U.S. Team Will Keep Eye on World Cup Foe : Soccer: Americans won’t play Colombia in weekend tournament, but they will watch the unpredictable team.
MIAMI — The U.S. national soccer team will once again get a close look at one of its World Cup opponents, Colombia, beginning today in the Joe Robbie Cup.
And, although Coach Bora Milutinovic objects to use of the word spy for the intense attention his coaches will give the Colombian team, the U.S. staff will need every available tool to analyze one of soccer’s most explosive and unpredictable teams.
The U.S. team will play Bolivia today, after Colombia faces Sweden. The teams switch opponents Sunday. Both Bolivia and Sweden have qualified for the 24-team World Cup, to be held in the United States June 17-July 17.
Assistant coach Steve Sampson, who speaks fluent Spanish, has been assigned to scout Colombia.
After Sunday’s match against Sweden, the U.S. team will have played against or been in the same tournament with its three World Cup Group A opponents. The United States tied Switzerland, 1-1, on Jan. 22, and lost, 2-1, to Romania, last week in Hong Kong.
Despite the traditional soccer taboo of facing World Cup opponents before the tournament, neither Swiss nor Romanian officials objected to the matches, which had been scheduled well before the teams were drawn into the same group in December.
The U.S. team might have played Colombia, too, had the Colombians, considered the strongest unit in Group A, not asked for a schedule change.
“I don’t believe in spy ,” Milutinovic said, offering observateur as the more appropriate word. “Anyway, they will look different in the World Cup. There is so much pressure (during the World Cup). We don’t know how they will resolve this problem.”
Milutinovic gave the same disclaimer when his team played Switzerland, which will play the United States in the first game. Partly because few national teams have all of their best players at their disposal at this time of year, coaches tend to give these games little weight as indicators of how the teams will fare in the World Cup.
Additionally, some coaches may be careful not to show more than the most basic game plans to opposing coaches.
But assistant coach Timo Liekoski believes that games against World Cup opponents reveal much about strategy and style, even if key players are missing. Teams play the way they play, he said, regardless of their roster.
“I don’t think any team we will see prior to the World Cup will play any different strategy in the World Cup,” Liekoski said. “I don’t think there is time before a World Cup, nor would they want to. I don’t think Switzerland is going to look so different from what we saw.”
The U.S. team, which is 1-1-3 this year, lost to Romania on Feb. 13 after a controversial penalty kick was awarded to Ilie Dumitrescu. The tie with the Swiss was hardly instructional, because neither team played well.
Colombia, however, is better than either Switzerland or Romania. The team that beat Argentina, 5-0, in Buenos Aires features strikers Faustino Asprilla and Adolfo Valencia. Neither will play in this tournament, but playmaker and team captain Carlos Valderrama will.
“Of course, we will watch,” Milutinovic said. “But the problem is, you watch one practice, beautiful. You watch the next, criminal . I prefer to watch in the game, in the World Cup.”
