LA Galaxy defender Omar Gonzalez has been named to Jurgen Klinsmann's 23-man roster for the upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup. Gonzalez has been part of the starting center back pairing for the United States since the beginning of the Hexagonal round of Qualifying in 2013, but his roster spot was in some doubt leading up to this announcement.
Gonzalez appeared and started in eight of the ten matches that made up the final round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying. Gonzalez was also a part of last year's Gold Cup squad, collecting fourteen caps in 2013 to give him eighteen caps in his budding international career.
"It's an exciting moment when you have narrowed the roster down as a coaching staff, and these 23 players that you've chosen can focus now purely on Brazil," Klinsmann said. "We can go into more specific things about technical approaches, and about the opponents. For the players, it's very important to know that they are now part of it and they can relax and know they are on the list going to Brazil and taking it from there. After almost 10 days of work right now, we thought the point has come to make the decision."
The progression of Omar Gonzalez' international career was slightly derailed by an injury suffered while training in Germany before the 2012 MLS season. He regained his footing during the 2013 national team January camp, and hasn't looked back.
Joining MLS through the 2009 MLS SuperDraft, his career trajectory has been meteoric becoming a national team fixture and becoming one of the faces of soccer in the US within the span of one World Cup cycle. He'll appear in a series of three send-off matches with the national team before they head down to Brazil.
Update:
Not much of a surprise at this point but Klinsmann confirms that Cameron will play CB & move impacted decision to cut Goodson. #USMNT
— Jeff Carlisle (@JeffreyCarlisle) May 23, 2014
That's more competition for Omar Gonzalez at center back.