United States of America players spoke on Wednesday (July 3rd) about Friday’s (July 5th) friendly with Guatemala in San Diego and upcoming CONCAF Gold Cup.
DeMarcus Beasley:“Yeah, just like you said it’s taking the opportunity to play more, to be part of this group. There’s a lot of new guys coming in. There’s a lot of older guys coming in. It’s all good to see familiar faces. But at the same time we’ve got a job to do. It’s a taxing summer, but it’s a fun one at the same time. We’ve got a chance to bring the Cup back to the United Sates and I think with the group that (manager) Juergen (Klinsmann) brought in, we’ve got a good chance to do that.”
“For one, you take the opportunity and grab it. You’re on the national team for a reason. It’s not because this is our B team. It’s because these are good players and they deserve to be here. we want to push the likes of Clint Dempsey and Michel Bradley, we want to push them and make them be better players. That’s why we’re here. Like I said, we’ve got a job to do. Any advice I’d give the young guys who haven’t gotten a cap yet is take the opportunity. There’s a lot of guys including myself that got to the World Cup in 2002 – it was this exact tournament. So you don’t take it lightly, you play every game like it’s your last. We’ve got a job to do and that’s to win a Gold Cup.”
Oguchi Onyewu:“It’s been a year since I’ve been here (in San Diego), so it’s nice to be back. Obviously the Gold Cup is a special tournament that we’ve won a number of times. Our objective is to bring it back to America and take it away from Mexico. I’m happy to be in the group and in the mix of things again and hopefully we’ll start off on the right foot.”
