There was a lot of room for improvement after the United States lost 3-1 to Germany on Saturday in Connecticut, but one area that the team could've taken advantage of was attacking in the first half. The press had Germany off balance in the opening moments, but not only was the USMNT unable to take advantage, their intensity also dropped off in the second half leading to them conceding two goals and taking the loss. Considering the success that the USMNT has enjoyed, losing to Germany is also a great point to take stock of where the team is and learn what they can do better the next time around, which will come quite quickly when they host Ghana on Tuesday.
Manager Gregg Berhalter recognized that one quick area of improvement is to get striker Folarin Balogun the ball more as he only registered 17 touches in the match. Some of that is down to Germany's center backs, as it isn't easy for any striker in the world to go toe-to-toe with Antonio Rudiger, but Berhalter also noted playstyle differences that could be improved upon by the team.
"With the ball [we had] really good moments of disorganizing them and then for me it's about picking out the moments when we attracted them to one side of the field and hope quickly we can move the ball to the other side of the field and exploit open space. When we did that, we created chances, when we didn't do that we got locked into one side," Berhalter said on where the USMNT can improve their performance in attack.
"Lastly, in and around the penalty box, there were too often early crosses when we didn't have numbers in the penalty box, and I think that's the time when we have them a little bit on the ropes, a little bit back and we need to take advantage of maintaining the ball, wait for the right opening to exploit and I think we crossed the ball and let them off the hook too easily."
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Digging into Berhalter's statement, the USMNT played 20 crosses from open play during the match only completing three of them. Christian Pulisic and Joe Scally each played five crosses and from what Berhalter is looking for, those needed to be put into space for teammates instead of possibly ceding possession to Germany. No one on the United States even attempted a through ball during the match even though there were chances when they were able to counter attack Germany.
With Gio Reyna back and starting as a central attacking midfielder, transition play should return to being one of the USMNT's strengths, but it was clear that there is work to be done. Crossing to a big striker in the box used to be a large portion of how the United States would create their chances, with a host of players occupying the role as an aerial target, but as things change and the USMNT learn to play soccer against the top sides in the world, part of that development is knowing when to keep the ball on the ground to maintain pressure on a team.
Ghana is another team that has plenty of players in top European leagues where the United States will have a similar chance to unlock and organized side. As Reyna works back to full fitness he'll likely get another runout with the team an he'll need to be focused on unlocking Balogun, because that's the key for this team. He's a striker who is excellent in open space, and it's up to the attacking back of three behind him to make that happen.
"It's about just looking for him. He made some really good runs and can we find him with runs behind the backline. Germany had one weakness in their [lack of] pace in the backline and we didn't exploit that enough with Balogun," Berhalter said. "In the penalty box there were some moments when he was close, but just a little bit unlucky. The ball that Christian shoots, if he lets it go, it's a tap-in for Balogun."
These are promising signs that the United States can use their new star striker but the quickest way to get him involved is also by the team playing more games like this together. It's one thing for him to score against teams like Oman, but facing Germany and now Ghana is a different battle, which is where the team effort comes into play.