Latest / Bleacher Report / USMNT Loses 2-0 to Portugal in Friendly - Post-Match Reaction

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USMNT Loses 2-0 to Portugal in Friendly - Post-Match Reaction · Bleacher Report

0:00
Speaker 1: Lee and the que Brian Dunsaid, Brad Guzan, DeMarcus Beasley,
0:04
Speaker 1: Kyle Martino, fan supports still strong. Been a fantastic atmosphere
0:10
Speaker 1: for these two games. Over sixty seven thousand. We're here
0:13
Speaker 1: on Saturday, over seventy thousand here today, US doesn't get
0:17
Speaker 1: a win. We left this the other nights. He's talking
0:20
Speaker 1: about feeling deflated and different team, different result after today,
0:26
Speaker 1: after this loss, do you feel better, worse or the
0:30
Speaker 1: same about this team?
0:31
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a tough one. I don't feel better. I
0:35
Speaker 2: don't feel worse. I'm kind of somewhere in the middle
0:39
Speaker 2: because I thought the first half, I thought we took
0:42
Speaker 2: away some of the strengths of Portugal then playing through
0:44
Speaker 2: the middle, making them play out wide. We're very, very
0:47
Speaker 2: strong in the middle of the park, and we created
0:49
Speaker 2: some chances off of transition. Obviously, I know we weren't
0:51
Speaker 2: as clinical and as clean as we need to be,
0:53
Speaker 2: especially a plan against this type of caliber of Nations,
0:57
Speaker 2: But that second half just kind of it was just
1:01
Speaker 2: basically uninspirational of it.
1:03
Speaker 3: You know, we didn't create any chances.
1:05
Speaker 2: I know a lot of changes, there's a lot going
1:08
Speaker 2: on with I don't know if you've made a new
1:09
Speaker 2: rule that you can make eleven changes now, So both
1:12
Speaker 2: coaches are going to make a ton of changes trying
1:13
Speaker 2: to get their last last players to them to the
1:16
Speaker 2: World Cup roster. But you know, I just feel not
1:20
Speaker 2: not down, but I just I felt today I would
1:23
Speaker 2: have been a bit more inspired.
1:25
Speaker 4: I think it depends on how you want to look
1:27
Speaker 4: at this. If you're looking at the result, the fact
1:29
Speaker 4: is we lost two games in a row. If you
1:31
Speaker 4: want to compartmentalize, and by the way, I hate the
1:33
Speaker 4: eleven subs drives me nuts, then how do you compartmentalize
1:38
Speaker 4: what this looks like from Risio po Chattino standards, Because
1:41
Speaker 4: the way that we approached coming off the fall window
1:44
Speaker 4: was going to be three in the back system. We
1:45
Speaker 4: had this really great idea of the equity built with
1:49
Speaker 4: results against Japan and Ecuador and Australia and then Paraguay
1:53
Speaker 4: and Utaguay. We felt like this trajectory was ramping up
1:56
Speaker 4: where momentum was going to be on the side of
1:58
Speaker 4: the players. And then some decis visions on the roster,
2:01
Speaker 4: some forced decisions, and now some adjustments with another wrinkle
2:05
Speaker 4: or another tweak with Christian blistic playing as the hybrid
2:08
Speaker 4: of another nine. So at the end of the day,
2:10
Speaker 4: we're trying to put ourselves in the coaching staff's perspective
2:14
Speaker 4: the way they're viewing those and I think we walk
2:16
Speaker 4: away with some answers and maybe a little bit more
2:19
Speaker 4: confusion after these are those two matches.
2:21
Speaker 5: Some answers, but also you just mentioned some more questions,
2:25
Speaker 5: you know, and I think if you look at the
2:26
Speaker 5: first half, Christian dropping in, we were asking in the
2:29
Speaker 5: pregame show, what is that going to look like? I
2:31
Speaker 5: think we were fantastic he drops in, We'll get runners
2:34
Speaker 5: in beyond, and now we're getting the ball wide, we're
2:36
Speaker 5: putting balls into the box. That final moment, that final
2:40
Speaker 5: whether it's the final touch, the final shot, a bit
2:42
Speaker 5: too slow, a bit lethargic, and we're not able to
2:45
Speaker 5: capitalize on those moments. And we talked about it at halftime.
