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U.S. U-17s vs. Germany: Your Running Commentary

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The United States Under-17 national team advanced to the knockout stage of the FIFA Under 17 World Cup, but its first opponent in the next phase is perhaps the most impressive team from the group stage, Germany (4 p.m., ESPNU/ESPN3.com/Galavision).

Germany thrashed its Group E opponents by a combined score of 11-1 in three victories and stands in the United States' way of reaching the quarterfinals. Making matters worse for the United States is that captain Marc Pelosi won't be eligible for the match after being sent off in the final game of the group stage against New Zealand.

Should the U.S. U-17s claim victory, they would advance to the quarterfinals to meet either England or Argentina.

If you will be watching any of the U.S. U-17 match, please feel free to share any thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below. Enjoy the action.

Comments

  1. OK guys in 1990 the USA sent a college All-Star team to the world cup. I had to listen on shortwave radio to find out what the team was doing in 1989 T&T qualifying match. That is 22 years ago. It took another 6 years to get a division 1 league on the field. This all takes time. The fans are now expecting the US team to be dominant. It is all progressing and we are stumbling now and I think we are worried all the gains are going to be lost.

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  2. About need for a better first touch, maybe they need to work on it like this video . Admittedly there is much too much handling of the ball for my taste but the traps are really impressive 🙂

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  3. I guess Tijuana is “near Los Angeles” but Guido also has a say in it…

    Maybe he’d rather sign with a club in Europe and Mexico than the Galaxy?
    Or maybe he’d rather enter the MLS draft as a Generation Adidas player than be a homegrown player for the Galaxy?

    Sorry for being rational, let’s get back to blaming all sorts of random people and groups for some 16 year old kids being beaten by a better team…

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  4. Lackluster performance…what’s going on Cabrera? One more cycle and if this continues show him the door. These past months for US Soccer has been a nightmare. U-20 eliminated, USMNT stale and the U-17 had one of its worst performances in U-17 World Cup history. Shame. Major overhaul is needed and fundamental changes from the U-17 and U-20 systems because it feeds the USMNT and right now do they need feeding!

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  5. I know what you are saying, I also grew up in Mexico, the US just dissapoints me every time, It´s not a great accomplishment to just qualify to a WC, you have to get better, the US program is not working, our soccer system is stall and we are a mediocre soccer country…

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  6. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Rongen was fired.

    Firing Gulati because we’re not performing makes *slightly* more sense than firing Bradley because we’re sucking, but not much more.

    Should Wilmer Cabrera be fired based on how the U-17s did?

    What about Bradley, Rongen, Cabrera, and Gulati’s replacements? Should they be fired in a couple years when our teams disappoint again? Or is it that your expectations are far too high and it’s going to take a lot of time and patience for us to improve?

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  7. Boo!!!! US Soccer sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  8. Dude, he’s saying he won’t be a star until his motor/conditioning/effort improves. Your only criticism of him involves his motor/conditioning/effort. You both agree.

    Take it easy.

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  9. Please identify for me a “star” midfielder who is slow and slugish? My reading comprehension is fine, your logic — not so much.

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  10. Last summer we sure were a disgrace too… Off years happen. It’s disappointing, but far from apocalyptic. Not that you should be pleased by all the results this year, but the trend has been up, and so has youth development overall.

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  11. Gualti does need to go. There needs to be an overarching approach to development and developing a style of play. It may take some sort of action, boycott for our team may be much.

    The other development problem is officiating could the level of officiating at the youth level also hinder the development of the players?

    I think that the USA is in such a transition period. let us not forget that US teams tended to be direct on the counter with 7,8,9 10 players behind the ball showing all the “heart” that the teams are famous for and hoping to snatch a goal and keep the other guys frustrated and off the board.

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  12. We must be on the steady course to soccer Hell if you will, the players cant even play the game correctly. Not just BB needs to go but Gualti as well, as US fans we have to boycott! Until change is made!

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  13. I have to second this point. Until US players are immersed in the best athletes are playing the game it will be a long development process. Also, I am sick and tired of youth sides just looking at the size of the player and not the technical skill. But that is the pay-to-play, the coaches need to pick teams that they think can win in 5 game weekend tournaments. The players learn nothing at those tournaments.

