92115_isi_use_amostab_usmntjd07201504 John Dorton/isiphotos.com
Interview

Tab Ramos Discusses U-20 Outlook & Two New Teams

U.S. Soccer's Youth Technical Director spoke with ASN's Brian Sciaretta about new the new U-20 World Cup cycle as well as the federation's plans to create U-16 and U-19 men's national teams. 
BY Brian Sciaretta Posted
September 21, 2015
8:30 PM

TAB RAMOS IS A BUSY MAN THESE DAYS. In his role as United States under-20 men’s national team head coach, he is set to begin a new World Cup cycle. Ramos also serves as U.S. Soccer’s Youth Technical Director, and as such he is preparing to launch two new youth national teams—at the U-16 and U-19 levels.

This past summer Ramos led the U-20s to a quarterfinal finish in the World Cup, where it lost to eventual champion Serbia in penalty kicks. The U-20 squad also began its 2017 cycle with a camp in Serbia where it suffered a 3-1 loss to Serbia, a 6-1 drubbing to France, followed by a 2-0 win over Israel.

Ramos spoke exclusively with American Soccer Now about his thoughts on the U-20 program’s recent results and expectations in the months ahead. He also went into detail about why U.S. Soccer is funding the creation of two new youth national teams to organize the federation’s youth development program. This interview has been lightly edited.

BRIAN SCIARETTA FOR ASN: This is now your third World Cup cycle—how does this new group compare with the start of your two previous camps?

TAB RAMOS: After this camp and seeing the level of this camp it forced me to go back to the level of the last cycle to see what that was like. I realized that in the first camp of the last cycle, all the players we had except for one, maybe two, were contenders for World Cup spots in the end. It was a very competitive cycle by the way. That was a good camp.

This camp obviously comes in September and you have to take into account colleges. You have to talk to schools about whether they can release some guys for this camp or for our camp coming up in Germany. We couldn’t take players away from both so we took some for this camp and others for next camp. With a couple other guys being injured as well, we had make real good use of our depth chart. When you have to play Serbia and France on back-to-back days and you can’t use the same players, it really put us in a difficult place.

But I saw that as a great opportunity to see players in a tough environment against good teams. I thought a lot of players would step up. To be honest, although it’s early in the cycle, I was disappointed with what I saw in the first camp. I thought we had a lot of room to improve.

ASN: Was there an area of the game—offense, defense, midfield—that was particularly good or bad?

RAMOS: Yes, absolutely. I was very happy with what I saw with our potential attacking side of the ball—which I felt was very encouraging because over quite a few cycles now we’ve lacked an abundance of players who can make plays that can decide games and score goals. At least for this group, in the first part of the camp, I was really happy. I think we have some players who in the years ahead can become special guys in terms of deciding games and making plays. That was really on the positive side.

On the defensive side, I was a little disappointed. I think we are far away from being where we need to be—not only to be a CONCACAF Champion team but also a qualification team.

ASN: That sounds very much like the opposite of your 2015 U-20 team, in which the defense was the biggest strength at the World Cup.

RAMOS: At the same time you have think that in the last cycle, Matt Miazga had probably his worst camp of the cycle in the first camp. He then ended up being an incredible and important part of the team. Then Cameron Carter-Vickers came along late in the cycle, and Erik Palmer-Brown got pulled up as well. Although those are younger guys now in this age group, I am not sure if we are going to see Carter-Vickers on this team or not.

My point is that as the cycle goes on, I am sure we will see other guys popping up that we are not aware of yet but will be fighting to be a part of the team.

ASN: So Carter-Vickers and Gedion Zelalem—who were starters at the 2015 U-20 World Cup and also eligible for the 2017 World Cup—could still be part of this cycle?

RAMOS: Those two guys are part of our Olympic process now. They have had a difficult time in terms of call-ups and they were away with me for the World Cup for over a month. The plan for me, regardless of whether or not they are available for my group, is to let them continue to adjust to their clubs over the next 9-12 months before we start contemplating the possibility of having them involved at all.

ASN: In the camp in Serbia, was there anyone who stood out or raised their stock to play a big part in the early part of this cycle?

RAMOS: We had guys who surprised me on the upside and who I think will get better and maybe become an important part of the group. I hope.

One is Emmanuel Sabbi, who I think he’s a special player. The other two guys who I think could potentially be important parts of the group are Victor Mansaray and Cameron Lindley.  They both surprised me on the positive side.

I knew they were all good players and some of them performed as they were supposed to but for these guys, they stepped it up higher than just doing a good job. I thought they were very good.

ASN: How did Chelsea reserve Kyle Scott perform?

RAMOS: I thought he had a very good camp. I really like his skill and I like his confidence with the ball. I still think with Kyle, as we look into World Cup qualifying, he’s a player we have to continue to reemphasize what’s important is to make plays in that final third. If he’s going to be that attacking player he’s going to be fighting for one of those spots with guys like Mukwelle Akale, Gedion Zelalem, and Christian Pulisic—those are the kinds of guys who play that position. Those are all guys who are going to have to make plays. Kyle has a lot of good competition but I am very happy with what I saw in the first camp.

ASN: You mentioned Mukwelle Akale who has been one of the highest-rated American teenagers in the system for quite some time. He also scored an absolute wonder goal over the weekend for Villarreal’s U-19 team. Was he not released for this camp? Will he be involved soon?