2:48
Speaker 5: Those are defining moments, defining moments that decide the game.
2:52
Speaker 5: And Bes, I get what you're saying right where it's
2:55
Speaker 5: a bit of somewhere in between, because you come off
2:58
Speaker 5: and we're excited for the summer. We're looking forward to
3:00
Speaker 5: a fantastic summer. We believe in these guys, but we
3:03
Speaker 5: need them to go out and and kind of galvanize
3:06
Speaker 5: this country and and get this country behind them and
3:09
Speaker 5: give them something to go and cheer.
3:11
Speaker 2: Like I'm always gonna root for the national team. Of course,
3:15
Speaker 2: this is this is a team that I've played so
3:18
Speaker 2: many games for and I love these teams. I love
3:20
Speaker 2: these guys, but just at the moment right now, it's
3:24
Speaker 2: just not enough. And I know, I know they're going
3:26
Speaker 2: to say, we have more games to do, but we
3:28
Speaker 2: want to see these players compete and intensity and creating
3:33
Speaker 2: chances and being hard to play against every single match,
3:36
Speaker 2: and just right now it's not happening.
3:38
Speaker 3: Did you feel they were harder to play because that.
3:40
Speaker 1: Was one thing you get that, that's what I said
3:41
Speaker 1: in the beginning, harder to play against tonight.
3:43
Speaker 2: Yes I do, And I said in the first half
3:45
Speaker 2: they made it hard for Portugal to penetrate through the middle,
3:47
Speaker 2: and that was one thing against Belgium, which they did
3:51
Speaker 2: pretty poorly at And I know, Kyle.
3:52
Speaker 6: You want to say something.
3:53
Speaker 2: I don't want to take all this.
3:54
Speaker 6: No, no, I agree with with everything you guys are saying.
3:57
Speaker 6: I mean, listen, there was a response that's good that's
3:59
Speaker 6: a very high quality team. That's a team that could
4:02
Speaker 6: go deep in the tournament. There's a lot of positives there.
4:05
Speaker 6: We talked about this a while ago. We haven't talked
4:06
Speaker 6: about it since all these countries.
4:08
Speaker 3: That have qualified.
4:09
Speaker 6: The lack of qualifying has hurt us, no doubt. There
4:12
Speaker 6: hasn't been enough meaningful games, so we haven't really seen
4:16
Speaker 6: There's been an excuse every time. You know, it's about
4:18
Speaker 6: the performances and so Bees just said it hard to
4:20
Speaker 6: play against. I mean, we went into World Cups in
4:22
Speaker 6: two thousand and two, the furthest we ever win that
4:24
Speaker 6: game against Portugal. We were a hard team to play
4:27
Speaker 6: against before we were anything else.
4:29
Speaker 3: Since it's just if.
4:30
Speaker 6: We're gonna ask ourselves, have we progressed from the last
4:33
Speaker 6: World Cup? I think we're seeing now. It's hard to
4:36
Speaker 6: tell without meaningful games in between. And if you ask me,
4:40
Speaker 6: you know, hot light in my face. I don't think
4:42
Speaker 6: we've gotten much better than we were in the last
4:44
Speaker 6: World Cup and the last World Cup. The thing that
4:46
Speaker 6: plagued us is we love to be a team that
4:48
Speaker 6: can go and play against some of the best teams
4:50
Speaker 6: in the world.
4:50
Speaker 3: Netherlands said, great, bring it.
4:52
Speaker 6: We miss a couple of chances we should bury and
4:54
Speaker 6: Netherlands are high quality. On the other end, this looks
4:56
Speaker 6: exactly like that game, you know against Netherlands. So I
5:00
Speaker 6: think we're gonna have to have a lot of faith
5:02
Speaker 6: that it just switches on some of this stuff when
5:04
Speaker 6: we get to the World Cup.
5:05
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a look back to what happened
5:07
Speaker 1: here tonight in Atlanta. It's the CBS Health and Game
5:09
Speaker 1: Highlights began the discussion talking about Christopher Lissen playing upfronts
5:15
Speaker 1: and early returns of this one.
5:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's opportunities. It's a great step from.
5:19
Speaker 4: Austin Trusty layoff from Maley Tellman and cut down angle
5:23
Speaker 4: from Viatinia. Maybe skips through, but it looks like Jose
5:26
Speaker 4: saw I might have got a big left.
5:27
Speaker 3: Hand to it.
5:28
Speaker 4: The interpretation of the position and then set peace opportunities.
5:32
Speaker 4: Listen in one angle and we'll we'll talk about the
5:34
Speaker 4: goal from jee.
5:34
Speaker 3: Felix a little bit later.
5:36
Speaker 4: But the United States did have chances the press through
5:40
Speaker 4: and Vatinia with little combination play forward, back forward and this.
5:45
Speaker 3: Angle, this turn.
5:45
Speaker 4: We're looking for statement moments and this is a statement
5:48
Speaker 4: safe from Matt Freeze who, in my humble opinion, has
5:53
Speaker 4: without a shadow of a doubt, grabbed the number one
5:55
Speaker 4: jersey and the starting spot in between the posts for
5:57
Speaker 4: the US men's national team.
5:58
Speaker 3: Recycled opportunity. Christian can't get.
6:01
Speaker 4: On the end of it, Weston can't get on the
6:02
Speaker 4: end of it, and then Sebastian Burhalter comfortable save full
6:06
Speaker 4: stretch to his right hand side, Jose Sawza looking to
6:08
Speaker 4: just catch the inside of that near post, underlap, overlapping,
6:14
Speaker 4: and at this point Christian from distance just spins one
6:19
Speaker 4: off the surface, inches past the outside of that right
6:22
Speaker 4: post and in a similar phase of what we saw
6:24
Speaker 4: against Belgium, not able to capitalize and find the back
6:27
Speaker 4: of the net and change the momentum that Tina then
6:29
Speaker 4: finds Bruno Fernandez and as he goes down good closing
6:33
Speaker 4: down space, but the genius of the heel flick and
6:35
Speaker 4: then trink out perfectly weighted far post side net with
6:38
Speaker 4: just a delicate little curl at the last second opens
6:41
Speaker 4: up the score line in the twenty seventh.
6:44
Speaker 1: So one mill at the half second, half fifty ninth minute.
6:46
Speaker 1: It's Portugal again, and it's a lot of time.
6:50
Speaker 4: And Kyle was right in the middle of the match
6:53
Speaker 4: and everybody condenses. Everyone's trying to get in the best
6:56
Speaker 4: case scenario defensively, but somebody misses their mark on Juel Felix,
7:00
Speaker 4: and not only does he get the big first touch,
7:01
Speaker 4: he has enough time to allow it to come back
7:03
Speaker 4: down and then he strikes through it and.
7:05
Speaker 3: That made it tun nail in the sixtieth minute.
7:07
Speaker 1: If you're wondering about every moment of every game intensity,
7:09
Speaker 1: that may be a moment of that.
7:11
Speaker 3: Marizio Boschino goes back to and with views.
7:13
Speaker 1: You look at the final stats in this one, Portugal
7:15
Speaker 1: no surprise dominates. Possession shots actually twelve eleven in favor
7:19
Speaker 1: of the USA, and the fouls which if you want
7:22
Speaker 1: to count that as a step up in intensity for
7:25
Speaker 1: the USA, that was certainly there, but Indian portsgal takes
7:29
Speaker 1: it down. Christian ballistic, you look up top He chatted
7:33
Speaker 1: with Melissa Ortiz.
7:36
Speaker 7: Christian walking away from this camp with two defeats against
7:40
Speaker 7: top teams, what are your initial reactions.
7:44
Speaker 8: Obviously we're disappointed with the results, but to be honest,
7:47
Speaker 8: I'm taking a lot of positives from it. I think
7:50
Speaker 8: we're a lot closer than it may seem and a
7:53
Speaker 8: couple of things are go our way, and I still
7:58
Speaker 8: feel positive and I have belief in the scene.
