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1. Night start adding Pachuca starting LB Mauricio Isais to that Liga MX list of Americans.

   Still baffles me that US soccer continues to not have a very good scouting network of Mexican-American players plying their trade in Liga MX. Mexico does a better job in scouting in the US trying to find Mexican-American gems than US soccer does. And it’s our backyard! This is one area that needs to get better from US soccer. That should be the job of a sporting director. Not only hiring head coaches, but implementing a better scouting system at home and abroad. Isais has stated he still hasn’t heard from US soccer. This is crazy considering how LB is a position of need of quality depth. And everything I have read or heard is that this kid has a lot of potential.

   Get your house in order US soccer.

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   • Also Agostin Anello is at Hajduk Split with Pukstas. Don’t know much about him other than he is a winger and has been starting for Split. Got his first assist last weekend.

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     • Anello is a 21 year old American-Argentine born in Miami. Family moved to Spain and he had time in Espanyols youth teams. Then they moved backed to the US in North Carolina. Eventually he was signed by Lommel in Belgiums second division. He scored 6 goals and had 3 assists to start the season before Hajduk took him on loan in January. It’s a loan with an option to buy. He holds an Italian and US passport. Could be another potential attacker for our u23 Olympic team.

   • It seems to be getting better. Mostly because MLS and USL are expanding their footprint. Alianza is an organization that runs tournaments and tryouts mostly in the southwest. 10 years ago it would have been almost all Mexican clubs attending and scouting. It’s how most of the Americans end up in Liga Mx academies. Now just about every mls club and USSF are at those events too. You still have a big pull with teenagers (Isais left for Mexico at 16) with families dreaming of them playing in Mexico. It’s seems it’s more when players get into their late teens early twenties when they start to decide on their own. I can’t remember if it was MLS or USSF did a get to know video with Jesus Ferreira last fall where he went to an Alianza event and worked with kids. Looking at the US U17 squad it appeared to be as Hispanic heavy as any squad I can remember. As for Isais, Edgar Moreno did point out on Twitter that Mauricio is now following the USMNT on Twitter. Hudson in his interview with The Athletic said he’s been talking with dual nationals. When you have the third largest country by area with over 330 million people you aren’t going to catch everyone, but they are trying to do better.

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     • fish rots from the head. the nominal coach (GB) is lackidaisical and stats driven. this promotes chasing mid career players with stats to analyze, and places no special emphasis on identifying or fighting for dual nationals, particularly ahead of the point they become stats-proven and obvious to everyone including their other options. i agree with the OP. analytics is not scouting. we should be combing foreign rosters for american born or passport players. we should be in person scouting strong candidates, even if they are currently on a U21 or reserve side. i learned from reyna there is an oddly conservative bent these days. i think a snobby version of JK’s ideas has set in where we only want to chase some kid starting at ajax who already has a row of US YNT on his resume. which is backwards of what he was trying to promote, emphasizing the UCL club snobbery — which was more about signing there and not so much starting — over the fact he was willing to call players from BM2 or Stanford if his scouting was convincing.

       the stats emphasis, past a point, is wrongheaded. whatever goals dempsey earned for fulham were far tougher than jozy’s 30 for AZ. i don’t think the fanboys want to encourage that sort of discussion because it might wander back to actually analyzing their soccer qualities and scouting them, which favors those who actually played soccer. the analysts want to make this about having a cable subscription and an elementary understanding of statistics. i think stats are a useful check on a day’s scouting. “did i see what i thought i saw?”

       anyhow, i think the emphasis on numbers holds back players — as it did richards and weah — not yet first team integrated putting up numbers to be analyzed. however i think the slightest scouting would have discerned the player had skills beyond their competition. and then you have to have a coaching mindset of i am going to trust my eyes and my scouts and push this along even if he’s a reserve or noob now. would donovan or beasley have gotten the reyna/richards/weah skepticism today, instead of a fast track?

