The stadium will be a bit smaller than the ones the US men’s national team usually inhabit, the players on both sides generally younger and less familiar to most audiences. It’s still a match falling outside FIFA’s international windows. Yet Saturday afternoon’s friendly vs. Slovenia at Toyota Field in San Antonio (3 pm ET | TNT, MAX, Peacock) holds real value for the players and coaches who’ve been working together in central Florida and south Texas for the past two weeks.
And the numbers on the scoreboard at full time still matter.
“The first thing is, winning is important. That's who we are,” USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter told reporters in his matchday-1 press conference on Friday. “That's what we represent as a national team. Coming to terms with that, for some of the younger players to feel the pressure and have to go out there and perform and get a victory, I think is an important psychological barrier that we need to overcome.”
Sixteen of the 23 players currently in this camp are still in search of their first senior international cap; 14 are experiencing their first-ever USMNT call-up. They’ve nonetheless been instructed in the same game model and team culture as Christian Pulisic, Matt Turner and the rest of the program’s established core, most of whom are currently immersed in their respective club campaigns across the Atlantic in Europe.
“There's not going to be much of a change. We're looking for guys to be aggressive, to keep the ball, to move the opponent around,” said Berhalter. “It's just about seeing how this group of players can execute that. So far in training, they look good. In general, before the day’s over I'd expect probably 13, 14 players to make their debut. So it's going to be a nice afternoon for a lot of guys and they deserve it after a strong camp.
“Aside from that, we've been working on a number of things, from a mid-block defensive shape to some attacking rotations, and it'll be nice to see how that plays out on the field tomorrow.”
Striker competition
Brian White is a prime example, and one of Saturday’s players to watch. Two weeks shy of his 28th birthday, the Vancouver Whitecaps striker is finally at the doorstep of a major milestone he’s chased for much of his life via a winding career path that’s taken him across multiple tiers on the soccer pyramid.
The New Jersey native is competing with Orlando City’s Duncan McGuire for the starting No. 9 role this weekend.
“It's been a long road, I think, to get to this point,” White told media on Thursday. “Growing up, you always dreamed of playing for your national team at any level, and throughout my youth, I was on the outside looking in at all the youth camps, recently watching people get called into the full national team camps and just waiting for one opportunity to be able to show what I can do, how I can play.
"It's definitely been intense. I think you have a lot of young, hungry players that want to prove themselves in camp. ... There's a lot more to prove when you come into the national team, and I think it's really helped raise the level."
Bajraktarevic's "great future"
White is the oldest player in this camp. On the other end of the spectrum, the youngest, New England Revolution homegrown attacker Esmir Bajraktarevic, seems to have pushed himself into the conversation.
“The coaching staff has been really impressed with him,” said Berhalter. “Really impressed with his skill set. He's 18 years old, but he's got a strong mentality, very competitive, very aggressive on the ball, willing to do the work defensively, and just has coped really well with the environment. You would think that a young player, 18 years old, comes in and is shy and is afraid to impose himself on the field, but this is the exact opposite of Esmir, and we think he's got a great future ahead of him.”
Saturday’s venue, the home of USL Championship club San Antonio FC, is sold out for this match, with a new attendance record expected despite chilly temperatures thanks to the nasty cold front that swept across Texas in recent days. It’s a marked change from the smaller crowds that became the norm for January friendlies in Southern California, and a reminder of the value of bringing events like this to areas of the country that are visited by the national team with less frequency.
Proving ground
With just 30 months or so until the 2026 World Cup on home soil and many of the USMNT gatherings in that time already earmarked for first-choice rosters, this could well be the best or even only chance for many of these players to show their abilities in front of Berhalter & Co.
“This is a great opportunity for some of these players. We obviously have the Olympics, which is another platform for some of our younger players, but there's not going to be too many opportunities like this from now until the World Cup,” said the coach. “That's why thankfully, the MLS teams were gracious in releasing their players, because it really gives these guys an opportunity to show what they can do.”
About half the group is age-eligible for the predominantly Under-23 team that will represent the United States at the Olympics in France this summer. U-23s coach Marko Mitrovic has been working alongside Berhalter and the senior staff to evaluate his options for that tournament, which is not on the FIFA calendar and thus poses selection headaches since clubs are not required to release their players for the event.
It’s an example of the January camp’s enduring, if evolving, utility as the US player pool has grown dramatically since it was born decades ago as a workaround to amend what was back then quite a long MLS offseason.
“I think this has been a useful exercise, I really do, considering the Olympics are coming up,” said Berhalter. “Marko has been with us the entire time. He's been able to see how his players can deal with the pressures of the senior national team, see how they're coping with some older players and really to get everyone on the same page and most importantly, I think, give players an opportunity.
“When the schedule becomes difficult, and when we're playing high-stakes matches, it's sometimes challenging to give new players, really young players, an opportunity in these high-profile events like the Nations League and Copa América. So I think this is a perfect opportunity to reward players with strong MLS seasons and bring them into camp and see what they can do.”
