NASHVILLE – The major themes of the last 12 months for the US national team have been about youth, patience and building an identity.
As a young US side gets set to take on Mexico on Tuesday at Nissan Stadium in Nashville (8:30 pm ET | ESPN, Univision, UDN), players in MLS could help set the foundation for that identity.
USMNT manager Dave Sarachan stressed the importance of building that identity as a team with an average age of just over 23 years old.
“I think my feeling is that there’s always been this identity of a hard-working team that puts effort and understands what it means to be a part of the national team,” he said. “I think with young players that kind of has to sometimes be reintroduced in terms of making sure they understand when they come into a national team camp and put on a jersey, and more of it is because of youth in some ways.”
“I don’t think if you look at the past year or two or five, you’d say that a team didn’t compete and play with heart. I think with a young group that needs to be reinforced each and every time we get together and I think that’s still an important component to what we’re about.”
A big component of building that cohesive identity is team chemistry, and connections from MLS academies and MLS senior squads are helping to bind ties among a majority of players that have fewer than 10 national team caps.
Three members of the New York Red Bulls are on the 23-man USMNT roster in Aaron Long, Tim Parker and Tyler Adams. Wil Trapp and Gyasi Zardes both play at Columbus Crew SC. However, the connections go deeper than that. Midfielder Tim Weah spent a season with the New York Red Bulls academy and played alongside Adams and crossed paths with defender Matt Miazga, who signed a homegrown contract with the Red Bulls in 2013.
“I think there’s familiarity across the group, whether from youth national teams or MLS,” Trapp said. “The identity is certainly something that has been harped on quite a bit by media as well as internally and it's something that we as players are always trying to connect with and it’s always a process.”
As the entire team continues to get to know each other, younger and more veteran players alike will be learning and try to generate chemistry against Mexico.
“We’ve been together for a few games now and we’re starting to get to know everybody and I guess getting to know everybody’s tendencies,” defender Eric Lichaj, at 29 the oldest player on the roster, said. “I think, hopefully, it’ll be good tomorrow, but it’s just a learning curve for everybody. I’m still learning and I’m one of the older guys. I’m sure a lot of these older guys will be doing the same.”
