Following Thursday's narrow victory over Malawi, midfielder Luis Gil and his teammates find themselves poised to break into the knockout round with a win on Sunday in their final group stage game.
While the much-improved performance after the opening loss to Spain was a pivotal step, perhaps the most noticeable aspect as the game progressed was the team's inability to effectively finish the chance they created, ultimately keeping the contest much tighter than the team perhaps felt it should have been.
With Sunday's vital game against UAE and the possibility of a tough knockout stage looming, Gil believes the team's key to success will depend on their ability to control the simple aspects of their game.
"A lot of times we are just trying to force it or sometime we just do it individually," Gil explains. "That's a problem on our team that we need to fix."
Team coach Wilmer Cabrera sees the necessity to take advantage of scoring chances in the broader sense, as each missed opportunity has the ability to shift momentum in the other direction.
"We're creating chances but it's difficult when you don't put the ball into the net because you are giving motivation to the other team," he concurs.
"We will continue pushing that, continue motivating the players because definitely with this win the mentality changed."
The US showed the clear ability to effectively control possession on Thursday, however Gil feels that the team must focus using their collective strengths to keep the flow of the game on their side in order to build on Thursday's success throughout the rest of the tournament.
"We just have to get a rhythm going and just get everyone involved," he continues. "If we just play more simple I think that will make it much easier for us."
With a win being the best and only guarantee to progress past the group stage, Gil does, however, recognize that the onus does fall on the team to better capitalize on their scoring opportunities for the remainder of their time in Nigeria.
"We need to score, we need to win. We need to keep the ball as well but we need to finish our chances."
The US can secure a spot in the final 16 with a win over UAE on Sunday, although a tie will also likely be enough to see them through as one of the four best third-place teams. |
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