Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #172: The Big Summer Roster Episode

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

A 4-game window for Nations League in late May and early June, and then a likely entirely different group of players for the Gold Cup in July. The Nations League roster is pretty easy to figure out. For the Gold Cup, though, we went full Scuffed wishlist, because it's anybody's guess. 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 talk today about the Nations League and Gold Cup rosters. And we wanted to get out ahead of this since we figure the Nation's League roster could be announced pretty soon. The friendly against Switzerland is May 30th. And then three matches follow on June 3rd, June 6th, and June 9th versus Honduras, hopefully Mexico, and then Costa Rica. respectively. Greg, how are you? Hells, I'm good. I'm very excited about this roster episode because we're going to do a fun compromise where we're going to project Greg Burhalter's Nation's League roster, what we think he'll do. But then we're going to get to go full scuffed wish list on the Gold Cup roster, which I think is like okay to do because so much of the Gold Cup roster feels like drawing names out of a hat anyway. So many guys with like kind of legitimate claims to it or they've

made their cases and there are so many different ways it could go. Yeah, there's, I mean, realistically, a pool of like 75 players who could be on the Gold Cup roster. It's going to be a wild ride, everybody. So before we get into that, let's talk briefly about Christian Pulisic. He came off the bench for Chelsea earlier this week up 1-0 over Rayall-Madrid, and he was a live wire in a Champions League semifinal for the second week in a row, got the assist, which you've all seen. Now he goes to the final on May 29th, and I just want to play a little

clip of him from the postgame to show how far we've come. Is that a message for everyone back home as well? Because you had such a fantastic game. To find yourself on the bench who must be frustrated, but the way to come on and send a message is to do what you did. Very frustrated. Yeah, there's not much else to say I wanted to play from the beginning, as I always do. I've had to continue to prove myself over and over again. again. But as always, I just, you know, reach out to God and he gives me strength. And with that behind me, nothing can stop me really. Here we have a man who scored the tie winner and provided the

assist on the clincher to advance past Real Madrid in the Champions League semifinals. And he's disappointed after the game because he didn't start. And he's even publicly disagreeing with his manager about it. Seems like we've come a long way. No, it's wonderful. It has a bit of like the, you know, we all watch the Michael Jordan documentary. I feel like over the pandemic. It has a little bit of that where like he's just going to find things that will challenge him. Maybe like no matter what. So here he has, you know, at this point, the second best team in the world.

They're probably not. But they're in the Champions League final. So you're saying the two best teams in the world or whatever. And he's still just like not good enough. I should be starting for them. I get like I take it as a challenge. Yeah. So there's that element to it.

There's also echoes of. Clint Dempsey from like 2010 on their Europa League run where he was not necessarily the starter, even though he had such a big hand in their advancement with his wonder goal against Juventus. He was often coming off the bench behind England legend Bobby Zamora. So we've kind of upgraded from Clint Dempsey having that frustration in the Europa League to Poolecic in the Champions League. Yeah. It seems fitting. It is fitting.

Yeah. It's a perfect illustration of the step upward. The words, elite mentality, are, they're such a cliche at this point that they're almost a meme. But that's what comes to mind. That's what comes to mind. Right. And I took that personally. Like, that's just the, like, I didn't get to start in this, in the most important game where only 22 players in the world can start.

And I took that personally. Yeah. I love it. All right. Let's move to the Nation's League roster first, since we're all of the. about chronology. We're going to get, we're going to get to the fourth eight and second six here in a bit. Everybody, uh, everybody who's been asking for that on Twitter, we will get to it. Because honestly, being on that, being on the nation's league roster doesn't necessarily signal

where you are in the fourth, eight, second six sweepstakes. You know what I mean? Right. We don't know that the nation's league will be a true depth chart, uh, situation because even a Burrhalter true depth chart, uh, because of, I think of what sort of the objective of the event will be for Greg Burhalter. And he's talked on several occasions about what that is. And he's made it very clear that it is a preparation for World Cup qualifying for those triple windows. And I think we're going to take him at his word on that for now. So we're going to approach that roster as we discuss it with that mindset.

