The USMNT won 4-0 late on Tuesday night against Gold Cup debutantes Guyana. While the US men won, the performance was short of dominant. Against a Guyana squad which consists of players who just barely meet the minimum requirement to be called “professionals”, the US could have played better. To define Guyana’s talent level more exactly, a majority of their players play in the 4th or 5th divisions in England, or the 2nd or lower divisions in the US. While the USMNT won, most would have hoped for a more convincing win.

With that said, here were my thoughts from the night, player by player, from best to worst performances:

• Tyler Boyd was the Man of the Match, scoring his first and second goal ever for the US. He was consistently threatening making runs in behind the defense, and whipping in dangerous crosses. Additionally, he had a few field shifting long balls to Arriola on the other side that changed the angle of attack. Those are the types of passes that Head Coach Gregg Berhalter loves.
• McKennie showed the grit and fight that this team has been missing of late. He tracked back to defend, he muscled guys off the ball, and he wasn’t afraid to commit a foul or two. The US desperately needed that. McKennie was also a huge threat in the final third, which I haven’t seen from him in past national team performances. Again, with the caveat that this team is the worst team at this tournament.
• Lima was a terror up and down the right side of the field for the US. There were very few attacks coming down his flank and he added substantially to the attack as an overlapping fullback. He’s making a good argument that he should be the full-time starting right back even when DeAndre Yedlin is healthy.
• Arriola continued to work hard down the left wing, getting into dangerous spaces. He’s been vocal about wanting to score more, as he missed a few sitters in recent friendlies. He put one away tonight, but probably wished he could redo one or two other opportunities.
• Steffen contributed more with his feet than his hands, as the US built out of the back. He didn’t have any shaky moments like he did in the last two friendlies. He only needed to make one save on the night and he did so handily.
• Bradley was solid *enough* defensively, and pinged a few of those Pirlo-esque long balls which he has become known for. I emphasize “enough” because it looked like Bradley was just barely able to snuff out the attacks from this Guyana team. Won’t be as easy as this tournament progresses.
• Pulisic looked dangerous but lacked the final product for most of the game. He had a few progressions in the final third that were quite impressive, as one would expect from the $70 million man. However, none of these moves ended in a goal or an assist. And it’s not just that he wasn’t in the boxscore, it felt like he wasn’t all that close. His best chance was a point-blank shot that went straight at the ‘keeper. Maybe I’m being tough on him, but as the most talented player on the field, the bar is higher for Pulisic.
• Long and Zimmerman both had decent outings, taking care of business defensively, and keeping the ball moving in possession. Zimmerman had one or two errant passes, but he was also asked to make tougher passes as Guyana started cutting off the simple pass to Bradley. I don’t believe Long had a single misplaced pass on the night, but as the middle centerback in what was essentially a back 3, he was just shuttling the ball between Zimmerman and Ream for most of the night.
• Ream was asked to play similarly to Zimmerman trying a few passes centerbacks usually don’t try. Similarly, a few of them didn’t come off, which led to dangerous counters the other way. Ream also had a few defensive lapses that were less than ideal.
• Zardes had a very Zardes performance. He made good runs, his positioning was great, he had some good hold-up play here and there, but his first-touch failed him at times, and he struggled to find the back of the net except for twice: one goal called back for offside and another that was an unintentional rebound off of his face.
• For both Ream and Zardes, they gave performances we are used to. Not horrible, but definitely not ideal. Like a solid 4/10. Zardes is the backup, so I’m more okay with that. Finger’s crossed Jozy is fit for the rest of the tournament. With Ream … maybe Daniel Lovitz is less error prone? Yikes …
• The substitutions (Roldan, Mihailovic, and Trapp), all had a mixed 20-30 mins. I think each one had a moment they made me go “Hey, this looks better than what we saw in those friendlies last week”, but then also had a moment that made me go “Yeahhh, but these guys are coming off the bench for a reason”. Might be a real problem that the US doesn’t have many dangerous options off the bench. Also might be a problem that we used 2 subs to limit the minutes high injury risk players, and then the third because a guy got injured.

One last note on the style of play and Berhalter. This game looked more like a Berhalter team than the previous two friendly losses. It shows that the team had a full week of practice together. They probably only have a day or two of practice sessions before the next game Saturday. How well this team gels, and executes Berhalter’s game plan are perhaps the most important “process goals” of the coming month.

The boys are up against the dreaded Trinidad & Tobago next, on Saturday. T&T lost to Panama earlier on Tuesday 2-0. If Panama take care of business against Guyana earlier on Saturday, T&T will be playing to stay alive in the tournament. USA will be playing for some redemption after their last loss to T&T knocked them out of World Cup Qualifying.