U17s vs. Burkina Faso, Nov. 5, 2025 (Pre-/PBP/Post-Match Thread)

Maybe Scuffed is right about the gassed part -- I paid less attention to Burkina Faso but several of the US players were definitely slowing down.

But I really do think Cavan was a step above everyone on the field. Part of that, I'm sure, if being fresh. But not most of it. So many of our chances were simply that we had quality on the late execution rather than the sort of scattershot both teams had most of the game.

I would say this -- and to defend someone else in this thread that got blasted but was positionally right if personnel wrong -- I don't think we actually became the better team until another set of subs moved him forward more. Then we started getting a lot of chances.

Cavan was better than everyone, but a huge boost for the US was actually just having a focal point for the offense that could do something. There was a very clear plan once he was in. The ball went to Cavan and then he set the play. We lacked some of that direction for much of the game, or it was to Albert, and as a true winger, that's not the same.

 

Villa never got beat? I can remember off the top of my head about 5 times where Villa was run past with ease or his man did a simple pull dribble past him to get an uncontested cross that was cleared, mostly by RB Cupps.

 

I don't think you're paying attention. Team construction matters. These guys aren't Maradonna, dragging mostly worker bee's to a world title.

This is a team that is heavily tilted towards it's attacking wings and MF's. It lacks any kind of stoutness in central midfield defense. It's got 1 FB that is not fit for purpose, and is supposedly the worst collection of CB's in ages, and the keeper yesterday wasn't great either.

You are not winning titles if your entire backline is suspect and you also lack a traditionally strong DM. We are weak in exactly the wrong area's to be weak and expect to win tournaments. As 2015 illustrated with the U20's, you can go far with a good defense and keeper and a horrible attack, but with a weak defense and meh goalkeeping? You have no shot.

This team is some strong CM's and Wing Forwards, and maybe a striker and nothing else. That aint a winning recipe. It's suggestive of a team that will lose in the opening knockout round and the most informed online dudes about this have already posted, in threads, or on youtube, or on interviews like scuffed, that the team is not built to win or make a deep run to a title, it's missing half the ingredients required, and the more important half at that.

The key thing to take away is that yes indeed, there are 3-4 attacking players that look senior team relevant, and maybe 4-6 players players in total. That is rare at the U17 level where even in a good cycle you usually have only 2-3 guys relevant to the national team (hell the famed '15 U17 group had only 2 for years (Pulisic and Adams) and years until a few guys proved to be late bloomers (Zendejas, Haji, LDLT, Trusty, and Vasquez) came through. The much celebrated '17 group, probably the best since '99, saw a pile of super exciting guys flame out (Carleton, Durkin, Akinola, Gloster), and only a few hit (Weah, Sargent, and Dest (who I didnt even notice at the time) and to a lesser extent, Sands and Booth).

 

I'm not worried about Carrizo and Mathis. One of the best chances all night was a really nice piece of play between the two of them where Carrizo found Mathis' run in a tight window inside the box. It was a touch behind, but it probably needed to be, and Mathis controlled it well. The shot just hit side netting.

Nothing really impacted my opinion that the two are high level players, but I think because the two wanted to operate in the same spaces it would have been better to have Terry and Carrizo switch sides. There were a couple other moments where the two of them just got a little too fancy trying to extend plays in tight spaces rather than take an easier, safer ball. I don't mind that they back themselves and their technical ability. They've also only had a few camps together.

I think the issues with the attack were broadly structural. Albert and Carrizo are not box crashers, both are looking to make the killer ball rather than be the one on the end of it. That doesn't work when Berchimas is beating his man to the end line. Sullivan's goal came off a very intelligent run that most players simply wouldn't have made; it was low likelihood that the ball would get that far in the first place but it did, and he was there to clean up.

