enough can’t be said about how he was set to be a very good club player and an exceptional international based on fit
I'll try to temper my thoughts because there is so much nostalgia for what he had to offer and because we just don't have a big enough sample size from his pre-car crash career, and lastly because we've had such a heaping pile of crap at the 9 spot since then. He was exactly the type of striker that we needed. He was built like a short Fat Ronaldo. Massive lower half, great burst of pace and first step quickness. He knew how to play off the shoulder of the last man and he could finish. Find me another one of those, even now with all the hyped players we have coming through. He also had the killer instinct and massive confidence. He was the prototypical number 9, and when we lost him, we lost a fair bit. Again, it's tough to wax lyrical about him as we have such a small sample size, but he was on a very good trajectory and his physical qualities made it seem likely that he would have occupied that role for the US for a few years at least, especially that 2010 WC.
We were all so heartbroken for the kid, who is extremely likeable and was out there in social media (as it was at the time) pleading his case to be included. We were all just hoping beyond hope that we would see that same kid we saw in Azteca, and were probably a bit delusional about the whole thing, especially given that our alternative included Edson Buddle and flipping Robbie Findley.
Charlie Davies was and had the potential to be far better than what people remember Stu Holden's potential to be. Speed, strength, finishing and mentality were all there.
The goals at Azteca, Confederations Cup, and in Ligue 1 are a large enough sample size to conclude he likely would've been one of our best all-time strikers. There's not enough to project his career in the top-5 though. Stuart Holden had been one of the top CMs in the EPL, the season he was injured. He certainly would've gone to a bigger club, if not for the injury.
Yeah, let's leave the Stu Holden talk out of this. He was absolutely brilliant for his club side pre-kung fu Johnny Evans tackle. I know Nigel de Jong started it, but he had returned to a pretty good level of fitness prior to that Evans tackle.
I think his greatest impact was on the synergy of the team. He made the other players better because of his particular skillset and athleticism.
Way off of Pulisic level, not Weah either in terms of technical ability. Was a great complement to Altidore. Starting for a low to mid level team in a Top 5 league would be about his peak.
1. Charlies Davies---car accident 2. Stuart Holden---broken leg 3. Onyewu---patellar tendon rupture 4. Jermane Jones--fractured leg That 2010 team could've been special. The semi-final bracket was wide open.
Weah and Pulisic have never scored at the Confederations or at Azteca or any other major senior level tournament. Still it's not realistic to make superlative comparisons with Davies. He had come up through the old scholastic system, playing prep school and then college soccer. At age 18, development wise, he would've been years behind Weah and Pulisic at the same ages. Hammarby was basically Davies's 'academy'. The injury occurred just as he had been breaking through at top-5 level. We'll never know what his true would've been.
You'll go crazy thinking about what could have been in 2010. Shit, you have dual nationals like Rossi and Subotic that would have been all-time greats for the US. Hangeland would have been a useful player for that team. If you really want to stretch you can hope Ibisevic sticks around the US a little while longer and gets citizenship. Potential lineup ------------Howard Cherundolo--Subotic--Onyewu--Bocanegra -------------Jones--------Bradley ---Donovan-----Holden----Dempsey -------------------Ibesevic Or take out Holden and put in Rossi if you want the same 4-4-2 formation that Bradley used. Sure, this team might still lose to Ghana, but they'd be big favorites. Then probably favorites against Uruguay in the next round too
Clark had a perfectly fine career and you'd expect him to get caps under any cycle in the last 30 years. He just had a shocking game against Ghana that really taints his legacy. Jones would have been a huge huge upgrade, but Clark wasn't a desperation pick like Findley. Plus he kicked Carlos Ruiz in the head.
Clark was a high quality player for the team and one of my favs. However, he lacked the pace/size/power/direct running to handle the central midfields of England and Ghana. They made for poor matchups. He did well in the Confederations.
Well, I had been thinking more of players who had actually been in the program. Either way, we would've had a very good chance to make semis.
Charlie Davies was good. Jordan Morris good. Not in the class of the Pulisic types we are now in the process of developing. Under Bob Bradley the USMNT played better than the summer of its parts. We can go thru the resumes of individual players and compare to now, but that group played better AS A TEAM than resumes suggest. It was always a team one could feel good about in terms of effort and commitment. Davies fit in beautifully in the role that Bradley carved out for him. I think that Bradley 2010 team is the last time we can say a USMNT played better than the sum of its parts. Based on resumes that team had no business beating Spain at the 2009 Confederations Cup or WINNING a group at the 2010 World Cup. But I saw it with my own eyes. They did.
a joke. DeMerit was really good at tournaments. Were we really ever gonna have SUbotic suit up for the NT? I'm sure representing a semi-decent squad like Serbia had more benefits in the eyes of potential clubs than if he suited for us imo
They won the group with 5 points in a trash group. That was more about England crumpling than the US overperforming. But Spain, possibly the best national team of all time, yeah, that was hell of a win.
Morris has never scored in a top-5, at Azteca, or in a major tournament. Spain at its peak had a 35-match unbeaten streak. Bracketing that were losses to Northern Ireland and the US. This made sense because at that time, big teams were unaccustomed to low possession %. So the US was exactly the type of team to take out Spain. Nowadays, a team like France is more than happy to take 30% possession as needed. Back then, US players tended to go to college, thus comparing club levels to those of other teams was not really an apples to apples situation.
I won't argue 2009 which was as much about a fluke convergence of events to even get to play Spain, but 2010, they were absolutely a worthy group winner and one could easily argue they should have won all 3 games. They outplayed Ghana in the loss as well.