2021 January Friendly: USA 7-0 Trinidad & Tobago - the Stars and Stripes win by a touchdown

The US Men’s National Team took on Trinidad & Tobago in its first match of a pivotal 2021 for the team. January friendlies always come with the caveat that the rosters of both sides are not their strongest and that the competition may not exactly say a lot about the state of the USMNT. Trinidad & Tobago hasn’t played as a team since late 2019, their domestic league has been suspended due to Covid-19 and the roster called up featured a mix of players in the lower rungs of the US pyramid and those in the TT Pro League.

As such, the US won easily 7-0. The team dominated possession, moved the ball easily, and set up scores of chances. The side kept a high defensive line and stopped T&T from building anything out of the back or doing much to pass the ball in midfield.

Here is how the roster looked with a more or less 4-3-3 formation.

Gifs of goals

The first goal didn’t take long. The US opened with a lot of energy and pressed T&T from the jump. A poor pass from goalkeeper Adrian Foncette set up the first score by Jonathan Lewis. This was not a case of when playing it out of the back goes wrong, it was just a case of when playing goes wrong.

The Stars and Stripes somehow played the entire first 10 minutes of the game on a fast break and Sam Vines set up the second goal of the match scored by Jesus Ferreira.

The third goal was due to another fast break and more abysmal goalkeeping. For reference, the ball goes from a goal kick for Trinidad & Tobago to the back of their net in 4 seconds.

Since T&T hadn’t been playing very frequently and there was a concern that they may be at higher risk of injury, the game featured a water break in the 27th minute. Surprisingly, no players were slamming pouches of GoGoSqueeze or enjoying a Budweiser Zero.

The US scored again. Jesus Ferreira also got an assist on it. He either scored or assisted on all four points for the Stars and Stripes in the match to that point.

At the half, the team made one switch bringing on Andres Perea for Sebastian Lletget and then Miles Robinson promptly scored the 5th goal of the night.

Goal six was scored soon after by Jonathan Lewis.

Jesus Ferreira capped off his fantastic night with another goal to make the score 7-0 at the hour mark.

At that point Gregg Berhalter went to his bench in a big way and brought on George Bello, Chris Mueller, Daryl Dike, and Cristian Roldan for Jesus Ferreira, Sam Vines, Jackson Yueill, and Paul Arriola.

Since it didn’t seem much like T&T would be able to muster a shot on goal from the run of play, Perea committed a foul in the box and a penalty was given. Matt Turner, who may or may not lift bro, saved it easily.

With the game winding down, Tanner Tessman came onto the pitch for Aaron Herrera in the 78th minute. The US kept pushing for an 8th goal, but alas it did not come. It’s hard to draw much of anything from a rout like that. Aside from some of the players who had eye popping numbers on the stat sheet, Sam Vines was particularly effective on the left when going into the attack. All together it was a pleasing performance given the opposition and should give Gregg Berhalter an idea of the domestic talent at his disposal heading into what might be a very strange and difficult 2021 in terms of national team player availability.