Bocanegra Battles

Three games without a win, and your team is sliding down the league table.

When nothing seems to be going right, sometimes the only thing that can turn your luck is pure will. The willingness to throw your body into air challenges or the ability to get a touch on a loose ball lingering around the box.

These can be the deciding factors, and in a career lasting more than a decade in America, England, and France, Carlos Bocanegra knows this better than most.

Just days removed from a set-piece header against Holland, the USMNT defender secured an important victory for his club team when he got a toe on the end of a free kick that went bouncing through the mixer.

Call it all good practice for South Africa, where pure effort to come out on top will be a deciding factor in important matches.

Prepare for Combat.

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