Tres a Cero has a nice ring to it. The US put up more big goal numbers on their way to a third straight win, defeating Mexico 3-0 on Saturday night in Arizona. Julian Hall, Cavan Sullivan, and Malik Tillman were the goal scorers on the evening while Chris Richards, Auston Trusty, Alex Freeman, and Antonee Robinson led a defense in front of Diego Kochen that kept a clean sheet on the night while allowing few opportunities to the Mexican attack.
It was a solid all around evening for the Americans if
not quite as spectacular as the scoreline would suggest. Each of the US goals came after pretty glaring Mexican mistakes, the responsibility for the first two falling right at the feet of the keeper. The US would get their first goal after Gio Reyna drove to the endline and send a ball on the ground into the six that Raul Rangel seemingly could have kept in his grasp or at least played to a less dangerous area but instead he spilled it right in front of goal and into the path of Julian Hall who was once again in the right place at the right time to slam home his third goal of the international break.
The second US goal of the night was also immediately following a Rangel error as he was 10 yards outside of his box and looked to be fully under control but played the ball into a spot that Cavan Sullivan was more than happy to jump on and chip home from 35 yards out. With the goal Sullivan set a record as the youngest goal scorer in USMNT history at 17 years and 5 days, a record that had been set just four days prior when Mathis Albert scored against Chile at 17 years and 131 days old.
The final US goal would come late in the match, after Mexico were down to 10 men as Malik Tillman would jump on some more poor passing by the Mexican defense and fire home a top bins shot that Rangel had little chance of saving.
The match ratings for this one are interesting, there are no scores that jump off the page on either end. It was a solid effort for the entire team with none of the starters falling below a 6.5 rating and everyone clustered within ~1.5 as no one blew off the top of the charts either.
Ultimately though it was Malik Tillman, who was your SSFC Community Man of the Match for Saturday’s strong performance over Mexico, coming in with a 7.94 rating for his all around performance on the night, including his capping goal.
The full results are below, let us know what you think:
Malik Tillman – 7.94
Cavan Sullivan – 7.64
Julian Hall – 7.56
Alex Freeman – 7.56
Diego Kochen – 7.24
Gio Reyna – 7.13
Chris Richards – 7.13
Antonee Robinson – 6.97
Tyler Adams – 6.87
Auston Trusty – 6.55
Sebastian Berhalter – 6.53
_______
Substitutes:
Yunus Musah – 6.56
Mathis Albert – 5.74
Brooklyn Raines – 5.83
Payton Miller – 5.56
Justin Ellis – 5.61
_______
Coach Mauricio Pochettino – 8.16
Match Official – 7.13
Do these ratings seem about right to you or what would you have changed? Let us know in the comments section below.
