The Yanks’ first of three World Cup tune-up begins with
tonight’s friendly against Azerbaijan at 10pm EST. I usually refuse to call any game a
“friendly” (“exhibition” is my nomenclature of choice), but considering Jurgen
Klinsmann’s pseudo-number two/mentor Berti Vogts manages Azerbaijan, I suppose “friendly” actually fits the bill
for once.
You’ll be disappointed if you’ve come here looking for a
scouting report on the Milli, because
I wouldn’t be able to find the former Soviet country on a map, much less
provide any footy insight. With an easy
win assumed even by the technical staff, people seem less concerned with the opposition and far
more eager to play judge and jury with the Stars and Stripes’ development.
The debate is far from over, but the bloodletting officially
is and this is the 23 that, barring injury, will be heading to The Big Show. While we know who will be going to Brazil we still don’t know how exactly the team will line up and,
apparently, neither does Mr. Klinsmann.
Depending upon your predisposition, this level of uncertainty is either
all part of the plan or full-fledged insanity.
Frankly, I’m feeling a little bit like this, but, then again, I’d rather eat vanilla
ice cream while watching the roller coaster from a park bench than strap myself
in for the ride.
One man we know (or at least think we know) will be starting
against Ghana is Clint Dempsey and the dude with the armband can count SnoopDog amongst his fans.
Deuce has shown himself to be quite the freestyler, maybe this will lead
to some kind of collaboration.
Let’s stick with “collaboration” as the key word for
tonight’s game as it’s the partnerships up and down the Yanks’ spine that will
determine their fate in the Amazon.
Up top, it’d be great to see Jozy bag a few exhibition goals
and clear the Black Cats from his head.
He and Deuce are far from strangers, hopefully we’ll see some nice
interplay between the two.
In the center of the park, Jermaine Jones and Michael
Bradley have a definite Odd Couple
thing going on and I believe I’m far from alone in wishing it were Kyle
Beckerman’s dreadlocks next to the Bald Eagle.
Unless Christmas comes in June, that won’t be the case and, unless
Christmas comes in June, we’ll still see Jones recklessly stray from his
holding position.
At the back, it seems likely that the Matt Besler-Omar
Gonzalez tandem that we rode through qualifying will have the dubious pleasure
of being berated by Tim Howard. Then
again, Gonzalez has struggled with both form and fitness in 2014, Geoff Cameron
has clearly been taken as a center back, and, apparently, Brad Evans spent his
brief time in camp almost exclusively playing center back.
Other notes:
Last week, I took a stab at predicting the right back depth
chart – this was proven to be a wild swing in the dark. Both DeAndre Yedlin and Timmy Chandler made
the team (I thought they’d be home) and, at this point, Fabian Johnson could
line up anywhere on the field and I wouldn’t blink.
Everything Julian Green does will be scrutinized six times
over, he should get used to this.
I’m excited to see Aron Johannsson play. Greg would be better placed than I to
critique where he fits into this attack, but I’d like to see him given minutes
at both the advanced striker and second striker positions over these three
games.
Fin. Let me know what I got wrong below.
3 comments:
As soon as this storm passes I can check out BandH v USA, but I guess really the second half was when we want to tune in anyway. It's a good lead in to tonight. We got panama in Seattle last night and Germany at RFK earlier. Fox is bringing it.
And as much of a friendly as this might be tonight, the other two games are against hard tackling tough teams, who will both be looking to make a statement. I'm not sure we are looking at the final 23 man roster just yet. I mean, that's very obvious
Howard
Fjohnson Cameron Besler DMB
Jones Bradley
Zusi Dempsey bedoya
Altidore
This looks to be the starting lineup tonight.
Starting spots are still up for grabs.
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