There isn't a more in-form American striker in the world right now than Herculez Gomez, something that hasn't gone unnoticed by U.S. national team head coach Bob Bradley.
Gomez told his club's website that he has had contact with Bradley during his recent goal-scoring binge (seven goals in 12 matches), and he acknowledged that he just keep scoring and playing more to have any realistic chance of playing in this summer's World Cup.
"The United States only has two friendlies left before the World Cup," Gomez told Pueblafutbolclub.com. "The only chance the coach has to see me is to see what I do with Puebla. There has been contact, but he has the mentality that if I can't help my club then I can't help my national team, and for that I have to get on the field."
(UPDATED- Gomez contacted SBI on Monday and told us his comments were mis-translated by the Mexican media (in this case, the Puebla website), and that he has not actually been in contact with Bob Bradley recently. He did say that his agent, Richard Motzkin, has told him that Bradley is aware of his exploits and recent success in Mexico.)
Gomez scored his seventh goal of the Mexican League season on a free kick in Puebla's 2-1 win vs. Club America on Sunday. The goal proved to be the game-winning score.
While it remains unclear just what level of contact there has been between Gomez and Bradley, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise considering Bradley stays in touch with dozens of players in his player pool. Gomez is no stranger to Bradley, having been a part of the U.S. national team that played in the 2007 Copa America. Gomez has earned two caps under Bradley, but none in more than two years.
put down the crack pipe while you’re typing at least….
Dude, Altidore looks bad even when surrounded by Hull City players. LOL
AYE!
hedjuk, our very own energizer bunny…. bwah ahahahahahaha….
Quick to blow your own trumpet there, weren’t we Ives?
GK – Rimando
Bobby Convey does not appreciate the Gomez hate. End of sentence
Why censor it? A lot of people suspect it, so you might as well let them say and then let you rebut them.
Or the tight uniform.. 🙂
Gomez over Altidore.. I’m sorry but just no
I agree, although I think Ching will go for sure, I’m sick of seeing Findley and Cunningham, they had their chance. I don’t care about Gomez from years ago in the MLS, I care about his form right now and right now he is scoring goals. If he scores three or more goals in April I say bring him, even if he doesn’t play we need a 4th forward.
It wont hurt to give him a shot. Heck If Sasha K and Wynne were given opportunities I would be suprised if an invite were not extended to Gomez. That being said who knows maybe he’ll take advantage of this opportunity much like Bedoya has once given a shot. There would be no point in taking Casey and Ching since Ching does everything Casey does but with more pace. Might as well have a forward who offers up something Different.
EPL is singificantlyh better than the Mexican League.
But no player in the world would be scoring hat tricks EVERY week there.
Anyway, no rational observer should be proposing Herculez Gomez as Altidore’s replacement. But Herc does belong in the conversation about trying to find a Davies-like forward for South Africa if Charlie Davies isn’t fully recovered.
Schillaci is closer to the correct spelling, Alex (still not sure if I have it right).
Anyway, I thought of him too. He was a journeyman forward that made the Azzuri’s cut and wound up scoring a bunch of goals at Italia’90.
Dude…. Altidore would be scoring hat tricks every week in Mexico…. Gomez would be on the bench for Hull City Reserve games…. Gomez over Altidore is simply mad
Herc has done enough to get called in to the pre-WC training camp.
Hopefully, Bradley will use the opportunity to evaluate his final options for South Africa instead of naming the final roster before those last 2 stateside friendlies.
We’re not going to have a bunch of world class strikers available as the deadline approaches and Herc is one of several players that deserve consideration.
Two words: Toto Schialli. Dont know him? look up his story. This guy could be our Schialli.
Not really. Based on what he has done in the last two years Altidore should not have an automatic spot in the NT squad. Even worst, he is turning into a major diver which it’s going to come back and bite us in the arse at he wort time.IMHO
Ives, can we sensor people that call bad a racist.
People like BigVic want only Mexican-Americans on the team.
BigVic’s line-up would look like this
Coach- Martin Vasquez
GK- (Could not find one)
RB-Orozco
CB-Gonzalez
CB-Bocanegra (Capitan = Captain in Spanish)
LB-Bornstein
RM-Salinas
CM-Flores
CM-Torres
LM-Castillo
RF-Gomez
LF-Padilla
Good Luck with that…. Bradley tries to field the best team possible and if your fav Mexican-American can not cut it you should not be mad
whoa. tell me that is a joke steven. I wish someone would event a sarchasm font.
Yeah and Casey did so well when he played overseas and on the National Team (Honduras game being the exception)
Please stop saying Bedoya and Torres like they should be locks
I don’t really see how his skill set – athletic player vs. technical player – makes any difference. I’m also not judging the teams around him. I’m judging a player whom I’ve seen play 25 or 30 times, whom is 27 years old, and whom never at any point struck me as national team caliber.
If Steve Lenhart scores six goals in the next four games – many of them unimpressive tap-ins – are we all going to start clamoring for him to get a national team call up? Sample size, people. Sample size.
you’re right, I left off Torres, forgot about him, now I understand how Bob Bradley feels…
I was taking him seriously until he said Adu, then I realized he is either kidding or on drugs.
You’re wrong my friend. Bob told IK Start’s website when he was checking out Goodson in some Swedish league action a few weeks ago that he would name an initial 30 players for the camp in May (for the two may friendlies) and submit his final 23 on June 1st.
At this point I would take Gomez over Altidore to the world cup. Think about it, Altidore hasn’t done squat in thee last two years while Gomez has been excelling in a strong Mexican league.
If it were today: I’m bringing Jozy, Ching, Gomez, and Johnson.
Jozy for obvious reasons.
