Evening News: Dempsey Fit, Jay Injured, and Camp Location

A couple of new bits for your evening reading:

Dempsey Fit for Fulham-Hamburg

Clint Dempsey will be available for the first leg of Fulham's Europa League semifinal against Hamburg tomorrow afternoon.  Deuce had been out of the Cottagers lineup since April 4th after suffering a thigh injury in stoppage time of a comeback victory over Wigan.  Thanks to Fulham's meaningless league games, Roy Hodgson has been cautious with Dempsey, holding him out of last weekend's match against Wolves so as to ensure good health for the much more crucial midweek clash in Germany. 

Due to the volcanic ash situation in Europe, Fulham made a 17 hour bus trip to Hamburg, not unlike what Barcelona did to get to their Champions League match against Inter Milan yesterday.  The Cottagers will be hoping, however, that they can pull off a positive road result following such a long trip, something Barca could not do.  In the knockout stages, they have gone 1-1-1 in the road legs, including a 1-0 victory against Wolfsburg in the quarterfinals.  With their undefeated run at Craven Cottage in the tournament, another positive away result could very well mean an unlikely trip to the finals for the west London club.

Dempsey has already sealed his place in Fulham lore with his famous goal against Liverpool that ensured safety back in May of 2007, not to mention his sublime chip to knock out Juventus in the Round of 16 last month.  Another goal tomorrow will only further cement that status.

For the non-Fulham fans out there who don't really care much about the results, just know that a key member of the USMNT is now fit and will likely feature in a pressure-packed game.  Sounds like exactly what we'd want to hear in the lead up to the World Cup. 


DeMerit Injury Minor

Jay DeMerit exited Watford's weekend match early in the second half and was held out of their Tuesday match with Queens Park Rangers thanks to what's being referred to as a "muscle problem in the abdominal region".  Judging back the lack of any other news, however, it would seem to be a rather minor injury, so I'm not going to worry too much just yet.

Off the field, DeMerit won the club's Community Ambassador Award for the second year in the row.  Well done, Jay.


Bradley Chooses Princeton

It has been announced that the USMNT's May training camp will be at Bob Bradley's alma mater, Princeton University.  This most likely means that I will be lurking about the wastelands of central Jersey some time next month. 


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That's all folks.