Malik Tillman earned his first start for Dutch giants PSV on Saturday and logged a Man of the Match performance in the process.
Tillman scored his first goal for the club while also assisting once in a 3-1 Eredivisie victory over FC Volendam. It was a strong shift from Tillman, who rewarded manager Peter Bosz in a big way.
Noa Lang’s 12th minute opener propelled PSV in front 1-0 at home, a lead they would take into the halftime break.
Tillman set up Guus Til in the 47th minute for a 2-0 PSV lead, connecting with the substitute midfielder just two minutes after he entered the match. Til’s right-footed shot nestled into the top-left corner, doubling PSV’s advantage.
Despite FC Volendam cutting its deficit in half, Tillman iced the victory for PSV in stoppage time thanks to a confident finish. Tillman raced into the FC Volendam box before unleashing a right-footed missile into the top of Mio Backhaus’ net.
https://x.com/Nederlands56256/status/1708190307068608697?s=20
Tillman finished the match with 13 duels won, three dribbles completed, and three fouls drawn over his 90+ minute shift.
PSV continues its UEFA Champions League schedule on Tuesday against La Liga side Sevilla.
I have no idea where Tillman stacks up relative to all of the other USMNT players in the pool, but it seems like the USA has reached a point where we are getting a steady inflow of prospects from the youth ranks (and still getting some from the deployed soldier dad ranks as well) . I hope GB gives the prospects opportunities to compete and that he has the cojones to tell and incumbent, “Sorry [insert big name here] but [insert new prospect here] has become better than you so I am going to have to cut you.,” should the need arise. Otherwise the men’s team will be just like the women’s team only without the massive advantages that the women have had (and probably still do if they were to get rid of the same old same old ).
Dejuan Jones played 5 years in college? In another article, the coach is going to comment he never posted that.
Malik becoming our “Plan B CAM”.
Good for Malik and his alarm clock but it’s only one game.
Against a miserable team. They are last in the league. PSV is first in the league.
Let’s see where he is by season’s end.
No longer a far gone conclusion that Reyna is the unquestioned CAM for the USMNT. Malik is building a very strong case, that position will be contested.
Volendam is pretty bad. Tillman had acres of space all day and all the time he wanted. He played well but a little early to say he’s competing with a healthy Reyna.
He’s competing. Which is a good thing. Having a 1 and a 1a options for CAM makes the USMNT that much stronger. Tillman had a great year for Rangers last season. This isn’t a one off. He is emerging. Now the USMNT needs a bit stronger depth on the wings and at the 6. Defense is looking pretty good. GK is gaining depth. Striker now has two legit starters in Pepi and Balogun with Ferreira, Sargent, Vazquez looking up. And an up and coming 22 year old in Duncan Mcguire( who I have tabbed as the starting striker for the Olympic team).
Good times right now.
“And an up and coming 22 year old in Duncan Mcguire( who I have tabbed as the starting striker for the Olympic team).”
Musah, Pepi and Gio are 20. Malik is 21. Flo is 22.
It’s hard to think of Mcguire as “up and coming ” at 22.
Vacqui-
I would note all development paths are not equal. One of the things I constantly hammer with my youth teams is repetitions, repetitions, repetitions. There’s too much dead time in most practices…I want the ball at the kids’ feet, I want them touching it as much as possible, I literally even work it into the warmup. There’s that old metric you hear a fair bit: “10,000 hours to mastery”. One of my biggest developmental edges as a coach is I figured out some tricks for how to get the kids closer to that number faster by really keeping my practices moving.
In the same vein, college soccer is not professional academy soccer. Duncan Maguire played three years in college…which means he was touching the ball and gaining experience maybe half as much as a guy in a pro academy, if that. The level isn’t as intense in college either…so in real-world terms a guy really only develops maybe a third as much in college. So while Maguire’s 22…in soccer development terms he’s roughly equivalent a 20-year-old. Which means there is almost certainly more upside to get with him.
The college path isn’t necessarily fatal to a pro career…talent is talent, and as long as you’re playing at a plus level you’re developing. But the college path does mean development is slower and those years will come off the end of your career. For instance, DuJuan Jones played five years in college…he’s 26, but if you apply the same ratio in developmental terms Jones is about where a talented 22-year-old guy knocking on the door of the European leagues would be.
In Tillman’s case, he’s 21, yeah…but he also lost a year and a half to an ACL tear, which means in developmental terms he’s not quite 20 himself. So if you think of Tillman as a 20-year-old cracking into the lineup of one of the top two teams in Dutch football…that’s actually a very encouraging sign.
All that said…yeah, Volendam is not good. People tend to judge leagues by their best squads and Ajax and PSV are significantly better than any MLS squad (excepting maybe Miami with a healthy Messi, Busquets, and Alba), but from literally the fifth team in the Netherlands down Eredivise payrolls are significantly less than those of MLS teams. Volendam spent just €2.5 million last year…or about a quarter what the typical MLS team spends on players, and you’d expect any team in MLS or Liga MX to beat them. Their top-paid player only made €320,000 last year.
quozzel,
I have no problem with Mcguire taking his development path. Klinsmann was 23/24 before he was capped by Germany and he went on to a hell of a career with them.
But the term” up and coming” is an expression has a specific meaning:
“(of a person beginning a particular activity or occupation) making good progress and likely to become successful.”
In Mcguire’s case, my idea of successful is that he becomes a regular contributing striker for the USMNT.
The odds are against that happening.
I’m not saying it won’t happen, only that he’s got a lot to overcome. And I’d be happy if he does overcome that and pushes Flo and Pepi off of the World Cup team. But it seems unlikely to happen.
And that means to describe him as “up and coming” is misleading.
Over the last few years, I have seen some players who did well in college and move pretty seamlessly into MLS. Presently the best college players are also playing on MLS development academies in the NCAA’s off-season. Those players do lose some time when they could have been training, but so do MLS novices who start-up in Feb. with training and mostly are done by Nov.
The other thing I’ve noticed is that the ages from about 18 to 22 the incidence of injuries that prevent playing or even training is high in that age group, whether they are in college, MLS, EPL or Bundesliga. It would make an interesting study to see in which league injury causes the most lost training time rather than just telling stories.
Until Reyna puts together a run of games for club or country, it’s hard to ink him into any lineup at any position. Then we can ask if we’ll even be using a CAM?