The U.S. men’s national team rebounded from Saturday’s loss by earning an important win for morale, and after not getting the starting nod in Saturday’s loss, Folarin Balogun and Alex Zendejas led the way against Japan.
Balogun and Zendejas were both goalscorers in Tuesday’s 2-0 home victory, a result which helped ease the pressure on USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino. Both players were in the starting lineup on Tuesday after featuring off of the bench against South Korea.
Zendejas opened the scoring with a sublime left-footed volley in the 30th minute, celebrating his second senior goal for the program. Despite being a key player for Liga MX side Club America over the past three seasons, Zendejas has struggled to replicate that success on the international level.
However, the 27-year-old’s impressive outing in Columbus not only propelled the USMNT to a key win on home soil, but also boosted his stock to potentially making the World Cup roster next summer.
“We are so pleased because he, with his performance, makes us to doubt about [our roster ideas],” Pochettino said about Zendejas postmatch. “With this type of performance, he’s in the race for the roster of the World Cup.”
“It’s all about just waiting for my moment,” Zendejas told TNT’s broadcast team during a postmatch interview. “It’s god’s timing man. It’s crazy to take all of this in. I didn’t expect to be called up but it’s all timing. I am trying to take advantage of the opportunity.”
Balogun, who came close to scoring against South Korea, eventually found the mark against Japan. The Monaco forward was denied twice by Japan goalkeeper Keisuke Osako in the first half, but didn’t hang his head ahead of his shining moment after the hour mark.
Christian Pulisic’s deadly through-ball pass allowed Balogun to race onto it before he drilled a shot into the bottom-right corner. It marked his first goal for the USMNT since the 2024 Copa America, a major confidence booster.
Among the favorites to potentially lead the USMNT line next summer, Balogun urged fans to be patient with the team’s preparation ahead of what could be a special moment in U.S. Soccer.
“We’re building something big here,” Balogun told reporters. “He’s obviously a top coach and it takes time, and he tried to emphasize that to us to be patient. Confidence, I think it’s really important. The results are at the end of the day the sort of industry we’re in.”
Both Balogun and Zendejas now head back to their respective clubs, hoping that they will return to the USMNT fold for October’s pair of matches.
i thought about everyone who played the japan game but ream came out of it smelling better. it ends any balogun foolishness, is starting to make freese permanent, gives arfsten and freeman some momentum, may have revived roldan, and may keep blackmon viable. even bench as downs, mcglynn, and luna let loose some bench havoc.
but when i say such things, it’s a competition and it tends to be an illusion everyone was great.
in terms of losers, i thought ream played bad both games (but he also played both games). weah disappeared game 2. sargent laid another egg. banks never saw the field.
i also think you could parse the supposed “winners” list for people i think are actually reliable — particularly considering some had rough nights against korea just days earlier — eg, the center backs. i thought zendejas had a nice finish but has a long history of freezing up and not producing, and until he scored i thought he looked tentative and the worst of the forwards. but it’s a production position.
a grander US problem has been they will have isolated games like this, often when they try something tactically, and then they revert back. so to me it’s integrate this into the A roster and come back playing like this again. string some results. string some players doing it again. make 3 backs work again.
Japan playing a 3-4-3 forced them to basically play man on man. When Pulisic then would drop in we could hit him and then he was just owning his defender and beating him over and over in the second half. That would leave Balo one on one and one of the wings wide open his marker had to help on Pulisic. Japan has also kind of abandoned their midblock traps instead pressuring higher up the field leaving space for our attackers to run into, not something provided by South Korea. So how does the 3-4-3 look against a team sitting in a low block. Not sure about Ecuador or Australia but Paraguay and Uruguay may provide that answer.