The Columbus midfielder was one of the biggest surprise snubs from the U.S. Under-20 World Cup roster, and the coach blamed it on a lack of opportunities with the Crew.

When Columbus Crew midfielder Romain Gall finished the CONCACAF Under-20 World Cup qualifying tournament as the United States' leading scorer with five goals, his performances led to plenty of questions about whether he might propel himself into the starting lineup conversation in New Zealand.

That made his absence from the actual U.S. World Cup roster all the more surprising, but coach Tab Ramos made it clear the decision shouldn't have come as a shock.

For Ramos, the main issue with Gall was his lack of playing time in the months since February's qualifying tournament. Gall has yet to play a single minute for the Crew this season, and with Columbus not one of the seven MLS teams with a USL-based reserve team, Gall has had no avenue for consistent minutes.

Ramos didn't directly slam the Crew for not having a reserve team, but in describing the worst possible situation for a Under-20 World Cup prospect, he essentially described Gall's predicament.

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"Here’s the worst-case scenario for a U-20 player," Ramos told a roundtable of reporters in Manhattan after Thursday's World Cup roster announcement. "They’re playing at a team where maybe they don’t have a reserve team. Say, for example, Columbus this year — they don’t have a reserve team there. The Red Bulls have Red Bulls II and the Galaxy have Galaxy II, or a number of them which are doing it this year.

"They’re on the verge of breaking into the first team, so sometimes they travel with the first team and sometimes they don’t. But they’re not playing the game on the weekend, and when the first team is getting Monday off, they’re getting Monday off. Then on Tuesdays, when the players are coming in and just doing 5v2s and go home, they’re doing 5v2s and going home — but now they didn’t play either.

"So now they’re just constantly losing fitness, and when we call them into the U-20 national camp they come in and I feel they can’t handle the training. With the fitness coach, we can’t do double sessions when we come in every day, because if we do double sessions by the third day these guys are dead and won’t be able to play on the weekends.

"This whole thing takes that away," Ramos said, referring to the growing trend of U-20 players earning regular minutes in MLS. "Now you come in and players are like every national team in the world: They come in, we have one session, they rest and get massages and prepare for games. We didn’t have that before. It’s much better now."

Despite the growing number of Under-20 players earning first-team minutes in MLS and abroad for foreign youth teams, Ramos made it clear in his selections that a lack of regular minutes wasn't a deal breaker for everybody.

"Joel Sonora and Emerson Hyndman are ahead of most other guys in many things because they're just that type of player," Ramos said. "They're very creative, very different, they're just developing in a different way. It's not necessarily first-division soccer that got them here, it's the way they see the game. It doesn't necessarily work that way, but we do value (first-team playing time) a lot. If you're playing 90 minutes for your professional team and you're 19 years old, that says a lot for where you are."

Though Gall did wind up missing out on the Under-20 World Cup, Ramos does believe he can still develop into a quality pro, as well as someone who could still play a key role in the U.S. setup.

"This is not to say Romie isn't going to be in great form in another month, month and a half, and hopefully break into the Crew's first team, and be great and make our Olympic team down the road," Ramos said. "Hopefully that's the case, but at the moment he was not in his best form and unfortunately we had to make another selection."

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