USMNT-Slovenia Preview: Olympic Camp Cupcake Edition
USMNT-Slovenia Preview: Olympic Camp Cupcake Edition
The lone international friendly for the USA this window will feature plenty of debuts and a lot of U23 Olympic eligible players from MLS.
I know the annual USMNT winter camp friendlies are usually not worth paying all that much attention too, but for once I have to applaud Berhalter and the USSF’s approach this time around.
With the bulk of the senior USMNT abroad and only a handful of deeper MLS veterans in camp, instead we’re going to be treated to a large contingent of debutants from the U-23/Olympic eligible ranks as the United States hosts Slovenia at 3pm EST from Toyota Field in San Antonio, TX with coverage on TNT.
Now for a deep dive into the weirdness that is international qualifications - the USA qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics by winning the 2022 CONCACAF U-20 tournament in Honduras. A tournament that featured a 16 team group stage where only the 4th place teams were eliminated and a 16 team knockout bracket that added four qualifying group winners from a separate qualification. Yeah I didn’t get that format either but the USA topped their group and then beat Nicaragua, Costa Rica, hosts Honduras, and then routed the Dominican Republic in the final.
That US U-20 squad was led by Chicago Fire keeper Chris Brady and Philadelphia Union midfielders Paxten Aaronson (now with Eintracht Frankfurt) and Quinn Sullivan, none of whom are in camp though all three would be eligible for the Olympic team if they were to be released by their clubs.
Full credit to Los Quisqueyanos as well, the Dominican Republic featured in their first major international tournaments at any level in the 2023 U-20 World Cup and now the upcoming 2024 Olympics. It’s extremely cool to see non-traditional CONCACAF/world powerhouses get a chance to represent their countries especially at the Olympics.
Hold on it gets better and/or weirder - 2023 UEFA U-21 champions England aren’t playing at the Olympics because there is no formal Great Britain international squad. Save for their appearance as hosts in London in 2012 with Welsh legend Ryan Giggs captaining the side as an overage player after a lot of arguing and debate on if GBR should even field a team at all based on the unified home nations (England, Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland) expressing concerns of their international status individually. U-21 semifinalists Ukraine, Israel, and runner up Spain will represent Europe at the Olympics.
So now that you’re all properly confused and/or intrigued, just know that you will be seeing a lot of these U.S. players again this summer. Not at the Gold Cup, but trying to get a gold medal for the first time since 2008 as the U.S. men have failed to qualify for the last three Olympic tournaments.
Young breakout stars like fullbacks John Tolkin from RBNY and Caleb Wiley from Atlanta are here along with a plethora of attacking and midfield talent like the Crew’s Aidan Morris, Seattle’s Josh Atencio, Philly’s Jack McGlynn, RSL’s Diego Luna, and some kid named Esmir Bajraktarevic that Gregg Berhalter has been really, really impressed by so far and he scored in a scrimmage against River Plate too. I forget where he plays…but he’s also eligible for the 2026 Olympics too cause he’s so young.
Maybe his club team should get him a lot more minutes in 2024 than the 500 first team minutes he played in MLS last year…when he’s not away on Olympic duty if he gets called up of course.
There are a few veterans on defense like James Sands, Shaq Moore, and Miles Robinson with double digit caps but aside from them, DeJuan Jones and his brand new four year deal with the New England Revolution is the fourth most internationally experienced player with seven caps on the roster. Miles Robinson, hero of the 2021 Gold Cup Final, is the current leading scorer with three and only Shaq Moore with one has registered an senior international goal.
So yeah, it’s going to be a heavy dose of players unknown at the senior MNT level, but these are definitely players familiar to the USYNT ranks. Despite the struggles in the youth ranks, the USA has seen a resurgence of young talent with current stars Christian Pulisic and Gio Reyna among others largely bypassing the Olympic level YNT’s and going straight into the senior team for obvious talent reasons and club commitments making it hard for them to be released and appear for a non-FIFA tournament let alone the qualification campaigns.
Berhalter stated he would like to get the vast majority of his uncapped players onto the field which should give them a strong look at several options for the Olympic roster. The only group I’m not sure about is at keeper, where Gaga Slonina should be the frontrunner as the Olympic starter in net but he’s not here. Drake Callender is certainly overage at 26, Roman Celentano I think misses the cutoff by a few months, and 2023 MLS Cup Champion Patrick Schulte might have played his way into the conversion especially if the Crew don’t mind losing him for a month or so in the middle of the league season to be an Olympian.
On the other side, Slovenia has also brought a largely uncapped, young domestic based roster with 16 players possibly making their debuts for their un-nicknamed international squad. Veteran Zan Karnicnik leads the Slovenians with 24 international caps and three players from Olimpija Ljubljana, former Revolution defender Antonia Delamea’s team, are in the squad as well as NYCFC defender Mitja Ilenic who made 22 appearances (13 starts) playing almost 1200 minutes in MLS last year.
We hope Esmir and DeJuan can especially have strong performances along with the rest of the USMNT as we kick off the 2024 calendar year in American soccer with today’s friendly.