Thorrington, Rolfe Called Up to the US National Team

Thorrington’s goal last Octo­ber buried David Beckham’s MLS Cup hopes/AP Photo.  

The details of the squad the US will travel with to Bar­ba­dos this week­end for the sec­ond leg of their World Cup qual­i­fy­ing tie has been pretty fairly mum. Snoop­ing around south Florida soc­cer cir­cles while the National Team is in town I can report that sev­eral play­ers will be called in to the team who play tonight for either Chicago or Chivas USA.

Steve Goff of the Wash­ing­ton Post reports John Thor­ring­ton and Chris Rolfe will be called in along with Chad Bar­rett. If you recall, last month I wanted to see Rolfe and Thor­ring­ton in all three friend­lies held on Euro­pean soil, and evi­dently while they were on Bradley’s radar, the sched­ul­ing prac­tices of MLS which have been a hot topic on this blog and the Amer­i­can Soc­cer Show pre­cluded Bradley from call­ing in the duo.

If Goff’s report is accu­rate and I believe it is based on what I’m hear­ing, I hope Thor­ring­ton and Rolfe both get an oppor­tu­nity to start in the match. Thorrington’s qual­ity is no secret: Not only was he signed by Man­ches­ter United at a young age but when things did not work out for him at United he was signed by Bayer Lev­erkusen, also a mas­sive club in Europe. Even after being cut loose by Lev­erkusen, Thor­ring­ton was always in demand in Eng­land until his chronic injuries finally caught up with him.

While the National Team has dealt through the years with its share of peren­ni­ally injured play­ers, most notably the immensely skilled John O’Brien (arguably the most tec­n­hi­cally gifted Amer­i­can of my life­time) Thorrington’s injury his­tory is lengthy and cruel even by Amer­i­can stan­dards. Chris Rolfe is also a supremely skilled player and I am anx­ious to see what both play­ers can do in a World Cup qual­i­fier away from home.

Jamaica Beats Bahamas

Tyrone Mar­shall, an eleven year MLS vet­eran scored a goal as Jamaica won the sec­ond leg of its tie with the Bahamas 6–0 last night for an aggre­gate 13–0 vic­tory. Jamaica now advances to the group stage of World Cup qualifying.

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