{"id":12152,"date":"2012-05-20T10:00:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-20T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=12152"},"modified":"2012-05-20T11:14:14","modified_gmt":"2012-05-20T15:14:14","slug":"cameron-ready-for-call-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=12152","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Ready for Call-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Dynamo defender Geoff Cameron was back in his home state on Saturday playing against the team he grew up watching - the Revolution. (Photo: Chris Aduama\/aduama.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Attleboro (Mass.) native Geoff Cameron knew from a young age that he wanted to be a professional soccer player.<\/p>\n

Growing up just a stone\u2019s throw from Foxborough, the young Cameron got all the inspiration and motivation he needed by watching his hometown Revolution.<\/p>\n

Fast forward through high school and a sterling college career with University of Rhode Island that included an NCAA tournament run and getting named Midfielder of the Year, Cameron found himself back in his home state on Saturday playing center back for the the defending Eastern Conference champion Houston Dynamo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had family and friends out there supporting [me],\u201d said Cameroon, who played the entirety of a 2-2 draw with the Revolution on Saturday night at Gillette Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up watching the Revs. One day I said I wanted to be on the field playing and having the opportunity to do that now is tremendous and I\u2019m very lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameron has made the most of his opportunities since Houston drafted him the third round of the 2008 SuperDraft. Now seen as one of the league\u2019s most versatile players, he was a gem of a find for coach Dominic Kinnear, who drafted him in the third round (42nd<\/sup> overall) in the 2008 MLS Draft. That Cameron was available so late in the draft was shocking.<\/p>\n

It didn’t take long for him to\u00a0get attention from the National Team.\u00a0Shortly after the completion of his rookie season, Bob Bradley called\u00a0Cameron for camp\u00a0in January 2009.\u00a0But an injury limited him, and\u00a0Cameron was unable to make the most of his opportunity.<\/p>\n

Cameron got another shot this offseason, this time grabbing the attention of Jurgen Klinsmann. In January, he and\u00a0former Revolution central defender Michael Parkhurst played 90 minutes in a 1-0 shutout of Venezuela. The match was seen as an enormous success for Cameron, who combined well with Parkhurst and shut down the Venezuelan attack.<\/p>\n

Weeks later, he was a part of the\u00a0first U.S. squad to beat Italy in the Nats’ 1-0 win\u00a0in Genoa on Feb. 29.\u00a0\u00a0Although the Attleboro native didn’t see any action in the historic win,\u00a0he savors the time he has spent with the national team and is\u00a0hungry to prove himself again.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving the opportunity to get called in against Venezuela as well as being on the bench for the Italy game and being a part of that group was excellent and fantastic,” Cameron said. “Hopefully I get an opportunity to get (back to camp) and see what I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameron is hoping to get that opportunity on Sunday. Last week, Klinsmann named the first half of his roster for\u00a0a slate of games against Scotland, Brazil, Canada, Antigua & Barbuda and Guatemala. The rest of the call-ups – which are expected to included a number of MLS players – will be announced on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, everything goes well and I get called in,\u201d finished Cameroon. \u201cWe\u2019ll see how things go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, there\u2019s a lot to improve in my game and I want to get better. If I get the call I\u2019m going to listen to what the (national team coaching staff) has to say to get better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julian Cardillo can be reached\u00a0at juliancardillo@snenet.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After playing against the team he watched growing up, Attleboro native Geoff Cameron is hoping to cap off the weekend with a National Team call-up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Cameron20.png?fit=479%2C297&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12152"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12173,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12152\/revisions\/12173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}