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USMNT to start Christian Pulisic, Ricardo Pepi for final World Cup warm-up game

MURCIA, Spain — U.S. men's national team manager Gregg Berhalter said Chelsea's Christian Pulisic and FC Groningen forward Ricardo Pepi will both start in Tuesday's friendly against Saudi Arabia.

Neither player featured in last Friday's 2-0 defeat to Japan. Pulisic sat out the match due to a knock picked up in training, while Pepi was an unused substitute. Now, both will get a look against the Saudis.

Pepi was something of a surprise inclusion to the roster for this international window given that FC Union Berlin striker Jordan Pefok has been in excellent form with four goals in eight league and cup appearances. But Berhalter has been keen to get Pepi back on track after the forward completed his loan move to Groningen from FC Augsburg.

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«This is a great opportunity to look at Ricardo,» Berhalter told reporters. «Jordan, you know what he's doing. But Rico, he's just gotten to Groningen. This is a great opportunity for us to look at him. A guy who scored three goals for us in qualifying, it's important for us to get him in the group.»

Berhalter was asked for further analysis of the Japan defeat, and he didn't hold back in his criticism of the team or himself.

«I'm really glad the game happened when it did,» he said. «I think it was poor coaching, poor execution, poor training beforehand, a lot of everything. It's just one of those games and we were very bad.»

When asked to provide more details on how he erred as a coach, Berhalter said the team's preparation was off because he and the staff thought the players would be able to take on more tactical details, even though it had been three-and-a-half 3½ months since they were last together.

He added he could sympathize

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