By Michael Lewis

Front Row Soccer Editor

As a promising 18-year-old midfielder, Tyler Adams is considered the future of the Red Bulls.

You could have seen that in his performance in the United States’ 1-0 victory over Mexico in the classification round of the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship in San Jose, Costa Rica Monday night. Tyler was one of the key figures in the Americans’ first win over El Tri in the competition in 31 years, helping shut down the vaunted Mexican attack.

But Red Bulls sporting director Denis Hamlett wasn’t about to discuss Tyler’s future with the team, at least not on Wednesday.

“He had an excellent game against Mexico,” Hamlett said in a conference call with the Red Bulls media. “We are really excited. We thought he was going to be done after that bad tackle. So we’re happy to see him recover so quickly, and get back into the game and have such a huge impact for his country.

“That speaks volumes of the type of person he is and the type of character that he is. So we’re excited about that.”

Hamlett, however, wasn’t going to talk about the possibilities of extending or giving Tyler a new contract.

“As far as the future, I’m not going to get into specifics regarding that,” he said. “So we told him we want to make sure he is doing the moment he has right now, playing for his national team and win one more game to qualify to get to the World Cup.”

If the USA can defeat El Salvador in its next classification game Friday, the Americans will clinch at spot in the U-20 World Cup.

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.