The USMNT faced World Cup champion and currently top ranked Germany on Wednesday. Rather than cower in fear, the USMNT stared them down to a 2-1 come-from-behind win. This comes on the heels of a thrilling 4-3 come-from-behind win against the Netherlands late last week. In just five days, the USMNT beat the No. 6 and No. 1 ranked teams in the world on European soil.
The USMNT started the game rather shaky and they paid the price. Timmy Chandler and the other USMNT defenders left Mario Gotze tremendously wide open and very easily tapped in the goal to make it 1-0.
Slowly the USMNT started to get things going and rather than starting strong and fading out like most games in the past year, the USMNT struggled at the start and got stronger as the game wore on. That was evident with this tremendous 35 pass sequence.
The #USMNT goal was a 35-pass sequence, spanning 95 seconds of game time. pic.twitter.com/XUIbJNCifU
— Matthew Doyle (@MLSAnalyst) June 10, 2015
Speaking of tremendous passing sequences, let’s talk about Michael Bradley. Bradley got a bad wrap over the past year but most of that wasn’t his fault. It doesn’t matter who you are, when you’re not playing a position you’re used to like Bradley was, you’re going to struggle. Bradley played too far up and now that he has played more centrally, he’s shined. That, and you also see sequences like this:
Michael Bradley you have balls of steel. #USMNT pic.twitter.com/zi8pzthER2
— amadí thiam (@amadoit) June 10, 2015
Once things got going again in the second half, the USMNT held their own. A fantastic game going back and forth and it really appeared that the USMNT was in it to win it. Then in the 88th minute, Bobby Wood with the dramatics once again. Not only did he score the game winning goal last Friday against the Netherlands, he scored the game winner against Germany with the kind of finish that would make Lionel Messi proud.
After Germany almost equalizing at the end, the USMNT held on to the 2-1 victory. The team is running on all cylinders as they start the Gold Cup in July. I, and others, have said that for US Soccer and the USMNT to be successful, they must beat the top teams in the world in their own backyards instead of beating up on CONCACAF teams and struggling against the top teams. You can’t get any better than what the USMNT has done over the past five days.
Yes, these are friendlies and these aren’t the top lineups that are being brought out but that doesn’t mean the Netherlands and Germany are putting out crap lineups. And it’s not like the USMNT is fielding their top team either. Both teams are fielding B lineups and the USMNT won the games. Also, this is Seattle Sounders player Brad Evans nutmegging Arsenal’s Lukas Podolski. By that alone, the USMNT earned this victory.
.@brad_evans3 you wonderful man, you pic.twitter.com/Al8Tr4i8N9
— Jose Rivera (@notjoserivera) June 10, 2015
I have said it all the time, in friendlies, you shouldn’t get too high on the wins and you shouldn’t get too low on the losses. As great as the wins were, they are still friendlies. Having said that, we’re going to take a few minutes and celebrate.
