Avoiding the Drop

Is the clue obvious now?

Last week I gave you a list of numbers with only the following information to help you determine its significance:

• These numbers are associated with 15 players.
• The order of the numbers is important.
• 14 of the 15 players have been capped by the USMNT.
• All of the players on the list are currently “active.”

The answer:  These are the “Castrol Player Rankings” of the U.S. players playing in the top five European leagues (England, Spain, France, Germany, and Italy) for the 2009-2010 season.

18 – Marcus Hahnemann (Wolverhampton Wanderers FC)
86 – Clint Dempsey (Fulham FC)
143 – Brad Friedel (Aston Villa FC)
277 – Tim Howard (Everton FC)
587 – Carlos Bocanegra (AS Saint-Etienne)
629 – Michael Bradley (Borussia Moenchengladbach)
725 – Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96)
1085 – Jonathan Spector (West Ham United FC)
1431 – Jozy Altidore (Villarreal CF)
1777 – Charlie Davies (FC Sochaux-Montbeliard)
2005 – Ricardo Clark (Eintracht Frankfurt)
2011 – Daniel Williams (SC Freiburg)
2093 – Stuart Holden (Bolton Wanderers FC)
2196 – Oguchi Onyewu (AC Milan)
2338 – Sal Zizzo (Chivas USA)

A few notes about these players before we congratulate this week’s winners.

First, here are a few of the 17 players who finished above Marcus Hahnemann last year:  Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Luis Fabiano, David Silva.  He also did this without the benefit of participating in any Champions League matches- something that Castrol factors into the rankings.  Oh, and our national team’s back-up keeper was the top-rated goalkeeper in the entire rankings.

Second, obviously Charlie Davies’ score was drastically lowered by the fact that his car accident limited his season to Sochaux to eight matches.  The same goes for Sal Zizzo, who tore his ACL in October 2009 and missed the rest of the season (he has since left Hannover and signed with Chivas USA), Stuart Holden, whose EPL season was ended by Nigel de Jong in a friendly between the USA and the Netherlands, and Gooch, who missed out on the Serie A season due to the knee injury he picked up while playing with the national team.

Third, Ricardo Clark’s number is low due to his not joining Frankfurt until the Bundesliga season was well underway.

Finally, am I the only one who had never heard of Daniel Williams until now?  Williams is eligible to play for Germany or the United States, is only 21, and can play in the back line…shouldn’t somebody be working on this?!

And now for our winners…

Given the difficult of this challenge it should come as no surprise that the three people who submitted correct answers were our very own “Thursday Challenge All-Stars:  Jeff P., Andrew M., and Andrew B.  I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, these are three straight shooters with upper management written all over them.

I’m back tomorrow with a very special commenter created Thursday Challenge!