The national team
plays two away friendlies this month, in Denmark and Switzerland. The current team
will be without Clint Dempsey, who pulled a hamstring
in training on Monday and was sent back to Seattle. Dempsey, who will not be
replaced on the current U.S. squad, was one of eight players who were also
called in for Klinsmann’s experimental January-camp roster. Some of those
players—like Dempsey himself, Michael Bradley, and Jozy Altidore—are mainstays,
while others—like Miguel Ibarra and Gyasi Zardes—have just a handful of games
played with the senior national team.
The rest of the current
roster also has something of an experimental, or anyway unfamiliar, quality.
Midfielder Danny Williams and defender Tim Ream
are back in the picture after long national-team layoffs, and five
out
of the twenty-two players are looking for their first caps, including two dual
Mexican-American citizens—goalkeeper William Yarbrough and defender Ventura
Alvarado. And speaking of experimental: In a fit of prescience, in my last post
I predicted that Brek Shea might be moved to left back on the USMNT, and he did play that position against Panama in the second January friendly, and is listed as a defender on this month's roster. The guess
wasn’t a stretch, given the dearth of fullbacks on that January roster, but I
did find it odd how few commentators discussed the possibility, at least those that
I read and listened to in the days before the games.
Anyway, Shea is
now playing left back for his club team down in Orlando as well as for the
national team. Given his size and speed, I like the move and hope he settles
into that important position. Whether or not he does, it will be difficult for
any U.S. player to succeed DaMarcus Beasley in the role. Klinsmann has in my
opinion made some poor decisions in his time as USMNT coach, but moving Beasley
to left back for the 2014 World Cup cycle was a stroke of genius. And if
Beasley continues to perform like he did for Houston last week against the LA
Galaxy, we might be begging him to come out of national-team retirement come
2018.
Here’s what you
need to know about today’s game, and the game next week.
U.S. vs. Denmark
Time: Wednesday, March 25, 3 p.m.
ET
Place: NRGi Park, Aarhus, Denmark
TV Broadcasts: ESPN2, WatchESPN, UniMás
and univisiondeportes.com
Current Denmark FIFA ranking:
28 (The U.S.’s current ranking is 32)
Player to watch: Christian
Eriksen. Eriksen has twice been named the Danish football player of the
year. In his first season with Tottenham Hotspur (2013-2014), he won that
club’s player of the year award.
U.S. vs. Switzerland
Time: Tuesday, March 31, 12 p.m. ET
Place: Stadion Letzigrund; Zurich,
Switzerland
TV Broadcasts: FOX Sports 1,
UniMás, and UDN.
Current Switzerland FIFA ranking:
12
Player to watch: Xherdan Shaqiri. The
23-year-old plays his club soccer for Inter Milan, after having declined offers
from multiple clubs in the English premier league. He scored a hat trick
against Honduras in the 2014 World Cup.
