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Perez calls in 36 players for U.S. U-18 training camp

JavierPerezUSU18Headcoach1 (ISIPhotos)

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

By DAN KARELL

For the first time since finishing in third place at the 2013 Milk Cup in July, the U.S. Under-18 team will reconvene for a week-long training camp in Carson, California.

U-18 head coach Javier Perez has called in 36 players from across the country into the camp set to take place from September 22-29. The roster includes 11 players who were in the U.S. U-17 squad at the CONCACAF U-17 championships and 12 players who are currently in Major League Soccer team academies.

Recent Sporting Kansas City homegrown signing Erik Palmer-Brown is the only professional in the squad, but he’s joined by plenty of top prospects in the 1996/1997 class including the LA Galaxy’s Malcolm Jones and Real Salt Lake AZ duo Chris Baird and Brooks Lennon, the latter who trained this summer with Liverpool’s academy.

Perez is using the camp to judge a potential 18-man roster ahead of a tournament in October in Limoges, France.

Here’s the U.S. U-18 training camp roster:

U.S. U-18 SEPTEMBER TRAINING CAMP ROSTER

GOALKEEPERS: Austin Aviza (New England Revolution; Medway, Mass.), Jeff Caldwell (NC Fusion; Todd, N.C.), Carter Richardson (Crew Soccer Academy; Dublin, Ohio), Justin Vom Steeg (Real So Cal; Santa Barbara, Calif.)

DEFENDERS: David Chavez (De Anza Force; Redwood City, Calif.), Conor Donovan (Capital Area RailHawks Academy; Fuquay Varina, N.C.), Chase Gasper (Bethesda-Olney; Alexandria, Va.), Justen Glad (Real Salt Lake AZ; Tucson, Ariz.), Malcolm Jones (LA Galaxy; Chino Hills, Calif.), Elijah Martin (LA Galaxy; Fresno, Calif.), Shaquell Moore (IMG Academy; Powder Springs, Ga.), Erik Palmer-Brown (Sporting Kansas City; Lee’s Summit, Mo.), Quentin Pearson (Colorado Rapids; Longmont, Colo.), Pablo Pelaez (San Diego Surf; San Diego, Calif.), Tommy Redding (Chicago Magic PSG; Oviedo, Fla.), Miles Robinson (FC Bolts Celtic; Arlington, Mass.), Peter Schropp (Omaha FC; Omaha, Neb.)

MIDFIELDERS: Mukwelle Akale (Minnesota Thunder; Minneapolis, Minn.), Corey Baird (Real Salt Lake AZ; Escondido, Calif.), Coy Craft (FC Dallas; Frisco, Texas), Grant Hollkamp (Indiana Fire; Borden, Ind.), Maduabuchi Obinwa (Chicago Magic PSG; Orlando, Fla.), Amirgy Pineda (Fullerton Rangers; Santa Ana, Calif.), Martin Salas Jr. (FC Dallas; Dallas, Texas), Connor Smith (Baltimore Celtic; Clarksville, Md.), Ben Swanson (Crew Soccer Academy; Grove City, Ohio), Tyler Turner (IMG Academy; Meriden, Conn.), David Villegas (Chicago Magic PSG; Sacramento, Calif.)

FORWARDS: Jeremy Ebobisse (Bethesda Olney; Bethesda, Md.), Sebastian Elney (Boca United; Boca Raton, Fla.), Brooks Lennon (Real Salt Lake AZ; Paradise Valley, Ariz.), Christian Lucatero (Houston Dynamo; Pasadena, Texas), Sebastian Saucedo (Real Salt Lake AZ; Casa Grande, Ariz.), Alejandro Vergara (Chicago Magic PSG; Long Beach, Calif.), Alan Winn (Solar Chelsea SC; Garland, Texas), Dembakwi Yomba (Concorde Fire; Lithona, Ga.)

Comments

  1. Chase Gasper (Bethesda-Olney; Alexandria, Va.),

    Another Alexandria defender! Represent young man! (Clarence Goodson is also from Alexandria)

    Reply
  2. i just found out that we have a player who plays for chelsea u18’s. he also has seen interest from real madrid and barca. I say in 6-10 years we are like belgium.

    Reply
    • The dream of every country in the world in 8 to 10 years we will be (Ivory Coast, Holland, Portual, Belgium etc)

      Better to improve our own league and coaching and soccers profile in the country, than hoping a team who never plays youth players save you. Better chance of getting a competitive 18 from MLS than hope that chelsea or Madrid or Barca saves us.

      Reply
    • We have youngsters in a ton of BPL academies and in every other league in the world. Liverpool has 1 to 2 academy players who are American, and their woman’s team has a few young Americans as well.

      Reply
    • Who the F*%# is Javier Perez?

      Our youth teams need managers with international experience, with a certain pedigree,
      under their belts!

      I am so tired of the same mediocre managers our youth teams deal with…

      Thats why we get blown out at youth competitions, and have to go entice others to play for our
      country at the MNT level…

      REALLY USSF thats the best you could do…

      Mr. Klinsmann get it together below your post… get involved delegate experience for our young boys…

      Reply
      • And on what basis have you assessed that Coach Perez is not sufficiently capable and experienced to be a USMNT coach? Have the U-18 results been consistently poor, no players ‘graduating’ to the next level in the US set up, or..? Not diggin at you, just seems like some hyperbole that overshadows a more complex (and ongoing) concern.

