This Sunday the US Men’s National Team takes on Panama at the StubHub Center in Los Angeles, hoping to break a five match winless streak. In fact, the USMNT has only one win in their last nine matches. Panama is a team the United States should expect to beat regularly, and the fact that this match is being played at home should only increase the chances of a USMNT victory.

That said, now that the United States has begun its road to the 2015 Gold Cup, the focus of this match against Panama should be less on the poor form the USMNT seems to be in, and more on what their play now says about how things will shape up as we approach the Gold Cup this summer. While everyone wants and should expect the US to beat Panama, what’s more important is that Jurgen Klinsmann, his coaching staff, and the players on the field learn things that will help them prepare for the Gold Cup and, going forward, the 2016 Copa America and 2018 World Cup.

Here’s five things Jurgen Klinsmann and the USMNT needs to do against Panama:

1. Stick to a formation for the entire 90 minutes

This game is about learning, not results. Against Chile, the USMNT played the first half in a 3-5-2 before going to a 4-4-2 in the second half. Now maybe Klinsmann wanted to see how his players would do in each formation, but changing formations midway through a game, especially in the second half of a friendly when lots of substitutions are being made, is never going to be a good way to find out what works. If Klinsmann wanted to see a 3-5-2 and a 4-4-2 maybe he should’ve done a 3-5-2 against Chile and a 4-4-2 against Panama.

Whatever formation the USMNT lines up in against Panama they should stick with it for 90 minutes. If it works, great. If it doesn’t work early on, it gives the team 90 minutes to try and make adjustments within the system to see if it can work.

In a competitive match formation changes are sometimes needed in game to avoid a result that can knock a team out of a competition. In a friendly there’s no competition to be knocked out of, so why not stick with a formation for the full 90 and learn something rather than abandoning it half way through?

2. Wil Trapp or Perry Kitchen next to Bradley

Mix Diskerud lined up next to Michael Bradley against Chile, with Clint Dempsey operating in the more attacking role of the midfield three and the USMNT suffered for it. In a 3-5-2 each midfielder needs to contribute to the defensive side of the ball. Dempsey did very little defensively, and while Diskerud is improving defensively, he’s still well suited for the deeper defensive role.

Bradley is at his best in a box-to-box role, a role he can play with more of a stay-at-home defensive midfielder like Trapp or Kitchen alongside him. Pairing him with Diskerud forced Bradley to sit deeper, rather than allowing him to make those late runs into the box he so excels at. When he did push forward, the US was vulnerable in defense. Pairing Bradley with Trapp or Kitchen would free him up to make those runs, and also ensure a stronger defensive presence in all of the midfield.

3. Clint Dempsey up top with Jozy Altidore

Another contributor to the United States’ defensive problems against Chile was Clint Dempsey’s lack of defensive work in the midfield. As many have noted, every single midfielder in the 3-5-2 needs to defend. The most advanced midfielder in the 3-5-2 doesn’t need to be as defensively focused as the two deeper midfielders, but they still need to be disciplined enough to put in the defensive effort something Dempsey simply did not do against Chile. Whoever replaces him, simply moving Dempsey out of this role in the midfield should help when the United States is defending.

Dempsey has played well in the past up top alongside Jozy Altidore. If Klinsmann goes with his best available lineup, Dempsey should be moved up top alongside Jozy. In this case, Mix Diskerud would be the obvious replacement, though given the lack of minutes Lee Nguyen has received so far, perhaps he should get a chance in the attacking midfield role he played in the second half of the Chile match.

4. More disciplined play from the wing-backs

Both DeAndre Yedlin and Brek Shea had mixed performances against Chile. Shea scored the opener on a very good run, but was mostly quite poor after that. Yedlin had more good moments than bad ones, but still got beat for a lack of positional discipline far too often.

For Yedlin, this is something he needs to figure out sooner rather than later. If he’s going to break into the lineup at Tottenham he needs to prove that he can stay focused for 90 minutes and not get burned for pushing too high up the field at the wrong time. For Shea, if indeed his future with the USMNT lies at wing-back, this is something that he should probably learn to do with his club team, Orlando City, and not with the national team.

One of Klinsmann’s biggest mistakes this January camp has to be not bringing in other players who can play wing or outside back. Both Yedlin and Shea played the full 90 against Chile, despite struggling in the late stages because of fatigue, and unless Klinsmann plays another player out of position, they’re going to have to do it again against Panama. Players like Miguel Ibarra, Luis Gil, and Dillon Serna can play out wide, but none of those is a defender.

The 3-5-2 has the potential to be a useful formulation for the USMNT, but so much of hte success of the 3-5-2 hinges on the play of the wing-backs. If they can’t get up and down the wings to contribute on both the attack and defense, they leave huge gaps which are easily exposed. Whoever Klinsmann decides to put at wing-back this time around will need to be more defensively disciplined or it will continue to cost the team in the goals against column.

5. Extended minutes for younger guys and fringe players

There’s no better time than a January camp to give younger players and those on the fringes a real run out for the national team. Playing at home in the StubHub center would be the perfect opportunity to give a guy like Gyasi Zardes his first USMNT start. Despite getting called into the last two teams, Lee Nguyen has yet to get a start. I already made the case for either Perry Kitchen or Wil Trapp to start alongside Bradley. Klinsmann has had high praise for Miguel Ibarra in recent days, but Ibarra too has yet to see significant minutes with the national team.

If Klinsmann really wants to figure out what he has to work with as the Gold Cup approaches and the 2018 World Cup cycle begins, perhaps it’s time to give some of these new guys a chance to actually prove themselves on the pitch.

The United States should win against Panama, but unless the team learns something from this friendly, then what’s the point of even playing it? While the Gold Cup isn’t until this summer, there aren’t that many remaining opportunities for Klinsmann to experiment in games that don’t matter. It’s time to start learning who can and can’t contribute to this team going forward and what this particular style of play is going to be the trademark of this version of the USMNT.

Read more of our Road to the Gold Cup series here, here, here, here, and here.

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