U.S. young 'uns take on Chile in Carson tonight
About 15,000 tickets - yes, many of them to Chileans - have been sold for tonight's annual January Home Depot Center international friendly that features a very young American squad, as reporter Phil Collin observes.
The result of this game, perhaps, matters even less than it has in the past seven years, but to me it still boasts several compelling features.
Are we likely to see the Galaxy's Omar Gonzalez and last year's Red Bull rookie sensation Tim Bream Ream (thanks, Doug) line up in central defense together, a partnership we could potentially see at the 2014 World Cup?
Will New York's quicksilver Juan Agudelo follow up the flashes of form we saw in last year's MLS playoffs with more glimpses of what a confident, talented American attacker unafraid to take on defenders looks like?
And will Alejandro Bedoya - the veteran with all of six U.S. caps on a squad with an average age of just 23.4 years old - use the venue to stake his claim for a Gold Cup squad spot later in the year?
With Coach Bob Bradley publicly musing over whether he will coach at next year's Olympics, I'm guessing we will see quite a bit of the squad's age-eligible potential Olympians - Agudelo, Teal Bunbury, Mikkel Diskerud, Sean Johnson, Brek Shea and Anthony Wallace.
A total of 18 of the 23-player camp roster can dress tonight against what is also a young Chile team.
It should be an intriguing evening and with no English-language TV scheduled for the 7 p.m. game (it's available only in Spanish) and plenty of tickets available, locals have every opportunity to stop by the campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson and take in the action.
For those who can't, stop by this blog tonight for periodic updates as events warrant.
That includes you Landon Donovan, who sounds a little bored judging by this tweet:
Just realized this is the first time in 12 years that I won't play a game in the month of January #somethingiswronghere
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About 100 Percent Soccer
Sportswriter Nick Green has written the 100 Percent Soccer column since 2005 for the Daily News, Daily Breeze and other Los Angeles area newspapers. The blog of the same name began in 2007. A native of England, he began writing about soccer in the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat in the stands for one in the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer and is married to a long-suffering soccer widow. Join Nick on FaceBook and follow him on Twitter.
Or even Tim Ream...