USA World Cup Team Blog » Youth Players

Alright boys, here’s your lowest common denominator reason to start caring about the USWNT again

Melissa — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:53:09 +0000

Actually, the title of this post may be a bit misleading since I do recall reading a recent Offside blog post where the author claimed to know nothing about soccer in St. Louis except “the spanking hot Hope Solo.” Anyhooo, our Fearless Leader™ is having a training camp next week with the usual suspects plus a few of the current NCAA Div 1 standouts. And now… Alex Morgan gets her first call-up with the senior team. Alex Morgan is the Bronze Shoe and Silver Ball 2008 U-20 World Cup winner and her WC goal against North Korea was named FIFA’s second best goal of the year (second only to beach soccer – maybe it was a slow year?). I’m guessing it was her lethal combination of mad soccer skills and general good look-i-ness that caused a bit of a frenzy about her at the time. I think the entire (heterosexual) male population of Chile fell in love with her? I do save the random comment on my World Cup Blog page as a reminder of those rather – uh – frenzied times. Also, just because I live in Oakland and Morgan attends UC Berkeley DOES NOT MEAN I KNOW HER. Anyways, things have calmed down a bit since then. Even her Facebook Fan Page only has 264 members.

Now Pia is giving Alex a shot in the big leagues which is cool since she’s only a Junior. Morgan replaces the injured Brittany Bock. Also, Lori Lindsey replaces Tobin Heath (who apparently is just straight-up tired and wants a little break). And the roster for the upcoming camp includes a few newbies. Morgan’s U-20 WC teammate and Golden Glove winner Alyssa Naeher gets the nod as well as Christine Nairn. Forwards Casey Nogueira and Kelley O’Hara will also join after the College Cup tourney ends (cause the final will totally be Stanford vs UNC) Lauren Cheney will join after UCLA gets booted by Stanford from the semi’s. Sydney LeRoux will join after another player bows out of camp from exhaustion or injury (I keed I keed… or do I?).

USA U20’s take on Germany

Marlon — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:32:34 +0000

I plan on bringing you all a post-game tomorrow evening at some time, but while you wait here is a youtube of USMNT U20 defender Ike Opara getting a new haircut.

United States U17’s Demolishes Cuba 5 – 0

Marlon — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:45:12 +0000

The nice people running CONCACAF has hosted the entire game on Youtube in two halves. Without too much analysis I’ll say that I was impressed John McInerney, Stefan Jerome, and my new favorite namesake Marlon Duran (the kid reminds me of a little Javier Mascherano). Enjoy folks.

U-23s head to Spain

Melissa — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:25:24 +0000

The U-23 WNT will compete in a 4 team tournament (England, Norway, and Germany) at the La Manga club sports and leisure resort in southern Spain starting Jan 31st. Yes, that’s right, the U-23s are going to a resort complete with golf, a spa, restaurants, bars, and scenery… just check out their website. This isn’t a tournament, this is a freakin’ vacation. Here is the list of players going and double congrats are in order for the ones recently drafted to WPS.

GOALKEEPERS (2): Kelsey Davis (Portland), Val Henderson (Los Angeles Sol)
DEFENDERS (6): Nikki Krzysik (Chicago Red Stars), Stephanie Logterman (St. Louis Athletica), Kia McNeil (St. Louis Athletica), Kasey Moore (Boston Breakers), Kat Reynolds (Santa Clara), Jessica Tsao (Portland)
MIDFIELDERS (6): Yael Averbuch (Sky Blue FC), Brittany Bock (Los Angeles Sol), Parrissa Eyorokon (Washington Freedom); Brittany Klein (Chicago Red Stars), Lorraine Quinn (Duke), Amy Smerdzinski (Wake Forest)
FORWARDS (4): Amanda Cinalli (St. Louis Athletica), Katie Larkin (Los Angeles Sol), Kelley O’Hara (Stanford), Christen Press (Stanford)

Feb. 11 USA U-23 vs. England U-23
Feb. 13 USA U-23 vs. Norway U-23
Feb. 16 USA U-23 vs. Germany U-23

“I was just like, no way!”

Melissa — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:13:13 +0000

It seems like only a month ago (wait – I think it actually was) when our U-20 women won their World Cup down in Chile and various footie fans around the world found themselves a new favorite player. Well, now our U-23s are in camp and beginning preparations for July’s Nordic Cup competition. No idea if any members of the new squad are bound to capture the fans’ attention in quite the same way, but this slightly older batch does include a few future WPS players – namely Danesha Adams & Ella Masar of the Chicago Red Stars and Amanda Cinalli of the St. Louis Athletica. Oh… and that Tobin Heath. Remember her? Ooh, and since the competition takes place in July, fans get to look forward to those previously mentioned WPS sides fielding squads missing key National Team players. Can’t wait. But until then, enjoy this video walk down memory lane with our U-20s (and that old guy… kidding! loves ya Tony!) as they reminisce about that final game set to the sounds of, errr, uh, I’m not entirely sure.

