Frankie Goes to the U-20s

Frankie Goes to the U-20s
Pete Weitmarschen  

Last week FC Cincinnati had five players out on international duty and one of them was our 31 overall draft pick Frankie Amaya. Frankie has been spending his recent international duty with the USYNT U-20 squad. This past week coach Tab Ramos called in the U-20 squad to a camp in Spain to play a couple of friendlies against France and Japan during the Pintar Arena Football Festival. These two friendlies are important as they are the last camp before the U-20 World Cup in Poland later this summer. Let’s see what Frankie Amaya was up to this week.

Last Thursday the U-20s played France and Frankie was in the starting 11. The US started off a bit slow, allowing 2 goals in the first half, one in the 26’ and the second in the 45’. However, during the second half the squad looked much better. Our young star was subbed off in the 46th minute for Atlanta United’s Andrew Carleton who we saw play for ATLUTD2 last year. Just after halftime we saw a goal from Konrad de la Fuente, assisted by SerginoDest in the 48’.  Late in the game the US found a late stoppage time equalizer from Christian Cappis in 90’+2. Being a friendly we saw many subs, actually everyone on the squad except for Trey Muse saw at least some playing time so I would not look into Frankie’s substitution as something to worry about.

On Monday the squad played Japan’s U-20 team for the second friendly of camp. Amaya did not see the starting 11 for this game but he was subbed on in the 70th minute for Alex Mendez. This game overal looked much better for the US team. The first went goalless for both side but again, the US came out of halftime quickly and grabbed a goal in the 50th minute. This time the opening goal came from Andrew Carleton and was assisted by Jonathan Amon. In the 63’ Japan equalized off a free kick opportunity. Not much later we saw Frankie Amaya take the field. In the 75th minute the US was able to grab the game winner. This time scored by Christian Cappis who also scored the equalizer against France giving him his first two goals for the U-20 squad.

There was no stream available for either of these games so we were not able to see how the team played. However, it is always good to see everyone find the field during a camp. Hopefully Frankie has done enough to secure his spot at the World Cup later this year.