While U.S. head coach Bob Bradley‘s criteria for selecting players for his roster for the Gold Cup and next week’s exhibition match against Spain essentially is unique for every player, it doesn’t come as a surprise that Charlie Davies was omitted, and that’s before he suffered a hamstring injury in D.C. United’s 1-1 draw with Colorado nine days ago.
I argued in the lead-up to that match that bringing Davies back into the U.S. fold that quickly would take away from his momentum and growing comfort with D.C. Bradley said today that he simply needs to see more:
“We certainly have seen a lot of progress from the start of the MLS season until now. We’re excited about that. I had a good conversation with him on the telephone the other day and just told him that I still feel that it’s still not totally where it needs to be. Part of that is tricky because you’re looking at strikers and you want to see goals. Obviously he’s done well to put himself in some good goal scoring situations but in terms of his all-around contribution to the team I still think he’s working his way back. Hopefully he can take those comments and keep moving forward.”
What’s interesting, however, is that Bradley didn’t use the same standard to judge Freddy Adu, though he might’ve, and yet there’s no way he’s seen as much of Adu as he has Davies.
The rest of Bradley’s comments from his call with reporters to discuss the U.S. roster are here.
The full U.S. roster:
GOALKEEPERS (3): Marcus Hahnemann (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Tim Howard (Everton), Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake)
DEFENDERS (8): Carlos Bocanegra (Saint-Etienne), Jonathan Bornstein (UANL Tigres), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover), Clarence Goodson (Brondby), Eric Lichaj (Leeds), Oguchi Onyewu (FC Twente), Tim Ream (New York Red Bulls), Jonathan Spector (West Ham United)
MIDFIELDERS (9): Freddy Adu (Rizespor), Michael Bradley (Aston Villa), Clint Dempsey (Fulham), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Maurice Edu (Rangers), Benny Feilhaber (New England Revolution), Jermaine Jones (Blackburn Rovers), Sacha Kljestan (Anderlecht), Robbie Rogers (Columbus Crew)
FORWARDS (3): Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls), Jozy Altidore (Bursaspor), Chris Wondolowski (San Jose Earthquakes)
