By IVES GALARCEP
Julian Green and Jordan Morris headline the 19-man U.S. Under-23 Men’s National Team roster head coach Andi Herzog has called in for the upcoming Toulon Tournament in France.
Green is coming off a disappointing loan spell with Hamburg, but remains a key figure in the U.S. Under-23 player pool as the team prepares for Olympic qualifying in the fall. Morris is fresh off helping the U.S. U-23s beat Mexico in a friendly on April 22, a week after scoring in the USMNT’s 2-0 friendly win against Mexico.
Here is the rest of the squad:
U.S. UNDER-23 MEN’S NATIONAL TEAM (TOULON TOURNAMENT)
GOALKEEPERS: Cody Cropper (Southampton; Maple Grove, Minn.), Charlie Horton (Cardiff City; Cleveland, Ohio), Tyler Miller (Zweibrücken; Woodbury, N.J.)
DEFENDERS: Juan Pablo Ocegueda (Alebrijes de Oaxaca; Riverside, Calif.), Boyd Okwuonu (Real Salt Lake; Edmund, Okla.), Shane O’Neill (Colorado Rapids; Boulder, Colo.), William Packwood (Unattached; Concord, Mass.), Jalen Robinson (D.C. United; Catonsville, Md.), Dillon Serna (Colorado Rapids; Brighton, Colo.), Sam Strong (Santa Barbara; Santa Barbara, Calif.)
MIDFIELDERS: Fatai Alashe (San Jose Earthquakes; Northville, Mich.), Benji Joya (Santos Laguna; San Jose, Calif.), Daniel Metzger (New York Red Bulls II; Holmdel, N.J.), Marc Pelosi (Liverpool; Sunnyvale, Calif.)
FORWARDS: Julian Green (Bayern Munich; Tampa, Fla.); Alonso Hernandez (C.F. Monterrey; El Paso, Tex.), Jerome Kiesewetter (Stuttgart; Berlin, Germany), Alfred Koroma Shams (Unattached, Texas), Jordan Morris (Stanford; Mercer Island, Wash.).
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Herzog will add a 20th player to the roster by the Tuesday deadline for the tournament.
The U.S. U-23s kick off their Toulon Tournament action on Wednesday against France (1pm, BeIN Sports), before taking on Costa Rica on May 31 and Qatar on June 2.
What do you think of the group? Who are you most looking forward to seeing play?
Share your thoughts below.
Does anybody know what happened in the u20 friendly yesterday against Serbia?
lost 1 – 0 no big deal tho
And it was heavily raining. No need to over-analyze it.
Funny how Brazil wasn’t invited this year I think they got tired of them winning it so many times. So much for the 3peat.
It’s ‘Edmond’, OK. Same as Bright Dike.
Very disappointed that Brooks and Yedlin are not on this team. I know that we have friendlies coming up for the senior team and they will surely be on that roster, but those are just friendlies. This is an actual tournament that has prestige and is against good competition. You actually win something. There will be more friendlies closer to the Gold Cup where Yedlin and Brooks can rejoin the senior national team. I think Klinsmann is getting this one wrong.
Interesting that Pelosi is back in the mix. I hope this means he is regaining his prior form that had a lot of people excited. Very possible we could see movement before the actual qualifying tournament with players like Ye4dliN and Brooks coming onto the team and maybe even a U-20 like Zelalem moving up if he shows well enough in his World Cup. Also, good to see that a lot of MlS clubs don’t object to releasing their players for this tournament.
I get Brooks not being there. HIs season is just ending. Gold cup is coming up. Let the kid get a couple of weeks of rest. Yedlin, on the other hand, I have to assume could use minutes with these guys unless we are sure he is making the Gold Cup roster. I have to assume that if they were desperate enouigh for coverage at RB that they moved Serna there, that the u23s have a spot for yedlin.
@Soccer By Ives
Alfred Koroma Shams has been playing with the Austin Aztex of the USL since the start of the season
I was wondering about this…I didn’t think he was still with Carroll. I know the dragons are sad about that 🙁
Word we got was he left Austin, parted ways and never played. The initial roster we posted was the one provided by U.S. Soccer, which had some things that needed correcting, but as it stands, it doesn’t appear Koroma is with Austin.
Oh, wow. Well obviously I don’t attend the games!
Thx for that.
Only four mids? how long is the tournament? pretty much limits your formations
I’d imagine several of the forwards are comfortable playing as outside midfielders or attacking midfielders.
Koroma and green certainly have experience out wide.
But I could see a 4-3-3 played in the attack, 4-5-1 on the defense
Serna is a midfielder by trade and Shane O’Neill has no problem playing in the center of midfielder either as a d-mid or holding midfielder.
Curious to see if the inclusion or Green or Morris means they’ll be with the Olympic qualifying group this summer as opposed to the Gold Cup squad. Yedlin and Brooks are locks for the Gold Cup team so this looks like it will be the Olympic qualifying group minus the likes of Villareal, Shelton and Trapp. Not sure if Rubin, Hyndman or Zelalem can pull double duty with the u20 world cup but my guess is that come qualifying we’ll see something along the lines of:
—————Morris—————
Green——–Gil———–Shelton
——–Trapp——Alashe———-
Ocegueda——————Sorto
——-O’Neill—-Zimmerman—
———–Cropper——————
Not a bad group but still don’t think it’s as solid as the last cycle when the US didn’t qualify.
The Olympic qualifiers aren’t until the October FIFA window, so there’s really no over lap between the U20s or even Gold Cup.
Any idea on who the last player that will be added will be? Yedlin maybe?