The lineup has been announced. Check out the article on ESPN Soccernet for plenty of details but here are a few highlights:
Among the newcomers are forward Eddie Johnson; midfielders Bobby Convey, Clint Dempsey and Ben Olsen; defenders Jimmy Conrad, Carlos Bocanegra, Cory Gibbs and Oguchi Onyewu; and goalkeepers Marcus Hahnemann and Tim Howard. Kansas City Wizards will be without Eddie and Jimmy as well as Josh Wolfe, chosen at forward.
Clint Dempsey had to rely on his mom to let him know if the email arrived from Coach Bruce Arena due to internet problems at his apartment.
“She called me screaming and crying,” he said. Dempsey said his selection was bittersweet because Big Hawk, a rapper who recorded a commercial with him, was shot to death Monday night in Houston. “It’s always tough to lose a friend under the conditions his life was taken,” Dempsey said.
The U.S. team gathers May 10 in Cary, N.C. and will then play exhibition games against Morocco (May 23 at Nashville, Tenn.), Venezuela (May 26 at Cleveland) and Latvia (May 28 at East Hartford, Conn.).
I’m proud to announce that Coach Alf Bilbao, Drury Panthers and SpringHigh Select, will be offering pregame viewing guides for the readers of Springfield Soccer for these games. He has been kind enough to agree to take a Coach’s view of the tactics that might be expected and offer tips on what to look for and lessons that can be learned by our players.
The coaching staff at Springfield Soccer Club, led by Technical Director Jeremy Alumbaugh, will take responsibility for a similar set of articles for the first round games in the World Cup.
Lot’s of good soccer to look forward to folks!
Update - the St. Louis Post-Dispatch weighs in
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