The U.S. men’s national team will begin its quest for a third-consecutive Concacaf Nations League title this November and a familiar opponent will oppose them in the upcoming quarterfinals.
Trinidad & Tobago have been paired against the USMNT for a two-legged Nations League quarterfinal tie, U.S. Soccer announced Wednesday. Q2 Stadium in Austin, Texas will host the first leg on Nov. 16 while the second leg is scheduled for Nov. 20 with a venue and kickoff time to be determined.
The 2023-24 Nations League quarterfinals serve as qualification for the prestigious 2024 Copa America. The Copa America will be played in the United States during the Summer of 2024, and will feature 10 CONMEBOL nations and six CONCACAF nations.
The USMNT won the 2021 and 2023 editions of the Nations League, defeating Mexico 3-2 in 2021 and Canada 2-0 in 2023. Gregg Berhalter led the Americans during the inaugural edition of the competition while B.J. Callaghan served as interim head coach during the 2023 edition.
Trinidad & Tobago reached the quarterfinals having finished second in Group A with nine points. Despite suffering a recent 5-3 loss to Curacao, the Soca Warriors edged Martinique to second place after winning three of their four group stage matches.
The USMNT currently holds a 21-3-4 all-time advantage against Trinidad and Tobago and last faced them in the 2023 Concacaf Gold Cup. FC Dallas forward Jesus Ferreira registered a first-half hat trick in a 6-0 Gold Cup group stage victory, while San Jose forward Cade Cowell, Venezia midfielder Gianluca Busio and FC Cincinnati forward Brandon Vazquez also found the back of the net.
In the other three quarterfinal matchups, Mexico will face Honduras, Canada takes on Jamaica, and Costa Rica squares off with Panama.
Getting TT was a good draw. It’s a team we far outclass and one you know our players will be up to crush. All they need it Pulisic telling them what it was like to lose to them and miss the WC.
Mexico also got a good draw with Honduras. It’s a team they should defeat handily. Personally I could see both Canada and Costa Rica losing to Jamaica and Panama.
T&T aren’t an opponent I’d intentionally schedule they are the opponent we drew. While I don’t expect T&T to be an actual challenge, I do believe we can use these games to our benefit. I’d play our first choice line-up & formation in the home game and get a comfortable differential. Then in the away match try out a new formation and possibly some of the back-ups/fringe players.
Since we don’t have qualifiers this cycle it’s important to get our guys as many competitive games together as possible before next summers Copa America.
to me the feel of the fixtures is “contractual obligation.” we wanted to host CA. the small countries are sick of it being literally invitational ie they pick us or mexico (maybe CR?) and the rest are shut out without any chance. this concept runs us through to the final 8 and gives a dwindled set of the lower tier teams their shot at being involved in a playoff with the big boys. maybe we even get one upset. it’s fair enough — i think concacaf is often very uneven in who gets what chance to make things. i think we can handle about anything short of a top 4 playoff with ease. so jump through the hoops, which in this case, shouldn’t be trouble, particularly if they stick to the 4231.
personally i see the couva thing as cosmically balanced with the caligiuri goal. i also feel like a lot of the “couva” lesson — still not fully learned — was stuff like don’t artificially constrain the pool — arena’s issue with the dual national germans, who he generally left off and who might have helped — and then trusting in the bench to rotate. i mean, not a brooks fan, and thought that for the big fixtures we needed to move on, but it was like, for an elimination game, it would have been nice to have, say, green around, or FJ/chandler for villafana, brooks for omar. i then think we make it but maybe win a single game or lose them all.
based on recent history i would anticipate something like what was done for either the last two fixtures 2019 or the most recent. we will go all in for the “canada game” at home. if we put a big number on them we might rotate for the “cuba game” away. but i am not sure as i don’t know if we’ve fully learned the couva lesson. but anyhow i wouldn’t expect any experiments game 1 unless someone like koleosho makes a decision. even if someone got hurt i’d expect a regular as the contingency. they will take this super serious as CA is on the line. ii wouldn’t even blame them that. tournaments, qualifiers, be as serious as you want. my issue is more how we handle friendlies, which, hopefully germany followed by the ghana first half jolted us out of arrogance/ certitude/ complacency.
IV
“to me the feel of the fixtures is “contractual obligation.” ”
That’s because they are.
“we wanted to host CA. the small countries are sick of it being literally invitational ie they pick us or mexico (maybe CR?) and the rest are shut out without any chance.”
