Sergino Dest’s hamstring injury suffered with FC Barcelona in Thursday’s Europa League match against Galatasaray has officially ruled him out of the March World Cup qualifiers with the U.S. men’s national team, and Gregg Berhalter has turned to another promising young fullback to help fill the considerable void.
George Bello has replaced Dest on the current USMNT roster for March’s qualifying matches, U.S. Soccer announced Friday. Dest left Barcelona’s Europa League match on Thursday with a hamstring injury and will now miss the final window of World Cup Qualifying.
Bello, 20, has earned six caps for the USMNT, starting in last summer’s Concacaf Gold Cup Final win over Mexico, and starting in the team’s Octagonal road win against Honduras.
The former Atlanta United Homegrown defender completed a transfer to Bundesliga club Arminia Bielefeld in late January. Bello has made five appearances for Bielefeld in league play, most recently earning his first Bundesliga start, playing 90 minutes in a 1-0 loss to Borussia Dortmund on Sunday.
Bello is the fourth fullback on the USMNT roster, joining Antonee Robinson, Reggie Cannon, and DeAndre Yedlin in the current squad.
The USMNT travels to Mexico on Thursday before hosting Panama (March 27) and visiting Costa Rica (March 30) in its final matches of the octagonal round.
omg Dest is out too!! Wtf were missing so many guys going into the final 3 games. I have a bad feeling about these final 3 games
LOL. The same exact rants and raves and EVERY COACH IN THE WORLD.
Doesn‘t matter if it‘s Malta, Japan, Cameroon, Mexico, Argentina, you name it it‘s all about their favorites every time. It‘s being going on since the game began, but yeah, this time it is really, really, really, really different because it‘s u guys saying it!
…..and let‘s face it, whi is smarter than you guys.
Hilarious, ordinary, boring and predictable.
Sad really.
Well, Scally is the new bright shiny object and it seems everyone wants to see him on the USMNT. But really it’s pretty much a coin toss between him and Bello. Neither is likely to start unless maybe the US does not need a win vs CostaRica. Bello has played with the NT more and did well enough against Mexico and against Dortmund last week, he is definitely the safe choice. If this were a meaningless game it might make sense to give Scally some time, but not right now!
Bello had a pretty bad one today apparently.
this is where the coach’s penchant for ignoring NT performance meets his favoritism. moore has played well, scally is the upside prospect, and he goes with the LB who has had more than one bad game presumably “because experience.” he has a pecking order that has little to do with reality or lags it years. bello is about a year stale a discussion. (but, i mean, we’re still having brooks discussions……)
The one consistent in the USMNT rosters since Gregg became the manager has been his blind devotion to “His Guys”. If you look back at the stats on the US Soccer site, it’s shocking how many matches some of Gregg’s favorites have played in comparison to others who’ve done more with the fewer games they’ve been involved in. Throwing out 2020 due to only 4 games played…
2019 GP #’s:
Arriola (15), Zardes (15), Roldan (14), Ream (14), Morris (14), Long (14), Lovitz (13), Weston (12), CP (11), Lletget (8), Cannon (8), Sargent (6), Adams (1), Jedi (1), Dest (3),
2021 GP #’s:
Acosta (21), Lletget (16), Aaronson (13), Miles (13), Roldan (11), Zardes (10), Jedi (11), Musah (9) Arriola (8), Busio (8), Weah (8), Weston (7), Sargent (6), Brooks (6), Ream (5), Luca DLT (3),
It took Gregg years to realize that Ream & Lletget were not International Caliber, and I still think in Gregg’s mind they have a chance to make the WC squad. he’s still calling Roldan & Arriola, when they’ve been 2 of the worst contributors over the past 3 years. Long was sidelined an entire year, yet he’s got more GP than Brooks over a 3 year span. Zardes has 2x the GP than any of the other striker(s) in the pool (Sargent, Pfolk, Pepi, Dike, Hoppe).
While we’ve had injury issues that have sidelined some of our players for chunks of time, it doesn’t account for the shear number of chances given to certain players. Players who have consistently under performed. Gregg’s glacial integration of new talent, and continued blind eye to performances has been the greatest disappointment of this cycle.
Scally, Luca, Sargent, Musah, all should have been integrated sooner/more quickly. How many others have been pushed to the side so that Gregg’s boys could be accommodated?
Yunus Musah could have been integrated so much quicker. Let’s ignore that Musah would be representing England U21s if not for Gregg and his staff. Since joining US of matches in Int Windows he’s played 13 out of 16. Technically he could have played Sept. Window but he only returned the weekend before for 5 mins. If those 13 he started 12. He started 7 qualifying matches in a row before being rested against Honduras.
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Your calculation of matches played also ignores that clubs\players did not allow call ups in 8 of those matches. Or injuries to players or Covid travel restrictions that prevented players from playing in early 2021. How many guys were even ready in 2019 that weren’t involved? Luca, Yunus, and Joe were all youth players at the time. Sargent started 3 of 4 NL group games in 2019. Jedi might realistically be the only one.
What Johnnyrazor said
I think everyone has opinions, and everyone has favorites. I know I favor josh Sargent and think he has not been given a proper opportunity and is playing his guts out in the EPL. Meanwhile Augsburg made five subs today to try and win a game, and not one of them was Pepi. Coaches choice to have his players, that’s why he is the coach. A Canada win Thursday night against Costa Rica would offer a tremendous amount of breathing room, and of course, we take down Mexico on Thursday and that is a something we’ve never done push directly to Qatar