New Zealand\u2019s FIFA U-20 World Cup journey came to an end this morning as they were beaten 4-0 by the USA in their Last 16 clash in Mendoza, Argentina.<\/p>\n
CONCACAF qualifying winners the USA came into the tie with a formidable record, winning all of their three group games without conceding a goal.<\/p>\n
A win for New Zealand would see them progress to the quarter-finals at the tournament for the first time after exiting at the same stage at the last FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2019.<\/p>\n
New Zealand had the first real effort on target in the 5th minute. Ben Wallace\u2019s cross found Norman Garbett but his shot was deflected off a USA defender allowing Chelsea\u2019s Gabriel Slonina in goal to make the save.<\/p>\n
The USA opened the scoring in the 15th minute. A long range shot from Owen Wolff slipped past Kees Sims in goal.<\/p>\n
Despite the USA having a number of other chances the New Zealand defence held firm to keep it 1-0 at the break.<\/p>\n
In the 61st minute the USA doubled their lead. San Jose Earthquakes Cade Cowell, who has also played for the senior USA national side, with a great finish.<\/p>\n
With New Zealand pushing for a goal to get back into the game, the USA caught them on the counter in the 75th minute. Justin Che with a close range finish.<\/p>\n
A set piece finished by Rokas Pukstas 9 minutes from time wrapped up the victory for the USA.<\/p>\n
Speaking after the game, New Zealand U-20 head coach Darren Bazeley was proud of his team\u2019s effort this tournament:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a really great experience for our players. We\u2019ve had some really good moments within the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought today, I didn\u2019t think it was a 4-0 game. Yes, USA were a better team than us and I felt like they were really clinical in moments. I felt like we tried to play out, we tried to do some really good things. We had some moments where we got into some good areas and we didn\u2019t quite have that clinical finish\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201c…We competed throughout, nobody let their heads go down. They kept trying, kept trying to score all the way until the end of the game and potentially we might look back and think we could have had one or two goals. But overall they are a good team and they were better than us today\u201d.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Starting XI<\/p>\n
Kees Sims
\nIsaac Hughes
\nFinn Surman
\nFin Conchie
\nOli Colloty
\nJay Herdman
\nNorman Garbett
\nFinn Linder
\nDan Mckay
\nBen Wallace
\nLukas Kelly-Heald<\/p>\n
Final Score:<\/p>\n New Zealand \u2013 0 SOURCE NZ FOOTBALL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New Zealand\u2019s FIFA U-20 World Cup journey came to an end this morning as they were beaten 4-0 by the USA in their Last 16 clash in Mendoza, Argentina. CONCACAF qualifying winners the USA came into the tie with a formidable record, winning all of their three group games without conceding a goal. A win […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5077,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075\/revisions\/5077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nUSA – 4<\/strong><\/p>\n