        I agree that we’ve noticeably underperformed at recent youth tourneys and we’ve been underwhelming having been led by experienced coaches with ‘Pedigrees’ like Ramos and Cabrera.

        Cheers

      • Ramos and Cabrera are not experienced coaches or managers… they were decent players… my concern is that we need to bring in experience to the youth system…an overhaul of some sort, once change and a system is established … then we can have individuals like the Ramos or Cabreras to adapt to an already competitive world wide system… Salud!

      • I don’t want to toss around personal insults, but someone here is a fatuous, opinionated, and ignorant blowhard.

        Also, all 3 coaches are pretty experienced youth coaches.

      • He seems like a pretty solid coach for the U-18 level. This was taken from the following site: http://www.ussoccer.com/teams/team-staff/javier-perez.aspx

        “Javier Perez was named head coach of the U.S. Under-18 Men’s National Team in February of 2012.

        Perez is currently the Director of Coaching at New York Soccer Club and was previously a coach at Real Madrid, spending six years with the Spanish team as a coach in the club’s development center.

        Perez holds a UEFA PRO license from the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and a UEFA “A” license from the English Football Association. While working in Spain, he was a member of the management team for the RFEF’s Master License available to senior coaches.

        Perez has a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology, an M.Phil. in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, a Master’s Degree in Sports Science and a Bachelor’s Degree in Physical Education. He is one of three coaches in Spain to hold both an Exercise Physiology Ph.D. and the UEFA PRO license.

        Perez has experience with U.S. Soccer, having worked with U.S. Youth Technical Director Claudio Reyna to develop the U.S. Soccer coaching curriculum, which is designed to improve development of players in the United States.

        He has also worked with U.S. Men’s National Team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann as a member of the staff for a two-game trip in October of 2011, when the U.S. faced Honduras and Ecuador.

        Perez currently lives in Manhattan and his wife, who is from France, lives in London.”

      • His French wife should clearly disqualify him. We don’t want any non-american influences on the team right? Right?

        Hello?

        Where are all the bigots today???

    • A Google search that took all of 10 seconds reveals the team has always been called Chicago Magic and recently entered into some sort of agreement with the actual PSG (not sure the extent, probably something like CASL and Chelsea). It’s not like they chose the name to mimic PSG (a la Real Salt Lake, etc)

      Reply
  3. I always find these lists very interesting. Down the road, it would be nice to see who pans out and who doesn’t. With that in mind, does anybody know where to find or have access to the rosters for previous U-18 teams over the past 10 years? Also, with respect to the USMNT that just beat Mexico, did any of those players play on a US Soccer U-18 team? If anyone, I would think Donovan and Beasley, but I’m not sure of anyone else.

    Reply
    • For the Youth World Cups FIFA usually has historical rosters/info. It is interesting who pans out and doesn’t. For example, Greg Dalby was a big name in his class and he didn’t play in Belgium after signing, quickly fizzled down to the minors when he came back here, and now coaches at his alma mater.

      U17: Gonzalez, Beasley, Beckerman, Landon, E. Johnson
      U20: Howard, Rimando, Davis, Dempsey
      U23: Guzan, Orozco, Parkhurst, Bedoya
      Norway U18: Mixx
      Germany U19: F. Johnson
      Iceland U21: Johannson
      Germany U21: Jones
      Mexico U22: Corona
      Mexico U23: Castillo

      Reply
  4. Looking at France’s team in the U-20 WC,a noticeable fact was the height and size of thier athletes, most of African descent.

    it was like when I played JV high school football. I was from a small Catholic High school (predominantly white) and when we played inner-city schools, they fielded team that were, on the average 6 inches taller and about 25-50 pounds heavier.

    their was a huge physical ability gap, but a small technical ability gap. At the Varsity level, the physical gap was not as big and the technical ability, due to better coaching at our school, meant that although we were a smaller school and fielded a smaller team, we were more than equal as we used speed, technical ability and smarts to beat the other bigger team.

    I hope this is in the cards for the US in Toulouse.

    Reply
  5. Only 2 players from the Northeast? Watch out for Miles Robinson, local product out of Boston area. Finished 1st in the NIKE Sparq Training and impressed some coaches in Oregon. He’s 16. Aviza with the Revs is also a stud goalkeeper who will make a name for himself in the upcoming years!

    Reply
  6. Surprised that no NY, NY, CT players are there. The NY RedBull won the recent U17/18 development academy title s well as the 2012 U15/16 title. At least 3 players played on both those teams so they are clearly age appropriate.

    Reply
  7. Malcom Jones and Shaq Moore cb’s – don’t know too much about ’em but alright!

    Sounds like a good representation across the country. Usually its 80%+ from SoCal… Good to see so many academy players. MLS is going to be that much better in a few years when every team has a couple HG Stars/USNT’ers

    Reply
    • Agreed. The continued development of MLS academies is not only good for the league but is good for US soccer. The sooner we expose out players to a professional environment the better. At the same time, some players develop at a later stage. I think this is where college soccer can be a benefit.

      Seems like in the not too distant future US soccer development could have te best of both worlds – an established academy system to get players early and a college system to get players who develop later

      Reply

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