BTW - SofaScore is the first major data provider with an expected possession value model, though it's a little opaque still. The model rated Carrizo as the most impactful passer of the forwards:

(EDIT: never mind, the image won't show up, take my word for it or don't)

Now, fixing the structural issues without creating more is going to be a tough task for Segares. I think the answer against Tajikistan would be to have Carrizo right and Sullivan left while dropping Terry. If Guimaraes continues to step into the midfield you can play both high. Against the Czech Republic, I am worried that would be leaving too much ball winning off the field (even though our midfield isn't really great at that to begin with). 3 points against Tajikistan will make the CR game a moot point though.

 

100%.

Not only that, of the "world stars" listed, you really can't play all of them at once.

Hall isn't a striker -- he's one of three wingers that we are playing at striker because we don't have one.

Moreso, playing Carrizo and Sullivan together is probably a mistake. I think they could play together, if you played one at winger, but with Albert, Berchimas and Hall, that's not necessary (but could be done).

But playing two CAMs along with two capable wingers? I mean, yes, that can work in theory, but who's defending? Carrizo is not much of a defender, and while Sullivan works, do you want him constantly backtracking?

If we had a rock solid double pivot behind them or three in the back with the wingers going to wingbacks, great. But in this set up, with a lack of real CDMs and youth team CBs?

Of the five top attackers listed, we should probably have two of them coming off the bench.

 

The big thing with Berchimas is he had a great breakout in '23, and then he was hurt, and lost a ton of time in '24 (or was it '25?), and all the momentum vanished. I also have no idea if he'll hit. We'll see. What matters is we have a ton of exciting guys so attrition, if we're reasonably lucky, won't scythe all or most of them down like it has sometimes. Having Carrizon, Berchimas, Albert, Cavan, and Hall is a big deal, it's a lot of prospect bullets, so when things go south, like with Pomykal and others, it won't wax out an entire generation of our best prospects.

 

I agree on Carrizo, I expected more of him. He looked upset that he was taken out. Maybe he is the type of player that requires space and time to be effective. I'll keep an eye on him.
Albert is everything he was billed to be. Very soccer smart. Once he gains more physical strength, we should see a more dangerous player. If I have to knock one thing on his current game, it has to be his lack of a fifth gear in his runs. Maybe he will improve his speed once he matures more.

 

Beyond the raw talent, which is obvious, is the dream we've had of having our best players have "junk yard dog/killer" mentality's, which has simply not been true since the 1990's beyond Bradley and Dempsey and now Tyler Adams. Virtually all of our best players developed have typically been the "lead by example" quiet/introverted/soft spoken types. Nothing wrong with that per se, but all teams need at least a couple of alpha dog, ruthless types, and it's been really noticeable that most of our best forwards, midfielders, and strikers have not been that mentality beyond Dempsey in recent decades. Cavan absolutely seems like a guy who just wants to dominate opponents, wants to crush them, and just kick ---. He has that air of ruthlessness about him and that fight. Considering Pulisic has been the most influential and important attacker on the team for the past decade, that's probably been an issue. With Cavan likely to get his first cap in 2027, that could be a transformative development.

Beyond that is the reality as already mentioned that we have a good five superlative (by degree) attacking prospects for this level, if we can get lucky with the injury bug, I think it's reasonably that 2 or 3 really do become highly impactful senior internationals. That's a bit deal, especially considering that the '23 group didn't seem to produce much beyond complimentary talent, and mostly the same with '21 and '19 (basically Reyna, and Pepi and I can't remember anyone else). That could cover for a bit of a dip with that sort of '03-'06 birth years.

 

I think it was simple: size, pace (for the time), and a striker's nose for the goal and finishing. He just looked like a 4 or 5 star who if he put it all together, would be absolutely lethal. Pulisic was initially seemingly a speedy, small, aggressive dribbler with terrific acceleration and a nose for the goal: I think superificially, Pulisic looked like a billion models we've seen before: small, fast/quick, dribbling wing attackers. Haji Wright did not look much like what we'd seen a lot of before, huge, reasonable fast, striker's with some versatility to play on the wing too.

