{"id":16240,"date":"2012-10-16T22:06:59","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T02:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=16240"},"modified":"2012-10-17T01:35:57","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T05:35:57","slug":"onto-the-hexagonal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=16240","title":{"rendered":"USMNT Onto the Hexagonal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Clint Dempsey scored a pair of goals for the United States in its 3-1 win over Guatemala in Tuesday’s World Cup Qualifying match. (Photo: Kari Heistad\/CapturedImages.biz)<\/p><\/div>\n

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By Kevin Koczwara<\/strong><\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t start well for the United States Men\u2019s National Team in front of a\u00a0raucous\u00a0crowd at Livestrong Park in Kansas City. Carlos Ruiz, Guatemala\u2019s danger man, put his country up in the fifth minute, but the U.S. battled back and Clint Dempsey put the game out of reach in the with his second goal of the night in the 36th minute to help\u00a0his squad\u00a0cruise to a 3-1 victory. With the win, the U.S. advances to the hexagonal stage of the CONCACAF World Cup qualifying.<\/p>\n

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Ruiz,\u00a0the\u00a02002 MLS\u00a0MVP,\u00a0found space behind the\u00a0U.S. defense, took down a lofted pass from the midfield and dribbled around a diving Tim Howard to put Guatemala\u00a0on\u00a0top\u00a01-0, and silence a crowd full of energy and vigor. Ruiz found the space because the U.S.\u2019s defense didn\u2019t move as a unit and left Ruiz unattended 20 yards from goal.<\/p>\n

The U.S. didn\u2019t wait long to equalize, though. Six minutes after Ruiz gave Guatemala the lead and dreams of moving on to the next round of qualifying, Carlos Bocanegra equalized for the U.S. Herculez Gomez won a corner after chasing down what seemed to be a lost cause and bounced the ball off a Guatemala defender. The resulting corner from Sporting Kansas City\u2019s Graham Zusi found Dempsey\u2019s head at the front post and the Tottenham forward headed the ball across the goal and found Bocanegra finishing his run to the back post for a tap-in. The goal was Bocanegra\u2019s 14th in a\u00a0National Team\u00a0jersey, making him the country\u2019s top-scoring defender.<\/p>\n

The goal changed the momentum of the game as the U.S. took control and didn\u2019t look back for the rest of the 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

Eight minutes later Dempsey got himself on the score sheet and scored the game winner after a quick counter-attack\u00a0following a Guatemala corner kick and foul in the U.S. box. After the quick restart, Eddie Johnson found space on the right side after switching flanks with Zusi and hit a cross into the box that Dempsey pounced on and finished, putting the shot over Ricardo Jerez Jr.,\u00a0Guatemala’s goalkeeper.<\/p>\n

After the early goal, Guatemala couldn\u2019t muster up any more chances in the first half as the U.S. dominated possession and pushed the tempo. The pressure paid off in the 36th minute when Dempsey scored his second goal of the night and gave the U.S. a two-goal cushion.<\/p>\n

The move for the goal was started by Zusi, who swung a pass in from the right side to midfielder\u00a0Michael Bradley.\u00a0The\u00a0center half\u00a0mishandled the pass under his foot, but it found Gomez waiting in space just outside the Guatemala penalty area. From there, the forward hit a perfect first-time pass to Bradley, who bursted into the box and\u00a0lifted his shot over Guatemala\u2019s keeper\u00a0before Dempsey followed up\u00a0and finished it, just in case.<\/p>\n

The second half was much the same as the first as the\u00a0hosts dominated possession and created chances\u00a0while\u00a0the visitors\u00a0opened up to get another goal, hoping that it could stave off Jamaica for the second spot in the group. The game opened up, but\u00a0Guatemala was never able to keep the ball long enough to string a few passes together and get much of a shot off.<\/p>\n

The U.S.\u00a0survived a\u00a0scare in the 66th minute when\u00a0Howard spilled a low cross\/shot from Jose Manuel Contreras\u00a0inside his six-yard box right to the feet of a Guatemalan player. But the Everton goalkeeper was able to get a toe on the ball before Guatemala could and cleared the ball.<\/p>\n

With the win, the U.S. is joined by Panama,\u00a0Jamaica, Honduras, Mexico and Costa Rica or El Salvador (depending on results later tonight) in the Hexagonal round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After an early scare, the U.S. responded with a fury in Tuesday’s 3-1 win over Guatemala at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":16245,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[15],"tags":[165,161,159,162,163,164,160,1279,158],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Clint81.png?fit=482%2C260&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16240"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16256,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16240\/revisions\/16256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}