The good, bad, unknown of the U20 MNT squad

The good, bad, unknown of the U20 MNT squad
by Will Parchman
February 10, 2017

On Thursday, U.S. Soccer officially dropped coach Tab Ramos’ 20-man roster for the CONCACAF U20 Championship in Costa Rica. After a lengthy camp, Ramos cut his squad down to size in preparation for the final stepping stone to the capstone of every two-year cycle: the U20 World Cup.

Qualifying starts on Feb. 17 and runs through March 15, and the U.S. is still chasing a first. Stretching back to 1962, they’ve never won this tournament in years when a champion was crowned. Of course that doesn’t much matter since teams don’t need to win to advance. The U.S., which got a favorable group draw with Panama, Haiti and St. Kitts & Nevis, needs to finish in the top two of its four-team group. Then, after a reassignment period into two groups of three, the U.S. simply needs to finish in the top two of three.

In simple terms, it’ll be overwhelmingly difficult for a team of this caliber to miss out on its first U20 World Cup since 2011 and second since 1995.

Let’s take a deep dive into the U20 roster for Costa Rica and pull out some good, some bad and some of the uncertain in advance of the second-biggest tournament of the cycle.

First, the roster.

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