The road to redemption of the US men’s national team, in the form of a seat for the 2022 World Cup, begins Thursday night in El Salvador, where the first of 14 qualifying matches at Estadio Cuscatlán takes place.
After missing the 2018 World Cup, the US is focused on returning to the big stage, even if this group doesn’t dwell on what happened four years ago. Instead, a slew of young players led by a new manager are looking to ride the momentum of winning two Concacaf trophies this summer and climb to tenth place in the FIFA world rankings. To maintain this momentum, they will need to achieve what no US men’s team has done since 2013: win a road qualifier.
They will have to do it without two presumed owners, with Christian Pulisic (COVID-19, fitness) and Zack Steffen (back spasms) both unavailable for this match. They stayed in Nashville to train before the rest of the United States joins them on Friday before Sunday’s qualifying game against Canada at Nissan Stadium. The September window ends with a September 8 trip to San Pedro Sula to tackle Honduras.
But first there is the matter against El Salvador, who is ranked 64th in the world but proved he could be dangerous at this summer’s Gold Cup, where he fell in the quarter-finals against the host nation of Qatar. Trained by former US men’s national team champion and US youth soccer coach Hugo Pérez, La Selecta is ready to make an advance statement against one of the region’s giants.
Stay tuned here for live updates and highlights of goals and key plays from the entire match (update for the latest updates).
Here are the formations of both teams:
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