The USMNT are into the knockout round of the Gold Cup
Good afternoon from Lincoln Financial Field, where Chelsea is beating Flamengo 1-0 in the Club World Cup. Here's few brief notes on last evening's 1-0 defeat of Saudi Arabia in Gold Cup
Very much and very little has changed since the U.S. drew Saudi Arabia 0-0 in a mostly empty stadium in Murcia, Spain. It was September 27, 2022, and Gregg Berhalter had just led a mostly first-choice squad into a stalemate days after losing 2-0 to Japan in Düsseldorf. Those two (hardly encouraging) friendlies were the final tests before a young, aspirational squad hit the ground in Doha, where they proceeded to impress with their play while meeting, though not exceeding, expectations. They showed off the skill of a talented generation while escaping a group containing Wales, England and Iran, then lost 3-1 to the Dutch in the next round. It’s the little moments, the team explained, while Berhalter noted that, “We don’t have a Memphis Depay right now.”
Nearly three years later and Gregg Berhalter no longer coaches the soon-to-be World Cup hosts, though his son Sebastian was on the pitch last evening in Austin, and helped unlock a compact Saudi side that felt hauntingly reminiscent of that evening in Murcia, Spain.
In Texas, the Saudis fielded four of the same starters from that night in Spain, while the U.S. re-fielded none (the cause for everyone’s absence is now a belabored affair, which comes downwind of injury, Club World Cup duty, dubious player evaluations, and Christian Pulisic’s need for a break). Taking their invitation to play with Concacaf to heart, Hervé Renard arrayed his team in a dense defensive block that the U.S. failed to stretch or disorganize with the pace of their play. With a few notable exceptions, Pochettino’s lineup lacked energy. The first forty-five withered away like a dreary reminder of that long ago deadlock in Spain.
The highlight of the half, for me and, judging by others’ reactions, most viewers, was the steady presence of Chris Richards in the backline. The freshly minted FA Cup winner making his 27th U.S. appearance was called upon for a few occasions, including most notably to make a momentous block that stymied Saudi Arabia from grabbing a go-ahead early goal.
The tempo shifted slightly in the second half, with more energy and bravery fomenting. Though it did take a set piece (cheekily noted by Saudi Arabia’s French manager in the post match: “They won the game on set pieces. But we played a good game.”) to break down the Saudi’s, rather than anything Pochettino’s crew finagled from the run of play. From a free kick, Sebastian Berhalter dropped a beautiful right-footed ball onto the foot of Chris Richards, who touched home the team’s game-winning goal, his second-ever for the USMNT.
There were a few dicey minutes in the remaining minutes (including a brief player scuffle that involved both coaches, though it seemed to me Renard was attempting to stop his players from escalation rather than egg anything on), but the squad saw things out 1-0.
With that, a team steeped in more uncertainty than most imagined this close to the 2026 World Cup is officially through the quarter-final round of the Gold Cup. They’ll play Haiti before they arrive there, and face much tougher challenges after that. Questions already pertinent in the group stage (which the U.S. has never failed to progress from) will only fester, and if not fester than certainly demand clearer answers, as opponents grow more challenging from here. The team’s five goals knocked past a struggling Trinidad & Tobago side will be a different story against either of our neighbors due north or south—- or anyone the U.S. will meet in the knockout phase, for that matter. That it took a center back from a set piece to break through the Saudis isn’t the most encouraging sign for Pochettino’s apparently-preferred XI, or how it's being set up. All the same, a win is a win, the team moves on, and the rest of us move on too through this strange tournament where I suppose, inevitably, we will learn stuff.