I think Dortmund just figured out that Pulisic's acceleration, turn and move, dribble game was not your typical, smallish attacking, Diego Lainez off the rack type, he was something more, and they figured it out quick. Eventually Haji figured it out, but man did it look bleak January '18 to July '20. Now nearly 100 goals later, he's panned out beautifully, even has an absurdly impressive/crazy sort of intended knockout goal to his name.

 

I totally agree there was reason for Haji hype -- all the things that were easy to see from afar check every single box. And at the youth level, the components of striker play that need to develop with time are not needed to score or even able to be seen, frankly.

That said, I'll always disagree on Christian. It was pretty clear to me that he was special on several levels and much different than players we had seen in similar veins. The combination of quickness and skill was unprecedented and still hasn't been repeated for the US.

Cavan pops like that for me. Reyna didn't -- you could easily talk your way into his prospect status because while he never had Christian's quickness, he was as skilled or more, bigger, better passing vision, and still an athlete. But on the field, for the US at least, I never saw the level of separation and control I got from Christian and now Cavan.

Perhaps that's spurious and lucky, and or perhaps that means something.

 

I think Christian is pretty aggressive and a killer out there on the field; I don't see a lot of issue in that aspect of his game and if anything, he's pressing too much. Reyna, too, strikes me as a guy who wants to humiliate you. Offensively, at least.

I don't know if Christian in any way has been a problem, but when he's struggled on the field, it's been because he doesn't trust his teammates. I think Cavan will be a bit different there in that he's going to want the ball, but his instinct is to pass.

Off the field, I think Pulisic isn't comfortable demanding certain things from his teammates, but that's okay. We need leaders like that, but it doesn't need to be Christian.

Cavan is special and seems to have most of the mental stuff as well.

I think Albert is clearly a step up (or at least a half step up) from most of the other prospects but winger is such a physically demanding position, especially for a younger player, that I'm not sure his progression will be as seamless or linear as people want.

Then again, he's 16. I'm not sure he won't look a lot differently physically by next year. And he has the huge edge of winger being a simpler position and being a very clear winger. I'm just not sure he's all that close to a first team debut -- Dortmund doesn't even seem to be playing with wingers half the time.

As for the rest ... I think what our fans and our prospects need to realize is that the hard work is still very far ahead of them.

There's a mix of phenoms and later developing guys ... but there's also a number of guys who debuted at 17, 18 who are on the outside looking in right now or maybe on their last chance for 2026 -- Reyna, Musah, Scally, etc.

Even some of the guys who were big youth names have had to reinvent their game or continue to improve -- Pulisic, for example.

I don't think any of Hall or Berchimas or Carrizo are necessarily in some kind of catbird seat for the senior team. They have assets, but their games are far enough from being a senior team contributor that there's miles of gap that another player who isn't as heralded now could step into.

This isn't a knock on them. It's just that the difference between Berchimas ending up more like Tim Weah or Cade Cowell is a tremendous amount of work. And I'd say Berchimas is already trending more to the latter, whether that is injury driven or not.

 

If Albert, Sullivan, or even Berchimas make it first team at 18-19, they will be contesting for minutes against our core players that will be 28-29.

 

And that will be a good thing the one thing, or one of the things, we are missing is continuity of quality and multiple players of quality competing for the same positions is it. If we have that maybe we will finally develop some real depth and that might just be something that will make us a better side.
Even better than better could be that in a decade or two we might actually compete at WCs on an equal basis.

 

We may over or under perform our talent level at this next summer's World Cup, but the reality is that we are still dealing with repercussions of the Lost Generation.

I like dividing up the pool into roughly four year segments and four groups. There's the young guys (roughly 24 and younger), the prime (roughly 25-28), the older prime or immediate post-prime (29-32ish) and then the oldsters (33+).

The lost generation was really very close to two generations if we define them as roughly 4 years. Jozy was born in 1989; Bradley in 1987. Jedi was born in 1997 and Pulisic kicked off the next group in 1998.

