Soccer is great because soccer never stops. The game is played in two 45 minute periods that have zero commercial breaks within them. There is also always a league in season somewhere in the world (thank you, MLS, for have an opposing calendar to most of Europe).
It's a pretty big summer for US Soccer. Official schedule, with kickoff times and television networks, is here. The windows of games tuck together nicely, with the USMNT playing between June 1-14, the U-20s run from June 18-July 3 (if they make the final) and the USWNT from July 4-18 (if/when they make the final).
I'm happy to discuss further or answer any questions that arise!
USMNT
There are only six total matches for the USMNT before the World Cup in November and 4 of them happen in the next week or so. Our boys are currently tied for 21st in the world in Elo rankings. (These are way better than the weird FIFA Rankings).
The first two matches are friendlies (exhibitions not connected to any competition) against other teams qualified for the World Cup. These are expected to basically be practice time for the number one team to play together and the opponents will probably treat them similarly.
The second two matches are the group stage of the latest CONCACAF Nations League (the trophy we won over Mexico in that 3-2 thriller in Denver last June - it's THAT photo of shirtless Pulisic shushing the Mexican fans). More info on Nations League here.
A quick overview of the four:
Wednesday evening (June 1) is a friendly against Morocco in Cincinnati. Morocco is 34th in Elo. For reference, Costa Rica is 33. It will be a good test against a team with top-level talent. Players to watch are Yousef Al-Nesri at forward (Sevilla) and Achraf Hakimi at right back (PSG), who might be the best right back in the world.
Sunday afternoon (June 5) is a friendly against Uruguay in Kansas City. Uruguay is 12th in Elo. For reference, Mexico is 17 and England is 5. This is a very good team that consistently makes it out of the group stage in major tournaments. Players to watch are Federico Valverde (Real Madrid) and Matias Vecino (Inter Milan) at midfield and Edinson Cavani (Manchester United) at forward.
The night of Friday, June 10 is Nations League Group Stage against Grenada in Austin (I might be going, but the start time isn't until 9pm.) Grenada is ranked 175 in Elo, but they played their way into the top "league" (12 teams) of CONCACAF in the last iteration of Nations League. For reference, El Salvador was the lowest team in the Octagonal for World Cup Qualifying and is ranked 84. This should be a good opportunity to try out some players who are unproven and new to the team, like Malik Tillman or players who are back for the first time in a while, like Haji Wright (lots of goals in Turkey this calendar year) and Djordje Mihailovic (who is tearing up MLS but left his game injured on Saturday). We will also probably see a formation change, going with a three center back set-up - 3-4-3 / 3-4-2-1 / 5-2-3 or the like. Formation overviews here, if you're interested.
The last game is Tuesday, June 14 at El Salvador, the site of the disappointing 0-0 draw that opened World Cup Qualifying. That was the game with the loud national anthem and Gio Reyna getting hit on the head with a bottle of water. I'm really not sure how Berhalter will want to play this one. I assume he will try out some things like against Grenada, but the margin for error is quite a bit lower against a decent team on the road.
USWNT
This is a HUGE summer for the US women, with qualifying for two major tournaments and a significant amount of debate on who the players for the team should even be.
Many of the current generation who won the 2015 and 2019 World Cups are still around, with only a few having been retired or phased out in the years since. The debate centers around how many new players should be brought in and how many of the old players should stick around. Some notable younger players are Catarina Macario, who just scored for Lyon in the Champions League final, Ashley Sanchez, a very fun midfielder, and Trinity Rodman (yep, Dennis' daughter) who was the first pick in the NWSL draft last year and is incredibly talented. There are others in their prime who have yet to be given a big chance with the national team due to the incredible and lengthy presence of Carli Lloyd, Megan Rapinoe, Tobin Heath, Alex Morgan, etc.
The actual competition is the CONCACAF W Championship (the women's version of the Gold Cup, more or less), which takes place July 4-18, all in Nueva Leon, MX with TV coverage on Paramount Plus. There will also be two friendlies before the tournament on June 25 and 28, both against Colombia, one in Denver, one in Salt Lake City.
The W Championship will decide who from CONCACAF qualifies for the 2023 World Cup, as well as the 2024 Olympics. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the World Cup (should be pretty easy for US), while only the WINNER of the whole tournament will qualify for the Olympics (only 12 teams total in the tournament, and only two from CONCACAF). That will be much more difficult, especially since defending gold medalist Canada will be in this same competition. There will be an alternate route for one more CONCACAF team to qualify for the Olympics, but that will take further completion, and, to my knowledge, the process has not been confirmed.
Our group is Haiti, Jamaica, and Mexico (not nearly the power in women's soccer as they are in men's, due to a long history of sexism). Semifinals are July 14 and the Final is July 18.
