Uruguay will play Panama on Friday night in an international friendly as both teams look to begin preparations for their World Cup 2018 qualifying campaigns that kick off in October. Today's game has a scheduled start time of 9.30 p.m. ET.

Uruguay will be favorites to win this game, although they will be without a number of their first team star players, with the likes of Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani being rested for today's game.

Both Suarez and Cavani are serving suspensions for next month's opening qualifiers and that has led to coach Oscar Tabarez to decide to leave them out and experiment with who will likely be playing in those key opening matches.

Having both of those players missing will be a massive loss for Uruguay and they will struggle to find replacements who can fill their boots for the qualifiers.

Cavani is in good form and scored twice on Sunday for club side Paris Saint Germain as they defeated Monaco 3-0. But he will miss his country's next two competitive games after being sent off in the Copa America quarter final defeat to eventual winners Chile.

Meanwhile, Uruguay continue to try to cope without key striker Luis Suarez, who is still serving a nine match ban from competitive matches for Uruguay after biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at last year's World Cup in Brazil. That means he will not be available for Uruguay until next year when his country take on Brazil in March.

The absence of both Suarez and Cavani means that the spots up front are up for grabs for the other players, and how they do over September and for their clubs may decide who gets to start when Uruguay kick off their World Cup 2018 qualifying campaign against Bolivia on October 4.

Panama will be a tough test for them, as they are coming into this game after a successful Gold Cup campaign that saw them lose in the semi finals to eventual winners Mexico. Panama went on to defeat the USA to finish in third place at the tournament.

Today's game between Uruguay and Panama has a scheduled start time of 9.30 p.m. ET.