Watch highlights of U.S. men’s national soccer team’s epic Nations League final win
If this had been a movie, the ending would have been dismissed as too hokey.
The United States men’s national soccer team twice fell behind archrival Mexico in Sunday’s CONCACAF Nations League championship game in Denver. Twice they tied the game and then won 3-2 after extra time.
Chrisitan Pulisic converted a penalty kick in overtime to provide the winning score, but he wasn’t the big hero. That distinction fell to goalkeeper Ethan Horvath, who didn’t even start the game.
Horvath came on in place of an injured Zac Steffan in the 69th minute. After the United States had taken a 3-2 lead, Horvath stopped a Mexico penalty kick deep into overtime to win the game.
If this had been in a movie, you’d have said the timing of this save was a little over the top:
It was a wild game with controversial calls, big saves on both ends and plenty of twists and turns.
Here are the highlights from the epic game:
Pulisic, who eight days earlier helped his club team, Chelsea, win the Champions League, shushed the Mexico fans after his penalty kick.
This is a great photo of that moment:
After a disastrous failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, there is hope for the U.S. men’s team.
It has a 19-6-3 record under coach Gregg Berhalter. The average age of the starting lineup was 24 years, 206 days, the youngest ever in a tournament final, the U.S. Soccer Federation said.
This story was originally published June 7, 2021 at 8:17 AM.
