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United States Coach Jurgen Klinsmann promised that his team would not sit back and play it safe while taking on Paraguay in Philadelphia on Saturday, needing only a tie to reach the quarterfinals of the Copa América Centenario.
Klinsmann’s team needs only a point to ensure its place after a 4-0 rout of Costa Rica on Tuesday. But Klinsmann, whose job status faces a review by U.S. Soccer if the United States tumbles out of the tournament in the first round, said there was no chance that his team would play for a draw.
“We don’t have the character to just sit back and let them come and hope for a counter,” Klinsmann told reporters Friday. “That’s not us. We have to be really involved in the game. We have to set the tone. We have to keep a high level of aggressiveness and keep the determination going from the first second of the game.”
Klinsmann, meanwhile, said he was relishing the high-stakes nature of the occasion, confident that his players…
