The United States men’s national team looked like it was in a bad place earlier this month. With the eyes of the football watching world preparing to focus on the U.S.
when it hosts Copa America in June and July, the Americans went out and got steamrolled by Colombia, 5-1. It was a drubbing — Colombia, one of the hottest teams in world football entering this summer, jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the opening 20 minutes. While the Americans grew into the game admirably and Timothy Weah scored a goal to cut into the deficit in the second half, the team completely let go of the rope over the final 15 minutes, as Colombia put three goals past Matt Turner due to their ability to pounce on mistakes.
Gregg Berhalter — who got the usual calls for his job from fans that any international manager receives following a shambolic performance — was , and with a test against world power Brazil in their final friendly before the tournament days away, spirits seemed to be low. And then, something funny happened: the USMNT dug deep and drew the No. 5 team in the world, 1-1, behind a gem of a free kick by Christian Pulisic.
“Whenever we’re at our best is whenever everyone’s playing at a high intensity and has a maximum effort,” USMNT star Weston McKennie told Uproxx over Zoom about the lead-up to the game. “And so, we didn’t even want to focus on the result against Brazil, we were just focused on the performance. We said that we want to give our maximum performance, we want to .
