Head coach Gregg Berhalter marked his return to the US men's national team with an unconvincing 3-0 win over Uzbekistan.
The Stars and Stripes found the opening goal in just the fourth minute with a stunning strike from Tim Weah, but unfortunately for Berhalter, it wasn't a sign of things to come for his side.
On paper, the United States dominated possession with 65%, but their opponents outshot them 15 to 13. Despite facing 13 shots, USMNT goalkeeper Matt Turner was still able to keep a clean sheet, making a few terrific saves in the process. Goals from Ricardo Pepi and Christian Pulisic sealed the win for the US in stoppage time.
"You probably saw on camera a few times - I was pretty frustrated," Turner said to TNT after the game. "We’re a good side, but we can’t just stroll up to games and expect to win. We are the US, after all. We're going to get everyone's best shot whenever they get the chance to play us. If we really want to get to where we want to go, we need to have better nights than we had tonight."
Tuner will leave the US camp and return to England to prepare for Nottingham Forest's Premier League clash with Burnley, giving way for Inter Miami's Drake Callender or fellow Forest teammate Ethan Horvath to start between the sticks.
"It's just cleaning up simple errors, sticking to the process," Turner claimed. "I think you saw, if the fans were here for the first minute and the last minute of the game, you saw the process when it works its best. We did score three goals at the end of it and keep a clean sheet. So it's definitely something to build off of. Because you have to be able to win when you don't have it, as well as win when you do have it."
Berhalter also relayed some of the same sentiments, claiming that his side were careless with the ball on too many occassions.
"You know, Uzbekistan doesn't concede goals. I think they conceded maybe six all year last year," said Berhalter. "And with the back five, 5-4-1, they're very difficult to break down. So, happy with that part.
"We gave the ball away in some tough spots. That was the first thing. The second thing is when we were building, and we were methodical about our build, trying to attract the opponent, I thought then we lacked the speeding up the attack once we broke through that front five, and that could have been better. A back five is always difficult to break down and you saw that they just dropped, and we wanted to get behind, and we didn’t do that often enough," Berhalter added.
The Stars and Stripes will take on Oman in another international friendly on September 12 at Allianz Field in St Paul, Minnesota.
This article was originally published on 90min as Matt Turner urges USMNT to continue 'sticking to the process' after win over Uzbekistan.
