2024 CONCACAF U20 Championship: All Teams & Tournament Thread

I think it depends more on whether the players have broken through at the senior level yet. Pulisic did not play in the U20's, but Tyler Adams did, McKennie wasn't released, Sargent did, Weah did, Richards did etc. It depends upon a player's status at the national team level.

I'd also argue that Europe, until recently only had a handful of countries that seemed to really care about youth world cups, they cared about UEFA championships but didn't care so much about the youth world cups, so it was basically just Spain, Portugal, and a Netherlands team here, or a Germany team there, an Italian team there that might care and then on top of that, probably the single biggest reason why we don't see those European stars in youth world cups?

The Youth World Cup's evenly distribute tickets across confederations, unlike the WC, and so as a result, UEFA doesn't have twice as many tickets as any other confederation, they just send 4 teams, that's it, instead of getting nearly half the WC's tickets, like they've been getting since the expansion to 32 (and before it too in smaller formats)....So as a result, no matter what, cycle to cycle, there are only a couple of teams that are coming out of Europe period, so the vast majority of European stars age 16, 17, 18, 19 never are getting a ticket in the first place.

In my experience, generally speaking these nations sent their most talented teams, the way people knew Portugal and Spain were punching below their weight was that their stars were winning youth trophies and not delivering on the big stage in the nineties (before both woke up in the aughts)....however, at this point? It's a good question, because club season's have never been so thoroughly drenched in matches and preseason tours and what not. Basically the club season in mid July to Early May, w/a brief winter break.....So yes, I do think it's possible that unless something is done w/this insane fixture congestion, and the creation of NL stupidity, UEFA teams might change their minds again from participating aggressively in these tournaments because truth be told, w/NL added, even summer breaks have been cut down dramatically.

 

Nice! Panama advances, 2-1 over Canada.

USA v Panama in the semifinals.

 

I didn't see the end, but the match finished with 18 players on the pitch. One Panama, 3 Canada red cards.

And leave it to Concacaf to not include the red cards in the highlights.

 

I disagree. They are a first world country with a population of 38 million. They went from qualifying consistently for years to missing out eight straight times. Something is wrong in Canada.

 

I agree that they looked better than in recent previous editions.

 

Also, they took a good team, Panama, to extra time. Panama is showing that they're making good strides in becoming one of the consistently reliable Concacaf NTs. If Canada showed up as a punching bag I'd be concerned but they played decently throughout the tournament.

 

I'm confused with the satisfaction. Historically, Canada is about even with Costa Rica and Honduras in the U-20s. They have four finals and two titles. They are fifth in total points. This is them getting back to that level. Looking at potential, Canada should be higher than Central America. Panama is a baseball country of less than five million after all. Panama is certainly the C'CAF association that is doing things right in the last decade but Canada has all the tools to do it right also.

 

Canada has all the tools except their Federation is broke and can't afford to get the players together at all before the tournament.

Teams like Honduras and Mexico do disproportionately well because they invest in a LOT of youth camps to drill the team together. The US used to outplay our talent level in the Bradenton era because they players played together constantly.

Now that we have broader infrastructure, we dominate with talent.

Canada is getting that infrastructure, though CPL seems to be weirdly not executing their mission as well as they should. For a developmental league, they seem to lack real youth focus.

 

Panama has punched above their weight the last few cycles, but if you want to accomplish anything in the sport they can't be a real obstacle.

 

Mexico 1-1 with Costa Rica in the 78th minute.

Would be hilarious if they failed to qualify again.

 

And Mexico has scored so looks like they’ll qualify.

 

Those finals were in 1978, 1984, 1986, and 1996.

This century, however, Canada's U20s have barely done anything at all.

 

Costa Rica’s #6 is an angry kid who wants to beat all Mexican kids in the game.

 

Mexico 2-1 Costa Rica

Honduras 1-1 Cuba, with Cuba advancing to the semifinals (and WC) 5-3 on PKs.

On Friday (Aug 2):

USA v Panama
Mexico v Cuba

The winners play in the Final on Sunday.

 

Boy, group B has been exposed in the QFs. This is only the second time Cuba has made the YWC. Last time was 2013 after beating Costa Rica.

 

Cuba qualifying was not on my bingo card.

 

Funny, but I almost backed them here to advance. I liked the way they played us, and they kept their heads high throughout - not always easy when you lose 4-0. They didn’t play scared, they didn’t play to hold the score down, they kept playing.

 

Ciuba is one of those complete wildcards. Nobody knows anything about the quality of their squad coming into these types of tournaments. Sometimes they do fine and sometimes they're terrible. Sometimes when they're competitive, and half the team defects...........................

Their U20 Cuba national team wikipedia page doesn't even have their roster.

Heck, I'd say neither the US or Mexico are playing so great that they're immune from a big upset.

Panama. This could be a chance for Panama to win a CONCACAF trophy.

 

And yet this has arguably been the best Canadian era ever for producing talent. Only 8 of the 26 at the Copa America played in a CONCACAF U20 tournament and I think it was only 5 of 26 at the World Cup. In some cases players weren't released by their clubs to play and other times they were just late bloomers.

For me, each time this tournament is held there are more and more notable players absent, the pitches have been shocking at the last two tournaments, the officiating is poor, the two previous tournaments the format was really poor... I'm not looking to make excuses, but I'm also not calling for a referendum on Canada youth development because a guy that was only playing because Luc de Fougerolles played at the Copa, Lazar Stefanovic was hurt and Kilmarnock recalled Ethan Schilte-Brown midway through the tournament, gave away a penalty and earned a red through VAR on a decision. I wish more of the U20 national team ended up being significant senior national team players, but there is talent consistently coming through the ranks.

And the officiating was poor, but for me Panama were the better team on the day. That's a talented group over there and fair play to them. They're a worthy World Cup team. Canada played four matches, won two and drew with Honduras and Panama over 90. Ultimately qualifying is what matters, so we failed, but it wasn't a disaster. I think there's a few really promising players in the 05 and 06 age group and hopefully we will once again have a couple more who aren't on the radar now who became important players.

 

I'm actually agreeing with your point. There was a suggestion that Canada looking as decent as they have was a return to normal, to which I pointed out that time of "normal" was 40 years ago.

 

Soooo. No TV for the Semifinal?

Will not be able to watch live, so I need to DVR it.

I'm not really sure what Fox Soccer Plus and ViX are. Are they streaming? Free? Are playable on demand?

Help an old guy out here.

 

It's on FS2, I think. At least that's what youtubetv is telling me.*

Never mind, that's Sunday morning.

Fox Soccer Plus stuff can sometimes be accessed online. Worth a try. Kinda strange.

 

Again, getting to World Cups is the minimum that Canada should be aspiring to. In the end, I am saying that there are opportunities for growth.