2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup - USA vs Uruguay - 6/4 5:00 PM EST (Pre-match/PBP/Post-game)

Yeah Luna can be a fun player to watch but today I think showed a day we really missed Paxten. Just calmer on the ball and calmer in the final third. Also allows Luna to play further back which I think is where he excels (dribbling)

 

I think Uruguay is the better tournament team, for sure, and were much more comfortable. I think the US has historically struggled with some of the awareness angles, but I don't think the whole team is there.

Our weak spots somewhat showed here, and they took advantage of them, and we didn't take our chances. I don't think we deserved to win, but we absolutely could have come out with that tied in regulation.

The first goal was partially Craig's lack of foot speed, and partially Che and Wynder's lack of experience coming through.

The former might be a bit damning, but I just have a hard time being too upset about young CBs -- including an 18 year old, making a mistake on decision making. It helped cost us the game, but is hardly something that on its own, makes you all that worried about either's future.

Wynder was much shakier all tourney, and obviously the OG is terrible, but again, he's a 2005 CB. So...

Nothing else was overly shocking. Luna struggled at times with decision-making and quick passing -- I think we saw that earlier in the tourney. Cowell's not clinical but he creates enough chances to create danger ... yep, if only for Pukštas. Wiley's most effective going forward ... if you've watched Atlanta, you know that.

On balance, Uruguay is a bit better. We could beat them a decent % of the time, though. And I suspect that this team wants this game back -- this was winnable.

We finished in the Top 8 in the World. Not sure how this is a "failure."

 

McGlynn played like a pro and you could probably say the same for Paredes but sample size was small and even smaller for Psuktas so dunno about him. Uruguay played v. Che every chance they got.

Varas at least understood that McGlynn should get the ball and adjusted at the half - which is so GrEggesque. Can't we adjust right away?

Playing guys who come in late to camp like Paredes and Pukstas seems risky.

The Uruguay manager knew our team's weaknesses and was ready for us.

 

i just dont see what others do in varas. i think hes a little too confident at times that a change or two (in terms of subs) will "correct" a match rather than any tactical adjustments.

two matches here stand out- today and the fiji match. obviously different in one composed, impressive team and one who were desparately bunkering (though extremely committed). in both we just devloved into chaotic, "more attackers!" while losing all shape and discipline ourselves.

i mean, what matches did he win? matches there werent clearly in our favor almost regardless of manager?

anyways, the other big takeaway is our mythical strong, ball playing cbs completely hung out to dry today and showing what they probably really are- just ok for youth players. theres an overall arrogance (manager, players, team) having mcglynn play roughly where riquelme would most of the time. we got away it a lot, but it bit us today. both he and vargas were mia, uruguay was the first team with the composure to punish that.

there are bright spots, this wasnt a tragedy. i think this board is mental re cowell and the level of "hate" he gets. the kid with the greek name, putskas and parades could really have used more time in the team. this was my first concentrated look at wylie and, um, yikes. conversely i feel a little better about gomez- though not close to sr team better.

other than cowell and long-playing slonina theres no one in this team that "needs" to be in the sr team anytime soon. parades/gomez/wylie as a pseudo lb out of need maybe (after we genuintely kick the tires on tolkin and lesser so jones).

 

We were a bit naive, like we typically are. I had hoped that we were starting to turn the corner with this team.

Disappointed that we wilted after that first goal.

I'm questioning what players on this team can be contributors to the senior side in the short term. Cowell for the B team. Who else?

McGlynn is one guy that really intrigues me. He has some physical limitations, let's see if he can overcome them.

 

Aaronson was the only creative player on the team, bullied or not he was changing attack.

 

We have finished in the top 8 in the world for a decade. We are producing the talent to compete at the highest level. Remember that last time we faced Uruguay in a knockout match, in 2007, we beat them, and they had Cavani and Suarez on that team.

It does seem that individual players from other countries do learn tactics and the dark arts earlier than our guys, which probably explains the repeated 1/4 final exits.