8:00
Speaker 7: What positives can you take away from this campany?
8:03
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean we're we put a lot of pressure
8:05
Speaker 8: on them in the first half of both the games,
8:06
Speaker 8: and we're able to create chances. If I finish a
8:09
Speaker 8: couple of chances, which I know I'm going to, things
8:12
Speaker 8: are going to be a bit different. And then just
8:15
Speaker 8: a couple of moments where we're just a little bit
8:17
Speaker 8: of lack of comic concentration and we give them up goals.
8:19
Speaker 8: But I feel like we're right in the game and
8:22
Speaker 8: I feel good things coming.
8:24
Speaker 7: I feel the positivity coming from you. What can you
8:27
Speaker 7: take away from your personal performance over the two matches,
8:29
Speaker 7: especially given the change in position and from into the
8:33
Speaker 7: nine No.
8:34
Speaker 8: I mean physically, I feel really good. I feel really sharp,
8:36
Speaker 8: and I feel I'm doing a lot of good things.
8:38
Speaker 8: I have to help my team to get assists and
8:40
Speaker 8: score goals and create chances, and obviously when I don't
8:43
Speaker 8: do that, it's frustrating. But I feel that I'm close
8:46
Speaker 8: and I feel good things in front.
8:47
Speaker 3: Thank you, Chrishchaank you.
8:52
Speaker 1: Christal Bellistic says they feel close we saw package that
8:55
Speaker 1: you ran during the game about I wouldn't they missed opportunities,
8:59
Speaker 1: but being in a where a final bit of skill
9:01
Speaker 1: might have made a difference might have at least forced
9:03
Speaker 1: a tough state. That happened a number of times here.
9:06
Speaker 1: Do you feel like we're lacking that or does it
9:08
Speaker 1: feel like we're there, we're on the cusp of it.
9:10
Speaker 3: It just didn't happen.
9:12
Speaker 6: I mean, listen, there were a few chances today that
9:17
Speaker 6: maybe Ballyguan does a little better on, or you know,
9:20
Speaker 6: Christian Polistic, as he said in his best form, does
9:23
Speaker 6: better on. It's just I don't think the World Cup
9:27
Speaker 6: is gonna come down to a bunch of chances and
9:31
Speaker 6: that's going to be the difference.
9:33
Speaker 3: It's positive.
9:34
Speaker 6: I love watching us trying to go toe to toe
9:36
Speaker 6: and play an aggressive way against the Portugals of the world,
9:39
Speaker 6: but really it's gonna come down to you could get
9:42
Speaker 6: three or four or fives of these chances in the
9:44
Speaker 6: US tonight. Was not clinical enough, was not good enough
9:47
Speaker 6: in the final third. It's only gonna take a Germany,
9:52
Speaker 6: a Spain A I mean, forget Brazil. It's some of
9:58
Speaker 6: these best teams in the world that go deep.
10:00
Speaker 3: In this tournament.
10:01
Speaker 6: Do not need as many chances to punish you? And listen,
10:04
Speaker 6: we know that that's not something to be hyper critical
10:07
Speaker 6: about this team.
10:08
Speaker 3: It's just it.
10:09
Speaker 6: Poachina set it the other day. If we're scoring ten goals,
10:11
Speaker 6: I'm okay, if we concede five, it's the conceding five part.
10:15
Speaker 6: I know we say that these are friendlies. It's how
10:17
Speaker 6: we're conceding those goals. I think that it worries me
10:20
Speaker 6: the most, and that to me is more the thing
10:23
Speaker 6: to focus on than our inability to put those chances on.
10:26
Speaker 1: Do you think that's more specifically that second goal and
10:29
Speaker 1: all the time that was given there, Yeah, to settle
10:31
Speaker 1: the ball that was bouncing.
10:32
Speaker 5: Listen, we Kyle, you mentioned it during the broadcast, and
10:35
Speaker 5: it's about switching off in certain moments. And against these
10:38
Speaker 5: top teams, you can't switch off because when you switch off,
10:41
Speaker 5: they will punish you. And we saw that and even
10:44
Speaker 5: on the first goal. And we look at the second
10:45
Speaker 5: goal here, but we can't allow one the time for
10:49
Speaker 5: this ball to travel from the corner to the top
10:51
Speaker 5: of the box and then jont Folix take a.
