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On Sunday, the United States U17 squad captured their first official CONCACAF Championship in team history. However, the trophy was less than fulfilling, given what the U.S. team showcased on their path to the championship.

In other words, results at this age are not enough, or at least less important than development. When tasked with coaching one of these development ages, the core of the team should show qualities such as: comfort on the ball, proper technique when receiving and passing, and a fundamental understanding of position and spacing on the field. Something for the players to fall back on when their superior athletic abilities decrease as other players mature.

Simply put, that is not the case with this team. While the field conditions in Jamaica were awful, there is no excuse for simple technical elements of players’ abilities being jarringly absent.

For instance, most of the players (specifically head coach Wilmer Cabrera’s outside backs) improperly received the ball throughout the tournament, even under limited pressure. A scout at a Development Academy game this weekend explained the obvious problem: The players are trapping the ball with the outside of the foot, which closes the angle and limits the field for the player.

Instead, the player should open his hips and receive the ball with the instep of the foot so the field is open and the chances to play the ball forward are multiplied by what the player can now see in front of him.

These are elements of the game that most European and South American coaches expect from even their youngest players. It is something simple, and when you are watching a game, its absence sticks out like an Eskimo in Miami.

This is not to suggest that all of the American youngsters are lacking in technical ability. There are a handful of youngsters who - given the right situation - could develop into some potent players.

For instance, Alejandro Guido demonstrates the consistency and skill-set of a player capable of making the jump to the next level.

The problem is that the rest of the team is not pushing him or any other player to make that leap - the proverbial step from playing against mediocrity to playing against the best in the world.

Instead, this team is taking reps against inferior competition to demonstrate their superior athletic abilities as opposed to working on other avenues of the game to help them at the next level.

Increasingly, the next level is moving further away from Bradenton, where the U.S. U17 team is based. Of the players who stuck with the program during the last cycle (2009) and played at the U17 World Cup, only two are shoe-ins for the U.S. U20 squad for this year’s qualifying cycle – Juan Agudelo, who played sparingly at the U17 level, and Perry Kitchen.

U.S. U20 coach Thomas Rongen spent most of his time during the last two years looking elsewhere for talent. The separation between the two coaches' philosophies is making the U17 team almost an unnecessary toil for players.

As a matter of fact, there will be Development Academies - namely D.C. United and Derby County - that produce the same amount of players for the U.S. U20 World Cup team as Cabrera and the U.S. U17 2009 World Cup team.

This alienation of the program from the rest of the U.S. soccer structure is relatively new. In previous years the U20 squad and the Olympic team both heavily depended on the talent produced by Cabrera’s age group. The 2009 U20 World Cup squad had five players from the 2007 U17 World Cup team.

However, opportunities for players are diversifying the path from the grassroots clubs up to the professional ranks. Rongen’s insistence on an all-professional squad makes the journey of Bobby Wood more significant in the future than Stefan Jerome.

Wood went from the Irvine Strikers to 1860 Munich via a connection with the German club. He worked his way up from the youth programs to the reserve team and then to the full team. Now, Wood figures to be an important piece for Rongen at the U20 level without ever appearing with the U17 team.

Jerome, on the other hand, spent two years in Bradenton with Cabrera’s program and staff. He was one of the starting forwards for the U17 team during the last cycle. Now, he is playing with Sigma Olomouc in the Czech top flight. Since his first call-up with the U20s shortly after his graduation from Bradenton, he has disappeared from Rongen’s radar.

Obviously, Cabrera does not always get the best players at this age for his program as some explore other opportunities, including Sebastian Lletget and Joseph Gyau from the last cycle - two players who played with the team during qualifying but not at the World Cup.

However, the point remains that while Cabrera has demonstrated some ability to identify and select talent, there are still players in his program who are not receiving the proper coaching for this level. These are minor issues that snowball into larger fundamental problems as the players progress to the professional level. At the end of the day, that needs to be the goal of the U17 program – to produce players ready to play at the next level, not just win CONCACAF Championships.

