{"id":37035,"date":"2015-07-18T19:11:13","date_gmt":"2015-07-18T23:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=37035"},"modified":"2015-07-18T19:13:39","modified_gmt":"2015-07-18T23:13:39","slug":"u-s-crush-cuba-advance-to-semis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=37035","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Crush Cuba, Advance to Semis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Photo credit: Chris Aduama\/aduamaphotography.com<\/p><\/div>\n

The U.S. Men\u2019s National Team advanced to the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup semifinals with a 6-0 victory over Cuba at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, MD on Saturday evening. Clint Dempsey extended his Gold Cup goals lead with a hat trick, while Gyassi Zardes, Aron Johannsson, and Omar Gonzalez also scored.<\/p>\n

The U.S. had advanced to the quarterfinals by winning Group A, while Cuba advanced as one of the top third place finishers after finishing third in Group C.<\/p>\n

The U.S. came out strong early and grabbed the lead in just the fourth minute after Zardes dribbled to ball out to the right flank and sent a pass back to Timmy Chandler. Chandler sent in a left footed cross that Dempsey headed in for his fourth goal of Gold Cup.<\/p>\n

Eleven minutes later the U.S. would double their lead when Fabian Johnson sent in a cross from the left flank that Zardes got behind the defense to finish off and give the U.S. a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Aron Johannsson then made it 3-0 in the 32nd<\/sup> minute after getting a lobbed pass from Clint Dempsey. Johannsson then caught Cuba goalkeeper Diosvelis Guerra off his line and perfectly chipped if over his head from distance to put the home side in a commanding lead.<\/p>\n

The onslaught continued in the 45th<\/sup> minute when Gonzalez finished off a U.S. corner kick. Michael Bradley sent in the corner where Johannsson headed it down to Gonzalez, who finished it off to make it 4-0.<\/p>\n

The U.S. continued their dominance in the 63rd<\/sup> minute and earned a penalty kick when Johannsson was pulled down from behind in the box. Dempsey stepped up to take the penalty kick and converted to make it 5-0.<\/p>\n

Dempsey then completed his hat trick in the 78th<\/sup> minute after Bradley dribbled forward into the box and sent a low pass to Dempsey with Cuba\u2019s defense stretched. The pass went by Dempsey, but he still managed to recover and slid in to direct it past Guerra and make it 6-0 with his sixth goal of the tournament and 47th<\/sup> career goal for the U.S.<\/p>\n

The U.S. advances to the semifinals on Wednesday at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta where they will the winner of the Jamaica-Haiti quarterfinal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. National Team defeated Cuba 6-0 on Saturday in the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup Semifinals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[15],"tags":[1219,1231,891,892,1279],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/DempseycelebratesUSfeature.jpg?fit=600%2C415","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37035"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37035"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37039,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37035\/revisions\/37039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}