US U-23, For 2012 Olympic qualifying

US Soccer have named University of Akron's coach Caleb Porter as the U-23 coach with Tab Ramos named the head of the next U-20 team.

Porter has had a lot of success at the college level and in developing pro players but now he has to coach professionals for the first time. The past few U-20 teams which feed into the U-23s for 2012 have not been very successful so Porter may have to look elsewhere to build his team. His big advantage will be Olympic qualifying will take place in the US. The last two Olympic cycles where that has happened, 2000 and 2008, the US qualified.

Apparently Porter will just be a part time coach and will continue to coach U. of Akron.

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=ap-us-porter

So tell me when will he have time to scout players?

Porter of course will still be with his day job, coaching in Akron.

College soccer has a long offseason which will give Porter plenty of time to evaluate players. He has been a much talked about coach, will be interesting to see what he can do with the U23 team. If he does well there I could see Porter moving up and becoming an assistant to Klinsmann, maybe he could become Klinsi's Joachim Low?

Hosting the qualifiers will be a big advantage for the US. But naming a coach so late means a U23 team won't have much time to work together before Olympic qualifying starts. My understanding is other countries in the region have already got their U23 teams together, the Central Americans are going through qualifying while Mexico's U23 team played in the Copa America. So Porter has some work to do and not all that much time to get a team together.

The first training camp under Caleb Porter [EDIT: Porter being tied up with his Akron duties, the camp will be run by Claudio Reyna] is to be held in Duisberg, Germany, from Nov. 7-16 and he has called in 31 [!] players:

ROSTER

GOALKEEPERS (4): David Bingham (San Jose Earthquakes; Pleasanton, Calif.), Cody Cropper (Ipswich Town; Athens, Ga.), Sean Johnson (Chicago Fire, Lilburn, Ga.), Jon Kempin (Sporting KC; Leawood, Kan.)

DEFENDERS (9): Gale Agbossoumonde (Eintracht Frankfurt; Syracuse, N.Y.), Anthony Brooks (Hertha Berlin; Berlin), Sean Cunningham (Molde; Troy, Mich.), Royal-Dominique Fennell (Stuttgarter Kickers; Göppingen, Germany), Greg Garza (out of contract; Grapevine, Texas), Perry Kitchen (D.C. United; Indianapolis), Will Packwood (Birmingham City; Concord, Mass.), Zarek Valentin (Chivas USA; Lancaster, Pa.), Ethan White (D.C. United; Kensington, Md.)

MIDFIELDERS (9): Joe Corona (Club Tijuana; Chula Vista, Calif.), Mixx Diskerud (Stabæk; Oslo, Norway), Dilly Duka (Columbus Crew; Montville, N.J.), Jared Jeffrey (Mainz; Richardson, Texas), Sebastian Lletget (West Ham United; San Francisco), Tyrone McCargo (Nürnberg; Nürnberg, Germany), Charles Renken (Hoffenheim; Edwardsville, Ill.), Caleb Stanko (Freiburg: Holly, Mich.), Jose Villarreal (LA Galaxy; Inglewood, Calif.)

FORWARDS (9): Terrence Boyd (Borussia Dortmund, Dortmund), Conor Doyle (Derby County; McKinney, Texas), Josh Gatt (Molde; Plymouth, Mich.), Joe Gyau (Hoffenheim; Silver Springs, Md.), Jerome Kiesewetter (Hertha Berlin; Berlin), Omar Salgado (Vancouver Whitecaps; El Paso, Texas), Tony Taylor (Atlético Clube de Portugal; Jacksonville, Fla.), Bobby Wood (1860 Munich; Irvine, Calif.), Andrew Wooten (Kaiserslautern; Worms, Germany)

[NOTE: Possible additions, based on how their respective team's MLS playoffs go, include Freddy Adu, Teal Bunbury, Juan Agudelo, Michael Stephens, Danny Cruz, Luis Gil, Amobi Okugo and Sheannon Williams. In addition, with the camp is running concurrently with Jurgen Klinsmann’s full national team camp, national team regulars who are age-eligible for the U-23s such as Jozy Altidore, Brek Shea, Timothy Chandler, Bill Hamid and Danny Williams aren’t likely to join Porter’s group.]

A number of 'who?' names on that list, as you'd expect from a "youth" squad (though if one's moniker is Royal-Dominique Fennell you likely don't get the 'who?' question more than once)!:D

Also of note is the enormous German contingent, with 12 of the 31 plying their trade in Deutschland. Not sure if that can all be attributed to Herr Klinsmann, but Germany certainly seems to be coming a much bigger player in US soccer development.

