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USMNT Still Have Hope to Advance at Copa Despite Loss to Colombia
- Updated: June 4, 2016
Drop the pitchforks and take a deep breath.
Despite falling 2-0 to Colombia in the Copa America Centenario opener on Friday night, the United States men’s national team displayed signs of hope that they can earn the required amount of points to advance to the knockout phase of the competition.
Yes, the Yanks made two inexcusable mistakes that led to a pair of goals for Jose Pekerman’s side, but the overall performance put in by Jurgen Klinsmann’s men wasn’t the worst they’ve had during the Klinsmann era.
Outside of Geoff Cameron’s poor marking in the buildup to Cristian Zapata’s eight-minute tally and DeAndre Yedlin’s turn into the ball that led to James Rodriguez’s 42nd-minute penalty, the much-maligned back four kept the threat of Colombia to a minimum. Although the focus will be on the pair of defensive errors committed in the first half, the back four performed better than expected given their lack of chemistry.
Klinsmann: “Overall I was very pleased with the performance of the team.”
— Paul Tenorio (@PaulTenorio) June 4, 2016
Cameron was a vital part of the defensive setup as he made a few key tackles in the box across 90 minutes to prevent the dangerous threat posed by the James-led Colombia attack. Brooks’ top moment of the contest came in the 54th minute, when he stepped out of the box to make an enforcing sliding challenge on Juan Cuadrado. In addition to that play, Brooks kept Carlos Bacca silent for the majority of the match. Neither Yedlin nor Fabian Johnson were burned by the Colombian wingers throughout the match, but the one criticism of the full-backs is they didn’t bomb forward enough.
But if you put things into perspective in Group A, a two-goal loss to the best team in the group is not the end of the world. …
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