By IVES GALARCEP
Jurgen Klinsmann’s decision to bring his entire 30-man preliminary World Cup roster to the U.S. Men’s National Team training camp at Stanford later this month didn’t come as a big surprise, but it did signal the time to start thinking about just which players will fill out that 30-player list.
You might think that Klinsmann shouldn’t have much difficult selecting his top 30 players, but the reality is that this is the deepest player pool the U.S. team has ever had, and while in past World Cup cycles it would have been a real project to fill out a 30-player list, this time around there will be some quality players who don’t even get invited to the training camp.
With the exception of goalkeeper, where the top three options are set in stone and most likely to be the only three goalkeepers in the training camp, all the other positions have multiple options for the training camp, as well as fierce competition for the final World Cup roster spots.
So who will make the 30-player preliminary USMNT World Cup roster? Here is SBI’s projection for the squad:
PROJECTED USMNT PRELIMINARY WORLD CUP ROSTER
GOALKEEPERS– Tim Howard, Brad Guzan, Nick Rimando
DEFENDERS– Geoff Cameron, Matt Besler, Omar Gonzalez, Fabian Johnson, Timmy Chandler, Clarence Goodson, John Brooks, DaMarcus Beasley, Brad Evans, Michael Parkhurst, Tim Ream.
MIDFIELDERS– Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley, Landon Donovan, Jermaine Jones, Graham Zusi, Alejandro Bedoya, Kyle Beckerman, Maurice Edu, Mix Diskerud, Julian Green, Joe Corona.
FORWARDS– Jozy Altidore, Aron Johannsson, Chris Wondolowski, Terrence Boyd, Eddie Johnson.
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MISSED THE CUT (The Next 30)
GOALKEEPERS– Sean Johnson, Bill Hamid, Tally Hall
DEFENDERS– Oguchi Onyewu, Michael Orozco, Edgar Castillo, Will Packwood, Tony Beltran, DeAndre Yedlin, Matt Hedges, Eric Lichaj, Greg Garza, Jonathan Spector, Chris Schuler
MIDFIELDERS– Danny Williams, Brad Davis, Jose Torres, Luis Gil, Brek Shea, Benny Feilhaber, Sacha Kljestan, Alfredo Morales, Eric Alexander, Dillon Powers, Joe Gyau
FORWARDS– Juan Agudelo, Herculez Gomez, Mike Magee, Will Bruin, Paul Arriola
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What do you think of the 30-man roster we projected? Who are you happy to see make the cut? Who are you disappointed to see missing from the list? What do you see being the biggest position battle in the USMNT training camp?
Share your thoughts below.