Thanks for the info Roosevelt. Yes, there are a lot of guys I found asking myself, "Who?" And plenty of players with some german connection. Agudelo was not named today to the senior team's roster for the France & Slovakia matches so if New York, as expected, get eliminated tonight by Los Angeles then i can see him being included in this roster. Maybe what he needs to regain some confidence is to play for a change with some players at or around his own age.

Royal Dominique Fennel?

Royal-Dominique Fennell (Stuttgarter Kickers; Göppingen, Germany),

Goppingen, Germany, the home town of Jay Goppingen, er Jurgen Klinsmann!

I heard an interview with Joe Corona and he said he will report to the US U23 training camp. He had previously been called up by Mexico's U23 team for training but was not picked for their Pan American games team so he appears to be turning his attention to the US now. He spoke of the torn allegiances he has between the two countries, something to which many of us who were either born in the US to immigrant families or like myself came to the US from another country, can relate. But sooner or later Corona will have to select allegiance to a national team.

The US U23 team will have a December training camp somewhere in Florida and these are the players Caleb Porter invited:

PERS (4): David Bingham (San Jose Earthquakes), Bill Hamid (D.C. United), Sean Johnson (Chicago Fire), Zac MacMath (Philadelphia Union)

DEFENDERS (8): Gale Agbossoumonde (Eintracht Frankfurt), Royal-Dominique Fennell (Stuttgarter Kickers), Sebastien Ibeagha (Duke), Kofi Sarkodie (Houston Dynamo), Zarek Valentin (Montreal Impact), Jorge Villafana (Chivas USA), Andrew Wenger (Duke), Sheanon Williams (Philadelphia Union)

MIDFIELDERS (10): Freddy Adu (Philadelphia Union), Bryan Arguez (Montreal Impact), Joe Corona (Club Tijuana), Danny Cruz (Houston Dynamo), Mikkel Diskerud (Stabæk), Dilly Duka (Columbus Crew), Jared Jeffrey (Mainz), Sebastian Lletget (West Ham United), Amobi Okugo (Philadelphia Union), Michael Stephens (LA Galaxy)

FORWARDS (6): Will Bruin (Houston Dynamo), Teal Bunbury (Sporting KC), Jann George (Nürnberg), Joe Gyau (Hoffenheim), Jack McInerney (Philadelphia Union), Andrew Wooten (Kaiserslautern)

Freddy Adu makes it, plus plenty of other MLSers, some more German-Americans few if any of us have ever heard of before, and all the foreign based players must be players who play for their clubs reserve teams (except for those out of season in Scandinavia.) Two college players included, both defenders from Duke.

Several names there I do not recognize, of course there are a few of the German based players I am not familiar with, namely Wooten and George and then there is the greatly named Fennell, who we saw brought in to the team's previous training session. The college players also are unknown to me but there are a few of the MLS players I also have not heard of before, such as Jorge Villafana and david Bingham. But this gives Porter another chance to look at his pool of players and especially affords him the chance to look at some of the foreign based players who may be available for selection for qualifying because they are not integral to their club's first team plans. I can tell you right now there is no way, for instance Jozy Altidore will be released by AZ for Olympic qualifying. So it is smart for Porter to now be looking at othe roptions.

Apparently Jorge Villafana is Jorge Flores. Like Michael Orozco he decided to add his mother's last name to his own, except unlike the now Michael Orozco Fiscal he dropped his father's last name. Flores, err Villafana, if you recall was the winner of a reality show to try out with Chvas USA and he has more than stuck with the team. A great story.

Two additions to U23 training camp, they are Kelyn Rowe and Terrence Boyd, a pair of 20 year old forwards, Rowe who was on the US U20 team plays for UCLA, Boyd is with Borussia Dortmund's reserve team.

A couple of interviews with Caleb Porter which gives us an idea on his thinking leading into Olympic qualifying:

Porter With ESPN's Jeff Carlisle

Porter With Yanks Abroad, Part I and Part II

Fox Soccer's Ives Galarcep with a player by player rundown of those at the December U23 training camp.

He has high praise for Joe Gyau as a winger and forward Terrance Boyd. With defensive midfielders Amobi Okugo and Bryan Arguez, centerback Gale Agbossoumonde and midfielder Dilly Duka also receiving praise.

Thanks for that link, it is nice to read some observations from the training camp since many of these players are unknown to us, or we have only seen brief glimpses of them in the past.

From reading those interviews, Porter intends a high pressure game and it is worth noting that Mikkel Diskerud, who already played a few games with the senior national team under Bob Bradley, was reported by Galarcep to be having trouble adjusting to the high pressure style Porter prefers. Does not necessarily mean Diskerud is a poor player but he may not be ideally suited for Porter's style of play.