The Philadelphia Union began their training camp this past week in preparation for their first season in the MLS. Piotr Nowak has taken the club to Greensboro, North Carolina to train despite the wintry weather, to scrimmage the University of North Carolina on February 13th.

The Union’s official roster currently stands at 20 players, along with 5 trialists (Shintaro Harada, Sam Bishop, Ryan Soroka, J.T. Noone, and Dan Zajac). Midfielder Amobi Okugo and forward Jack McInerney arrived late to the camp after traveling to Mexico for the 2010 Copa Chivas tournament with the U-20 U.S. National Team. Defender Michael Orozco was recently named to Bob Bradley’s 23 man roster for the United States’ upcoming exhibition match against El Salvador in Tampa, FL. The national team’s training begins on February 10th at the Home Depot Center. Orozco becomes the first Philadelphia Union player to represent the United States National Team.

Most of the first week of training has been held indoors due to inclement weather conditions in Greensboro, but the team did manage to take part in some training outdoors on the snow covered fields, giving them a taste of what type of weather conditions they may face early on this season. Nowak isn’t letting the conditions effect his outlook on the training session saying “The situation in North Carolina is great because you can see in practice who is committed and how they can work with each other and how they interact with each other”.

It will be interesting to see how Nowak’s squad perform against one of the best college soccer programs in the country when they face North Carolina February 13th.

Photos courtesy of Carolina Dynamo

Make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed to get the latest breaking news and analysis!