Sporting’s Stephen Afrifa makes Canada debut in friendly vs. USMNT in KC: Match recap
It was Sporting KC forward Stephen Afrifa’s day in his home stadium. While Sporting prepared to play in New York on Saturday night, Afrifa made his Canada team debut at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City.
Canada defeated the United States Men’s National Team 2-1 in a friendly Saturday afternoon.
“To see us with confidence and personality ... we were on the front foot the whole match,” Canada coach Jesse Marsch said after the match. “And yeah, they had a couple moments where … they have quality players, specifically Christian (Pulisic, who) can pull off a play or two. But I thought we managed him really well. And we were aggressive … we were strong, we were committed, and that made me proud.”
Canada dominated most of the match. Outside of the scoreline, the visiting squad took more shots, connected on more passes in the opponent’s half, and won more tackles and duels in the middle of the park. Canada made 31 tackles opposed to the United States’ 12.
Jacob Shaffelburg scored in the 17th minute after a giveaway from Johnny Cardoso. It took three passes for the ball to get from the feet of Cardoso to Shaffelburg, who placed his shot low and hard into the bottom corner.
Canada easily could’ve scored more, but U.S. goalkeeper Patrick Schulte made multiple saves in the first half to keep the scoreline at 1-0. The visitors doubled their lead in the 58th minute through Jonathan David in a similar fashion.
Tim Ream turned the ball over just outside the United States penalty area, and a give-and-go between Cyle Larin and David resulted in a well-placed finish by David.
The United States finally got one back thanks to the efforts of two substitutes: Aidan Morris and Luca de la Torre.
Morris picked the ball up atop the Canada penalty area, turned and darted into the box. The ball squeaked to de la Torre, who placed his shot in the bottom left corner.
Afrifa made his Canada debut in second-half stoppage time, coming on as a substitute for David.
After the match, USMNT interim head coach Mikey Varas took the blame for the mistakes his team made with the ball.
“I wanted to present some ideas to them, and you just never know how it’s going to translate from training to the game after three training sessions,” Varas said. “I asked a lot of them. Both of the goals, that’s on me.”
But after taking the blame for his tactical choices, he challenged the players’ mentality.
“They know that the mentality to fight and to run and to sacrifice, I can’t do that for them,” Varas said. “That’s on them. So at the end of the day, it’s a combination between (those things).”
Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.
This story was originally published September 7, 2024 at 5:30 PM.