The U.S. men’s national team is 23 days away from opening play at the 2023 Concacaf Gold Cup and although many final roster decisions will need to be made by interim head coach B.J. Callaghan, the preliminary list of players was released on Thursday.
Christian Pulisic, John Brooks, and Weston McKennie headlined the USMNT’s 60-player preliminary roster for this summer’s tournament, Concacaf announced. Several other European stars were also named in the roster including Gio Reyna, Tim Weah, and Folarin Balogun.
Jesus Ferreira, John Tolkin, Cade Cowell, and Jordan Morris headlined the MLS-based contingent named to the preliminary roster.
Jamaica, Nicaragua, and a future preliminary round winner will join Callaghan’s squad in Group A of the tournament. Curaçao, French Guiana, Sint Maarten or St. Kitts and Nevis will be the fourth and final team in Group A.
The Gold Cup will run from June 16-July 16 across 15 host venues in the United States and Canada. The Preliminary Round of the Gold Cup will include 12 countries fighting for three final group stage spots.
The USMNT holds a 13-3-9 all-time record against the Reggae Boyz in all competitions, with their last head-to-head showdown coming in 2022 World Cup Qualifying. Nicaragua has only opposed the Americans once in its history, which took place during the 2017 Gold Cup.
The Americans are defending Gold Cup champions after defeating Mexico 1-0 in the 2021 final thanks to Miles Robinson’s extra time winner.
Here is the 60-man preliminary USMNT roster for the Concacaf Nations League:
Preliminary USMNT Gold Cup roster
GOALKEEPERS: Drake Callender, Gabriel Slonina, Sean Johnson, Roman Celentano, Matt Turner
DEFENDERS: John Brooks, Reggie Cannon, Marlon Fossey, Julian Gressel, Jonathan Gomez, DeJuan Jones, Aaron Long, Mark McKenzie, Matt Miazga, Shaq Moore, Jalen Neal, Erik Palmer-Brown, Bryan Reynolds, Miles Robinson, Joe Scally, John Tolkin, Auston Trusty, Caleb Wiley, Joshua Wynder, DeAndre Yedlin.
MIDFIELDERS: Brenden Aaronson, Kellyn Acosta, Gianluca Busio, Johnny Cardoso, Luca De La Torre, Richie Ledezma, Brooks Lennon, Weston McKennie, Djordje Mihailovic, Aidan Morris, Yunus Musah, Keaton Parks, Paxton Pomykal, Cristian Roldan, James Sands, Alan Sonora, Tanner Tessmann, Timothy Tillman, Jackson Yueill.
FORWARDS: Paul Arriola, Folarin Balogun, Taylor Booth, Tyler Boyd, Cade Cowell, Jeremy Ebobisse, Jesus Ferreira, Matthew Hoppe, Jordan Morris, Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna, Jordan Pefok, Brandon Vazquez, Tim Weah, Haji Wright, Alex Zendejas.
What do you think of the roster? Who are you happy to see included? Who are you disappointed to see miss the cut?
Happy to see John Brooks back in, or nearer, the fold. Not sure whether he’ll ever get up to the speed for the World Cup, but he does have other useful qualities that should be appreciated.
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Do they have a practice camp or something, to winnow out the ones who’re more interested in vacationing?
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Potential Roster
Ferreira, Vazquez, Zendajas, JMorris, Booth, Pefok
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Tim, Pax, Ledezma, Aiden (sounds like he isn’t accepting this summer, Acosta), Sands, Mihailovic (Sonora)
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Brooks, McKenzie, EPB, Miles (Cannon), Tolkin, Jones, Fossey, Reynolds
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Celantano, Slonina, Johnson (just veteran guide)
That’s an almost complete separate roster that I think could compete, not knowing how much turnover Can and Mex will have NL to GC or how many dual nats Jamaica will bring.
Pulisic has played roughly 400 minutes since WC, Reyna less than that. If they want to play GC let them.
The question is do they really want to play? The running of the national teams is a complete poop parade, players don’t get paid very much for international games relative to their club salary and they risk injuring themselves. Players used to need the team to get noticed but our best players already have a pipeline to Europe without having to do international duty. I don’t think its a slam dunk that a player would give up a month of being young, rich and single on the French Riviera in order to play for an interim – interim coach in a tournament that just doesn’t mater.
That’s why I said if they want to.
Wow no Josh Sargent. Very interesting. Looks like he has to climb his way back. Which I’m ok with. He had one good game at the WC. Hasn’t scored for the USMNT since 2019 and was given plenty of callups.
Really thought P. Aaronson would be on this list. Hopefully Luna balls out when he comes back to RSL. Which I think why he isn’t on this list. Lack of playing time and impact with RSL. Which I see as Maestroinis doing.
Injured according to Sciaretta at ASN.
A bit shocked not to see Mcglynns name.
That one was shocking to me given Callaghan knows him from his days in Union academy. Have to believe BJ didn’t really have much say in these rosters. You’d say maybe someone above is pushing players to be included but honestly who would that even be.
Oops I read McGlynn as McKenzie who is on GC just not NL. Taking McGlynn to GC would have him miss 1/3 of Unions season with U20WC and GC.
In the U-20 World Cup I think he has looked okay, but no better than that. There are several players from that squad I would pick before him.
Gary: might be McGlynn’s role, the first team doesn’t have a great passing MF, whereas Cowell is obviously not an upgrade to Weah or Pulisic, Luna not an upgrade to Reyna or Balogun. I don’t think anyone would say McGlynn is better than Musah or McKennie but he’d provide something different. Plus he’s played good minutes for Union in MLS and CL so he has proof of concept against adults.
