There’s a soccer team on a bus, once the bus goes over 50 miles an hour it’s not parked anymore, if it’s not parked anymore the team has to play soccer, the team doesn’t want to play soccer it wants to park the bus. This is the plot of Speed 4: That’s not a knife, that’s the Socceroos keeping everyone on the bus while it goes nowhere.
The USMNT takes on Australia in a matchup with a somewhat potentially surprising potential outcome – the winner is in the driver’s seat to take the top spot in the group.
For the USA to do that the team will have to get past an Australia team that is not really interested in playing soccer – they’re interested in making soccer harder to play. This sets up one of the most difficult things to do in the sport, possibly all sports – breakdown an opponent sitting in a low block that is playing for a scoreless draw.
Australia is built for this kind of thing. Looking at the Socceroo roster, the side is made up of players who are on teams that are clawing their way out of relegation zones, pushing for promotion, or are grinding out wins in Scotland, Holland, the Championship, or are finishing journeyman careers in the A-League Men. They lack a true superstar and no player on the roster has more than 14 goals for the national team and that tradie mentality means everyone has to do their part as a collective to get results. They got their win in the group and a point puts them in a fantastic position to get through to the next stage.
Of course, the USA had their own surprise win against Paraguay to open the tournament. While it might have been expected that the come away with three points, the overall performance was historic for the USA. The team scored the most ever goals in a men’s World Cup match in the post 1990 ear, matched the number of goals it scored in the entire 2022 tournament, and is half way to matching its best win total in a World Cup as well. It was a truly impressive performance and one the team can build on moving forward in the tournament.
Repeating that performance comes with the added challenge that Christian Pulisic is “day to day” following being subbed off at the half in the opener.
This isn’t great, but the depth that the USA has to draw from gives Poch options if he’s not available. Looking at possible replacements: Alejandro Zendejas is one of the best players in LigaMX, Brenden Aaronson just had the best season of his career in the Premier League, Malik Tillman was a key player on a solid Bundesliga side, and Gio Reyna may have began re-writing the story of his career with the national team when he scored against Paraguay.
As far as what to expect, things are shaping up to be very CONCACAF’y. Australia will have every reason to lineup in a 5-4-1 and park the ham-handedly aforementioned bus using strategic fouling, instigating fights, time wasting, and doing everything aside from scheduling the game in the middle of the afternoon and playing it in San Pedro Sula to make things uncomfortable for the hosts. With 8-9 players behind the ball and collapsing space around the 18 yard box, Australia will seek to stay organized and compact to limit the ability of the USA to get in behind the defensive line and take chances on goal.
The Americans will need to be patient and not try to force passes and give their opponents dangerous opportunities on the counter. The game also exposes a weakness that the Stars and Stripes have not been able to address with this group of players: being threatening on set pieces. Set piece delivery has been poor and execution even worse, a factor that adds to the game setting up well for Australia.
That said, in the last nine months the USMNT has shown that it can put things together on the attack. Players on AC Milan, Monaco, Juventus, Olympique de Marseilles, Club America, Bayern Leverkusen, PSV, and… even the Vancouver Whitecaps and Seattle Sounders are accustomed to teams packing it in to make games messy. The team will have its strategy to breakdown Australia, but it also has several players who are capable of making a difference on their own. What’s more, the result against Türkiye means Australia’s secret is out and that they can’t be slept on lest the bus silently departs leaving the USA behind. The Americans will come in as heavy favorites and there’s every reason to think they can live up to that billing and win its second straight World Cup match.
