What USA need to do to win the Copa América Centenario

The tempting answer is to see if the tournament draw can be arranged so that the US play Bolivia in every one of the group games. One of the weakest sides in South America represented either the best opposition for the final warm-up game, in terms of sending the US into the tournament on a high, or the worst, in terms of giving the hosts an inflated sense of just how nicely they’re rounding into form.

And Jürgen Klinsmann being Jürgen Klinsmann, it’s not as if we’ve seen a stable line-up refine the kinks of playing together in the three-game span. He’s experimented to the last, and there’s a fair chance that all we’ve seen of his first choice XI was the few minutes at the start of the second half against Bolivia, between Fabian Johnson and DeAndre Yedlin coming on at half-time and Darlington Nagbe and Christian Pulisic coming in 15 minutes later. More of that latter duo in a minute, but the main point is this: the USA are coming into the tournament on a steep learning curve, so how well Klinsmann has explained the tournament strategy and how well the players both buy into it and can adapt to it will be key to success.

Don’t lose to Colombia

With Colombia the opposition for the first game on Friday, the US have what Klinsmann has correctly identified as a kind of “final” to start the tournament. This is a game they can’t lose if they have realistic aspirations to win the tournament, since you suspect that any true home momentum is not going to really kick in unless the US reach the semi-finals. If they instead limp out of the group stage and end up with a top seed in the quarter finals, you can imagine them being given a chastening defeat.

But if USA beat Colombia, or at least don’t lose to them, they can start thinking of threading the needle towards the semis, and from there, anything (in theory) is possible. So, yes, they start with a final.

Be bold

The US also might want to rediscover some of the verve that has characterized their best international performances. Asked to perform a rearguard action against strong opposition, the US can do so, up to a point, but when asked to enact cautious game plans they can look like a team of habitual T-shirt wearers wearing ties for a job interview. It just doesn’t come naturally.

To a degree it’s understandable that Klinsmann, in trying to manage limited resources, should attempt some awkward balancing acts with Michael Bradley in particular – pushing him slightly forward at times to play a kind of restrained No10 role, and pulling him deeper at others to try and keep the play in front of him. But too often Bradley ends up caught between twin responsibilities – dutifully and doggedly tracking back in a manner that negates some of the shorter or mid-range passes behind opposition defenses that can be such an effective part of his weaponry.

There’s no Jozy Altidore to lead the attack, so the chances are that killer passes, if they come at all, will come from higher up the field. The US will have to do a lot of running and accurate passing to do this well, and this is where being bold comes in.

Klinsmann came into the 2014 World Cup having experimented with a 4-4-2 diamond, which he swiftly had to discard as a realistic option when Altidore went down injured within moments of the start of the first game. He had also had looks at a 4-2-3-1 which became a kind of default option in that tournament, with Kyle Beckerman a revelation as a holding midfielder. And coming in to this tournament the coach has played with 4-3-3 combinations which can conceivably make use of the evergreen Beckerman again, in a a deeper holding role flanked by Bradley and Jones, or perhaps more likely, to start with, playing with the shuttling capabilities of Alejandro Bedoya getting up and down the channels

But for all that the Colombia game is a must-not-lose match, it could be fatal for the USA to try and feel their way into the game with too much caution. They need to set the tone of their Copa campaign early in the first match. So a lot will depend on the ability of DeAndre Yedlin and Fabian Johnson to impose themselves on their opposite numbers out wide, and for the US midfielders to get forward with dynamism and purpose.

But if the USA do need to rescue games…

…Get the substitutes right

It’s just a reality of the preliminary stages of Concacaf World Cup campaigns that game management is of a different order than it is in big tournaments. Yes, there’s a certain pragmatism required to grind your way through results on the road – or not, as the case may be – but more often USA substitutions in that context are about consolidating the team rather than changing the trajectory of the game. So how the USA deploy substitutes in this tournament will be key, even if we don’t have a lot to go in in imagining what that will look like.

But perhaps there was a tantalising glimpse in the Bolivia and Ecuador games of what Klinsmann can apply as a sudden shift, particularly in knockout rounds. Nagbe and Pulisic combined for a very well-taken goal against Bolivia, that combined Nagbe’s ability to go past players and Pulisic’s cool beyond his years in finishing. Admittedly that was in an already dead game where a demoralized Bolivia were dropping off in a manner tailor-made to give space to Nagbe, but as a proactive Plan B, throwing those two on looks like a nice little combustible option.

Settle on a central defensive pair

John Brooks and Geoff Cameron started the final warm-up game and should start against Colombia. Brooks could be starter for years to come if he keeps up his domestic form in Germany, while Cameron is able to step up with the ball and start attacks from deep, as well as being a decent aerial threat from set pieces. And with Yedlin and Johnson geared to get forward beside them, the balance of Brooks and Cameron will see a lot of work in any successful US campaign.

The Klinsmann tournament factor

Whatever you say about Klinsmann, and within the US critics have been saying more and more in his second World Cup term, he’s a motivator capable of lifting his team for tournament play. On home soil, he has a great chance to turn round the steady drip of disappointing results since the World Cup. That was a tournament, remember, where he got the team out of a group containing Germany, Ghana and Portugal, and while that may have had as much to do with a weary Portugal and a Ghana team in off-the-field turmoil, he still did it.

And whether through luck or judgement, he also made some telling adjustments that helped tilt his team’s fortunes – somewhat giving the lie to the rather two-dimensional impression of him as a tactically naive cheerleader. He may not be about the details of pre-determined tactical match-ups in every position, but he possesses a former elite striker’s sense of weaknesses and opportunities revealed by a game in progress. And perhaps distinct from many elite players turned coaches, his natural enthusiasm overrides any sense of frustration that he has managing players who don’t function at the level he once did.

It comes back to the need to make a strong start. Get that, and Klinsmann has a knack of harnessing popular optimism. In truth though, he’ll need every ounce of that optimism if the USA are to progress beyond the quarter-finals.