Thursday’s CONCACAF Nations League semifinal didn’t start the way the U.S. men’s national team would’ve liked, but it certainly ended on a much more relieving note for Gregg Berhalter and his players.
Haji Wright scored twice and Gio Reyna registered two assists in extra time as the USMNT defeated Jamaica 3-1 at AT&T Stadium. A Cory Burke own goal in second-half stoppage time helped the Americans erase Gregory Leigh’s opening goal to force extra time.
Jamaica needed only 42 seconds to grab a shock 1-0 lead with Antonee Robinson and Joe Scally both at fault for the opening goal.
Robinson’s poor defending allowed Fulham teammate Bobby Decordova-Reid to sneak past him on the right wing. Reid’s cross was not dealt with by Scally, allowing Leigh to arrive at the back post and head into the roof of the USMNT net.
It marked Leigh’s first senior international goal for the Reggae Boyz.
Timothy Weah and Christian Pulisic had the best offensive chances for the USMNT later in the half, but the Americans went into the interval down by one goal. Weah’s shot missed just wide of the left post while Pulisic’s stoppage-time effort was gathered by Andre Blake.
Gio Reyna entered the match after halftime and almost made an immediate impact. Reyna’s final-third passing opened chances for both Malik Tillman and Pulisic, but the USMNT weren’t able to capitalize.
Jamaica had a golden opportunity to double its lead after a lack of communication between Chris Richards and Matt Turner. Ronaldo Cephus stole possession from Richards and raced away on a breakaway but his shot was easily gathered by Turner.
Haji Wright, Ricardo Pepi, Brenden Aaronson and Tyler Adams all came on for the USMNT after the hour mark, trying to provide a key spark for Gregg Berhalter’s squad. However, Jamaica’s defense continued to stand firm until second-half stoppage time.
The USMNT’s final corner kick of regulation proved to be the decisive moment for them as Miles Robinson’s header was deflected into the back of the net by Reggae Boyz defender Cory Burke.
Both Reyna and Wright came on as second-half substitutes and connected in the first period of extra time to boost the Americans in front 2-1. Reyna’s cutting pass allowed Wright to drill a low shot into the bottom-right corner
It marked Wright’s first USMNT goal since the 2022 FIFA World Cup and Reyna’s first international assist since November 2023.
The pair would later extend the Americans lead to 3-1 in the second extra time period. Reyna’s flick on pass in the box was controlled by Wright before the forward spun and curled a right-footed shot past Andre Blake.
The USMNT would hang on to book its spot in Sunday’s Nations League Final against either Mexico or Panama.
A sh!tshow no matter anyone looks at it
Tele,
I just re-read my post and the part about Adams. Sorry, I was not very clear…subbing Adams ONTO the field was not needed.
Papi, well Musah was kind of having a nightmare of a game. I think Adams helped a lot. Maybe could have put in Cardosa instead straight away but I think he is on minute restrictions too. I think Musah needed to come out.
The difference between a W and an L is razor thin, and that difference can be the result of luck.
With the exception of a few flashes of quality play, that was an ATROCIOUS performance by the team. I am not a fan of Berhalter, but that was NOT on him. More on that in a minute.
We were looking at an L and going out of the tournament because of three main reasons:
1) Bad touch by Antonee, bad marking by Scally, and bad hands / positioning by Turner.
2) Slow speed of play
3) The team / players not taking their chances to score when they had them
Berhalter, for the most part, got things right. He could’ve been better with two decisions:
1) Given the game, the sub for Adams was not needed.
2) Berhalter should have made an in-game formation change no later than the 75th minute and gone to a 3-man backline.
Balogun, Weah, and Musah, struggled. I’m a fan of all three players, but current form and playing time at the club level matter.
I’m not the biggest fan of Haji, but he is in great form and has earned a start.
As a result of Haji’s performance, and with Sargent playing well at club level, albeit snakebitten again with an injury, Balogun and Pepi need to step up their performances for both club and country.
Aaronson showed well.
McKennie is proving to be as valuable to this team as anyone else. His high level of technical and tactical acumen makes him currently our second best #10.
