The U.S. men's national team takes on five-time World Cup champion Brazil tonight at FedEx Field (8pm, ESPN2). The match will serve as the U.S. team's toughest test ahead of the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Antigua and Barbuda and Guatemala.
The Americans are riding a four-match unbeaten streak, and just posted a resounding a 5-1 thrashing of Scotland on Saturday. Brazil will present a significantly more difficult challenge, with Neymar and Hulk leading a dynamic attack.
Clint Dempsey is not in the starting lineup tonight, but is in uniform for the match, while Jozy Altidore will sit tonight's match out as he regains fitness after joining the team on Monday following a three-week break after the Dutch League season.
SBI will be providing live commentary on tonight's match so please feel free to follow along here. As always, you are welcome to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.
Enjoy the action (Tonight's commentary is after the jump):
honestly, i don’t think parkhurst would have been able to do any better. but man, brazil was really coming at us on that side. johnson/torres were much better than dolo/LD. but neymar/marcelo is a much harder match up.
no, he did not. he was fantastic in the first half with his possession. our entire section was having a conversation on how good he was doing. torres played well last night, but kind of dropped off in the second half. that coupled with his yellow, plus Dempsey needing minutes, meant he got subbed off.
i agree about gooch though. which is too bad because i really like him.
I don’t see Donovan as intimidated. He just had a bad game.
I agree that the ref was way too noticeable. Don’t think it really affected the outcome much, nor does the outcome really matter much given that it’s a friendly. But he didn’t have a great game. There was an obvious foul missed in the lead-up to the third(?) Brazil goal as well.
Right on.