Clint Dempsey recorded his first hat trick for the U.S.in Saturday’s rout of Cuba.
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Clint Dempsey, Gyasi Zardes and Johannsson scored the game’s first three goals, respectively, with Dempsey adding a second on a 64th-minute penalty kick.
Next, the Stars and Stripes will play the victor of Jamaica and Haiti in the semifinals.
‘I think we look at some of the good things and some of the bad things and we know the semi-final game is going to be more hard and we’ve just got to make sure that we’re sharp and that we’re doing everything we can to try and win this tournament.’. “It doesn’t really matter whether he’s lined up as an out-and-out striker, as a second striker, a little bit underneath somebody else, even at times under my dad when he and Landon played tilted wide”. With its highest victory margin in the championship of soccer’s North and Central American and Caribbean region, the U.S. improved to 8-1 in Gold Cup quarterfinals, the only blemish a penalty-kicks loss to Colombia in 2000.
“The players that aren’t here now, they don’t really many anything to us because they’ve chosen their path,” Cuba coach Raul Gonzalez said through a translator. Good interplay down the left between Johnson, Bradley, and Alejandro Bedoya, a staple of the first half, led to the goal. Zardes ran down the ball and played it back to Chandler, and with his left foot the right back lofted the ball from 30 yards to Dempsey, who headed it past goalkeeper Diosvelis Guerra from 8 yards. The Icelandic-American ran onto the ball, took a touch and chipped Guerra from the edge of the 18-yard box.
The Seattle Sounders star took his tally to 47 global goals with the treble at the M T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland.
Dempsey scored his second of the night from the penalty spot after Johannsson was hurled down in the box, before completing his hat trick in the 78th minute after receiving a pass from Michael Bradley.
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Jurgen Klinsmann made a couple of halftime changes, bringing on creative midfielder Joe Corona in Kyle Beckerman’s place and replacing Chandler, who apparently had right knee soreness, with Brad Evans. “He’s hungry for goals, and that helps us”. It was No. 8’s fifth goal of this Gold Cup, putting him two goals clear of Mexico’s Oribe Peralta in the Golden Boot race. Left back DaMarcus Beasley, added to the roster this week, didn’t play after injuring a calf in his first practice.
