Bill Hamid, Perry Kitchen and Steve Birnbaum to US Camp in January?

Steven Goff of the Washington Post mentioned via Twitter Saturday that D.C. United players Bill Hamid, Perry Kitchen and Steve Birnbaum are all the preliminary list for the United States National Team camp, due to begin a week from Monday in Carson, California. This will be Hamid's second consecutive January camp, and the first such camp for Kitchen and Birnbaum at the senior level.

The trio coming going to camp and returning with a bit of a head start on conditioning is encouraging, considering Hamid, Kitchen and Birnbaum will likely feature in the club's CONCACAF Champions League game with L.D. Alajuelense in Costa Rica on February 26.

Whether or not all three make a final roster for the US games against Chile (on January 28) and Panama (on February 8) remains to be seen, though it should be noted of the 22-man roster from last January's camp, 10 went on to be on the World Cup roster last summer. If there is a reading of tea leaves to be made of the coming Gold Cup tournament this summer, that if any of the three are part of Jurgen Klinsmann's roster in those January matches, they would certainly be on the Gold Cup squad in some form.

Additionally Goff was in the giving mood, going on to say:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/USMNT?src=hash">#USMNT</a>&#39;s <a href="https://twitter.com/BillHamid28">@BillHamid28</a> drawing interest from Italian &amp; English clubs. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/dcu?src=hash">#dcu</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/mls?src=hash">#mls</a></p>&mdash; Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) <a href="https://twitter.com/SoccerInsider/status/551447993266999296">January 3, 2015</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

This should be of little surprise, as Hamid had previously trained with West Bromwich Albion and considering his relationship with current Everton player and fellow US goalkeeper Tim Howard, perhaps an England move makes a little more sense. One would presume if he were to move, the offer would have to be better than anticipated for D.C. United to willingly part with two of their goalkeepers in the offseason in Hamid and Joe Willis, with the third (in Andrew Dykstra) coming off a torn achilles that shelved the last four months of his 2014 season.

Then Goff dropped this nugget:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Seeking depth ahead of CONCACAF Champions League in 6 weeks, D.C. United in market for 2 Euros, inc MF from Scandinavia</p>&mdash; Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) <a href="https://twitter.com/SoccerInsider/status/551452539540238336">January 3, 2015</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

One would have to presume the team may be in the market for some more polished depth at outside back, but in looking at the 'midfielder from Scandanavia' part of the tweet, there might be the possibility that D.C. is looking at Markus Halsti, currently out of contract, though he had been with Malmo FF in Sweden since 2008. Halsti turns 31 in March and has has played in defense both centrally and on the outside, but has been playing mostly in the midfield in the last couple of seasons, captaining the club and named to the Allsvenskan Best XI last year. A national teamer with Finland (playing as recently as November in a Euro 2016 qualifier against Hungary), Halsti has been kicking the tires on an MLS move, recently exploring New York City FC, though it remains to be seen if he still has aspirations to come to America. But hey, we're bloggers, it's hard to ask questions from the basement of the science building or something.

Thoughts on this info?