By AVI CREDITOR
Fresh off leading the United States U-20 men's national team to the Milk Cup title in Northern Ireland, coach Thomas Rongen has set his roster for the youth team's next challenge.
The United States Soccer Federation released the 20-man roster for its upcoming four-team tournament in Peru, which begins Sept. 6. Many of the players who competed in the Milk Tournament are not on the roster due to collegiate obligations, leading this group to be comprised of professional- and academy-based players. The U.S. U-20s will face Paraguay, 2011 U-20 FIFA World Cup host Colombia and tournament host Peru over a five-day span.
Here's the U-20 roster for the tournament:
GOALKEEPERS – Samir Badr (Porto), Cody Cropper (Ipswich Town)
DEFENDERS – Gale Agbossoumonde (Braga), Anthony Brooks (Hertha Berlin), Bryan De La Fuente (Chivas USA), Christian Flores (Club Tijuana), Greg Garza (G.D. Estoril Paia), Emilio Orozco (Tigres), Korey Veeder (Crystal Palace Baltimore)
MIDFIELDERS – Victor Garza (Tigres), Kevin Huezo (Pachuca), Francisco Navas Cobo (Houston Dynamo), Ernest Nungaray (Morelia), Moises Orozco (Tigres), Conor Shanosky (D.C. United), Cesar Zamora (Chivas USA)
FORWARDS – Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls), Jerome Kiesewetter (Hertha Berlin), Adrian Ruelas (Santos Laguna), Omar Salgado (Portland Timbers)
Who are you looking forward to seeing the most? Impressed with what Rongen has been able to accomplish with the U-20s?
Share your thoughts below.
Victor Garza just returned from Europe with 3 MVP awards and they were good teams they played agaist. I am sure he will be helping the team. He is very happy to play for the US.
Actually, just checked it, there’s only like 1 or 2 that were on the Milk Cup team.
Isn’t this a lot of the same midfield that was in the milk cup? They didn’t just win that. From what all the other coaches were saying, they dominated possession.
You’d be wrong. Agbossoumonde is from Togo, so definitely African-American.
Unless you can identify every other player on the team by sight, I would withhold your worthless diversity concerns.
Go USA
Marseille? I like him!
especially since we’re playing blackjack, not rummy. hold onto that card and double down….
hell if took these boys living on a BP oil rig to get a better first touch I say god bless and will help them pack.
Its just now that USSF is calling latin players, all they use to call up was some rich white kids who were able to get on the USSF radar.
Its about time.
and Renken blew out his second knee in two years?
Typical red-herring response. European is not a race either.
I’m pretty glad we’re bast the days of our line-up sounding like the names at a local country club swim team: Smith, Jones, Johnson, Evans, Williams, Donaldson, Adams, and such.
Timmy is right, tommy. I dont know if the college teams would be eager to release some of their top players, not to mention Rongen is still looking at a wide variety of players.
Rongen’s net stretches far, we’ll start seeing more consistency closer to Quals, and even that wont be a clear picture of our WC team
while there is the possibility that tony was serious, i think more likely he was joking
currently earning PT with STL… no reason to take him out of there to play in a U20 tourny.
Not to mention, he’s young enough to be considered for the 2013 U20’s
People like you is why Minorities choose to play elsewhere. But to answer your question, YES, they are all Americans on this squad. Unfortunetly for you, no Euro players. 🙂
Good for players like Agudelo & Salgado for backing up their true homeland.
I heard USSF ignores the Latin players? Is this true?
In all seriousness, i think whats worrying is that i dont think there are any African-American players on these teams.
time for USSF to do some Grassroots work!
I think Valentin is still @ Akron – no collegiate players on this list. On MLS youth systems – Crew put together some really good teams this summer which had mix of US youth and/or college players. Not that they developed them (I think only one local – Barson) but a serious effort at putting them together to play & train.
Interesting, I did not know Mexican was a race, I always thought it was a nationality.
