One Good Game
If there’s one USMNT game to remember from this World Cup, it’s the draw against Portugal. Not because of the end result — the Ghana game was much more satisfying after the final whistle — but because it might’ve been the best we’ve ever seen the USMNT play.
The U.S. controlled and dictated the game. It held the ball and its scoring chances weren’t simply crosses from the outside — they were creative, quality chances coming from all directions. This is the game that sold me on Jurgen Klinsmann.
Taken from Brian Phillips’ recap on Grantland, this excerpt says it all:
“Still — do you remember ever watching a USMNT performance that was more flat fun than that one, at least between the 10th or so minute and the final 0.01235 seconds? I don’t. I’m not saying there’s never been one, but one doesn’t come to me immediately.
There were all these moments in the first half. Passages where our guys would go rocketing forward, just action-verbing the living fuck out of the universe, and Clint Dempsey would bludgeon a shot a hair above the goal, and then Portugal would get the ball back, and roll it out to the wing, and just kind of stand there with it because there were no options. They would stand there with it in such an aristocratic way, though. It was like, Why, hello there, we are a European soccer team. And then we would get it back and go joyriding back down the pitch like, OH REALLY, BECAUSE WE’RE NOT.”
Brian Phillips nailed it, again.
