Today, Jurgen Klinsmann announced the 23 players that would represent the United States with much controversy.

The obvious controversy, seen by many observers  was about Jürgen Klinsmann leaving Landon Donovan off the squad.

The less obvious, and more chronic problem, is that the USMNT continues to over rely on foreigners (especially Europeans) with few cultural ties to the USA other than that at least one parent was "American." 

While Klinsmann over-pursues the Germany fringe players (who still need to be considered anyway to help the USA men's national team), good African, African-American, Latino, Iranian, Arab, and potentially Eastern European and Jewish players are left behind, especially those who are less affluent and can barely afford decent football boots, let alone dues for the Olympic Development Progrm. 

These are the kids that will play with you as long as there's a ball and any kind if surface. These are the kids that aspire to creative heroes in Hugo Sánchez, Didier Drogba, Mario Balotelli, Juan Roman Riquelme, Gonzalo Higuain, Neymar, Ronaldinho, Oscar, Paul Pogba, Kevin-Prince Boateng, as well as the obvious names like Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. These are the kids that will come home after school, work on their moves without anyone else around, or play ball with their friends on any surface until nightfall.

These are the kids who want decent facilities nearby, even a fading basketball court or vacant parking lot or random alottment of dirt and grass with two goals set up opposite from each other. These might be trailer park kids like Clint Dempsey who live far away from any major city, or they may be inner city Latino and African-American kids stuck in neighborhoods that cannot escape poverty. These are kids that grew up in the United States that want to help their families do better.

These are kids of parents who left their homelands behind to live and work in the costless country that is the United States of America. These kids are the ones that are growing up to be the new majority in the USA, and will want to be represented in the United States. 

But Klinsmann, like Bob Bradley, Bruce Arena, and countless USA coaches before, have kicked these kids to the curb, often because they could not afford the costs of traveling. Neither can many of the native-born kids. These kids, young men, etc. risk being lost and underrepresented. If the USA continues to ignore the creativity, the hard work, and the soccer IQ these kids on the outside bring, the USA risks losing these kids.

The USA might have the commitment of kids like Miguel Palafox, Dennis Flores, Junior Flores, Joe Gallardo, Haji Wright and others who may very well be part of the first Golden Generation the USA has had in soccer in many years, but other national teams--El Salvador, Mexico, Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, Senegal, Iran, Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Israel, and many other national teams--will recruit as aggressively as the USA has with the German-American players. By ignoring the needs and representation (and hopes) of immigrant kids just because their families cannot pay the Olympic Development Program fees (or the families cannot travel with their children), those kids will continue to elect to root for the country of their birth or heritage, and aspire to represent them on the international stage.

These are kids that also carry the hopes of their families, and their pains of growing up in less than ideal circumstances--of seeing their own relatives unable to find jobs, being shot and killed, or seeing sisters raise kids in their teenage years. (Some of these players might be fathers themselves by the time they turn 20.) But these are stories that deserve to be represented in the red white and blue of the United States national team.

More needs to be done in the United States to assure that these kids have spaces to play and that their efforts will be seen and that they are sought after, and moreso than the European transplants who have absolutely zero memory of the USA. It will give the country its own France 1998 or Germany 2006, in which the immigrant players' approaches to the game (and their fan culture) helps to take their country to new footballing heights. 

It might make all of those people, those who look Liga MX over ice hockey and college football and the NBA and those who turn to inline sites every week to look their heroes and emulate them everyday (in video games or in real life). It might also help this lost nation, the Unites States of America, put itself together again.