The Houston Dynamo Academy, presented by Statoil, will take on the U.S. U-20 men's national team in a scrimmage, Saturday morning at the Houston Amateur Sports Park. The U-20 USMNT will conclude their five-day training camp in Houston with the match that will kick off at 10 a.m.
Although the U-20s were originally scheduled to face the Dynamo Reserves, with the way the Dynamo first team schedule fell, the team was off this weekend and unable to play. Dynamo Director of Youth Development James Clarkson and U-18s were happy to fill in.
“We are always very happy to fill in for the Dynamo first team and are more than willing to help the U.S. national team in fielding an opposition,” Clarkson said. “The friendly against the U-20 MNT provides our players with a great opportunity that will not only challenge themselves but also to compete against some of the nation’s greatest players.”
The match will conclude the U-20s stay in Houston before they head to South America for matches against the U-20 squads from Uruguay and Chile.
The U-20s are coached by former U.S. men's national team start Tab Ramos and feature budding stars such as Real Salt Lake midfielder Luis Gil and Villyan Bijev who is currently on loan from Liverpool to German second division club Fortuna Düsseldorf.
U-20 Roster By Position:
GOALKEEPERS (2): Cody Cropper (Unattached; Athens, Ga.), Tomas Gomez (Georgetown; Webster Groves, Mo.).
DEFENDERS (7): AJ Cochran (Wisconsin; St. Louis, Mo.), Christian Dean (California Berkeley; East Palo Alto, Calif.), Jordan McCrary (North Carolina; Marietta, Ga.), Eric Miller (Creighton; Woodbury, Minn.), Juan Pablo Ocegueda (UANL Tigres; Riverside, Calif.), Boyd Okwuonu (North Carolina; Edmund, Okla.), William Packwood (Birmingham City; Concord, Mass.).
MIDFIELDERS (7): Luis Gil (Real Salt Lake; Garden Grove, Calif.), Benji Joya (Santos Laguna; San Jose, Calif.), Mikey Lopez (North Carolina; Mission, Texas), Victor Pineda (Chicago Fire; Bollingbrook, Ill.), Caleb Stanko (SC Freiburg; Holly, Mich.), Wil Trapp (Akron; Gahanna, Ohio).
FORWARDS (5): Villyan Bijev (Fortuna Düsseldorf; Fresno, Calif.), Daniel Cuevas (Santos Laguna; Sacramento, Calif.), Daniel Garcia (FC Dallas Academy; Dallas, Texas), James Rogers (New Mexico; Salt Lake City, Utah), Jonathan Top (FC Dallas; Fort Worth, Texas)
