Copa America, and the U-20s

The United States was invited to participate in the South American championship, the Copa America.

The American team is basically a B team - only three players would conceivably start on a full-strength American squad: Taylor Twellman, Eddie Johnson and Benny Feilhaber.

Despite a weak squad, the US played well against one of the best teams in the world, Argentina, before falling apart in the last stages of the game and losing 4-1. On Monday, the USA played well against a good Paraguay team, but couldn't finish its chances and lost 3-1. It was frustrating that, despite bringing two of its best strikers (Twellman and Johnson) and creating a dozen chances or more, it could only manage one goal - although that one goal would have been enough had it not been for mickey-mouse defending from Jimmy Conrad and Feilhaber.

The United States is still mathematically able to qualify for the second round as the second-best third-place team in its group (Americans should be rooting for Mexico to beat Chile by as large a margin as possible), but I expect that they'll be heading home after (hopefully) beating a poor Columbian team.

Here are the highlights from USA vs. Paraguay.



In contrast, the US U-20 team is doing well at the U-20 World Cup. Here are the highlights from their latest match against Poland