Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Smith
I was actually quite serious. I knew we played in the Olympics, but really, I had no idea the US has an official team that travels around the world playing soccer.
I thought they pulled the Olympic team together from MLS teams every 4 years like we do with basketball.
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I'm sorry, I've heard the "golly, there's more than 4 illegals in the US that play soccer?" racist ignorant hate speech too often lately, I snapped at you because of it.
The US Men's National Team is the official team for world events. They play all year every year, and that culminates in the World Cup, although there are several smaller cups/competitions along the way. They have to qualify to get into the World Cup each time. The Olympic team is different, and only shares a few players with the USMNT at any time.
The USMNT consists of players from all over the world, as long as they are American citizens. Some of them play in South America, Europe, etc, and they get called up as needed to play for a USMNT game. The general international rule is, if a national team calls up one of your players, you let them go.
http://www.ussoccer.com/teams/index.jsp.html