USA national team boss Juergen Klinsmann admits the pool of players he will monitor ahead of this summer's World Cup has been widened this month.
Klinsmann took a squad of players to Sao Paulo for a two-week training camp to help assimilate to Brazil in preparation for the 2014 FIFA tournament which kicks off in June this year.
Klinsmann was thrilled with the way things went, admitting that there was now an increased amount of World Cup hopefuls who will have the next four months to prove themselves.
"The good thing about this camp is we widened the pool," he told ussoccer.com.
"I told all the guys, 'Listen, in soccer a lot of things happen in a short amount of time, so it's all about timing, it's about how you prepare yourself the couple of months before a big tournament and what you show on the field.' God forbid other things happen with injuries or [players are] out of shape, whatever it is. Now, the door is always open until the middle of May when we cut it down to the 23 guys.
"What we see is a very competitive group in this January camp. Guys that badly want to give you an impression. The training sessions have all been intense; they all came physically prepared for this camp.
"We tested them right away the first week and we never had these results before, very good. We left it to the players, saying, 'build your case'."
The Sao Paulo camp precedes an international friendly with South Korea which takes place in Carson, California on February 1.
