists in 590 minutes for a 17 year old striker in MLS Next Pro is certainly impressive... and that's after being MLS Next MVP Also I have no idea why I posted that Olympic video in this thread lol
Chirila has never gotten a USYNT callup. The whole squad are USYNT regulars, so it's going to take a lot to break in. They are rigid with the selections. Quite a few guys picked here quite clearly aren't playing like the best options, but they are "good enough" and well rated by the federation.
New US/SC Article: U20 Concacaf Championship Roster Analysis▫️ Many top players unavailable▫️ A very thin CB group▫️ Strength in midfield▫️ Young + exciting winger talenthttps://t.co/3CrLC5HOFy— Marcus Chairez (@chai_asc) July 15, 2024 https://www.ussoccercollective.com/...nt-2024-concacaf-championship-roster-analysis Over at ASN, I offer up my thoughts on the United States U-20 roster for World Cup qualifying - starting later this week- despite all that's going on with the #USMNT coaching search and the #OlyMNT, this is a very important tournament. https://t.co/boWOLL6HNO— Brian Sciaretta (@BrianSciaretta) July 15, 2024 http://www.americansoccernow.com/ar...mes-his-roster-for-u-20-world-cup-qualifying/
@bshredder brings up a good point in his article: Why the hell is the U20 tournament now instead of in June? We don't have nearly the the call-up issues if this thing is in June, to the extent that it feels a bit targeted. We're probably the only country in the region with significant call-up issues, which seems super convenient. I would have loved to see the full U20 roster, or as close as we could get it. Still like this team, but if some of the young guys are simply too young, we could undeservedly struggle.
There may be some unintended consequences here that rebound, modestly, in the USMNT favor. If there are, say, seven or eight young CBs who might be future national team contributors, all of them might either receive an invite or a perfect excuse for the lack (call up denial) so no dual-national fury at being scorned in any of them.
Goalie depth is remarkable for this U20 cycle. I think this age group is somewhat lacking in star power (excluding guys playing up), but it is strong in precisely the areas (goalie and CB) that the senior team needs an upgrade.
Yeah we should still qualify, but this is more of a B/C team so if something goes wrong I’m not sure what it’d be indicative of.
Going from no YNT call ups to a competitive u20 event a cycle up is a big jump. I do think he’s deserving of a look within his own age group’s YNT based on statistical and eye test performance. Just have to hope ussoccer agrees and gives him a shot
I recently released my top 2006 rankings and removed Ben Norris (Orange Country) from it, but that was likely a mistake. He has started to get some minutes at OCSC and has looked good. It's hard to believe he hasn't been playing before this. His style reminds me a bit of Benja…— Marcus Chairez (@chai_asc) July 16, 2024 I am not sure if Duru is on USSFs radar, but if he was and was asked to join the u20s, he was likely blocked like many other players in Europe who are with their first teams in preseason. https://t.co/mraSQpp2oa— Marcus Chairez (@chai_asc) July 15, 2024
It would be best if it was in January. Obviously though I agree June better than July, but really neither month is great. Why doesn't USSF have significant sway with this? Am I missing all these important league games for the U-20 players of Guatemala or Nicaragua that has them convincing CONCACAF it can't take place in January?
I agree, but I think one thing we are starting to see in the youth age groups is that all of them tend to be strong in goal and at CB. The senior team has issues at those positions, but I'd argue the goalie concerns are just a bad generation that is plaguing the senior team and nothing more, while I think the CB problems with the senior team reflect a domestic development system where club teams haven't been giving many chances to young CB's of late. Additionally, I think the CM group for the U-20's is very strong, but that's really now every cycle. CM is a strong position for the US the last five years at virtually every level.
By the 2030 WC we'll have a really well-rounded and deep senior team without notable positional weaknesses. Not likely to happen by 2026. But it would still help tremendously if we had one young goalie and one young CB mature into a strong senior team player by then.
