Before most players broke their first sweat it was broken by the Athletic staff that Gregg Berhalter was going to be re-named Head Coach of the US Men's National Team. I'll be dropping another blog tomorrow to talk about my many reservations and the absolute clown show the "process" appears to have been.
On the field the Americans looked sharp. From early on they clearly looked like the superior side. They were playing more free and offensively aggressive that they did the last cycle. A couple of questions I had going in to this game was Chris Richards' match fitness after not logging a ton of minutes for Crystal Palace. Well the answer is he looked great. He was playing long balls well, marking his man on defense, and winning headers. Pretty much every thing you want to see from your Center Back.
The other question was how Yunus Musah would do filling in for Tyler Adams. I've seen enough of Musah that I didn't question his speed or skill, but it's a different responsibility. We all saw how Leeds fell apart defensively without Adams there to put out fires in front of the back line. Musah stayed back but was still willing to push the ball offensively. He played so well that I don't know that you have to carry a second number six on the roster going forward because he can be moved to the six and Gio, de la Torre, Tillman or Aaronson step into the midfield as Gio did last night.
The Americans jumped all over the Mexico early and often. One of the premier plays of the first half was Pulisic breaking down the left side going around the defense and getting inside the six yard box, but then chipping the ball over the goal in what should've been the first goal of the game. It was a pretty good preview of what was to come from the Captain last night. A broken play at the 18 yard box led to the the ball rolling free to the left, Pulisic beating the Mexican defender to the ball and ripping one by Ochoa to make it 1-0 going into the half.
The States came out of the gates hot in the second half. One minute in to the half Weah sent a ball into the box that Pulisic got a foot on for the brace and to make it 2-0. At this point the officiating started getting real CONCACAF-y. Mexico were clearly frustrated and not missing many chances to take hacks at the legs of any American going by them. The ref was slow to issue cards and then things escalated.
In the 70th minute Montes takes a hard kick at Balogun's leg as he prepared to blow past and ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. Musah is the first one to shove Montes, then Richards comes in and McKennie comes flying in to make sure Montes knows trying to injure our highly touted striker is unacceptable. Montes is issued a red card and McKennie, with a ripped jersey is also sent off. One of the iconic moments to come from this game is McKennie kissing the crest on his shirt as he's walking off the pitch.
Ricardo Pepi breaks the old Dos a cero tag line when he gets a beautiful ball in from Sergino Dest and scores a goal that is initially called offsides. After VAR it's deemed Pepi held onside and we have a good goal, enter Tres A Cero. It too was a big moment in the game as dual national Pepi, who was left off the World Cup roster and had a big season in the Netherlands got to have his moment. Going in to the World Cup there were so many questions about who was going to play the 9, now with Pepi's form and Balogun I feel completely confident in our strikers. We still have Sargent, Haji, and Dike in the wings too.
Back to the chaos. Things kept getting chippy and the ref REFUSED to step in and get the game under control, and to be fair it was too late at this point. But Dest was making a run and trying to hold up the ball in the offensive corner and he took a WWE style clothes line, then he held the ball before Mexico could throw it in and he got pushed in the head. He pushed back (the ref really dropped the ball on this entire situation) and he was issued a red card along with Arteaga.
In the 90th minute the game was stopped due to homophobic chants from a portion of the Mexico supporters section. It's absolutely shameful that's still happening in 2023. Shy of not allowing Mexico to host games (including the World Cup) until this ceases to exist I'm not sure what more needs to be done to convey that is not acceptable. That and throwing beers and drinks at the players during the game is just unbelievably sad. There's no place for that in the beautiful game.
One of the big takeaways is the face that we are going to be down Weston McKennie and Sergino Dest for the finals against Canada due to red card suspensions. Dest played super well and while I'm a big Joe Scally supporter, Dest just has the ability to take his game to another level and we are going to need that with Alphonso Davies coming down the left side for Canada. I hope to see Luca de la Torre, a regular starter in La Liga slide in to the starting lineup to replace the suspended McKennie. There are no excuses with our depth of talent, but we are going to be down five players I consider starters for the finals (Ream, CCV, Adams, McKennie, and Dest).
It's abundantly clear that the talent of the US has just vastly outgrown the talent in Mexico. Our players looked faster and more tactically and technically sound. Santi Giminez, Edson Alvarez, and Chucky Lozano are the only real shining stars for a very down Mexican squad.
Our next opponents, Canada have never had the depth and type of talent they currently have. Alongside good MLS players like Kamal Miller they have big European stars like Jonathan David (Lille, Ligue 1), Cyle Larin (Real Valladolid, La Liga), Tajon Buchannon (Club Brugge, Belgium), Alistair Johnston (Celtic, Scotland) but none bigger than Alphonso Davies (Bayern Munich, Bundesliga). Canada's squad talent isn't nearly as deep as ours, but their top level starters are every bit as good as ours.
If we are going to repeat as CONCACAF Nations League champs we are going to have to play as well or better than we played Thursday night against Mexico.
I know I teased Berhalter back, but I plan on dropping a blog that is very Berhalter specific tomorrow so stay tuned!
Comments
Post a Comment