Yanks abroad: the weekend review

The news from abroad is a mixed bag ahead of a huge pair of qualifiers for the guardians of the U.S. shirt.

For defenders and goalkeepers, all looks A-OK as players review their weekend performance and ship out for Utah, where they’ll train all week ahead of Saturday’s big date against El Salvador.

For midfielders abroad, the mood won’t be as chipper. And for the strikers abroad, eh. Not good, not bad, nothing special.

U.S. goalkeepers particularly enjoyed their weekends, as Tim Howard and Brad Friedel led their EPL clubs to wins. Troy Perkins also guided his Norwegian club, Valerenga, to a nice win. Marcus Hahnemann (Woverhampton) and Brad Guzan (behind Friedel at Aston Villa) served as their sides’ backups.

Oguchi Onyewu wasn’t included in the AC Milan 18, which wasn’t a terrible thing in this case. Inter clobbered its Milan rival, 4-0; Onyewu was surely happy not to be part of that one.

Sky Sports gave Jonathan Spector a "6" for his part of West Ham’s scoreless draw at Blackburn. (Everybody from Upton Park got a 6 or a 7 in the Sky ratings.) He was deployed at left back in the makeshift Hammers defense, and reports seemed to indicate that he had some uncomfortable moments but wasn’t terrible all things considered.

Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes), Steve Cherundolo (Hanover), Jay DeMerit (Watford), Michael Orozco (San Luis) and others had their usual starting spots along their clubs’ back lines. Plus, Edgar Castillo scored a goal for Tigres' in a nice 2-2 draw at Santos.

In the middle, Michael Bradley’s rough go at Moenchengladbach continues; he wasn’t named to the 18 for the German club’s win over Mainz.  Still, expect to see him in the starting 11 this weekend in Utah.

Also expect to see Clint Dempsey, who went all 90 in Fulham's 2-0 loss at Aston Villa.

Michael Bradley’s central partner in Bob Bradley’s (likely) 4-4-2 formation? It could well be Benny Feilhaber, whose rebirth continues as he goes 70 minutes in Aarhus’ 2-0 win at Nordsjaelland in Denmark.

In Mexico, Jose Francisco Torres went all the way in as Pachuca drew in Guadalajara, matching two goals from the men of Chivas.

Up front: What of man of the moment Jozy Altidore?  He appeared as a substitute for the Tigers, playing 27 minutes in Hull City's 1-1 tie at Wolverhampton. Here’s what the Hull City blog at VitalFootball had to say about the young American’s latest run-about there:

"City had few chances of any note in a poor second half. The introduction of Jozy Altidore failed to spark the Tigers into life, who will be looking to readdress the lack of goals up-front with 2 to 3 players expected to join before Tuesday’s transfer deadline. Given yesterday’s performance against a potential relegation rival, the sooner the better!"

With that, they gave Altidore a 5 in the Player Ratings.

Also along the front line, Charlie Davies and Kenny Cooper started for their respective sides, although neither scored.

The most notable name that didn’t get into his team’s match: DaMarcus Beasley at Rangers.  Nothing new there, really. Even forgotten man Eddie Johnson made a rare appearance for Fulham with 14 minutes at Aston Villa.

Meanwhile, Steven Goff tells us on his excellent blog that Freddy Adu’s handlers have forged an agreement to loan the former prodigy to some club in Portugal none of us have ever heard of. What was it? Oh, yes! He’ll play at Belenenses this year, which means that Adu could be sipping lattes at a Lisbon sidewalk café every Saturday for all we know – because soccer at Belenenses will be nothing more than a rumor for most of us.