Double Draw for US U-23s Against China

The most dangerous lead in soccer is 3-0. Everybody and Eric Wynalda says so.

Oh. Wait. No they don’t.

But that was the lead our U-23s pre-Olympic team enjoyed in China at the half in the second pre-Olympic-qualifying friendly this weekend. And that was the lead they let slip away, partly due to inattention and inexperienced subs, partly due to an amazingly egregious dive resulting in a penalty in the 91st minute. Final score 3-3. (All goals shown in the above video clip.)

This comes after a 0-0 draw against the same China U-23 team several days previously.

“I think we saw two different halves today,” said U.S. U-23 head coach Peter Nowak

Ummm… No. Really?

“We executed our game plan very well in the first half. The second half wasn’t the prettiest. We knew going into the locker room at halftime that the Chinese team was going to be upset about being three goals down in front of their home crowd, and that they would come out and put pressure on us. Some of our players didn’t perform in a tough situation. Overall, we had a great two weeks together. We have just started our selection process for the team that will compete in Olympic qualifying. These two games gave us a lot of answers.”

Sad to go out that way, because the team really does have some quality. Let’s hope that they’ve learned from this trip and are ready to lock up a CONCACAF Olympic qualifying berth in March.

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Category: Asia, North America, World Football