This USMNT team is very young; they'll be the youngest at Qatar. Sometimes they look like serious 2026 World Cup contenders, sometimes they look lucky to have qualified for the 2022 tournament. Friday's 2-0 loss to Japan was a look at, as we outlined in our match preview, many of the worst-case scenarios for this team.
American fans that woke up early Friday morning to watch the United States men’s national team play a friendly vs. Japan were greeted to a pathetic, lackluster 2-0 U.S. defeat. Gregg Berhalter’s men were second-best just about everywhere on the field.
In the final international break before the World Cup, the USMNT faces an interesting set of matches against some infrequent opponents as Gregg Berhalter looks to formulate his final roster.
The international period begins on Sep. 22 with a friendly match against Japan at 8:25 a.m. ET in Düsseldorf, Germany. This is followed by a friendly against Saudi Arabia on Sep. 27 in Murcia, Spain.
Gregg Berhalter’s United States men’s national team plays its first of two friendlies on Friday vs. Japan. The game is being played on neutral ground in Düsseldorf, Germany. Here are some USMNT vs Japan predictions and scenarios.
Up first will be the overall scenarios, and then it'll be broken down by the three sections (attack, midfield and defense).
Wales captain Gareth Bale said he is on a "good path" towards full fitness ahead of the World Cup in Qatar, despite not completing a full game since joining Los Angeles FC in June.
Bale signed for the Major League Soccer club after leaving Real Madrid, where he struggled with injury in his last few seasons. He has made only two starts in his 11 appearances for LAFC, scoring twice.
It's almost impossible to believe, but we're currently just 671 days from the start of soccer at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, and the IOC is revealing key dates for how to get tickets for Paris Olympics.
It's going to be a massive competition for U.S. Soccer as the USWNT looks to return to the top of the podium after earning bronze in Tokyo, while the USMNT U-23s are back at the Olympics for the first time since 2008.
The USMNT begins its two-game September window Friday morning with a friendly against fellow World Cup participant Japan at Merkur Spiel-Arena in Düsseldorf, Germany.
It'll be a fascinating matchup with the Samurai Blue fielding the likes of Schalke's Maya Yoshida, Monaco's Takumi Minamino, Arsenal's Takehiro Tomiyasu and Real Sociedad's Takefusa Kubo, while the U.S. is looking for some reassurances from its banner carriers (the goalkeeper position, Christian Pulisic).
This week serves as the final international break before clubs must release players to their national teams just one week before the World Cup begins, so the latest squad selections should be huge indicators of the final 26-man rosters for the competing nations.
However, a look at the current teams indicates that this won't be a traditional World Cup of blockbuster snubs, but rather an exploration of player pools in an attritional battle against lingering muscle strains.
The lives of most professional footballers — outside of vacation — are never quite as exciting as we'd like to believe. Their schedules are a ceaseless clockwork of training, recovery, matches and rest, so they spend the majority of their days on the couch in the living room recuperating.
This is doubly so when footballers are injured and deprived of their one meaningful outlet, so they become hellbent on returning to action by spending every waking hour either in the physio room or planted in front of the television.
To prepare you for the tournament, The18 has launched 2022 World Cup team previews for each of the 32 nations competing in Qatar.
Below you will find each team listed along with a link to those previews that have been published. Check back throughout the buildup to the 2022 World Cup as we publish a complete list of World Cup team previews, updated with the latest on each team participating in the greatest men's soccer tournament in the world.