U.S. U-20s Hope To Rebound Against Cameroon

• ESPNsoccernet, Monday, September 28, 2009 3:45 PM

After opening its U-20 World Cup campaign in Egypt by getting thumped, 3-0, by Germany, the Thomas Rongen-coached USA hopes to rebound on Tuesday (12:40 pm ET, ESPN2, espn360.com, Galavision) against Cameroon, which beat South Korea, 2-0, in the other Group C match.

"We need to be more aggressive," said forward Peri Marosevic, who stayed on the bench. "We need to go at them and play with some passion, some drive, show that we have heart and we want to win this tournament. We want this win against Cameroon, that's all we have to think about." Brent Latham reports that Rongen plans lineup changes for Tuesday's game, especially in the midfield, where "where an inexperienced U.S. group was overwhelmed for most of the game by the German attack, looked disorganized and pressed for ideas for most of the match."

"Germany was a very organized team that came at us in counterattack," said Jorge Flores, who entered for an injured defender Kyle Davies in the first half. "The midfield got a bit lost and we didn't move the ball around. There was too much space between the defense and the midfield and we left too many spaces open." Latham says Bryan Arguez, the Hertha Berlin midfielder who was on the 2007 U-20 World Cup squad, could get the start after "having stabilized the midfield to some degree, holding the ball and distributing well to the attack." Four third-place teams from the six groups to make it through to the knockout round.

 

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