Around 30% possession and zero shots on target (or off target, for that matter) told the story of a night on which the US players stumbled around the pitch with the open-mouthed adoration of fans waiting for an autograph. Sure, the US had lost three certain starters during the quarter-final triumph over Ecuador, but it was the team’s established – and emerging – stars who disappointed the most on Tuesday. Michael Bradley was as hard to press in defense as he was quick to give the ball away in attack; Clint Dempsey, starved of service and unable to free himself of the suffocating attentions of Javier Mascherano, saw the fresh reserves of energy he’d discovered in the last few matches desert him; and John Brooks endured his worst outing of the tournament. After a performance for the ages against Paraguay, Brooks seemed – like many of his team-mates – at once distracted, subdued, and utterly overawed by the company he had been asked to keep for 90 minutes; the young defender lost Ezequiel Lavezzi for Argentina’s first goal, and from that moment the US were never really in the contest. It was like watching a wedding band joined onstage by The Rolling Stones.
Argentina controlled the match the rest of the way, maintaining possession and absorbing American attacks.
Higuain scored his second goal of the match in the 86th minute. A Steve Birnbaum giveaway was collected by Messi, who squared it to a wide open Higuain.
The referee mercifully blew the final whistle a few minutes later, as the match had been over for quite a long time.
The result was never in doubt, and Argentina could have scored a few more goals. The match ended up being what everyone thought it would be, and now the U.S. can look ahead to the third place match.
The USMNT again failed to deal with a designed set piece. To be fair, it was an amazingly well-executed short corner, but this was the third time they've been beaten this tournament. It's almost impressive how many American players were able to not keep track of Lavezzi.
Defend and counter was always going to be the strategy. The U.S. was outmatched and the safe choice was to try and beat Argentina off the counter. As much as people wanted to attack (attack! attack!), conventional wisdom is that Argentina would have picked the defense apart. Whether trying not to lose instead of trying to win was the right strategy will forever be debated.
Should the U.S. have started the match with the same lineup they used at the beginning of the second half? Zardes is more of a like-for-like replacement for Wood, but Klinsmann opted for Wondolowski.
Reaching the semi-final was a satisfactory outcome for the hosts and there is no shame in losing to an Argentina team that may currently be the best side on the planet; it certainly has the finest player wearing the captain’s armband.
Still, almost straight from the first whistle there was never any sense that Klinsmann’s men might subvert their underdog status, provide inspiration as well as perspiration and achieve something amazing. Never any sense that the US would be so organised, or so bloody-minded, or so propelled by the home crowd, that they would deliver 90 minutes of stunning overachievement. The US did manage something remarkable, though: they failed to muster a shot in the match, on or off target.
In the Americans’ defense, the underdogs were under strength. A coach who has repeatedly questioned whether the standard of MLS is high enough to develop talent capable of beating the world’s best selected a starting XI with six MLS-based players.
Bobby Wood, Alejandro Bedoya, and perhaps most crucially, the midfield dynamo Jermaine Jones, were all suspended, their absences a blow given the inferior quality of their replacements and Klinsmann’s preference for a settled line-up in this tournament, even if tactically the side has oscillated between a 4-3-3 and 4-4-2.
In came Kyle Beckerman, a solid shield for Real Salt Lake; another experienced MLS man, the winger Graham Zusi; and Chris Wondolowski, 33 years old but – as ever – in fine scoring form for the San Jose Earthquakes. Still, he is something of an avatar for the gap between MLS and top-level international competition, and here he was only notable for inadvertently enabling a stunning goal for the other side.
These were his most important minutes for the national team since his miss late in the second half of the 2014 World Cup game against Belgium, which the US ultimately lost after extra time. It was a traumatizing moment for one of the best finishers in the American game, even if it ended up being overshadowed by the positive narrative of Tim Howard’s goalkeeping heroics.
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