Not necessarily, but probably. Squad will be announced tomorrow before the team leaves for Naples. Looks like Thiago Silva will remain out with an injury.
I think Allegri hates him. I wouldn't be surprised. He is from Toscany (the most communist region in Italy) and very likely to be a hardcore left-winger anti-American. I am still at desbelief at how he would have been hired by Berlusconi though. He even called up Oddo and Montelongo this weekend because of all the injuries. NAPOLI-MILAN: THE ROSSONERI SQUAD MILANELLO – Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri has called up the following 20 players for tomorrow’s match at Napoli: Abbiati, Amelia, Roma, Antonini, Bonera, Montelongo, Nesta, Oddo, Papastathopoulos, Yepes, Boateng, Flamini, Gattuso, Pirlo, Seedorf, Strasser, Ibrahimovic, Inzaghi, Pato, Robinho. Unavailable: Abate, Jankulovski, Thiago Silva, Zambrotta, Ambrosini, Ronaldinho. Not called up: Onyewu, Oduamadi.
I'm not extremely familiar with the Milan situation at the moment but as frustrated as I am about Gooch's lack of PT, the simple fact is he was injured for nearly a year and hasn't demonstrated any particular value for Milan as of yet. I think not choosing Gooch at this point doesn't necessarily point to any anti-Americanism and theorizing such based on where the coach was born is a bit of a stretch. By comparison if we were to assume american sportsmen are left wing (let alone a bias towards players of a particular nationality) because they come from poor parts of the US we'd often be wrong.
There is no way they are better. Simply put, the US team is better than Italy right now. Bonera and Oddo don't even figure on the NT.
Is Allegri must be a communist really the only explanation? The way I see is Onyewu needed luck on his side to make a decent go of things at Milan, instead he had bad luck and now he looks to be completely out of the Milan equation. Dumb luck is a big factor in success and one that's often overlooked. Sure you need the attributes and abilties to take advantage of it, but being in the right place at the right time is actually IMO just as importnat. Onyewu probably feels aggreived, and understandbly so, that he's never got a chance to prove himself at Milan. But if I had to rate the three most important factors in Onyewu going MIA at Milan I'd rate them in this order: 1) The situation never arose to give him a run of playing time 2) His injury 3) The very few times he saw the pitch, in friendlies and his 30 minutes in the CL he didn't perform that well.