http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...usa-world-cup-hopeful-damarcus-beasley-puebla Still very vague at the moment but I have a good feeling it's nothing serious. The last thing we need at this point is more shake-ups in our D. This does bring up another question though. At this point should all WC bound teams be concerned about injuries to their players? Oguchi Onyewu's injury forced Bob Bradley to quickly reinvent the back line last World Cup and Zidane's absence in WC 2002 left France eliminated in the opening stages. Colombia have almost certainly lost their star player Falcao to a torn ACL and as if Spain weren't having enough goalkeeper drama, Valdes is no longer an option. Being so close to kick-off this couldn't be a more horrendous moment to be side-lined. I can't even bring myself to imagine something happening to Michael Bradley or Tim Howard.
You needed this to think up this question? You don't know the answer to this question? What is the "hitmen" angle to your post or the article?
So, Gooch's injury the previous October forced Bob Bradley "reinvent the back line"? First of all, Gooch started TWO games for us in the 2010 WC and when Gooch went out against Slovenia, he simply moved Bocanegra to CB and inserted Bornstein. Lol.
And as someones else mentioned, what the hell does any of that have to do with "hitmen players"? Bizarre.
Yeah, there's a lot of weird things in this OP. First, Onyewu's injury happened in October, nine months before the start of the World Cup. So it didn't cause Bob to "quickly rebuild his back line." Second, his injury occurred with the national team, in qualifying, and more to the point, it happened when he tried to turn. There was no "hitman" aspect of his injury. He was most likely not in full match fitness, having only made one sub appearance for Milan, but that's a totally different issue. Third, Onyewu started each of the first two matches, went the full 90 against England, and was taken off in the 80th minute against Slovenia in favor of an extra striker (Herc Gomez) because we were still trailing. It's true he didn't start the last group match or the round of 16 game, but that hardly constitutes "reinventing the back line." He was back, and healthy, though not as sharp as needed. At that point, he was dropped due to form, not injury (and yes, I understand that the injury 9 months prior impacted the form). As for France in 2002, while they certainly missed Zidane, they still put a team on the field with Vieria, Petit, Wiltord, Djorkaeff, Henry and Trezeguet all on the field at the same time, and Makelele, Cisse, and Dugarry (and Zidane, who did start the last match) available off the bench. Their group was not a pushover, but was by no means overly daunting. Healthy Zidane or no, there's really no excuse for that team to not score a single goal in their three matches.
It wasn't that simple, at least on these boards. We were fearful of Bornstein coming in. He performed very well the remainder of the Cup, but there were doubts about inserting him.
I'm just saying, that was hardly reinventing the back-line. It was a simple switch of Boca to CB, who had played there all of qualifying. Gooch just looked horrible when he played against England and Slovenia.
Injuries happen folks, there's no way around it so sitting up at night in cold-sweats doesn't do alot of good.
Oguchi was clutch for us in qualifiers for that tournament. He was at his absolute peak and a staple in back. Even if that injury occurred 2 years earlier a player of his caliber would have been hard to replace. He was in no condition for the WC and that had it's effect. I think because of the MLS schedule players have a lower risk because they're not chasing titles and trophies at this point. And this is just fodder for chit-chat after hearing about DeMarcus. Had no idea US fans were so touchy.
Not going to lie, when I opened this thread, I was expecting a conspiracy theory about Mexican players injuring Beasley on purpose to hamper our World Cup chances. I was kind of looking forward to the trolling/flaming that would surely follow. Now, I'm sad. OP, you're not in my good graces right now.
Judging by the other responses on here, I'm in no one's good graces. BTW - It appears DaMarcus's little knock might not be too bad according to http://www.socceramerica.com/article/57593/beasleys-injury-is-not-serious.html ...Let's keep those fingers crossed!
Let's fess up, guys. There are many hitmen, but one is certainly Herr Timothy "Wie gefällt dir diese Äpfel, Omar Liebling? " Chandler.......
An Argentine player broke Beckham's foot in Champion League play prior to the 2002 WC. Seeing how England and Argentina were in the same WC group, this just might have been an According to Hoyle hit on Beckham. England got the last laugh, though, as they defeated Argentina in group play and went through while Argentina failed when they couldn't beat Sweden in the last match.
Wow. Didn't know that. Very impressive he was able to play in the tournament and very appropriate he was able to score the winner over Argentina.