     • They are doing all those things you listed in the first part of your rant. They just value different qualities than you do. Which is fine you prefer sit back and defend and then counter, that’s a valid strategy. However, it doesn’t mean USSF and Berhalter weren’t scouting players and weren’t talking to multiple dual nats. Most dual nats we never hear about because they’re contacted and they aren’t interested. Jeremy Toljan and Kik Pierie two examples of guys that said “no way”. Dest and Musah were the big “gets” but there were many at other levels. Johnny, Giaocchini, Andres Perea all examples of guys with other options that USSF found. Ferreira, Pepi, and Dike are all dual nationals. Tillman had played under 200 pro minutes and was brought in. When your guy Soto (who’s not really tearing up Austria after failing in Scotland) played hard ball USSF threw him a bone to keep him. There are many YT guys Sonogo and Figueroa to name a couple. You aren’t going to get everyone, no one does.

     • “You aren’t going to get everyone, no one does.”

       The USSF does not have near enough resources to do that and never has.

       What mostly needs to happen and already has at some level is that MLS has to expand their efforts to develop American kids, regardless of ethnicity. They will be the ones to come up with and develop players, “Hispanic” or otherwise, who the USSF can then evaluate and reject because they don’t don’t fit Gregg’s system.

       That’s the only way that you can get anywhere close to covering this country’s vast population.

       The NBA, MLB, NHL and the NFL have the NCAA to do this for them. The USSF will just have to rely on MLS.

       And while we’re on the topic, I’m tired of hearing about how because we have such a huge population we should have lots of untapped talent.

       It’s quality not quantity.

       Brazil is a huge country but how may Argentinians are there?. What is the population of France, Spain, Italy etc? Just how many Koreans, Japanese and Swiss are there?

       I’m guessing California alone has more people than any of those countries. I’m certain that New Jersey, Illinois and Texas plus California do.

       This is just another bogus excuse..
       Dest and Musah were happy accidents that never would have happened if some guy didn’t happen to know some guy.

       The USMNT sucks because the USSF sucks. They suck because no one has ever come up with a long term plan for developing the USMNT and sticking with it.

       They are too busy jerking each other off. At one time everyone was mad because El Jefe Gulati was an economist and therefore knew nothing about soccer. Now you can’t go to the bathroom at USSF headquarters without tripping over an ex USMNT or USWNT player with a very obscure job description.

       Now we’re hearing about hiring Gooch as the Technical Director. Gooch is a wonderful man,had a great career and is an imposing ambassador but is he competent? What the fuck does he know about assembling a national team program and associated organizations? Earnie at least had a pretty competent career doing that with AZ and then the Union.

     • V: I’m not making excuses it’s just reality. The US doesn’t have the history or the structure that those top countries have. In Europe and South America every city has at least one pro club and larger cities have two or three or more. They want to develop players to be pros and lead their city to glory. The US is getting there but we still have cities in the US that have no pro club at any level. The development then falls to youth clubs that are often looking to turn a profit rather than develop kids, focusing on winning so they can add to their accomplishments on their websites to draw more kids. At the end of the day how many Americans who were developed in the US thrived for another country? Rossi, Subotic, eventually Araujo (maybe). The sky fell when Jona Gonzalez switched he’s had 3 caps for Mexico and is currently play with Monterrey 2 in the 2nd Div.

     • JR

       “: I’m not making excuses it’s just reality. The US doesn’t have the history or the structure that those top countries have. In Europe and South America every city has at least one pro club and larger cities have two or three or more. They want to develop players to be pros and lead their city to glory. The US is getting there but we still have cities in the US that have no pro club at any level.”

       I’m not saying you’re making an excuse. But the reality is that argument you just cited? It’s an excuse.

       For example, did you see Japan at the World Cup? Japan has about as much history and structure as we do…, NOT. And I’m not aware of Swiss clubs dominating in the Champions League but they have a pretty potent national team.

       All I ever hear are excuses for why the USMNT either can’t win one fucking playoff game or at least look like they can. Yes if Pulisic scores that early goal then maybe we luck out and beat Netherlands but honestly, Van Gaal had Gregg’s number and was always going to kick his ass.

       Nothing about the USMNT scared them.