Ching may not be great (he isn’t) but he’s been in tournament situations before and is someone who doesn’t rely on confidence to play well and works his socks off.
Gomez – You bring your most inform striker. He has scored goals with free kicks, shots outside 18, cherry picking, and headers. His array of goals is more than any of our strikers at the moment.
Johnson – Now with added time, he’s looking confident again. Has pace to burn but when it comes to knockout stages, he gets to ride the bench hard as he can’t compete with a Germany or England.
My formation: 4-5-1. Our midfield is far more compiled than our offense. If we can’t score but 1 in 20, then we sure as hell will make us the toughest team to break down.
Sadly Bradley has us playing somewhere in the middle: “Hmm I think we can play offensively in a 4-4-2 and try to score goals against quality players but maybe we can’t so why don’t we tell the players to just play where they like!” – Failure.
Unlike Jeff, Hercules didn’t ever rely on his athleticism. He relies on his technical skills. And he played on crap teams in KC and Colorado and out of position so how do you score on those teams. Those teams were supplying him great chances either. The only team that he was good on was LA.
He could be a good option off the bench at the WC. Bob just needs to know how he can use him if at all.
He scored a goal in one appearance and sucked in a few others.
Who is still younger than 98% of those who get called up to the national team…
Those that cross the border… (sorry it was too easy….)
My Grandmother is Mexican before all the hate comes pouring in…
by the way not really intended as an argument for Ching either but i think the chance of him not going are close to nil.
on the subject of strikers. I find it interesting that people are always down on Jeff Cunningham up on others given the fact that since the charlie davies got hurt the only U.S. stikers to score for the U.S. were Cunningham and Ching.
I actually like Findley but just on potential and i don’t know if i’d take Cunningham to the Cup. But of the players called in to fill Davies spot. Cunningham and Ching are the only ones that scored. I would add Cunningham’s was well take as well in a game where like the others he played in the midfield created few chances (which is the U.S. biggest problem. More so then it’s defense which will have issues precisely cause it’s midfield tends to struggle to hold the ball and create chances).
But my point is even Findley kept getting the starts in recent games, but it was Cunningham that took his shot on goal when it was presented and scored.
There are a lot of national team fans that will always pick a guy that looks like he should be good over a guy that does score and will often wrongly equate a gut that scores 10 bungled tap ins to a guy that can strike 10 goals with either foot from outside the box.
i’m not really argueing for cunningham. More for taking a very critical look at, one, whether in the run up the U.S. gave any of these guys a real chance to shine by not creating chances for them, and two, for, judging all of the strikers like most in the world score them, not on do they try hard or hold the ball up but do they score. anyways my two cents.
How do you know they’re Mexican? I thought everyone knew the Mexican league has the highest number of foreign players in Latin America… I guess not.
Here’s the link ladies and gents:
http://www.noshortcorners.com/2010/03/clarification-herculez-gomez-quotes.html
That’s good stuff. I’d love to see him get the chance to add some depth for us at forward. I’m of the opinion that if we want to be a real player in the WC, we need Donovan and Dempsey in their midfield spots. Anything thing that we can do to ensure that, I think we’ve got to consider. Besides, if Jozy got hurt our hands would be tied. We need the depth and the confidence that he would bring to the offense.
didn’t Cunningham score a goal in his one appearance?
I’m of the mind that with the Pool of players we’ve got for the USMNT, and certain players versitility (Donovan, Dempsey, Spector, & Boca in particular) I’d recommend selecting 7 defenders and 3 forwards (Jozy, Ching, Davies (or whoever’s HOT – Gomez, Ching, etc..), giveing us 10 Midfielders to chose from.
No direct contact has been made between Bradley and Gomez. Story confirmed by the horses mouth and you can read it on Seltzer’s website either now or in depth tomorrow. Won’t post the link cuz Big Brother will probably erase this comment and find a way to clear-up the mishap later. Ives, in all seriousness, I don’t really understand why you don’t want to give credit to a journalist for scooping the story. After all, we’re all family and so everybody on here should have a chance to get the full story before blowing their lids here.
Yes very funny Scott.
I agree that goal had some luck to it. The shot was absolutely crushed though…you create your own luck sometimes.
The guy is playing with a lot of enthusiasm. He isn’t another big slow forward… he deserves a look.
Comedy post of the day!
Thank you!
Everyone knows that I’ve said Bob has his “preferences” but that doens’t mean the man is racist. C’mon people.
BTW, not all MLS coaches are a good judges of talent. I’ts not like the MLS has Wenger, Ferguson, Benitez, Redknapp, or even Bruce in the league coaching.
We play differently than other leagues in the CONCACAF(fast and physical).
I hope he gets a shot, just like anyone else playing in the FMF or abroad.
I had my doubts, but maybe Bob prefers Mole Poblano after all.
ChicanoGeek520 is the man.
BTW, what about Chelis the coach of Puebla. Trippy dude always saying he’s gonna quit and now he’s got “Little fish” and Herc scoring winning goals against the mighty Club America.
GOMEZ IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO BE ON THE USA NATIONAL TEAM… HE WILL BE A WASTE OF SPACE ON THE BENCH. Why not throw someone like Findley, Cunningham, or Johnson there instead… they atleast have speed (and with a little luck could make something happen).
Personally I’d take Adu though!!!
hes running against mexicans… show me a mexican thats ever won… a race?
all those in favor for deleting this race-baiting garbage say aye…AYE
your dumb. id take in-form striker over conor casey/ching/findley anyday. come on now. let use logic here. he deserves to play in friendlies and get a shot on how he does then we can see if he “fits in” or not. he has grown over the last (2) years since he was last on it.
oh wait, bedoya is colombian descent. My bad. I’d hate to cross a colombian that way, by mistaking him for a mexican