USMNT to play Turkey and Switzerland in pre-Gold Cup friendlies

The United States men’s national team will play friendlies against Turkey and Switzerland ahead of the Concacaf Gold Cup this summer. The US will face Turkey on 7 June in East Hartford, Connecticut, and Switzerland three days later in Nashville, Tennessee, the US Soccer Federation announced on Monday.

The games will presumably feature the full squad set to compete in the Gold Cup, which will feature many but perhaps not all first-choice stars for the US. Clubs that are participating in the Club World Cup are expected to retain players for the tournament, which takes place at the same time as the Gold Cup. That means that Juventus’ duo of Weston McKennie and Tim Weah, Dortmund’s Gio Reyna, and Seattle Sounders’ Jordan Morris, Cristian Roldan and Jesús Ferreira will all likely be out of contention.

The US last played Turkey in 2014 in a warmup match for that year’s World Cup. Fabian Johnson and Clint Dempsey scored in that game, a 2-1 win at Red Bull Arena (Now Sports Illustrated Stadium) in Harrison, New Jersey. The US last played the Swiss in 2021, dropping a 2-1 result in St Gallen with Sebastian Lletget scoring the only goal for the US.

The Gold Cup, the championship of North and Central America and the Caribbean, opens on 14 June. The draw is on 10 April. Mexico have won the Gold Cup nine times, including the previous edition in 2023. The US have seven championships and Canada one.