Folarin Balogun scored in the 13th minute, Brenden Aaronson scored a free kick in the 60th minute, and Ricardo Pepi added another goal in the 79th minute as the United States beat Oman 4-0 in a friendly on Tuesday.
The American team thus won its two warm-up games, marking the return of Gregg Berhalter as coach.
Khalid Al-Braiki scored an own goal in the 81st minute to complete the defeat. He deflected a cross from defender Kevin Paredes, who had come on a few minutes earlier to make his Stars and Stripes debut.
Three days earlier, the USA suffered another 3-0 defeat against Uzbekistan.
“These kinds of teams, Oman and Uzbekistan, could be in our group at the World Cup. “Those are the teams we should keep an eye on,” said midfielder Weston McKennie. “With other teams, you have the feeling that you know how they play, like in the case of Germany.”
In fact, the Americans’ next friendly game will be against the Germans on October 14th in East Hartford, Connecticut. Three days later, they face Ghana in Nashville, Tennessee.
“We just want to win games and solve them well, not beat people 1-0. We want to win and convince,” said McKennie.
Berhalter was hired after the U.S. failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. He led the team to the round of 16 of last year’s competition in Qatar.
In this case, they were eliminated 1:3 against the Netherlands.
A series of interim coaches replaced him while the U.S. Soccer Federation investigated a domestic violence incident brought to the attention of national team player Gio Reyna’s family.
Then he was reinstated.
With eleventh place in the FIFA rankings, the USA is guaranteed participation in the next World Cup as co-hosts. The competition will be expanded to 48 participants.
Oman and Uzbekistan have never qualified for the World Cup.
