If US Under-20 national team head coach Tab Ramos is looking for a player who won't be awed by the occasion when the USA take on host New Zealand in front of 25,000 strong at a sold-out North Harbour Stadium in Auckland on June 2 (3 am ET on FOX Sports 1 and NBC Universo), an obvious choice would probably be San Jose Earthquakes rising star Tommy Thompson.
He may only be 19 years old, but the Earthquakes Homegrown player has been around the block in MLS with 18 appearances during his nearly year-and-a-half stint with his club. Thompson has experienced matches at raucous Rio Tinto Stadium, Red Bull Arena, Providence Park and even CenturyLink Field, where he made his first-ever MLS start in front of 38,909 in a 1-1 draw on August 20, 2014.
"It's difficult to compare a U-20 World Cup game to an MLS game, but the pressure on our team is going to be comparable to the pressure we felt with San Jose playing away at Seattle in front of 30,000 people," Thompson told MLSsoccer.com via phone when asked if Tuesday's match will be the biggest game of his budding career to date. "I think we have a great group of guys that have professional experience all across the world and we're prepared to handle that and get the job done against the host nation."
Thompson came off the bench for fellow MLS Homegrown winger Jordan Allen in the U-20 group stage opener against Myanmar on Saturday, a 2-1 come-from-behind victory for the USA which saw them take the early lead atop the Group A standings as New Zealand and Ukraine tied 0-0.
The Quakes man gave the team a spark – his appearance was celebrated with Earthquakes roommates Fatai Alashe and Mark Sherrod "blowing up my phone" with texts – but he echoed the sentiment of his head coach that "we need to be sharper all around the field" and "we can dictate the game much better" than they did against Myanmar.
The U-20s weren't at their best to start the CONCACAF qualifying campaign back in January. After tying Guatemala and losing to Panama to start that tournament, Tab Ramos' group found their groove and notched four straight shutout victories which saw them clinch a ticket to New Zealand.
"We've actuality talked about that with some of the guys that are here that were a part of that qualifying team," admitted Thompson, who started all six qualifying matches. "It was interesting to all to them about the similarities between the game against Myanmar and the game against Guatemala [1-1 on January 9]. It was good for us to get the win [against Myanmar]. That's the bottom line. The feeling walking away from the Guatemala game was tough. To start at the top of the group is a completely different feeling."
It was a similar message that Thompson heard from his dad, former US international and 1984 soccer Olympian Gregg Thompson – "He knows how hard it is at this level and for us to grind out the win especially after going down early on to a team like Myanmar was huge," the younger Thompson recounted of a phone conversation with his father. "He told me to keep your head up and be ready to get after it in the next game."
The US squad is only beginning to get familiar with their next opponents, New Zealand. Thompson called them "solid" after seeing parts of their first match against Ukraine.
They'll have to be wary of the home field advantage enjoyed by the hosts. Since the turn of the century, only one of seven host nations has failed to advance from the group stage (Canada in 2007) and four of them made it to the quarters and beyond (Javier Saviola's Argentina won it all in 2001).
"You look at the result from Mexico's game [Sunday] and how they lost to Mali 2-0 and anything can happen," Thompson said. "We know we can do better and we know we will do better."
