This far out, yep. Just build the U-20's. you can add a few Ferriera, Tolkin, the parks/williamson/pomykal trio if you want, a few others (Vasquez comes to mind), but no need to try to solidfy the 2026 roster here.
the usefulness question is interesting, so ill make an argument against... jan camp 1.0 was a useful excercise in due dilligence, giving prime-aged and older, overlooked players a first/last chance. the homecoming of big name nats (bradley, dempsey, jozy, etc) brought jan camp 2.0, which blew that all to hell. the camps were built around those (not "established vets" but) undisputed stars, supporting casts designed to get through off year gold cup group stages before those guys would parachute in. we wasted a lot of minutes there not trying to find (eventual) replacements or capable backups. call that era of jan camps a cherry on top of the back end of the lost generation. jan camp 3.0 has been interesting given the advent of real academies and viable kids to poke with a stick. but balance is important- we want those uber-talented, high potential kids in the system asap but couva and covid really threw a couple of wrenches in things... for every miazga or aaronson (kids at the time who actually performed in mls before moving and/or being annointed) there were kids who were thrown in too deep and too soon to try and offsent the lost generation (andrew carleton thread-jack alert!). then covid down the youth teams, really exacerbated that problem. those of you who only care about all heretics appeasing good king berhalter will be smugly pleased to hear me say that hes done a very good job of building a foundation with our young (and crazy young) talent over the last four years. we have a very solid team relying on so much raw talent, potential and surface barely scratched talent its absurd. the problem we face now is you goons who think bringing in four new 17 olds per year should be the norm. our youth teams are starting back and and we need to get guys running through the full developmental system again, we need to put them in positions to thrive- not hopefully survive. we dont have to rush to have every kid some boob on twitter says inter is interested in push out old, washed up has-beens like de la torre, williamson or acosta. i get it- playing guys in their mid 20s is gross and pathetic- but we dont need to chew up and spit out mcglynn and vargas when they inevitably get little brothered all over the pitch by some 31 year old, part-time mechanic on haitis c-team. quality is going to rise to the top, it always does. holes in the pool (lb, st) will have to be patched. but we dont have to wildly speculate and sift through every eligible player who cant buy cigarettes yet anymore- we just did that. we need to send the kids to the kids teams, and start eating at the adult table. vazquez, tolkin, williamson- absolutely yes. add those guys to zim and arriola and acosta. im all for watching the next generation outplaying and taking those guys jobs in real time. time moves on and things change. these camps started before 18 and 19 year old starters were a thing, while guys in their late 20s/early 30s today would have been noticed by now if they were worth noticing. so, are jan camps useful for finding new starting level players? no, it never has been. there have been extremely rare outliers (name the next three biggest breakout players after besler), but jan camp is for building a middle class- filling out gold cup rosters, non-fifa window friendlies, providing guys to step into a qualifying roster if an adams or a weah is injured (ideally behind those guys backups). everyone talking about lil aaronson and clark and luna need to find their way to the youth national team forum.
If January Camp is not helpful, then, what is the superior alternative? Have no camp at all? Just dead time and space in the program? How can anyone believe that would be good for the USMNT? The next Pulisic isn’t going to come out of MLS camp, but the next guy who could be a depth guy could really benefit from having this chance to work with the coaching staff for a few weeks or so. Unless you’re France or England, every team in the world is going to have some squad guys who are going to help them get results. Furthermore, even if we have our best team, having one or two fresh faces will help keep the first team sharp. It might not be exciting. But there’s nothing to lose from it. And all to gain.
I think most reasonable people think the January camp should be a mix of vets who have been part of the program (they can provide a benchmark for new players and help set expectations and show the ropes), players who have either been overlooked or have had career years that we want to kick the tires on, and young players who have high potential that we want to begin integrating. It doesn’t have to be all kids or all journeymen.
theres not only not a superior alternative, yes- no camp is the only alternative. have you ever heard of a late june/early july camp in switzerland, or germany? no, because jan camp is a product of our schedule. the idea that it was, is or can be a soccer version of "star search" is a false premise. outside of a couple of still undercooked kids (imo) youre not saying anything different than i did. to the post before yours (sorry, im already into the reply screen), im not reducing it to anything im saying theres a place for the kids who arent ready for the sr team yet (youth teams). the meat, the heart of jan camp is those guys who are close, who can possibly contribute now (pomykal, flach, etc). i said have the established guys in. and we fill it out with guys like miazga- who i could see being a useful player, but wouldnt define that as refreshing the pool to any significant degree. its more swishing it around it doesnt get all filmy. we need to constantly be looking to keep the pool moving, jan camp is just an outsized opportunity for our domestic players. no one would not rather/also have booth and ledezma and trusty for a month. its just what we have, and we do the best we can. i said right up front i was going to make an argument- its not useless, its just not (as i said) where we are likely going to find anyone whos going to push wes, or ccv for that matter, any time soon. its also not a fast track to 26. we are sooo far from that. we have time for mcglynn to play in the u20/u23s, the olympics and still have a couple years in the sr team before then. we arent starting from scratch this time.
