US men's soccer team leaves Cary with win over Paraguay

A youthful U.S. Men’s National Team took the first step toward putting the memory of last fall’s failed World Cup qualifying effort behind it.

The Americans made a late first-half penalty kick by veteran forward Bobby Wood stand up and recorded a 1-0 shutout of Paraguay in a soccer friendly Tuesday night at Sahlen’s Stadium at WakeMed Soccer Park.

A capacity crowd of 9,825 turned out for the first visit here by the U.S. senior men’s team in 12 years, and the fans were treated to the Americans' first victory under interim head coach Dave Sarachan after two draws with Portugal and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“First of all, I’d like to thank the Raleigh and Cary people for coming out tonight,” Sarachan said. “The atmosphere was great. We felt like it was a real home game, and that is a big, big part of succeeding.”

“As far as the game goes, it had its ebbs and flows,” Sarachan said. “I thought we started off really sharp, I thought in the middle of the first half there were some balls that could have been trouble for us.”

Although Paraguay held an 11-6 advantage in shots, Zack Steffen, of the MLS Columbus Crew, came up with three saves for the U.S., while Gatito Fernandez recorded two for Paraguay. Sarachan was pleased with the defensive effort overall.

I thought defensively we were pretty rock-solid,” he said “We limited (Paraguay forward Miguel) Almiron for most of the night, which was a big piece of why we kept a clean sheet. I thought Wil Trapp was outstanding. He was the general in the midfield.

“And I couldn’t be happier for the group. This game became a real big-boy game, playing a South American team that has a lot of experience. I thought our guys kept their composure, when things started to slide a little bit, for a fairly young team. And winning is good, there’s no question about that. I think it’s another step forward for this group.”

Sarachan used 10 players making their fifth or fewer appearance for the U.S. team, including four making their debuts. On his 22-man roster, 17 players are 24 or younger, and the average age was 23 years 7 months.

The goal came when the U.S. capitalized against Paraguay’s high-line defense late in the first half.

Marky Delgado, a midfielder for Toronto's MLS team who was making his national team debut, sent a long ball from his defensive third down the middle of the field to a streaking Tyler Adams.

Adams, of the New York Red Bulls, beat the lone defender and swooped in on the Paraguay goalkeeper Fernandez, who took Adams down and was shown a yellow card in the 44th minute.

Wood, one of three veterans starting for the U.S., stepped up and buried the penalty kick in the right side of the net for his 11th international goal as Fernandez guessed the wrong way.

Adams said the U.S. game plan was to look for chances against Paraguay’s high pressure.

“Even on that play that Marky found me, that deep run against their high back caught them by surprise,” Adams said. “And obviously with my pace I was able to go at the goalkeeper, and even though he took a good angle on the initial shot, I was going to try to tuck it back across my body. But the keeper fouled me, and Bobby was able to step up and bury it.”

The U.S. will apparently continue to invest in its youth movement in its next three friendlies. T

he Americans will host Bolivia on May 28 in Chester, Pa., before leaving for Europe. On June 2, the Americans visit Dublin to play Ireland, and on June 9 they will be in Lyon to play France.

This story was originally published March 27, 2018 at 11:47 PM with the headline "US men's soccer team leaves Cary with win over Paraguay."