Edson Buddle and Herculez Gomez are both enjoying the best form of their professional careers, leading MLS and the Mexican league in goals, and as the momentum builds for their inclusion in the U.S. national team’s upcoming World Cup camp, there remain lingering doubts.
Why? Well, it’s simple really. As unbelievable as both players have been over the past three months (and in Buddle’s case, the past month), both players have resumes filled with disappointments, unfulfilled expectations and bad memories.
Fans aren’t likely to forget the fact that neither player was anywhere close to the national team radar, and for good reason. Buddle was fresh off a thoroughly forgettable year with Los Angeles, a year he capped off with a dismal penalty kick miss in the MLS Cup final. Gomez’s 2009 was even more anonymous. He was relegated to bench afterthought on a Kansas City team that didn’t make the MLS playoffs.
Fortunately for both men, the U.S. national team is desperate for goal-scoring options, and they have both shown confidence and form that can’t possibly go ignored. Bolstering their recent runs of red-hot form is the fact that both players have done this before.
Gomez first rose to national prominence five years ago as a relatively unknown striker for the Los Angeles Galaxy. He emerged as the club’s MVP that season, a season that saw Los Angeles win the MLS Cup and U.S. Open Cup. Gomez, who scored the winner in the U.S. Open Cup final, flashed impressive speed and promise that made you believe he just might become a star.
That road to stardom took several detours, courtesy of a torn ACL and multiple coaches playing him on the wing rather than at his preferred forward spot. All it took was a change of scenery and a return to his natural position for Gomez to recapture that 2005 form. Now, Gomez is tied for the Mexican League lead in goals scored with 10 and is heading into the summer transfer period as a free agent with the kind of options few could have imagined him having four months ago.
Buddle’s road to the doorstep of a World Cup has been just as tumultuous. After a five year run with the Columbus Crew that saw him score at least nine goals in his final four seasons there, Buddle was dealt to his hometown New York Red Bulls, only it didn’t wind up being the ideal fit he would have hoped for. He was shipped off to Toronto FC after just one season in New York, then was dealt away again after just 10 games with Toronto FC.
Los Angeles figured to provide Buddle’s last chance, and if it was, he has made the most of it. In 2008, Buddle scored a career-high 15 goals and began eliciting talk of a potential U.S. national team call-up. No such call came though, and a year later he was mired in another forgettable season.
Injuries and poor form limited him to a career-low 13 starts and just five goals. His play in 2009 gave little evidence that he could rebound yet again and find the form that has helped him reach double digits in goals three times in his MLS career.
The disappointing of 2009 served as ample motivation for Buddle to turn things around and he did just that, re-dedicating himself in the off-season and showing up in 2010 in top shape. The hard work has paid off, with Buddle scoring all seven of the Galaxy’s goals this season to help Los Angeles to a perfect 4-0 start.
Both Gomez and Buddle have done enough to merit call-ups to the U.S. national team camp in May, particularly considering the fact that, with the exception of Jozy Altidore, the rest of the forward fool is littered with question marks. Charlie Davies is working hard toward coming back, but still hasn’t begun full training with Sochaux. Brian Ching is recovering from a serious hamstring injury, Robbie Findley has been battling injuries and coming off the bench for Real Salt Lake, Jeff Cunningham has reverted to his terrible-finishing ways and Conor Casey remains a steady if unremarkable target forward option off the bench.
As it stands, the U.S. team is likely looking at a starting forward tandem of Jozy Altidore and Clint Dempsey. What will happen after that is still very much wide open. If Davies can recover and regain most of his old form back then he will earn a spot, but if he doesn’t then we are talking at least one and as many as two forward spots completely up for grabs.
With the forward position so unsettled, Bob Bradley would be hard-pressed not to include either Gomez or Buddle on his World Cup roster. There is obviously no guarantee that either player could duplicate his current success on a World Cup stage, and the lingering questions about their past disappointments linger, but there is no doubting that both players are playing with supreme confidence and are in better form than any of the other forwards in the U.S. national pool.
At this point both Gomez and Buddle should be looked at by Bradley in the May national team camp, but only one is likely to earn a World Cup roster spot. Considering where both men were just four months ago, and considering the twists and turns their careers have taken, both strikers would gladly take those odds. And given the dearth of in-form forward options at his disposal, Bradley has to be happy that Gomez and Buddle have given him something to think about.
Ives Galarcep is FoxSoccer.com's newest senior writer who will be covering U.S. Soccer and MLS.
