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MLS Youth Report

Dike, Akinola, & Bassett highlight youth in MLS over the weekend

The 2020 regular season only has a week remaining and with the games growing in importnace, more and more young players are rising to the occassion. This will only set the stage for an even more facinating 2021 with the U.S. U-20 team, the U-23 team, and the full national team all set for busy schedules. ASN's Justin Sousa walks you all through it. 
BY Justin Sousa Posted
November 02, 2020
10:35 AM

THE REGULAR SEASON  in Major League Soccer is nearing its conclusion, and teams are making their final playoff pushes. With 10 playoff positions available in the Eastern Conference, the Montreal Impact, Atlanta United, the Chicago Fire, Inter Miami and DC United are all still fighting for the final two spots. Although the eight Western Conference playoff teams seem pretty much set in stone, the LA Galaxy and Vancouver Whitecaps still have outside opportunities of making a postseason run. It’s an end-of-season grind like no other in this whacky season, and young Americans were in the thick of things yet again this past week.

Orlando City’s Daryl Dike had a pair of strong performances, scoring the game-winner against Montreal at the weekend and providing a goal and an assist in midweek against Atlanta. Only Chris Mueller (9) is ahead of Dike when it comes to Orlando’s top goal-scorers this season. George Bello started both of Atlanta’s games this past week, becoming the first and only American teenager to cross the 1400-minute threshold this season. In Miami, Dylan Nealis started in Inter Miami’s tightly contested 2-1 loss to Toronto FC. Ayo Akinola scored his first goal since the beginning of October in that game as well.

Cole Bassett and Sam Vines are back in form for the Colorado Rapids with both providing direct goal contributions in the team’s 3-1 win over the Seattle Sounders. Vines helped open the scoring with a wonderfully weighted and placed cross to the head of Andre Shinyashiki. Bassett was back on the scoresheet as well, scoring the Rapids’ third goal in a convincing performance to seal all three points. Elsewhere in the Rocky Mountains, Aaron Herrera and Justen Glad started for Real Salt Lake in their losses to the San Jose Earthquakes and LA Galaxy, respectively, this past week.

Bryan Reynolds had an outstanding game against Miami for FC Dallas in midweek, providing the assist to Ryan Hollingshead’s game-winning goal. He came off at the weekend as a precaution for a head injury he may have sustained against the Houston Dynamo. Jesus Ferreira also started both games and showed signs of improvement in his new role as the central attacking midfielder behind Franco Jara in Dallas’ back-to-back wins.

Aboubacar Keita and Mark McKenzie started at center back for the Columbus Crew and Philadelphia Union, respectively, in a top-of-the-table clash on Sunday. Both were on the United States’ roster for the 2019 Under-20 World Cup last May, but this was the first time they had played against each other in a professional game. Though the Crew came out on top with a 2-1 win, Keita and McKenzie had individually sound performances. Brenden Aaronson threatened to unlock the Crew’s defense on several occasions on Sunday, but Keita had a handful of wins his one-on-one battles with the Salzburg-bound midfielder.

Dike for USMNT growing stronger


Although there is a plethora of talented young Americans bursting onto the professional scene nowadays, the striker role is still one of concern for the national team. Despite barely having a year of professional experience under his belt though, Dike has rapidly developed under Oscar Pareja and continued to impress with his ability to lead Orlando’s attack.

Dike’s game-winner against the Impact was his third in three games for Orlando, ending an 11-game streak where he scored just once dating back to the end of August. This time, he made an excellent run between Montreal’s center backs to dispatch a line-breaking through ball from Mauricio Pereira with a first-time finish.

 


The call for him to get a shot with the national at some point soon isn’t just a shot in the dark by fans to fill this void for the USMNT either. Aside from his obvious physical qualities, Dike has a deceptively soft first touch and continues to show his ability to exploit space between defenders with smart runs in behind defensive lines. In a season where a pandemic doesn’t throw the MLS schedule for a loop and Pareja has full year with Orlando, I think Dike breaks former Orlando striker Cyle Larin’s record for most goals in a rookie season (17) easily.

With two home games against the Crew and Nashville standing in Orlando’s way of securing a top-four finish for the first time in club history, Dike’s goal-scoring heroics will play a big part in whether head into the playoffs in form or on a downward trajectory.

The kids are alright in Colorado


After a reality check from Sporting Kansas City and a disappointing loss to Minnesota in midweek, the Rapids were back to their free flowing finest against the Sounders. More importantly, homegrown duo Vines and Bassett were at the center of everything the Rapids did well in the final third and in transition.

