Soccer

USA vs. Paraguay live stream: Time, TV schedule, and how to watch the USMNT online

The USMNT are getting experimental with a very young squad.

Updated Mar 27, 2018, 3:06 PM UTC

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Trinidad & Tobago v United States - FIFA 2018 World Cup Qualifier

Photo by Ashley Allen/Getty Images

Neither the United States nor Paraguay are going to the World Cup this summer, but that doesn’t mean their friendly match Tuesday night is meaningless. Both squads are in an important transitional period right now, with a lot of lessons that can be learned about each squad over the next year before they get back to full-on competitive play.

The USMNT still don’t have a full-time manager yet as they’re in the middle of a top-down transition after the recent USSF presidential election, but Dave Sarachan still has a lot of work to do as the interim boss. He’s been put in charge of a very young squad — only Darlington Nagbe, Bill Hamid, Jorge Villafana, and Eric Lichaj are older than 25, and none of them are more than 29 years old. Most of the rest of the squad are 22 or younger, including some bright young talents like Tim Weah, Tyler Adams, and Weston McKinnie, all of whom are still teenagers. There’s a lot of talent here, but without the more veteran leaders usually present in the USMNT squad, there’s also even more pressure on these kids to step up and show the national team brass something special while the team’s future is still up in the air.

Paraguay is also bringing a different-looking squad than we typically see, with a typically-veteran squad only having two players over 30, and a number of players with little national team experience. But young players like Miguel Almiron, Bruno Valdez, and Cecilio Dominguez represent a potentially bright future for the South American side, and it could be exciting to see how they play and perform in a match like this one against another team in transition like the USMNT.