The U.S. men’s national team’s fall schedule is starting to take shape.
Ecuador and Australia will face off with Mauricio Pochettino’s squad during FIFA’s October international window, U.S. Soccer announced Monday. Both matches will serve as preparatory matches for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The Americans will face Ecuador on October 10 at Q2 Stadium in Austin, Texas before closing out their two-match window against Australia on Oct. 14 at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado.
Ecuador will make its fifth World Cup appearance next summer, after joining Argentina and Brazil as one of the three South American teams that have already qualified for the tournament. Sebastian Beccacece’s squad are currently ranked No. 25 in the FIFA Men’s Rankings.
The USMNT hold a 5-5-5 all-time record against Ecuador in all competitions. It will mark the first head-to-head matchup since 2019.
Australia has also secured its spot into the World Cup after finishing second in its group during the third round of Asian Football Confederation qualifiers. Ranked No. 24 in FIFA’s rankings, the Australians last met the USMNT in 2010.
The USMNT most recently lost to Mexico 2-1 in the CONCACAF Gold Cup Final and will face Japan and South Korea in September friendlies later this year.
All four matches scheduled by U.S. Soccer for the September-October window are against nations currently ranked in the Top-25.
IV,
You are setting fire to your hair, twisting your panties and climbing out on a ledge for no reason.
Building a schedule with a gradually increasing degree of difficulty probably as an “obstacle course ” for your team is problematical for any number of reasons.
The most important one is that given they are friendlies and a few months away, no one can guarantee what kind of team you are going to face and how hard they will fight you. If you are worried about our weakling Gold Cup team being blown up by South Korea 4-0 and wasting a game, I doubt that happens. For however many games the USMNT has before the roster decision I suspect Pochettino will do what he has not had a chance to do.
And that is field the strongest available lineup with consideration being given only to positional battles. They need the work.
All anyone can guarantee is that whoever does show up, crap team or not, they will probably give you a good game for at least about 45-60 minutes before shutting down. With a WC level opponent at least the USMNT can be fairly certain they will get at least 45 minutes out of the opponent before they go limp.
The big guns aren’t going to be risking their stars. For example, I’m curious as to exactly how much time Son gets for Korea. I expect South Korea and Japan to play it pretty much straight but ‘I still would be surprised if we get more than Korea Lite. The USMNT is not the only team in the world that still has to sort out its best lineup. Pochettino should be much more concerned about what his guys are doing than what the opponents are doing.
our scheduling is stuck on stupid. this needs a scheme and selection rethink, and to work on attacking aggression, and we’re scheduling world cup type teams. ecuador is #2 in conmebol right now. japan and oz lead their groups. korea is second in its group. they are all world cup quality, but based on june friendlies (or even the recent ones before that), is that really what this needs.
people chuckle every time i say this and then colombia waxes us 5-1 or the swiss 4-0. our scheduling is like a team with their {expletive] together that needs a test to be absolutely sure. we’re a mess where the tactics need to change and some of the lineup needs to churn. our schedule just tends to expose the mess.
and then the scheduling dovetails with xeroxing call sheets. because if you call the wrong experiments it’ll be 4-0 at half. so we’ll go right over the cliff with the same players since there’s never an easy day to try things.
We have played Ecuador several times in the past 4 to 5 years and the games were pretty even. I remember when we played Australia in a friendly right before the World Cup and won pretty easily. Also, considering their world rankings, as imperfect as rankings are, they give us 2 teams qualified for the WC who are about our level. The idea that we won’t be competitive with these two teams is, IMO, rather ridiculous. You also seem to ignore the fact that the team that got buried by the Swiss was a B team playing their A team.