By Juan Carlos Maygua
After the unfortunate result against Switzerland, the USMNT returned home to participate in the CONCACAF Nations League tournament. Colorado would host the national team after almost 600 days without a competitive match, making the fixture against Honduras even more meaningful. A win secured a spot in the final game, enough motivation for both teams to display their best football for 90 minutes. The National team, however, arrived at the game with a key man on their side, Christian Pulisic joined the squad ready to make a difference on the field.
A hard-fought battle
The match started with the USMNT out in the attack. Giovanni Reyna and Josh Sargent were responsible for finishing the plays created by Pulicic, whenever he played out his striker role. The first critical moment was a solo play by Giovanni Reyna inside the box, where he dribbled past three defenders but his shot at goal missed the net by a short distance. Weston McKennie missed capitalizing on another opportunity after his header missed the target, in perspective, his chance had to become a goal, but sometimes things don’t work out as planned. Honduras did fight back creating chances of their own, Deybi Flores tested Zack Steffen with a long-distance shot. However, they came close after a set-piece play from a free-kick was almost capitalized by Honduras. Alberth Elis headered the ball towards goal after Steffen miscalculated the cross, luckily Josh Sargent tracked the play and managed to clear the ball on the line. The first half concluded with Sargent coming close to scoring with a header once again. Ironically, these methods would be the difference-maker in the outcome of the game.
From that point on the National Team was dangerous by making passes between the lines. Pulisic became the generator, but Honduras was composed defensively. Honduras started the second half with more confidence. Anthony Lozano had a game-changing chance when a counterattack caught the USMNT out of position. “El choco” found himself in a one-on-one opportunity against Steffen, but he found no angle to score. The goalkeeper would play a key role in the second half saving some long-range shots from Honduras. Although it’s safe to say that the National team managed to gain control of the game. Which caused Honduras to be more physical against USMNT players. Reyna and Dest became constant targets for fouls as a measure to stop any growing momentum gathered by the national team. Honduras also opted to manage the clock by continuously asking for medical attention on the field. This was a good strategy since penalty kicks would decide a winner if the tie remained throughout the 90 minutes. The goal, however, would come from the bench. In the final minute of the game, Weston McKennie put the ball inside the box with a header, ironically the ball found the back of the net after Theoson Siebatcheu finished the play. The USMNT found the winning goal in dramatic style, Theoson became the hero in his first game with the national team, ironically with a header.
Head coach Gregg Berhalter spoke about the importance of the result ahead of the final on Sunday. “Were not taking anything for granted, we’re not taking any performance for granted. We would have liked to score more goals and win more comfortably, but that’s not the reality. You’ll see a lot of difficult results and difficult games, and that’s part of it. We played the second-youngest team in the history of U.S Soccer in a competitive match tonight. These guys need that experience, so I’m really happy with how the game went and glad we had to go through this because it’s a great learning experience”.