AL RAYYAN, Qatar — At the final whistle Tyler Adams dropped to his knees outside the U.S. penalty area, overcome by exhaustion and emotion. Haji Wright struck a similar pose near midfield and stayed there a while, unwilling or unable to be consoled by a stream of well-meaning teammates.
But the Americans’ World Cup-ending loss probably hit Christian Pulisic the hardest. As coach Gregg Berhalter wrapped a reassuring arm around his gutsiest player, Pulisic lifted his hands to his face to hide the tears.
Four days earlier Pulisic had been hospitalized after taking a knee to his pelvis, only to climb off the gurney and take a punch to the gut when Saturday’s 3-1 loss to the Netherlands knocked the U.S. out of the tournament in the round of 16.
“It’s tough,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “It hurts after a tough loss like that when we feel like we could have had more.”
How different could the night have been had Pulisic struck his shot in the second minute with more force and precision, putting it into the net instead of into the legs of Dutch goalkeeper Andries Noppert? How different could the night have been if the U.S. had gone into the locker room at halftime down a goal rather than trailing 2-0 after giving up another score with 30 seconds left in stoppage time?
“Yeah,” Pulisic said with a sigh. “It’s going to hurt for a while.”
The Dutch were supposed to be here. They’ve made it to the final four in three of the last four World Cups they’ve played in. The U.S. has made it past the round of 16 just once. Dutch coach Louis van Gaal has never lost a World Cup game in regulation time, running his unbeaten streak Saturday to 11 games. Berhalter was coaching just his fourth game in the tournament.
Yet it was the U.S. that dominated in terms of possession, that had more shots and more shots on goal. It was the U.S. that made the most passes and was more accurate with the ones it made.
But the Dutch had the advantage in the only place it mattered, on the scoreboard. And because of that, they are advancing while the Americans spent Saturday night packing and preparing for their long flights home.
“Extreme disappointment,” goalkeeper Matt Turner said. “We did some great things tonight. We also did some things that were very uncharacteristic of us, especially defensively.”
“The silence is deafening,” Turner said of the mood in the U.S. dressing room afterward. “Everyone’s disappointed, everyone is in like a somber, somber mood because we knew that we could compete in this game. And we did do that.
“But you know competing and losing doesn’t make us all feel better. So it’s disappointing for sure.”
Disappointing because the Netherlands is ranked eighth in the world and for long stretches, the U.S. was better. But the Dutch, an experienced and confident group, seemed comfortable letting the young Americans, playing for the fourth time in 12 days, run around and tire themselves out. Then when opportunity arose, the patient Dutch took advantage.
After Pulisic’s early miss, the Netherlands got its first chance in the 10th minute and it didn’t miss, with Memphis Depay giving the Dutch a 1-0 lead by banging home a right-footed shot from the center of the box. The goal was set up by a beautiful series of one-touch passing, plus a defensive mistake from Adams that left Depay in the middle of the American defense surrounded by nothing but space. Denzel Dumfries had no trouble picking him out from the right wing and swinging a cross into the box for Depay to bury it in the bottom left corner.
Daley Blind doubled the lead in the closing seconds of first-half stoppage time, slipping his mark and running on to another feed from Dumfries and one-timing it past Turner from almost the same spot. Blind then led the team on a dash to the Dutch bench to celebrate.
The U.S. didn’t stop coming though and it was rewarded for that persistence in the 76th minute when second-half substitute Wright redirected in a Pulisic cross from the right wing, giving the Americans new life. Dumfries then snuffed that out five minutes later, literally walking into the penalty area and waving wildly for the ball, which Blind delivered. Dumfries knocked in the cross to become the first Dutch player to be involved in three goals in a World Cup game since 1978.
“We have a very young group of players. They’re at the beginning of their careers and they’re going to catch up,” Berhalter said. “When you look at the way we wanted to play, and did play, it should be positive. The guys should feel they gained confidence about the fact that they can play with anyone in the world the way we want to play.
“That’s the important thing. And now it’s about how do we keep that up and take it to another level where you can win a knockout game in the World Cup.”
For the U.S. that margin between going on in a World Cup and going home from one is shrinking.
“If there’s anything that this team will take away from this it’s that it comes down to the margins, man, it comes down to the margins,” Adams said. “People will say Holland were the favorites. But we’ll look at our performance and say, ‘Yeah, we did so many good things,’ but it’s just those margins, man. Margins.”
