Gregg Berhalter celebrated a victory in his debut as US national team head coach, but he was quick to deflect attention from himself in the postgame of his team's 3-0 triumph over Panama.
"It's a proud moment personally, but I keep going back to the guys and all they've been doing for these last two and a half weeks to get in this position and to be able to go out there and execute as a team is gratifying," he told ESPN's Sebastian Salazar.
"I think there were some good things. We talked about – after two and a half weeks of training – what we'd be able to implement, but I think we have enough to work with. When I see some of the ideas and some of the concepts that we're executing, it's going to give us a nice platform to continue to grow."
Specifically, Berhalter referenced the repeated runs in behind the Panamanian rearguard by the likes of Real Salt Lake forward Corey Baird, his Portland Timbers counterpart Jeremy Ebobisse and second-half sub Jonathan Lewis of NYCFC.
"I liked how you saw the ambition to run behind the back line," Berhalter said. "I think that was very important. We want to play between the lines and we want to go behind the lines and I think that was pretty clear at times tonight."
The players who often sprung those runners were playmakers Djordje Mihailovic (Chicago Fire) and Cristian Roldan (Seattle Sounders) and Berhalter was dishing some hefty praise in their direction.
"We played with two [No.] 10s and both of them did an excellent job," Berhalter told ESPN. "I'm so proud of Djordje and the way he performed at such a young age, but he has quality. And with Cristian, he's a guy that keeps going and going and going, and he gave us some good energy tonight and good execution on that right side."
The USMNT now pivot to face another Concacaf foe in Costa Rica on Saturday afternoon at Avaya Stadium in San Jose (3:30 pm ET on FOX, UniMás, UDN).
