PBP: USA vs. Cuba @ CONCACAF U20 Championship, July 22

He's gotten really good. His defensive work was also notable.

 

Lots of really good, clean passing of many different types including a bunch of killer balls.

 

Eyestone didn’t have a ton of work, but he looks solid.

You wonder if the really tall guys can get their feet under them and take the right kinds of angles with the right kinds of footwork, and he appears to have a solid feel for the goal.

His best save was made getting down and making solid contact to push the ball wide. Good looking young keeper.

 

Not surprisingly guys that play in MLS are good. Young kids Berchimas, Gozo, Figueroa don't belong to this team. CBs traditionally poor, FBs reasonably good.
Zaldano looks like a striker, why he was so exhausted in limited minutes? Does he always look that way or spoilt by Portugese climate?

 

There are lots of thangs to get spoilt by in Portugal.

 

I don't know what to take out of it, I know people were disappointed with the sloppiness, so was I, but otoh, the field looked like ---, it's poorly lit, and the guys were up by 2 early as heavy as hell favorites...I tend to think that can lead to sloppiness, especially when the field sucks, and the conditions in general are meh at best.

I'm curious how we'll look after matches against Costa Rica and probably El Salvador or Guatemala in the first knockout match...Do the beat downs continue or is it tight? seems like the QF will be a winner in the Panama vs Honduras/Canada match (unless Panama upsets Mexico which is certainly possible). That SF and the Costa Rica match are the biggie's.

 

Zambrano.

 

Part of the reason it was sloppy was because the field was horribly pitted and soggy.

 

Terrible in both games.

 

Glad to see zambrano ditch the corn rows.. I do like his hold up play, seems a smart player... but damn the dude is ugly. Ha

 

I've always said Eyestone is like having an elite volleyball player at goalkeeper.
[His sister is a good volleyball player.]

Playing with the ball at his feet has never been his strength, but he's OK.

He can get down surprisingly well to make saves for a man of his size. Just like a volleyball player can to make saves. Has always shown that at FCD and Duke. He's not some lumbering big guy, but agile for his size.

 

He probably got tired of being confused for Zaldano.

 

Eh, there's always folks in every game thread saying we looked like shit, and there's always folks in the YNT game threads who seem to have very outsized expectations for the level.

We were a little looser in the back, but the biggest difference was that this front line is clearly not ready. There were a lot of wasted chances up top. I think it was pretty clear this was mostly a B team, tho.

FYI, the first knock out IS the quarterfinal, and if we beat or tie Costa Rica we'll play the 3rd place team from Group B mostly likely -- Canada, El Salvador or Honduras because it looks like the third place team from Group C is likely going to not get through on goal differential.

Our semi then would be the winner of the Runner Up from groups C and B.

 

I wouldn't discount DR from finishing 3rd in that group yet.
Only lost 1-0 to the Salvadorans.

That whole group is "anything goes" at this point.

 

The performance was good no matter how you slice it.

The underlying stats were fine. 66% possession, 88% pass completion, 25/10 Shots/SOT. Those are good numbers no matter what. Bad touches happen in a second division field after a batch of bad rainy weather. The pass completion rate says that touches were decent enough. I would be more worried if we only had safe easy passes against a weak opponent.

If the fluky goals go in but the easy goals don't that's just a statistical anomaly that comes with small numbers. I don't believe that we should expect that this be the case going forward. I would be more worried if we weren't getting the ball into dangerous area but there was plenty of that.

 

Very lazy performance by Figueroa, I understand he may have the higher ceiling but Zambrano should be starting the rest of the matches. He drops back to receive the ball more, wins more air duals, holds the ball up, presses, and combines well with teammates.....Keyrol did none of that he just walked around looking disinterested. Aside from that a solid performance, Gozo had the goal but was sloppy at times but given his age its not a big deal.

 

I know this goes against the BS consensus, and I don't want to be too pessimistic, but I just don't see it with Figueroa...not with the U-17s and not with the U-20s. He has the size and athleticism, but I don't think he has a great touch or good decision-making. He scores goals at the youth level with that size and athleticism (and the occasional banger), but I don't think he's a future EPL or USMNT player.

But hopefully people can shove this post in my face 3 years from now when he's scoring goals with Liverpool.

 

I think its more of an attitude issue, just my unfounded opinion but he seems to be walking around like his sh*t don't stink just cause he's in Liverpool's academy. Just don't feel like he gives any effort.

 

He's pacing himself, for the moments that matter.

 

I think Zambrano has outplayed Figeuroa to date but I disagree that his performance was lazy, aside from maybe that one run.

And he definitely combined with teammates. He was a huge part of the build up, very active there, often coming back perhaps too far to help out. He also was pretty active in the press, at least when I was watching.

I don't think he was disinterested.

 

Don’t think he’s lazy, but he is definitely the type of striker that struggles in the US system. He’s an off the shoulder, in behind striker and with the way we play, he just doesn’t get the ball in good spots. Very similar to Baloguns initial struggles.

Most of his touches were had dropping deeper with his back to goal. There was one sequence where Habroune put him in but the pass was just a bit heavy and ran to the GK.

Berchimas is the one I really struggle with. You have to give him the benefit of the doubt given his age, but his body and physical make up isn’t 2/3 years younger than his competition. He has moments, but I have yet to see a player that gives the ball away as much as he does make it at the top level. His possession lost numbers in the World Cup were absolutely staggering and they can’t be much better in this tournament. He has time to work on his decision making, but it has a long way to go.

 

He got in a lot of good spots in with the U17s. We had a ton of through balls last night; we just didn't convert much. I think he simply had a bad game, though I am not as high on him in general as some people are. He's not as skilled overall as you'd like.

I will say the same thing I always say with underage players: you can't grade them in the same way. It's not even the same scale at times. I remember reading on here how overrated Tyler Adams was after a bad underage World Cup.

While you are right that he doesn't have as much of a physical gap as some other 16 year olds, he's also 2-3 years of development behind these guys.

In the U17 World Cup, he was two years behind his opponents and teammates at an age when that's a huge deal (and still is at 16).

In the U17 World Cup, South Korea didn't bring anyone that wasn't a 2006! Neither did France.

And now he's 16 years old in what is basically a U19 setup (since the U20s are next year).

I don't even think his ball skills were terrible so much last night as his decision making. I though his control was good -- it's just that he kept trying to take on multiple guys instead of finding the open man or backing off.

 

Theyre all kids.

Not one of them is perfect.

 

I get what you're saying, but I see a keeper there rather than an echo or likeness of a volleyball player. He shows awareness between the posts all the way out to the 18 and has a textbook set of high level keeping skills, including his body positioning and angles in getting at balls on the ground. He's not just tall, he's talented. He's good.

My eyes lit up when he came out and snagged a corner kick in the air. He took the right line to the ball and caught it at its high point rather than punch it. He caught it so high in the air that other players weren't even contesting it. Guys dont do that like they should anymore. Retrieving balls in flight is a forgotten art in keeping. Keepers who assert themselves over their box eliminate many more chances. Im glad he is doing that and someone is coaching him to do that because he has an unusual advantage with both height and long arms.