USMNT’s Matt Freese, others step up in potential defining moment for young USA soccer team at Gold Cup

If the Concacaf Gold Cup was intended as a test area for an inexperienced version of the US national team, Sunday’s quarterfinals against Costa Rica was a very difficult investigation. It was not only the fact that it was the first profit or-go-home game for this group, which inherent comes with pressure, but will show a quick look at the score that a 2-2 match that ends in a 4-3 victory through a penalty shootout with its own trials and tests.

In a back and forth match it was the USMNT that was the first to admit when Francisco Calvo converted a 12th minute penalty for Los Ticos, who eventually went back to a 2-1 lead against the 49th minute despite missing a first half of their own. There was time for Costa Rica to work back in the game for a dramatic penalty shootout in which Keylor Navas made two saves for Los Ticos and Matt Freese made three for the USMNT. In the midst of the turns, however, several players stepped up and finally started to seize the chance that head coach Mauricio Pochettino handed them over to them.

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Freese delivered the most memorable performance on Sunday in Minneapolis, with a total of seven penalties – including Calvo’s in the first half – and almost all dived in the right way, saving almost half of those spotkicks and a touch of most others.

It was a decisive moment for the 26-year-old, who might be lucky at a starting point at the Gold Cup. Pochettino seemed the intention to explore his options this month, so that the first choice was Matt Turner for the ride but did not play that far in the competition. The role could have been fulfilled by the two keepers who were expected to make the cut, the Patrick Schulte of the Columbus Crew and the Zack Steffen of the Colorado Rapids, but both stopped injuries before the Gold Cup started. The chance fell on Freese from New York City FC, who may not always have his moments in the regular play, but because he quickly allowed an interview after the game with broadcasters, “punishing his thing.”

Freese was the kind of outing that raised his faith in what could be a competitive race to fill in the goalkeeper positions at the World Cup, with a really useful skills that some others still have to demonstrate in the pool. Freese is currently a specialist in penalties-Hij has won six of the seven shootouts in which he participated during his career and is perhaps simply the pick-in-case-in-case-in-case next year, just as Tim Krul of the Netherlands was famous in a shooting against Costa Rica at the 2014 World Cup.

Although Freese is the striking, he was not the only emerging USMNT player who built his business for next year’s tournament on Sunday. The most likely candidate to do this this summer was Luna and although he had a slow start of the Gold Cup, he finally earned his moment in the sun with the equalizer against Costa Rica. His goal was one of his three shots during the game, which served as a constant attack when the US spent a large part of the first 50 minutes to keep the defense of Costa Rica. Luna was perfect for a team that was energetic and intense during that period and delayed herself months ago to Pochettino as someone who has the right mindset. The question for the midfielder was whether he could match the mentality with meaningful moments on the field and with a goal on Sunday, he starts adding to an international count that has him with one goal and four assists in 10 games.

Luna’s success means that there is a growing competition for attacking midfield rolls while the USMNT arrives in the last year before the World Cup, especially because Malik Tillman maintains a strong form of form and Gio Reyna is at Borussia Dortmund’s bank at the World Cup of Club.

There is a similar pattern that develops on the left, although a pattern that resembles the competition for goalkeeper spots instead of the starting roles for which Luna, Tillman and Reyna may be fighting. Max Arfsten may have had an unequal performance on Sunday, but he also managed several important moments by helping Luna’s goal and scoring his in the second half, setting up his own industry’s arch after a fine in the 11th minute. The 24-year-old Arfsten was dynamic on the left wing during the energetic start of the USMNT of the competition, setting up different teammates for opportunities and completed 83.3% of his passes in the attacking third on the road.

His inexperience sometimes showed and it is difficult to imagine a world in which he replaces Antonee Robinson, which has been really excellent for Fulham and the USMNT in recent years. However, there is an argument that he is a better understudy than Joe Scally, who has filled Robinson’s shoes a few times without success, and the ability of Arftsen to play on both wings is a plus.

Usmnt’s room for improvement

The performance of Arfsten is emblematic for the general show of the USMNT – they have taken steps on Sunday, but there are still visible imperfections. The high pace of the first 50 minutes was undoubtedly positive, just like the 11 shots and two goals they had generated at the time. Their ideas for shot creation worked, especially when Arfsten ordered the left flank, but there were many missed connections in the last third in that time. Combined with the fact that Tillman missed a penalty in the first half, the 1.47 expected goals that they stored away along the way had a lot to be desired.

It also offered a grim memory of one of the long -term weaknesses of the USMNT – a reliable goal scorer who led the forward line. In the absence of the wounded Folarin Balogun and Ricardo Pepi and the non-commission Josh Sargent, that responsibility fell to Patrick Agyemang. Just like Luna, he had started pleading for himself earlier this year, but so far only has one goal at the Gold Cup. On Sunday he seemed from Lockstep with his teammates and hesitated on the ball, made four shots, but did not succeed in putting a single goal.

There was a sense of decoupling that was still present, understandable in some respects, but in other ways disturbing. These players are still quite new for each other, so building chemistry will clearly take time, but after almost a month of working together, the first 50 minutes of the game showed that their time began to pay together. After taking the lead, however, the group jointly took their foot off the gas – they took seven shots, but did not succeed in putting a single goal, with only 0.54 expected goals in the process. Most of them actually came after the equalizer of Alonso Martinez in the 71st minute, and there was a period of the 50th minute until the 65th where the USMNT actually made no shot.

On the way to the semi-final, there is still an incomplete feeling about this version of the USMNT, which may be to be expected in view of the long list of controversial Gold Cup-off. It is still difficult to gauge whether or not this group can go completely and the Gold Cup can win, although they will at least be the heavy favorites in the semi -final of Wednesday against Guatemala, who are for the first time since 1996 in the last four after a upset about Canada. However, that is almost a secondary point this summer – Pochettino’s task was to find talent that can join the main team as soon as they come together later this year and he found exactly that, even if it is that he has identified just as many problems he needs to solve with a year to the world cup.