Canada’s under-17 soccer team is shown in a team photo. Substitute Keyrol Figueroa's 64th-minute goal lifted the U.S to a 1-0 win over Canada on Wednesday at the CONCACAF Men's Under-17 Championship. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Canada Soccer
**MANDATORY CREDIT **
GUATEMALA CITY – Substitute Keyrol Figueroa’s 64th-minute goal lifted the U.S to a 1-0 win over Canada on Wednesday at the CONCACAF Men’s Under-17 Championship.
Figueroa beat goalkeeper Nathaniel Abraham and midfielder Ruben de Sa to David Vazquez’s cross, finding the target with a glancing header. Figueroa is the son of former Honduran international Maynor Figueroa, who played in the U.S. for Colorado, FC Dallas and Houston Dynamo as well as Wigan Athletic and Hull City in England.
Keyrol was with the FC Dallas academy before joining the Liverpool youth system.
The Americans (3-0-0) finished atop Group F while the Canadians (2-1-0) finished runner-up. Both teams had already secured passage to the round of 16 by virtue of winning their first two pool games.
Canada opened play Saturday with a 3-2 win over Trinidad and Tobago before downing Barbados 2-0.
The U.S. will face the Dominican Republic in the knockout round while Canada takes on the third-place team from Group H, one of Haiti, El Salvador and Suriname.
The three top teams in each of the four opening-round groups advance to the knockout phase. They will join Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic in the round of 16. Those four teams advanced directly from CONCACAF men’s U-17 qualifying play.
The 20-team tournament, which runs through Feb. 26, will send four teams to the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Peru in November. The world championship was originally slated for 2021 but was postponed because of the pandemic.
Canada has been to seven of the past 18 men’s U-17 World Cups, hosting the event in 1987. It has never advanced past the group stage including its last time out in Brazil in 2019 when it went 0-3-0.
Mexico won the CONCACAF U-17 Championship in 2019, defeating the U.S. 2-1 after extra time in the final at Bradenton, Fla. It was the Mexicans’ eighth title at this age level.
Canada lost 4-0 to the U.S. in the 2019 semifinal.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2023
