I'd prefer this roster/camp to lean heavily on B-level depth. I'd like to see: Booth, Zendejas (as an 8), Sonora (I thought he looked fine), Cardoso, Scalley, Paredes, Vasquez, Hoppe, Cowell, Ebobisse
i want to see booth and tolkin (with however close to the first team) in general. im not against vazquez in any way, but i dont think its likely hes really "better" then pepi, sarge or dike (my biggest "want"). id like to see cowell over arriola/morris, but that doesnt seem likely. im pretty disappointed in how underwhelming williamson and pomykal were, so considering luca is starting his second match in a row today and booth not having gotten a look yet id lean towards them. we are kind of in bad spot with turner, having to get him every match possible with the nats since hes not a starter at the club level. it low key sucks that celentano didnt get any run at all but him or slonina over the known backups? but after getting dike in the team the biggest thing i want to see is really getting into our cbs beyond zim and long. richards, ccv, mckenzie and epb would be my four. actually playing scally would be good. so not a ton of completely "new", but i def want to see less old. zim, acosta, arriola etc arent doing anything for us right now other than taking minutes we could be seeing younger/different/better players. i have no clue what the objectives are going to be, though. does hudson figure he might as well win and go full (berhalter) first team- all the known safe guys? does he try integrating players in behind the obvious guys (pulisic, adams, etc)? go full sarachan? who knows? whos going to tell him? whats it going to matter?
I'm not sure I see what people are seeing in Tolkin. I'd say he's farther from the first team than Vazquez is.
I don't want a completely prospective camp. Yes, we won't have a new coach. But it's still a competitive match, and while we don't need to win both, this window shows us we can't field just anyone. We need to at least tie El Salvador and Grenada or beat El Salvador. So not hard, but if we lose to El Salvador we are out. I'd be okay with select players taking a break, but I'd like to see a number of the A team there. Pulisic is already likely to be out. But I don't want a survey camp. We just had one. There's probably a couple of guys who couldn't get released that would be nice to see, and that's fine, but there's not enough talent there to offset two things: For the dual nationals we are recruiting to play now (Zendejas, Vazquez and perhaps Balogun), I'd like them to meet the core of the team. Players like Weah, Musah, Adams, etc. are the core of our recruiting. The next step in evaluating some of these guys is a step up in teammate quality. I know the opponent isn't a huge step up, but it is a competitive match. More importantly, we can see them in camp against the A team and see how a Vazquez does when he's not being fed by Sabbi or whatever. Players I'd make sure are there: CF: Pepi, Balogun and Vazquez would be ideal W: Zendejas, Weah, Paredes as understudy. W/AM: Reyna, Sonora, Aaronson (if he's not worn down), Booth. Maybe it's Booth or Sonora. Reyna is coming and starting for me. Let's get this shit over with. CM: I wouldn't mind seeing Pomykal with a better group, de la Torre for minutes, McKennie if healthy or Musah; we need at least one of them. CDM: Adams or Acosta LB: Might go Scally and Tolkin and give Jedi the day off. Play more of a CAM and keep the LB back on defense. CB: Let's get Richards in. GK: Turner needs minutes. I think this team needs a W against El Salvador. We need some positive movement.
i thought he was closer to poor than ok last night, but it was his first cap in a jan camp match. i thought he got better as the match went on, which points to nerves, but also ive watched him a few times. i think hes clearly the best option behind jedi unless you want to say vines' level is as good as it gets.
Presumably Pulisic will be out, which will open an opportunity for one or two wide attacking players. As it happens there are a number of good options at the position. Reyna and Weah have the inside tracks, but Tillman, Paredes, Cowell and Zendejas are interesting to me. Maybe Quinn Sullivan too. It is our deepest position.
Booth, Zendejas, Scally, Parades, Cowell, Dike if he's available and Pepi. Neal, Tillman, Richards all come to mind.
Booth is at the top of the list. And Balogun if he has any interest. Trusty and Paredes also from European options. From January camp probably Zendejas, Vazquez, Tolkin, and Jones. There’s also Pomykal, Williamson, and Sonora but they didn’t show great the past two games. But it’s also January camp at the beginning of preseason. So I’d see how they start the season. I think you send Cowell with the U20s. Also time to reintegrate Richards, Robinson, and Reyna. Other Euros worth consideration: Reynolds, Vines, McKenzie, CCV, EPB, LDLT, , Tillman, Dike, and Pepi, Mendez. Some of this will also be injury dependent (Pulisic for instance may or may not be back by then). And how many of the core guys you want to bring (Turner, Jedi, Dest, Adams, McKennie, Musah, Weah, Pulisic, Aaronson, and Reyna). There’s also the question of whether you want to call Ream or Zimmerman. The final two I’d consider are Cardoso and Fagundez.
The U20 team is almost certainly having its own camp that window and it’ll likely be the last time they get together before the U20 World Cup itself.
I would want Reyna, Booth, Djordjie, Pepi, Vazquez, Balogun (if he accepts), Zendejas, Scally, Jones, Tolkin, Richards, CCV, McKenzie, LDLT, Tillman, and Johnny to all be called up. Paredes and Cowell can be with the U20s prepare for the world cup.
I like all of those except Sonora, who didn't look that good to me. I'd add Tolkin, who I thought looked better than JGomez (which surprised me). But if we are dipping that deep into the pool, let's get some non-Long, non-Zimm CBs in there too. Also, put me down for Balogun. I would be ecstatic if we could cap him.
The coaches and staff now have some data on who will fit best with the full team going forward. It may not be the same as what we'd choose.
