Sporting Kansas City’s Teal Bunbury working way to health – but his national team place keeps slipping

U.S. under-23 international Teal Bunbury is making good progress in his recovery bid following major knee surgery last August.

This story says he’s about halfway through the long road back from sustaining ACL and LCL damage. The Sporting Kansas City striker, a starter and the spear of his team’s three-forward setup at the time of his injury, does not want a specific timetable for his recovery. But if he is more or less halfway to health, Bunbury will get on the field in March, probably not quite in time for SKC’s early March kickoff to the 2013 season but training with the team, at least.

Bunbury could conceivably return in time to make little run for Jurgen Klinsmann’s “B” team that will make an appearance this summer; the national team’s second unit will be summoned for the CONCACAF Gold Cup, leaving the “A” side to the more critical business of World Cup qualifying.

The trouble for Bunbury is what has happened in the U.S. forward pool in the meantime.

Remember, Bunbury was tiptoeing the edges of the striker pool anyway. So, he has surely slipped further in the order. Specifically, here is what has gone on over the last six months or so to alter the order.

• Seattle Sounder Eddie Johnson has re-emerged, showing Klinsmann a little something in those two final World Cup qualifiers in the semifinal stage.
• Jozy Altidore has reinforced his position after that notorious October exclusion.

(MORE: Klinsmann talks about Altidore’s omission)

• Young German-American Terrance Boyd keeps progressing nicely at Rapid Vienna, stacking the “good” ever higher in his quest to break into the upper echelon or U.S. strikers.
• Chris Wondolowski has kept a low profile on the national team, but his record-breaking scoring in MLS and continued good attitude during time in Klinsmann’s team has kept the Earthquakes man in the picture.
• Wondolowski’s San Jose teammate Alan Gordon has established himself as some part of this multi-layered equation.
• Juan Agudelo, still just 20 years old, has fought past the Chivas USA clutter to remind everyone that he is still worth mentioning in this conversation.
• D.C. United’s Chris Pontius, circling the outer markers of this busy national team “airport,” keeps pressing his case; Klinsmann says he is well aware of D.C. United’s splendid, versatile attacker.

And all that is not mentioning Clint Dempsey and Herculez Gomez, who have done little to damage their places at the top of the order.

MORE: Jurgen Klinsmann’s national team depth chart (from October)