There was pain here. That was plain enough to see. In the hours following the U17 MNT’s shootout loss to Mexico in the title match of the U17 CONCACAF Championship, the disappointment dogged a U.S. side mere minutes away from winning it all. And it would’ve been a historic occasion. After the U20 MNT won its own CONCACAF tournament two months earlier, the U17s could’ve made it an American clean sweep for the first time in history.
They were close. But not quite close enough.
It ultimately didn’t matter in the grand scheme, of course. The final is a ceremonial affair, only recently reinstituted by CONCACAF to inject some more purpose into the group stages. The U.S. had already wrapped up qualification days earlier, Mexico not long thereafter, and indeed, even by the end of the Mexico match the U.S. finished this tournament without losing a game in regulation. That includes a 4-3 win over this same side when the match mattered more.
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The academic nature of the game didn’t dull the sting in the hours after the match, but it’ll help soothe it in the weeks and months between now and the U17 World Cup in India later this year.
Before the tournament started, I laid down five broad questions the U.S. needed to answer in this tournament. Now with the benefit of hindsight, we can hop in our time machine and see how many of those were answered in the affirmative.