How can you say current club form is important when Gio was man of the match and has gotten zippo minutes.
Ross,
It’s self explanatory. Re-read my post for the examples of guys that did not play well and the direct correlation to their lack of form and current playing time with their clubs. Same for the reverse. Gio aside, do you disagree with any of the evaluations of those players and their performances last night?
Respective to Gio, he did play well. He was impactful for the first 8 minutes he was on the field in the 2nd half. Then his impact tapered off. His biggest impact, and two assists, came in OT when it was a much different game. From a scoreline standpoint, tactically, and with respect to their legs, Jamaica was a much different opponent in OT.
There are always exception(s) to any rule. Look hard enough, and you can always find the exception(s).
It’s worth noting / revisiting from the first half of last night’s game…if Balogun plays a better ball to Puli on the counterattack…or…if Tillman takes his scoring opportunity…or…if Puli lays the pass off to Balogun in the box right before halftime…do we need even need / see Gio on the field in that game?
Did Aaronson do well though? I thought this at first but then as I watched the highlights and he wasn’t really involved in them. Then started thinking about how he kept just dribbling straight into people or when instead of going and getting the ball he just stood there and waived for a handball. Was Brenden good or just part of the formation shift so it looked better? I’m not sure.
Papi, Adams was on minutes restrictions due to his current fitness level and there is a pretty good chance that was agreed to in advance with his club team. I think subbing him out was the right decision.
Unfortunately I think Johnny is also hurt with minute restrictions also and Musah was pretty bad so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Richards start at the 6 against mexico. If they have to go to Wes, they are pretty far down the depth chart and I hope to not see him play there.
Tele,
I just re-read my post and the part about Adams. Sorry, I was not very clear…subbing Adams ONTO the field was not needed.
Firstly, I’m ecstatic for this win. There’s no school tomorrow so I got to watch the whole thing with my kids. The reaction in our living room when the goal went it was amazing. My son is more a club fan than international fan got to experience a crazy win and the indoctrination to the USMNT fandom has taken a huge step forward. It was so fun to see him running around the living room like he scored that tying goal himself. Games like this are what create fans for life- way more than a 4-0 route. As we reflect on this game, team and coach, let’s keep in perspective what it’s really all about.
My critiques seem to always be the same. Gregg always says he wants the team to play at pace. They seem to never play at pace. Tonight they seemed to lack accuracy in passing and even often chose the wrong pass in the first place. The match up with Jamaica negated a couple things the US usually does well…the backs were negated. Weah was negated. This was simply do to pace. Jamaica could match those players for pace so they didn’t have the time or space to do the things they normally do. That together with having five across the back prevented the Jamaica from getting stretched (giving lanes to play through) when the US played wide. The overloads didn’t work and the middle remained clogged. Did anyone notice Weah in the 2nd half going all the way to the left to try to create over loads. My eight year old son said at that point that it seems Jamaica has more than eleven players out there. The low block was played to perfection and it’s dang hard to get through that. And hard for players not to get frustrated when trying to do so and failing for 90+ minutes.
The key was !finally! with the insertion of Reyna, Aaronson and Wright…the movement improved. The energy was ticked up a notch. Jamaica started to get sucked out of position and getting beat either by Aaronson’s energetic runs or Reyna’s non-nonchalant passes. Cracks appeared. The result was forwards sensing there was something in it for them and movement picked up. Wright was making slicing runs forward. Pulisic was more lively.
This was a good win. A deserved win despite the own goal miracle. The US dominated the entire game (outside the first minute). They needed to be a more clinical with their finishing along with what i said at the top but it was a good win (And despite all that they still dominated).
That’s about what I saw. I still get frustrated how much of our attacking is just cross, cross, cross, and cross some more, and our high-school-level (and often nonexistent) passing patterns through the middle absolutely frustrate me. Lordy every time I watch Columbus play under Wilfried Nancy I get all green-like with envy.
But still. All told, not a bad result. The absolute nightmare scenario was Jamaica grabbing an early goal and bunkering in…and that’s exactly what happened. We (barely) won anyway. I’ll take it…survive and advance. So often, that’s soccer.
