Eric Wynalda and Tony Meola will be added to the U.S. national team roster for training camp Jan. 9-19 in Orlando, Fla., U.S. head coach Bruce Arena said. The pair will join the 26-man roster that was announced Dec. 17. Wynalda and Meola will be the only players in camp who are veterans of the 1990 World Cup. Wynalda’s last appearance for the U.S. came during its final match of France ’98, a 1-0 loss to Yugoslavia. He is the national team’s all-time leading scorer, but his recall comes as a surprise considering his poor form in MLS after the World Cup. In December, Wynalda attended a tryout with English Premier League club Charlton Athletic, which turned down the opportunity to sign the 29-year-old striker from MLS, where Wynalda played the last three seasons with the San Jose Clash. Goalkeeper Meola, 29, last played for the U.S. on July 4, 1994, in a 1-0 loss to Brazil that marked the United States’ round-of-16 exit from the 1994 World Cup. Meola fell out of favor with then U.S. coach Bora Milutinovic by announcing, during the tournament, that he planned to retire from soccer to pursue field-goal kicking and acting. But he returned to soccer in 1995, with the indoor Buffalo Blizzard and the USISL’s Long Island Rough Riders. He was a “marquee” signing for MLS in 1996 and has spent the past three seasons with the MetroStars. U.S. coach Steve Sampson brought Meola into camp briefly in January of 1998, but his goalkeeper choices remained Kasey Keller, Brad Friedel and Juergen Sommer, none of which are in Arena’s current roster. (Both Friedel and Keller are in the English Premier League, which does not have a winter break, while Sommer is recovering from an injury.) The other goalkeepers on the roster are Kevin Hartman (L.A. Galaxy), Tom Presthus (D.C. United) and Zach Thornton (Chicago Fire). Arena will pare down the roster to 18 for the Jan. 24 game against Bolivia in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
