Posted by A few months before my 13th birthday, my Dad took me to Chicago to attend the 2007 Gold Cup Final between the United States and Mexico. In front of a hugely pro-Mexican crowd at Soldier Field, El Tri dominated for long stretches of the match, and took the lead shortly before halftime through Andrés Guardado. Nevertheless, the Americans somehow managed to come back in the second half, turning the match around through a Landon Donovan penalty and a magical Benny Feilhaber strike to win 2-1. The victory was the Americans first, and to this point only, win over Mexico in a Gold Cup Final. Nevertheless, the smash-and-grab nature of the victory reaffirmed the notion that the Americans best chance of success against better teams was to sit back and ride their luck, rather than trying to play with a more aggressive and confident outlook.
More than ten years before that Gold Cup Final, a ten-year old from Manchester, New Hampshire attended his first United States-Mexico match. From that day, it was the young boy’s dream to become a professional footballer and line up for the United States against Mexico. Furthermore, the boy promised himself that he would score against Mexico one day. Not only would that kid go on to realize his dreams, but for one summer he would inspire American fans to believe that their national team could beat anyone, and beat them with skill and guile rather than just defensive organization and luck. That kid was Charlie Davies.
Before the summer of 2009, Davies was on the fringes of the national team set-up. He made his senior national team debut shortly before his 20th birthday on June 2, 2007 against China. However, he would have to wait more than a year to score his first international goal, finding the equalizer in the 75th minute of an inconsequential World Cup Qualifier against Trinidad and Tobago on October 15, 2008. When the Hexagonal rolled around, Davies was barely involved. He had to wait until the 4th round of games to even make a match day squad, coming on in the 80th minute in a 3-1 loss away to Costa Rica on June 3, 2009. He was named to the bench a week later at home to Honduras, but did not get in. A few days later, Davies would travel with the team as part of the Confederations Cup squad. His play during that tournament would turn him from a bit-part player into a crucial member of the national team.
Although the 2009 Confederations Cup is remembered as one of the high points in American men’s soccer history, few would have expected such fond memories after the first two group stage matches. The Stars and Stripes opened the tournament with a 3-1 defeat to Italy before being embarrassed by South American champions Brazil in a 3-0 defeat. Davies hardly participated in these two matches, only coming on as a second-half sub against Italy. With his team needing to win by multiple goals in the final match against Egypt, the usually conservative coach Bob Bradley decided to throw caution to the wind, pairing Davies up top with Jozy Altidore. The decision paid off handsomely, as the Americans beat Egypt 3-0 to advance into the semifinals on goal difference. Davies scored the crucial first goal in that match, with a scrappy strike from point-blank range, only his second goal with the national team.
Having found a winning formula, Bradley stuck with the Davies-Altidore partnership for the semifinal match against Spain. The Spaniards were the defending European champions, and had not lost a match since November 2006. Although they were widely favored to win the 2010 World Cup, which they eventually did, they were stunned by the Americans, going down to a 2-0 defeat. Davies played his part in one of the most famous victories in American history, with his combination play down the left with Clint Dempsey helping to set up Altidore’s opener.
The final was a rematch of the group stage meeting with the Brazilians. Rather than cower at the superior quality of the South Americans, the United States took a shock 2-0 lead before halftime, with Davies’ smart left-footed cross into the path of Donovan setting up the second strike. Even though the Americans went on to lose the match 3-2, they had come within 45 minutes of their first trophy in a FIFA tournament. Furthermore, they had demonstrated that they were a match for any team in the world on their day.
Having been a crucial part of the American success in South Africa, offers were soon coming in to pry Davies away from his club, Swedish top-flight side Hammarby. Eventually, Davies signed with Ligue 1 club Sochaux on July 10, 2009. He made his debut with the French club less than a month later, coming on in the 70th minute in their 1-0 win over Auxerre. Before making his second appearance, however, Davies would live out one of the dreams he had since that US-Mexico match he attended as a 10 year-old. He would score a goal against Mexico.
After having barely been involved in the first five matches of the Hexagonal, Davies found himself starting in the sixth round of matches away to Mexico on August 12, 2009. The Americans went into the match in a comfortable position, having taken 10 points from their first five games. Mexico, in contrast, was in danger of missing out on the World Cup, having collected only six points up to that point. The Americans, however, had never won a match at the imposing Estadio Azteca, and the Mexicans looked to maximize their home field advantage by playing in the suffocating mid-day heat of Mexico City.
El Tri controlled the opening stages of the match, and nearly scored through Guardado less than two minutes in. Yet, Davies provided a sucker punch that quieted the raucous crowd of more than 100,000 in the 9th minute. After getting in behind opposing right-back Efraín Juárez, Davies was found with a slide-rule ball by Donovan. He took two touches on his right to set himself before sending a precise curler just inside the left-hand post of goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa. As I watched the match on Spanish-language television (no American network was televising the game), it seemed to me in the moments after that goal that Davies not only had the potential to become the first “world class” American player, but also the ability to lead the United States to a higher echelon in the world game. Although the Americans went on to lose that match 2-1, Davies’ strike at the Azteca and his performances in South Africa had captured the imagination of US soccer fans.
Davies kept up the momentum generated from his magical summer going in the early stages of the 2009 season. He scored a brace in his second Sochaux appearance against reigning league champions Bordeaux after coming off the bench in the second half. Moreover, he continued to underline his importance with the national team, starting in the 7th, 8th and 9th round of the Hexagonal. That 9th round match, a 3-2 victory away to a strong Honduran side, had seen the Americans qualify for the World Cup. With American fans dreaming of a best-ever World Cup finish in South Africa, the national team travelled to Washington, DC for the final qualifying match against Costa Rica. There, American soccer, and Davies’ career, would be changed forever.
In the early morning hours of October 13, 2009, less than 48 hours before the Costa Rica match, Davies was in the backseat of a 2004 Infiniti FX35 heading southbound on the George Washington Parkway. The driver, Maria Alejandra Espinoza, was unfamiliar with the road and had a blood alcohol content nearly twice the legal limit at the time. After missing an exit, she took her eyes off the road to check her GPS. The car ran off the road, hitting a guardrail and splitting in half. The accident killed 22-year old Ashley Roberta, who had been sitting in the passenger seat. Davies, who was fortunate to survive, suffered a broken fibula, tibia and femur in his right leg, torn ligaments in his left knee, a lacerated bladder, a fractured left elbow, facial injuries and serious head trauma. Davies would never play for the US National Team again.
It would take almost a year and a half for Davies to make another professional appearance after the accident. After being loaned out to DC United from Sochaux, he came on as a second half substitute for the capital club in their March 19, 2011 match against Columbus Crew. Although Davies found the net 11 times that season in 26 league appearances, DC didn’t pick up their option to buy him. From there, Davies enjoyed stints in Denmark and back in MLS with New England and Philadelphia, failing to recapture the change of pace that had made him so dangerous for opposing defenses before the injury. On March 2, 2018, Davies hung up his boots.
It would be easy to view Davies’ career as a classic “what if?” story. Before the injury, he seemed set to find a place at a top-level European club, while also helping the United States to unprecedented success at international level. Although his post-accident career can be viewed as a disappointment when looked at through the prism of his pre-accident prospects, I will remember Davies for those few months in the summer of 2009.
Just for Kicks 