The US men's national team continued preparing for the busy summer to come by patiently dismantling familiar foe Jamaica for a 4-1 friendly victory in Wiener Neustadt, Austria on Thursday.
The Nats controlled play for most of the night, but were unable to get much traction in attack until
Sergino Dest's splendid curler opened the scoring on 34 minutes. Spurred by a few subs, the US then methodically piled on a trio of second half goals to eventually win going away.
As a periodic reminder, all grades are handed out on a scale with "6" as average. The marks are also relative to time played, meaning that a "7" earned over a full shift is more impressive than one received for 15 minutes of action.
Aside from what has become a routine ball-handling goof, the Man City netminder got caught overplaying a sharp angle on Jamaica's lone goal. Steffen made up for it to some extent with a terrific last-minute robbery.
It wasn't an entirely bad outing, to be sure, but it was definitely less steady than we've come to expect from Cannon. His work going forward was only intermittently convincing and the Boavista right back was among the culpable on Jamaica's goal rush.
Although he made a couple of nice help plays at the back, the Red Bulls man also experienced some disconcerting hiccups. One can't do things like allowing a forward to push you back 10 feet on a routine hold-up play and turning the ball over right in front of your own area, and Long did both in this one before departing at halftime.
The Wolfsburg back line put in a fairly nondescript shift, but keeping rare Jamaica threats in front of him and playing simply out of the back was plenty on this night.
Simply put, the Barcelona wide back was a class above in this one. Dest kept the team chugging forward throughout his shift, repeatedly opening spaces for teammates with his penetration dribbles. He punctuated the performance with an ice-breaker goal made for the highlight reel.
Full disclosure: I was quite dubious about Acosta starting in the gate-keeper role. And I was wrong. The Colorado midfielder was all over the place, acting as pressure valve at one end and as Alex Ring-esque possession support at the other. There were times I was convinced there were two Acostas out there. Can he do this against top foes? I don't know, but it's worth finding that out. He does get dinged for letting the set-up pass slip by on Jamaica's goal, but only slightly because he'd busted his hump just to get back as cover.
We got another encouraging shift from the Valencia teenager, who seemed to make decisions a little quicker on the ball than the last time we saw him. Musuh may be green, but he looks set to be a genuine transition game weapon for a decade to come.
The USMNT's designated glue guy did that job to a tee before turning into the insurance man with a pair of professional strikes in the waning moments.
The Borussia Dortmund phenom's indecisiveness issue was apparent early, but he grew into the game and started thinking the game up to speed. Though Reyna was unable to conjure any end product, his ability to unnerve defenses was on show over the back half of his 68 minutes.
Much like with Reyna, Pulisic's showing was more about dislodging the defense to the benefit of teammates than it was about producing the big play.
The Werder Bremen striker struggled to make area noise against Jamaica's fast, physical defenders until a fine slip move allowed him to tee up the US winner early in the second half.
Halftime sub: The dedicated transition engine wasted little time making an impact, and had a goal for his troubles after just seven minutes of play.
Halftime sub: The young defender looked excellent right up until the moment he inexplicably allowed a restart serve to bounce across the US doorstep.
67' sub: It was a solid relief outing for the Fulham left back, who pushed play up his flank and served a couple of tempting crosses into the box.
68' sub: It was a slightly clumsy start for the Caen attacker, but he quickly got into the flow and served up a wise assist on Lletget's first strike.
73' sub: It could certainly be argued that no one raised their US stock on the night as much as De la Torre. He turbo-charged the transition game late, and eventually notched the smart assist his probing efforts deserved.
82' sub: The striker was limited to a gentle header on goal during his eight-minute USMNT debut.
The boss generally pulled all the right levers to keep the team pointing in the right direction. Using Acosta as the No. 6 may one day prove to be a master stroke.
