U-20 coach Tab Ramos has released a 22-man roster for the Toulon Tournament in Toulon, France, which will serve as the final tune-up before the U-20 World Cup begins in Turkey on June 21. It’s the usual mix of MLS, Mexico (Jeffrey Payeras from CSD Municipal in Guatemala thrown in), and a few Europe-based players.

People who know more than me predict “subtle changes” for the World Cup roster. Thirteen players from the CONCACAF qualifying squad are on this Toulon tournament squad; notable names not there (for various potential reasons) include John Anthony Brooks, Jose Villarrael, and Luis Gil.

GOALKEEPERS (2): Cody Cropper (Southampton FC; Maple Grove, Minn.), Kendall McIntosh (Santa Clara; Santa Rosa, Calif.)

DEFENDERS (7): Eric Miller (Creighton; Woodbury, Minn.), Juan Pablo Ocegueda (C.D. Guadalajara; Riverside, Calif.), Shane O’Neill (Colorado Rapids; Boulder, Colo.), Jeffrey Payeras (C.S.D. Municipal; Hawthorne, Calif.), Caleb Stanko (SC Freiburg; Holly, Mich.), Oscar Sorto (LA Galaxy; Los Angeles, Calif.), Javan Torre (UCLA; Santa Monica, Calif.)

MIDFIELDERS (7): Kellyn Acosta (FC Dallas; Plano, Texas), Marlon Hairston (Louisville; Jackson, Miss.), Benji Joya (Santos Laguna; San Jose, Calif.), Mikey Lopez (Sporting Kansas City; Mission, Texas), Collin Martin (Wake Forest; Chevy Chase, Md.), Dillon Serna (Colorado Rapids; Brighton, Colo.), Wil Trapp (Columbus Crew; Gahanna, Ohio)

FORWARDS (6): Daniel Cuevas (Santos Laguna; Sacramento, Calif.), Daniel Garcia (North Carolina; Dallas, Texas), Alonso Hernandez (C.F. Monterrey; El Paso, Texas), Alfred Koroma (Akron; Southlake, Texas), Jordan Morris (Seattle Sounders Academy; Mercer Island, Wash.), Victor Pineda (Chicago Fire; Bolingbrook, Ill.)

So the US US-20 team started its quest to qualify for the U-20 World Cup with a 2-1 win over Haiti yesterday.  You can check out the goals right here.  Tom Marshall got some quotes from Tab Ramos after the game.

As for my own little observations on the game.  Daniel Cuevas was by far the best US player on the field, while no one else really stood out.  The back line was pretty shaky and it seemed odd that Caleb Stanko, a defensive midfielder, started at centerback, while two centerbacks started at the two fullback spots while Eric Miller (right back) and Pablo Ocegueda (left back) also sat on the bench.  Who knows.

These are sort of a day late, but here are two previews/looks at the U-20 team by Brian Sciaretta and Josh Deaver.  Southampton’s website also has a story up on goalkeeper Cody Cropper.  I thought Cropper has the “yelling at the back line while clapping your hands” thing that Tim Howard does down after watching him last night.

As for some news on some former U-20 players.  Joe Gyau did not make St. Pauli’s gameday roster on Monday and Steven Goff is reporting that Gyau sat out due to soreness in his knee, but he should be back next week.

Sebastian Lletget has agreed to a new deal with West Ham.  And West Ham’s website has a story up on Lletget.

We were told over the weekend that Landon Donovan would be returning to training with the Galaxy in late March and now Bruce Arena is telling people that he expects Donovan to be ready for game action by late April.  Once again, he is likely out for the USMNT qualifiers in March.

If you read this site, you know that we have been pretty on top of the centennial jersey rumors for a while.  That said, here are some more photos of the jersey and other centennial-based gear which should be on sale soon.

We haven’t heard Zak Whitbread’s name in a while as he has missed Leicester City’s last nine games with a calf injury, but it looks like he is finally returning and could be available for their next game.

The US looks to qualify for the U-20 World Cup for the first time since 2009 (and end a two-tournament elimination streak for all youth events) in Puebla, Mexico, February 18-March 3.

The US roster features its usual mix of full professionals, college players, and youth players:

GOALKEEPERS (3): Cody Cropper (Southampton FC; Maple Grove, Minn.), Kendall McIntosh (Santa Clara; Santa Rosa, Calif.), Zackary Steffen (FC DELCO Academy; Downington, Pa.)

DEFENDERS (5): Eric Miller (Creighton; Woodbury, Minn.), Juan Pablo Ocegueda (C.D. Guadalajara; Riverside, Calif.), Boyd Okwuonu (North Carolina; Edmund, Okla.), Shane O’Neill (Colorado Rapids; Boulder, Colo.), Javan Torre (UCLA; Santa Monica, Calif.)

