Men’s soccer: Young Americans get taste of how much work lies ahead
For another week or so, at least, the players on the United States men’s national team can enjoy the relative innocence of their youth.
Unencumbered by any weight of expectation, unburdened by anything so pesky as a track record, the U.S. has pushed through a year of experimentation with a temporary coaching staff that has given opportunities to dozens of promising, young players. The in-between period lurched closer to completion at Wembley Stadium, in a game against England that had been billed as a gathering of some of the brightest young talents in the American player pool: Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Tim Weah, Tyler Adams.
The result, though, could only be seen as a letdown: a shapeless, lifeless and directionless loss that felt more lopsided than the 3-0 final score indicated.
“We need to get a lot better as a team,” Pulisic, 20, said of Thursday night’s defeat in only his second appearance for the team in the year since failing to qualify for the World Cup. “We can talk about continuing to gain experience but that’s not why we’re here. We want to win now.”
The Americans will play another big opponent, Italy, on Tuesday in Belgium. And then, some time in the weeks after that, they are expected to name a permanent head coach to replace Dave Sarachan.
The average age on the team in camp this week is 23 years 187 days. Sixteen of the players are 23 years old or under.
The U.S. might eventually look to England, which rode a young squad sprinkled with veterans to the semifinals at the World Cup this summer, for inspiration; for now, the Americans are merely in the embryonic stages, with regulars such as Michael Bradley, 31, and Jozy Altidore, 29, left out for the moment.
“We’ve moved it along so that when the calendar year flips, and we get into 2019 and we begin the next cycle, there’s a great starting point there,” Sarachan said.
The current games most likely represent an end point for Sarachan, with Gregg Berhalter of the Columbus Crew widely viewed as the front-runner to take over.