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Which forwards will Jürgen Klinsmann take to Copa Centenario?

By on May 14, 2016

In naming his provisional forty-man roster for the Copa Centenario on US soil in June, Jürgen Klinsmann laid the groundwork for a promising American squad. Now with just six days until the final roster deadline on May 20th, he faces a variety of selection decisions as he looks to winnow down the squad to twenty-three players.

Up front, Klinsmann named eight players to his provisional roster: Jozy Altidore (Toronto FC), Clint Dempsey (Seattle Sounders FC), Ethan Finlay (Columbus Crew), Jordan Morris (Seattle Sounders FC), Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund),Chris Wondolowski (San Jose Earthquakes), Bobby Wood (Union Berlin), and Gyasi Zardes (LA Galaxy).

Assuming Klinsmann chooses four forwards for his final roster, as is the norm, he has some tough cuts to make. In this process, the manager has not been one to shy away from bold decisions, infamously cutting Landon Donovan from the United States’ World Cup 2014 squad.

Klinsmann will keep in mind the need for results today while leaving one eye on the even more pressing need to build momentum and develop a clear plan for the 2018 World Cup.

Jordan Morris is rare in the respect that both objectives could potentially be satisfied simultaneously, as despite his youth, Morris also offers the potential for near-term contributions to the side. Klinsmann was willing to place a lot of trust in the Stanford graduate early in Morris’ fledgling career, and the twenty-one-year-old has been able to build upon his early promise with four goals in his first nine games for the Seattle Sounders.

Borussia Dortmund youngster Christian Pulisic has also burst onto the scene after becoming the youngest non-German goalscorer in the Bundesliga, but is a riskier bet at the age of just seventeen.

And given the added risk that a poor Copa – following recent failures such as Olympic qualifying and last year’s Concacaf Gold Cup to name two – could mean Klinsmann never even sees 2018 under the US banner, reliable veterans such as Seattle’s Clint Dempsey (an obvious first choice selection) and San Jose’s Chris Wondolowski look to be pragmatic selections that supplement the next generation of World Cup-bound talent.

Wondolowski was absent from the January training camp and although he hasn’t appeared for the national team since July of last year, he has been scoring goals at a most impressive rate for the San Jose Earthquakes, even by his standards. That said, he is already thirty-three and is basically out of the picture for the 2018 World Cup.

In his last three major tournament rosters, Klinsmann has tried to paint an even balance, selecting the exact same number of players under twenty-five as over thirty across the three tournaments. Only once, though, has he selected a teenager: Julian Green in the 2014 World Cup. Certainly not a player as young as Pulisic, who will still only be nineteen during the 2018 World Cup, and if not for his exceptional talent, the Borussia Dortmund youngster wouldn’t even be in the picture.

And there’s the prime 22-28 age bracket, where Klinsmann will have to make the toughest cuts. He will have to choose from among Zardes, who has emerged with the national team in the post-World Cup cycle; Bobby Wood of FC Union Berlin in Germany’s second division, where he has scored seventeen goals in thirty games and is set for a move to Bundesliga side Hamburg; Ethan Finlay, who drove the Columbus Crew to the 2015 MLS Cup final with eleven assists and thirteen goals in a creative attacking midfield role; and US stalwart Jozy Altidore, who is surprisingly still just twenty-six but has already won ninety-four caps for the US.

Wood, who came out of nowhere to make a late push for a roster position in the last year-and-a-half, seems the smarter choice for Klinsmann. He has more national team experience than Finlay and Pulisic, and playing in Europe perhaps gives the twenty-three-year-old an edge over Zardes.

Altidore would be the natural fit to take the final forward spot, but given a recent hamstring injury, Zardes is looking more likely to nip into the final roster by the day.

All in all, our final prediction blends youth and experience: Clint Dempsey, Jordan Morris, Bobby Wood and Gyasi Zardes.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.