Sorry I’ve been alittle delayed on everything here but here’s the January roster for the Nats.More or less the camp cupcake we expected, with all Scandinavian and MLS plaers coming in. Brek Shea, Bill Hamid, Kyle Beckerman, Juan Agudelo, Teal Bunbury and Jeff Larentowicz have all been called into the senior camp under Jurgen, but here’ s a real chance for them and others to prove they belong. Past January camps have always been a key part of bringing MLS and other plaers into the fold.
A lot of these players are a little fresh for my taste, but expect at least one of those defenders to be on the senior team by the time qualifying starts. We’re pretty shallow there and calls for Oma, George and Geoff have been ringing for months(although I’d put my money on Parkhurst.)
Also some names might seem to be missing from this roster, but remember there’s a simultaneous U-23 camp going on where players like Mixx, Freddy Adu and Zac MacMath are more likely to get playing time and will surely get a good look there as well.
No real shocks, all things considered, a lot of MLS names people have been calling for and a few others who we’ve wanted to see Jurgen look at for a while. If they aren’t here they’re with Caleb Porter. The only disappointing spot for me is Rico Clark. He’s not as bad as I remember, I’m sure, but he really has no place on our senior national team and he’s proved it multiple times. Not that he can’t play at a CONCACAF level, he can, but we’re mighty deepwhere he could help us. I’d rather see Beckerman, Bradley, Williams, Jones, Edu, Johnson and even Larentowiczbefore I believe Rico deserves another shot at the national team.
USMNT JANUARY CAMP ROSTER
GOALKEEPERS: Bill Hamid (D.C. United), Sean Johnson (Chicago Fire), Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake)
DEFENDERS: Geoff Cameron (Houston Dynamo), A.J. DeLaGarza (LA Galaxy), Omar Gonzalez (LA Galaxy), George John (FC Dallas), Zach Loyd (FC Dallas), Michael Parkhurst (FC Nordsjaelland), Heath Pearce (Chivas USA)
MIDFIELDERS: Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake), Ricardo Clark (Eintracht Frankfurt), Benny Feilhaber (New England Revolution), Jeff Larentowicz (Colorado Rapids), Brek Shea (FC Dallas), Graham Zusi (Sporting Kansas City)
FORWARDS: Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls), Teal Bunbury (Sporting Kansas City), C.J. Sapong (Sporting Kansas City), Chris Wondolowski (San Jose Earthquakes)
-Another camp is expected in early to mid-December. Then a few camps in both January and February followed by Olympic qualifying and hopefully the tournament.
-Teal Bunbury has backed out of the camp due to an ankle injury. Real Salt Lake’s Luis Gil has been added. I believe these are the only changes that I haven’t mentioned here.
Friday, Nov. 11
Opponent Time
VFL Bochum (reserves) 11 a.m.
Azerbaijan (U-21s) 3 p.m.
Tuesday, Nov. 15
Opponent Time
Bayer Leverkusen (U-23s/reserves) 2:30 p.m.
Bayer Leverkusen (U-19s) 5 p.m.
Image by proforged via Flickr
To no ones surprise C.J. Sapong won the MLS Rookie of the Year award that has had his name etched on it since halfway through the season. Sapong led all rookies in both assists and goals and had a huge role in bringing Sporting Kansas City back from the dead. He looked extremely impressive and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in a USMNT jersey before we see his teammate Teal Bunbury in one again.
In the battle for second place Union midfielder Michael Farfan won! He had impressed many of us at home for quite a while. As a rookie in a lineup that was constantly being turned over, Farfan established himself as a starter and a real key to the Union’s offensive . His skill on the ball has impressed many. On another day he’d deserve a look for a wing spot for the USMNT, but with Donovan and Shea starting to look entrenched there and the team having a ton of high quality midfielders available it is unlikely we’ll see him around for a while.
USMNT websites have been abuzz over Teal Bunbury’s injury in a Sportingg KC scrimmage.
First immediately before the injury came this very good article on both Bunbury, and BoonBooree.
Also although the original time table I put up said that Bunbury would take about three months to heal, Sporting KC put up on their Twitter that it is merely a dislocated elbow and will only take 2-4 weeks to heal. In other words Bunbury will be fine by the Gold Cup, possibly even the Argentina/ Paraguay friendlies.
“Good news on Teal Bunbury’s injury today. No broken bones, no nerve damage. Teal is expected to return from dislocated elbow in 2-4 weeks.” according to the Sporting KC Twitter
According to a report on Soccer By Ives, Teal Bunbury was injured in a Sporting Kansas City friendly against the Houston Dynamo.
“Sporting KC’s official Twitter feed revealed that the early diagnosis of the injury is a dislocated elbow. If that’s the case, he would be out for at least the first few months of the season, and possibly the Gold Cup as well.
Bunbury, entering his second professional season out of Akron, enjoyed a fine rookie season and seemed to be in for a big year after his emergence in the United States’ most recent friendlies with South Africa and Chile.”
There’s been a lot of hype around Bunbury recently, so the fact that he will be missing time takes away an opportunity for Bob Bradley to try him out a bit more and decide exactly where he belongs on the team. It also likely takes him out for a significant chunk of the MLS season which obviously hurts considering his lack of professional experience.
Image via Wikipedia
The Shin Guardian got an interview with USSF President Sunil Gulati, who specifically talked on the Striker issue which has caused so much of a fuss in recent years. Jozy Altidore is not a terrible player, he may not be a great player, but just because he hasn’t scored in 7 World Cup games doesn’t mean he is completely incompetent. Of course Gulati talks on other subjects too, all equally worth reading about.
TSG: A striker got fouled this evening [Juan Agudelo against Chile]. A striker scored [Teal Bunbury]. Much has been made about that a US striker has not scored at the past two World Cups.
