The U.S. Men’s National Team will return to Audi Field this Fall, as it kicks off its Nations Cup campaign against Cuba.
U.S. Soccer officially announced Audi Field as the host of the October 11th clash between the Americans and Cuba as they kick off Concacaf Nations League play in a group that also features Canada.
The match will mark the U.S. team’s first appearance in the Concacaf Nations League.
The USMNT will be returning to Audi Field for the first time since suffering a 1-0 loss to Jamaica in a friendly on June 5.
The match against Cuba will be the U.S. team’s first official competitive match since suffering a 1-0 loss to Mexico in the Gold Cup final in June.
The Americans will follow up its match against Cuba with a trip to Canada to face the Canadian National Team in Nations League action in Toronto.
Venues for the second set of Nations League matches in November have yet to be announced, with the Americans set to travel to Cuba before playing host to the Canadians.
October’s match against Cuba will be the USMNT’s 13th meeting against Los Leones. The Americans hold a 10-1-1 advantage in the series, having last faces the Cubans in a friendly victory in 2016.
The winners of the four Concacaf Nations League groups will compete in a knockout round tournament in June of 2020 to determine a champion.
The Nations League carries added significance due to the changes in Concacaf’s World Cup qualifying format, which will determine the six teams competing in the Hexagonal Round of World Cup qualifying based on FIFA rankings.
Nations League results will have a significant part to play in those rankings, and while the United States isn’t in danger of missing out on qualifying for the Hex due to its lofty FIFA ranking (currently 30th in the world), Canada is currently the eighth highest-rated Concacaf team (78th overall), nine spots behind El Salvador, the team currently ranked as the sixth place team in the region.
The Americans return to action in September, with friendlies against Mexico and Uruguay. The USMNT faces El Tri on Sept. 5 at Met Life Stadium, before traveling to St. Louis to take on Uruguay.
I’m all for getting some more young players into camp, and hopefully some game time against the weaker opponent (Cuba). That being said we still need to include the current core players (Pulisic, Adams, McKennie, Steffen, Brooks, Miazga, Long, Boyd, & Weah), so long as they are healthy.
The rest of the team can be filled using a mix of Veterans, Fringe players, & prospects:
Veterans: F. Johnson, S. Johnson, Jozy & Bradley
Fringe: Arriola, Morales, Lima, Horvath,
Prospects: Dest, Cannon, Robinson, Sargent, Soto, EPB, CCV, Gonzalez
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While we can’t take Canada for granted, we should be able to use a more experimental squad during the Cuba game.
Curious to see how many Cuban players defect in Canada in September, and then in October in DC. Surprised they keep fielding evenly mildly competent teams. The amount of players who have defected since 2005 is staggering (see Wikipedia) including basically their whole U-20 team a few years ago.
Leave Pulisic, McKinnie, Adams, etc… with their clubs for this international window, and call in as many U-20 guys as we can to give them reps and/or cap tie them. If we can’t beat Cuba with Weah, Sargent, Soto, and Dest on the field, then we got bigger problems. The game against Canada will be a bit more challenging, but certainly still manageable with our youngsters.
The Stupidity!!
Who cares about team cohesivity and players gaining familiarity with one another, right?
This is not an Avengers movies where the good guys show up at the last minute to save the day. Every game matters.
If the USMNT was playing your El Tri butt buddies, then I would agree with you, Lil’ Bobby. But we’re stuck playing crap teams in this crap competition. So cohesion is about #8 on the list of things to achieve. Perfect opportunity to hand some caps out to deserving youngsters. So no, not every game matters 3 years out of WC 2022.
PS: The fact that you referenced the Avengers confirms what I always suspected: that you are still in middle school or, alternatively, live in your mother’s basement and have the emotional maturity of a middle schooler…
Canada would crush our U23s if you don’t care about winning the NL fine but to think we’d beat Canada with our youth team is pretty silly. There frontline is so good they can use Alphonso Davies as a LB.
In fact, I don’t care about the result in the NL, especially if the reward is cap-tieing some promising players. although I’m not too worried about the team that got smoked by Haiti. Would it be a tough game? for sure. But crush our youngsters? That’s unlikely…
Got smoked by Haiti, they were up 2-0 at the half and then there right back completely fell apart. Their back line is not very good but there front 6 is full of talent. David 10+ goals in Belgium, Cavallini 10+ goals a year in Liga Mx, Hoillett over 150 EPL starts, Arfield 74 EPL starts 11 goals for Rangers last year, Osorio 10 goals for Toronto last year, Davies bought by Bayern, Mark Anthony Kate the heart of LAFCs midfield. Against our youth team that lost to Ukraine and Ecuador with only two starters that play regularly in professional leagues. Sorry we would lose by at least 2 goals just like the U20s would if they played the NT.
And yet, they haven’t managed to win a Gold Cup or qualify for a World Cup in 33 years…
Again, I don’t disagree that our U23 team would possibly lose to Canada, but this is an international window that can be used for another purpose besides giving Bradley valuable playing time that would best be used on the next generation.
Didn’t we just have a game here in June with pretty poor turnout? Also the Canada game is rumored for Orlando, they just had a game there as well. Just keep ignoring other soccer markets, especially the pacific NW.
Too much travel for Euro based players to go to the NW. It’s the same reason Canada is playing at BMO in Toronto instead BC Place.
Can still go to NYC, Boston, Atlanta, even texas. We have so many markets that need games, should never be playing in the same market twice in the calendar year.
Audi was 95% full for a very poor c squad. DC definitely deserves another match.
Playing NYC in two weeks, Boston and Atlanta are hard to schedule in the fall because of American football. If you look at soccer specific in the Eastern time zone, you’d also have Phillie but they just played there too. Last year they played at UConn. USL soccer stadiums probably ruled out by size. It’s weird but it starts to make sense. Columbus is little further and hasn’t shown well the last couple times either.