Luca De La Torre is among the players hoping to secure his place in Gregg Berhalter’s final World Cup roster in November, but his chances have taken a big hit due to an injury that will eliminate his chances of impressing before the roster is announced on November 9th.
De La Torre is set to miss three weeks due to a leg injury, Celta Vigo announced on Friday. The 24-year-old’s status for involvement in the U.S. men’s national team squad has taken a hit with the World Cup set to begin in 23 days.
De La Torre earned a permanent transfer from Dutch side Heracles this summer, making the move to La Liga. He has mainly featured as a substitute for Celta Vigo, totaling 50 minutes of action in five appearances.
A former youth team player with Fulham, De La Torre totaled 14 appearances for the senior team before joining Heracles in 2020. De La Torre excelled for Heracles in the Eredivisie, scoring two goals and adding five assists in 69 combined appearances.
All 10 of De La Torre’s USMNT camps have come under Berhalter’s tenure as head coach. He’s registered three assists for the USMNT, with two of those coming in Concacaf Nations League matches in June against Grenada and El Salvador.
De La Torre is one of several midfielders aiming to play a key role for the USMNT in Qatar, beginning on Nov. 21 against Wales. The Americans will also face England and Iran in group stage competition.
Johnny Cardosa seems to be a like for like. Assuming hes on the preliminary roster. If you told me this over the summer, I’d be really mad. But Luca not playing was a factor already.
With that said, I hope he recovers and makes it. He wld be a key guy to bring off bench to preserve a lead.
i don’t consider johnny who will actually get stuck in and battle to be “like for like” except in the superficial sense they both play mid. johnny could also play 6. can you imagine LDLT sweeping? to me johnny is more like acosta and is not some soft technical dutch type mid.
Count me as another who had LDLT on the fence. He has had very little playing time at Celta Vigo, with much of it meaningless minutes. He still may heal quick enough for inclusion. If not, Tillman is a likely replacement in the depth chart. While still a raw talent, Tillman has impressive athleticism. Roldan, if he makes the roster, bottoms out the depth chart. There really isn’t time in this truncated WC to brung in new talent and hope they can produce.
i see long term promise in tillman but don’t think he’s ready. he’s raw and the final product is generally lacking at this point in his trajectory. you don’t usually take people to world cups hoping they sort out their game. i would take someone like mihailovic or green with some history of either club or big game productivity.
i think people get GB on the Brain. the choice to a mistake or injury within the GB Universe is not necessarily another comic book character from the GB universe. he tried tillman, he was ok, unremarkable. so, next cycle…….
The exclusion of Mihailovich makes this even more frustrating. Looks like Roldan it is.
i cannot understand the roldan appeal at all. whatever he does in club has never transferred over. he is not a dominant stopper. he doesn’t set anyone up. he doesn’t crash the box and score goals. he gets put into tight games and the score doesn’t change our way. what is the point. the idea to a sub is either a loss/tie becomes a positive result, or they set about attacking like mad or destroying the other offense. something positive.
in previous coaches he would be long gone because he leaves zero impression and usually you make these teams by playing well in the NT shirt. his only saving grace is the coach works in the abstract and off spreadsheets and analytics, and has some idea of his value he’s not been disabused of by his eyes after even 20+ caps.
Eduardo Coudet had very interesting quotes about the seriousness of LDT’s injury. His manager seems to think LDT will be healthy enough for the WC. Then again, some know how I feel about club managers knowing what’s going on with a National team. Coudet or any other club manager, need to focus on their club, not try and managed a country that they have know idea about. I’m not saying he’s doing that here. He just talked to the physio staff and told the media what was said. We’ll see! The only over ration here is imperative’s overvalued sense of self! We seen LDT bring the ball down with the bottom of his boot, from 15 yards up, while on a 25 yard run, in a freezing weather vs Honduras. R we paying attention?? No one in a US pool he named drop is doing that. I need people to understand, this WC for the US has got to be pieced together like Frankenstein’s monster. These minutes for each have to be divided on a pie chart like never before. It has to be unconventional af.
if you think the US needs a technical CAM and that’s why you’re so pro LDLT, reyna, pulisic, aaronson, and others are more technical, and puli and aaronson will also play defense, which LDLT lacks. generally speaking i am befuddled at all the LDLT affection other than GB is betting heavy on him. he has struggled at a series of teams over his club career, only really finding his feet at heracles, which he then left. even there he was not that productive — in holland! he’s been pushed in the pipeline as a potential technical guy but it’s never really coalesced. and to me we have better technicians.