On top of his usually robust performances in midfield, Bassett showed more flashes of his ability to turn and thread passes into the runs of his advanced teammates. He did so on a few occasions in this game and while some didn’t come off, Robin Fraser will be happy that Bassett is starting to develop an eye for the final through ball into a forward’s run. There’s no questions Bassett’s looked good in this Dele Alli circa 2016/17 season secondary striker role, and now it’s a matter of filling out his skill set before making that move abroad.

 


Vines, however, continues to show his quality playing in tight spaces either down the left channel or within the left half-space. He’s leveled up in terms of his own ability to take players on in one-on-one situations and the technique behind his crosses has been among the best this season with the assist to Shinyashiki’s goal on Sunday being just one example of it. The 21-year-old is no slouch on the defensive side of his game either, holding strong and keeping pace with some of the trickiest winger in the league in one-on-one battles.

 



Big week for American center backs

On top of McKenzie’s stellar season with the Union, the likes of Keita, Mauricio Pineda, Henry Kessler, Auston Trusty and Donovan Pines to name a few are also making names for themselves as center backs in MLS.

 


Pines and Kessler faced off in a seven-goal thriller on Sunday where they both displayed the qualities that make them stalwarts in their respective backlines. The New England Revolution rely on Kessler to be a composed figure on the ball to work possession out from the back as well as being a defensive wall. Pines, however, is a throwback to classic defenders in the way he physically outmatches forwards and imposes his size to break up plays in the final third.

Pineda’s transition from defensive midfielder to center back hasn’t been seamless for the Chicago Fire, but it’s given the team a cool-headed figure to provide a defensive focal point to circulate possession through. Against a defensively sound Nashville team, it was Pineda’s vision and passing that proved to be the key to unlocking their defense in setting up Boris Sekulic’s equalizer. His raw numbers from that game:

  • 96 touches
  • 85/89 passes
  • 5/6 long balls
  • 4 ball recoveries
  • 3/10 duels won
  • 3 fouls
  • 2/6 aerial duels
  • 1 assist

Trusty and Keita haven’t solidified their places in the back lines of their respective clubs, but they were entrusted to hold it down in defense in two big games. Keita held his own in every one-on-on battle he was placed into, winning three of his four aerial duels and making six clearances in the process. Trusty had a shaky start against the Sounders but grew into the match as he and Lalas Abubakar snuffed out the Sounders’ crosses all game long.


Akinola, Yow on the scoresheets


The sight of Ayo Akinola bodying grown men to create space for himself and score a goal will never get old, and it happened again this weekend.

Unfortunately for 20-year-old Christian Makoun, he became the latest victim in Akinola’s rampaging quest to score goals for Toronto FC. It was his fourth goal of the regular season – ninth counting goals from the MLS is Back tournament – and Akinola continued to show why he should be the outright favorite for the starting strike role in 2021. Though he scores in spurts, he’s constantly making the right runs between defensive lines and, as he’s shown multiple times this season, he is a handful for defenders to keep up with physically.

 

In a miserably rainy night in Foxborough, Griffin Yow got his second goal of the season for DC United. This performance showed a lot of the intangible qualities within Yow like his grit to challenge for 50/50 balls and pressure opponents even if he’s at a size disadvantage. The goal wasn’t pretty, Yow simply finished the scraps left behind by the Revolution’s inability to clear a free kick into the box, but he was in the right place at the right time to score the goal.

On the ball, he moves with urgency and even if the passes and moves he attempts don’t come off cleanly, Yow does them with conviction and with a purpose. At 18, there’s still plenty of time for Yow to fill out physically and improve his technical ability at the professional speed of play, but those unteachable qualities that he’s possessed from the start of his professional career will set him apart from other players come next season.


Most Minutes Played by Under-23 Americans

  • Mark McKenzie – 1620 minutes
  • Mauricio Pineda – 1604 minutes
  • Henry Kessler – 1575 minutes
  • Keaton Parks – 1562 minutes
  • Brendan Aaronson – 1555 minutes
  • Kyle Duncan – 1549 minutes
  • Jackson Yueill – 1530 minutes
  • Brooks Lennon – 1467 minutes
  • Aaron Herrera – 1435 minutes
  • George Bello – 1419 minutes


Most Goal Involvements by Under-23 Americans

  • Daryle Dike – 7 goals, 2 assists
  • Cole Bassett – 5 goals, 3 assists
  • Brendan Aaronson – 4 goals, 3 assists
  • Djordje Mihailovic – 2 goals, 5 assists
  • Jeremy Ebobisse – 5 goals, 2 assists
  • Eryk Williamson – 3 goals, 3 assists
  • Anthony Fontana – 6 goals
  • Brooks Lennon – 2 goals, 3 assists
  • Kyle Duncan – 3 goals, 1 assist
  • Sam Vines – 1 goal, 3 assists
  • Gianluca Busio – 1 goal, 3 assists
  • Ayo Akinola – 4 goals

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