Timothy Weah: can a familiar name solve USA's familiar problems?
The US are still recovering from their World Cup qualifying failure. The son of a football legend is one part of a turn towards youth from the USMNT
For years America has rolled out a production line of seemingly identical players: white kids from the suburbs, hard-working but unspectacular and destined – if they get lucky – to play for a mid-ranking Premier League club.
Timothy Weah, though, is a little different. He’s black, the son of an all-time great, has the uncynical charisma of YouTube star, is friends with Neymar, and plays for one of the best teams on the planet.
His father is, yes, that Weah – George, the first African player to win the Ballon d’Or, the human avalanche who scored over 150 goals for Monaco, Milan and Paris Saint-Germain, the current president of Liberia. So, no pressure, Tim.
Born in New York City in 2000, the younger Weah bounced around the Triborough area and down to Florida before joining the PSG youth academy in 2014. Three years later, he signed his first professional contract with the French club. This past March, a few days after his 18th birthday, he made his first-team debut in a Ligue 1 match against Troyes. Then came his first start, on the final day of the 2017-18 season, which was followed by his first goal, against Monaco in the Trophée des Champions in early August, followed by his first league goal a week later in this season’s Ligue 1 opener against Caen.
Superstardom here we come? Not quite. A jittery attacker able to play anywhere across the front three, Weah started PSG’s second Ligue 1 match – only to be taken off at halftime for fellow teenager, Kylian Mbappé. Weah hasn’t made one of manager Thomas Tuchel’s matchday squads since. Comparing anyone to a player of Mbappé’s skill is unfair but Weah, who already has seven caps for the US, recently referred to himself as “a late bloomer”. He opted against a loan move before the season began, but has said he’ll look to make a temporary move this January in search of more playing time. There’s still a long way to go before he becomes a fully-realized professional.
The fact that the US is pinning so much of its hopes on talented but unproven youngsters like Weah says much for the current state of the game in America. Much like the aftermath of a failed political campaign, the US’s inability to qualify for the 2018 World Cup produced plenty of public handwringing and promised introspection. And keeping with the analogy, there’s been change, but perhaps not to the scale that most supporters had hoped for.
In the wake of the World Cup debacle, Sunil Gulati announced that he would not be running for reelection as US Soccer president after 12 years in the position. The campaign for his replacement inspired plenty of spirited and necessary debate about the exclusionary effects of the high cost of playing youth football in the country and what the exact role of the federation, which has been incredibly successful in growing its own budget but less so in actually growing the game across the 50 states, should be. There were establishment candidates, like Carlos Cordeiro, a former partner at Goldman Sachs and Gulati’s vice president, and outsiders, like Olympic and Women’s World Cup winner Hope Solo. In the end, Cordeiro was elected to a four-year term, prompting fears that business as usual would resume.
However, in June, Cordeiro did something new: he named the men’s national team’s first-ever general manager, hiring former USA stalwart Earnie Stewart, whose main responsibilities will be hiring a head coach, scouting talent for the player pool and, as the federation’s boilerplate described it: “Ensuring that US Soccer’s Style of Play, Team Tactical Principles, and Key Qualities are being implemented within the Men’s National Team.” Stewart has said many of the right things – he uses data to help decision-making, he wants the team to play an “in your face” style – but he’s also made the unfortunate claim that the US head coach must speak English.
Most importantly, he has yet to appoint his head coach – although many believe Columbus Crew’s Gregg Berhalter will be installed in the coming weeks. For now though, more than 13 months after a 2-1 loss to Trinidad & Tobago ensured that the US would miss their first World Cup since 1986, the team is still being led by interim manager Dave Sarachan, who was an assistant under previous manager Bruce Arena.
Ahead of the upcoming friendlies against England and Italy, 2018 has mainly been a wasted year for the men’s national team – both in terms of real development on the field and real systemic change off of it. The team hasn’t played a single competitive game and the country’s best player, Borussia Dortmund winger Christian Pulisic, has only made one appearance. To his credit, Sarachan cleared out almost all of the older core players from the 2018 qualification cycle. He gave Weah seven caps, and he has introduced promising midfielders Weston McKennie of Schalke and Tyler Adams, who currently plays for New York Red Bulls but is expected to soon move to RB Leipzig, into the fold. All in all, he’s called in 50 different players and capped 19 first-timers. But no one expects Sarachan to be named the full-time coach, the team still lacks any discernible style, and there’s been little progress beyond the names on the roster sheet.
For US soccer, there are plenty of large problems that have to be solved but can’t realistically be fixed until some time after the country co-hosts the 2026 World Cup with Mexico and Canada. There’s still a paucity of high-level youth coaching available throughout the entire country. Outside of the 20 American MLS teams, which all now have their own academies, most of the other top youth programs require parents to pay thousands of dollars a year. African American participation in soccer lags behind American football, basketball and baseball. And despite the massive Mexican-American soccer-playing population, the last few squads for the full national team have been almost totally bereft of players with Mexican heritage.
The current crop of senior players have already been formed by that fractured system, and the success over the next cycle will be defined by Stewart, whomever he hires, and the professional progress of players like Weah and Pulisic.
The hard truth is that Weah likely won’t become a full-time starter at PSG because, at any given moment, there are only 20 or so attackers on the planet who are good enough to play for PSG. The odds, then, are against global fame. But in brief stints with the US, Weah has shown flashes of the modern pressing-and-progressing player that all top clubs require – harrying defenders when the opposition has the ball, and pushing play up field as soon as he wins it back. Professional minutes as an 18-year-old promise at least a respectable career.
Whatever happens next, Weah has already made history: he’s the first American to ever play for PSG – even if his dad beat him to it.
