The U.S. Under-20 men’s national team opened World Cup play in emphatic fashion.
Marko Mitrovic’s squad rolled to an 9-1 opening night group stage victory over New Caledonia, using goals from six different players. Parma midfielder Ben Cremaschi registered a hat trick while Nolan Norris added a brace of his own.
Niko Tsakiris, Frankie Westfield, Taha Habroune, and Cole Campbell also registered goals of their own in the result. Goalkeeper Adam Beaudry’s second-half error led to New Caledonia’s lone goal of the night.
The Americans led 3-0 after the opening 10 minutes thanks to Cremaschi’s first two goals and Tsakiris’ headed finish.
Westfield’s header off of a Brooklyn Raines cross in the 28th minute extended the USMNT U-20’s lead to 4-0 before Norris added his first goal of the tournament and Cremaschi capped off his hat trick.
Norris’ second goal of the night gave the Americans a 7-0 lead while Cremaschi picked up his second assist.
Habroune and Campbell added second-half goals of their own while Antoine Simane pulled a consolation goal back for New Caledonia in the 70th minute between their two tallies.
A total of 16 players earned minutes in the match as the Americans jumped to first place in their group.
The USMNT U-20’s will next face off with France on Thursday. Les Bleus also earned three points in their group stage opener, a 2-1 victory over South Africa.
Beaudry is the only GK that has been playing regularly, playing for both Rapids II in MLS Next Pro and USL for Colorado Springs. Beavers last played in April and Ferree in May in the Danish U19 league for club and June for the U20s. I don’t know his game well enough to judge if it was a bad 20 minutes after 69 minutes of really nothing to do or that was his normal play. His GAA for Colorado Springs was 1.00 over 7 matches with 3 clean sheets so I thinks he’s probably better than he showed last night. Either way he’s probably what we’ve got for France given the other two haven’t played since late Spring early summer.
i think my grander point is being spun. we won’t know what the senior NT future is until they start breaking into actual first team gigs. you’re like but he’s the one who starts. my response, for a MLS team’s development squad.
i’m saying we need more US kids getting into those first team gigs, and that under prior rules more did. we then cherry pick the ones who can ball. that’s playing a bigger lottery. as it stands, we have a limited set of US adult pros to choose from for the NT from MLS. and there isn’t some sizeable contingent in europe or mexico supplementing that.
i am then criticizing our development or career choices or something because i am saying it’s just as — perhaps more — likely that the future keeper from this age group is in college or a pro but not esteemed within the pipeline.
when i am beefing about his play, say, not high pointing that ball, i feel like the quality of actual US keeping has dropped off since howard. really dropped off since roughly the goal kick changes and the fashion fetish for sweeper keepers. the irony being that we aren’t any good at it and instead ship goals trying it — as he did the other day to a pacific island country. the field players are much more technical than they used to be. the keepers might be worse. they are sloppy. and they aren’t actually that good on dribbling and passing, for all the supposed emphasis. i haven’t seen the next rene higuita.
this kid, to me, no ups, sloppy technique. if that makes U20 i wonder what happened to goalkeeper identification and training. do we no longer get multisport kids? we used to be the team with the agile shotstoppers who could dominate a large area beyond the 6 on crosses and deadballs.
“ we won’t know what the senior NT future is until they start breaking into actual first team gigs.” Duh! Who said anything about Adam Beaudry playing for the NT? He’s probably going to play for the U20s against France because Beavers just got there yesterday and hasn’t played since April and Ferree hasn’t seen game action since June. Would everyone rather see Kochen of course, but that ship sailed. USSF had two different U20 camps, two U17 camps, and a U19 camp last window. That was 15 goalkeepers between the ages of 16-20. How many of those will pan out? Maybe 1-2, that’s just how it goes, and by pan out I mean might be in the NT rotation in 5-10 years not next Summer. USSF has made a concerted effort to get more players into camps out the youth level but it’s not going to produce overnight. Your favorite 2019 group, has 4 guys out of 21 that are in consideration for the current NT and that was a good age group. None of the GKs are. Your 2nd favorite in that group Soto isn’t even playing anymore. Beaudry had a bad 2nd half doesn’t mean he can’t play, he had two wins at U17 WC so he can’t be passing to the opposing forward on a regular basis.
