Saturday, July 14, 2007

2007 U-20 World Cup - US is out

USA 1-2 Austria
The US mini-Nats are out of the World Cup after a poor defensive showing against Austria. The US came out as the better team but once they got their first goal, they seemed to slow down. The same issue that has haunted the team during the whole tournament resurfaced this afternoon, as their defense was a mess. Between miscommunication and failure to clear the ball, Austria got a number of chances they never should have had (both goes were off second chances).

On offense, Jozy Altidore looked strong for most of the game. Freddy Adu had his moments but he was consistently over hitting balls. Michael Bradley woke things up for the team late in the second half and overtime, but he had his own problem of giving up cheap fouls.

Still, there were some great moments for the team. Chris Seitz taking a ball into the face to make a stop in goal was wonderful. Nathan Sturgis making a great clearance off the line was awesome. Robbie Rogers had a number of strong balls into the center. But most of all, that first goal was fantastic.

So the, arguably, best U-20 team the US has ever produced now heads home. It might not have ended the way we wanted, but the past few weeks have shown that we have a good crop of talent coming up the ranks.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

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10:41 PM  

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