While U.S. Soccer has yet to make it official, it appears the U.S. Men’s National Team will face off with one of the world’s usual elite this fall.
Italy announced a November 20th friendly clash with the USMNT on Friday, although U.S. Soccer has yet to make an announcement of its own. A venue is set to be announced in the coming weeks
#Azzurri 🇮🇹
Two friendlies have been confirmed with the side set to play #Ukraine 🇺🇦 on 10th October and the USA 🇺🇸 on 20th November.
👉 https://t.co/j1t8bWTDiv#VivoAzzurro pic.twitter.com/G703BTmwZO
— Italy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@Azzurri_En) April 13, 2018
Both Italy and the U.S. are among the more high-profile nations to miss out on this summer’s World Cup as both teams now enter a rebuilding phase. The match against the U.S. takes place during a break that doesn’t feature the new UEFA Nations League, which kicks off in September.
Italy and the U.S. last met back in 2012 as Clint Dempsey’s goal led the USMNT to a 1-0 victory over Italy in Genoa. The win was the USMNT’s first over the Azzurri in 11 tries.
Before turning attention towards the match against Italy, the U.S. faces a trio of summer matches against Bolivia, Ireland and France.
it will be the dawning of a new day for us
This will hopefully be the 6th match for the new manager 2 Sept, 2 Oct, 2 Nov. Good way to wrap up the year.
England has an off date a few days before this. Let’s end this terrible year in London and Rome!
Keep in mind, it’s also possible to schedule a Middle Eastern/Asian team at a European location at that time as well with Asian Cup qualification over. Africa unfortunately has ACN qualifying in that window.
Would it then be possible to schedule 2 friendlies in Europe, since they can’t travel here?
Yes, but it is tricky because the UEFA groups are groups of 3 so there is one team from each group available and its the last round of the group stage so some teams may want to rest ahead of their final match. As DB said we could schedule a team from another region and just play it in Europe.
There are two match dates in September, October, and November. European clubs will have at least one of those dates in each month for Nations League matches and none are allowed to travel to the US if they have a match in Europe that week so it may limit the opponents the US could schedule. Based on the schedule for November, England, Switzerland, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey and Ireland would be available squads for a Nov. 15, 16 match
Lost: the US should have their manager in place by the September friendly matches
This will likely be the first match for the new coach and their staff. It’ll be far enough into the 2018 European season that the young players should know their club situation, and the USMNT coaching staff should have a good indication of which young players are going to be pushing for real minutes. With both national teams in rebuilding phase there will hopefully be squads of young up & coming stars.
November? As a US soccer fan, should I get excited about this? I think there’s some other interesting international games happening before then.