The U-20 World Cup is underway in Egypt and the USA starts play on Saturday against European champion Germany.

Launched in 1977, the U-20 World Cup is FIFA's oldest youth world championship and has become famous for introducing to the world superstars of the future. To name a few: Diego Maradona, Enzo Francescoli, Dunga, Davor Suker, Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Thierry Henry, Xavi, Ronaldinho, Michael Owen and Lionel Messi.

Of the 23 players on the U.S. roster at the senior World Cup in 2006, 15 had played in a U-20 World Cup.

At the 2007 World Cup, the U.S. team, which featured Michael Bradley, Freddy Adu and Jozy Altidore, celebrated a 2-1 upset over Brazil in group play and finished seventh. The Americans' best ever finish was fourth, in 1989, with a Bob Gansler-coached team that featured goalkeeper Kasey Keller, who won the Silver Ball as runner-up MVP.

Coach Thomas Rongen's U.S. roster for the 2009 U-20 World Cup includes seven MLS players, eight collegians and three foreign-based players.

All three U.S. first-round games will be televised live:
Saturday, Sept. 26 vs. Germany 10 a.m. ET ESPN Classic/10 am ET/PT Galavision
Tuesday, Sept. 29 vs. Cameroon 12:45 p.m. ET ESPN2
Friday, Oct. 2 vs. Korea Republic 12:45 p.m. ET ESPN2

In total, the ESPN networks will broadcast seven games live and Galavision will air 12 games live or delayed. In addition, all games will be available live online at espn360.com. Click HERE for complete TV schedule.

Here's a look at some of the stars who on display in Egypt ...

SERGIO ASENJO (Spain). Considered the top young goalie in Spain, Asenjo is already a starter at Atletico Madrid and the heir apparent to Iker Casillas on the national team.

DOUGLAS COSTA (Brazil). The playmaker has often been compared to Ronaldinho and is the most highly touted on a team comprised entirely of Brazilian-based players. Manchester United is reported to covet Douglas Costa at the right price. He has been outstanding in infrequent spells with Gremio, but the Porto Alegre club has placed a $30 million price tag on him.

JAMIE HOLLAND (Australia). The 20-year-old midfielder is one of the few players at Egypt '09 to have played at the senior national team level. Holland played for the Socceroos in their successful World Cup 2010 qualifying campaign. He joined Dutch champion AZ from the Newcastle Jets in January.

RABIU IBRAHIM (Nigeria). The 18-year-old midfielder helped Nigeria win the 2007 Under-17 World Cup in South Korea and will be one of the key players for the Flying Eagles in Egypt. He spent last season in Sporting Lisbon's youth academy but has been loaned this season to Portuguese third division club Real SC. After the U-20 World Cup, he could join Nigeria's national team, which finds itself in a tight race for a berth in the 2010 World Cup.

VLADIMIR KOMAN (Hungary). Born in Ukraine and raised in Hungary, he made his Serie A debut for Sampdoria at the age of 18. He has since been loaned out, first to Avellino last season and more recently to Bari, where he will spend the 2009-10 season. Koman is part of a promising Hungarian team that was a semifinalist at the 2008 European U-19 championships.

RANSFORD OSEI (Ghana). Won the Golden Ball (MVP) and Golden Shoe (top scorer) as the leading scorer at the 2009 African Youth Championship, which the Black Satellites won. He has bounced around clubs since leaving Kessben at the age of 17. He was denied work permit to play for Poland's Legia Warsaw and recently joined Dutch club FC Twente on loan from Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv.

MOHAMED TALAAT (Egypt). The pressure will be on Talaat and the other young Pharoahs when they open the tournament Thursday in Alexandria. A sellout crowd of 80,000 is expected. Talaat played briefly in the United Arab Emirates before joining Al Ahly last season. The 20-year-old forward has been compared to national team star Mido for his talent -- and moodiness.

By Paul Gardner

So FIFA is killing soccer. That is the opinion of the Italian who now coaches the Republic of Ireland, Giovanni Trapattoni.

The immediate cause of Trapattoni's sinister accusation is an unexpected announcement from FIFA that it is going to seed the European teams that have to play off later this year for a place in next year's World Cup. He called that "a bit like killing soccer."

The seeding procedure will apply to the second-place teams from eight groups -- including, in all probability, Ireland, which currently lies in second place in Group 8, four points behind Italy, with two games to play.

The previous means of deciding who should play who among that group was a simple draw: all eight teams went into the pot, and were drawn out successively, with 1 playing 2, 3 playing 4 and so on. Very democratic.

Now, FIFA will seed the four best teams -- meaning the four teams with the highest positions among FIFA's world rankings -- and put them in a separate pot, thus ensuring that they do not have to play against each other. In the other pot will go the less likely four which will -- again, presumably -- include Ireland.

With his gloomy prediction for Ireland's fate, Trapattoni is of course jumping the gun. But things don't look good for the Republic. The bad news for Ireland is its 38th place ranking on the FIFA world list. This puts virtually all of the likely second-place finishers ahead of it, and almost certainly ensures that Ireland will go into the second pot with the minnows and will have to play a team ranked above it.

