The 2024 Copa América will start on June 20 when reigning world champions Argentina face Canada at 8 p.m. EST in Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The event is historically held in South America, however a partnership between the soccer federations of South America and North America, Central America and the Caribbean has allowed an expanded model of the event to be held in the USA.
The USA males’s nationwide staff has competed within the Copa América 4 instances earlier than this 12 months’s version, together with a powerful run to the semifinals in 2016. The USMNT shall be seeking to replicate its success eight years later.
The event will even kick off a sequence of necessary summers for American soccer. The U.S. will host the primary 32-team FIFA Membership World Cup subsequent summer time, and the FIFA World Cup will return to American soil in 2026. With three main worldwide tournaments hosted back-to-back, the eyes of world soccer followers shall be turned towards the U.S. The Copa América would be the first check for the No. 11 ranked USMNT to see how they stack up in opposition to elite groups forward of internet hosting the game’s greatest event in 2026.
Attacking choices
On the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the USMNT had the second-youngest roster with a mean age of 25.2 years. Forward of the Copa, the roster stays younger with a mean age of 25.6 years, however the staff is now extra skilled having reached the knockout stage of the World Cup eighteen months in the past.
The USMNT will look to regulate groups with its energetic midfield. With captain and Bournemouth midfielder Tyler Adams nonetheless coming back from damage, a younger midfield trio of AC Milan’s Yunus Musah, Juventus’ Weston Mckennie and Borussia Dortmund’s Gio Reyna will seemingly function within the opening video games. Johnny Cardoso, a 22-year-old midfielder who impressed at Actual Betis in Spain final season, will present extra midfield depth.
Juventus ahead Tim Weah and AC Milan ahead Chrisitan Pulisic will add a speedy and skillful attacking menace up entrance, however questions stay about who will play as striker. Head Coach Gregg Berhalter has a number of choices on the roster, together with PSV’s Ricardo Pepi, Coventry Metropolis’s Haji Wright and Norwich Metropolis’s Josh Sargent, in addition to AS Monaco striker Folarin Balogun who switched his eligibility from England to the U.S. in Might 2023. Berhalter is prone to rotate these gamers till one stakes a declare because the staff’s main ahead.
Protection
The USMNT’s Fulham defensive duo of Tim Ream and Antonee Robinson will seemingly begin on the again alongside heart again Chris Richards who had a stable membership season with Crystal Palace. Joe Scally, a 21-year-old defender who begins for the German Bundesliga membership Borussia Monchengladbach, will look to solidify the best again place for the USMNT on the Copa.
Goalkeeper Matt Turner has had a number of standout performances for the USMNT lately and has stored 23 clear sheets in 39 appearances. Nonetheless, after dropping his beginning place final season for membership staff Nottingham Forest after a sequence of shaky performances, Turner will purpose to return to raised kind on the Copa.
Coach
When Berhalter grew to become head coach in 2018, there was a excessive quantity of uncertainty surrounding the way forward for the USMNT after lacking out on the 2018 World Cup. He labored arduous to determine a profitable tradition with the younger, proficient staff, incomes three consecutive CONCACAF Nations League between 2021 and 2024, profitable the 2021 Gold Cup and reaching the Spherical of 16 on the 2022 World Cup.
Regardless of the latest success, the U.S. Soccer Federation had an opportunity to go in a brand new teaching path when Berhalter’s contract expired on the finish of 2022. As an alternative of hiring a brand new coach to present the bettering staff a recent begin, the federation elected to stick with Berhalter. This event will check whether or not Berhalter has the tactical and administration abilities to deliver the USMNT nearer to the highest of worldwide sport.
Competitors
Brazil and Lionel Messi’s Argentina are event favorites. Uruguay and Colombia will even be powerful rivals, with each groups advancing to the knockout stage in latest World Cups. Mexico, Canada and the U.S., the highest three groups within the North American area, will all be seeking to see how they match up in opposition to elite South American competitors.
The USMNT had combined ends in pre-tournament friendlies. The staff was thrashed 5-1 by Colombia on June 8, which resulted within the staff’s largest loss since 2016. 4 days later, the USMNT bounced again with one in every of its most spectacular outcomes, tying Brazil 1-1. Aside from one distribution mistake from Turner, the staff stored Brazil’s electrical entrance line of Vinicius Jr., Rodrygo and Raphinha comparatively quiet.
The USMNT is in Group C with Uruguay, Panama and Bolivia. After inconsistency in latest friendlies, it’s unclear which model of the USMNT will present up in opposition to Bolivia for its opening sport on June 23 at 6 p.m. EST. If the USMNT performs every sport with the identical depth it did in opposition to Brazil, the staff has the potential to go far within the event.
Thanks for tuning in because the 2024 Copa América begins.
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