Pulisic, Ream, Wright had good chances and spurned them. It’s a game of inches. Man for man Holland is a lot better, but on the day you never know what can happen. They allowed us to have more possession knowing we just wouldn’t have a lot of ideas in the final third. Several defensive lapses combined with naïve managerial decisions and suspect personnel, and we lose.
I didn’t see us get outplayed. The Dutch created clear chances and put them away, and we created half-chances and failed to convert them. That’s football. That uncertainty of a worse team beating a better team is one of the selling points of the game.
This was not a good team performance from us. We can’t seem to get a full roster of good players. Traditionally we produce top keepers, some good strikers like McBride and Dempsey, some good talents like Tab Ramos. Currently have a good keeper and a good midfield, but no strikers, and our fullbacks were naive. Make no mistake: we were the underdogs today, but this ‘men against boys’ thing is just trolling.