U.S. Olympic Team warm up at Toulon Tournament
Over the past week the United States sent a team to Toulon, France to participate in a tradition U-21 tournament. However, with the Olympics this year, the tournament was open to teams sending their U-23 squads in order to further prepare for the Olympic games.
The U.S. team performed rather poorly; However, this was not unexpected as Coach Peter Nowak took more or less a B- team than an A team. No Freddy Adu, Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradley, Maurice Edu, and others. This team consisted mostly of a batch of young players who are currently trying their luck in various lower tier European leagues.
For the most part, Nowak knows which players make up the core of his team, and he used this tournament to see which players could potentially fight their way onto the team he takes to Beijing.
The Olympics have some unique rules as to players that can play, instead of countries being able to bring their top international teams, they instead bring their U-23 aged team. The roster consists of 22 total players. 19 of which must fall under the U-23 age limitations, and 3 players termed “overage” that can be any age player eligible for national team play. I will get into who I think should make the roster at a later date, for now I will focus on what was learned at the Toulon Tournament.
The overall level of play from the Americans was quite low. The players managed to show flashes of brilliance (such as Samma Ochoa’s goal against Turkey), but overall the team lacked discipline, cohesion, and intelligence needed to play at the international level. I won’t write this team off completely, though. Kamani Hill, currently playing in Germany, had a good showing, as did FC Dallas 18 year old Brek Shea, but I certainly do not think he is ready for the Olympics, but his play was promising. I think best overall was the play of Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Chris Seitz. With such strong depth at the goalkeeper position, often there will be talk about using an overage slot for a keeper such as Tim Howard or Brad Guzan. I’ve been a fan of Seitz for some time now, and after this Toulon tournament, I have to say he deserves the chance to be the number 1 keeper for the U.S at the Olympics. I feel at this point the U.S. would be better served using the overage slots entirely on field players.
In recap, the U.S. lost their three matches (3-2 vs Turkey, 2-0 vs Ivory Coast, 2-0 vs Italy). The play wasn’t that great, but a lot of the youngsters showed flashes of brilliance, I’d only expect maybe one or two of the field players that participated will find themselves on the roster come Olympic time, and even that may be stretching it. Regardless, a good tourney for the U.S. to be playing in.
Did anyone see any games? Comments?
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