Johnny Cardoso has enjoyed a sensational campaign with Brazilian side Internacional and the American midfielder delivered his best performance yet in Monday’s Serie A romp over Juventude.
Cardoso scored two goals in a 4-0 home victory, which was the first multi-goal performance of his professional career. The U.S. men’s national team midfielder left the match in the 63rd minute with an apparent injury, but still delivered a Man of the Match performance before exiting.
The 20-year-old broke the deadlock in the 38th minute before Wanderson doubled Internacional’s lead in the fifth minute of first-half stoppage time. Cardoso’s goal came off a header in the center of the Juventude box, which soared into the top-left corner.
Cardoso didn’t wait long in the second half to double his tally, once against heading home with a powerful header. It was the third goal of the season for Cardoso in Serie A play.
Cardoso finished the match with seven won duels, two fouls drawn, and two interceptions before leaving through an apparent injury. It was his 30th combined appearance for the Brazilian club this season.
Internacional is up to fifth in the Serie A standings following the lopsided win, sitting just outside of the automatic qualification spots for the Copa Libertadores competition.
Interesting. Wonder if he gets another look at DM for the USMNT.
you have to play well for some other team before GB is willing to acknowledge you played well for us.
No! His career goals in Serie A went from 1 to 3 after yesterday.
you’re missing my point re NT form by pointing back to club arguments. if we need a hard man we could do worse. and, let’s be real, any production you get from a 6 is gravy.
if we ever get a new coach — and i am not holding my breath because i think the whole idea here is to place a heavy bet on an iffy coach getting a project through 2026 (even if we barely qualify for 2022 with a loaded team) — there would be significant turnover as evaluation shifted to skillsets and NT game performance.
johnny’s flaw is a legbreaker 6 is out of fashion right now. we don’t want jones. we want adams doing the positioning thing or we want something like yeuill but better. i kind of would like someone in qatar against teams like iran and england who would get stuck in on their own grandmother. you will need it. we are not smarter than international soccer. not even smarter than concacaf.
The problem is you saw him get stuck in once and think he’s the 2nd coming of Nigel DeJong. He’s not that at all. He was a striker/CAM as a youth but his finishing wasn’t fabulous so Internacional thought he had a chance to be technical line breaking 6. It hasn’t been very successful at least in the USMNT fan base idea that if you aren’t CL by 19 your a bust. The last month Internacional hedged their bet, Johnny Soccer has been starting again further up the field as a wide midfielder. His success hasn’t been as a defensive minded 6. Remember the reason we even know about Cardoso is Berhalter found him to be a more athletic Will Trapp, who could hit line breaking diagonal balls not ankle breaking tackles.
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There are simple not enough NT minutes from Cardoso to not look at his club work. He’s played 110 minutes, 91 against Panama B and Bosnian C team players. That’s not enough to take over NT players that have had better moments for both NT and club namely Adams, Musah, McKennie, DLT, Acosta, Williamson, Busio. On the same field Yueill, Pareira, and Dotson outplayed him in Olympic qualifying.