USA Vs. Ecuador, 2011 International Friendly: Visitors Nick 1-0 Win

With a number of players looking a bit tired, Klinsmann made four halftime subs and used all six of his available substitutions. The team didn’t move well in the first half, and the fresh legs didn’t help the team in the second half as they looked disjointed with all of the new additions.

The USMNT will play two more games in November, and the pressure will be on Klinsmann to produce better results than the team has managed thus far.

Many thought that Michael Bradley would get a start after the Beckerman-Edu tandem put in a mediocre shift against Honduras, while a lot of people also believed that Brek Shea would get a rest. Instead, Klinsmann has only changed his back line, wondering many to believe exactly what about the ‘Latin style’ Maurice Edu represents and whether or not Klinsmann and Schellas Hyndmann are conspiring to kill Shea so he can’t leave for Europe.

Kickoff is at 7:00 pm ET from Red Bull Arena. The game can be seen on ESPN2, ESPN3.com, and Univision.

Four games into Klinsmann’s reign and it’s not entirely clear what the United States men’s national team wants to be or how they want to play. Obviously, Klinsmann has not had an entire first choice squad at his disposal for any of his games in charge, nor is four games enough time to completely integrate his philosophy within the team. While the United States has generally passed the ball better and played more on the ground since Klinsmann’s arrival, they’re still very much a work in progress.

That problem is that the USMNT is a team in between two philosophies, struggling to figure out how they want to play. Whether or not Klinsmann has clearly outlined the way he wants to approach matches to his team is impossible to know without actually sitting in the locker room, but it’s easy to observe that the team certainly is not adhering to one philosophy. The players often do not look like they’re on the same page about the pace of play and how direct they want to play, leaving the team to look impressive at times, but a bit disjointed more often than not.

With competitive fixtures coming up next spring, Jurgen Klinsmann is running out of time to pick his first team and getting them playing the style of football he wants to see. Ecuador will provide the USMNT with a very high quality of opposition, but not so high quality that they won’t have a chance to build on what they’ve done so far and play their preferred style of football. It’s not exactly clear what that is at this point, with the team often switching between a short passing and direct style, but Klinsmann’s team can take another step towards establishing whatever footballing identity they want to establish on Tuesday.

Projected United States starting XI (4-2-3-1): Howard; Chandler, Bocanegra, Onyewu, Cherundolo; Edu, Bradley; Shea, Dempsey, Williams; Altidore