ST. PAUL, Minn. — The U.S. men’s national team can breathe again. It can feel its fingers and toes again, too, as a 3-0 win over Honduras in frigid conditions has the U.S.’s World Cup qualifying campaign back on track.
It’s a win that is most welcome for the players and manager Gregg Berhalter, because let’s face it, the current World Cup qualifying window had been a brutal slog. The 1-0 win against El Salvador was labored, the 2-0 loss against Canada deflating. Berhalter’s side looked to be regressing, rather than getting stronger. With the Honduras match scheduled for Minnesota in the dead of winter, it seemed an unnecessary complication for a more talented U.S. side.
Yet the U.S. regrouped thanks to goals from Weston McKennie, Walker Zimmerman and substitute Christian Pulisic.
It was a game that was about survival. Honduras may have already been eliminated, but as the 2018 cycle showed, such opponents (read Trinidad & Tobago) can spring a nasty surprise. The U.S. had to endure the elements, with temperatures at kickoff around 1 degree, -14 with the wind chill. By game’s end, the wind chill had sunk to -16.
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The U.S. also had to cope with its own self-doubt. The American attack has struggled of late, and a single stumble at home would have not only sent their qualifying campaign off the rails, but would’ve increased the already rising pressure on the players and Berhalter.
And yet the U.S. surmounted all of those obstacles, and it did it the old fashioned way, with a trio of set-piece goals. As recently as last summer such tallies were a staple of U.S. victories, but prior to Wednesday, the U.S. hadn’t scored a single goal from dead-ball situations in the entire Octagonal. McKennie’s eighth-minute header broke the streak, and then Zimmerman made it two in the 37th minute, firing home after corralling Kellyn Acosta’s delivery…
Source : espn