Should not be included, unfortunately. This makes Morris, Arriola, and Roldan easier to include. And really, GGG aside, who else would you pick? Tillman and Sonora I suppose… Anyone else?
you have GB on the brain if you think your only AM options are tillman — who hasn’t done anything yet — or the overrated LDLT. green, mihailovic, holmes. you can also drop back pulisic, aaronson, or reyna.
this sort of thing underlines my critique about why not call in several more than you need to this fitness camp. the idea to a pre WC is to have more options than you need, not to respond to such things by suddenly trying to stand up players you had already cut and shut down. the idea is have them already getting ready and it’s seamless. you just pick someone else.
“the idea to a pre WC is to have more options than you need,”
What are you talking about?
Options are not options if you have no intention of ever using them.
Options? We don’t need no stinking options.
Gregg knows how he wants to play and who he wants to play. His consistently fails to call in fewer players than he has to. Maybe he doesn’t want to waste time on guys he’s not really into.
This was clear after game one and it is still clear after game fifty six.
Obviously he has great faith in his own abilities. He’s the manager so regardless of the tactical genius of his critics such as you and others, he’s going to do things his way.
Will it work? Gregg is either an vasty underrated genius or a blithering idiot. Formats like this allow for no moderation so my suspicion is blithering idiot will win the day.
That’s one reason why Qatar should be an entertaining watch. We’ll finally have some sort of resolution to this long running national soap opera.
v-look, when the whistle blows, i hope we win, i root for the team. that doesn’t mean i trust the idiot at the wheel ordering them around. i think this is a far better team than the coach has let them show and that disappoints me. like i guess everyone has dropped the “golden generation” talk.
the coach had zero international experience, underwhelming success, and so i distrust that his methods are smart about what he faces. i think he’s learning on the job. but that has consequences for the team playing the games while he learns.
i repeat myself, any idiot with our injury history and splintered camp would have in way more players than they need. that is practical wisdom. what he is doing is closer to betting on his abstract roster concept and managing the media. the media can’t tout players he has effectively already cut. i don’t think being sneaky with the media — undermining the potential for “donovan” stories — makes this a better soccer team. and i think if the team continues to struggle the media in fact should be riding him. anything trying to avoid that is manipulative and counter productive.
Only Roldan would play the same position as Luca. Sonora is a wing/one way 10. No manager would bring him having never been in the team anyway given he has hardly been great 4g 2a in 36 matches.
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I’d think Tillman would be choice 1, Johnny and Roldan would be others. Busio would be a surprise but he’s been involved in qualifying. Williamson not being included in fitness camp makes him seem unlikely.
sorry but what are sonora or tillman “good at” besides people find where they play impressive. mihailovic has an actual goal in red white blue. holmes looked good his one sarachan cap but we pretend it never happened. tillman to me looked undercooked in US caps — i didn’t see what people liked — and sonora hasn’t even been capped. but if i suggest others with no or few caps we can’t use inexperienced/untested. including people with far greater club productivity. ok, i see how that game works…..
Duane Holmes has two caps both under Berhalter.
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Mihailovic’s goal came almost 4 years ago I don’t think that’s really valuable info at this point. He’s also like Sonora not an 8. He fits into the current formation as a winger (as he did for U23s).
Ouch that is a tough break for LDLT. This could keep him of the roster considering her has barely player this season for Celta.
he is done. roster deadline is 2-1/2 weeks and they have him out for 3 weeks. he is not some amazing player you might carry hurt. nor would it be wise to take someone whose fitness would be gone even if the hammy healed, and who would be an injury risk in qatar.
Generally agree with you on timeline. You could carry him though on the roster and replace him until Nov. 20 due to his injury. If he was hot it would be wise but he’s hardly played so seems unlikely.