LAFC’s Andre Horta, Shaft Brewer, Jr. called up by respective youth national teams

Two players from Los Angeles Football Club have received call-ups to their youth national teams in recent days, as Andre Horta and Shaft Brewer, Jr. have gotten the call.

Horta has been called up to Portugal’s U-21 squad for two Euro U-21 qualifiers, against Romania on Sept. 7 and Wales on Sept. 11. The 2019 U-21 Euros will take place in June 2019 in Italy and San Marino. Portugal are currently in second place in Group 8, two points behind leaders Bosnia and Herzegovina with one fewer game played. Each group winner will proceed straight into the 2019 U-21 Euros, while some second-place teams will go into a playoff series to get one of the last spots.

Horta has played three games for the Portuguese U-21s to date, and this call-up represents a good opportunity to prove that he’s still got it, despite moving to the relative wilderness that is MLS (by European standards, I mean).

Meanwhile, Shaft Brewer, Jr. has been called up to the U.S. Men’s U-20 National Team for the 2018 U-20 Men’s Invitational, a new tournament U.S. Soccer is hosting that will include the USMNT U-20s, the USMNT U-19s, the Venezuela U-20s and Jamaica U-20s. The tournament will take place in Bradenton, Fla. from Sept. 7-11. Brewer has been getting fairly regular U-20 USMNT calls this year, and the Concacaf U-20 Championship (which also doubles as U-20 World Cup qualification) is coming up in November, so it’s a chance for him to stay in the mix for those big games.

With LAFC’s bye this weekend and the return to action coming on Sept. 15, neither player should miss any games for their club, assuming they return healthy and knock on wood, fingers crossed on that front.

Congrats to Andre and Shaft, and best of luck on international duty.

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