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In international football, history can have a strange relationship with today. The turnover of players and coaches can be so frequent that what is happening now may have little connection to what happened before. Outwardly, that appears to be the case for the United States Under-23 squad trying to qualify for this summer’s Olympics. None of the players on manager Jason Kreis’ 20-man roster were in the mix in 2015, when the United States fell to Honduras in the semifinals of the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament and then fell short in a playoff against Colombia.
Those defeats marked the second time in a row that the United States did not make the Olympic tournament.
– United States list for Olympic qualification
“I don’t think any of us should feel any real responsibility for what happened four years ago, and none of us were a part of it,” Kreis told reporters earlier this month. And yet that failure and the fiasco that was qualifying for the 2018 World Cup still endure. Even in Kreis’s mind, that story drifts to the periphery, stating that the Olympic qualifying tournament is an opportunity and an opportunity to “correct some mistakes.”
“We have the first opportunity to take a big step forward, qualify for an important tournament, while the full team has [World Cup qualifying] at the end of the year, “he added.” We get the first bite into this, and that’s another motivating factor. “
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It will not be easy. The United States is in a group with Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and rival Mexico, with the top two teams advancing to a winner-take-all semifinal. With that in mind, there are questions to be answered.
Is this team good enough to make it to Tokyo?
The team certainly has enough talent and experience. While age-eligible players (the Olympics are a U23 tournament, and each country can select three players of legal age) such as Christian Pulisic and Tyler Adams are not available because clubs are not required to release players, the list remains available. full of artists like Jackson Yueill of the San Jose Earthquakes and Henry Kessler of the New England Revolution, who are regulars at their clubs. Then there are players like Sebastian Soto from Norwich City, who has served in previous international youth tournaments.
Highlights
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That said, the team that tried to qualify for the 2016 Olympics was also talented: Cameron Carter-Vickers, Matt Miazga and Jordan Morris were on that list, even though it was thin on the outside.
With this group, the big question is where the creativity will come from given that the likes of Pulisic or even Brenden Aaronson are not available. At first glance, the list has four defensive midfielders in Hassani Dotson, Johnny Cardoso, Andres Perea and Yueill. Kreis told reporters in a conference call that players like Dotson and Cardoso have more in their attacking toolbox than they have been asked to show at the club level. Those players, as well as wingers like Jonathan Lewis and Sebastian Saucedo, will need to be more dynamic for the United States to qualify.
There are also concerns about whether there is enough diversity in the goal-scoring corps. To be clear, Kreis was only allowed to have 17 outfield players on his roster, limiting his options to some degree. But neither Jesús Ferreira nor Soto provide much physical presence, relying more on their mobility and walking speed to get the job done. Kreis has made it clear that he hopes his forwards will return to midfield and help with preparation, but his decision not to select Portland Timbers forward Jeremy Ebobisse may come back to haunt him.
Jackson Yueill has shown courage to USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter and is ready to shine in the Olympic qualification. Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images Is anyone in this group ready for the senior team?
Yueill has already caught the eye of US team senior manager Gregg Berhalter by winning nine caps and performing well as a deep playmaker in games when Berhalter needed such a player. Otherwise, it’s hard to see too many players breaking through in the short term, especially considering young players based in Europe like Adams and Giovanni Reyna who are now mainstays. There seems to be an opening when it comes to Adams’ understudy in midfield, so Perea, Cardoso and Dotson will all be looking to impress.
The forward position with the senior team is also available, giving Soto and Ferreira the opportunity to rack up more minutes. That said, Ferreira struggled through a tough 2020 and Soto is now trying to break into the Norwich first team now that his loan to the Dutch second division Telstar ended. As is often the case, your performances with your respective clubs will play a huge role in your progress with the national team.
Why do the Olympics matter?
As much as the Olympic tournament is ridiculed in some parts of the world (read: Europe), it still provides an opportunity for international experience that is not always available to American players.
The last time the United States played in the Olympics, in 2008, there were players like Sacha Kljestan and Stuart Holden who used the tournament as a platform for more important things. Could they have achieved the same level of success internationally without it? Possibly, and that was certainly the case with fellow Olympians Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore.
But all levels of international experience help, especially when it comes to the hard work that qualifies for the World Cup. It also provides Berhalter with more data points as he completes his depth table, and given the number of events this year (Nations League, Gold Cup, World Cup qualification, and the like), he will have to dig deeper into his group of players. More importantly, the Olympic qualification tournament is another opportunity for American men to show that the program is going in the right direction after failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
Source: espn.co.uk
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