Pay attention! Important U.S. national team news is hidden in here

Here’s your all-important U.S. roster for the next week’s trip to the land of dikes and funky wooden Dutch shoes. Study up, because you can bet a perfectly poured Guinness this is pretty close to what the final 23-man roster will be this summer – well, minus the small army of walking wounded. If all the U.S. casualties of the moment were being treated by the same doc, the office would look like lunch rush at the In N Out.

Clint Dempsey, Charlie Davies, Ricardo Clark, Oguchi Onyewu, Steve Cherundolo and Benny Feilhaber are all unavailable due to injury. Otherwise, here ‘tis, the 20 named today for next week’s match in Amsterdam against the Oranje:

GOALKEEPERS (3): Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Marcus Hahnemann (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Tim Howard (Everton)

DEFENDERS (7): Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes), Jay DeMerit (Watford), Clarence Goodson (IK Start), Heath Pearce (FC Dallas), Frank Simek (Sheffield Wednesday), Jonathan Spector (West Ham United)

MIDFIELDERS (7): DaMarcus Beasley (Rangers), Alejandro Bedoya (Orebro), Michael Bradley (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Landon Donovan (Everton), Maurice Edu (Rangers), Stuart Holden (Bolton Wanderers), José Torres (Pachuca)

FORWARDS (3): Jozy Altidore (Hull City), Robbie Findley (Real Salt Lake), Eddie Johnson (Aris Thessaloniki)

There are 20 names listed. You can rest assured that Dempsey, Onyewu, Feilhaber and Cherundolo will be on this summer’s roster if they are healthy, and all are expected to be. So will Davies if he can pull off this stunning recovery, although I continue to have my doubts. Clark? He’s still on the bubble – but still in the fight.

So if you don’t count Clark or Davies, that adds up to 24. We all know, more or less, who is safe. And we all know, more or less, who has just one foot in South Africa and still needs to do something to propel himself over the finish line. Go ahead and add Sacha Kljestan, Brian Ching and perhaps Chad Marshall into the “still in the fight” list. Otherwise …

Here’s where today’s announcement is quite telling: If you haven’t seen a name mentioned so far in this post, he probably shouldn’t be studying up on great dinner spots in South Africa. Freddy Adu, Kenny Cooper, Chris Rolfe, Kyle Beckerman, Robbie Rogers, Frankie Hejduk, Jermaine Jones, Jeff Cunningham, Brad Davis, Jimmy Conrad, Marvell Wynne … it ain’t lookin’ good, fellows. Some of those are clearly filed under “No kidding!” But for a player who is healthy, but not on next week's roster, that's as close to “official” as you’re going to get in early March. And obviously, there are plenty of others who have been in a U.S. shirt over the last year (Geoff Cameron, Brad Evans, Edgar Castillo, etc.), but they have clearly been long shots all along.

Injuries do happen, so things can still change. But we know a lot more this afternoon than we did this morning.