Nicaragua 0-3 USA: Highlights and recap

The USA face Nicaragua in the 2017 Gold Cup on Saturday, July 15. Here are the highlights from the match

Following Panama’s earlier win over Martinique, the US Men’s National Team entered Saturday’s final group stage match in the 2017 Gold Cup with a tall task ahead. Sure, the Panama win offered them a spot in the knockout rounds. However, it also meant that the USA would have to score three goals on Saturday’s opponent, Nicaragua, to win Group B.

Early on, it looked like that wouldn’t be much of an issue for the Americans. They were clearly the more aggressive side, and kept threatening in the defensive third. Unfortunately, they struggled out of the gate in creating anything of consequence. A great story to this point, Dom Dwyer was struggling early in all of this as he seemed to not be mentally where he needed to be in any type of potential attacking opportunity. Dwyer gave away possession on several occasions, in addition to an inexplicable offside call where he should’ve never been off.

Meanwhile, the Nicaragua side threatened a few times, but nothing too fruitful ever came about. The USA defense has been shaky at best through the group stage in the Gold Cup, but Bill Hamid in goal was able to adequately handle anything shot his way.

The USMNT then seemingly had a great opportunity with right back Graham Zusi pushing forward. He cut into the middle of the field and was looking for a pass. But when the Nicaraguan defense refused to challenge him, he continued his run to the left side of the 18 and had a rip, though it was saved.

Yet, the attacking opportunities continued soon after, this time courtesy of Alejandro Bedoya and Joe Corona. Corona got the ball off a great set-up from the former and then used a nifty bit of dribbling in the box to get some space. He let loose a rip that was deflected by a defender, then bouncing past the outstretched keeper’s hand and into the bottom left corner.

Nicaragua actually came close to catching the American defense slipping, a theme for the USA in the Gold Cup to this point, but Hamid made another solid play. There were more opportunities for both, but nothing of consequence as the USMNT took a 1-0 lead into the locker room at half.

Coming out of the locker room, the USA looked to be in charge of the action. Nearly immediately, Dwyer was able to earn a penalty on a sure-fire scoring opportunity. However, he hit the penalty weakly and it was saved by Juston Lorente. However, Kelyn Rowe made up for it six minutes later as he was fed wonderfully by Bedoya to go up 2-0.

However, the USMNT still needed another goal to win Group B, and they had plenty of opportunities. They later earned another penalty, this one taken by Corona — but unfortunately with the same result as Dwyer’s. Then came their moment of opportunity.

After coming on for Dwyer, Juan Agudelo earned a free kick that got Luis Copete his second yellow card, sending him off. Already up a man, the Americans then watched another Nicaraguan leave the pitch due to injury before the set piece. Zusi then delivered a gorgeous ball to in front of the left post that Matt Miazga ran under and put a gorgeous head on for the needed third goal.

From there, there were mere minutes remaining and the USA simply ran out the time, though they could’ve potentially scored again. Yet, they were content with the big 3-0 victory and the Group B win.

Highlights

Next: Best soccer rivalries of all time

For the Americans to win despite such a poor overall performance from Dwyer is huge. To also get the 3-0 win they needed is even bigger. Now they’ve earned a matchup with a third-place team in the quarterfinals of the 2017 Gold Cup.