The United States Under-23s certainly took their time, but they were able to keep their Olympic hopes alive on Tuesday, defeating Canada 2-0 to finish third in the CONCACAF Men’s Olympic Qualifying tournament.
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With the victory in the third-place game, the USA under-23 team advanced to a playoff match against Colombia for a spot in Rio.
Three days after a 2-0 loss to Honduras kept the USA from booking a ticket to Rio, the Americans secured a spot in a qualification playoff with a 2-0 win over Canada on Tuesday in Sandy, Utah. In a last-ditch struggle to make a block, defender Jeremy Gagnon-Lapare got a piece of the ball, but couldn’t prevent it from crossing the line.
Canada went down a man in the 45th minute when Giuliano Frano received his second yellow card of the game and a subsequent ejection after a challenge on Pelosi. Kiesewtter made it 2-0 in the 84th when he curled a penalty kick past goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau. Kiesewetter made no mistake – putting his shot into the right-hand corner of the net. “Our players have grown both collectively and individually throughout the competition”.
“We expected to come out and get a result in that game and it didn’t happen for us”, USA forward Jordan Morris said. Crepeau followed that up in the 81st with another nice save – punching a Pelosi shot over the net. The Canadians haven’t reached the Olympics since the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, despite being one win away from making it in 2012.
“We knew we didn’t play our game against Honduras”, Pelosi said. Canada played compact and disciplined defense for the entire second half and were able to stymie most everything the Yanks threw at them.
“We felt like we were the better team”, said USA assistant coach John Hackworth, who coached the team with head coach Andi Herzog suspended from the match after getting a red card against Honduras.
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Marc Pelosi’s deflected strike in the 69th minute finally gave the Americans the goal it desperately needed against a Canadian side playing with 10 men since the final minute of the first half.
