Preview: USMNT vs Uzbekistan
By Charles Boehm – WASHINGTON, DC (Sep 8, 2023) US Soccer Players – The USMNT continues their journey towards the 2026 World Cup on Saturday with a friendly vs Uzbekistan at CityPark in St Louis (5:30pm ET – TNT). It’s the first match of coach Gregg Berhalter’s second cycle in charge of the program and the first of two games in the Midwest this month, with Oman next up in Minnesota on Tuesday.
After interim leadership stints by Anthony Hudson and BJ Callaghan earlier in the year, Berhalter has now resumed his duties in full. With a mix of new faces and familiar ones on his staff as well as on the roster, he aims to build on the accomplishments of the previous four years.
“There’s that time apart that kind of renews the relationships and renews that excitement to be back together. You don’t get the boredom that sometimes you get in club soccer,” Berhalter told reporters when announcing his squad for this window. “We want to basically acknowledge that OK, there’s been good work, but now we can take it to a different level. And here’s how we’re going to take it to a different level.”
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Weston McKennie and Tim Weah noted how the collective spirit crafted over the road to Qatar 2022 has been sustained even in Berhalter’s absence. There’s also hope that the existing tactical foundations can be augmented and advanced with so much collective familiarity.
“He said look, it was amazing to be able to see that even though I was gone and whoever stepped in, to realize that the brotherhood was strong, to realize that you guys have the same values, have the same approach to the game with just the intensity, the way that we fight, the way that we want to win games,” said McKennie of the coach’s return. “That’s the culture that we built here. And so whoever’s here or not, that’s something that that is always in place, and that’s important.”
McKennie and Weah are now club teammates at Juventus this season, two of six USMNTers on the current roster who share a club with a countryman. They said that can only help strengthen their relationships while wearing national team kits.
“It’s definitely a big positive because already me and Wes, we have a pretty much a good understanding about how – I understand how he plays, he understands how I play, so our chemistry is really good,” said Weah. “Now that we’re on the same team training every day, it’s just going to make it even better and when we come to into camp, it’s just very fluid. So hopefully that translates to the games, and I don’t know, we’re just happy. We’re happy to be in this moment. We’re happy to have each other in Turin and with the national team.”
It’s the USMNT’s first-ever meeting with both of these adversaries. Given the crowded schedule of the coming years, this month’s schedule is being framed as the best and perhaps only opportunity to gain experience against teams from the Asian Football Confederation in this cycle. Berhalter spoke of “two Asian opponents that we could very well see in the world cup in Uzbekistan and Oman… I think this is a really good test for our group.”
Saturday also marks a step towards the future in the ancestral cradle of the sport in the United States. St Louis produced many of the players who competed on the iconic 1950 US World Cup team and dozens of others across the decades since, including current veteran defender Tim Ream. While the USMNT has played in the city before, there’s a bigger scope with first-year MLS club St Louis City thriving at their new downtown soccer venue, which stands just a stone’s throw from the club’s training facility where the Yanks have been preparing.
“To be able to come back and play in an actual soccer stadium, a stadium built for purpose, built for the game and the club here, to be able to experience that is something that as a kid you dream of,” said Ream on Monday. “It’ll be really cool, I’ve heard and seen incredible things about the experience and the fans and being able to train just across the street and see it there in the distance, in the background this morning, has just made it that much more exciting.”
The program is giving tribute to the city’s soccer history this week, welcoming more than a dozen alumni to Tuesday’s training session and holding a pregame ceremony to honor 23 St Louis-based USMNTers. That’s provided inspiration for a young group eager to climb to new heights when the World Cup returns to North America in three years’ time.
“They started it. We’re just people that pick up the anchor and carry it as far as we can until the next generation comes in as well,” said McKennie, revealing the new tagline for this cycle. “I think it’s just a big collective work, big collective group in terms of growing the game here in America. We set out on a mission four years ago to change the way the world views American soccer and now our motto is to change soccer in America forever.… Hopefully we can take it as far as we can and make them proud.”
Photo by Bill Barrett – ISIPhotos.com
