Novakovich continues to produce for Telstar in the Dutch second division. Team of the week 3 of the last 4 weeks and is top 5 in scoring in the league with 14 goals/4 assists in 26 games. Still only 21. Will be interesting to see if he gets a shot with Reading in the championship next season. Has really great feet for a guy as big as he is.
IIRC Durkin's family tried to get him a European passport when he was 16 and had an offer from PSV, but were unsuccessful. Probably always wanted to go to Europe asap. Another at Benefica would be awesome.
More interesting tidbits "Durkin boosted his profile considerably at last fall's U-17 World Cup, where he was one of the standouts on a U.S. team that reached the quarterfinals before losing to eventual champion England. That showing led to an increased level of interest from foreign clubs, with sources telling Goal that teams ranging from Italian side Inter to German club Hannover 96 have made offers for Durkin." The "Immediately join Benefica B" part makes sense as to why that was noted in the report. He probably has quite a few offers and skipping the youth setup is another way to entice him like Werder did with Sargent.
https://www.theringer.com/2018/2/28/17046268/soccer-christian-pulisic-rob-moore-agent-usmnt-america some of the same stuff but some more depth to the conversation
Good read. It's been said before in here but it is very encouraging to see a bit of an explosion in youth players going to Europe over the past several years. I think by the 2022 world cup we could see the start of the fruits of that labor.
Some interesting clarity on Mukwelle Akale, who has kinda fallen off the radar "If you look at his situation from our historical view of player development you would think he is struggling but is simply not the case in Spain. He cannot play for Villarreal B in domestic Spanish competition which is why you see him play for Villarreal B in preseason matches and international tournaments such as the one happening in England right now. My opinions of him stem directly from the amount of time I have actually watched him play within Spain which in all reality has been the greatest access we have ever gotten from one of youth players abroad. You literally can watch the full 90 minutes every week. Right now he is playing as well as he ever has and more importantly playing 90 minutes a week at an extremely high level. Villarreal is completely log-jammed with talent..... Mario, Franco Acosta, Dario, Pedrito, Chuca, Pau, Mukwelle. This is the core of the team that has done extremely well over the last four years together. I would not be surprised to see him go out on loan next year and then be brought back as that gives him 5 years in Spain and he is no longer viewed as a foreign player. If you're worried about his development don't be. In my opinion, he is in the top five for most talented attacking players to come through our ranks in the last five years."
I am not saying that person is incorrect especially structurally with regards to foreign player rules, but they are the biggest Minnesota homer in the soccer history and can't be trusted to have a fair opinion on Akale and Yueill, etc. Evan Brian Sciaretta has given him a hard time about way overvaluing any player from the state.
Makes sense. I've noticed he's really opinionated. Here's some recent tape on Akale while we're on the subject for anyone interested. The highlights from this game are almost all him. Assist/Goal/Penalty drawn/Penalty converted. Definitely one to keep an eye on at least.
He might be right on Akale. He has certainly watched a lot of him, but if he is right it is more blind squirrel to me than any expect opinion. He just has absurd opinions on MN players. If there were more MN players it would be more hilarious, but since there are only 2 it isn't quite as noticeable. He was saying stuff like Jackson Yueill is the best U20 MF in the country last year and should be a lock to start in MLS. Akale at ~#2 on all player rankings below only Pulisic. Akale is 21, so you would expect any truly big time player to break through by this point foreign player restrictions or not. He could still be quite good and a National Teamer and all, but it would be quite a surprise for a transcendent type prospect to be playing youth league at age 21.
Oh I certainly wasn't implying that I thought he was a transcendent talent or anything. Possible national team player is all.
Yes. I wasn't implying that you shared that opinion. I just have LOLed at Giggy post for 2 years now since I starting lurking on the BigSoccer Youth Forum, so I thought I would provide context. He reminds me of a fan of some underdog team on their homeboard talking up their better players who are just pretty good like they are stars in the context of College Football.
Keaton had 2 goals for Benefica B today. What's more interesting is this: Someone on this team is drawing major interest: "Observers from Monaco, Manchester City, Arsenal, Salzburg, Hamburg and Borussia Moenchengladbach were present in the match." No guarantee it was for him, but seems like a fairly safe bet.
I'm going all in on the Parks hype train at this point. Just love what a natural and smooth passer he is.
https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...ain-for-matches-vs-france-and-atletico-madrid Has Shaft Brewer listed as unattached for some reason but he's with RB Leipzig. Forwards and mids look pretty good. Back line other than Dest is pretty meh
Here’s a thread on Pomykals appearance yesterday. There’s 4 or so more tweets after this one. I think he got into a couple first team matches last year. Currently 18.
Is Parks playing as a creative CM? He seems positioned pretty deep in a lot of those moves but seems to get forward also
IIRC he started as more of a defensive mid at Benefica and still spends some time there, but it seems they recognized that his defensive game needs a little work, and his best attribute is his passing ability/vision and driving the team forward- so he's been playing higher up a good bit of the time. Probably has had to fight off being pigeon-holed as a defensive player for a long time with his height. (Apparently before the U20 world cup at a camp Tab put him at CB and shockingly wasn't impressed )
Wow I'm really surprised we won. Everybody on our side is a 99 or younger and like 2/3's of the france roster is a 98 or 97.
He's only 14, so nothing more than a hope and a dream at this point, but this was enjoyable. Click the tweet for a bunch more gifs Also the U20's tied Atletico Madrid's U21's today.
From FCDs perscpective. They hadn’t signed him to a home grown contract yet so they get zero reimbursement for the years they spent training him. That’s why Busio, Akanyirige, Bello all got homegrown contracts at age 15, it’s the only way to get compensated. The US is the only soccer federation that doesn’t allow training compensation to their clubs (although no one is 100% of its legality here).
The Tim's make the annual top 50 prospects list http://www.goal.com/en/lists/nxgn-2...w432v813xuj6bgxv164#iihmpk6ihq661tlqguctafx6g
The now current youngest American professional goal scorer, George Bello. Our next U17s have insanely good outside back prospects with Bello at LB and Scally at RB.
Anyone else having problems seeing tweets? https://sbisoccer.com/2018/04/josh-sargent-stars-as-werder-bremen-finishes-third-at-u-19-tournament