Post 2022 - Very Early 2026 Camp Roster (Domestic & Abroad)

What about for 2030?

 

i dont know that i want to think in depth that far ahead, but jan camp could be really interesting. that and gold cups should be more interesting, just looking at the back we will have so much more quality (mls-based) depth- moore and miazga joining miles(?) and zim, the next round of lb candidates. itll probably be too late for gaga, right?

but i really do hope we lean more towards testing mls players vs running out acosta and roldan as the defaults. pomykal, williamson, aaronson, clark would just be so much more interesting and fun. nico is here, vazquez...

that first wave of nats "coming home" (dempsey, bradley, jozy etc) really skewed things, though at least at that time we could save them for the knockouts. watching arriola, morris etc just isnt/wont be super important to me at that point. id generally avoid first team players overall, but its tricky with those guys 14-23, you know?

obviously retaining berhalter or not defines everything, but you also wonder who we start to phase out (yedlin in particular, but lletget, zardes etc?).

 

The challenge with the 2023 camp is that we have no idea who the coach is going to be.
If the USSF decides not to extend Berhalter after the World Cup, then they probably will have an extended coaching search. We likely won't have one in place for this January camp. So it could easily be run by some "interim" coach.

I could easily see this January camp as being very focused on the U20/U23 players and not the more veteran players listed above.
After all, the next big tournament after the World Cup will be the 2023 U20 World Cup. Preparations will also likely begin for the Olympic group.

I could also see it being cancelled altogether.

 

I would throw every 2023 cap at Gaga Slonina. No questions asked.

 

I think history of all national teams shows a coach coaching 2 cycles is rarely a good thing. I would be worried if the decision to keep Greg past this cycle is dependant on how the team does in 3-5 games. If they already know they will bring someone new in then that process should start before it's over. No large company doesn't have a contingency plan if something happens to the CEO. We need continuity in this process. Most of our guys are young with very few caps. We can't have a 3-4 month period without a coach. That seems unimaginable to me.
Even the hottest teams can have a brain fart at the WC. Basing a coaching decision on a 3 game spell is pretty short sighted.

 

Indeed. Turner, Steffen, and Horvath are all ~26 right now.
They should only now be entering their primes as keepers.
We say it all the time. Friedel didn't even move to Blackburn until he was 29.
Keller and Howard were both starting for the USMNT at a good level into their late 30s.

So yes, we should involve Slonina.
But he has to earn a place. HOPEFULLY all of Turner, Steffen, and Horvath will be back to full-time starting somewhere.
Gabe has to beat them for playing time. Nothing will be given.

Not to mention we all hope new guys emerge.........................

What we want to see at the keeper position is a real robust competition with guys performing well in club soccer.

 

I could see it being cancelled if there’s no coach, but on the other hand we held one with Sarachan when he was the interim coach.

My guess would be if Berhalter is out it’d be run by Luchi Gonzalez with a focus on U23 players.

 

The difference being that this January camp would be held in 2023 directly following the end of the World Cup (the final being held on Dec. 18th).

So 100% of the USSF's focus will probably be on that World Cup and the logistics therein. The idea that they'd come back and immediately hold another camp for the next cycle is questionable. I don't know if they will. They might with some interim guy focusing on the U20s/U23s. Let Mikey Varas or somebody put the roster together in late 2022 while everybody else is paying attention to the World Cup.

 

The team without a coach! The land without a team!

 

This is a confederation that took nearly 15 months to hire its new head coach after Couva (a hiring process that was clearly rigged), 8 months to name its first GM and more than 2 years to find his #2 in McBride.

This is an organization that went eons w/no U20 head coach after Ramos left only hiring Varas hours before the revelations cup tournament. Most LA Taco Trucks are better and more efficiently run and organized than our fed. Luckily the talent are bailing out the idiots in charge.

 

The performance in ‘21 tournaments should matter, as should the underwhelming qualifying campaign. There are lots of pluses and some minuses too. If I was the big boss I’d give him a 2 year extension through the ‘24 Copa America (I’d have those tickets in hand) and he’d get two more years extension if performance (rather than simple results) was strong.

And btw, performance by Stewart and friends is strong in terms of on field results, I’m 95% bothered by the still present molasses like decision making w/hires after Couva and more recently w/the U20s and the paucity of camps and slip shoddiness of hiring w/youth coaching. Better incentives need to be in place to get guys to target the gigs.

