IRVINE, Calif. – United States men’s national team defender Tim Ream said his side will need to “expect the unexpected” in their round of 32 World Cup encounter against Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday, but that the match is “going to be about us and what we’re prepared to do and what we have to do to advance.”
The U.S. will be facing a Bosnia side that bears some similarities to group stage opponents Paraguay and Australia in that they are defensively solid and like to get out on the break to threaten the opposition goal. But Ream said that every opponent and every game is different, requiring the U.S. to be ready for any eventuality.
“I don’t know that we fully expect Bosnia to just be defensive,” Ream told reporters prior to Monday’s training session.
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“I think we have to expect the unexpected as we proved against Australia. So you see similarities, but then there’s also things that we’re going to have to solve that they throw at us in situations in-game and that’s then down to us as players to figure those puzzles out. But yeah, there’s definitely some similarities, but we’re not going to sit there and think, ‘Okay, it’s going to be exactly the same,’ because no two games are ever the same.”
Defensive set pieces will be of particular concern for the Americans, as three of Bosnia’s five goals in the tournament have come either directly or indirectly from dead ball situations. Ream says the U.S. is ready.
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“Set pieces defensively and attacking can decide games and we know this,” Ream said. “So again, we’ve done a lot of work just about every other training session on set pieces, both defensively and attacking wise. I’d argue that you look at our attacking set pieces as well, the last couple of games and they’ve been excellent. So yes, listen, we know that especially in the knockouts, one mistake on a set play can send you home. So we’re fully focused on all aspects and all phases of the game and that’s something that we’ll continue to look at obviously.”
As one of the host countries, the U.S. enters the match with increasing expectations about how deep they can go in the tournament. But Ream insisted he isn’t feeling too much pressure, especially compared to the start of the tournament.
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“I think we felt more pressure for that first game against Paraguay than anyone and that’s coming from ourselves, not from anything on the outside,” he said.
“So for us, for me, it’s a game we want to win. It’s a game that we have to put everything into and put in a performance to the way we have in the group stage and then we see where that takes us. But in terms of pressure, there’s nothing added or nothing extra and that’s the way we’ve approached every single [game].”
