While the main purpose for Jurgen Klinsmann’s decidedly young U.S. national team camp this month was to gradually inculcate a new, younger group of players into the fold, that’s not all that’s going on here.
This is a unique calendar year for Klinsmann and the USMNT. After a poor 2015 in which every step forward seemed to be chased with two steps back, Klinsmann has a few critical waypoints on which to judge his program in 2016. World Cup qualifying aside, the most visible of those is undoubtedly the Copa America Centenario, which will visit Seattle this summer. The chance to throw down with South American clubs should provide an ample barometer for what he’s been able to do improve last year’s Gold Cup failure.
But there are other events this year, and that takes us back to Klinsmann’s youthful national team camp over the last month. The U-23 team has a home-and-away playoff against Colombia next month for the right to go to the Summer Olympics, a place the U.S. hasn’t been since 2008. And several players in this camp – including Seattle Sounders forward Jordan Morris - will no doubt feature in both games.
- PREVIEW: Young USMNT group faces Canada
The U-23s barely even made it this far, which would’ve been a second disaster in as many Olympic qualifying cycles. In 2012, the Caleb Porter-led U.S. team didn’t even make it out of its CONCACAF qualifying group and missed badly on the London Olympics. Last October, the U.S. won its qualifying group but was thrashed 2-0 by an objectively more organized Honduran team in the semifinals. In order to even make the playoff, the U.S. needed to beat Canada in a third-place game, which it did by a 2-0 scoreline.
Colombia is no easy target. In their last game of CONMEBOL qualifying, they thrashed Brazil 3-0, and they also chalked up impressive draws against Uruguay and eventual champion Argentina. The U.S. will have to hold on for dear life during the first leg in Colombia and hope to have enough in reserve for the second leg at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas.
Meanwhile, the USMNT is gearing up for its second friendly of this camp against Canada on Friday (7:15 p.m. PT; FS1), and you’re sure to see a few players feature who’ll end up playing against Colombia next month.
In the last U-23 match of qualifying against Canada back in October, Herzog started five players who were eventually named to the initial January USMNT roster: Morris, Matt Polster, Jerome Kiesewetter, Jordan Fatai Alashe and Matt Miazga. Alashe was scratched from camp early with an injury and Miazga has been held out due to his recent transfer to Chelsea, which he joined in time to be eligible for a Champions League roster.
So that leaves Polster, Kiesewetter and Morris against Canada, but there could be more next month. Former Stanford left back Brandon Vincent, who was just recently drafted by the Chicago Fire, is of age and in this camp, as is FC Dallas’s Kellyn Acosta, Vancouver’s Tim Parker and NYCFC’s Khiry Shelton.
Kiesewetter and Morris have undeniable chemistry formed largely over the last year playing for the U-23s. Kiesewetter is a natural winger most comfortable bombing forward on the right, and of late Morris seems to be dialed into his thought pattern as the two drive toward the box. It’d be a shock if both weren’t starting and connecting in the first game against Colombia.
- PODCAST: Does the January camp really matter?
Morris, it should go without saying, is the headliner of this team. The Sounders will be unhappy to lose him just as the season is cranking up, but he’s the key to the U-23 attack and has been for months. If he’s been dialed in, so has the rest of the front line.
As for Polster, he’s a bit of a positional enigma on the national team level. After making his name as a center back in college, he emerged as an MLS Rookie of the Year candidate for the Fire in the defensive midfield in 2015 before Herzog decided to dump him into the right back role for qualifying. Polster did well enough, but it was clear it wasn’t his most comfortable position. After a good overall performance here at the U-20 World Cup last summer, the team would be better off with Acosta at right back for Colombia.
Given the fact that he’s just 18 and competing in Tottenham’s youth system for minutes, center back Cameron Carter-Vickers wasn’t called into this USMNT camp, but he’ll undoubtedly be there with the U-23s next month. Carter-Vickers and Miazga form a fearsome tandem in the middle forged in the fires of a U-20 cycle, and if Miazga can get away from Chelsea duty, he’ll be the man in the middle. Shelton, meanwhile, can play either up top or in a wider role not unlike Kiesewetter.
Herzog has mostly run a 4-4-2 in meaningful games with this crew, and it wouldn’t be outlandish to expect that again against Colombia. Be sure to monitor the form of each U-23 eligible player on the field against Canada, because it might ultimately be their dress rehearsal for next month.
