It is true what they say, fail to quality for a World Cup that many believe you are a shoe-in to make and you’ll lose your job for it. That is the case for US U-20 National team coach Thomas Rongen who was let go today by the USSF. The USSF will not have his contract renewed when it expires at the end of the year according to Yanks Abroad. The Dutchman has been in charge of the U-20 team for nine years.

Who will step up and replace him? Well for now it is going to fall on former USMNT player Tab Ramos, a U-20 assistant coach will take over as interim head coach. He will lead the team in their tournament later this month in France but is not tabbed as the permanent replacement to Rongen. That is a decision that will come later this year.

Many have been speculating whether or not Rongen would keep after the fall out of not qualifying for the U-2o World Cup later this summer. Rongen was good at plenty of things as U-20 coach though. He was able to get plenty of multi-national players to come to the US and play for the US team. That is starting to translate well for the senior national team as well.

But let’s not ignore the fact that his time as coach wasn’t all that great. While his 2007 team that went to the quarterfinals of the U-20 World Cup looked good on paper then, fast forward to the present and most of those star players aren’t even doing anything great today. Names like Freddy Adu, Danny Szetela, and you would even lump Jozy Altidore in this group as players who’ve seen better days in their professional careers.

Rongen was good at getting players that wanted to win, which is important, but player development is always key. To me this is a move that was a long time coming. I thought that even had the US made it to the U-20 World Cup this year that they’d need a real strong showing for Rongen to keep his position. Remember their crash out after the 2009 World Cup? Yeah, it was time for a change.

What do you make of this new? Like the decision by the USSF to remove Rongen here?

Also the roster includes midfielder Sebastian Lletget, who missed out on the U-17 World Cup in Nigeria.

The camp, which will be the first of the 2011 cycle, will be held in Chula Vista, California and will run from December 16-23.

Here is the full roster:

GOALKEEPERS: Earl Edwards (Nomads SC), Justin Luthy (Boston College), Spencer Richey (Crossfire Premier)

DEFENDERS: Gale Agbossoumonde (Miami FC), Paolo Del Piccolo (Louisville), Moises Hernandez (FC Dallas Juniors), Zachary Herold (West Pines United), Perry Kitchen (Chicago Magic), Tyler Polak (CSA Legacy), Kofi Sarkodie (Akron), Zarek Valentin (Akron), Jared Watts (North Meck SC; Statesville, N.C.), Ethan White (Maryland), Cesar Zamora (Chivas USA), Eriq Zavaleta (FC Pride)

MIDFIELDERS: Jose Altamirano (San Diego State), Christian Castaneda (Hertha Berlin), Marlon Duran (Latino Americana), Luis Gil (Pateadores), Sebastian Lletget (West Ham United), Andrew Lubahn (Wake Forest), Carlos Martinez (Wilmington Jrs.), Colin Murphy (Boston College), Amobi Okugo (UCLA), Will Packwood (Birmingham City), Nicholas Palodichuk (Washington Premier FC), Fabrice Picault (Cagliari Calcio), Dillon Powers (Notre Dame)

FORWARDS: Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls), Will Bates (Virginia), Tristan Bowen (Los Angeles Galaxy), Victor Chavez (Real So Cal), Ryan Finley (Duke), Stefan Jerome (West Pines United), Jack McInerney (Cobb SC), Dominick Sarle (BW Gottschee)

I am glad to say it is Friday. Somehow this week has flown by me here but thankfully we have a weekend full of soccer ahead of us here. Two games tonight, with one just about underway in New York, and plenty more tomorrow and Sunday. Nearly every game has playoff implications surrounding them. I’d say all games do except for the Dallas-KC game, since those two really have no shot at the playoffs despite not being eliminated from contention yet.

Tonight I do have a couple links worth throwing out there with a couple other random thoughts mixed in.

First up a quick note about the progress of the U20 National team, who are on their way to play in the U20 World Cup later this month. Today they took down Trinidad and Tobago 2-0. Bryan Arguez and Brek Shea scored goals in friendly victory that was the final World Cup tune up for the squad. I know a lot was said yesterday about this club thanks to Thomas Rongen’s comments about the lack of depth if you will surrounding this year’s team.

The US is in a tough group with Germany, Cameroon and South Korea. Germany won the European qualifying for this tournament last year and Cameroon placed second in the African qualifying. Needless to say this could be a really difficult group for the US.

I’ve gotten word via email recently that we should see some San Jose stadium renderings very soon to go along with the other stadiums around the league in development in places like Kansas City and Houston. The club is expected to reveal designs for a new stadium this weekend. Also from what I’ve been told and read across these Internets is that this stadium won’t be anything special, so don’t get your hopes up for a super crazy design or something special like a Red Bull Arena or Rio Tinto Stadium.

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Portland Expansion Rooted In Controversy

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A very interesting article on SI.com today about Portland’s expansion process thus far. I love the line that called Portland owner Merritt Paulson Mark Cuban-like to go after what he wanted here. Paulson has done a lot of work to get the city a new stadium for the baseball team that he owns and for the city to give him money to revamp PGE Park so the Timbers could play in it.

There’s still a ways to go with Portland here I feel but we should still see the Timbers Army in MLS in two years time.

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Old Dallas Document Talks Jersey Sponsor

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Buzz Carrick posted this very interesting article today about an old PDF that circulated to potential jersey sponsors and a few others like Carrick. It posts some interesting numbers that are a couple years old now that tell what Dallas was looking for in a jersey sponsor. The numbers seem to be pretty on par with other team’s sponsorship deals right now. I still feel that Dallas is another year or so away from getting a sponsor. When you have a team that plays this poorly for nearly two straight years and your attendance is as terrible as Dallas’ is right now the sponsorship dollars just aren’t there for things like this.

Dallas along with Colorado, New England, and Kansas City still have yet to get kit sponsors. Colorado looks very close to getting one based on their current kits. As for the other two clubs, I don’t have any information at this time where they stand at getting a jersey sponsor. My money would be on KC beating the Revs to the sponsorship punch though.