Between Jozy and Jedi, we've got ... Walker Zimmerman (1993), John Anthony Brooks (1993) DeAndre Yedlin (1993) and Cristian Roldan (1995) in terms of non-keepers. And not much else in terms of contributors. Even dudes like Brian White or Shaq Moore are on the edges (1996).

For the 2018 World Cup, this group should have been most of the Young Guys AND the Prime. And they gave nothing. So we had a teenage Pulisic and a bunch of swiftly aging Post-Prime / Older Prime.

For the 2022 World Cup, this group was the Prime and the Post-Prime / Older Prime. We are lucky that our Young Guys were so damn good early because the core of the team was basically missing.

Even with this World Cup, they are going to be the Post-Prime and the Old Guys. Like, the only guys on the roster who seem likely to play from this group will be Ream -- who is actually super old, Roldan and then a couple of 1997s (the Robinsons, if healthy).

Come 2030, I don't even know if we need any breakthroughs. Instead, the group at the U17 World Cup will be 21, 22 and coming into their own. They will be the Young Guys.

The Pulisic group will be aging -- Post Prime for some positions, but I'm sure quite capable still and even a prime for some positions. And the next group, which has been a bit disappointing to date, will be in their prime so they all should be much better players.

That's three groups that are at some level holding their own. That alone is going to generate depth and capability we simply don't have all the time at the individual level. Injuries can suborn that, and we know there was a bit of a lull post 2002, 2003 ... we don't know who is going to develop like a Zendejas, etc. as they hit 26 or so.

Just take a guy who we talk about but haven't seen as of today ... what does a 26 year old Owen Wolff look like? Who knows? But if we take all the 2002-2005 midfielders, would you bet against one of them popping into something even better than we see today?

It won't be 2034 until we really have four groups that were populated decently, and that's if we don't see another collapse post-Cavan's group.

I don't know what the cause of the Lost Generation was -- I think there's some good theories but nothing is going to be definitive. I find it much less likely we see it again though with all the changes to the US developmental structure. Especially as it has become much less centralized.

I don't think this necessarily gets us contention for a World Cup. I think there's a gap there still that is decently big.

But I think people underestimate the improvement we'll see as these players age.

 

The U20s should have won the tournament. And i t didn't have special attacking talent. This one has three guys that are higher caliber. And the D got th shutout. We should win.

 

I'm not saying Pulisic was that at the time or really at any time, I just think superficially, one can think of a gazillion small, pacey wingers with ball skills, and acceleration. If I really thought about it, I could probably think of 10 or 11, maybe 12 of them the past 25 years just in our program alone. Guys like Haji? There's like Eddie Johnson and that is it, and Eddie wasn't as versatile as Wright, he was a pure striker, period (thought I also think pre injury, he was a better prospect than Haji too). Guys like Haji are superificially rare. Most nations don't produce a lot of 6'4" athletic, speedy striker/wf's like Haji, whereas Pulisic is a common "type," he's just not common as an individual player, and yes I agree, it was obvious when I first saw him in was it the Nike Friendlies clips? Not sure, but he was ridiculous and it was obvious there was A LOT there. I don't think I'd been that excited since Adu, Altidore and Donovan.

So yeah, I don't disagree w/you, I'm just saying I get why Wright would be the more attractive target superficially early. I still remember the grantland article:

https://grantland.com/the-triangle/usmnt-u17-haji-wright-development/

 

I think it's just Albert and Sullivan, I don't see it happening soon with any of the others. Alberts production track, and just the reporting too, suggests he's producing for Dortmund very similarly to what Pulisic and Reyna were in '15-'16 and '19-'20. If he stuck that track, he'd get a call up to the bench with some minutes in the winter spring of '25-'26. I was thinking he was a lock to get called up in December or January for the senior team, but now it seems like they'll slow play it, bring up to the last youth stop before considering the Dortmund bench.

