PRAGUE—The skies over Central Europe have loomed dark and gloomy all week. But the mood in the U.S. national team camp has been bright as a host of teenage stars prepare to debut against the Czech Republic today, kicking off a new World Cup cycle and a new era for American soccer.

With national team mainstays like Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley engaged with their MLS teams, coach Jurgen Klinsmann has called a mostly Europe-based contingent for the friendly match in Prague. The 21-man roster features several uncapped hopefuls such as Emerson Hyndman of Fulham, Utrecht’s Rubio Rubin, and Stanford University’s Jordan Morris, the first college player in 15 years to be summoned to the senior squad.

Compared with such baby faces, Julian Green and John Brooks, who are 19 and 21 respectively, look like grizzled veterans after both took part in and scored at last summer’s World Cup in Brazil. Also vying for a spot on the pitch at Stadion Letná are upstarts Bobby Wood of 1860 Munich (21), Tijuana’s Greg Garza (23), and Alfredo Morales (24) of Ingolstadt.

“There’s a lot of talent coming through,” Klinsmann said during a roundtable talk with American reporters in Prague yesterday. “We want to kind of catch them early enough and give them the kind of principles that we kind of teach now early enough to say, ‘Guys, you know, it’s you—you are the drivers, the ones that will make the difference. You have to learn how to compete, to grow, to keep your feet on the ground.’”

While call-ups for Hyndman and Rubin weren’t totally a surprise given that both have broken into the first team this season for their clubs despite being only 18, Klinsmann raised a few eyebrows by dipping into the college player pool for the new cycle’s inaugural match.

The German-born coach insists that “the process started more than two years ago with Jordan,” a Seattle Sounders academy product who has played for the U.S. at the U-20 and U-23 levels. Still, Klinsmann didn’t get a close-up look until the pre-World Cup camp at Stanford, when the American team scrimmaged against the college squad.

In one practice session, according to unconfirmed reports, Morris split the U.S. central defensive unit of Matt Besler and Geoff Cameron, the duo that went on to start the first game in Brazil versus Ghana. Klinsmann, for his part, confirmed the ball ended up in the net. “We were in World Cup preparation at Stanford and we played him; he scored against us,” the coach said, laughing. “So we could evaluate the talent.”

Standing five-foot-eleven, the stocky 19-year-old showcased his skills in scrimmages in Prague this week. Yesterday during finishing drills he put on a clinic of cold-blooded accuracy, repeatedly placing his shots out of reach of goalkeeper Brad Guzan while more experienced players struggled to find their scoring touch. Nor did Morris look out of place in the 10-a-side scrimmages, using his explosive step to weave in and out of traffic.

Morris is the first university player to receive a national-team call-up since Chris Albright in 1999, who didn’t play. The last college player to take the field for the senior team was Ante Razov in 1995. Morris looks set to follow in his footsteps in Prague tonight.

“Can this kid go 60, 70 minutes on an international level? No,” Klinsmann said. “But maybe he comes on and he goes the 30 minutes because that’s what he has in his legs based on his background, based on where he’s playing right now.”

While his younger teammates Rubin and Hyndman are already getting playing time for their professional clubs, Morris is at the start of his second season at Stanford. Still, he’s now likely to face even more pressure to turn pro, an option he has so far eschewed in concert with his father, a physician who prizes education.

Klinsmann insisted that no extra weight is behind heaped on Morris, who didn’t speak to reporters in Prague. The U.S. coach said that before calling up Morris he consulted with him and his parents, his coach at Stanford, and kept Sigi Schmid of the Sounders in the loop.

“He has now the choice going forward to say maybe, 'OK, am I maybe jumping on the Sounders track in January? Or am I considering another year (of college), or am I considering maybe even going to Europe?'” Klinsmann said. “He has those pieces on the table and he can discuss this with his family, with his dad, and his coaches to make hopefully the right decision for him. What we can do now is we can show him those options—there’s no stress to it.”

And yet Klinsmann said he feels the player is ready to taste the international game. “He’s a forward, very simple,” the coach said. “He reads the game very well ahead, he sees the space in front” and he “can take people on one against one.”

Also banging on the debut door are Hyndman and Rubio. The Fulham schemer showed off his deft touch and decision making this week, while Rubio also had some bright moments in practice. The Utrecht youngster was called in only after his club refused to release him for a trip to Argentina with Tab Ramos’s U-20 squad, Klinsmann said, calling his presence in Prague “an introduction” to the senior program.

“We evaluate the kids, obviously the soccer side is very important, but also, is the kid actually ready for that, is it to maybe coming too early, emotionally?” he said. “We feel like no, it’s all good actually, they can deal with that,” he added, saying that decisions on which youngsters to call up have been based on long talks with Ramos and Javier Perez, the U-18 coach who is also in Prague this week.

Rubio, who has made two appearances for his Dutch side this season, “has a quality in him that’s exceptional,” Klinsmann said.

Whichever of America’s new generation takes to the pitch in Prague, it promises to be a baptism of fire.

The Czech Republic, a storied soccer power that boasts a European title and two second-place finishes at the World Cup, is preparing for European Championship qualification that begins for them next week against the Netherlands, which finished third in Brazil.

Pavel Vrba, the Czech coach who built the unheralded club Viktoria Plzen into a regular Champions League participant, faces an uphill task to revive a program that has crashed to 35th in the FIFA rankings, a far cry from a decade ago when the team led by former World Player of the Year Pavel Nedved was briefly ranked second behind Brazil. Still, with players like Tomáš Rosicky of Arsenal and Petr Cech of Chelsea, the Czechs remain formidable.

“It’s a very important game for us that we need to win for our self-confidence,” midfielder Petr Jirá?ek, a new teammate of Green’s at Hamburg in the Bundesliga, told reporters yesterday.

Jeffrey Donovan is n ASN contributor and a veteran journalist based in Prague, Czech Republic. Follow him on Twitter.