Cymru v USA Head to Head -

Stephen (@StephenJBaker) takes a look at previous games between Cymru and the US men, ahead of their opening game clash in the World Cup.

In less than a month’s time Cymru will be taking on the USA for the third time in our history. Another team in this World Cup where we don’t have much of a history. But we’ve still played them twice as many times as we’ve played Iran.

The first time we played the USA was in a friendly in Spartan Stadium, San Jose, California, finishing with a 1-0 win for USMNT.

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This was 26th May 2003 and 12,282 people watched from the stands as Landon Donovan scored a penalty in the 36’ minute. This was after a handball by Matthew Jones, who was booked for the handball. Then four minutes into the second half he was booked again and sent off.

With it being a friendly the usual happened for those days and the big names dropped out. Unusually this time it was the likes of Craig Bellamy, John Hartson and Robbie Savage who missed the trip. Though not so unusual Ryan Giggs didn’t play either.

This was the game that ended Mark Hughes’ 10 game unbeaten run, which included that great night in Cardiff where Cymru beat Italy 2-1.

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In San Jose, Hughes picked:

Paul Jones (replaced by Darren Ward for the 2nd half)

Matthew Jones

David Vaughan

Andy Melville

Gareth Williams

Mark Pembridge (replaced by Mark Pembridge)

John Oster (replaced by David Pipe)

Andy Johnson

Simon Davies

Jason Koumas

Gareth Taylor (replaced by Neil Roberts)

The other time we played the USA was on the 12th November 2020 at the Liberty Stadium. This match was played behind closed doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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It was also Rob Page’s first match as manger, having taken over the week before the match. It was a dire 0-0 draw. And the only thing of note during the match, was the debut of Brennan Johnson. The team picked by Rob Page was:

Danny Ward

Neil Roberts

Tom Lockyer

James Lawrence (Joe Rodon)

Chris Gunter

Dylan Levitt (Joe Morrell)

Matt Smith (Josh Sheehan)

Rabbi Matondo (Dan James)

Harry Wilson

Tom Lawrence

Kieffer Moore (Brennan Johnson)

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