I think our players should not hug each other after goals scored against countries you can paddleboard around.
please end the stupid slow building from the back. at some point figure out the constant drip of easy giveaway goals is a feature and not a bug. handed a cheap goal to a pacific island chain with 1/4 million population.
Did you even watch the game? The US scored 3 goals within 7 minutes and led at the half 6-0. The first 3 goals were so fast that if you blinked you missed one. After that you want to avoid injuries and use substitutes and not tire out your players. Obviously France will be a tough test and you want to have everyone available and on board. 9-1 wasn’t good enough for you? Sometimes you post some pretty silly stuff, this might be the most ridiculous post I have ever seen from you.
setting aside GD may matter in a tiebreak, are you seriously defending being so sloppy you hand an easy goal straight to NEW CALEDONIA?
you’re also so rah rah go team you are missing that this is a stupid pattern across teams and age groups that sometimes costs us games or tournaments. yes, it manifest here in a 9-1 win. but it also shows up when we blow a friendly loss in june.
considering it also does that, i will complain even if it’s 15-1. that is a stupid 1 to allow. and in other games that end up 0-1 or somesuch, is digging your own grave.
addressing your obnoxious insinuation, yeah, i watched it all. if you watched not just this one but our other games, this pattern sticks out. i assume you quit watching very close and had your pom poms out because your critique of campbell sounds like someone who tuned out about halftime, and can’t tell a superior player being a bit too aggressive and cute from an inferior player who has 1 move that might not fool france.
I was looking at GK’s from 2023. Antonio Carrera is the back up at Tigres, Gaga Slonina is in Chelsea’s U21’s/ backup for first team. Alex Borto is Fulhams U21, and Chris Brady is the starter for Chicago. I didn’t realize that the US may have a very deep and young GK corps very soon.
Current crop: Kochen recalled to Barcelona to be the backup. Beaudry back up at Colorado. Duran Feree back up in San Diego, Eyestone back up at Brentford, Beavers back up at Brondby. Next few years we may see some of these GK’s breaking through as starters.
beaudry didn’t impress me. his minor league numbers are meh, and without even getting into the dumb giveaway, on one of his few contested situations, a play like 75′ ish, there’s a cross and he’s beat to the aerial ball by the new caledonia player and when that player whiffs he doesn’t highpoint it.
to me when there were fewer internationals allowed in MLS more US keepers got a starting shot for teams. plus we had some abroad. this is more lottery tickets. we need as many lottery tickets as possible then pick the ones who are playing well as mature adults. a backup job is less helpful.
side point but i found it concerning how easy new caledonia transitioned a couple times up to our backline in basically a finger snap. our transition defense seems to consist of the wings running back to help.
Oh lord. GK’s mature later. Dude is 19. Knee-jerk reactions for young players who have a career still is a bit ridiculous.
so you’re saying let’s bet on the future evolution of a keeper getting outjumped by a pacific islander for a cross, who then doesn’t even use good technique to maximize his chances by high pointing the ball. who also passed a ball straight to the other team such that a team we scored 9 goals on got one back.
i may be rough on gaga, but he at least looked in the raw like a potential beast. now, that i might give some time to play out.
also, since i am being lectured, basic logic is he was seen as no higher than 2nd string to kochen.
last, since i am in the mood, recent history is the “maturing” keepers we grab just as often are from outside the YNT pipeline. freese emerged at U23 age group. turner and celentano were full blown adults who went to college. for every steffen there’s a turner. so you’re like wait and see and i’m like meanwhile i will watch academies and college because they are just as likely as U20s to actually work out. at keeper in particular.
and i get your point but nothing in particular about beaudry’s no-ups keeping screamed give him a few years with a pro keeper coach, let him fill out a little, and that’s a beast.
Finished off the game in the first 7 minutes. I was kind of shocked NC didn’t bunker in until halftime. We’ve seen how Benja has looked playing up in age for the last few years, you kind of forget how athletic he is until he’s playing with and against guys his age. Not much to learn NC has a population of 250,000 people, and we’re pretty much all amateurs. On to France, we got through this one healthy and with a +8, which puts a long way to at least being one of 4 3rd place teams who will advance.
To be honest I think its going to do a world of good for Cremaschi playing at Parma. He does have the ability to be special. I think like many players have he always deferred to Messi at Miami to quickly. Always looking to pass to Messi. I would not be surprised if he starts logging quite a few minutes for Parma that he makes a push for the WC team. Of course that is a deep position, but as always injuries may happen. He looks the most likely from this u20 team to make a push. Cole Campbell should be seeking a loan in January if he isnt getting time for Dortmund. I think an Eredivisie team would be a great loan for him.
