Cap Boswell (In '08)

There were enough inconsistencies in the original US Soccer Report that Boswell has been called into camp with The Bruce (such as forgetting that Santino Quaranta also plays for DC United) that I didn't want to comment on it for fear of the story being retracted later. But now that DC United has confirmed the report, it looks safe to say that Bobby is going to have some fun training with the MLS US National Team candidates.

The odd thing is Boswell getting a nod ahead of Michael Parkhurst, but maybe Mike is thinking of playing for Ireland or something. It doesn't matter that much. Boswell is a long shot for getting a cap in a friendly, let alone a World Cup roster bid. It seems that Bruce will bring in three different types of players for this camp: Those that have a good chance at making the squad for Germany (Landon Donovan), those that are on the bubble (Chirs Albright, Brian Caroll) and those that are being groomed for potential future tournaments (Freddy Adu). Boswell belongs in that last category, someone who is getting a look now with the potential of being used after the World Cup. It makes sense to not suddenly plunge people into international competition and training all at once, so I like it. I love Boswell, think he's great, but I don't think he belongs on the World Cup team.

However, I think putting him on the team that competes for the next Gold Cup (and perhaps Confederations Cup in '09) is a possibility. And those competitions are important, as Mexico beat out the US for a seed at least in part due to some success in the Confederations Cup (knocking off Brazil always helps). If Bobby can help with that, I will be quite happy.

One Other Thing... Kerry Zavagnin is coming into camp late clearly to replace the injured Pablo Mastroeni. But Boswell is also coming in, and it seems like he's not viewed the same way based on the US Soccer press release. If my name is Chris Albright, Heath Pearce, Jimmy Conrad, or Todd Dunivant, I'm wondering why Bruce feels like he needs to specially bring in a new defender to look at. Hmmm...