Football might be considered the ultimate team sport, but there were some outstanding individual performances at the 2024 IFAF U20 World Junior Championships that brought players with a promising future in the game to everyone’s attention.

Three players won tournament MVP accolades, but it was tough decision to narrow down one on offense, defense and special teams to determine who would take home trophies to celebrate their contributions. Here’s a look at some of the standouts from the 12 games played in Edmonton from June 22-30.

Offense

Austria came dangerously close to being gold medal contenders, losing buy a single score to gold eventual medalists Canada in the semifinals. They had already become the first European team to defeat North American opposition with a statement 41-13 victory over Canada 2. Then the European champions claimed their continent’s first bronze medal by beating the United States 32-25.

Quarterback Michael Szabo was Austria’s playmaker throughout and added the tournament’s Offensive MVP award to his nation’s third place finish. Szabo won two game MVP accolades, first having thrown for 178 yards in the loss to Canada and when he completed 24 of 32 pass attempts for 291 yards and 3 touchdowns against USA. Overall Szabo led all passers with 49 of 80 passes completed for 756 yards and 5 touchdowns and only a single interception.

Pepe Gonzalez took the majority of Canada’s snaps under center as his team defended the world championship with a threepeat title. He threw for an eventual 337 yards and 6 touchdowns, including a crucial five-yard connection with Nathan Carignan in the championship game that opened a 7-3 halftime lead.

Anthony Luna (35-68-564-5-1) of the United States finished second in pass efficiency ahead of Panama’s Cristian Restrepo (41-73-401-3-4) and Nobuaki Kobayashi (25-49-340-4-1) of Japan.

The tournament’s top rusher Luke Koening of Panama scored five touchdowns in his team’s seventh place placement win over Brazil to finish the competition with an impressive and tournament-best 30 carries for 305 yards. Tying those five trips to the end zone was Jaedon Alston of USA.

Japan’s Taisei Urushibara was the second-leading rusher with 248 yards and 4 touchdowns on 29 carries. Teammate Takemi Minobe, whose bruising short yardage gains earned him game MVP award in the opening day win over Canada 2, was fifth overall with 193 yards and a touchdown from 31 carries.

Canada shared its rushing duties around and had Mika Lapostolle (34-219-3) finish third overall and Charles Fortin (23-201-2) fourth.

Nils Keimel of Austria led all receivers with 336 yards and 2 touchdowns and was the MVP of his team’s opening win. Australia’s Ben Heath finished second in receiving yardage with 221 yards and a touchdown and snagged a game MVP award. Leading the tournament in receptions was Lucas Barros of Brazil with 18, including one for a touchdown and a game MVP accolade as well. Canada’s Nathan Carignan reeled in a tournament-best 4 receiving touchdowns and of course game MVP recognition.

Defense

Canada linebacker Benjamin Blaise came up with a critical interception just as Japan were fighting their way back into the Gold Medal Game to cement his overall Defensive MVP award. His pick led to the hosts’ go-ahead touchdown, and they never looked back. Blaise jointly led the tournament with 2 interceptions, posted a joint second-best 3 tackles for a loss, tied second-best with 3 passes batted down, and recorded 11.5 total tackles.

Iancarlo Falcon of Panama, Isaac Pepin of Canada and Japan’s Asahi Sakai all equaled Blaise with 2 interceptions, while Sakai led the way with 4 passes defended.

Statistically, Noel Swancar of Austria put up the most impressive numbers, but finished with a bronze medal compared with the gold that hung around the neck of Blaise. Swancar had the most sacks (2) for a tied-best loss of 14 yards, led the tournament with 4 tackles for a loss and posted 13.5 total tackles.

United States defensive back Matt Jung carried off the Special Teams MVP award, but it was on defense that he led allcomers with an impressive 30 tackles, which was 13 more than the second placed Harry Pratt (17 total) of Australia.

Special Teams

Jung put on a masterclass in a losing bronze medal game effort for USA against Austria to take the Special Teams tournament MVP plaudits. He was the clear game MVP of the loss to Austria as he finished with a forced fumble, a fumble recovery returned for a touchdown and an onside kick recovery, in addition to a two-point conversion run.

Just for good measure, Jung, a sophomore at Bethel University in Minnesota who had 10 tackles, 3 tackles for a loss against Austria on defense, volunteered for long snapper and holding duties having never lined up there before.

Kickers Lorenz Kriwak of Austria and Canada’s Jayden Rice each nailed a tied-best 4 field goals with one miss each. Rice score 30 points to Kriwak’s 21 and Samuel Tremblay of Canada 2 kicked 18 points, including a best and perfect 15 of 15 extra points.

Rice led all punters with a 43.8-yard average, followed closely by Rhett Armstrong of USA (43 yards) and Japan’s Yudai Naka (38.2).

Gabriel Gomes of Brazil averaged 14.1 yards on kickoff yards, marginally ahead of Panama’s Raul Del Castillo on 14 yards. Gomes also led the tournament with 365 all-purpose yards with an unrivaled 225 kickoff return yards.

And let’s not forget the linemen. On both offense and defense, it was Japan that caused the most havoc in the trenches.

“Their defensive line was better than our offensive line and their offensive line was better than our defensive line and that's what it came down to,” said USA head coach Mike Kelly after his team’s semifinal loss to Japan.

Canada head coach Warren Craney agreed: ‘Japan have something they’ve never had in the past, which is the size on the offensive line. Those guys are incredible.”

Final cumulative tournament stats for the tournament can be found here.

Photo: James Maclennan