Malik Tillman thrives: Takeaways from an inconsistent Group Stage.
Maurichio Pochettino needed the USMNT to respond after a pair of disastrous friendlies. The result: a perfect, if not inconsistent, group stage performance.
There has been a general malaise surrounding the US Men’s National Team, but three wins out of three in the Gold Cup group stage should fill this young, slightly inexperienced group with some confidence.
Despite the wins, the performance on the pitch has been far from perfect, a five goal outing vs Trinidad & Tobago was followed up with a dull 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia and a slightly nervy 2-1 win over Haiti.
Make no mistake, Mauricio Pochettino’s side deserved all nine points and have erased some of the stink off of their losses to Switzerland and Türkiye but they’ve just wasted a few too many great chances to call the performance perfect. Combined, the US missed eight big chances — even more when considering goals called off for offside.
Even then, Malik Tillman has a claim for player of the group stage (if not for Costa Rica’s Manfred Ugalde). The PSV regular scored three goals, including a brace against T&T, and has made the absence of Christian Pulisic much more palatable. Tillman boasted 22 recoveries, 19 defensive actions, four accurate long balls, and generated 1.86 expected goals.
Patrick Agyemang has also inched to the front of the striker depth chart for the time being but his three missed big chances also leads the tournament.
It’s been pretty ubiquitous across the midfield, Quinn Sullivan, Brendan Aaronson, Diego Luna, and Jack McGlynn have all seemingly learned from the disastrous friendly leading into the tournament. USMNT observers have been on high alert entering the tournament but so far, the only warts have been an unfortunate desire to play into the CONCACAF cage match, along with an up and down performance from Matt Freeze.
Freeze’s mistake against Haiti will steal the headlines but, defensively, the Yanks only allowed 1.01 expected goals against throughout all three matches. It’s a testament to how well the Chris Richards-Tim Ream CB pair has worked along with Alex Freeman and Max Arfsten at Full Back.
Richards has been just as important as a set piece weapon through the first three matches, scoring the lone goal against Saudi Arabia while trailing Agyemang and Canada’s Tani Oluwaseyi in missed big chances.
On the error, Pochettino didn’t seem too bothered, but it does give more meaning to the manager’s statements ahead of the match.
“I want to see how [Freese] deals with the pressure to be number one on the national team.”
Will Pochettino adjust heading into the knockouts? It would be surprising.
Unless this mistake has caused him to drastically change course, it seems unlikely that Pochettino would alter the plan from here, and Freese had standout performances through the first two matches. USMNT will sink or swim in how he responds against Costa Rica.
Afterall, this should be the test run for 2026.