photo by John Dorton/ISIphotos.com
U.S. Under-23 men's national team head coach Caleb Porter has called in a 23-man roster to take part in the February camp leading into a friendly with Mexico's U-23 side, and there are some new faces on the team.
Brek Shea, Juan Agudelo, Alfredo Morales and Ike Opara have been summoned for their first U-23 camp a little over a month before Olympic qualifying is set to take place. Team regulars like Bill Hamid, Zarek Valentin, Freddy Adu and Teal Bunbury have also been called into the 10-day camp that ends with a friendly against Mexico's U-23 team on Feb. 29 at FC Dallas Stadium.
"I think Mexico is going to be about as close to a qualifying atmosphere as we can possibly get," Porter said in a press release. "We're going to have, for the most part, our entire group together for the first time."
Here is the full roster:
Goalkeepers: Bill Hamid, Sean Johnson
Defenders: Greg Garza, Perry Kitchen, Alfredo Morales, Ike Opara, Kofi Sarkodie, Zarek Valentin, Jorge Villafana
Midfielders: Joe Corona, Mix Diskerud, Dilly Duka, Jared Jeffrey, Amobi Okugo, Michael Stephens
Forwards: Freddy Adu, Juan Agudelo, Terrence Boyd, Teal Bunbury, Joe Gyau, Jack McInerney, Brek Shea, Tony Taylor
Two of the more notable omissions from this roster are midfielder Sebastian Lletget and defender Gale Agbossoumonde. Both players are nursing injuries right now and hope to recover in time to be a part of the Olympic qualifying team next month. Sources confirmed to SBI that Agbossoumonde was originally called into this camp, but that he was not able to participate due to the injury that forced him to miss the one in January.
Josh Gatt is another eye-opening omission, but he just recovered from the injury picked up in the U.S. team's January camp and is still working his way back to full health.
A pair of defenders who return to the fold after not being called into a camp since the one in November are Greg Garza and Perry Kitchen.
In addition to playing Mexico's U-23 team, the U.S. team will hold scrimmages against FC Dallas of MLS and NASL's San Antonio Scorpions on Feb. 22 and 24, respectively.
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What do you think of the roster? Whose omission/inclusion surprises you? Do you see this team beating Mexico's U-23 team?
Share your thoughts below.
Surprised to see Shea, this means he wont be with the senior squad, right?
I don’t believe Okugo has ANYTHING locked.
I completely disagree.
Williams is good and developing but both Zarek Valentin and Perry Kitchen are younger, have had better youth and college careers and show much more promise than Williams who is, essentially, a one-trick pony. His future as international is very much in question while both Valentin and Kitchen will be mainstays within the next 2-3 yars. Probably soon after the 2014 World Cup.
Isn’t Agudelo injured or just recovering from injury?
not even close man, sheanon played as well as any rb in the league last season.. where as valentin and kitchen were average at best
Anyone know if Diego Chavarri (Sporting Cristal, born in NY) has been considered? or he is not good enough?
Guess the pool isn’t shallow on forwards. Playing a 4-3-3 like Porter likes to play this is a good thing. Plus a lot of those forwards could drop to midfield.
First time I’ve seen all these names together and if you throw in Chandler, Altidore, and maybe a few others this is a pretty stacked team.
Certainly has depth as there’s not much of a drop off from starters to back-ups. And some experience too which is rare for Olympic Qualifying. Add three overage guys to this and medaling is certainly a long shot, but definately possible.
so you are saying because its not on tv you don’t give credit to a players performance. if you were to look at the camp reports, german team stories etc. you will see that Wooten is in almost ready to break in to a BL1 roster which is a lot more than can be said for some other U23 forwards. My guess is only 2 CB where going to make this roster and he was the man out, Boyd is a top prospect and Teal has played for Porter before.
I’m with you on that. Having a versatile player like Perry is like having two players in one specially in an 18 player roster.
0 chance of Potts coming in for us, unfortunately. He has very little connection to America. Henley seems like an easier guy to cpa.
As for the roster, I like it a lot. The two guys I would have liked to see on the roster have been left off due to injuries (Lletget and Gatt). I’m a big fan of Morales. People keep saying he was in bad form at Hertha, that isn’t entirely true. He had one bad game. He went the full 115 against Borussia Mönchengladbach and played very well IMO. He has tremendous ball skills, just needs to put his whole game together in a more coherent way. I also like that Shea is playing with the U-23s. I think this is a real opportunity for him to shine.
Remember…were this the final roster, 5 would be cut before London. Add in at least one overage player, and maybe only 17 remain.
Boyd, Taylor and Agudelo have to be ahead of Bunbury.
I have a feeling Wooten is going to be joining the 1st team @ Kaiserslautern soon, so that might have factored in here.
The US U23 Team should of called up Adam Henley and Daniel Potts just to see if they would be interested in playing. Surprise they didn’t call them even though Potts was just called for the England’s U18 team and Henley is under the Wales youth system. I hope in the near future they switch sides to the US!
I agree. I also think that this means that Shea, Agudelo and Hamid are not going with the first team to Italy.
Likely, I’m just pointing out that Perry is likely providing depth and therefore providing another midfield option.
Guess that pretty much says where Brek and Teal are going this summer and I think its the right decision.
