Thursday, March 19, 2015

De Jong and Espinoza Called Up

Sporting Kansas City's first trip to Yankee Stadium will be with a bit of an undermanned roster. Today Canada and Honduras named their rosters for the upcoming FIFA International window and Kansas City had players from both countries named to the rosters.
Canada has called up KC left back, Marcel de Jong for their friendlies on March 27th against Guatemala and March 30th against Puerto Rico. The game against Guatemala will take place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, while the Puerto Rico game will be played in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. De Jong would become the first Kansas City player to represent Canada while a member of Sporting KC and the third overall (Alex Bunbury and Pat Harrington the other two).
Honduras called up Roger Espinoza for their Gold Cup playoff against French Guiana. After finishing fifth in this past year's Copa Centroamericana, this is used as Central America's qualifying for the Gold Cup. Having finished fifth, Honduras has to play a home and away qualifier against French Guiana, who finished fifth in this past year's Caribbean Cup. The two sides will meet in French Guiana on March 25th with the return leg four days later in Honduras. The winner will advance to the Gold Cup where they will join the US, Panama, and Haiti in Group A. It's Espinoza's first call up to the national team since the World Cup last summer where he played in all three games for Honduras.
Both will miss Kansas City's game on March 28th in New York against NYCFC. There's also the potential for another few players to be called up and miss the game as well because both Haiti (Soni Mustivar) and the US (Matt Besler and less likely Graham Zusi) also have friendlies during the upcoming window.

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