If you've grown tired of seeing the U.S. national team host a Scandinavian team at the end of its annual January camps, you may be in luck.
According to a report, Chile has been scheduled to play the United States in Los Angeles on January 22 or 23. While no venue has been announced, the location of the match makes it likely that it will be played at the Home Depot Center.
What do you think of a potential USA-Chile fixture? Who would you like to see the United States play in January? Who are you hoping to see capped for the United States?
Share your thoughts below.
Harrington, by the way, was the fastest scoring rookie in the MLS. It took him under 3 minutes to score in his first game. He is underutilized and should never be a back. Harrington was pegged as a back and he became a role player. Harrington was first used as a back in college and should be a flanking MF. That is why he makes so many fantastic passes or crosses. He is dangerous as a passer and an attacker.
I don’t care who US soccer team plays. After rehiring boring Bob Bradley and not hiring Jurgen Klinsmann I will no longer support the National Team and the US Soccer Federation. It is a dysfunctional organization not deserving of fan support. Until it revamps it’s whole structure, I will not follow or support the team.
+1
Point well taken…I was saying that it would be nice if the Nats COULD play a possession/build-up type game not that they should play exclusively this way. I am not claiming to be any kind of tactical expert, but I think that U.S. soccer is benefiting from trying to integrate more with the Americas including matches and tournaments, and that I hope that it continues in this vein including coaching exchanges and relationships with academies (which may well be happening unbeknownst to me).
I do love the scheduling of Chile, our scheduled opponents have been better of late, and credit must be given to Bob Bradley and whoever from the USSF has been in charge of it. Better opposition will both provide good experience and expose weaknesses for the staff to address.
I would like to see Agbossoumonde, Ream, and possibly a Charlie Davies sighting? We should also be seeing as many young strikers as possible, as that is clearly not a team strength right now.
He is easily one of the more underrated players in MLS and in the USMNT. Not the best, not the fastest, but he’s consistent. He plays solid week in and week out for RSL.
I think Garza can play either place.
Umm, it’s January camp. Not sure if it’s a FIFA date, guessing it’s not. Thus. . no full team.
When was the last time guys like Dempsey were allowed to leave their clubs to come hang out in LA for a couple weeks in the middle of a season?
Ryan Smith’s father is American. If you are born from American parents, you have US nationality, therefore, he is eligible to play for the US.
I don’t know if you remember, but Marcus Tracy was getting regular PT and scored goals before he got injured. And I’m not too sure if you can call a World Cup group winner “not very good”.
If Chile bings anything like a full squad and we use all MLS/Camp Cupcake guys we will be crushed badly. BB has to decide if he wants us to be competitive or allow the MLS guys to do their best and see who survives. BB has been good about not re-enforcing the B & C Teams he calls in. Good to see a good opponent for a change in January.
Chile is going to be a great opponent but I hope we get some more African and Asian competition stateside this go round. I find the maturation of Korea, Japan and Australia interesting considering the similarities in our domestic leagues. Plus, I think it’d be beneficial to have them deal with with physicality and pace of the likes of Ghana and Nigeria a bit more.
The thing fans need to realize is that one style is not better than another. The best teams do not all use the one you’ve specified. Now, I’m not saying you said that, but the thing is that we need to focus on our strengths it is not possession. We’ve been better when we’ve attacked at speed, stretched the opponent’s defense and our wide players have provided support for our forwards. We play a style pretty similar to what Germany have been doing where they open up the opponents defense with pace and movement off the ball rather than a collection of passing through the midfield.
Now, I do feel that our ability to get the ball through the midfield by supporting one another needs to be way better, because Ghana, Slovenia, Honduras, and El Salvador all had success against us by providing pressuring and packing the midfield. The problem is that our players will tend to flood into the attack and leave our central midfielders to try and locate them in the attack. This was okay against Spain because they would apply high pressure and once the ball got into Bradley and Clark, the front four Donovan and Dempsey would be high in support of Altidore and Davies. Spain’s midfield couldn’t get back quickly enough and Sergio Ramos getting way forward left a lot of space on the left. Davies making runs wide stretched Spain and made 2v1 situations. This is exactly what happened on the first goal.
However, in the Ghana game, our central midfielders didn’t get quite enough support and when Ghana pressed with a 5-man midfield, our Clark and Bradley got way outnumbered, which is what happened on the first goal.
In the second half, Dempsey took up a more central position and Feilhaber was a slightly more traditional wide left midfield. Bradley pushed ahead of Edu instead of sitting on the same axis. This gave the USA more numbers in the midfield and more piercing passing routes for moving the ball through the midfield.
What I’m saying is that we’re a bit better in terms of attacking at speed, but we should be a bit more comfortable moving the ball through the midfield because other teams are depending on us not being able to, and that’s how we end up losing the ball and that eventually leads to goals.
ahhh Marcus Tracy, the 24 year old with 2 professional goals. And people wonder why we arent very good.
Even though it isn’t a FIFA date I like the idea of playing Commebal teams over a Scandinavian squad. Chile’s style of play is much more similar to our CONCACAF rivals (Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica) than say Sweden or Denmark.
My dream for the USMNT would be a team that could play a more Latin-style (i.e. possession and more wide open play, rather than counter-attacking and hunkering down), but still use our size and athleticism to punish teams. I think these kinds of friendlies and things like the Superliga and the CONCACAF Champions League along with a different approach to developmental programs could make this a reality.
Teal Bunbury is eligible to play for the United States. He has yet to choose an international affiliation.
This. He’s still going strong for Hannover 96. Spector isn’t playing for West Ham. And we don’t really know what to expect from the Alston/Franklin/Lichaj crop of right backs yet. I see no reason why Dolo can’t at least stick around for the Gold Cup. Who knows, maybe if he’s still playing and playing well he could go to the World Cup in 2014.
Since when does Harrington play left back? And why is everyone up on his nuts? Just because he had 2 nice crosses against Houston?
Also, no Goodson? He’s not terrific but he’s certainly ahead of Gonzalez, Opara, Cameron and Ream at this point.
Lichaj could possibly be in there at RB too, as well as Alston.
If we do go with a 4-2-3-1, Holden could probably play at AM-C, right in front of Bradley & Jones
Gomez is still in the forward picture as well.
Ryan Smith isn’t a US citizen
It’s a a January Camp Cupcake friendly that’s 3 and a half years before the next World Cup. Relaaaaax
First USMNT in my area in quite a while. If it’s in LA, I’ll be there
Yes, CrazyMike366, that’s exactly it! There’s no way that he couldn’t have possibly been good enough
word. Opara’s looked really really good.
Ryan Smith is ridiculously good… he should get a call up in this.
Gotoku Sakai
George John
yes, yes, and yes
Id like to see Ike Opara before him
And where do you suggest Shea play? on the left, on the right, up top?
Hunter Freeman
Easy there buddy, you were good until you mentioned any other DCM we have, what about Edu and Jones? Both of those players are miles ahead of Beckerman even on his absolute best day.
he’s better than Ricardo Clark or any other DCM we have.
English born to an American father.
Fun story – he asked one of Capello’s staffers what he’d have to do to earn a call-up to the England squad. The reply he received was something along the lines of ‘you have no hope of ever getting called up regardless of form because we play favorites, and you’re not one of them.’
So he left England for the land of opportunity, where all we care about is how good you are.
I’m sure Ives can direct you to a post about it from the summer.
He has nice technical abilty but………
I’ve seen him play and I don’t think he’s ready just my two cents.