De Rosario, Jakovic, and Porter called up to Canada

It was announced today by DC United that captain Dwayne De Rosario, defender Dejan Jakovic, and midfielder Kyle Porter have been called up by the Canadian national team for their upcoming friendly in Spain.

The three of them (De Ro, Jakovic, and Porter) will leave the team after DCU's next match against their hated rivals, the New York Red Bulls. That game is Saturday at 8pm at Red Bull arena.

The trio will then travel to Spain to join their fellow Canadian teammates for a training camp in preparation for a friendly versus Mauritania on September 8th. The trio of Canadians are expected to return to the Black and Red the next day September 9th, which means they will miss United's game versus Chivas USA on the 8th.

In that game, expect head coach Ben Olsen to use some of the youngsters in place of the three veterans. Guys like Collin Martin, Taylor Kemp, and Jared Jeffery should see some work in the midfield without Porter and De Ro, while we could see either Ethan White or Conor Shanosky in place of Jakovic.

The call up would be a bigger deal, but with the Black and Red having the worst record in MLS at 3-17-5 it isn't a huge loss by not having the three in a game against Chivas USA who aren't much better at 5-14-6.

Really, the game means practically nothing and perhaps we should look at the positives from the call up. For instance, we know what we're getting at this point in the season out of these three guys. Against Chivas, this will give Olsen a chance to experiment with the youngsters while not feeling obligated to give the vets some playing time.

On the other hand, it would really-really-really suck if one of them suffered an injury in a meaningless friendly versus a team that didn't even enter qualification for the World Cup. I would hate to be without either one of these guys (actually, mostly just De Ro) versus Real Salt Lake in the USOC final. But as they say, country first, even if it is a meaningless friendly (I guess).

If they play, this will be De Ro's first appearance with his national team since this past January and Jakovic's first appearance with them since March. Kyle Porter on the other hand was with the team for Gold Cup play in July and has just four caps to his name with Canada.

The country our trio will be facing (Mauritania) is ranked 151st in the world while Canada sits at 91st. As I said above, they didn't enter qualification for the 2014 World Cup and in 2010 they lost all six of their qualifying games. Hopefully, the three Black and Red members won't be needed on the pitch as Canada should win this friendly with ease.