??? What are you talking about?
Copa America is a CONMEBOL tournament not a CONCACAF tournament . The ONLY way countries outside CONMEBOL get in is because of invitation. The US and Mexico are traditional invites because of the money.
“this concept runs us through to the final 8 and gives a dwindled set of the lower tier teams their shot at being involved in a playoff with the big boys. maybe we even get one upset. it’s fair enough — i think concacaf is often very uneven in who gets what chance to make things.”
It’s not a CONCACAF decision.
” i think we can handle about anything short of a top 4 playoff with ease. so jump through the hoops, which in this case, shouldn’t be trouble, particularly if they stick to the 4231.”
Of course, you’re seeing Copa make changes, such as using these semi -bogus qualifiers when the reality is Mexico and the US are almost certainly going to get through( where have I heard that before) . What this does do is put on more games to make more money and make it seem ” fairer”. It does give the “lesser” countries a chance to play more competitive games and that helps them.
“my issue is more how we handle friendlies, which, hopefully germany followed by the ghana first half jolted us out of arrogance/ certitude/ complacency.”
You can’t “handle” friendlies. Friendlies are practice and you can’t control how seriously your practice partners take the whole exercise. They are not meaningless but what meaning you get out of them depends on what the coaching staff expects. And that we are not privy to.
You could throw more money at them turn them into bogus mini tournaments, with a huge money prize at the end but that means they aren’t friendlies anymore.
I can’t think of another country that takes friendlies more seriously than the USMNT fan base. Most of the big boys don’t play many friendlies. Their players are too busy playing important real games.
And as our player pool gets better and plays more at their clubs they are going to feel more and more the same way. So what you will get is a lot of “B” team lineups in friendlies. Or a lot of friendlies where our A team lose intensity after a half or less. And remember, real games are 90 minutes long.
For some reason, you use all those Sarachan friendlies to boost your narratives. The reality is that ALL of them were Dave just giving a bunch of kids a chance to try out the USMNT and get a feel for things,
That was almost 6 years ago and have little if anything to do with playing a USMNT friendly under Gregg.
Playing a friendly or two in the weeks leading up to a Copa America or a World Cup makes some sense in terms of shaking off the rust but otherwise they are not anywhere near as good a predictor of how the team or a player will do as many here seem to think.
Your personal favorite, Tim Ream , as far as I’m concerned, for YEARS was almost always bad to mediocre for the USMNT until Qatar.
Then he played the 4 best USMNT games of his life.
Some people just need their backs to the wall and that blood and money on the line before they show you who they really are.
I don’t know they’ve fallen so far I don’t know that I’ll get much satisfaction from stomping them two times in a week if those matches go like the 6-0, 7-0, 6-0 matches since Couva.
my general rule of thumb is about a 1-3 goal shift on the road game. eg in 2018 cycle with TnT it was 2-0 home, 1-2 away (3 goals); or with cuba NL 2019 it was 7-0 home, 4-0 away (3 goals). knowing my rule of thumb i was nervous before couva even started, as the field was to be heavy and the heuristic suggested a nervous tie when we had to get a result.
on paper, i would see lopsided and then 2-3 goals less lopsided. i mean, if we run out the 4231 and a lot of the guys from this past window. however i think the precise margin comes down to does this coach incorporate his recent lesson or does he fight himself. his history in 2021 was he came out flat as a pancake for WCQ after his summer successes. he has a tendency to revert back to old habits, which one even sees in the second half tactics both these last window games.
people are mentioning the recent TnT results but those were both B games, january and then GC 23. we should in theory beat them that bad but then it will be a different player mix and perhaps tactics. and a road trip down to almost venezuela — i mean we’re talking a few miles offshore — is never easy.
Actually
2019 GC 6-0 (A team vs A team)
2021 Jan 7-0 (B team vs A-ish but domestic league hasn’t been playing)
2023 GC 6-0 (B team vs A team)
In all of them we used a 4-3-3 and had little trouble creating opportunities or preventing chances even though TnT were full strength in the two GC matches. So I’m not sure it will matter at all if Gregg learns his lesson or not next month. 8 or 9 to 1 should be the aggregate. I think The Pirate of the Caribbean shouldn’t definitely be called though 1/3 of his 15 goals are against TnT.
I would enjoy two 6-0 wins 😀
Teams the USMNT should always be psyched to crush:
Mexico
TnT
Ghana
Add Costa Rica to that list.
I personally 100% agree with that …almost added them