Okay, I'm go to add to/overanalyze this a bit.
GK C.J. dos Santos '00 (Benfica)
GK Bill Hamid '90 (D.C. United)
GK David Ochoa '01 (Real Salt Lake)
GK depth continues to be a problem for the US. Hamid is what he is. Dos Santos and Ochoa are both unproven and are a long way from the USMNT in competitive games. Dos Santos occasionally makes the bench for Benfica B. Ochoa was injured for much of 2020, which ruined his chance of winning the starting job.
Matt Turner would be here if the Revs weren't in the playoffs, but regardless there just isn't a lot of established talent. But in any event, it would be nice to see more breadth of talent at GK.
RB Julian Araujo '01 (LA Galaxy)
RB Kyle Duncan '97 (NYRB)
CB Aaron Long '92 (NYRB)
CB Mark McKenzie '99 (Philadelphia Union)
CB Mauricio Pineda '97 (Chicago Fire)
CB Walker Zimmerman '93 (Nashville SC)
LB Marco Farfan '98 (Portland Timbers)
LB Sam Vines '99 (Colorado Rapids)
A reasonable crew. At RB, Duncan is the offense-first option and Araujo is the defense-first option. Both will have a tough time cracking the USMNT with the way things are going at that position.
Long and Zimmerman are two of the small group of veterans on this squad. I think McKenzie will be given a big chance for the USMNT by the end of this WC cycle. There's also a strong chance McKenzie will be sold this winter. The real story here is the big win for
@67YAZ in the form of Pineda's first call up.
Vines was able to noticeably improve his offensive contributions in his second season as a starter. Farfan has the weakest rationale for a call up of all the defenders, but we don't have a ton of LB options.
Atlanta may have opted to not release Miles Robinson and George Bello ahead of CCL. Bryan Reynolds and Chase Gasper may become available in the next few days depending on playoff results.
CM Kellyn Acosta '95 (Colorado Rapids)
CM Frankie Amaya '00 (FC Cincinnati)
CM/AM Brenden Aaronson '00 (Philadelphia Union)
CM/AM Sebastian Lletget '92 (LA Galaxy)
AM Cole Bassett '01 (Colorado Rapids)
It's hard to believe that Kellyn Acosta is only 25.
This roster is light on defense-minded CMs. I'm pretty confident that either Tanner Tessmann or Cristian Roldan will be called up, depending on the loser of the Seattle-Dallas game. Gianluca Busio or Hassani Dotson might get a call too if they get knocked out.
It's weird that Yueill wasn't called in. Another deserving CM option would be Eryk Williamson, who had a great breakout year for Portland. However, he left their last game injured and appears to be unfit.
WG Efrain Alvarez '02 (LA Galaxy)
WG Paul Arriola '95 (D.C. United)
WG Djordje Mihailovic '98 (Chicago Fire)
WG Chris Mueller '96 (Orlando City)
FW Ayo Akinola '00 (Toronto FC)
FW Daryl Dike '00 (Orlando City)
Efra played for the US at the U15 level, but has been with Mexico since, including official U17 games. Alvarez would need to file a one-time switch to play for the US, so this is purely a recruiting call and he won't be eligible to play.
Jonathan Lewis has slid down the pecking order, it seems.
Akinola and Dike are interesting forward options. It's hard to rank them against each other or against Gioacchini/Soto. It's just wide open competition right now.
The bottom line is that many of these guys are not particularly close to a full-strength USMNT. Some of these players are under consideration for YNT competitions like Olympic qualifying or even the U20s, and others may be candidates for the Gold Cup if Berhalter goes with a B team. Nonetheless, even at positions where the USMNT has a firm starter, there's a ton of jockeying for backup slots and places just a bit down the depth chart. Since this whole generation is young, there's still some separation within the field that hasn't fully occurred.