U.S. under-17 men's national team roster
- by Soccer America , Sep 27, 2014
The USA will face Costa Rica on Wednesday, Oct. 1, followed by Canada on Oct. 3 and host Panama on Oct. 5, with all games played at Estadio Maracana in Panama City.
The USA roster includes 15 players who are in the midst of their fall semester in the U-17 Residency Program in Bradenton, Florida, and five who are based in Europe. The latter group includes Haji Wright and Christian Pulisic, who lead this group with 11 goals apiece this year.
U.S. U-17 Roster:
GOALKEEPERS (2): William Pulisic (Richmond Strikers; Mechanicsville, Va.), Kevin Silva (PDA; Bethlehem, Pa.)
DEFENDERS (7): Tyler Adams (New York Red Bulls Academy; Wappingers Falls, N.Y.), Hugo Arellano (LA Galaxy Academy; Norwalk, Calif.), Daniel Barbir (West Bromwich Albion; Allentown, Pa.), Tanner Dieterich (Real Salt Lake AZ; Nashville, Tenn.), John Nelson (Internationals; Medina, Ohio), Matthew Olosunde (New York Red Bulls Academy; Trenton, N.J.), Alexis Velela (San Diego Surf; San Diego, Calif.)
MIDFIELDERS (5): Eric Calvillo (Real So Cal; Palmdale, Calif.), Luca de la Torre (Fulham; San Diego, Calif.), Keegan Kelly (Baltimore Celtic; Baltimore, Md.), Thomas McCabe (Players Development Academy; South Orange, N.J.), Christian Pulisic (PA Classics; Hershey, Pa.)
FORWARDS (6): Pierre Da Silva (New York Soccer Club; Port Chester, N.Y.), McKinze Gaines (Lonestar SC; Austin, Texas), Josh Perez (Unattached; La Habra, Calif.), Elijah Rice (Chicago Magic PSG; Highland Park, Ill.), Haji Wright (Unattached; Los Angeles, Calif.), Alejandro Zendejas (FC Dallas Academy; El Paso, Texas)
8 comments about "U.S. under-17 men's national team roster".
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How is this roster chosen? What are the criteria, as it seems that the players are not necessarily the best ones available, but rather ones who have been entrenched in the system and simply picked because they are known to the coaches. The US is a huge land mass with many players so it is mandatory that a more RIGOROUS process be used to pick the best players for national duties.
Winston- couldn't agree more. You would think the only elite players in the USA are from the I-95 corridor or Southern California. There are elite players all over the country. Have they scouted the Southeast United States? How about Northern California and the Pacific Northwest? How about the Midwest? You wonder why our teams do so poorly in international competions when they get older. Players develop at different ages but I don't think our US coaches consider that.
Exactly right! Many of these players used to be the best at age 11,12,13 and were selected on what they had done at those ages.
Once they are in the program, even if many of them had not developed in the rate that US had wish, they keep staying in the program by seniority.
Others were selected by having a few good games playing against washed out USYSA teams.
The selection process in the US national teams in many cases is by who you know or who your mom or dad are.
I can name at least 6-7 in this program that actually I know that is the case.
Saw some of the players plying with different teams over the summer and in reality, some of them would not even make the cut in the better academy teams in their own age group.
You guys know that only way to change this is to vote those guys out of their jobs right? We could all start at local level getting info and pushing our youth soccer associatiions to vote against them getting reelected. The USSDA exists solely to keep the bigger clubs happy to secure votes. Thats why it will never be free. If they do charge USSDA teams (3 of them) nothing or little costs will go to the younger ages (which makes it worse for development) and these Academy clubs will pressure top players to sign up earlier for PreAcademy teams to get their $$$ by saying that they will on ly recruit from within their club for Academy. They call it Loyalty. ODP also exists only to keep State Associations happy with the $$ it generates so the votes keep coming in. No different in how politicians secure votes. ID2 same thing. Free but also designed to keep top US Club Top Clubs happy for votes. There are enough of us sick of all this that we can pressure our State Associations into discussing these votes in DOC meetings.
State associations will only listen to money. If they see this threatened with enough people unhappy with overall system they will have to listen and comply. USSDA clubs are only 80 or so. We have the p[ower to change things. Problem is we only care about the present. We are a selfish generation. We dont care what happened before or what will happen after our kids graduate from H.S.
Whatever dude, it is not enough that Richie Williams had failed miserably with this program???
It is not enough that Tab Ramos failed miserably to qualify to the U20 world cup and instead of getting axed he gets promoted and sits next to Klingsman in the senior team bench during the world cup?
It is not enough that we already seen the declined on this U17 team from the time that they won the Nike friendlies in Florida to the horrible showing at Copa Mexico this year???
It is not enough that this 20 man roster only have 1 different player from the roster that had been playing the past 4 tournaments???? and they keep in residency players that only were used for their B team, they seen not to be good enough to make the jump to the A team but they still call them to residency year after year????
Take a look at the residency roster and tell me how many of those kids had ever played even a minute in the A team other than the same 20 players that they took to Panama over and over and over???
Does Richie Williams and US soccer think that after keeping some of these players in residency for 3 cycles of all the sudden they will throw some magic powder in their heads and made them better soccer players????Gurrieri has been with the program for the past 3 years, how many games he had played in the main roster??? Bethesda-Olney kid Matzelevich how many games he has played with the main team since he was called to residency???? why they keep calling the same players year after year if they don't think that are even good enough to play 5 minutes in the main team??? for how much longer they will be using these players as sparring for the main players???(btw, while the main team is playing tournaments, instead of keeping the players that they did not make the roster and continue to train them in residency, they are sent home....)
Why not to send them to their clubs and let them try to develop those players there and give opportunity to new players???
It happened year after year.... we win the friendlies at age 15 and by age 18 we can even compete with the likes of Finland... and we fail to qualify to play world cups competing against CONCACAF team that have the 10% of the budget that US soccer have to develop players... Give me a break!
Robert, i agree with everything you said. Look at Netherlands, Germany Spain National team roster's Youth National Team experience. 3+ years at least of Youth national team experience for more than 90% of those 3 team's rosters. Identified at U15-U17 successfully. Not only are the showing great development but also great efficiency in their ealry picks. African teams?? great talent but very little youth national team experience for their rosters and 1/2 of those few are with European national teams that give them their first tries. Sound familiar?? Who are we closer to in that regard?? We see the media talk about money pumped in to german youth but ignore historically better Brazil?? We ignore efficiency of those countries to recruit their very best at ealry ages. Why no one talks about this?? Why cant the USA pick their very best at U17-U18?? Why do very few of those make the Senior roster?? Why do we resemble African teams in that department??
Whatever dude, we can go over and over... The best example of youth development is Belgium. They revamped their whole youth program after they hosted the euro cup 2000 were they miserably failed to make it to the next round. They put emphasis on technical training and integrating the minorities into their youth programs, as a result, they got these golden generation of young players.
We still seeing at the senior level midfielders that can't hold the ball... strikers that can't shoot the ball with their weak foot and can't even laid the ball back.... US soccer still selecting players at the youth level by size and speed... kids that put their heads down and dribble like chickens without heads...that slow everything down and they turn the ball over and over...
They still selecting players that play poor USYSA competition and they look like the next Ronaldo playing no one...They keep players in their rosters for what they had done at 12, 13 y/o when they were the biggest and strongest player and now they don't even have the basic technical ability or tactical understanding of the game...
And lastly, yes, how many players that went through the residency program had a professional career???
Let's see how good this "golden generation" of players will do under Richie Williams guidance.