 

It's amazing how some people watch the USMNT/USYNT programs and don't realize that THESE are the good times. We've won the Gold Cup, Nations League, and U20 CONCACAF Championship recently. We qualified for the U20WC, Olympics, and World Cup. What on Earth do people have to be upset about? At some point you realize there are people that just need to be angry about something in order to function.

When it comes to the USMNT staff, their retention depends on World Cup performance. Everything up until now has earned Gregg the opportunity to coach us at the World Cup.

What does meeting expectations at the World Cup look like? I don't know. I'll know it when I see it. Sometimes a team plays great, is unlucky, and gets bounced early. That can still be a positive.

As far as looking ahead with the players, that's hard to do. The player pool moves very quickly. Look at the 2019 Nations League roster versus our most recent Nations League roster.

So one can make a couple of assumptions about likely players, but most of the roster is a total question mark. There are a LOT of talented young players coming thru academies at the moment.

 

Berhalter would have to seriously over perform to keep him next cycle IMHO. Just gets stale and next cycle sets up for the best chance at a title we've ever had so the best coach we can get then with our players being in their prime and playing here. If GB does exceed expectations I would sort of grudgingly give him two more years to show he deserves the next two. I would do this with any coach BTW. Very few do anything good with extra cycles.

 

I don’t know if they will either, but the US World Cup run is likely to end before that December 18th final. We could be finished in early December for instance. Holding a camp a month later isn’t much of a lift.

 

I want good process, I don't want us to fall a-- over tea kettle into good luck.

If you think I don't want to win NL, the '21 GC, 3 consecutive U20 Concacaf Championships, have 3 straight runs to the Quarters in those U20 championships (maybe more of both if not for covid considering how good the '21 cycle likely would have been), you'd be crazy, but I also think it's important to actually run a system with good process, because that makes all this success more repeatable, than more at the whims of randomness, or in our case, size and finally farm systems with each club team etc. I want the fed running it to be just as good as the players themselves.

If you could choose how a fed runs, would you want them to run a rigged process for the head coach, whether you liked him or his accomplishments later on, post facto I think is the phrase? I wouldn't. I'd want a good hiring process, smartly run, thorough, I'd want to interview the teams doing the most impressive work at the WC in '18 and in their qualifying campaigns.

I love Mikey Varas, I think he was fantastic, and did a superlative job with the U20's. That being said, should it have been a total ---- show of a hiring process for the U20 role that ended up with him getting added basically as the players were boarding the flight for the Revelations Cup? Is that well run, or circus show bull----? I'm glad we've got Varas. He was awesome, but I don't know, maybe hire him two months earlier, 3 months earlier, instead of practically on the G D plane.

Taking 8 months for Stewart and 2 years for McBride after Couva? I think the former is more understandable than the latter, but regardless, it was pretty ridiculous to have Couva take place and to basically have a clown show in place until the World Cup the following summer. Neither of those two hires were ultimately surprising, two of the bigger names from the '02 WC, hell all 3 major hires were WC '02 vets, so really throwing the net out there?

I can live with it because I liked what Stewart did in the Netherlands, I have no feelings one way or the other about McBride, I don't know what recommended him for the position.

But at the end of the day, I have the capacity to celebrate the great things, while also indicting the incompetent things, i think doing both is important to have a well run organization that doesn't ---- its pants like we did in '17 (really, an Arena hiring before qualification was botched because of a surgical procedure? No disrespect to the guys health, but looking back at that, reveals just how mickey mouse stupid the org was and can still be (see Varas situation).

Give me good process to go with this success, and I'll continue to believe in the program, carnie antics and I'm gonna have some issues, even while celebrating the successes.

 

For this January Camp, it’ll be all about Purpose, Priorities, Peculiarities....

#1 The peculiarity of this first post-World Cup camp is that we do not have to rebuild a roster for the next World Cup. Most of our players will be entering their prime...with only a few exceptions. Additionally, we have the Olympics to contend for. So, expect this to be a “ready now” camp.

#2 Our priorities, since we don’t have to worry so much about the rebuild, are to field the best team possible in January. And, this camp is to ready ourselves for the Olympics.

