Every coach will have a different approach to pre-tournament friendlies. We don't fully know Pochettino's. He rolled with, essentially, two different teams against Senegal, and those teams looked and played fairly differently. So, in this game against Germany, does he do something similar, or does he put out something resembling a first-choice lineup to get them ready for the games to come?
There's merit to both choices. No coach wants to show their hand, particularly ahead of a World Cup, so it could be in Pochettino's best interest to be somewhat sneaky. That said, there are a finite number of huge surprises that a team can throw out this late in the cycle, so what would sneaky even look like?
However, you also don't want to show everything. A first-choice XI builds chemistry, yes, but it also puts patterns of play, sequences and ideas on film for Paraguay, Australia and Turkey to study. Surely, then, Pochettino will save some sort of wrinkle for the big day. Maybe not all of them, but something.
Maybe Chris Richards is that wrinkle. His status remains something of a mystery, but U.S. Soccer said the defender was "progressing" in his recovery. Did he progress fast enough to be ready for this game? Even if he has, it may be worth leaving him out, both for tactical and recovery reasons. Richards probably isn't a risk worth taking, but there is also some desire to see how the team looks with him in it, given where they are in this process.
So how does this team actually line up? Only Pochettino knows and, in truth, there are several ways it could go.