The U.S. men’s national team has several young centerbacks in the mix for a leading role ahead of major competitions in 2024 and 2026, but veteran Tim Ream remains just as important in the overall buildup of the squad.
Ream, 35, is back in USMNT camp ahead of a pair of September friendlies against Uzbekistan and Oman. The Fulham defender missed summer involvement due to a broken arm suffered last spring, however, is back healthy and playing regularly during the new English Premier League campaign.
Ream is in his 16th professional season and although he might be older than many other centerbacks in the EPL, he still has lofty goals for what’s to come on the international stage.
“I’m just kind of playing and living in the moment, just enjoying doing what I’m doing. I’m not, I’m not really thinking about age,” Ream told media in a conference call Monday. “I set goals for myself every season. I set longer term goals to try to get to another World Cup, try to be able to play in a Copa America next summer.
“I just think being able to enjoy what you’re doing,” Ream added. “As you get older most people’s bodies start give out. Their mind starts to wander. And for me, I’m just trying to enjoy everything, try to take it all in, and do as much and play as much as I possibly can.”
Ream has been in and out of the USMNT squad throughout his career, earning 26 caps from 2010-17 before not being included in 2018 after the Americans’ failure to qualify for the World Cup. He returned to the squad under Gregg Berhalter in 2019, and since has earned another 25 caps over the last four years.
Ream is joined by Miles Robinson, Mark McKenzie, and Chris Richards in the centerback corps for this month’s matches, providing valuable experience to three defenders seeking a larger role in the squad. He still has plenty to offer the current group of players both on and off the field and still receives plenty of praise for what he has brought to the team over the last World Cup cycle.
“Obviously, everybody knows Tim is a really important player to this team and to this program,” said USMNT goalkeeper Matt Turner. “To perform at the level that he’s performing, week in and week out, over the last few years, to be away from the national team and then come back..the resiliency that he shows, but also, he just exudes this like, calmness even just the way he speaks.
“On the pitch for me, it’s really helpful,” Turner added. “Off the pitch, it’s really helpful. If I can have half the career that this guy has had, I’ll consider it’ll be very successful.”
Ream’s first match back with the USMNT will come in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri on Saturday.
who we could call now
trusty
rogers
dietz
pierie
maloney
sandler
who we could call healthier
EPB
CCV
the part i think some of you are confused on, is this is not a present minute all star team, it’s world cup prep for the end of the cycle. i am sure similar arguments were made in favor of depending on bradley, jones, beckerman, FJ, jozy, etc., all of whom were toast by the end of the 2018 cycle.
the particularly insane part to me is ream was dropped last cycle then an emergency add and now is the starter, when he will be 3 years deeper into his 30s, ie, what, 38? 39? as a CB? really? it’s not a fanboy all star team. it’s who should we start drilling to play together in 2026.
Trusty is not playing for a team bound for Championship. Pierie is injured and has not filed a switch, Rogers was benched by mid table Norwegian team and sold at a loss. Dietz is in his first full professional season (in one of his 6 matches this season he was subbed off without injury after 34 minutes. Maloney has been used primarily as a DM since moving to Heidenhiem, Sandler has been injured finally playing his first match last week. We won’t even get into his approximate 60 pro matches at age 26 or that he plays CB for a lower table team in the Netherlands. None of them are better today than Ream and none of them show much promise to be better than they are now in 3 years. Dietz might be promising for the Olympics but since Fuerth has balked at Green playing in GC a release would be in doubt. This your typical throw spaghetti at the wall and see if anything sticks.
“better today” doesn’t matter in 3 years, this is not hard to understand. or did you miss my point on jones, FJ, etc. they were good until they weren’t. we then had squat in the back and at mid at the end because we’d gone with the older big names past their sell by date.
per usual you mix and match your excuses. trusty is healthy but not club form. i have explained to you infinity club form is a boring excuse to leave people off that doesn’t correlate to NT performance.
i mean dude’s gonna start LDLT at MF, how on earth is he club form? because he’s on a roster in a first division someplace? that’s where i start to wonder if “club form” is really the very sort of club snobbery i often think it is. not so much form — at least for non-strikers — as name checking. a fanboy reading box scores can pick players based on residency. can we try performance and talent?
the one-time switch wingback come in this time is my response to the bs spaghetti argument. y’all constantly miss the point is identify the right people first then circle back to tactics. to me it’s dumb to approach things as shoehorning lesser players into some pre-conceived setup. the idea to tactics is to make your best players better and get you wins….
Yes Ream has set ambitious goals for himself…striving to remain in the USMNT picture for the 2026 WC. I’ve no issue with him getting call-ups, especially if he’s still playing well for his club side. However, USSF/GGG also need to be grooming younger options and getting them experience by actually playing them in matches.
One of GGGs biggest errors last cycle was becoming married to certain players regardless of form and not having integrated options who could step in when injuries occurred or club form tanked.
