Shut out of Olympics again: SKC’s Vermes has some thoughts about latest U-23 stumble
Sporting Kansas City coach Peter Vermes had a few things to say following the United States U-23 national team’s failure to qualify for the Olympics for the third successive time.
The U.S. fell to Honduras 2-1 Sunday to signal the end of the team’s 2021 Olympic qualifying hopes.
It’s not so much that the U.S. is losing to teams like Honduras that leaves a sour taste in the mouths of U.S. soccer fans. It’s that America doesn’t seem to be fielding the strongest possible team for Olympic qualifying.
“I would say that I share in the sentiment that I’m very disappointed,” Vermes said. “I always take the approach that if you’re going to participate in something, then you should put every effort forward to then win in this vocation.”
Aside from the allotted three players over age of 23 that were allowed per team, every other player on the roster was 23 or younger. And although many of America’s most promising young players are flocking to Europe, and European clubs are typically not eager to let their players leave for international duty, plenty of talent should remain available to the U.S.
But many of those highly talented American youth players simply weren’t fielded by the U.S. U-23 squad.
Portland’s Jeremy Ebobisse was excluded because of a supposedly poor performance at camp in January. Colorado’s Cole Bassett had put up Major League Soccer stats that surpassed any of the midfield options called up by U-23 coach Jason Kreiss, but he wasn’t included, either.
Sporting KC’s Gianluca Busio wasn’t contacted about playing. And numerous others who played for the U.S. senior team against Northern Ireland Sunday night — Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna, Yunus Musah and Brenden Aaronson, to name just a few who were eligible — weren’t rostered.
“I think we have some tremendous talents right now. We have some incredible players,” Vermes said. “But I think we should have done everything we could to have all the players that are eligible to play in the Olympics. We should have done everything we could to work with their clubs to give them the opportunity to find success.”
“And if we lose from there, then we have to ask other questions,” Vermes continued. “And it’s no disrespect to the players that were on the team. It’s just that there’s a lot of players out there that I see could participate in that.”
Vermes sees the opportunity to compete in Olympic qualifying and Olympic matches as perfect preparation for upcoming World Cups.
He was on the U.S. Men’s National Team that qualified for the 1990 World Cup, breaking a 40-year U.S. World Cup drought. And he was part of the squad that qualified for and competed in the 1988 Olympics alongside current SKC director of player personnel Brian Bliss.
“As a player, I came through the system, and having played in the Olympics and gone through that qualification process,” Vermes said, “having to go to Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, all these different places, El Salvador, it really helped when the next go around I had to get ready and try to qualify for the first time in 40 years for the World Cup in 1990.
“Having that experience beforehand was tremendously valuable. I think you should put everything you have forward to try to do that. I think the experience of the Olympics is a tremendous experience for the next generation of players that are coming through.
“Qualifying is very tough, and to not share in that experience makes it more difficult when you ask those same players who haven’t really participated in that kind of qualification round, and against those teams that you’re going to play, you then ask them to do that at the World Cup level, they’re already lacking in experience.”
This story was originally published March 30, 2021 at 10:45 AM with the headline "Shut out of Olympics again: SKC’s Vermes has some thoughts about latest U-23 stumble."