The bad news for the U.S. Men’s National Team is that two members of its title-winning Concacaf Nations League squad won’t be available to face Costa Rica on Wednesday. The good news is one of those players suffered a far-less serious injury than first feared.
USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter confirmed on Tuesday that Walker Zimmerman has replaced Matt Miazga on the roster due to the centerback’s upcoming wedding next week.
The bigger news was Berhalter confirming that Zack Steffen suffered a bone bruise during Sunday’s Nations League win against Mexico, a minor injury the starting USMNT goalkeeper should be able to recover from easily, as should AS Roma fullback Bryan Reynolds, who had originally been expected to take part in Wednesday’s match against Costa Rica.
“Zack and Bryan coincidentally enough both have bone bruises and will be out for tomorrow,” Berhalter said. “They both are recovering, but will likely be out of action for at least 10 days.”
“Walker Zimmerman will come in for Matt Miazga, who will be getting married next week so we congratulate him. He had some final preparations to do for that event so we understand why he wanted to be there.”
Steffen suffered his knee injury in Sunday’s 3-2 Concacaf Nations League Final win over Mexico, being replaced by Ethan Horvath in the second half. Horvath went on to make four saves including a penalty-kick save in the 119th minute on Andres Guardado to preserve the victory.
Reynolds was not on the USMNT’s roster for the Concacaf Nations League, but did train with the team and could have seen playing time in Wednesday’s friendly.
Zimmerman comes in from Nashville SC, where he has helped the MLS side to a current seventh place spot in the Eastern Conference. The 2020 MLS Defender of the Year has earned 13 caps for the USMNT to date, but has not featured in any national team matches this year. He replaces Miazga, who did not feature in either of the Nations League matches.
The USMNT takes on Costa Rica on Wednesday night in the team’s last match until the Concacaf Gold Cup, which kicks off on July 11 at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas against an opponent that has yet to be determined.
I agree with Johnnyrazor and Jamie. I’m here for discussions about soccer, not infantile name calling.
I don’t get why beerholder is offensive. I hold beers all the time. I’m not ashamed of it.
It’s not offensive — it’s dumb.
Like, seriously. I feel like the “Beerholder” and “Landycakes” types think they’re being edgy in a way that makes people think, “Wow, here is a guy who has a negative opinion about career professionals and therefore he must be worthy of our respect and admiration as a fountain of knowledge,” but instead they’re actually like, “Ives’ readership is really scraping the bottom of the bucket anymore. Is it even worth my energy to associate with these numbskulls?”
You guys (and it’s always guys) are the Beavis and Buttheads to everybody else’s Daria Morgendorffer.
Big hugs to you for a Daria Reference!
Landycakes?
Landycakes was a name given to Landon Donovan in the past by people who claim he was soft and should have stuck it out in Europe.
Congratulations to Miazga fam! CCV is his best PnC anyway. Speaking of connections my boi Shaq Moore can’t get a call?! Now, that Reynolds is out. He can play RB, RCB, & wingback. He’s played with Steffen, Horvath, Miazga, CCV, Arriola, J. Morris, Acosta, since ‘16 OQ. He’s quick twitch and a good passer. Yeh, yeh, he’s in Spain 2nd division blah, blah. It’s still a possession & passing league!! Have you seen him play with Tenerife?! His game has ugraded majorly! I was big on Zim until Long showed better foot speed and defensive cover. We still should have enough players outside the MLS. Will it be a 4-3-3 , or 3-4-3? One could hope Musah starts, I would like to see him more active in the final 1/3. Here’s hoping for a good match vs CR.
Shaq is on vacation although if you live in the Canary Islands year round where do you vacation? He could be useful at the GC, I really would rather not see the U23s back out there.
Yueill started vs Honduras & D. Ochoa was the 3rd Gk. Vines looks on track to get a few senior looks because of the depth at LB. Mihailovic keeps playing well, GB will call him. ‘21 OQ edition. That’s the handful of players who played well enough in OQ in March, right? (Not my opinion, btw) I named all the players from ‘16 OQ, with exception of Trapp & Lima still participating. Hamid & Johnson are the only 2 from ‘12 OQ editions, who are still somewhat involved in USMNT. I don’t think it’s realized how much these OQ players become part of the senior team. Whether they qualify or not, they were brought up in the pipeline. If our best are playing in Europe, this is what’s left. Agree or disagree?
I just meant RBs from qualifying specifically. Araujo and Herrera are both pretty inconsistent. To be fair it was more the poor wing play that killed that team. So I’d feel ok if it was mostly the U23s with guys like Busio, Clark, and Pomykal mixed in. Ferreira still hasn’t played yet for FCD due to injury so that might open up the striker spot for Cowell maybe Rubin.
