The United States Men’s National Team faeces its toughest test under the second tenure of head coach Gregg Berhalter on Saturday afternoon, when they face off against a diminished, but still dangerous German team in East Hartford, Connecticut.
The game is the first of two relatively challenging friendlies in the current window, preceding Tuesday’s game against regular World Cup foes Ghana in Nashville.
The Americans and Germans have shared the field in several memorable games, the most recent with any serious bearing being their 2014 group-stage meeting in Brazil, narrowly won by the Germans 1-0 on their way to their fourth title.
The more painful memory for American fans will be the 2002 quarterfinal meeting in South Korea, a game where many of the US players were still running around in diapers or not yet born, and where the German coach was himself only 14 years old.
Apart from several key injuries, notably Tyler Adams and Josh Sargent, Berhalter has nearly as strong of a squad as one might hope for. Most promisingly, several player are in perhaps their best form in years heading into the game.
Hopes will be high for Christian Pulisic, who has been nothing short of spectacular since joining AC Milan, will continue his all-around excellence when he dons the US Jersey. His Rossoneri teammate Yunus Musah has also begun to shine in the recent handful of games for his new team, and should be a no-brainer to start on Saturday.
While Malik Tillman, who has also starred over the last few games for PSV Eindhoven, had to withdraw due to injury, the attack available to Berhalter is still stacked, with Monaco goalscorer Folarin Balogun a shoo-in to start as center forward. Ricardo Pepi has struggled for minutes with PSV Eindhoven, but has made the most of his limited time on the field with several goals, and will certainly see minutes, albeit in a substitute role.
In the 23-man squad, only Lennard Maloney stands to make his international debut. This would be a storybook situation for Berlin-born defensive midfielder, who played a handful of games in the German youth setup six years ago, but finally earned his first call-up to the senior American squad after becoming a mainstay in Heidenheim’s lineup during their first-ever season in the German top flight.
Five of the current squad are playing in Germany in the current season, although Joe Scally is currently the only one of those aside from Maloney to be a frequent starter for his team, Borussia Mönchengladbach. Of those players, all eyes will be on Gio Reyna, who has recently returned to the field for Dortmund after injury, and will play at some point on Saturday, after beginning the long process of mending bridges with Berhalter.
Their opponents, the Germans, are enduring one of their toughest, extended spells of recent memory. The current squad, while thick with talent, is a far cry from the successful team that won the the most recent of their World Cup titles less than ten years ago.
In last year’s edition of the World Cup, they were dumped out at the group stage after a shocking loss to Japan in the opening game set them on the wrong path. In a series of deflating friendlies in the months since, a series of draws and losses against supposedly inferior opponents were sandwiched in between a narrow win over Peru in March and last month’s victory over France.
The run was enough to convince the German FA to replace underperforming head coach Hansi Flick with 36 year-old prodigy Julian Nagelsmann, who will be making his debut on the national stage in this game.
That their two most dangerous attackers are the 34 year-old Thomas Müller and Chelsea cast-off Kai Havertz is a clear sign of their decline and seeming inability to find world-class fresh blood as in previous decades. 32 year-old debutant Kevin Behrens and the nine-times capped, 30 year-old journeyman Niclas Füllkrug will also hardly instill confidence of flipping the trend.
Nevertheless, the small handful of promising young players such as Bayern’s Jamal Musiala, Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz and 22 year-old AC Milan center Malick Thiaw do give signs that their mission to avoid embarrassing themselves in next summer’s home European Championships is not entirely hopeless.
The game will kick off at 3pm Eastern time, which will avoid any major shocks to the circadian rhythm of visitors or European-based USMNT players, although Bayern midfielder Leon Goretzka did express dissatisfaction with the far later kickoff time for the German’s subsequent game against Mexico.
The game will be the first for the USMNT at East Hartford’s Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field since they drew Peru 1-1 almost exactly five years ago. They have only lost once in seven prior games on the field, although the Germans, even in their current diminished state, will be the toughest foe they have faced thus far.