U20s vs. Italy, Oct. 9, 2025 (Pre-/PBP/Post-Match Thread)

You have good memory.
Is the '19 team the side that gave us the most players getting regular minutes for the senior team?

 

I'm not sure how many of these kids will become big national teasers as we are missing two of out best three central defenders and that is the strength of this group along with keepers (outside backs are pretty good too and lots of them on each side). It actually sets up nicely with forwards, central defenders and keepers developing later (this cycle) followed by (next cycle) attackers. Cremaschi, Tsakiris and Gozo might work their way into some big minutes. Campbell is a big disappointment but I hated coaching against a player like him. He's so fast and in some games when he's on he can score a bunch. So you have to account for him in case it's an "on" day and probably with two players which creates lots of room for others. To his credit he runs HARD and plays hard. Wish he had a bit more vision and selflessness. Maybe? he can pick that up?

 

Feels a bit too old to be a future USMNT starter to not be getting at least minutes off the bench at 20. If he was at Dortmund let’s say it would be different.

 

Other than all the previous posts, does anybody know who would be considered the favorite in this tourney?

 

At this point, probably Morocco

 

Also important to note, with the victory today, we've handed our 2027 U20 team, a locked in Pot 1 birth again, should they qualify. Going into this tournament, we actually had the 2nd highest seed points behind just Italy oddly enough (Italy had sneakily (at least for me) made back to back to back runs to the semifinals in '17, '19 and '23, with 1 finals appearance in '23, a loss to powerhouse Uruguay. So basically, based upon our run of QF births (and hopefully more after this coming weekend), we've handed our future U20 teams easier passage to the knockouts again, just as we did circa 2019, and 2023.

 

Plenty of players don't get minutes at 20 and yet turn out to be very good at all levels.

Niko also has like 3,000 MLS + Open Cup + Leagues Cup minutes in his very young career, so while he's not getting a ton right this instant, that's more of a momentary thing.

Like I said, he's more than capable. His team is defensively challenged, though, and they don't need to put another attacker on.

 

Having watched the last match of the day I can say that on appearances the USA should roll pretty easily into the semis. However, on appearances, Japan should have walked into the finals without much problem and we know how that went.

The next set of matches should be "interesting" and I do not think much can be predicted or even logically guessed.
The only thing assured is that now the USA will finish no less than 8th and no greater than 1st. And that is the only prediction I will make except to say it will be a fun ride.

In the match just ended Morocco was was clearly much better but the showed some flaws and I "think" we should be no worse than even. But, in general, the USA, in all matches it has played as a unified team they have shown an unwillingness to totally dominate. Even in the first match there were times when we did not look dominant.

 

I doubt it, honestly none of the teams do that much because if U17's hit it big, they aren't released typically for the U20's. Tyler Adams and Tim Weah were rare exceptions, McKennie wasn't released for '17, Pulisic was promoted by '17, Sargent promoted in '19, Reyna promoted in '21, Pepi probably would have been if the tournament wasn't cancelled too. If you look at the core of our pool the only guys that actually played U20 tournaments were Dest (which is weird in retrospect), Richards, McKenzie, Adams, and Weah, I can't think of any others off the top of my head that are core guys (Steffen would count if his play hadn't fallen off, and LDLT did in '17 (had a HUGE goal in that tourney) ).

Basically it's probably a better idea to look at the production of birth years, rather than specific U20 teams. I think 1997, and 1998 were good years, I can't remember with the rest, but I know that the core of our 11 and our top 25 players the past 5 years were born between 1996 and 2003. Like all of them, and that '04-'06 was a dry spell, at least partly impacted by the covid shut downs that caused players to quit entirely and/or struggle to find opportunities for development while we were in lockdown for varying degrees of time in 2020 and to a lesser extent 2021.

 

I am not, currently, watching the EPL so I cannot judge how they have implement VAR. However I do watch LALIGA and Bundesliga and Serie A and Champions League as much as I can and their use of VAR almost makes many matches nearly unwatchable. I find that if there is a long review in those matches the rest of the match loses a lot of interest for me.

VAR makes soccer feel somehow "tarnished" and less fun. Too much "accuracy" is detrimental to quality in soccer. It has made diving and arguing with the ref a required skill for soccer. The offside is a matter of fact and the technology works pretty well with that but they need to speed up the offside reviews and eliminate the dumb and dangerous delayed offside.

But they will not drop the delayed offside they place "getting it right" over player safety and therefore we often see as much as several minutes of play where nothing that happens happened.

