If you only tuned into the last 10 minutes of the United States men’s national team's 1-1 draw vs. Mexico on Wednesday in the Continental Clásico friendly, then you saved yourself 80 minutes of suffering.
The USMNT made it five games in-a-row without a defeat to their archrivals thanks to a Jesús Ferreira equalizer in the 81st minute.
Before I tell you about how awful the rest of the game was, let’s enjoy the big highlight of the game.
All hell broke loose in the 81st minute. Mexico led 1-0 and were about to double the lead when Matt Miazga had a terrible giveaway near midfield to spring an El Tri attack.
Mexico’s Carlos Rodríguez then hit a vicious shot that rattled the crossbar. Miazga cleared the rebound to Sergiño Dest who then dribbled past four Mexican players to jumpstart an American counter.
Dest and the USMNT forwards couldn’t produce squat all game, but in this one moment they came to life. Dest fed the ball to Alan Soñora who put a lovely feed to Jordan Morris. The Sounders ace the cleverly crossed the ball with the outside of his foot to Ferreira for the equalizer.
Fans had to wait 80 minutes for something good to happen in this game, and boy was it exciting.
USMNT vs. Mexico highlights
Mexico: hit the post
Jesus Ferreira: equalizes 16 seconds later⚡
Watch live on TBS or @hbomax pic.twitter.com/2VB8qQRUdm
— B/R Football (@brfootball) April 20, 2023
Ferreira tied the game after a disaster at the back gifted a goal for El Tri in the 55th minute. An attempted pass from Kellyn Acosta to Aaron Long completely missed the mark. Long then failed to clean up the mess and Uriel Antuna took full advantage.
Uriel Antuna makes the USMNT pay
Watch live on TBS or @hbomax pic.twitter.com/xd5OXDLGI8— B/R Football (@brfootball) April 20, 2023
That error from Acosta and Long is a good summary of how the whole team played. The USMNT’s “B-team” looked the part as the offense couldn’t see the field or create chances, the midfield was nonexistent, and the defense was just kind of there as Mexico wasn’t producing much either.
Also, Sean Johnson’s distribution as USMNT goalkeeper was a Hall of Shame performance. He booted the ball out of bounds or straight to the feet of a Mexican player more times than I could count.
The game was simply not entertaining to watch until the final minutes. This “Continental Crapico” is an obvious money-grab that didn’t offer fans anything.
It’s a cool idea to have the USMNT host a top team from the Americas each year. Doing it outside of the international windows ruins all the fun. If the best players aren’t going to play, then the product will be what was seen Wednesday night.
The first 45 minutes saw no shots on target from either team and only two off target from Mexico. Ferreira’s goal was the only shot on target the USMNT recorded all game!
The game was a snooze fest.
It would be a miracle if any fans on the east coast managed to watch the whole thing. The game didn’t kick off until around 10:30 p.m. ET. Instead of counting sheep, people on the east coast could have just counted the number of times the U.S. gave up possession.
At the end of the day this game was a waste of people’s time and didn’t prove anything. The only bright sides to this game were that the federations made a little money and it’s been almost four years now since Mexico has defeated the U.S. in soccer.
