"Against the run of play" is a term that is often VERY misused in soccer. It is not against the run of play if the scoring team is playing exactly like they want to. For much/some of the first half the US wanted to absorb some pressure and they did using that absorption to generate the offense. That is the US played exactly the game they wanted to play. I do not really call the first half goals "against the run of play" at all. Quite a while ago, when I was still on the young side, Norway would control whole games by absorbing pressure and then scoring opportunistic goals that seemed to be against the run of play but the reality was that they played and scored exactly as they had planed. Japan is a possession team so one good way of playing them is to give them what they want and simply make sure that the danger from that possession is kept low. That is what the US seemed to do in the first half so, I believe, the scoring was what should be expected when the better team on the day controls the game.
Totally agree with FoF here. Japan has almost always dominated possession when playing the US. That's the way the play. Its nothing new, and the US's game plan seemed to expect that, and they had a strategy for dealing with it. We can't beat Japan on their possession game, but we've shown time and again that we know how to play against it. You can even go back to the the WWC '15 final, and see that Japan had long stretches of possession...that doesn't mean they dominated the game.
For what it's worth, here are a few definitions of the term, "against the run of play" (I'm adding these for myself and posterity's sake): https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/against-the-run-of-play If a football team scores a goal against the run of play, they score when the opposing side has been playing better or had more opportunities to score: http://languagecaster.com/weekly-football-phrase-against-the-run-of-play/ Used to describe when a team scores a goal when they probably don't deserve to. One team may be playing much better and creating many chances to score but then the other team scores – often without having created any previous chances. https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/against+the+run+of+play Contrary to the pace or flow of a game or situation, usually in the context of sports. [In example:] Brazil dominated the game, but Japan secured a draw with a late goal against the run of play.
Sure, how many of those passes were among our back four though? And I know that counts as far as possession, but its not the same type of game as Japan's possession game of little passes through the midfield. I'm also not saying one is better than the other. I'm just saying we don't play Japan's type of game.
You're right, we certainly don't play Japan's strategy. They like to overload the midfield and play very compact. we like to play very wide so our MF players always seem to be overrun. Watching our MF get overrun drives me crazy, but we won, so there's that.