“One cycle ago, the number of professionals was probably increasing, but probably the number of players who were contributing for their first team was fairly low. “Two cycles ago, I think Caleb (Porter) was relying on a lot of players who weren’t even professionals yet,” Kreis added. This time around, Kreis said, he’ll have the advantage of a much stronger pool. The good thing is, right now, I think they’ve identified that the answer to that was probably ‘no.’ They’re wanting to put a lot more emphasis into this process in the coming months to make sure that the group is as prepared and ready for that qualification as possible.” Soccer’s point of view, whether they handled those situations the right way-whether they put enough emphasis on those teams. Soccer about this, and I don’t know that, from U.S. “I need to preface this by saying that this is from an outside-looking-in perspective,” Kreis said when asked about the past two unsuccessful U-23 teams. Kreis is hesitant to address the failures of previous teams, but insists he will have a well-prepared team for qualifying this time around. And the 2008 Olympic team helped prepare Maurice Edu, Benny Feilhaber, Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradley and Stuart Holden to be World Cup contributors in 2010.īut the U-23 team has struggled immensely over the past two cycles, in part because of what now appears to have been an unusually weak generation of players and in part because those teams were poorly run. The 2000 Olympics helped Josh Wolff and Landon Donovan become key players as the full national team made a run to the quarterfinals at the 2002 World Cup. In the past, the U-23 team has served as a magnificent springboard for young players to move into influential roles with the senior team. “He sees it as a very big piece for the development of the players.

“Earnie said it to me best when he said he feels that countries that have done well with their Olympic teams over the past eight to 12 years, a lot of their players have then turned around and become big players for the full national team,” Kreis said.

national team general manager Earnie Stewart during the interview process, they found that they share the view that sitting out those tournaments represented missed opportunities to help the country’s top young players transition from the U-20 national team to the senior squad. The consequences of this for the senior team aren’t always easy to see, but when Kreis met with U.S. U-23s have missed out on the Olympic Games in each of the last two cycles.

Jason Kreis at Holland Township School