USMNT setting sights on improvement following Uzbekistan win

09/10/2023 10:07 PM

The U.S. men’s national team earned a 3-0 friendly victory over Uzbekistan on Saturday night in St. Louis, but returning head coach Gregg Berhalter admitted that plenty of improvement is needed after a lackluster performance to start the September window.

An early strike from Timothy Weah paired with second-half stoppage time goals from Ricardo Pepi and Christian Pulisic helped the Americans capture a winning result at CITYPARK. However, the Americans were made to grind for the result over 90 minutes and easily could’ve came out on the other end of the scoreline if not for a few lucky breaks on the other side of the field.

“I think we use this game as a learning tool,” Berhalter said. “We can improve and we need to improve and we will. I think that it’s a good baseline for us to start and say this is what international competition from other regions looks like and so that we use as we go.”

Matt Turner made three key saves for the USMNT and even received help from his post to repel Khojiakbar Alijonov from tying the match in the first half. At times, the USMNT looked frustrated in the final third, striking the post once themselves and also being denied on three occasions by Utkir Yusupov.

Pepi, Malik Tillman, and Brenden Aaronson all made an impact off the bench, contributing on the final two goals of the match and earning a confidence boost heading into Tuesday’s showdown with Oman. All three players took advantage of Uzbekistan’s defensive switch to a back-four from a back-five, which is something Berhalter admitted helped pad the final scoreline.

“I really, really liked the mindset in the last 10 minutes of the game,” Berhalter said. “You could see the guys still wanted to push. It wasn’t about holding onto the 1-0. It was about getting aggressive. As they moved to a back four, we had more space and I liked that the guys wanted to attack it.

“We gave the ball away in some tough spots,” he added. “That was the first thing. The second thing is when we were building, we were methodical about our buildup trying to attract the opponent. I thought then we lacked the speeding up the attack once we broke through that front five and that could have been better.”

Pulisic, Yunus Musah, Tim Ream, and Sergino Dest were the only outfield players to feature in the entire 90 minutes while several others received important minutes off the bench. Tanner Tessmann, Mark McKenzie, and Kristoffer Lund all featured off the bench and will be among several players seeking a start against Oman in two days time.

Uzbekistan certainly held its own against the USMNT for majority of the match, giving Berhalter and his coaching staff a lot to ponder ahead of a first-ever meeting with Oman.

“And then the other thing I’d note is that our press after [losing possession], defensive transition, needs to get better,” Berhalter said. “I think we gave them too many opportunities to get behind us when we could have been positioned better to win the ball immediately after we lost it.

“If we had to take our time to draw out their defense, and then find someone once we break their top five, then we need to speed up the attack,” he added. “We need to have numbers getting forward, we need numbers entering the penalty box, we need runs behind the backline and I thought that’s what we lacked at times.”