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SAN ANTONIO --
A familiar face walked across the grounds at Trinity University a few minutes before the U.S. national team took the field to train on Monday afternoon. Perry Kitchen planned to join his teammates. He just needed to pick up his training gear first.
Kitchen’s direct route from the airport to the practice field reinforced the compressed time frame in place ahead of the friendly against Mexico on Wednesday. There were extenuating circumstances in his case (he hopped on a plane out of the Washington, D.C. area in the morning after receiving a late call-up to replace Michael Orozco), but they were symptomatic of the situation on the whole.
The next few days present a scenario where players must recuperate from their club exertions at the weekend diligently and quickly shift their focus to the considerable task at hand against El Tri on Wednesday (live, 8:00p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports Go).
“It’s another quick turnaround, for sure,” U.S. goalkeeper Nick Rimando said. “First, it’s about getting your bodies back. We did that yesterday. There are still some guys coming in who had their games yesterday and they’ll have to be smart today, but it’s about staying as fresh as you can. Wednesday is definitely not going to be a slow moving, slow paced game. It’s going to be 100 miles per hour. For me, it’s about being organized and staying on the same page.”
Establishing common principles in a short window takes some work, though the presence of several familiar faces provides some necessary familiarity. The disjointed performance in the 3-2 defeat in Denmark last month highlights the difficulty of cobbling together the necessary components for a coherent display with such scant preparation time.
There is a need to balance the inherent physical needs with the desire to implement enough of a framework to succeed on short notice. It is a task U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann and his staff knows well. And it shows in the way the Americans prepare for these sorts of matches, according to U.S. midfielder Kyle Beckerman.
“It’s interesting,” Beckerman said. “You’re trying to recover and give it everything you’ve got at the same time. You’re trying to come together the best you can. The best thing you can do is really what these coaches are doing. They know how to do it. They do a good job of getting our legs back and I’m sure today, we’ll go over some really important things for Wednesday.”
In this particular situation, the most vital piece stands on the other side of the field. There are certain demands attached to any match against Mexico, friendly or not. There is a specific level to meet from the opening whistle, even against an opponent with few familiar faces in the squad.
All of the work during this truncated buildup leads toward that end. At this point, every step is about placing these players in a position to ensure they produce the expected response when they step on the field at the Alamodome.
“I think we have to take it as a rivalry,” U.S. defender Ventura Alvarado said. “It’s a like a Clasico. There are a lot of stories here. You have to take it all in, and then when you’re on the field, you have to give it your all.”
It is a collective sentiment critical to the efforts. There are measures to take physically and points to ponder tactically over the next two days, but the adrenaline, the pressure and the responsibility in this situation matter, too. Those driving forces explain why these players plan to cope with the considerable demands heaped upon them in a bid to procure the desired result.
“It’s always a difficult challenge, but I think everybody has that mindset about what needs to be done and how quickly it needs to happen,” Beckerman said. “Come game time, you just have to step up and make sure it happens. The stakes are high, even though it’s a friendly. They’re always high in this environment. I think we have enough experience and enough guys. Once we put on the crest, it’s about getting it done. We’ll find a way.”