Yep. If you speak German here’s an interview with him and his dual citizen Hertha teammate John Brooks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSc4En17lGw
tommy – I’m pretty sure all the college guys were left at home because their season is just starting.
hahahahah niiiiiice.
the Wilmer and Gyau incident is not so black and white… faults on both parties, but some more on one then the other
Mexican scouts are good at scouting Mexican-American talent. But they do a poor job on everyone else :-/
the only “significant” mistake was burning the bridge with Subotic.
Other fishey points:
1) flame out: with a significantly less talented side
2) Gyau and Lletget fences being mended: not sure how this is lumped onto Rongen, as he hasnt had anything to do with them. Gyau has been pro-Ghana since the fallout with Cabrera. There is also a lot of backstory that most dont follow.
Lletget is still in favor with USMN, but between not being released and being injured, he hasnt been called up outside of the first U20 camp.
Fischy’s point is not exactly correct. Yes last cycle was a flame out and his error with Subotic is well known, but outside that i dont see any fault in his other points
Well said.
I hope “Kiese” is not German for “Bed”
Well good, we found a natural replacement in case anything happens to Robbie Findley.
Suprised there’s no Zarek Valentin. His service from the right really propelled the US at the Milk Cup.
Tigres is a lower table Mexican side. Still, their academy coach used to be CUSA’s academy coach. He’s pulled in quite a few mexican-american kids into the academy team and that is why there are several in the above list.
whats funny is they may turn into good pros and still not be able to compete come 2014 depending on the position they play.
next cycle?? U20’s or USMN??
if you are referring to this current USMN cycle, then 4-5 is not bad at all… if you are talking about the next cycle as in the 2018, its way too early to predict such things.
still its HIGHLY possible that majority of this camp and this U20 cycle not develop into key players for the USMN. If we get 4-5 players from our core U20 2011 WC group then i would argue this cycle was a success.
Most players pan out to some level of soccer, but as far as players who go onto contributing, outside of our first group its been a couple from each cycle. The rest of the key starters have worked their way through other avenues
Agreed!! They are choosing to play for the US now, they are our team no matter where they came from, where their parents are from etc. I will glad to see them put on the uni and represent us to the world.
+1 Jayboy. The kids who have come over from Mexico have said the opposite: that the coaches here treat you better.
Renken’s injured?
You do know that Lletget has been sick right?
Jerome Kiesewetter? Is this kid a dual German/American citizen?
I haven’t heard anything about Gyau wanting to play for Ghana.
It seems from this article (March 2010), he still has his heart set on playing for the USMNT some day.
“I have been invited to two [US U20] camps,” Gyau described. “The first camp I was injured and the second camp was when the Hoffenheim people told me that they needed me to stay and work on what they were asking me to work on. Hoffenheim were sending me some videos of how they played. They were trying to get me to assimilate to that style of play. So I had to stay here and work on that.”
So while Gyau has been unable to play for the US U20 team so far in this cycle and will even compete against them in Dallas, he states that playing for both the US U20 team as well as the senior team in the future is still a priority for him.
http://yanks-abroad.com/get.php?mode=content&id=6029
Hamid is too old, McInerney and Gil are getting burn at the pro level.
Again, read the words on the page. Dudeinho used biased as did I. But used it comparing Mexico to Europe. Given that we have already lost players to Europe (again, as I mentioned) I don’t see Mr. D’s “bias” comment relating to playing style or scenery or culinary preferences. That and the fact that Martha’s comment seemed to relate soley to losing these players to other nations in the future (therefore being only incedentally related to Mexico), logically leaves only the other meaning of the word “bias”. Let’s not be naive — son.
In my few views of Jerome, he seems all pace and nothing else, very limited.
Yeah, Renken is done. You don’t blow out both knees as a teenager and go on to have an athletic career.
I’m particularly in Victor Garza in this tournament. He’s just come off two MVPs with Tigres in tournaments against quality Euro sides.