Mexico Stuns The U.S. 3-2

Never has the United States looked so mismatched against El Tri.

The US rallied twice from deficits, with Bobby Wood coming off the bench to answer Oribe Peralta’s strike early in the extra period, but couldn’t hold off the Tricolores at the finish.

Klinsmann and his players can not afford to ruminate on these grand issues for too long with a friendly ahead against Costa Rica on Tuesday and a pair of World Cup qualifiers against St. Vincent and the Grenadines (Nov. 13 in St. Louis) and Trinidad and Tobago (Nov. 17). “It means that you have to work even harder than you ever did before to turn the results around and make things happen”.

“It takes a couple of days to swallow, but I told the guys: “Heads up because you gave it everything you had”. Mexico fired its head coach this year after winning the tournament, in large part because he didn’t win impressively enough. Bobby Wood got the equalizer in the 18th minute of extra time for the Americans, who lost to Mexico for the first time in seven games under coach Jurgen Klinsmann.

Javier Hernandez gave Mexico the lead in the 10th minute, but defender Geoff Cameron headed in an equaliser for the U.S.in the 16th minute.

While Klinsmann will face his share of criticism following Saturday’s game, he and his team earned welcome praise from Landon Donovan, the all-time top scorer for the USA who retired from the game in December 2014.

United States defense vs. Mexico attack: Until the USA finds the right combination of players at the back, this will always go to Mexico. The Americans have the talent to win games, like they did in Germany. Bradley moved further central and with the defense backpedaling tried to finish across his body to the near post, but his attempt trickled wide.

Aguilar’s goal came off a scramble after a set piece in the US end, and capped a scintillating extra time session full of ebbs and flows.

The Aston Villa man can’t be faulted much on any of the goals and he almost got to Aguilar’s soul-crushing golazo.

Cameron scribbled his name on the scoresheet in the 15th minute by heading through a Michael Bradley free kick from the left edge. After the US cleared the ball out of the penalty area, Raul Jimenez lifted it in the air to the right side.

While Saturday’s matches certainly point out the flaws of U.S. Soccer it is not the end of the world. Wood streaked across the box and struck first time, finishing through the legs of Munoz. “I’ve enjoyed my time playing under him”. It was Klinsmann who resurrected the Real Salt Lake midfielder’s global career, but the World Cup isn’t often a place for 36-year-olds center-midfielders, which is what Beckerman will be when the festivities kick off in Russian Federation a little less than three years hence. “Everybody can express his opinion”. Normally, win or lose, I typically write up my match thoughts on games focusing on lessons learned and where the team goes from there. We did our job, what we had to do, and we showed today that Mexico is the best in our region. In 2013, he had an open rebellion on his hands when a slew of his players complained about him anonymously to the Sporting News and the team won just one of its first five games of the year. It’s not just losing this one match to a talented Mexican side, and it’s not just the disappointing exit in the Gold Cup semifinals. What transpired for much of the next hour and a half was an exercise in Mexico acting and Team United States of America reacting quickly. It isn’t likely that the USMNT fails to qualify – they’re still the second best team in CONCACAF by a pretty good margin – and a close loss to a strong Mexico team on what equated to a neutral field does not create a crisis.