Inside USMNT-Australia World Cup matchup and predictions: Expect Seattle crowd to influence tightly contested match

SEATTLE — There’s been a perception among the pundit class that Australia represents an easy opponent for the U.S.men’s national team.That is far from the reality.Australia, just like the USMNT, can clinch a spot atop Group D on Friday.

The U.S.needs a win and a Paraguay win or tie against Turkey later in the evening; Australia needs a win and a Turkey win or tie.With the U.S.

riding a 4-1 win over Paraguay in its opener, and having beaten Australia in a friendly back in October, the Americans are certainly the favorites Friday, but the match will be far from simple.The Post breaks down the matchup between the U.S.and Australia:The most revealing moment in the lead-up to this match came Thursday when Sergiño Dest was asked about the best USMNT players in one-on-one situations, aside from himself.“I think Christian is a really good one-on-one player,” Dest said.

“It depends.Let me stay with Christian.”This is both true and particularly important against Australia, given the 5-4-1, low-block setup in which the Socceroos will operate out of possession.

The most obvious way to beat that configuration is to get the ball out wide in 1-on-1 situations and have the skill to dribble past defenders — in other words, the thing that Pulisic, whose injury situation hangs over this game, excels at.Right now, though, it’s unclear whether the USMNT will have Pulisic, with manager Mauricio Pochettino saying at his press conference Thursday that he doesn’t yet know whether his best player can go.With or without Pulisic, the USMNT will realistically have a lot of the ball in this game.

The possession stats from Australia’s opener against Turkey were ridiculous — per FIFA’s data, the Turks had 63 percent possession, led the shot count 30-9, had 130 line breaks to 54 and kept Australia in a low block for 56 percent of the time it was out of possession.Australia won that game 2-0, though, in part because its keeper, Patrick Beach, who surprisingly started...