Friendly reminder-Sargent scored in the ‘21 NL group stage match v Cuba (hat trick). Pefok scored in the semifinals, which is more recent than Sarg. Haji scored in the WC. JMo scored in the mud game v ES, in the recent NL and Pepi scored 2 months ago in the same competition. Sargent hasn’t scored in 2 years for the US and still is top 2 CF to many of fan. Makes complete and rational sense. No flaws in that logic and definitely absolutely perfect reasoning. What makes even more sense is how people keep bringing up club goals as to why someone SHOULD be included to the roster and completely ignore goals actually scored in a U.S. jersey.
Plus you know as I mentioned, Sargent is injured.
“What makes even more sense is how people keep bringing up club goals as to why someone SHOULD be included to the roster and completely ignore goals actually scored in a U.S. jersey.”
It depends on the circumstances.
Jesus Ferreira has one vs TNT ( 7-0 friendly), one vs Panama ( 5-1 WC qualifying), four vs Grenada (5-0 Nations League, one vs El Tri ( 1-1 El Cheapo Classico friendly ).
For me the only goal that stood out was the well taken El Cheapo Classico goal.
Should I be impressed by Jesus’ “goals actually scored in a US Jersey”?
Should I feel better about sending out a healthy Josh or a healthy Ferreira?
You tell me.
Wondo scored 11 goals for the USMNT. All vs CONCACAF (except for one vs South Kore) and all in friendlies ( except for 5 in the Gold Cup, 2 vs Cuba and 3 vs Belize).
Wondo is retired now and deservedly remains an all time MLS scoring legend. While I thought he was a good USMNT player, because he did a lot of dirty work like Josh does, his goals in a US Jersey were not impressive.
Speaking of crap opposition, Jozy drew lot of criticism for his 42 goals because they said he bulked up on weaklings and did not score vs the big boys.
This was bullshit.
The USMNT schedules and plays mostly weaklings. So of course Jozy, like Ferreira and Wondo, is going to beat up on helpless semi pros.
As for scoring vs. the big guys, the USMNT did not often score on the big guys, period.
And during Jozy’s time, the way the team worked was when it came to scoring they looked for either LD or Clint. Jozy looked for them too. And his job was to make the runs and wear down the defense, often taking a beating in the process. In the 2010 WC, Clint and Jozy both regularly got beat half to death, leaving LD to do the scoring.
These days Pulisic is LD. Hopefully Balogun and Pepi will help shift that a bit.
One thing I know about Sargent is he kills himself to make opportunities for others, like Pulisic. Which is one reason I don’t care that much about his USMNT scoring record per se. On the other hand, with all the shiny new toys coming around, I can see Josh not ever getting another cap for the USMNT.
do we understand how the provo lists work? per the rules the GC roster can only come from this provo list. we have an awful lot of would-be double duty players on this list already in the NL 23. which means at some positions either people will get called twice or we basically know the GC roster by negation. ie at keeper if seanjohn and turner are sent back then there are only so many keepers left to pick. it’s not a few. it’s a lot, a good chunk of the NL team is on here. they aren’t IMO serious backup plans. people make fun of me saying experiment more but you can’t call pulisic reyna weah etc. to everything and it’s bad contingency planning.
that’s when you hit the second oddity where some of the likely “makes” are european based who maybe should have been on NL eg EPB gaga wright reynolds pefok. cohen has to be NL but not the others? even if the others are preseason and he’s UCL both sets should be on their merry way. “but we have to call our best for NL.” at which point you’re starting to make my point how the winning/continuity obsession ripples out to everything else. the first team are the injury contingencies or part of the GC team. they are shoving euro based into GC. that then will ruffle feathers. i know we can demand release for GC but what makes more sense to me is be a little more playful for NL, leave some regulars off for the summer, then you can keep GC more domestic plus U20.
i like seeing celentano, tolkin, ledezma, lennon, and some of the U20s. i think that is forward looking. i don’t like yedlin, arriola, seanjohn, brooks, acosta, roldan, yeuill, miazga, etc., which reads like a list of 2018-22 rejects or players who should be ageing out. to me their inclusion is like we want a trophy so bad we would rather call someone we cut than risk someone new with any hope of breaking into 2026. people chide me sometimes as suggesting “developmentals” or “risks” but calling someone you just cut is all downside in the bigger picture.
Yes we get what provisional roster means. 60-23=37 and honestly it’s more because not everyone on NL roster is on GC provisional so you can easily pick a roster without doubling everywhere except keeper. I’d like some more U20s but you’ve asked Union to give up McGlynn for a month for U20s, then your going to ask for another month in June/July, that’s like a 3rd of the season.
No SABBI? NONSENSE. Harkes and Green too
someone explain to me how boyd, who has revived his career coming to LA but been tepidly effective on a struggling team, is on the provo list and still “in play” but the door is apparently shut on green, who is a YEAR YOUNGER. how a guy who was last seen 2019 is ok but a guy who scored on france 2018 is bad.
maybe green needs to transfer stateside.
ab-surd.
Boyd is a bit weird but you need your injury replacements in country and in training. So if say Cowell tweaks a hammy a day before the GC starts, you can’t call Green who has not been training since May and could be anywhere in the world on vacation. If he makes the roster initially I’ve got no explanation.
Julian Green is a nice player, maybe he should be included, but ab-surd?
he was great helping Furth gain Bundesliga top flight a few years back, even more recent than the goal you mention vs. France. maybe on another team he could have shown better in the Bundes….
Did you see Sabbi in January? Then struggled for OB until the Relegation playoffs where he beat up on the bottom of the league.