FanHouse DaMarcusBeasley

If you had any doubts about whether American midfielder DaMarcus Beasley was ready to return to the pitch after his knee injury last November, put them out of your head. Last weekend, Beasley and Rangers teammate Kris Boyd took care of all their side's scoring in a 3-2 win in the Scottish FA Cup Final over upstart Queen of the South. Beasley poached one goal, and his corner kick found Boyd for another. It's enough to make you wonder if a healthy Beasley could have helped Rangers win the UEFA Cup and the Scottish Premier League title, too.

Of course, there's a huge gap between Queen of the South and England, but still, seeing Beasley playing as well as he did in a Cup Final must be encouraging for USA manager Bob Bradley. Expect Beasley to see at least 60 minutes of action in the midfield when the U.S. men's national team takes on England in Wembley Stadium on Wednesday.

One of our favorite American soccer players here at FanHouse has suffered a major knee injury, leaving his club and national team future in doubt.

Rangers forward DaMarcus Beasley tore a knee ligament in a collision with VfB Stuttgart goalkeeper Raphael Shaffer in Tuesday's Champions League action. He will return to America for surgery, and he's expected miss the rest of the Scottish Premier League season. He may also be unavailable to the U.S. men's national team when CONCACAF World Cup qualifying begins in June.

Beasley had scored four goals in 19 matches for Rangers and was just regaining his form after some minor knocks earlier this year. This comes at a bad time for Rangers, too, as they face a must-win game against Lyon on December 12. Rangers need a win or draw to advance to the Champions League knockout stage. A loss drops them into the UEFA Cup.

Beasley's future with Bob Bradley's team is somewhat muddled, given how crowded the midfield has become. We could see more from U-20 stars like Freddy Adu, Michael Bradley and Danny Szetela when the U.S. starts playing friendlies again in January. Landon Donovan might make a return to the team as well, assuming he doesn't have any L.A. Galaxy friendlies in India scheduled before the MLS season starts.

It wasn't pretty, and the players you expected to perform all but disappeared in the South African altitude, but the U.S. men's national team managed to finish the year with its second straight win in an international friendly, defeating South Africa, 1-0, to win the Nelson Mandela Challenge Cup.

The lone goal came from an unexpected source. Right back Steve Cherundolo collected a pass from Maurice Edu in the 27th minute and painted the corner to give the U.S. the lead. It was only the second goal in 43 caps for the Hannover 96 defender.

Bob Bradley started Freddy Adu and Clint Dempsey up front, and while both made opportunities for themselves, they were clearly frustrated by the Bafana Bafana defense. Adu missed DaMarcus Beasley badly on a cross at the end of the first half. Perhaps when this team returns to South Africa in 2009, Adu will know to make that pass.

Beasley and Benny Feilhaber were relatively quiet in this game, as was Jozy Altidore, who came in after 64 minutes and didn't really do much. Perhaps he was still too enthralled by those lions. Teenagers are easily distracted.

The big story, though, was the American back line.

Reuters recently followed up on a report in Spanish sports newspaper AS about the number of soccer players registered for play in the Champions League. While plenty of numbers stand out, perhaps the biggest concern for U.S. Soccer is this: only one USA player is on the list.

Technically, it should be two, since both DaMarcus Beasley of Rangers and Freddy Adu of Benfica have seen Champions League action this season. Adu, however, is a joint national of both the U.S. and Ghana, so he could be one of the four Ghanaian players registered.

Compare just two Americans, though, with the 98 Brazilians, 64 Frenchmen and 55 Italians currently playing in the biggest club competition on the planet. Is it any coincidence that those three countries have won the last three World Cups?

American soccer players are starting to make inroads in Europe, and while many of them play clubs in other countries' top leagues, few of those clubs have a real shot at European competition. Perhaps more U.S. stars would do well to find their way onto the rosters at places like PSV Eindhoven, Porto and Olympiacos, rather than Fulham, Reading and Watford. English experience helps, but international club competition will do the most to prepare national teams for 2010.

You can almost hear Groundskeeper Willie jump up and shout, "Take that, ya cheese-eating surrender monkeys!" At least, you would hear it if Willie weren't an Aberdeen supporter.

