Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #171: Catch-up week, Chris Richards, Justin Che and Caden Clark

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

News roundup led off by Richards' big performances lately, and two new features: Fourth Eights and Second Sixes. We'll see if they last into next week. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Scufft podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Thanks for downloading this episode of Scuffed. We're going to do a rundown of the news we believe is fit to speak. So there's no unifying principle here, just a lot of action from which to pick and choose and say something about. Greg, how are you? I'm good, Bills. I feel like that's very applicable here, that no unifying principle. With no U.S. games until the end of May, it feels like we are just keeping track of a lot. of scattered storylines throughout Europe and now as MLS starts throughout the U.S. Yes, us and Greg Berhalter and Brian McBride have a lot to keep track of because there are a lot of players in action. Before we get to some of that, how about that, how about that European Super League? I feel like that is at least one place we won't have to worry about keeping track of players

now and what that means for their FIFA participation. Yeah, for now, for now, until. Manelli and Perez, you know, come back to the, get back to the table with their new proposal someday. But yeah, you've heard about it all week. It's a dumb idea, in my opinion. I'm glad it fell apart. And I'm glad that there were people protesting outside Arsenal Stadium earlier today,

asking that the crankies or the crunkies or whatever, however you say that, get out of their club. Is it going to happen? Yeah, I doubt that. So yeah, it's... The shame they live with. All right. Yeah. I mean, they should feel some shame for sure.

Okay. You want me to start here? Can I start? Yeah, let's get right into our rundown. Rundown roundup. I want to start by talking about two different Bayern Munich players. Well, I guess one is an FC Dallas player still on loan at Bayern Munich. But first one is Chris Richards.

He is a Bayern Munich player. I'm allowing myself now to be very excited about his development. Thought he played incredibly well against R.B. Leipzig a week ago in a zero-zero-zero draw, which was Hoffenheim's second straight clean sheet. He also keyed the move for the winning goal against Gladbach a couple days ago by taking the ball off a guy and then passing it down the wing. I mean, there was still a lot to do, but he started the move. He's really playing well, don't you think? He's playing.

I think he's playing well. Do you think he's playing like better now than he was in his first three appearances for Hoffin? I'm just, I'm just kind of curious. I do, but you'll, it'll be no surprise to you that I have no data to back that up. I just, he just looks more, he just looks more comfortable. He looks more confident. I thought the Leipzig game in particular was a revelation because he was tested so much, you know, in really important ways by a top, top team. they tested his ability to pass out of the back

and to defend good solid top four Bundesliga attacking talent and he handled both of those tests very, very well and he did that in a back four rather than a back three he's been playing a lot in a back three and in this game he was in a back four. I think he was in a back four against Gladback two. Believe so, yep.

So, yeah, and now... That Leibzig performance basically derailed any chance Leibzig had of winning the title. They were still in the race at that point and now now basically no longer are because it can flip that quickly when you're chasing Bayern Munich. But yeah, that was a huge deal to see him pass that test in particular, the way Leibzig press and what they offer going forward on their own accord to see him do that well against Leibzig is, it's pretty massive. It's a pretty good data point. It is. I mean, because don't you remember like we were talking about him playing against Molde, the Scandinavian club.

I can never remember which country. The Scandinavian club. And we were like, well, you know, let's see him against some good Bundesliga teams. And then he's gotten more and more experience under his belt. And then this is, you know, short of playing Bayern Munich, that's the top level in the Bundesliga to play against Leipzig. And I don't know, experience is the argument for Aaron Long over Richards for the national team. And I haven't ripped into Burrhalter. I don't think neither of us has.

I don't think either of us has for preferring long in the most recent window, which has been to the chagrin of some listeners. But it's getting harder to see that rationale. And I think it's going to get even harder come September. Well, and part of the not ripping into him is more about whether Burrhalter truly writes long over Richards, or if it's just a matter of how Burrhalter feels the best way to integrate Richards would be. and if he wants to integrate him gradually, which I think is okay for a centerback,

then it sort of makes sense. So it'll kind of be like retroactively, we'll kind of look back at it and say, okay, we see what he was doing, or we'll say, oh, man, he just really doesn't rate Chris Richards if Richard just never gets sort of integrated into that starting spot. Yeah. Or a chance to.

