The U.S. Under-23 Men’s National Team closed its March camp on Sunday, bouncing back from Friday’s defeat to Egypt by tying the Netherlands 0-0 in Spain.
Jason Kreis’ side controlled much of the match against the Dutch and having the better of the chances offensively.
After missing the first friendly, Josh Sargent got the nod up top with Timothy Weah and Jeremy Ebobisse next to him. Djordje Mihailovic continued in midfield with Keaton Parks and Cameron Lindley also earning starts.
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Holanda 🇳🇱 – 🇺🇸 USA@KNVB – @USYNT pic.twitter.com/CGodB4q2ha— Pinatar Arena (@PinatarArena) March 24, 2019
Antonee Robinson, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Julian Araujo, and Miles Robinson helped the U-23’s keep their first clean sheet under head coach Jason Kreis.
San Jose Earthquakes keeper JT Marcinkowski remained in between the posts, having a fairly easy afternoon.
AS Roma’s Justin Kluivert was the marquee name on the Dutch roster, the son of former Ajax, Barcelona, and Netherlands star Patrick Kluivert.
The U.S. U-23’s roster will now travel back to their respective club teams after their first camp together this year.
A little better . Parks stood out and played like a pro. I would buy him quickly. Sargent was good enough and his movement was high level. Weah needs a LOT more playing time and polish. he is somewhat crude and depends on his speed and athleticism, but that will not get him to the next level. Very high level sequence in the 70th min in attack . The game quickly deteriorated when the mastodons came in late. Those big defenders and attackers will get exploited very badly against a technical team I think. Lets hope the new coach can get them to play some soccer for the whole game. The distribution from the first half goalie and the whole defense was subpar again. Boy, does this team need work.
By next fall, Weah, Sargent, Adams, McKennie, Pulisic, CCV, and Parks all whom will be age-eligible for the U-23s may be starters on European teams (if they are not already) and will not be released for a qualifying tournament. I can imagine the above group would fare pretty well in the Olympics, but they will rely on their back-ups to get them in.
That argues that Kreis must begin to assemble a team of 2nd choices who can can play as a team and get through qualifying. The other countries in CONCACAF will not suffer the loss of so many players for qualifying.
Are there enough u-23 defenders in MLS so that Kreis can at least build a cohesive back line for qualifying? I think that is the first place to begin and I just do not know.
Keaton Parks was the best player on the field for me. I’m assuming his weakness will show up at some point, but I didn’t see it today. Incredible control and composure on the ball, good pace, accurate passing, adequate defending. I really liked Araujo as well, at least in the first half. Made some dangerous runs from RB to create a couple of good chances. Sargent disappointed I have to admit.
Is it too much to ask that an article, such as this, that reports the score along with additional information only marginally related to the game, dedicate a tiny fraction its space to the names of the players who scored? Note that I’m not even asking how they scored. Too difficult or just an inexcusable oversight?
First Half Score: 0-0
2nd Half Score: 0-0
Final Score: 0-0
US Goal Scorers: None
Netherlands Goal Scorers: None
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Is that what you were looking for?
Yeah, but what about assists?
Reading is fundamental.
Zero happened
That’s not really true, either. Sargent, Parks, Weah, and Ebobisse all forced very good saves from the keeper. Mihailovic and A. Robinson both barely missed just wide on great chances. The US created lots of opportunities.
But I heard no real soccer nation would play someone who was a regular in a top league on their U23s?
for our purposes, our qualifying tournament is for U23s and is in the fall, during everyone’s seasons. our best players are not guaranteed release, and a smart team would prepare for the october tournament accordingly. for their purposes, their qualifying tournament is U21 and is in June, outside of the Dutch season and most of Europe. so it’s younger players, and because of the timing they don’t have to fight the clubs for country players. Kluivert plays for Roma. Holland doesn’t have to fight Roma for him in June. Sargent plays for Werder, and Werder will be back in action in October. Really not complicated. Next time you want to clown someone you might double check the story first.
I don’t think the Netherlands will fight Roma for Kluivert since they didn’t qualify for the qualifying tournament anyway.
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Berhalter seems to be trying very hard to have good relationships with the European clubs, hence the deal to send Adams back after one match. There may well be a deal in place that these players be released in October, at least for the portion that will be in the international window.
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You weren’t the only person complaining about Weah, Sargent, CCV, and Wright being named to the U23 squad and many complaints were made including that guys who have been playing for the full national teams wouldn’t be called anywhere else but in the US. I didn’t name you in my comment because I don’t remember who said it and didn’t care to look it up.
“Herzog said. ‘Because there are no FIFA dates for the first week of the tournament, there were challenges in getting players released. We had discussions with a lot of teams, and while some clubs didn’t release their players overall we received a lot of support, especially from MLS.'”
I assume I could find a coach saying the same thing in 2011.
The U23s can always ask for the players they want, and see what happens. But in terms of slapping together a team in short order, that will play maybe a handful of games and then try and qualify, maybe the best best would be try to gel the players you know are available, and then if the clubs deign to release players you have a cherry on top. Or you can pull what we seem to routinely do, which is prepare for pie in the sky and then at the last minute try and adjust while moaning to the press about what should now be an obvious pitfall of our own success, which is it’s not a college all star team anymore where we get anyone we want and we camp them for weeks.
I mean you do realize it’s been since like 2008 since we qualified, and maybe we should come at this in a different way.
and worse, what you are saying is not an accurate re-print of what I said, which was basically about us, and us only. other regions have qualifying at different times of the year, or more of direct pipeline of a domestic league feeding their national team (Egypt). they might, like MLS, be more open to working with the teams. but once your team internationalizes you are now asking English and German teams who are barely cooperative with FIFA rules to release players when they don’t legally have to. that impacts some teams more than others. A lot of our young talent is signed there. Panama won’t have the same issues. nor will other teams with other compositions or different regional schedules. but our particular U23 qualifying schedule is a fall schedule that clashes with about every soccer season i can think of. i assume it’s in October so as not to clash with U20 worlds and Gold Cup.