SANTA CLARA, Calif. – It’s not too late for DeAndre Yedlin to make the US Under-20 national team as it prepares for this summer’s FIFA U-20 World Cup. And the Seattle Sounders Homegrown defender is about to get his chance to make his case.
Yedlin told MLSsoccer.com on Saturday night that he has been notified by U.S. Soccer that he will be called up for head coach Tab Ramos' next US U-20 camp in April. The 19-year-old Seattle native was not part of the squad that successfully qualified for the World Cup in last month’s CONCACAF U-20 Championship, but his performances for Seattle in recent weeks appear to have done enough to get him another look.
“It’ll be a pretty exciting experience, but I haven’t made it yet,” Yedlin told MLSsoccer.com shortly after his Sounders lost to San Jose 1-0. “It’s just a camp. So obviously there’s a lot to do at the camp and hopefully, [I’ll] get picked for the World Cup team. I’m just going to go in and do my best.”
Yedlin’s performances have been up and down since signing with his hometown Sounders as the club’s first Homegrown player back in January, but he’s been a consistent member of Seattle’s lineup thus far in 2013 and has shown tremendous promise.
He has started all three of their league games at right back, and played in both legs of the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals against Tigres UANL – most memorably, drilling a dazzling 25-yard bomb in the Sounders’ comeback from a 2-0 aggregate deficit.
The former University of Akron player has been part of US U-18 and U-20 camps previously, most recently with Ramos’ squad in January of 2012 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
“I know a lot of them,” Yedlin said of the players who participated in the CONCACAF U-20 Championship. “I’m eager to get in there and hopefully help the team.”
The US will find out their fate in the U-20 World Cup on Monday, when FIFA conducts the draw for the tournament, which will be held in Turkey from June 21 to July 13.
