World Cup Qualifiers Preview: USMNT vs El Salvador, Canada, Honduras
By Ioua Lagazo
What to Watch For
Will the players be fit and in form?
More than a handful of players on the roster have not played a competitive game since the December friendly against Bosnia & Herzegovina, and some even longer. For example, while Gabriel Slonina was included in the December camp, he hasn’t played a competitive match since November 7th of last year.
He probably won’t play at all this time around too, given Zack Steffen and Matt Turner are above him in the pecking order. However, if he were to be called in due to some emergency, there are questions as to whether he would be in form enough to keep the goal safe.
The same question could be had for some of the other players from MLS as well. Matt Turner, Brooks Lennon, Miles Robinson, Walker Zimmerman, Kellyn Acosta, Sebastian Lletget, Cristian Roldan, and Jesús Ferreira all played their last matches against Bosnia & Herzegovina. Sean Johnson’s last competitive match was the final of the MLS Cup on December 11th. That’s more than a month or so of no game time.
Gregg really brought 13 MLS players on a 28-man roster when our best players are in Europe *and* MLS is 2 months out of season.
— Justin Moran (@kickswish) January 21, 2022
Then, when you take a look at the players abroad, Timothy Weah stands out. Weah suffered a thigh injury back in early December that sidelined him for the rest of the month, and only appeared back in training camp last week, and played in the last couple of games for his club Lille this last week.
The question of fit and form is prevalent throughout this roster, but Berhalter emphasized that fitness and form is not an issue in camp. I guess we’ll have to believe him and see what happens.