MIDFIELDERS (5): Luis Gil (Real Salt Lake; Garden Grove, Calif.), Benji Joya (Santos Laguna; San Jose, Calif.), Mikey Lopez (Sporting Kansas City; Mission, Texas), Caleb Stanko (SC Freiburg; Holly, Mich.), Wil Trapp (Columbus Crew; Gahanna, Ohio)

FORWARDS (5): Brandon Allen (Georgetown; Old Bridge, N.J.), Daniel Cuevas (Santos Laguna; Sacramento, Calif.), Daniel Garcia (North Carolina; Dallas, Texas), Mario Rodriguez (1. FC Kaiserslautern; North Hollywood, Calif.) Jose Villarreal (LA Galaxy; Inglewood, Calif.)

It is interesting to see Juan Ocegueda in the squad. He has publicly stated his committment to the US program, but he is on the books for Guadalajara right now.

I posted this in a links post the other day, but I thought it was good enough for its own post (for a Friday!).

Marc Pelosi (#7) and Liverpool’s U-21s played Cody Cropper and Southampton’s U-21s on Monday and here is 10 minutes worth of highlights of Liverpool’s 1-0 win.

This whole Manti Te’o story has been sadly owning my life today.

In case you missed it earlier today, Sacha Kljestan and Anderlecht advanced to the semifinals of the Belgian Cup.  and Michael Bradley had a “hockey” assist in Roma’s win in Coppa Italia action.  Such great weight on that pass by Bradley.

Speaking of Kljestan, even the local press are joining in on the mustache fun.

The Shin Guardian breaks out their 23 tickets/boarding passes for the USMNT and the 2014 World Cup.

Mathew Wagner caught up with Michael Parkhurst to talk about his new club Augsburg.

Steve Cherundolo will miss this weekend’s game for Hannover 96 with some knee pain.

FA Cup highlights are hard to come by, but here is short post-game interview with Sturart Holden from yesterday.

He did not get into today’s FA Cup loss to Manchester United, but Sebastian Lletget did make the bench for West Ham United.  Getting closer to that first team debut.

Zach Pfeffer has continued his hot streak with Hoffenheim’s U-19 team, scoring four goals today.  And fellow American Russell Canouse had one goals and three assists.

Marc Pelosi and Liverpool’s U-21 team played Cody Cropper and Southampton recently.  Here is 10 minutes worth of highlights.

Bobby Wood came off the bench for 30 minutes in 1860 Munich’s 1-0 win over Dinamo Zagreb in a friendly.

Free agent Diego Chavarri decided to stay in Peru and signed with Union Comercio.

According to this report, Clarence Goodson is hesitate about signing with Turkish side Ordurspor.

Speaking of Turkey, Maurice Edu is being linked to a move to Bursaspor.  Some more on this.  Yay silly season!

While we see players like Edu stuck in no man’s land or the Robbie’s (Findley and Rogers) leaving their clubs, Steve Davis decides to point out the not as cool part of Americans fleeing to Europe to play.

Former NY Red Bull Sacir Hot has signed with Hessen Kassel of the German Regionalliga.

Justin Moose has re-signed with Finnish side SJK.  Moose appeared in 23 games last season, scoring one goal.

Here is video of Bryan Meredith being officially introduced at IK Brage.

And finally, I hope this is not true, but it looks like News Corp. might change Fox Soccer in the future to FX2 (or some entertainment-based network) since the station has lost so many league rights over the last couple years.  Once next year hits and they lose the Premier League, it won’t have much content on the weekends.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas with their friends and family.  I am slowly waking up from a food/beer coma from the last couple of days.

Now for some links.

Andre Villas-Boas is a fan of Clint Dempsey.

We told you about Bryan Meredith signing with IK Brage last week, but here are some more quotes from Meredith about the move.

The US U-20 team finished up camp last week with a 4-0 win over Venezuela.  There have been a bunch of stories/interviews coming out from the camp, including stuff from Tab Ramos, Benji Joya, Cody Cropper, Marc Pelosi, Caleb Stanko and Brandon Allen.

As for another player part of the U-20 group who was not at the camp, Anthony Brooks did an interview with Hertha Berlin’s website.

Jozy Altidore spoke to Dave Martinez over at Ives.  Jozy also made one Dutch paper’s team of the midseason.

Speaking of midseason-type rankings, Aron Johannsson was ranked the sixth best player in Denmark so far in 2012-13.

In the caring is creepy part of the links, here is a Spanish report on Barcelona youth product Ben Lederman.

This is from last week, but Seattle is apparently in the mix for a possible game during the Hex.

ESPN Insider gives us their hot list among American players.

And finally, here is a video of Tim Ream and Stuart Holden having some Christmas fun.

