US men’s soccer team completes World Cup tuning and looks listless


The USA men’s soccer team concluded a week-and-a-half training camp in Europe on Tuesday night, intended to fine-tune ahead of the World Cup. But it instead raised a plethora of questions that will simmer ahead of the team’s first game in Qatar.

The Americans drew 0-0 with Saudi Arabia in Dusseldorf, Germany in Murcia, Spain, four days after beating Japan 2-0. As America’s men return to football’s biggest tournament this year for the first time since 2014, the two underperforming performances will be seen as missed opportunities to build trust within the largely untried team and its worried fan base.

No player has stood out – neither from the core of the young starters nor the fringe players fighting for some of the final squad spots. Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams, the team’s young lynchpins in midfield, looked worryingly indecisive. Christian Pulisic, the star whose mood was watched breathlessly by US fans during a difficult period with his England club team, missed the first game with injury and failed to impress in the second.

What’s next? Those playing in MLS, which ends its season with a league game on November 5, are expected to attend a training camp in the United States in the weeks leading up to the team’s opening game against Wales on November 21. However, the many players based in Europe will travel to Qatar directly from their clubs. It was all the more important that the team showed some growth in its last opportunity to play games as a group this month – and all the more disappointing that it didn’t.

In a way, the two games seemed sub-optimal for simulating the typically tense experience of a World Cup. The game in Dusseldorf took place in an almost empty stadium, on a field that seemed to dissolve as soon as the players entered it. In Murcia, the atmosphere was even calmer, reminiscent of games played behind closed doors earlier in the coronavirus pandemic.

It was a far cry from the typical celebratory farewell matches teams have put together in previous World Cup years, but it was necessary given the unusual timing of this late-autumn edition of the tournament.

Still, no one on the team would use the conditions as an excuse for their sloppy performance. Players at this level can be expected to execute a game plan, rise up and meet the urgency of the moment.

At various points over the past week, coach Gregg Berhalter has attributed some of the side’s shaky play to the players’ nervousness and stress over the squad selection process. The stress will only increase during the group stage in Qatar with the world watching and everything at stake.