It wasn’t a full FIFA date friendly and it certainly wasn’t on an international standard pitch, but the United States are still heading into the summer with a potentially momentum-changing win over Mexico. The USMNT have struggled through their post-World Cup friendlies, but they managed to post a 2-0 win over El Tri in San Antonio on Wednesday night.
3 things we learned from the USMNT’s 2-0 win over Mexico
Jordan Morris and Juan Agudelo are here to save the day and down Mexico, dos a cero.
This game marked the full debut of Jordan Morris, the Stanford and Seattle Sounders Under-23 product who’s yet to turn pro. He looked faster than the Mexico defense for all of his 65 minutes on the pitch and scored his first career senior goal in the 49th minute, set up by a pass from deep by Michael Bradley.
The U.S. captain had his fingerprints all over the second goal as well, scored by the man who replaced Morris, Juan Agudelo. He picked up Bradley’s lofted pass, cut inside and took a rip that sailed past Cirilo Saucedo into the back of the net.
While the USMNT had some other decent chances, it was only right that they didn’t score them and won another match over Mexico by a score of dos a cero.
3 things
1. Jordan Morris can hang with pros - It's okay if you still disagree with calling up Jordan Morris on principle. After all, he's was offered a pro contract and chose not to take it. There's an argument to be made that anyone who's a full-time professional deserves a call-up more than Morris. But Jurgen Klinsmann's given him a shot, and he absolutely took it on Wednesday night. Not only did he score, but he was the United States' most dangerous attacking threat all night. He absolutely vindicated his manager.
2. The U.S. can feel good about their midfield depth - With the caveat that evaluating midfielders, in particular, on this bad pitch is very hard, the U.S. midfielders were better than Mexico's on the night. Michael Bradley created both goals, while Kyle Beckerman was brilliant defensively and Mix Diskerud was very good at linking play. They look like a combination that can dominate games at the Gold Cup.
3. U.S. Soccer and FMF should be ashamed of themselves - This game should not have been played on this pitch, which was a disaster. Beckerman went off injured and Luis Montes had a scary moment, too. Both federations are very lucky there weren’t more serious injuries. They should have never agreed to play a game at this venue in the first place. They both make enough money that they could have given everyone a refund once they saw the state of the pitch and it was obviously unplayable. Instead, they put money ahead of the safety of their players, and it was disgraceful.
