Question for those running, why do you believe you are a better candidate than the others, based on facts, and how do you plan to build our depth at the U21 level? Because looking through the database, it seems we don't have as many players on pace for the U21 team like we may have seen just a couple seasons ago.
1) What must people want in the U21 coach (OK, what I've wanted. No idea what all you rubes are into..) is someone knowledgeable about how our team has operated and why it's been a success, and with the energy to be very involved and focused for the entire 6 months of the term. I like what I've got to offer.
2) I agree, this may be starting to be an issue. You'll recall though that just last season that the season 20 team was the best ever. This year was a drop off, and magiker made great use of the roster he had. The pipeline doesn't seem to show a "season 20" class coming in the next year or so. The facts are, we have a somewhat stable user population in USA, we have a great scouting program, and we have some dubious on-site PR that tries to keep the team in the public's eye. What more can we do? On small thing I think we need to reemphasize what Rambo and others has said in the past: training a U21 player is possibly the best way for a V or IV manager to learn how to play the game at a higher level and improve and promote with good young players to boot. Now is a good time to figure out a way to start pitching that.
While we have had arguably the best U21 program running in the past few seasons, our national team has struggled to be as successful. A lot of this comes from people training players with bad secondaries that can be effective at the U21 level, but they won't be effective at the national team level with the bad secondaries, and secondary training can be too slow when the payers are older. Would you be willing to advise trainers to sacrifice some primary training early on in order to create better national team players, even if this means that the U21 team is not a championship contender?
So to back up a step, what we're talking about here is big men who's primary skills are pumped for the U21 team at the expense of everything else, because those are the type of big men needed for a LI U21 team. Then after U21 the players with remaining cap who may be NT candidates are deemed too expensive (or too slow) to cross train secondaries anymore because their high salaries require them to be used at position.
So I'm not buying this as an either/or deal you've laid it out to be. A good example is Beaucage, who got a good shot of secondary training after U21 is and now on the cusp of the NT. Granted, his secondaries still kinda suck, but they
really sucked donkey before! It's not like you can't find people to train secondaries for NT players. There are many such managers who have done exactly this recently in the NBBA alone. Not that this works out all the time, but there is a 3rd way.
The real question here is what the the manager with the young stud wants with his player? If he wants to home grow his own NT player I would say God bless you, sir! Traineth secondaries until he literally passes out. If he wants to have a player who can do both then explain to him the training issues he faces. The NT and U21 coaches are in large part at the mercy of what managers are gonna do with their players no matter what we may ask. Those managers who are open to suggestions need to know all the options available to optimize their player. If he wants to maximize the chances of making U21, primariesprimariesprimaries. So, long story short, I may or may not advice said manager to train secondaries, but I'll definitely say stuff.