Also Tsakaris needs to find a better option than San Jose. Bruce Arena doesn’t have a great track record with integrating youth. Another team in MLS should look to buy him in the off season. His ability needs to flourish not be stuck on the bench. Also hearing some European teams are sniffing around.
problem is you could say that about tsakiris for a few years now and predating arena. i do think he’d be an interesting player for a weaker eredivisie type team, technical.
here’s what folks would be missing on cremaschi. a lot of those goals — and they were tidy finishes — were box crashing 9 type goals. we have plenty of 9s suited to adult ball. i don’t see cremaschi beating out balogun pepi wright agyemang etc. cremaschi’s job for the NT would have to be more like a traditional AM, doling out assists. can he do that while also tracking back. for the senior team he’s 3 caps nothing doing. so has that evolved.
US fans have the same blind spot for when mckennie scores 4 on cuba or heads in a free kick. finishing weak side balls crashing the box like a forward as garbageman is not going to be normal AM stuff. so can you do normal AM stuff, set people up, complete your passes, and create from more like 20-30 yards out.
on that basis i was more a fan of norris, westfield, tsakiris*, and campbell. with an asterix on tsakiris because he keeps staying in SJ which is not moving along his pro career.
I’m not saying I’m overly high on Cremaschi, just that it’s reminiscent of Cowell of how much more athletic he is than his age group peers. But when he plays grown men that are more athletic and higher skilled he looks just ok.
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Tsakiris was a regular starter under Luchi last season and had 3 starts in April, after a training camp injury but suffered another injury and SJ switch to a 3-4-3 which didn’t leave him a position because Arena went pretty defensive in the middle. Neither the 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 have really stopped anyone. They sent him to MLS Pro so he could get his fitness back for the WC. Sometimes it’s luck, Habroune was hardly playing until Nagbe got hurt and then got a run of starts in LC and MLS. Tsakiris was the opposite got injured and lost his spot. I suppose if Nico had been lighting the world on fire he gets back in the lineup.
Now we will see what this team is really made of on thursday.
Bone head play by Beaudry.
Other than that without their GK making 4 or 5 really good saves that game could have been 14-1. Oh and Campbell was trying to hard to get goals he could have had a hat trick of assists in the first half. Needs to recognize that.
Despite a certain poster here always talking up Campbell, I thought he looked pretty bad until he scored.. Not only did he miss chances, he looked selfish and he seemed more interested in scoring a goal than in helping the team.
I’ll cut him some slack he’s got to be pretty rusty he’s hardly played since March. Injuries and then riding the pine at BvB I don’t know why they haven’t just been playing him for their U23s if Kovac doesn’t rate him.
i get “selfish.” i’d agree first half he was forcing it and wandering into early dempsey playfulness over team ball. “bad” is not objective. neither in terms of the second half, where he played more effectively (goal and could have had an aerial assist), and he was flashing speed and skill and inverting first half.
US fans’ll figure it out from the france and south africa games. some of these guys y’all like from this game will disappear. campbell scored on france U20 in a friendly. he will still be showing up.
what i think he needs to work on is use your darned right foot. he’s like a jet powered brad davis, all left peg. a better defender with more foot speed to keep up will just sit on the one leg if it’s all he uses. if he uses both feet i have to honor more he may invert lefty or take it to the line righty.
I totally agree. I can see the skill and speed, but he was so selfish. Hopefully, he tones down on that having finally scored. I wish he scored earlier, so we could tell if he would become less selfish in this game.
Also, I think it was a good reality check for our resident MLS haters. There was nothing to suggest that somehow he is on a different level compared to MLS players in Tsakiris, Raines, Gozo, and yes, Cremaschi
I’m okay with him being selfish in a game that is already 3-0 in 6 minutes. They knew it was going to be a score fest, so get you some. Lets see how he does with France and S.A. I’m betting he makes more passes rather than shots
In these kind of early and extreme blowouts it is pretty hard to evaluate players on either side.
However, what you can take seriously is that in a tournament setting scoring as many goals as you can is always a good idea, especially when your next opponent is France.
You never know, the US may need every single one of those goals to advance.