U.S. U-17′s Win CONCACAF Final over Canada 3-0
The USA defeated Canada on Sunday evening 3-0 to win the CONCACAF Under-17 Championship in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
The final had chances for both teams but neither team was able to score until the game went into overtime. Canada had a good showing in this tournament and had yet to give up a goal. All that changed when Nathan Smith hit a 35-yard wonder strike for the U.S. (see video below).
The goals kept coming for the USA. Nine minutes later Andrew Oliver raced behind Canada’s defensive line when he took a throw-in pass towards the Canadian goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau. He cut the ball square and right, beating Crepeau and easily slotted the ball into an empty net.
Alfred Koroma put the icing on the cake for the U.S. when he received a through ball from the left side and beat the Canadian defense shooting past Crepeau in the 119th minute.
Nathan Smith’s 35-yard wonder strike.
Game Highlights
Comments are closed.
Really a tale of two halves. Canada dominated the first-half, yet could not find the back of the net. the USA had better fitness and dominated all aspects of play starting at the 46th minute. Three goals in extra time was unreal!
I think Andrew Oliver got a red card toward the end. (Someone correct me if I am wrong on that one.) Too bad the young lads could not keep their cool.
Congrats to both teams! I feel proud of my Canucks, who have done superbly all tournament long. They should feel good about their result. Moreover, I feel very encouraged about the future of Canadian soccer. Watch out for Canada in about 10 years time!
Congratulations to the American team. As Soccer Boy said, your superior conditioning eventually ground out our boys. We were mostly just hanging in there towards the end of the game, though things may have been different if we could have netted one of those earlier chances and made you press.
First goal, as Brian said, was a straight up wonder-goal. Fantastic strike.
Second goal was off a throw that should have been Canada’s. When the ref ruled the other way, the Canadian player gave the ball up immediately, and a quick throw caught our defence still turning around and trotting back. Cudos to the American lad for the heads up play – our player should have delayed and held on to the ball until we were better set.
Third goal took perfect advantage of the hole left by LaPenna’s red card and was neatly put away.
1st place, business as usual for the Americans.
2nd place and a rare u17WC qualification for the Canadian team (largely made up of players from TFC, Whitecaps, and L’Impact academies. Yay for professional structure in Canada!).
@B.Lindsay: “Second goal was off a throw that should have been Canada’s. When the ref ruled the other way, the Canadian player gave the ball up immediately, and a quick throw caught our defence still turning around and trotting back.”
You were obviously watching the match on the WWW. I thought there were several really weird calls for throw-ins that I was almost certain were going one way, but were called the other direction. I was not sure if it was the quality of the feed, or the quality (lack thereof) on the part of the officials. Did you feel the same way on several calls in the second half?
I was at the stadium in Montego Bay where the matches were played last month, and I thought the overall quality of the field was terrible. I got the impression that the pitch was in not the best shape during the matches. Anyone else agree?
@ B. Lindsay – You are absolutely right about the pro-structures actually producing great players. I hope that FC Edmonton, and even the clubs in the CSL, take note of that and implement youth programs right away. Again, the Canada did great, and I have a feeling this type of showing will continue.
@SoccerBoy: I had a stream up on my laptop while I was doing some other things, so my feel of the game probably isn’t as good as yours. But yeah, those were my general impressions – a lot more Canadian chances early, and late whenever I looked over we just seemed… tired. And yeah, the pitch seemed rough.
@fotbalist: If I’m not mistaken, the CSL has instigated the process of aligning every team with a youth organisation. That’s why, for example, Portugal FC next year will be playing as SCToronto – SCToronto is a long standing youth organisation in their area of T.O. (well… late ’90s is longstanding, eh?). This should mean that the youth rep teams will slowly become more like academies in that CSL players and coaches will be interacting with the rep players, and it will give them a clear route to continue playing as they get older.
Unfortunately, I’ve heard it said that the people who pushed for that might be the ownership groups behind Hamilton Croatia and Milltown FC. They’re the two teams that have left the CSL for the upcoming season and are hammering out the structure of a new D3 league in Eastern Ontario and Quebec for 2012.
(This also sucks for me: Hammer Cro and Milltown are the two closest (semi)professional soccer teams to me, and they’re both not going to be playing this year!)