It's almost as if the soccer gods wanted to make Bob Bradley's life as difficult as possible for some unidentified transgression deep in his coaching past. It's not enough that the World Cup is rapidly approaching and that the job of choosing 23 men to charge into South Africa with was already daunting enough; no, to add to the pressure, some shadowy force has conspired to throw wrenches of varying sizes and stickiness, exactly at the time when decisions must be made, into the works.
Between players returning from injury, those finally playing after months matchless activity, and long-forgotten strikers scoring goals at will, Bobbo's head must be swimming with heaving maelstrom of pertinent factors to be considered.
To be fair, much of the news is good. Oguchi Onyewu, a lock for the World Cup starting lineup when healthy, is back in full training. Ricardo Clark, who served admirably for Bradley over the course of the past year, finally got on the field for Eintracht Frankfurt. Stuart Holden is training with Bolton, Benny Feilhaber has shaken off his injury, and others are rounding into form.
And then there are the strikers. Of the choices available to Bradley, perhaps only Jozy Altidore has no question marks. Old Reliable (not to imply he's old...) Brian Ching is nursing an injury. Conor Casey is, well, Conor Casey. Eddie Johnson, Jeff Cunningham and Robbie Findley failed to show enough during National Team duty in recent months to justify an automatic place in the World Cup team. Charlie Davies has an inspiring story, and if healthy enough to play, would bring more than just on-field contributions to a team often reliant on spirit and camaraderie; but can a precious spot be given to a player for whom simply walking was victory as recently as five months ago?
More options are always better than less, and therein lies Bradley's silver lining. Better to have several players to choose from who are either good players finally playing or new-ish players on amazing runs; if the US had neither, or the rash of injuries suffered in the pool weren't so miraculously timed, the mood would be decidedly more dour. As it is, the situation falls somewhere between "best case scenario" and "complete disaster".
It's nearly crunch time. The first step for Bradley is narrowing down his pool to 30 names, likely including a few questions marks, those red hot strikers who haven't been in the picture for years, and one or two surprises. From there, he'll have roughly two weeks to flesh out who can best help the team in South Africa, both in backup roles and as potential starters, all the while attempting to build a cohesive dynamic, drill in tactics, and foster spirit.
Nothing like leaving it all to the last minute.
My shot-in-the-dark thirty man roster. Remember, it's doubtful all of these guys will be in camp come May 17th:
GOALKEEPERS: Tim Howard, Marcus Hahnemann, Brad Guzan
DEFENDERS: Jonathan Spector, Steve Cherundolo, Heath Pearce, Oguchi Onyewu, Jay Demerit, Carlos Bocanegra, Clarence Goodson, Jonathan Bornstein, Frank Simek
MIDFIELDERS: Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Stuart Holden, Maurice Edu, Michael Bradley, Benny Feilhaber, Ricardo Clark, Alejandro Bedoya, Jose Torres, Sacha Kljestan, DaMarcus Beasley
FORWARDS: Jozy Altidore, Brian Ching, Conor Casey, Edson Buddle, Herculez Gomez, Charlie Davies, Eddie Johnson
It's likely, hell, certain, that you're personal guess/preference will be different. Feel free to throw it out in the comments.
