Bruce Arena is bringing in his big guns for the Gold Cup knockout stage, but should he?
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By any measure, Bruce Arena’s 23-man group for this CONCACAF Gold Cup’s group stage was almost universally underwhelming. They needed an 88th minute goal against Nicaragua to go up 3-0 just to win their group, one that should have been fairly routine to wBruce Arena is bringing in his big guns for the Gold Cup knockout stage, but should he?
By any measure, Bruce Arena’s 23-man group for this CONCACAF Gold Cup’s group stage was almost universally underwhelming. They needed an 88th minute goal against Nicaragua to go up 3-0 just to win their group, one that should have been fairly routine to win. So Bruce Arena, faced with the dilemma of winning the tournament versus learning more about new players who could fill out future rosters, will make his full allotment of six changes for the knockout stage. He’ll be bringing in regulars such as Tim Howard, Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey to replace some of the younger and fringe players like Cristian Roldan, Kelyn Rowe and Dom Dwyer that dominated the group stage makeup.In total, Howard, Altidore, Bradley and Dempsey as well as Darlington Nagbe and Jesse Gonzalez enter for Roldan, Rowe and Dwyer as well as Alejandro Bedoya (wife giving birth), Brad Guzan and Sean Johnson. So the replacements aren’t completely dominated by the establishment but that seems to be Arena’s plan.The Read more