If you assume, like I do, that Bob Bradley's contract with US Soccer won't be renewed in December, then you have to start thinking about who the USSF would hire to replace him. Here is my very early and admittedly speculative effort at naming the candidates.
The favorites:
Jurgen Klinsmann.

Even before the United States 4-2 loss to the Czech Republic there were already plenty of reasons for U.S. fans can worry.

Jozy Altidore only scored two goals during the entire English Premier League season; Oneywu, Bocanegra and DeMerit are all not 100 percent and maybe a lot less; there isn't an average left back on the squad; Ching is a lock to go to South Africa.

Just 24 hours after being left off the USMNT's final 23-man roster for the World Cup, Brian Ching has rejoined his Houston Dynamo teammates and is speaking out about his surprising exclusion from the national team.
"To be completely honest, when I got the news, I was just kind of in shock a little bit," Ching confessed.

As we discussed in last week's podcast, the USA has 23 roster spots to fill for the coming World Cup. No one (including, it seems, Bob Bradley) is set on the number of players we're taking for each position or the overall look of the squad. Compounding the issue is that even the most hardcore supporters of the US Men's National Team have difficulty keeping track of all of the players currently listed on the website's Player Pool.

As I'm sure most everyone knows, the US Men's National Team lost 4-2 last night to the Czech Republic in the first of two matches for the team this week. While the result is disappointing, it's certainly not time to start running around screaming that the sky is falling. So take your finger off the panic button and remember what the good book says (and by good book I mean The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy of course).

On Tuesday May 11, Bob Bradley and USSF have to submit their preliminary 30 man World Cup finals roster to FIFA. While those of us outside the team don't get to see the roster until it becomes public, the players getting called up typically find out several weeks in advance of the roster going public.

U.S. Men's National Team head coach Bob Bradley has named a roster of 20 players to travel to Tampa, Fla. for the Feb. 24 match against El Salvador at Raymond James Stadium.

GOALKEEPERS (2): Troy Perkins (D.C. United), Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake)
DEFENDERS (5): Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Clarence Goodson (IK Start), Chad Marshall (Columbus Crew), Heath Pearce (FC Dallas), Marvell Wynne (Toronto FC)
MIDFIELDERS (9): Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake), Geoff Cameron (Houston Dynamo), Brad Davis (Houston Dynamo), Brad Evans (Seattle Sounders), Eddie Gaven (Columbus Crew), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Dax McCarty (FC Dallas), Chris Pontius (D.

The race to fill the remaining roster spots at forward for the U.S. World Cup team is about as wide open as you could imagine and with Brian Ching suffering a hamstring injury, and Robbie Findley starting out on the bench for Real Salt Lake last night, you have to wonder just who is leading this race to fill the final forward spots.

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.

Thierry Henry's MLS debut for New York Red Bulls as they took on the Dynamo. Pretty good start for the former Arsenal man as he assisted on both goals by Juan Pablo Angel. Get used to hear these guys names mentioned in tandem a lot.

He had a golden opportunity to get on the board in the 41st minute after Angel's clever flick sent him on a one on one situation with Tally Hall but he pulled the trigger too early and his shot trickled wide.

After a strong training camp along with their two goal loss in a friendly against the Czech Republic, Bob Bradley announced on ESPN's Sports Center the 23 players that will get their plane tickets for South Africa in this summer's World Cup.

Bob Ley gave out the roster and there were some surprises who got on and those who got cut.

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.

Time to quickly put week six to rest as week seven starts tomorrow with another fairly full slate of games in the midweek with half of the league in action.

There was some usual movement in this week's rankings but the top and bottom pretty much remained the same. The middle is still a mess but clubs like San Jose are starting to impress a little bit each week.

Here's who did NOT make the squad:

Defenders: Heath Pearce, Chad Marshall

Midfielders: Alejandro Bedoja, Robbie Rogers, Sacha Kljestan

Forwards: Brian Ching, Eddie Johnson

You think the performances in that game last night mattered - on yeah.

The Philadelphia Union's first organized match got the expansion club off to a flying start as three different players scored in a 5-0 exhibition romp over the University of North Carolina in Greensboro on Saturday night.

Sebastien LeToux scored a first-half hat-trick while Shea Salinas and Jack McInerney added second-half strikes to give Union head coach Peter Nowak his first victory as Philly head coach.

For most Major League Soccer fans who have followed the closely for the past few years, the following sentence may not make much sense, and may leave many wondering if April Fool's came early this year, only it has not.

Herculez Gomez cannot stop scoring goals.

The former Kansas City Wizards forward/midfielder has scored six goals in his past seven matches for Mexican first division side Puebla since joining the club on a free transfer in January.

In the next few days, USMNT Coach Bob Bradley will begin showing his cards and send out invitations to 28-30 players to join his camp in Princeton later this month. Before those invitations go out, it is time for all the fans, pundits and blowhards to pipe in with our opinions on which 23 lucky souls should be on the plane to South Africa.

It was a relatively slow news day in the soccer world on Monday, what with World Cup preliminary rosters set to be unveiled on Tuesday and the Europa League final headlining proceedings on Tuesday.

Here are some items to ponder as Monday winds down:

The U.S. 30-man preliminary World Cup roster will be unveiled on ESPN2 at 2pm.

It's been a busy day behind the scenes here in MNT Camp. Carlos, Landon, Jozy, Tim and Gooch have returned from ESPN after a jampacked morning in Bristol. If you tuned in to SportsCenter, First Take, Mike and Mike you may have seen some of what was going on. And there's still more to come (watch SportsNation on ESPN2 at 4 p.

