Pre-match: USMNT vs. Ecuador, May 25th in Frisco, TX (8:00 PM EST)

Should be a good test before the real thing. I doubt we'll see it in the actual tournament, but I still want to see a left side pairing of Chandler at LB and Fabian in the midfield. I just want to see how it goes once.

 

What I don't want to see is a front six that tries to fit in Beckerman, Bradley, Jones, Dempsey and Wood. I reluctantly accept that that group is a reasonable setup for the first 60 minutes against a team as talented as Colombia, but such a conservative approach should not be necessary again until the knockouts. Other options should be explored against Ecuador.

 

Prepare for poundings beginning with this game. JK is the only head coach I have ever seen that plays professional players out of position consistently hoping they figure it out. If he tried to tell Ballack to be a winger, not happening. If he asked Steffen Edberg to be a DM, bloody nose! Every national team we will face in this competition knows who is playing and where. That's how you run a program. Forcing someone to try something because it's your vision is maniacal, or German. I know because I'm German. So, as I said, the poundings will begin shortly. But I do believe the future is bright. We got good youngsters coming. I'm trying to stay interested til then.

 

The most important thing that Klinsmann could do would be to start his preferred CB pairing together with Brad Guzan behind them.

 

hope hyndman starts

 

MLS guys are joining up with the rest of the team in the following days, correct?

 

Wish Auto-pen would do the op's so we have a proper start. Maybe you could ask him to do honors.

 

You saw it in your last nightmare.

 

Dude he's going on vacation

 

wut

 

Right aren't all the transition camp guys gone now? I could be wrong

 

Dunno. Been wonderin the same

 

I hope Kitchen gets to play his preferred position of striker paired with GCam.

 

I have not seen anything regarding who is going to be playing in these two upcoming games before the GC, but I would assume (there is that word) that the camp would be down to the 23 final GC players. And, as Lalas kept saying the other day, JK needs to pick his two center backs (actually the entire back line) now and stop playing around. His opinion is that all of the center backs are about evenly matched, no one stands out as superior, so just pick two and stick with them.

Also, JK and the players are going to need these games to solidify the rest of the players.

 

He could always ask a player to stick around to help with practice, but unlikely he would actually play anyone outside the CA 23.

 

It going to be tough, since Jones is going to be getting those "originally planned for Jozy" minutes.

 

He plays guys out of position A TON in friendlies. Yesterday was an amazing exercise in "square peg/round hole" soccer.

But when the games actually have mattered, he's done less of that. A little bit.

Unlike the fans, I don't think Klinsmann cares at all about results in friendlies. They're just opportunities for him to experiment and test the players. So against Ecuador who the hell knows what formation we'll even play? What are we at? 5 different starting formations in our last 6 games? If you'd asked me two write a formation and lineup for that game yesterday, I don't know how many guesses I've had needed before coming up with what we actually rolled out.

Bob Bradley used to say his most important task in a cycle was to identify his GK and CB pair as early as possible. Then to play them together as much as he could. Klinsmann just has a revolving door at CB. I have no clue what's going on. He should just stick with Cameron and Besler and play them 90 minutes w/Guzan in both pre-tournament friendies. This is't rocket science. Really its not. Or Cameron and Brook if he prefers Brooks.

 

His pattern of handling the 4th, 5th, and 6th subs against well-known teams leads me to believe that he actually does value wins in friendlies a great deal, when they're against well-known teams (including anybody from Europe).

That doesn't include games like yesterday's.

 

So what's the deal with Acosta?

Is Klinsmann admitting his 23 is missing depth, or are there some folks still unavailable from the end of club season?

 

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I suspect that with both Cameron and Johnson nursing hamstring injuries that "alternates" may become important.

 

Chandler is playing today, so he likely won't be available on Weds.

 

Chandler is playing on FS1 as we post. He will not be available for the friendly so Acosta can provide backup LB coverage.