U.S. under-20 men

Great run at World Youth Championship comes to bitter end.

By Robert Wagman
SoccerTimes

(Friday, December 12, 2003) - The United States was robbed! At least American fans might think so.

The U.S. under-20 men tried to play defensive soccer against a superior Argentina squad today and came within seconds of pulling off what would have been the upset of the FIFA World Youth Championship in Abu Dahbi of the United Arab Emirates. .

First the U.S. gave up the tying goal in the dying seconds of the match, then committed a wholly unnecessary foul in the penalty area 10 minutes into sudden-death overtime to go out of the tournament on Fernando Cavenaghi's well taken penalty kick.

Besides bad luck, bad karma and bad officiating, in the final analysis, two things cost the Americans the match.

First, in the final 10 minutes of regulation, with the U.S. clinging precariously to a 1-0 lead, U.S. striker Ed Johnson twice had opportunities to score and secure the result, and twice he was not up to the task. On the first, unmarked, he had a diving point blank header off a short free kick and he sent the ball high and wide. Then he was sent in alone on Argentine goalkeeper Gustavo Eberto, but sent his angled shot into the near side netting rather than the far corner of the goal.

The second last-minute error, was dropping all 11 U.S. players back into the box in the closing minute --- four minutes into stoppage time -- to try to withstand the final Argentine push. Not having at least one forward stay on top allowed Eberto to come all the way to midfield to play a clearance and put the ball back deep into the U.S. end, leading to the last gasp tying goal.

Inexplicable was Spanish referee Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez's decision to add four minutes of stoppage time. Two minutes would seem to have been about right. Replays showed that Javier Mascherano was at least marginally offside when Franco Cangele played him the ball for the tying goal, but Argentina had one goal disallowed for an offside and the U.S. was not going to get the call twice.

The American strategy today was to lay back, clog up the midfield, defend in numbers and hope for an effective counterattack goal or two. For 93 minutes it worked like a charm. In the 59th minute, striker Freddy Adu started off on a 60-yard run straight up the middle, put the ball onto Bobby Convey's foot when he crossed in front of him and then Convey blasted it through Eberto's hands from close range.

The U.S. team today was clearly superior to the one that started the tournament two weeks ago against Paraguay. Given the Major League Soccer and college schedules, coach Tomas Rongen was not able to get the team together to train often. The two weeks of playing together in the UAE helped the team unify.

The defense today was nothing short of terrific. In a match where it could have been punished for even a single error, it didn't make one until the very end when Mascherano got in between Zak Whitbread and Ryan Cochrane to head in the tying goal.

Young college goalkeeper Steve Cronin came of age over the past two weeks. He is still susceptible to positioning errors and over-exuberance, and his dreadful clearance led to Argentina's disallowed goal. Still, his half dozen saves, several spectacular, kept the U.S. in the match and on the threshold of victory.

Once again, midfielder Bobby Convey played like a mature professional. He scored the American goal and ran himself ragged on both ends of the field. It will be an injustice if he is not named to the tournament's Top XI team. But while professionals like Convey, Justin Mapp and Ricardo Clark were key to the American success, college standouts like Cronin, Ned Grabavoy and Drew Moor made key contributions.

Adu clearly can play at this level. With more training time, Rongen probably could have worked him more into the offense and gotten him more touches. But with Convey playing so well in the middle, Adu had to be moved to the outside, where he was dangerous every time he got the ball. He also found out that playing against good and experienced young defenders such as San Lorenzo's Jonathan Bottinelli and River Plate's Javier Mascherano is very different from the under-17s he has been playing against.

By any measure, this has to be considered a tremendous tournament for Rongen's squad. To a great extent, the under-20 is the forgotten age group in American soccer. With MLS not having a youth or reserve program, Rongen had to dip into the college ranks to fill key spots and those players, skill level aside, just didn't have the level of experience that many of the players they faced.

It would have been nice for the U.S. to get through to a semifinal match against Brazil. It would have guaranteed two more matches with a third-place match scheduled should it have lost to the powerful Brazilians But everyone on the U.S. team can come home with their heads high. They won their group and went further into the tournament than anyone thought they could, further than England, Germany or Mexico. They were just a few ticks of the clock away from an improbable win and showed the state of U.S. soccer is healthy indeed.

Robert Wagman is a SoccerTimes senior correspondent and can be e-mailed at bobwagman@soccertimes.com.