{"id":889983,"date":"2026-02-04T02:14:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T08:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/americans-abroad-midweek-preview-tillman-faces-sands-and-more\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T02:14:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T08:14:56","slug":"americans-abroad-midweek-preview-tillman-faces-sands-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/americans-abroad-midweek-preview-tillman-faces-sands-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Abroad Midweek Preview: Tillman faces Sands, and more"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Soccer <\/p>\n<div id=\"content\">\n\t\t<main id=\"main\"><\/p>\n<article id=\"post-750764\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/CreativeWork\" itemscope>\n<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<p>The German DFB Pokal is winding down this winter with two U.S. men\u2019s national team hopefuls seeking to stay in this season\u2019s competition. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Malik Tillman<\/strong> and <strong>James Sands<\/strong> meet on Tuesday as Bayer Leverkusen hosts St. Pauli in quarterfinal action this week. <\/p>\n<p>Tillman most recently scored his sixth goal of the season in all competitions as Kasper Hjulmand\u2019s squad defeated Eintracht Frankfurt 3-1 in Bundesliga play on Saturday. The 23-year-old continued his positive run in the starting lineup, making it three goals scored in a four-day period across two different competitions. <\/p>\n<p>Sands logged 90 minutes on Saturday despite St. Pauli\u2019s 2-1 loss to Augsburg in league play. The NYCFC loanee has continued to rack up the minutes in midfield, but St. Pauli have failed to win any of their last six league fixtures, keeping them in a relegation fight. <\/p>\n<p>The battle between Tillman and Sands will certainly be one to watch on Tuesday, especially with both players riding good runs of form individually.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, <strong>Weston McKennie<\/strong> and Juventus visit <strong>Yunus<\/strong> <strong>Musah<\/strong> and Atalanta in Coppa Italia play. <strong>Johnny Cardoso<\/strong> and Atletico Madrid take on Real Betis in Copa Del Rey action. <strong>Mark<\/strong> <strong>McKenzie<\/strong> and <strong>Tim Weah <\/strong>aim to feature in Coupe De France play. <strong>Auston Trusty <\/strong>and Celtic visit Aberdeen in Scottish league play. <strong>Sergino Dest <\/strong>and PSV host Heerenveen in KNVB Cup action. <strong>Alex Zendejas <\/strong>and Club America take on Olimpia as the CONCACAF Champions Cup gets underway.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a closer look at this week\u2019s Americans Abroad:<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>Spain<\/h3>\n<hr>\n<h2>Soccer Copa Del Rey<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Johnny Cardoso<\/strong> and Atletico Madrid visit Real Betis on Thursday.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>Germany<\/h3>\n<hr>\n<h2>Soccer DFB Pokal<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Malik Tillman <\/strong>and Bayer Leverkusen host <strong>James Sands <\/strong>and St. Pauli on Tuesday.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>John Tolkin<\/strong> and Holstein Kiel host Stuttgart on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>Italy<\/h3>\n<hr>\n<h2>Soccer Serie A<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Christian Pulisic <\/strong>and AC Milan visit Bologna on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<h2>Soccer Coppa Italia<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Weston McKennie<\/strong> and Juventus visit <strong>Yunus<\/strong> <strong>Musah<\/strong> and Atalanta on Thursday.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>France<\/h3>\n<hr>\n<h2>Soccer Coupe De France<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Folarin Balogun <\/strong>and Monaco visit Strasbourg on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Weah <\/strong>and Marseille host Rennes on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tanner Tessmann<\/strong> and Lyon host Laval on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark McKenzie<\/strong> and Toulouse host Amiens on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>Netherlands<\/h3>\n<hr>\n<h2>Soccer KNVB Cup<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Sergino Dest <\/strong>and PSV host Heerenveen on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Taylor Booth<\/strong> and FC Twente visit AZ Alkmaar on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ricardo<\/strong> <strong>Pepi<\/strong> is OUT (Arm Injury) for PSV.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>Scotland<\/h3>\n<hr>\n<h2>Soccer Premiership<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Auston Trusty <\/strong>and Celtic visit Aberdeen on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cameron Carter-Vickers<\/strong> is OUT (Achilles Injury) for Celtic.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>Greece<\/h3>\n<hr>\n<h2>Soccer Cup<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Erik Palmer-Brown <\/strong>and Panathinaikos host PAOK Thessloniki on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>International<\/h3>\n<hr>\n<h2>Soccer CONCACAF Champions Cup<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Alex<\/strong> <strong>Zendejas<\/strong> and Club America visit Olimpia on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/main>\n\t<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sbisoccer.com\/2026\/02\/americans-abroad-midweek-preview-tillman-faces-sands-and-more\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a>Larry Henry Jr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Soccer The German DFB Pokal is winding down this winter with two U.S. men\u2019s national team hopefuls seeking to stay in this season\u2019s competition. Malik Tillman and James Sands meet on Tuesday as Bayer Leverkusen hosts St. Pauli in quarterfinal action this week. Tillman most recently scored his sixth goal of the season in all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":889984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91888,2623,2005],"tags":[91887,5464],"class_list":{"0":"post-889983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-abroad","8":"category-americans","9":"category-soccer","10":"tag-abroad","11":"tag-americans"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}