This one is gonna be way lighter than you might typically expect, it’s just thoughts I jotted down during Nashville’s U-17 0-0 draw with Inter Miami this past weekend.
Please note that what I get to see is limited. I don’t get to see every game, so I try to be very careful in the way I describe what I see from various players. Obviously a larger sample size is hard to ignore, but there’s a cap on the sample size I can attain.
If I show up to a game and a specific player doesn’t play well, I’m not going to think much of it for two reasons. One, they’re still kids, and it would be a bit gross of me to make sweeping generalizations about their futures in this sport. Two, there’s a very real possibility I happened to be there on the one day that given player wasn’t performing. Maybe he had the week of his life in training, and just couldn’t put it together. I don’t know.
What I do know is what I saw on Saturday however. I arrived at Currey Ingram Academy about half an hour before kickoff, and so I got to see warmups as well.
One thing I noticed was how closely former Nashville goalkeeper and now academy coach Brian Meredith was working with U-17 goalkeeper Ammar Delic on his distribution. That’s a role of goalkeepers that has become absolutely vital over the past couple of decades as tactics have evolved, and it’s nice to see that it’s a key focus of Nashville’s academy as well.
By the way, if that name rings a bell, Ammar Delic is the third of the trio of prospects Nashville brought in from Bowling Green Elite FC, alongside Andrei Jahic, now at Dinamo Zagreb, and Adem Sipic, who I’m sure needs no introduction.
Once the players took the field, it appeared to me as a 4-2-3-1, though I’m sure a better viewing angle might shed light on formational changes depending on phase of play. The two centerbacks were Scott Cheevers and Chris Applewhite, while the fullbacks either side of them were Ashton Flowers on the left and Zion Jones on the right.
In midfield it was Braxton Hayes and Jonathan Hernandez, with Samuel Byron, Cesar Soucre, and Tristan Topeano forming up the attacking midfield and wing positions.
Up top it was Cannon Scretchen, who has stepped into that role with the two natural big bodied strikers in Adem Sipic and Lucas Wolthers now departed from their academy careers.
The substitutes who came on in the second half were Callahan Correnti, Anthony Rogalski, Owen Bland, and Oscar Manzanarez respectively. They replaced Tropeano, Hernandez, Soucre and Jones.
As far as performances, we can start up top with Cannon Scretchen. Again, in the limited amount I saw him last season, he wasn’t played very often as the lone center forward, however, I liked the positions he got himself in. He linked up well with Samuel Byron on the right wing, and those two rotated well whenever the other picked the ball up wide.
In fact, the entire right side of Byron and Zion Jones I thought played very well. They were asked to carry a lot of the attacking load, I suspect because of the way Miami was defending, and they both looked sharp.
The thing I look for in players at this level, especially in midfield, is quick decision making. Coaches can help a player better understand where to go with the ball, but at the end of the day, seeing something on film and putting it into action in a game is two different things.
Both of the midfield of Hernandez and Hayes showed that, whenever they were on the ball they seemed quick with their decision making, getting the ball wide to dangerous positions.
Don’t think with how I was talking about the right side of the field that the left had no work to do, they certainly did. Ashton Flowers played well, again from my limited perspective. That and I’ve gotta give him flowers for uploading game footage onto his youtube channel, that really helps what I’m trying to do.
The centerbacks, Applewhite and Cheevers, weren’t called into action as much as you might expect a Nashville centerback pairing to, but they handled their business efficiently every time they were.
Off the top of my head I can only think of a couple of chances Miami was able to create from the run of play, and neither were really *that* dangerous. Which of course speaks well of the entire team, and the job Alan O’Connor has done coaching them.
Miami did have three really dangerous set piece opportunities that I can immediately remember. The first was a corner, no more than 60 seconds into the game. The ball was whipped into the far post, and the Miami player had a free header and wasn’t able to put it on target. The other two were free kicks, one in each half. The first of the pair required quite and impressive save out of Ammar Delic, while the second clattered into the wall.
Overall, I thought both teams played well, and both teams were probably in the end a bit unfortunate to not find the back of the net. However, it’s important to remember results matter less than performances and confidence at that age.
I liked what I saw from both teams really, and for two groups who are only a couple of months into the season, with a winter break rapidly approaching, they looked good.
Reminder, Nashville’s U-17s have two games left before the winter break, both at home. The first is this Saturday the 18th against Atlanta at 10am. But, if you can’t make that one, and would like to see the future of your club, they also play the next day, Sunday the 19th at noon against Charlotte.
All games at Currey Ingram are free to attend, so if you’ve not got anything else going on and feel like catching some morning or early afternoon soccer, feel free to head down.
Soundwave Soccer 
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