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

The three players had just crashed the goal to head a free kick. It popped back out to Cowell and he shot it. That's why they are in front of the goal (as players will always be on a close free kick).

 

Yep. Freddy Adu went to Benfica based largely on his performances in that tournament. As I recall, he was there with Angel Di Maria, and Freddy looked like the better prospect at the time.

Altidore went to La Liga at the same time. Injuries certainly hampered his National Team performances. He was not 100% in 2010 either.

 

I think you're being fair to them, but Cowell took two touches before he shot it, and his angle when he shot it w/his third shot was right to the far post and pretty obvious and Pukstas is blatantly in the way the entire time, not dropping, just flat out in the way. Pukstas is the only guy in the way, the other two runners have already moved out of the shooting lanes (which was easier for them as they were near and far post guys on the set piece), but Yapi showed you how to get out of the way on Gomez's goal vs Ecuador. It struck me as a mix of bad luck and perhaps a bit of bad luck w/awareness (you can also see that Jones wonder goal against Portugal doesn't go in if Dempsey does the same thing Pukstas does, but he didn't, he duck and made himself as small as he could and the ball flashed over his head).

I don't want to get in a back and forth because it's minutiae at this point, and I can understand your point. It was definitely more bang bang, than Jones goal against Portugal, and harder to avoid than Yapi's quick reaction to get out of Gomez's way (which had the benefit of momentum as well since he was moving much more quickly than Pukstas) but it was avoidable and he just made every bad decision conceivable on the play (slow to move, didn't drop, or accelerate out etc). I'm sure part of it was trying to get out of an offside position as well. There's a lot and its a bang bang play, but was that avoidable? Yeah, it was, we've seen countless guys get out of the way by ducking or moving quickly. Pukstas did neither and stopped a goal in the process. Rewatching confirmed my initial impression. It's a touch harsh, it was harder to get out of the way than most of those, but it was definitely something he could have gotten out of the way of w/a better decision/instincts.

 

Disappointing finish today, but guys should hold heads high.

Today we started really brightly. Looked the class of the field early.

Then Uruguay settled and then scored. Che getting beaten by the pass was step one, but the unnecessary hero tackle was the death. Just stand him up and make him beat you or make a difficult pass. Che was really good with those tackles in earlier matches but maybe that was a bad sign.

Then the Wynder Stooges routine was too much to overcome.

Thought McGlynn and Vargas was just a bit too deep all game to really put Uruguay to the task. And then Wiley/Wolff was not very effective either despite loads of space. Cowell and Luna couldn't really get it going either.

The whole game was just kinda AAARRGGHH but maybe that's just that we actually played a resolute opponent finally.

Good tournament. Too bad.

 

Wow what a bad day for American soccer... a triple whammy blow the U20 girls losing, LAFC, and now this.... meh, anyway please don't tell me that despite all these upsets, it's going to be a Uruguay v Italy final right?

 

I feel like there are only a few players that could make the 2026 WC.
Those are Gabriel Slonina, Caleb Wiley, Obed Vargas, and Kevin Paredes.
The maybe are Rokas Pukstas, Jonathan Gómez, and Joshua Wynder.
None of them will be starting but will be back up if everyone is healthy.

 

Yeah I mean I think this did basically boil down to 1) we needed to be clinical, not really a strength of this squad 2) Uruguay to their credit made things that we'd managed relatively easily earlier in the tournament quite hard 3) a few fluky plays. A deserved result, in the end.

 

Big noticeable difference when not playing Fiji, NZ and those level teams.

 

during any of the qualifying and leading up to yesterday did this team ever truly "suffer".

There is an aspect of the US game (men's primarily) where we are not trained to suffer and overcome. We can discuss the why and how and whether and if .. but Italy and Uruguay are both soccer cultures that are routinely used to suffering to achieve the critical wins.

 

I guess I'm not gonna psychoanalyze these guys from my desk but the U.S. didn't control its qualifying schedule, which top regional powers flamed out in CONCACAF, who they were assigned in group play, or which team they ran up against in the first knockout game. Might it have been preferable for them to be tested earlier? Sure. Would it have mattered? Maybe! (With that said, presumably that European trip before the tournament was something of a wake-up call.)

 

I do think the easy draw might have been a curse. They might have been better off with another good team in the group instead of Fiji or Slovakia. That might have meant that they finished second, but they might have been more battle-tested.

 

I did not say that we controlled the ability to suffer (we can only play who is in front of us) - but that this could be a needed factor in our development as a soccer nation.

 

They did play lots of good teams in friendlies, including the recent window when they played France, England, and Serbia. And there was the Revelations Cup at the start of the cycle where they played Brazil and Columbia. And I believe they had a friendly against Argentina as well in one of the windows prior to qualifying. So they're definitely trying to get good games when they have the chance.

 

Every team learns more from its losses.

 

We had more rest, fewer players out (Uruguay was missing 3 IIRC), and we still lost by a clear margin. May be part of the story that this team did not trail til Uruguay scored their first goal. They hadn't had to chase a game the entire tournament. I was hoping that halftime adjustments and a pep talk could help them regroup, but the OG happened early in the second half and that was the dagger.

Bummer finish to what was otherwise a great tournament. Unfortunately the QF seems to be our ceiling at this tournament, we've lost at that stage in 19, 17, 15, 07 and 03 (again, IIRC), with some worse results in other versions of the u20 WC.

 

The only thing I would add is that the game was basically damn close to 1-1 as reflected in the xG (1.28 to 0.81) and when you consider two of their goals came on point blank shots due to horrendous defensive errors, that suggests the game was largely even beyond that (I know, insert Lincoln Play reference here). The attacking #'s also back up the idea that the difference in this game is that we didn't punish Uruguay for their errors (the early cross, the goal bound shot Cowell had that we kept out of goal! lol!) and they punished the ---- out of us for ours (2 horrible errors, 2 goals).

