Bruce Arena began his second stint with the USMNT this Sunday, January, 29, 2017 against the Serbia Men’s National Team at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. The Game was scheduled for a 1:00 PM Pacific kickoff in San Diego but the official kickoff for the match was not until 1:29 PM Pacific.
The former Galaxy head coach made several changes within the call ups as he had Nick Rimando in net for the first time since April 15, 2015 against Mexico. Center back Chad Marshall was another player who had not started for the USMNT in a while, since January 23, 2010, to be exact. Former Liga MX player, Gregory Garza was just back from an injury and had not played with the USMNT since July 10, 2015. Finally, the standout player from the match Darlington Nagbe was in the lineup for the USMNT for the first time in his career.
Another interesting move by Arena was starting Graham Zusi as a right back, which he had never done for the USMNT. Arena also contributed to the debut of three players for the USMNT. Sebastian Lletget, Chris Pontius and Santo Laguna’s Jorge Villafana all made their debuts off the bench for the USMNT in this game. The attendance was great, with 20,079 fans making to Qualcomm Stadium, and the atmosphere that the American Outlaws brought to the table was also a spectacle to see. The game itself was not a great spectacle ending in an uneventful 0-0 draw resulting in only three shots on target in the whole game.
The second half of the match was much better than the first, as the first half brought us no shots on target. The standout opportunities of the first half were both created by Darlington Nagbe. First in the 28th minute a shot outside of the box fell just right of the Serbian net, then in the 38th minute the Liberian-born player came close to scoring again with a shot inside the penalty area. The first shot on target came in the 47th minute of the game when Jozy Altidore had a weak shot that was easily parried away by the Serbian goalkeeper. Nick Rimando did prove to be vital in the game with an amazing stop in the 76th minute of the game.
Perhaps the clearest chance of the day fell in the dying minutes of the game in the 89th minute to be exact. Chris Pontius almost made his debut a memorable one with a shot that fell inches left of the Serbian net. Unfortunately, the game finalized without any goals to be seen but Bruce Arena has clearly instilled a new era with this USMNT. The most shocking thing to take from the game was the number of fouls committed which was an alarming 32, 18 coming from the USMNT.
Overall the US were the dominant team controlling 61% ball possession during the game and the standout player had to be Darlington Nagbe who was instrumental in nearly all the Americans chances. Bruce Arena did admit in the post-game press conference that “it was a challenging game and that he didn’t get the result that he preferred. Opposed to Arenas, Serbian coach, Slavoljub Muslin said “For us it was a great experience, generally we are very satisfied with the result”.
Muslin also said that the best players for the USMNT were “#6(Nagbe), Jozy Altidore and Kljestan”. While the result was not favorable for the USMNT. The standout thing to take from the match had to be the performance of Darlington Nagbe, who hopefully will be seeing more action in the future.
