The U.S. Men's National Team cruised to a 3-0 victory over Morocco in their first friendly match leading to the World Cup, with goals by Brenden Aaronson, Timothy Weah, and Haji Wright on the score sheet.
On Wednesday evening in Cincinnati, The Americans delivered a convincing win over the Moroccans in front of 19,512 fans in attendance at TQL Stadium.
The Americans seemed comfortable controlling the majority of this game, having more ball possession and launching more shots on target compared to Morocco.
This was a good opportunity for the young core of this national team to display a solid game of soccer outside of their CONCACAF competition, and they clearly showed they can compete with national teams outside of our North American zone.
Morocco will also be going to the World Cup this year, being in the same "Group F" with countries like Belgium, Croatia, and our Northern neighbor, Canada.
American fullback Reggie Cannon said that it was a great opportunity for the U.S. team to show that they have what it takes to compete in their World Cup group, calling Wednesday's match a “huge opportunity for this group to grow and learn and see what we’re up against.”
“Concacaf is great, but it’s not the rest of the world, and it’s not the talent we’re going to be facing in our group” in Qatar, right back Reggie Cannon said.
USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter said on Tuesday that the team still has ways to go in some areas, but says a game like against Morocco is going to benefit them to see what part of their game they can address leading up to the World Cup.
“We talked about establishing a baseline for this group, how we can perform against World Cup opponents,” Berhalter said. “The group went out and showed exactly how good we can be but also at times vulnerable. We still know we need to keep improving, and that’s why this game was so good for us.”
As for their star player, Christian Pulisic, he made some headlines Wednesday evening, after telling ESPN that he was unhappy to see how much lack of American support there was at the game in Cincinnati. Nonetheless, the Chelsea FC forward says it was good to be playing on American soil once again.
"For whatever reason, I'm not super happy with the amount of Americans here, however that works out if I'm being completely honest," Pulisic said after the match, referring to American supporters. "But thanks to the ones who did come, and the support is always great from them. I mean, it was a great win; we're really happy. We started really well, got that early goal, and yeah, just a really strong performance. But yeah, it's nice to be back in America and playing again."
