U.S. goes young for the Copa
All those promises about the United States taking the strongest possible team to soccer’s prestigious Copa America tournament in Venezuela next week apparently took an off-ramp somewhere.
On Friday afternoon, the 22-man U.S. roster was revealed, and more than a few big-name players were conspicuous by their absence.
For example, there will be no Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley, Clint Dempsey, Carlos Bocanegra or Oguchi Onyewu, playing against Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay in the first round.
Given the absence of such stars, the U.S. team’s advancing to the second round appears decidedly problematic.
Instead, what the Copa America will provide is the chance for U.S. Coach Bob Bradley to test the depth of talent at his disposal. It is, apparently, an experiment for some promising American youngsters. A dozen of them are 23 or younger.
Bradley’s roster features only eight players from his current Gold Cup squad, but they do include starters Kasey Keller, Jonathan Bornstein and Taylor Twellman. The U.S. plays Mexico in the Gold Cup final at Soldier Field on Sunday.
Overall, the U.S. roster is very thin on experience, including three players -- former Galaxy forward Herculez Gomez, former UCLA standout Marvell Wynne and FC Dallas defender Drew Moor -- who have never played for the national team.
Sixteen of the 22 players have played 10 or fewer games for the U.S., but Bradley sees the abundance of young players as a plus. “This group has many of the faces that could play a role in 2008 and 2009 when our focus turns to our ultimate goal of qualifying for the World Cup in South Africa,” he said.
They include such players as Jay DeMerit, Justin Mapp, Benny Feilhaber, Ricardo Clark and Eddie Johnson, all from the Gold Cup roster, plus half a dozen who could feature on the U.S. Olympic team that will try to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Games, including Lee Nguyen, Eddie Gaven and Charlie Davies.
Also headed for Venezuela are Chivas USA players Brad Guzan, who probably will split the goalkeeping with Keller, midfielder Sacha Kljestan and Bornstein. No Galaxy players are on the squad, but Bradley did recall former Galaxy defender Danny Califf, now with Aalborg BK in Denmark.
Of the 22 players, 15 are from Major League Soccer and seven are either with European teams or, in Keller’s case, are free agents.
Keller is the only player to have Copa America experience. He played on the 1995 U.S. team that finished fourth when Argentina staged the tournament. Keller, 37, sees the upcoming event as invaluable for the younger players.
“You have to start somewhere,” he said Friday. “It’s much better to do it in the Copa America ... where they can go down and gain some experience and hopefully learn from it so that in [World Cup] qualifying, when we go to Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Costa Rica, in games where it really matters, they have that experience of playing in a more hostile environment.”
The U.S. plays Argentina on Thursday in Maracaibo, Colombia on July 2 in Barinas and Paraguay on July 5 in Barquisimeto.
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