Spector battles back to U.S. lineup

By Ridge Mahoney, Special to SI.com, Soccer America

PRINT EMAIL FACEBOOK DIGG TWITTER RSS SHARE

Still just 23, Jonathan Spector was expected to contribute to the U.S. national team at the '06 World Cup before injuries sidelined him. Rick Osentoski/Icon SMI

Jonathan Spector laughs when asked about the father of one of his close friends, who also happens to coach the U.S. national team.

"No, I don't think about it too much," says Spector, a childhood friend and now teammate of Michael Bradley, son of the U.S. national-team coach Bob Bradley. "Everything is done very professionally, from the managerial standpoint and the coaching side.

"Obviously, I know Michael pretty well. We grew up playing together and he's a year younger and we were both with the [Chicago] Sockers and went to the same high school. We were always around each other and Bob was obviously there when I trained a few times with the Fire when I was at the residency program before I went to Manchester United.

"So I know the family pretty well, but from the soccer side, everything is extremely professional. That doesn't have any impact on things when I'm with the team."

Because of injuries and occasional club conflicts, Spector hasn't been with the U.S. national teams nearly as much as he could have been since making his debut for the senior team at age 18 in a November 2004 World Cup qualifier against Jamaica. He played only two games in '05, sat out '06 entirely (including the World Cup) and played just 19 minutes last year.

The list of major injuries includes a dislocated right shoulder that knocked him off the '06 World Cup roster, surgery for a torn labrum and bone spur last June that eliminated the Olympics from his itinerary and two concussions in less than two years.

The first leveled him 17 minutes into the '07 CONCACAF Gold Cup final, played at Soldier Field just a few miles from his hometown of Arlington Heights, Ill.; the second occurred last April while playing for West Ham, when a head-to-head collision left him gagging for breath and required the team's medical staff to insert a tube to force air past his swallowed tongue.

He didn't get back into the West Ham lineup until late December, and suffered the concussion against Sunderland in his seventh game. He did recover in time to play the last two matches of the Premier League season, which brought him back into contention for national-team duty. With several strong showings at the Confederations Cup playing right back in place of the injured Steve Cherundolo, Spector has added depth to that spot as well as the other defender slots. He also set up two goals for Clint Dempsey at the Confederations Cup with serves from the right flank.

Last year, he'd flown from England to Tennessee to play in a CONCACAF Olympic qualifying semifinal -- a 3-0 victory over Canada -- that clinched a spot in the final competition, but the surgery in June and recovery process forced him back to the sidelines for nearly six months. During the surgery, the labrum was repaired, and bone was shaved from his right hip.

"He's a player who hasn't had the best luck with staying healthy," says Bob Bradley. "But when he's been with us, he's shown he's a player who has some important qualities."

Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder Mike Magee, a former teammate with the Sockers and U-17s, is less ambiguous.

"He was just such a freak athletically, a tough kid, a competitor," says Magee. "You always know when a player is special. I always thought he was going to be a forward with the national team. To make it to Manchester United as a defender takes a lot and shows what a competitor he is.

"I know we played a lot together when we were younger. I used to play a lot in the midfield and we played a year of indoor soccer, and he was such a beast. On a small field and everyone running around, he was a head bigger than anyone else. He definitely stood out to me."

While coaching the Fire, Bradley encouraged his son, Spector, Magee and other young players to train with the professional team during its preseason trips to Florida, or if the players were home in Chicago on their breaks from residency camps. In such testing environments, players learn how the pros do things, and how they can survive.

"From an individual, or maybe it's a selfish standpoint, I always wanted to play up a year or two years, whatever it might be, just because it was such a good experience and it was so much harder, especially at a young age," says Spector, who in his early teens would attend sessions to watch the likes of Peter Nowak, Chris Armas and Ante Razov. "You can understand why coaches want to keep their teams together, but playing with older players helped me develop as a player quite a bit."

Bigger picture

Magee, as well as both Bradleys and Spector, give their former club and its coaches much of the credit for their development and success.

"Our club team, the Chicago Sockers, is an incredible club," Magee says. "There are always places to play for younger guys. They always had extra practices and for guys like us they'd always let us train with older age groups. For me personally, that's definitely why I'm here, and I think Jonathan would say the same thing.

"[Sockers coach] David Richardson introduced me to soccer and never let me get away with anything. At a young age, you can get away with a lot of things and still be one of the better players on the field. For me and Jonathan and Michael, he saw the bigger picture. He'd make us play up a couple of age groups and we kind of got the s--- kicked out of us. We're thankful for it now, but David and Bret Hall, who also works over there, really got on us."