RUSTENBURG, South Africa – All week, US head coach Bob Bradley said it would take a total team effort to get a result against England. And that’s exactly what he got on Saturday night.
The Americans regained their composure after Steven Gerrard’s fourth-minute goal, benefited from a gift equalizer and held down the fort.
There were no moments of individual brilliance. Just a tight, team effort that, for the most part, held England in check and put the US in position to leave Royal Bafokeng Stadium with a well-earned point against the Three Lions.
“That’s been our goal, our team goal,” US captain Carlos Bocanegra said. “We play scrappy, we play hard, we fight for 90 minutes in a big group effort. It was a really big team effort and that’s something you need against a big team like England.”
Chief among the US objectives was to contain Wayne Rooney as much as possible. And though the Manchester United star had some decent looks toward the end of the game, the Americans mostly cut off the passing lanes, rendering his off-the-ball movements ineffective.
No one American player was tasked with neutralizing him, according to US goalkeeper Tim Howard. As many as six US players stepped in whenever Rooney got in position to become a threat.
“We know he’s not going to let you mark him and stand against you, so he’s going to drift,” Howard said. “We just tried to keep our lines tight enough so that if there was a defender who needed to get to him or a midfielder that needed to get to him that we could. He’s going to have his spurts and he almost took two really good chances. For the most part I thought we did pretty well.”
The US won the battle of the midfield, as well, with Michael Bradley and Ricardo Clark tracking back often to try to neutralize England’s forward movements. Landon Donovan almost took on a support role, staying out of the final third and playing distributor from a much deeper position.
And for as well as anyone can contain Gerrard and Frank Lampard, the US did their part.
“When you play arguably three of the most talented players in the world – Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney – it doesn’t take two guys or three guys or four guys to get the job done,” Donovan said. “It takes nine, 10, 11 guys, and I thought all of our guys were very good tonight.”
