U.S. Soccer on Thursday named Steve Cherundolo as the head coach for the U-23 Olympic team that will compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Games. The team will soon begin preparing for the Olympics during the coming international windows, and the task at hand is enormously important to the full national team.<\/p>\n
With the U.S. national team\u2019s exit from the 2026 World Cup, many of the team\u2019s most important players will be exiting their prime years during the coming World Cup cycle. Many of these players have been together since shortly after the team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Regardless of who the coach is, the upcoming cycle will require heavy turnover.<\/p>\n
The 2028 Olympic team will be essential in filling those openings on the full national team, as many of the top young American players will participate in a major FIFA youth competition.<\/p>\n
The U.S. is not alone in prioritizing this tournament, as the 2026 World Cup has shown how top countries have benefited from the Olympics.<\/p>\n
France\u2019s current World Cup team is boosted by seven players from its 2024 Olympic team. Spain\u2019s World Cup team has six players from its 2024 Olympic team (not including Ferm\u00edn L\u00f3pez, who would have made this World Cup team if not for injury). \u00a0Meanwhile, Morocco had six players who made the transition from the 2024 Olympics to the 2026 World Cup team (although Abde Ezzalzouli withdrew due to injury after being named to the World Cup team).<\/p>\n
(Photo by Alex Grimm – FIFA\/FIFA via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n U.S. Soccer understands this.<\/p>\n “There’s a lot of data that suggests that success in youth World Cups and in Olympic cycles on the men’s side creates accelerated player development and creates the conditions for success in subsequent World Cups,” U.S. Soccer COO Dan Helfrich said in May.<\/p>\n “You will see us strategically investing more attention and resources and focus on the youth national team games program, on elevating the men’s Olympic team to prepare us to be in the best competitive position,” he added. “I think those things will have a significant role in the competitive preparation for our future men’s World Cup and other major tournament performances.”<\/p>\n (Photo by Rich Lam\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n The Olympic team is a U-23 event, but teams are allowed three overage players. That is typically where teams find difference makers. The challenge for this team is that the full national team could be playing in the Copa Am\u00e9rica.<\/p>\n Ideally, this team needs an overage central defender (as is typical), a defensive midfielder, and an attacker.<\/p>\n It will ultimately come down to what the federation and individual players want to prioritize. It is unlikely a player will play in both tournaments.<\/p>\n (Photo by Alex Pantling – FIFA\/FIFA via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY U.S. Soccer on Thursday named Steve Cherundolo as the head coach for the U-23 Olympic team that will compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Games. The team will soon begin preparing for the Olympics during the coming international windows, and the task at hand is enormously important to the full national […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}