Yep. And I think, you know, just to be, sorry, I'm going to just say the contrast would be like Sergenio Dest, who upon breaking, through at iax immediately jumped into our team in the next round of friendlies and you know is now was the locked starter somewhere in the 11 for every game since yeah yeah and i think you know it's just to zoom back a little bit it's this was one of the big questions i think for the for the spring was is chris richards gonna you know once once he went to hoffinheim like is he gonna emerge is he

going to become a legitimate first-team centerback starting option. And I think we can unfurl the banner. It's mission accomplished, you know? Yeah, at the end of last year, you know, when we knew McKenzie was moving to Gank from Philadelphia, like that became, so he was kind of taking the centerback hype train over. Like it was like, okay, well, McKenzie's moving because it just felt like Richards was going to be buried at Byron for the rest of the year. Yeah.

And we would just not be able to really see him outside of the three leagues. or once Byron clinched. So there was all this excitement growing around McKenzie, and that has totally flipped with McKenzie sort of, you know, having a start and stop arrival or performances so far with Gank. I think he's been hurt the last two games. He hasn't been in the squad. But yes, you know, we didn't know Richard was moving.

It was a late transfer in the window. And then he just has immediately stepped in and looked. apart. He's and I think I mean, commandeered the hype train back. Right. I think it's fair to say. It's, it's very reasonable to say he looks more assured and more competent than McKenzie at a higher level. Totally fair. Totally fair.

Yeah. So speaking of young centerbacks, there's another one in southwest Germany. Another guy who came up through the FC Dallas setup. And I, And I'm really excited about him, too. His name is Justin Che. He's still very young, only 17. But he has now started two matches in a row at centerback for Byron 2, which puts him on exactly the same track as Chris Richards.

Only he's 18 months ahead. You know, Richard didn't start doing that until he was 19. And I really think, I mean, just looking at the clips, I haven't been able to watch those games live, but looking at his involvements, he looks the part. He's a fluid athlete. he's plenty technical he looks like a big big big center back prospect now he is a dual national with uh as i understand it you know real affinity for germany um so there may be a challenge for

the u.s there but at this point we got to give burhalter and mcbride the benefit of the doubt on the dual national thing because they've done a good job on that yeah suddenly suddenly justin jes a favorite for the gold cup he'll be he'll be heavily heavily featured in our big summer roster episode Yeah, yeah. A little bit of context. I wouldn't hate it. A little bit of context on him being ahead of Richards on the pathway at Byron. As I understand it, the youth leagues in Germany are still shut down for COVID.

Is that right? So there isn't a U-19 team. That is true. Richards was playing with the Byron U-19 team right away. And there is no such team anymore. So Che goes right into the... I mean, he still has to be good enough that they can play him in those three league of games, and he still has to look the part which he has.

But that is just a little bit of context on their respective paths through the Byron development system. That's a good point. It's definitely giving him a boost. And the U19 level at Byron is not so shabby because you get to play in those UEFA Youth League, that UEFA Youth League tournament, which is like Champions League, all the Champions League clubs send their U19 teams to this concurrent tournament. But, yeah, Shee looks pretty good, and I hope we can keep him. So now, anything else on those two guys, Greg?

No, no, no, no. Yeah, like I said, excited for hopefully seeing one of them this summer and maybe, maybe the other one gets a lookout. Oh, man, Richard's in the Nations League, Che and the Gold Cup. No, it's not going to happen, I don't think. We have a couple of new features, and if they're like, If they're anything like any of our other new features, they will be one-time features. Well, they'll never feature again.

We get very excited about our features. I mean, if you went through the graveyard of scuffed podcast features, it'd be a pretty extensive property. So what are we working with here, Greg? All right. So right now we're having the weekly fourth eight status report. where we go in depth on all of the players competing for the fourth eight slot on the World Cup 23. So who are the first three eights just to refresh everyone's memory? Weston McKenney, Eunice Musa, and we are giving the third one to Sebastian Leggett pretty comfortably.

That isn't necessarily all the way through the World Cup, but that is at least going through the impending qualifiers. Yeah, yeah, I'm good with those three. So who do we have for this fourth-eight status update? And what have they been up to? All right. So number one in the one I'm super excited about because he finally got back on the field is Paxton Pomacall. Got like a 25-minute cameo in FC Dallas's league opener. I wasn't sure he'd play.

I hadn't heard much of him playing in any of the preseason games. He's obviously working his way back from a long absence from injury. So this was, it was really cool to see. He didn't have a lot to do in that zero zero draw, but whatever. He's back on the field. Hopefully that, you know, he just continues to sort of increase his role for the team as we get farther into the season because he's got two months to get ready for the gold cup, which is where I'm hoping to see him. Yeah. Yeah.

