USA vs Trinidad & Tobago Prediction | Nations League Picks
Robin Alam/Getty. Pictured: Gio Reyna.
USA vs Trinidad & Tobago Odds
| USA Odds | -2800 |
| Trinidad & Tobago Odds | +4000 |
| Draw | +1600 |
| Over/Under | 4.0 (-111 / -111) |
| Day | Time | Thursday | 9 p.m. ET |
| How To Watch | TNT | MAX |
| Odds via bet365. Get up-to-the-minute soccer odds here. | |
The United States opens their 2023-2024 CONCACAF Nations League campaign on Thursday night against Trinidad and Tobago with a place in the 2024 Copa America on the line.
The winner of the two-leg, aggregate-goals series will automatically secure one of CONCACAF's six berths in the 16-team event, which will also include all 10 CONMEBOL member nations.
The loser will still have a second chance to get into the field if they defeat another quarterfinal loser in another two-leg series.
History is heavily on the side of the Americans, who have never been outscored by T&T during a stretch of two consecutive games. The USA won the team's previous meeting, 6-0 in the group stage of the 2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Here is my USA vs Trinidad & Tobago Tobago prediction.
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USA Dealing With Injuries
It won't be entirely straightforward for manager Gregg Berhalter's squad, who was last together when they split a pair of friendlies against Germany and Ghana last month.
Captain Christian Pulisic and winger Tim Weah are both out with injuries they weren't carrying last month. And Tyler Adams remains out with a long-term hamstring injury.
That's three of the most important contributors to the 2022 World Cup team and two players who combined for two goals and two assists in the October window. It means the U.S. may lean even harder on Dortmund's Giovanni Reyna for attacking production after he scored twice against Ghana.
Reyna played only 45 minutes in each game in that window as he worked back from injury, and he still hasn't gone more than 69 minutes for Dortmund while being used mainly as a substitute.
Folarin Balogun, likely to get the start at striker, is also in less than stellar club form at Monaco, going without a goal and registering only 0.1 xG in four Ligue 1 appearances since he also scored against Ghana.
Trinidad Have Familiar Faces
Socca Warriors manager Angus Eve has made more changes to the squad that contested the 2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup than you might expect for a nation that doesn't have a ton of personnel depth.
Only 10 players return from that squad, which finished third in their group and failed to move on from the knockout stage. 12 on the current rosters have fewer than 10 full international caps. Eight members of the squad play for clubs in the U.S. and Canada, all below the MLS level.
Among the more familiar faces are Alvin Jones, who famously scored the goal that doomed the United States' bid to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and Levi Garcia, who is coming off a career season having scored 14 goals for Greek champions AEK Athens.
Only the Americans have previously held T&T scoreless in 2023. Recent Nations League group stage wins over El Salvador and Guatemala just might suggest the Soca Warriors are turning a corner from what has been a historically fallow period for the Caribbean nation that once boasted Dwight Yorke and Stern John.
USA vs Trinidad & Tobago Prediction
The odds on the USA are considerably steeper than in these sides' Gold Cup meeting. There are probably a couple of reasons for that.
Firstly, while the Americans are dealing with injuries, it is a first-choice squad among healthy players, not the largely domestic-based group that contested that summer tournament.
Secondly, there's probably more accounting for a home-field advantage than in what was technically considered a neutral venue.
Be that as it may, it's almost impossible to find any kind of value on anyone other than the Yanks considering the history of this series, and considering the talent gap between these teams is wider than at nearly any time during that history.
The win-to-nil wager — which I played in July — has an overly prohibitive price here, even if it has cashed in an astonishing 11 consecutive games between these sides on American soil. Instead, I'll play the Americans to score at least four times at -113 odds and an implied 53.1% probability.
The Americans have reached that threshold in their last three home games against the Soca Warriors and four of the last five, a stretch that dates back to before the emergence of this generation of U.S. talent and the decline of T&T's squad.
And in the two-leg format, there is every incentive to pile on here so Berhalter can perhaps rotate some of his squad in the return leg in the Caribbean in four days' time.
Pick: United States Over 3.5 (-113 via FanDuel)
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