Dos a Cerooooooo!! USA win comfortably 2-0 over Bolivia in Copa America opener
The USA took care of Bolivia as expected on Sunday, getting their Copa America campaign off to a strong start with 3 points in the opening match. Historically, 88% of teams that win their first match make it out of the group stage so we’re off to a good start.
We are watching Christian Pulisic emerge as a superstar on this team. For a long time he’s been our most talented player, but the energy and leadership he’s shown the last two games is really impressive. Tonight he was pumping up the crowd in the opening minutes, similar to the inspirational performance he put in against Brazil. And that was before he scored one goal and assisted on another.
All around a pretty dominant performance. I think we could have put it away and had a couple more goals there.
We controlled this match and won easily. Frankly Bolivia did not create any truly dangerous chances, and we could have had 2 or 3 more goals and really made this a blow out.
immediate reactions
We didn't REALLY learn that much from this game
We should beat Bolivia easily and we did. We’ll learn more against Panama who are a considerably better team. Even though they also lost by 2 goals against Uruguay tonight, they were far more competitive in that game than Bolivia was with us
Christian Pulisic is a bad ass
His goal was fantastic. His leadership was inspirational. His assist was great, and if other people on our team had taken their chances he could have at least 1 more. We are developing a view that we’re witnessing the coming of age of Christian Pulisic. He had a great season at AC Milan and we think his confidence and being settled in his club career are positively affecting his play with the USA. If he keeps up this form for the full tournament it will give us an actual chance to win this thing.
Tyler Adams is BACK
It was fantastic to see Tyler Adams back in the starting lineup. He wasn’t his sharpest, he missed a couple tackles you’d expect him to make and had a few loose passes. But still, 45 minutes in a “competitive” game and no injuries is a W.
Balogun extended his lead as first choice striker
His goal was well-taken going through the defender’s legs and into the corner. He had another nice finish called back for offsides. In contrast, Pepi was wasteful with chances. Pepi got a loud cheer from the crowd when he came on but in our view he just isn’t on the same level as Balogun. In addition to his finishing, Balogun has excellent first touch and is better holding the ball up as a result, despite his smaller frame. This is an underrated attribute of top class strikers, watch for it in games where we’re under pressure, it makes a huge difference.
Tim Ream had an uncharacteristically off night
He had 3 or 4 wasted balls out of the back. He was phenomenal against Brazil doing the same, so we’ll give him a pass tonight – pun intended
we won most of our bets
No McKennie goal, and no successful tackle from Richards who mostly got to take night off. But we won on the USA win + Over 1.5 goals, we won on CP10 scoring, and we won on Bolivia’s goalie having over 3.5 saves. Not bad
Overall, a great night for the USA. It was a relatively easy win as it should have been. A good momentum builder and no injuries, at least not any serious ones. On to tougher matches in the days ahead. Up next is Panama on Thursday at 6pm ET, from Hotlanta. We’ll post more detailed analyst reactions tomorrow.
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