Only three groups have so far been decided, and they include Group 9, which has been won by the Netherlands who are thus guaranteed a place in South Africa. But where the other eight groups contain six teams, Group 9 contained only five and is therefore the only group that will not qualify a second-place team.

Looking at the other groups, England has won Group 6 and Spain has won Group 5. Likely second-place finishers are Croatia or Ukraine in Group 6, and either Bosnia-Herzegovina or Turkey in Group 5.

Of those four, only Bosnia-Herzegovina (at 46th) ranks below Ireland. These are the second-place options in the other groups: it will be either Germany or Russia in Group 4; Group 1 is wide open - it could be Denmark or Sweden or Portugal or Hungary; in Group 2 Switzerland, Latvia and Greece are all possibilities, as are Slovenia, Northern Ireland and the Czech Republic in Group 3. Group 7 looks like either France or Serbia, with Bulgaria the likely team in Group 8.

That makes a total of 19 possible teams. Alas, 14 of them are ranked higher than Ireland. Of the other five, Sweden (41), Bosnia-Herzegovina (46) and Hungary (47) are only slightly behind Ireland; the stragglers are Slovenia (54) and Latvia (58).

Statistically, then, Trapattoni's Ireland is highly likely to find itself playing a higher-ranked team, possibly even France or Russia, which are Top 10 teams.

Obviously, what Trapattoni really meant was that FIFA is killing Ireland's chance of World Cup qualification. But does he have a point anyway? I rather think he does. Actually, I strongly favor seeding -- but not at this late stage of the competition.

Preferably, seeding would be done at the beginning of qualifying. It has never made much sense to include teams like Andorra, Liechtenstein and San Marino (who is ranked 203rd, dead last in the world) in the these groups. Ideally, I'd like to see a preliminary round of qualifiers in which, say, Europe's 16 weakest teams (decided either on the FIFA rankings, or possibly on their finishing positions in the previous World Cup qualifiers) play each other. Four groups of four would produce four winners, who would then enter the main competition. One obvious advantage is that such a system would reduce the number of teams by 12, and therefore the number of games -- mostly meaningless games.

There is an objection to such a system. One that carries a lot of emotional weight. A preliminary round would deprive the 12 eliminated teams -- not of their chance of winning the World Cup, that's too absurd to contemplate --- but of playing a game or two against a top team, Spain or England or Italy, say. Now that is a big deal -- a rare chance to draw a big crowd and to make some money.

I am not sniffing at the commercial advantage here -- it is very important to the small countries, and why should they be locked out of the immense wealth circulating in the sport? Well, they needn't be. FIFA could quite easily offer financial compensation to those countries,

But once the small countries have been eliminated -- once we are down to the eight second-best teams in Europe, I don't see the need for seeding. Indeed, it seems downright unfair -- especially as it will be based on a team's rather artificial world ranking, rather than its immediate performance in the group games just played.

Thursday, July 15, 2010
Don't ignore player discontent


By Mike Singleton

Events of the World Cup teach us coaches a lot about the ever-changing game of soccer and the players.

The French team’s meltdown has highlighted multiple players’ willingness to challenge their coach and team leaders. The England team seems to have had its share of players who are willing to tell the coach what he should be doing.

These cases seem to highlight a growing trend of players publicly questioning coaches and leaders. I personally do not recall a time when public questioning from players during an event was so prevalent and it leads me to believe we have not seen the last of it.

When coaching collegiately or playing myself, I never recall myself or others publicly questioning our coaches.

If we had a question and if the coach had told us we were allowed to have questions, we would talk to him individually or as a sub-unit of the team to share our thoughts.

This was never done to challenge or create conflict but rather only done in hopes of working together to improve our team.

Were there times when players would be asking the coach about limited playing time? Of course, but never publicly. Did we have questions about our formation? Of course, but we would never suggest a formation change, especially publicly!

Given, I never played in a World Cup and was never as good as these players are. However, does being a high-earning, professional soccer player qualify such behavior? How does such public questioning affect a team overall?

Team cohesion and unified belief has a lot do to with team success. Are these questions attempts to build those things or impulsive actions leading to their deterioration?

Such are the challenges now facing today’s coaches.

Although we are not in as “high profile” situations as these coaches are, we need to come to grips with this issue. Even if there is not a news crew to publicize player’s questions, it might be smart to ask yourself if your players question you openly.

Have you created an open setting in which all are asked to be part of the solution? Or is it more in a confrontational style? If you are seeing such behavior, how can you manage it?

Ignoring it will guarantee your team will splinter, maybe not physically but certainly mentally.

Given it is hard pressed to find anyone who would argue that team cohesion and players being “on the same page” are not critical factors of success, this is as large an issue of coaching as defensive or offensive tactics.

It raises the question in my mind as to whether such behavior should help color a coach’s player selection. We have all come across phenomenal players who are cancerous to team chemistry. How big of an issue is this to success?

Whatever level you coach at I hope you ask yourself these questions.

Our young players see and hear these “role models” and even before this World Cup there has been much more evidence of player’s voicing their opinion more regularly.

If this is today’s player what does it force us to do as today’s coaches?

(Mike Singleton is the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association's Head State Coach and Excecutive Director. He is a Region I ODP Senior Staff Coach and a U.S. Soccer and US Youth Soccer National Staff Coach.)