ESPN's U.S. National Team Blog discusses the options available to replace Charlie Davies at forward and also mentions a rumor that Carlos Bocanegra might be on the move from Rennes to St. Etienne. You can read about it by clicking here.

Photo by ISIphotos.com
As you may know by now, I had the opportunity to interview U.S. national team striker Charlie Davies last Friday in his first detailed interview since the car accident that nearly took his life. What I found was a player in the midst of an amazing recovery, a Charlie Davies who looked much more like the Davies we knew before last October's deadly car cash than the Davies we saw look so swollen and unfamiliar in the interview he did with ESPN in late November.

(Photo courtesy of Tifosi) During the halftime coverage of the US/El Salvador match, Rob Stone and John Harkes made several points about the injured Yanks that are currently on the mend. Hopefully Ricardo Clark, Clint Dempsey, Gooch, and The Maestro are all making an excellent recovery as these four are without question "on the plane" for the trip to South Africa come June.

It was a remarkable attempt for Charlie Davies to come back from a litany of injuries suffered in an October car accident.

He's rehabbed, training and done everything humanly possible to get back on the field in time for June's World Cup, but according to his club team, he's set to miss out on the trip to South Africa.

Yes, another reaction to the news that Charlie Davies won't be part of the 2010 World Cup, even in the run up. The visceral response to the news, expressed as both anger and frustration by many...

Thanks to @MikeyDamage on Twitter, I was tipped off to an interview Charlie Davies did on French radio; the important parts are in English (obviously Charlie answers in English, and the questions are...

Stuart Holden impressed in last weekend's game with English Premiere League's Bolton Wanderers. Bolton manager Owen Coyle hopes Holden will have the same affect on the team as Landon Donovan has at Everton:

Owen Coyle reckons his own transatlantic purchase can have similar resuscitating effects to those which Landon Donovan's arrival has had on Everton's season.

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.

Writers Jon Levy and Puck sat down Tuesday evening to deconstruct the 30-man pool Bob Bradley will select from to construct his final World Cup roster. The topic of conversation on everyone's mind -- what about Charlie Davies? Here's what ensued... Jon Levy: In general, I was impressed with the preliminary 30-man World Cup roster named by Bob Bradley on Tuesday.

Charlie Davies sat down for a phone interview with MLSSoccer.com's Simon Borg to talk about what is on the mind of every US Soccer fan right now. Will he play in the final League 1 matches for his club? What is the current status of his health? Will he make it to South Africa? Check it out

Technorati Tags: Charlie Davies, current status, interview, MLSSoccer, phone, phone interview, Simon Borg, soccer fan, South Africa, US

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.

I just had lunch with a Greek man at an Australian restaurant (only in New York) and Sportscenter was running a quasi-maudlin piece on the recovery of Charlie Davies; even as they were saying that he's healing at Wolverine speed they still said it with an aire of doom & tragedy around it.

found this over at MLS Insider...

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I came across an article on MLSSoccer.com earlier this morning and really thought it was worth discussing. The article is about former MLSers and other Americans/Canadians abroad that should return home to play in MLS. I can't say I disagree with many on this list and I have a couple more that probably just need to suck it up and return home so they can actually see some playing time on the field.

There's an interesting article over at the NY Times Goal Blog that looks at who will replace Clint Dempsey for the US if he's not fit for the World Cup. It's a good piece, but I do take issue with the main premise Jeffrey Marcus looks at replacement midfielders (Rogers, Holden, and Kljestan), but I feel that Dempsey should be playing forward, where he generally lines up at Fulham.

It looks as though the USMNT's spell of bad luck may be over.

This past weekend Clint Dempsey returned to action in Fulham's 3-0 defeat by Manchester United. He played 72 minutes and played well considering it was his first game back from seven weeks of injury. We can expect Dempsey to have no trouble regaining his fitness and finesse in time for the WC in June.

Let's be completely honest here: we got ahead of ourselves when it came to the recovery of Charlie Davies. Charlie Davies got ahead of himself when it came to the recovery of Charlie Davies. All the faith, belief, and hope in the world couldn't heal Charlie, and turn him back into the footballer he should be, faster than nature would allow.

Since the World Cup there has been a noted absence of Charlie Davies progress reports on Twitter. I guess Bobby Blue Eyes was able to really reach him during their heart-to-heart back in May. Sh*t, if you asked the two of them I'd bet as least one of them ended the convo with "good talk."
But now that a few months have passed, CD9 is giving us the real talk on the injuries, the surgeries and the rehab in ESPN's Body Issue.

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.

This is the third of a four-part Series of Report Cards for the U.S. Men's National Team's Four Year World Cup Cycle, 2007-2010. While we are not issuing grades for all 92 players capped by Bob Bradley during the cycle, we will feature players not on the World Cup roster who figured prominently in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup.

(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.

