The United States National Team holds an annual camp, accompanied by a friendly, each January at the national training center (aka the Home Depot Center) in Carson, California. Called various disparaging names and viewed almost as a "tryout" camp, the players invited are rarely the type to excite most fans.


If that's the case, then what's the point? Jamie Trecker doesn't seem to think there is one, and wonders why US Soccer is writing checks for an exercise that simply won't unearth any new gems.


To be honest, I hadn't thought of it in those terms. The January camp just is and going beyond a basic evaluation of the names called up never occurred to me. But Jamie's point is well taken, especially with 2010 being a World Cup year; only a handful of names on Bradley's camper list have any chance of making the team for South Africa.


I'm not sure any reasonably-knowledgeable fan views the camp as preparation for the World Cup in any meaningful sense; as Trecker says, that process won't begin until the full team is together for their March friendly with the Netherlands. I've not really seen any indication from US Soccer that this camp is being portrayed as somehow important to the World Cup effort, but maybe I'm missing something. It would obviously be disingenuous of them to do so.


But I'll play devil's advocate and argue that the camp does serve a purpose. It's about the future, the endemic lack of depth, and is in fact an indirect commentary the condition of American player development.


Thanks to the convoluted, generally broken, and completely inefficient infrastructure the United States has for bringing along young players, the path to national team contributor is rarely a straight line. Too many players meander through the system, get passed over for the youth internationals, or are never found in the first place. For every Landon Donovan or Jozy Altidore, there are players like Alejandro Bedoya and Marcus Tracy, who while not exactly unknowns, are a much slower track to a National Team runout.


The United States regularly produces players that do not become professionals until their early twenties. While their contemporaries around the world have been living and breathing the game as pros for several years, American "kids" are only beginning to make their names in places like the US, Sweden, and Denmark when they emerge from US college soccer. This means that evaluating them as potential National Team contributors is almost impossible until they're in their early twenties. Even then, many are either not ready, needing more time as pros to improve their game, or never will be ready because they're simply not good enough.


Taking a quick and dirty look, here are some of the guys that fits that first-look, early-twenties mold:


Kevin Alston - 21
Omar Gonzalez - 21
Brandon McDonald - 23
Alejandro Bedoya - 22
Geoff Cameron - 24
Brad Evans - 24
Chris Pontius - 22
Justin Braun - 22
Robbie Findley - 22
Marcus Tracy - 22


Trecker's probably right. There probably aren't any diamonds to be mined out of this group. But I'd rather have Bradley taking a look at them in person than to assume as much, and I don't see a problem with throwing a handful of players up against the wall and looking to see if anything sticks. The lack of depth in the program overall almost makes it critical that the head coach do so.


Unfortunately, until American kids are coming through club youth academies, getting enough playing and practice time to develop earlier, camps like this one are a necessary evil for US Soccer.