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U.S. U-17s jump to a fast start in World Cup by dominating Czech Republic

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Photo by ISIphotos.com


By ADAM SERRANO

The United States Under-17 team got off to a fast start in their FIFA U-17 World Cup campaign with an impressive 3-0 victory over the Czech Republic Sunday night in Torreon, Mexico.

Goals from midfielders Alejandro Guido, Esteban Rodriguez and forward Alfred Koroma were the difference as the Americans opened group play with a win for the first time since 2005. Battling triple-digit heat and the hostile locals, who supported the Europeans, the Americans were convincing in their victory.

Guido opened the scoring in just the fifth minute of play after a Czech turnover in midfielder. The San Diego native then launched an audacious left-footed strike from distance that was too much for the Czech goalkeeper to handle. The Czechs had their best opportunity in the 38th minute, when goalkeeper Kendall McIntosh made a series of close range saves that preserved the Americans lead going into the half. 

The Americans doubled their lead in the 52nd minute when forward Paul Arriola found Rodriguez on the edge of the 6-yard box. Rodriguez easily buried the strike to make it 2-0. 

Koroma, a late substitute, added a third goal after a tremendous individual effort in the 89th minute that put the exclamation point on the Americans' performance. Following the match, head coach Wilmer Cabrera was all smiles about the play of his young team.

"They played the game, made themselves feel comfortable, and got the result by playing well," Cabrera said. "That's important and that's going to give us confidence to continue improving throughout the tournament. The Czech Republic is a great team and that’s why we played the game very seriously, very hard. We never tried to change our script."

The United States will now take on Uzbekistan on Wednesday. The Uzbeks fell to New Zealand, 4-1, in their group opener on Sunday. A victory over Uzbekistan would allow the United States to secure passage to the second round. 

Here are highlights from the match:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p_2dLtRTHc]

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Impressed with the U-17s? What did you think of the result? Like the squad's chances of a deep tournament run?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. One disturbing aspect of the game was the booing of Mexican American players by the Mexican fans. Guido was very diplomatic after the match saying he understood the rivalry. Loyalty only travels in one direction for too many.

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  2. Good start, but consistency is key. Usually there can be wild fluctuations from game to game at the U17 level. So hopefully the US can keep it up.

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  3. I lived in Mexico for three years. There was and I’m sure continues to be a lot of hostility towards the USA in Mexico. The Mexicans are still angry over the Mexican American War in 1846. In every major city there is a Avenida Ninos y Heroes which is in honor of Mexican military school cadets killed defending Mexico City when Winfield Scott’s army captured it. They have a large museum dedicated to the war ,where they had on display the actual map made by Captain Robert E. Lee (of Civil War fame) of Mexico’s City’s defenses. So I wasn’t surprised they were exceptionally hostile towards the US U17 team booing them very loudly whenever they had the ball. The 2 Mexican Americans who scored replied in the best way possible.

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  4. We also have our U17 nat’l team in residency, which is pretty unique. They practice together all the time, which is much different than assembling players from disparate clubs for a one-off tournament. Our U17 national team is basically a traveling club team.

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  5. I agree, Cabrera looked like Rongen in that case. Perhaps Sunil and USSF want to make the Academy the exclusive side, and those that leave are trashed, not a good idea. Gyau was the 20’s best player, so much for the academy.

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  6. There’s a lot of Mexican-Americans that root strongly for the U.S. Unfortunetly you never hear a lot in media about it because no ibe cares. It’s much easier to hear the negative than ghe positive. Also I’ve seen people from Latin America come on SBI to support the U.S and comment on a game, and what I’ve seen is a backlash on how bad English grammar they have and what not knowing that some Latinos use English as their second language… So can u blame some of them for not? There’s a lot of hypocrites on this site, not saying your one of them, but there’s a quite of them on here.

    All the fans that were booing in Mexico against the U.S is just fine! They don’t live here or care to come here, so we shouldn’t care who they choose to cheer for. It’s not like everyone here gets mad when we play Poland and they root against us. And we all know there is a strong polish community in the Midwest, but no one brings them up everytime their cheering against us at soldier field yelling diragutory words. I know a bit of polish. I think we are a bit hypocritical.

    Viva Los Yankees!!

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  7. Cabrera is the same bafoon that told gyau and Renken to go F-themselves for leaving the comfy confines of Bradenton and signing with Hoffenhiem. We need more a**holes like that developing our youth.

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  8. Another thing is that some countries take the youth tournaments more seriously than others. Euro teams don’t seem to care all that much, except for the Euro U-21 tournament. If you were to base future success solely on youth tournaments one would think Europe was a soccer backwater. Then you get countries out of South America and Africa that take the tournaments very seriously, which is probably the reason you see the majority of the champions coming from these two regions at the youth level.

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  9. Check the immigration/migration ratio of each country and get back to me. Bonus points if you can restate what you said earlier with a straight face.

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