How far can the USA go at U-20 World Cup?

By Mike Woitalla

For only the fourth time in 14 appearances at the biennial U-20 World Cup, the USA has survived to play a fifth game, having won its round-of-16 clash withColombia, 1-0.

Next up is Serbia, on Sunday (kickoff: 12:30 a.m. ET, Saturday 9:30 p.m. PT) and a win will take the USA to the semifinals, a feat accomplished only once, when in 1989 theBob Gansler-coached squad finished fourth in Saudi Arabia.

How far can we expect Coach Tab Ramos’ team to go?

The USA has been frustratinglyinconsistent. They started with an unconvincing 2-1 win over tournament debutant Myanmar, which lost its other games 6-0 to Ukraine and 5-1 to New Zealand.

The Americans looked brilliant in a4-0 demolition of host New Zealand in which they outshot the Junior All Whites, 30-11, as midfielders Emerson Hyndman and Gedion Zelalem orchestrated an entertainingshow while Rubio Rubin spearheaded the attack.

But this came against a team that had never won a U-20 World Cup game, so the question was how much of the U.S. dominance wasdue to the ineptitude of the foe. The answer seemed to come when the Americans were thoroughly outplayed in a 3-0 loss to Ukraine.

The USA performed similarly against Colombia in the firsthalf as it did against Ukraine — allowing the Colombians to have most of the ball, losing one-on-one battles, and hitting too many errant passes.

But the Colombians failed to find their waypast the central defense of Matt Miazga and Cameron Carter-Vickers and as they grew frustrated, the Americans gained confidence, managed more possession — and got anopportunistic goal from Rubin in the 58th minute that was enough for the win — thanks to a penalty-kick save by Zack Steffen.

There was much that was admirable about theAmerican’s win. They coped with the scary injury to forward Bradford Jamieson, who took a bad fall within minutes of the opening kickoff and was gingerly stretchered off thefield.

The U.S. defense stifled waves of attacks — including while playing a man-down after Kellyn Acosta’s 81st-minute redcard. And while the American attack neverreally found its rhythm, it kept improving instead wilting as it did against Ukraine.

For its part, Serbia is coming off a 2-1 overtime win over Hungary. In group play, the Serbs started witha 1-0 loss to 2013 runner-up Uruguay before beating both Mali and Mexico, 2-0.

That Serbia beat a Mali team that trounced 2013 third-place finisher Ghana, 3-0, in the round of 16 is enough toconsider it the favorite against the USA — besides the fact that the Serbs have given up only one goal in four games. But Colombia tied 1-1 with Senegal, which ousted Ukraine on PKs after a 1-1 tiein the round of 16.

So forget past results. And don’t expect the USA to come out and dominate as they did against New Zealand. But there’s a good possibility that the Americandefense is solid enough to stifle the Serbs — and we have seen enough glimpses of brilliance from Hyndman, Zelalem, Rubin and Paul Arriola for the USA to advance another round.

Ramos’ Reaction

On the USA improving in the second half against Colombia, Coach Ramos said:

“We’re a team that likes to have the ball, and one of the things we said to the players at halftime was to play with more confidence, to play into traffic and to play the ball into themiddle of the field and to our good players who can hold it. And I think we did a much better job in the second half. Once we did that, the game opened up for us and it became a little biteasier.”

Tab Ramos(Photo courtesy of U.S. Soccer)

Ramos also said that Zelalem, who didn’t get FIFA approval to represent the USA until two weeks before the tournament kickoff, is continuing tomeld into the team:

“I like the way that Gedion started feeling more confident with the team. Obviously, as you know, he hasn’t been with us for a long time and I think he’sstarting to feel more confident and I think the rest of the team is starting to feel more confident with him.

“The same goes for the rest of the group. I’m very happy with theperformance, in particular in the last 10 minutes under very difficult circumstances; we held our own pretty well. All these games are very difficult, so I’m very proud of the team and I thinkmore importantly that this is a great experience for them that they’ll take on hopefully to the senior team.”

Steffendéjà vu

Steffen’s penalty-kick save wasn’t his first for the U-20s in a crucial situation.

During the USA’s must-win clash with El Salvadorin the deciding qualifying game, the Americans were up, 1-0, when the Salvadorans were awarded a 52nd minute penalty kick for a handball.

Steffen, as he did against Colombia’sJarlan Barrera, dived to his right and made the save.

Zack Steffen (Photo courtesy of U.S. Soccer)

“I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I thought he was going to saveit,” Ramos said. “And I thought the same against El Salvador. We have that type of confidence in our goalkeeper, and I thought that he would come up big — he always does, and it’skind of expected at this point. So I’m very happy for him. Obviously, it’s very difficult to save a penalty and he did it.”

Aiming to make history

If the USA beats Serbia, it will at least match the best U.S. U-20 World Cup performance ever.

The 1989 team that finished fourth in SaudiArabia was comprised of high school seniors and collegians. Goalkeeper Kasey Keller was the tournament Silver Ball winner – the MVP runner-up. Steve Snow scoredthree goals – tied for second in the tournament behind the USSR’s Oleg Salenko, who also won the Golden Shoe playing for Russia at the 1994 World Cup. The goalscorers forthe USA were Troy Dayak (two), Chris Henderson and Dario Brose. Defender Mike Burns went on to make the USA’s 1994 and 1998 WorldCup squads.

A 1-1 tie with Mali and a 2-0 win over East Germany earned the USA a spot in the quarterfinals, where it won, 2-1, over Iraq. It fell, 2-1, to Nigeria in overtime in the semis and,2-0, to Brazil in the third-place game.

Back row: Dario Brose,Curt Onalfo, Kasey Keller, Ben Crawley, Steve Snow;
Front row: Neil Covone, Mike Burns, Troy Dayak, Cam Rast, Chris Henderson, Bryan Thompson.

Sincethe tournament expanded to 24 teams in 1997, the USA reached the quarterfinals twice, both under Coach Thomas Rongen, in 2003 and 2007, when it beat both Brazil and Uruguay.

The Americans exited in the first round in 2009 and failed to qualify for the 2011 World Cup. Ramos’ 2013 U-20s, who qualified with a second-place finish behind host Mexico, exited in thefirst round in a group that included eventual champion France, which the USA tied, Spain and Ghana.