MLS CONFIDENTIAL: List? What list?

LIST? WHAT LIST? U.S. coach Bruce Arena is somewhat bemused by the list, or lists, of the players he will call up for the CONCACAF Gold Cup (July 6-24).

Freddy Adu is on an unreleased, "preliminary" list of between 40 and 45 players, and the CONCACAF Web site posted a squad of 23 late last week.

"I'm not going to give you the list, but I can tell you there will be 16 domestic players and seven foreign-based players if I get everyone I'm asking for," he said.

Of the foreign group, Arena did confirm that goalkeepers Kasey Keller and Marcus Hahnemann will be on the squad, as will be Oguchi Oneywu and Bobby Convey. "I am inclined to get Marcus a game in the Gold Cup," said Arena.

"As of now Kasey wants to play in the Gold Cup. I think he'd rather be in Seattle in July than running around in a circle in Germany. That's part of his strategy," said Arena of the Lacey (Wash.) native missing a chunk of preseason training with Borussia Moenchengladbach.

Arena is also requesting that John O'Brien be released from preseason training with his new Dutch club, ADO Den Haag.

As to the CONCACAF list, which did not include O'Brien and listed Greg Vanney's club as Bastia, Arena said, "That's a marketing list, or something, I don't know who put that out. That's not our list. Maybe I should check it and see if there's anybody there I haven't heard of."

INJURY BUG: Arena said he had hoped to call in Galaxy defender Chris Albright, one of his few reliable choices at right back, for the games against England, Costa Rica, and Panama as well as the Gold Cup, but Albright suffered an MCL sprain May 25 against Columbus.

"I wanted to give Chris the opportunity," said Arena. "He's played well for us this year and at the very least I wanted to give him the chance in the Gold Cup and I don't think that's going to happen.

"For whatever reason there's been an injury bug in the league and there's a lot of players who could be here or in the Gold Cup and now for a lot of them it's not going to happen."

Also injured are Crew goalkeeper Jon Busch, Quakes forward Brian Ching, Fire midfielder Chris Armas, and FC Dallas striker Eddie Johnson. Rapids midfielder Pablo Mastroeni and Quakes defender Dan Califf have resumed playing after being injured and are possible inclusions.

Arena said the players he plans to include in his squad of 23 will not play for their MLS teams on the July 4 weekend. Six MLS teams play on Saturday (July 2) and the rest play two days later.

SITTERS: To accommodate the D.C. United-Chelsea match on July 28, the ESPN2 game originally scheduled for that date against Real Salt Lake has been moved to Aug. 31. MLS has requested another game be added to the ESPN2 schedule, since the game on Aug. 31 – a Wednesday – will conflict with baseball coverage.  ESPN2 will televise the D.C. United-Chelsea match.