Such an awesome experience for you and your kids. Love that
I agree with the slow pace. It seemed like every US player needed at least 2 touches, one to control the ball, a pause to look around (while Jamaica surrounded the ball) and then a 2nd touch to pass the ball back or sideways. In the first only Tillman seemed willing to play 1-touch (but probably not often enough). In the 2nd half, I thought Reyna played 1-touch early until the defenders dropped off, that afforded him time to work some magic.
I thought A. Robinson was particularly slow to play the ball and held it until both he and Pulisic were smothered. But, I can’t think of any first half US player other than Tillman who played 1-touch, except for pretty mindless clearances.
If I were GB, I would run a training session with the limitation that every pass must be 1-touch, at least until everything sped up. (1-touch demands teammates make show for the ball or make runs sooner that they would if they knew the teammate would receive the ball, look around, then eventually pass the ball.)
I think IV pretty much predicted that the US would play too slowly, they did and that made Jamaica’s job sooo much easier.
Getting low blocked sux
Haji Wright has met every challenge since Schalke and excelled – Double digits in goals with every step up in league, a WC goal, and this. What was the en vogue saying a few years back? Put some respect on his name? Something weird like that. Well, do that. All he does is score goals consistently. Has anyone in the pool scored more goals than him this decade?
Haji has been the most consistent goal scorer in Europe for 4 years now. He will get looks from bigger teams this off season. His value is being able to play multiple attacking positions and still deliver goals and assists.
Been watching this team for 3 decades. And that was a crazy win by any standard. Why can’t people just enjoy it? Isn’t this supposed to be fun?
Amen.
No team on earth can **consistently** breakdown a low block. In a way it’s what makes soccer unique in sports. It’s the fact that it is so consistently hard to breakdown low blocks that makes league cups and knockout rounds of tournaments so exciting and special.
And why any team committed to it has a puncher’s chance, especially if they get that early goal up. We got in that hole and still survived. By the skin of our teeth.
I’ll still take it.
Case in point: A decent WC Spain team unable to vary their attack, and going to OT, and losing by penalties v. an inferior Russian team that parked the bus and just waited them out.
This is a US team that has not played together in close to 4 months.
Obvious rust, and cracks in the mirror. They hung in there and ground it out. Good teams find a way to win, even when luck seems to be against them. True, they could have been up 3-1 mid-way through the second half if they had had a bit more of the killer instinct, silent assassin, making the little pass to the net ability. Finishing was sorely lacking.
Hoping they get their collective s*** together and step it up v. el Tri Sunday night. Let’s go, USA!
Yeah, you’re right but sometimes it’s hard to have to wait 95 minutes to realize I’m having fun. Doh!!
We were lucky to get the equalizer at the end. My main complaint is that the first half we played like Barcelona with a lead. Lots of passing back and forth and lots of possession, but little real attacking. We seemed to get serious about attacking around the 55th minute and then put pressure on them the rest of the game. Still, not very good play until extra time. How do you have a 3 on 1 and not even get a shot off? So many bad crosses and poor corner kicks. Defensive breakdowns could have led to 2 more Jamaica goals if they had played better. Until the equalizer we pretty much deserved to lose. We will have to do much better on Sunday.
on the 3 on 1 the passer never really committed the defender and the pass was a little soft and slow. christian then took a touch and used the right foot closer to the defender. we left the defender in the play. i thought he played poorly. who do you think was also hitting those corners into the first defender?
re the first half, that’s a rosy version. it was some of the usual possession and cross. it was also a lot of turnovers leading to counters, which i put on the sloppy mids. irony being i think jamaica ran their legs off looking for a second that never came. they went from proactive and swarming, very active, to just sitting back which started getting us chances and corners. we finally converted one.
Gary Page,
“My main complaint is that the first half we played like Barcelona with a lead. Lots of passing back and forth and lots of possession, but little real attacking.”
That’s why I hated tiki-taka. It’s a way for talented, quick, fast, agile but SMALL guys to play keep away defense. You can’t beat me if you don’t have the ball.
