Photo by Howard C. Smith/ISIphotos.com
A few more U.S. national team players will be extending their trips to Europe.
Real Salt Lake's Kyle Beckerman and the Columbus Crew's Robbie Rogers have had training stints arranged with Bundesliga club Kaiserslautern by U.S. national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann, joining the growing movement of MLS players getting training experience with top-flight European clubs.
They're not the only ones getting Bundesliga experience, either.
D.C. United's Perry Kitchen, coming off a strong rookie season and an invite to the just-concluded U.S. Under-23 national team camp that was held in Duisburg, Germany, will train with SC Freiburg for the next week, sources told SBI.
While Klinsmann arranged the training periods for Beckerman and Rogers, Kitchen's was set up independently.
"In an effort to have USMNT players stay more fit during the MLS offseason, Coach Klinsmann arranged for me to train at FC Kaiserslautern for a few weeks. I'm not sure exactly how long I'll be in Germany. So far we have been treated very well and I'm looking forward to this new experience," Beckerman said in an online statement.
For Rogers, who is set to be out of contract with the Crew and has expressed a wish to return to Europe, the training period is not a trial, but it does provide him an opportunity to catch the eye of Kaiserslautern coach Marco Kurz. He confirmed the training stint on his Twitter account on Wednesday.
Beckerman, Rogers and Kitchen join New York Red Bulls forward Juan Agudelo as MLS players training in Germany for the time being. Agudelo joined VfB Stuttgart on Wednesday.
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