What to Watch Tomorrow - U.S. v. Slovenia

With apologies to my international readers, this post will be a little biased toward US fans. The US team isn’t the best team in the 2010 World Cup, and they haven’t got much chance of cracking the upper levels, but they’re our team and they’ve come a long way over the years, so we cheer them on.

Tomorrow, June 18 at 10 am Eastern time, the US will take on Slovenia in its bid to make it out of group play**. It is an important game for both teams and should be a close one. Try to watch it if you can.

You won’t be alone. It is only in the last 10 years that there has been any widespread interest in watching professional soccer within the US. How times have changed! I read the other day that more Americans watched last Saturday’s U.S. v England match than did the longtime soccer-crazy Brits. If that isn’t a sign of how far our national interest in soccer has come, I don’t know what is. I expect that trend to continue tomorrow. Granted, being on a weekday, and against a lesser-known team, I doubt that the ratings will be as high tomorrow as they were for the England - U.S. match, but they’ll be big.

What’s on the Line Tomorrow?

After the first round of matches, Slovenia are sitting at the top of Group C. If they win tomorrow, they will be assured of moving on to the elimination round**, no matter what happens in their third match against England. That would be a pretty sweet position for Slovenia. They’re going to want to secure their place in this match rather than have to worry about the outcome of the England game. Bottom line: Slovenia has a lot to fight for, so they’ll fight hard.

If the US wins, they’ll have a great chance of moving on as well, but it won’t be guaranteed. If I have this figured correctly, a win tomorrow would mean that if either the US or England wins their third round matches (both very likely prospects), the US would go on. A tie tomorrow gets much more complicated, and moving on is by no means assured. Even with a loss, there’s a chance that the US could still move forward, but they would need England to falter - something they definitely can’t count on.

Suffice it to say that the US would much prefer to wrap up three points for a win tomorrow.

What are the US’s Chances?

To paraphrase Landon Donovan from a press conference yesterday… just because most Americans haven’t heard much about the Slovenian team, doesn’t mean that we don’t need to worry about them. Or as captain Carlos Bocanegra said “We’re not going to go into it taking anyone lightly just because the rest of the world doesn’t know their names.”

The US has never played Slovenia before, which makes them an unknown quantity. But we do know that they successfully beat Algeria a few days ago and that they knocked out a strong Russian team during World Cup qualification. US goalkeeper, Tim Howard, thinks that it will be a close game, heavily dependent on strategy and tactics. He was quoted in the New York Times as saying that he expected it would be a “chess match.”

Most analysts seem to place the US as slight favorites to win the game, but nobody expects it to be a cake walk. The US team has had an unfortunate habit of coming up big in games where they are the underdog, but losing games they are expected to win. Let’s just hope they can break that habit for tomorrow.

What to Look For?

The normal US approach is to play a solid, well-organized defense and focus on scoring on a counter attack. Because a win is so important here, the US will have to focus much more on the offense than they are used to. It will be interesting to see if the change in game plan unsettles the US team’s normal rhythm.

Speaking of rhythm, the US has said that they intend to ramp up the pace of the match (the speed at which the ball is moved between players), to a level that will be uncomfortable for the more methodical Slovenians.

Despite the fact that Landon Donovan is widely considered one of the US top scoring threats, Clint Dempsey is the only current team member to have scored in a World Cup match since 2002. If the US can get its other top offensive threats to score, it would go a long way toward sealing a victory that would really help the US breathe easier on their quest to make it to the elimination round**.

**I’ve not taken the time yet to explain how the tournament structure works. That’s a whole post on its own. For now, I’ll just say that the entire goal of the first three rounds of matches is to finish in the top two places in your group. If you do, you move on to the elimination round and get somewhat of a fresh start in the tournament. If you finish in third or fourth place in your group, your tournament is over. The US team isn’t ready to head home just yet.