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  14. True – I grew up in Mexico every summer, and the number of places where I played soccer pick-up games, and the variety of objects that we used in lieu of an official FIFA #5 – of my word, I’m telling you.

    50 gallon oil drums, or garbage cans for goal posts in the middle of small clearings in the woods, dusty patches of ground in the middle of wooded glades in Chapultepec Park, goal mouth made of a pile of rocks, dusty patches in the middle of corn milpas in Cuernavaca, – playing in the city on cement basketball courts with our school books as goals, playing with red rubber balls, the kind kids use for stick ball in Brooklyn, or with tennis balls, plastic pretend soccer balls of every size and weight imaginable, or if there was no ball, you would step on a soda pop can and mash it into the semblance of a puck shaped object and play with that – learn to dribble it through 16 other guys, in the school yard before the morning bell, books under one arm, ice cream rocket pop in your other hand, spinning juking – I just don’t see American kids playing pick up soccer like they do in Europe and South America.

    Brazilian boys learn to charm a soccer ball and accelerate like jungle cats by playing barefoot on the beaches of Ipanema, and Copacabana, in the loose hot sand high on the beach – adjusting their step and their touch on the ball to the flat wet sand, hardened by the waves licking up and down the beach…..up and down the Brazilian coast – thousands, thousand of pick up soccer games going on every day on the beaches, not to mention the ones going on in every other little dusty patch of flat earth where some sticks have been propped up to look like a FIFA offical sized goal mouth – and the grass will NEVER, ever get a chance to grow… because there will forever be thundering hoards of kids chasing down a ball until sundown….every day of the year….I’m sorry, but the kind of instinct and touch you develop by playing like that in so many diferent conditions, and with different sized objects, and with so many different player learning and sharing different moves and skills – obviously that’s why basically no one can touch us in basketball – look at what is going in every inner city neighborhood in the US in the summer time………you imitate the best, and you memorize the rest……….

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  15. Having heart and field awareness are two different things. I think they do not have the field awareness. The kids would then get plastered on the list for aimless chasing the Germans like chickens without heads. the problem is field awareness they are thinking in the moment and not two or three moves ahead. I was impressed with how the German players knew where the Americans were going to go with the ball before the pass was made. On the US side they were surprised that a German player was there.

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  16. Actually Martha technically this is one of the most composed teams I’ve seen on the ball and playing it out of traffic, this is for a US team obviously I’m speaking about not compared to other national teams. This teams lacks what all US team lacks, soccer IQ, and also lacks something that our national does have and thats a toughness, which will hopefully develop with maturity

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  17. If only “hire this (insert your big name here)” really was an answer to what ails U.S. Soccer right now! Alas, we will have to probably see some work done and some money spent in order to see progress. I agree with Glaing, support those MLS teams that are really into developing young players (Dallas, DC, RSL).

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  18. kind what I said about his conditioning in my original comment reading comprehension works! “he looks slow and sluggish”

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  19. I cant believe there are a lot fo California kids and the Galaxy only have Mcbean and San Jose have McIntosh.

    Guido plays for the Aztecs. Really Galaxy!! you cant even bring players in that live near Los Angeles?

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  20. Going to be a star? You are 17, playing for your national team in world cup, and walking the entire game. I would bench this kid on my U5 team.

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  21. Demps also grew up playing against hispanic kids. Adu started playing in Ghana. Holden in Scotland. Feilhaber in Brazil. I’m not surprised that these are some of our more technically gifted players.

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  22. Sunil is failing miserably. He is in charge of the US soccer and there is no improvement. We are not developing players and are falling behind.

    Maybe Hyndman´s grandson (Emerson Hyndman) could have played better than some of these guys and he is 15.

    By the way he is in england is going to be with Fulham youth team.s

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  23. And, the evidence also exists in the loss to Uzbekistan and, especially, in the latter part of the New Zealand match where NZ just played the ball between the back four and US players didn’t challenge to win the ball.

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  24. No heart because they weren’t running hard. I remember the USA of the 90’s when all they had was heart. Our teams nowadays don’t have that. When players play with heart, it shows.

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