Enthusiasm and assertiveness abound as the US men’s national team put in work this week ahead of their friendlies vs. Wales Thursday (2:45 pm ET | FS1, UniMás, TUDN) and Panama on Nov. 16, with a highly talented group vying to make a strong impression and earn minutes.
“As soon as the quality within the team starts to raise, there's always going to be that internal competition to push each other for a position on the field,” midfielder Tyler Adams told reporters in a Monday afternoon conference call. “I wouldn't say that in the past there was not such competition, but now, when you're saying you're competing with a fellow player in your team that's also playing in the Champions League, I think that's super, super important.”
Young US players like Adams, Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Sergiño Dest are carving out significant roles at some of the biggest clubs in the world and dual nationals like Yunus Musah and Nicholas Gioacchini have been recruited to give the USMNT a look. With 10 new arrivals, optimism is burgeoning as a rising tide drives everyone to perform at a high level.
“We've all raised the bar individually to reach our own goals. And when we can do that as a collective and see one another playing for Barca, playing for Juve, playing for Chelsea, that sets your goals even higher and you want to achieve great things,” said Adams. “So when you come with the national team, bringing those qualities together, competing for spots, the vibe of the camp is excellent with all these players coming from these amazing environments. That really sets the bar high.”
The reality check, at least in the short term: The newcomer-heavy group faces a race against time to soak up information and build connections and understanding.
With players reporting from a range of countries across Europe (as well as late addition Sebastian Lletget of the LA Galaxy) and negotiating various travel and COVID-19 quarantine procedures along the way, coach Gregg Berhalter and his staff will have precious little time with the full roster, no small matter considering how long it’s been since the team gathered – and how much work they have to do ahead of a busy 2021.
“Overall, we've had one real session with 11 players,” Berhalter told reporters on Monday afternoon. “Tomorrow, we'll have a bigger session, all the rest of the guys will be here, will be tested, will be out of their isolation, and we'll have the whole group together. So the odd thing about it is, we'll be having a welcome meeting tomorrow and we've been together for two and a half days. So that's the odd part of COVID that we're all dealing with.”
Those who’ve already spent time in Berhalter’s system carry over a base level of understanding and the staff have used video calls, tactical analysis software and other technology to keep concepts fresh over a 2020 mostly lost to the pandemic. Now everyone’s trying to put it all together in person as best they can in a compressed time window.
“With such a young group, we have to set realistic expectations for ourselves,” said Adams. “With how the schedule works moving forward and what competitive games we have, we know that we have to progress rather quickly, because a lot of the guys in this group that are here can play such a key factor moving forward.
“I would say everyone's quite behind, because we've had eight months off to a pandemic,” he added. “But other than that, it's just about coming in and taking as much information in as possible, because with such limited training, you don't have the opportunity to have repetition. So the best footballers obviously have to be able to mentally have a large capacity of information, withhold that, and then move on.”
Berhalter sounded cautiously optimistic, moderating expectations and reminding the fresher faces they probably won’t displace incumbents overnight.
“In theory, choices are getting harder to make, right? But now it's about doing it on the field,” he said. “And now it's about the young players, players taking advantage of this opportunity. And that's what's most important to me about this. It's easy to discount established players. But I think until you can prove it on the field, then you're not taking their place yet. So I have a lot of hope for this group of players, I believe in this group of players. And I think that as they continue to gain experience, both with their clubs and country, they're going to continue to grow and be fantastic players. But we can't get ahead of ourselves.”
