Herculez Gomez should be on that plane
U.S. head coach Bob Bradley will announce the 23-man U.S. World Cup roster today live on ESPN during SportsCenter's 1 p.m. ET hour.
I fully anticipate that Herculez Gomez will be on that final list. His 66th minute goal showed his usefulness as a super sub. DaMarcus Beasley had a good game and so did Alejandro Bedoya. Heath Pearce was as poor as Jonathan Bornstein.
Strikers: Edson Buddle and Gomez will join Jozy Altidore and Brian Ching.
Midfielders: Jose Francisco Torres and DaMarcus Beasley should make the cut. Alejando Bedoya or Robbie Rogers should pick up the final spot joining Landon Donovan, Stuart Holden, Ricardo Clark, Michael Bradley, Maurice Edu, and Benny Feilhaber.
Defenders: Clarence Goodson will be selected. In my reckoning Goodson should be higher on the depth chart than Onyewu. Jonathan Bornstein will also retain his spot despite reassuring no one. Steve Cherundolo, Oguchi Onyewu, Carlos Bocanegra, Jonathan Spector, Jay DeMerit make up the rest of the defensive brigade.
I concur with your assessments. Gooch is a major concern. He is clearly not match fit, plus the ice on his knee means he is not completely healed either. Goodson showed promise and he is excellent in the air, especially on offensive corner kicks. He will bring Gooch, though.
Bornstein had better not play else in an emergency. He is consistently poor. Bornstein is to Bradley what Agoos was to Arena. Why is Spector's playing LB at WH not sufficient for Bradley? Spector, Bocanegra and Cherundulo should be the options at outside back and maybe Beasely in a pinch. If no Gooch, then maybe Goodson/DeMerit or Boca in the middle with Dolo and Spector at the outside. We shall see how we lineup against Turkey and the Aussies.