KANSAS CITY, Kan. — For america males’s nationwide soccer staff, a string of 4 video games this month towards a various set of opponents presents any variety of productive alternatives.
There are moments to workshop collective ways, moments to guage particular person gamers, moments to strengthen the interpersonal bonds that make up the group’s normal character.
After which there are moments like Sunday, when the staff might face an elite opponent, pull out a measuring stick and plainly take inventory of its personal high quality in the course of its monthslong preparations for this yr’s World Cup.
Offering the check was Uruguay, the Thirteenth-ranked staff on the planet, and the Individuals will likely be fairly glad with the outcome: a tough fought, 0-0 attract an exhibition performed earlier than a crowd of 19,569 followers in Kansas Metropolis, Kan.
The testing and inquisition and self-reflection will proceed within the months to return, although earlier than the sport, there did emerge not less than one little bit of certainty: Wales will likely be america’ first opponent on the World Cup in Qatar after beating Ukraine, 1-0, in a scintillating play-in sport earlier within the day in Cardiff, Wales.
In Kansas Metropolis, Diego Alonso, the Uruguay coach, rotated his lineup considerably from the staff’s earlier sport towards Mexico. Huge names like Federico Valverde and Edinson Cavani (who misfired on an open web within the waning moments of Sunday’s sport), as an example, performed solely the ultimate half-hour or so. However La Celeste, because the staff is thought, nonetheless introduced a stern, star-studded process for the U.S.
In its conventional sky blue shirt, Uruguay managed play early, dissecting the American protection with purposeful passing, leading to plenty of nervy, slender misses. However the U.S. regularly gained a foothold after withstanding that early strain, threatening Uruguay with a sequence of probabilities, with proper winger Tim Weah specifically offering repeated spurts of hazard and creativity within the first half.
“Loads of us are younger, and we’re nonetheless getting that have towards these high-level groups,” Weah mentioned earlier than the sport. “So I really feel like enjoying a staff like Uruguay that has a whole lot of stars is wonderful.”
The Fifteenth-ranked United States started its coaching camp this month with a sport towards Morocco, ranked twenty fourth. And the staff’s subsequent two video games this month symbolize a little bit of a drop-off in general high quality: Grenada (one hundred and seventieth) on Friday in Austin, Texas, and El Salvador (74th) on the street on June 14.
So the match on Sunday and the Individuals’ strong efficiency — that they emerged from a sparring session with a prime staff principally unscathed — will symbolize an optimistic growth for a younger staff attempting to mould itself right into a contender.
