With less than a month until the opening World Cup match versus Ghana, USMNT head man Jurgen Klinsmann is still unsure as to whom will start on the back line.
A less-than-ideal situation? Absolutely. A precarious position? In some ways, yes.
Soccer (or football) purists will point to the cohesion needed from within the back four. In a perfect world, the unit would have been solidified months ago. The four upcoming friendlies would be a mere dress rehearsal for the big dance in Brazil.
For the United States, such a luxury does not exist. Curiously, Klinsmann selected five right backs (six if you include Fabian Johnson) into the training camp at Stanford. This tryout of sorts is fascinating, to say the least.
Geoff Cameron is perhaps the most intriguing option of all. The Boston native featured as a right back for EPL side Stoke City this past year. He's also primarily played as a right back under Klinsmann. However, his natural position is in the middle -- whether it's as a centre back or as a destroyer in the midfield.
The first-team pairing in the middle for the USMNT has recently been Matt Besler and Omar Gonzalez. Unfortunately for Gonzalez, he's battled both injury concerns and inconsistency over the course of the last year. While solid in the air, Gonzalez struggles with pace and athleticism. He's also prone to mental errors (as evidenced by the friendly versus Belgium in 2013).
Not surprisingly, Klinsmann has hinted Cameron could likely be slotted in as a centre back for this upcoming slate of games. At the very least, Cameron will provide Gonzalez with some competition at the spot.
Fabian Johnson will likely start at left back. It'll be a relative surprise for Besler to not start at one of the centre back spots. Based on the number of right backs brought in for the camp, I'd hard time seeing Cameron as the other centre back next to Besler. This premise is punctuated even more by Gonzalez's lack of form recently.
In a perfect world, here's the starting back line we will see June 16th against Ghana:
Fabian Johnson ---- Matt Besler ---- Geoff Cameron ---- Tim Chandler
Many fans of the USMNT will not like the inclusion of Chandler. He hasn't participated with the team in over a year, and thus was not an integral cog in WC qualifying.
However, he's got the most ability of any other right back option -- which includes DeAndre Yedlin, Brad Evans and Michael Parkhurst.
Yedlin is supremely athletic, but also raw and inexperienced. It'd be a stretch to see Yedlin make the roster at this point. Parkhurst is a heady, quality player with experience. He should make the roster due to those attributes. With that said, he's not overly quick or explosive. Parkhurst won't be the type of player likely to make overlapping runs on the flank. It'll essentially take away from the attack.
Evans is perhaps the most polarizing member of the 30 man group. Klinsmann's first-choice right back for the majority of the cycle, Evans is naturally a midfielder. Can one truly envision Evans going up against the likes of Jordan Ayew, Cristiano Ronaldo or Marco Reus? MLS enthusiasts will say yes. In Evans' case (like Gonzalez), he's suffered from both poor form and injury of late.
Chandler is the most adept going forward of the group. He's also experienced -- having played in the Bundesliga for Nurnberg this past year. Not to denigrate the MLS, but Chandler competes against much higher competition on a weekly basis when compared to the likes of Evans, Parkhurst and Yedlin.
The potential back four of Johnson, Besler, Cameron and Chandler is an athletic group. Johnson and Chandler have the ability to make dynamic forays up the channels. This scenario works well with a projected outside mid pairing of Alejandro Bedoya and Graham Zusi. Both Bedoya and Zusi track back very well, and can do so in the event of an overlapping run by one of the outside backs.
The friendlies versus Azerbaijan, Turkey, Nigeria and Belgium in theory will give this group time to gel and play with each other. It will be fascinating to see how this dynamic develops.
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