Irvine (United States) (AFP) – World Cup co-hosts the United States can be “too honest” in games and need to improve at soccer’s dark arts for their opener against Paraguay, midfielder Cristian Roldan said Tuesday. The US kick off their campaign against the highly experienced South Americans on Friday, and are under pressure to top a group also containing Australia and Turkey.
Following Saturday’s defeat in a friendly to Germany, coach Mauricio Pochettino urged his men to “learn to play right on the edge of the rules,” and Roldan echoed those words at the team’s training camp on Tuesday. “I think that’s one thing that we can get better at, for sure,” he told AFP. “I think being a little bit more savvy, understanding that being too honest at times is probably too much of a fault for us. We need to be a little bit savvier in the way we manage games, the way we take fouls, stay on the ground a little longer, you know?”
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The US recently faced Paraguay in a friendly in November. Though the US won 2-1, the feisty clash ended in a stoppage time brawl. Australia and Turkey are also expected to offer robust challenges to the co-hosts. But memories of that Paraguay clash are currently top of mind for the Americans. “I think these are things that we can learn from different nations, but Paraguay does a really good job of that,” said Roldan, of the opposition’s confrontational and streetwise style.
The US need to be “smart, with not taking it overboard, and not feeding into what they do…really important for us to be able to manage the game,” he said. Roldan, 31, is one of the more experienced members of the United States’ 26-man roster, who all trained together for the first time at base camp on Tuesday. The Seattle Sounders defensive midfielder, who has earned 47 caps since his 2017 debut, is not considered likely to start for the US on Friday.
But he said he sees his role as an enforcer who can bring added intensity if needed, to a US team which boasts more technical ability and attacking flair than in previous World Cups. “It seems really funny to say, but being a dog in there, right?” Roldan said, of his job. “I think in the end, that’s what got me here — being intense…make sure that I energize our group entirely. If I’m not in a starting lineup, it’s ‘how can I help the boys off the field, or even at half times?'” But I really do think that being intense is what got me here, and I got to keep doing it.”
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