The US receives Morocco with unknowns to resolve before Qatar-2022

Six months after their debut in Qatar-2022, the United States will face Morocco on Wednesday in a friendly match that should clear up doubts about the team with which they will return to a World Cup.

This duel against Morocco, also a World Cup player, which will start at 7:30 p.m. local time (23:30 GMT) at the TQL stadium in Cincinnati (Ohio), kicks off the penultimate US concentration before the World Cup.

With this same group of players, the United States will play another friendly on Sunday against Uruguay in Kansas City (Kansas) and the first two commitments of the Concacaf Nations League against Granada and El Salvador on June 10 and 14.

The coach, Gregg Berhalter, drags some unknowns for his starting eleven since the Concacaf qualifiers, in which the United States sealed the return to a World Cup after the absence in Russia-2018, and has added others due to recent injuries.

One of the urgencies is to define the replacement for the starting center-back Miles Robinson, who suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon earlier this month with Atlanta United.

The young Chris Richards, belonging to Bayern Munich, is emerging as the future companion of Walker Zimmerman in the center of defense but is also absent from this call due to a muscle injury, which offers an opportunity to other candidates such as Aaron Long (NY Red Bulls) or Erik Palmer-Brown (Troyes).

The other sensitive vacancy is that of the center forward, a position in which numerous players took turns during the World Cup qualifiers.

Leaving out young Mexican-American Ricardo Pepi for now, Berhalter kept his confidence for this window in Jesus Ferreira, who is on a scoring streak with FC Dallas.

The 21-year-old Colombian-born striker has nine goals in 14 MLS games but has yet to break out in the American attack led by star Christian Pulisic (Chelsea).

The other striker in the running this week is Haji Wright, who earned the call thanks to his sweet moment of form with Turkey’s Antalyaspor.

In the World Cup (November 21 – December 18), the United States is drawn in Group B along with England, Iran and the winner of the last European play-off (Wales, Scotland or Ukraine).

Morocco, meanwhile, will be in Group F with Croatia, Belgium and Canada.

The great challenge for Franco-Bosnian Vahid Halilhodzic’s pupils is to get through the group stage, something that Morocco only achieved in Mexico-1986.

For this, they have consolidated players in big European teams, such as full-back Achraf Hakimi (Paris Saint Germain), goalkeeper Bono (Sevilla) or defender Noussair Mazraoui, recently signed by Bayern Munich.

Mazraoui was sidelined for the play-off games against the Democratic Republic of Congo in March but earlier this month agreed to return with Halilhodzic, who in turn is still without Chelsea’s talented Hakim Ziyech.

Possible lineups:

Estados Unidos: Matt Turner – Reggie Cannon, Walker Zimmerman, Aaron Long, Antonee Robinson – Tyler Adams, Yunus Musah, Weston McKennie – Brenden Aaronson, Christian Pulisic y Jesús Ferreira. DT: Gregg Berhalter.

Marruecos: Bono – Noussair Mazraoui, Jawad El Yamiq, Romain Saïss, Nayef Aguerd, Achraf Hakimi – Selim Amallah, Sofyan Amrabat, Azzedine Ounahi – Tarik Tissoudali y Youssef En-Nesyri. DT: Vahid Halilhodzic.

gbv/ma

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