The U.S. national team has spent most of 2018 struggling to maintain possession, an issue Dave Sarachan will be hoping his team can address Tuesday
The image of Colombia dominating play against the U.S. national team last week brought back a recurring theme in 2018, that of the American struggling to find the ball, and keep the ball.
The USMNT is 2-3-1 in its past six matches, and each of those matches saw the Americans lose the possession battle. That is to be expected against the likes of France and Brazil, but even an overmatched Bolivia side came away with a 52-48 possession edge. The same went for a young Mexican side, which held a 53-47 edge in possession.
The possession stat isn’t the end-all, be-all of evaluating performances — the Americans dominated Bolivia in a 3-0 romp — but it can often be a telling sign of a team’s inability to grab hold of a game or slow things down when an opponent is running rampant. Even against an opponent like Ireland, which you wouldn’t automatically expect to out-possess the United States, the USMNT settled for a 56-44 percentage disadvantage on the way to a 2-1 loss in Dublin in June.
That trend, along with a consistently mediocre passing completion percentage is a product of a U.S. midfield in a state of transition, and also one that his been without Christian Pulisic for all but one of those matches. The disparities aren’t just about Pulisic’s absences though. They are more a product of a U.S. midfield currently lacking players who can keep the ball and help the U.S. control possession on a consistent basis, something that was evident once again in the loss to Colombia.
“I’d like us to do better with the ball,” interim U.S. coach Dave Sarachan said on Monday ahead of Tuesday’s friendly against Peru. “The other night (against Colombia), it was a combination of impatience and making plays that weren’t quite there. To use a tennis phrase, a lot of unforced errors. That part has to get better.”
“For us to learn from the Colombia game in the sense of making sure we’re able to dictate the game a little bit on our terms and not let the game get away from us,” U.S. goalkeeper Brad Guzan said. “It’s going to be important that we’re able to get on the ball and keep the ball for stretches at a time, and not just try to hit a home run pass within the first or second ball, then we turn the ball over and we’re defending again.”