Experienced USA defender Tim Ream believes the pressure has eased on the World Cup co-hosts now they have progressed through to the knockout stages.
There is always greater scrutiny on the home teams at a major event but the States have, so far, thrived, securing qualification with convincing wins over Paraguay and Australia before a dead-rubber defeat to Turkey.
They face Bosnia and Herzegovina tomorrow night in San Francisco and 38-year-old Ream, who is now back in MLS with Charlotte having had spells in the Premier League with Bolton and Fulham, says there is a sense of calm within the squad.
“I think we felt more pressure for that first game against Paraguay than anyone and that’s coming from ourselves, not from anything on the outside,” he told ESPN.
“So for us, for me, it’s a game we want to win. It’s a game that we have to put everything into and put in a performance to the way we have in the group stage and then we see where that takes us. But in terms of pressure, there’s nothing added or nothing extra and that’s the way we’ve approached every single [game].”
Bosnia and Herzegovina are expected to sit back and play on the counter, in the same way Paraguay and Australia did, but Ream is confident Mauricio Pochettino’s side are ready for whatever the opposition throw at them.
“I don’t know that we fully expect Bosnia to just be defensive,” Ream added. “I think we have to expect the unexpected as we proved against Australia. So you see similarities, but then there’s also things that we’re going to have to solve that they throw at us in situations in-game and that’s then down to us as players to figure those puzzles out.
“But yeah, there’s definitely some similarities, but we’re not going to sit there and think, ‘Okay, it’s going to be exactly the same,’ because no two games are ever the same.”
Bosnia and Herzegovina qualified as one of the best third-placed finishers after beating Qatar in their final Group B fixture.
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