Men's national team interim head coach Colin Miller has named his 22-man roster for the training camp ahead of the Gold Cup... and as is usually the case when the CanMNT names a roster, there were a number of surprises.
And given that the final tournament roster will be named on Friday (with teams able to name 23 players to their squads), who knows, there could be more intrigue to come.
While it's not a wholesale blooding of the pups, the squad does contain a few teenagers and newcomers... and notably doesn't include the likes of Dwayne DeRosario, Andre Hainault and Atiba Hutchinson.
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The 22-man training camp squad named on Monday is as follows:
GK- Milan Borjan | TUR / Sivasspor
GK- Lars Hirschfeld | NOR / Vålerenga Fotball
GK- Simon Thomas | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC
D- Marcel de Jong | GER / FC Augsburg
D- David Edgar | ENG / Burnley FC
D- Doneil Henry | CAN / Toronto FC
D- Ashtone Morgan | CAN / Toronto FC
D- Adam Straith | Unattached / sans club
D/M- Nik Ledgerwood | SWE / Hammarby Fotboll
M- Keven Aleman | ESP / Real Valladolid
M- Kyle Bekker | CAN / Toronto FC
M - Julian de Guzman | Unattached / sans club
M- Will Johnson | USA / Portland Timbers
M- Issey Nakajima-Farran | CYP / Alki Larnaca
M- Jonathan Osorio | CAN / Toronto FC
M- Pedro Pacheco | POR / C.D. Santa Clara
M- Samuel Piette | GER / Fortuna Düsseldorf
M- Russell Teibert | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC
M/F- Randy Edwini-Bonsu | Unattached / sans club
F- Marcus Haber | ENG / Stevenage FC
F- Simeon Jackson | Unattached / sans club
F- Tosaint Ricketts | NOR / Sandnes Ulf
In addition to DeRosario and Hutchinson, players named to the original preliminary roster but not included in the camp are Haidar al-Shaibani, Tomer Chencinski, Nana Attakora, Andre Hainault, Fraser Aird, Daniel Haber, Stefan Cebara, Lucas Cavallini, Frank Jonke, Kyle Porter and Dejan Jakovic.
The squad is "a blend of youth and one or two senior players in the group," Miller told the media on Monday. As had been suggested in the days prior to the release, the contract situations of some veterans ended up precluding their presence at this year's tournament.
"Not having Atiba (Hutchinson) is, as you would imagine, a big loss to the team," said Miller. "It's not an easy time for the European-based players, especially if you're out of contract at the time... He has the chance to make a move that would financially help for the rest of his career, that's the sole reason he's not joining us."
While Miller said Hainault was left off the roster for similar contract-related reasons, a few of the other surprising exclusions come for different reasons. Foremost among them: DeRosario's exclusion was a conscious decision by Miller, in the name of giving opportunities to younger players.
"I actually spoke to Dwayne at length and said to him that we were looking at a younger group, looking at moving the program forward and that it was a case of numbers," said Miller, who didn't close the door on DeRosario returning to the program at some point. He also noted that Patrice Bernier, like DeRosario, was left off the team for similar reasons.
One of those promising young Canadians is Cavallini -- but he declined the invitation to the tournament to focus on his club play in Uruguay. Miller stressed the situation was "unfortunate" but that Cavallini wasn't being "left out". (Before your Canadian-fan paranoia kicks in, remember, the young striker is permanently cap-tied to Canada, by virtue of having seen the field in a World Cup qualifier).
Still, the Canadian squad does include some youngsters who've turned heads recently, either for their club sides (Teibert, Osorio) or the national-team setup (Edwini-Bonsu, Aleman). As far as Aleman, a 19-year-old who recently signed his first pro contract in Spain, Miller called him "an exciting prospect for the future".
And while Miller stressed that he's going to give deserving youngsters a legitimate chance during the Gold Cup, he also said Canada isn't heading to the tournament just to make up the numbers.
"We're going there to win, we're not going there for damage limitation."
The phrase "damage limitation" can't help but evoke the team's disastrous exit from World Cup qualifying in October -- but whether or not it's entirely intentional, Canada's Gold Cup roster is going to look a whole lot different than the team that flamed out in San Pedro Sula.
But we won't know precisely how different until Friday, when the final 23-man roster is named. Miller said the team is "working behind the scenes" this week and that one more player will be added to the team. So, the intrigue continues... but then, we always knew that "intriguing" was going to be the best way to describe Canada's journey at the 2013 Gold Cup.
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