“There’s a lot of people here that maybe have never come out to support us,” says McKennie. “But hopefully today, with this performance, they can connect with us. We want to be relatable. They can see the joy that we have when we play.”
The game wasn’t all roses. Before the World Cup, Pulisic grew frustrated with all the talk about his goal-scoring slump, for both club and country. “Such bad questions,” Pulisic told TIME in an April interview about this drought. “I’m not concerned about it, man.”
Pulisic did score a goal in a World Cup tune-up game against Senegal in late May, but more importantly, on Friday night, showed how he can shape a game with his playmaking. Pulisic came out blazing, but got kicked in the calf and sat out the second half. “When he finished the first half, he could not walk,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said afterward. “We’re hopeful the next game he’ll be available.”
That potential setback shouldn’t overshadow the team’s accomplishment, or its promise. Defender Chris Richards, the reigning U.S. Soccer men’s player of the year, returned to action from a May ankle injury: All he did was complete all 83 of his passes, the most passes with 100% accuracy by any player in a World Cup match since 1966, according to ESPN Insights. Remember Gio Reyna, whose alleged lack of effort nearly got him sent home by former coach Gregg Berhalter at the last World Cup, and led to a stunning public feud between the Reyna and Berhalter families? Reyna, a reserve on Friday, chipped a shot into the net right before the final whistle, making his case for a super sub role. “He deserves it,” says Pulisic, of Reyna’s goal. “We see stuff from him like that every day.”
