In the end, the United States men's national team got the result they needed. Matt Miazga's goal in the 88th minute gave the Americans a 3-0 victory over Nicaragua at Cleveland's FirstEnergy Stadium on Saturday evening. The result, combined with Panama's win over Martinique by the same scoreline earlier in the day, meant that the red, white and blue finished group play in first place, setting up a quarterfinal against El Salvador. The win wasn't pretty, but it was enough.
"Not pretty but enough" would be a good summation of the first three games for the Americans. While Bruce Arena's squad fared better than the Jurgen Klinsmann-led group did two years prior -- they outscored the opposition 7-3 compared to 4-2 in 2015, also posting a plus-18 figure in the shots category against a remarkable minus-30 during the last competition -- they were never dominant and only in control of games for periods of 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there.