The U.S. Men’s National Team will aim to finish their March schedule on a high note on Tuesday against Chile. With plenty of players to choose from, head coach Gregg Berhalter has already confirmed one lineup change.
Ethan Horvath will get the start in goal against Chile in Houston, Berhalter told reporters on Monday. Horvath will take the place of NYCFC Sean Johnson who went the full 90 in last week’s 1-0 win over Ecuador.
The 23-year-old Horvath has made 24 appearances in all competitions this season for Belgian side Club Brugge. He has appeared in both the UEFA Champions League and Europa League for Brugge.
Coming into Tuesday’s match, Horvath has won three caps for the USMNT and will aim to bolster his resume ahead of this summer’s Gold Cup.
Berhalter also stated on Monday that numerous lineup changes will occur for the Chile match. Midfielder Tyler Adams has returned to Bundesliga outfit RB Leipzig, while fellow midfielder Weston McKennie is injured.
I think it would have been higher value to see Gonzalez, who never gets to play, so we could gauge what he offers to make an informed GC decision. We kind of know Horvath is going already, and you could see at GC if he can find consistency or goes back to periodic howlers. Instead, we seem to have basically picked GC keeping already. In an absolute sense I don’t mind seeing Horvath play for the same reasons I just said for GC, the nominal backup keepers need to prove their quality and reliability, and we need to know how they play relative to each other.
I say “nominal” because USMNT has had a bad habit of favoring starters with the bulk of the time and Steffen’s injury underlines we need a quality 2 and 3 prepared and ready to go. The guys playing this “week” are for the moment technically not the backups, but rather the starters. USMNT needs to start handling its personnel approach like this is routinely possible. Plus for some reason no one seems to correlate all the caps Donovan got with his sabbatical and fairly premature retirement.
It will be interesting to see how Berhalter tweaks his lineup without either McKennie or Adams. It will almost certainly make for a less energetic midfield presence.
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I suppose a possibility is to play 3 in back: Ream, Brooks and Long did that for most of the last game. Thant would most likely pt Bradley and Trap as the 2 deep midfielders. Then there are Arriola and Pulisic as wide mids with Zafdes and Morris up top. That leaves a hole at central attacking mid (GB will probably put Pulisic there) so perhaps Yedlin gets his chance as wide right midfielder.
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It would be an interesting variation on what GB said he wanted to do (and without Adams at RB, he might not have the personell to do.)
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I am sure GB will do something else.
“Berhalter also stated on Monday that numerous lineup changes will occur for the Chile match…” Man, am I glad I live near Orlando and not Houston. Feel bad for USMNT fans who were hoping to see a mostly A-team in the second game.