The fact that Dempsey is going to start a lot of games is not in any way based on what the team was for Carlisle. More the fact that he can play in any of the front four spots conceivably and would be at worst third choice for any of them in addition to being one of the top scorers in the league for the last couple of seasons.

mw, I'm not disagreeing with you. He's always going to be the no1 option in the front 4 for any subbing and resting. Again, IBU is taking shots at MB as opposed to praising dempsey

I saw highlights in super slo-mo of bradley scoring against the Bestest Team Ever last week on Being: Liverpool. LET'S SEE DEUCE DO THAT!

But seriously, starting an early round League Cup game hurts the arguments at least as much if not more than it helps with respect to being "first choice." And really MW, if he starts 50% of the games, that makes him a...squad player.

I'm not taking shots at anyone get off my dick

Let me guess.... They don't field full squads against Manchester United either?

Zusi getting better and better. Going to be hard to not see him in the starting lineup for these next two games. Likely the player who keeps Jozy on the bench.

Both floridians

damn jozy

Landon came out late tonight with a knee injury. Pretty unfortunate. Call ups should be announced tomorrow so we'll know soon how serious it is.

We do know that Eddie Johnson is making his return! it's been a while.

GOALKEEPERS (3) : Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Tim Howard (Everton), Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake)

DEFENDERS (8) : Carlos Bocanegra (Racing Santander), Geoff Cameron (Stoke City), Edgar Castillo (Club Tijuana), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover), Maurice Edu (Stoke City), Clarence Goodson (Brondby), Fabian Johnson (Hoffenheim), Michael Parkhurst (Nordsjaelland)

MIDFIELDERS (8) : Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake), Michael Bradley (Roma), Joe Corona (Club Tijuana), Jermaine Jones (Schalke 04), Sacha Kljestan (Anderlecht), Brek Shea (FC Dallas), Danny Williams (Hoffenheim), Graham Zusi (Sporting Kansas City)

FORWARDS (5): Clint Dempsey (Tottenham Hotspur), Landon Donovan (LA Galaxy), Herculez Gomez (Santos), Alan Gordon (San Jose Earthquakes), Eddie Johnson (Seattle Sounders)

A forward from the Quakes called in and his name isn't Chris Wondolowski while at the same time Boyd and Jozy are both not called in.

I is confuse. I'm glad we called in Sacha, but we still didn't bring Lichaj. I think this roster can take care of business in these two games just fine, but it's definitely a little weird.

Jurgen done lost his mind calling in Gordon over Altidore and Boyd. He'll probably be battling just to make the game day 17 and I doubt he'll get on the field. EJ is alright I guess, he's probably good for 10-15 minutes at the end of games, but these games seem too important to be experimenting much with new guys.

I'm really hoping that Beckerman is only in the mix because Bradley and Jones are a bit knocked up, he best not be seeing time over D. Will.

Is Edu usually listed as a defender? Any chance of seeing him at center back, that would allow JK to live his dream of having 4 defensive center mids on the pitch at once.

Edu's only use at this point is as a CB. He's a ways down the MF depth chart and I guess Jurgen values his versatility over someone like Omar Gonzalez or whatever other CB options we could use for backups right now.

I'm worried about some of these call ups health wise and whether or not they can actually play or make an impact. If healthy however, I think our starting 11 is very strong and will do what needs to be done. It gets a little sketchy if Brek/Donovan/Jones/Bradley or anyone else who has had a recent injury goes down.

I guess Jozy is being punished over a tweet he made and then deleted. At least it's a theory. He hasn't been all that effective for the US for a while, but it hasn't all been his fault either. Alan Gordon will probably sub in for some kind of nothing roll against Antigua once we are up 3-0 just so Jurgen can say he didn't call him in for no reason. He's not a bad player, but he's hardly someone that I want on this roster. He will not see the field against Guatemala.

Assuming everyone's healthy...

----------Gomez-------
---------Dempsey-------
----Landy------Zusi-----
-----Bradley Jones-----
---FJ Cameron Boca Dolo--

Subs: EJ, Williams, Shea

Williams could easily get the nod over Jones, maybe we see Edu at centerback over Boca, but I think we stick with the savvy vet.

If Landy, Jones and Shea are all knocked up as reported then I'd go with,

----------Gomez-------
---------Dempsey-------
----Sasha------Zusi-----
-----Bradley Williams-----
---FJ Cameron Boca Dolo--

But knowing JK he'd probably do something more like this...

--------Gomez-------
Dempsey-------------Zusi
Beckerman Bradley Williams
----FJ Cameron Boca Dolo----

WTF at Castillo, Gordon and EJ?

Alan Gordon trended today. That's how you know everything is all ****ed up.

I wasn't aware of Jozy Tweetgate, but I honestly don't really care that much and I think Jurgen needs to find another way to send that message. He's confident and playing extremely well right now, we're a team that has a history of not scoring well, we need him on the field.

Basically this. This isn't college football. You don't just suspend a guy for a game because he did something stupid that he probably regretted right away. We're talking about the ****ing World Cup.

it's antigua that we're playing against. If it was honduras, costa rica, or mexico then I can see being mad. But, it's ****ing antigua. If we can't score a bunch against them even without jozy, then we suck regardless

So what did the tweet say? My google-fu is failing me.

Jozy's tweet said, "Love when people try to blame others for their own short comings and incompetence."

People speculated/assumed that tweet was related to some things Klinsy said in an ESPN interview a few weeks ago, but Jozy said today it was unrelated and he deleted it to try to avoid confusion.

Either way I suppose I'm assuming that wasn't much of a factor in him not being called in. At least I hope not.

US Soccer just announced that Donovan and Shea won't be playing in the upcoming qualifiers, but they can still be replaced on the roster.

Zusi seems like a near lock to start now, Kljestan can play out wide as can Corona, but he seems a little too inexperienced to get much time. We all know about the DWill experiments at right wing and I hope it doesn't come to that again. Based on the lack of depth at wing I would guess we fall back on the three d mid routine...

-----Gomez----
---Demps Zusi---
-Bradley Jones--
-----DWill-----

I think I'm ok with this as long as Williams is sitting back to play the destroyer role, allowing Jones/Bradley and Johnson/Dolo to get forward. We seem to get into trouble when all three dmids try to play the exact some position and just run into each other.

So assuming that Shea and Donovan are replaced...who gets the call? Beasley? Gatt?

this wtf

So it looks like no other players will be called in. It also looks like the entire reason they called in both Brek and Landon was that so USMNT doctors could assess them. They both immediately returned to Dallas and LA. Losing both hurts, though I still think our lineup will be fine as long as it doesn't include Beckerman or Castillo. Castillo is really bad. He is not even close to Lichaj's level even if Eric hasn't quite locked his spot in the 11 at Villa down yet.

Hopefully Guatemala beats Jamaica and we win 5-0 so we can breeze to the next round.