1. GB outsmarted himself again, starting Steffen. 2. McKennie should have come off. He was an accident waiting to happen. 3. Too much dribbling. GB has to do something about that. 4. I liked that there was a mix of taking the wide space and pumping in crosses, and also trying to combine around the box. 5. GB got lucky that Arriola got hurt; Weah played very well and Arriola just isn't capable of creating that much danger at this level.
I was cheering the Hoppe sub but he seemed lost. Not bad but just not really in the right place most of the time. He seemed better once we moved to the two forward lineup. Zardes was a solid sub. Honestly I just wish we'd assign him that role and never start him. He's shown really well as a sub and seems to find a way to make an impact even if he doesn't score. Busio showed so much class with those passes. I am coming around to the thought of it's not a matter of if when McKennie is a sub and Busio and Musah are starting it's a matter of when and that day may arrive before the World Cup. There's not much I can criticize about the line-up overall. It's what we all wanted to see. it created a lot of pretty football. One can gripe about Steffen but Turner's distribution was terrible and he just never really seems in control. Steffen seemed fine and in control after that one save. We really need him to get regular minutes somewhere.
I think this might be the better lineup at home. McKennie is in some kind of funk, I hope he snaps out of it.
Greg's subs were on point today, I will absolutely give credit there. Steffen, wont beat the guy down anymore. Absolutely the worst coaching decision today that Greg made, though by starting him. No clue why he would do that. Was griping on it in the game day thread. Weah was such a creator and asset. Imagine if we had started Arriola in his place. Surely we are done with Arriola now, right?
Also got to give GB some credit for his rotation plan - we were miles fresher than Costa Rica. With a team that old - was it necessary though? If we hadn’t got the win, it would have been a huge disaster for him.
I don't like to say it, I thought we were better off after Paul Arriola had the pregame injury. Starting 5 guys that it never played together in back looked scary. But Richards really needs to play, he's got tremendous talent and we needed to blood him. We really should've subbed 8 to 10 minutes earlier, guys were dying. Then again Weah scored the winning goal while dead, no matter what the official scorer said. I really like the choice of Busio when Musah hit the wall, so glad he didn't bring Acosta and Lletget.
Arriola’s injury is the second most important injury in US soccer history…close behind Chris Armas in 2002.