OFFICIAL: USMNT will play friendlies vs. Ghana and Venezuela in the summer

UPDATE #1: The Venezuela friendly is now official. The match will be on June 3 at 8pm and be televised on FS1

UPDATE #2: The Ghana friendly is now official too. This will kickoff on July 1 at 4:45 pm and be televised on ESPN.

That United States men’s national team’s summer schedule just got even more interesting. In addition to CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers and Gold Cup matches on the horizon, according to ESPNFC we’ll see two friendlies against pretty good competition.

Ghana and Venezuela are the two additions to the USMNT’s calendar according to the report. The U.S. would take on Venezuela in a warm-up match at Real Salt Lake’s Rio Tinto Stadium on June 3 just before their next World Cup qualifier against Trinidad & Tobago at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park five days later.

The Ghana match would come on July 1 at Rentschler Field in East Harford, Connecticut in preparation for the Gold Cup group stage matches against Panama, Martinique, and Nicaragua.

Both sides are good in their own respects. Venezuela are currently at the bottom of the CONMEBOL World Cup qualifying table but do boast strong attackers like West Brom’s Salomon Rondon and Atlanta United’s Josef Martinez. On the other side, Ghana are always a fun match-up as they’ve become sort of a rival for the USMNT after facing each other in each of the past three World Cups.

What do you think of these two friendlies? Good enough to get the USMNT ready for two important phases of their summer?