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US Men's National Team (8 Viewers)

NewlyRetired said:
Brian Sciaretta‏ @BrianSciaretta 4m4 minutes ago

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U.S. U-20 starting XI vs. Ukraine Scott Dest Keita Richards Gloster Durkin Servania Mendez Pomykal (c) Weah de la Fuente
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so Tab made some changes from the guesses.  McKenzie has been replaced with Keita at CB.  And an extra defensive midfielder was added

not sure on the formation

...........................

.........................Scott

Dest..........Keita........Richards.......Gloster

..............Durkin............Servania

de la Fuente..........Mendez..............Pomykal

.........................Weah

 
One thing to keep in mind

@_jameshill: This Ukraine team is old. The US have six players born in 1999. Ukraine have 12 players born in Jan+Feb 1999 alone.

I haven't seen Ukraine play, but that fits into the general narrative of Ukraine being a tough physical team.

 
JaxBill said:
One thing to keep in mind

@_jameshill: This Ukraine team is old. The US have six players born in 1999. Ukraine have 12 players born in Jan+Feb 1999 alone.

I haven't seen Ukraine play, but that fits into the general narrative of Ukraine being a tough physical team.
Click to expand...
the US is clearly the smaller more finesses team.

 
tough game for US.

We all know the percentages of advancing when losing first game so this could be a really short WC.  Shame because they looked good over all.

Next up is Nigeria who won 4-0 today.

Tab needs to figure something out with Weah.  He was not in sync most of the game.

 
NewlyRetired said:
This is similar to my guess, only starting Rennicks instead of Soto

=========

Brian Sciaretta‏ @BrianSciaretta

My predicted U.S. U-20 starting XI today vs. Ukraine Scott; Dest, McKenzie, Richards, Gloster; Durkin; Mendez, Pomykal; Weah, Rennicks, de la Fuente
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how was rennicks? I've said before- I don't get him from what I've seen.

 
Monday is not a  must win.  A draw should be enough with the assumption that the US can get three points off of Qatar in the last game.

Ironically, coming in 3rd in group is likely better than coming in second.  Second place gets fed to France where 4 points in 3rd should be enough to advance and get an easier team than France (on paper anyway).

 
Some thoughts:

* Pomykal looked good.  He really drove the ball forward every chance get got.  Good feet all game and kept after it defensively

* When you consider he is 2 years or more younger than his opponents (which is huge at this age) de la Fuente showed he is going to be an offensive weapon.  Lots of ideas to break down opponents out wide.   He is obviously going to be stuck in a Weah like situation at Barca, so a loan/transfer is going to be imperative.   That being said, he already has more tools than Arriola or Baird out wide. 

* Mendez was up and down.  His lack of physicality showed today as too often he lost out on some 50-50 type balls against the stronger Ukranian's.  But when the ball gets on his feet, he looks good.  No one in the entire program from seniors to U15's can strike a ball like he can, be it a dead ball or on the move.  But it won't be long before opponents understand that if they get physical with him, his influence drops.  The modern game has a hard time accommodating luxury players so some coach is going to have to get creative with him.

* All year we have been enjoying watching Dest play offensively.  But he had multiple problems defensively today.  He was at clear fault on the first goal committing the cardinal sin of not being goal side.  He looked good going forward and was a key part of the goal the US scored.

* I was disappointed with Durkin.  As a 6, you have to have as close to 95% passing accuracy, especially if you are only playing short balls.  He gave away too many easy passes.  We could see a change here next game.

* If I did not know Weah, I think I would have been very concerned, as he had a poor game.   He was almost never in sync with any of his teammates.  Very little connected.  My hope is that he simply has played so little with the U20's, that they don't know each others games yet.   If he puts up another bad game against Nigeria, Tab is going to have to make a change.

 
The team didn't make a concerted effort to get Weah the ball...it felt like everything was down the right side the first half.  Would be interesting to hear Tab's comments regarding Weah...I felt like the team let him down more than he let them down.

Mendez can crack the ball and that's about it.

 
TripItUp said:
The team didn't make a concerted effort to get Weah the ball...it felt like everything was down the right side the first half. 
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That was likely due to personal choice.  Gloster on the left is slightly more stay at home but with Dest and de la Fuente together on the right, every instinct they have is to attack.

 
NewlyRetired said:
Wet and bumpy gets all the attention because it was the last game but the 2-0 loss to CR at home is what caused that scenario to play out.  That was the true low point of the cycle.  We had never dropped even a point to CR at home in any hex in history.  And then to drop all 3 was the quiet killer blow.

In terms of your "as well"(see bold above), it was not needed to qualify.    Just to be specific, the US dropped 18 points during the hex.   Had they only dropped 17, they would have qualified.   One friggan more point over all those games was all they needed.   

Hell, forget wet and bumpy, you can go all the way back to the first game of the hex where Mexico scored in the last couple of minutes.  If they don't fall asleep and leave Marquez alone, they qualify.   

This still hurts to think about :(
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I was at that CR game. Just stupid mistakes like trying long passes near your own box that get pounced on for goals.

 
Concacaf usually does pretty well at the U20 WC(relatively) but they are getting steam rolled this tournament.

Mexico is already 0-2 after losing 3-0 to Japan today.

Honduras lost their first game by 5.

US lost a tough one as we know.

Only Panama has picked up a point against Mali.

 
I don't know much about women's soccer but I know enough that when I see that one out of every five voters thought Abby Wambach was not HOF material, that the process has to change.

At least she got in.  She was the only player(male or female) this year to break the 2/3rds needed.   Boca missed out by getting 65% of the votes (second year in a row he just missed).   

 
Shame that Duane Holmes missed out on today's Championship promotion final with an injury.  He is supposed to join the US camp soon.  I do not know the extent of the injury and if it would prevent him his chance to play in front of Berhalter.

 
NewlyRetired said:
I don't know much about women's soccer but I know enough that when I see that one out of every five voters thought Abby Wambach was not HOF material, that the process has to change.

At least she got in.  She was the only player(male or female) this year to break the 2/3rds needed.   Boca missed out by getting 65% of the votes (second year in a row he just missed).   
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Do you think she lost votes for her comments on dual-nats a while back?

 
Rustoleum said:
Do you think she lost votes for her comments on dual-nats a while back?
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Probably. 

But if so then the voting process must be changed.  I don't believe that those comments (as much as I disagreed with them) should have any bearing on whether she had a HOF career IMO.

At the very least, all voters should be identified so that they can at least say why they voted the way they did.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
NewlyRetired said:
I don't know much about women's soccer but I know enough that when I see that one out of every five voters thought Abby Wambach was not HOF material, that the process has to change.

At least she got in.  She was the only player(male or female) this year to break the 2/3rds needed.   Boca missed out by getting 65% of the votes (second year in a row he just missed).   
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I've never been a huge fan -- she always seemed like the kid who'd been held back twice dominating the other 7th graders -- but she's the leading goal scorer in the history of international soccer (no qualifiers).  There's no way you don't vote for her.

 
fantastic start for US.  Dominating game with beautiful combinations.

Mendez struck a gorgeous corner that Soto buried for a 1-0 lead.

 
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