Nine Major League Soccer players were called to play for the USMNT in the upcoming qualifiers. That number fell to eight after Brad Evans injured his calf over the weekend.

Jurgen Klinsmann's roster reflects his team's yellow card problem. With Costa Rica looking for revenge at home on Friday and the cage match against Mexico on Tuesday, Klinsmann had to make sure he had backup players to cover for his starters should they pick up a second yellow card against Costa Rica.  

As reported by USSoccer.com, between yellow cards and injuries Klinsmann has several of the home guard on speed dial:

We know that the problem is we’ll be having nine players going into that game with yellow cards, so anything can happen after that game. We put everybody on notice to be in touch with us, and if there are changes to be made after that game we’ll make those changes.

A Jozy Altidore injury scare over the weekend had a few tongues wagging about who would replace the star American target man, but Jozy reported to USMNT camp and was declared fit to play. 

Klinsmann chose FC Augsburg fullback Michael Parkhurst over less experienced MLS fullbacks to replace Brad Evans for the qualifiers. Parkhurst, who already knows the Nats' system, was a logical choice for these key qualifiers.

All of the MLS players on the roster will miss key league games because MLS does not suspend play during international dates. MLS teams will also miss players competing for other national teams and the league will need to reconsider it's scheduling going forward if they don't want key playoff races affected by the league's intransigence over the international schedule.

If the U.S. qualifies this week, expect the roster for the October qualifiers to look very different from this one. A few MLS players may get a last change to impress Klinsmann.

This week we're dropping several players from the Home Guard because they appear to no longer be on Klinsmann's radar.  Corey Ashe, Brad Davis, Sean Johnson and Alan Gordon could be called back but for the moment are not a part of Klinsmann's plans for Brazil.

All metrics courtesy of MLSsoccer.com.

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