USMNT expected to experiment vs. Saint Kitts and Nevis

It might seem as though the hardest part of the 2023 Gold Cup group stage is over for the U.S. men’s national team.

By holding a Jamaican squad fronted by four Premier League attackers — easily the Americans toughest first round opponent — to a 1-1 tie in Saturday’s tournament opener in Chicago, the USMNT put itself in a solid position to advance from a quartet that also includes Saint Kitts and Nevis and Trinidad and Tobago.

Their next match is Wednesday against Saint Kitts (9:30 p.m. ET, FS1) and it appears straightforward enough. While the U.S. has never met Saint Kitts before, the Spice Boyz are ranked 139th by FIFA to the Americans’ 13. The nation of fewer than 50,000 lost the first Gold Cup match in its history 3-0 Sunday versus T&T. They will be even more overmatched against the defending champion U.S., which is expected to attract a packed home crowd to glittering new City Park in St. Louis for Wednesday’s contest.

The hosts are the overwhelming favorites; FOXBet has the USMNT’s win probability at a whopping 95 percent. On paper anyway, this looks like an easy dub.

"It’s very cliché to say, but there is no easy game in professional football," U.S. defender Matt Miazga said Tuesday. "It’s happened to me in the past [at] the club level when you’re expected to win and don’t have the right focus and you end up losing the game or it’s a more difficult game than you think."

And in any case, just beating the Sugar Boyz might not be enough to clinch a quarterfinal berth. If Jamaica also tops Saint Kitts, they, the U.S. and the Soca Warriors could all end up even on points, with goal difference then determining which two teams advance to the business end of the tournament and which one doesn’t.

That incentivizes the Americans to try to run up the score on Wednesday, or at least better Trinidad’s result from three days prior.

"We want to play at a high tempo, we want to press, we want to dominate with the ball," said USMNT interim head coach B.J. Callaghan. "If we’re doing that, and we’re executing at a high level, we believe that the goals will come.

"We’re not looking at a specific score line or anything like that," Callaghan added. "We’re just looking to improve on the Jamaica performance."

There’s room for that for sure. With most of the top European club-based U.S. players now on vacation after winning the CONCACAF Nations League earlier this month, the U.S. is without its best attackers. It also lost one of the most experienced forwards on this roster in the opener; Jordan Morris hasn’t trained since injuring his knee against the Reggae Boyz and is unlikely to feature Wednesday.

In better injury news, center back Miles Robinson — one of just five holdovers from the Nations League roster — will be available, Callaghan said, after sitting out both the final of that event and the Gold Cup curtain raiser because of a sore calf/hamstring.

Callaghan probably won’t run back the same lineup from Saturday anyway, at least if the players made available to speak to the media this week — Miazga, Gianluca Busio and Sean Johnson are all usually reserves — are any indication. Unscientific it may be, yet the coach didn’t exactly dispute the idea that this match is an ideal one to rest some of the regulars for Sunday’s group stage finale against T&T — a side the U.S. learned not to take for granted in the cruelest way possible in 2017, when a 2-1 loss in Trinidad prevented the Americans from qualifying for the following year’s World Cup. 

"We believe in every player that has been selected to this 23-man roster," Callaghan said. "We will make changes."

After all, change can be good. Second half substitutes Cade Cowell and Brandon Vazquez provided a needed burst of energy when they entered off the bench versus Jamaica; it was Vazquez’s 88th minute strike that salvaged what could turn out to be a consequential point for the Americans. One or both forwards could start on Wednesday. As much as there is at stake for the team as a whole, all of the newcomers looking to establish themselves also have plenty to prove.

"When anybody steps on the pitch with the U.S. jersey, it’s a big opportunity," Miazga said. "Because you never know when you’re going to wear it again, right? You have to make sure you’re ready, motivated, hungry to put on a good performance. And I think a lot of guys are ready to do that."

Doug McIntyre is a soccer writer for FOX Sports. Before joining FOX Sports in 2021, he was a staff writer with ESPN and Yahoo Sports and he has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at multiple FIFA World Cups. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.