Another long night for the USA, and another positive result thanks to a decisive Clint Dempsey intervention, but don’t let the fact that they’ve won their group with a game to spare fool you – Jürgen Klinsmann’s team beat Haiti by the thinnest of margins.

Dempsey’s winner, just after half-time, may have secured the result, but at the time it did little to alter the complexion of a game where Haiti’s speed on the counter and physical competitiveness in midfield troubled the USA all night.

After laboring to deal with the lively Hondurans and their flooding of midfield on Tuesday in Texas, the USA came into Friday night’s game expecting to face a disciplined Haiti team happy to play without the ball and set traps, as they’d showed in their 1-1 opener with Panama. And so it proved again in Massachusetts, at least before a tiring Haiti team began to allow the US more opportunities in the second half.

Klinsmann had introduced wholesale changes to face the Haitians. DeAndre Yedlin and Gyasi Zardes had raised some concerns with their reluctance to pinch in and support Kyle Beckerman and Michael Bradley in the midfield diamond against Honduras and neither young player started on Friday night.

Instead, the relative experience of Graham Zusi and Mix Diskerud replaced Yedlin and Zardes, while Bradley dropped to the holding role, and Clint Dempsey was pushed back behind a front two of Aron Jóhannsson and Jozy Altidore.

Klinsmann also gave Greg Garza his first competitive start after a series of friendly appearances, to tie his international future to the US. No John Brooks either, with Tim Ream of Bolton starting alongside Omar Gonzalez and Brad Evans of Seattle starting as right back.

If the selection was meant to generate a sharper start than in the opening game, the results were indifferent, although the US were not helped by the surface at Gillette Stadium, where the temporary grass surface had been badly chewed up by the cleats of Honduras and Panama players in the 1-1 draw that was the opening part of the evening’s double-header. That result meant a US victory would see them win the group, but the assistance they’d received from the result came at the expense of the turf.

The ground staff had duly watered the grass heavily before kick off and the ball was moving around quickly in the opening exchanges. Moving quickly, though not with much intent, in the opening stages. Haiti played as advertised, by digging in and looking for sudden counters, while the US could not find any sort of rhythm to try and pass through them.

And the first chance, when it came, was to Haiti. Diskerud was robbed in the center circle and in racing back to try and retrieve the situation only succeeded in giving up a free kick centrally 25 yards out. Mechack Jerome stepped up and hit a sweetly dipping and curling free kick off the top corner of Brad Guzan’s goal frame, with the goalkeeper well beaten.

It wasn’t an aberration either — loose midfield touches by the US repeatedly became the catalysts for Haiti attacks in the first half, while the USA struggled to trouble Johnny Placide’s goal.

In the 21st minute Wilde-Donald Guerrier had another chance to give Haiti the lead as he arrived on the overlap on the right only to send his shot past Guzan but past the far post as well. The lively Guerrier would torment Garza down the right flank as the half went on, but in truth the entire US backline looked shaky as they struggled to familiarize themselves with each other while dealing with blue shirts regularly running at them at speed.

The US did have the ball in the net first, on a rare break of their own in the 35th minute, but Johannsson’s turn and shot was ruled offside after Altidore elected to slip a pass to him rather than take the shot from an angle himself. On the sideline Klinsmann looked incensed by the decision, and replays showed he had a point, though maybe he was just as angry at the general sloppiness from his own team thus far, and despite an increase in passing tempo from his team in the remainder of the half, there wasn’t a lot more to encourage him in that period.

With the need to force the pace and stretch Haiti apparent, Altidore made way for Zardes, and the rewards were instant. The young LA Galaxy player got behind the defense in the 47th minute to cut the ball back low for the late-arriving Dempsey to emphatically sidefoot his third goal of the tournament from just inside the box.

Haiti were looking more stretched now, though despite more encouraging build up play the US were still prone to passing moves breaking down, and Guzan had to thwart a one-on-one chance for Duckens Nazon, after Haiti broke from a poor pass by Bradley.

Guerrier too, continued to ask awkward questions as Haiti’s most threatening attacker, and in the 63rd minute he got across Garza on the edge of the six-yard box to flash a header wide from a whipped cross by Kim Jaggy. After a testing night, Garza made way for Fabian Johnson moments later.

Yet if Haiti were expected to wilt, instead the US found themselves in a battle for the remainder of the game, as Haiti continued to look for openings right up to the final whistle. At the other end Zardes showed glimpses of stretching the Haiti defense into trouble again, and did his personal case for playing time no harm, but in truth, the final score was about the best case scenario for the USA after another awkward night.

At least the US don’t need a result against Panama to win the group now, but Klinsmann will be worried about the general sloppiness as sterner tests arrive in the knockout rounds. Job done, but barely.

USA: Guzan; Evans, Gonzalez, Ream, Garza (Johnson 67); Zusi, Bradley, Diskerud; Dempsey; Johannsson (Beckerman 83), Altidore (Zardes HT)

Haiti: Placide; Lafrance (Thuriere 71), Jaggy, Jerome, Bertin, Goreux (Norde 83); Guerrier, Marcelin, Alexandre, Maurice (Louis 66); Nazon