J.R. Eskilson is the Youth Soccer Editor at Goal.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NCAAsoccer.

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Labels: Cabreras, Championship, Commentary, Enough, Goalcom, squad, Wilmer

And that is why there will be little praise on offer when they all gather on Monday morning at their Surrey training base, despite their first win at the Millennium Stadium in eight years. Johnson is all too familiar with the boom and bust trend of recent times, decent wins being followed by a lull: from the euphoria of beating Australia to a ho-hum afternoon against Samoa in November.

“You can only get better if you’re tough on yourself,” Johnson said. “What’s the alternative... pats on the back? At least we’ve got a good platform from which to be tough. It was a big, emotional time in Cardiff. But we’ve got to perform whatever the build-up is, set out own standards.

“Our match won’t be the big focus this weekend. The expectations will be different. It’s important we get the mindset right. Look at the All Blacks. Even their worst performance is still pretty good. Their standards are high. Our performance has got to be better against Italy than it was against Wales. We handled the lead-in to Wales very well. Now we’ve got to handle this very well. It’ll be a test for us this week.”

A self-critical tone is crucial if England are to make best use of what was a notable championship victory, only their third in seven years away from home against all opponents bar Italy. Any sense that they can now coast through the tournament with three successive matches at Twickenham before heading to Dublin in mid-March for a tilt at a Grand Slam is as fanciful as expecting bankers to give up bonuses. Johnson intends to weed out any self-delusion the moment the group gets together.

“If only it were all as simple as that,” he said when the Grand Slam scenario was outlined. “Our fans are pretty sensible when it comes to that. Being favourites just isn’t on our radar.”

England were far from being polished or emphatic in all that they did. They are still one-dimensional in midfield and also prone to bouts of daftness in giving away penalties. James Haskell, Chris Ashton and Shontayne Hape were guilty of lapses at different times.

“Those silly things you can regret for a very long time if the score goes against you,” Johnson said. “There’s lots and lots to get better at. If you looked at the local papers it’s all doom and gloom down in Wales and things will be said about us. We all know the truth is somewhere in between.”

There is little doubt, though, that England have matured. They worked themselves into a commanding position at 23-9 yet allowed Wales to come back at them and were grateful for Jonny Wilkinson’s penalty five minutes from time to ease jitters. Yet England did hold firm and grafted their way through the sticky patch. That resolve and hard-nosed awareness have not been present for a long time. A year ago England might have lost that game. Johnson himself conceded that point.

“Yes, certainly there would be more of a chance to lose it,” he said. “But after what this squad has been through in the summer and autumn – well, it’s why you play the game, to get better.”

True, but there is no guarantee that more time together necessarily leads to improvement. One player, though, who has grown in stature over the past 12 months is fly-half Toby Flood. Friday was his eighth start in successive games since he took over the reins from his former Newcastle team-mate, Jonny Wilkinson, for the game against France last season.

“We’ve seen Toby’s maturity, especially day-to-day on the training field,” Johnson said. “He was fantastic in the autumn. If you’re bright enough and hard-working enough to make the best of your experiences, then that’s what happens.”

There were other figures of substance in England ranks, notably debutant flanker Tom Wood and lock Tom Palmer. Wood was terrific, a real prospect even if only drafted in the first place because of injuries to others. He looks entirely comfortable at this level, unfazed by everything around him, even overcoming a bout of illness to go the distance.

“You’ve got a lot to deal with – the bright lights, the male voice choir, the band and even the goat,” Johnson said, revealing England had been pushed off their warm-up patch by the band.

“But Tom just got on with what he had to do, being accurate and that’s his little part done. A match is made up of lots of little fundamentals. If you win the majority of those battles, that’s what wins you games.”

England have a clean bill of health bar bumps and bruises. They name their side on Thursday.

Labels: Championship, determined, England, Johnson, Martin, Nations, Telegraphcouk