The United States Men’s National Team will return to the pitch for the first time since their round of 16 elimination in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar on Wednesday, January 25th. They will take on Serbia in a friendly that can only be seen on HBO max and it kicks off at 10 PM eastern time.

The late January camp has now become a yearly tradition for the federation and fans have nicknamed it “camp cupcake”. It got its name because traditionally the players that are called are all from the American domestic league, Major League Soccer, because the top five and most of the other European leagues are all in midseason at this time of the year. 

This year‘s camper once again, feature a ton of Major League Soccer players, and a few European castaways that aren’t getting regular playing time with their clubs or feature for the youth clubs within the program. 

They will play a pair of friendlies during this window in the run up to the 2023 CONCACAF Nations League and the 2023 CONCACAF gold cup as well as the U 23 World Cup later this summer.

However, most of the attention hasn’t been focused towards this camp, or this pair of games. The majority of it has been focused on the ongoing Gregg Berhalter investigation, and the Giovanni Reyna drama surrounding it. 

While that has already been beaten to death in the media so I don’t want to cover a ton in this article. It is safe to say that the United States will need to have a pair of solid performances if they want to quickly shift the narrative heading into the 2023-2026 cycle. 

Anthony Hudson will be the acting manager for these two friendly games that will serve as the final test before they jump back into competitive play with nations league in March. 

He will have the tough task of guiding the USMNT to a pair of victories, with what is arguably by far not the strongest roster. It will also be interesting to see the direction that the Federation goes in following these two games as it is unlikely that they hire a new head coach between now and the restart of the nations league.

A ton of new kids will be making their USMNT debuts, but for me, the focus will be on Chelsea youth goalkeeper Gabriel Slonina, Philadelphia Union’s Paxton Aaronson, FC Cincinnati striker Brandon Vazquez, Jonathan Gomez, and Columbus Crew midfielder Aiden Morris. 

These four players are expected to be heavily involved in the future of the USMNT. Gomez more importantly, is still in a recruiting war between the United States and Mexico so his inclusion is that much more important in my opinion. 

They are currently ranked 13th in the FIFA world rankings in their latest post World Cup update. The two teams they will be taking on during this window, Serbia and Columbia, are currently ranked lower than them in the rankings and Serbia comes into this window ranked 29th and Columbia is ranked 17th at the moment. So the USA should be fairly competitive in these games.