       Three of our best are starting or playing a lot for Leeds and if you’ve watched them they are solid but not impressive.

       I have yet to read one rating of them that talks about their “creavity ” or playmaking ability. They are playing like the kind of USMNT player we’ve always had, honest, hard working, run all day hit everything that moves, non diva shitbag types.

       Rossi and Subotic , when healthy, were a quantum level better than anyone on the USMNT at Qatar ( with the possible exception of Ream, who, I will remind you was there only because Miles Robinson was not ). Imagine Aaron Long at Qatar and Ream left home?

       So where is the improvement? Right now the USMNT are the Marvin Lewis Bungles (pre- Joe Burrow). Marvin Lewis made the playoffs seven times ( five times in a row at one point and won four division titles) but was 0-7 in the playoffs. In other words, also-rans.

       Whatever they have been doing, it’s wrong and they need to do better if they want to impress anyone in 2026.

     • V: I just checked 5 Swiss clubs, all were founded in the late 1800s. That’s 100 years head start to get things right. That’s years of mothers and fathers getting quality instruction in the game and passing that on. 50 years of elite soccer being broadcast weekly on tv to emulate on the pitch that week. Why does the US have a bunch of go hard athletes? Because that’s what they’ve been taught. Look at American football, what are running backs taught to do? “Get down hill”, “stay north/south” find the hole and run hard. Soccer in this country has been based on that for years. Just go harder than your opponent, that’s our history and culture. Imagine if Barry Sanders had played futbol instead of football. There are multiple posters just on here who claim to have played high levels of soccer, but when they try to describe it’s clear they have little understanding of the how and why of more technical soccer play. It’s not what they know from their experience so they can’t explain it let alone teach it to the next generation.
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       USSF has to make coaching training cheaper and more accessible. But it’s the USL and MLS clubs that scout and develop the players. There are just too many 10 year olds out there in the US for the federation to try to find them.

2. Anyone notice Benji Michel is the 1st division in Portugal. Arouca! He’s got 1g in 5 matches. Played against Boa Vista (Cannon) last week. Not bad for a player coming from the MLS straight to the Primeira. A transfer like this is a credit to what the MLS has become in terms of homegrown signings getting 1st team minutes then a transfer to a different league. So if you don’t understand why Americans defend a professional soccer league IN America then you’re not paying attention. Tim Ream transferred from the MLS around the same age as Benji, and hasn’t looked back. Look at the compliments he’s getting now. There was a time ‘best defender’ and Tim Ream wasn’t used in the same sentence. (Best CB @ the WC, sure, not best defender. Saka wasn’t running away from Ream. Saka was trying to get away from another US player). It’s early in the season, but I can’t wait to see who transfers out of the MLS during the summer. This list of Americans abroad continues to grow!

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   • Hasn’t he not played the last few weeks? I assumed some sort of knock since he’d been playing. What’s interesting is he’s listed as their highest value player on transfermkt. A good move by Michel, speed like his opens doors for sure. Mihailovic stepped right into action. P.Aaronson and Clark are already dressing. I think probably at some point either July or January, Ferreira and Cowell move. Obviously if any of the domestic players at U20s show well. DeJuan Jones and John Tolkin would be fairly safe bets some time this year too.

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     • And Benji with a nice assist.

   • This may not apply to you but in general this late Ream band wagon jumping is wryly amusing

     USMNT fans did not give two shits about Timmy until this season when Silva took over Fulham and of course, Timmy’s 4 WC games, his 4 best ever games for the USMNT. And the only memorable USMNT games he has ever played.

     When he moved to Bolton, he was highly regarded by them. And when he moved to Fulham it was the same. There’s a reason he has played so many games for them .

     When Fulham last got back into the EPL. Timmy had a hard time but that was probably because he was hurt and never really got back into it.

     This time around he benefits from having perhaps the best Fulham team he’s ever been on and a very solid relationship with Jedi. I never hear any of you giving Jedi any credit for Timmy ‘s great year with both club and country but it’s hard to imagine that Jedi hasn’t been a great help.

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