10:54
Speaker 3: Touch, had a great touch, have it bobble up.
10:57
Speaker 5: To his chest, have it drop back down with nobody
11:01
Speaker 5: getting pressure to the ball, and you look at the
11:03
Speaker 5: first goal. When you go back to the first goal,
11:05
Speaker 5: it's the same thing. We turn them all over in
11:06
Speaker 5: midfield within one to two passes, they're inside of our
11:09
Speaker 5: eighteen yard box and the balls.
11:10
Speaker 3: In the back of the NW.
11:11
Speaker 4: My question on this is you've got a hybrid of
11:13
Speaker 4: Zono marking at the top of your six yard box,
11:15
Speaker 4: the responsibility of attacking the ball, and then tracking runs
11:20
Speaker 4: inside of your sixth where no one's responding. Now, this
11:22
Speaker 4: one's unfortunate for West McKinney because he's trying to maintain
11:25
Speaker 4: possession and find the second run pop it out of midfield.
11:29
Speaker 4: I believe it was Sebastian Burhalter. But then Bettina, one
11:32
Speaker 4: of the best players in his position, finds one of
11:35
Speaker 4: the other best players in this position, and Bruno Fernandez
11:38
Speaker 4: that he'll flick into space. It's no look and Trinkau
11:40
Speaker 4: with that perfectly way. Its soft little curler art post
11:44
Speaker 4: side net. Technically it's a fantastic goal. The problem that
11:48
Speaker 4: I'm having in this is trying to find the nuance
11:50
Speaker 4: of how do we take what the results are in reality,
11:54
Speaker 4: and at the same time understand that that first forty
11:57
Speaker 4: five minutes is probably a better indicator of the way
12:00
Speaker 4: Marisio Pochattino is seeing his idea of his strongest possible eleven.
12:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the game, the match.
12:07
Speaker 2: Is ninety minutes, it's not forty five.
12:10
Speaker 4: But at the World Cup you're not getting eleven changes.
12:13
Speaker 4: Understand that reality the same.
12:15
Speaker 2: I'll still be ninety minutes, of course, So everyone to
12:18
Speaker 2: keep saying, we don't play these matches as friendlies.
12:20
Speaker 3: It's ninety minutes.
12:21
Speaker 2: Yet we might have played great forty five minutes in
12:24
Speaker 2: the first World Cup match against Bataguay, but then after
12:26
Speaker 2: that we still have another forty five and we're gonna
12:28
Speaker 2: do the same thing, you know what I'm saying. So
12:29
Speaker 2: it's not I understand what Christian's saying, you know, I
12:33
Speaker 2: feel I'm glad that he's confident.
12:34
Speaker 3: I'm glad he's confident in this.
12:35
Speaker 2: Group because we're not every day on the training ground.
12:38
Speaker 2: We don't see what they're you know, talking about what
12:39
Speaker 2: they're doing every single day when they're in camp.
12:42
Speaker 3: So I like that he's confident in what they're doing.
12:45
Speaker 2: But we have to go by what we see and
12:47
Speaker 2: right now we play well for forty five minutes against
12:50
Speaker 2: some of the best countries in the world, but then
12:52
Speaker 2: the next forty five it's like what happened? You know,
12:55
Speaker 2: there's ninety minutes of football and we still haven't put
12:58
Speaker 2: that together yet.
13:00
Speaker 1: Two games in this international window, two losses for Genius,
13:03
Speaker 1: a five to two Belgian che nil today to Portugal. Oh,
13:07
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be joined by a guest now on headset
13:10
Speaker 1: down pitchside, Matt Freeze. Matt, thanks so much for coming on.
13:13
Speaker 1: Really appreciate it. This international window and your performance today.
13:17
Speaker 1: How do you leave this and how do you feel
13:19
Speaker 1: about your play and the teams play right now?
13:23
Speaker 9: Uh, you know, not too much to say about my play,
13:25
Speaker 9: to be honest with you, more more folks than my team.
