BANK OF AMERICA STADIUM (Charlotte, NC) <\/strong>\u2014 As the ball rolled into the net, you could see the relief and weight lifted off Christian Pulisic’s shoulders.\u00a0<\/p>\n The USA’s star forward had a goal \u2013 breaking a befuddling scoring drought that stretched to December \u2013 with Folarin Balogun netting the game-winner as the Stars and Stripes topped African powerhouse Senegal in Sunday\u2019s pre-World Cup exhibition in front of nearly 60,000 fans.<\/p>\n A good result for the U.S. against a quality side that will also be at the 48-team tournament. Only one more test left before the real thing kicks off for the USA in its World Cup opener on June 12.<\/p>\n Here are my takeaways from Sunday\u2019s victory:<\/p>\n So much of the discourse surrounding the American squad in the buildup to this World Cup has been about Pulisic\u2019s career-worst goalless streak, which had extended to more than 20 games for club and country by the time the Stars and Stripes\u2019 headliner arrived stateside last week to prepare for the biggest summer of his life.<\/p>\n All along, Pulisic insisted he wasn\u2019t concerned. “There’s difficult times, and then sometimes one will bounce off your knee and go in, and then it seems like everything goes in after that,” Pulisic said again on Saturday before the squad flew to Charlotte for Sunday\u2019s constant. “That\u2019s just the way things work, and I feel pretty confident.”<\/p>\n It showed against Senegal. It took less than six minutes forHershey, Pennsylvania\u2019s favorite son to set up Sergi\u00f1o Dest’s opener:<\/p>\n Just 13 minutes later, Pulisic doubled the USA\u2019s advantage himself when he took a pass from Ricardo Pepi, rounded visiting keeper Mory Diaw and coolly slotted the ball into Diaw\u2019s vacated net. Not only was it the 27-year-old attacker\u2019s first tally since he scored for AC Milan last\u00a0December \u2014 it was his first for the national team since late 2024.<\/p>\n All of last week, the U.S. players oscillated between saying how important winning at least one of their final two pre-Cup exhibitions and noting, correctly, that the only results that actually matter are the ones in the main event.<\/p>\n But winning is always good. And for a squad that let its fans down by getting outscored 7-2 in a pair of March losses to European powers Belgium and Portugal, it certainly doesn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n “Winning is contagious,” midfielder Tyler Adams said. It\u2019s also a habit. The U.S. can take a ton of confidence from their performance on Sunday in a game that wasn\u2019t as close as the scoreline suggests (see below). The U.S. attack was sharp. And they could\u2019ve scored more; Balogun had an apparent goal called back for offside before his eventual game-winner, and Malik Tillman had one ruled out as well. \u00a0<\/p>\n Up 2-0 with just two minutes of the opening 45 remaining, the home side was cruising. That changed in a heartbeat after\u00a0 Antonee “Jedi” Robinson was dispossessed in midfield, sending the Lions of Teranga roaring toward Matt Turner\u2019s goal. Habib Diarra then made a perfect pass to former Liverpool star Sadio Man\u00e9, Senegal\u2019s skipper and all-time top scorer, who only needed one touch to deposit the ball past Turner and inside the far post.<\/p>\n It was a disappointing strike to give up at that point in the match. More disappointing was the guests’ second. Diarra was at the heart of it again, with center back Miles Robinson unaware that the Sunderland man was lurking behind him. Robinson\u2019s error left Chris Brady, who came on for Turner at halftime to make his first international appearance, with a tough decision to make. He choose poorly, rushing out and getting caught in no-man\u2019s land as Man\u00e9 pulled his team level.<\/p>\n During a roundtable with a small group of reporters at U.S. Soccer\u2019s training facility outside of Atlanta last week, the former Paris Saint-Germain manager revealed that he\u2019s had an idea what his starting lineup since “before March.” How many of those players began Sunday\u2019s encounter? By my count, it\u2019s somewhere in the neighborhood of six: Pulisic, Dest, Jedi, Tyler Adams, Alex Freeman and captain Tim Ream.<\/p>\n Matt Freese is almost certainly still the No. 1 heading into the final preparation match next week. If healthy, Folarin Balogun, Weston McKennie are lineup locks. Tim Weah and Malik Tillman could be in the mix, too.<\/p>\n Matt Turner started in goal over presumed starter Matt Freese. (Photo by Cory Knowlton\/ISI Photos\/ISI Photos via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n As expected, Poch made wholesale changes at halftime; per FIFA rules, the teams agreed beforehand to use up to 11 subs apiece. The U.S. coach took full advantage, switching out 10 players at the break, with Sebastian Berhalter the only holdover. Alex Zendejas entered for Berhalter with about a quarter-hour remaining.<\/p>\n The plan was clearly to give as many players as many minutes as possible. I\u2019m guessing that the XI we see next week in Chicago will be a lot closer to the group that is on the field when the Americans\u2019 World Cup campaign begins against Paraguay on June 12.<\/p>\n Before they can carry the momentum of Sunday\u2019s victory into the World Cup itself, the U.S. will face the four-time World Cup champs in Chicago in their high-profile send-off. The 10th-ranked Germans are never an easy out, but there\u2019s no reason the Americans can\u2019t pull off the upset in what would count as this generation’s long awaited “signature” win. After all, they\u2019ve upset Die Mannachaft four times in a dozen meetings all-time. Win that the next one, and U.S. players and supporters will enter the planet\u2019s biggest sporting event knowing that they can beat anyone.<\/p>\n Doug McIntyre<\/i> is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports who has covered\u00a0<\/i>United States<\/i> men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @<\/i>ByDougMcIntyre<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY BANK OF AMERICA STADIUM (Charlotte, NC) \u2014 As the ball rolled into the net, you could see the relief and weight lifted off Christian Pulisic’s shoulders.\u00a0 The USA’s star forward had a goal \u2013 breaking a befuddling scoring drought that stretched to December \u2013 with Folarin Balogun netting the game-winner as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}