PBP: 2018 CONCACAF U-20 Championship: USA vs. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 11/7 8:00 ET

30 seconds into the half! 💥

Juan Pablo Torres' strike puts the U-20 #USMNT on the board! 🇺🇸 leads 1-0. pic.twitter.com/EyWl0Xknaf

— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) November 8, 2018

Another one in the bag! 💰

Uly Llanez doubles the 🇺🇸's lead vs. 🇻🇨 in the 59th minute. #CU20 pic.twitter.com/Lucv0YEG7D

— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) November 8, 2018

Anthony Fontana joins the party! 🙌

The U-20 #USMNT came out swinging in the second half. 🇺🇸 now leads 3-0! pic.twitter.com/IBKG3Co3d5

— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) November 8, 2018

Another one for Fontana!

A beautiful cross from Ayo Akinola deflects off the GK and Fontana is there to secure his brace. 4-0 for the 🇺🇸! pic.twitter.com/vaf4cEUss0

— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) November 8, 2018

 

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I'm glad we ended up with a 6-0 win. And I'm glad we looked pretty much in control all game, even if we weren't doing too much offensively. St Vincent got close to our box once or twice in the last 40 minutes. And I'm really glad that, even though it's St. Vincent, we didn't let ourselves get pushed around.

But really, it was sooo boring. Predictable, plodding, mostly-ineffective, is how I would describe this team on offense. Yeah, I'll take wins if we're playing that way against good opponents, but against these teams it should be more of an "attractive" stomp.

 

Once the starting SV&G keeper went out, they were doomed for the rout.

 

As awful as it was to watch, we easily could’ve been up 3 or 4-0 at halftime with better finishing.

I really enjoy these tournaments so I hope we make a ton of changes and get some better players called in. However, I have a feeling it’s not going to happen in the way we hope. I don’t see most of our best players being released. I’m sure Durkin and Carleton will eventually be available, but I am just not optimistict that we are going to see this team at full strength at any point this cycle.

 

Against the run of play? We had 80% of the possession and shots.

 

This was clarified long ago ...

 

"Boring" in soccer is usually the case with a game in front of nobody. England played Croatia in an empty stadium, two great teams but it was incredibly boring. It had nothing to do with what was going on on the field. Look at the MLS knock out round games, on Halloween, empty stadiums, terribly boring games. The next night, two raucous crowds, much "better" games. Was the actual soccer that different?

These games are played in front of no one. At least that is how it looks and sounds on TV. Maybe there are more fans behind the camera...

During the USA vs T&T match there was a big loud crowd making noise, it was the Honduras fans in the next field. Like so much USSF, are these games marketed? Are the tickets expensive? Could they play them somewhere where they will be attended by fans? The USSF/Fan relationship is in terrible shape.

Florida is a strange place for the USA. I think there are a ton of fans, but they are almost all USA 2nd fans. We play Colombia and 20,000 show up and support Colombia. They cheer the USA goals too. I'm sure if we were playing Venezuela, those fans would be in Red, White, and Blue and cheering for us (if they wanted to pay $150 for USA as they do for Colombia; which they don't).

I hope our kids can cope with a pro-Honduras crowd in the next round.

 

I'm not going to be too critical of how a team plays in a tournament where they play 5 games in what 8/9 days? If you try and play the right way the team will be exhausted and lose the last couple of games. Blame the setup allowing so many minnows playing against the usual powers. It seems the whole tournament is set up to give the island minnows a better shot against the powers by the number of games in so short a time with the usual refs swallowing their whistle. I've seen some decent skill and passing etc but this is as much an endurance contest as anything else.

 

A lot of long ball.

 

So many games in a short span of time coupled with playing vastly inferior teams with a ever changing cycle of different players with no time to develop much cohesion make it very difficult to play attractive fluid soccer.

 

I really have no problems with how the U.S. team has played in this tournament at all. They're expected to deliver wins by 6-10 goal margins against bad teams while playing every other day and utilizing heavy squad rotation. That's not easy.

So far the team has played pragmatic soccer designed to achieve the comfortable margins while playing all 20 players as to prevent injury and fatigue. That's fine. CONCACAF is never going to be pretty.

But for almost all of it, the U.S. team has done what it needs and what is expected. So for one half, it dominated St. Vincent & the Grenadines but struggled to score. So what? Playing this many bad teams in a row is both boring and frustrating if you don't score every 10 minutes.

The big challenge is re-calibrating the approach between the first and second stages from nonstop minnow opponents to good teams.

 

Agree 100%. Just think anyone trying to evaluate players based on what we have seen is wasting their time. These games are not about evaluation, and certainly not about entertainment. This is just a grind.

 

I wouldn't completely agree. You can watch first touch, calm on ball, passing dribbling at least compared to each other on the team. Of course your mostly right as all of that may dissolve with more pressure. Doubt though the ones already shaky will improve playing better teams.

 

Read his post and posted my response, then life happened and didn't/couldn't read subsequent posts. Thanks for reminder.

 

Sir yes sir.

 

Sergeant Hulka. Paging Sergeant Hulka. Please pick up the courtesy phone.

Oh look, there he is...

 

What to do if you scored against 300K island that's called Iceland?

 

Isn’t this exactly what we expected? I mean, we knew who guys like Akinola and Angking were before this tournament started. I mean, having guys like Fontana and Rennicks impress nets an overall positive, imo. We aren’t at the point where our 3rd and 4th string players in an age group are going to be NT level, and very few of these players are the best in this age group.

The bigger issue to me is the style of soccer and the fact that the entire offensive scheme is terrible cross after terrible cross to no one. And somehow people have actually been campaigning for Tab for NT coach.

 

“Poor-man’s Aaron Herrera.” I actually laughed out loud at this. I heard a lot about Perez and I agree, he doesn’t even look like the 3rd best RB on this team. I think I’d still take Xuxuh over him, and I haven’t seen Xuxuh play for 2-3 years.

I generally agree with all of your points. I was never really big on Lindsey, and never really cared much for any of the other guys you mentioned, so I am not really disappointed. If we get guys like Durkin, Carleton, Soto, Dest, etc called in and still are playing this mediocre, then I’ll be concerned.

 

It is to be expected that a squad of mostly B or C Team players would be comprised of mostly players that will likely largely end up being no better than roster caliber MLS players.

Lindsey and Gloster are probably the two with the most upside off the list. The are still 18 and play positions with probably the lowest floor to break through in pro soccer.

Perez doesn't even play RB in college, so they fact that he is raw is not surprising. Might be a top MLS draft pick, but that doesn't really mean anything look at ROY voting. If you can go from college to a below average MLS player in one year then you got a pretty good chance to take home that award.