Analysis: United States avoids embarrassment in CONCACAF Gold Cup with shootout win against Costa Rica

If there’s one thing CONCACAF is known for, it’s chaos. So it was fitting that Sunday’s Gold Cup quarterfinal between the United States and Costa Rica, which ended with a penalty-shootout win for the U.S. after a 2-2 draw, had a little bit of everything.

Each team gave away a needless penalty in the first half. One of them was converted; one of them was clanked off the post. Both teams led and threw away leads, both teams trailed and fought back.

The controlled chaos of a penalty shootout might have been the only fitting way to end it. U.S. keeper Matt Freese outdueled Costa Rica legend Keylor Navas, saving three penalties in the shootout, to send the U.S. on to the semifinals.

Freese, who has a degree in economics from Harvard, approached the shootout in typically studious form. “I actually did a very long research project in college about penalty kicks,” he said. “So to be able to rely on that type of thing and deal with a lot of statistics and stuff like that, read the game and read their kicks, is massive.”

The keeper made a mistake in the final group-stage game, accidentally passing the ball directly to a Haiti attacker to give away the only goal the U.S. allowed in the group stage. It would have been easy for U.S. manager Mauricio Pochettino to go a different direction — perhaps use Matt Turner, long the U.S. starter.

Instead, the manager stuck with Freese and was rewarded.

“I think it’s a very special place, and for me the most important position in the pitch,” Pochettino said. “For some mistakes, you cannot [stop trusting], or make a change.”

Turner played only four games this season for Crystal Palace, which Pochettino said was one of several factors in his decision to take a look at Freese — in his second season as New York City FC’s every-week starter — in place of Turner during the Gold Cup.

“I think it’s important for all coaching staffs to have the possibility, for the future, to have different options — because you never know,” Pochettino said.

That could go for the rest of the field, too. Pochettino is looking for players who have some fight in them, and you couldn’t beat the fightback from American fullback Max Arfsten, who was involved in the first three goals.

Twelve minutes into the game, Arfsten gave away an utterly needless penalty kick, sliding through his man in a nonthreatening spot in the penalty area. After Costa Rican defender — and former Minnesota United captain — Francisco Calvo converted, though, Arfsten picked himself up and started making positive things happen.

Two minutes before halftime, it was the 24-year-old Columbus Crew man crossing for Diego Luna, whose deflected shot found the back of the net to tie the game. And 90 seconds after halftime, it was Arfsten on the end of a pass from Malik Tillman, beating Navas into the bottom corner for his own first goal for the United States.

It was Tillman’s own redemption, after he won — and then missed — a penalty kick of his own in the first half, blasting his effort off the post. Tillman was also the second player to step up in the penalty shootout for the Americans, and he made his kick, leaving Pochettino to sound like a teacher as much as an international manager.

“When you have experience like us in that coaching staff, many years not only [as] a player, [but as] a coach, [you know] how important is for the young player to make mistakes or to have some experience like this,” he said. “If they don’t have this type of experience, how they can improve? It’s impossible.”

The United States, heavily favored coming into the game, avoided its first loss in the Gold Cup quarterfinals since 2000. Given that both Honduras and Guatemala had already reached the semifinals after upsetting favored Panama and Canada, respectively, in penalty shootouts, it felt like a major accomplishment for the United States to avoid its own embarrassment.