By Martin Petty
SAN JOSE, California, June 30 (Reuters) – With two last-32 World Cup matches already decided by penalty shootouts, the topic of spot kicks inevitably came up when the United States team faced the media on Tuesday ahead of their game with Bosnia.
In the World Cup’s biggest upset, Germany went out to Paraguay on Monday while the Netherlands exited to Morocco, both in high-stakes, nail-biting shootouts that saw a combination of clinical takes, heroic saves and horrendous misses.
Christian Pulisic, who has been struggling with injury at the World Cup, said he was now ready to play a full game, even extra time if necessary, and the U.S. had the right mindset to do what was needed if penalties were the decider.
“I feel it’s a pretty brave, courageous team. I feel like guys will give it a go,” he told reporters ahead of Wednesday’s game with Bosnia.
The Americans will be heavy favourites in the San Francisco Bay Area, but are not taking Bosnia lightly after they nudged out four-times champions Italy in a playoff to qualify for the tournament.
The U.S. convincingly beat Paraguay and Australia in their opening two matches to reach the knockouts early but suffered a defeat by Turkey in a dead rubber with a second-string lineup last week.
Asked if the U.S. team had any takeaways from seeing some techniques fail in Monday’s shootouts, Pulisic said the players would go with their own approaches.
“Everyone kind of has their own style. I don’t think you watch and really can take so much away and try to change your style there,” Pulisic said.
“It’s just part of the game. It’s an extremely hard thing to do for sure, go up and take penalties. So for the people that go up and shoot, it takes a lot of courage, and it’s not easy.”
PULISIC READY FOR FULL MATCH
Pulisic has been in and out of the team at this World Cup, playing the first half of the opening match, missing the second and coming on after 58 minutes and impressing against Turkey.
“Yeah, I feel ready,” he said when asked if he could do a full game or more.
On penalties, he said decisions would come down to who was willing and ready.
“It’s a difficult thing. Like the guys who feel the most confident to go up and shoot will want to go shoot, I think that’s normal,” he said.
Defender Chris Richards said if he had to face the pressure of penalties, he would follow his instincts.
“I’m going to put it down and place it where I think it needs to go,” he said.
The early elimination of big teams meant more chance of a deeper U.S. run, he added.
“We’ve seen two big boys fall. So it’s just a matter of us getting through this game and playing a good performance,” he said. “It’s starting to open up. So it’s very exciting for us.”
(Reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Ken Ferris)
Comments