Ramos: 'This is a very important camp'

[USA UNDER-20 MEN] Monday marked the start of the first camp for the U.S. under-20 men’s national team since it qualified for the Under-20 World Cup in Turkey.The camp will allow Coach Tab Ramos to look at several key players who were injured and missed Concacaf qualifying.

“This is a very importantcamp for us and is a segue toward selecting our final group for the 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup,” Ramos told USSoccer.com. “Because it is a domestic camp, we get to have 24 players on hand. Wehave some players who haven’t been seen and others who were part of the tournament, so we’re really looking forward to seeing how they perform.”

Ramos is looking to seehow far several players have come in their recovery.

“We had Victor Pineda [Chicago Fire], OmarSalgado [Vancouver Whitecaps] and Alfred Koroma [University of Akron] who we certainly would have counted on going into the qualifiers,” he said, “butunfortunately they were injured and not available. The same is the case with Sean Cunningham [Norwegian champion Molde]. But all of these guys are here thisweek and we’re looking forward to seeing where they are in their recovery stage. We know they are all playing, but we want to see what level they’re at with this team and heading into theWorld Cup.”