Well, Keith Costigan is doing his level best to needle Mo Edu, and is succeeding somewhat. Personally, I find it more entertaining than the current state of the game.
Mexico should take down their gringo wall of shame and replace it with the Mexico U20 team photo of 2022.
In all honesty, I hope DR gets one. Would be a small consolation prize and reward for them given the success they have had. I just hope it’s a well-taken goal.
So happy for these kids and the coaches. What a tournament. And as @RefIADad said, it’s going to be awesome watching US soccer the next 4 years.
It feels as if the US players are desperately trying not to humiliate the Dominicans any further than necessary, but the DR is so broken, it's difficult.
Nice touch by Aaronson and a couple other US players going right to the DR keeper at full time. Definitely not his fault. He played awfully well all things considered.
Mexico is recruiting the dual nationals coming up through the US program. The prosecution rests, Your Honor.
The US won the tourney on Friday. This was the weakest opponent they've played since Nicaragua, even if their best player (Azcona) was available. W/out him they're practically Nicaragua. They're worse than Canada and Cuba. It's incredibly fluky they made it to the final. Easy schedule and kept winning close games. Nonetheless I'm happy for them they get the major comp experiences. That said, I think they get treated like CCAF's final qualifiers at the senior WC, or worse. I don't think pretty football at this level has been a stranger to the US. But this is more impressive that it was done on a crappy road CCAF field & they were able to yield better results. However, the upswing has been going for a while, having won the last 2. Constantly improving now. Wonder how long they can keep up this ascent. But from what I've heard (not like I'm watching), the next generation is better yet. Wait until several of these cycles come together to form a unified senior team. Future is bright. Mexico can't compete. The US is looking passed them to actual world contention they've never achieved on the senior level.
Concacaf's in for a world of hurt if the US keeps its youth development going like this. Imagine how scary the USA could potentially be in the future if Soccer manages to get into the top 3 sports in the US.
That might need to occur for the US to ever be best in the world, beyond a moment. But the US probably doesn't even need to break into the top 3 sport-wise in its own country to virtually dominate this region and start being competitive w/ everybody else in the world. They're already getting there, which is a huge blow to Mexico's ego, considering it's far and away their biggest sport. And same will go for the English if the US manages to win a group they're in again.
In all seriousness, unless your family threatened to disown you, why would any dual national pick Mexico over the US right now? The trajectories are drastically different. If you want to be part of a program on the upswing, the choice is so obviously clear.
Much nicer to have Mexico knocked out of the U20 WC/Olympics and unable to offer dual nationals those opportunities.