Popular Now:
Americans Abroad Major League Soccer MLS USMNT
Top Stories

Morris, Trapp, Zelalem headline U.S. Olympic Qualifying roster

by

Jordan Morris U-23 USMNT 28

The 20 players tasked with leading the U.S. to the Olympics have officially been revealed.

Jordan Morris, Wil Trapp and Gedion Zelalem lead the 20-man roster selected by Andi Herzog for the upcoming Olympic qualifiers. The U.S. Under-23 Men’s National Team will kick off the group stages against Canada on Oct. 1 before facing Cuba and Panama on Oct. 3 and 6, respectively.

“For us it was important that we find the right balance between attacking players and defensive-minded players,” Herzog said. “Because there are no FIFA dates for the first week of the tournament, there were challenges in getting players released. We had discussions with a lot of teams, and while some clubs didn’t release their players overall we received a lot of support, especially from MLS.

“There was a lot of competition for spots. Of course a few players will be disappointed that they didn’t make the roster and I understand, but we can only have 20 players on the roster and only 17 field players, so they weren’t easy decisions. Now we have to be focused on the games and we have to win.”

Six members of the roster were a part of the Under-20 World Cup earlier this year, while eight previously featured for the U.S. in this past summer’s Toulon Tournament.

The U.S. will be looking to reach the Olympics for the first time since 2008 after failing in the 2012 CONCACAF qualifiers. Most recently, the U-23s played a final tune-up ahead of qualifying, falling to England while defeating Qatar.

Here’s a closer look at the full U.S. roster for Olympic qualifying:

GOALKEEPERS:  Charlie Horton (Leeds; Cleveland Ohio), Ethan Horvath (Molde; Highlands Ranch, Colo.), Zack Steffen (Freiburg; Downington, Pa.).

DEFENDERS: Cameron Carter-Vickers (Tottenham Hotspur; Westcliff on Sea, England), Matt Miazga (New York Red Bulls; Clifton, N.J.), Eric Miller (Montreal Impact; Woodbury, Minn.), William Packwood (Unattached; Concord, Mass.), Dillon Serna (Colorado Rapids; Brighton, Colo.)

MIDFIELDERS: Fatai Alashe (San Jose Earthquakes; Northville, Mich.), Gboly Ariyibi (Chesterfield; Arlington, Va.), Luis Gil (Real Salt Lake; Garden Grove, Calif.), Emerson Hyndman (Fulham; Dallas, Texas), Marc Pelosi (San Jose Earthquakes; Sunnyvale, Calif.), Matt Polster (Chicago Fire; Milwaukee, Wis.), Wil Trapp (Columbus Crew SC; Gahanna, Ohio), Gedion Zelalem (Rangers; Bethesda, Md.).

FORWARDS: Alonso Hernandez (C.D. Juarez; El Paso, Texas), Jerome Kiesewetter (VfB Stuttgart; Berlin, Germany), Jordan Morris (Stanford; Mercer Island, Wash.), Maki Tall (FC Sion; Washington, D.C.).

—

What do you think of the roster? Any surprises? Which players stand out to you?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Pingback: With roster in place, Herzog turns focus towards achieving dream of Olympic qualification | Soccer By Ives
  2. Pingback: College Friday Rewind:

  4. As for the thin defense, it’s important to note that Polster has filled in at both FB and CB, and I’d feel fairly comfortable with him filling in at either spot. The dude is a gamer. Now, I still think his best position is as a deep-lying distributor in central midfield, but this certainly helps with team depth.

    Reply

  5. Why has everyone become so infatuated with the 4-5-1 formation with w 2 DMs? Both on this thread and the Nat team threads everyone wants 2 dms and 1 striker even though we struggle to score out of this formation whenever we use it.

    Reply

  10. I am so ambivalent about Miazga’s selection — good for the team and his development, but very bad for RBNY, who need him desperately in the back. I wish there were a way for him to skip the group stage (where they only have to finish in the top two of a group that includes Panama, Cuba, and Canada) and join the team for the crucial semi-final game, or at least get released back to RBNY after the semi-final.

    Reply

    • I’m not ambivalent – I wish he was staying at RBNY. To be fair, I don’t really care about Olympic soccer so maybe that’s why I’m club over country in this instance.

      Reply

      • Is there anything to the “experience in the Olympics is good preparations for the young players who will later be on the senior team” theory — that is, the more international experience, the better?

    • I think he and CCV are the heart of the future US defense and the more they play together for the US internationally, the better for them and for the US.

      Reply

  11. ………. Horvath……….
    Miller….C-V….Miazga…Serna
    …Alashe ……Trapp…..
    ………….Zelalem…….
    Kiesewetter………Gil
    ………….Morris……….