Meethinks someone has a crush on Alex Morgan

Melissa — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:38:59 +0000

Did you just watch the U-20 Women’s World Cup final on ESPN today? Cause I dunno who the announcer was but that guy certainly had his panties in a bunch all over Alex Morgan. During the first half, he flat out said she was the best player on the US side. Then, after she scored her – admittedly – brazilliant goal (if I can find a video, I’ll post it), he slipped in the comment: “all the superlatives in the world do not do Alex Morgan justice.” Well, I guess it was a very nice goal. But seriously, much praise goes out to Morgan for spicing up the US offense a bit. For a while there, the game saw a little bit more than “kick ball long and hope it finds Lone Leroux.” So congrats to Leroux & Morgan for scoring. Congrats to Leroux for winning the Golden Boot. So… uh… I guess my complaints about the US offense are kind of moot since they hella won with it. Oh and congrats to the US for winning another U-20 World Cup. But the final congrats go out to the North Korean team for managing to all coordinate wearing matching haircuts.

Here We Go Again

Melissa — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:36:04 +0000

I’m at a place with cable (shocking) and oooh lookie, the USA v Germany U-20 Women’s World Cup game is on RIGHT NOW. But thanks to a few twitters from earlier today, I already know the US pulls out of this one with a (I just saw it, pretty dern sweet) goal from Sydney Leroux in the first half. That’s her in the photo celebrating. So now the US are off to the finals to face North Korea which eerily echoes the recent U-17 World Cup finals. Here’s to hoping the small difference in age means more wisdom, more prudence, more ingenuity, and an insatiable desire to beat the shit out of the country formerly known as an Axis of Evil.

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On to the quarterfinals

Melissa — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:03:56 +0000

“And to all the haters, I will flip you over that couch!” Keelin Winters celebrates with the team and scored the first goal, resulting in a 3-0 win over England. The US advance to the quarterfinals of the U-20 Women’s World Cup and next face the winner of tomorrow’s Germany vs Brazil game.

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(Ok, I just realized I wrote quarterfinals twice. Yes, I’m lost. Go figure.)

I can’t handle this truth

Melissa — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 05:19:32 +0000

I haven’t even had time to process and move on from the crushing loss when we faced North Korea in the U-17 Women’s World Cup before the U-20 Women’s World Cup got into full swing down in Chile. And the US of A already made it to the quarterfinals after they destroyed Argentina 3-0. And again, American Soccer News has another great match report. So who is that, in the photo above, flashing the G-rated double peace sign celebration salute? Why it’s Alex Morgan, who scored two the of the three goals that sent the US into the next round.

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We Lost

Melissa — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:58:47 +0000

Congrats go to North Korea who beat the US 2-1 in overtime to win the first ever U-17 Women’s World Cup. And apparently the game was a real nail biter. From the match report at American Soccer News:

The USA took an early lead on a strange goal in just the second minute of the match. Central defender Cloee Colohan chucked a long throw-in from the right sideline and the Koreans let the ball bounce in the penalty area. In windy conditions, it took a huge hop over goalkeeper Hong Myong Hui, who jumped backwards for the ball, but only managed to push it into the net. Had she not touched the ball, the goal would not have counted, as a throw-in is an indirect set play.

North Korea managed to equalize 13 minutes before the end of the match, sending the dern thing into overtime (why can’t Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake get it together yet a bunch of 16 year olds can?) when a North Korean player kept a dying free kick in play by kicking the ball over her head and into the middle of the penalty area. Kim Un Hyang then headed the ball into the left corner of the goal.

And the winning goal happened with just seven minutes left in overtime – narrowly avoiding those dreaded penalty kicks – which perhaps maybe would have favored the US since goalkeeper Taylor Vancil (pictured above) only allowed 2 of Korea’s 14 shots on goal in during the match.

So we lost but we didn’t walk away empty. There were quite a few individual awards. Taylor Vancil got the Golden Glove Award as the best goalkeeper in the tournament, Vicki DiMartino got the Silver Boot as the second leading goal scorer and apparently she is now the the first player in U.S. soccer history to score in five consecutive games in a World Cup. Congrats! And devil horn flashing Kristie Mewis won the Bronze Ball as the tournament’s third best player.

FIFA’s site claims to have highlights of the game, but whenever I click the link, I just watch a Playstation 3 ad over and over. Go figure.

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