Wednesday’s U.S. men’s national team-Guatemala match will go down as the Diego Luna game.
Luna scored both of the USMNT’s goals in a 2-1 CONCACAF Gold Cup semifinal victory over Guatemala in St. Louis. The Real Salt Lake midfielder earned SBI USMNT Man of the Match honors for his stellar performance in Mauricio Pochettino’s starting lineup.
The USMNT aimed for a fast start against Guatemala and received just that through Luna’s awareness in the 18-yard box. Luca De La Torre’s right-footed strike was repelled by Kénderson Navarro in the box but Luna pounced on the rebound and slotted home for a 1-0 lead.
Luna’s night wasn’t done yet as the 21-year-old added to his tally in the 15th minute.
Malik Tillman sprung Luna upfield before the midfielder danced past Jose Pinto and ripped a low drive into the bottom-left corner.
It marked Luna’s third goal of the Gold Cup.
Luna continued to work tirelessly throughout the match as the USMNT tried to extend their lead. The 21-year-old Luna won three duels, drew one foul, and completed one dribble attempt after being replaced in the 77th minute.
Guatemala pulled one goal back through substitute Olger Escobar’s confident finish, but the USMNT hung on to seal their spot in Sunday’s Gold Cup Final.
Luna edged Malik Tillman, Tyler Adams, and Tim Ream for Man of the Match honors.
What did you think of Luna’s performance? Where would you rank him in the USMNT midfielder pecking order? Are you hoping to see him during the fall windows?
Share your thoughts below.
Luna stats looking good. 7 USMNT games 3 goals and 3 assists.
His vision and willingness to combine quickly sets him apart. After watching our “A team” over dribble, miss open runners, and seem afraid to try to attack, it is a joy to watch Luna operate. He makes the correct decision and executes almost every time. I can recall one turnover in this game, it stood out because it happens so rarely. And that second goal was a beauty
JB,
On Luna’s second goal, the defense from the Guatemalan defender was pretty bad.
Some might refer to that Guatemalan defender as a cone.
yeah, i am going to be interested how this gets reintegrated with the regulars. do they adopt more of this tactical aggression and get more away from the berhalter ball perimeter passivity. and do some of the straw-stirrers like luna and berhalter get starting roles. i have not liked our musah-mckennie MF which is just very sloppy and not as defensive as its fans think. you see where every time we tick over to a reyna or luna in form, and go to goal more, this looks and does better.
and then i am going to keep repeating, particularly since we shipped another goal tonight, the defense is still a mess and building from the back often does the opposing setup work for them.
people forget there is plenty of history of the US seeming to get it together and winning a gold cup then stumbling in WCQ right after if they forget the lessons they just learned. the GC 17 backline reverted back to omar and co. for couva. after NL 21 they turned back into berhalter soccer and then benched reyna for the world cup.
it’s good we made a final but if we see the same old folks back in september playing as tentative as ever, this hasn’t really moved.
IV: Never lets a chance go by to rewrite history to prove his point.
“the GC 17 backline reverted back to omar and co. for couva.”
– the starting backline for ‘17 GC was Villafana, Besler, Gonzo, Zusi and Howard; the only difference for WCQ was Yedlin instead of Zusi.
IV:
– Musah and Wes, those guys aren’t the Luna competition. They’re playing in the Berhalter and Luca role. Luna and Tillman are playing where Pulisic and Weah have been. When Adams plays it gets trickier because then Berhalter has been sliding wide, like Musah in Nov against Jamaica.
-when we tried building from the back, we scored two goals and had more of the possession. After we took the lead and started just having Freese boot it long and we sat back in a mid block stopped pressing and eventually a low block we struggled and Guatemala got back into the game. Given the weather and short rest period between games we couldn’t have pressed for 90 minutes, but just hitting it long to Agyemang was why Guatemala had the possession in the second half.
I know he’s not from Texas, but he’s got that Texas flair and grit.
he had a 2 year stint at el paso locomotive USL when he was first getting started in his teens.
I think Luna has shown that he is the real deal and I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t get a good offer from a decent European team. He has a lot of fight to go with his talent. I think he could be our next Dempsey.
There are no stories out there about named interests. There were some Leeds rumors in January but he isn’t being mentioned with them now. It’s very strange. Mastroeni said in March he doesn’t expect Diego to be with RSL after the summer window, but nothing advanced is coming out. Maybe it will be one of those just all of a sudden he’s on a plane to do his medicals.
There is always the January window. Dempsey went to Fulham from New England during a January window. If Luna keeps producing, he won’t be overlooked.
you play this well in this big a game, it gets seen and the market creates itself. ditto agyemang.
this is why the lagging indicator club snobbery is so dumb. LDLT is back in MLS and johnny had a lousy tournament. those were the spanish guys people raved about. tillman had dropped down to holland. if you play along with it, it’s kind of “invisible hand” stuff. it corrects over time.
and then some of the stars play like stars. but people should pay more attention to the “plays like.” you play like luna and teams will find you.
Gary Page,
Luna as our next Clint Dempsey???…weren’t you just posting in another thread about USMNT fans being delusional? 🙂
my comparison on luna is the other clint — mathis. on that team you had reyna to steadily keep the ball moving. you then had mathis to actually go after teams, similar punk sensibility.
i personally think tillman and mckennie should be competing for the wing jobs. they are better crashing the box to finish, and tillman will chase defenders and win the ball back.
then luna at 10 or 6. reyna and campbell in the mix as well.
Gary,
“He has a lot of fight to go with his talent. I think he could be our next Dempsey.”
I don’t think so.
They are very different. Clint was a Terminator. Landon was the guy who attacked the defenses and unsettled them.
Clint made them pay.
Once LD left unsettling the defense got delegated to others like Fabian and JJ. And Clint worked off of them.
Pulisic replaced Landon in that role.
To me Diego is the direct replacement for Pulisic.
This is his team. He’s the guy they look for. He’s everywhere on the field. He tracks back. I suspect that guys like Max and Patrick would not look as good if he were not around.
Either you sit CP, which is not going to happen, or you figure out how they will play together. It’s not a perfect analogy but Diego could be Sonny to CP’s Harry.