The United States men’s national team will announce its official 2022 World Cup roster on Wednesday evening.
A few players, including Sam Vines and Chris Richards, were forced to withdraw their names from consideration due to injury.
With the US World Cup roster set to be announced, we’ll take a look at a few positions that could prove to be areas of weakness in Qatar.
1. Striker
Since the decline of Josy Altidore, Greg Berhalter has had to cycle through numerous strikers, including Gyasi Zardes, Josh Sargent, Jesus Ferreira, Nicholas Gioacchini, and Chris Mueller.
While he stumbled on Ricard Pepo, who scored multiple times during qualifiers, he has been quiet for the last 11 months.
In fact, USMNT has not been able to score in six of its last seven games against 2022 World Cup participants.
Heading into Qatar, Ferrara, Pepi and Sargent lead the line but have only collectively managed two shots on target.
2. Central Backer
While the US defense has been actually really good against World Cup-caliber foes, it has since fallen apart due to injuries.
Tyler Adams and Walker Zimmerman anchor the defense but his partner Miles Robinson tore his achilles.
The next man up, Chris Richards was also injured in June and again in September. Richards hasn’t played since August and will not be joining the squad in Qatar as a result.
Now the position is left open, trickling down to Aaron Long or Tim Ream.
While Long fits better into the system, Ream draws club ties with Zimmerman.
3. Goalkeeper
According to a report from CBS Sports, the United States men’s national team will not include Zack Steffen at the World Cup. After being Berhalter’s No.1 goalkeeper, his performances for Middlebrough have not been good enough for him to make the roster.
Steffen has also been suffering from back spasms and subsequent COVID-19 infections, which led him to lose his starting job.
Instead, the US National team is reportedly going to include Ethan Horvath, Matt Turner, and Sean Johnson.
While Turner, Horvath, and Johnson have built up good reputations, leaving out one of the team’s top goalkeepers isn’t ideal heading into Qatar.
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