The knockout round has arrived early in South Africa. You’ve heard it plenty of times before, win and you live to play another day, lose and go home early.
With it’s World Cup lives on the line, the U.S. national team will face Algeria on Wednesday, in Pretoria. Will the U.S. hang around for a chance to shock the soccer world or will it bow out failing to reach expectations?
“We have an idea of what we want to do, but if we don’t do that we will be tremendously dissapointed, because so much hard work goes into this. You only get about a week and a half to really show your stuff and that’s not a long time,” goalkeeper Tim Howard said.
Comeback efforts against England and Slovenia have been impressive, inspiring and a little bit lucky.
The U.S. can not afford to put itself behind the eight ball, like it has done so many times before. Could the Yanks deliver a third straight come-from-behind result? Sure, but the odds of that happening are unlikely.
“When the game comes the entire world is watching. It’s not about all the hype, it’s not about all the media. It’s about concentrating on your job and getting the job done for those 90 minutes on the field and then on the training field as well. That’s the only thing that can make a difference and that can make everybody remember this team,” defender Steve Cherundolo said.
Up-and-down performances from Algeria have been hard to predict. The Desert Foxes played Slovenia to a goal, a rather inspiring goal at that. They then went scoreless in a surprising draw with England, depictions of the English performances withstanding.
Will this be the match that Algeria seemingly drops its level of play? Whether it is or is not, it should be the furthest thought from Bob Bradley and company. Regardless of how Algeria has played so far in this tournament, they are still eligable to advance. Now that Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa have been eliminated, there will be added local pressure for an African nation to advance.
But on the other side of the ball, what U.S. team will we see?
Jose Fransico Torres impressed against Turkey, before the World Cup, but was unseen for most of the first half against Slovenia. Maurice Edu was instrumental in the comeback effort, most notably scoring the disallowed goal that would have won the match for the Americans.
Look for Edu to start. If the U.S. finds itself in the lead after halftime, Torres could then be brought on to help control the ball and kill time toward a win.
Another change to the line up will be the absence of Robbie Findley, who picked his second yellow card of the tournament against Slovenia. His replacement appears to be the more challenging to find. Bradley toiled with the idea of Clint Dempsey up top several times, but he also has Edson Buddle and Herculez Gomez on the bench. Gomez looked sharp in limited action against Slovenia.
“I hope that I can come off the bench and create some kind of spark, I’ve had success with that in the last six months. So I’m hoping to capitalize on that,” Gomez said.
Who starts next to Jozy Altidore is somewhat of a toss up. Any of the aforementioned Buddle, Dempsey or Gomez could fill the role and have logged minutes there during this World Cup.
But the most important piece to a successful match against the Algeria will be for Landon Donovan to play the way he did in the second-half against Slovenia. Not only his ability to score, but like we’ve seen time and time again, he is a superb passer as well.
If Donovan is running free, that will open up space for Dempsey, Altidore and company. And that is when the U.S. is at it’s best.
”At the end of the day the only thing that is going to bring this team along is positive results at the World Cup,” Cherundolo said.
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