The U.S. men's national team is still very much in transition. As the team and program move into Year Two of the Gregg Berhalter era, there are still more questions than answers on the road to the 2022 World Cup.
As per usual, the January camp will not provide us with too many answers to those questions. This is a camp for identifying talent. If three or four of the new faces in this camp can make the full national team, that's great. If a few others shine before joining the Olympics squad, even better. The goal is to take this group and figure out what you have in camp while piecing it together with what you don't when the time comes.
Because of the looming Olympic qualifying campaign, this particular camp is unique.
In normal years, the senior national team and Olympic team are entirely different entities but, as the USMNT undergoes this period of transition, that group is largely one and the same. Many of the USMNT's key players, names like Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Sergino Dest are eligible for that U-23 squad, while several talented young stars look poised to make that leap in the near future.
None of the players listed above are here right now but this camp continues that youth movement with two aims. The first is to prepare the younger call-ups for Olympic qualifying as the U.S. looks to reach the summer tournament for the first time since 2008. That pursuit will be tougher than expected, with March's qualifiers featuring a group that involved the U.S., Mexico, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic lumped together fighting for two spots.
The other goal is to integrate these young players into the senior team so that, when the time comes, they're more than familiar with Berhalter and his system. Concacaf's qualifiers begin in September, and there's still a lot of work to be done before the U.S. tries to erase the memory of 2018.
"It’s a good opportunity to see how the guys have progressed int his month," Berhalter told a press conference on Friday.
"The guys have been off for a while so first getting them in and getting them up to an acceptable fitness level and to work on some concepts that we’re looking to integrate this year is going to be very important.
"For us, it’s about gathering information. We talked about the theme of this camp being 'stake your claim' or 'seize your moment'. Everyone has a different situation, somewhat to make the Olympic qualifying group, some want to be starters in that group, some want to be starters on the full national team, some want to be involved with the full national team.
"Everyone has a different way that they’re looking at this, but collectively, can we perform well as a group? Individually, can guys make a case for their involvement going forward?”
Of those two questions, the second is the bigger one. This team, one without the likes of Pulisic and Adams, is far from the true USMNT. But there are players involved that could and should be involved with that team going forward.
Reggie Cannon and Aaron Long are locked into battles for spots on the backline. Sebastian Lletget and Jackson Yueill are in Berhalter's plans in the midfield. Paul Arriola and Gyasi Zardes are potential starters at winger and striker, respectively.
GettyFor the Olympic-eligible players, this is the chance to push into that group. Berhalter has already confirmed that Sam Vines and Jesus Ferreira, the latter of whom committed his international future to the USMNT on Friday, will start against Costa Rica. The highly-regarded Ulysses Llanez, who is close to breaking in at Wolfsburg, figured to be a key part of the Olympic team. The same can be said of Brenden Aaronson, Julian Araujo, Mark McKenzie and Brandon Servania, all players expected to take a step forward with their MLS clubs this season.
Eventually, those players will join with the likes of European-based stars like Alex Mendez, Richie Ledezma, Chris Richards and Gio Reyna for Olympic qualifiers under head coach Jason Kreis, but a strong season could put them into position to earn more chances with Berhalter's group going forward.
"It's a strong age group that we have right now," Berhalter said. "It would be nice to put these guys in position to compete in the Olympics.
"We're not going to be able to pull from all of the players in this qualifying tournament, but nonetheless it's still an opportunity for guys to step up and be battle-tested in a Concacaf qualifying format and learn from it.
"When you think about what we have in store for us this year, we're going to be going through 60 percent of our qualifying games for the World Cup. It's a good testing ground for that."
And the process of preparing for what will be a chaotic 2020 begins on Saturday. The U.S. will face a key qualifying rival in Costa Rica, a team also rebuilding en route to World Cup 2022. For years, Costa Rica has been a contender in Concacaf, and that makes even this toned-down Ticos squad a solid measuring stick.
"It’s a good opportunity to see how the guys have progressed in this month," Berhalter said. "The guys have been off for a while so first getting them in and getting them up to an acceptable fitness level and to work on some concepts that we’re looking to integrate this year is going to be very important.
“Tomorrow we’re looking for execution. There are a couple of key topics that we want to execute tomorrow and it will be interesting to see against a good opponent if we can do that. We’re going to be measuring a couple of key things tomorrow."