U.S. U-17 Top Performers v. Mexico (Final)

The United States winning streak came to an end tonight after dropping 3-1 to rival Mexico. With the victory, Mexico secured their fifth straight Concacaf U-17 Championship. It is never fun to lose to Mexico, but I think this team should be proud of their performance and there is a ton of positives to take away from this game, and this tournament. This game came down to mistakes. The United States made too many and Mexico did not make very many at all. The United States provided more dynamic moments and more flashes of individual excellence, which one could argue is more important at the youth level, but at the end of the day, you want to beat your rival and the US fell short of that goal.   The ultimate goal was to qualify for the U-17 World Cup in November of this year, which they did, so the group will continue to get together between now and then in preparation for that tournament. This team has the ability to get better as a unit and there are individuals, that were not with this group, that can raise the ceiling and the floor of this team. Here are my top performers on the night:   DM, Pedro Soma, Cornella Academy (Man of the match and the tournament)   Soma was quite literally brilliant this entire tournament. He had one mishap building out of the back in this game, but aside from that, there is not much he did wrong these last couple of weeks. It was fitting that the best player on the team was also the player to get the goal, his first of the tournament. In this game he had the difficult challenge of being the single pivot focal point in trying to break Mexico's well disciplined press, and he was excellent in relieving pressure and moving the ball down the field. He was dominant in his duels, both in the air and on the ground and he was a physical presence that Mexico struggled to deal with. His passing was once again precise and progressive and his header goal off of an Aquino corner kick was brilliantly placed. Soma has a ton of time left in his development, but it is hard not to be excited about what the defensive midfielder could be.   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://x.com/USYNT/status/1630032695526039558?s=20 </div></figure>   LB/RB, [player_tooltip player_id='8449' first='Oscar' last='Verhoeven'], San Jose Academy   Verhoeven is a player I came into the tournament buzzing about, but he has really struggled with inconsistent decision-making and precision. Those challenges still existed in this game, but there was so many positives that I felt he deserved a shout as a top performer. First and foremost he had the difficult challenge of locking down [player_tooltip player_id='7611' first='Fidel' last='Barajas'], former USYNT player and San Jose Academy teammate, and he did a fantastic job. Barajas had a very quiet game in large part to Verhoeven's defensive performance. He also had some very good attacking moments and was very good in breaking the press with his passing. He played a very clever and clinical header to Aquinos who just missed the game tying goal and he also had a nice dribbling run that ended with a shot that was just deflected wide by the Mexican goalkeeper.   AM, [player_tooltip player_id='17716' first='Christopher' last='Aquino'], Tacoma Defiance   Aquino did not start this game, but he came in and provided an immediate spark. I loved how much he wanted the ball and his bravery to continuously attack the Mexican defense. He was really unlucky to not get a goal, but did provide the assist on Soma's goal. He had a couple of chances, but could not find the back of the net. He also had a nice nutmeg in the box where he took a dive and did not get a penalty call — and it was the right call. He was tidy, clever and confident and was one of the main reasons why it looked like the United States would tie the game up before conceding a second penalty and losing their starting goalkeeper.

The United States winning streak came to an end tonight after dropping 3-1 to rival Mexico. With the victory, Mexico secured their fifth straight Concacaf U-17 Championship. It is never fun to lose to Mexico, but I think this team should be proud of their performance and there is a ton of positives to take away from this game, and this tournament. This game came down to mistakes. The United States made too many and Mexico did not make very many at all. The United States provided more dynamic moments and more flashes of individual excellence, which one could argue is more important at the youth level, but at the end of the day, you want to beat your rival and the US fell short of that goal.