Qualifying woes mean no Olympics for either Perry Kitchen and Bill Hamid flew back to Washington together a day after the U.S. under-23 national team’s 3-3 tie with El Salvador shockingly knocked it out of Olympic qualifying.
The conversation on the trip home wasn’t about what went wrong against the Salvadorans or in a 2-0 upset loss to Canada. With D.C. United anxiously awaiting their return, both players still have plenty to look forward to this season. But that no longer includes a trip to London.
“We tried to stay away from it,” Kitchen said Wednesday after his first practice back with United. “It was tough for everybody. To not be able to play in the Olympics, it’s a once in a lifetime thing, and it’s gone. So it’s hard to swallow.”
Kitchen also was part of the U.S. team that failed to advance to the under-20 World Cup last year after a 2-1 loss to Guatemala that he said started with the same kind of goal that the Americans gave up to El Salvador, a glancing header off a set piece by a team that was supposedly inferior.
“It’s tough, a tough one,” said United coach Ben Olsen, who played in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. “They’re young kids, too. But the other side of that is they’re young kids, and they tend to rebound and move on and have short memories.”
Despite playing three games in five days, Kitchen hopes to play for D.C. United on Friday when it hosts FC Dallas, which also welcomes back a crucial contributor from the under-23s in Brek Shea. Hamid did not practice Wednesday, undergoing an MRI on an ankle he injured against El Salvador.
“I honestly think it’ll be a positive to just kind of find a rebound, to get my mind off of it, get back with this team because now this is my main goal and focus,” Kitchen said.
While the Olympic failure has ignited discussion about the direction of U.S. Soccer, Kitchen said it wouldn’t affect him or under-23 coach Caleb Porter.
“It’s a cruel game,” Kitchen said. “It just wasn’t meant to be, and now we have to rebound. That team has awesome players. I mean, Brek Shea, he’s going to go super far. … This will never define us as an under-23 group or as individual players.”