The head of CONCACAF is Canadian, and he hasn't been shy about pushing everything Canada's way if he can. The rest of CONCACAF doesn't like us, and a lot of the general decisions are basically desperate attempts to keep the US and Mexico as close to the rest of them as possible. It would not shock me if the decision was basically to try to bring us back to the pack. CONCACAF has very little vision.
Yeah 2026 is at home and that’s exciting and everything and maybe the home crowd carries us and we get some good luck, but 2030 is the cycle I’ve been looking to in terms of when the team might be ready to make some real noise. Spain (and Portugal, and Morocco) is also a great country to host a World Cup. It’d be awesome to watch a US game in the Bernabeu or Camp Nou (if we are so fortunate).
I don't think it has anything to do with CONCACAF "not liking us." We're CONCACAF's golden goose. Liga MX has also started. Mexico also didn't have players released to their U20s (Even from MLS like Obed Vargas apparently.) Other CONCACAF nations couldn't get releases too. I saw some tweet this morning about a Salvadoran that wasn't released. We've complained about the timing of this event no matter when it's been held. We just gotta get over it. Build the depth to excel regardless of the time of year. And no matter what the time of year it is, every club can deny a release. They don't even need a reason. We've had trouble getting a guy like Diego Kochen over and over and over and over again all throughout the year. I doubt he would have been released in January or June or whenever. This team we've selected is more than good enough to get the job done. And there's quite a bit of talent to be excited by. And guess what? We haven't qualified for the U20WC before. It wasn't the end of Western Civilization. Donald Rumself (a friend of my father) said very little I've ever agreed with, but this is 100% accurate. It speaks to me when it comes to these national teams and the call-up issues. “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
We've also had some injuries to some of our key guys in the young CB pool. Maybe Neal and Wynder in particular would have been more advanced at this point if not for injury setbacks. Kobi Henry fell off the face of the planet after his injury. They're not the only ones. left back Adam Armour. Broke into the first team with Charlotte, tore his ACL, and never recovered. Seems to be out of the sport. He's 21. But anyway, its natural for a national team program to go thru ups and downs in positions. England doesn't have left backs right now. Were using the returning-from-injury Luke Shaw at left back at the Euros (who actually did fine). I'm convinced Antonee Robinson would have made that Euros team for England. France, Spain, Argentina, etc. do have positions that aren't as strong as others........................by their standards.
Not uh exactly a fan but he got a lot of crap for this one that is my favorite quote of his (and makes total sense, anyone who made fun of it is probably just a dummy... not that the context has aged well, to put it diplomatically): Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns Also seems quite relevant to most soccer related analysis on here and elsewhere...
As a governing body, I don't think CONCACAF will purposely try to make things difficult for the US and Mexico. However, I don't think they will care if anything inconveniences us one bit.
I wouldn't put it past them. For one, there's no way the politics of the region don't seep in. No one in these quasi-governmental set ups likes the US much -- the big bully of the region. And culturally, most of Central America despises Mexico even more. There's simply no way that doesn't seep in. But just from a sporting standpoint, all these smaller countries have the vote and they all know that the US and Mexico are going to / are running away from them in terms of quality. Do you think there's any intent to clean up the refereeing and not make every match a shit show? Hell no. Because that evens the playing field. It wouldn't shock me at all if they chose this time frame in part because otherwise the US U20 team would be beyond well ahead. And we've already seen the head stack the deck for Canada in CCC and other places.
On Adam Armour - that was actually his second ACL tear, both of which were very bad as ACL tears go. He is now out of the sport. His dad was (maybe still is) the team doctor for North Carolina FC. Really frustrating for a kid who had a lot of upside as a player.
Scuffed podcast on the U-20s coming Joining @scuffedpod and @v_sospiffy tonight to chat about the 🇺🇸 U20s competing at the U20 Concacaf Championships.— Marcus Chairez (@chai_asc) July 17, 2024