Therefore, I strongly suggest that we actually have two camps. A senior camp and u23 camp. And I would have them in the same location so they could scrimmage each other and so forth. If I were Berhalter, or the new coach, I would let my assistant take charge of the u23’s.

#3 Our ultimate purpose is still to try to integrate new players who might have a shot at the senior team. And it’s to start the tryout for the Olympic squad.

My Senior Team Roster
GK 1. Drake Callendar(28), 2. Roman Celentano(29), 3. JT Marcinkowski(29), A. Sean Johnson*(37)
RB 1. Shaq Moore(30), 2. Aaron Herrera(28), A. Brooks Lennon(28)
CB 1. Walker Zimmerman*(33), 2. Matt Miazga(30), A. Justin Glad(29)
CB 1. Miles Robinson(29), 2. Henry Kessler(27), A. Aaron Long(33) (or maybe Donovan Pines-28)
LB 1. John Tolkin*(23), 2. DeJuan Jones(28), A. Andrew Gutman(29)
DM 1. Kelyn Acosta(30), 2. Mauricio Pineda*(28), A. Jackson Yuiell (or maybe Chris Durkin-26)
MF 1. Cristian Roldan(30), 2. Eryk Williamson(29), A. Keaton Parks(28)
MF 1. Djordje Mihailovic(27), 2. Paxton Pomykal(26), A. Paxten Aaronson*(22)
RW 1. Jordan Morris*(31), 2. Chris Mueller(29), A. Benji Michel(28)
LW 1. Paul Arriola*(31), 2. Niko Gioacchini(25), A. Jonathan Lewis(28)
FW 1. Brandon Vazquez(27), 2. Jesus Ferreira(25), 3. Jeremey Ebobisse*(29)

———————Vazquez——————-
Arriola————————————-Morris
—————Mihailovic—-Roldan————
——————(CPT)Acosta———————
Tolkin—————————————Moore
————Zimmerman——Robinson———
————————Callendar——————-


Note: Age is age on June 1, 2026. This gives us some idea of where these players predict to stand.
Note: I would call in Johnson if I have to, but I really want to see what else we have.
Note: I have Tolkin playing up.
Note: I’m calling in Pineda for his CB/DM versatility.
Note: I might have Aaronson or another u23 midfielder play up. There’s no one else that I would consider at the senior level.
Note: Due to our problems at CF, I don’t have a problem calling in a 24th man at that position.
Note: Zimmermann, Morris, and Arriola are my old guys that I have in camp. Looking at our alternatives, and weighing the pros/cons, I would select them over the alternatives. Besides, it would be good to have some vets in the first January Camp. And it’s not like that they’ll be too old by June 2026.

My u23 Team Roster (needs to be a 2001 or younger)
GK 1. Rocco Rios Novo (needs to file switch), 2. John Pulskamp, 3. Chris Brady, A. Patrick Schulte
RB 1. Nathan Harriel, 2. Tavon Gray, A. Michal Halliday
CB 1. George Campbell, 2. Brandon Craig, A. Marcus Ferkranus
CB 1. Jalen Neal, 2. Joshua Wynder, A. Casey Walls
LB 1. Caleb Wiley, 2. Noah Allen, A. Adam Armour
DM 1. Jack McGlynn, 2. Leon Flach, A. Obed Vargas (also consider Josh Atencio, Moses Nyeman, Daniel Edelman, Danny Leyva)
MF 1. Paxten Aaronson, 2. Diego Luna, A. Niko Tsakiris (also consider Brian Gutierrez, Matko Miljevic, Bryce Duke)
MF 1. Caden Clark, 2. Aiden Morris, A. Owen Wolff
RW 1. Ben Bender, 2. Kristian Fletcher, A. Indiana Vassilev
LW 1. Quinn Sullivan, 2. Dantouma Toure, A. Cameron Harper
FW 1. Cade Cowell, 2. Jackson Hopkins, A. Serge Ngoma

———————-Cowell———————
Sullivan———————————-Bender
——(CPT)Aaronson———Clark————
——————-—McGlynn———————
Wiley—————————————Harriel
————-Neal—————Campbell———
———————-Rios Novos——————-

 

I was leaning towards having a separate U20 camp and giving the senior players who were part of the World Cup roster a rest, bumping up any 01s and 02s to the seniors.