Saturday the 2024 United States men’s national team season will get underway with a friendly against Slovenia but familiar names like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, and Folarin Balogun will be missing. That’s due to this being a January camp that regularly takes place outside a standard FIFA international window, causing Gregg Berhalter to bring in a more domestic-based roster. With Copa America, the Olympic Games and the Concacaf Nations League semifinals on the horizon, this is a big opportunity for players to show what they can do in a pressure-filled environment to make those teams, with Berhalter and his staff, including U-23 coach Marko Mitrovic watching over this camp.
“For some of the younger players to feel the pressure and have to go out there and perform and get a victory, I think is an important psychological barrier that we need to overcome,” Berhalter said about the upcoming match. “But aside from that, we’ve been working on a number of things from a midblock defensive shape to some attacking rotations, and it’ll be nice to see how that plays out on the field tomorrow.”
Two players called in who won’t be featuring during the match on Saturday are Cade Cowell and Jackson Ragen. Cowell recently completed a transfer from the San Jose Earthquakes to Chivas de Guadalajara and has departed camp to get settled in Mexico while Ragen has aggravated a knee injury and returned to the Seattle Sounders for treatment. But for the 23 members of the squad who remain, here are a few things to watch for.
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