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 Tosaint Ricketts (UW-Green Bay) is poised for his first tournament with the Canadian national team.
The FC Politehnica Timişoara forward, who has earned both of his career caps in the past four months, was announced as part of coach Stephen Hart's 23-man roster for the CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Ricketts, 23, had one goal in nine appearances this season for Poli Timişoara, which plays in Romania's top-division Liga I. He signed with the club in November after scoring nine times in 38 matches for Finnish club MyPa over two years.
Canada opens the continental championship tournament June 7 against the United States in Detroit, then takes on Guadeloupe and Panama in Group C play. The Canadians will play Ecuador in a friendly June 1 in Toronto as a warm-up.
DeMerit misses out
Vancouver Whitecaps central defender Jay DeMerit (Green Bay/Bay Port) isn't part of the U.S. roster for the Gold Cup, but coach Bob Bradley still sees a future for the 31-year-old with the national team.
"Jay continues to be somebody that we think can play a big role for our national team," Bradley said in a conference call after announcing the Americans' 23-man roster.
"He took a lot of time off after the World Cup, and so the number of games that he's played in the last year, I think, if you were to consider the range of what Jay is all about on the field, he's working his way back to the high end of what Jay’s all about, and that was thrown off a little bit by some injuries thus far this year."
DeMerit suffered a groin injury playing for the national team in March, and aggravated it a few weeks later during a Major League Soccer match. As a result, he's played in only five games for the Whitecaps.
"He now has 90 minutes under his belt in the (Canadian Championship) game last Wednesday and so we’re hopeful that Jay is going to now consistently be on the field and pick his game back up to the level that it’s been at the last two summers for us," Bradley said. "Those are things that we’ll continue to monitor, for sure."
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