Real Salt Lake’s Nick Rimando is in his seventh U.S. National Team January camp, but this one is a bit different for the 35-year-old goalkeeper. This year’s camp is loaded with young players vying for their first caps with the U.S. and Rimando is among the veteran players in the camp that Jurgen Klinsmann is asking to help bring those 14 uncapped players into the fold as he prepares his team for the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
“You’ve got a lot of new faces I think. Last year was more tuning up for the World Cup and you had familiar faces in. This time around, I think Jurgen is going to be open to a lot of new faces. But the competition will never change,” Rimando said in a video released by U.S. Soccer. “There’s always somebody knocking at your door to take your position or to be on this team. So for me it’s always about competition and it has to be to get better. Anybody that’s in camp now is going to push the next guy in line and that’s what makes us better.”
Rimando has 16 career caps with the U.S. National Team and has posted an unbeaten 10-0-2 record with four shutouts. Last year, he posted a 1-0-2 record with a 0.86 goals against average in four appearances for the best mark among the four goalkeepers who played for Klinsmann in 2014.
He is also among seven players on the original January camp roster that were with the U.S. at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Klinsmann has since added newly-minted Toronto FC signing Jozy Altidore as well to bring that total to eight.
The team is training in Carson, Calif., but will move camp to Chile on Jan. 25. There it will face Chile in an international friendly on Jan. 28. Camp will then conclude back in Carson, where the U.S. will meet Panama at the StubHub Center on Feb. 8. In that time, Rimando and the other camp veterans will incorporate their fresh-faced teammates.
“We’ve got a lot of young guys in here. We’ve got two great matches at the end of it and we are trying to get these young guys integrated with the men’s team,” Rimando said. “Being there to mentor them, educate them, and kind of lead them in the right direction to show them what it takes to play at this level. Obviously we want them to do well and if they do well, ultimately we’ll do well with the men’s national team.”
