Jordan Morris opened the scoring four minutes after intermission and Juan Agudelo doubled the U.S. lead midway through the second half as the U.S. beat Mexico by a familiar 2-0 scoreline.
BY
Brooke Tunstall
Posted
April 15, 2015
11:15 PM
SAN ANTONIO—So this was what all the Jordan Morris hype was about…
The forward from Stanford University, where he is a rising star and the only player in the American player pool who isn’t already a professional, was more of a curiosity since first getting summoned by Jurgen Klinsmann last fall.
But he showed why Klinsmann rates him so highly by scoring the winning goal as the United States national team defeated Mexico by the all-too-familiar score of 2-0 in a raucous friendly played before 64,369 fans at a sold-out Alamodome.
“I never played in an atmosphere like that before, so it was a little tough to adjust to at first. But I’m happy that when I got the chance I was able to put it away,” said Morris, a 20-year old who is finishing his sophomore year this spring. “Honestly, I blacked out a little bit. I didn’t really know what was going on, it was such an emotional time.”
The U.S. improved to 2-2-1 in 2014 and 3-4-3 since last summer’s World Cup, and more importantly maintained its dominance over its bitter southern rivals, against whom it is now 3-0-3 since Klinsmann took over in the summer of 2011.
Redemption was the subplot of the evening, both for Klinsmann and substitute Juan Agudelo, who returned to the U.S. fold and scored the second goal. Klismann’s redemption came both in his justified faith in Morris and Agudelo to handle the scoring burden with both Clint Dempsey (injury) and Jozy Altidore (suspension) unavailable.
“A lot of players tonight they really stepped it up in terms of, they worked for the team,” Klinsmann said. “Team shifting, doing defensive work, staying compact, being aggressive, not giving things away, looking for the forwards. You saw (forward) Gyasi Zardes, working unbelievable stuff out there, I don’t know how many miles he covered. But everybody was on the same page in terms of ‘we want to get a result and we want to do well’ because we’re a few months away from a huge Gold Cup that hopefully takes us to the Confederations Cup in Russia (in 2017). All the stuff that we told them they implemented and that’s why they deserve a real compliment.”
Klinsmann’s chops as a tactician, questioned going back to his days coaching Germany a decade ago, also took a boost as he outcoached counterpart Miguel Hererra with a tactical adjustment in midfield that confounded the Mexicans.
After getting dominated in possession in most of the games going back to the World Cup last summer, Klinsmann changed things up, going with a formation in midfield that was like a diamond on paper but in reality was more of a box, with all four midfielders playing in the middle.
Veterans Michael Bradley and Kyle Beckerman started as the central pairing with Mix Diskerud and Joe Corona nominally on their flanks but in reality pinching in centrally most of the time to form the box. The formation proved very effective as the U.S. was able to clog the midfield defensively while providing ample outlets to allow the U.S. to hold possession, spend less time chasing, and actually take the game to Mexico at times.
“Me and Joe Corona, we’re not really wingers,” Diskerud said. “We like to tuck in and help the other guys and play more centrally. I think it helps us keep possession more.”
The formation asks a lot of the fullbacks but in DeAndre Yedlin and Greg Garza in the first half and Brek Shea in the second proved up to the task, especially as Mexico proved slow to adjust and rarely created any chances that tested starting goalkeeper Nick Rimando.
“We wanted our fullbacks to go forward, and attack their wingers,” said Klinsmann. “In (Mexico’s) 3-5-2 their two outside players are very, very crucial so we wanted our fullbacks to face them higher up and it worked out well. I thought they only had a couple of shots and they went all wide, there was no real chance where you said they would score now.”
The formation paid off in the 49th minute as Bradley, who wore the captain’s armband and was once against the Americans’ best player on the night, collected a ball at midfield, took a dribble, and spotted Zardes at the top of the 18 as Morris began a curling run. Zardes’ pass deflected off a Mexican defender right to Morris about 15 yards from goal and he quickly and calmly beat Cirilo Saucedo.
“Part of (the formation) is having Michael in a position where he’s higher up and the goal of that is to give Michael an opportunity to find forwards and feed them those balls that are often killer passes,” said Klinsmann. “He has the vision, the technique to play those balls and the qualities to finish things off. So that was by design, also.”
A recurring theme for the U.S. going back to the World Cup was seeing them blow a lead or give up a late winning goal six times since last summer. But on this night, once the U.S. got the lead it put its foot on the gas and closed out the win with aplomb.
In the 72nd minute it was again Bradley collecting the ball in midfield and hitting a perfectly struck long pass. This time his target was Agudelo, who had come on for Morris minutes earlier. The New England Revolution forward, returning to the national team after more than a year away, used a deft touch to pull Bradley’s pass out of mid-air at the left edge of the 18 then dribbled to his right and hit a low shot past Saucedo.
“With Michael, you’ve seen it time and time again, to be able play those passes,” said Agudelo. “As a striker you better be there because he’s gonna deliver the ball on a dime to you.”
Afterward Agudelo pointed to the heavens as he was swarmed by teammates, all of whom knew the travails the 22-year old had gone through the past year-and-a-half as his transfer to Stoke City fell through and he went months without a club.
From there the U.S. defense took over, with Omar Gonzalez and Ventura Alvarado anchoring a backline that forced neither Rimando, nor halftime replacement William Yarbrough, to make any challenging saves.”I think Omar and Ventura both played an outstanding game,” Klinsmann said.
With the defense on lockdown, the U.S. closed out the game to the familiar chants from the American Outlaws: “dos a cero.”
“The atmpsphere was fantastic,” Morris said. “I don’t think this is something I’ll ever forget.”
Brooke Tunstall is an American Soccer Now contributing editor and ASN 100 panelist. Follow him on Twitter.