RAMOS: He actually didn’t get released and I didn’t really fight it. I invited him and [Villarreal] said no because they had games. Normally, later in the cycle, we would call back and say we [need him] but it’s so early in the cycle so what I think is most important is that these guys are doing well with their clubs. That goal was special, for sure.

ASN: You said you were disappointed with the recent camp. Does that mean you’re going to step up scouting throughout the college, USL, and MLS Academy ranks to try to discover players? Do you think you knew enough about your player pool at the starting point?

RAMOS: No. We’re at a good starting point. Obviously the group moved up from Javier Perez, the U-18 coach. So we have a pretty good idea of what we have. Inevitably, when you think you could be doing better in a certain areas, maybe you focus in a bit more in finding those types of players. As this cycle moves on, obviously we are going to keep our eyes open on the college game and seeing what’s out there that is doing better than what we were doing before. We have our eyes open all the time.

If you look at the last cycle, we had guys come out of nowhere—like Desevio Payne. Who would have thought earlier in the cycle that Junior Flores and Zach Pfeffer, who are both great players, would not have made the final roster? You don’t know. At this point the door is open to everything because we know at this age group a lot can change very quickly.

ASN: Every year MLS teams spend more on youth development and the USL partnership is another recent development designed to get young players first-team minutes. Will these types of things pay dividends for your player pool this U-20 cycle?

RAMOS: I think we are already seeing the benefits. Most of the domestic–based players in the last cycle came from MLS academies. I’m hoping that within another year or so I’m going to start seeing some of these guys going into USL teams and getting minutes every week against men. That is something we haven’t had. The whole USL component to MLS teams is  a real important one for us and it’s one where we can see some results.

ASN: The U.S. U-17 team is preparing for its World Cup next month. Are you expecting many players from that group to make a quick transition up to this team?

RAMOS: I’m not coming into this cycle expecting that. But I know the last cycle, although most of those players had not come from the [2013 U-17] cycle which had not qualified for the World Cup, they still played a really important role in the team that was one of the youngest at the World Cup. So I definitely have to keep an eye open to that team and I will be in Chile watching that team play. I know that’s going to be very important.

ASN: You mentioned the upcoming camp in Germany. What else is on the horizon?

RAMOS: Our camp in Germany will run from October 3-13. Some of the colleges did not want to take players away from both camps. So I would imagine that we end up with eight or nine players who were also with us at the Serbia camp. Then we have a 36-player camp in Florida in January.

ASN: Andi Herzog recently named his Olympic qualifying team and you’ve coached many of the players. What are your thoughts on his roster?

RAMOS: I am optimistic that all those young players are ready to contribute for sure. When Matt Miazga, Desevio Payne, and Cameron Carter-Vickers were on the field together they didn’t give up a goal at the U-20 World Cup. That’s pretty good. I don’t know that we’ve had that before. That’s a lot of minutes without giving up a goal. Plus, it’s the World Cup.

ASN: U.S. Soccer is set to implement a U-19 national team and a U-16 national team. Why are these teams being created and what are their goals? When will they begin play?

RAMOS: Over the years as we have developed our national team programs, we’ve had holes. One was the U-16 national team and one was the U-19 national team. What happens is that everything revolves around the U-20 national team and the U-17 national team because those are the two age groups for which we have World Cups.

The U-20 national team players are normally odd-year born players and the U-17 national team players are normally even-year born players. We needed to create a path for both even-year born players and odd-year born players. There are two problems we solved.

By not having a U-16 national team, you had players who were 14 and 15 years old who never had the opportunity to any play international games until they were U-18 level if they were an even-year born player. That’s a long time to not play internationally if you are a good player. We solved that by creating the U-16 two-year cycle that falls right under the U-18 team.

For the U-17 players who finish under Richie Williams in November this year after the World Cup, what we’ve done in the past is that only the very best players go up to the U-20s. What then happens is that the rest do not have anywhere to go. So we created the U-19 team so that those players can continue. Even if they are not good enough to go onto the U-20 team at that moment, they are players we can continue to train and have international games. Inevitably you’re going to miss players and sometimes those players are going to be better than those on the U-20 team.

Those were two big gaps we had to fill. I am very happy we were able to get that done. When does all this start? I would have to say maybe in the next six months or so.

ASN: What’s the difference between the U-18 and the U-19 national teams? You said that many of the U-17 players who were not going to the U-20 team immediately afterward will now go to the U-19s. Does the U-18 team not serve that purpose?

RAMOS: Our U-20s are 1997-born players. The U-18s are 1999-born and the U-16s are 2001. On the other side of the spectrum, the U-17s are 1998-born players until November [for the World Cup]. Our next U-19 team will then be the 1998-born. Our next team that goes to residency [for the U-17 team] will be 2000-born and our U-15 national team will be 2002-born.

So now you have complete cycles of players who can be two years in one cycle. Otherwise players got stranded in the middle of age groups with nothing to do and nowhere to play. Unless you were one of the top three or four players, you really had no competition. Now you have complete cycles.

With all of our coaches working together, it’s easier. The U-19 coach can call me and tell me this 1998-born player is really doing great for us, we can then move him up [to the U-20 team] and be aware.

But that is how we will work. All the national team coaches will get a depth chart from the coach before.

Brian Sciaretta is an American Soccer Now columnist and an ASN 100 panelist. Follow him on Twitter. 

Post a comment

AmericanSoccerNow.