U.S. U-17 Top Performers v. Canada

The United States secured their third win in as many games, beating Canada 1-0 and taking them to the top of their table. This win means that the United States will face the Dominican Republic in the round of 16 on Friday, February 18th. In what is becoming a theme, the United States dominated possession, made the opposition very uncomfortable in possession, but struggled to be clinical in the final third. The game lacked a true standout, but there were some performances worth appreciating. Here are the players that caught my eye:   RB, Aiden Harangi, Eintracht Frankfurt Academy   Harangi started his second consecutive game at right-back and both have been very strong, but subtle performances. He's been mostly solid on defense and a source of stability in offensive build out. He had a few quality moments of combination play as well as some dribbles that led to numerical advantages and dangerous chances. He also had a nice pull back pass on the end line that unfortunately did not find a teammate. He was beat on one play and took a smart foul right outside the box to help put out that fire, but ideally he doesn't put himself in that position in the future. The fact that this was the man of the match performance signals how lackluster the game was for the United States.   CF, Keyrol Figueroa, Liverpool Academy   Figueroa and Cruz Medina have been the two most dangerous players for the United States thus far in this tournament and Figueroa bagged the only goal of this game. He showed his strong striker instincts by timing his movement to the ball and his jump perfectly and finishing with a nice flick past the goalkeeper. Figueroa subbed on in the 60th minute and while he wasn't heavily involved outside of his goal, he made the most out of his chances. He also sprung a counter on a really nice through ball to the left-winger, showing another dimension to his game.   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://x.com/scuffedpod/status/1626052878455435264?s=20u0026amp;t=Impd8HzyB9__aeKZ2Hl9Gw </div></figure>   LW, [player_tooltip player_id='33269' first='David' last='Vazquez'], Philadelphia Union Academy   It wasn't always a pretty performance but Vazquez did deliver a really well struck cross that found Figueroa's head for the game winning goal. Vazquez had moments of good combination play on the left flank and was continuously attacking the Canadian right-back. He struggled at times to beat his opponent one on one, but he did get some good crosses in and almost scored on a well struck ball at the top of the box, sending it just over the goal. Vazquez has been the most dangerous winger for the United States in this tournament thus far.

The United States secured their third win in as many games, beating Canada 1-0 and taking them to the top of their table. This win means that the United States will face the Dominican Republic in the round of 16 on Friday, February 18th. In what is becoming a theme, the United States dominated possession, made the opposition very uncomfortable in possession, but struggled to be clinical in the final third. The game lacked a true standout, but there were some performances worth appreciating. Here are the players that caught my eye: