On watch

Jen has his list of U20 players to watch in the World Cup for that age level. Because I cover the U.S. U20 team frequently, and will be going to cover the squad if they make the semifinals of the World Cup, we discussed some of the U.S. prospects.

He was very high on Altidore, and though I partly agreed with him, I pointed out that Jozy hasn't really delivered the goods with the U20 team yet.

But it's hard to argue with his points that Freddy Adu has fallen short of the hype that ensued when he played (and did well) in his first U20 competition back in 2003.

In many ways, we're guessing when we look at young players, and so many different factors go into the equation of success.

Here's a look back at the U17 players I thought would be making an impact for the current u20 cycle. I basically missed on all but one, Ofori Sarkodie, and he's not even expected to start. Granted, Quavas Kirk would have probably been on the squad if not for injury circumstances, but though they're still in the game, David Arvizu (now with Chivas USA), Nick Besagno (still with RSL), and Kyle Nakazawa (still in college, UCLA) haven't seen much time with the U20's at all.

In my defense, I did mention Jozy a little, at the end of the article.