Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Besler Called Up for January US Camp

Jurgen Klinsmann today announced the US roster for this year's January camp in Carson, California that will finish with games against Iceland on January 31st and Canada on February 5th. Sporting KC will once again be represented at the camp as the club's captain; Matt Besler was selected for the list. Besler is the lone Sporting KC representative as reports yesterday that Graham Zusi and Benny Feilhaber were not called in were correct. With the call up, Besler will miss the beginning of preseason with Sporting Kansas City, not joining up with the team until after they return from their first leg in Tucson on February 8th most likely.
Besler is easily the most experienced defender on the roster at the international level, his 29 caps leads the way among defenders, with only one other player, Matt Miazga (1 cap), having a senior national team appearance. In fact, it's a very young roster top to bottom as Besler is the fifth most capped player on the whole roster behind Michael Bradley (109), Jozy Altidore (89), Jermaine Jones (56), and Mix Diskerud (36).
As a whole the roster is made up of players that are eligible for the US U23 team. They have a home and home qualifier against Colombia coming up for the final spot in the 2016 Olympics in Rio. So Klinsmann will use this camp to get a look at a number of those players ahead of the playoff.

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