re: Yanks Abroad Thread || Ode to pvilleguru

Brooks played 90 and scored to tie the game before halftime. Hoff would go on to win 3-1.

I don’t get Horvath. Looked like a world beater in champions league play several years ago, plays well for us when he gets his chances, and can’t lock down a starting position anywhere.

There was just a Reddit thread about this. LINK

I was surprised by the number of people who said “he’s probably just not good enough.”

quote:

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He’s on a Greek owned team, with the Greek national team keeper just acquired, they are a leading relegation candidate, and they tried to get a top young English keeper beforehand.

They clearly view Turner as a solid backup and Horvath as a waste of space.

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If they replace Turner as #1 after his performance yesterday they deserve everything that will come to them getting promoted back to tGOATship

U17s are playing in the Vaclav Jezek tournament in the Czech Republic. First game today against Ukraine with games against the Czech Republic and Switzerland on the 8th and 10th. Game starts at 10 AM CST I believe. Streaming link here in this article.
LINK

Thank you for breakdown

I will be watching all the games so I’ll do my best to give a general summary for each. I really like this team. More than half have already signed first team contracts and in general there aren’t any big egos or problems. The coaches are all really good people.

We started mostly second stringers yesterday. We are also missing a few starters due to injury or not being released (Figueroa is our starting striker, Akinmboni at CB, Kochen at GK).

FWIW Kochen made the CL roster for Barca as the third keeper and is usually on the bench for the first team. In the Barca setup I hear he’s probably the 4th string keeper overall.

Rough game against Switzerland today, ended 3-1. Honestly thought we controlled the balance of play but gave up two goals in the first ten minutes due to sloppiness in the back. Soma had a poor pass intercepted right at the 18 that was then converted and the keeper got his pocket picked on a heavy touch (after receiving a back pass he probably shouldn’t have gotten) for an easy tap in. We looked much better in the early second half and the game was 2-1 for a good bit as we continued to control the flow of the game. Second half subs failed to provide the desired impact however. Jamison looked good going at the back line though and created some dangerous moments. Nimfasha beat a few guys after an ineffectual first half. There were two or three balls to the back post that we maybe could have converted but missed by a whisker. Cruz was again solid in possession and did well to finish his chance for our goal. Their last goal came late due to some backline confusion. Swiss player appeared offside but was kept onside by Soma who was moved to CB. Not his best game but still looked composed for 95% of the game, unfortunately the errors were costly. Overall I thought Banks played better this game, especially on the defensive end, although his distribution still needs some work. If anyone stood out to me it was Harangi and Verhoeven who defended well against a very athletic Switzerland side. The Swiss were noticeably more physically developed than our players and I thought we did a good job of hanging with them athletically in spite of that.

The U17s lost their final game of the Vaclav Jazek tournament to the Czech Republic. It was rough to watch. I would say the game was 50/50 in terms of possession but we didn’t do enough to generate scoring chances. CR wasn’t terribly threatening either but we lost on poor marking on a ball over the top and poor marking on a set piece. Our normal press today didn’t work (or rather it didnt exist, our players just didn’t put in the effort they did in the first two games). Our wings were super ineffective and the crossing was downright atrocious. We didn’t move the hall efficiently through the middle either. Our forwards were essentially invisible. For some reason Tyler Hall didn’t play much but he’s a starter when healthy and not having him at CB forced Soma there more and made the midfield less effective. Our backup six (Mendoza) can pick out a good pass but the games looked too fast for him. He’s also not super athletic, which doesn’t help.

In all three games the other teams were bigger, more athletic, and moved the ball quicker and with more cohesion than we did. Admittedly these teams recently competed in their age group European tournament and had a lot of time together. The level at this tournament was a big step up from CONCACAF and MLS next pro (where most of these guys play) and I think this experience is humbling. For the most part I think our kids in Europe (Pedro Soma, Noahkai Banks, and Aiden Harangi) looked the most composed and consistent. The winger situation is a shame because that was a definite weakness going into this tourney. The guys brought in didn’t do enough except for maybe Berchimas who tried to do too much at times and was less effective because of it. Honestly very few players improved their case for inclusion at the World Cup. Several probably hurt it. I think Banks went from a guy on the outside looking in to a lock as #3 CB. He was an alternate before getting cut before the CONCACAF tournament and I bet he ends up at the WC. This was Matt Evans’ first camp and I thought he was decent at ball progression and retention from midfield but just moves a little slow.

I read they were trying to move him to a league that still had an open window. The only one worth a damn still open is Turkey and it closes tomorrow I think.

Pepi came on for PSV in the 83rd minute, drew a penalty and scored it after winning an argument with Chucky Lozana to take the penalty.

Yet another USMNT win over EL Tri