The U.S. men's national team moved a few steps closer to being a fully healthy group as recent word out of Europe revealed that injured midfielder Stuart Holden and defender Oguchi Onyewu have resumed full training with their club teams.
Holden, sidelined since suffering a broken leg in the U.S. team's 2-1 friendly loss to the Netherlands, is back training with Bolton, though Bolton manager Owen Coyle is being careful not to rush him back to action.
Onyewu had been spotted doing conditioning with AC Milan's first team last week, but revealed on Twitter on Thursday that he was back to full training.
"The kid is back!!!! Normal training from here on out, no restrictions," was the message Onyewu left on Twitter on Thursday morning.
Holden and Onyewu join Charlie Davies as U.S. national team players who have recently returned from lengthy injuries to resume training.
In other Americans Abroad news:
Midfielder Alejandro Bedoya continued his recent run of good form for Swedish club Orebro by delivering an assist in his team's 4-1 loss to Kalmar on Wednesday.
The loss wasn't the only bad news for Bedoya though. Bedoya, who turns 23 today, also picked up his third yellow card of the season, meaning he will miss the team's next match.
Here is Bedoya's assist (at the 22-second mark):
What do you think about the news? Excited to see Holden and Onyewu returning to action? Think they'll see time with their clubs before the end of the European season?
Share your thoughts below.
I’m still holding out for Jones.
I keed I keed
louis z,
Reyna cost us our chance to advance? Are you forgetting Mastroeni’s dimwitted red card before half-time of the Italy match when we were a man up? Are you forgetting Carlos Bocanegra’s over-head kick into our penalty area which resulted in a PK just before half-time of the Gana match?
Reyna may have been overrun on that play but it was no where near the catastrophic errors that Pablo and Carlos made in the tournament.
You gotta love how Scottish coaches in the epl treat American players. The chance that moyes gave Landon could pay big dividends in the world cup. The kid knows he can crate against the best!
In my view, it all comes down to which US MNT shows up to play: the one that can hold the ball and play agressively, or the one that can’t hold the ball and plays passively.
check your math bro…. world cup is only a month and a half away
2.5 months til the world cup? Try not even 1.5 months
the pay must be something of a step up, because seeing those fields and the play of that league isn’t anything to be proud of.
Bedoya seems to be a lot like Adu. Not as skilled, creative, or composed as Adu but still very much so. What makes him great is that he is soccer savvy and has a very high work rate. He puts himself in good positions on the field and covers tons of ground so he doesn’t have to have a team built around him and can change things if he’s having difficulty in one part of the field, as opposed to Adu, who will wait in the attack for the ball and mostly only shines in games where the USA is built around him and he just isn’t there yet. He does the best when the USA has the majority of possession, which isn’t very often. In fact, the USA had less than 50% possession against ALL it’s opponents in the Confederations Cup. It had 47% against Egypt, 43% against Italy, 36% against Brazil both times, and 36% against Spain.
Davies, Gooch, Holden:
– Full training with club teams
– 2-3 competitive club team matches (maybe)
– 2 weeks training with USMT
– USMT friendlies vs. Czech Republic & Turkey & Australia
– 2.5 months till World Cup
Enough? I think so.
I get it here at University. I’ve watched some Ligue 1 games on it. Haven’t been able to watch Boca though.
I will be. I will eat one pound of nachos and and three hot dogs everyday in order to be ready
thanks
“and Coylewould also like to have such an important player available again.”
“He’s a great kid and he’s got a big role to play for Bolton Wanderers in the future.”
“I certainly wouldn’t rule him out playing again this season, he has got a heart the size of a lion.”
Really nice words from the manager for a player who has only started one game for them! This is great stuff. Can’t wait to see Holden out there every week.
this is great news!!!
Having returned from many long term injuries playing soccer, I can assure that the hunger and eagerness when first returning to matches outweights lack of recent games. I think this is a good situation for our team heading into the WC.
I dream for the day when every top player in college is hyped about being drafted into MLS…… To think if all our players in Scandinavia were in MLS…. it would be a thing of Beauty…. we would have been able to see Charlie Davies develop while playing for the Revs, that would have been awesome
The Day will come I am sure
He plays left wing in a 4-3-3 formation
Gooooch!
