re: Highly speculative US 2018 line-up

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That said, Dempsey didn't really develop until later, but Donovan and Bradley both had shown by age 20 that they were something special.

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The standards are much higher now, but that's not denying Donovan and Bradley were special players as teenagers. Bradley was a physical specimen as a 17 year old, and Donovan was superb at the U-17 WC. We need IMG to step up and produce someone else like that. But I suspect that with the evolution of youth academies, we are in a generational gap with young, first team ready players.

To think, this incoming class of 96, 17 year olds, will not have known a time there wasn't professional soccer in the U.S. That should mean great things for the youths born after that as well, so we can hope we will have a prodigy or two between this WC and the next.