After more than nine months shrouded in pandemic fog, the United States men’s national team will play only its second game of 2020 in a friendly against Wales on Thursday. It will be the first time in very nearly a year that manager Gregg Berhalter has his European-based players at his disposal.
The pool of players he got to pick from for both the match in Swansea and another against Panama in Austria next Monday changed unrecognizably in that time. Quite suddenly — or so it might feel to anyone not paying attention to every last American prospect about to poke his head above the surface at a European club — Berhalter’s choices have ballooned from a handful of prodigies and some solid veterans to a wealth of young talent.