Photo by ISIPhotos.com
By IVES GALARCEP
As the U.S. Men’s National Team prepares to kick off training camp ahead of the 2014 World Cup, a total of 30 players will be battling for 30 World Cup roster spots, meaning seven players will see their World Cup dream fall short.
Jurgen Klinsmann will have to make the final decision and while he has three weeks to figure out who those seven players will be, it is safe to assume he has a working list going already, and has a sense of who is currently on the chopping block.
In my latest Goal.com column, I discussed the players currently on that World Cup bubble, the players who will have to have very strong training camps to have a hope of making the trip to Brazil.
Does this mean the other players will have cakewalks? Certainly not, but it isn’t a stretch to identify those players facing the stiffest tests in the coming weeks.
The number of players facing pressure goes well beyond seven or eight, and is probably closer to a dozen or so, with stars like Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard and Landon Donovan, and key contributors like Matt Besler, Geoff Cameron and Jozy Altidore being safe on the 23.
Give my Goal.com column a read and then answer this question: Which seven players would you cut from the preliminary world Cup roster if you had to make those cuts today? It is a different question than asking which seven you think Klinsmann will cut, though that prediction wouldn’t be easy either.
Let us know which players you would cut right now in the comments section below.