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U.S. U-17s fall to England in U-17 World Cup quarterfinal

 

The U.S. Under-17 Men’s National Team’s Under-17 World Cup run came to an end on Saturday.

A pair of early goals set the tone for England in a 4-1 win over the U.S. U-17s in Saturday’s quarterfinal match. The win books England’s date in the semifinal round against either Germany or Brazil while the U.S. U-17s’ tournament ends in the final eight.

The England attack was spurred by Rhiann Brewster from the opening whistle, and the Liverpool product got his team up to an early lead with a pair of quick goals. Brewster’s first came just 11 minutes in as he hopped onto a rebound following a Justin Garces save for the game’s opening finish.

His second came just three minutes later as a bad giveaway spurred an England counter. Brewster got one-on-one on Garces and chipped a shot over the goalkeeper. James Sands nearly got back, but the shot trickled into the far post for 2-0.

While the U.S. created several chances to close the first half, England sealed the win midway through the second with a third as Morgan Gibbs White locked up a semifinal berth for England.

Josh Sargent’s finish in the 72nd minute was little more than a consolation as the U.S. couldn’t mount a comeback in the game’s final moments. In stoppage time, Sergino Dest was sent off after conceding a penalty kick, which was converted by Brewster to seal his hat-trick.

The U.S. attack was held relatively quiet on Saturday following a 5-0 masterclass against Paraguay on Monday. Sargent saw a shot hit the post later in the first half while Andrew Carleton was held largely quiet save for a few early long shots.

On the other end, England’s attack certainly created plenty of chances, with Garces called upon to make eight saves.

The loss eliminates the U.S. U-17s from the U-17 World Cup. The current group misses the chance to equal the best U.S. finish, which came in a fourth-place run back in 1999 led by Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley.

Overall, the U.S. finishes the tournament with three wins and two losses, with the two defeats coming against England and Colombia with wins over India, Ghana and Paraguay.

Comments

  1. They had 11 + very good players, we had about 6 or 7. We lose the numbers game. I am still encouraged by the number of good players we had rather than the result. I hope to see some of these guys called into camp for the Nov friendly. It’s not too early to start including some if they can cut it. Won’t know till we try. Pulisic isnt that old and hopefully our lack of pace on the Sr. Team will wake some people up. It’s time to start a total rebuild and we have to phase out many that are too old now, or will be too old in 5 years now. There is no point in calling in Beasley, Wondo, Zusi or even Dempsey any more. We better get that temp coach this week I’d think and lets hope his mission is to build for the future. The present is now gone.

    We’ll see how England does in the next game.

    As for the Cali comments. I think part of our problem in the past is that coaches never looked at the rest of the country that much and Im glad that they now are. Pulisic isnt from Cali, neither is Sargent, Carleton or Weah and these were the big three that could see. It’s nice to see the rest of the country getting a look and maybe that’s why we got as far as we did?

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    • There is certainly reason for optimism but there is no reason for anyone on this team to be called in for Nov friendlies. They aren’t even playing professionally yet. They just lost by three goals to England’s U17 and you want them to go against the European champions starring either the best or 2nd best player in the world. Is losing 7 or 8 nothing good for development?

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      • Completely agree. The rebuild of this team should start with the cream of the crop U-23 players mixed with mostly veterans of the US team. Throwing a youth team out there for the next 2 years will not build toward success in 2022. We have years to integrate the young players who earn their way into the team, but there is no Pulisic on this U-17 team who is about to break out professionally..

  2. Before everybody gets too depressed, I actually think it’s encouraging to see that the blueprint that England is following (which was borrowed from the successful rebuilds of Germany, Spain, and Belgium) is actually paying off. It wasn’t so long ago that England’s NT program was absolutely in the toilet. But NO TEAM in global soccer has had a better 2017 at the youth level than England. It’s not even close. And on this form, they’ll probably add to their recent trophy haul. They beat us up… but they are a very good side, and very well prepped.