When Spain won their World Cup, of their seven games, they had a 0-1 loss, a 2-0 win, a 2-1 win and four 1-0 wins. All , in my view, quite boring to watch.
“That’s why I hated tiki-taka. It’s a way for talented, quick, fast, agile but SMALL guys to play keep away defense. You can’t beat me if you don’t have the ball.”
Easily one of the DUMBEST comments / posts I’ve ever read.
*****************************************************************************..
When Spain won their World Cup, of their seven games, they had a 0-1 loss, a 2-0 win, a 2-1 win and four 1-0 wins. All , in my view, quite boring to watch.
That last DUMB comment / post is only rivaled by this IGNORANT nonsense. I stopped reading at, ” When Spain won their World Cup.”
#ClownSpeak
Papi Grande,
Is that all you have?
Have you seen anyone trying to play tiki-taka anymore?
No? Maybe that’s because even Barca find it hard to assemble that much of the required quality and keep it together long enough to get it going like it was. I guess you could call what Pep is doing in Manchester a version of it but it’s an evolved version and it might get shut down shortly.
The skill of the particular players involved was incredible to watch. It was quite a novelty. But tiki taka itself? Ultimately you’re talking about playing keep away. It’s a fantastic defensive tactic and more interesting to watch than the low block. If you keep the ball you keep control of the game. Barca would move the whole thing into the other teams half and if they lost the ball would press the hell out of them in their half . Barca’s forwards often had more fouls than Barca’s defenders. And mistakes in their half often lead to scoring opportunities.
But it’s still primarily defensive in that you can’t be attacked if the other guy never had the ball outside of their own half. As the old saying goes, the best defense is a good offense, even if it does not score.
It was a very intense way to play and it’s hard to keep that up over an extended period of time.
Disrupt what amounts to their total control of the game that and Barca didn’t have many alternatives. Of course that is easier said than done but Bayern did that in 2012-13 with a beast of a team featuring Robben and Ribery, Schweinsteiger and many others. Bayern crushed them 7-0 on aggregate in the Champions League. Bayern eventually won the Champions League and their domestic League and Cup double that season.
I don’t know if everyone is watching March Madness or like me doesn’t know what to think of that.
-kudos to the Jamaican coach, he’s gotten commitment from dual nats playing in England and has been able to get them organized in short order. Perhaps bigger he seems impervious to the Jamaican Fed who Jamaican fans say are always meddling and forcing inclusion of domestic players. Bailey says he’s out because he’s tired of not getting paid and not having proper travel arrangements and equipment. Maybe that’s because he’s mad they told everybody he was out on the town. If the problems are like he says though it’ll be tough to keep English players coming back. The squad tonight was almost all guys based in England and you could see how much more committed they were to keeping their shape.
-Musah as a 6 is difficult because his passing is poor. His dribbling is great but he can’t shoot and can’t pass so he usually turns it over in the end. Adams passing was great for having been out for a year. Johnny did pretty well but the match had opened up quite a bit when he came on and Jamaican subs were not on level with their starters.
-Richards, Robinson, and Turner were shaky at times.
– Wright had a great extra time. Where the other American attackers got out muscled Haji stood in.
– I don’t get Nottingham Forest, you can’t find minutes for Reyna? I’m not saying he has to start, but you’ve won 1 league game since Dec 30 your midfield isn’t that hot.
– It felt like we found some better sequences against their low block than against other 5 man backlines but the final ball was off or shot was off but there still isn’t much of any danger when the defense stays organized. Plodding would be how I describe our pace in the final third at times.
I listened to a 45 minute interview with the Jamaica coach just before the game. Knowing his history with the Iceland team and hearing how he accomplished what he did with that team, it made wonder if he could get buy in from the Jamaican players to try to do the same thing. He said himself the potential in Jamaica with local players as well as the diaspora led him to believe he could do MUCH bigger things that he did with Iceland. It seems he got his buy in. As long as he is there (and the Federation doesn’t mess it up) this team will be a tough opponent.
