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The 2015 Gold Cup is the next major tournament for the United States and it figures to include all of the team's best players. It's their chance to defend their continental crown and erase any doubt as to who the best team in the region is. They can also book a spot i the Confederations Cup.
DeAndre Yedlin proved in the World Cup that he is one of the team's best players and, as such, he is expected to play in the Gold Cup. But there could be a hitch.
Yedlin is supposed to join Tottenham Hotspur for the 2015/16 season and preseason training starts in mid-July, when the Gold Cup is still going on. The Gold Cup doesn't start until July 7 next year, in an effort not to overlap with the Women's World Cup, and it won't end until July 26.
If Yedlin is on the Gold Cup team, he will have two choices: to take a break after the Gold Cup, join Spurs as the Premier League is starting and make it very difficult to crack the team early on, or play non-stop from March 2015 (when the MLS season starts) to July 2016 (after Copa America 2016 ends).
Neither are very good options. One puts him well behind as he tries to get into the team at a new club and the other puts extreme strain on the body. Had the Gold Cup been in June, like normal, he would have had a few weeks off between the end of that and the start of Tottenham's preseason, but that isn't the case.
The other option is that he doesn't play in the Gold Cup. That would allow him to play with the Sounders into mid-June, then take several weeks off and join Tottenham for the beginning of the preseason. Of course, that means he is prioritizing his club career over his international career and in a very important tournament for the U.S. It would also bring back awful memories of the 2011 Gold Cup, when Timothy Chandler decided he needed a rest and skipped the tournament, a move that bit the U.S. in the final when they had to play Jonathan Bornstein.
The schedule is working against Yedlin now. There doesn't appear to be a good option, but with his club career about to take a major step and the national team set to lean on him more than ever, something is going to have to give.