U-17 World Cup: US 3-4 Tajikistan

I wasn't going to post about the U-17 WC at all except FIFA is providing excellent coverage of the entire tournament, replete with live online broadcasts of every game and highlights afterwards. Great stuff. US-Tajikistan highlights here.

In a nutshell, US let the Tajiks back into the game. Tajikistans' first two goals were gifts; poor, unmotivated defending is to blame. Their second two strikes were great, no doubt buoyed by the confidence gleaned from their earlier goals. Our young guns look more technical than ever before and their prowess with a dead ball indicates cohesiveness, teamwork, and good practice ethic, but what gives? They face Tunisia on Thursday; to be honest, they look fearsome. Let's hope we get it together and start looking a bit more fierce-- otherwise I predict utter pwnage. Not pretty.

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Other notes:

- The hallmark of this year's U-17 WC seems to be bad goalkeeping. I've witnessed only a handful of mentionable keepers and these belong to Argentina (Luis Ojeda, 17, Union de Santa Fe/ARG), Syria (Ahmad Madnia, 17, Teshrin/SYR), and England (Alex Smithies, 17, Huddersfield/ENG).

- There's another team I'd tip as most ferocious in the Cup, and that team is Spain. Bojan Krkic already has a brace, and his teammates ain't no scratch neither. This, of course, assumes that Brazil is a given.

- My picks, top five strongest-looking sides at the Cup: Brazil, Spain, Tunisia, Ghana, and Argentina. Next would be Germany, England, and Japan.