USA vs. Guatemala
Nissan Stadium, Nashville, Tennessee
July 3, 2015
6:30 pm ET (FOX Sports 1, UniMás, Univision Deportes)
The US national team will seek a promising sound check ahead of their Gold Cup title defense when they host Guatemala in an international friendly in the Music City on Friday night.
These teams met in an identical situation two years ago, when the USMNT thumped Los Chapines 6-0 in San Diego as a warmup to their successful run to the Gold Cup trophy. The Yanks will open this year's tournament against Honduras at FC Dallas' Toyota Stadium on Tuesday (9:30 pm ET, FOX Sports 1, UniMás), and head coach Jurgen Klinsmann will want to get everyone on the same page as quickly as possible.
“The big challenge is to get the European-based players and also the Mexican-based players on the same page with the MLS players, because they had a different schedule,” Klinsmann told ussoccer.com in a Q&A published on Wednesday. “They had a quick break, a quick vacation, and we have to get them up to speed as quickly as possible, so that’s kind of the key goal here in Nashville. Guatemala … is an important benchmark for us because we can clearly see where our players stand right now.”
Klinsmann has gathered an experienced roster featuring 11 MLS players and 16 veterans of the USMNT's 2014 World Cup squad, emphasizing his intent to win another Gold Cup and thereby assure the team of participation in the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup. But unlike their freewheeling European friendly wins over the Netherlands and Germany, he expects his team to face packed defenses when they meet CONCACAF's smaller nations, something Guatemala (93rd in the latest FIFA World Rankings) will likely simulate well.
“The message to the team is very straightforward: We are under the expectations of winning this tournament,” he said. “Even if we know that teams like Honduras, Costa Rica and Mexico all are very good teams and can also beat us, you’ve got to be on top of things. You’ve got to be very disciplined, you’ve got to be focused and in a CONCACAF tournament, you’ve got to be patient.
“We expect most of the teams to play against us in a very defensive style. It’s not going to be an open game like in a World Cup where you have the best teams in the world and they just go at you. In most of our games in the Gold Cup, it’s going to be the opposite. They’re going to defend first of all and then hope for a counter break or for a set piece to score against us.”
