New-look USMNT show comfort and confidence in 2-0 win over Japan

Mauricio Pochettino made big changes to the US setup, and the moves paid off with the team's most complete performance in a long while

This United States' international window once looked like it could be disastrous. Now, it has been upgraded to strangely uneven.

A much-improved US got goals from Alejandro Zendejas and Folarin Balogun to beat a heavily rotated Japan side 2-0 at Lower.com Field in Columbus. The result lends some credence to Mauricio Pochettino's insistence that the US's recent subpar results were all part of a plan with a single target: arriving at the World Cup in peak form.