The good news: The United States both played and scored in a World Cup match for the first time in 3,065 days. In itself, that is cause for celebration. They played really, really well for 45 minutes, too.
The bad news: Matches are 90 minutes long. Wales made excellent strategic adjustments (and a key substitution) at half-time that the US struggled to account for. Manager Gregg Berhalter used only one substitute before the 74th minute and per Expected Goals (xG), Wales ended up creating four of the best six shots in the match despite the Americans’ first-half domination. The US almost survived with their lead intact, but Walker Zimmerman‘s awkward foul on Gareth Bale set up a penalty that Bale drilled into the net. A long-term 1-0 lead for the US turned into a 1-1 draw that could have easily been worse.
More bad news, perhaps: England looked spectacular earlier in the day, walloping what has historically been a defense-centric Iran team by an eye-popping 6-2 margin. While securing a draw in your opening match doesn’t feel like the worst outcome in the world, the US is an even bigger underdog against England on Friday than before and is likely to have one point heading into its final match.
FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer Power Index gave the US a 53% chance of advancing to the knockout rounds heading into the tournament, and one day in that has slipped to 45%. It could have been worse, but it needed to be better.
Let’s dive into the stats from Group B’s first two matches and what they might say about Friday’s USA-England match as well as the remainder of the group stage.
The US absolutely dominated the first half (and got little from it)
By any semi-common measure in today’s advanced stat arsenal, the US manhandled Wales in the first half. They controlled 66% of the possession. They made a combined 98 progressive carries and progressive passes to Wales’ 24. They had 103 touches in the attacking third to Wales’ 20. Wales got close enough to attempt just two shots; one was from 30 meters out, and both badly missed the target.
This was Gregg Berhalter’s dream. The US was controlling the action and hogging the ball. As has been increasingly customary, however, they were also doing very little with the ball.
