Dutch giants PSV took another major step towards advancing into the UEFA Champions League group stage and Ricardo Pepi played a key part in Tuesday’s success.
PSV advanced past Austrian side Sturm Graz 6-2 on aggregate after Tuesday’s 3-1 second leg victory at the Merkur Arena. Pepi came off the bench and scored his first competitive goal for the club since his summer transfer from Augsburg.
It also marked Pepi’s first goal in the competition.
William Beving propelled Sturm Graz in front 1-0 after 26 minutes before Joey Veerman and Luuk de Jong helped PSV fight back and take a 2-1 lead. Veerman’s equalizer came in the 32nd minute before de Jong boosted the visitors in front just seven minutes later.
Pepi came off the bench at halftime and added his name to the scoresheet in the 85th minute. Gregory Wuthrich’s hand ball in the box allowed the U.S. men’s national team forward to step up and blast home the final goal of the match.
The 20-year-old finished the match with one penalty kick goal, one duel won, two recoveries made, and eight passes completed.
PSV will next face Scottish Premiership giants Rangers in the final round of UCL qualifying which will take place over the next two weeks. In addition to its European schedule, PSV will visit Vitesse Arnhem in Eredivisie play on August 19 before hosting Go Ahead Eagles on Aug. 26.
U15 boys YNT won U 15 CONCACAF tournament. Beating Mexico 4-2. Cavan Sullivan win the golden ball. Starting to wonder if Cavan makes a push to get on the u17 WC team. He is young at 14, but has been playing regularly against 16 to 18 year old kids in the Philly youth academy teams. Will be interesting to see if Sagares decides to add him. Could be a good wild card sub off the bench to have. Kid has been garnering interest from many European teams already.
There is no way he gets on the U17 team and he should not.
The guys in the US being considered for the U17s are all playing MLS Next Pro. Cavan who will be 13 for another month is only playing youth levels. When you look at the U20s the roster was made up of guys already playing professionally. There are levels that need to be reached along the way. If you watched the U15s what was very striking is that they were kids not young men the U17s is a huge step physically. Cavan is very very promising but he’s eligible for the next two U17s cycles after this one!
Always good to get off the mark. Looks like he will be used as a super sub quite a bit this season with some starts sprinkled in.
DeJong started every game last year that he wasn’t either out with injury or just returning from injury. Ricardo is going to have to be productive in limited minutes.
True. De Jong has been injury prone. I think Pepi will get quite a bit of minutes for PSV this season.
Wow, Pepi taking PKs for PSV?? That’s a good sign.
They had subbed out most of their regular attackers by that point in the match, but still a good honor.