It may have been against Cuba and Cuba wasn’t at their best with only 18 members still on the team, but the USMNT put in a complete performance in their 6-0 win against Cuba. The win puts the United States into the Semifinals as they look to go against Jamaica after they beat Haiti 1-0 in Baltimore.
The game got rocking pretty quick for the USMNT. Clint Dempsey scored early to make it 1-0. The early goal showed that the backline was incredibly vulnerable and it was the beginning of a long day.
With Gyasi Zardes making it 2-0 and Aron Johannsson scoring a beautiful golazo to make it 3-0, things really were going off the rails for Cuba. On Johannsson’s goal, you could tell that Johannsson wanted to get behind and he did just that with Michael Bradley’s long pass. Then he had the Cuban goalkeeper out of position and it was just a simple chip over the keeper and into the goal.
On whether or not that play between Bradley and Johannsson was a premeditated play, Johannsson said, “It was just in the moment. Throughout the game I tried to find the space behind the backline because I felt they were a little too high on the pitch. And Michael made a perfect ball and I made a perfect chip.”
Then right before halftime, Omar Gonzalez made it 4-0 off of a Michael Bradley corner kick. There would be no references to “The Wire,” but it was fitting that a guy named Omar scored his first international goal in Baltimore.
For someone who scored their first goal, Gonzalez didn’t really seem too thrilled about it to register a celebration. “I wish I had enough energy to celebrate that goal more,” Gonzalez said. “But no, I’m extremely happy to get my first goal and it was very hot today, very humid. I think it kept getting hotter and hotter as the first half went on. But I’m proud of the guys for coming out the start of the game the way we did, [we were] focused, we were ready to get going and I think we made it very difficult for Cuba. It’s my first one, I’m happy that one is out of the way and now I can feel a bit more confident and try to get another one.”
The second half was all Dempsey, all the time. After making it 5-0 off of a penalty kick, Dempsey closed out the scoring in the 78th minute with this insane shot as he was falling down, with the outside of his foot. It was an absolutely crazy shot and it got him his first international hat trick as well as being far into the lead in the Golden Boot race.
Manager Jurgen Klinsmann wasn’t all that concerned about Dempsey’s first international hat trick. Talking in the postgame press conference after the game, Klinsmann jokingly said, “Well I didn’t know it was his first hat trick, took him a long time.”
In all seriousness, Klinsmann stressed the importance for the USMNT to have the discipline needed to beat a team they are supposed to beat. Going off his own personal experiences as a player, Klinsmann said that he told his players, “Don’t waste any chances…Those are the games where you kind of want to add a few more than you have planned. I gave an example of my world cup 1990, a game against the United Arab Emirates, the second game in, and I didn’t take it so seriously. I scored only one goal in that World Cup game. And I should’ve scored five. By the time after two games in the World Cup, I would’ve already been top scorer and I didn’t do it so that’s what I told them. Take it seriously.”
The USMNT can definitely take away a more cohesive team into the Semifinal and possibly the Final, but they will definitely be facing a tougher opponent so it may be tough to take things away tactically. Klinsmann said that the coaching staff would be staying behind to watch the Haiti/Jamaica game so they can get some sort of a gameplan started before Wednesday’s game. But even though it was Cuba, Cuba beat the team that drew Mexico in the Group Stage. The USMNT still needed to go out and win the game and they did just that. And now, the USMNT just need two more wins for their sixth Gold Cup title and clinch their fifth Confederations Cup.
