{"id":45157,"date":"2025-10-06T02:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T06:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/u-s-u20-advances-in-world-cup-despite-defeat-will-face-italy\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T02:45:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T06:45:00","slug":"u-s-u20-advances-in-world-cup-despite-defeat-will-face-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/soccer\/u-s-u20-advances-in-world-cup-despite-defeat-will-face-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. U20 Advances in World Cup Despite Defeat: Will Face Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">United States Secures First Place in U-20 World Cup Despite Defeat<\/h2>\n\n\nThe United States men&#8217;s national under-20 team managed to secure first place in Group E of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, despite a 2-1 loss to South Africa in their final group stage match on Sunday in Rancagua.\n\nThe USMNT will face Italy next Thursday, October 9th, in a round of 16 match.\n\nAfter South Africa&#8217;s victory and France&#8217;s triumph over New Caledonia by 6-0, three teams finished with 6 points in Group E. The United States secured first place thanks to a goal difference of +10, narrowly surpassing South Africa (+5) in second place and France (+4) in third.\n\nFrance now hopes to advance to the knockout phase as one of the four best third-place teams. New Caledonia closed out Group E after three consecutive losses, conceding 20 goals and scoring only one.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1006%2Fr1556263_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"USMNT\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n\n\n<em>The USMNT concluded its group stage campaign of the U-20 World Cup with two wins and one loss.<\/em>\n\nThe United States took the lead in the 12th minute when Noah Cobb scored with a header after a free kick. However, just five minutes later, South Africa equalized with an own goal by American defender Joshua Wynder.\n\nBafana Bafana went ahead in first-half added time when Gomolemo Kekana finished off a swift counter-attack.\n\nIn the second half, the Americans sought a tie, but their defense was exposed to the rapid counterattacks of the South Africans.\n\nThe United States coach, Marko Mitrovic, made six changes to the starting eleven that defeated France 3-0 on Thursday, with Cobb making his first appearance in the tournament, while Reed Baker-Whiting, Luca Bombino, Luke Brennan, Matthew Corcoran and Pedro Soma earned their first starts.\n\nThis is the thirteenth time the United States has advanced from the group stage of the U-20 World Cup. The 2025 edition marks the sixth time the Americans have achieved this feat as group winners.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>United States Secures First Place in U-20 World Cup Despite Defeat The United States men&#8217;s national under-20 team managed to secure first place in Group E of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, despite a 2-1 loss to South Africa in their final group stage match on Sunday in Rancagua. The USMNT will face Italy next [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[512,6393,9511,2075],"class_list":{"0":"post-45157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-italy","9":"tag-south-africa","10":"tag-u20-world-cup","11":"tag-usmnt"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}