 

A fairly pathetic & impotent performance.

The right side of the defense and the center backs were embarrassing, nicely mixing up getting beaten & ball watching.

For all the pretty inter-passing, we couldn't get behind the defense.

Lots of nice big switches which were wasted by the refusal to attack quickly when the ball reached the wing.

And we lived up to our senior team habit of bad set pieces.

 

None, zero, zilch. Not one player today showed anything that makes me think the will ever be better than C/D level at the senior level. But they are young and, should they actually get some decent coaching at the club level, that could get better but, judging by the way the team folded today, they are quite unlikely to improve without radical changes.

Actually we did not "wilt" Uruguay just was better and MUCH better prepared. In other words we were defeated before we had our pregame talk. All Uruguay did was wait until we showed how we wanted to play and then they made some small adjustments and dominated the rest of the match.

 

The CB's looked questionable against Ecuador also but their attackers were wasteful. We had struggled in the attacking third against the weaker teams also. We played pretty much par for the tourney today, only against a better team.

 

I think that’s an unfair assessment. We came out a bit shaky to start the game, and Wynder made a huge individual error, but we played hard and kept up the pressure for most of the second half. If Pukštas doesn’t block cowell’s shot, it almost certainly goes in, and the last 10-15 minutes have a very different feel.

Uruguay were more composed throughout the game, but I think it’s highly inaccurate to say they were in control. They didn’t give us many clear chances, but they were not very dangerous on the counter apart from their first goal, and they benefited greatly from the ref’s unwillingness to card them for constantly hacking down our players, especially Luna. The Wynder own goal was a HUGE gift that allowed Uruguay to defend a lot more comfortably.

 

Lets be straight. There's a reason to have wanted to be in Argentina's pod. It was ----. None of the top 5 or 6 teams in it.

Just Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, and Ecuador. not one top 10 team in the tourney.

My pre tourney rankings if I remember were:

1. France A side (not present)
2. Brazil
3. England
4. Uruguay

I didn't know what to think of Colombia, I liked Senegal, I didn't know what to think of Israel or Italy either.

Once we started seeing games we could live up Italy, lift up Israel, probably lift up Nigeria too (but just like us, they totally ---- the bed today).

The truth was, and you can see some of us saying it in this pre game thread.

The 48 hours rest and cards give us a chance I (and many) would not have given us otherwise. We were beaten 8-2 by France and England combined. We looked better than the scoreline against France, but it is what it is. In the 3 biggest tournaments we played in, we stunk in one, after Varas was hired last minute, we were the best in the other one, but managed to fumble it away against Mexico, and got absolutely smashed in Europe back in March. Uruguay was very much similar to those teams that kicked our teeth in in March. But with so many players out (one not released, some carded out, 1 injured) and with 48 hours rest, a clear Uruguay win became a probable or at least 50/50 to 60/40 chance of a US win.

Then they played the game and Uruguay didn't look tired at all. We did. Uruguay looked like the team that basically outplayed an England team that kicked the ---- out of us 2 months earlier and only lost one other game (to Brazil) in qualifying.

We looked like the team that hadn't played anyone worth a damn all tournament, and qualified out of the worst Concacaf U20 tournament in ages.

I like that we showed more fight in the second half and easily could have tied them w/better luck, but they also could have had more goals too.

In the end its a fair result. And HUGELY disappointing. We have now lost six straight U20 quarterfinals when we've advanced that far, including 4 in a row. It's beyond frustrating, but in the end, most of us recognized that this team was capable of playing at a higher level as a group but individually lacked a cutting edge and it showed today.

Really disappointing, but hopefully they can get their careers in position to be national team relevant by '25 and I think I can already count 1 or 2 guys that are that (like Paredes).

 

My biggest criticisms were in Varas’ starting lineup choices, and our players not being quite as fired up as they should’ve been at the start of the game.

if Paredes and Edelman start over Vargas and Wolff, I think the game has a very different feel.

