Charlie Davies believes in the power of serendipity.

Example: If Davies, then 6 years old, had shown his father the registration form he intended to give him back in 1992, he might be four games into his second NFL season, and not preparing for a crucial World Cup qualifier against Honduras.

Young Charlie wanted to play American football. But he mistakenly handed his father Kofi -- who immigrated to Boston from the Republic of The Gambia at age 18 -- a sign-up sheet to play the international version.

Up until then, Kofi didn't really force the sport upon his son.

But after the child came home with a registration form?

``He really pushed it to be my passion,'' the younger Davies said with a smile.

The result: seventeen years later, Davies is one of the most promising young soccer stars in the nation, playing with the speed and physicality of a running back.

For Davies, 23, his emergence on the world stage followed a script that has defined his career.

Davies has made a habit of squashing adversity and seizing the moment when it arrives.

As far as the U.S. men's national team is concerned, that moment arrived last June at the Confederations Cup in South Africa.

Bob Bradley's bunch had lost the first two matches of the mini-World Cup to Italy and Brazil by a combined score of 6-1. In those games, Davies played a total of 24 minutes and was barely a factor in either game.

Needing a spark -- and a miracle to advance -- Bradley inserted Davies into the starting lineup for the Americans' final group stage match against Egypt. Davies scored, the United States thrashed Egypt 3-0 and advanced to the tournament's semifinals, where it shocked Spain, then the No. 1 team in the world, before falling to Brazil in the final.

``I really hadn't had the chance to show what I have,'' said Davies, who later scored in the Americans' World Cup qualifying loss in Mexico City. ``Everything fit. Once I got that chance, I made the best of it and I didn't want to let it go.''

He might not have to.

With midfielder Clint Dempsey, who has scored the second-most goals of any American in this round of qualifying, sidelined for Saturday's match in Honduras with a shoulder injury, odds are Davies will find himself among the starting 11.

And if current trends continue, Bradley might have found this country's attack of the next 10 years in Davies and Boca Raton's Jozy Altidore, who is still a month shy of his 20th birthday.

``I'm not surprised in Charlie; everybody always saw it in him,'' said Altidore, who has six goals for the national team in 2009 between qualifying and Confederations Cup action. ``He had the ability to do some special things naturally. Hopefully we can develop a nice partnership.''

Football remains a passion for Davies, who talked his father into letting him hit the gridiron and also wrestle as a boy, with the understanding that soccer would be the top priority.

Growing up in New England, he remembers having to leave some of his football games at halftime so that he was on time for the start of a soccer match.

Davies gave up football for good when he enrolled as a freshman at the Brooks School in North Andover, Mass., but the intensity of the sport remains with him.

Practicing with the national team in Miami this week, Davies, who has played professionally in Sweden and France, sported fresh scabs up and down his left arm.

``I loved contact sports growing up,'' Davies said. ``In soccer, obviously, people dive and whatnot, but for me, I like getting roughed up.

``It's not an issue for me. I think it's more of a challenge and something I like, when players play rough.

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