SAN DIEGO — Jesús Ferreira may wear No. 9, anchor the front line and post gaudy goal-scoring numbers, but don’t be fooled: This forward for the U.S. men’s national soccer team isn’t your typical striker.
Listed at 5-foot-8, Ferreira is smaller than most target forwards. He doesn’t offer transcendent speed. But the FC Dallas star draws praise from teammates and coaches for a well-rounded game — pressing the defense, linking up with teammates and making intelligent runs.
Being a striker, however, is ultimately about finding the net. He hasn’t been too shabby at that, either, scoring 14 goals in 22 international appearances.
“As a nine, they always see you as just the guy that can score and the guy that just hangs up top,” Ferreira said. “I want to be different.”
Ferreira sits atop the Concacaf Gold Cup scoring chart entering the Americans’ semifinal against Panama on Wednesday night at Snapdragon Stadium. He netted three goals apiece against St. Kitts and Nevis and Trinidad and Tobago in the group stage, making him the first U.S. men’s player to record back-to-back hat tricks. When his 10th international goal came in his 20th cap, it made him the fastest to reach double digits.
“Obviously he’s killing it, scoring goals and making history,” U.S. striker Brandon Vazquez said. “It’s incredible to see.”
Ferreira has picked up where he left off in MLS, in which his 28 goals over the past season and a half are the most by an American in that span. The 22-year-old reads defenses well, and his quick trigger in the box is an elite asset. But Ferreira has critics among U.S. fans who point to his knack for punishing Concacaf’s minnows — 12 of his 14 international goals have come against teams ranked outside of FIFA’s top 100 — or an unremarkable outing in his only World Cup appearance (the round-of-16 loss to the Netherlands in December).
When Arsenal striker Folarin Balogun recently committed to the U.S. program over England and Nigeria and scored in the Americans’ win over Canada in the Concacaf Nations League final, Ferreira seemingly slipped down the depth chart. Ricardo Pepi’s return to form — he netted four goals in four Nations League appearances this year — has provided more competition. So has Vazquez’s emergence, with three goals off the bench at this Gold Cup. Josh Sargent and Haji Wright, Ferreira’s World Cup teammates, remain in the mix as well.
Ferreira’s response? The more the merrier.
“We always want to see our teammates score goals,” Ferreira said of the U.S. strikers. “We all have the same goal, and it’s to be the best national team that we can be. It’s just being each other’s biggest fans and helping each other. So I’m excited with the [striker] pool that we have.”
Ferreira has backed up that sentiment at the Gold Cup. When U.S. interim coach B.J. Callaghan has deployed him and Vazquez together, Ferreira has gamely dropped into an advanced midfield role with additional defensive duties — even setting up Vazquez’s late equalizer in a 1-1 draw with Jamaica to open the tournament.
“He can come in and make a play in midfield as well as get behind,” U.S. midfielder James Sands said. “The fact that he can do both of those roles really well, it makes everyone else’s job easier.”
When the United States struggled to find a rhythm in the first half of its Gold Cup quarterfinal against Canada on Sunday — a dramatic 2-2 draw that ended with the Americans triumphing on penalty kicks — Ferreira said he asked Callaghan if he could more aggressively pressure the opposing center backs instead of simply closing off their service to the defensive midfielder. As Ferreira expended more energy after halftime, the U.S. attack came alive.
“With Jesús, it’s about the complete performance,” Callaghan said. “He’s able to lead the line defensively for us. He starts the intensity that we ask for in the pressing. And he’s had a great Gold Cup in terms of goal-scoring output, which is the end result for me in terms of the whole process of how he plays the game.”
Although Ferreira’s prolific scoring will inevitably slow as he gets more minutes against stiffer opposition, he knows the life of a striker is often a patient one. Case in point: When Canada shut out Ferreira over 120 minutes Sunday, he still stepped up to bury the final U.S. attempt in the shootout.
“One of the things about being a striker is that you don’t have to touch the ball for 80 minutes, and then in the 85th minute there’s an opportunity to score,” Ferreira said. “It’s just staying present, staying focused and helping the team as much as I can. What I can do is run, defend and attack and, whenever that opportunity shows, just be ready.”