After David Ochoa alone kept the USA in contention to qualify for the Olympics, preserving victory in an unmissable game against Alajuelense Costa Rica, the Yoot Yanks responded by playing a disjointed first half and adjusting slightly in the 45th second, or indeed in the third thirty, to come out with a 4-0 victory.
After struggling hard to mount any kind of threat in the first half, the US finally managed to score a Jackson Yueill goal close to the hour mark. Two more goals from second-half Hassani Dotson and a quarter from Djordje Mihailovic turned the game into a rout. Despite the score, the difficult start to the match can be somewhat worrying about a game against Mexico, as the team clearly has some work to do in terms of putting a game plan into practice.
Let’s just talk about the second half, right?
Over the course of the 15 minutes, the Dominican Republic was undaunted and the United States seemed to have trouble matching its energy and intensity, let alone building possession of the ball or threatening in the final third. It turns out that playing with three midfielders in a 4-3-3 against a nation that never qualified for the Gold Cup may have been Jason Kreis overestimating his opponent.
With the game resolved, the Hispaniola slowed down a bit and the Americans saw more of the ball, but did not do much to create opportunities with it. Finally, the first real opportunity came in the 27th minute, after a cross from Sam Vines, who found Johnny with an open mind in the small area, but the midfielder hit the direct shot in the arms of DR goalkeeper Johan Guzman.
The first half ended with the US coming to life with some successful advances in the DR 18 yard box, with nothing to show for its efforts. If the idea was to make the USA maintain possession of the ball and then depend on the interaction of the flanks between the outside defenders and the attackers to create chances, very, very little of that happened. The team resembled XI individuals, rather than a cohesive unit following some kind of well-executed or communicated game plan.
Jesus Ferreira, who had a yellow card, made room for Sebastian Soto to start the second half, which also brought a higher line to the USA, as the team pressed for the first goal. Some decent chances were worth nothing until, finally, Bofo Saucedo kicked a ball past the face of the goal that Jackson Yueill deflected into the net and put the USA ahead 1-0 in the 61st minute.
After the score, Johnny made room for Hassani Dotson and Saucedo left for Djordje Mihailovic and, at 69 ‘, Benji Michel was replaced by Jonathan Lewis.
Shortly afterwards, Mihailovic had a great run with the ball in the area and made a pass for Dotson, who made it 2-0 for Guzman and made it 2-0 in the 73rd minute.
With a Minnesota native and a Minnesota United player contributing to the goals, the match started to look like Mighty Ducks FiVe: Flying V. Dotson’s revenge would again score the goal with a Mihailovic feed when Jonathan Himelfarb’s team started get tired after 78 minutes.
Yueill was then replaced by Tanner Tessmann in the 80th.
A final goal was added by Mihailovic in the 90th minute when the USA made some changes, the DR was worn out and the game ended 4-0.
In the end, the score recovered a stable performance in the first hour or more of the match and Stars and Stripes can use that to prepare to face their rival Mexico in the group’s final game.