USMNT: Time running out to avoid Gold Cup failure

The USMNT are on their way to the Gold Cup semi-final after a 1-0 win Sunday night. However, time is running out for this squad to avoid failure this summer.

It wasn’t a pretty result, not in the slightest. Yet, they found a way to get the result. The U.S. Men’s National Team advanced to the Gold Cup semi-final after a 1-0 win over Curacao. If not for a single moment of brilliance between Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie, we’d be having an entirely different conversation.

The US, if they’re lucky, get two more opportunities to change the perception of a stumbling soccer organization. The United States Soccer Federation is under the biggest microscope in quite some time. And while the women’s team pushes for back to back World Cup triumphs, the men’s team continues to flounder against inferior opposition.

“We’re happy with the result of this game,” head coach Gregg Berhalter says after the match. But why? Besides the obvious point that the team won and is moving on in a so-far-so-good Gold Cup, why is the coaching staff happy with the result? What did any of the players do against Curacao, a country whose population is less than that of the city in which the quarter-final was played, that showed the audience otherwise?

Pulisic had his moment of brilliance, but past that, there is nothing the team did to show there is progress happening. And unfortunately for Berhalter, time is running out.

For a national team program that failed miserably less than two years ago, then followed that failure up with a stuck-in-first-gear coaching search, progress needs to be shown. In this present state of affairs, anything less than making the Gold Cup final and playing well is going to be yet another failure.

Along the way, the USMNT needs to show there is progress. They need to show a will to win, a grittiness in a gritty competition. Yet, there is not much to be celebrated thus far.

The US have yet to concede a goal. That’s great! But they haven’t been tested by any real talent yet, not at least during the Gold Cup. In the two friendlies prior, the US faced real talent. They played a Jamaica team that, while not fielding top talent, came out and fought for a win. Guess who didn’t fight back? You guessed it, the team that lost that friendly 1-0.

To follow it up, the USMNT then played a Venezuela team that would go on to make the quarter-finals of the Copa America and got trounced 3-0 because of complicit, lackluster play.

And that’s the thing. It’s not that the US aren’t getting the necessary results, because they are. It’s great that they’re outscoring the opposition 12-0 in four matches. The pressing matter is the way they’re getting results.

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Against Curacao, the team looked slow. They looked indifferent to what was happening. Berhalter made a point to say this.”You guys [the media] wanted us to go out there and beat them 5-0, but we knew it was going to be a difficult game,” he said after the match, “they [Curacao] know there’s no tomorrow if they lose.”

If Curacao knew there’s no tomorrow if they lose, and played like it, why didn’t the US play like it? The US played Curacao the same way they played Jamaica, and Venezuela, and Panama’s B team during the final group stage match. They played like a bunch of mechanical robots who lacked passion and drive.

Now there’s no time to work on those things. The USMNT get another shot at Jamaic in the semi-finals. If they win that, it will likely be Mexico in the final, the same Mexico that are playing with fire and fury and demolishing opponents at will, the same Mexico that, even when they’re not outplaying their opponent, are showing passion and a will to win.

So, if the USMNT find a way to get a result against Jamaica, they have got worse things coming. And that’s if they beat Jamaica. Because right now, with a look of indifference and apathy, the US don’t look like a team that can beat Jamaica, much less Mexico.

dark. Next. USMNT Vs Curacao: 3 things we learned

There isn’t time to unlock a winning drive or passion within the game. If Berhalter and the US players can’t tap into that, they’re going to fail in the eyes of their supporters. And they can’t afford to continue failing if they want to turn this squad around.

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