USMNT’s World Cup–Opening Draw Feels Like a Disappointment

The USMNT had a win in its grasp, but a needless penalty gifted Gareth Bale and Wales the chance they craved to secure a draw in Qatar.

The U.S. men’s national team’s return to the World Cup stage began with a bang and then ended with a disappointment.

In the USMNT’s first World Cup match in eight years, Tim Weah scored 36 minutes in to give the Americans a 1–0 lead over Wales, but a late penalty conceded by Walker Zimmerman gifted the Dragons the chance to pull level. Gareth Bale did just that, and both sides move forward with a single point after the 1–1 draw, trailing England in Group B in Qatar. The Three Lions are sitting pretty atop the group, both in terms of goal differential following a 6–2 victory and then also after witnessing the U.S. and Wales exerting themselves to the max in a physical battle.

Here are three thoughts on the match:

A point is useful but feels like a disappointment

Coming into the match, a draw may have been deemed an acceptable result. But given how the U.S. started the game, and how much control it had for the first hour or so, not walking away with three points certainly feels like a letdown.

One might expect a team that is the second-youngest in the competition and featuring 11 starters making their World Cup debut to come out of the gates a bit wobbly. World Cups are different. No Champions League match—not even a final, which Christian Pulisic has played in—carries the same gravity as representing your country on the World Cup stage. And yet there was no fear to be found. Not even 10 minutes in, it was Weah creating the danger, firing in a cross that nearly turned into an own goal. 

Beyond that, the U.S. didn’t wilt in the face of a more experienced team, nor did it fall into Wales’s trap of trying to force too much that wasn’t there, which would have allowed the Dragons to get out on the counter. Instead, the U.S. remained patient, and its goal-scoring sequence was a thing of beauty, with Josh Sargent holding up the ball, allowing Pulisic to stride down the center in space—where he is at his most dangerous—before playing Weah through for the goal. 

While Wales seized a bit of the momentum in the second half, the U.S. stayed composed and at the ready, embodied by goalkeeper Matt Turner, whose first save was on a free bullet header that was the culmination of Welsh pressure in the U.S.’s box.

But games are 90 minutes (and in the case of this World Cup, with some exorbitant stoppage-time figures so far, well more than that), and one lapse by Zimmerman cost the U.S. a pair of points. He didn’t need to clatter through Bale from behind, especially with the LAFC star having his back to goal, and that, coupled with the U.S. to remain a bit wasteful in the final third, resulted in a draw that was both physically and emotionally taxing.

The USMNT battled Wales to a 1–1 draw to open play at the 2022 World Cup :: Matthias Koch/Imago Images

Yellow and injury patrol

If there’s another downside to the match for the U.S. beyond letting the points slip away, it was the amount of yellow cards accrued and the physical cost of the match. Sergiño Dest and Weston McKennie each picked one up within the first 15 minutes, while Tim Ream wisely took one to break up a potential Wales counterattack six minutes into the second half. Captain Tyler Adams was perhaps fortunate not to see one himself in the first half, while Kellyn Acosta wisely took one deep into stoppage time. With Turner off his line, Bale could have had a free look at goal from the center circle, if not for his MLS teammate to smartly take one for the team.

With players forced to miss a match after receiving two, it puts that U.S. trio on high alert. And beyond that, it forced Dest and McKennie—who were injury doubts entering the match—to play with a bit less reckless abandon, unable to fully get stuck in for fear of being sent off. The U.S. has depth at right back behind Dest, but McKennie’s place in the U.S. midfield (and his ability to get on the end of set pieces) is invaluable. Those opening 15 minutes, while not decisive Monday, could wind up becoming a factor down the line.

It was a physical game overall, with multiple U.S. players going down under duress, namely Pulisic and Yunus Musah. Gregg Berhalter kept Gio Reyna unused on the bench, while Brenden Aaronson played only the last third of the game. Against England, they could wind up coming in handy.

History says ...

The first match has been telling for the U.S. men in the modern era. In the four instances in which the U.S. has taken at least a point from its World Cup opener, it’s gone on to reach the knockout stage (1994, 2002, ’10, ’14). The three times it has lost its opener, it has spelled doom in the opening phase (1990, ’98, 2006). 

It’s of course more nuanced than that. In 2002, despite upsetting Portugal in the opener, it took an assist from South Korea elsewhere in the final group games to keep the U.S. alive. In ’06, the U.S. dropped its first match, then played eventual champion Italy arguably tougher than anyone else did in Germany before bowing out early. In ’10, after drawing England to open play in South Africa, the U.S. needed Landon Donovan’s heroics at the death of the group finale to go through. World Cups are complex and unpredictable, and the margins tend to be quite fine, but the common denominator for the U.S. all along has been getting something from the opening match.

By doing that on Monday, the U.S. has at least positioned itself to have a chance. England’s rout of Iran in the group’s other match was a statement from the Three Lions, whose vulnerability entering the competition may have been a bit overstated. But with a point in the bag and Iran looking shaky at best, as it plays through considerably more serious circumstances regarding what’s been going on at home, there’s still an upside for a U.S. team that had seemingly limped into the competition. Beating Iran will be a must, and progression to the knockout stage could just come down to whichever one of the U.S. and Wales fares better against England.