The U.S. U-18 men's national team began its title defense of the Milk Cup in winning fashion, beating Israel 2-0 on Monday.
Second-half goals from Omar Salgado and Jerome Kiesewetter proved to be the difference in the tournament opener. Salgado scored shortly after halftime while Kiesewetter netted an insurance goal off a low cross from substitute Luis Gil in the waning moments of the match. Cody Cropper was in goal and earned the cleansheet for the Americans.
Up next for Mike Matkovich's team is Mexico on July 27 at 3pm ET.
Below the jump is the United States' starting XI for the match:
USA Starters: Cody Cropper; Boyd Okwuonu (Jalen Robinson, 45'), Walker Zimmerman, Bryan Gallego, Juan Pablo Ocegueda; Jordan McCrary, Jose Villareal (Luis Gil, 69'), William Packwood; Jerome Kiesewetter, Omar Salgado, Michael Ambrose (Marcus Salandy-Defour, 45')
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What do you think of the United States' 2-0 win? Who were you impressed by? Think the young Americans can repeat as Milk Cup champs?
Share your thoughts below.
sg = Sunil Gulati….
Really Sunil, you should probably try a better disguised username next time.
typing “sg” twice hardly helps. 🙂
Highlights are available via BBC. Skip ahead to the 14 min mark.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/northern_ireland/14291424.stm
Luis had minutes against San Jose on Saturday night. He had likely just stepped off the plane…
Interesting that Luis Gill didn’t start…surprising actually. Is this Jose Villareal kid that good??
Batista is available.
+10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
SurfGuyI, I don’t think you understand. Nobody in the US (ie, American) knows how to develop soccer players. Therefore, if you are foreign, you are the Messiah of US soccer.
Sunil? is that you?
You underestimate the intelligence that man possesses. You have no idea the amount of things involved in being the president of a federation
Don’t forget Tigres.
+1
Pekerman, an excellent choice!
He sure turned Toluca around . . .
You underestimate Sunil Gulati’s capacity to ignore common sense and to f everything up.
Pekerman could be a game changer for the US if they hire him. If the US is serious about improving the talent pool they will hire him or someone like that.
Lets hope they do better vs Mexico than our Senior team did! I’m hoping they give Wilmer Cabrera the job or listen to him about the kids in the U-17 and younger system being just plain brats!
I would LOVE to get someone like Jose Pekerman in charge of the U-20 team and pretty much influence the whole youth system, he could help Cabrera to move the U-17s along to where they need to be and help us pump out a good 4-5 top class quality pros worthy of USMNT call ups even if they’re not stars but to make the pool and talent in MLS better
Hope he gets that Texan chip on his shoulder. i.e Dempsey, D. Hernandez
The last U-20 team was stacked in terms of prospects, despite not qualifying for the World Cup, this next U-20 team could be just as good or maybe even better.
He did score against China last year, right??
Yeah!! GO OMAR!!!! Two Milk Cup Openers; Two Goals for the Boy from West Texas!!
any links where we could watch the games online?
Good news!