Saturday night at 10:30 p.m. MT, the U.S. U-20 National Team takes on Serbia in the quarterfinals of the 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup in New Zealand. Real Salt Lake’s Jordan Allen has featured prominently for the U.S. U-20s, but will not be available for the quarterfinal match after receiving two yellow cards in the first four matches.
Allen left RSL following a 4-1 loss to the Montreal Impact on May 16, heading first to Australia for training camp, then to New Zealand for the tournament.
Thus far, he has played 218 minutes in the tournament, starting twice and coming off the bench in emergency duty to log 79 minutes in a 1-0 win over Colombia in the Round of 16 on Wednesday. Now with a 3-1-0 record thus far, the U.S. faces another tough opponent in Serbia, who also holds a 3-1-0 record after topping Hungary 2-1 after extra time on Wednesday.
A win would advance the U.S. to the semifinals on Wednesday at 1:30 a.m. MT against the winner of the match between Mali and Germany on Saturday.
In addition to Allen’s time with the U.S. U-20s and Kyle Beckerman’s time with the U.S. National Team in wins over the Netherlands and Germany, RSL has had several other players play internationally in recent weeks.
Boyd Okwuonu returned to training with Real Salt Lake on Friday after playing five matches in France with the U.S. U-23 National Team in the 2015 Toulon Tournament. The first-year defender started in four out of the five matches for the U.S., who went 3-2-0 and finished third in the tournament with the final 2-1 win over England on Sunday.
Okwuonu totaled 338 minutes in the 12-day tournament.
Alvaro Saborio was an 89th-minute substitute for Costa Rica in a 2-1 loss to Spain on Thursday and returned to training on Saturday.
Abdoulie Mansally was in South Africa for a 2017 African Cup of Nations qualifying match and The Gambia earned a scoreless draw in the first of six matches in the Group Stage for The Gambia that will take place between now and September of 2016. Mansally was on the bench, but did not appear for The Scorpions.
Finally, in a controversial match that featured a power-outage late in the match, Elias Vasquez played 90 minutes in a 2018 World Cup qualifying match for Guatemala against Bermuda. The first leg of the two-leg series took place in Guatemala City at Estadio Mateo Flores and ended in a scoreless draw. The second leg will be in Devonshire, Bermuda, on Monday.
