Jordan Pefok wasn’t in the starting lineup when Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League clash between Young Boys and Manchester United began, but he was on the field for the end, and delivered the winning blow in a stunning upset.
Pefok pounced on a poor back-pass from Manchester United’s Jesse Lingard and beat David DeGea in the fifth minute of second-half stoppage time to give Young Boys a 2-1 victory over the Red Devils.
JORDAN PEFOK WITH THE GAME-WINNER IN THE LAST MINUTE OF ADDED TIME.
WHAT A TIME TO SCORE YOUR FIRST #UCL GOAL. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/9osk5tP980
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) September 14, 2021
The match started out looking like it would be a Manchester United romp, with Bruno Fernandes and Cristiano Ronaldo combining for an opening goal that looked like the opening salvo of a potential rout.
The match turned, however, when Aaron Wan-Bissaka was issued a red-card for an ugly challenge in the 35th minute that left Manchester United with 10 men and gave Young Boys control of the match from then on.
Pefok entered the match at halftime, with Young Boys still trailing 1-0, but the home team equalized in the 66th minute through a Nicolas Moumi Ngamaleu finish.
Young Boys manager and USMNT alumnus David Wagner made a quartet of substitutions in the final minutes of the match, searching for a winner, but it took an unexpected contribution from Lingard, who delivered a lazy back-pass right to Pefok, who made the most of the gift, to give the Swiss champions an improbable victory.
we’ll see at what point the coach and fans catch on that sargent got passed by months ago on performance……it’s pefok and pepi.
That sounds a lot like club form “snobbery” that this one guy on here is always complaining about. I mean I get Pefok scored against Honduras this Summer. I wish I could remember who made that cross to Wes that he headed into the unmarked Pefok who headed it in from the 6.
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Pefok scored 1g in 8 matches for US, avg goal every 277 mins
Sargent scored 1g in his last 8 for US, avg goal every 222 for NT
Sargent doesn’t suck, and Siebatcheu doesn’t suck. Context- One player has started 63% of their matches, since ‘18 for the US. The other only has 2 starts, (25 %) since March ‘21. Point- We have multiple players under 25, scoring at a strike rate never seen before in US soccer history. (Some may call it misleading). I think it’s exciting as hell!! There’s no reason why we can’t have more. Some players aren’t getting an opportunity. The Frenchman being one of them. Agree or disagree?
oh, so we’re seriously going to treat a goal on honduras this summer to advance to the final in nations league, and looking better this last window, as equal to a goal 2 years ago on cuba? and he outscores him in club and against better teams too. but to be clear, my issue was never “performance,” of course i want that, it was lame twits wanting to substitute club numbers for country competence. being solid for club doesn’t fill in the absence of production for country.
and i noticed you left off pepi. smart. you can compare a goal 2 years ago to a goal yesterday if that makes you happy but pepi was going to make sargent look bad. sorry but only berhalter drones and club snobs who adore mediocre norwich or werder think he is actually in the best 3 forwards for us anymore.
Well, Sargent’s faster and better with the ball at his feet, and his movement is excellent. Pefok’s better in the air and better with his back to goal, IMHO. Different kind of forwards. Pefok also seems to fade out and turn invisible a lot more, and again, I think that’s down to movement.
The biggest difference is that Pefok tends to convert his chances while Sargent almost always fluffs them.
Pepi seems to have the best attributes of both…I dunno if he goes 0-60 quite as fast as Sargent but he’s pretty quick or if he’s quite as impressive in the air as Pefok – who is magnificent in the air – but he’s really good and he has similar height. Pepi’s our clear #1 and it really isn’t close, IMHO. I’d definitely rate Pefok higher than Sargent at the moment just because he tends to take his chances and Sargent doesn’t, plus Pefok is useful for winning headers in the box and that’s going to be a necessity given that a lot of teams are going defensive against us and putting all eleven guys behind the ball. Pefok has the tools to overcome that, Sargent doesn’t.
Still am waiting to see if the light ever comes on for Sargent as far as scoring but I’m…dubious. Hope he proves me wrong because he’s got impressive tools.
Like to see Hoppe tried as a CF. I think he could be right there with Pepi.
Pepi who you didn’t want to play because he wasn’t NT tested unless we were up big against El Salvador. Glad you joined the Pepi train late but I wanted Pepi for the GC. See if you actually watched his club performance you’d have known that he’d be successful.
Johnnyrazor…why do people keep putting words in my mouth I never said? (Or were you talking to The Imperative Voice?) At no point did I say “don’t play Pepi”, I was actually big on playing Pepi, and advocated strongly for him to start at CF – while moving Sargent to right wing – against Honduras, which Berhalter did. (Pepi, I will confess, exceeded my expectations for a first start – first starts are rarely glorious – while Sargent let me down, I thought he’d make a better right wing than CF.) I also thought Pepi was our most impressive uncapped striker, ahead of Robbie Robinson, and I was grumping big-time that Gregg might end up letting both guys get away to other countries. I watched an FC Dallas match 2-3 months ago and the dude was everywhere, just marauding around making a nuisance of himself and being dangerous basically the whole game…you could see what a nightmare he was going to be, and at that point it looked like Mexico was going to be allowed to steal him.
That OTHER breakaway league could have never given us this moment! This moment was SUPER! UCL Forever!
That swarm of yellow chasing him while he celebrated was a beautiful sight: pure, unadulterated joy.
For some reason, I want to pronounce Prefok’s name as P-Funk.
1st US player to score in the Champions League v an English club. 8 caps, only 2 starts for the US. 6 months apart, Canada was his 2nd. The best back to goal 9/CF, we have in the pool. See D. Henry CB for Canada. Made 2 similar passes in the sequence, that lead to BA’s goal. Hasn’t even played a full 90 for the US, and people already saying they’ve seen enough?!. What is goin’ on? What is scoring in the UCL worth these days? Hope he starts vs Jamaica on the 7th.
As a Manchester United fan….this sucked, losing to Young Boys at a point I thought we’d be invincible with Ronaldo
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As an American / USMNT supporter…. this is amazing!!!
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All was good till Jordan Pefok came on the pitch….then I didn’t know how to feel lol. Respect!!!!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6lOriumcoc
Pefok does not seem like 90 minute player.
And John Brooks continues his good run of form by getting two yellows and sent off for Wolfsburg against Lille. Ouch.
Paging Chris Richards. Paging Chris Richards.
UEFA and Google still have him as Siabatchu. What a mess!
As long as we get whichever one scores goals…
I’ve typed Siebatcheu so much, that it’s saved in my auto type, after 3 letters. Auto-correct always messes up when I type in his mother’s maiden name. I noticed the announcers still use his father’s last name. I respect his game, but I do think, it’s a tiny bit confusing.
Awkward moment as a MUFC supporter… But if this had to happen, Wagner / Pefok or Marsch / Adams mitigate the frustration.
Country before club.
Not in the dying minutes of CL group play. Wagner has YB playing well though. Pefok could have put them up earlier with a close chance at the near post and just missed the ball.
Okay. Unexpected.
LOL.
This is awesome for both Pefok and Wagner. Wow.
Wagner had a great run with Huddersfield and then they had a big collapse. Wagner had a terrible run at Schalke and their fire sale of any player with talent.
Glad to see him doing well at Switzerland. The Guardian had a nice article about him and this choice of a team as manager following the Schakle debacle.