The U.S. Under-20 men’s national team clinched its spot into the knockout round of the Concacaf U-20 Championship on Monday with Cade Cowell’s equalizing goal proving to be enough for Mikey Varas’ squad.
Cowell scored his second goal of the tournament in a 2-2 draw with Canada from the Estadio Nacional Chelato Ucles. The 18-year-old forward earned SBI’s Man of the Match honors for his confident strike against Canada and his constant hard work at the top of the USMNT attack.
With the Americans needing a second comeback to tie things up at 2-2, Cowell called his own number in the 72nd minute. The San Jose Earthquakes forward raced upfield before cutting onto his right foot and delivering a powerful strike into the bottom-right corner.
Jack McGlynn and Diego Luna also impressed in the match, earning Honorable Mentions for their individual performances. The USMNT U-20’s conclude group stage play on Wednesday vs. Cuba.
What did you think of Cowell’s performance? Who else impressed you in Monday’s match?
Share your thoughts below.
Watched Cowell for first full game and couldn’t help thinking he’s way overrated.
Lost the ball repeatedly.
Definitely Luna MOTM. So much talent on this team. Not just raw talent – pretty refined talent, even.
Agree. Ferdinand shut Cowell down the entire game. His goal came the only time Ferdinand was caught up field and allowed Cowell to get behind. The US forced play to Cowell’s side over and over and over despite the dominance of Ferdinand over Cowell. Ferdinand was the overall Man of the Match in my book. If the US continued to work the center of the field as they did in the opening of the game perhaps the scoreline would have been more indicative of how much better quality the US is. I was really impressed with how they played in tight spaces in the center of the field in that spell but instead they just kept jamming it out to Cowell and he’d continually hit the wall that was Ferdinand. Luna was very active and McGlynn impressed as well. Luna’s dive was especially terrible though. I give US MoM to McGlynn.
Agree with Johnnyrazor that is…
Cowell wasn’t good for 89 minutes, he had one moment of brilliance. It wasn’t all Cade’s fault since his best attribute is running in behind but with Canada playing with 9 and 10 behind the ball most of the night that space wasn’t there. It didn’t help that Cuevas the LB also wanted to cut in on the right leaving the two fighting each other for the same space. Luna was far and away our best and most dangerous player. Luna also assisted in both goals.
Cuevas was much better than Cowell at doing just that tho. Cowell had two moves: Cut to his right and attempt a shot OR go to his left and dribble out of bounds.
Luna was easily the MotM