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USMNT to play Copa America tuneup against Puerto Rico

Photo by Trevor Ruszkowski/USA Today Sports
Photo by Trevor Ruszkowski/USA Today Sports

Before the U.S. Men’s National Team plays two important friendlies against CONMEBOL competition in May, Jurgen Klinsmann’s men will play a CONCACAF minnow.

The USMNT will play a tuneup against Puerto Rico on May 22 in Bayamon, Puerto Rico (12 p.m., Fox Sports 1, UniMas, Univision Deportes), using mainly European- and Mexican-based players. MLS-based players are expected to arrive to camp after league games on May 21 and 22.

“We are thrilled to be playing Puerto Rico in our first preparation game for the Copa America Centenario,” Klinsmann said in the official release.  “This will be an important opportunity for our players to stay sharp and keep progressing towards our opener against Colombia, and we appreciate all the efforts by the Puerto Rican Football Federation to help organize the match.”

The Americans take on Ecuador on May 25 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, before playing Bolivia at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas, three days later.

Following the team’s two friendlies, the USMNT will head to Santa Clara, California, where Klinsmann and company will play Colombia in the first group stage game of the Copa America Centenario. They will then play Costa Rica in Chicago, Illinois, on June 7 before facing off against Paraguay in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 11.

The official 23-man roster for the Copa America competition is expected to be released on May 20.

What do you think of the friendly against Puerto Rico? Who do you expect to see play in the game?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. I believe Jk is taking this tournament serious since he scheduled a friendly with Ecuador the team we will must likely meet in the next round out of this group. This is classic Jk MO just like when he scheduled a friendly against Belgium before the World Cup group play but it feel threw. All in all not to difficult of a group to get out off but with a bad coach like Jk i wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t. Who knows. We’ll see.

    Reply
    • Toughest group according to the Fifa Rankings and Elo ratings for what they are worth. Of course if you look at the top 2 teams in each group the US group would be the lowest. According to the Elo ratings the US is the weakest team in its group.

      Reply
      • Don’t mistake the way Jk has this team playing (weak) with us being in a crazy strong group. It’s just a solid group. We didn’t end up with Uruguay, Argentina, or Brazil in this group. It’s just a group with 3 other solid teams. We know Costa Rica since we play them all the time and can get results against them. Columbia is solid but depending on how we plant our team on the field we can manage. Paraguay is a mostly defensive team with troubles at top currently and rumor has it they are taking an all sub-23 team. We have had our coach for 5 years. We will be playing at home. We will have access to all our players since we aren’t competing in olympics which would require us to form 2 national teams and the Copa America play dates will be fifa dates so Clubs have to release players. But we will see. By the way anybody who still believes the Fifa rankings i’ve got a bridge to sell you if your interested.

      • I don’t disagree we should get out of our group because it is at home. However, the US isn’t known for having great home field advantages when we play in large football stadiums, we’d be better off playing in the MLS stadiums in those three locations. I think we will, but the group isn’t easy by any means either.

  2. A good lineup for PR.

    Rubin-Wooten-Arriola
    Zelalem-Hyndman
    Kitchen
    ?—Ream-Miazga–Alvarado
    Cropper or Steffan (if he’s healthy)

    Bench: Kieswetter, Green, Yedlin, Canouse, Cameron (if you want to use him DM otherwise no), Brooks, Fafa Picault, Omar, Yarbrough.

    Reply
      • Yeah we better run out our best lineup for the 152 best team in the world. Who wouldn’t want Johnson, Wood, Cameron, Yedlin, Pulisic, and Brooks putting in 90 minutes in upper 80s temps with 80% humidity at high noon in our all black uniforms. What a reasonable and logical solution.

      • Does, your mom know you’re online, Prag? Shouldn’t you be working on your seventh-grade science project?

      • Boyfrien%.. Coax you to write that Billy?

        The Razor and the Terror..

        Don’t want to know where those particular monikers came from..

        Please keep it secret..

      • It’s been my experience that people who rely on insults do so because they have nothing meaningful to say.

  3. Looking forward to watching some offseason fridge players go wild in this one. Pulisic, Kiesewetter, Emerson each with a goal.

    Reply
  4. Camp begins May 15 and final rosters are due May 20, I think we may see a lot of guys who will not be on that 23 man roster against PR. It will give them a little reward for coming in and working hard even though they didn’t make the final roster. Those younger guys that maybe aren’t getting a lot of first team minutes in Europe, but give them an international match even if its PR.

    Or JK is assuming we aren’t going to get out of a pretty tough group so he now has 6 games to work new players or work on their new style if we are going to stick with the 4-3-3.

    Reply
    • Puerto Rico has only qualified once for the Caribbean Cup and has never qualified for WC (not even the group stage rounds) or Gold Cup so it would be a nice chance for younger European and Mexican based players to get a cap and most likely a win before the actual roster arrives.