Still, watching Scotland have its way with France in soccer is just that entertaining. It started three weeks ago when Scotland upset Les Blues in Paris in a EURO 2008 qualifier. It's now moved to the club level, as Rangers not only upset French Ligue 1 champs Lyon in a Champions League match, but smashed them in a 3-0 stunner. In France.

Two games into its Champions League group stage campaign, the Glasgow club now finds itself with 6 points, and its October 23 home match against Barcelona, which also has 6 points in two games, just got a lot more interesting -- especially since nobody expected Rangers to finish even third in the group and drop into the UEFA Cup, let alone have any possibility of advancing to the knockout stage.

And it may be an American that gets them there. As Keith Jackson of the Daily Record noted, DaMarcus Beasley replaced struggling midfielder Steven Whittaker in the lineup, and guess what? Beasley was involved in all three goals. He took the corner kick that led to Lee McCulloch's opener, he put the ball at Daniel Cousin's feet to set up the second goal, and he rushed ahead to collect a high-arcing pass from Cousin and score the third goal.

I won't go so far as to say that DaMarcus Beasley is taking Rangers to the next level -- I want to see how he performs against Barcelona in three weeks -- but clearly, he's making the blue side of Glasgow very, very happy. How far can this club go? After this win in Lyon, it will be a lot more fun to find out.

If UEFA President Michel Platini was looking for a test case for his new plan to crack down on racial taunting from European football fans, he just got it.

DaMarcus Beasley kicked the game winner for Rangers in their 1-0 win over FK Zeta, allowing them to advance to the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League. The big story, however, was the racial abuse that Zeta supporters in Montenegro hurled upon Beasley during the game.

A small section of fans made "monkey chants" aimed at Beasley and teammate Jean-Claude Darcheville, according to Rangers' Web site. ...

"It happened to me a few years ago when PSV played Red Star in Belgrade, and I can't believe racist abuse is still in football," Beasley was quoted as saying on Rangers' Web site. "People can come to a match and jeer, but the racist thing just has to get out of football."

This isn't the only trouble football fans have started in the former Yugoslavia. Partizan Belgrade was kicked out of UEFA Cup after its fans rioted, attacking fans from NK Zrinjski of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbians and Bosnians starting a riot? Gee, who would have seen that coming? You'd think that these groups might have issues with anyone different from them or something.

Rangers will face a Serbian club, Red Star Belgrade, in the next round. It would be nice if the Red Star supporters left the bananas at home for a change, but I'm not holding my breath. Hold your head up, DaMarcus.

A rejuvenated Damarcus Beasley was a force at both ends of the field (when not flubbing a sitter) in the Gold Cup; in its aftermath his rumored move to Scottish power Rangers FC has been completed:

"We can confirm that [Beasley] has joined Rangers," the club's Carol Patton told YA. "A work permit should be just a formality and upon its approval he will be a Rangers player for the next three seasons."

A Rangers move is good and bad for US soccer fans. Beasley should be a regular for them, but the Scottish league is basically Rangers, Celtic, and then a bunch of teams that are probably no better than your average MLS side, so the high level competition so often cited as a necessary step for domestic players to become the international stars that lead the US to World Cup glory will be lacking. A mitigating factor: Rangers does have a virtual stranglehold on a Champions' League spot every year. Beasley remains the only American to play in a Champions League semifinal; hopefully he can add to his impressive record (four goals in 12 games) started at PSV.

During the Gold Cup group stage, DaMarcus Beasley might be the second-best player on the pitch for the USA squad behind Clint Dempsey. Clearly, his European club experience has helped him quite a bit. Beasley played for PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands but was on loan to Manchester City last season.

Now it appears he's about to move to another European club. Reports out of Europe indicate that Glasgow-based club Rangers are working out a transfer deal with PSV Eindhoven to acquire Beasley. The deal is expected to be official after the Gold Cup.

The big benefit for Beasley is that he'll be able to play Champions League football. Rangers finished second in the Scottish Premier League last season, which allows them to enter Champions League qualifying in the 2nd round, which begins on July 31. Since Beasley is not expected to be part of the USA side that travels to Copa America, he'll have plenty of time to train with his new club and get ready for European competition, which can only make him a better player for the USA.

On the other hand, I hope Beasley likes cold weather football. It rarely gets above 70 degrees in Scotland during the summer and hovers around the 40s during the winter. He might be cheering for global warming after this signing.