He, you know, Dallas has been kind of cool. It has been kind of coy about him for the last month or so. It was a surprise that he got on the field because he didn't play in any of the preseason game. But yeah, like you said, didn't have much to do. Dallas's heart, Dallas is not a lot of fun to watch right now. It's kind of a bummer because they have so many national team prospects. Well, Pamukal hurt, Jesus Ferreira hurt, Tanner Tessman. We're going to assume he missed most of preseason with Olympic, so he's got to be gradually worked in.

He did not get into the game in the opener. So he's also on our radar's fourth eight, so we'll consider him covered. But also in that game was another fourth eight candidate for Colorado, Kellan Acosta. Yeah, but he was playing left back. And over Sam, over Sam Vines. I guess was Vines still quarantined or something? Injured. He was he's sidelined with injury, but I don't know what the specifics of the injury are.

And he also missed a lot of the preseason down in Guadalajara. Okay. Well, you know, I mean, that's sort of intriguing to me that Acosta is still getting, however occasional they may be, minutes at the professional level at left back, because, you know, that sort of positional versatility is somewhat attractive. It definitely is for actual tournament setting. I don't think it's super valuable for the World Cup windows, because I assume there's tons of flexibility between games to change rosters for injury or suspension.

But for an actual tournament, it is especially when I still think our second left back, and somebody would even argue our first left back spot, is an area of weakness or uncertainty. So if you were thinking of just bringing Serginio Dest as a one possible left back and then Anthony Robinson as the other, and you wanted a little bit more flexibility to not carry a true backup to Robinson a left back, then maybe a Kelan Acosta could be an emergency filling. And you don't waste a spot on a guy you don't feel great about. Right. It's definitely a point in his favor.

Acostas, that is. All right, who else? Luca della Torre. What's he been up to? Heracles was off last weekend, so we don't really have much on him. Just going to keep tabs on him this weekend. Julian Green, I'm throwing in this list. racked up another assist

Sort of more importantly His team right now are sitting second in the double Bundesliga We were corrected on our pronunciation It's not the two Bundesliga It's actually pronounced the double Bundesliga I thought it was the second Bundesliga No no no it's the double Bundesliga So Julian Green's team is sitting in second place

Which is an automatic promotion spot And they are four points clear Of Hamburg who's chasing him with three games, I'm sorry, five games left to go. So there is a pretty decent chance that Julian Green is a single Bundesliga player next year. Man, pretty cool. Groiter Firth back in the Bundesliga. I wonder when their last time in the First Division was.

I'm not going to look it up right now. I'm actually curious, like, if Julian Green gets there and plays 90 minutes on the opener for them, I think that would double his total Bundesliga minutes in his career. career. Man, good for him. And, you know, he's in the mix. We got to admit he's in the mix from an objective point of view. He's, uh, he's what, 25, 26 at the, something like that.

Somebody who like probably not, go ahead. Well, one of the only guys in the pool at this point with World Cup experience. And certainly, it's him and Brooks with World Cup goals. Yeah, man. Never forget that goal. Christian Roll Dawn, I would say he's not so much in the mix anymore, but maybe he is. Maybe Burrhalter thinks he is. For Gold Cup, I feel like he easily could be.

He looked good for Seattle in their opener, and he was kind of all over the field, almost like this, like a totally free role to just support where needed. But he had a lot of really good moments in that thrashing of Minnesota. Did he, I mean, I only watched the first half of that game. game and it was it looked like Minnesota looked like the clearly superior team and then I went and watched something else or I don't change somebody's diaper or something and I come back and it's um it's four zero you know so I was a little that was a little shocking for me now rolled on where where I'm not super high on roll don generally and I didn't think he was very good in what he

was being asked to do through all of 2019 for the national team but in the in the changed up sort of a system that we've adopted. I don't know how Rolla Donald would fit. And he's certainly, I think, going to be asking questions of Burrhalter. And Burrhalter, I think, likes the guy. So he was in January camp. And again, with the extra competition with the Gold Cup this summer, wouldn't surprise me at all if Rolled on sort of one of the Burrhalter veterans that sort of helps the group

along. And then it's his opportunity to seize. Yeah. It's not hard to imagine that at all. You're right. I was wrong when I said he's not. in the mix. Dead wrong.

His teammate, Joshua Tencio, got the start in the opener for Seattle. And, you know, he's, if you're a long time listener of the scuffed podcast, you will remember us discussing him a long time ago. But he did kind of fall out of the pick, all out of our picture when he didn't make the U-17 team that went to the World Cup in 2019, fall of 2019. And then he didn't really, he couldn't really break through at Seattle last season or the season before that. So we gave up.

