Argentina Continues Cutting a Swath
Argentina completed a sweep of three North and Central American soccer powers Saturday when it defeated the United States, 1-0, in front of 27,196 on a warm and sunny afternoon at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
The game’s only goal was scored early on, with River Plate midfielder Luis Oscar Gonzalez finding the upper right corner of the U.S. net on a dipping, 22-yard shot in the ninth minute after a neat interchange between Gonzalez and River Plate teammate Andres D’Alessandro set up the opportunity.
From then on, the Americans were chasing the game and seldom looked as if they would catch up to it.
Coach Marcelo Bielsa’s squad -- essentially Argentina’s B team because its starters are all in Europe and were not called upon for this tour -- has won three matches in eight days, having earlier beaten Honduras, 3-1, in San Pedro Sula and Mexico, 1-0, in Los Angeles.
Those three results, combined with a 2-0 victory over Japan in November, means that Argentina is unbeaten since being knocked out of the 2002 World Cup in the first round.
For the U.S., Saturday’s defeat was the first since it lost, 1-0, to Germany in the World Cup quarterfinals in June.
Argentina was a much different proposition than El Salvador and Canada, both of which Coach Bruce Arena’s team had disposed of without undue difficulty in its first two games while rebuilding for Germany 2006.
With Arena again experimenting with his lineup -- drawn exclusively from Major League Soccer teams and featuring only four World Cup players -- a certain lack of teamwork was understandable, but even so the Argentines appeared fitter, faster and far more synchronized.
The U.S. created only one or two scoring opportunities, the first coming when defender Carlos Bocanegra cut the ball back sharply from the end line into a crowd of players in front of the Argentine net midway through the first half.
No American could get to the ball before it was cleared, however, and the chance went begging.
Later, Bocanegra climbed high to get his head to a Landon Donovan free kick, but his header went harmlessly wide. Other than those two occasions, the U.S. never looked capable of scoring. Chris Klein was the only American player willing to shoot, but three of his four attempts were well off target and the other was saved by goalkeeper Diego Sebastian Saja.
Argentina, on the other hand, produced four good scoring chances. The first saw a diagonal shot by Diego Milito shave the outside of the left post in the sixth minute. The second resulted in Gonzalez’s goal. The third ended with a header by Gabriel Milito hitting the left post. The fourth, on a snap shot by Cesar Carignano off a D’Alessandro pass, was superbly saved by goalkeeper Tim Howard, diving low to his left to palm the ball away at the foot of the right post.
Howard, in fact, was the best U.S. player on the field and the only one who appeared totally comfortable in his position. Bocanegra showed occasional flashes of quality and winger DaMarcus Beasley worked tirelessly and had to absorb some punishing tackles and fouls from Argentine defenders who recognized the danger he presented.
All in all, though, it was an unimpressive performance by the Americans, and Arena did not entirely disagree.
“If we could be at fault for anything, I think it’s the way we came out and started the game,” he said. “I thought we demonstrated a lack of confidence in the early going and it took our team 20 minutes to really get in the game.”
Next up for the U.S. as it prepares for the FIFA Confederations Cup in France in June and the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the United States in July, is a match against Jamaica in Kingston on Wednesday.
