On a nice afternoon at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the US Men’s National Team began their January camp and two friendly matches they began with a tussle against Venezuela, and they got the victory over La Vinotinto by a final of three goals to one. They had their first opportunity to get on the board within the second minute of the match as the USA was awarded a penalty as Shaq Moore was fouled inside the area along the far side, Matko Miljevic took the ball to the spot, but sadly telegraphed where he was putting the penalty and it was stopped by the keeper.
The kids were relentlessly attacking the Venezuelan side of the pitch and showed no mercy, they finally broke the deadlock by scoring two goals within two minutes of each other and both were world class. In the 37th minute, the ball was along the far side of the pitch as Caden Clark found Jack McGlynn at about twenty five yards away from goal. He took a big shot from distance and beat the keeper to the upper far ninety with a golazo that erupted the Chase Stadium crowd off of their feet for his first international goal. Then in the thirty ninth minute, the USA attacked down the near side as Miljevic sent a good pass ahead to Patrick Agyeman who went one one-on-one with the defender, cut inside of the defender and when he shot it off his left foot, it deflected off the keeper and in for his first international goal.
Miljevic finally got on the board in the second half after so many chances to score in this match. In the sixty fourth minute he played a bit of a give-and-go with McGlynn down the far side, as Miljevioc got the ball back, he hit the shot hard inside the far post to beat the keeper and he finally got his first international goal. While Venezuela did pull one back in the sixty eighth minute by Jorge Yriarte. Goalkeeper Patrick Schulte wasn’t bothered that much in this game, the majority of Venezuela’s shots weren’t that dangerous and he was in perfect position to make the grabs from harmless corners and most of the shots were wide or deflected wide of the posts.
Two other players who stood out in this match were Brian Gutierrez and Diego Luna. Gutierrez did very well attacking with the ball, making strong passes from the left wing, and when he was moved centrally, looked more dangerous than normal. Luna who entered the match as a substitute, we all know is dangerous and is a sparkplug every time he has or doesn’t have the ball. It’s not just his scoring prowess that is dangerous for the national team, but his footwork is just tremendous when he has the ball on the attack, but when he doesn’t have the ball, he continues to put himself into position to receive the ball or set up a chance or an attacking run.
Last year’s January camp under Gregg Berhalter there wasn’t any flow to the game and they fell behind to Slovenia in the middle of the first half. They couldn’t muster anything positive to get the result when they were down in San Antonio. In this match and under Mauricio Pochettino, you saw free flowing soccer and players attacking with a purpose. There were a few moments when they were out of position, and there were probably some nerves showing at the start of the match, but after the first few minutes, these kids showed they were ready to play and they looked confident in their victory over Venezuela. Now they move up to Central Florida and head over to Inter&Co Stadium in downtown Orlando to take on Costa Rica on Wednesday night.