Charlie Davies' club teammate, Jacques Faty, has admitted asking Davies to lie to the police

Just a few days ago, news broke that Charlie Davies was stopped by police speeding 201 km/hr. Given that Charlie Davies is still recuperating from a serious car accident last year that resulted in a young woman dying, the news that he was found driving a car at such dangerous speeds caused a bit of a stir.

Welcome back CD9!

I told you that there was some good news in American soccer today and it comes in the form of Charlie Davies returning to training.

The 23-year-old striker rejoined his French club Sochaux today and made the announcement on his Twitter account.

I've resumed full training with my club!

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.

Charlie Davies' World Cup hopes have officially been dashed. U.S. Men's National Team head coach Bob Bradley today announced the team's 30-man preliminary roster for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and Davies name was not on it. The other notable omission was Freddy Adu. Surprise inclusions include Sacha Kljestan, Robbie Rogers and Eddie Johnson.

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.

When Charlie Davies was left off the preliminary 30 man USA roster this past Tuesday, the general consensus was that he'd worked hard to get back to fitness, but just didn't quite make it. Superb effort, but World Cup 2010 just came too soon.

Seems Charlie Davies himself now disagrees with that assessment, and is blaming his club Sochaux for scuppering his World Cup chances by telling Bob Bradley that Davies wasn't ready.

Por Halftown
Nacer en Manchester no siempre implica ser Red Devil, pero sí aficionado al fútbol. Pero cuando el Manchester en el que uno nace no está en Inglaterra, sino en New Hampshire, EE. UU., jugar al fútbol con un balón redondo es toda una excentricidad.
Charlie Davies es un tipo raro, en muchos sentidos excepcional.

FCSochaux.fr have posted a new interview with Charlie Davies. Sounds like he's continuing to progress very quickly.

"I made the progression I expected and I had hoped for by coming here. Everything is coming along."

"I definitely feel that I'm able to get back towards the end of April.

Courtesy of and heads up by Greg Seltzer of No Short Corners comes word from Sochaux president Alexandre Lacombe that Charlie Davies will not play in Ligue 1 this season. This is a definite blow...

The USA have been drawn into Group C at World Cup 2010, where they'll face Algeria, Slovenia and former colonial overlords England. No prizes for guessing which game has everyone excited.

With more American players playing in Europe than ever before, this might be the most accomplished team the USA has ever sent to a World Cup.

By Raf Crowley, a senior writer for The Yanks Are Coming. He can be reached at raf@yanksarecoming.com.

The Roster

Goalkeepers:

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

Chris Seitz is on the bench as the Union plays Ecuador to a 1-1 draw on Tuesday in a closed door scrimmage. Brad Knighton and Brian Perk each got a half in goal. Even if its star players were not released from their European clubs because the North American tour was not a FIFA endorsed event, the Union can take pride in the fact that Ecuador was just one point away from qualifying for the 2010 World Cup and played Mexico to a 0-0 draw on Friday.

Just when you thought Charlie Davies' omission from the U.S. team's preliminary World Cup roster had been examined from every angle, there's a new one to consider.

It's Sochaux's fault.

At least, if you listen to Charlie Davies, it is.

Davies ripped team officials at the French club for a letter they sent to national team coach Bob Bradley that eventually kept him off the roster.

Union/Local

Click on the image to the left to vote for your favorite Union players to play in the 2010 MLS All-Star Game against Manchester United on July 28 on ESPN2. If that doesn't work, click here.

Sebastien Le Toux talks to Goal.com about how excited he is that Henry might be coming to MLS.

By Eric Beard

With recent news coming out of South Africa that England captain Rio Ferdinand will miss the World Cup due to a knee injury suffered in training and Ivory Coast national hero & captain Didier Drogba is questionable for the cup as well thanks to an elbow fracture suffered in a friendly match against Japan, it seems like the right time to recognize a few truly special players that fans from all around the world would have loved to see partake in this summer's festivities.

It has seemed at times that every moment the U.S. Men's National Team begins to get a glimpse of what their squad will look like come the first group match of the World Cup, the injury bug strikes.

At the Confederation's Cup, Charlie Davies became a household name and the U.S. finally had a much needed injection of youth into the striking corps.

Yura Movsisyan continues to shine in Denmark.

By Geoff Reid

The Whole saga regarding certain MLS players seeing out their contracts to go sign with Scandinavian clubs is a very interesting one. It's something that has happened for a good number of years, so it's not a new idea that has taken off.

Union

Goal.com's head-to-head preview of Saturday's match against Chivas USA has the Philly guy predicting a 2–0 Union win and the Chivas guy a 3–1 Union win. Our preview predicts a 2–1 win if Jonathan Bornstein plays, a 3–1 win if he doesn't.

The Daily News takes a closer look at what the Union will be doing with the $50K it won for high school soccer in Chester.

Let's start today off with a bang: Eric Wynalda has been named Director of International Operations for Mexican Segunda division side Murcielagos (that's the third division in Mexico). Wynalda will scout players and try to facilitate player exchanges that will bring the talent to Murcielagos that will move them up to the top.