There’s just as much to pick from matches like the American men’s national team that played Sunday, which the Yanks beat Trinidad and Tobago 7-0 in their friendship in Orlando.
USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter is well aware of the caveats: the T & T team that played the USA did not take the field together for almost a year, which put them far behind the curve in terms of fitness and chemistry, which was evident throughout the night. As the program is poised for a packed 2021, Berhalter said after the game that taking the leaderboard with a grain of salt should not diminish some of the positive tasks.
“You can only play against your opponent,” Berhalter said. “What I really liked about the guys was the focus and the intensity. After three weeks of training with a relatively new group, a young group, it’s good to see the elements on the field against a real opponent. .
“We know it was not a qualifying team for the World Cup, based on who they had available. But it was still good to see the focus of the team.”
The Yanks were dominant on Sunday from the opening whistle and scored the game’s first goal just two minutes into the game with the permission of Jonathan Lewis and never looked back. Jesus Ferreira, the homemade FC Dallas, was probably the biggest star of the series with two goals and three assists, but Berhalter said it was the joint effort that impressed him the most, not only on Sunday, but also in the whole January camp.
Sam Vines, Aaron Herrera, Miles Robinson and Lewis all joined Ferreira as young players who delivered outstanding performances. Even Matt Turner, goalkeeper of the New England Revolution, found a way to make his mark on an evening where he had virtually nothing else to do.
“The whole team for the past three weeks has impressed me: the attitude, the attitude, the focus, the intensity has been there for three weeks,” Berhalter said. ‘When I look at today, when you talk about Jonathan Lewis and Jesus Ferreira, they did an excellent job of getting assistance and goals. Sam Vines did a good job. The centers were strong, Aaron Herrera played well.
“It’s very difficult to pick a player from the first XI who did not play well, so overall satisfied with the guys, satisfied with the effort of the group and most importantly of the concentration and focus they showed has.”
The matches promise to get a lot tougher for the program later in a giant year, but Berhalter said the camp and Sunday’s friendships are just about building blocks, whether it’s for the young emerging who want to pursue their cause for more caps . forward, or the more established players who were already part of the rotation.
In that sense, Berhalter said, he considers the team’s first mission to be complete.
“There are players in this camp who are very much part of the full team,” the coach said. If you look at Sebastian Lletget, Aaron Long, Paul Arriola, Walker [Zimmerman] was a part of it, Jackson [Yueill] was a big part of what we’ve been doing lately.
“So, we used this camp as an integration camp, where we could mix the senior players with the U-23 players and really work with both teams and prepare both teams for what lies ahead this year. If I look at it, when I looked at the purpose of the camp, it was a success based on it. ‘