Last night while sipping Oban with my dude Brent in the bar at the Hudson Hotel I did something truly rare: I thought of John O'Brien. This was because Brent brought him up when waxing nostalgic about about the 2002 World Cup, JOB's command of the U.S. midfield against Portugal while Claudio Reyna sat the bench and the feeling among many U.S. fans that this dude was the future.
On some level what's going on right now with Charlie Davies is very similar. Kid had game, did work in the relative anonymity of one of Europe's less glamorous leagues, shined on the international stage just long enough for everybody to catch feelings for him and then he got injured. Now he's trying resurrect his career --if he's deemed fit, focused and worthy-- by coming to play in MLS for the first time. It's kind of a surface comparison but there's no doubting the parallels.
Having said that I hope the CD9 story ends better than the JOB story; O'brien ended up signing for Chivas USA and only made a single appearance before calling an end to his career. But I'm getting ahead of myself as we'll have to just wait and see if he even passes muster in D.C. first before worrying about him getting actual playing time. Tell you this though, this week in Ft. Lauderdale will be DCU's most scrutinized week of pre-season camp since the Freddy Adu days.
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