With Bedoya, I believe his club team employs him as a winger but he seems to be given the ability to roam a little more, which is good for someone with his speed.
Haha, a new soccerbyives challenge! How many SBI readers can get match fit by June 12?
I had a channel in the past called TV MONDE 5, it played all those games…not sure if you have any idea what channel that is or if you would get it though
I hope they are able to play at there best. I would hate it to be another Claudio Reyna vs Ganna WC game, clearly he wasn’t 100% ready and was put in anyway not because he was the best player at that position but because he was a coach’s favorite and it cost us going to the next round.
With three games prior to England, hopefully everybody who is recovering now will have a chance to get match fit before June 12.
I was thinking the same thing- you could see a pink armband on him after that nice shot to start the video and no other teammates had that armband in subsequent frames. Seems a little crazy though.
does he play more centrally with his club team? anyone know?
Random question, couldn’t think of where else to ask it, but does anyone know what TV channel the Coupe de France Final is played on in the US? (or if it’s on tv at all…)
sick pass
Glad to have the boys back and fresh. Man, that was a good awareness pass from Bedoya…Hope he keeps it up and has further success during and after the WC!
my bad, i must have misinterpreted the general message!
Yes but 3 of our starting 11 will have MAYBE a combined 5 games between them before the World Cup – no where near enough to perform at 80% of their capacity.
No way has this benefited us in the slightest. The only time an injury benefited us was when Ching was out and Bradley finally realized he had a star on his bench – otherwise, we need our boys playing games.
GREAT TO HEAR THIS. :D. USA gonna beat England. I am so confident, the sky is the limit with our team.
what on earth is sarcastic about that? Davies has shown great resolve. So has Gooch, so has Holden. these are guys who really want to play. no sarcasm ws intended, and i apologize if my remarks were interpreted that way.
good news coming from all around!
I have 2 weeks of vacation scheduled starting June 11th. I honestly am dying here. What is it? 42 days away now? Struggling… it needs to hurry up.
Is bedoya their captain? Impressive if so, for such a young non european player.
That’s fantastic news for the US. I wonder why Milan doesn’t announce Gooch back in training? It would seem after being out so long that it would be news he is finally back.
I read an article earlier this week that Holden is aiming to get on the pitch this weekend. It’d be great to see him back.
Is Bedoya captain of Orebro? He has some sort of armband. Horrible goalkeeping on the first goal. Oi.
If you were trying to come off sarcastic you did a fantastic job 😉
Good to see them returning to action, have they go enough time to get fully match fit?
hokie futbol? give me a break
damn straight! the results might not come for us, but that would be the fortunes of war. nobody can question the character of our players or their resolve in trying to get ready for WC 2010.
Bah, 90 minute fitness is highly overrated. : )
Mr. Burns: “Are you saying Boo or Boourns?”
Crowd: “Booooo”
Hans: “I was saying Boourns”
I agree with what Glass said. I dont want to risk the health of our injured players. I want the best for them. Just coming back from the injury list and maybe playing one game or two at best, doesnt really show much. I tell you what…. you really cannot question our fighting spirit and overcoming anything attitute. USA USA USA USA USA
Leonardo is leaving AC Milan — I wonder what this will mean for Onyewu’s future.
The Milan fans aren’t yelling boo, they’re yelling “Goooooooooch.” (with apologies to David Letterman)
When the injury bug bites it bites hard. Let’s hope the team has gotten it out of their system and it goes and bites a few lions out there.
Maybe, but I think their recovery was just a little too late. A few more weeks of training and games would have been perfect. That, and having Jones would have been nice. Oh well. I’m pumped that these guys are getting back and will be ready for this summer.
Great news for USMNT. I think that these preWC comebacks could end up being much mroe of a positive than most of us expect. Having these guys fresh off of rehab and a several weeks of solid training will give our squad some good competitiona in camp and ENG a headache trying to figure out what type of starting 11 we come out with on June 12. That said, it could also be a nightmare for us.
I think all these injuries were a blessing in disguise…..come June 11th, we will have our full squad in the World cup
Although it may seem counterintuitive at first, it may actually benefit the USMNT that so many of the players were injured, but are now mostly recovered. If they can get some good training sessions in and some games under their belt, they will come into the WC mentally and physically fresh, unlike most of the other players.