I can see that you could very well be right, but what I saw was that two of the most promising young players of TB's "weak generation" came quickly back to MLS at the first sign of struggle in Europe and we all watched their ability to impact games at international level wither after the move back. I'm not blaming MLS necessarily, but I think it's going to be a long time before our best players are developed domestically, and that is a problem that needs to be addressed at every level from U6 pay to play travel teams to the MLS. But the MLS ain't helping.
A few nits: Bradley (87) and Altidore (89) aren't part of what I've (arbitrarily, tbf) defined as the Weak Generation (90-94) the 85-89 cohort is stronger and also includes Cameron (85), Feilhaber (85), Kljestan (85), Holden (85), Edu (86), Spector (86), Davies (86), Zusi (86), Besler (87), Bedoya (87), Ream (87), Torres (87), Gonzalez (88), Villafana (89), and Adu (89).
It's not the greatest generation ever, obviously, but it's clearly superior to the 90-94 group, which is just so small and not at all good. If the 85-89 group could play the 90-94 group when each group was at a similar age, the former would crush the latter.
As far as developing our best players domestically, that's the only choice. We can and are sending many of our best prospects to "finishing school" in Europe once they turn 18 (and in a few cases, 16), but so much key development happens before the age of 18 and that's necessarily going to have to happen in the US whether anyone likes it or not. We need to get better.
Dortmund are good at development, but nobody is an alchemist. They can't create Pulisics out of thin air. We have to create players who are already that good by age 16/18.
Most galling errors from these final two games, from my admittedly pro-Europe anti-MLS POV, was not starting Cameron and the overall omission of Fabian Johnson.
I don't think you have to have a "pro-Europe anti-MLS" view to question the decision to start Gonzalez over Cameron in both games. Cameron just returned from injury so I can understand not wanting him to go 90 twice due to fitness concerns. Benching him twice was a bad move.
I don’t think this point can be reiterated enough
I was born in ‘82 and played in New Hampshire. The path to the US player pool, as I understand it, went through what was then called ODP, or the Olympic Development Program. We all tried out for the team starting in either late middle school or early high school.
I was never a world class talent, nor would any coach worth a paycheck have been fooled into thinking so. I was one of at least a dozen keepers at the U16 level and probably fell somewhere in the middle of the pack.
A couple of weeks after the deadline had passed, I got the call that I had made the team. A packet came in the mail. Registration, coach’s fees, uniforms, travel expenses... It was close to $20k. Players with financial hardship (who wouldn’t that include?) could do fundraisers to help offset the cost. Needless to say... I didn’t join the team.
They team that was ultimately assembled DID play in our premiere division every spring. They were generally in the bottom half of the table. We beat up on them regularly.
This is the system that generated the older side of the age range last night. I’m totally ignorant to change in the intervening years, but it doesn’t sound like it’s changed much. Certainly the results suggest it hasn’t.
ODP is no longer relevant to the NT, but pay-to-play is still a problem. Nobody likes pay-to-play except the clubs reaping the profits, but who is going to fund youth soccer? One solution that has been bandied about is for the USSF to get on board with training compensation and solidarity fees. I'm all for that because it promotes the right incentives, but I'm deeply skeptical that it will make a huge dent in costs to players/families.
The biggest changes that have occurred over the past ten years have been the creation of the Development Academy in 2007 and the establishment of MLS academies. The purpose of the DA is to funnel all of the best players into a smaller number of programs, which play fewer games (i.e. not 4x/weekend) against better quality competition. From what I can tell the DA has gotten better over time, but it ain't exactly the U19 Bundesliga.
MLS academies are mostly fully-funded. Even the cheap-o Revs don't charge kids to be part of their academy. That helps remove financial barriers to academies (and removes the dynamic where clubs are beholden to families who have poured money into the club over the years even if the kid is clearly not competitive at age 17). But some academies are better than others, some clubs are better than others at integrating academy players into the pros, and 19 American MLS clubs can only incorporate so many players in a huge country.
