Doug McIntyre
Soccer Journalist
On Monday, U.S. Soccer announced that the men’s national team will play a pair of late-spring exhibitions against Turkey and Switzerland, friendlies that will serve as crucial tune-ups for this summer’s Concacaf Gold Cup and as one of the final chances for the USMNT to face European opposition before next year’s all important 2026 World Cup on home soil.
FIFA’s 28th and 20th-ranked teams will no doubt test the No. 16 Americans. But the Swiss and Turks also weren’t necessarily the federation’s first choice; Mauricio Pochettino’s U.S. squad missed out on the opportunity to face global powers England and Belgium this spring, multiple sources told FOX Sports.
The USSF was close to finalizing June matches against both countries before the Three Lions and Red Devils were drawn into World Cup qualifying games during June’s international fixture window, the sources said.
England, runner-up at the last two European Championships and winner of the World Cup in 1966, is currently ranked fourth by the sport’s governing body. Belgium is eighth.
The U.S., which was to meet England at 67,000-seat Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, will instead meet Turkey on June 7 in East Hartford, Connecticut. Pochettino’s side will then travel to Tennessee to take on Switzerland in Nashville on June 10. That game will mark the second for the hosts against a Top-20 foe since Pochettino was hired last fall. The U.S. lost to then-16th-ranked Mexico in October.
The 16-nation U.S.-hosted Gold Cup kicks off on June 14 and will be staged primarily in the western part of the country, with FIFA’s Club World Cup being played simultaneously in the east. The U.S. will learn the identity of its three Gold Cup group stage opponents, and the cities where they’ll play them, at a draw on April 10.
It’s been more than a decade since the last meeting between U.S. and Turkey, a 1-0 win for the Americans in New Jersey in their 2014 World Cup send-off. The USMNT lost to Switzerland last time out, in a 2021 friendly in St. Gallen.
Doug McIntyre is a soccer writer for FOX Sports who has covered the United States men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him at @ByDougMcIntyre.
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