Cyprus cup U 20's

Elli is listed as a defender on the team's roster.

Could be great experience for her to play defense; will round out her game in a good way and could help her assume the Woznuk role in center mid for UP next year. I recall that Lindsey Huie played outside d for one of the US teams one year.

The 4-3-3 formation that the U20's are playing is different than you would envision. Rather than having the mid's spread evenly across the field Tony is playing 2 offensive mid's in tight to the center with a defensive (holding) mid right behind, no outside mid's. This makes the outside defender position more offensive, they need to be able to carry the ball into the front of the midfield and when needed run overlaps off the outside forwards. This requires the outside back to have very good endurance, speed, and quality ball handling skills. The other 3 defenders then need to re-position themselves to cover the area the outside mid leaves when moving forward.

Martin Jol wrote:Could be great experience for her to play defense; will round out her game in a good way and could help her assume the Woznuk role in center mid for UP next year. I recall that Lindsey Huie played outside d for one of the US teams one year.

next year it will be interesting to see who plays center mid. My choice is Megan.

But that's not automatic. Foxhoven, Burke, and Kreminski have all played it at least some, from what I gather.. I'd pick Danielle there of that bunch, but that's just a guess. There are a couple current players who could, too

I suppose it's possible that UP would try a 4-3-3 again, but I don't think so. I think they gave it a go in 2002 and gave it up with that personnel. The staff seems to like the 4-4-2. The assignments are a bit more direct.

Geezer

I'll be very happy if Megan R plays center mid next season; but I haven't heard if anyone knows if her knee is OK yet. The three you mentioned are all freshmen, and while anyone one of them might turn out to be capable nobody has sen them play at this level yet.

With both Megan and Rachel coming back off serious injury, the possibility of four players gone for U20 international duty, and 5 starters graduated .. it's harder to imagine the starting line up than for some time isn't it?

I did not include Megan Sweeney in the list of doubts because I understand that she was fit by the end of the season last year but that it made no sense to have her use up a year of eligibility on a handful of games; and Jessica Tsao was playing well any way.

ussoccer.com finally has something up on the U20 game against the Russians (dang, can't call 'em the Commie Russians anymore).

from the roster shakeups, it looks like Diccico was doing lots of experimenting. None of our players played for very long, the alternate keeper played, and there was the max roster swapping allowed. He called it "a useful game for development".

Tomorrow is a tournament match against the Netherlands. If they win that, they are in the finals.

U20's 2-0 over the Netherlands. Michelle scored 1 of the goals. Keelin & Elli both played the whole game. Back to the 4-3-3 formation.

Now they will play Canada in the finals game. Should be good experience for them all individually and as a team.

They already made the finals, so they rested people and played youngsters, including Julie Armsrtrong.

They lost 2-0 against Scotland, but it was their non-tournament match.

Christine didn't play, Sophie only played the last 28 minutes, etc.

It will be a good test for the U20's in the final.

the Canada Soccer site had a piece on a FIFA conference to change the LAWS OF THE GAME.

They scrapped the electronic goal scoring - probably a good thing

They are considering more rules on official balls - Who cares?

The will standardize the official size of the pitch to 68m X 105m for "A" competitions Anybody know what size Merlo is?

The biggie is that they are considering 2 additional officials to rule on penalties in the box only. This could be good or bad. I see lots of games decided by PK's ---ugh.



Lastly, and for some reason I never knew this, the Laws are decided by the FA's of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland along with FIFA, voting for the other 204 countries.

Fifa gets 4 votes, and a change is decided by 6 votes.

What happened to 1 man 1 vote?

If you give them all 1 vote each, then the home nation FAs can change the laws on their own without getting FIFA (and the rest of the world) to agree to the change. This way you need FIFA and two other FAs to get the magic 6 votes.

An electronic system to track the ball has been discussed ad nauseum, usually after the World Cup. Ho hum.

According to one of my old media guides, Merlo is 75 by 120 yards. 68 by 105 meters is 74.4 by 114.8 yards (yes, I used a calculator).

Officials to spot penalties are all well and good as long as they can spot when a player really is fouled and when he is "penalty hunting." Deciding when a penalty is a penalty is probably one of the toughest calls in sports.

Canadasoccer.com reports that the full Canadian team beat the USA U20's 3-2

No box yet , but apparently Christine scored another one in this contest, giving her 5 goals for the tournament.

<edit> She scored 2 goals - gives her a total of 87. and counting....

Sophie assisted on her first goal.

Sophie got an assist on the third goal, by Jonelle Filigno, also.
Apparently Canada was up 3-0 , then the US came back. just not enough.

According to the box score, Michelle played the second half of the Canada game, Elli played the first 70 minutes, and Keelin played the entire game. The U-20s' first goal was off a rebound of a shot by Michelle. If my recollection is correct, the last 20 minutes were the first ones Elli has not played for the U20s since the beginning of the year and Keelin has played every minute of every game (except for the non-counting game v. Russia).