Davies' Fitness Race Will Go Down to the Wire

Charlie Davies' against-all-odds race to regain his fitness in time to make the US World Cup squad looks set to go down to the wire.

Charlie Davies resumed full contact training with Sochaux this week. (Photo by CHRIS ADUAMA/aduama.com)

While the New Hampshire native resumed full contact training with his club side Sochaux in France this week, the club president Alexandre Lacombe warned last week that the striker would not be seeing action in any of the teams' four remaining games of the season.

Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, US National team coach Bob Bradley insists that any player hoping to be considered for the World Cup squad will need to be “match ready” in order to be invited to the US World Cup training camp being held in Princeton, NJ starting May 15.

Clearly there are planets that are still in need of aligning if Davies is to keep his World Cup dream alive.

He could hope that training in Sochaux goes better than Lancombe is currently anticipating and that he gets to play in at least one or two of the club's remaining league games.

But with the team neither in the hunt for silverware nor in any serious danger of relegation, there is little real incentive for them to risk their star striker unnecessarily if they feel it might hinder his longer term recovery.

Failing that, Davies could hope to parse Bob Bradley's words and get a clearer idea of exactly what he means by “match ready”.

The US coach told the New York Times that he and his staff need to feel that the player is “fit, sharp and really in a strong position to be able to help our team.” He went on to say that “the ideal situation is that players are coming in May and they've played important roles for their club teams.”

Clearly that will not be the case for Davies, even if he does see action before the end of the Ligue 1 season. So the key words then become “ideal situation”. If Bradley is choosing his words that carefully, it might suggest that he is at least leaving the door open for a less than ideal situation, should it arise.

One factor that may work in Davies' favor is an apparent dearth of forward options currently presenting themselves to Bradley. With Brian Ching out injured in Houston and Jozy Altidore having suffered a very long run of poor form in England, Bradley will likely want to leave the door open as long as possible to a resurgent Charlie Davies.

With 23 tickets to South Africa still up for grabs, it seems that Davies still has some work to do, and will need no small amount of good fortune, if he wants to secure one of those tickets for himself.