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The United States World Cup team is the first one out of all participants at the Qatar tournament to train in Doha, the capital city of the organizing country.
National team coach Gregg Berhalter got a chance to take his, at the time, depleted team to Doha so they can get the first taste of the atmosphere surrounding the World Cup. There were only nine players involved in the initial training sessions, all of them from the Major League Soccer that recently concluded its season with the Los Angeles FC winning their first title.
Later in the week, there were two additional players joined the team, the first ones from Europe. Yunus Musah from Valencia and Luca de la Torre joined from Celta Vigo. The latter was the last-gasp addition to a 26-man squad because Berhalter wasn’t sure whether the midfielder recovered from his injury problems. He missed some time on the field because of a muscle rupture in his left hamstring.
The player situation has become more clear after last weekend’s action across Europe when leagues finalized the first part of the season and started to let players leave to join their national teams. The United States will put the most trust in their European-based players who are the biggest stars of the team. There are 17 players from European clubs in total that are part of a main 26-player squad for the United States. That number alone proves how much the United States developed as a footballing country.
Pulisic leading the pack
Christian Pulisic is the one player that coach Gregg Berhalter will look to, as the team opens its account against Gareth Bale and Wales on November 21st. Pulisic had a tough season for Chelsea thus far. He did participate in 13 league matches, but with limited starting opportunities and barely passed 30 percent of the minutes available in those games.
He will be especially motivated to prove he is still the best player that his country has at the moment. But, he is not the only star player that will try to bring the US some international success on the football stage. Long has past the days when the Americans had only a few players with experience at the highest level of European football.
Pulisic plays for Chelsea, Weston McKennie has been playing good football for Juventus, Giovanni Reyna is a member of Borussia Dortmund, and among others, Sergino Dest is a Barcelona player, currently on loan at AC Milan.
Berhalter has a terrific squad at his disposal and for the first time, maybe ever in the history of American football/soccer, there will be an ambition to have a result at the World Cup. The group the US has been drawn into has a way out of it, into the playoff stage. England is the toughest obstacle and the one that will probably be the easiest game for the US squad. Nobody will expect them to win, so the pressure won’t be as high as in the first game against Wales.
After their match against Wales, England will follow, and the last game will be versus Iran on November 29th.
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