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You missed it, didn’t you? You missed CONCACAF soccer. Nothing makes you appreciate the quality of soccer around the world like the lack of it in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. That might seem harsh, but after seeing the USA play poorly in its most difficult group game and still win, there can be no doubt that it is the truth.
Honduras, which came into the CONCACAG Gold Cup ranked 75th in the world, played the USA (27th) about as equal as is possible in a 2-1 defeat. The Americans were just more clinical with their finishing, the importance of which, admittedly, should not be lost amid the struggles of the rest of the game. The United States won while playing bad, and that is always a good thing.
For all of its back and forth action, this match was sloppy. Jozy Altidore failed to make anyone believe he will be anything other than Jozy Altidore in the near future: strong, maybe even the US’s best goal scorer, but not very good in any one particular area of the game. He was unconvincing in the build up to the first goal: he all but missed a header and threw off the Honduran defense in doing so, putting it in a precarious position in which it eventually conceded to a Dempsey header from six yards out.
Not to be outdone, DeAndre Yedlin looked all of speed and nothing of much else. He tried to accelerate past defenders with the ball when there was no angle, he misplaced short passes, dumped the ball to the defense in what we can safely assume were attempted through balls, made the wrong decisions on the counter, and gave little reason to remember his name defensively.
Yedlin will need to seriously improve if he hopes to become a regular in Tottenham Hotspurs lineup come next season.
On the plus side, Clint Dempsey looked good. There were moments in the match, particularly after his second goal, where he was absolutely dancing on the ball with confidence.
I would want to dance to if I was paid to paid to put balls in the back of the net and was left this wide open on a set piece:
That being said, even Dempsy suffered from the same lack of mental stability that led to the US letting Honduras back into the match. The team should have closed out the game with a clean sheet after going up 2-0; Honduras is not that good. Yet 6 minutes after Dempsey scored his second, Honduras’ Carlos Discua received a pass on the left side of the US’s 18, touched the ball past a defender, and finished near post over the shoulder of Brad Guzan.
For him, it was a brilliant piece of play. For the US, it was an undisciplined defensive breakdown.
There is a lack of mental stability in this team that is troubling: it simply did not perform consistently for a whole 90 minutes against Honduras, and it had nothing to do with physical fitness. There are only a couple teams in this tournament — see: Costa Rica, Mexico — against whom this will truly hurt the US, but that doesn’t mean they should slack against lesser competition. The US is hardly at the point where it can “flip the switch” and suddenly become a mentally stable team. It simply needs to improve.
The USMNT plays its next match in the CONCACAF Gold Cup Friday, July 10th, at 8:30 PM EST. It will play Haiti.
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