The United States Men’s National Team won 2-0 over Bolivia in the opener of group-stage play on Sunday evening. There were goals from the captain Christian Pulisic and Folarin Balogun, both of which were taken brilliantly. The defense and Matt Turner kept a clean sheet with impressive individual performances loaded around the squad. Notably, left back Antonee Robinson was quite impressive and was one of the key contributors in the win. That’s quite important considering some of his play in the friendlies leading up to the tournament.
USMNT’s MOTM: Christian Pulisic
The Man of the Match award went to no other than the captain and AC Milan’s Christian Pulisic. He took a goal brilliantly off of a short corner within the first three minutes of the game that curled nicely into the top bin. Later in the game, he assisted the goal from Folarin Balogun which meant Pulisic was involved in all the goals for the squad. There wasn’t really competition for the award with Pulisic but there were other notable performances throughout the squad.
Notable performances from the USMNT’s victory
Pulisic was brilliant (yet again) for the USMNT during the 2-0 win, but others also deserved some recognition. As noted earlier, Antonee Robinson was great registering the second-highest rating on FotMob with an 8.6, and was registered to create the most chances in the game with five. He won 3/3 tackles along with 3/3 aerial duels won and 5/8 ground duels won which is quite stout defensive work from a fullback with such attacking prowess.
It is also important to note that it was good for USMNT fans to see Tyler Adams back in the starting lineup. Although he exited after the first half for the way of Yunus Musah, it was good to see him back and play quite well for having missed basically the entire season this past year.
It was a solid performance for Gregg Berhalter’s men, not underwhelming but not desirably impressive either, as Bolivia isn’t exactly Argentina or Brazil either. These next two games against Panama and especially against Uruguay will be good tests for the guys to see how far they can go in the 2024 Copa America.