13:29
Speaker 7: You know.
13:29
Speaker 9: An unfortunate result tonight, you know, leaves us, leaves me
13:34
Speaker 9: wanting more for the group and and fully believe that
13:37
Speaker 9: we can do more. But I think also a lot
13:39
Speaker 9: of positives to take away and.
13:41
Speaker 6: Two games left to go, and you know every game
13:45
Speaker 6: is gonna matter in the first game of World Cup
13:46
Speaker 6: always matters. Let's say you're on that roster, let's say
13:49
Speaker 6: you're starting. Where where do you think these marginal gains
13:52
Speaker 6: need to be in order to hit that competitive level
13:55
Speaker 6: when you get to the World Cup.
13:56
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think it's about just continuing to work together,
14:00
Speaker 9: continuing to you know, uh be detailed, uh in in
14:05
Speaker 9: in the fine moments, the small moments, the detailed moments.
14:09
Speaker 9: You know that a few minor things were the were
14:12
Speaker 9: the difference today, and you know, as soon as those
14:14
Speaker 9: those switch, you know, it's a it's a whole different
14:17
Speaker 9: ball game.
14:18
Speaker 2: Hey, Matt, what's the mood in the squad right now?
14:23
Speaker 2: I know that there's often go the way that you
14:25
Speaker 2: guys wanted to. But now that you guys are going
14:27
Speaker 2: back to your club teams, obviously the rosters getting anounced
14:30
Speaker 2: in a few weeks, what's the mood in the in
14:32
Speaker 2: the in the camp right now?
14:34
Speaker 9: Uh? Right after the game, you know, I'm I'm frustrated.
14:37
Speaker 9: Uh you know, I want to win. Every single time
14:39
Speaker 9: I step on the field, I want to win. I
14:41
Speaker 9: think I think that sentiment is echoed throughout the locker
14:44
Speaker 9: room we get back in there. Uh you know, but
14:47
Speaker 9: but we know we also have another you know, two
14:50
Speaker 9: games before the World Cup starts, and then obviously we
14:53
Speaker 9: all have to you know, stay healthy, keep pushing uh
14:55
Speaker 9: and and be at our basket when June comes.
14:57
Speaker 4: Matt, how did you approach tonight with the opportunity TV
15:00
Speaker 4: back in between the posts?
15:02
Speaker 9: Always a huge honor to be able to be in
15:05
Speaker 9: the goal, and you know, continuing to have that selfless
15:09
Speaker 9: mindset of of of putting the team first and doing
15:12
Speaker 9: my job and and helping them when they need help,
15:15
Speaker 9: and and uh letting a fire in them when they
15:18
Speaker 9: need it, and and also you know, supporting with them
15:21
Speaker 9: when they need it. And you know, that's kind of
15:22
Speaker 9: my attitude every time I step on the field, and
15:25
Speaker 9: as well as you know, pushing us to win. So uh,
15:28
Speaker 9: you know that that's kind of what I did tonight, Matt.
15:31
Speaker 2: Uh.
15:31
Speaker 5: Two great atmospheres here in Atlanta. What is your message
15:34
Speaker 5: to to to the fans across the country that are
15:37
Speaker 5: looking forward to to the summer ahead?
15:39
Speaker 9: Beautiful beautiful stadium, beautiful uh, you know, fans and and
15:44
Speaker 9: energy here?
15:44
Speaker 6: It was.
15:45
Speaker 9: It was incredible. This is my first time playing uh
15:48
Speaker 9: at Mercedes Benz where they're not cheering against me. Uh,
15:51
Speaker 9: So obviously felt good. You know, just keep the energy coming,
15:54
Speaker 9: keep the noise coming.
15:55
Speaker 8: Uh.
15:56
Speaker 9: I can't really tell you how big of a difference
15:57
Speaker 9: it makes and you know that that that is uh,
16:00
Speaker 9: you guys are the twelfth Man this summer and it's
16:03
Speaker 9: a it's a really important factor.
16:05
Speaker 3: Matt, thanks so much your time. Appreciate it.
16:07
Speaker 9: Thanks guys,