For the third time in just over six months, the U.S. men’s national team is facing off against Jamaica, but the stakes are at their highest in Thursday night’s World Cup qualifier in Austin, Texas.
The two sides open up the three-match October window at Austin FC’s Q2 Stadium with critical points on the line as both attempt to make it to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The U.S. enters with five points following an uneven, yet unbeaten, September window (1-0-2), while winless and last-place Jamaica (0-2-1) has some ground to make up in the Concacaf Octagonal table after taking just a single point from its first three games.
The U.S. won both of their previous meetings this year, the first a March friendly in Austria and the more recent one a July Gold Cup quarterfinal outside Dallas. Matthew Hoppe’s late goal was the difference in the 1–0 victory that kept the U.S. on course to win the regional title.
Both sides are missing key players, with Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna and John Brooks all out hurt for the U.S., while Jamaica is without West Ham forward Michail Antonio and Aston Villa winger Leon Bailey.
The U.S. welcomes the return of Weston McKennie, though, with the Juventus midfielder back in camp and in the starting lineup after being banished last month after one game for breaking team protocol in Nashville. He’s joined in the midfield by Tyler Adams and Yunus Musah, who makes his competitive debut and becomes cap-tied in the process.
Stay tuned here for live updates and highlights of goals and key plays from throughout the match (refresh for most recent updates).
Here are the lineups for the night:
More Soccer Coverage:
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()
{n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}
;if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;
n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,
document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
(function(){
fbq(‘init’, ‘1103097776498609’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
var contentId = ‘ci028f1fcb200025ea’;
if (contentId !== ”) {
fbq(‘track’, ‘ViewContent’, {content_ids: [contentId], content_type: ‘product’});
}
})();
Source link