Dane Richards had a wide smile on his face as he celebrated Saturday night’s Western Conference final victory over Real Salt Lake with his Red Bulls teammates. He will have to cut his celebration a bit short as he prepares to travel to Jamaica on Sunday for its upcoming World Cup qualifier against Canada in Kingston on Wednesday.
Richards will join Jamaica on Sunday and will join the Red Bulls in Los Angeles on Thursday for next Sunday’s MLS Cup final against the Columbus Crew at Home Depot Center.
"I’m leaving tomorrow,” Richards said. “Most likely the English Premier League players are going to play so I’m just going to go there, eat some Jamaican food and get ready for (the MLS Cup final), get some nice weather and come back on Thursday.”
One player who has not been called by his national team is Juan Pablo Angel, who had been considered a candidate to be called up by Colombia for its upcoming friendly against Nigeria.
Columbia should give Angel a call-up. I mean if you give Hugo Rodallega a call-up, then Angel warrants one. I know Rodallega is being pursued by PSV Eindhoven, and more appearances in the national team better help his chances. But Angel can score goals.
Jamaica needs to win to have a chance to get to the World Cup. Why would they compromise on player selection?
William,
That is the rule, but it is not always applied cleanly and players and national eam coaches have discussions with clubs and the club coaches to come to resolutions. Which is part of why some US national team players do and do not get called up for some games. Young players in Europe also can fall down the pecking orders at their clubs just for missing time on national team duty. Who is going to police that, FIFA? They don’t and it happens.
In the last game for Jamaica, Richards got 12 minutes:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/match?id=244648&league=FIFA.WORLDQ.CONCACAF&cc=5901
In the previous one, he didn’t play:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/match?id=254653&league=FIFA.WORLDQ.CONCACAF&cc=5901
Richards would be better served playing in the MLS Final at full strength rather than sitting on Jamaica’s bench and taking a couple of extra flights in a week. Jamaica has 4 strikers ahead of him — two that play in the EPL which observes the FIFA int’l dates and two that play in Norway where the season has already ended. In addition they can call up Cummings from Colorado who is also available. Why do they need a 6th striker here?
At the end of the day, Jamaica is technically in the right to call up Richards, but it would behoove everyone involved if they would be reasonable and work with NY.
Jamaica’s national football team:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_national_football_team
How much is RBNY paying him? I dare say not enough that he should think twice about representing his country in an EXTREMELY critical qualifier.
I mean, if he’s only worth $33,000/year to RBNY anyway, no one should complain.
good for him getting the call, a nice reward for his stellar form lately. This won’t affect him much for Sunday, folks. He’ll get some practice with European players and have a full four days to recover. It’s not like Jamaica is a long flight
I guy is being called up to play for his country in arguably the most important WCQ the country has had in 4 years. He has practiced with NY/NJ for 5 months. 2 days away from the team is not going to be very harmful.
But Eugene, isn’t John right? Isn’t the club obliged to release its player on an international match day for qualifiers? How is there any complication?
Please do correct me if I am missing something.
John, pass around what you’re smoking if you think these situations are that easy.
Yeah, but Jamaica needs to be reasonable here — he’s a bench player for them and a key player for us. Having him or not having him does not substantially affect their chances of making it to the next round.
Ives, what’s the situation with Mbuta? RedBullsReader is reporting that he picked up a knock that he’s “had difficulty shaking” for the last few weeks — I guess resulting in him not being in the 18 for either of the Houston games or this game with RSL — seems like a very strange description (or non-description) of an injury. I hope this guy hasn’t blown his knee out, requires surgery, and it just hasn’t been made public…
There is nothing to talk about. Qualifiers are mandatory for clubs to release there players for national team duty.
Osorio said afterwards that he will talk to Richards about staying with the Red Bulls but ultimately there’s little the team can do. It’s a World Cup qualifier and a FIFA date. Richards seems to think the rest will do him some good. It probably helps that MLS Cup is on Sunday and not Saturday.
Jamaica will want to win this match. If they beat Canada and Mexico beats Honduras then Jamaica will advance to the next round of World Cup qualifying.
It’s awful that this decision conflicts with MLS Cup…
i agree…JCO and RB F.O. will probably have a talk with him. Maybe it was just a spur of the moment type of thing when he spoke about it.
WHAT?! You have got to be joking me. Turn it down. He needs to go into the cup final rested and have at least 2 practices with the team. This is ridiculous. I’m sorry, but Dane shouldn’t go. I don’t believe he even got any minutes last time around (or only a few). He and the Red Bulls need to turn this down and Jamaica needs to look elsewhere for a bench player this week.
Call Omar Cummings in Colorado.
please dont start him Jamaica! we need him rested!!!!!!!!!!!!!