SANTA CLARA — FIFA allows media to view 15 minutes of a team’s practice on the day before a World Cup match, which is akin to caddie day at the country club pool in the classic movie “Caddyshack.”
The sign at the pool: “Caddies welcome 1:00 to 1:15.”
Players form a circle around the coach, stretch a little, jog a little, maybe knock a ball around a little and … sorry, time’s up.
But the U.S. men’s national team provided a clue of what it expects Wednesday evening in the round of 32 encounter at Levi’s Stadium against Bosnia and Herzegovina. Aligned across the penalty box were five plastic, yellow practice mannequins, with another three positioned just in front of them.
If they drove the bus onto the grass and parked it in front of the goal, that would have had the same effect.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the smallest and lowest-ranked nations to reach the knockout stage of a World Cup, the third-place finisher in Group B thanks to a 3-1 victory against unfancied Qatar in a match where their expected goals production was a mere 0.68. And it is one of the least attack-minded, willingly ceding possession and relying on corner kicks for its primary source of offense (three of its five goals).
The knockout round blueprint, though, was provided Monday afternoon by Paraguay, a team the U.S. beat 4-1 in the group stage, against four-time World Cup champion Germany. The South Americans with little World Cup pedigree parked the bus and had a mere 25% possession, then won in a penalty shootout after playing to a 1-1 tie through 90 minutes of regulation and 30 of overtime.
Watching closely was U.S. midfielder Malik Tillman, who was born in Germany to a German mother and American serviceman father who left when he was an infant. He came up through the German youth system and played for Germany’s youth national teams before switching allegiances to a country he’d never lived in. He currently plays for German club Bayer Leverkusen.
“It’s a tough one for the whole nation,” Tillman said. “But in knockout games, anything can happen.”
Added winger Christian Pulisic: “We already know this. I mean, it’s a World Cup. You’re not going to get the so-called favorite winning every single time. This is soccer, this is the way things go. You can defend all game and win in a penalty shootout, that’s the beauty of the game.
“We have to be ready for whatever comes. We don’t think it will be easy by any means.”
It’s the opposite situation for the U.S. men from the last time they played a World Cup knockout match on home soil. That was in 1994, 20 minutes up the freeway at the old Stanford Stadium in the round of 16 against mighty Brazil.
The Yanks were the heavy underdogs that day, hanging on for dear life while hoping that the guys in the famed canary jerseys would crumble under the immense pressure of expectation the longer it stayed scoreless. (Brazil got a red card in the 43rd minute, finally scored in the 72nd for a narrow 1-0 escape and went on to win the World Cup.)
It’s an odd position, then, for a nation that has won just one knockout stage match in its complete World Cup history — a 76.6% chance of advancing, according to soccer statistical site Opta.
To that end, coach Mauricio Pochettino and his players have gone to great lengths not to provide the Bosnians with any unnecessary bulletin board material, as Italy did when players were seen celebrating Bosnia’s victory against Wales last March that sent the Balkan nation of 3.1 million to the playoff finale against the Azzurri for a spot in this World Cup. Bosnia had the last laugh, prevailing in a penalty shootout.
Pochettino and his players might not have said anything inflammatory. A television commentator from the ABC affiliate in Los Angeles took care of that, however.
“One thing about Bosnia,” Abigail Velez said on air last week, “I could not point out where it is on a map. I don’t know the first thing about Bosnia, and I don’t want to know. That’s because Team USA, we’re back, we’re better than ever. … Get prepared, Bosnia, because you don’t want it, you don’t want it like that. But you’re going to get it”
Her comments quickly went viral across the Atlantic, and Velez issued a sheepish apology on social media. (A double-ouch moment: The president of ABC News, Almin Karamehmedovic, was born in Bosnia.)
Bosnia coach Sergej Barbarez was asked several times Tuesday about Velez’s comments and the notion of being the prohibitive underdog. He shrugged.
“We never have a problem being the underdog,” said Barbarez, a former national team captain whose father sent him to Germany in the early 1990s to avoid fighting in the Yugoslav wars. “This word doesn’t mean anything to me. You can throw that word out. I’m interested in what happens on the pitch.
“Believe me, we will have the desire to play in this match and continue our journey.”
The question becomes, how?
They rank near the bottom of teams in the round of 32 in terms of possession, completed passes and expected goals. They have yet to record a shutout in six World Cup matches, the longest such streak in tournament history. They’re No. 61 in the FIFA world rankings, 27 spots worse than Paraguay, 33 worse than Australia — teams the Yanks dispatched with ease in the group stage. Their best-known player, 6-foot-4 striker Edin Džeko, is 40.
The U.S. men have lost 10 straight against European opposition, but the last team they beat? Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1-0 in 2021.
Those yellow practice mannequins aligned across the penalty box Tuesday will become defenders Wednesday, big, strong, physical, organized, compact, conservative.
The job of Pulisic and his teammates will be to breach the fortress.
“I’m not going to give away our whole game plan,” said Pulisic, who created two goals against Paraguay before limping off at halftime but declared himself fully fit for Wednesday. “But not just being one-dimensional, moving the ball, trying to find ways to break through.”
In their first three World Cup matches, the Yanks had the benefit of early goals to settle anxiety and free inhibitions. Two were the opposition’s own goals.
What happens if the Bosnians keep it scoreless for 30 minutes, for 45, for 60, for 90?
Then it becomes a test of nerves as much as tactics.
The pressure seemed to rattle Pochettino following last week’s 3-2 loss against Turkey in a meaningless group finale for both teams. He was snippy with the media afterwards, calling it “sad” and “petty” and “weird” that people were more concerned with his team losing momentum than congratulatory for winning Group D with a match to spare.
He opened Tuesday’s news conference with an unsolicited apology.
“I was so frustrated, I was so disappointed,” Pochettino said. “Sorry for that, you know? It was my problem, not your problem.”
His problem is now the tallest team in the tournament, with an average height of 6-1. And the tallest expectations, arguably, in American soccer history.
“This is the final of the World Cup for us,” Pochettino said. “If we don’t think in this way, we are going to struggle.”