Soeilgervanf Biweekly '04 Mailbag #1
Welcome to the Soeilgervanf Biweekly ’04 Mailbag, a regular discussion of American soccer players born in 2004. It will continue until every American soccer player born in 2004 has retired. To kick things off I’ve solicited questions on twitter. First question:
Excellent question, Joey. I cannot answer any part of it. My training is as a compilation maker so each player is a string of game performances that are either worthy of a Twitter highlight video, or are not. Everything else sort of blurs together. Working the string, yes, I can, and do, make moral determinations about each player. These moral determinations can, and do, guide practice, but they’re not precise enough for evaluating any prospect in relation to another. However, back-of-the-napkin, in the spirit of the mailbag: Possibly and He will win the ATLUTD starting left back job in August 2022.
Wiley, a consistent starter for at left back for the reserves, appears to land somewhere in the middle of wide support player and crossing specialist, leaning more toward wide support because his crossing is inconsistent right now. By the way, I recommend reading Michael Imburgio’s article about player roles, which is where these exciting terms wide support, crossing specialist, and many more come.
Wiley tries to play quickly and touch the ball with his right foot as few times as possible. Most all of his good passes come in transition, where he also adds to the attack with vertical runs longwise through the half space. He did look a bit to sea defensively his first couple appearances for Atlanta United II (veteran wingers sneaking behind his blindside or exploiting a too-slow reaction in transition that sort of thing), but he’s been noticeably more comfortable the past few weeks.
Wiley’s play-essence is similar to Mauricio Cuevas. Neither is flashy and their pass-fashions resemble each other (allowing for opposite footedness). But really the similarity is down to carriage and general manner.
Altogether, I believe it is correct to make compilation videos of Caleb Wiley.
The next question, from Matt Hartman, is not a question at all:
This will sound counter-intuitive, but I suspect that United States national team rosters with historic adversary name-pairings will fair better over time than those that do not. This is partly to do with spirituality and partly to do with the redemptive powers of deep-future US Soccer as unifying national institution. We don’t have good enough data yet to say for sure, though. That’s why tracking this particular case is so important.
It'll be a longterm job but for now know that Abraham Lincon is a real player at the San Antonio FC academy who scores a lot of goals. He hasn’t made any youth national team appearance yet, and may still be a ways off from it, but it feels inevitable that he eventually will.
The Booth here is Zach Booth, Real Salt Lake, younger brother of Taylor Booth. He was a standout for the new u17s in February against Spain, England, and Denmark, a central midfielder good on the turn who can carry the ball into attack with threat. Booth was the main rhythm keeper for the u17s at the tournament. His performance against Spain was fairly representative of his strengths and weaknesses:
Dantouma ("Yaya") Toure is an attacker for New York Red Bulls II. He's returned from an ACL to look inconsistent in ways that have divided opinion. Does I think he has what it takes? Yes, I do. What’s left now is to define what it is I think he has what it takes to do. Todays Tactics was correct to leave that open, and I don’t think we need to rush to a specific definition. I do not know if Dantouma Toure is good not.
Scott, I don’t know, but I think we’re each going to need to be OK with that possibility. We should also be aware there’s a chance the United States could cease to exist. I recommend not getting down about all that, though. Instead try thinking of it as a fun race between the rise of American soccer and the collapse of the Republic and/or death. Maybe not like that exactly, but that’s the general idea.
Well, John, first, the parallels between the Maine Lobster Festival and the World Cup are obvious enough to not require explanation. Between that and that this part could easily apply to Berhalter's system, or soccer in general, I think it’s pretty clear this is all something worthy of investigation.
For practical purposes, everyone knows what a lobster is. As usual, though, there's more to know than most of us care about — it's all a matter of what your interests are.
Unfortunately I've only read the first three paragraphs of the essay (PDF) so far, so we'll need to revisit the question in future mailbags. I’m also saving all the other questions that came in for the next mailbag because it doesn’t feel like we’re in any kind of rush here.
-Chris Russell