Ahead of a week long camp in Florida that will include a closed-doors intrasquad scrimmage and a closed-doors match against Venezuela, Tab Ramos has called in 24 players, a mix of MLS, college, Mexico-based, and Europe-based players.

It doesn’t sound like any sort of viewing will be available, but what players are you interested to follow?

GOALKEEPERS (3): Cody Cropper (Southampton FC; Maple Grove, Minn.), Tomas Gomez (Georgetown; Webster Groves, Mo.), Kendall McIntosh (Santa Clara; Santa Rosa, Calif.)

DEFENDERS (6): Dakota Edwards (Maryland; Sayville, N.Y.), Juan Pablo Ocegueda (Unattached; Riverside, Calif.), Boyd Okwuonu (North Carolina; Edmund, Okla.), Shane O’Neill (Colorado Rapids; Boulder, Colo.), Oscar Sorto (LA Galaxy; Los Angeles, Calif.), Javan Torre (UCLA; Santa Monica, Calif.)

MIDFIELDERS (8): Luis Gil (Real Salt Lake; Garden Grove, Calif.), Benji Joya (Santos Laguna; San Jose, Calif.), Mikey Lopez (North Carolina; Mission, Texas), Collin Martin (Wake Forest; Chevy Chase, Md.), Daniel Metzger (Maryland; Holmdel, N.J.), Marc Pelosi (Liverpool FC; Sunnyvale, Calif.), Caleb Stanko (SC Freiburg; Holly, Mich.), Wil Trapp (Columbus Crew; Gahanna, Ohio)

FORWARDS (7): Brandon Allen (Georgetown; Old Bridge, N.J.), Daniel Cuevas (Santos Laguna; Sacramento, Calif.), Daniel Garcia (North Carolina; Dallas, Texas), Darius Madison (Virginia; Philadelphia, Pa.), Jack McBean (LA Galaxy; Newport Beach, Calif.), Mario Rodriguez (1. FC Kaiserslautern; North Hollywood, Calif.), Jose Villarreal (LA Galaxy; Inglewood, Calif.)

First off, thanks to Badwolfdc for posting crazy amounts of updates in the weekend commentary thread.  I think I am going to continue to set those up each weekend for the time being until things die down for me.  Also, thanks to Howie for picking up the slack in the highlights department.

Looks like this interview came out on Friday, but Clint Dempsey sat down with ESPNFC for an interesting 20 minutes.  He touched on his time with Fulham, moving to Tottenham and road qualifiers in CONCACAF among other things.

Southampton decided to sign a new goalkeeper to add to their depth since Cody Cropper picked up an injury.

Carlos Bocanegra made his Racing Santander debut this weekend, going 90 minutes in their 1-0 win over Mirandés.  Robbie Findley got the start and played 50 minutes in his Gillingham debut, a 2-0 win over Port Vale.  And Villyan Bijev made his IK Start debut this weekend, coming off the bench in a 2-1 victory over Hødd.

Finally had some time tonight to catch up with some links from the past couple of days.

Howie posted about Marcus Hahnemann returning to the US last week, but here is a story from the Seattle Times with some quotes from Hahnemann.

Brian Sciaretta introduces us to Aron Johannsson over at the NY Times blog.  Johannsson is a 21-year-old Icelandic-American who currently plays for AGF Aarhus in the Danish Superliga (and leads the Superliga with nine goals).

Speaking of leading leagues in goals.  With his hat trick over the weekend, Jozy Altidore has now scored seven of AZ’s 10 goals in league play and leads the Eredivisie in goals so far this year.

I have slowly become a bigger and bigger fan of the Men in Blazers podcast over the last couple months and they had Geoff Cameron on this week for an interview.  Go listen to it just so you can hear “quarterback style” and giggle like a little girl like myself.

Yanks Abroad has a couple interviews up.  One with Cody Cropper and one with Max Morice.

Terrence Boyd decided to get a bald eagle tattoo.

It appears that Nottingham Forest are trying to send Robbie Findley out on loan.

Marc Pelosi started for Liverpool’s youth team in their 3-2 loss to Inter Milan in the NextGen Series yesterday.

Greg Seltzer gives us his top five American players based in Europe under the age of 24.

Robbie Rogers has missed the last couple games for Stevenage with a strained hamstring.

I have heard from a few of you about helping out with the site.  I am going to get back to you guys over the next day or two.  I am also thinking of starting a “weekend commentary” type thread each week so you guys can comment away while watching the games, healthy discussions of course, while also linking highlights and other news.  A good idea?

If you are a regular reader of the site, you are probably aware that Cody Cropper has been training with Southampton over the last couple weeks.  If you are not a regular reader of the site, Cody Cropper was training with Southampton over the last couple weeks.

That said, he officially signed a two-year deal today.

Cropper should get some playing time with their U-21 team and battle for one of the back-up spots with the first team.