Tim Howard on Jermaine Jones

March 11th, 2010 | by: Daryl | Comments (11)

(Daryl here, filling in on the USA blog. Hallo.)

There was a discussion on this site yesterday about exactly who the US’s central midfield pairing should be. Michael Bradley, Jose Francisco Torres, Ricardo Clark, Benny Feilhaber, Stuart Holden and Maurice Edu all got a mention. But no one talked about Schalke defensive mid Jermaine Jones.

Understandably so, because Jones is a) German-born, b) has played his whole career in Germany, and c) made three friendly appearances for the German national team. You could also throw in d) he’s been out for around nine months now with a shin injury.

However, Jones has an American father (who was stationed in Germany with the US military) and has been officially eligible to play for the United States since October 2009. If not for injury, I imagine he would have been in the USA squad that played against the Netherlands last week. In fact, he sort of was. Jones joined up with the squad in Amsterdam to meet his potential teammates for the first time.

Grant Wahl interviewed Tim Howard recently (give the whole thing a read, it’s pretty interesting) and Howard described Jones’ introduction to the squad:

SI.com: You mentioned Jermaine Jones. I know he was in Amsterdam last week meeting the team for the first time. How did it go?

Howard: It was cool. He fits in really well. He’s got a lot of tattoos, he likes his music. He’s a perfect fit for us. And, by the way, he’s a fantastic player from what I hear. It’s always hard for anyone to get plopped into the middle of a group of his peers, and everyone’s looking. Mikey Bradley speaks German and Stevie [Cherundolo] speaks German. Jermaine speaks English, so maybe he feels a little more comfortable that we have those guys around.
It’s an easy team to come into. Guys are welcomed with open arms, and we’ve heard great things about him. It was good to finally have him around. I heard it basically through [journalists] what he’s like, and I saw pictures and I read things. So it was really good to get alongside him and talk to him a little bit and meet him and have him around. And hopefully in the buildup he will get fit and be a part of the team. That would be really cool.

SI.com: Do you have any indications of what Jones’ chances are for getting healthy for the World Cup?

Howard: I don’t know. I’ve talked to him a little bit, but I don’t think he had the ability to put a time frame on it. I’m just hoping he’s back running and playing and tackling, and hopefully that’s by around May, and then he can integrate into the team and the training. Things like that are a great boost for the morale of the team.
Landon was a perfect example of that. You’re used to all the good players you play with, and then someone comes in and adds a bit of life and spunk and spirit, and to have that little injection right before the World Cup would be great. If we can get Charlie back, it would be the same feeling. We’re hoping both of them can be back.

So there you have it. Jones seems to be very much in the picture, and if he (finally) recovers from injury and gets back