Both showed that theyre just not ready in the camp cupcake friendlies
“a bit early on the Akron-USA conspiracy but I agree on some of this.. some players getting the familiarity bump.”
wouldn’t the “familiarity bump” be an incentive to NOT call these guys in order to give other folks a look?
not pressing the issue or ganging up, just curious…
Will Bruin is like #9 in our U-23 forward depth chart: Altidore, Agudelo, Boyd, Wooten, Taylor, Bunbury, McInerney, Salgado…
+1,
this team needs CB’s to step up. Ike could be that player, hopefully he is healthy enough for it.
But Taylor played for Miami in 09 and since then has been playing in Portugal. Arguez is a closer call but is Montreal property now.
Gabe A. has meandered around so aimlessly that I resist the metaphor of rebound, because for that to be the case he has to have been up to have descended then rebounded. I don’t see where the high point was.
I thought Gabe A. was hurt during the last camp, which was a few weeks ago.
He will be on the senior side Italy roster.
Bunbury, Sarkodie could be in the qualifying roster but defiantly not going to London.. Kitchen and Valentin maybe..
a bit early on the Akron-USA conspiracy but I agree on some of this.. some players getting the familiarity bump.
What does Hurzeler have to do with this thread?
We may or may not get him, but either way he’s not playing for either Olympic team in 2012. He is a U-20 not a U-23.
So many Quality forwards and attacking midfielders.. Something to be excited about. These are the guys who will be taking Landon and Demps’ spots years from now.
That boat sailed the first U-23 camp. Hurzeler accepted a Germany U-19 call-up over the U.S. U-23 call-up back in November. So yes Hurzeler decided to stay with ze Germans.
I am NOT happy with the Akron bias here…
Teal Bunbury is awful right now at all but one or two things, he needs to go learn how to play soccer for the next year or two before he’s called into the US team at any level. I’d take Andrew Wooten any day. If Bunbury makes the Olympic roster, I will be extremely pi$$ed off, as that means 1-2 of Altidore, Agudelo, Boyd, and Wooten would not make it, and they are all preferable to Bumbury.
Sheanon Williams should be the backup RB (to Timmy Chandler) on the Olympic team, which means he should be the starting RB at this camp. People are saying Boyd and Wooten have not proven anything in Germany, well what has Kofi Sarkodie done in MLS?
Kitchen and Valentin, these guys have potential of course, but Kitchen should be a defensive midfielder, that’s his natural position. I know we lack options at CB but these two better not be playing meaningful games there or we are in trouble.
Will Caleb Porter select the best players or just his Akron buddies? If he does the latter and this team underachieves, it should jeopardize his future career with US soccer.
Jose Coroooooona!
I am too since i think the experience will be good for him, and who knows- he might even get called in for some of the qualifiers too.
i wonder what this will do to his chances of making the opening day starting 11 though, since he’s said that has been his number one goal
Mexico is bringing a team of players who have already been together for a week. They all have been playing in 1st Division competitive games and their coach is known for creating spirited teams and making it fun for the players. We should get an idea of how good they are after they play Senegal on Friday 17th in San Francisco. We should press their possession game and not let their #10 Fabian get into the game.
nice.
Does any one know if this game is going to be on TV or viewable online?
Perhaps Brek will sit this one out for FC Dallas, and FC Dallas will call in Timmy Chandler on loan just for the scrimmage?
+1
Well played,s ire.
So I’m guessing we for sure will not be getting Fabian Hurzeler then? I haven’t heard anything about him and if he was going to be switching officially to the US.
“the US team will hold a scrimmage against FC Dallas”
I know Brek Shea is known for putting in a lot of minutes, but I’m curious to see how he’s gonna pull this one off.
He didn’t get a call up cause he is hurt
Tony Taylor and Bryan Arguez played for Miami FC and one has made the team and the other is in MLS. Sheanon Williams also played lower divisions and hes doing just fine. Its a good place to rebound
You don’t need proof that he is better than any player. All you need is how many times his name gets thrown around in a soccer blog comments section. Thats the only proof you need
It would seem that way for some people. Not that I have ever watched Boyd play, but from all the reports back from camp it seems that he has made a nice impression. Im pretty sure there would be a lot of players in front of Bruin
Boss was originally called in for this camp, but was left out due to injury
maybe. I think Okugo has the position locked.
i also think he will.
go freddy!!!
I will be VERY interested to see how sales for this friendly go over… I think it will be as exciting a matchup as Senior side v. Italy. Will this match be televised?
What satellite package allows you to see Kaiserslautern II matches so you can judge whether Wooten is better than McInerney?
+1
It may be a friendly but it’s still a friendly against high quality opposition which would be better used getting our first team time together rather than bringing in a kid who has yet to appear for the first team (Kaiserslautern II is nice, but let’s see him produce with the senior team).
I’m not saying he’d be a bad choice for the U23s but why in the world do we always call for kids who haven’t even made first team appearances for their clubs to get Senior National Team looks? Who would you exclude for him? Wondolowski? A guy who has worked his butt off every day and deserves the look even though his ceiling may not be as high because he’s older?
Let Wooten develop. There’s no need to rush him into the senior National team just because we think he *might* eventually be a good player.
Glad to see Oprara in the mix.
Scoring goals in the german 3rd or 4th division should not be a ticket to the senior national team. Maybe he should be called into this type of camp though.
The purpose of the friendly is for prepping for qualifying this summer…do you want to rely on wooten then?
they had no chance of playing against Italy dude. but yeah, he wouldn’t have been a bad call up for the u-23s. there are a few players that could have got called up. only so many spots.
You cant play three Attacking Mids that dont play defense. Shea should be on the left wing, with Okugo as a deep lying CDM, Corona and Duka in the middle