{"id":4649,"date":"2026-06-12T23:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T23:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=4649"},"modified":"2026-06-12T23:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T23:58:12","slug":"usmnt-lineup-vs-paraguay-matt-freese-starts-in-goal-chris-richards-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=4649","title":{"rendered":"USMNT Lineup vs. Paraguay: Matt Freese Starts In Goal; Chris Richards Returns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14><strong>LOS ANGELES STADIUM<\/strong> \u2013 Matt Freese will start in goal for the U.S. men\u2019s national team in its World Cup opener vs. Paraguay on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Freese, who plays for MLS club New York City FC, made his debut for the Americans almost exactly a year ago on June 7, 2025. He has never played in a World Cup but has officially beaten out Matt Turner, who started every game at the 2022 tournament, for the job.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The goalkeeper battle has been one of the biggest \u2013 and most mysterious \u2013 storylines entering this summer\u2019s tournament on home soil. Turner started all four matches for the USA at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but was unseated by Freese ahead of the 2025 Gold Cup. He\u2019s struggled to regain his spot, and manager Mauricio Pochettino has now made the final call.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Chris Richards will also start for the USA, which is a huge relief for the team. Richards injured his ankle playing for Premier League club Crystal Palace last month and has been working diligently with the U.S. medical staff to get back in time for this match.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Richards only participated in his first full training session with the team on Monday. He will start in defense alongside captain Tim Ream.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The rest of the starting XI is business as usual. Alex Freeman, who is the youngest player in the squad at 21 years old, will start in his first World Cup game in the back line. Malik Tillman and Folarin Balogun are starting in their first World Cup games, as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Ream, Sergino Dest, Antonee Robinson, Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Christian Pulisic are the holdover starters from four years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Players were informed of the starting lineup on Friday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY LOS ANGELES STADIUM \u2013 Matt Freese will start in goal for the U.S. men\u2019s national team in its World Cup opener vs. Paraguay on Friday.\u00a0 Freese, who plays for MLS club New York City FC, made his debut for the Americans almost exactly a year ago on June 7, 2025. He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}