USMNT overcomes red card, advances to World Cup Round of 16 with impressive win over Bosnia-Herzegovina
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Mauricio Pochettino wants his team to touch the moon, and it is getting ever closer to the stars.
Twenty-four years after USA 2, Mexico 0 in Jeonju came USA 2, Bosnia-Herzegovina 0 on a sun-splashed Wednesday in Santa Clara. Of course it had to be dos a cero again.
The U.S. waited a generation and the long-lasting 26 minutes that followed Folarin Balogun’s red card between knockout round victories at a World Cup.
Every second was worth it.
The losing streak against UEFA is over, with wins against Bosnia sandwiching a nearly five-year drought. So too is the knockout stage losing streak and so too, just maybe, is the inferiority complex that’s plagued American soccer when it comes up against so-called soccer nations. The true test of that will come next week in Seattle when the USMNT faces Belgium, which knocked the U.S. out in Brazil 12 years ago and beat it 5-2 in a March friendly.
Balogun being sent off 64 minutes in for landing on Tarik Muharemovic’s ankle — a call decided after a lengthy VAR review — changed the tenor of a Round of 32 match the U.S. had been, if not dominating, then certainly in control of.
The Bosnians, though, failed completely to take advantage. Instead of attacking the way they should have, they let the U.S. continue to find space with 10 men, and the game devolved into something overly physical.
Without the red card, that might have favored Bosnia. With it, Stjepan Radeljic’s challenge on Sergiño Dest just outside the box handed the Americans the opportunity they needed to put the match away.
Malik Tillman, who had assisted Balogun’s opening goal, who had been so silky all evening, did not let it go to waste. He dipped a gorgeous free kick over the wall and into the corner for a 2-0 lead that, 82 minutes into the match, gave the U.S. what it so desperately needed.
Given how leads have so easily fallen to bits in the knockout stage of this World Cup, the relative lack of drama here came as a shock. Give immense credit to Tim Ream, Chris Richards and a U.S. back line that — so frequently questioned coming into this tournament — stood tall when needed most. Richards, so good in the air, seemed to win every duel in the second half. Matt Freese, rarely tested before Wednesday, proved himself in total command.
Tillman, though, ought to be the man of the match. He has been an unsung hero the entire World Cup, and has now helped pilot the U.S. into the Round of 16, already a better tournament result than Germany, his birth country, which he spurned to play here.
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The first 64 minutes cut a much different tone than the last 26.
This USMNT — Pochettino’s USMNT — does not sit on its hands and wait for the game to come to it. The Americans probe and search and then they smash and grab. Balogun, the breakout star of this World Cup, had one goal called back for offside and two penalty appeals denied before the striker swept in Tillman’s pass with his left foot after 44 minutes.
Those appeals, it turned out, were only the start of Balogun’s problems with Brazilian referee Raphael Claus. The U.S. will be without its star man against Belgium too as a result.
It was the latest the U.S. has scored an opener so far in the World Cup, reflecting a Bosnia defense that was the toughest it had faced thus far. Sergej Barbarez set his team up in a 5-3-2, and Bosnia defended in a compact, organized manner. Line-breaking passes that came easily in the group stage rarely appeared, and Bosnia successfully played right up to the line physically without stepping over too often.
Pochettino’s exhortation to his team, released in a video by U.S. Soccer on Wednesday morning, was to go where only Americans have ever gone.
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“The objective is to touch the moon,” Pochettino said. “I want to touch the moon.”
The journey will be much harder without Balogun on the ship. But right now, the sky looks to be no limit at all.
