COLUMBUS, Ohio – If Mauricio Pochettino could have designed the perfect response in his head, this would have been it. A 2-0 win over a good, but admittedly rotated, Japan team on Tuesday night was exactly what the U.S. men’s national team required.
Goals from two players, Alejandro Zendejas and Folarin Balogun, seemingly fighting for more? Check. A tactical switch that might just be an answer, both in the short- and long-term? Check. And a strong performance from Christian Pulisic, who finally put the summer drama in the rearview mirror with an important assist? Another big check.
This week, so much talk has centered around the USMNT’s trajectory. Pochettino admitted it partly began in March, in losses in the Nation’s League that served as a wakeup call. Could this game, one that offered some semblance of momentum, be a shift in the other direction? Could this be the start of a new path, one that looks a lot better than the one the U.S. has been on since the spring?
“This game and life, it’s all about sliding doors,” USMNT veteran Tim Ream said postgame. “It’s about either stepping through them or not. You take moments and experiences on board and you move on. I think for us, it’s just a process to go through. It’s a process to get to a World Cup. There are moments. There are ups and downs. I’ve been playing a long time and it’s never smooth sailing.
“There are times when things don’t go your way and times when you can do no wrong. That’s the way the game is. Maybe you look back on it and say ‘OK, that was a defining moment’ and some may look at this as a defining moment.”
That answer will come down the line but, for now, it’s, at the very least, a step. It was one that the U.S. needed. It was one Pochettino and Pulisic and plenty of others needed.
“Things happen as they’re supposed to happen,” said Pulisic, who spoke to reporters for the first time since returning to the USMNT from his controversial summer, which included skipping the Gold Cup. “This is where we are now. It’s important for us to take this game and feel good about it. But also look back and see a lot of things we can still improve on.”
GOAL breaks down the winners and losers from Lower.com Field.