Under pressure from Colombia, the USMNT is getting a wake-up call that shouldn’t be necessary

LANDOVER, Maryland – The U.S. Men’s National Team began its most consequential summer in a decade surrounded by anticipation and buzz, by 55,494 fans here outside Washington, D.C. – but in the 23rd minute of a high-profile friendly, one that hasn’t been announced yet a test for a still unproven USMNT, some of those fans chanted, “USA, Colombia es tu papá!”

USA, Colombia is your father.

They were dressed in Colombian yellow, supporting a top-10 team in the world, exactly the type of team that has become a USMNT benchmark. And they repeated the chant during a 5-1 loss to the Americans.

They repeated it again and again, as the rippling Colombia attacks became a tidal wave and the American players crumbled.

For 90 minutes Saturday at Commanders Field, a test turned to embarrassment, the worst defeat of the Gregg Berhalter era and the worst possible start to what should be a special summer.

The result was in a sense insignificant. But it was part of a pattern, an increasingly destructive one: In five years under Berhalter, during two separate stints, the U.S. still hasn’t defeated a top 25 opponent in an A-team match outside of CONCACAF.

This, like Germany last year and the Netherlands before that, was another opportunity for the Yanks to prove to the world and to themselves that they can topple football’s superpowers; that they can “beat some big teams and be seen as a big team,” as Weston McKennie said on Friday.

And in the end, another opportunity was missed.

Things turned sour in less than six minutes when Antonee Robinson made a mistake and Jhon Arias opened the scoring.

Rafael Borré’s acrobatic finish in the 19th minute gave Colombia a 2-0 lead. It was the first time since 1995 that a USMNT had conceded twice in less than 20 minutes.

For about an hour, the US, after wobbling, remained on its collective feet. It owned and explored. It stopped the Colombian flow. The score obscured what was, for large parts, a somewhat even match. In the 58th minute, with a strong run and a well-taken goal, Tim Weah brought that to light and put the US up 2-1.

But as the game got longer, substitutions replaced starters and concentration wavered, “the wheels started to fall off,” Berhalter admitted.

Richard Ríos scored Colombia’s third. Jorge Carrascal added the fourth. Luis Sinisterra took fifth place and the conclusion was clear to everyone involved.

“We were nowhere near the level we need to play if we want to win games in the Copa America,” captain Christian Pulisic said after the match.

Players and Berhalter have taken the defeat as a wake-up call, but it is unclear why they needed to be woken up in the first place. They are not yet a ‘big team’. They have given no reason why they should be ‘feared’. They are a regional giant, but a global afterthought, so hopefully they certainly haven’t underestimated Colombia.

Maybe they overestimated themselves. Their starting XI came entirely from Europe’s Big Five leagues for the first time in program history. “Where everyone plays, and what levels they play at, and what they achieved this year speaks for itself,” Pulisic said on Friday. “It’s just an exciting time.”

And yet they were “nowhere near as good as [Colombia] today,” Pulisic said.

She Are Not nearly as good as Colombia, whose 22-match unbeaten run stretches back more than two years.

The Colombia players, on the other hand, do not they all come from the famous Big Five. Some did, but others came from the Mexican Liga MX and the Turkish Super Lig, from the Brazilian Serie A and the Qatar Stars League. On paper they were no better than their American counterparts. Even on the field, player by player, individually, Pulisic, Weah and Robinson said they did not feel inferior.

“I think it was more of a collective thing,” Weah said.

“It was definitely a collective thing today,” Robinson agreed.

However, the collective has been more or less together for several years, and the question is why they haven’t made faster progress.

It is primarily a question for Berhalter, who said after the match: “We certainly take responsibility as a coaching staff. We can’t blame all of this on the players.”

But he also pointed to individual and collective shortcomings. ‘We didn’t move for each other. We felt like we would dribble out of the back every time. It was several players,” he said.

He talked about giving Colombia too much space. He spoke of ‘midfielders not recovering’ and ‘boys losing the ball in positions where our full-backs are high’. He said: “It was a lack of respect for our opponent, [and for] the game of football.”

But why? Why did players seem unprepared after five years? Why did their brains seem to be thinking too much? They have worked with top teams like England in the past, but why do they now seem to be stagnating or even going backwards? Why, if the individual talent is enough, were they “clearly not” up to the speed of Colombia?

“I don’t have any answers for you right now,” said a discouraged Pulisic. ‘I have to watch a movie. But the feeling is just – I mean, how open we were…” – he shook his head. “It felt like they were just waiting for us to make a mistake and then killed us in transition, and that’s what happened over and over again.”

And how will he, as captain and leader, deal with such an attack, now that it’s Brazil’s turn next Wednesday and the Copa América in sight?

“I’m still trying to figure it out,” he said. “I don’t have much to say at the moment. … But we definitely need to start now and hold each other accountable. Because things simply have to be better.”