The U.S. National Team finished group play with a 1-1 draw against Panama on Monday, with RSL captain Kyle Beckerman playing 90 minutes in his second start of the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
FC Dallas forward Blas Perez got Panama on the board with a 34th minute goal, but Toronto FC’s Michael Bradley equalized in the 55th minute and that would be all the scoring on the night as the U.S. finished atop the Group A standings with seven points and a 2-0-1 record. Haiti surprised for a second-place finish with four points (1-1-1), while Panama awaits results from the other two groups to learn if it will advance as one of the top two third-place finishers at 0-0-3 for three points.
“I think we’re just getting our feet into the tournament. The tournament pretty much starts now in the knockout stage,” U.S. Head Coach Jurgen Klinsmann said in the postgame press conference. “Now it’s really getting to the serious stuff. The knockout stage. This is what a tournament is all about.”
Thus far in the Gold Cup, Beckerman has logged 187 minutes in three appearances, two of them starts. He now has 48 career caps, including six this year. The U.S. will face the third-place finishers from either Group B or Group C on Friday in Baltimore, Maryland, just 25 miles north of Beckerman’s hometown of Crofton, Maryland.
This marks the second time that Beckerman will play a U.S. National Team game in his home state. The first came in 2013 in the CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinals when the U.S. topped El Salvador 5-1.
