FRISCO, TEXAS – Against such a grand backdrop as the opening day of Dallas Cup XXX, it may have been lost on some, but there’s no mistaking that the opening match in Pizza Hut Park was an illustration.

The SuperGroup (U19) opener pitted a team from the vaunted Dallas Texans against the U19 team of Sao Paulo FC from Brazil. While the Texans team never stopped working and has won its share of games over the years in American youth soccer, it has to be said that Sunday’s match was men vs. boys.

Considering the number of saves Texans’ goalkeeper John Kaschak made on the day, the Brazilians’ tendency to be over-elaborate on the ball once they got a comfortable lead and a couple of howling misses by Sao Paulo strikers, the 7-0 final score easily could have been 12-0 or more.

The differences are all too familiar. Sao Paulo’s players are in the system of the famous Brazilian club and some are already on the payroll. Each one is trying to make the top levels of professional soccer. The Texans’ players (and this was not one of the club’s USSF Development Academy teams) have a much more limited training setup and in no way are risking any potentially life-changing professional opportunity when they take the field.

The score was 4-0 after 30 minutes and the biggest difference seemed to be Sao Paulo’s ability to combine and attack in numbers. Players were always moving off the ball to the right place, and soon as a pass was made, the passer began moving to another open area. The Brazilians enjoyed technical superiority over their American counterparts as well, but it was noteworthy that they relied on this ability in limited doses, usually to do with a tight challenge, before again letting the ball do the work. The Dallas players, mostly on the verge of entering the world of college soccer, struggled for large parts of the game to advance the ball out of their own half and too often resorted to trying to dribble through traffic, perhaps because no teammates were available.

The 2nd game of the afternoon was also Dallas vs. the world, as famed Argentine club River Plate went up against U18 Academy side Andromeda. The much more entertaining encounter ended 1-1. Michael Powers’ Andromeda side showed good organization and a willingness to take chances in the attack, allowing them to enjoy a fairly equal amount of possession for the first 60 minutes of the contest. River Plate enjoyed plenty of chances in the final 30 minutes but couldn’t break through with a winner and in the end, a draw was probably a fair result.

Notre Dame recruit Dillon Powers was outstanding in midfield for Andromeda along with Ryan Morales. The two kept possession and hit a good number of probing passes to keep River Plate from just rushing forward at every opportunity. Defenders Wesley Curtis, Ryan McDuff, Grant Van De Casteele and Jonathan Smith did yeoman work in the back line. The Argentine side was not as good a team, at least on the day, as their Brazilian counterparts, but they did have some good individual players, most notably winger and goalscorer Daniel Carrizo, and the other starting wide midfielder, Alejandro Bernachi.

Andromeda might have had a late winner from a well-timed volley by Matthew Bewley, but the drive crashed off the crossbar. On the other hand, Reed Dillard was required to intervene more than once to keep River Plate from scoring a winner of its own.

After the two matches in the Pizza Hut Park stadium, members of the 180 teams in the tournament took the field and left looking forward to a good week of soccer. We are too and we’ll have the reports every day for the rest of the week.