The US Soccer Federation faces a busy 2015 ahead of it on the men's side with a CONCACAF Gold in the summer sandwiched by an Under-20 World Cup and an Under-17 World Cup.
But the "main task" for the US men's program in 2015 involves a team that is not even involved in official competition, at least according to US senior national team manager and US technical director Jurgen Klinsmann.
"The main task for 2015 definitely is the Olympic Team, the Under-23 team," he said in audio distributed by US Soccer. "To get that off the ground and identify players obviously and get camps on the agenda and get games on the agenda for that team. And help them to kind of build already a core group toward the qualifiers then."
It's an Under-23 team that will look to erase the embarrassment of a shocking group-stage elimination in 2012 CONCACAF Olympic qualifying. A stoppage-time goal by El Salvador in the final group match, denied the US a chance to advance to the 2012 London Olympics.
"We want to make sure what happened with London 2012 is not happening again any more. So we kind of put this on a higher priority level and I think that's exciting," continued Klinsmann.
"We will have about eight to 10 Olympic team players in the [senior USMNT] January camp just to come with the senior group and just to try to start building them already. And then obviously we have to work out an agenda for them, a calendar for 2015 that really gets them off to a good start."
Two players who should feature prominently on that Olympic team are 18-year-old Utrecht forward Rubio Rubin — he has two caps and is a "a very, very talented young player," according to Klinsmann — and 17-year-old Arsenal midfielder Gedion Zelalem.
"Obviously we are thrilled that Gedion Zelalem received an American passport," Klinsmann continued, "and is hopefully soon eligible for us."
