NEW YORK — Omar Gonzalez and Tim Ream, a pair of 30-plus defenders, are on U.S. Coach Gregg Berhalter’s first roster with his full player pool. Teen forwards Tim Weah and Josh Sargent are not.

“I value veteran leadership,” Berhalter said Tuesday after announcing his 24-man group. “I value the culture of what it means to play for the men’s national team and I think it’s important to have players that have been through it.”

Berhalter’s picks for exhibitions against Ecuador on March 21 at Orlando, Florida, and Chile five days later at Houston offered insight into his evaluation of a player pool that turned over after the November loss at Trinidad in Tobago, ending a streak of seven straight World Cup appearances.

Interim coach Dave Sarachan gave debuts to 23 players in 12 matches and Berhalter to seven more during his first two games this year, when he used a roster entirely from Major League Soccer.

Every player picked for these games has international experience, and Berhalter chose 15 from MLS and nine based in Europe. He called this the second stage of evaluation as he focuses on the group he will use for the defense of the Americans’ CONCACAF Gold Cup title, which opens June 18.

By the 2022 World Cup, Ream will be 35 and Gonzalez 34. Gonzalez has not played for the U.S. since the loss at Trinidad and Ream since the September 2017 home defeat to Costa Rica, the most significant stumble that led to the qualification failure.

Berhalter is looking ahead to his World Cup roster in November 2022.

“Some of them will be pushing the limit and some of them may not make it to there just because of the physicality of it,” Berhalter said. “But when we’re projecting this, we’re saying, OK, you can’t have all young players.”

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