    Reply

  12. Just the other day SBI had an article about how well Kellyn Acosta is doing for Dallas FC and now he doesn’t get into the roster. And yet only 5 defenders are listed on the roster. Since Acosta has played in the back line before as well as defensive mid he would seem to have been a good choice. The US looks pretty thin on the back line and I think Herzog should have called in one more defender.

    Reply

      • MLS teams are usually pretty cooperative in releasing their players, which is why I mentioned Acosta. This makes it seem like it is more likely the coach’s decision. We’ll see.

      • Marc pelosi on one side serna on the other, sounds pretty attack minded, but these two should be pretty strong at fullback

  14. Can we get a coach at some level who understands how to put together a roster? If serna or miller go down at outside back, who starts? I just see time and time again something like this happens and everyone says “oh, bad luck with the injuries”, but not really, more like awful roster construction. Five defenders for a tournament, really? Who starts on the wing opposite morris? And i have a hard time believing green wasnt released from an amateur team. Is there any reason to have polster on this team, when we already have trapp, alasha, hyndman and zelalem? Ariybi and tall are the best we can do, really? I would rather have thompson, arriola, and jameison IV before those guys.

    I love the usmnt and all, but in the back of my mind i wouldnt mind seeing us failing in this tournament and losing to mexico. Also if we lose copa centenario, i want gulati gone. Then we can finally have a start over with an american coaches who arent constantly trying to teach this nation lessons.

    rant over.

    Reply

    • Not sure whats going on with Green, he’s not really putting up anything close to what he did the first go around at Bayern II. He has 1 goal in 7 starts, last time had 15 goals in 18 starts.

      Reply

      • Not trying to take up for Green, but he refused to go on a loan and wanted to fight for a spot on the first team at Bayern and Pep said it would be better to play with the reserves and get playing time than not play at all since he wasn’t ready for mins for the first team yet

    • Here’s my rant. I cannot abide by people who hope for their team’s failure because they don’t like the coach/manager. This is not being a true fan. I would much rather be provwen wrong about the coach and have my team be successful. Your attitude reminds me of the remark by a top officer in the Vietnam War who said we have to burn this village down in order to save it. To me, this remark by the officer is the attitude of nutcases.

      Reply

      • I don’t know about that.
        Failure is one of the best teacher in life.
        Failure forces you to make changes you would’t consider making otherwise.
        Sometimes I wish my kids would fail spectacularly at something.
        Watching them half-azz everything they do and yet still come up on top every time justifies their lack of effort but will come back and bite them in the butt eventually.

      • Sabdi, I don’t think that’s what Gary is saying. As a coach or a parent you should be ok with failure when it occurs naturally. What Gary is saying is one shouldn’t hope for failure especially during a major tournament.

      • It’s not that I don’t like the manager, its that I dont like the direction this federation is going. I will still be supporting this team through this tournament and the main team against mexico. But in the back of my head, and many other fans heads is oh well maybe if we dont get the result here, theres a change, and very likely a change for good. And no gary, nutcases would be trying the same thing over and over and failing in results. Which is what happens time and time again. We constantly play players out of position and ignore obvious additions to our squad. You look at our strongest 23, and it may be the most talented it has ever been, and it could be so much more successful if our coaches didnt have their own personal agendas.

      • Here’s the problem with your thinking: “maybe if we dont get the result here, theres a change, and very likely a change for good.”

        You would rather have failure now, in the hope that some change MIGHT happen, and that change MIGHT be a good one? How do you know any change will be a change for good? We had an American “wunderkind” coach the last Olympic qualifying campaign, and we saw where that got us.

      • Klinsmann meddled in that Olympic qualifying process. Porter did not have complete control over which players were called and one of the two (maybe three) training camps was held in Germany when Porter could not be there to see and work with the players. Also, there were no friendly or warm-up tournaments prior to their first Olympic qualifier for Porter to evaluate and prepare his teams performances. This cycle the U23s have had numerous games and competitions to prepare and choose a roster. Klinsmann was the guy that hired Porter, a coach with a full time job in one of the nations best college soccer programs. It is absolutely no surprise it didn’t work under all those circumstances. Just imagine the excuses you’d hear from Klinsmann if he had only had the team for half of the training sessions before and had no friendlies or other tournaments prior to his disastrous Gold Cup

      • Have you looked at the players who were on that team? It was good enough to win that group, but they under performed. Especially against Canada where Porter was out coached and befuddled by their formation. And the last second goal in the final game that cost them the spot was a cascade of errors., compounded by poor play by the goalie.

      • I watched that team implode. They had one natural defender and one natural outside back. The defense was because of it, and their friendly before the tournament against Mexico masked that fact. It was mainly because Alfredo Morales sat in front of that back line.
        There were multiple reasons they didn’t make it past the group but Porter and his nepotism was one of them.

