United States national team’s draw in the big picture
For the United States national team, a young group with nearly all the Starting XI making their first appearance in a World Cup qualifier, Thursday night’s tie in El Salvador was a positive. At least that was the line from Gregg Berhalter, who was making his qualifying debut as a head coach.
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And Berhalter, who has experience in World Cup qualifiers as a player, sees the scoreless result as a building block. Many in the media painted the single point as a disappointment given that the United States is the most talented team in the final round of CONCACAF qualifying. And conversely, El Salvador is considered the weakest team in the group of eight teams trying to get to the next World Cup in Qatar making the result a bit of a letdown following the national team’s success this summer.
Following the match, Berhalter said “the intention of the whole game was to win the game – we weren’t sitting back.” He also balanced that by looking at the big picture of getting his young team ready for other big matches in the coming months.
“You’re always trying to make sure that the group is ready for the challenge ahead of them. And in this case, I think it was a really good experience especially for the collective group, just to see what these games are about,” Berhalter said after the match.
“You know you can talk about them, but until you’re actually in them. You know, it’s, it’s hard to understand, so we got that game under our belt. We got a point and we move on.”
The United States held 49 percent possession in the draw but had an edge in shots (13:7) as well as shots on goal (2:1). El Salvador had more passes, corner kicks (5:3) and duels won (74:65).
Mexico beat Jamaica 2-1 on a late goal to top qualifying after the first day of matches. Canada, the next opponent for the United States national team, settled for a disappointing 1-1 home result with Honduras.