It's never a great idea to go crazy about the result of a friendly, for good or for bad.
But let's be honest: The USMNT needed that win, and needed it badly. Not just to break the winless streak, and not just to stop the "they concede late" line of criticism (which is totally and completely justified - remember, that's not just a friendly problem; that was a World Cup problem).
No, the US needed that win because you never want to let a rival get any sort of excess confidence for "next time." A US vs. Mexico friendly isn't a friendly, and while the 2-0 result doesn't feel as good as a win in something meaningful would... it's still pretty damn nice.
1. The First Job
It's too early to say whether the Jurgen Klinsmann era for the US national team has been a success or a failure. He's gotten some things wrong – remember when he played Michael Bradley behind a single striker for most of the World Cup, despite the fact that Bradley produces an assist a game when played behind two? Yeah.
More grist for that mill, but at least things seem to be trending toward a two-striker formation come this summer's Gold Cup.
While Klinsmann's tactics and personnel choices didn't give the US their best chance of success last summer, he's also gotten some things right. As I've said before, you could make the argument that trusting Kyle Beckerman was the most revolutionary departure from the Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley eras. Beckerman lacks the pace and raw physical tools that many of the preferred defensive midfield options have boasted, but the game is about time and space, and Beckerman knows how to create it for himself and others.
Ugh. Anyway, finding Beckerman's heir (stop it, that's not meant as a pun) is perhaps the most important job of the next 12 months.
But really, Bob Bradley was fired and Klinsmann replaced him because of Mexico. The US had won in 2007 Gold Cup thanks to a Benny Feilhaber golazo, but then got stomped with a B Team in the 2009 Gold Cup and stomped again with a full team in the 2011 version of that tournament. Whatever edge the US had gained from 2000 through the first game of the 2009 Hexagonal seemed to have been lost by the time Giovani Dos Santos was torching poor Tim Howard four summers ago.
You could argue, then, that Klinsmann's initial job was to re-establish dominance over El Tri. If that's the measure, then his time in charge has been a resounding success.
Gold Cup win? Check. Top the Hex again? Check. Win at Azteca? Check. Hold serve at home? Check. Pitch a shutout at Azteca in qualifying? Check.
Dos-a-cero remains more beautiful and reliable than ever. Mexico have had other triumphs (they're the reigning Olympic gold medalists, remember), but whether it's an A Team in World Cup qualifiers or an experimental group in a friendly, they cannot crack Klinsmann's code.
Let's hope that continues for another three months.
2. The Jordan Rules
I still think it was insane to start a college kid against a rival – an unnecessary way to risk both the result and the kid's confidence. And there were several times where Morris truly looked out of his depth, including a mini-breakaway midway through the first half and a very slow read of one of the gaps opening up on the Mexican back line at the 20:30 mark of the first half.
To Morris' credit (and Klinsmann's), the kid kept improving as the game went on. His starting points, the spots where he began his runs, were a little bit weird and often left him disconnected from both Gyasi Zardes and Joe Corona. But that also opened space for Bradley and Mix Diskerud (who was excellent) to get more time on the ball. I'm not sure if it was all design or circumstance, but Morris' propensity to be wider than you'd expect certainly seemed to mess with Mexico more than it did with the US, and ended up putting more of the game onto the feet of guys who knew exactly what to do with it.
And then... the goal:
Alexi Lalas is obviously right: You need a little bit of luck, and in this case it came in the form of the turnip patch-bounce the ball took to land at Morris' feet. But the kid's run is superb, the way he veers away from Bradley to create room, hesitates a beat, then goes full-throttle on the diagonal, hoping for the touch-pass from Zardes.
That's a good run in any league, the type that modern goal-scorers – who with increasing frequently don't play as true forwards – have to have in their locker. And the finish speaks for itself.
It's not fair to go pinning huge hopes on Morris at this early juncture, just as it was too early last summer when Julian Green finished off Bradley's chip against Belgium. But Morris showed smarts, speed and adaptability in this one, and should probably lead the Pac-12 in scoring this autumn.
3. The Academy Issue
Welcome back to the national team, Juan Agudelo:
Crazy as it sounds, Agudelo is less than two years older than Morris. It seems like he's been around forever.
The link the two share, other than the fact that they're both forwards and they both scored against Mexico tonight, is that they're both products of MLS Academies. This is an unadulterated Good Thing. This is progress.
I've long held the belief that it took soccer specific stadia for MLS to survive, and it would be the advent of the "Academy Generation" for the league to thrive. Kids who've grown up with proper coaching, in pro environments, and with access to a pipeline up from the U-12s all the way to the first team are bound to have a much more significant and lasting impact on the quality of MLS (and NASL and USL) than any number of big-name signings or foreign imports.
The very best of them – Morris, Agudelo, Zardes, DeAndre Yedlin and hopefully guys like Bill Hamid, Wil Trapp, Harry Shipp and a half-dozen others in the coming months – will then make it all the way to the national team. This process holds true for Canada as well (go ahead and freak out over Sam Adekugbe and Jordan Hamilton, my Canuck friends).
Progress on this project hasn't always been readily apparent or tangible, but it was hard to miss on this night. "Dos a Cero" came from the kids, and that is how an investment pays off in this game.
