At first glance, all appears to be going well for the United States national team.

Jurgen Klinsmann’s squad is currently in first place in its World Cup qualifying group and is now in the quarterfinals of the Gold Cup, facing El Salvador in Baltimore on Sunday. The team is in the midst of an eight-game winning streak and is playing its most attractive soccer in years.

Its recent success, however, is a stark contrast to only a few months ago.

After the United States lost its World Cup qualifier at Honduras to open the final round of qualifying and struggled to find any rhythm offensively, the team faced a wave of criticism. To address the issues, Klinsmann made several changes, but few, if any, have been more important than bolstering the backline with the Sporting Kansas City central defender Matt Besler.

At the start of 2013, Besler had never played for the national team, but he impressed in his debut against Canada in January and has since been gradually solidifying his spot within the team. His breakout performance came in March when he played a full 90 minutes in a scoreless draw on the road at Azteca Stadium against archrival Mexico.

Since then, Besler has been a regular starter for Klinsmann and is now likely to play a role at next year’s World Cup. On Wednesday Klinsmann added Besler to the U.S team for the knockout stages of the Gold Cup. The coach also recalled Omar Gonzalez (who will only join the team should it advance) and Eddie Johnson. He also added striker Alan Gordon while dropping Corey Ashe, Herculez Gomez, Jack McInerney and Oguchi Onyewu.