Well, that was less than ideal. The United States were eliminated from the World Cup on Saturday. We’re here to walk you through what happened, and what comes next. I’m Mike Goodman and the World Cup still rolls on. This is the Golazo Starting XI newsletter.
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The Forward Line
USMNT go home with heads held high
The 3-1 score was lopsided. But the game itself wasn’t. In the cold, hard late of day, the story of the match really comes down to the fact that Christian Pulisic had a great chance to put the Americans up early on, and he missed it. Minutes later, Memphis Depay had the chance to do the same for the Netherlands, and he did not. A look at the stats over the course of the match show an American team throwing punches as well as taking them in a back-and-forth affair that was decided by relatively fine margins. At least by the measure of expected goals, the United States played the Dutch even.
That doesn’t mean this side shouldn’t take lessons from losing here. Despite playing well enough that on another day they might have won, the Americans still didn’t play as well as they could have. Tyler Adams was slow to track Memphis Depay for his opening goal, and Sergino Dest was flat-footed on Daley Blind’s finish that put the Netherlands up two. They can and should do better.
This was clearly a gassed team, exhausted by playing its fourth match in a week and a half, with very little…
