Potential friendly opponents to prepare?

Yeah. In general the Nations League opening round will be like mop up duty when it is played in the fall after a (normal) summer World Cup. And will probably feature a B team for that round, younger players to get some shot in competitive play. This year is obviously different and I've got to think we'll see the A team for the CNL and the friendlies that follow in that window.

 

The Pot 2 team (Honduras, El Salvador, Jamaica or Panama) should give us something of a competitive game depending on how their feds are handling having failed to qualify for the World Cup a couple months prior. The Pot 3 game (Suriname, Grenada, Curacao or Martinique) is highly likely to be useless, but whatcha gonna do...

 

Why? Iraq and Iran aren't similar. I'd say Iran is closer to Mexico.

 

Argentina plus Canada.

 

I would suggest preparing for Iran by playing South Korea in a friendly.
To prepare for England, play Denmark in a friendly.
To prepare for Ukraine, play Finland.
To prepare for Scotland, play Wales.
To prepare for Wales, play Scotland.

 

Curaçao is going to be a rough group 3 draw. Hope we avoid them.

 

Unfortunately I don’t think it’s going to be possible to do friendlies against European teams as they all have nations league.

 

I think you're right. There are two FIFA Windows:
30 May - 14 June (4 games)
19 Sep - 27 Sep (2 games)

Ironically, Canada and Mexico may be good substitutes for England and Iran. No jokes, please. Australia has a June 7 match with UAE and may need a tuneup match ~ June 2. Peru plays the winner on June 13, so they may need a tuneup match ~ June 7. So there are two good matches for the USA.

Perhaps we can play a Euro non-qualifier right before the World Cup (Scotland or Wales) to get ready for our first WC match, ~ November 15.

 

Uzbekistan as a like-for-like Iran-style opponent. Very similar type of opponent.

Ireland was a good shout for the English opponent.

Ukraine, see if we can get Romania in there.

 

I don't know when we're going to be able to get a European friendly opponent. The players are released for WC camp a week (yes, a week) before our first match, so there is little if any time for a genuine friendly, at best maybe a closed-door scrimmage.

We have 6 FIFA-sanctioned matchdays on the schedule in two windows, and 2 of our 4 matchdays in June are spoken for with Nations League. So we have 2 friendly dates open in June and 2 in September, and UEFA is playing Nations League in both windows. Maybe someone in Europe has a bye on one of those dates which allows us to sneak one in (I'm not looking at their schedule, to be honest), but that's probably it, and that means that we'd be limited to the teams that would be available, rather than the teams that we specifically want to play because of their style and/or overall matchup difficulty.

I like the idea of playing a side like Brazil or Argentina in one of those windows. Not both of them; we don't need to grind down the confidence of our side to nothing, but the sheer difficulty will be a good storm for our guys to have to weather. We've played a lot of matches on the front foot against an opponent that is happy to cede possession and punish our mistakes. While England plays a very organized, risk-averse style, they aren't going to sit in a low block and let MMA and our fullbacks have the ball the whole time and just play counterattack, so a team with the ability and inclination to come at us on their front foot will be good experience for us.

 

Suriname and Curaçao are decent. Grenada, on the other hand, lost last week to Andorra.

 

The UEFA Nations League match schedule has 4 matches for each national team between June 2 and June 14 and 2 matches for each national team in the September international break. So theoretically speaking, the US will have 0 UEFA opponents available before the World Cup. However, there are a few potential possibilities that will blow up the Nations League schedule that UEFA had put together so meticulously:

1. If Ukraine is able to go forward with the World Cup playoff in June, then Wales, Scotland, and Ukraine potentially will have to create openings in their schedules.
2. If FIFA doesn't accommodate Ukraine if the team asks for another delay, then that still results in Ukraine withdrawing from Nations League and Wales and Scotland potentially having to cancel matches.
3. There is a major possibility that Russia and Belarus are expelled from Nations League.

Possible national teams affected: Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Ireland, Armenia, Iceland, Israel, Albania, Slovakia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan

The difficulty is that the US will have to be based out of the US because of CONCACAF Nations League. Most UEFA teams wouldn't be able to fly over for 3 days for a match and then fly right back to Europe. Ireland might be the best possibility, because it shares a group with both Scotland and Ukraine, would have enough time to potentially fly to the United States for a match in the Northeast if the schedule blows up, and it can be seen as a reasonable facsimile of potential US World Cup opponents.

My preferences for US opponents:

1. A big name opponent such as Argentina or Brazil. It sounds like this will be a serious possibility in September.
2. One of the better sides in sub-Saharan Africa that can be compared to Senegal.
3. An Asian or North African opponent that can be compared somewhat to Iran.
4. Unknown. Keep this open for a UEFA side if possible.

 

Book em. Euro fairy dust says do it.

 

We need to play high--end opponents soon, not in September, in case we need to toss our center backs and bring back Brooks and bring CCV, etc.

 

It seems to me that a lot of people assume to one degree or another that CCV must be better than Zimmerman or Robinson based on very, very little.

 

I don't assume it at all. But our starting CBs have never played a team outside of CONCACAF. The third goal for England would be a bad time to realize they aren't up to it.

 

For shame. Grenada has at least 30,000 more people to draw from than Andorra.....

 

No, I do not assume that CCV is better than Walter or Miles. But I do think he has done more than enough to get a very serious look from us and see how he compares directly on the field with them.

 

As I wrote in another thread, each one of us have our favorites, but the coach only has limited time to test options.

It's impossible for Berhalter to test all our favorites. So, some will be left out --and people will use that to criticize him, of course, if we don't make it out of group.

It's going to be the Danny Williams situation again: "if only he had called Julian Green!" or "If only he had included Carter-Vickers!"

 

Though he is not well-suited to the high line that we like to play? I hope you and others understand that's why we haven't been using him.

 

Yeah I know that’s why. That said, I question if we’re actually going to play a high line against England. And I also question our ability to keep any semblance of the ball against England if we start an MRob/Zim duo in that match. So I personally would like to have all relevant CBs in the next camp given we’ll have 4 games. So we should call in CCV and Brooks to that camp. The 4 of them plus Richards should be our 5 CBs at the WC.

I just really can’t understand how we’d possibly want to use Long in the actual World Cup over any of these players, so he’s merely eating a spot.

 

England is susceptible to the press.

 

Especially if they are reading the tabloids.

 

Send a B team to Nations League and play extra friendlies with A-team.

Japan and Korea in Alaska or Hawaii
Portugal and Morocco in Boston

 

Setting aside whether that's a good idea, are we even allowed to do it?