Alejandro Bedoya
Maurice Edu told Rangers manager Walter Smith that there is talent in them thar Yanks; with the USA set to face Brazil tonight at the New Meadowlands, Rangers second-in-charge Ally McCoist will be in New Jersey to scout the possibilities.
Specifically mentioned are Alejandro Bedoya and Benny Feilhaber.

Let the Bob Bradley scrutiny begin!

In the next eight weeks or so, with an increasingly "intelligent" American soccer public, Bob Bradley will be under the microscope unlike any American soccer coach in history. Of course, it won't compare to the pressure in England, Brazil, Germany, Argentina or most anywhere else for that matter.

Well, well, well. Bob Bradley decides to give bloggers something to write about.

Seeing Robbie Findley standing with his teammates this afternoon was head-scratching. Bradley is taking three forwards that essentially have the same resume: Herculez Gomez, Edson Buddle and Findley. All are relatively fast, athletic, are playing well right now (except for Findley) and none of them, compared to other World Cup forwards, are good soccer players.

The final roster for the World Cup is scheduled to be announced today. After a friendly loss to the Czech Republic last night Bob Bradley should have his mind made up on everyone. The current list of 30 needs to be trimmed down by 7 to 23. See my choices below.

Keepers
Tim Howard (Everton, England)
Marcus Hahnemann (Wolverhampton, England)
Brad Guzan (Aston Villa, England)

All the keepers get to go.

Bob Bradley has a lot of thinkin' to do right now. (Getty Images)

I realized I've slacked on my World Cup hype duties these last couple months and now that the big event is a month and a half away I need to pick it up here. Today just seems like a good day to talk about the USMNT and who Bob Bradley will call into camp next month.

I set a low bar for Bob Bradley and he easily cleared it today when he named fis 30-man preliminary roster.

As I wrote yesterday, all I wanted him to do was:

1. Name only three goalies.
2. Don't name less than 30 players.
3. Leave Frankie Hejduk in Columbus.

Pass, pass and pass.

U.S. players began arriving in Philadelphia this weekend to take physicals before the start of training camp in Princeton, and it was discovered that forward Eddie Johnson has a hamstring injury.

Alejandro Bedoya has permission to report late for training for the U.S. World Cup team's camp in Princeton.

For the first time ever, Bob Bradley elected to choose a squad before the last possible moment. As surprising as this may be, it wasn't nearly as baffling as one of his roster seletions. Robbie Findley. Wow...

Anyway, as we did with the 30-man camp roster, we're going to compare our preferred roster to the one Bradley selected.

Union

You can look at a variety of recaps to the Union's 1–1 draw with Real Salt Lake from the Salt Lake Tribune, the Daily News, a hilariously error filled piece in the Inquirer, mlsoccer.com, from goal.com, and, why not, the Miami Herald. Or you can save yourself some time and simply read our post-game report.

ESPN's Soccernet has posted a really good article on young American Alejandro Bedoya and his success with Orebro in the Swedish League. You can read all about him by clicking here.

Bob Bradley has named his 30 man provisional roster for World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Obviously the big question on the minds of everyone was what he was going to do up front with the loss of Charlie Davies. It seems Ching, Gomez, Findley, Johnson and Buddle are going to fight it out for a spot or two.

Union/Local

According to the French newspaper L'Equipe, Robert Pires has turned down the Union. In a "crude, computer-generated" translated quote in the Washington Post from the French report, Pires says, "If it means to take along my family far, I prefer that it is in a beautiful city." Jerk.

Danny Mwanga's last minute game-tying goal has been voted the Major League Soccer AT&T Goal of the Week.

The U.S. National Team is ready to travel back to South Africa, this time to face Bafana Bafana in the Nelson Mandela Challenge Cup. As of Thursday, Bob Bradley has announced the squad of 18 that will be heading to Cape Town. Let's take a look:

The two goalkeepers who will be going with the squad are Brad Guzan of Aston Villa and 24 year old Dominic Cervi, who currently is a reserve over at Scottish giants Celtic.

The U.S. Soccer Federation announced the players who have been called up and accepted the invitation to the U.S. men's national team training camp in January. These players are the ones who will play in the next friendly against Chile in California and likely Egypt in Cairo. And the theme of this year's team is youth.

In six months, the United States-Holland friendly on March 3 in Amsterdam will be remembered by U.S. fans for one of two reasons:

1. People will vaguely remember Jonathan Bornstein throwing away any chance of a starting spot at the World Cup and the national team resurrection of DaMarcus Beasley.

Today is countdown day here at SGFsoccer.com for World Cup coverage. I opened with today's story about our local Siemen's Turblex team and I'm working to offer a story a day leading up to kickoff on June 11th. What is important tomorrow? According to the 2010 FIFA World Cup Regulations, the 32 qualified teams must provide a list of up to 30 players by 11 May (midnight CET).

The 30 man roster for the World Cup training camp was announced just a little bit ago on ESPN News. The biggest news of this roster was the absence of striker Charlie Davies who was seriously injured in a car accident last year.

Here is the full list:

Keepers
Tim Howard (Everton, England)
Marcus Hahnemann (Wolverhampton, England)
Brad Guzan (Aston Villa, England)

Defense
Oguchi Onyewu (AC Milan, Italy)
Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes, France)
Jay DeMerit (Watford, England)
Jonathan Spector (West Ham, England)
Steve Cherundolo (Hanover, Germany)
Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA, MLS)
Clarence Goodson (Start, Norway)
Chad Marshall (Columbus, MLS)
Heath Pearce (FC Dallas, MLS)

Midfield
Michael Bradley (Moenchengladbach, Germany)
Maurice Edu (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland)
Ricardo Clark (Eintracht Frankfurt, Germany)
Stuart Holden (Bolton, England)
Jose Francisco Torres (Pachuca, Mexico)
Benny Feilhaber (Aarhus, Denmark)
Alejandro Bedoya (Orebro, Sweden)
Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA, MLS)
Robbie Rogers (Columbus, MLS)
DaMarcus Beasley (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland)
Clint Dempsey (Fulham, England)
Landon Donovan (Los Angeles, MLS)

Strikers
Jozy Altidore (Hull City, England)
Brian Ching (Houston, MLS)
Edson Buddle (Los Angeles, MLS)
Herculez Gomez (Puebla, Mexico)
Eddie Johnson (Aris, Greece)
Robbie Findley (Real Salt Lake, MLS)

So who else is missing from this list that you might have expected to see here?

Nic Townsend of Doing Goals examines Allsvenskan's contribution to the World Cup.

A friend of mine recently remarked that he didn't know why since he couldn't think of a single player currently playing for an Allsvenskan club who was likely to play in the World Cup.

Defensive lapses and over-eager individuals characterized the U.S. Men's National Team's 4-2 loss to the Czech Republic on Tuesday evening. The final score, however, was not as important as what coach Bill Bradley will have to do next.

On Wednesday, Bradley will cut his 30-man roster to the 23 he plans to take to the World Cup in South Africa.

Just before kickoff Neil sent an email to the TYAC staff that said "BORNSTEIN is your captain gentlemen. Try not to kill yourselves." I wrote back "I hate to tell you I told you so....." because Neil and I had a talk about this last weekend and I was convinced that this was going to happen. Levy countered with a couple jokes about his tribe.

1. Did anyone else not realize the US was playing at 2pm ET on ESPN2 until they woke up this morning? That's a clear sign that this will go down as the least anticipated US international match since we last played a Scandianavian B-Team.

Well, I'm going to take the lack of "I set my alarm for 6am to pre-game this one" comments as your way of saying, "Spot-on, Mike.