Qualifying roster. We haven't exactly had much success getting Euro guys for Olympic qualifying rosters. We couldn't even get Pelosi for U-20s, add 3 years to that.
Honestly I think he would start over Yedlin at RB but I don't want to piss everyone off. Henley is younger, bigger, playing/starting at a higher level and has eerily similar physical tools to Yedlin, while at this stage being a better pure defender. Not saying Yedlin can't be as good or better, but at this time Henley is the better prospect for me. But really I don't think it would come to that because Henley has played LB in the PL and held his own there, so not really worried about him playing LB temporarily. If it were between Ocegueda or Henley playing a secondary position, Henley is still a no brainer over JPO for me.
I would say they'd have a good fight for that position. Of course Henley actually has to switch first.
Imo, JPO is another one of those kids who was anointed as a U14 but has already topped out and doesn't belong in the discussion going forward.
It was really quite surprising to me how substandard JPO was with the U20's. But that's what happens when you never get to see the players in club football. The kid was waived by Tigres and then signed for a club in Chivas that he can't actually play for without giving up on his USMNT ambitions. It won't surprise me if he falls off of the USYNT/USMNT radar. Happens all the time......................
I wouldn't write off Ocegueda so quickly at leftback for the U23s. Obviously a long ways to go two and a half years from now, but I could easily see him making the team in the same way that Jorge Villafana made the last one.
Good point. Winning a war of prospect attrition as a US left back is surprisingly easy, given the general low level of competition.
I have no clue which players will and won't be available for qualifying, so I am just going to pick what I think will be the best 23 players we will have in 2016 assuming all of them are playing for the USA and no one is injured. GK: Cody Cropper, Zack Steffen, Jeff Caldwell DF: DeAndre Yedlin, Shaq Moore, Walker Zimmerman, Shane O'Neill, Will Packwood, John Anthony Brooks, John Requejo MF: Kellyn Acosta, Mikey Lopez, Marc Pelosi, Russell Canouse, Emerson Hyndman, Zach Pffefer, Marky Delgado, Luis Gil, Junior Flores FW: Jack McBean, Rubio Rubin, Julian Green, Ben Spencer 4-2-3-1 GK: Cody Cropper RB: DeAndre Yedlin CB: Walker Zimmerman CB: John Anthony Brooks LB: Marc Pelosi DM: Kellyn Acosta CM: Luis Gil LM: Zach Pffefer RM: Julian Green AM: Junior Flores CF: Jack McBean
This is 3 years from now. Who the hell knows what our pool is going to look like. Pelosi may or may not be at Liverpool in 3 years. In footballing terms 3 years is an ENORMOUS length of time.
I'll be absolutely thrilled if in 3 years time Pelosi is still considered good enough for this squad.
--------------------Salgado---------------McBean----------------------- --Villarreal----------------------Gil-----------------------------Green--- ---------------------------------Pelosi------------------------------------- --Henley----------Packwood-------------O'Neill---------------Yedlin-- --------------------------------Cropper----------------------------------- I put together what I thought our strongest U-20 team would have been plus Julian Green at RW since everyone else has him there. Prob would put Danny Garcia there for U-20's based on his performances. I think a Salgado-McBean partnership up top at this U-20 WC would have absolutely destroyed opposing defenses.
Yeah I agree because there are still some very real concerns how well Pelosi is going to come back from this injury. Packwood seems to be much further along in the recovery process so there's a lot of hope for him at least that he'll make a full recovery.
Packwood is also further along in his career, and has proven himself at least at the Championship level. He was probably a much bigger loss for this team than Pelosi.......................... [part of the reason for that is that he's older and farther along in his development path. It's true nonetheless.]
He would have. I believe he called Packwood up for a camp in the fall of 2012 (October-ish). I think he'd been at a total of only two camps during the whole cycle, but that was primarily because he was getting first team opportunities at Birmingham.
I'm pretty sure one of the journos (BShred probably) said Packwood would have played on the qualifying tournament as well.
The one good thing to come out of our U-20 CB travesty was Ramo's decision to try O'Neill at CB, if he ends up a senior NT regular through that, I'm willing to consider the whole thing a success.