Double super secret background

Meanwhile, over in the American camp, weird things are happening. Not merely content with having a closed-door warm-up match against Angola, Bruce Arena demanded this his team wear plain shirts to obsucre the players' identities and asked that his players not talk too much about what happened.

According to reports, the US won 1-0 courtesy of a Brian McBride headed goal. Here's what else we know.

Reyna played, and was apparently influential.

Angola had a player sent off at the end of the first half.

Tim Howard played in goal in the second half

Eddie Lewis played a little at left back and left mid.

After the game, Arena denied he was getting all secret agent-y:

"Angola was just practice," he said after a training session opened to the public. "Why should it be open? We don't have the public facilities for people to be there. We're playing with 15 players.

"It's a pretty simple game. There will be no secrets in the tournament. We all know each other."

Clearly though, Arena is keen to ensure that group E spies don't check them out too closely beforehand. This could be just some mind games. I do wonder, however, if the detail that Lewis played in midfield is a sign that we experimented with a 3-5-2, which would, frankly, be something of a surprise.

Meanwhile, Arena's caginess about lineups and tactics also applies internally. As Steve Goff reports, DaMarcus Beasley is getting a little frustrated about not knowing whether or not he'll be starting against the Czechs:

"It's a little irritating not to know, but I think Bruce is going to have some decisions to make."

It's hardly a 1998 style player revolt, but it is the first sign of any discontent I've seen so far in the US camp.