USMNT U-20s
This team also has a double-qualifier tournament with the CONCACAF U-20 Championship. All four teams that makes the semi-finals will qualify for the 2023 U-20 World Cup and the two teams that make the final will qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics (which we have not qualified for since 2008).
Information for Context:
1. For the unfamiliar, U-20 means players under the age of 20. For this specific competition, anyone born on or after January 1, 2003 is eligible.
2. Men's Olympic Soccer is weird. FIFA doesn't want it stealing the attention of the World Cup (despite being two years apart), so it's a U-23 tournament. That's an age group that doesn't really exist in most competitions. I think the Premier League Reserve League is U-23 and American college soccer is effectively U-23 but that's about it. It's odd that the U-20 team qualifies for a U-23 tournament, but I think this new format will work in the favor of the US. More about that and the US Olympic failures below, if you're interested.
Why should you care? Our 2018 team won the tournament and included Sergino Dest, Chris Richards, Mark McKenzie and Paxton Pomykal (if you don't know, you will). I must also say it included Julian Araujo, David Ochoa and Ayo Akinola none of who, any longer play for the US. Even so, some of the next generation of stars will be on this team, some of whom are already making an impact in MLS, and the nature of the age of those participating leads to fun - think of college football-type energy, but on a soccer pitch. The team had a training camp in April and the preliminary roster was made public on May 26 but I don't know when the final roster for the actual competition will be released. More info below on the preliminary roster.
As far as I can tell, the games will be broadcast on TUDN. I'm not sure if there is an English-language option. In the past, they have also streamed on the CONCACAF website.
BONUS CONTENT
Weird Olympic Soccer Thing: It's a U-23 tournament, but each team can have three players who are over 23. Often one is a keeper, because they frequently take longer to develop.
Olympic Qualifying Failures:
The most recent one was basically down to the coach, Jason Kreis, being a terrible coach. He is an MLS legend and was at one point the all-time leader scorer in MLS. He also won MLS Cup with Real Salt Lake in 2009. He had a few more decent years but has been pretty bad overall in the years since. It sort of feels like this was the only job he could get (which is indicative of some of the administrative problems with US Soccer). Even worse than all of that, it really felt like he had no idea which players were good or not, leaving off several high performing MLS players for players who were younger and had more experience with the senior or various youth national teams. This team was also thrown together in the last few months, unlike Mexico or Honduras, which regularly have camps with this age group, even through COVID, even though there are not matches at the end of the camp. Those countries qualify almost every Olympiad. (You may recall that Honduras was dead last in the Octagonal, for what that's worth.)
Further context: This tournament took place outside of a FIFA-approved international window, which means that club teams did not have to allow players to leave. (The actual Olympics itself is also like this, but clubs are more likely to allow players to go there.) MLS teams (except Atlanta) will regularly let players go to help with development and a sense of national pride, etc, but European clubs do not care at all if the US makes the Olympics (duh, lol). Here's a list of players (oldest to youngest) that were eligible for Olympic qualifying, and the Olympics themselves, for Tokyo 2020 (2021): Antonee Robinson, Miles Robinson, Weston McKennie, Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Tim Weah, Sergino Dest, Brenden Aaronson, Jesus Ferreira, Gio Reyna, Yunus Musah, and Ricardo Pepi. Yep, it's pretty much our senior national team best 11. LMAO.
U-20 Preliminary Roster Tidbits - (Dual nationals who play for the US in this tournament can still switch, as long as they have not appeared for the Senior National Team)
Paxten Aaronson - Brendan's brother - They say he's more talented.
Justin Che - Already at Hoffenheim in Germany, was on Bayern Munich's radar.
Caden Clark - Moving to RB Leipzig (Germany) at some point, regularly scores bangers.
Cade Cowell - Incredible athlete, jacked, great hair.
Jonathan Gomez - Mexican dual national, hasn't made his choice - huge left back prospect.
Daniel Leyva - Plays regularly for Seattle Sounders.
Moses Nyeman - Hyped for a long time, hasn't quite put it all together yet.
Kevin Paredes - Recently moved to Wolfsberg (Germany), tons of potential as an attacking fullback.
Gabriel "GaGa" Slonina - Polish dual national - Recently committed to play for the US - Full time starter in goal for the Chicago Fire at age 18 - hasn't played well lately but is the next great American keeper.
Obed Vargas - From Alaska! - Mexican dual national who has not decided - Plays regularly for Seattle, including a huge shift on for an injured player in the Champions League Final
Joshua Wynder - Full time starter at center back for Louisville City (USL) at age 17 - Including because LouCity is my boyhood club (they were founded in 2015 lol).
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