United States crush lowly Guatemala in last Gold Cup tune-up test
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Any lingering notions of those fanciful European nights faded away within minutes. There are long, arduous slogs ahead for the U.S. national team on the path to defending this CONCACAF Gold Cup. This methodical, ruthless march to a 4-0 victory over Guatemala certainly offered a necessary reminder of the toil ahead.
There were flourishes of brilliance from time to time after the break, but the Americans mostly relied on diligence and persistence to allow the gulf between the two teams to manifest. Carlos Castrillo somehow headed DeAndre Yedlin’s teasing cross into his own net to blunt the influence of Jozy Altidore’s penalty miss and open the scoring inside the first 20 minutes. Timmy Chandler doubled the advantage with a rasping drive from distance early in the second half to sort out the result. Clint Dempsey clipped home a penalty after 72 minutes before Chris Wondolowski rolled home Gyasi Zardes’ pullback to round off the night in style.
Victory mattered in some sense to make the proper statement of intent ahead of this Gold Cup, but the result paled in importance to the method used to wrangle it. This game resembled the fare ahead over the next month. There were issues to address — lapses in concentration on set pieces, missed opportunities on the break, stray passes in inadvisable areas — as the match progressed, but the utility of the exercise endured as the Americans coped with the challenges presented and worked through them effectively to secure the expected victory.
"Obviously 4-nil sounds really nice," coach Jurgen Klinsmann said. "Performance? Not so nice. I'm not happy with that performance. I'm kind of disappointed with a couple of things: moving off the ball, speed of play, urgency. Things we talked about before were not executed the way we wanted them to be executed."
Most of the early exchanges revealed the sort of intent necessary to break down teams expected to sit deeply, soak up pressure and wait for a chance to counter. The home side knocked the ball crisply and tried to make its advantage in possession tell by rotating quickly from side to side.
All of the movement eventually created the conditions to win a penalty kick after 16 minutes. Altidore made a hard, determined run into the penalty areas as the U.S. broke up the left. Wilson Lalin tugged him to the ground in a bid to halt his run and watched referee Jorge Perez dutifully point to the spot in response. Altidore dispatched his penalty toward the lower-left hand corner, but Paulo Motta dove well to his left to stop the effort.
Yedlin blunted the impact of that miss by forcing Castrillo to concede the opener moments later. The move started with a perfectly weighted ball from Michael Bradley, freshly installed as captain for the Gold Cup excursion, over the top to play Yedlin into space up the right. Yedlin attacked his marker one-versus-one, created a yard of space and whipped a tempting cross into the penalty area. Castrillo tried to cope with it, but he somehow managed to nod it into the lower right-hand corner instead.
The first goal encouraged Guatemala to venture forward, but those measures posed little menace without some aid. Brad Guzan rushed out to block after the Americans fell asleep on a free kick taken short, while Lalin headed another set piece to Guzan on the bounce as the Guatemalans attempted to make their intermittent forays worthwhile.
Guatemala coach Ivan Franco Sopegno chucked Marco Pappa and Carlos Ruiz into the fray at halftime in a bid to present more of a threat. They combined to present an almost certain equalizer after Ruiz, as ever, made a pest of himself on Pappa’s whipped free kick from the right, but Jose Contreras somehow failed to turn into the vacated goal two minutes after halftime.
At that juncture, it felt like a particularly vital miss given the Americans’ dominance in possession and the Guatemalans’ fitness issues after being tasked with chasing for much of the evening. Those premonitions paid off in spectacular and unexpected fashion when Chandler thumped home his first international goal just before the hour.
Chandler leaned on the space created by a wide run on the right and slipped into the channel. He navigated inside and then picked out a yard of space. He let fly from 25 yards and uncorked a drive heretofore unseen during his tenure with the national team. The ball nestled inside the far corner before Motta could react to extend the lead and underscore the difference between the sides.
Once Chandler produced the second, the Americans grinded away until they increased the margin of victory. Zardes impressed with his active and willing runs on the left after emerging from the bench at halftime, but Bradley eventually paved the way for the third when he bounded into the area and tempted the beleaguered Castrillo to bundle him to the ground.
Dempsey, the focal point of ample discussion over the past few weeks, stepped up to take the penalty with Altidore removed minutes earlier. His no-look pass after a silky combination with Zardes betrayed his emerging presence as the match progressed and portended the spot kick to follow. His clipped effort floated over Motta’s futile dive to extend the lead to three.
Dempsey, who was replaced as captain for the tournament by Klinsmann over a confrontation with a referee, said he's moved past it and supports Bradley.
"It's cool," Dempsey said. "Michael's a great leader. He deserves to be captain. For me, I'm excited to be part of the team, trying to push to win the Gold Cup, be a part of the Confederations Cup. I got to experience being captain in the World Cup. For me, that was something special and I'll always kind of remember, but it's never been a big thing for me to be captain."
Guatemala huffed and puffed with Ruiz trying in earnest to produce a goal, but the denouement eventually yielded a fourth for the Americans instead. Zardes did most of the heavy lifting with another driving run up the left. His pullback arrived at the perfect time for Wondolowski to sweep.
"All of us as players, we're not naive to think that we were unbelievable tonight," Guzan said. "We know there are areas where we need to sharpen things up. We know there are areas where we need to clean things up. But in saying that, going forward from here on out, it's about results. I think winning is a mentality. It's contagious. It was important we kept that going from obviously two great wins in Europe.
"Although it wasn't our best performance, it was important that we found a way to win."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