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    This is what we need to be doing. And I think we are. I thought we had a pretty encouraging tournament, and perhaps lost to the best team (as we did to Serbia at the past U-20 WC). And I think things are changing generally…. I know longer believe the old paradigm that the youth sides will have a low yield of top class professionals (this was true for many years and many other countries…. but recent history shows this is less accurate). I suspect we will get a much higher yield out of our youth teams than ever in the past. Can’t hurt…. even if it’s only 56 guys out of every youth team, it’s better than the 1-2 guys we used to get out of every 3 youth sides.

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    My point? It’s not as bad as we think. Sure, our current team is a write-off. So is England’s, save for Harry Kane and perhaps 3-4 others. But we won’t be in a World Cup for almost 5 years. And there will be plenty of yardsticks along the way.

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    How about some optimism?

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  3. ███████ ]▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ▂▄▅█
    ███████████████████]
    ◥⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙◤

    we got ran over by a better team….US soccer isn’t there yet, plain and simple

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  4. Why is anyone surprised by the outcome of this game, the US isn’t on the same level at any age group as most of the European teams. They had a decent tournament and they should be congratulated but US is still behind. Let’s not forget England’s best player left early and came off the bench for Dortmund today. If 3 or 4 of these players actually make it to the senior squad that would be great but until they produce better players this is about as best it probably gets. It’s funny how all the soccer analyst want to say young players have to go to Europe now that they missed the world cup, when most people have been arguing that for years and now it’s a big deal and people use to crucify JK for saying it. How times have changed.

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  5. I feel like at most 2-4 of our players could have played on to that English team. We were outclassed both in technical quality and physical quality. I thought youth was where we shined and we lose our great players at 18 when they go to college

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  6. I for one am shocked that a team of players made up of PremierLeague U18 and U23 players was better than a team of players playing in Dev. Academies. Oh wait I’m not surprised at all.

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  7. +Mike R — They did better than Clint Dempsey did at the U-17 World Cup, but probably not as good as Freddy Adu or Rubio Rubin. So there’s your future of US soccer

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  8. I think this article understated how close the US came to scoring in the first half, which could have really changed the game. After the early goals, the US played the English close to even. After the break, though, the English came out on fire and totally dominated for most of the second half. The English team was a little quicker and a little better all around. I’ve seen th3e US play better, but I’m sure the quality of the opposition had something to do with that. Except for the last goal, the score was a fair representation of the game since both sides missed a lot of good chances.

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  9. Hackworth does hack job today to start Booth over Dest. Once Dest came on for Booth the defense played with more confidence and better team play. Dest should have started.

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  10. What we lacked today was a better central midfielder. Booth was just way out of his depth today and it showed. I find it incomprehensible that not one player is from California. That not one player from California could not have been a better replacement for Goslin or in fact better than him. This shows lack of scouting on the part of the US Federation and another reason to replace Gulati

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    • Who are these quality California defenders? Calling in players purely based on where the grow up sounds like the old boy network scouting we are trying to get rid of.

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  11. It was as we expected with this team, strong, skilled attacking players but a shortage of fast, strong, defensive players. Glad these guys got the experience. Sargent, Weah, Carlton and Sands (at times), Goslin, and Best stood out to me. Its good to see the MLS academy players standing out as well. Training with pros is helping..

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  12. This match proved how much Goslin meant to this team. I believe he would have solidified the center for the US which would have created a completely different game. Would we have won? No one could say but Goslin was the cement in the middle of the park from what I saw of this team.

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  13. Also my live-stream of this game from f#&@ing India was still more reliable and higher quality than the live-stream from the Super-dome in New Orleans of the US Wnt game on Thursday brought to you by AT&T

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  14. Were the match balls unexpectedly filed with helium? I couldn’t believe how off the mark US ball placement was (from multiple players). The english team looked to be better in every way except for drammatic last ditch defending. We did have two great episodes of very dramatic last-ditch defense.

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  15. Bad start was too much to overcome. We did have their chances late in the second half. Still encouraged by what I saw from us this tournament.

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