U.S. national team head coach Bruce Arena said this week that he plans on using European-based players to make up about half of his final squad for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, leaving approximately 11-13 of the remaining spots to be filled by players who call Major League Soccer their home.
Speaking at the 8th Honda Soccer Symposium in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Arena said he intends to hold the first national team camp of 2006 at The Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., home of the Los Angeles Galaxy and Chivas USA. The U.S. boss stated that 16-year-old D.C. United star Freddy Adu will be among the players invited to participate in the camp, which is set to get underway on Jan. 4.
"We are considering 12 to 14 players based in Europe for our 23-player World Cup squad," said Arena, who also coached the USA in 2002 when the team reached the quarterfinal round.
Though he did not go into detail about the players that are likely to make up the team, Arena did cite certain players to be virtual locks, provided they are healthy when the squad is named.
"We went through an important year in 2005 where neither Eddie Johnson (FC Dallas), John O'Brien (ADO Den Haag/Holland), Claudio Reyna (Manchester City/England) nor Cory Gibbs (Feyenoord/Holland) were around much due to injuries, and those are four players that you would think are clearly going to be on our roster for Germany," he said.
"We don't have too many players who are going to replace Kasey Keller (Borussia Mönchengladbach/Germany), too many guys that are going to replace Eddie Pope (Real Salt Lake), Claudio Reyna, etc. However, I have to keep an open mind. If I didn't have an open mind, DaMarcus Beasley (PSV Eindhoven/Holland) would not have been in our team in 2002 because DaMarcus was not part of qualifying for the 2002 World Cup, but we saw enough of him in the spring of 2002 to keep him in our roster for Korea."
Arena used 37 MLS players during 2005, though 20 of them have 10 caps or less, while 11 have made fewer than five appearances. However, the former D.C. United coach also said that he is always looking out for players who can make a difference.
Adu will be hoping to play the Beasley role this time around. The youngster has appeared for the U.S. at the youth levels, but has never before been called into a camp with the full national team.
"Can a young Freddy Adu help us?" said Arena. "He's 16. He's very young but he's very talented. We'll see. We'll look at him over the next six months."
The U.S. national team has two friendly matches currently scheduled in California for shortly after the New Year. The Red, White and Blue will host Canada on Jan. 22 at Torero Stadium in San Diego before facing Norway at The Home Depot Center on Jan. 29.
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Also announced Tuesday at the soccer symposium was the Honda Player of the Year, which was awarded to Keller. His play during 2005 was the key to the U.S. qualifying for the '06 World Cup.
The Galaxy's Landon Donovan finished second in voting, followed by former Chicago Fire midfielder Beasley.
Jonathan Nierman is a contributor to MLSnet.com. Luis Bueno contributed to this report. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
