No surgery for Dempsey...Bradley breaths a sigh of relief

After what appeared to be a season ending knee injury, Clint Dempsey escapes the surgeon's knife and will not need his knee operated on. Clearly good news for the US National team, and if he can get back on the pitch sooner rather than later good news for the cottagers. Dempsey is one of the key elements for the US National team next summer. The other key will be the play of Tim Howard in goal. But Deuce is the most influential outfield player for the US. This injury, in a strange way, might be blessing for the US team assuming he can recover fully by South Africa. It gives him some time off, allows him to rest. If he can come back the last month of the Premiership he will get back into game playing shape for the World Cup. Again that may sound strange, but in the long run for the US it is better news than what was feared.

Injuries such as these make all of us cringe as we get closer to the World Cup. Look at what happened to Les Bleus in 2002...okay they still had more talent than a team who crashes out of the group stages with 1 point and zero goals scored....but Zidane gets injured and more importantly Pires tears a knee for Arsenal - a season where he was absolutely on top of his game. Without Zizou and Pires, France were without their 2 true playmakers. Granted Micoud should have been the one given the baton, but we will never know why Lemerre did not go down that path.

Not to dive into revisionism...but I will...you could have lined up a side like this (based on the players Lemerre took to Asia with him...not necessarily those I would have selected) -

Barthez
Liza, Desailly, Leboeuf, Thuram
Makelele, Petit, Vieira
Micoud
Trezeguet, Henry

Vieira was a beast that season so he could easily push higher up the pitch to support the attack. Makelele would be the engine. Petit still had something left in the tank, but with 2 other holding midfielders would have had less asked of him so would have not have been exposed as much.

Micoud could just sit infront of these 3 and feed deadly passes to Henry and Trezeguet. I guarantee you that team would have fared better than what was sent out versus Senegal, Uruguay and Denmark!