A look at the date on Andrea Canales' Soccer365.com feature on Eddie "EJ" Johnson tells me I'm only a few days late on this one. The thrust of her article, which gets reinforced by a kind of refrain, is that, poorly as things have gone for EJ over the past two years, he's young.
And that's a fair point. It's undeniable that Johnson hasn't looked like much, and for some time now, but, barring severe injury, it's simply not possible to be "past it" at the age of 22. Psychologically? Well, that's something else.
Still, I stand by what I wrote immediately after the Denmark friendly: Johnson needs to show us - that is the fans, the coaches, his teammates - something before he gets back into the U.S. Men's picture. At this point, he doesn't belong there. He's got a season ahead of him with the Kansas City Wizards, so here's to hoping he makes good on it. If he can pull it (back) together, I can think of worse forward pairings than Scott Sealy and a fit and effective EJ.
So, go on EJ, make us all proud - and make us eat crow, dammit.
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