This cycle GGG needs to do better at integrating guys into the team beyond his first and second choices. This is especially true for the CB position considering the age of Ream and the form of Gregg’s favorites Long & Zimmerman over the past year. It’s a little unclear who those options are going to be….Richards, Miles, CCV, McKenzie, Neal, etc…but he needs to keep testing players/combinations until he’s got some real options.
Lost, players aren’t developed in a national tram setting. They earn callups by performing well for their club and continue to get callups by performing well for the national tram. Pulisic gets called in whether he sits on the bench for Chelsea or not because of his performances for the National team. Julian Green doesn’t get called in because he struggles for playing time in the German 2nd division and hasn’t been a steller national team performer. The problem GGG had at the world cup was the drop off from his 1st team to his 2nd team was so drastic that he was forced to start 4 player that were only 60 minutes fit in all 4 games. I agree his tactics were pretty awful considering the players he had, but IMO the only legitimate complaint of a player left off the roster is Pepi. He gave many fullbacks opportunities to make the team and the ones that didnt make the team wasted their chances. As bad as you think Long and Zimmerman were, they both outplayed the centerbacks that didn’t make the roster. Yedlin certainly outplayed Cannon. CCV and Scalley made the team through good performances in friendlies. Just because you think a players sucks doesn’t mean there is anyone better.
personally i find the most laughable part of this that he’s penciled in ream over miles with richards tomorrow. he’s not just on the team he’s going to start.
since you’re struggling for names i’ll mention bradley and zardes as a couple older players GB tried real hard to shoehorn into the 2022 team, and failed.
i agree with the “development” comment. when i advocate experimentation it’s more in the manner of selection — i want them to then fight it out for demonstrated quality. it’s more open up the battles than turn it into U23. if they need teaching — like, say, neal — that’s age group ball. neal shouldn’t be senior team because i don’t even think he has age group YNT ball figured out that well, and often looks lost as a senior.
this was going to be an awkward selection with all the injuries but i don’t buy we are so bereft of of options we had no other choice than a 35 year old. i think a player this old baked in the cake is a horrible idea. a defense needs to be drilled to play together. a guy who seemed to be falling off for years and could crest the hill any minute now is an awful idea this stage of a cycle. try the age appropriate options we can be more sure will be around in 2026.
people act like this is harmless but part of the problem at 9 in 2022 was we had dumped so much of the first part of the cycle into jozy and zardes both of whom were long gone at the end. we then never sorted out which options we truly trusted after that.
“people act like this is harmless but part of the problem at 9 in 2022 was we had dumped so much of the first part of the cycle into jozy and zardes both of whom were long gone at the end. we then never sorted out which options we truly trusted after that.”
The analogy is full of holes.
Jozy and Zardes never ever approached the level of performance for the USMNT that Ream put in at the 2022 World Cup.
Jozy did well. He got the living shit beat out of him making dummy runs and just generally attacking the defense to clear the way for LD but he did not rise to the level that Timmy did. And Gyasi never got to a World Cup.
And neither of them ever matched the long term excellence Ream put in and continues to put in for Fulham in the EPL.
“try the age appropriate options we can be more sure will be around in 2026.”
There are no age appropriate options that you can be sure will be around in 2026.
Any manager who puts “age appropriate” before “he can play” is a fool.
The World Cup starts June 11, 2026 1007 days from now.
At this writing, Dec 5 2020 was 1007 days ago.
Right around then Gregg was playing a number of friendlies and in the CB mix for those friendlies were :
Aaron Long
Matt Miazga
Mark Mckenzie
Timmy Ream
John Brooks
Walker
Richards.
Only Walker and Timmy made it to Qatar.
And Timmy even then in 2020 was probably the least “age appropriate” guy on that list.
Timmy is the classic late bloomer. Those 4 games in Qatar were the best games he has ever played for the USMNT.
Odds are Timmy won’t be as good in 2026 as he was in 2022 but I’m not betting against him being able to keep it going for another 1007 days.
I don’t know why you have such a hard on for Timmy and why you’re trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist just to show everyone that you are smarter than they are.
If Timmy falters and if his best replacement is some young CB out there, that player is going to develop no matter what you, me or Gregg says or does.
And if that player has to come in cold or with only a few games under his belt in the 2026 World Cup, Timmy just proved you can do that.
It’s not ideal but that’s okay, nothing about this team is,
V: maybe you didn’t watch the world cup i did. ream played ok in group then bad against holland. i am lost how that makes you like awesome. he also has been hurt and out for a few months. that apparently has just been wiped off the board.
do you folks remember we have played 9 months since GB last had the job? nations league final ring a bell? i guess we’re back to amnesia.
One of the telling facts on GB is he played like 2 total World Cup games as an injury sub despite making 3 rosters. The other telling fact is everyone forgets unlike Brooks he didn’t come off the bench and actually score the header he tried, because the handball saved it and we went out 1-0. And then in 2006, his last chance, Germany all but retired his tookus 4-1 in a pre-tournament friendly, abusing our backline, and so Berhalter, who was sometimes starting, was sent back to the bench for his final World Cup.
