With World Cup vets Landon Donovan and Maurice Edu being left off US head coach Jurgen Klinsmann’s 23-man roster for the 2014 competition, it may look to you like his team will be lacking in experience.
You'd be right – only five players on the US men’s national team will go to Brazil having already appeared in a World Cup game. While this seems like a low number, these players' experience is not that vastly different from that of the squad Bob Bradley took to South Africa in 2010.
In that World Cup only six players on the US squad had appeared in a World Cup game before, and the 2014 team actually has more World Cup minutes in its ranks than the 2010 edition. Check out the table below:
<strong>YEAR</strong> |
<strong>PLAYERS WITH WC EXPERIENCE</strong> |
<strong>APPEARANCES</strong> |
<strong>MINUTES</strong> |
1998 |
8 |
40 |
2,761 |
2002 |
11 |
39 |
3,105 |
2006 |
10 |
46 |
3,790 |
2010 |
6 |
24 |
1,930 |
2014 |
5 |
25 |
2,114 |
