U17s vs. Morocco, Nov. 14, 2025 (Pre-/PBP/Post-Match Thread)10:45 Eastern

Not to be too harsh about it, but it looked like on THE PK in Game 2 Cavan grabbed the ball and Albert wanted it and they got into a mini-argument. Butt I would guess that was the root of today's decision.

 

There needs to be a dedicated penalty taker in a tournament like this, and that dedicated penalty taker needs to be named Cavan. That's on the coach.

 

2 days rest for us and 4 for them was absolute criminal nonsense. I guess there's no way to avoid discrepancies with a dumb --- 48 team U17 WC (instead of 32) but ffs it's patently absurd to give the first place team 2 days rest and the 3rd place team 4 lol, in what world does that make any sense whatsoever? First place team gets 48 hours less rest, the other team that's only in there because they poured it on against freaking New Caledonia after losing 0-6 in their first 2 games gets twice as much rest?!?! Really?!?! Pure insanity, and a good chunk of that, I imagine, had to be exhausted players (especially considering people saying the guys looked gas around minute 6 with plenty of rest in the Burkina Faso game).

If that game is equal rest, I'm guessing we win 2-0, or 3-1. FIFA needs to figure this out, because it's a patently obvious massive advantage that even occurs at the WC level (at least in the past) and it's based on nothing. It would be one thing, if it was earned by better performance, but the distribution of rest advantages has always been pure randomness and stupidity, like all things FIFA (except corruption, lol, no randomness to that).

 

Probably just that he got bullied by a bunch of teenagers once again.

 

I just think, because we've never been close to winning a FIFA tournament, that we've always thought of winning and development as two different things.

We need to start thinking about winning as part of development.

 

Cavan is the first USMNT prospect I’ve seen since Pulisic that makes me think he could play for a City/Real/Barca level club one day

 

Only now noticing that 2nd and 3rd place finishers in our group got Saturday matches and 3 days rest lol. What a total cluster---- of a tournament.

It's just ridiculous. It really is. With June's World Cup, it looks like similar stupidity is at play, with the US, if we win the group, looks like if we drew the 3rd place side from Group B, they'd have 1 more day rest, and if we finished runner up, we'd get 1 more days rest than the runner up squad from Group G.

The saving grace is that unlike this U17 WC, or Qatar, there is plenty of down time between both Group Stage matches (5 days off between), while knockouts in round 1 look to be 4-5 days of rest. Do recall that there was literally only 3 days of rest in-between our opener against Wales, and our 2nd match against England, at WC '22 (god that WC was ridiculous, so unfortunate they of all WC's, got that most classic of Finals).

 

I don't agree with that. He plays like a fairly traditional winger to me -- lots of dribbling to get baseline or cut in. Not a bad passer but not a great passer and not his first instinct.

And also, there's really not a lot of 10s at the top level anymore. Cavan's best attribute is his passing and he's clearly an attacking player. If you want to say he's an attacking 8 like DeBruyne, sure, but the guy's not a traditional 8 in the box to box sense or anything.

 

And even if it isn't Cavan because of whatever evaluation, it's completely absurd that any coach doesn't have one, but especially absurd in a youth tournament.

Why are you introducing all the political aspects of this and asking kids to make the smart decision in the moment? Would I trust Tim Ream to make a call? Sure? Would I trust a 16 year old? ******** no.

The coach needs to be the bad guy when you need a bad guy.

 

Haven't read the full thread yet, but just finished watching this on replay without knowing the result in advance. What a deeply disappointing and frustrating result...yet again. I'm getting really tired of losing to Morocco in these tournaments, especially in games where we outplay them (like the U-20 World Cup last month). Damn...

As far as this pool, U-17 level is such a crapshoot so who knows, but Cavan Sullivan and Mathis Albert looked like the only guys I'd project to turn into meaningful players at the senior national team level. Maayyyybe Nimfasha Berchimas and Christopher Cupps as well. No one else really jumped out to me throughout the tournament as a difference maker.

 

Morocco's fed works hard for its YNT success. It managed to get top talent released for the Olympics, and these efforts paid off in a medal. By the time of the U20 World Cup, they had already played something like 40 games in that cycle. As a result, its players were tactically on the same page. The US had only done a fraction of the preparation, and this showed. It doesn't matter how much possession you have if all it leads to is aimless long crosses.

In fairness to the USSF, it scheduled a good battery of YNT friendlies in the current international break. Increasing our exposure to top competition could help.

Let's not downplay how exciting Sullivan and Albert are. The two of them lived up to the hype.

 

If this is the case why are they are giving him the same group as the u20 coach?

 

Because he’s on staff, it costs money to hire a new coach, and only like 5 of us care about this (I said this to someone else who asked me about this, and my initial answer of 10 who care was shot down with it’s less than that), so that’s why.

 

Albert was the designated PK taker, Gonzalo called for him and captain Cupps also tried to speak up but Sullivan insisted and I guess Albert didn't want to cause a public scene. He scored in the end so no issue but it's the reason Albert took the 2nd one in the tournament.

 

The feeling amongst EU clubs and scouts on the ground seemed to be the opposite to my surprise, and this isn't to tarnish Sullivan as he's also highly rated and I believe he's special. But on the ground Albert seems to be a hot commodity in Europe and one of the first names scouts from most clubs mentioned as the player to watch in coming years. One of the feedback I was hearing a lot was Sullivan being maxed out in terms of growth/physically. Whereas Albert hasn't even developed physically yet.

The other name that many clubs seemed to be quite high on is Ramiz Hamouda. I personally think Cupps is the better player now but scouts seem to be very high on Hamouda's long-term potential.

An interesting thing I heard a lot from scouts when discussing american players was that most clubs seemed to mention Malik Jacupovic (2009 from Union) as a big player of interest.

 

Were these basketball scouts by chance? Cavan is already the same size as Foden and Bernardo Silva, so he doesn't need to grow another inch to succeed at the top level.

I'm always leery of tall, athletic youth players because they (usually) haven't proven they can adapt when their physicality is no longer an advantage. It amazes me that well respected scouts are still fooled by the 'big kid up top' who scores 3 goals a game over the kid who consistently adapts and dominates when at a physical disadvantage.

Jakupovic has all the tools and should be of interest to every big club, no doubt. But all 8 of his goals came in the last 10 mins of MLS NP games. He only started 2 games, so you can't read into that stat much but I would like to see him dominate players his size who haven't been running around for 80 mins before I anoint him as the next big thing. His skillset is incredible though.

 

I just find this a bit bizarre. I don't know how many scouts and clubs you know, but I think they are completely wrong.

Cavan probably doesn't add speed or physicality, but his whole family is athletic, and as a central mid, he doesn't need to beat people straight for speed. His first step is pretty damn strong. It's also kind of silly to pretend he won't add muscle and endurance; the kid is 16. There's early developers but they still add grown man muscle. He's not Cade Cowell.

I don't think he needs to improve any of those things to compete at the highest level - just hang.

Albert may not have physically developed but his position requires him to get faster. That seems a risk to me.

If Cavan ends up better, I will just assume I'm a better scout than all these guys. Sometimes people try too hard to be different.

 

Basically what I said about Cavan and Mathis. And that doesn't mean that Cavan won't be great, it just means that Albert has a reserve in purely athletic growth.
Didn't they say that Mathis won't end up as a winger by any chance?

 

They know shit of course, but you aren't better than me.

 

I thought this of Gio also before he got sidetracked by injuries.

 

For Hamouda do they see him as a LB or CB? Does him playing in the USL and presumably having an easier off ramp for Europe come into play or is it purely talent eval?