The caveat to all this is I think Uruguay would've attacked more if they hadn't gotten the early lead, and then the gift goal from Wynder, so perhaps some of the close proximity in attacking #'s (largely tied or slight advantage to us beyond xG) suggests that game state played a role here.

The problem of course beyond all that is that with 2 days more rest, and several players at this tournament unavailable we should have been much better than we were and were not. Otoh, if Wynder and Pusktas don't give them a goal, and take a goal away from us, this is a regulation draw, w/the advantage for us going into the final minutes and extra time due to their lack of rest.

So as pissed off as I was and still am, it was not a defenestration. For instance, we lost to Venezuela six years ago in the U20 QF's and I never thought we were in that game at all for a second. This game was more like Ecuador four years ago where we could've pushed this to extra time with a little more good luck going our way and less bad luck benefiting them.

The U17's are next in the fall and the olympics 8 or so months later along with Copa America next summer. It will be interesting. OF these U20's, a lot of guys could be depth, I have a feeling its going to be like more recent iterations that provided maybe 1 starter or 2 max but a whole lot of depth guys. The U17's were meh in qualifying, but considering some of the attacking talent at the U15/U16 level, it will be intriguing to see if we promote anyway up because other than Figueroa, I wasn't too impressed (Cruz Medina the other big star of that group had a dissapointing qualifying campaign).

 

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. (Randy Pausch)

 

In that case, we're suffering today, right?

 

indeed!

I think the way we get more experience in this is to schedule more matches against teams like Italy, Uruguay, Argentina and Ecuador ... teams that are going to make you sacrifice your body and mind for every inch of the field for 90 plus minutes. On top of those friendlies we really need to play as much as possible in Copa America .... our utes (frankly many of our seniors) are just not mentally tough enough. I still think of McBride putting his head where a human dare not. How much value do we put at the U10 - U19 level of getting truly stuck in on a challenge? Suffering is not only about playing at 95 degree heat in Honduras or at the Azteca ... I think more away matches in Naples and Rome and in South America could help our players learn. Mental toughness comes from experience.

 

I had stopped watching when the play in question happened. So I can't speak to how hard it may have been to get out of the way.

But instincts are important. I think part of it comes from experience and also just being locked into the game and the moment. I will point to the Sounders third goal in their home leg of the 2022 Champions League final against Pumas. Morris hits a shot from the right that the keeper deflects off the far post. Ball falls kindly to Lodeiro who hits the rebound. Ruidiaz, who is in an offside position, dives to the ground to get out of the way of the shot. it's all very bang bang, but the instincts were there. Just sharing as its an example that will always be in my mind of what you are talking about.

 

I think the 2019 team was stronger. We had Richards, McKenzie, Weah, Dest, and DelaFuente. All of them started for the senior team at least once.

For this 2023 team, I only see Slonina, Wiley, Craig, McGlynn, and Vargas getting a chance to be sub players for the senior team in the next two years. P. Aaronson will get a chance as well.

 

Perspective: We didn't have a better performance, probably worse, in context of the opponent last WC, and that yielded 4-5 regulars w/in the next <5 years.

I'm betting this group beats it. Pretty confident in Slonina, Paredes, Wiley, & Che; even if 2 of their performances (Kevin, Caleb) weren't good in a vacuum. This was meaningless as far as Paredes' big picture evaluation.

For a bunch of other players, they are unfinished products because of their youth, so just having tools and/or showing flashes is enough at this stage to be promising, just unreliable. I'm thinking of Tsakiris (playing up), Wynder (playing up) Wolff (2 days beyond cutoff), & Yapi (1+ month & a true CF).

Vargas was playing up and did pretty well. He was the biggest stock up for me. Though I'm still somewhat leery he can level up against men. We'll have to see how he grows physically.

Cowell, McGlynn, & Craig are a few players who are specialists that I think there's a question if they can hide their weaknesses to highlight their substantial strengths. They're wild cards to varying probabilities.

I put Sullivan in that elite group a while ago. This was a disappointing tourney. I think he was OK, but didn't make enough of an impression to guarantee is place. In the lead-up he was arguably the team's best player. There may be some stagnation the way he's been used in Philly. This didn't help the move he may need to reinvigorate.

And people need to remember many of the best players from this class weren't made available, so even if you didn't think the players you saw would bear much fruit (I disagree, at least in quantity of solid quality), that doesn't mean the future outlook is poor. The takeaway of what it means, good or bad, is regularly askew. Many fans speak off this limited, small sample, not against men, and ignore what better info we have outside this. And the takeaways are naturally negative at the end of a tourney. Only 1 team can win their final match.

 

Cowell and Paredes have senior team appearances already. Che and Wynder definitely have potential there. There's no Dest in this group right now -- well, it's Pepi.

 

I think where this group might have the edge is simply on numbers. The 2019 team had a good number of players who aren't really in the consideration set. A couple have gotten cupcake-like invites -- Ochoa, Soto, Llanez -- but de la Fuente, Ledezma, and Pomykal look like the only guys who have gotten a real look (or will) in what was a weak pool to begin the cycle.

Guys like Rennicks, Cerillo, Mendez, Durkin, Real, Keita, Gloster are well out of the pool. (Yes, I think even Mendez.)

So we've got 4 guys firmly in the pool, with a fifth I would think would be (Araujo). We've got 3-4 guys who are on the edges of the pool or had real consideration (KDLF, Ledezma, Pomykal and Mendez if you think so). And that's about it.

This team doesn't have Dest, Weah or Richards, I don't think. But I think we'll have a bigger group in the consideration set even if the competition is larger.