There may be nothing riding on it, but Saturday's match means so much more to the U.S. team
For the last several years, the new generation of U.S. men's national team stars has been united by two separate, but similar, rallying cries. The first defined their road to the 2022 World Cup. It called on the players involved to change the way the world views American soccer, not just for one tournament, but forever.
That one is still a work in progress. Their efforts in Qatar were definitely admirable and players' progress on the club level has definitely made the rest of the world take notice, but Rome wasn't built in a day. It will take sustained, consistent improvement to accomplish that goal.
Since the summer, though, the U.S. has been discussing a new goal: to change the way that America views soccer forever.
Assistant coach B.J. Callaghan says the team won't be satisfied until there are loads of Christians, Westons, Gios and Matts born and named for the country's soccer idols. The team, as a whole, has said they won't have achieved anything until they've proven they can be more than what they showed in Qatar.
But how can they do that? How does a team approach goals so lofty and so vague? Well, it starts by winning big games against big opponents, making statement after statement until everyone takes notice.
The U.S. won't demand the respect of the world if they are to beat Germany in a friendly on Saturday. Still, for many in this USMNT camp, Saturday's friendly is the perfect time to show how far they've come, and how far they have left to go.
GettyA big chance that won't come to often
The fact is that there won't be many games like this on the road to the 2026 World Cup.
As hosts of the tournament, competitive games will be few and far between for the USMNT. Of course, there will be CONCACAF games, and the U.S. will be very, very thankful for next summer's Copa America but, by and large, there will only be a handful of opportunities to take on marquee opponents.
Germany are one of those opponents, as are Ghana, the USMNT's second match of the window. Germany's national team may be in a state of flux right now but, make no mistake, this is one of the biggest teams in the world. And, because of that, it's one of the USMNT's biggest opportunities to show where they stand.
Wins against the likes of Oman and Uzbekistan are nice, sure. Wins over Canada and Mexico will always taste just a bit sweeter because of all that goes with it. But this USMNT's goals are bigger than that.
If this team wants to change perceptions, it has to regularly prove that it can win games like this, a challenge that will be made all the more difficult by the schedule leading up to 2026.
AdvertisementGettyUnderstanding the opportunity
Because of everything said above, the USMNT is moving just a bit differently this camp. Everyone on the team knows what's at stake. Yes this is a friendly, but, for the U.S., it's also something more.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for us,” Weston McKennie said Wednesday. “I think for us, we want to show that [we can] win games against these top-level teams, that we expect ourselves to win these games now, instead of just competing with them."
He continued: “I think it’s a great opportunity to kind of see where we’re at, and try and make that [vision] come true and win these type of games, because they’re the type of games that we have to win to advance the program forward, to advance ourselves forward, and to be successful in the coming years."
USMNT boss Gregg Berhalter, meanwhile, will be using this game to get a closer look at what several players are made of. The team is littered with World Cup stars like McKennie, Christian Pulisic and Tim Weah, all of whom will be desperate to prove themselves once again after falling short against another giant, the Netherlands, in Qatar.
But it also features some newcomers. Folarin Balogun will undoubtedly face the toughest test of his USMNT career. One of Kristoffer Lund or DeJuan Jones will as well with starting full-back Antonee Robinson out of action. Newcomers like Kevin Paredes, Lennard Maloney and Alejandro Zendejas will hope to get a chance in this game.
And then there's Gio Reyna, who will be playing his first game under Berhalter since the infamous World Cup controversy. That's in the past, Berhalter says. This team isn't dwelling on anything that has to do with 2022; they're now focusing on how they can prepare for 2026.
“Any opportunity we get to play teams like this, we want to do it, and it’s not about being afraid of the result, being afraid of competing,” Berhalter said Friday. “It’s about embracing these moments, and from now until the 2026 World Cup, if we could play Germany five times, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, we would do it because that’s what’s going to really strengthen this group.”
GettyWhat the USMNT wants
The USMNT has found success against Germany before.
The team has a 4-7-0 record against the Germans. There was that infamous 2002 World Cup defeat, one shrouded in a Torsten Frings-led controversy that will still rile up the older generation of USMNT fans. There was the 2014 World Cup group stage clash that saw both teams make it to the knockouts despite Germany's narrow win, and there were a pair of friendlies in the mid-2010s, both USMNT wins led by then-head coach, Germany legend Jurgen Klinsmann.
Throughout the program's history, the USMNT has had a habit of overachieving against big teams. For years, the USMNT's grit and heart helped them upset some of the world's best, most famously Spain at the Confederations Cup.
However, the team doesn't want to keep getting by as underdogs. They don't want to win by gutting out a gritty performance. This group wants to be able to play with Germany, to go at them and make them uncomfortable in some way.
“It’s time where we want to start going into these games with confidence and not just trying to compete,” Pulisic said, “but trying to take control of these games and win these games and feel confident that we can do that.”
At the World Cup, the USMNT learned that there are different forms of that. There's controlling the ball, which was a focus of last cycle. After years of being a counterattacking team, the U.S. is evolving into one comfortable with the ball, one that can play soccer.
However, against the Netherlands, the U.S. learned the hard way that having the ball doesn't always mean controlling the game. They fell right into several Dutch traps, as Louis van Gaal prepared his team to counter and strike hard when the chances came.
So what will the USMNT's version of dictating play look like this cycle, and what will it look like when they face a team like Germany? The U.S. will hope to provide an answer on Saturday.
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Getty ImagesClub connections
What makes this game even more intriguing is that, for many of the USMNT's stars, this one will feel personal.
Five players in the USMNT squad currently play for Bundesliga clubs. Four more have played in the league at one point or another. There's a connection there. Many of the USMNT's top stars will be playing against domestic team-mates and opponents, and they'll also be playing against friends.
"It's definitely a good opportunity for us to be able to play against guys that, at the club level, we've played against and played with," McKennie said, who began his career at Schalke. "Leon Goretzka, for instance, was like a big brother to me when I was coming through the ranks at Schalke, so it's going to be nice to be able to see him and play against him as well and maybe be able to say some bad words to him in German, just to refresh my memory of how it used to be."
Borussia Monchengladbach's Joe Scally added: “It definitely gives you a better feeling in the locker room with a bunch of German guys where you can brag."