Bergin reports that Conor Casey has been called in for January's camp. So that's two we know of (Mulrooney being the other).
"...Bocanegra, Califf, Gregg Berhalter, Eddie Pope, Cory Gibbs, and Nick Garcia." From Connolly's latest.
You forgot "...which will likely include central defenders such as..." so I would chalk that up as speculation.
Kicker (no link, just in the paper) states Cherundolo turned down an invite in order to stay in Hannover's winter camp.
I don't see Bocanegra going. He'll be over in Europe going through trials trying to get bought during the January transfer window. I wouldn't think that he'd want to come back for a US Nats camp given those circumstances and I wouldn't think that Bruce would want him to either.
http://www.ussoccer.com/news/fullstory.sps?iNewsid=50572 No Casey, as reported prior. Sometimes the bull gets you...
has anyone seen Robbie Russell (FC Sogndal, Norway) play? can someone share some info on him? thanks.
Interesting group, good to see Wolff and Olsen back in the mix, but I choked on my gum when I saw Albright's name.
A-Mid... anyone? ... anyone? Damn... assuming no-one else is getting called in (paging Kyle Martino!) on short notice, who in the world is Bruce looking to in order to run the offense against Denmark? I can only assume U-23s are out of the question, given imminent Olympic qualifying. Seriously, though, I don't see much logic to this roster. Is Bruce going to play with three defenders, two wingers, two D-Mids, and three forwards? Is Olsen sliding to the middle? This should prove interesting... Listed Midfielders (by position as shown on the roster -- but classified IMHO): D-Mids Armas Mastroeni (also listed as D first) Mulrooney (also listed as D second) Zavagnin Wingers Albright Hejduk (also listed as D first) Klein Mullan Olsen Ralston A-Mids um.... yeah.
It's pretty sad that so many of the people who should be getting call-ups have other commitments - U23 or Euro Club. To have guys like Wolyinec, Zavagnic, O. Perez sucks. Oh well. It's going to be interesting to see how we do against Denmark. Hopefully a few more European players and maybe U23's get called in for Holland.
Damn... assuming no-one else is getting called in (paging Martino!), who in the world is Bruce looking to in order to man the center of the pitch? Listed Midfielders (by position as shown on the roster -- but classified IMHO): Martino, Donovan,Beasley, et al. will be with the under-23's. Fire fans will be happy to see Razov back, throughly deserved for the season he had in Chicago. Russell is the only left sided mid on the squad, maybe a lock to make his debut. So how didn't impress in the first camp, Vagenas, Quill, Carrerri, Whitfield.
I didn't see Landon or DMB on the list for the camp. I wonder, what those two are doing right now and why they wren't invited or if they turned down the invite? Think Bruce is givein them a rest and giving a look at other players?
they're with the U-23s. interesting some of the guys with the December camp but not the January camp: off the top of my head: Curtin, Robinson...okay, not enough coffee yet, can't think of others...
Re: A-Mid... anyone? ... anyone? Klein played in the middle the last few games of the season (kinda like a right-footed Preki), and did fairly well, but I doubt Arena would use that as his Plan A. On another topic: With all the slagging of Albright that has gone on here for so long, I was surprised to see that he only has 7 caps.
Total brain-lock on the first point -- of course that's where Martino is. Well, that's another fresh "Yank Abroad" we have to evaluate... let the Robbie Russell speculation begin!
Jim Curtin is listed at http://www.ussoccer.com/news/fullstory.sps?iNewsid=50572 as part of the January camp. But you're right, Eddie Robinson is not.
attack through the wings? yeah, a little puzzling how this team is going to line-up, huh? without any of our creative, attacking players. i'm assuming that we'll attack a lot from the wings with ralston, klein, olsen providing service to mcbride, razov, noonan... perhaps olsen in the center of the park? has noonan ever played in a more withdrawn role for the revs? or perhaps some central pairing of mulrooney-armas will carry the load of creating scoring opportunities... or maybe wolyniec really showed something in the last camp... (kidding) all told, i think it is good that arena is giving opportunity to different players and to known players with different roles and responsibilities. hopefully, it amounts to learning something about who can contribute what to the 2006 qualifying effort..
As stated above, Curtin is in this camp too. The following players were in the December camp, but were not invited back for January -- so apparently did not impress. Dunivant, Robinson, Whitfield, Quill, Vagenas & Carrieri -- Mathis was invited in Dec, but I don't think he went and wasn't invited this time. Wolyniec replaced Mathis in Dec and was invited back. Basically, it looks to me like Bruce brought in a bunch of completely new guys who performed well in MLS this past season. Then he drops the lower one third from that group and throws the rest into a group that have been in the pool to see how they stack up against guys who have been in the pool. I'd say that's a pretty good way to do things at this stage of the game.
This is what happens when you take away the Euros and the Under 23s. Not so pretty. I would add to the discussion fo the mix of players that we have at least five right mids -- Ralston, Mullan, Klein, Olsen and Albright -- and zero guys who prefer to line up on the left, the opposite of our usual problem. My understanding, and it is only that, is that Robbie Russel is a right back, not a left mid. No Boca and Mathis might tell you something about which side of the pond they will be on in January. My win-at-all costs lineup: Walker; Hejduk, Pope, Mastoreni, Gibbs; Ralston, Mulrooney, Armas and Olsen; McBride, Wolff. Russel gets time at right back, Barrett at left back, Mullan at right mid, Cunningham at left wing and Razov at forward. 30 players is a damm big camp. But hey, now is the time for a big camp.