Moose Stuff
Active Member
Real interesting group. Think there are as many as 6-7 that could possibly have futures with the team.... Akinola, Dike, Aaronson, McKenzie, and Araujo/Alvarez pending whether they choose us or Mexico.
2023-2024 European Football Thread
- Thread starter Portland Frog
- Start date
Real interesting group. Think there are as many as 6-7 that could possibly have futures with the team.... Akinola, Dike, Aaronson, McKenzie, and Araujo/Alvarez pending whether they choose us or Mexico.
Purp
Active Member
He's not going to be good enough to break into the first team midfield, but happy to see Kellyn Acosta getting another chance. Always like the way he played, but I think he's always going to just be a really good MLS player.
Moose Stuff
Active Member
Yeah I think you're right. Amazing how much talent has just popped up in the last 2-3 years for us. Any thoughts? Is it just good luck or can we give some credit to MLS academies?
Purp
Active Member
I'm not sure how much credit can go to MLS academies. I mean, they're definitely producing a greater volume of very good players, but the elite midfield for the Nats right now doesn't feel like they're an MLS product. You can make an argument for some, but definitely not all and I'm not sure how persuasive the argument is.
Pulisic came out of the US Soccer development academy, sorta. He went to Dortmund around the same time he got his driver's license. Definitely not an MLS product.
Musah is clearly not an MLS product.
Gio obviously came up through the MLS academy in NY, but the kid was born in England to two U.S. internationals. He's been exposed to the top flights of the sport his entire life. It's in his blood and he'd have been a world class player wherever he grew up. I guess we can give NYCFC credit for not screwing him up, but I'm not sure how you credit them for developing him.
Tyler Adams is most certainly an MLS product, but I'm not sure how much of his development credit goes to Red Bulls and how much to Leipzig. We always knew he was going to be good, but we also always knew a lot of young Americans would be good and none of them turned into the type of stalwart he's become in the center of the park as quickly as he has. I mentioned Acosta earlier. It feels like MLS got him to Acosta's level (maybe a little beyond) and Leipzig flipped the switch for him. That's certainly an indication of good development in MLS academies, though.
Weston McKennie is a lot like Tyler Adams, though he never played in MLS. If you're going to give MLS academies any credit I think it would have to be these two, but I'm not sure MLS deserves credit for the next step in their careers that happened very soon after arriving in the academy in Germany. Had they stayed in MLS would they have made these progressions? Doubtful. But that's not your point either. The fact that neither spent much time in the academy in Germany before becoming impactful for their first team Bundesliga sides speaks to how well their MLS academies prepared them. Weston spent a few years growing up in Germany as an elementary schooler, but that's not totally relevant, IMO. I do think it established a pretty good foundation for his progress, though.
So if we give MLS academies credit for producing Adams and McKennie at the same time can we call it progress if, 18 years ago, we produced Dempsey and Donovan at the same time? Those two were a lucky break. Donovan became an academy product from Bradenton, but he was almost out of high school when he got there IIRC. Dempsey played college soccer at Furman, for crying out loud. He was a product of that hard knock trailer park life in Nac and benevolent families with the Dallas Texans club. Maybe Adams and McKennie both end up successful players in Europe without the MLS academies if Donovan and Dempsey could do it.
My belief is that if Landon and Deuce had both gone to Europe 3-4 years earlier than they did we'd have seen them reach the levels Pulisic and Gio are reaching. I mean, Pulisic is a darning clone of Donovan in terms of size, pace, creative ability, work rate, etc. Pulisic has just been playing at a much higher level at a much younger age than Landon did and I think that's the basic difference. My hope is that Sargent can be that step up from Deuce that we need in a #9. He's got the potential. We'll see.
TLDR: I don't think MLS academies are to be credited with the elite U.S. midfield, but I'm only about 90% sure of my position. I do believe MLS academies are turning out a higher volume of more talented players than ever before so I could still be persuaded.
Portland Frog
Full Member
Pulisic should get the start in the CL tomorrow vs Sevilla. It's time to work off the rust!
Chongo94
Active Member
Pretty good take, Purp. My conception of MLS academies has changed I think. I use to hope they would provide a place to plant and nurture potentially elite talent....and they may still now that MLS is actually taking control for these from the USSF or whatever that decision was recently.