We gave up on him, washed our hands of him. We weren't really thinking about that much about him. But he looked good, didn't he? He looked good in the midfield for Seattle. Yeah, I'm prepared to call him the next Tanner Testament. This year's, this year's Tanner Testament. I honestly, for the life of me, don't know what that means. What does that mean?

I don't know. He's like a really tall, like it's ridiculous, but like even on screen he reminded me of right away. Got kind of that Keaton Parks like Languid, super long strides. And then he just kind of like Testman in a little bit parks, or maybe more like Parks and a little bit Testman, he just, he kind of just drifts all over the field. So you'll see him with the ball, carrying the ball like 60 yards from, literally from box to box. And you'll see him clogging up passing lanes in front of the back line. So he was definitely sort of in a role where he was asked to do a lot of different things. And he did, he did him pretty well.

Yeah, he wasn't, he didn't look like a transcendent talent, but that's okay. What about Tanner Testman? Testman didn't get in. Testman didn't play. We already talked about him when we were talking about Palmacal. No minutes for him in game one, and I'm just going to chalk it up to Olympic fatigue. Sure. So this is the most interesting part to me.

You've been doing a little research on Alex Mendez, and watched some of his clips. He's back to getting more minutes for a young Iax. He's not, we're not, I'm not given up on him. What have you seen lately? So he had his first start like last week, first start in probably a year. I don't remember when his last start was. But he looked good. He looked really tidy.

Iax aren't asking their center mids to do necessarily what Burrhalter will ask of his central midfielder. So it's, it would remain to be seen whether Mendez would even be considered for one of our center mid spots or if he would essentially be fighting for like a wing or tucked in ringer role where he's going to be doing more of the playmaker stuff in playmaking areas of the field. But he was, he was just very tidy in his, in his 70, 80 odd minutes for a young Iax. He hit a couple of typically like incisive Alex Mendez disguised passes, took some very good set pieces, and, and bodied a guy. You saw the, you saw the clip where he bodied that dude. Yeah, you, you were the one who provided that clip and then I tweeted it out.

but yeah that you love to see that because that has not been his calling card uh at young iax or even you know at any level really so to see him use his shoulder and put somebody down is it's good to see yeah he could you know totally theoretically totally hypothetically he could work as that like right winger who who drops in and and and helps orchestrate things and you know having him come inside on his left foot and with the opportunity to shoot is a, you know, tantalizing prospect, I think. Yeah. But, you know, there's a lot, long way to go.

And the lesson, the lesson of the Kalan Acosta and Luca De Laetore is just don't write the kids off yet. Like, he might not have an impact in the next year. And he could still come in and be a piece at some point down the line. He's, he's still essentially like a child. Is he 20, 21? Yeah, he turns 21 in September. I know that because he and, he and, he and, Richie doesn't have the same birthday,

have the same birthday, which is one day after my birthday, except, yeah. Years apart. A couple, a couple years different. All right, that's the,

yeah, there are probably, there are probably 10 other eights that we could talk about here. Keaton Parks, we just mentioned, but we're not going, we're not going to get into all of them every week.

This is just going to be, you know, as this is definitely going to be a recurring weekly feature. We'll just, we'll just, We'll just talk about them a fair number of them each week. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, this is going to, we're hoping that this is a short podcast.

So far, not so good. But here we go. Second Six, the Second Six feature. Who is the second, who are the second sixes? The second sixes. It sounds like a fraternity. The second sixes start with Callan Acosta, I think. Actually, no, it starts with Jackson Yule, right?

based on what... In Burrhalter's mind, yeah. Yeah, I think so. And did you watch San Jose and... I was not able to watch that one. Who did they just lose to? Houston. Yep.

Oh, yeah. So we actually got... We actually speak in Houston. We need to actually add Joe Corona to the eight list because he looked pretty good. And I know like everyone wants to just be done with the guys who are not 25 and younger. I mean, we're like the ringleaders of that kind of movement. But it changed. I think that math has to change as we're now.

approaching the actual World Cup qualifying. This isn't 2018 and 19 where it was like a free for all of auditions. Like we need to pick the guys who will for sure get the job done. And if that means Joe Corona or an Ali Bedoya, like whatever. Like if that player is literally better than whoever we're going to pick for the fourth eight, like bring that player in.