But then you look at a country like Paraguay. A very successful country on the international front.
For the past two World Cups they had less collective goals than the US and a striker only scored one of them.
Do you think the US striker situation is scapegoated a little too much?
SG: I think when you talk about a total of seven games it is a very small sample size.
We won our group without having a forward score so there is obviously other ways to win games.
Clearly you would like the players up top to help in that area and I’m sure they’ll help in that area in qualifying.
http://theshinguardian.com/2011/02/09/a-quick-conversation-with-sunil-gulati/
While we may have all gotten caught up in the aura surrounding Juan Agudelo and Teal Bunbury, some may have forgotten that although Bunbury is already an American citizen he is not technically an American soccer player yet. He was able to play against South Africa and against Chile because they were not official FIFA matches, but he has just put in his official request to FIFA to change nations. This will allow him to participate in official events such as the Gold Cup. It’s the same process that Jermaine Jones went through recently. The process tends to take between two and four months which means that Bunbury will almost definitely be eligible to play for the U.S. in the Gold Cup by summer.
Now that we’re past the Chile friendly, we can move on to remembering exactly why Mixx Diskerud, Dax McCarty, Juan Agudelo, and Teal Bunbury aren’t on the senior team just yet. Their spots are already filled by players like Altidore, Donovan, Bradley and Dempsey. Of course just because none of the young players have quite earned a starting spot on the national team (although Agudelo and Bunbury may have a better shot to play than others) that doesn’t ,mean there is no controversy about who should start for the Senior team. It seems that Bob Bradlery has moved away from the 4-4-2 and transitioned towards the 4-2-3-1, which if that means 3 attacking mids and 2 central mids in great, but so far for Bradley its been more like 2 defense mids a center mid and 2 outside attacking mids. I imagine there are a few locks for the senior team right now and just to draw out what I have in mind; here is who I see as relative locks for the starting lineup for this time around.
——Howard——
—— —— —— —— ——
——Bradley—— ——
——Donovan—— ——Dempsey
——Altidore——
And of course from here is where we start to make guesses about who starts against Egypt and who (hopefully) starts in Brazil. The biggest story for Americans playing in Europe this season has almost definitely been Stuart Holden’s very good play in the central midfield. I think Bradley has to give him a shot there against Egypt and if he continues playing at that level going forward he will probably have to give him the spot in 2014. I imagine Onyewu and Bocanegra get the start in Central defense against Egypt but I expect Gonzalez and Ream to play their way into the competition pretty soon, and to hopefully infuse a little youth into a backline that’s already starting to look old before we get to Brazil. I fully expect that whether or not Jermaine Jones is a part of this team in the future, Bob has to get a good look at him in the next couple of friendly’s and decided that now. There are too many options in that midfield and decisions need to be made quickly, especially for a veteran player like Jones. Of course the outside back situation is a complete haze. I put in Spector because I don’t know who else Bradley’s considering. I expect him to give Dolo his shot to stay on, but I also expect Lichaj to pass him somewhere before 2014. That completes the lineup for the next few games, but not for Brazil. Everything else I’ll throw at the Brazil squad will be even more guesswork than for the Egypt lineup.
Egypt, Paraguay, Argentina
——Howard——
—— Spector——Bocanegra——Onyewu——Cherundolo ——
——Bradley——Jones ——
——Donovan——Holden——Dempsey
——Altidore——
I left Spector in at left back, mostly because I can’t think of anyone else worth putting there, although youth could always show up in four years and find a place. This is more of a hope for the direction there going in, but I’d love to see a slight adjustment to the 4-2-3-1. As I said before I’d love to see 2 central mids rather than 2 defensive mids so Bradley and Holden in those positions with Juan Agudelo, Teal Bunbury and Edson Buddle all going at a spot as trequartista behind Jozy. None of them being great for that spot, but it’s always fun to play around with rosters.
Brazil 2014
——Howard——
—— Spector——Gonzalez ——Ream ——Lichaj ——
——Bradley——Holden ——
——Donovan—– Agudelo/Bunbury/Buddle——Dempsey
——Altidore——
I was watching on ESPN3 but I’d have to say the two most successful things about last night were both noted in sufficiently successful ways by the announcers.
Video from USSF of Pablo Ramirez announcing, stolen from Match Fit USA.
Also as I haven’t heard much from Dax McCarty’s play in DC, it caught me a bit off guard to hear him referred to as the Ginger Ninja, but according to MLS.com its old news as DC United followers have been calling him this for a while. Still it’s great news.
On a more serious note Dax and Bunbury where two of the players who stuck out most of all in the Chile game, Dax holding solid possession and showing a bit of creativity in his passes, although he did lose a few more than he may like. It’ll be said a million times but if it weren’t for the crowded midfield on the senior team he might have played himself into a spot.
Bunbury and Agudelo, both of whom had significant parts in the lone American goal, came on together and their impact was noticeable immediately. From the second they got on the field you could see the attack was reinvigorated, they made Mixx Diskerud and Dax both look much better in the midfield as their forward passes no longer died in a generally poorly positioned Wondolowski. Mixx also looked good, especially as the game progressed, the ball movement between those four seemed to flow very well.
Here are a few photos the USSF put up on their Facebook page from the Closed Door Scrimmage where members of the U.S. January camp defeated Canada’s U-23 team 4-0 with goals by Chris Wondolowski, (former potential Canadian international) Teal Bunbury, Mix Diskerud and Alejandro Bedoya. All captions are taken from the USSF’s Facebook page
The U.S. Men’s National Team took on Canada’s U-23s in a closed door scrimmage on Tuesday. The 4-0 win for the USA was an opportunity to work on many of the ideas the coaching staff has been talking about in January camp.
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