Blessing in disguise?

As you've probably read already, US "midfielder" Clint Dempsey will miss the match against Honduras, and is questionable for the game against Costa Rica. So if the US takes care of business in Honduras on Saturday, we won't see Dempsey in a US uniform again for probably a couple of months.

Clint Dempsey has scored 5 goals in 13 qualifying matches, which makes it sound like he is a big part of the attack, but this hasn't been the case over the last few matches, and really hasn't been the case since Bob Bradley decided that Dempsey is a mid-fielder (and has since started his own son at striker in front of him).


With Dempsey out, the obvious choice to replace him would be Holden, who has come on as a substitute late in games to play the right wing position and done nothing except play with a ton of energy on offense and defense and create a wealth of dangerous chances for the US attackers. However, Bradley could be forgiven for wanting the luxury of bringing a weapon like Holden on during the second half, and so may consider an option such as Benny Feilhaber (a poor man's Jose Francisco Torres) or Jose Francisco Torres himself. Torres could certainly play a role similar to the one that Donovan plays on the left side extremely effectively.

In a way this solves a bit of a point of contention among US fans. Supporters seem split over whether Dempsey, with some thinking he deserves to lose playing time to younger, hungrier players and some thinking he is still one of the US' best who still deserves a spot in the lineup. Now Dempsey won't have to be benched in order for us to see what Holden, Torres et al. can do in his absence.

The biggest beneficiaries of such a move might be young strikes Jozy Altidore and Charlie Davies. While the duo didn't blow us away during the last two qualifying games, they weren't given many chances by a US team that didn't seem very interested in stringing any passes together on offense or really working to create something. Torres and Holden are the types of players that can play accurate balls that give a striker a great chance to put one in the back of the net, and Davies and Altidore both possess at the very least a nose for the goal and the killer instinct to put a chance away when they get one. Here's hoping they get a couple of them come Saturday.