1. Dolo's play at Mexico was not even that bad relative to the rest of team; heck, other defenders were worse than Dolo (Boca). Spector has had garbage games since the Mexico game (esp. ES in Utah) and wasn't benched. That has been my biggest issue with this situation. 2. I don't think Dolo is nearly as injury prone as Spector. Specs has had several noticeable injuries in the past ~4 years. Examples: concussion vs. Mexico (GC final), concussion (swallowed his tongue) at the end of the 08/09 EPL season, torn labrum in his left hip. He finds a way to get injured it seems. 3. Dolo's age isn't that significant (to me) at this point. Either he can play or he can't. I think his age is significant in the sense that this will most likely be his last WC. I understand with your point on the benching vs. training situation; however, Dolo also plays in a quality European league and doesn't see the bench. Were Dolo some guy from the MLS, I would see your point. With the injuries to our CBs and questions remaining with LB, I wouldn't expect a decision by Bob anytime soon.
I also tend to prefer Cherundolo to Spector in most situations because of his superior attacking abilities. I also agree that he can help out Dempsey's game a lot when he plays. In fact, I think if you were to go back and look, I bet you would find that Dempsey's strike rate from the right mid position is higher when playing with Cherundolo than with Spector or Hedjuk. But the fact that Dolo's game is all about penetrating into the attacking third and delivering crosses, probably gives Bob pause about playing the two of them together- since Dempsey is prone to go walkabout into the middle and neglect his defense- that's just part of his game. So, while Dempsey becomes more effective offensively, it also potentially leaves you more open for the counter attack. But that's okay, I think, because as long as both fullbacks aren't coming forward at the same time, you still have three guys in the back to defend. And that's exactly what we do most of the time when our fullbacks attack. This is why, all and all, I think our best possible backline would consist of Boca as a defensive LB, a healthy and in-form pairing of Gooch and DeMerit in the middle, and Dolo as the attacking RB. This is pretty much the set up that Boca plays in at Rennes. It's sort of an unbalanced, right-biased attack. But because Boca doesn't have the speed necessary to safely perform overlapping runs, your left winger has to be capable of virtually carrying the attack from the left flank while still adding something to the defense. We have a guy that can do that in Donovan, but nobody else can. The question now is what are we going to do if we have to continue to play Boca in the middle. If Bornstein continues to improve, and become more consistent, on both sides of the ball, I think Bob will stick with him. But if we choose to go to an even more offensively-oriented guy- Castillo- it would probably make more sense to play Spec's on the right and have Donovan and Dempsey switch sides.
I don't think Dolo was benched after the Mexico game. I think that Bob just switched to a more conservative game plan (involving Spector) for the next two games after we failed to get any points at Azteca. Plus, Dolo was carrying a card. But then once qualification was assured, Bob felt he could go with the more aggressive option- Dolo. Just compare our style of play in the last two games. The T&T game plan was about one thing and one thing only- the Long Ball. Spector is perfectly suited to that. I don't think either of fullbacks crossed the halfway line the whole game. Dolo would be useless in that situation. We just keep hoofing it up to our forwards from distance hoping that someone would have a "moment of brilliance" and score. But the "moment" was a really long time in coming, because we lost possession 90% of the time on the long balls! So that forced our whole midfield to play like destroyers, and that's why they looked like crap. Until Clark scored the late goal, and we switched to possession mode. So OF COURSE the midfielders who came in looked better because they were suddenly playing the roles that actually suited them. It was a strange and ugly game plan, but ultimately, it worked.