Yanks Abroad: Tyler Boyd & Sergiño Dest provide the braces

Go back in time a few years and tell your past self that things will get better for the U.S. Men’s National Team. We’ve got exciting young players at top clubs all over Europe. Christian Pulisic helps Chelsea to the FA Cup semifinals, Weston McKennie is playing with Cristiano Ronaldo & Paulo Dybala at Juventus, and Sergiño Dest is casually scoring goals assisted by Lionel Messi.

What a time to be alive...you know, if you ignore the whole pandemic thing. But I digress.

There were eight goals & three assists this weekend, nine goals if you include Sargent’s header in the wrong goal. Let’s get to all the action, including the moments to forget.

FC Barcelona destroyed Real Sociedad by a final score of 6-1 on the back of Sergiño Dest’s brace. The first was an assist from the greatest soccer player of all time, and then pure hunger and drive got him his second. Watch the goals again and just drink it all in. The future is bright, my friends.

Also, check out this fancy bit of skill Dest was flashing. Somewhere a Concacaf defender is plotting how to drag him down before he’s able to pull this off.

Tyler Boyd also scored two goals as Sivasspor beat Goztepe 5-3. He’s got three goals in the last three matches. After getting a yellow card early on, he was subbed out after 68 minutes. Watch the well-taken breakaway finish below.

Over in Switzerland, Jordan Siebatcheu picked up a goal and an assist as Young Boys stomped FC Zurich 4-0. His team is 20 points clear atop the Super League. The 24-year-old forward has a goal and two assists since declaring for the United States a couple weeks ago.

DeAndre Yedlin also scored his first goal in a different league as Galatasaray fell 3-4 vs Rizespor. Unfortunately, he was given a second yellow & red card after an unlucky collision just outside the box. They’re off this weekend so he’ll miss the next match on April 3rd vs Hatayspor. There’s ten matches left in the Turkish Super Lig for Galatasaray to make up a three point deficit with Besiktas.

After another goal on Sunday, Taylor Booth has either scored or assisted in four of the five matches he’s played with St. Poelten in Austria. The 19-year-old is on loan from Bayern Munich II and impressing every step of the way.

A Timothy Chandler sighting! The Eintracht Frankfurt man came on for the final 13 minutes and piled on another goal in stoppage time for a 5-2 win over Union Berlin. Frankfurt have quietly got themselves into the fourth and final Champions League spot on the Bundesliga table at the moment.

We also had some South American action as Joel Sonora picked up an assist to earn Talleres a point in a 2-2 draw with Newell’s Old Boys. That’s two straight appearances with an assist for the 24-year-old midfielder.

Chris Richards had an ugly start to Hoffenheim’s 2-1 loss vs Mainz when he made a mistake that gave up the opening goal. But he was able to make amends with a beautiful assist before half time. It was his first assist since going on loan from Bayern.

Josh Sargent had a well-placed header this weekend, unfortunately it went into his own net. Although, I personally believe he should have been bailed out with an offside call.

Erik Palmer-Brown also made an error that led to a goal as Austria Wien were beaten 5-3 by Wolfsberger AC. The 23-year-old was given a 3.1 rating, one of the lowest I’ve ever seen from FotMob.

Brenden Aaronson nearly got his fourth goal for Red Bull Salzburg in a 1-0 win at LASK, but the post just wouldn’t cooperate.

Christian Pulisic & Chelsea FC are set to face Zack Steffen & Manchester City in the FA Cup Semifinal after both teams advanced over the weekend. That match will be played on April 17th. Luca de la Torre was the most accurate passer in Heracles draw vs Sparta Rotterdam with a 90% success rate. He’s at 87% passing for the season as a whole. Daryl Dike was unable to follow up his midweek brace with another goal in Barnsley’s 2-1 loss vs Sheffield Wednesday. But he was in the middle of the action as the most fouled player (six times) and the player who both won (18) & lost (18) the most duels in the match.