by GIANFRANCO PANIZO
With only eleven players in camp, the U.S. men's national team's initial training session kicked off in Miami on Wednesday ahead of a pair of World Cup qualifers against Costa Rica and Honduras. The focus on the first day, with so few players available, was simply getting back into national team mode.
"Just using the time to start to get use to the heat. You know a lot of guys coming from Europe where obviously the humidity and temperatures don't come into play as much," said midfielder Michael Bradley.
Bradley and his club, Borussia Moenchengladbach, just came off of surviving the German Bundesliga's relegation battle, a battle he described as invaluable experience.
"To be on a team where every game means so much, where every point is so important I think for a young player you learn a lot of valuable things so to kind of be a part of that the whole season and to be a guy who is counted on for a lot in the team, I think that was good for me."
The Moenchengladbach player should be relied upon heavily in next week's World Cup qualifier as well, as he will be one of only eight field players to have prepared all week long.
"That is a challenge that is a little different in this double fixture. We're dealing with it well," said head coach Bob Bradley of not having the entire team practicing together. "We have a group of guys that have matches still on the weekend, including some very important ones so it's going to be necessary for us to rely on the work that we've done in the past and make sure that everybody is ready to go when they arrive."
Bradley also addressed what the team needs to do in order to avoid a repeat performance of what happened in El Salvador, when the U.S. fell behind early before salvaging a draw in the final 15 minutes of the 2-2 match.
"I think that we hurt ourselves early in periods of the first half against El Salvador where we lost some balls in difficult positions and they led to counter attacks and that got the crowd into the game and that's the way the first goal came.
"So when you're playing in those kind of conditions, you want to certainly take the initiative but you want to do it in an intelligent way so that you're not leaving yourselves open and I think we'll need to do that better in this match."
Some other news and notes from Wednesday's training session:
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Oguchi Onyewu attended but did not participate in practice as he was resting from his weekend match.
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The players who did train today were Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradley, Charlie Davies, Jay DeMerit, Clint Dempsey, Brad Guzan, Eric Lichaj, Heath Pearce, Luis Robles and Jonathan Spector.
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Freddy Adu is expected to arrive Thursday and Chivas USA players Sacha Kljestan and Jonathan Bornstein are expected to arrive Friday.
- Danny Califf will not fly with the team and instead will meet up with the squad in Costa Rica next week.
- The team leaves for Central America from Miami on June 1st.
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What do you think the United States' chances are to win both games next week? Do you see the U.S. winning its first game in Costa Rica next Wednesday? Will the short turn-around affect the team against Honduras?
Share your thoughts below.
