The USMNT will welcome Peru to Orlando in the first friendly following the World Cup. It will be a chance for manager Mauricio Pochettino to mainly focus on evaluating the player pool ahead of various competitive matches that the team will play including the Nations League. This is a typical post-World Cup window with some key players making way for younger ones to get experience and show how they fit in the international game.
As far as what to expect from the Americans, Poch has established a fairly
consistent playing style for the team. It will look to build possession to quickly move the ball up field and attack their opponent. The team has been successful at this and is coming off of a World Cup where a defined style could be seen for the most part to varying degrees of success. Of course, the main issues for the team still need to be worked out mainly in central defense and goalkeeper.
It’s not clear who will start when and where with four friendlies in this window. Poch has a chance to try different player combinations and use substitutes to experiment throughout the match. It’s pretty clear what the top choice lineup would be as it would likely include, Chris Richards, Antonee Robinson, Alex Freeman, Sergino Dest, Tyler Adams, one or all three of Gio Reyna, Malik Tillman, and Sebastian “calls it football now” Berhalter, with question marks at striker and one or both of the wide attackers.
That said, who he wants to combine with who and what formations he goes with in the different matches is very much yet to be seen. Adding to that uncertainty is that, while these are friendlies, the USA is set to play Mexico and Canada next week in this extended friendly break and Poch might save his powder for those opponents.
The aforementioned issues on the field need to be resolved and the key places to look at the lineup sheet will be who starts next to Chris Richards and in goal. The former includes the question of what the formation will look like with the possibility of a three center back lineup. As for goalkeeper, the last we saw of Matt Freese he was joining the rest of the team in falling flat against Belgium and if he wants to stay in the picture will be looking to redeem himself.
Then there’s the fun part: jumping full speed onto a blind hype train so we can win the World Cup in four years. Cavan Sullivan, Cole Campbell, Zavier Gozo, Mathias Albert, that really tall guy, and Diego Kochen are poised to have soccer careers. Of those, Cavan Sullivan has been tearing up MLS, he’s putting together an impressive stretch of games and getting in fights while he waits to be old enough to play in Europe. This can only mean that he should play in every USMNT game between now and 2030 because he’s done so well with the national team so far. If that’s going to happen, it’ll start now.
As for Peru, La Blanquirroja is in a period of flux. It hasn’t qualified for a World Cup in eight years and in the 2024 Copa America got bounced in the group. Manager Mano Menendez will hand the reigns over to a mix of veterans and younger players as he looks to build on doing better than that. Marcos Lopez of FC Copenhagen is a key player who will be a likely starter for the foreseeable future, at 18 Maxloren Castro is getting attention from European teams, and there are 10 players with 15 or fewer caps joined by Yoshimar Yotun and Andre Carrillo who both have over 100.
Peru will likely play defensively and avoid possession, preferring instead to focus on keeping a good defensive shape and hitting on the counter or going route one. This puts the Stars and Stirpes in the classic situation of having to break down a low block, possibly the hardest thing to do in team sports, and makes their work cut out for them.
