After securing their spot atop Group A, many thought the US Men's National Team would have been facing Peru in the quarterfinal round. Instead, Peru upset the power house that once was Brazil thanks to a fortuitous blown call on a handball in the box that led to Peru's lone goal, which proved to be the game winner.

Alas, the Americans are playing Ecuador, another team that Brazil may have taken lightly, as they tied the Selecão in their opening match. They will likely have the best home field advantage they could ask for as the USMT will take on the Ecuadorians in Seattle at Century Link. Although, the national team will have to do so without their homegrown Seattle product, Deandre Yedlin.

Yedlin of course is suspended for the quarterfinal after being booked with a red card in the second half of their group clinching final match against Paraguay.

Ecuador comes in confident, as they tied Brazil 0-0 and Peru 2-2 before unleashing four goals on Haiti for a 4-0 victory in group play. Therefore they should be coming in confident as any team would be, despite losing to the US before the Copa America tournament started. The two teams faced off in a warm up friendly in Frisco, Texas that ended in a 1-0 American win thanks to a goal in the 90th minute from Darlington Nagbe.

US manager Jurgen Klinsmann has stressed that now is the time for the team to take more risks on the field, shaking its "underdog mentality." Such a term definitely fits the USMNT, as for whatever reason, they depend more on physicality rather than creativity. Thus we have seen the US routinely get through the group stages in many international tournaments, but when the knockout stages come around they routinely have their hearts broken - see 2014 World Cup against Belgium, despite Tim Howard's best efforts.

Home field and their penchant for getting early goals should be enough to put them through, reaching their stated goal of getting to the semifinals. On their side of the bracket though is the winner of Argentina-Venezuela, which let's be honest, is likely to be Argentina. But you can't sleep on Venezuela either, they tied Mexico on points out of Group C after beating a formidable Uruguay side and drawing with Mexico. Although the Argentines should now start Messi, which would be more than enough to put them over the top and get an outright victory.

Whichever way you cut it, the road is tough if they want to exceed their goals and more importantly, the expectations for their team.

Photo: Flickr/Erik Drost