Tough to watch. But good to see them win. Wright in excellent form. Reyna looked good. Balo struggles in this system. Thought Weah struggled you can tell his confidence is a bit shot. Musah you could tell fasting for Ramadan wasn’t sharp. Pulisic wanting to many touches in the box multiple times especially when he should have buried that first half golden chance on the counter. Other than that we get Dest back, and Wright looks like he could be inline to start. Oh and Adams is vital to this teams defensive structure.
I’m high on Weah, and it’d be really, really hard to imagine an American 23 where he wouldn’t have a place…but is he a starter for us now? To me the guy would be an absolute nightmare coming off the bench and running at tired defenders; you look for guys who can provide that spark and change a game and he’s absolutely that.
I’d personally start experimenting with Balogun at right or left wing alongside Pulisic. We know he can play the wing and I certainly believe he’s one of our best 11 but I’m not sold he’s a CF the way we play – I think Pepi and Sargent are the guys for that. Wright I think you also bring in as a winger.
And I’ll repeat what I’ve been saying – however we do it, we need to find a way to include Pepi, Balogun, Sargent, and Haji Wright, and if either of Pepi or Sargent are out Brandon Vazquez needs to be the first up. You need guys who can score. There is just no substitute for goals, and if you want them, bring in the guys who are, you know, actually scoring them.
This game didn’t have to go this way, but it did and while I’m excited we showed some fight and got the win the same traits are still rearing their head which is our inability to finish of plays. We were sloppy in possession, too cavalier and “cruisy” for my liking.
I’m still trying to figure out what Pulisic was doing on that breakaway, although it wasn’t the best ball from Balogun, who oh btw missed a great chance to score off of a header. Scally was terrible if we’re honest, and it says something he was benched in favor of McKennie. Another game started slow offensively, albeit Jamaica set up shop early after their goal, but one has to ask why we we never take shots from outside of the 18?
I’ve been a proponent of sitting Gio with the Nats bc of his lack of minutes at club, but he is the ONE player that we’ll have to start regardless of his lack of PT, he’s too good and tonight reinforced that. Haji is clearly in the form of his life and has improved since the WC, although his passing still needs work. All in all a game that we should have lost but I’m glad that we won, now it’s on to the final!!!
Ronniet: Once Jamaica parked the bus there weren’t a lot of opportunities to shoot from distance. You’ve got 8 defenders in the final 20 yds your chance of hitting from distance is basically hope it takes a deflection. Fotmob said we had 7 out of 25 taken from outside.
-Thought Haji was dangerous his first 10 mins, then kind of disappeared as the space continued to get compressed and the defense adjusted to his more direct style on the left than Pulisic’s dancing across the box. Once the space opened in extra time Haji made some great runs and finished. He had that smile on his face on the second one that said I can’t believe I still got that after the bad touch. I’m so glad he came through.
Is it better to be lucky or good? They were lucky today.
Happy with the win, but 90+ minutes of bunkering by Jamaica made the game hard to watch. It really isn’t enjoyable when one team positions itself in a low block for nearly the entire game. Jamaica now has a legit coach, and he showed his value with their used effective tactics. One has to give them credit.
The 2 late call-ins, Wright and Aaronson, did pretty well. It seems we may now have 4 strikers fighting for time in the pool.
Reyna just displayed again what all of us already know. Hoping he lands somewhere over the summer and gets a break.
I guess everyone is trying to figure out what to say. Brendan Aaronson had a good game. That was a positive on a night of a lot of negatives. They ultimately won; that’s a positive.
Get home late. See the score is 1-0 Jamaica at 90+ minutes.
Interesting. Watching on Univision with the sound turned off. Better that way.
Looks like Gio isn’t the diva shitbag putz y’all thought he was.
For a guy with the occasional bad first touch, Hadji looks okay. You know who else has an occasional shit first touch? Lukaku.
That’s two guys who I’m sure the scouts were happy to see.
Jamaica shows what you can do with a really good coach in charge.
I’ll be curious to see if people are more impressed by the comeback or mad about them needing to come back in the first place. All I care about is this keeps bullshitter Jesse that much further away.
For now.
