U.S. men's soccer team thrashes Ghana at Geodis

It’s unlikely the U.S. men’s national soccer team will forget its first visit to Nashville’s Geodis Park anytime soon.

Just three days after getting knocked around the pitch for a half in a one-sided loss to Germany, the Americans responded with one of their best halves in recent memory. The U.S. completely dominated Ghana in the opening 45 minutes on Tuesday, scoring four goals that held up for a 4-0 win against a team that’s traditionally played well against the Americans.

The match was also significant in a second way, as talented American midfielder Gio Reyna scored two of his team’s goals, perhaps bringing resolution to an off-field feud between him and U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter that dated back to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

It was Reyna’s second game back with the U.S. following the World Cup — he also played Saturday against Germany — and his first goal for country since June 2021. Reyna scored the first and fourth goals of the contest, marking his first two-goal game for the U.S.

“I thought Gio was really, really good today,” Berhalter said. “Besides the goals, it was how he brings players into the attack, how he is able to be calm on the ball … and the poise that we need at times, but then is decisive when making final passes.

“To me, this performance was just really an indicator of his entire camp. He had, as I said before, a very strong camp — great mindset, great training sessions. To me, it’s not only offensive stuff he did tonight. It’s more what he did off the ball — I think relentless work. We talked about that before the game, relentless work rate defensively, and he certainly did that.”

Team captain Christian Pulisic scored on a penalty kick, after Tim Weah drew a foul, and Folarin Balogun also scored for the Americans. It was a relentless display of skill and offense in the first 45 minutes for the hosts, who used their third-youngest lineup of the year. The 11 starters had an average age of 23 years, 191 days.

“To me, it’s a work in progress,” Berhalter said. “Our job is to continue to build and progress and get better as a group. When you see a half like the first half we played, it certainly is a marker that we’re getting better and improving. So that’s important. But it’s still going to take work, it’s still going to take focus and progress by the whole group to where we need to be.”

Ghana, ranked 60th in the world, is not the same caliber opponent as 15th-ranked Germany, which repeatedly poked holes in the U.S. defense during the second half of the Americans’ 3-1 loss on Saturday in Connecticut.

But the U.S. vowed to learn from the Germany defeat and looked much improved against the Black Stars.

The Americans weren’t as dangerous in the second half as the first, but played responsibly, holding Ghana in check and forcing goalie Matt Turner to make just one difficult save.

“We were disappointed after the Germany game and had a number of things to work on,” Berhalter said. “I felt like the team responded really well. We were looking for aggression. We were looking for, in the back line, ball movement from side to side, breaking the middle and going wide, and I think we did a good job of that.

“Overall, we talked about using the two games as a learning experience. I think we certainly did that. We got some great information from the Germany game and we were able to compete against a really talented Ghanian team, and get a good result.”

The game was the U.S. team’s first in Nashville since a September 2021 draw against Canada in a World Cup qualifier at Nissan Stadium. The Americans have played in Music City nine times, posting a 5-2-2 record — 4-0-2 in their last six visits here.

“I certainly saw the group confident in attack,” Berhalter said. “I think we’re confident we can hurt teams with the ball. And it showed against Germany. It showed again tonight. That was really good. Again, it’s about, in these high, high-level games, keeping a shutout, keeping the opponent limited to a few chances, and that’s something we did tonight.”