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

You've seen flashes from him, but not from Gozo? https://www.google.com/search?q=goz...ate=ive&vld=cid:baa10b5c,vid:seaKa0iTFmU,st:0
I haven't seen much of that from any Americans ever.

 

How dare you. No respect for BL3.

 

Just read on twitter when they were prepping that scene, Gary decided to go fully over the top and not warn anyone. Just about the craziest role ever, alongside his white, dreadlocked, Jamaican drug dealer a few years earlier. One of the most interesting careers of the past fifty or sixty years.

 

So many good looking players in this group.

 

I think there are more than people realize.

 

I think several will end up in top 5 leagues, sooner rather than later. They get no respect in MLS. Take my wife, no, please, just take her.

 

Rodney Dangerfield & Henny Youngman rep!

 

Or Greece. He could become the next Frank Klopas!

 

I'm just comparing the kids from MLS to the ones already in Europe (counting Cremaschi as the former).

The 17 MLS players have 433 first team appearances, or an average of more than 25.

The 4 European based players have 13 appearances, including Kohler's 7 games on loan in 3.Liga.

This may explain why this team looks more cohesive than previous editions, even if there aren't fewer stand out individuals. MLS teams, particularly MLS II teams, tend to play a similar style.

Looking back at 2015, we had far more players in Europe with little first team experience, including Steffen, Moore, Zelalem, Rubin, Hyndman and Payne, a couple of players in Latin-America, some dual nats and even some college players. Very difficult to turn them into a cohesive unit.

 

Maybe. I mean we've now made the quarterfinals of this event five years editions in a row.

Ever since 2015 when MLSNP didn't even exist.

Our last four finished at this event were technically 7th, 6th, 6th, and 5th.

The guys who were on that 2015 team are now starting to be the wrong side of 30. Its hard to believe, but Paul Arriola and Kellyn Acosta are 30.

So we have virtually an entire generation of American players that made the quarterfinals of a U20 World Cup.

And we've beaten plenty of good national team programs over those years.

I have a hard time knowing what progress at a U20 World Cup means for our pool.
I'm not going to crush people's excitement, because it's awesome. We want to foster excitement about our young guys and our program.

............................but when people say we're making this quarterfinal because our young players are getting so much playing time in MLS in 2025, I just remind myself that we made the quarterfinal in 2003 before almost any of this infrastructure even existed. That 2003 group was Germany, South Korea, and Paraguay. We won the group. Then we beat an Ivory Coast team in the Round of 16 before being knocked out in extra time by Argentina. An Argentina team featuring Carlos Tevez, Javier Mascherano, Pablo Zabaleta, etc.

Hell, we made the quarterfinal in 1993 without a single player on a professional contract on the roster.

I'll just use this data point on why it doesn't have to mean anything vis-a-vi the national team program. The senior USMNT played last night. How many guys that played last night appeared in a U20 World Cup?

 

True progress will be when we say we had to bring our C/D team to the tournament because no one got released.

 

That’s part of it, but playing for the first team forces a player to become more tactically astute. And the incentive structure goes the other way too…players young enough to be here, who also have been selected 25-30 times to play, have to be tactically advanced for the coach to pick them.

 

I take the comments here differently; we’re not seeing success because a couple of youth superstars are carrying the team. Instead, we’re seeing success because we have a strong collective. We’re imagining what will happen if we match this strong collective with a couple of youth superstars.

 

Several guys jump off the screen, some of whom I was unfamiliar with including Cremaschi, Tsakiris, Raines, Norris, Gozo, Baker-Whiting, Westfield, etc. These guys are all the kind of direct, skilled athletes who play in leagues like the Prem.

 

I think the US is guaranteed 5th place based on the group stage performances.

 

just rewatched elements of this match last night .... the view from directly behind the FK placement showed a huge amount of bend on that ball .... the wall was set up properly by the Italian keeper but Tsakaris put a wicked amount of bend on it .... the amount of side spin he imparted was really something special. Plus considering it glanced off the side of the Italian defenders torso on its trajectory. Normally you see the bend up and over and try to get the top and side spin which gives you more goal to work with ... this was pure side spin he put on it. Special. Pretty much undefendable if he struck it properly - which he did.

 

Agreed. As I posted during the game, the Italian TV commentators were complaining about the way the keeper set up the wall. But on further review, the wall looked fine. It was the bend Tsakiris put on the kick that caused the problems for the keeper – not his wall.

And from that position it's almost always a right-footer to try to get it up and over. A left-footer has a much lower percentage success rate from there. So it showcased not only Tsakiris' technique but his confidence as well.

 

Our youth level has gone up but that's not going to make our first team better.

 

It will eventually........

 

No, it does not. There is a reason why people say that youth results don't matter too much. It's all about who is looking better than everyone else

 

When you said "youth level," I assumed you were talking about the level of our players, not just results. The higher quality of our players, even if they are "high floor, low ceiling" players will absolutely bolster our senior team in one way or another, eventually.

 

Marko Mitrovic will be the new head coach of the Revolution.

https://www.reuters.com/sports/socc...-chosen-new-revolution-coach--flm-2025-11-05/