Striker Hercules Gomez could get his chance to impress boss Bob Bradley for the USA ( 4/1 to win Group C) in two friendlies next week ahead of the World Cup, with the coach exploring his options for replacing Charlie Davies, who is recovering from car crash injuries.
Gomez has been in excellent form this year, and has been joint top scorer in the Mexican championship where he has scored 10 goals in 14 matches for Puebla and earned his selection in the initial party of 30.
“Hercules comes off the season very well,” Bradley said at the squad’s training camp.
“Certainly we take notice of that and it’s good to see how he’ll fit in and play in this stretch.”
Gomez, who has played only twice before for the national side, could feature in friendlies against Czech Republic on Tuesday and Turkey four days later.
Bradley needs to find a replacement for Davies, who was injured last October in a car accident that killed another passenger. He has resumed light training with his French club Sochaux but did not get medical clearance in time to make the squad.
The U.S. are drawn with England (1/3 favourites to top the group), Algeria (12/1) and Slovenia (9/1) in Group C at the finals starting on June 11.
Gomez’s call-up to the 30-man provisional squad came after a decade-long journey through Major League Soccer (MLS) teams and lower-level U.S. clubs, before he hit the big time in Mexico, the country of his parents, where U.S. players are rare.
“It was a huge deal. I became only the second player in my club’s history (to be top scorer),” said Gomez.
“They really took to me and treated me as one of their own. I was never treated like an outsider.”
His Puebla team mates did, though, tease him. “I was always the ’soldier boy’,” Gomez, 28, told Reuters. “They’d do the American soldier voice, or like in the movies, a robot, like (Arnold) Schwarzenegger.”
Gomez said he was realistic about his chances of making the cut when the squad is trimmed to 23 players.
“I definitely have 29 players in front of me,” he said.
Gomez, who can score with his head and either foot, has attracted attention for his goal-scoring feats and said he had been getting offers from clubs.
“My agent handles those. I concentrate on the soccer and my only goal is this camp,” he said.
Could he say where the offers were coming from? “Yes, but I’m only here to talk about U.S. soccer.”
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