US Men punch ticket to quarterfinals with comfortable win over Guinea
We did it! Congratulations to the team. It was a rough start to this tournament losing (harshly) 3-0 to France, but the team recovered and showed great belief to win the next two matches and get out of this group in second place. Here are the final standings:
The US was handed a significant boost before this game began, when Guinea’s best player, Naby Keita, was a late scratch from the starting lineup. He would have impacted the game, but the result would not have changed as the US was clearly the better team. Frankly we should have scored more given how many times Guinea gave the ball away in their own third.
Although we failed to capitalize on those giveaways, we still scored 3 very nice goals. Djordje Mihailovic did his best to make us eat our words (we’ve called for him to be benched several times) when he scored a fantastic free kick in the 14th minute. Paxten Aaronson had a beautiful through ball to Kevin Paredes to put him in 1-on-1 with the keeper, and Paredes made no mistake to give the US a 2-0 advantage in the 31st.
By that point, France had also taken a lead against New Zealand, so we were virtually certain to advance. As a result, we clearly took our foot off the gas. We changed from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 and defended much deeper. To use a basketball analogy, we stopped doing a full court press and played good half-court defense. We basically said to Guinea “we don’t think you can break us down,” and we were right. You can clearly see the drop off in pressure in the attacking momentum below, where we allowed Guinea to control the ball almost the entire game after we were up 2-0.
Even after taking our foot off the gas, we did manage one more goal. In the 75th minute Jack McGlynn played a beautiful cross field ball to Paredes in the box. Paredes showed great first touch to settle, cut in on his favored left foot, and blasted it into the net to seal the victory.
You can see highlights off all three goals in this Instagram post from NBC Sports.
match stats
individual performances
the good
Particularly before we went up 2-0 and changed tactics, our front 3 were excellent today. That has to be the new front 3 going forward, for as many games as we have left.
Kevin Paredes (f)
Paredes is obviously Man of the Match with two goals. He also did well coming back in defense, and did excellent work breaking Guinea’s press. He has a habit of trying fancy flicks that sometimes gets on our nerves when he does so in risky positions, but today they all worked. Hats off.
Paxten Aaronson (F)
Aaronson continued his excellent play. He was a menace leading the press from up front, as you’d expect from any American with Aaronson on the back of his shirt. His through ball for Paredes was magnifique. We have to say we agree with the instagram comment we overlayed on this video below
griffin yow (F)
Yow continued to impress. So often a guy who has been a super sub comes on from the start and doesn’t have the same magic. Not the case for Yow today who did his best Trinity Rodman impression and dominated his flank, barely putting a foot wrong. He gets our Unsung Hero award, with Aaronson as honorable mention. Mihailovic and Paredes will get all the headlines but Yow was fantastic too.
patrick schulte (gk)
Schulte has been much better the last two matches. Perhaps he was just nervous that first game. Today he made a fantastic save on a header from close range, and held on to (e.g. didn’t give up a rebound) a few really hard shots from distance.
the bad
There isn’t much bad to say about this performance. Tanner Tessman was quiet today, but we think he was conserving some legs, especially once we took a solid lead. He’s the only non-defender to play the full 90 in all three matches and with qualification assured it makes sense. We’ll need him to be on versus Morocco.
nathan dietz (M)
Dietz started at the defensive midfield role today and continued to disappoint. We hate being critical of young players but we have to be here. He’s not impressed us when he’s played center back, but in midfield he’s been awful. He’s too slow for that spot, and also lacks the touch and passing ability to play under pressure. He was also pulled out of position easily today, leaving others exposed. Luckily Guinea wasn’t good enough to exploit that.
We really need to start McGlynn against Morocco. We think Mitrovic has done a great job recognizing changes that need to be made as the tournament has gone on, and trust he’ll do it again.
what's next
Tomorrow the women take on Australia. They have already qualified for the knockout stages and are virtually certain to win the group. With little to play for we expect Emma Hayes to rotate the squad and keep the team fresh for the knockout stages. Tune in to E! (not USA) for that one at 1pm ET.
The Women have officially qualified for the knockout stages after today’s results. We are also a virtual lock to win our group now, given our massive advantage in goal difference. Here’s the women’s table.
For the men, now things start to get really interesting. Morocco is up next, having won Group B which included Argentina. Morocco beat Argentina 2-1 in one of the wildest games at any tournament ever to open their group matches. From there, they lost to Ukraine 2-1 and then beat Iraq 3-0. They finished with 6 points and a +3 goal differential, just like the USA.
Morocco is led by Achraf Hakimi, who plays RB at PSG. He’s one of the best right backs in the world and was a star at the 2022 World Cup. They also feature midfielders Ilias Akhomach of Real Betis and Bilal El Khannouss of KRC Genk, whose market value is over $30m. That puts him in the Christian Pulisic area for valuation. Up front, Abdessamad Ezzalzouli also plays for Real Betis and was prevoiusly on the books at Barcelona. Morocco is good, their fans are extremely passionate and will make the atmosphere feel like an away match. This will be another strong test for the US, but a win means we will get to play for Bronze medal so we expect the team to be ready and to give it their all.
You can find details on all the upcoming matches and recaps of the games so far at our US Olympic Soccer HQ. Bookmark that page to easily find broadcast details for all the US Olympic Soccer action.
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