Scouting Report: James Sands

Amazon.com: LeBron James"Chosen One" Sports Illustrated Magazine ... — SI cover from 2002

As a fan base, US Soccer fans do a pretty dang good job of knowing who the prospects are. We also love to hype them up/be excited about their potential. Some people don’t care for that and want everyone to be calm so we don’t thrust too much on these kids, too quickly. Forget that. LeBron was on the cover of SI at 16 and he’s done okay.

James Sands though, is one of those rare, young American players that has more or less flown under the radar. He’s a 20 year old center back/defensive midfielder for NYCFC that already has over 2,000 professional minutes. And strangely, he’s not gotten much attention from national team coaches or fans in the past couple of years. (He did play extensively for the U17 team back in 2017.)

Why did the call ups stop? The U20 team from 2019 was shallow at center back, but Tab Ramos preferred the trio of Chris Richards (understandable), Mark McKenzie (wasn’t healthy at the time, so a bit iffy), and Aboubacar Keita (only makes sense if being left footed was high priority).

Sands started all three games in the group stage of the MLS tournament and I watched all three while focusing only on Sands. Here are my conclusions after these viewings.

Strengths

Game Understanding

Occasionally, while watching an American football game, the commentators will make a big deal out of a player that knows not only his responsibilities during a play, but all of his teammates’ responsibilities as well. This is James Sands. He knows where he’s supposed to be, but he also knows where his teammates and opponents are as well.

This shows up in a couple different ways. One, is that he is constantly telling his teammates where the ball should go. He knows where the spaces are and communicates that info to his team.

The ball turns over and Sands is immediately pointing out a winger open in space up the field.

Another demonstration of his awareness is how often Sands was in the correct spot to interrupt an attack or counter. Sands anticipates where the next pass is going to be and gets in position to break it up even though he’s not the quickest guy in the world.

Good anticipation of Robles’ outlet options lets Sands intercept this pass and keep pressure on Miami.

Watch when Sands starts moving here. He sees where the play is headed and is there to clean it up before it turns into something malignant.

Alert counter-press puts NYCFC in a threatening position…that nothing comes of. This is a theme for them.

Good awareness to jump forward and put Przybyłko offside.

Sands reads the play developing and breaks it up. Unlucky for the ball to bounce off his arm.

Specific Flexibility

One of the problems for Weston McKennie in his young career has been his versatility. Need a fullback? He can do that. Center back? Sure. Target striker? Why not? It has led to McKennie not getting a run of games in his best position (#8) and growing there.

Sands on the other hand is specifically flexible, which I think is different and better for him. In the three MLS is Back tournament games Sands started at center back once, at d-mid once, and switched from center back to d-mid in the middle of the other one. The way that Sands can seamlessly switch back and forth between the two is a nice feature for a coach. If you want to adjust to three at the back in the middle of the half you don’t need to make any substitutions to accommodate that.

NYCFC was getting killed by Orlando. They had given up two goals in the first ten minutes and it wasn’t looking good. During the first half water break Ronny Deila moved Sands from center back to defensive midfield and the game evened out. From that point on, the game finished 1-1 with the last Orlando goal not coming until the 81st minute. This sort of tactical flexibility gives managers an interesting chess piece.

Moves from d-mid to center back smoothly and when his team loses the ball he’s not out of his depth playing defense from that position.

Here he drops out of the midfield and into defense. This happened a lot early in their match against Miami.

Room to Improve

Progressing the Ball

Maybe it’s because I have ball-playing CBs on the brain from a recent article, but I didn’t see Sands do much to get the ball forward. He doesn’t carry it forward on the dribble and he doesn’t split lines with his passing.

He’s safe and he rarely turns it over, but he doesn’t unbalance the defense from center back or defensive midfield. I’m not sure if that’s what Deila and NYCFC are asking him to do or if it’s his natural inclination, but it’s what I observed in these games.

You can see his teammate gesturing for him to come forward and take the space, but Sands pulls it back and plays it horizontally. He could have dribbled forward, drawn a defender or two, and then played it to an open man.

So close. This is the only big switch I saw him try and there was a little too much mustard on it.

This was the only notable line-breaking pass I saw in the three games. Nice ball, but I’d like to see them at least attempted more often.

Athleticism

I hate criticizing this because I feel like one of those “typical Americans” that want big, fast guys. Is it wrong to want players like Paul Pogba or Dayot Upamecano though?

Anyway, Sands isn’t going to win a lot of foot races. In the current USMNT setup the right center back is a defensive eraser. Aaron Long or Miles Robinson run Pizarro down in the clip below. Sands couldn’t keep up.

Sands sees the outlet coming, but then gets turned by Pizarro and can’t catch up

Most of the time it’s not a problem because he makes up for it in other ways, but you’re not going to see towering headers or impressive recoveries from Sands.

Prospects with the US?

I think Sands is in the conversation for the Olympic team. I don’t know who’ll be available (Richards, McKenzie, Otasowie, etc) but I would think he’d have a reasonable shot at a spot on that team.

I thought he was better at defensive mid than center back for NYCFC, and unless he improves his ball progression, I don’t see him as an option for the full USMNT as a center back (assuming the current profile remains).

Defensive midfield might be more possible though. If you’ve paid attention lately there’s a theory floating around that the USMNT could line up more like this in possession in the future:

He’d still have to improve and beat out a lot of other candidates (Yueill, Bradley, Cardoso, etc.), but that profile looks like it fits Sands like a glove. However you slice it, Sands is a useful player to have in the pool. The more good pros you have available the better players have to be to make the national team. That’s a good thing.

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