United States Men's National Team Faces First Test After Lackluster Gold Cup

The United States Men's National Team travel to the nation's capital to take on South American country Peru at RFK Stadium in the first of the two friendlies over the course of the next four days. They will play Brazil at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts on Tuesday. In a month's time, they will play Mexico in a CONCACAF playoff to determine who will get the spot to represent North America in the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia.

United States' Take

Facing South American opposition has always been interesting when it comes to both Peru and Brazil. The Yanks have two wins, two losses and a draw against Peru in their past five meetings. Firstly, the goalkeeper's scenario has made most of the news with the return of Tim Howard to the side for the first time since the World Cup last year in Brazil. During that time, Brad Guzan has been in goal for nearly a year and will look to be the number one this time against Los Incas.

The battle to be one of the two starting center backs will be a strange one as Matt Besler, Omar Gonzalez, John Brooks and Ventura Alvarado will be fighting for those two spots. For the fullbacks, it will most likely be Greg Garza and Geoff Cameron in their respective positions. Jurgen Klinsmann has stated that ''the battle is ongoing since I took over, for more than four years. We continue that because we want them to be on their toes. We want them to be accountable for things that they're doing with their club teams and especially when they're with us. There's no guarantee to anybody."

In the midfield, there will be no Michael Bradley or Clint Dempsey for this match in Washington D.C. Instead, it will be likely that DeAndre Yedlin will be playing in a flat midfield in a 4-4-2 formation alongside the likes of Jermaine Jones, Mix Diskerud, Alejandro Bedoya, Gyasi Zardes or Danny Williams.

The strikers will probably be self-explanatory as Jozy Altidore will look to get the captain's armband and play alongside Aron Johannsson. This will also be a special match for Alfredo Morales, who is German-born but of Peruvian descent, through his father. It will also be special for Andrew Wooten, who gets his first ever international callup for the States; he too is of German decent.

Whatever the case may be, this is surely an important match for Jurgen Klinsmann's side to see where they stand and what can be improved against Brazil on Tuesday evening.

Peru's Take

Peru are playing their first match since their third place finish in the Copa America in Chile two months ago. With the likes of Andre Carillo, Jefferson Farfan and various others from that squad that went to Chile, Ricardo Gareca's side know that this is a test. So too will be the match against Colombia a few days after to get themselves ready for the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers where they play Colombia, Chile and Paraguay to close out the year.