But what I really think of them now is that they are or at least I somewhat am beginning to believe that they are starting to nurture decent talent that will provide us with actual discernible and useable quality depth for once. We’ve had some nice skill players here and there as you mention but everything else around them was middling and you could even argue whether there was a difference between anyone within certain spots in our midfield from 2004-2018 in my opinion.
Hopefully they will help to provide some talented quality depth. That’s how I’m looking at them at least. I don’t think we’ll ever see them producing true elite players until another 20-30 years down the road and MLS has fully cemented itself as a worthy league for many people (might be a pipe dream, who knows?)
Moose Stuff
Active Member
I was talking to a buddy the other day who's wife is a college soccer coach out west. I guess the men's coach at this school is connected in some way with the USMNT. Anyway this guy says the feeling of those involved is that the current group of young US talent isn't a golden generation and is simply the beginning of what is going to become the norm. I would LOVE that to be true.
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Chongo94
Active Member
Would be a dream come true if true. Would also kinda be (perhaps) the fulfillment of that consistent thought that the US is a sleeping giant waiting to wake up and maybe the talent pipeline will start to flow more regularly.
Moose Stuff
Active Member
There is no doubt we have the athletes. Just need some of these kids who end up NBA point guards and NFL WR/DB to end up playing soccer instead. Tell me someone like Mookie Betts wouldn't have been really good at soccer.
Chongo94
Active Member
Truly! Or Lebron (perhaps too tall but you get my analogy) as our version of Paul Pogba/Patrick Viera. Michael Vick as a winger perhaps...?
Comparisons and analogies aside, completely agree. This generation, golden or not, can perhaps show those players you mentioned that they can have a career and succeed in the sport rather than staying in the NBA and NFL dream path.
Purp
Active Member
Have had thoughts along these lines. The more our young talent has enduring first team success in the world's best clubs/leagues the more attention our other young talent will garner from those clubs. We've been there for a while with goalies, but we're only now breaking through with field players. I think that would hurt MLS to a certain extent in terms of marked improvement, but I think the growth in depth in the academies will ensure the quality of play doesn't drop. The result will be a further deepening of the player pool.
We're one of the most populous countries in the world. Sure, we lose tons of our best athletes to football and basketball (and baseball), but we still have more athletes left over than most of the best soccer countries in the world. I think what we're seeing now is a 2nd and 3rd generation of kids whose parents and grandparents played competitively as kids. When those parents and grandparents were kids soccer was mostly viewed as a secondary sport to football, baseball, and basketball. Since soccer eventually became a primary sport for them it's viewed as a primary sport for their kids. That's enhancing the quality of play at younger and younger levels in America, which makes our best teens much better as well.
I see this trend continuing for a while until soccer becomes as mainstream as hockey and baseball and basketball.
The only thing we need to dramatically upgrade is the coaching at the highest levels. Once you see American skippers at the best clubs in Europe we'll start putting stars on our jerseys.
Purp
Active Member
Mookie could have been a professional athlete in 5 different sports. Probably my favorite major leaguer the last 5 years.
LeBron could have been an unbelievable goalie or maybe center back. He wouldn't have bulked up as much, but he's got the athleticism to do whatever he wants like Mookie.
Moose Stuff
Active Member
Kobe Bryant would have been an amazing goalie.
Purp
Active Member
Yep. Also another possible center back. All those crazy athletic 6'3" - 6'6" NBA guards who can jump out of the gym could all be stellar goalies and center backs. Most of these NBA guards have such great straight line speed, lateral quickness, and jumping ability they could be excellent defenders and absolute monsters on corner kicks (offensively and defensively). Just have to teach them to stop using their hands.
Moose Stuff
Active Member
I'm still having to pinch myself that this is reality.
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Chongo94
Active Member
I think De la Fuente just got in so it makes 7 today, which set a record. I believe I just heard that correctly.
Moose Stuff
Active Member
He did
Purp
Active Member
Missed everything yesterday and probably won't go back and watch any. My niece got sent home from school yesterday bc of stomach pain. After hours in the ER they referred her to Cooks in case it was the appendix. It was and they did surgery around 9:30 pm. Since they're living with us right now it created quite a disruption to the household and will through the weekend. Since it ruptured she won't be home until Sunday at the earliest. I'm really quite alright that I didn't get to see any of the Americans play yesterday, but I hate that I'm going to miss it all. Proud of that group.