So I don't know that that's Joe Corona at the moment. But if he like puts together a string of really good games, he's going to show up in our fourth eight. status reports. Totally. Totally. That's a really good point about having to shift the mindset a little bit. It's going to be hard for me. It's going to be hard for me. But also, here, let me fire off an email to the project manager of the second six feature. There we go. All right. So, yeah, so Jackson Ewell, getting back to Ewell in that game against Houston, I don't think he looked particularly great. And what I think is strange about the fact that

he's almost like the prohibitive favorite, it seems like, with Burrhalter to be our second sixes. I feel like he's going to have a lot of MLS games where he just doesn't look very good. Yeah, that seems to be the case. I mean, I didn't watch the game, like I said, but apparently San Jose's attack was pretty anemic. Is that right? I would say that's fair. So, I don't know. It's hard to get super excited about Eul because I think his physical limitations.

are going to really be a, could really be a problem come, you know, meaningful World Cup qualifiers and definitely the World Cup if we managed to get there. Well, we'll call it the, we'll call it an Olympic hangover for him too, and we'll check in on him next week when we revisit the second sixes. Yep. Who else we got? And And Andres Perea came in off the bench for Orlando City. Yeah, came in at half and I didn't actually get a chance to check his performance out,

so I'm not sure how good he looked. or even actually I'm not even sure if he was playing as a six or if he was sort of playing higher off the field. So we'll need to double check that. I apologize for not being totally prepared for the second sixes. There will be some punishments meet it out, but that'll be done privately. Perea is, as a refresher, was, you know,

he was kind of okay in the Olympic qualifying tournament, but not great. And I didn't come in and say, like, I'm going to be a six for the national team. Taylor Booth has had a bit of a renaissance at St. Poulton in the Austrian League, you know, on loan from Byron. And I don't know, I think he's a nice player. I know you think he's more of an eight.

I think he's kind of playing as more of an eight. Yeah, I think he's definitely a better fit for the fourth eights than the second sixes. I want to just keep saying these over and over. This is going to work, Bells. These features are going to stick. And yeah, I mean, he's gotten some goals and some assists and he does get forward for St. Paulton. I mean, he has, I've seen him play for the Byron U-19s as a six, just a metronome type six,

because he's pretty clean on the ball and he, you know, he's pretty good passing range and good decision-making, quick decision-making. One thing that's kind of interesting about him is he's not a bad athlete. I think he looks a little quicker than, say, like a Jackson Ewell, maybe even a little stronger, although it's hard to compare the two leagues. So just somebody to keep an eye on, he's not, you know, he's not going to get a nation's league call up. Seems pretty unlikely you'd get a Gold Cup call up, but he's out there.

You know, everyone's like super excited about Aronson, and I think, you know, it's justified. But, you know, Aronson's scoring and putting an assist up and it makes a big splash every time he does. I think Booth has the same stat line in the Austrian League as Aronson in like 200 fewer minutes and for quite literally the bottom team in the league. So, you know, racking up stats with Salzberg is going to be a little bit easier because they score so many more goals as a team. Booth is doing it for the worst team in the Austrian League,

and he's doing it at a pretty ridiculous rate. Yeah. I mean, Aronson benefits a lot in the fan consciousness because he looked so good for the national team when he came on against Jamaica and Northern Ireland. Yeah, and the MLS all 11 season. and the $6 million price tag matter a lot for that too. But I mean, it's just something to keep in mind about if you, you know, are excited about what Aronson is doing in the Austrian League,

it stands to reason that you could maybe get a little bit excited about what Taylor Booth is doing in the Austrian League. Fair, 100% fair. I'm judging people's excitement levels. Another guy is Chris Durkin, who, you know, is getting defensive midfield minutes for St. Trudeon, Both of these guys play for teams with Saint in the name. St. Trudean in Belgium, including full 90 against Anderlecht in a 1-0 loss most recently.

I think he looks okay. He looks okay. He looks like a decent player. I don't know that there's like a strong rationale that he shouldn't be in the picture right now, but there's no strong rationale that he should, I guess. Yeah, I'd agree. And I'm going to say he's a super long. shot for the, for even like a gold cup because he's been there doing this thing.

He's been getting a lot of minutes for St. Trued in for two seasons now. And his name has never appeared in the U.S. soccer internal watching guide, the viewing guide every weekend, which leads me to believe that he's not in their plans. I'm like, I'm digging into that thing pretty, pretty like deep at this point. I don't even know how to find it. So I'm glad you are. They probably tweeted out, don't they? What about Darlington Nagby?

