I sent out a tweet about the U-20 World Cup early last week, and had a post in the works, but I never got around to finishing it until now. The group stage of the competition is over and the bare facts tell the story: none of the CONCACAF qualifiers finished in the top two of their respective groups, two finished in third place, and other other two bottom of their group. Only Costa Rica -- the regional champion -- will advance to the knockout phase, and that is because they scored one more goal than the USA during the group stage.
Trinidad & Tobago appeared to be unlucky at times, especially in the Italy game when they had a goal wrongly disallowed and gave up a late goal to lose a match that they could have easily drawn. They were never going to beat the hosts, and all of their limitations came into play against Paraguay. T&T appear to have been a spirited but ultimately limited team who weren't good enough to advance. But the rebuilding of the senior national team will start from here, as four of the current U-20 squad have received call-ups for the final two Hexagonal matches.
Honduras got one good result in their first game (the 3-0 win against Hungary), and faded inexplicably thereafter. The loss to the UAE was a shock, but the performance against South Africa was their worst of the tournament. The Honduran manager Emilio Umanzor alluded to the team's nervousness and lack of composure in the match, but isn't it his job to keep the team focused? If the reports of agents and scouts in the team hotel are true, then it would have been very difficult for Umanzor to do his job. We already know that there was an emergency meeting to handle discipline problems with some of the players.
This edition of the US U-20 team was not as good as previous editions, and it's possible to make the case that this was the weakest team in the last ten years. USA were a very limited side, and the Cameroon win disguised a lot of their limitations. Their talent at all parts of the field was not up to par, and the tactics by Thomas Rongen were suspect (only three midfielders?). Worryingly enough, the defects present at other levels of American soccer (lack of sustained possession, lack of finishing ability, lack of tactical awareness, questionable selections, formations and game-time decisions) have not been addressed at the lower age levels. Perhaps all of this will improve with the increased influence of the MLS academies, but who will select the selectors?
Costa Rica were also inconsistent, but there is some promising talent in their U-20s (Brian Oviedo, Carlos Hernández, Diego Estrada). There's no dishonor in losing to Brazil, even though one would have preferred a better effort, and Costa Rica did recover in their second game. Only because the loss to Czech Republic was a high-scoring game did Costa Rica advance to the next round. I just don't see them advancing against the host team.
In hindsight, "disaster" is too strong a word to describe CONCACAF's performance at this U-20 World Cup, but "forgettable" certainly isn't.
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