The United States Men's National Soccer Team plays their first World Cup warm-up game today in a friendly against the Czech Republic at Rentschler Field in Hartford, Connecticut.
Coach Bob Bradley will use this game to test some of the fringe players and whittle down the 30-man preliminary roster to the final 23 that will make the plane to South Africa for the World Cup, just three weeks away. Bradley will probably use another friendly, on Saturday against Turkey at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, to fine-tune and build chemistry within his starting eleven and subs he will most likely use at the tournament.
Bradley probably has most of the squad penciled in already, but will look for a few fringe players to shine tonight to grab the last few spots. A few key areas he will have to watch are at forward, where Brian Ching, Edson Buddle, Hercules Gomez, Eddie Johnson, and Robbie Findley are all fighting for 2 or 3 slots, midfield, where a similar battle is waging between DeMarcus Beasley, Sacha Kljestan, and Alejandro Bedoya, and defense, where it will be important to see just who is fit with several injuries popping up at the recent camp at Princeton.
The Czech team will feature just 4 players that were on the 2006 World Cup roster when they defeated the Americans 3-0 in the group stage. The Czech Republic will be watching the games from home as they failed to qualify for this summer's tournament. Czech stars Tomas Rosicky and Milan Baros are out with injuries.
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