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What is your take on training U21 players that have HOF potential compared to Superstar potential? Do you have the players train the same or do you force more primary training on the superstar guy to benefit the U21 team more?

First off, it depends on starting skills and what the manager wants out of the player. If the starting skills for the HOF player have significant holes to where making the NT will be a chore then we can devise a plan much like the SS to make the U21. If the skills are that of a NT plan, then we have to work on that route and realize he might not be on the U21. Also, if the manager just wants the player to be a specific type of player for his club then we have to respect that, but always if we think that player can be much more we can at least inquire about selling and attempt to line up a buyer.

A lot of U21 teams have donkey bigs with high primaries and 1’s everywhere else. How do you feel about this? How might you exploit that?

Get a little creative on offense and move some players around. A French Patient is how I beat China in continentals this past term(a CT helped ;)), but we knew their outside skills weren't up to par for defending the 1-2 scorers I had available. Now, that's not an option every week, but if we can find holes like that to exploit then I want to put players in position to make them pay.

What is your take on outside offenses? What skills do you look at for outside offenses compared to inside offenses? What would be your ideal outside offense lineup?

Outside offenses continue to be underutilized, but just like any offense you need to have the personel to make them work. More JS/JR is needed, for example, which can take away some of the defense and HA/DR or even IS since that is still what rules the roost for offensive prowess. That said, if we could field a roster 7-8 deep within our full roster I would love to have even more offenses available for use.

In your own opinion, how do you think the Game Engine works in regards to tactics? Specifically, I want to hear how you think a LI works compared to a RnG? For example, does the GE value passing as much as DR? Is JR useful in LI? Does IS matter in a RnG? What do you think?

First, JR and IS are useful and matter in every offense. For LI, you'll still take a couple jumpers and especially threes with a hit the further out you are, so having JR can help deter part of that hit. For RnG, yes the shots are going up quicker in the play clock but there are still quite a few shots in the paint making IS still very necessary. For tactics and the GE, I've always seen DR have a big effect for scorers but scoring off the pass has a higher percentage of makes, all things being equal.

Pick 2 of the three guards for your team:

14/14/13/12/12/7-6/5/4/3
12/7/13/12/12/9/11/5/4/3
15/6/13/13/13/13-2/5/4/3

Depending on what the rest of the team has of course, I'm going with A & B. 14/14 JR/JR on A and the 11 IS on B are great scoring skills, and OD/ID is equal for each of them. That 15/13 JS/PA for C is really good and I'd want him on the team, but at 2 IS I feel I can get more points out the first two.

Everyone: Can you give examples of USA U21 or NT players that you have trained in the past. If you have not trained any, what qualifies you to guide a long term training program for dozens of players.

These all made the U21 for their nations, which, yes, is more than just USA as you asked.

Ricardo Pardo - Spain
Lawrence Phillips - USA(A Warrior did a lot with him after I sold off my team to rebuild)
Mick Sterling - USA
Rafi Mansur - Israel(sold him late in his 19 y/o season after getting a bunch of 1v1 and OD)
Man McCormack - USA(Jk did the heavy lifting on him, but I did pump his OD late in his 20 y/o season and trained through his 21)
More than a half-dozen Nippon players during my term, including a couple bigs that would have had a chance at the USA team if they were eligible to change nationalities.

Last edited by khenry at 10/26/2018 10:48:14 AM

Why is it important to have the "underdog" mentality and tactical base for USA in this term do you think?

We don't have the horses right now to show up and LI/M2M every opponent and beat them down. Can we run through Americas for the most part? Hell yes. But what matters to us all is getting to Worlds and playing in that Final for Gold. It takes going outside the box with tactics at times. As Americans, we're always going to look at ourselves as favorites. Admittedly, during Nick's term, we knew we were underdogs but fell apart in the final group at Worlds after having to burn enthusiasm in the Repe to get a couple wins over teams that made the consolation Semifinal and Final. As the Nippon U21 manager, I played teams I was far superior to just like the USA is a lot of the time, but I also faced the likes of Australia, Taiwain, and China where I was very much outmatched. Also almost beat Poland in the round robin of the Consolation tournament and they won the dang thing to get HCA for Euros.

