DaMarcus Boozely

The AP reports this morning that beloved PSV and USMNT midfielder DaMarcus Beasely has been charged with drunk driving in Eindhoven.

I like to think of this as another sign that the US is coming up in the world. Other teams have at least one bad-boy figure who's always going out to clubs, boozing it up, getting into fights, carousing with tarts, etc. By contrast, the USMNT is composed of a bunch of choirboys whose worst offense is posing for a borderline-gay photo shoot in the New York Times magazine (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Now we've got a bad boy of our own, and it's not even his first offense. DMB got into trouble with Dutch customs authorities last year when he failed to declare several items upon returning from the US. That one was disposed of in an out of court settlement, but one wonders whether the judge will be so forgiving of DaMarcus' current offense in light of his burgeoning criminal record.

So, from the perspective of the USMNT, does this make any difference, or is it just a titillating news tidbit. One point is that Bruce has shown himself to be very critical of players who make mistakes in judgment that lead them to be sanctioned. When Clint Dempsey got in a fight with Joey Franchino and was suspended by the Revs, Bruce withdrew Clint's invite to play in the Germany friendly (even though that meant we'd be bringing an even weaker team). I suppose if a player had repeated trouble (serious trouble, not a customs offense and one drunk driving charge) with the law, Bruce might take that into account, but I really doubt this is anything more than an embarrassment for DMB at this stage. I could see Bruce teasing him about it but not suspending him.

On the other hand, a small part of me worries if DMB is on a bit of a downward spiral. He suffered a serious injury late last season, and hasn't really gotten back into the groove that he was in back in 2004-05 with PSV. He's lost his starting spot, and I don't think he's even scored a goal for Eindhoven all year. You can imagine that living in a foreign country (especially in a god-forsaken, freezing part of Europe like Eindhoven) and struggling with your career might drive one to have a frosty cocktail or two, and perhaps even also to make the not-great decision of driving afterward. I don't of course know the whole story but my thought is that if anything is of concern here it's not that DMB drove drunk on one occasion, but about what led him to do so in the first instance. Ultimately, though, I don't think much will come of this other than the hilarious pun that is the title of this post.