photo: Paul Rudderow
Weston McKennie scored the only goal of the game as the US defeated Curaçao 1-0 at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday evening.
Gregg Berhalter reverted back to the starting XI that won the first two group stage games for the USA, Gyasi Zardes continuing to lead the line at striker.
The USA goal came in the 25th minute through McKennie. Christian Pulisic found himself one on one with his defender on the left near the end line, where he cut back onto his right foot and lofted a perfect cross toward the back post that McKennie met five yards out from goal and nodded past the goalkeeper.
An inspired Curaçao team dominated portions of the second half and Zack Steffen had to make a stunning save at full stretch to deny Leandro Bacuna an equalizer in the 85th minute.
Curaçao finished with a 15-10 edge in shots, 5-3 on target as the Americans looked uninspired for much of the match.
The US advance to take on Jamaica in the semi-finals on Wednesday in Nashville. Jamaica edged Panama 1-0 in the first match of the day, with Union goalkeeper Andre Blake earning the clean sheet. The announced attendance on a beautiful night in Philadelphia was just shy of 26,000.
Line Ups
USA
Zack Steffen, Nick Lima, Walker Zimmerman, Aaron Long, Tim Ream, Weston McKennie, Michael Bradley, Christian Pulisic, Tyler Boyd (Jordan Morris 63′), Paul Arriola (Omar Gonzalez 90+2′), Gyasi Zardes
Curaçao
Eloy Room, Juriën Gaari, Cuco Martina (Michaël Maria 80′), Darryl Lachman, Ayrton Statie (Jurich Carolina 67′), Shermaine Martina, Leandro Bacuna, Elson Hooi, Gevaro Nepomuceno, Jafar Arias, Kenji Gorré (Gino van Kessel 75′)
Scoring Summary:
USA: Weston Mckennie – 25′ (Christian Pulisic)
Disciplinary Summary:
CUR: Shermaine Martina – 30′ (unsporting behavior)
CUR: Elson Hooi – 70′ (unsporting behavior)
Anemic.
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Lovely night for a soccer match, though.
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Announced attendance was just _over_ 26,000.
It is just a crime that US soccer charges so much for us to see a US Team that is quite poor. I saw no nice triangles, no creative ideas by the midfielders and no good low crosses (they were all intercepted for the first defenders). It was a great evening and fun to sit in the AO section but otherwise it was more interesting to watch the European U21 Final earlier on Sunday.
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The funniest thing of the night was when Bradley had the ball at the edge of the penalty area in the 2nd half, had a clear shot on goal and most of the AOs screamed at him to shoot. Then when he shot he hit a terrible shot that was easily saved whereupon some AOs behind us screamed “why did you all tell him to shoot; he is atrocious in shooting and passing!”