Veterans, familiar faces highlight Arena’s first USMNT roster since return

Arena, who replaced Jurgen Klinsmann late past year as coach, had 22 MLS players and one Liga MX player in his squad with European players still with their clubs.

The burly forward follows in the footsteps of USA centurions Marcelo Balboa, Paul Caligiuri, Cobi Jones, Eric Wynalda, Jeff Agoos, Joe-Max Moore, Claudio Reyna, Earnie Stewart, Tony Meola, Kasey Keller, Donovan, Carlos Bocanegra, DaMarcus Beasley, Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard and Toronto teammate Michael Bradley. Feilhaber has been excellent in Sporting blue for the last two seasons and is suddenly a candidate to fill a playmaking void for the U.S. Should he take the field on Sunday, it will be his first worldwide appearance since February 1, 2014. What’s more, the USA play again on Friday, giving Arena another chance to look at the players he has in camp and another chance for Nagbe to make his first-ever start for his country.

“It’s a special milestone”, he told The Canadian Press at the US training camp. Graham Zusi performed well in his first worldwide match as a right-back. More often than not, Fabian Johnson, when healthy, started at one of the outside back positions though he has played in midfield at Borussia Moenchengladbach in recent years. All but one of the 18 players who traveled plays in the lightly-regarded Serbian SuperLiga. “The entire pool of players has performed well and has made our roster decisions very hard”.

“I’ll be honest with you, if we won 5-0 today or lost 5-0, I’m not sure it would change our world for March”, he said. “We weren’t really that risky going forward, so that’s something we have to work on”.

Arena praised the play of Jorge Villafana, who debuted as a late sub at left back and could start on Friday against Jamaica.

“[Nagbe] was all over the place today”, said Arena.

Sebastian Lletget replaced club team-mate Jones for the second half, and the Californian made an instant impact as he tested Serbia.

A new formation is possible, too.

With many questions about how the team would line up, Bruce Arena made a decision to send his team out in a 4-2-3-1 formation.

Altidore said he would welcome such a move.

Still, it won’t be flawless. “But for this time of the year, I was encouraged by a number of performances by our team”. “Some of these guys are coming off two months where they didn’t do anything”.

After all, the idea is to be ready at the end of March. “It’s important that, between now and then, we maintain contact and communication and get a good feel for each other so we’re not starting from scratch on March 20th when they report to our camp”. Jones was looking for Nagbe on the back post and while the pass got cut out, that was a legitimate chance.