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Charlie Davies Isn’t Making The World Cup, So Who Is?

Apr 23, 2010, 9:00 PM UTC

â†µCharlie Davies' remarkable Wolverine-style recovery from a horrific car crash in January gave U.S. national soccer team fans hope they'd see the Sochaux striker (and not, say, Eddie Johnson) at the World Cup. Davies has been running around for a while now, but with Sochaux announcing that Davies will not appear in a Ligue 1 game this season, the prospects for his return have dimmed considerably. â†µ

â†µâ†µIt’s just that all the running around is hard:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“It’s been very hard for Charlie, as every time we up the workload, he gets very tired,” Sochaux coach Francis Gillot told L’Equipe. â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µThis is totally understandable given that Davies is the subject of a sentence in the same article that starts “Since leaving his wheelchair.” Sochaux has started to work Davies into some of the squad sessions so he could have contact with the other players… and “to show him how much progress he still has to make”; later in the article his coach cites a “great deficit on the muscular level” and a “huge lack of strength.” These are not things that generally indicate a world-class level of fitness. (Davies could blog for a living, though, and how.) â†µ

â†µâ†µWith the USA’s training camp kicking off May 15th, Davies has just three weeks to remedy these deficits. Short of a second miraculous recovery, that’s not going to happen. Wolverine is going to miss the 2010 World Cup.â†µ

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â†µSo where does that leave the USMNT? Scrambling. Jozy Altidore is a given despite his indifferent season (he's scored just once in 27 appearances) with Hull, and then there's chaos. Clint Dempsey is busy scoring ludicrous goals for Fulham, but Stuart Holden's injury may force Dempsey to continue playing right midfield for the national team. Brian Ching is questionable with a leg injury. Conor Casey is a moose who hasn't shown much in extended runs with the national team. Eddie Johnson… no.â†µ

â†µâ†µThe U.S. may have to turn to in-form players who have been locked out of the national team setup. There are two: Los Angeles Galaxy striker Edson Buddle and Puebla (Mexican first division) signee Herculez Gomez. Both are lighting up nets. Gomez has ten goals in 14 games with his new team after a stretch of ineffective MLS play that saw him score once in thirty four Kansas City Wizards appearances. Buddle has scored seven times in the nascent MLS season and plays on the same team as Landon Donovan, the USA’s engine. â†µ

â†µâ†µNeither has anything resembling a national team career. Gomez has one half of one game to his credit; Buddle hasn’t gotten capped since 2003. If either is left out of the camp, sections of internet will burn down. Like backup quarterbacks in football, a soccer fan’s favorite player is the uncapped striker. Whether they’re any good will be unknown until June. Long careers of mediocrity argue otherwise. Sans Davies, the USA has to pick one and hope.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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