U.S. Men’s National Team plays Uruguay to impressive draw in KC ahead of World Cup ’22
In a tuneup for this year’s World Cup, the U.S. Men’s National Team earned a shutout on Sunday against a strong and talented Uruguay soccer team at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kan.
The USMNT had a few good chances to score but couldn’t get one across the line in a scoreless draw in front of an announced sellout of 19,569.
The crowd, which included a large contingent of Uruguayan fans, was boisterous even during pre-game warmups.
As Kansas City prepares to learn its fate next week about possibly hosting matches during the 2026 World Cup, Sunday’s atmosphere offered a glimpse of what a World Cup match here could be.
USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter said that the atmosphere on the sidelines felt intense.
“I saw some Uruguay fans today walking through town and they’ve traveled 14 hours and 16 hours, and they just can’t wait to see their team play,” Berhalter said. “I think it leads to a good atmosphere when you have fans of all teams in the stadium.”
And with both the USMNT and Uruguay preparing for the 2022 World Cup, scheduled for later this year in Qatar, the game presented an opportunity for the Americans to test a few things against top opposition.
“It was an opportunity for us, and we didn’t really take it lightly,” said USMNT defender Walker Zimmerman. “It was a dress rehearsal for a world cup. We wanted to compete as if this was game three in our group, (where) we had to get points to move on.”
The moment of the match might have been U.S. goalkeeper Sean Johnson’s sprawling kick-save on the line to preserve the clean sheet.
It was the second straight shutout for the USMNT against World Cup-qualified opposition. The Americans posted a 3-0 victory over Morocco last Wednesday.
A minor controversy developed in the second half when Uruguay brought on Facundo Pellestri as a seventh substitution — despite match rules limiting the teams to six substitutes apiece.
According to a U.S. Soccer spokesperson, the confusion arose because the fourth official and Uruguay manager Diego Alonso misunderstood that there were unlimited substitution windows, not unlimited substitutes.
Lee’s Summitt Native Erik Palmer-Brown played the entire second half for Berhalter, who called his 45 minutes “something to build on.”
“We wanted to guys to set up a baseline to now keep improving,” the U.S. coach said. “His performance was fine and we expect now to keep making progress and keep improving.”
Palmer-Brown said he had 30 friends and family in attendance Sunday. He indicated that he felt he started shaky, saying he misplayed a couple of his early passes and that his first actions were a little slow.
“Those are the things that are living in my head right now, right after the game,” he said. “I think I’ll take from this moment like I always do. You learn your lesson and you gotta move forward.”
Palmer-Brown will have a few more opportunities to make his case for a World Cup roster spot as the USMNT next heads to Austin to play Grenada in the CONCACAF Nations League on Friday.
The U.S. team will continue on to El Salvador on June 14, then play two friendlies in Europe during the final international window before the World Cup in November.
This story was originally published June 5, 2022 at 6:42 PM.