We’d durn well better see Musah in this one.
Still annoyed Beerholder – he will always be Beerholder (thanks SBI posters!) whenever he makes a decision I disagree with – did not cap-tie him when he had the chance. If he slips away elsewhere I’m going to be mighty peeved.
Hey, let’s start Tim Ream! At left back! (And keep him in there even when you see Lainez hit the pitch!)
And not give Musah one minute!
You may have Forest Gump’d your way into a win, there, BEERHOLDER, but I reserve the right to be grumpy about that one. And I’m gonna be, until we lock Musah down. The problem is, as a friendly, this one doesn’t cap-tie Musah either.
Grr. Nevermind. But we’d better start getting him regular run. Because he’s for durn sure one of our best 11, we need to figure out where.
Gregg Berhalter is a human being. He represented the US, 44 times, two of those were in the 2002 WC, helping to earn our best finish since 1930. Criticize his tactics disagree with his roster selections but I think we can do better than junior high style name calling.
Is Greg here to be offended?
No?
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLDEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So there.
Don’t tell ME to be mature, durnit.
Johnny why do you feel the need to defend him at every corner? We get it, you like the guy but do you have to defend him on every comment? Even the media thought his tactics was poor in the Mexico game.
I would have liked to see Musah get cap tied, but I understand in a game that matters why a coach would pick a seasoned vet over a young guy who has played only a couple times for the US (one very good game, the other Bleh). Let’s see how Musah does Wednesday before assigning him a more prominent role. Actually, I would probably have picked Aaronson over Musah simply because I have seen Aaronson play more often and know the kind of aggression he consistently brings.
I wanted to see Musah play and surprised he didnt. But do get it, hes 18 and his playing time at Valencia did take a dive. His form may not have been up for an intense semi and final.
Someone correct me if im wrong, does the new cap tie rule include more than 3 friendly appearances?
Sry, KC it doesn’t. Musah’s next opportunity has to be the GC in July. The rule used to be: 3 friendlys or less, a player can still switch countries.
Cylo, I’m just done with people thinking they can just be disrespectful to people because it’s online and you can use avatars. I didn’t like it when people called Donovan names, when they called Jozy names, I didn’t like Bob Bradley but it bothers me when people call him Bunker Bob now when his team plays the most attractive football in MLS, but I didn’t say anything and it just gets worse. I was watching some live YouTube channels afterwards and people were just typing racist remarks like it’s nothing in the public chat. We need to be better, I’m glad that we don’t have that level of comments here but how long before that finds its way. I found this site in 2010 after reading Ives’ stuff on other outlets. The community could argue about topics without just throwing insults everywhere. Gary Page and UCLABruinGreat used to have week long arguments about Donovan vs Green at the WC without anyone calling anyone names. And they’d have the same argument every two months. I’ve seen forums at other sites turned off because of users just spouting hate and other sites were you can’t go three comments without users calling each other names. Most of the regulars from here are gone, I assume because they got tired of the crap. I believe we can still have discussions and see each other’s points of view in a respectful manner. I don’t agree with every decision Gregg makes, I don’t like the 3 man backline, I don’t like Tim Ream as a LB but I can see way he tried it. Quozzel has every right to talk about tactics and decisions but what’s the point of being disrespectful. I’m certainly not perfect I’ve been mean to IV in the past but I’m going to try to do better and I think we should all try too.
I’m onboard with Johnnyrazor, 100%. The infantile posting is exactly why I rarely comment anymore on this website. I used to think that American soccer fans were perhaps a bit more worldly or progressive (I don’t necessarily mean that in a political sense — I mean it as the opposite of REgressive) than the average American sports fan, but the fact that this place has turned into a weird sort of insular troll farm has given lie to that. I wish there were a place where reasonable people with varying opinions could talk about American soccer on the internet. If I had the time and wherewithal, I’d start a proper webforum for all things U.S. soccer.
Some might also construe self-righteousness and a stick up the bum and nagging others as disrespectful.
I certainly wouldn’t wanna have a beer, or hold one – you see what I did there, heh-heh! – with ya.
You do not come across as the sort of fellow who’s much fun at parties.
Calling other people childish names was not actually fun at middle-school parties, especially for kids that got bullied or left out. Surely most of us are glad to get past that stage of life, able to party like grownups and disagree like grownups, and get pleasure from positive things.
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I’ve sometimes been hesitant to post on here because there does seem to be a strain of macho posturing and venting that shows up from time to time, perhaps after a few too many beers. It’s good to know it’s not a majority. Thanks to all of you for words of restraint and common sense, as well as for the interesting information and analysis.
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