Two years ago, the US national team went into the World Cup knowing they needed a result against a team that had knocked them out of the previous two World Cups.
They ended up getting that result, defeating Ghana 2-1 thanks to John Brooks' 86th-minute header. They will need to do something similar on Friday night when they face Colombia in the opening match of Copa America Centenario (9:30 pm ET; FS1).
"This is a little bit like two years ago. We talked about that with the Ghana game before Brazil, before the World Cup started, we made it kind of like our final," said US coach Jurgen Klinsmann in a Facebook Live chat with fans on Sunday (video above). "We start the tournament with a final."
To be fair, this is a bit different than the World Cup in Brazil. The US followed the Ghana game with matches against Portugal, who had Cristiano Ronaldo in tow, and Germany, the eventual winners of the tournament.
For Copa America, the US will be facing a very familiar opponent in Costa Rica and a Paraguay squad that currently sit behind in the US in the World ELO ratings.
Despite that fact, Klinsmann expressed the importance of a result against Colombia in Santa Clara on Friday night.
"We are going to go for it. We are going to do that and we are going to try and make it happen on Friday night because it would give us a big, big boost towards the game against Costa Rica and then finishing off the group with Paraguay. Similar to the World Cup, we need a good result in the first game."
