Another slow start for the USA
In the general national celebratory mood that followed the USA’s World Cup win at the weekend, various members of the US men’s team tweeted their support for their female counterparts — including one image of a huddle of players on the team coach watching the final on a tablet screen.
If the men were inspired by the women against Honduras on Tuesday, however, they seemed to be taking their appreciation to method-acting extremes, looking much morelike the tentative women’s team that began the World Cup rather than the emphatic version that finished it.
After an early pair of Brad Guzan saves failed to wake USA up, the team continued to look sluggish, by comparison with the organized Hondurans, who seized every opportunity to surge forward in numbers and put pressure on an unconvincing US defense. John Brooks in particular looked to be creaking every time Honduras swarmed forward at pace, and found himself booked as he committed a clumsy foul in one particularly stressful sequence.
Coming in to the game, USA had won their opening game in every edition of the Gold Cup, and all five of their games in Texas in that time, but Honduras, under Jorge Luis Pinto, the architect of Costa Rica’s World Cup run, were always likely to be awkward opponents, and so it proved.
Even the USA taking the lead against the run of play couldn’t subdue Honduras, whose front three of Najar, Lozano and Martinez continued to buzz around, even as the USA began to pose more questions at the other end.
And even when the game went to 2-0 in the second half, the USA didn’t look comfortable (though comfort was never on the agenda against a typically physical Honduras side). And when they quickly allowed Honduras to pull a goal back, the stage was set for the US to finish the game as nervily as they’d started it.
Thirteen wins in 13 Gold Cup openers then, but if the USA are to emulate Carli Lloyd et al in a Gold Cup run, they might have a little more soul searching (and shape searching) to do during the group stages before they start blowing opponents away.
Deuce for Deuce
In the furore that followed Clint Dempsey’s ripping up of a referee’s notebook, it was hard not to feel that Jürgen Klinsmann had seen an opportunity in deciding to relieve the Seattle Sounders player of the national team captaincy.
Dempsey will be 35 when the next World Cup comes around, and while his invention and sharpness currently looks as strong as ever, there would be question marks over any version of a USA team that relied too heavily on his presence going into Russia 2018.
A healthy version of that 2018 side might well have a use for Dempsey’s unique talents on a bit-part basis, though it may also need to move beyond him, which begs the question of when to initiate successions without creating a Landon Donovan-style distraction. Easing Dempsey out of the captaincy around now perhaps begins to start that process.
Of course it may also have more immediate benefits such as spurring Dempsey on, sharpening his focus, or whatever you might care to call it. The improvized reaction flick which saw him open the scoring on Tuesday had the air of vintage Dempsey, while his crashing second half header for what turned out to be the winner, showcased the timing and focus of Dempsey at his best. Deuce is here to play.
Zardes and Yedlin must find the next level
With Dempsey pushed up alongside Altidore as a second striker, Kyle Beckerman anchoring and Michael Bradley playmaking in something more like the fabled midfield diamond than the 4-2-3-1 the team has tended to favor of late, the deployment of Zardes and Yedlin in the midfield wide roles represented both a declaration of faith from Klinsmann and a challenge to the young players to carry their weight.
It’s a formation that requires those wide men to work hard up and down the field, tucking in as required to bolster midfield numbers. To go an effective 90 minutes like that requires a lot of nous about when to stay and go and how to work smartly — especially when playing in the heat of a July game in Texas.
In practice, the balance looked a little wobbly. At one point, Klinsmann could be seen urging Kyle Beckerman to try and step up further into midfield to stop the attacking players from having to drop so deep to pick up the ball, but you could understand the RSL man’s caution, as he anticipated having to shore up the back four as Honduras’s wide men got between the midfield and defense.
It would be one thing if this risk was offset by the balance of attacking play favoring the USA and pinning Honduras back, but while Yedlin made an excellent dart just after the half-hour mark to go within inches of doubling the USA’s lead, the link up with the front two and Bradley didn’t happen enough. Klinsmann is prepared to risk Zardes and Yedlin learning on the job to make it so, without an additional body in midfield around them as insurance. But both players will know that with a greater degree of trust in them comes a greater degree of expectation.
Bradley enjoys a quiet anniversary
After his return to form for the international team reached a peak in the performances against Holland and Germany, Michael Bradley had closed in on his 100th cap with the additional honor of being named team captain.
The timing all round seemed to be auspicious – with Bradley appearing to be timing his run perfectly for a dominant performance in the Gold Cup. It may yet transpire, but on Tuesday night Bradley celebrated his landmark in somewhat understated fashion.
With the players around him not quite cohering enough to allow him to ease into the passing tempo that marks his game at its most influential, Bradley’s performance looked more labored than of late – more grinding of the gears than picking of locks.
There’s still nobody else on the US team as capable of setting the tone for the side as Bradley is on his day, but Tuesday was not really that day, even if it marked a significant personal milestone for the general who just became a captain.
Anthony Lozano shows he’s one to watch (again)
In a Honduran team sprinkled with players who’ve carved out modest niches for themselves in world football, you might have expected Andy Najar, the one-time DC United winger turned Anderlecht regular, to be the biggest attacking threat.
But while Najar threatened at times, and cut inside to unleash a stinging shot just over Brad Guzan’s bar on the stroke of half-time, he found himself withdrawn for goalscorer Romell Quioto in the second half.
And the chief attacking threat for Honduras is not currently playing in Europe but back in Honduras’s domestic league for CD Olimpia. Not that Anthony Lozano is an unknown abroad. Since making his senior debut for Olimpia at the prodigious age of 15 he’s attracted attention from the likes of Tottenham and had a stint in Spain, before returning home for whats turned out to be a career year heading into this tournament.
And Lozano looks to be carrying his current domestic goalscoring form into the Gold Cup. His strength, balance and eye for goal troubled the USA from the first whistle and while he didn’t get on the score sheet in this game, he did plenty to enhance his reputation and suggest that some of the European scouts who rated him as a teenager might want to take another look during this tournament.
And with Panama slipping up against Haiti in the opening game, Honduras has every chance of extending his showcase beyond the group stages.
