A series of errors that would be comical if they weren’t in a final against your No. 1 confederation target put the USMNT behind 1-0 before 61 seconds against Mexico in the CONCACAF Nations League Final on Sunday.
The good news is that the USMNT has some killer young attackers used to big games in big spots.
[ MORE: Nations League schedule, scores, stats ]
And the Yanks had a big swing in fortune when Hector Moreno’s snapped header for 2-0 was taken off the board after VAR review and Giovanni Reyna deposited a rebound off a corner kick to level the match at before the match was a half-hour old.
Let’s start with the bad stuff, because the good stuff is more fun and it’ll give some hope for the second 45 minutes, as almost every American fans wonder when they’ll see Tyler Adams.
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Josh Sargent slipped. DeAndre Yedlin left his feet in a desperation move to snap the ball out of bounds in a 1v1 with Jesus Corona, but Tecatito kept his cool and eventually fired a rocket into the top of the goal after Mark McKenzie gave him the ball in the U.S. box.
Giving up a goal after a minute is never good, but it’s especially harmful when two of the players making mistakes were questionable starters in the first place.
Yedlin entered the game with 63 caps and plenty of big-game experience but had played nine minutes for the USMNT since Nov. 20, 2019.
And McKenzie was collecting his fifth cap and just his second coming outside of a friendly. None of that is his fault of course.
And Moreno then buried a header to make it 2-0 but thank Heaven for VAR — wasn’t expecting to say that — as the Mexican veteran was just offside in his bid to snap the set piece home.
It wasn’t long after that Reyna got on the board.
The 18-year-old Borussia Dortmund phenom and son of USMNT legend Claudio Reyna kept his cool when Weston McKennie’s header of a Christian Pulisic corner kick smashed off the post, settling the ball and rolling it past Guillermo Ochoa, the hero of Mexico’s semifinal win.
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USMNT gaffes gift Mexico lead, Reyna evens Nations League Final at half originally appeared on NBCSports.com