USA vs. Curaçao, 2019 Gold Cup: Man of the match

In a game that did nothing to progress the level of comfort with the Gregg Berhalter system and team development the USMNT walked away with a 1-0 win over Curaçao Sunday night. While the win was an acceptable result (passage to the semi-finals), the method for getting there was forgettable and hard to watch at best and downright awful at worst.

The team was out-possessed, out-passed and out-shot on the night but managed to move on thanks to scoring the game’s lone goal.

The US started strong but Curaçao didn’t back down and gave the USMNT fits all night. The USMNT would need a handful of saves from Zack Steffen to see the game out, including this beauty in the 84th minute:

The team posted their fourth straight clean-sheet and still haven’t given up a goal this tournament thanks to Steffen’s five saves but it wasn’t quite enough to earn him SSFC Man of the Match honors. Those would go to Christian Pulisic (7.263) who was pulling the strings for what attack the US did manage. The game’s goal scorer Weston McKennie (6.419) would finish third place in the voting, half a point behind Steffen (7.039).

The full SSFC rankings were as follows:

Zack Steffen - 7.039

Nick Lima - 5.244

Walker Zimmerman - 5.836

Aaron Long - 5.201

Tim Ream - 5.087

Michael Bradley - 4.436

Weston McKennie - 6.419

Christian Pulisic - 7.263

Tyler Boyd - 4.630

Gyasi Zardes - 3.456

Paul Arriola 4.533

Jordan Morris - 4.459

Omar Gonzalez - 4.149

So there you have it, mediocre scores all around, including on the score sheet. What do you think? Can the midfield bounce back to maintain possession? Can the defense continue to keep opponents off the board? Let us hear your thoughts in the comments below.