The setting was drastically different for the US men’s national team: a cool, rainy fall afternoon at an unfussy college football stadium in Connecticut, compared to that night 10 months ago inside a glittering colossus of a stadium in a distant desert petrostate with hundreds of millions watching around the world.
But the scoreline was the same, and the sobering slap of reality was all too similar.
Much like the Netherlands did in the Round-of-16 clash that ended the USMNT’s 2022 World Cup run, Germany handed the Yanks a humbling lesson in elite international soccer on Saturday. The four-time world champions methodically rallied from the early deficit inflicted by a Christian Pulisic wondergoal to claim an ultimately comfortable 3-1 friendly win at Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field, reminding Gregg Berhalter and his squad just how big a leap they must make in order to contend for a place in the global elite.
“Congratulations to Germany. Well-deserved win,” Berhalter told reporters afterwards. “I think it was an entertaining game for the fans. First half, especially, I thought we were really good, and then it came down to some moments. I think the goals were conceded a little bit too easily, but overall, happy with the effort of the team, happy with the mindset and the intentions of the team, I think that was important … a good learning experience as a group, and we know we need to get better if we want to win.”
German class on display
For all the negativity that has swirled around Die Mannschaft’s recent failures – starting with a disappointing World Cup and continuing into a difficult 2023 that led to manager Hansi Flick’s dismissal and the arrival of Julian Nagelsmann – their ability to adapt on the fly, seize control of the game’s tempo and win at a canter left the USMNT a distant second.
“We had a great start to the game, the energy levels were high,” US midfielder Weston McKennie told the TBS postgame broadcast. “I'm sure they went inside [at halftime] and saw how they could hurt us. I think the pressing in the second half, for us, we kind of got a little bit disorganized. I mean, a player like [İlkay] Gündoğan, if you leave him a little space, he punishes you, and that's what he was doing, he was building up and made it very difficult for us. I feel like we couldn’t really get close to him, we were just defending in our box the whole time.”
The Yanks looked every bit the equal of their guests in a wide-open, end-to-end first half, with Gio Reyna floating and probing in the central attacking midfield role so many fans have cried out for. Nagelsmann later alluded to “a lot of risk, because we wanted to score the equalizer as soon as possible, but it was a bit too quick,” allowing US determination to destabilize their shape.
Yet the USMNT were always gambling by letting things flow so freely, repeatedly looking vulnerable in transition as the Germans sniffed out the spaces and weak spots. And when multiple defenders failed to impede winger Leroy Sané on his jinking run across their penalty box as the clock ticked down towards the intermission, it eventually left goalkeeper Matt Turner exposed as Gündoğan dispatched a rebound under little pressure.
“We could have been a little bit better at preventing the counterattacks or the long balls in behind the backline,” said McKennie, “because Germany has speed up top for sure, and their little switches that they had, just closing the middle down, I think would have helped a lot. But Gregg’s a tactician, so we'll definitely go in and look at video and then review it and see how we could have done better.”
That equalizer would foretell a second half that devolved into a de-facto training exercise for the Germans, with Niclas Füllkrug and Jamal Musiala netting simple finishes after American passivity was exploited.
“Against a quality opponent like Germany, you have to be able to make plays and stay connected in around the penalty box,” said Berhalter. “And you see on the three goals, it was a loss of connection in the back line – and the midfield, just overall organization on those three plays, let us down a little bit.”
Tough lessons learned
Victories over top-tier opposition have been few and far between during the tenure of the former Columbus Crew coach, and he sought to frame Saturday’s setback as, in essence, a useful if frustrating education at the hands of a European giant.
“It's also about controlling the tempo of the game and that's what we really need to learn,” said Berhalter. “We cost so much energy, also with our own counterattacks, that then it's hard to really stay consistent in all of your actions, like your defensive shape. So that, again, to me that's a learning experience, that games against opponents like this can't be that open. It needs to be tighter.
“What we did learn was, those moments, the speed at which these top teams can play out, the combinations they can play in really tight spaces, it was important to learn,” he added. “And then I think also for us to understand that we can also hurt teams like that, and it should give us some bit of confidence. And as we plot towards 2026, this pathway, it's about learning from these moments and understand that we need to stay in it for every single minute of the game to have a chance.”
The USMNT had characterized this occasion as an important measuring stick, the kind of chance to test themselves against a heavyweight opponent which has been all too rare since the COVID-19 pandemic scrambled and compressed the schedules of international soccer.
For the first half or so, they passed the test. Then the subsequent hour drove home just how much left they have to learn.
“It's really these fine moments, these split seconds where you need to be well positioned, not open up any gaps in your backline, and that's where it went wrong,” said Berhalter. “Tracking runners going through, keeping your organization of four and three in front of the four, it's very difficult to break through. So we just lacked that in those moments. But Germany is a good team and they're going to open teams up, they're going to create goalscoring opportunities because of the quality that they have in the field.”
