Was it just two years ago that the U.S. under 20 National Team went out of the Youth World Cup with a bit of egg on their face. It was either egg on their face, or a bad taste left in their mouths as they crashed out to the Italians in the round of 16 (3-1).

The reason for the bad taste is that the Americans started out great. In their first game of that tournament they downed the eventual victors Argentina. Yes the winners of the tournament lost to the Americans 1-0 in the first game. The Up-Starts from the United States led the group with another win and tie against Germany.

Wow, what a high those young Americans would have been on, leading Group D. Then, to add to the U.S.’s delight, they found themselves up 1-0 at half time to Italy. What a dream start, could this be the one that puts U.S. soccer on the map. World Champions! Yea, just at the U-20 level, but hey, Luis Figo never won anything bigger.

All those sugar plumbs dancing in the U.S. youngsters heads until Italy hit them for three in the 2^nd half, losing 3-1. Dream over. Dream over for the Americans that did so well, but got beaten in a half to the Italians.

That would normally be the end of all the players’ dreams to make an impact at this level. Lucky for Freddy Adu, he has a second chance. Lucky him! Unfortunately, when I saw him warming up for these most recent qualifiers, he looked like he was taking it for granted.

So June the 30^th in Canada the U.S. will probably show well at the beginning, but might not have the staying power. That is Thomas Rongen’s job! He has to give them staying power. His job is to make sure these players keep their heads out of a Cinderella Story until the story is over.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 7:10 pm and is filed under Soccer World, USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.