I found this very interesting link, so I decided to open a discussion here. http://www.phillysoccerpage.net/2014/06/10/landon-donovan-wasnt-the-first-us-world-cup-snub/ Note: Players who were cut or vetoed by injury can not be on the list. Sorry for my bad english .
I'll start my list . 1. Landon Donovan ( 2014 World Cup ) 2. Sacha Kljestan ( 2010 World Cup ) 3. Maybe Jeff Agoos 1994 and Dooley 1990 4. Razov or Kreis 2006 ? 5. Bert Patenaude and Jimmy Doulas ( 1930 World Cup )
I'm confused in the opening you state, "Note: Players who were cut or vetoed by injury can not be on the list." Donovan was cut but you have him on your list.
Why are Patenaude and Douglas on your list? They weren't snubbed. They each played all three games in the 1930 World Cup.
After I saw that Douglas retired in 1931. Listed can put players who played in a World Cup. My final list 1. Landon Donovan ( 2014 ) 2. John Harkes ( 1998 ) 3. Jeff Agoos ( 1994 ) 4. Sacha Kljestan ( 2010 and 2014) 5. Steve Snow ( 1994 ) Note: If Kasey Keller was named to the 1994 World Cup and 2010 he will go down in history as the American president that participate in World Cups.
Chemistry means something. And if a guy is fxcking a teammate's wife you can't have him on the team, no matter how talented he is. I was a huge Sampson critic at the time and I still don't think he was a great coach, but he was in an impossible situation especially in that respect, kicking Harkes off the team was his only play. That's why I never bought the rumor about Jeff Carter fxcking Scott Hartnell's wife, they played together for a year and a half after the rumor was public, never would have happened if it was true.
Here is my list (1-5) in order: 1. Landon Donovan 2014 (one day we may know the entire story) 2. Hugo Perez 1990, and he may have been injured. 3. Brian Ching 2010 a major surprise, as he had been key here in qualifiying, playing in 11 qualifiers. (note: one of the all time classic Big Soccer moments was when a poster reported he saw a melancholy looking Ching, apparently headed back to Houston at the Hartford airport. The cut list had not atm been officially released.) 4. Ricky Davis, 1990, one of the very good players during the dark ages, Gansler decided against indoor pros. 5. Eddie Johnson, 2010, 2014, yep Eddie got it twice. Anyway, here is the snub by cup list, chronologically 1990, Hugo Perez, Ricky Davis 1994, Kasey Keller (and I believe Sommer was better than Keller, at the time), Desmond Armstrong 1998: John Harkes*, John O'Brien, Roy Lassiter 2002:Tim Howard,Anton Razov 2006: Taylor Twellman, Jay DeMerit, 2010: Brian Ching, Eddie Johnson 2014: Donovan, Feilhaber (we could have used the spark off the bench), Ream
John Harkes was rightly left off the squad. We didn't know what behavior occured at the time, but we knew something happened, because you don't just throw the captain off for no reason. The bigger snub was sitting Lalas all the games and sitting Balboa for all but the dying moments of the World Cup, eventhough those two had been the key cornerstones of the team.
This saves me writing my own list, as it pretty much sums it up. A few guys here or there, like Jeff Cunningham, Michael Parkhurst, etc. come to mind, but this is fair to say. However, to truly address the title of the thread... Landon Donovan was not even the first World Cup Snub of this World Cup, that goes to Eddie Johnson. Clarence Goodson and Michael Orozco-Fiscal have huge arguments for being snubbed this World Cup and Edu as well.
Of course we now do. Google it. He was doing Wynalda's wife as the team got ready for the tournament. Everyone except Harkes has now admitted that was the issue. I was very critical of Sampson at the time and it returns out he was 100% correct. I am no prude but that is flatly unacceptable behavior, from the Captain no less.
He had never been capped by Germany and he'd been a dual US-German citizen for his entire life, so why wouldn't he have been eligible? But I wonder whether we can call him a snub. Had he expressed a desire to play for the United States in 1990? I think he was still hoping to play for Germany at that point.
I don't see EJ as being snubbed. He wasn't scoring going into the camp. His move to DC failed to get him scoring and ready for camp selection. He did play a role in qualifying but that was all. I honestly didn't expect him to be named to the roster. In 2010 he scored a few goals in Greece and only got a call-up because we barely had any strikers. We had Jozy, Findley, EJ, Ching, Buddle, Gomez and Casey. Buddle and Gomez were on form right during the selection of the WC. Ching was his usual self. Casey wasn't scoring. Findley, he was fast and Bradley prefered a poor man's Davies as opposed to no Davies at all. EJ had his shot in the '06 WC. I doubt he gets any more NT call-ups. Boyd, Iceman, Agudelo and loads more are the way to go.
Yes, but that doesn't apply to what I was saying. I also think there was far more to criticize Sampson over. Not taking Lassiter was a big one. Benching Lalas and Balboa in favor of Dooley and Regis was another. Trying to replace Harkes with Deering adds yet another. I also think that if that was the issue then when he dismissed Harkes he should've come out and said he let him go for conduct that was unbecoming of a teammate, or something else that would've made it clear that something occured, rather than skirting the issue and making it seem like it was based off his performance or a coaching decision. He mishandled that whole situation, and calling him Captain for Life also set that up to be the case. Why would you call someone that?
Shxt, Deering wasn't as bad as Maisenouve. Except it isn't really any of our business in this case. My guess would be that Wynalda asked him to handle it in the manner that he did.