Team U.S.A. World Cup 2014: Who Will Replace Jozy Altidore?

As we approach Sunday’s Group D match between team USA and Porgual, the question on every American fan’s mind is who will U.S. Coach Jurgen Klinsmann pick to replace Jozy Altidore?

Altidore strained his hamstring in the opening minutes of the United State’s 2-1 victory over Ghana last Monday. In that match, Klinnsman immediately selected Icelandic forward, Aron Johannsson to replace Altidore. But after Johannsson struggled against the size and physicality of Ghana’s backfield, Klinsmann has many options when selecting his starting XI against Porgual.

Firstly, let’s acknowledge that the USA is a different team without Altidore and it’s truly a tragedy that this injury has occurred at such an early stage in the tournament. This changes the game significantly for Team USA in terms of how it approaches this game against Porgual and Germany next week.

Altidore is a great target to dump the ball into and move the attack forward. Now team USA must decide should it try to replace Altidore again with Johannsson or with another forward like Chris Wondolowski?

Alabama born Johannsson was raised in Iceland and played his professional ball in the Danish Superliga. In 2012, he was called up to play for the Iceland national team. At the same time, Jurgen Klinsmann was keeping an eye on the U.S. born Johannsson and was invited to try out for team USA in the fall of 2013.

San Jose Earthquake’s forward, Chris Wondolowski was born and raised in California and played college ball at Chico State University. After being traded to the San Jose Earthquakes in 2009, Wondolowski went on to win the 2010 MLS Golden Boot trophy and played for the 2012 MLS All-Star Team in a game versus Chelsea.

Both possible options at forward are interesting but they may not be the best fit for a game at this particular time. Wondo is a good goal scorer but he is more of a poacher than a creator and Johannsson is good shooter who brings a bit more creativeness to the table. In a perfect world, Wando would be a good selection coming off the bench so if Klinsmann chooses two forwards, than Johannsson needs the start in that he already had some decent game time against Ghana. Wando still needs to get his feet wet and this is not the time to test the waters with players who are getting their first playing time on the World Cup stage.

A third option for Klinsmann would be to start another versatile midfielder. If the US wants to be involved in this game offensively the best approach would be to consider giving Brad Davis and Graham Zusi starts on both the left and right respectively so you can have the two outside midfielders acting as attacking wingers during offensive but maintaining disciplined defensive roles breaking up passes directed at Cristiano Ronaldo on defense.

Brad Davis has proven he can swing great balls from the left side and can go up and down the field as he is a seasoned veteran at this point in his career. The other possible compliment would be to have Zusi on the right side so you have two attacking wingers that can cross to keep Porgual honest and with Beckerman, Bradley and Bedoya in the middle to clog things up and create in the middle.

Either way this is going to be another big test for team USA but I have a funny feeling at this point that things will work out for the U.S. as they did in the Ghana match. Call it Klinnsman magic or maybe team USA is just a good competitive side these days and the world needs to accept that U.S. Soccer is here to stay.