Carlos Bocanegra

Carlos Manuel Bocanegra (born May 25, 1979) is an American soccer player who plays for French Ligue 1 club Saint-Étienne and is the captain of the United States national team. For both club and country, he splits his time between centre back and left back.

Club career

After playing college soccer at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Bocanegra signed a Project-40 contract with Major League Soccer (MLS) and was drafted by the Chicago Fire with the fourth overall pick in the 2000 MLS SuperDraft. He spent most of the year with the Fire, playing only two games on loan with Project 40. He proceeded to win the MLS Rookie of the Year Award for a team that made it to the MLS Championship match and won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. He became one of the top defenders in MLS, becoming the first player to win the MLS Defender of the Year Award twice, in 2002 and 2003. Bocanegra scored five goals and had eight assists in his four years in MLS.

Fulham

Bocanegra was signed by Fulham in January 2004. With Fulham, Bocanegra played primarily as a centre back, but also as a left back and briefly as a holding midfielder. During the 2006–07 Premier League season, he was Fulham's second leading scorer with five goals, behind fellow American Brian McBride. On September 1, 2007, Bocanegra captained...
Read More