Richard Ledezma, Ulysses Llanez, and Chris Richards headline a 50-player preliminary U.S. Under-23 Men’s National Team roster for the upcoming Concacaf Olympic Qualifying tournament.
Concacaf announced the preliminary rosters for all eight participating teams on Wednesday, 22 days before the qualifying tournament begins in Guadalajara, Mexico. The tournament will run from March 20-April 1st, which will see two teams qualify for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Also included in Jason Kreis’ roster are additional European players Erik Palmer-Brown, Alex Mendez, Cameron Carter-Vickers, and Christian Cappis.
Out of the 50 players on the preliminary roster, 32 come from MLS teams. Mason Toye, Brenden Aaronson, Paxton Pomykal, and Jonathan Lewis were just a few players to come from MLS.
Five goalkeepers were named with J.T. Marcinowski, Brady Scott, and David Ochoa the headliners of the group.
The final 20-player rosters will be revealed by Concacaf a week prior to the start of the tournament. After the official announcement, only injury-related changes will be permitted, up until 24 hours before each team’s first match.
The 2020 Concacaf Men’s Olympic Qualifying Championship will begin with a group stage between eight nations. After round robin play, the first and second place finishers of each group will advance to the semifinals.
The two semifinal matches will take place on March 30th with the semifinal winners advancing to the championship match of the tournament and the Olympics.
The USMNT U-23’s open play group stage play on March 20th against Costa Rica before facing the Dominican Republic on the 23rd and Mexico on the 26th.
Here’s all of the 50 players on the USMNT provisional roster:
GOALKEEPERS: David Ochoa, Matt Freese, J.T. Marcinowski, Drake Callender, Brady Scott.
DEFENDERS: Mark McKenzie, Justen Glad, Aaron Herrera, Miles Robinson, Chris Richards, Chris Gloster, Aboubacar Keita, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Marco Farfan, Erik Palmer-Brown, Julian Araujo, Sam Vines, Auston Trusty, Reggie Cannon, Kyle Duncan.
MIDFIELDERS: Brenden Aaronson, Richard Ledezma, Paxton Pomykal, Brandon Servania, Jackson Yueill, Djordje Mihailovic, Hassani Dotson, Luca De La Torre, Alex Mendez, Christian Cappis, James Sands, Keaton Parks, Derrick Jones, Chris Durkin.
FORWARDS: Ulysses Llanez, Mason Toye, Indiana Vassilev, Emmanuel Sabbi, Brooks Lennon, Brandon Vazquez, Sebastian Soto, Sebastian Saucedo, Konrad de la Fuente, Jeremy Ebobisse, Josh Perez, Benji Michel, Jonathan Lewis, Jesus Ferreira, Omir Fernandez.
This is a really good team, even without Pulisic, Adams, McKennie, Weah, Reyna, etc. It should qualify. Future is bright.
Way to bury the lede SBI. The winners of the semi-finals QUALIFY for the Olympics. That kind of makes winning the tournament less important.
Derrick Jones, there is a name I haven’t heard in quite some time.
Nashville wanted him for their inaugural year so they picked him up last summer. He was playing with the USL team until he got injured.
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It looks like he’s been pretty strong for them though, as they have been playing him in the #10 role into preseason.
GK field is something to possibly worry about for the future
I was looking at that too. I will stay positive the second coming of Friedel/Howard/Meola will rise and be among us. ⚽?
Keepers tend to take longer to truly develop and hit their stride. When Looking back at the top 4 USMNT Goal Keepers in our history you have to keep in mind that in the early 90’s there wasn’t much in the way of player pool. With that said….
Tim Howard: 2006 WC – 26 yrs Old. 3rd String Keeper, 2010 WC – 30 yrs Old. Starter, 2014 WC – 34 yrs Old, Starter.
Brad Friedel: 1994 WC – 26 yrs Old. Back-Up, 1998 WC – 30 yrs Old Back-Up, 2002 WC – 34 yrs Old Starter.
Kasey Keller: 1990 WC – 20 yrs Old. Back-Up, 1998 WC – 28 yrs Old Starter, 2002 WC – 32 yrs Old Backup
Tony Meola: 1990 WC – 21 yrs Old Starter, 1994 WC – 26 yrs Old Starter, 1998 – 30 yrs Old Back-Up
Now look at our current Keeper Player Pool:
Zack Steffen: Current Age 24, Shaun Johnson: 30 yrs. Bill Hamid: 29 yrs.
Ethan Horvath: 24 yrs Jesse Gonzalez: 24 yrs, Brad Guzan: 35 yrs
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Only Keller & Meola made a WC squad at an earlier age than our current Starter will be when the 2022 WC rolls around, and at the time they made their WC teams there wasn’t much competition in the USMNT player pool.
Johnson/Hamid should have been the 3rd string keeper for 2014 instead of Rimando.
for me, it’s less about age than actual talent.