I’d call up an A-team for March, but that still leaves a fair bit of room to try newish guys. Forward: This is wide open. I might give Vazquez another shot. Although he wasn’t great overall, he scored a legit #9 goal against a non-minnow, and I’m not sure when that’s last happened (I’m discounting Wright’s accidental WC goal and his PK against Morocco). I’d also like to see Dike. Winger: Given what we know, it seems like Pulisic might not be fit for this window, so that’s an open winger spot. I’m not sure about Reyna’s status, so that might be another one. So, I’d say Zendejas for sure. He grew into the game against Serbia and showed some pretty good skill and tenacity. For my other pick, I’ll say Paredes. He seems to be a regular sub for Wolfsburg now and picked up a goal and an assist in the past couple weeks. CM: There’s a need for backups at all 3 CM spots, but none of the guys in January camp looked great. And De la Torre seems to be raising his game, so we’re looking at maybe one backup 8. I don’t think we have a new backup 6 option yet. So, I’d say Booth for that role. Tillman and Mihailovic are also both possibilities, but I feel like they might be more suited as wingers in this setup. I wouldn’t mind seeing one or both if we go beyond 23 on the roster. LB: Hudson seems to really like Tolkin based on some quotes in an article on the MLS site, and I think he should get another look based not so much on the Colombia performance, but rather his MLS track record and the lack of other options. CB: I’d keep Zimmerman and CCV from the WC roster and then bring Richards back in, so that leaves one spot for a LCB. I’d go with Trusty over McKenzie, since McKenzie has had a few looks already. GK: This is sort of a tough decision, but a pretty unimportant one. I think it’s obvious Turner gets the start against ES, and whoever plays against Grenada will hopefully rarely see action. It seems like Slonina isn’t going on loan, so maybe you bring him just to keep getting him integrated with the senior team instead of playing with the Chelsea reserves?
Hudson is indicating Vazquez, Zendejas, & Tolkin graduated from January camp. I agree with that list. And I'd personally add Jones. I don't know if leaving him out of the discussion was an oversight, a relative indictment on the performance, or the fact he's satisfied w/ his rb choices at the moment. If this is an A-team and he keeps it tight, than I could see why Jones wouldn't carry over, as he's blocked by Dest & Scally. But if you're bringing 5 fb's, he should be the 5th. In addition to his performance being solid, and tools good, he can play both sides better than anyone in the capped pool. Hudson may also be overly satisfied with the sub-par holdovers - Cannon, Yedlin, Moore. Then Slonina as the 3rd keeper since he's the young guy who got a shot at January camp, and did fine. Wish Celentano would have gotten that shot though. Got to wait I guess. When it comes to the pool abroad, players who've earned the spot with their club play are - Kevin Paredes Taylor Booth Malik Tillman Mark McKenzie Daryl Dike Alex Mendez Gio Reyna (if he counts) Ricardo Pepi (same thing) If it's our A- team, with moderate experimenting to integrate; some good, promising players are going to be left out. That's a good problem we're finally starting to have seemingly. That's a breakthrough.
Its hard to know what will happen here. .................but one expects March will be the "B+" team, leaving the A team for the summer. So I think we will take a group of A team players, but also give some a break. That will leave room for a number of guys from the fringes. A lot of it is also position dependent. Left back is certainly one in which there's an opportunity. So Tolkin seems a good possibility. But you look at an attacking midfielder and say......................."yeah, but don't we have Tillman, Mihailovic, and others that are closer than the newbie?" What on Earth would we do with Alex Mendez? And Hoppe? Hoppe! What on Earth has Hoppe done for two years to merit a callup? Why do people keep talking about Matthew Hoppe? We have guys who didn't make the World Cup squad who've done a lot, lot more. Vaqzuez, Pepi, Dike, the list goes on. I'm semi-convinced Matthew Hoppe had two good weeks for the worst team in the Bundesliga (who'd cut or sold every other forward with a pulse)................and that's the peak of his career. .............also another opinion that will be unpopular. Jonathan Gomez has always, always, always, been more reputation than performance. I say that as a fan of FCD academy players. Sometimes we inflate the value of these dual-nats that we're recruiting and fighting to get. Do people actually watch Gomez for Sociedad B? I wouldn't think so. They're in the regional Spanish 3rd division. It shouldn't surprise a soul that John Tolkin outperformed Jonathan Gomez at the camp. He plays at a significantly higher level. That doesn't mean Gomez won't be pretty darn good 5 years from now. We'll see how he develops. But I'm just not sure right now in 2023 he's actually better than Sam Vines.
I'd support a B+ team type of deal but I also think you'd want to get a lot of the A team if there isn't a reason to not call them. I think I'd go: GK: Turner, Johnson, Gaga DEF: Dest, Scally, Jedi, Tolkin, Richards, Ream, CCV, Zimmerman, McKenzie MID: Adams, McKennie, Acosta, DLT, Booth, Aaronson FWD: Weah, Reyna, Mihailovic, Tillman, Pepi, Vazquez, Sargent Assuming Pulisic is out. Early season form for the MLS guys pending. Maybe Aaronson needs a rest. Things can change but these feel like the strongest performers lately, and more reps together for a lot of the presumed starters going forward is always good. Edit: Realized I left out Musah. I'd bring him too.
it's always hardest on the players who are new to the national team scene as regulars. After a few years of it they seem to get used to it but those in their first year of regular callups mixed with club play just start seeming exhausted. Zimmerman, Ferreira, Aaronson - Pepi seems to be getting over it.
Gotta remember who we play in the March window. Grenada and El Salvador at home. Not going to bring many A guys across the pond for that.
......Nations League matters....despite what some "fans" want to believe. Lots of talk about Copa America......if the US wants to actually be a participant and not just the host of that tournament, they need to qualify via Nations League. Send the A team. They can bring a few newbs to the Gold Cup if they like.