      (Side note Chris Armas played for PR in the Caribbean Cup in 1993, but it only counted as friendlies because it wasn’t a recognized tournament at the time)

      Reply
    • Yup..

      The head coach of the USMNT is “mailing-in”a major international tournament played on home soil..

      A tournament he has verbally stressed the importance of repeatedly for say.. A year or so..

      You soccer geniuses never cease to amaze me..

      It sort of like you guys are gearing up for induction in the idiot hall of fame..

      Next time..
      If you have something that stupid to say..

      Start a blog

      Reply
      • Pretty big difference between mailing it in and hedging your bets, but obviously subtlety is not your strongest suit.

        And with Klinnsman its hard for anyone to know what he’s thinking because yes as you say he’s stressed the tournament for over a year and then recently said since we missed the Olympics he’s looking at bringing in those young players for the Copa instead. We couldn’t beat Honduras, Brazil, or Colombian U23s, but were going to take it to Argentina’s full side with this group. Guess what Klinnsman cares about the World Cup anything else is coach speak, but I’m just an idiot which I guess is better than being an #ss.

      • Way to clean it up Mr Razor..

        Your wealth of stupid a@s comments on this site speak for themselves..

        Just copy and paste “I don’t like the coach” next time instead of trying to distribute”subtlety

        You’d be better at that..

      • Clearly you did miss my point, but I’m glad someone finally called me a Klinsman hater since usually I get fan boy thrown at me. Try coming up with a full squad of Mexican and Euro players without playing a bunch of 19-22 year olds?

      • Go away..

        You’ve just gone from Spock-like in your logical discourse to overly emotional..

        Tough being the criticized..

        Easy being the “reasonable” critic

      • It seems you’ve annointed yourself the guy to come in here to clean up what you consider to be stupid comments, comments regarding a coach that has made head scratcher after head scratcher moves that have been considered stupid by many. And no, no one is claiming they know more than Jurgen but it can be argued that he is not cut out to be a manager internationally or at the club level. Results speak for themselves so to diminish someone elses comments about what JK will/might do is naive on your part because he has managed this team with seemingly no plan and the results bare that. You can almost say the USMNT has mailed in the last year and a half when considering the totality of everything. What he does roster wise is anyones guess and that has been the case since he’s been in charge.

  5. lots of miles.

    club teams –> US Camp –> PR –> Frisco –> KC –> Santa Clara –> Chicago –> Philly

    and that’s not even past the group stage of CA. jeez…

    Reply
    • ya about 8,500 miles in 19 days or about 500 miles a day.

      hopefully PHI->SEA/NY->HOU/CHI->NJ/AZ would just about double that!

      such is life as a international footballer!

      Reply
  6. Good. No Altidore, Bradley and Dempsey for this game = positive!

    Abroad players with some youth players would be perfect!

    Reply
  7. I know the concept of keeping sharp, but this will be after long seasons and summer temperatures. I hope they don’t run the risk of overplay and fatigue.

    Reply
    • Yes a game on May 22, then May 25, then May 28 and then the first game of the tournament against Colombia on June 3rd; that’s a lot of games with little rest in-between. Add the travel since each game is in a different city. I hope Klinsmann knows what he is doing. He is definitely taking this tournament very seriously.

      Reply
      • We will know how seriously when we see the roster. If we see a lot of the young players and no J Jones or Dempsey, et al, well, he is probably then using it for development purposes. My hope is he does use a lot of our young players and save the veterans for the last round of WC qualifying.

      • Gary, if I had to guess right now, then I think the only real “young” players on the roster will be: for sure Pulisic and maybe Miazga and maybe one of the u-23 goal-keepers (I don’t count Yedlin and Morris on that list because they are pretty much already established USMNT players under Klinsmann). Besides that I anticipate a veteran roster.

        Howard, Guzan, U-23 keeper
        Yedlin, Chandler, Cameron, Gonzalez, Brooks, Besler, (WHO ARE THE TWO LEFT-BACKS?)
        F Johnson, Bedoya, Bradley, Jones, Nagbe, Nguyen, Pulisic
        Altidore, Dempsey, Wood, Morris, Zardes

        Maybe Miazga makes it instead of taking two left-back options. Maybe Finlay makes the roster. Maybe Beckerman makes it instead of Nguyen. Or maybe one of D Williams/A Morales makes it over Beckerman/Nguyen.

      • Don’t think you are too far off, I think we’ll see Zusi, as well as he played in Colombus. I think you could get rid of Chandler too since Cameron could fill in at RB if Yedlin went down.

    • Well, Puerto Rico shouldn’t be much more than a glorified scrimmage unless they (PR) want to try and make a statement and play very physical.

      Reply

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