There is nothing earth-shattering about the roster for January’s first US men’s national team camp, which is set to be held from Jan. 7-21 in Phoenix, Arizona.
It is composed, as expected, entirely of MLS players (19, to be exact) – most Euro leagues are either already playing, or are ramping up to start playing, so the Christian Pulisics and Weston McKennies of the world wouldn’t have been released for this one. It is almost entirely composed, as expected, of guys who are regularly in the USMNT pool, as well as a handful of high-upside young (or youngish) guys who played their way into a look based upon club form over the course of 2021.
It is, in short, a fitness camp. Miles Robinson and Walker Zimmerman are likely to start at least one game come the second January camp, which will be the one for a trio of World Cup qualifiers at the end of the month and into February. Matt Turner, Gyasi Zardes, Kellyn Acosta… these guys all might start one or more, and Zardes and Acosta at least will surely make an appearance. Sebastian Lletget likely will as well, and maybe Jordan Morris, Jesus Ferreira and Paul Arriola, too.
So let’s knock the rust off as best as possible. Let’s make sure they don’t look like guys who haven’t played in two months.
The next two weeks are about that, and head coach Gregg Berhalter said as much.
“Our focus for the next two weeks is to prepare the domestic-based players to be included in the World Cup qualifying training camp,” Berhalter said. That prep will include a couple of closed-door scrimmages, but no official friendlies.
So nothing here is at all surprising. Nonetheless, here are three quick takeaways from the roster:
It’s not a given that Acosta’s going to be used primarily as a defensive midfielder over the next two weeks, but he really should be. Acosta was superb in that role during the knockout rounds of the Gold Cup last summer, and while he fell flat on his face as the d-mid in the World Cup qualifier down in Panama – he was shocking – Berhalter hasn’t seen fit to drop him from the squad entirely.
But he hasn’t trusted him back at the 6, either. Instead Acosta’s been used mostly as a No. 8 since then, and has struggled to affect the game in either direction. That includes last month’s friendly against Bosnia & Herzegovina.
At some point Tyler Adams is going to be out via yellow card accumulation or injury, and Berhalter’s going to have to trust someone else to play the 6. I think it should be James Sands (not in this camp after his move to Rangers), but Berhalter doesn’t agree; Sands has played as a d-mid just once for the US, and that only came after an emergency halftime formation switch down in Honduras.
So… fair enough. If it’s going to be Acosta, let it be Acosta, and let him get the reps he needs there to make sure his next outing is a hell of a lot better than what he managed down in Panama.
An Achilles’ tendon rupture used to be a death sentence for any professional athlete’s career. That has changed over the past 15 years, though, as a number of high-profile athletes – including, in David Beckham and Kevin Durant, a pair of MLS owners – have popped an Achilles and returned to their previous best, or something close to it.
This camp will be starting just one week shy of the eight-month mark for Long, who did his Achilles’ in mid-May against the Union. That is a rapid turnaround from any sort of tendon rupture, Achilles’ or otherwise, but it’s not even Long’s first camp back. He was actually part of the November camp for World Cup qualifiers, as well as the December camp for the Bosnia & Herzegovina game last month.
He has yet to play again and I don’t really expect him to play at all this month, either, but I think it’s an indicator of both how highly Berhalter rates Long, as well as how well Long’s recovery is going, that he’s back again.
We’ve seen Jesus Ferreira, who just became the first Homegrown player to sign a DP contract with his original club, play a couple of different positions under Berhalter. Usually it’s been as a false 9 – the role he had success with during his breakout 2019 season for Dallas – though last month he was actually a winger, flipping between the left and the right with Jordan Morris.
Meanwhile, this past year with Dallas, Ferreira was at his very best as a shadow striker, registering 8g/9a as a 20-year-old and really coming alive in the second half of the season once there was a bit more positional clarity in that Dallas side. Playing underneath a true No. 9 seemed to unlock a bit more of his playmaking instincts, while at the same time keeping him close to the goal in a way that No. 10s in Berhalter’s system really aren’t.
Which is to say that Ferreira’s club role doesn’t really exist in Berhalter’s scheme. And while he’s been useful as a false 9 and was pretty good, I thought, as a winger last month, there’s just no obvious, comfortable fit for him on the field with the way the US have played.
I don’t think Berhalter’s going to change his system to get the most out of Ferreira, nor do I think he should, but I wouldn’t hate hearing that they’re trying a little bit of a 3-5-2 at times with Ferreira in the shadow striker role.
It’s not likely to be something that becomes a default choice, but it could become a useful club to have in the bag and a more natural way to get Ferreira into the mix.
