USA vs. Haiti Match Diary & Player Ratings

Can we dominate a small island nation in the midst of a crisis?

You know how presidential primary debates get split into two tiers? So do national team appearances. Welcome to the CONCACAF Gold Cup, where the Michael Bennetts and Tulsi Gabbards of U.S. Soccer will show what they’ve got.

After that way-too-mean start, let me be serious: I enjoy a B-team. It usually involves a few players who should and will be in the A-team. Some players I’m interested in seeing include: Miles Robinson, Gianluca Busio, Jackson Yueill, Kellyn Acosta, Darryl Dike, and Nicholas Gioacchini. And, of course, Donovan Pines and Paul Arriola of D.C. United -- if you didn’t know that I’m an unabashed D.C. United shill, now you do. On that note: I will try not to root against Eryk Williamson, even though he was in D.C. United’s academy, we let him go for nothing, and now every success he has feels like a punishment.

The U.S. lineup:

Zardes

Lewis | Lletget | Arriola

Acosta | Yueill

Vines | Robinson | Zimmerman | Moore

Turner

This is...sure. I don’t have strong opinions about Gold Cup first round lineups; all the guys will get out there at some point, and it’s mostly about setting yourself up for the second round.

Here’s kickoff from Kansas City. I assume only vaccinated people are in the stadium; I certainly hope that’s true. Because it would be weird for the Haitians to look into the stands and know there are people there who could choose to end the pandemic at any moment but have decided not to...

5’ - USA almost scores the exact goal Italy just scored in the Euro final! But it goes off the bar and we avoid accusations of plaigarism. 

7’ - GOAL USA! It’s our number one goal-scoring threat: Sam Vines! Nice work down the right by Moore and Zardes, nice finish from Vines. I wonder what kind of money you could have gotten this morning on Luke Shaw, Leonardo Bonucci, and Sam Vines scoring.

11’ - Oh no: Paul Arriola is down. This is the absolute last thing I wanted to see. I would rather have seen Oliver Platt streaking, I would rather have seen an impromptu Limp Bizkit reunion than to see Paul Arriola down hurt. It looks like a hamstring.

19’ - Side netting for Haiti! We’re basically playing two at the back -- both Vines and Moore are playing very high. They probably assume that they’ll stand out by providing offense, and that’s probably true unless we ship three goals to Haiti. 

25’ - A first round match against Haiti usually means I’ll need to make a lot of jokes about the players’ hair to fill the time, and Walker Zimmerman is really helping me out in that regard. Here’s what I’ve got for him so far -- he looks like:

• The first result if you google “Aryan samurai”

• The bad boy of strip mall yoga

• A guy with a pop-up stand in Whole Foods for “Organic Water”

• A superhero called Captain Freegan

35’ - My thoughts so far: This Haitian team is better than most Haitian teams. Lletget is our best player. Yueill is hit-and-miss. Zardes really doesn’t like to play with his back to goal. And I can’t believe I’ve only got four hair jokes for Walker Zimmerman so far. 

38’ - What else we got? Jerseys! I kinda like ‘em, they’re maybe a bit Jem and the Holograms in terms of heavy use of geometric shapes, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. U.S. fans debate whether our away color should be red or blue, and this is a real “why not both?” approach.

40’ - I sometimes feel bad for the Haitian team; they often play in rough situations. Today, they’re playing shortly after their president was assassinated and the threat of unrest at home looms, and they recently had five players test positive for Covid. So: tough stuff. 

45’ + 2’ - Zimmerman with a header, but it’s saved! The Haitian goalkeeper really helped out the Fox Sports halftime crew -- everyone would have had to rework their talking points if we were up 2-0 instead of 1-0.

HALF TIME: 1-0 USA. A kind way to put things would be to say “we’re playing our way into the tournament.” An unkind way to put it would be “we’ve been sloppy against a team we should beat easily.” Of course, I’m the one with only four Walker Zimmerman hair jokes so far, so I guess all of us are in early-tournament form.

49’ - Haiti are definitely not out of this game. We can’t get any rhythm -- I’m surprised our midfield can’t grab a hold of this game. 

50’ - Complete airshot on a header from Giocchini. Haiti were kind enough to socially distance him there -- he was completely alone. Very bad miss.

55’ - Not much up here...let’s talk Euros! Congrats to the Italian team -- I’m sure nothing means more to them in this moment than a random “congrats” from a guy with a Substack who honestly doesn’t give a shit about England or Italy. Rough stuff for England, it would have been nice for them to win at home, but honestly Italy were the better team, so it sort of feels like justice. I do have one thing to say about Gareth Southgate: I don’t think he should have had a 19 year-old take his fifth penalty. That’s just unfair; way too much pressure. At 19, I still got nervous talking to my grandma on the phone at Christmas. Having a 19 year-old take that kick...that’s on you, coach.

61’ - Here we go -- Busio and Dike are on. That’s what I wanted. I don’t know if Berhalter made this substitution or if Fox Sports made it just to inject something interesting into this match.

65’ - Giocchini off the post! The subs have injected some life -- we’re suddenly in control. I think the second will arrive soon.

66’ - FWIW, I’m done trying to spell “Giocchini” -- from now on, he’s Nicky G.

74’ - Got a few more Walker Zimmerman hair jokes. He looks like: 

• A guy put out of work when California legalized weed

• A Mortal Kombat character whose backstory begins: “Born to a movie star couple in Beverly Hills…”

• The Hanson brother who wanted the group to be EDM

• A guy selling a sex swing on Craigslist

76’ - GREAT SHOT FROM BUSIO IS SAVED! He also started the move with a no-look pass! He’s the most interesting thing about this game so far, and both he and his hair show real promise.

85’ - We’re pushing for the second but can’t get it. I should probably go back and delete that bit where I wrote “we’ll get the second soon” 20 minutes ago.

90’ + 2’ - Chaos in front of the US goal! Haiti almost equalize (after a pretty obvious foul on Turner), but the US scramble the ball away. A pretty good metaphor for the game: Scrappy, a bit ugly, and the US were lucky to hang on.

FULL TIME: 1-0. Okay! That was the bare minimum to make me say “good enough”. But honestly: I wasn’t impressed.

Player ratings:

Turner: 6. Made the saves he needed to make and controlled the box.

Vines: 5.5. Got forward well, but probably too well -- only about a half hour in did he remember “oh yeah...defense!” 

Robinson: 4. Solid defensively but really struggled with distribution.

Zimmerman: 5.5, plus 3 hair points. Thank you, White Ninja: I needed something to talk about.

Moore: 6. Active and covered a ton of ground. Playing like a guy who knows his position is probably the deepest on the US roster.

Acosta: 5.5. Steady, could have done more to establish possession.

Yueill: 3.5. Not his best game -- he covered a lot of ground but he had some bad giveaways.

Lewis: 3. He was mostly invisible, and those were his better moments.

Lletget: 6. He did some good work in midfield, but he didn’t do much in the final third.

Arriola: NR.

God: 1. Don’t take Paul Arriola from us, oh Lord.

Zardes: 4. Hold-up play left a lot to be desired.

Nicky G: 4. Not too dangerous. Is he a winger? He might not be a winger.

Busio: 6. One of the only American players to provide a spark; I’m guessing he’ll start the next match.

Dike: 4. I was excited to see Dike, but he didn’t do much. Oh well -- maybe he’ll play badly, lower his price tag, and Fulham will be able to buy low.

Sands, Williamson: NR. Neither had much time on the field, though Williamson was introduced as “from Alexandria, Virginia,” which was enough to make me say “God damn it.”