U.S. 2 Czech Republic 4

Former Chivas USA goalkeeper Brad Guzan and some of his U.S. teammates were scrapping for World Cup spots against the Czech Republic tonight (AP Photo).

A rather plodding first half U.S. performance against a mediocre opponent and but for a bad miss by a wide open Fenin who managed to curl around the post in the 26th minute the Americans would be down by a goal at the half.

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.

- Past week's results:

• Two late week match-ups saw defending champions, Real Salt Lake top Chicago 1-0 and Toronto extended their unbeaten run to eight matches against Colorado with a 1-0 victory.
• San Jose 2-1 Philadelphia - The Union tried to follow up their great stadium opening win over Seattle with another over the visiting Earthquakes.

Despite the 2 1 victory, tonight's performance by the USMNT was less than spectacular. In my notes I found myself criticizing more often then praising, and when El Salvador took the lead I feared our fringe players would let us down again on home turf. So, to be absolutely fair, it was nice to see the team battle back.

Brian Ching scored a diving header in the 75th minute and Sacha Kljestan got the go-ahead goal in the second minute of stoppage time Wednesday night in a 2-1 friendly victory over 71st-ranked El Salvador.
Second string impresses in spurts
Winners and Losers
Player Ratings
Next Friendly:
March 3
U.

By TRAVIS CLARK

Dominic Kinnear and the Houston Dynamo have some big questions to answer this year if they hope to qualify for a fifth consecutive postseason berth.

The departure of Stuart Holden and Ricardo Clark to Europe leaves two gaping holes in their midfield, and Kinnear must reshuffle and prepare for life without two of his stars.

A little more than two months stands between the U.S. national team and its World Cup destiny, less than 10 weeks before 23 Americans will be chosen to represent the United States in sport's biggest event.

The World Cup roster picture is pretty clear for the most part, but some plotlines continue to develop as we draw ever closer to Bob Bradley's deadline to pick his roster.

(photo courtesy of Zimbio.com)

As many of you know, I had the privilege of speaking to Landon Donovan Wednesday evening during his appearance at the Gillette EA Sports Championship of Gaming Finals in NYC. And yeah, I felt about the same as Landon in that photo above taken with video game contestant Matt Bushell.

In the first World Cup of what will hopefully be a weekly-ish podcast, the boys (Daryl, Taylor, Albert, and Josh) discuss a plethora of US National Team topics including: the captaincy, the preferred style of play, the potential bright spots, and why Brian McBride's Robot Corpse deserves a spot over Brian Ching.

photo credit: eschipul

The Side: God has already blessed the Houston Dynamo (two MLS Cups in just four seasons), but God bless them again for having cheerleaders. They arouse soccer passion (and other things) in MLS fans. The Dynamo Girls have had much to cheer for lately too, as the Orange had a strong 2009 despite losing offensive maestro DeRo.

The 2010 MLS season is nearly upon is, which means its time to look at how we see the teams stacking up.

The Columbus Crew has been the class of the league for the past two years, and that shouldn't change in 2010. What should change is Real Salt Lake's form in the regular season. With a title under its belt, RSL should have the confidence to start playing up to its ability on a consistent basis.

After getting off to the most blazing start of a season in MLS history, nobody's stock has soared faster than Edson Buddle's. The Galaxy are 4-0, have out-scored their opponents 7-1 and all seven goals came off the head or foot of Buddle. With the forward position the biggest question mark confronting Bob Bradley as he ponders which 23 players will be going to South Africa in June, Buddle is making his clam for one of those positions.

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.

View Poll

Bob Bradley's selection of his 23 men for the World Cup this summer has conjured up a lot of controversy this afternoon over the pick of Robbie Findley instead of Brian Ching.

Did Bradley make the correct decision or not? Vote now in the above poll. And share your feedback in the comments section below.

View Poll

Bob Bradley's selection of his 23 men for the World Cup this summer has conjured up a lot of controversy this afternoon over the pick of Robbie Findley instead of Brian Ching.

Did Bradley make the correct decision or not? Vote now in the above poll. And share your feedback in the comments section below.

For those of you who like your drama, this is a good read (as we say in the journalism business) on how U.S. players learned in the early hours of this morning who was and wasn't going to South Africa.

Good stuff from Ronald Blum and contributors Barry Wilner and Nancy Armour:

BRISTOL, Conn.

Mexican new boy Javier Hernandez joined up with his new team as Manchester United continued their American exploits, this time in Houston, Texas as the MLS All Stars stood in wait. Sir Alex elected for another young squad with old boy Ryan Giggs thrown in for good measure. An impressive and packed crowd of 70,000+ watched on from Reliant stadium for the annual event.

A determined Manchester United defeated the 2010 Major League Soccer All Stars by a score of 5-2 in front of over 70,000 fans at Houston's Reliant Stadium last night. Match MVP Federico Macheda scored an early brace with goals after only 24 seconds and at 13 minutes into the match. Houston Dynamo man Brian Ching [.

In MLS, the 100-goal club is elite territory.

Only seven players can claim a spot in that club, with Landon Donovan joining it with his 100th goal, a penalty kick against the Chicago Fire on Sunday evening.

Now, the race to become the next 100-goal score is one led by Donovan's current teammate Edson Buddle.

HOUSTON, Tex Team icon Brian Ching, fellow 2010 MLS All-Star Brad Davis and talented, young midfielder Geoff Cameron highlight the list of 11 players the Dynamo will protect during Wednesday's expansion draft. The Dynamo could protect 11 players, and they chose to protect Ching, Davis, Cameron, Lovel Palmer, Bobby Boswell, Colin Clark, Mike Chabala, [.