Saying I've been absent for a long time is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. As the manager of another U21, my focus was there but I did jump in at times during Nick's term for both Americas and early this past season. My absence about halfway through has been discussed, but that does not qualify as "for a long time".

I chose to return when we hit a time of year that allowed me more time. That happened to be a few days before elections so I found it opportune to change from another term in Japan to giving this a shot. Can't stress this part enough: I acknowledge that things could have been done differently when I focussed on life and I could have made a better attempt at responding to your BB-Mail or posting in the Discord before deleting the app from my phone to keep from checking it. I can't change that, but I can assure you that I'm around with time to spare for this entire term.

Time commitment. How will all the candidates fare with time committed to the U21 for the next 6 months? Khenry I know you’ve answered for the next couple months what about for the Worlds season?

Our busy time of the year is high school football from late August to basically this week since most of the teams we cover get knocked out in the first round and we don't need as many broadcasters for each week. This was my first year they needed me on the broadcast team so the time it took snuck up on me more than I would have liked. This term will run approximately to April-ish and that's perfectly in my slower time of the year. If this were the spring to fall term, then with my knowledge of my time constraints for football I doubt I would be running. This term has my full commitment with no extra work schedules to pull me from managing the USA U21.

I’m not going to stop you because I’ve admitted more should have been done from myself. I dropped the ball this past season, plain and simple. No way around it. What I’m saying is look at the body of work in my time since season 22/23 whenever I started my first team. I can honestly say that without a doubt nothing is going to pull me from my responsibilities as USA U21 manager.

Trust is like toothpaste in a tube, easy to lose and harder to put back. I get that. I’ve increased my communication exponentially in order to show that I’m back and 100% committed to that task at hand. I understand that I’ve lost your, and a few others’ trust, confidence, and ultimately your votes. Again, you’ve not said a single falsehood other than misrepresenting my absence in one post that has been addressed.

I’m here and ready to take USA U21 in the right direction during my term.

A couple of things here.

First, the discord is something seperate from the u21 to me, so lets leave that out even if you are frustrated with someone over actions there (Heck, i just outright left the discord and didn't renew my utopia because i was so annoyed with it, but outside of this comment you haven't seen me go nuclear on anything there).

Second, i have a few questions that might have been asked, but because this threads been spammed to death by people disagreeing with one another i don' feel like looking to see if it has been discussed yet, so feel free to just tell me if it's been answered

1) The US u21 prospects will fall to a variety of managers as many of you whom have filled the role of scout or u21 manager have done in the past. This isn't something that is very fixable, it is just something that has to be managable in my view as a former u21 manager. What approach do you take as the u21 manager, and what approach do you delegate to scouts, when it comes to multiple different types of owners? I won't qualify a response for my vote if you answer with something about how you are going to get those owners to commit more to your strategy by being more active. And yes, i am voting and have not yet decided.

2) The US u21 team in general is typically somewhere between 3rd and 5th best in terms of total primary ratings it can achieve compared to the rest of the worlds group. 3rd falls in line with the population for the US in comparison to other countries, and 5th falls in line with probably where we stand in terms of having interest in our national team. Therefore, the minimum expectations is that a semi's birth occurs from the u21 efforts each season (whether or not it is fair for that given season). What measure do the u21 managers have in place for improving the performance we had last season to the point where we can get that result at minimum again.

3) Do you believe in primary-oriented players or do you believe in secondaries? I don't plan on deciding on voting based on the response to this, just kinda wanted a feel for what the tipping point was mentally.

Good luck to those involved. I may eventually give it another go (discord/u21), but don't feel like it's the right time or i can be dedicated enough to it as was evidenced by the end of my HoF scouting work.

Last edited by FurY at 10/26/2018 1:54:35 PM