Maybe they should just keep the method used at this tournament but, instead of cards to hand in, the penalty for a failed challenge is a yellow card to the coach.
Currently if a coach gets two yellow card they are banned for the rest of the match and the next one. Under this, just throwing this out there idea, that does not change and coaches will be a lot more careful about challenging for the sake of challenging even when their chances are miniscule.
Or, maybe, the card should go to the captain, while the coach might take dumb yellows it is unlikely he or she would like to play the rest of the match with 10 and the next match without a star player.

 

1997 Jedi, Miles and CCV.
1998 Christian, Weston, Zendejas, Haji, Trusty, Freese, Luca
1999 Adams, McKenzie
2000 Richards, Weah, Dest, Brenden Aaronson, Sargent, Sands, Big Pat, Ferreira
2001 Balogun, Johnny, Tessman, Aidan Morris, Arfsten, Berhalter
2002 Reyna, Tillman, Musah, Scally, Busio, Tolkin, Lund
2003 Pepi, McGlynn, Luna, Gutierrez, Paxten Aaronson
2004 Freeman, Downs, Quinn Sullivan, Wiley, Slonina, Brady
2005+ This U20 team, Akinmboi (2006), Banks (2006), Kochen (2006)

I think it's just important to note that we're not even to Age 30 yet on the early half of this. Contributors like Ream, Zimmerman, Turner, and even some of the other CBs are in earlier years, so when we're looking at a 23 man roster, this us cutting off a decent number of options, especially in defense.

We should not expect the entire roster to be 28 and under. Just like we see 1998, 2000 and 2001 fill out there with contributors ... we should expect the later years to do so more with that depth.

But you do see something of a trend.

One, we see the supporting players emerge as useful as they get older. The 1998 line just a few years ago would have been Pulisic and McKennie. But now that group has graduated into useful depth and even a starter or two. The idea that say, Paxten Aaronson is done developing is silly; he's still five years out from that peak.

Two, high potential players are down and it's not all international recruiting. If you filter out the supporting players, we still are lacking guys with a ton of upside, and a LOT of it is a lack of athleticism in our most skilled players. The run of Weston, Christian, Adams, Richards and Weah really hasn't been replicated. But not even that, aside from a Cade Cowell or a Cole Campbell, we don't feel like we are even tossing out guys that could. Reyna probably falls in that bucket; Tessman is a pretty good athlete. But with the exception of a few fullbacks ... and none have the skillset ... that sort of high end athlete isn't in the later group aside from at all.

Three, predictably, the dual national recruiting has declined. For one, this was a bit of a good pool here; it's not like we're sitting on this talent now. But also, we were in a spot to grab nearly everyone because of the minutes. Banks would be nice; Downs may develop. But we probably won't see a run like that for a while.

 

Been saying this for a decade or more. Prem refs are atrocious.

 

After this U-20 he will be sold. And SJ won't go to play offs. He is out.

 

Winner of Argentina-Mexico as usually.

 

That's cute that you think 5 years is a long time on this forum.

 

There are. Way too many.

 

Been seeing a lot of comments saying how Italy and France didn't send their best U20 players.

But neither did the US. Kochen, Noahkai and Akinmboni are all starters if they're on this team. A healthy Kristian Fletcher makes this attack much more dynamic. Hell, under a different political climate Obed Vargas plays for the US (Not to mention Esmir Bahardtospell and Noel Buck). Chicago didn't release Serge Oregel, who has 2000 minutes for a playoff team. Tate Johnson has almost 2000 minutes for one of the West's top teams.

The US team could look a lot different, too.

 

Just an all-round professional win there. The guys and Marko are really putting on a great performance so far.

 

Most of the old timer in this forum are in double digits. I for one, have 14 years is BS

 

Shut up newbie

 

I love you for these, but goddamn you, let me pretend these guys were Serie B guys for a night, jeez.

 

No kiddong lol

 

Funny that so many people, including right here on this very board, have the same complaint about MLS, that it's so full of foreigners that young Americans can't get pro games...

Edit: I see I was late to this observation

 

Couldn’t agree more on the Spanish commentators. I learned last night, for example, that Luke Brennan is a member of the Delaware Nation through his maternal grandmother.

 

These Euro nations didn't bring anything close to their best sides.
And that's what we should expect if they hold the competition during the Euro season.
I mean, Spain could have a wicked roster including Yamine Lamal, Dean Huijsen, Pau Cubarsi, and others.

But that's ALWAYS been the case. Not just for them, but for us. Our star players don't attend the U20WC. We can make a long list, starting with Pulisic.

Its why the event can be a little bit of a false dawn if you do great in it.

Hell, the US making the quarterfinal is nothing new. We made the last four U20WC quarterfinals before this one. What does it actually mean? What did it mean for Sebastian Soto to have the 2nd most goals at the 2019 U20WC? Nothing. It meant nothing.

But we all get it, and we love the event anyway.