He’s anything but a bullshitter. He would’ve had tha]e match won in the first half. SFB
It wasn’t a good look for him when they showed Charlie and Duece going crazy when we scored and Jesse is just kind of standing there like “there goes my job opportunity”.
Alf,
Having managed and won in the Austrian BL, Jesse does a have two years worth of beating up on weak defenseless teams.
Marsch – terrible with Montreal, a Shield with NYRB, success in Austria with a team that basically has as much money as the rest of the entire league combined, terrible at Leipzig, terrible at Leeds.
Count me as wary of him as a coach anywhere but MLS…maybe..like not for my team… but someplace else would be fine.
However, I’ve always REALLY liked his tactical breakdowns as a commentator.
Marsch is a great coach, although I don’t know if the high press system that he succeeded with at NYRB translates to a national team.
My recollection is that whoever succeeded him at Leeds did no better than Marsch. The team was just above the relegation zone when Marsch got fired, and ended up going down that season. So maybe it was the players and not so much the coach. Losing Adams for the last couple of months certainly hurt, as well.
I haven’t seen his name come up in connection with any coaching vacancy, so I’m not sure if he’s going to get any more chances in Europe. Maybe he’ll have to go to a Championship team or B2 team, or come back to MLS.
Alf,
Jesse’s record says “Pay attention to what I say, not what I do. Do not believe your own lying eyes!”
Gregg is also a bullshitter but at a much lower volume.
Vac, for a site full of people who don’t like Berhalter, I think you and I are the only ones who look at Marsch and say, shit it could be even worse. Gregg now 9-2 in knockout games; he definately had his 4 leaf clover yesterday. I didn’t realize Johnny came in to camp injured also. I wonder how many minutes he has in him because Musah was pretty bad. I can’t see Musah starting the next game so we may see Richards at the 6 if he thinks he can only get limited minutes from both Adams and Cordosa.
Actually include me in on the Marsch thing. I expect he’d be the first one up because, well, US Soccer, but I just do not see his one-note Mega-Press For 90 Minutes being the answer with us…if we’re going to get a coach like that, we need to steal Bielsa from Uruguay. He’s pretty much the original article. But I’d personally prefer neither.
Personally I think if we go to replace Berhalter, if we go anywhere but Wilfried Nancy we’re being dumb. And if we can’t get Nancy we need to go grab John Herdman, and if we can’t get either there’s always Steve Cherundolo and Jim Curtin…basically, there’s a long, long, long list of guys I’d have ahead of Marsch.
Oh, and for Vacqui – I still think Gio is a diva sh!tbag, but the Reality Fairy has been waving her anti-magic wand in his face for awhile now. You’ll never catch me arguing that Gio isn’t magnificently talented – he absolutely is – and if he can grow up some, lose some of the ‘tude, and learn to be a true two-way player who works as hard off the ball as he does with it, I think he also could be the string-puller for any team he wants…up to and including his old man’s club Man City. Eventually.
But Gio’s going to have to work his way up to that level, it certainly isn’t going to just happen for him…and I think his current rough patch with Dortmund and now Forest should well-serve to reinforce that. Talent’s cheap, opportunities are hard to come by, and professionalism means doing it every day. When that light truly comes on for him, I think everybody will see it.
You can see he’s trying, and that’s encouraging.
IV has consistently been anti-Marsch. I tried to like him at Leeds, but meh. His style of press and then just immediately kick it forward is hard to support. The players do all this work just to give right back.
Final starts after sunset so maybe Musah will play better once he’s eaten.
To Johnyrazor: Marsch’s tactics worked well at NY Red Bulls, because he had BWP who could finish off those balls stolen up high and who worked so hard to both with the ball and to be open for teammates who won the ball, then finished.
Without a player (or 2) who can be there to score off quick counters wjhich started from pressure in the attacking third, you are right, it simply becomes a chance for the opposition to get behind your defense rather easily,
Vacqui – Speaking of Wright’s first touch…Reyna’s getting all the credit for the pass. It was very sexy but it was right at a defender. It took Wright’s ***first touch*** away from that oncoming defender to give him space to take that shot to the far post with his weaker left foot. After the pass there was a ton of work still to be done.