The U.S. Men’s National Team will seek a victory in its final game of 2018 on Tuesday.
Dave Sarachan’s side take on Italy in Genk, Belgium looking to rebound from a 3-0 thumping against England on Thursday.
In the defeat, the youthful USMNT looked out of sync against the rejuvenated Three Lions.
With several players leaving the camp due to injuries, a rotated squad seems likely. Christian Pulisic still heads the bunch, while Timothy Weah and Bobby Wood will look for positive endings to up-and-down years. All 23 players are available for selection after six missed out on last Thursday’s action.
SBI will be providing commentary on the match so feel free to join us as we discuss the action during the match.
In the meantime, here is a look back at this week’s pre-match coverage heading into kickoff:
The USMNT seek a winning conclusion to what has been a roller coaster 2018. (READ)
Who Should Start for the USMNT against Italy. (READ)
Ciro Immobile and Georgio Chiellini were two of a number of Italian veterans who have been released ahead of the USMNT friendly. (READ)
A mixture of poor movement and a lack of communication doomed the USMNT in a loss to England. (READ)
There were few bright spots in the USMNT’s lackluster showing against England. (READ)
Miazga and brooks do not work. You all may say I am crazy but next time we play a gold team like top 15. Lets do Olusunde and Palmer Brown in the middle as our centerbacks
I am in Sacramento CA Lunch time game comes on. Wish it was later
I’m going to go ahead and set some expectations here, since I think we’re slipping on that sort of thing right now. The last time the US played Italy we won away 1-0 in 2012. Italy missed Russia also, and currently sits 2nd in their A LoN group behind Portugal, to whom they lost (away) and tied (home) in their LoN fixtures. We tied Portugal just last year. This is a neutral site game. I don’t want to jinx my team by outright saying what I expect, but thinking people can read between the lines of how I feel we should stack up. I’m putting this on the record because I think there is a Fed-serving erosion of expectations taking place this past half year.
I’m also going to note for the record, since I get crap for promoting experiments, that Italy’s squad contains 7 players with 0 caps and another 8 players with 5 caps or fewer. That is not how they handled the LoN game end of last week. But we aren’t playing any games that count right now.