Why am I saying this? Baking a 35 year old CB into the 2026 cake is insane. Gregg was 33 for his last World Cup — where he sat. He deserved to sit. Ream lucked into the 2022 team because a huge chunk of our age appropriate candidates got hurt. Ream then surprised relative to recent performances. You lucked out. Can we not use Ream as a proxy for GB thinking maybe he should have somehow started over Gooch, Pope, Agoos, and Boca in 2002-2006?
At minimum common sense and past practice has been that you look around the age appropriate options before giving old farts the emergency batphone call. The reality is if we wanted 2006 improved we wouldn’t have started GB, we would have retired a bunch of broken down guys like Reyna and Lewis and such. To me that argues the opposite direction on Ream. CB remains unsettled and even the nominal best options their current fitness and health is unclear.
People can have a chuckle at my ideas but heck what happened to Ream last cycle? They tried very hard to pivot to Miles and Richards last cycle. Ream got forgotten for most of WCQ. Ream got the batphone when we needed help at the end. Personally i think it strange to approach it that tentative way on the “35 year old” but bake in the potential “39 year old.”
Now we have some injuries so we have to improvise but I would be focusing on candidates who are the right age for the future.
I understand what you are saying, and a lot of it makes sense, but you are leaving out a vital, key, and material, piece of information…Ream is STARTING in the EPL at age 35 ( going on 36 ), while Berhalter was playing at Energie Cottbus, in the Bundesliga 2. That’s night and day, and irrespective of age. Stop focusing on age and recognize performance. Until one the of “young bucks” is consistently healthy, and consistently EARNING starts, both at the club level, and for the USMNT, Berhalter should select the best / in form players, regardless of age.
No one is having a chuckle. It’s just not true, and as Papi points out it’s not even a good comparison. The difference in Reams playing ability at 34 is not the same. If you were saying leave off Aaron Long in favor of Jalen Neal or Sam Rogers that’s a fair point. The performance level is similar so give the young guy a chance. Ream vs Neal, Rogers, Che, Wydner, Henry those comparisons aren’t even close. There isn’t anyone not on the roster here that is anywhere near Tim’s level.
You’ve taken a particular stance on Timmy. Now that has led you to dying on that hill, as they love to say, you’re (another cliche ) doubling down, scrambling for a non-insane narrative.
“Baking a 35 year old CB into the 2026 cake is insane.”
You are the only one screaming this from the rooftops perhaps in hopes that it will seem like everyone is screaming with you.
You’re the only one doing the baking and the screaming.
Besides you, there is not one person on SBI who would be shocked if Timmy faded and didn’t make the 2026 team. But I’m rooting for him and would love to see him make it on merit. And I think he can. There is plenty of precedent.
I think most of us are, except for you who seem more interested in being proven “right”. You know, like those people who wanted us to not qualify for Qatar so that Gregg would get fired.
Most everyone else is saying the same thing that I am saying which is, as long as Timmy keeps up his levels, he should remain the USMNT’s starting left sided CB. If he starts to slow down, to dip in performance then you get serious about trying to find an alternative.
And in spite of what you say, that search for an alternative is happening regardless. Timmy himself just proved at the World Cup that if you are playing at a high level and are a sharp professional you can come in fairly “cold” and do a good, or even a great job. He just did that and I would argue might have performed the best of all our players in Qatar.
It probably would be better to have more certainty but that is never promised to anyone and it’s still early in the process.
Today, the best looking alternative is left footed JAB, who happens to not fit your young CB narrative and not be much loved by Gregg. That’s what happens when you like German death metal.
The issue is that the rest of our CB pool mostly sucks. I’m not playing any of them in hopes that it will inspire them to develop. That’s bullshit.
If they need that kind of inspiration to get going then fuck them.
My hope is that Trusty, at his club, develops into a solid center half. That would help.
The USMNT is not set up to develop players. All that work developing Ferreira, forcing him into the picture, 22 caps and a World Cup later you’ve got a guy who remains what he was at the beginning of the attempt, promising.
And with the Flo on board and Pepi and Josh, along with others, finally developing at their clubs, Ferreira gets less promising every day. Other players improved their club situation to try and develop, with teams and coaches who actually know how to do that shit.
The result is some of those players currently look a lot more promising than Ferreira who Gregg tried his best to “develop”. A variation on the expression you get what you pay for.
Leave the development to the clubs.
pepi: FFC minus mitro are down to 13th.
i think viewing players in isolation is pointless. are we saying he’s better than richards and miles, regardless where they play? i don’t buy he’s even better than EPB, regardless where he plays.
people used to make the same argument on brooks.
IV: First, he should have started over Agoos. Agoos was terrible in 2002.
Second, Gregg had moved on from Ream so your theory doesn’t hold. He was only brought back because of injuries. He’s likely only here because of injuries to CCV and EPB, and drops in form from vets like Miazga and Long. Literally the options now are Ream or Neal or Brooks so who do you choose?
This isn’t Gregg saying Reams going to 2026 this is a player setting a goal. A pretty unrealistic goal. Trying to pick your line up three years in advance when half your depth chart has at least one significant injury a year is just as unrealistic.
those are not the only options.