Oh! Canada...

With absolutely no fanfare (or indeed TV coverage), the USA plays Canada tonight in a friendly at the University of San Diego. Canada's squad is young and largely domestic based, with a few players from Scandanavia thrown in, so it should be a fairly comfortable match for the US.

Bruce Arena's starting lineup is certainly intriguing. With Steve Ralston out with injury and neither DaMarcus Beasley, Bobby Convey or Eddie Lewis in the squad, it look's like he's decided to forgo wingers altogether, and use his backs for natural width. Also: three forwards! Not in a sorta kinda Chelsea way, but three real forwards: Brian Ching as a center forward and Taylor Twellman and Josh Wolff playing off him. Although Wolff likes to drift off a little, neither he nor Twellman are natural wingers, so it'll be interesting to see how they work together. Needless to say, it will be imperative for each of those three that they finish any chances that come their way; only Brian McBride is a definite starter on the front line at the moment.

They don't face the most intimidating of opposing offenses this evening, but I think it's an important game for the back four as well. The starting left back spot is entirely open; Heath Pearce will need to prove he has the class to play there at the highest level. After a really mediocre season with Columbus, and having fallen well behind Steve Cherundulo on the depth chart, Frankie Hejduk will need to work hard to make this squad. Thanks to a combination of injury and a year in Salt Lake, Pope is no longer an automatic first choice center back, and Jimmy Conrad is probably the sixth choice center back, following Berhalter, Bocanegra, Oneywu, Pope and Gibbs.

Game's on radio at the US Soccer website.