U.S. men’s national team head coach Maurico Pochettino may have been right to say the performances will be more important than the results in this month’s friendlies, but Saturday’s 2-0 loss to South Korea demonstrated genuine room for improvement in both categories – and especially the former.
Pochettino’s experimental lineup, which featured a mix of mainstays and newcomers, became the latest bunch to lack a sense of cohesion, which seemed like the bedrock of a haphazard performance. Defensive errors proved costly for the USMNT, who conceded twice in the first half and paved the way for a perfectly-managed game from South Korea. The visitors may have pumped the breaks and allowed the U.S. to outshoot them 17 to five, the hosts outdoing them 2.27 to 0.74 in expected goals, but it was too little too late for Pochettino’s side. He now has just one win in his last seven matches against opponents in FIFA’s top 30, while the USMNT have been outscored 11 to two in first halves against foes in the top 25.
How to watch USMNT vs. Japan
Date: Tuesday, Sept. 9 | Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Lower.com Field — Columbus, Ohio
TV: TNT and Universo | Stream: Fubo (Try for free)
Odds: USMNT +210; Draw +240; Japan +120
Tuesday’s game against Japan, as a result, offers a chance to correct course and live up to Pochettino’s claim that the team is on the right track. If Saturday’s coaching decisions were all made with experimentation in mind, though, there were few new or meaningful takeaways from the trial run. Even if the result is understandably unimportant, the USMNT will need to answer some questions on Tuesday in Columbus to swat away the worries with nine months to go until the World Cup.
Here are three things to keep an eye on ahead of the USMNT’s game against Japan.
The battle to be the No. 9
The USMNT’s starting lineup is full of question marks but few are as prominent as the spot designed for a go-to forward, a years-long debacle that predates Pochettino. While Ricardo Pepi and Patrick Agyemang deal with fitness issues this month, the battle will be contested by Josh Sargent and Folarin Balogun – and things may already be going off-course for one of them.
Sargent got the start on Saturday against South Korea, a reward for scoring five goals in four games to start the Championship season with Norwich City. It was a perfect opportunity for him to break an international goal drought that extends back to November 2019, too, but Sargent’s opportunity came and went in New Jersey. He took just 17 touches in 62 minutes and managed zero shots, a performance that resembled his recent outings – in his last six games for the national team, he has not had more than 19 touches in a match and has managed just four shots overall.
His loss might be Balogun’s gain, though, with the Monaco forward now positioned to reassert himself as the first choice in the position after an injury-plagued year. He took 22 touches in 28 minutes on Saturday and took four shots as the USMNT more eagerly went for goal, a signal that Balogun might be a better tactical fit for the job than Sargent is.
Back four or back three?
The game state flipped a lot during the second half, in large part because South Korea had already built a comfortable lead. That tempo change was especially true as both teams made a batch of substitutions around the hour mark, most notable among them Pochettino’s choice to bring in Chris Richards and play a back three, a rarely-used approach since the Argentine took the job last year.
Richards was unavailable to start after arriving at camp with a small issue but lined up alongside Tristan Blackmon, who made his debut on Saturday, and veteran Tim Ream. The switch created more defensive stability, with the USMNT conceding just one shot on target in the second half, and Pochettino admitted he may break out the tactic again in the future.
“It was a good opportunity for us, to start, to approach with a back four and how we are going to create the dynamics to play in the opposite half and how we will be with our fullbacks and other aspects in the game,” Pochettino said on Monday. “Maybe we can use during the game or maybe we can start. We will see. We know but we cannot tell you. … Sometimes, you need to take some risks.”
One last trial for the newcomers
Pochettino designated the September friendlies as a final chance for his player pool expansion project, an experiment that is starting to cut into time for the team to build chemistry with about 10 matches left on the schedule before the World Cup. The USMNT seemed to suffer from a lack of cohesion against South Korea, with Pochettino using 14 different lineups in 17 matches so far, but he vehemently defended his squad selection in a press conference on Monday.
“Also, we need to understand, too, that we need to have quite [a] roster and players that we need to know and give the possibility to play,” he said, “because if we only work with a few players but the moment after [they] arrive [on] the roster and some guys arrives with injuries and cannot play, cannot be in the roster. [At] the World Cup, it’s not a moment to make tests or to give the possibility to get experience. That is why you cannot be surprised.”
Pochettino also said some of his squad selections are made with players’ varying fitness levels in mind, at one point citing Malik Tillman. The midfielder broke out during the Concacaf Gold Cup and earned a move to Bayer Leverkusen shortly after, but an injury disrupted his preseason and though he played 61 minutes for Leverkusen on Aug. 30, Pochettino felt including him would be too risky.
Those circumstances are also further motivation for Pochettino to test new players. Rotation is to be expected on Tuesday against Japan, with Pochettino teasing that players who did not play a big role against South Korea could do so for the final friendly of the international window. The hope, according to the head coach, is that the players with less experience will find a way to push more established players.
“Of course I want to win but also, we need to think in the process and to give the possibility to players to perform and put in a very difficult situation, the coaching staff,” he said, “because Tillman needs to know there’s another guy in behind pushing, okay?”