      • Canada parked the bus with an Xmas tree formation against the US. Porters Akron teams faced that nearly every game they played, especially the ’09 and ’10 teams. He certainly knows how to break it down, but you need prep time with the team and the players and coach need to know each other. If people think Porter went with too many of his own guys I would suggest that is the reason why.

      • “Klinsmann meddled in that Olympic qualifying process. Porter did not have complete control over which players were called and one of the two (maybe three)”
        What makes you think he didn’t have full control. He picked the players he wanted and most were players that played for him in college. Porter didn’t even like Boyd, in his mind Bunbury was his man no matter how terrible he was playing. JK even took Boyd to France for a friendly because Porter wouldn’t play him. It took an injury to Agudelo for Boyd to get a chance and he came through.

    • Jamieson IV has been out since he suffered a second concussion during a game with the Galaxy II at the end of July. He’s basically been shut down for the rest of the season because this was his second concussion this year after the one he suffered with the U.S. in the U-20 World Cup in June.

      Reply

      • I agree, he should be a “MUST”, IMHO. I think he may be injured. On desire and work rate, he should be added, if healthy.

      • That’s my point. He’s currently not good enough right now to be included. It wasn’t a matter of not being released, but a matter of not even being selected.

      • Generally, players that have played in the full World Cup are not taken to U23 qualifying events, accounts are he has played well for BM II, which is a 4th division team. Should the US qualify I would still be surprised if he isn’t on the Olympic team.

      • Lol…

        Nice spin.

        Too good to be selected? Is that the new excuse?

        “Accounts are he has played well for BM II”. Which accounts? Last I read he had more yellow cards than goals. 1 goal in the 4th division so far this season. I’m guessing that’s in 6-8 games so far.

        You only create unrealistic expectations for the young man when you embellish his past and current form.

      • 90% sure Green is cap-tied to Germany for Olympic competition. That aside, he was one of the best players for the U-23s in the Toulon Tournament. No need to be a hater on some 22 year old who can still have an impressive career.

      • No, he is not cap-tied to Germany for the Olympics. Good try..

        Where is the hate? Did I distort any facts to embellish his failure to earn any sustained playing time above the 4th division for 1 1/2 years? Those are just facts, not hate.

        I do agree that Green is capable of having an impressive career. I hope that he does progress to a level where he can earn call up’s for the USMNT based more on his quality rather than his potential.

      • Herzog on Green

        Moderation not taking links today.

        “Herzog Embraces Pressure of 2016 Olympic Qualifying
        ASN contributing editor Brian Sciaretta spoke with U.S. under-23 men’s coach Andi Herzog about today’s game against Qatar and the Olympic Qualifying tournament that begins in Kansas City on October 1.
        BY BRIAN SCIARETTA
        POSTED
        SEPTEMBER 08, 2015

        ASN: What has been the biggest challenge for you since taking this job as the U-23 head coach?

        HERZOG: The biggest challenge has been to create rosters to be honest. There have been compromises and stuff. Normally you know a roster 10 days or two weeks ahead of camp. Of course a few players are sometimes injured but at least you know most of the roster. Here it’s a little bit different. Sometimes you only know the roster two or three days ahead of camp. For me it is a new type of situation but as a coach you have to learn how to adapt to all situations. Sometimes you have to improvise.

        ASN: How much pressure does the team feel because of the failure of the 2012 U-23 to qualify the Olympics in London?

        HERZOG: It’s normal. Even as a young player you want to be part of a special thing like the Olympics or the World Cup, you have to deal with pressure. We are one of the favorites to qualify and we have to deal with this pressure. If we’re not able to say we want to qualify, we have to qualify, and we’re good enough, then it’s not a good sign for the players.

        ASN: Julian Green’s absence was particularly noticeable given his history with the U.S. national team at the World Cup and the fact he recently played for the U.S. U-23 team in Toulon. The last year was tough for him and he is now playing with Bayern Munich’s U-23 team after not going on loan during the transfer window. It is a very unusual situation. Is he still part of this team?

        HERZOG: It’s a different situation. He had a difficult last year. He’s now back with Bayern Munich and he needs a lot of games with their second team. He scored some goals for them recently and they asked me if I would give him the chance to stay with Bayern Munich. I said I was fine with it. I already know him from the men’s national team. I saw him at the last camp in Toulon and he played five games there. I was OK with it. For me it was more important to see new players like Matt Polster, Eric Miller, Matt Miazga, Cameron Carter-Vickers, and Rubio Rubin. It was, for me, more important to see these players and how they fit into our system.

        Brian Sciaretta is an American Soccer Now columnist and an ASN 100 panelist. Follow him on Twitter.”

Leave a Comment