[Hieronymus]

This was Stanford's first road game of the season. The next one will be as tough as it gets - at #2 Duke a week from today.

The US lost its U20 World Cup opener to Italy 2-1. Boamah and Birkel played the entire game. Nguyen did not play.

I am really unimpressed watching the U20s. They have 7 NWSL players though they don’t all start, but it looks like a meh college team out there. High effort, moderate skill with limited tactics. Of course a number of key players weren’t released - no Yohannes, Bugg or Hutton among several others. But nobody on the field impressed me at this level, and they have no difference makers that I could see. The RB was just bad.

They had a last second goal called back for a correct but unnecessary offsides. That wasted the one special action of the day for the US.

Caveats: 
1. Italy is theoretically the lowest seed in the group, but it’s based on the last 5 U20s so they may actually be good.
2. U20s can still be very up and down game to game. They are just still too inexperienced.
3. The key play on the first Italy goal would have gotten you a 15 yd blindside block flag in the NFL. Ludicrous no call. Overall a poor, poor referee. 

Overall, Boamah was OK. She is fast, but shows her inexperience at CB at times. She had no major disasters, did some good things and was only slightly involved in the first goal. My one is worry is she got beat on pretty badly.

Birkel honestly was bad. On the first goal, she couldn’t hold onto the ball on an on-goal situation and the ball bounced around to an Italian player for a tap in. Not an easy play, but she didn’t do anything good with it. She also simply dropped/deflected a high cross she has to catch right to an Italian forward on the second goal. Finally, I don’t remember any difficult saves to mitigate the mistakes. Not a good day. 

All that said, even though the top 4 of 6 third place teams move on, I would say 30-40% chance they don’t get out of the group. So we my have 3 players back more quickly than I expected.

[Hieronymus]

This was Stanford's first road game of the season. The next one will be as tough as it gets - at #2 Duke a week from today.

The US lost its U20 World Cup opener to Italy 2-1. Boamah and Birkel played the entire game. Nguyen did not play.

I am really unimpressed watching the U20s. They have 7 NWSL players though they don’t all start, but it looks like a meh college team out there. High effort, moderate skill with limited tactics. Of course a number of key players weren’t released - no Yohannes, Bugg or Hutton among several others. But nobody on the field impressed me at this level, and they have no difference makers that I could see. The RB was just bad.

They had a last second goal called back for a correct but unnecessary offsides. That wasted the one special action of the day for the US.

Caveats: 
1. Italy is theoretically the lowest seed in the group, but it’s based on the last 5 U20s so they may actually be good.
2. U20s can still be very up and down game to game. They are just still too inexperienced.
3. The key play on the first Italy goal would have gotten you a 15 yd blindside block flag in the NFL. Ludicrous no call. Overall a poor, poor referee. 

Overall, Boamah was OK. She is fast, but shows her inexperience at CB at times. She had no major disasters, did some good things and was only slightly involved in the first goal. My one is worry is she got beat on pretty badly.

Birkel honestly was bad. On the first goal, she couldn’t hold onto the ball on an on-goal situation and the ball bounced around to an Italian player for a tap in. Not an easy play, but she didn’t do anything good with it. She also simply dropped/deflected a high cross she has to catch right to an Italian forward on the second goal. Finally, I don’t remember any difficult saves to mitigate the mistakes. Not a good day. 

All that said, even though the top 4 of 6 third place teams move on, I would say 30-40% chance they don’t get out of the group. So we my have 3 players back more quickly than I expected.