The USMNT play Cuba in the Gold Cup quarterfinals on Saturday afternoon (5 pm ET; Fox | Univision | UDN | Sportsnet World).
This is a mismatch. This is a colossal, gigantic, Serena Williams vs. Maria Sharapova-sized mismatch. Cuba have already been eliminated from World Cup qualifying – they lost to Curacao on away goals - and they got trucked in their first two group stage games of this tournament by a combined 8-0, courtesy of Mexico and Trinidad & Tobago. They snuck past Guatemala in the third game, but make no mistake: Cuba are a cupcake.
And they're short-handed, since they are defecting in droves:
The US need to win big. Here's how it'll play out:
What they'll do: Bunker
This is going to be Cuba's heat map:
I have no idea who first made that joke on Twitter, but whoever it is deserves all the credit in the world. Especially since I think it was originally at Chelsea's expense.
How to solve it: Final third locksmithing
And here lies one of the problems with the squad Jurgen Klinsmann has selected. Michael Bradley can distribute at a world class level, and he can be creative in the final third. But "final third wizard" is not his default setting, and he often struggles to carve chances through a packed-in defense.
He can certainly manage it from time to time, but he doesn't really have this kind of play in his toolkit:
Driving at the defense with the ball on foot, reversing momentum, then cutting a ball through two lines with surgical precision? That's Lee Nguyen's game.
And that's how you beat a bunkered team. "Bunker" is really shorthand for "waiting to play the pass or the lane instead of stepping to the man with the ball." Nguyen, thanks to his touch, footwork, vision and confidence, forces teams to adjust to him in the final third (the Revs lead the league in final third passes by miles once again, and Nguyen is once again up amongst the league leaders in chances created from the run of play). He's comfortable creating chances in that zone, and nobody on the current US roster can really say the same.
Bradley will give it a shot – he always does. And Clint Dempsey can skin defenders off the dribble, and maybe even Joe Corona has that kind of play in him. There are some possible answers.
But if you look at the team on hand, it's much more geared toward playing in transition, and much more focused on Bradley's deep distribution unlocking pace and power in the attack than it is on skill. I think Cuba will plan for that, which is the same blueprint Honduras, Haiti and Panama used against the US in the group stage.
What's it mean for the US?
I did a pretty thorough video analysis of our gameplan:
I think we'll win on set pieces.
