I know they said that, and it sucks, but we would have gotten trashed by Mali anyway. Totally exhausted, injured, and out of sorts. I think this would have gone like the '99 U-17's, and the '00's in Sydney, out in the semi-s. Too many key guys out and due to that, our players were already exhausted, nobody subbed out for the most part. And also, it's not the WC Final, its the U-20's, I'd love a U-20 WC Final, but our clearest path to a WC Final ever was when Frings handball went uncalled, and instead 1-1 if we make that penalty and up a man, and w/a legit shot of just having to beat S. Korea to make the final, we ended up getting hosed. Now that is a clear path. This was an injury riddled team w/no depth, and missing some guys they should have, and couldn't call in, as a result Mali would have likely gotten us. We got outplayed by Serbia, but were saved by the fact that they absolutely blow when it comes to finishing in the final third, we got outplayed by Colombia, but were saved for the very same reason. Our luck ran out when Thompson couldn't finish those two chances, and Rubin didn't finish one at the death. The Penalties felt inevitable.
That was the right result on the penalties. They deserved to win. We were too tired. We would've needed Steffen to steal that for us. He almost got two saves out of five, but I think the wet surface took a save away from him. Rubin's penalty looked like a player with heavy legs who just couldn't muster enough strength or precision to score. This is what happens when you your striker has to work 90 minutes chasing the ball for 4 games in such a short span of time. He gets worn down. The other penalties four were good, but Serbia took their penalties well. In extra PK's, it was a combination of guys who looked nervous and players who looked too gassed.
Hahah BSMX is like a room full of that dude who always thinks he's the smartest person in the room, but is really just a dumbass. I find it hilarious that they feel like our failures are their accomplishments. I guess they need to take whatever "victory" they can get now days..
Yeah, never been a fan of the the stutter step. Put your boot through it. Even if you want to go for finesse and not power at least make it accurate.
Let's not press our luck. I don't want England swooping in and stealing a guy who could be our best ever CB ten years from now. Guy was a monster when anything called soccer was happening. He shouldn't have had to take a penalty in the first place, should have won it earlier. Without him, we don't sniff penalties.
It's not a matter of trust. We didn't have any other offensive subs because they were all injured/on YC accumulation.
Winning youth tournaments is nice, but the ultimate goal is to produce players from these cycles who help the senior team. I feel like some of these players will play with the National Team.
Feel like Serbian players are just a bit quicker to the ball and a bit more physical (and a lot of small professional fouls to get you off balance) so it caused a lot of turnovers for Americans. In other words, it is as if Americans were playing up one year or two. The quality of first touch and pass is quite bad for American players. We definitely need to improve more. The pass was often off with bad weight.
Other than Sonora the rest of our bench was one fullback (Moore), two centerbacks (Donovan, EPB) and two keepers. What did you want Tab to do? Take out CCV and Miazga just so he could make 3 subs? Put on Moore who is technically inferior to Requejo and Payne and would be much more of a liability on PKs?
Honestly I thought their D was pretty good and every once in a while you'd see some nice combination play, but I'm starting to see why Serbia's about to miss its third straight major tournament, these guys are in the semi's, but oddly, I think our U-20's are better, if it's the right squad, and we're healthy.. As much as that hurt, it would hurt worse to be Portugal. They absolutely owned Brazil in that match and still lost because of damn penalties, now that has to suck.
As a goalkeeper, I never understood why people take the slow run up. It's so much easier to pick out where they are shooting and you know they can't get any power behind their shot. Fast run up means less time to react. Our takers looked nervous as hell tonight
Better than what? The past U-20 team. I believe so. I'd take it a step further, I think the player pool of the 95's and 96's has more quality players than the 93's and 94's had at this time two years ago.