The 23-man squad U.S. coach Bob Bradley picks for the World Cup could be the youngest roster since the USA's 1994 World Cup team in which the average age was 26.1. So does age matter?

The current 30-player roster has an average age of 26.5 and an average of 31 caps. The USA's 2006 World Cup team had an average age of 28.3 and 41.8 appearances. Backup goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann, 37, is the oldest player on the current roster. The youngest, forward Jozy Altidore, 20.

"Right now the team is a little different because we're closer in age and a lot of us have been playing together since Lord knows when," says defender Oguchi Onyewu, 28. "I've been playing with DaMarcus (Beasley) and Landon (Donovan) since I was 15."

"He's [Coach Bob Bradley] helped create an environment where he's given guys more authority to be more active and vocal in leadership and we needed that because we're a very young team," says Landon Donovan, 28. "We don't have a lot of older players and we needed guys stepping up taking turns to help lead along the way. It's not like 2002, 2006 where you have Brian McBride, Claudio Reyna, Josh Wolff, Kasey Keller, Brad Friedel and all these guys who are just veterans."