USMNT July 27-29 viewing guide and open thread

There’s nothing on the schedule this Friday so take the day to recover well from Thursday’s USWNT Tournament of Nations match against Japan and rest up to dive right in to a full slate of Saturday and Sunday games:

Saturday

Arsenal v Paris Saint-Germain - 7:35a on ESPN2

Preseason isn’t just for the professionals, start to get yourself ready for the regular season by catching an early game Saturday morning when Arsenal take on PSG in their second International Champions Cup match. Timothy Weah started PSG’s first game in the preseason tournament and scored the opening goal against Bayern Munich.

Weah’s preseason is off to a great start and he seems likely to get some time again this weekend.

Bayern Munich v Manchester City - 7:05p on ESPN

18-year-old FC Dallas Chris Richards has been a welcome surprise this preseason as the FC Dallas Homegrown prospect, on loan with Bayern Munich has appeared in both of their ICC matches to start the preseason, most recently getting 45 second half minutes as Bayern used nearly every player on their bench. It would be shocking to see this trend continue into the regular season but for the time being Richards is gaining invaluable experience playing for one of the worlds top clubs and it seems likely he’ll continue to get some minutes as the preseason progresses.

Quick hits for other potential games of interest:

Benfica (Keaton Parks) v Juventus - 1:05p on ESPN2 - Parks did not make the bench for Benfica’s recent match with Borussia Dortmund and seems unlikely to play versus Juventus but he is traveling with the team.

Portland Timbers v Houston Dynamo (DaMarcus Beasley) - 9p on ESPN - DaMarcus Beasley is living legend, you can check him out on ESPN Saturday night.

Sunday

Seattle Sounders v New York City FC - 5p on ESPN

The Seattle Sounders and 23-year-old “Rising Star” Cristian Roldan are coming off a midweek win over hapless San Jose. Roldan assisted on Seattle’s lone goal in the win:

Will Bruin, Alex Roldan, and Clint Dempsey would all come on as substitutes in the game as Seattle saw out the 1-0 lead. Another legend of the USMNT, Dempsey looks to be taking on a substitute role for his club team and if he’s ever to break US goal scoring record that he currently shares with Landon Donovan it may be in a similar role with the national team.

NYCFC are also coming off a mid week game having defeated hapless Orlando City 2-0. Ben Sweat and Sean Johnson have been seeing regular time for NYCFC, James Sands on the other hand - who recently turned 18 - has been making the bench regularly but has yet to see the field this season.

LA Galaxy v Orlando City SC - 9:30p on FS1

The Galaxy are coming off a midweek El Trafico match-up with intra-city rivals LAFC. The Galaxy gave up two early goals before storming back in the final 10 minutes to steal a draw with LAFC. David Bingham, Perry Kitchen, Sebastian Lletget and Chris Pontius are the American’s regularly appearing for the team, though all fal into the “they are what they are” category rather then the “lets see what they’ll be” category.

Orlando City have been awful for the past two plus months with just one win in twelve league games after losing Thursday evening. Sacha Klejstan, formerly known as the best player who’s always unjustly left out of national team call-ups, had a goal and an assist in his 60 minutes last weekend and followed that up with 90 minutes mid-week in the 2-0 loss to NYCFC. Dom Dwyer returned to the field Thursday after sitting out last weekend but was ultimately unable to make an impact.

Sunday’s Quick Hits:

Tigres UANL v Tijuana (Rubio Rubin) - 7p on Univision Deportes - 22-year-old Rubio Rubin came off the bench and played 30 minutes in Tijuana’s opener.

Leon (William Yarbrough) v Monterrey - 9p on Univision Deportes - Yarbrough was on the bench for Leon’s regular season opener and then started and gave up four goals in their midweek cup game against second league Mineros.