The U.S. Men’s National Team and Ghana have developed a strong rivalry on the international stage over recent years, and the two nations could be close to meeting again this fall.
ESPN FC is reporting that U.S. Soccer is finalizing plans for the USMNT to face Ghana on October 11 in Washington D.C. The teams would meet at RFK Stadium just four days after the U.S. is slated to take on CONCACAF side Cuba down in Havana.
After getting the best of the USMNT back at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, which kept the U.S. out of the knockout round, Ghana again defeated the Americans in the Round of 16 at the 2010 World Cup. An extra-time goal from Asamoah Gyan sunk the U.S.’ chances of reaching the final eight.
However, the U.S. got its revenge two years ago in Brazil when John Brooks’ 86th minute header gave the Americans a 2-1 win in the first of three group stage matches at the 2014 World Cup.
The USMNT will resume CONCACAF World Cup qualifying in September as Jurgen Klinsmann’s team closes out Group C play in the fourth round. The U.S. currently trails group leaders Trinidad & Tobago by three points with two matches remaining before the Hexagonal.
Evidence this website is dying a slow death… many old regular users finally get the friendly match up they have been clamoring for since 2002 and it is practically dead silent in here. Sad, this used to be such an enjoyable website to come and read the discussions. It was rare to have a thread with less than 20 comments.
Its gotten pretty polarized, the overall in attention to detail from the writers making just basic mistakes in the push to get things out fast, and biggest of all no Ives. I know I came here after following Ives, on ESPN.com and now he rarely makes an appearance. All of these contribute to the loss of interest I think.
I agree. I don’t even read the articles anymore. I just go straight to the comment sections for discussion, but now that is getting sparse. I have even started exploring other sites bc they tend to report stories first. Never thought I would see the day…
The scheduling of 2 friendlies of drastically different quality is somewhat hard to plan for. Against Cuba the idea should be to bring a young inexperienced squad with a handful of fringe type players in order to integrate & determine player quality. Ghana on the other hand is a more significant opponent, and as such would require a team composed of more experience and skill.
If this match does come off….not sure what the best roster selection would be.
With the opening semifinal round of WCQ’s done after the Sept. 6th game vs TNT, you’d have think that fringe players and new blood would make up the majority of these 2 rosters(Cuba, Ghana). These next 2 years are extremely important with the WC only 2 years away, the team still needs to get younger in several positions and this window of friendlies should serve as a gateway to finding those players.
Hexagonal starts Nov. 7, and MLS will not be wanting to lose players in the middle of the playoff push so add that to the mix.