I think we can agree with your sentiment that not sure it’s useful if we’re only calling up 17, 18, even 19 year old kids who may have a future but it’s also pretty early, AND think that January camp is useful and should be used on MLS/Western hemisphere players (sometimes) that have never gotten a shot and in a full 26 squad, maybe wouldn’t but have been identified as players who could potentially make that cut but also need more time to be seen by the staff in a live international setting. On that accord, there would be no reason not to have a u23 or u20 camp alongside a full national team camp, or both for that matter if there’s enough identified players. This can only help the coaches and federation expand pool lines and either add or eliminate from them. Not sure if that’s what you were saying or not, but for these reasons I believe the January camp is useful, even if for 1 or 2 players who continue on with the full national team. And it’s sort of a token for the others who get called in too.
It would be a bad idea to get rid of January camp and it’s a huge advantage to the program that we are able to do it. Part of the reason that European teams don’t have something similar is that they have a shorter off-season and there’s an two week international window and sometimes a tournament in the middle of that offseason. Germany does have a June/July camp, but every two years they have a Euro Cup or a World Cup. And the other years they have a multiple week window where they play Nations League or Euro/World Cup qualifiers. Canceling January camp because some feel it gives an unfair advantage to MLS players is not a good reason to cancel. I don’t get the fear that somehow an “undeserving” MLS player is going to make the roster. It’s not like MLS players played a huge role on the World Cup team, and they weren’t the reason we lost yesterday. MLS has a longer offseason compared to European leagues and it falls during a dead time in the international calendar. Filling that with a camp is a good use of time to try and find the next generation of guys and to try and identify future depth pieces. And there’s MLS guys who deserve a look (Vazquez, Tolkin, Pomykal, Parks, etc). And even someone like Miazga could be next cycle’s Zimmerman.
have i had a stroke? is it possible i have some condition where i type the opposite of what i think? who said anything about cancelling jan camp?
You did! "no camp is the only alternative" It's right in your first line. I hope your face isn't going numb.
i said there isnt a better alternative, so our choice is either keep on keepin on or not having it. no one is saying we shouldnt have it.
We might not get the next Pulisic, but is there harm in looking for the next Adams, Aaronson, Pepi and so on? Even if they aren't quite ready yet, it's a great way to set expectations, give them a tactical primer, and do recruiting. EDIT: And we're all agreeing.
@Ghost has indeed said we shouldn't have it (more than once in the past I believe, and once again probably on the last page of this thread but I can't be bothered to go back to look now), and others have at the very least strongly suggested that that's their opinion, too. It usually comes in the form of "it's not fair to the Europe-based players and gives a leg up to MLS ones".
In the past it's been worthwhile. But for this new cycle, the team is likely to become far more Euro based. So I'm not sure if a three week camp to see if John Tolkin can hack it as #2 left back and to give Paul Arriola more caps is such a great use of resources. And there will be Nations League games against Grenada and such.
And yes, I'm not a fan of the cozy relationship between MLS and the USMNT. And January camp players all seem to get to debut against Jamaica's C team while BL players debut against Belgium in Brussels or something.
Well this year we have Serbia and Columbia. But the nature of the opponents has everything to do with it being January and teams not being super available. Of course MLS and US Soccer have a close relationship. There's not a country on the planet where the domestic league and the soccer association don't have a close relationship. What's bad is if it becomes like Mexico where the domestic league is actually running the soccer association. That's not happening in the US, and MLS and USSF are less close than they used to be now that the SUM relationship has been severed.
January camp is a good way to introduce young players to the USMNT program over more than a weekend. Those young players BECOME the overseas players (Brenden Aaronson, etc.) If somebody made a list of the players who had their first cap after January camp, it would be an impressive list. I suspect that this camp will mostly be players eligible for the 2024 Olympics. [Which overlaps a lot with the domestic 2023 U20-eligible crew.] And there's really no point seeing how young players perform in the USMNT without some small number of actual USMNT veterans. So throw in a couple of guys for leadership and culture.
Even though this wasn't a banner year for domestic prospects in MLS, I'll never not see value in this exercise, provided we have a manager who knows how to use the info he receives properly. That was the problem with Berhalter. For him it was mostly about who learned his system and developed a relationship with him. It should have been about unearthing gems left in the league. In so far as that, the guy proved to be a very questionable scout. I was a huge and rightful critic of Klinsmann's lack of integration from MLS (he'd have been the God for FIFA fans on Twitter who weren't yet following the sport), but he got significant value - Besler, Yedlin, Cameron - from January camp. That's ironic because he wanted to do away with it. It highlights how much of an ideologue he was. Berhalter was, just in different way. I'm hoping the next manager who takes over (presuming Berhalter's not retained) isn't an ideologue, has a passion for the program, and for scouting. Then he too would see value in opportunities like this and use them to maximize the pool resources available. For me, I see potential depth options, some with upside to start, at sore spots for the senior team right now. Their trials should have started before the WC. But better late than never. We don't want to run into the same problem at Copa America, or even the WC. You drag your feet on the integration process, botching it along the way, and then all you feel comfortable with is running the obvious options into the ground.
And another aspect of it I don't see mentioned because I'm sure everyone here is just focused on long term goals and results - I just want to see more NT games lol. I want to see more matches with USA players. As long as there is a fair amount of young and promising players who have a chance to continue to develop, I'll watch anything. It's fun to watch Team USA vs. Team X and every exercise has value, even if it only pushes the needle 0.5% in a direction.