Held\u00a0named to U.S. U-18 Men\u2019s National Team roster, while\u00a0Palacios earns\u00a0first call-up to Puerto Rico U-17 Men\u2019s National Team\u00a0<\/p>\n
CHICAGO<\/strong>\u00a0(Jan. 8, 2025)\u00a0\u2013 Chicago Fire FC today announced that\u00a0Chicago Fire Academy defenders Kruz Held and Denzel Palacios were named to\u00a0the U.S. U-18 Men\u2019s National Team and the Puerto Rico U-17 Men\u2019s National Team, respectively. Held and Palacios will report to\u00a0training camps\u00a0ahead\u00a0of\u00a0the 2026 Concacaf U-17\u00a0World Cup\u00a0Qualifiers\u00a0held\u00a0from Feb.\u00a03-12 in Costa Rica.\u00a0<\/p>\n It will be Held\u2019s\u00a0second call-up to a U.S. youth national team,\u00a0having earned his first in a January 2023 training camp for the USYNT U-15\u00a0squad then\u00a0managed by current Fire assistant coach Tom Heinemann. The\u00a0right back, who has served as Fire U-18 captain for multiple matches this season, will report to\u00a0Mesa, Ariz. from Jan. 10-17,\u00a0for\u00a0head coach\u00a0Jeremy Hall\u2019s first camp as USMNT U-18 head coach.\u00a0The team will train concurrently with the U.S. U-19 and U-20 Men\u2019s National Teams, which will include Chicago Fire Homegrown midfielder Dylan Borso.\u00a0<\/p>\n Held\u2019s Fire U-18 teammate, Palacios,\u00a0will earn\u00a0his first call-up to the Puerto Rico U-17 Men\u2019s National Team\u00a0for a similar preparatory camp.\u00a0The\u00a0center back\u00a0will join head coach Pablo Almagro and the Hurac\u00e1n Azul\u00a0from Jan 8-10,\u00a02026\u00a0in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Held\u00a0named to U.S. U-18 Men\u2019s National Team roster, while\u00a0Palacios earns\u00a0first call-up to Puerto Rico U-17 Men\u2019s National Team\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":502036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[43808,960,5386,1818,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-502035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-academy","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115861189319502663","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}