USMNT 2010 World Cup Daily Update: Defense Injuries A Cause For Worry

There seems to be a swing in the mood surrounding the national team. The excitement of announcing the provisional roster and getting everybody into camp has waned to concern over health; specifically, health of the back line. After this weekend’s news that Carlos Bocanegra had (a previously unannounced) sports hernia surgery, people seem to be asking: If Bocanegra was not as healthy as we were told, how healthy is Oguchi Onyewu, coming off knee surgery? How healthy is Jay DeMerit, with an abdominal strain and still recovering from eye surgery?

That’s three-fourths of the projecting starting back line for the United States.

Something’s strange here.

For a while we had been hearing about Carlos Bocanegra’s injury issues. A knee injury turned into an abdominal strain, which had him rest for the end of Rennes’ Ligue 1 season. We were told Bocanegra was working through said strain during the opening of training camp, earlier this week.

Taken from the reports of a man on the scene:

Clarence Goodson and Benny Feilhaber have joined the team after weekend matches in Scandinavia.

The United States has officially opened their World Cup training camp on the campus of Princeton University in New Jersey, but instead of reports about who was playing, the first day’s leads focused on which players where unable to go.

Starting goalkeeper Tim Howard was out with a thigh strain, and a number of members of his defense - Jay DeMerit (abdominal strain), Carlos Bocanegra (abdominal strain), and Chad Marshall (hamstring) - were also sidelined.