USMNT earn three critical points, with room to improve
By Doug McIntyre
FOX Sports Soccer Writer
The U.S. Men’s National Team is one step closer to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
After another frustrating first half in Thursday’s critical qualifying match against overmatched El Salvador, the USMNT’s attack once again came alive in the final 45 minutes, with defender Antonee Robinson’s 52nd-minute goal standing up as the game winner in Columbus, Ohio.
The three points helped the U.S. temporarily top CONCACAF’s eight-team standings, but Canada reclaimed first place later in the evening with a convincing 2-0 victory in Honduras. The Americans and Canadians meet Sunday north of the border.
"The big picture of this game is we're still in very good position in World Cup qualifying," U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter said afterward. "The three points were vital at home, and we achieved that. Now it's time to regroup and come up with a plan to attack Canada."
Here are three quick takeaways on the USMNT’s victory.
1. A win is a win …
It’s not how; it’s how many (points, that is). Thursday’s 1-0 victory was far from a thing of beauty against a team that — on paper, anyway — the U.S. should have been able to handle easily on home soil. But then, that’s the nature of CONCACAF’s eight-team, 14-match, double-round-robin tournament. Every game is a street fight, the pedigree of the rosters be damned.
The seventh-place Salvadorans didn’t seem at all fazed by the freezing temperatures (it was 31 degrees at kickoff) in Ohio’s capital, not with their own World Cup hopes dependent on their pulling off a stunning upset against the heavily favored Americans.
And as has been the case throughout qualifying, the Americans couldn’t find their feet in the opening stanza. Jesús Ferreira, a surprise starter at center forward over Ricardo Pepi, looked like a player in the middle of the MLS offseason in squandering a pair of first-half chances, though his headed pass eventually set up Robinson’s winner. Ferreira was hardly alone; captain Christian Pulisic and the rest of the U.S.’s European-based stars weren’t much sharper.
"I wouldn't say this was our best game," Berhalter admitted. "We didn't finish enough of our chances that we had."
But as has been the case throughout the Octagonal, the U.S. looked like a different team immediately after the intermission.
Robinson’s strike — the left back’s second crucial goal in qualifying — calmed down his teammates and the packed house in Columbus. And while the U.S. didn’t add the insurance tally they would’ve liked, they still pitched a shutout (keeper Matt Turner didn’t even have to make a save) and got the all-important first three of the nine points that will all but assure their return to the grandest stage in soccer after they missed out in spectacular fashion four years ago.
"We got the win," Robinson said. "We’re one step closer to our goal of qualifying for the World Cup."
2. … but the U.S. was far from convincing
Given the stakes, the weather, the travel and the fact that the full-strength U.S. roster hadn’t played together since mid-November, perhaps a game this ugly was to be expected. Whatever the reason, the U.S. just didn’t play very well.
Not playing well and winning anyway is better than the alternative, to be sure. Still, for probably the eighth time in nine Octagonal matches so far — the lone exception being November’s comprehensive 2-0 "dos a cero" triumph over rival Mexico — the cohesiveness of the U.S. left a lot to be desired.
"At times in the first half, the distances between our midfielders was too far apart," Berhalter said of the Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Yunus Musah trio. "The team was disconnected a little bit."
They’ll have to be much sharper if they want to take even a point out of Sunday’s trip to Canada, to say nothing of March’s daunting road matches in Mexico City and San Jose, Costa Rica. (The U.S. has never won a qualifier in either locale.)
But that doesn’t mean they can’t build off Thursday’s result.
"It's our first international game since the last window, so we weren’t going to turn up with the short time that we've had to prepare and just play an amazing game of football and win six-nil," Robinson said. "It was always going to be a tough, tight affair. And you know, they made it difficult for us."
3. USMNT’s focus now shifts to Canada
The Americans' victory combined with the Reds’ triumph in San Pedro Sula keeps the Canadians one point ahead of the second-place U.S. That means Sunday’s match in Hamilton, Ontario, will go a long way toward determining who wins the group. (Third-place Mexico also held serve Thursday, scoring twice late to top Jamaica 2-1.)
"We have to be better for next game," said U.S. forward Tim Weah, for whom bragging rights are also at stake Sunday. Jonathan David, his close friend and teammate with French champion Lille, is Canada’s star forward.
"We've been waiting for this game. The whole year, we've been talking about it. We've been joking about who's going to win, who's going to score," he said.
Lineup changes are likely. Weah, who just returned from a hamstring injury, hasn’t played on artificial turf field in years. The temperatures in Hamilton will be even colder than in Columbus.
"We're going to have to assess everyone tomorrow," Berhalter said when asked how much he’ll rotate players, adding that McKennie, who had a noticeable limp at the end of Thursday’s contest, was fine.
Whoever plays, "it's probably going to come down to who wants it more, which is the case for most of these games," Robinson said. "We're going to really try and take it to them. We don't care that it's away from home. We need to win more than them."
One of the most prominent soccer journalists in North America, Doug McIntyre has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams in more than a dozen countries, including multiple FIFA World Cups. Before joining FOX Sports, the New York City native was a staff writer for Yahoo Sports and ESPN. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.