I think varas made solid adjustments. The subs were generally effective, and I liked that he didn’t hesitate to change things. We just put ourselves in a hole, and lacked the class and luck in the final third that we would’ve needed to win.

 

And no other country has finished Top 8 each of the last four tournaments!

We're in the Top 8. I don't think this is like a single player game where progress is linear and we just need to figure out or level up the next step. Brazil and England didn't get this far this year.

It's not to say we have nothing to improve, but this isn't a situation where finishing 8th in the World is a failure. Every cycle is a new thing; we're not entitled to finish in the quarters.

I think this team's easy road was both a blessing and a curse. I think that's why struggled a bit to adjust to Uruguay. But I don't think the expectation should be dominating in a quarterfinal. I'd have liked to win, of course. But I can't call this a failure.

You can make the argument that the style of play was naive -- and certainly not really a "tournament" style. And I'd agree. But I also think it fit the pool pretty well, and I think there is value in a youth team playing this way even if it means we lose this match.

We do not yet have the upper tier talent, and we should not have thought that about this group. We're building to the next level down. We're not France or Brazil. But we are moving forward.

 

I think Mikey had a good tournament overall but he got the lineup wrong today. Still a young coach so curious to see what he learns form this

I've expressed concerns all tournament with Wynder and Che in terms of positioning and defending and today Uruguay punished them. They are both still young so they can absolutely get better but they both learned today that you aren't always going to be able to live off athleticism you have to be able to read the game well.

McGlynn was invisible today but I think where Varas got it wrong was playing Owen Wolff more as an attacker. He's been fairly unimpressive in the role all tournament, and in fairness he's not really that player (plays in a double pivot at Austin) and today that hurt us too.

Just bad all around, and this is the first game I kind of think Neal and Paxten not being released hurt us... and I kind of wonder if we should have called Buck up

 

Yeah, the result was fair but the scoreline was not. 2-1 or even 1-1 would have been more “fair.”

 

This is spot on. More so than just lacking quickness is he's in slow motion when having to rotate his hips, especially defensively. He would benefit from spending some time with a cornerbacks coach for American football. The other player is already 2-3 steps into their motion before McGlynn is even turning.

 

Yeah I wouldn’t say that Uruguay got super lucky, or that we were robbed, but they clearly got the lucky bounces. In a game when we dominated possession, and shots and shots on goal were even, I think it’s crazy to say that they were a lot better, or that a 2-0 win for Uruguay is indicative of how much better they were.

 

Another way to think of this game: how does it go if we aren't starting a CB playing up a whole cycle? And how does that have any real impact on a developmental evaluation?

 

Agreed. But we are really just a couple of top 20 in the world difference maker players away from having a real chance to beat teams like France, Spain, Brazil, etc. and actually win the World Cup at home. Of course, many countries could say the same thing (except for the at home part). Maybe Balogun will get there? Or someone else?

 

Well we came damn close to scoring in the first two minutes of the game. We were controlling the play for the first twenty minutes or so. It's not like Uruguay was just happily letting us play through their midfield. If we had better attackers they would have been in trouble.

I hear what you are saying though and there is some truth to that. The goal that they scored on the counter was pretty naive on our part. We did not respond well to that at all though. It was the first time we had been down in the tourney and the team looked shaken.

 

Wynder and Neal are very good prospects. One was playing a cycle up because the other was too valuable to his club to be released.

 

Don't sell Paxton short. In my opinion, he is better than his brother at the same age. Paxton is smarter player than Luna by a country mile. You have to look beyond physical attributes.

 

At all levels of our program, there is too much back passing. Lots of promising attacks get killed because players stop and back pass as if it’s a comfy blanket. Sure, you need to do it sometimes, but the better countries at youth and senior levels are more aggressive in attack. That’s why they create more quality chances than we do.

is there something going on at the youth levels that our players are taught to play this way. Is this mindless possession an overreaction to the fact that we used to not have possession at all and played bunker ball as a nation for so long?