OUCH:

Injury blows will force Bradley to reshape U.S. (Jeff Carlisle, 10/16/09, ESPNsoccernet)

The other blow was the injury suffered by defender Oguchi Onyewu, who suffered a torn patellar tendon in his left knee late in Wednesday's match. Onyewu has been ever-present since first suiting up for the national team back in 2004, and had been relied on heavily during qualifying.

"Just his presence on the field, his experience makes it a tough loss for the team," said defender Jimmy Conrad about Onyewu. "But we're a team that has a good team spirit, and has shown that we have a lot of character and resolve."

Given an expected recovery period of three to four months, time would appear to be an ally for Onyewu. But his lack of playing time with AC Milan had already resulted in a slight drop in form, and duplicating his Confederations Cup displays seems unlikely if he isn't getting regular minutes, be it with Milan or some other club. Is an Onyewu at say, 80 or 90 percent going to be good enough? Will it be better than someone else at 100 percent? Those aren't sure bets by any means.

There certainly are plenty of candidates to replace Onyewu, but that list has grown shorter in recent weeks. Jay DeMerit's impending eye surgery is expected to sideline him for as long as two months, while Chad Marshall is currently sidelined by a left knee sprain.

Granted, these are short-term obstacles, and a player with the World Cup experience of Conrad is a nice insurance policy to have. But the friendly matches set to take place between now and the start of the World Cup were supposed to be a time to apply the finishing touches, not embark on a major remodel. The injuries make for a more complicated set of circumstances.

It's astonishing how few good central defenders there are in the world and we did well this Summer mainly because the Onyewu/DeMerit pairing--with Bradley and Clark in front of them--liberated the rest of the side to apply offensive pressure. If you're forced to play defensive defenders on the wings too you end up with no width whatsoever and it gets awfully tough to score goals.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 17, 2009 11:53 AM