The United States men’s national team continue their quest for gold in the CONCACAF Gold cup, in their second group stage match up against Haiti. The USMNT will be looking to put in a better 90 minutes than last game against Honduras. Despite a 2-1 win over Honduras, a double by Clint Dempsey, it was not a clean result. Honduras made them earn that win with constant pressure and turnovers in the midfield and counter attacks. Thankfully most of those shots were wide or over Brad Guzan.
USA started this game slowly as well. The first 20 minutes, despite the Americans having majority of possession, it was Haiti who threatened to score. After getting dispossessed in the midfield, Mix Diskerud gave up a free kick on a tackle near USA’s penalty area, and the free kick afterwards grazed the corner of the post and cross bar. Haiti would continue to apply pressure on counter attacks, with a total of 5 shots, 4 of them going wide, while the Americans were held to zero shots.
Haiti would continue to add pressure, but as the first half went on, USA would be able to pressure Haiti’s goal more and more. In the 34′ minute, Aaron Johansson had a goal called back incorrectly for offsides. Even tough Clint Dempsey was in an offsides position, he wasn’t involved in the play. Don’t know what the linesman was looking at when he made the call, but the officials wont always get the call correctly.
“Big compliment to Haiti. Huge compliment to Haiti for the way they played this game. What was a very intense game that could of change at any second. Obviously we would of had an easier path had the goal for Aaron Johannsson stood. But overall they played an outstanding match. They are still in the tournament” Jurgen Klinsmann after the game.
When the 2nd half started, Jurgen Klinsmann made a substitution, Gyasi Zardes in for Jozy Altidore. And the results were almost instant. Just 2 minutes into the half, he would assist Clint Dempsey on the first goal of the game. Left back Greg Garza completed a pass from the left side to Zardes, who passed it to Dempsey in the middle of the park and Dempsey shooting it passed Haiti’s keeper Johny Placide for the 1-0 lead.
Brad Guzan, despite all the shots that went wide, had to come up big in the 57th minute. Haiti’s Duckens Nixon was in on a 1v1 break away against Guzan, but shot it straight at Guzan. This was Haiti’s biggest scoring chance on target all game.
“There’s always going to be times during a game when we give up chances, its your job as the goalkeeper to make the saves. Fortunately for us I was able to.” “We knew it was going to be a difficult challenge, but at the end of the day the three points is what matters.” “We know Haiti is a good team, and they showed it in the first half. From their point of view they will be disappointed with one or two of their chances that weren’t on target.” Brad Guzan after the game.
The United States were able to hang on for the 1-0 final, despite a late flurry by Haiti. Looking at the final stats, Haiti outshot USA 21-6! Wilde-Donald Guerrier alone had 7 shots total. Despite that Haiti only had 4 shots on target, and Brad Guzan was able to save them all. With this result the United States are in the quarter-finals with one game to go in the group stage. This is good, it will give Jurgen a chance to rest some key players and get others involved.