What about Darlington Nagby? We love him. He's a treasure. Yeah. It's not happening, though. Really? Yeah. Involved, yeah.

James Sands. So James Sands and Alfredo Morales, both potentially going to be New York City center mids. Morales didn't start in their opener. Sands did. Sands started next to Parks, but it didn't seem like that was really working. Not those two, just the whole team wasn't really functioning. There's some speculation that Sands will move to centerback and Morales will get the start in center midfield.

So just another couple of Americans, we could have three Americans sort of in central midfield roles all at once for New York City. Cool. So there are clear second six implications there. Yeah. Well, there you have it. The second sixes and the fourth eights. I have to write a jingle. Before we get out of here, and we do want to keep this pretty brief, I mean, West McKenny, I'm just going to say quickly, West McKenney, had some nice moments that came across the Twitter Transom for Juventus in the past couple games.

He started both of them for Jouv. Don't follow him that closely right now because he's a nailed on U.S. starter. it doesn't really matter that much. And the same goes for Serenio Dest. He had his ups and downs this season, but he did win Copa del Rey, got a picture with Lionel Messi. There's that.

Tyler Adams, fairly typical performances from him lately. I do think it's interesting how much he's in contact with Noglesman on the sideline. I think it's fun to watch that. Two cerebral barristers going through a soccer game together.

And the fact that when Noglesman It's impatient with his wing backs. He just pulls him off and puts Adams out there is interesting. And, you know, it means that right back, Tyler Adams, that right back thing will probably never die. And it is, it will be, it will be nice to have it in the back pocket, you know, come World Cup Time, assuming we qualify. So we're going to end up with Adams at right back and a cost at left back for our big knockout

game against Germany. Oh, man, would never be hilarious? I mean, it wouldn't be, but. And then the last name I want to talk about today is Caden Clark, who, you know, has gotten a lot of hype going into this season. And then he scored in their first game against the Red Bulls' first game against Sporting KC. A very high level of difficulty goal. I thought Bob Morocco put it nicely. I can't remember exactly how he put it.

But, you know, that ball at that height, being able to get good contact on it in a split second is super effing. hard, man. That's hard to do. You know what? The other goal that just happened that reminded me of that difficulty is Darrell D.K. in his overhead kick, where he had to adjust immediately to like an unexpected path of the ball where you didn't know it was going to bounce and suddenly it did

and it's directly over your head and it's like, why not? I'll just invert myself here and score yet another goal. Yeah, I kind of forgot about that. It happened yesterday, didn't it? Or two days ago? Two days ago now. D.K. had his ninth goal of the season. Yeah, ninth goal of the season. An overhead kick.

Not quite a bicycle, but. No, I won't allow the bicycle nomenclature here. But yes, he and he and Caden Clark are in the same boat in that you blink and they've scored yet another goal. And they are very statistically unsustainable, but I'm enjoying the hell out of it. Yeah. Well, the thing about Clark is, you know, he did score that high difficulty goal and he was working his tail off defending in that game. He's running hard and putting pressure on people. So you like to see that.

But he does need to find the game more. He attempted only 23 passes and one dribble, I think, per Y Scout. And I'm not sure how much of that is his fault. How much is the fault of the team not looking particularly sharp? Because it was not a lovely game of soccer. So that's the thing to look for. Hopefully Clark can get 40 or 50 touches on the ball, 50 or 60, 60 or 70. in their upcoming games and continue to score these unsustainable goals.

Well, New York, New York has brought in second six Frankie Amaya, so maybe he can help clean things up in there. That's right, that's right. Amaya, I think he might. I think Amaya might clean things up in there. He's a good, he's a good asset for Cincinnati last year. Finally, Nations League camp convenes in about a month. Then the Gold Cup, which is happening, we learned yesterday,

mostly in Texas and the southeast. Kansas City, the only northern state with some games, the only northern city with some games. And it's debatable whether Kansas City is even in northern city, you know. I'm not interested in that debate. I'm just glad that there's one within three hours of me. So that's all you can ask for when you live in Iowa is a three-hour trip to a soccer game. That's perfect. And we've got that.

So I'll have been well into my vaccination program by then. So I'm hoping. that the U.S. gets a game there, which would surprise me if they didn't. I feel like they've always gotten games there. So I'm pretty hopeful to go see them play. I'm hopeful to join you. I'm going to have to talk to my spouse about it. Anything else, Greg?

That's it for this week, man. Let's round this up. All right. Have a great weekend, everybody. We'll see you.