US Ready to kick off 2009 Gold Cup

The US National Team is ready to open Gold Cup play Saturday against Grenada in Seattle.   They'll follow up with group games against Honduras and Haiti.  After the recent impressive run to the Confederations Cup Final, Coach Bradley will field a much different side for the Gold Cup.  Gone are the veterans such as Landon Donovan, Gooch Onyewu, Bocanegra and Tim Howard.  In are the youngsters Freddy Adu, Stuart Holden, Kenny Cooper and Robbie Rodgers.  It will give these guys a chance to get their foot in the door and possibly grab a spot for next year's World Cup.

Grenada will pose an interesting challenge for the American defense as they have a pair of forwards Englnad based forwards in Jason Roberts of Blackburn and Delroy Facey.  The Grenada defense is very suspect though and should leak goals.

Honduras is bascally bringing a "B" squad as well as they are leaving home Guevara, Palacios and Ramon Nunez among others.  With a huge home World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica next month manager Reinaldo Rueda was not willing to risk injury to any of his stars.  Haiti are the minnows of the group and only got in after Cuba withdrew.

Bottom line the Gold Cup will give some new faces a chance to step up and shine, just as the Confederations Cup allowed Charlie Davies, Jonathan Spector and Jay DeMerit to make names for themselves.