FRISCO, Texas - FC Dallas Homegrown and Designated Player Jesús Ferreira registered an assist in his first competitive start for the U.S. Men's National Team in its 1-0 win over El Salvador in World Cup qualifying Thursday night.
Ferreira started alongside fellow FCD Academy products Chris Richards and Weston McKennie and nearly opened the scoring 20 minutes in but his lunging shot flew over the bar. The 21-year-old did capitalize on a crucial moment in the second half, however, as his downward header found left back Antonee Robinson who fired in the USMNT's winning goal.
“He (Ferreira) had enough chances to score a couple goals,” USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter said postgame. “So that’s the most important thing. If he didn’t have chances in game I would’ve been concerned, but he did have chances and I think it’s just a matter of him being able to finish those off. Regarding his link-up play, I thought it was excellent. A number of times he was setting players up as we expected him to do. So, overall, although we might try to judge #9s by their goal production, I still think he had a solid performance.”
There were a total of six FC Dallas Academy products in the USMNT's match day squad. Ferreira, McKennie and Richards started while Kellyn Acosta, Reggie Cannon and Ricardo Pepi were named to the substitutes bench (Acosta replaced Yunus Musah in the 89th minute). Dallas' newest signing Paul Arriola was also available on the bench.
