The U.S. Men’s National Team’s training camp in Qatar was expected to provide opportunities to face off against other teams going through their preseasons at the sam Aspire facility, and one of those teams is led by a familiar face.
Jesse Marsch’s Red Bull Salzburg will face the USMNT in a preseason match on January 18 in Doha, according to the Red Bull Salzburg website. A source confirmed to SBI that a closed-door scrimmage will take place.
It is unclear if the USMNT will play more than one scrimmage in Doha, a popular destination for club teams holding winter break training camps in January, but the team will have access to several teams also holding camps at the same time.
Marsch’s Salzburg team is coming off an impressive showing in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League, a group which included Liverpool and Napoli. Red Bull Salzburg will be preparing for the second half of the Austrian season, as well as the knockout rounds of the Europa League against Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt.
The USMNT kicks off 2020 with a friendly against Costa Rica in Carson, California on February 1.
I remember the usmnt playing Derby County years ago. We were outplayed.
That was televised.
I remember too– ’99 if I recall correctly. Dean Sturridge (Daniel’s dad) scored for Derby, but we ultimately won 2-1.
I for one have not been overly impressed with Berhaulter as a National Team coach. He’s shown a bit too much dependency on selecting players to fit a formation/tactic than creating a formation/tactic to fit his player pool.
While this is a good quality to have as a club coach….where you can buy players to fit your system. It is not a great thing to have in a National Team coach who has to use what is available to him.
Additionally I’ve never been a fan of keeping coaches more than 1 qualification cycle. I’m hoping that USSF has learned this lesson and regardless of how we do in 2022 will find a new coach. Maybe March or Wagner would be available/interested by then.
i know it’s just austrian bundesliga but we will be running out camp cupcake level talent picked by GB to boot and they will be organized and nasty based on their CL performances and 66 GF and only 18 GA. i think this might even be a tougher game than costa rica because this will be a regular unit that knows each other, and a first team, as opposed to a B/C selection of players available on a non-international date. i didn’t find what they sent last year very impressive. not that we didn’t have to work for that one.
They are also in season, it’s not even debatable that a first team RB Salzburg is better than CR B/C team but Salzburg is unlikely to play their first teamers more than 45 minutes.
looks like Russian club FC Zenit will also be training at that facility.
hopefully we’ll scrimmage them, too.
Bayern and Ajax will be there as well but earlier in camp 5th – 11th or 12th. Zenit will be there 11th to 22nd. Any training matches would likely feature reserves but it’s better than the Liga Mx reserves that are typical camp cupcake fodder.
Chris Richards is on Bayern’s announced travel roster.
I wouldnt mind marsh for 2026 world cup here in the U.S. specially with all the talent in the youth system at u20 level. Marsh showed he is a great motivater holding his own vs Liverpool at liverpool.
the whole point to being indifferent to GB’s LoN results — even if we’d lost to canada twice and been eliminated, is that’s GB’s 2026 to lose. but the fact that we’re struggling and other reasonable alternatives aren’t (tata, marsch) says something.
I love it. The privilege of having an American coach at the helm of an Austrian Bundesliga Team. Opportunity made possible through roots and networking……gotta love it!!!!
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“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door” – by Milton Berle
Too bad if it is a closed door scrimmage. A real opportunity to see a good American coach. We get plenty of opportunities to see Berhalter and not a lot to see Salzburg. Marsch will probably be in the Bundesliga in a couple of years so maybe he can be a future USMNT coach given his relative youth.
i will be curious how strictly we keep to the idea of a closed door game. i have seen us broadcast closed door stuff before. this could be closed door in the sense of no tickets sold, no direct fan access, but still broadcast over the net with position-specific posting. or they could hide the game and announce name rank serial number (score) after. if the idea here was really to avoid a friendly with ranking consequences then they may be freer with information than closed door suggests. or maybe not. we’ll see.
The problem with that would be the first teams tv contract. Youth level teams you’d be more likely to get it streamed. Might get lucky that RBSalzburg would stream it. Typically in these types of games they might play starters/few top reserves for a half and then play a complete different 11 in the other.