Let’s begin with the foul.
It by no means ought to have been dedicated within the first place.
Walker Zimmerman by no means wanted to take Gareth Bale down with a sliding deal with contained in the penalty field with the U.S. males soccer crew main Wales 1-0 late in Monday’s World Cup Group B opening match in Qatar.
The People, ranked sixteenth on the earth, have been a tantalizing 10 or so minutes away from securing three of a very powerful factors of their World Cup historical past in opposition to a Nineteenth-ranked Wales crew they need to have defeated.
Groups that win their first match in World Cup group play traditionally advance to the knockout stage 84 % of the time. That is what was within the tantalizing grasp of the U.S. aspect when Zimmerman dedicated that ill-advised foul contained in the field.
Bale, Wales’ greatest and most adorned participant, had his again to the aim on the play and was not a risk to attain in the intervening time. Zimmerman, a two-time MLS defender of the 12 months, wanted solely to mark him, to include him. Not blow him up.
But, Zimmerman aggressively threw his decrease physique into Bale in an effort to jar the ball unfastened, sending him to the turf and getting referred to as for a game-changing foul.
It resulted in a present penalty kick for Bale, which he would convert, sending a missile off his left foot into the correct aspect of the web, deflecting off the hand of U.S. goalkeeper Matt Turner, a Park Ridge, N.J., native who performed his school ball simply up I-95 in Connecticut at Fairfield College.
“We gave them a lifeline,” Turner mentioned after the match. “We dropped two factors.”
No more true phrases have been spoken by anybody from the U.S. crew.
Certainly, a sport that the U.S. aspect had dominated for the primary half, was tied at 1-1 after the Bale aim and that’s the place it could finish — to the delight of Wales, which was on the ropes, and the frustration of the People, who have been in management.
The Bale penalty kick within the 82nd minute gave Wales a gift-wrapped level and it price the U.S. two extremely worthwhile factors because it now faces Friday’s second Group B match in opposition to England, one of many event favorites which smoked Iran 6-2 earlier within the day.
However that is what the U.S. males’s soccer crew does. It has a protracted historical past of teasing you, reeling you into pondering it’s about to make a giant transfer on the worldwide stage. After which it disappoints you, leaves you wanting for extra.
After the match, the People’ first look within the World Cup since 2014 as a result of they did not qualify in 2018, U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter and his gamers placed on their greatest courageous faces, claiming to be proud about securing an necessary World Cup level.
However you possibly can see it on their faces afterward: They knew they blew an outstanding alternative to place themselves in a commanding place to advance to the knockout stage.
“An important factor was that we didn’t lose,” mentioned 22-year-old U.S. ahead Tim Weah, the Queens native who scored the U.S. aim within the thirty sixth minute on a fabulous one-timer with the skin of his proper foot off an ideal service from Christian Pulisic that break up two Wales defenders.
Observe all of the 2022 World Cup motion with extra from the New York Submit
- Day by day up to date schedules, scores, information and extra
- Grant Wahl’s household reveals doable explanation for loss of life
- Behind-the-scenes drama for USMNT at World Cup
- Ronaldo feedback on future after Portugal’s World Cup exit
- All The Submit’s World Cup playing picks
That is the place the U.S. must be higher, as a result of that is the place American nationwide soccer has been caught for too lengthy: Hoping to have the ability to compete with the massive boys as a substitute of anticipating to beat the massive boys. And Wales isn’t even one of many large boys, which makes this much more disappointing.
It’s comprehensible what Weah mentioned in regards to the significance of not dropping, as a result of a loss would have been debilitating within the group, notably with a tall job in opposition to England awaiting. However the People have been higher than Wales for a lot of the match and failed to complete, did not hold their depth for 90 minutes.
Berhalter mentioned after the match that he felt his crew “misplaced a bit little bit of energy” within the second half.
“Wales stepped up the stress,’’ Berhalter mentioned. “I believed the fellows handled it nicely.”
Not nicely sufficient.
Berhalter shall be second-guessed for a number of issues on this match, starting with why ahead Giovanni Reyna, probably the most dynamic skills on the crew who was a projected starter, curiously didn’t play a minute.
He, too, didn’t reply rapidly sufficient by substituting recent our bodies in to counter Wales’ change of tactic within the second half because it went from laying again with little curiosity in possessing the ball whereas ready for counterattack probabilities within the first 45 minutes to being the aggressor within the second half.
“Strolling into the locker room after the sport,” Berhalter mentioned, “you possibly can see the frustration within the group.”
They need to be upset. Hopefully, that disappointment accelerates their development. Like in time for Friday’s England match.
Post a Comment