U-23 Coach to Sit Key Players

From Steven Goff:

With an Olympic berth secure, Coach Peter Nowak said some players from his under-23 squad will not play in Sunday's meaningless final against Honduras in order to prepare for the senior national team's friendly at Poland. Probably Freddy Adu, Jonathan Spector and Sal Zizzo, maybe Charlie Davies, but probably not Jozy Altidore, who has spent little time with the Red Bulls this preseason.

Nowak said he and senior coach Bob Bradley, who was in Nashville tonight, planned to finalize things as soon as possible and unveil the roster in the next few days.

Here is the interesting thing about Adu, Altidore, Spector, Zizzo and maybe players like Michael Bradley (whose club didn't release him for the Qualifying tournament) is that they are young enough to play for the U-20 and U-23 teams and also good enough to play for the senior national team.

The depth of the player pool at the younger ages bodes well for both the 2010 World Cup and beyond.