With J Hutcherson -- Game day Aarhus, with the United States looking to add weight to two points: one, that they can consistently get results in Europe, and two, that they can integrate players into the squad quickly and effectively. That second one is under the most pressure later this afternoon.
The United States enters its second game far from first choice. Unlike the Gold Cup, that wasn't intended to be the point of this squad. As much as it's an opportunity for someone to step into Landon Donovan's playmaker role, there's also pressure on US coach Bob Bradley to show he can revamp a squad and get a result on the day.
Now the US has had to regroup around the injury absences of Charlie Davies, Oguchi Onyewu, and Jay DeMerit. Add to that the MLS playoff absence of Donovan alongside releasing Steve Cherundolo and Clint Dempsey back to their clubs, and this becomes the extreme of that quick turnaround scenario.
How that will work in practice puts a lot of pressure on Tuesday's training session. The Houston Dynamo contingent of Ricardo Clark and Stuart Holden weren't in camp until after Monday's session, giving them one day of training. Tigres defender Edgar Castillo has never been in a US National Team camp before earlier this week, but is expected to see time.
If you take friendlies a little more seriously than glorified scrimmages, this is an early example of how the US can respond to a worst-case scenario. Even then, they wouldn't be bringing in new players into a World Cup squad and they would have had extended training.
Pretend you're an advance scout for another national team looking at the game against Slovakia. What would you take away? Well, first off that was a game begging to end 0-0. Neither team had the clear advantage. Slovakia couldn't generate quality chances. The US could hold possession for long stretches, but couldn't finish. The US looked vulnerable after an hour, but did enough to keep Slovakia from taking advantage.
You see a team that's not going to make things easy. One that adjusted to a different attack than they'd seen throughout CONCACAF Qualifying. You're probably stressing crossing as a way to stretch the US back line, something Slovakia didn't do much of. You might also be considering pinpointing specific US players with the point of attack, something Slovakia did well.
What you would be trying to avoid is the game changer. The player who steps up and makes a November friendly about him. That's also what the US should be looking for. The guy who realizes that proving a point or three with a makeshift USA on a rainy night in Aarhus is making a bigger statement towards the squad that goes to South Africa.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