Im pretty confident he's a "hit", barring injury, much like Cavan. I didn't really have doubts about Reyna or Pepi when I first saw them in the late winter/spring of '19, and I feel the same way with Cavan and Albert. They just seem like legit prospects on a scale you just rarely see. I think Cavan probably gets his debut in the senior shirt in spring or fall '27, Albert, I think is winter '26-'27. We'll see. There are more checkpoints, and projecting kids this young is normally a fools errand, but in the case of these guys, they aren't just "best guys on the youth team" types like say, Cavan, Paxten, and Luna were in the '21 U17 group. They are just different, they fit much more in the Donovan in '99, Adu in '03, Taitague, Pulisic, Reyna, Pepi kind of types (Pepi wasn't probably of that tier, back then he was neck and neck with AOC).

 

Plugging in the US Soccer official match summary ...

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...-win-vs-burkina-faso-2025-fifa-u-17-world-cup

"After a back-and-forth battle, the U.S. Under-17 Men’s National Team utilized a 79th minute strike from substitute Cavan Sullivan to earn a 1-0 win against Burkina Faso in the team’s opening match of the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup at Aspire Zone. The victory positions the USA second in Group I heading into its next match against Tajikistan on Saturday, Nov. 8 (9:45 a.m. ET; FS2, Telemundo, Peacock)."

USA: 1-Aidan Stokes; 2-Gio Villa, 4-Christopher Cupps, 5-Ramiz Hamouda (20-Enrique Martinez, 76), 3-Pedro Guimaraes; 15-Cooper Sanchez (19-Mateo Tsakiris 85); 8-Jude Terry (6-Cavan Sullivan, 62), 10-Maximo Carrizo (Capt.) (18-Luca Moisa, 75); 7-Nimfasha Berchimas (13-Kellan LeBlanc, 85), 16-Julian Hall, 11-Mathis Albert

Substitutes not used: 12-Jack Kortkamp, 21-William Lodmell, 9-Chase Adams, 14-Jordan Griffin, 17-Jamir Johnson

Head coach: Gonzalo Segares 

Stats Summary: USA / BFA
Shots: 9 / 16
Shots on Goal: 4 / 4
Saves: 4 / 3
Corner Kicks: 5 / 5
Fouls: 16 / 9
Offside: 1 / 0

 

Those were the first extended minutes I've seen of Cavan Sullivan and I saw a lot of young Landon Donovan in him. Maybe I'm just getting influenced by the bleached hair, but his vision, passing instincts and skills, desire to circulate the ball vs. play hero ball dribbling, quick burst of acceleration, speed moving with the ball at his feet, his constant movement, and his clinical finishing all remind me of Donovan.

I was also impressed with Mathis Albert. He didn't dominate the match, but he was the best USYNT player on the field before Sullivan came on. it's clear he has the technique, skill and vision of a high-level/elite prospect.

 

Nope, not just hair. I've been telling it for the last two years, young arrogant Landon.

 

To me he's sort of a hybrid between Donovan and Pulisic. He's got ice in his veins too. Be the youngest of a bunch of brothers has hardened him.

 

Cavan Sullivan's floor is LD. He is much stronger and has a harder cross and quicker recognition of passes.

 

Stronger, yes. Better, shot probably. Quicker, not sure. Not as fast, probably.
His floor is what he is now, and that's not Donovan. His ceiling is higher than Donovan's.

 

Quicker recognition. A mental thing. Donovan was probably quicker physically and certainly faster. Cavan will sit a bit more and look for a pass and not burst off. He has a rare mind for his age.

 

All of those attributes and comparisons need to wait until he grows up. Can't compare quickness or speed with a 16 year old against a grownup. I saw Donovan in person for U17's in Dallas Cup (now that U17 team was stacked) and he a and Beasley were kind of unstoppable together but I can't say (from memory) if he was better or worse in speed or quickness and he also got faster, stronger and quicker. Cavan does at times remind me of him though but he also reminds me of Pulisic at times and his defense work rate and tackling seems better with more effort than either of the others. He goes 'in hard which I hope doesn't get him hurt.