By: COLIN REESE
Picking a 23-man roster for the United States Men’s National Team or any national team begins with a vision for the Starting XI. From there, the rest of the roster is filled with back-up players or players the offer the team a different dimension, skill-set, or weapon.
Assuming the United States uses a 4-3-3 formation, four of the midfield roster spots should already be locked up: Michael Bradley, Maurice Edu, Mix Diskerud, and Joe Corona.
The USA needs both Bradley and Edu to have two experienced and talented defensive midfielders, and the USA needs Diskerud and Corona to have technical and creative attacking midfielders.
These four midfielders allow the United States to start a midfield trio with one defensive midfielder and two attacking midfielders or a midfield trio with two defensive midfielders and one attacking midfielder.
This amounts to starting Corona, Bradley, Diskerud or to starting Edu, Diskerud/Corona, and Bradley.
Alejandro Bedoya is another midfielder/forward that is likely a lock for the time being, but Bedoya is more valuable as an outside forward than as a central midfielder. The competition for attacking spots is very tight, and while Jürgen Klinsmann likely considers Bedoya a roster lost, other players might be more useful.
Starting Bedoya as the right attacker in an attacking trident might very well be the strongest option for the time being, but both Diskerud and Corona offer better passing, more composure on the ball, and more creativity than Bedoya whose main weapon is attacking at pace – a valuable skill.
Four of the eight defender spots should be locks as well: DeAndre Yedlin, Geoff Cameron, John Brooks, and Fabian Johnson.
In the attack, Clint Dempsey and Jozy Altidore are on the roster in permanent marker, and in goal, Brad Guzan is the clear Number 1.
This is 11 of 23 roster spots already filled, and if you add in Julian Green and Joe Gyau, then the roster numbers 13 players.
The United States will need another striker besides Altidore, and despite Gyasi Zardes’ excellent MLS form and scoring rate this season, Juan Agudelo has to be listed before Zardes. Agudelo is quite simply too talented, too fast, too quick, too tall and strong, and too experienced to leave off.
Agudelo might not have tons of international experience, but he has certainly proven in more than enough legit games that he can perform well against top national teams and that he isn’t fazed by big games.
Klinsmann has to realize that Agudelo is too explosive of a striker and too valuable of an attacking force to leave off the roster, and Zardes’ form and upside are too promising for Klinsmann to leave off the squad.
Zardes is an example of a great athlete with sound technical ability that continues to cultivate his technical ability by playing more games and playing with great players.
Now, we’re at 15 players, and we need four more defenders to be the back-ups for each of the spots in the Back Four.
Who should be the back-ups? Andrew Farrell, Shane O’Neill, Michael Orozco, and Chris Klute.
This makes 19 players, but we need two more goalkeepers. Klinsmann has guaranteed Nick Rimando a roster spot, but given Rimando’s age, World Soccer Source backs Cody Cropper and Clint Irwin to fill the other two goalkeeper spots.
With three roster spots left, it’s time to add some of the new midfielders that the USMNT needs, and this means calling up Dillon Powers and the young Benji Joya.
Powers is an MLS regular that is highly-rated by almost all observers of American soccer, and Joya is widely-regarded as one of the future keystones of the USMNT, even if he has found himself getting zero MLS minutes in the past month or so.
Joya has a certain intensity and completeness to his game that is apparent when he plays, and he looks very polished in all areas of his play. Joya is exactly the type of two-way midfielder that Klinsmann is trying to use on the USMNT.
Looking at the players discussed above, Guzan in goal with Yedlin, Cameron, Brooks, and Johnson forming the Back Four is the best defense the United States has at its disposal.
A midfield trio of Corona, Bradley, and Diskerud offers a combination of strong defending and creative playmaking, and Corona and Diskerud bring the type of link-up play that has been missing from the USA under Klinsmann’s entire tenure.
Bradley lining up in front of Cameron and Brooks should offer plenty of defensive strength, and if that it isn’t enough defensive coverage then either Corona or Diskerud will have to be replaced by Edu.
As the attacking trident, Gyau, Altidore, and Dempsey seems as good as any option for the time being, but there is also the interesting option of starting Agudelo, Altidore, and Dempsey.
Unlike Altidore, Agudelo moves around a lot off the ball, and also unlike Altidore, Agudelo knows how to play wide and centrally. Two strikers of Altidore’s and Agudelo’s skill, size, and speed with Dempsey playing slightly deeper would be a handful for any defense.
In the 4-3-3 formation and only including players that Klinsmann is likely to use, the best USMNT XI is either Guzan, Yedlin, Cameron, Brooks, Johnson, Corona, Bradley, Diskerud, Gyau, Altidore, and Dempsey or Guzan, Yedlin, Cameron, Brooks, Johnson, Bradley, Diskerud, Edu, Corona, Altidore, and Dempsey.
With that USMNT XI as a starting point, here are the 23 players (plus Donovan) that the USMNT should call up:
GOALKEEPERS (3): Brad GUZAN, Cody CROPPER, Clint IRWIN
CENTER BACK (4): Geoff CAMERON, John BROOKS, Shane O’NEILL, Michael OROZCO
OUTSIDE BACKS (4): DeAndre YEDLIN, Fabian JOHNSON, Andrew FARRELL, Chris KLUTE
MIDFIELDERS (6): Michael BRADLEY, Maurice EDU, Mix DISKERUD, Joe CORONA, Dillon POWERS, Benji JOYA
ATTACKERS (7): Clint DEMPSEY, Landon DONOVAN, Jozy ALTIDORE, Juan AGUDELO, Joe GYAU, Julian GREEN, Gyasi ZARDES
*The roster includes 24 players because Landon Donovan is only playing against Ecuador for his farewell international match.