And I think there's like a knock on effect of that mindset, which means that this might not be the best time. In my mind, it's not the best time for individuals. depth assessments of new or even new-ish kind of players who have just kind of broken. Fringe guys. Yeah. And even if they're guys who, you know, might tenuously be backups, if they've just broken through, it might be better for those players to get more minutes, say, in the Gold Cup, then it would be to go through the dress rehearsal stage of World Cup qualifying.

because I think with World Cup qualifying, if this is a true dress, or so you're starting with most their best place working backward from there. So it might work against some of those backup guys if what they really need are more minutes for the national team. That might just not be a possibility here in this event. Yeah. I mean, just to put it in as simple terms as I can, you could be the fourth eight,

the fourth best eight in Burrhalter's depth chart, and it would make, it makes more sense for you to be, be in the Gold Cup roster because you can play and you can sort of establish yourself as that fourth eighths. In Burrhalter's mind are in the Gold Cup. And the people we see as the literal fourth eight in the nation's league window is just what, what's the role they play, you know, if they're not the fourth or fifth. Yeah, they're filler.

And they're almost like these guys who are just going to be eating minutes, essentially, that you don't want to have your first team guys play because you might want to give them, you need to find ways to give them breaks. He's talked a lot about rotation. You physically can't play, start all three games. And not only can you not start them, but it might be in a situation where if you've started and played in the first game of the window, you don't even want to bring them in the second game to run for 30 minutes at the end of the game.

You might want to make sure that they don't have to play. They get like a full recovery. So you might need a guy available to eat minutes at the end of game two in the window. So your guy from game one is fresh. for game three. And there's tons of these little calculations. And I really have no idea what the, what Burrhalter's idea of the optimal way to do it is. So that's what's going to be so, so interesting about how we approach these, these games in this window. You love these kind of calculations. It's so nerdy. Physio Velasquez. It's super nerdy. And I actually, you know,

we're talking about the three game cadence, the cadence of three games, which is interesting because there's obviously now a fourth game in the window. And I wonder if that was like a clever way of building in like a reward for some of these guys who might just get called in to eat minutes in the first three games. As we, you know, take pool sick, make sure we can put pool sick through the right paces. That's the goal. And then so these other guys who are kind of just carrying bags and carrying ball bags, like maybe the fourth game is like their reward at the end to be like, okay, now you guys actually get to play a real soccer game. Because they've been eating minutes in the first three games in this scenario, but they've only been eating like scraps. You know, they haven't gotten to eat a lot of minutes.

Potentially, yeah. They're either doing that or they're just on standby in case of emergency so that you don't have to use a starter in a situation where, you know, like somebody gets injured, but you didn't want the starter to play in this game. Well, you can't, you don't want to use them now. You're playing us to rest him. So you've got to throw in the filler. Yeah. all right let's do it let's get into the let's get into the actual roster um start with goalkeeper how about that you start please all right so in goal uh we're talking about and this is right

away we're going to get into one of these sort of uh gold cup minutes versus second string goalkeepers uh because i've got the goalkeeper list here as i have i have burhalter's depth chart as stephen and then johnson and turner and johnson and turner in whatever order uh But I feel like he would probably, he might well send Turner to the Gold Cup because he hasn't seen Turner playing games very much. He's seen Johnson a lot. Johnson has been in almost every camp, I think, from the beginning of Burrhalter's era. So he has a ton of experience with Johnson. He doesn't have that much with Matt Turner.

And so it might be more valuable to throw Matt Turner into the Gold Cup and bring, say, Stefan and Johnson and Horvath to Nation's League. Yeah, which again, signals that Horvath would not be as high on Burrhalter's depth chart as Turner. It's just like we want to see Turner more. Right. Yeah. Now, what throws a wrinkle into that, obviously, is that the Champions League final is May 29th, and Zach Stephan will be participating in it, at least in uniform at the field. So that now opens up the May 30th friendly against Switzerland to somebody else.

If the assumption going in had been Stefan's going to play all four games, so maybe Turner would go to the Gold Cup, that's no longer probably going to be the case. I don't think you would have Stefan jet over from Istanbul to Switzerland and immediately play the next day. So if that game's open, then maybe that changes things a little bit. And the math now brings Turner in with this camp and he plays.

Or it's also very possible that Berthelter just thinks Johnson is still his number two guy, and it's Johnson's game. Cool. What do you want to see? What do you want to see there with the goalkeepers? Oh, I don't care, honestly. I want to see David Ochoa on the Gold Cup roster. I do think it would be cool to get a bunch of data on Turner in the Gold Cup.

And, yeah, that wrinkle notwithstanding, I think what you've got here makes sense, Stefan Johnson-Horvath, the wrinkle with the fact that Stefan's in the Champions League final. Let's move to the more interesting positions. It's a cool wrinkle to have to worry about it. I'll do respect. I'm excited about wrinkles where our Champions League final participation conflicts with our friendly participation. Yeah, man, totally.

Didn't used to be this way. So centerbacks, let's go to centerbacks. We've got obviously Brooks at left centerback and Ream, Tim Ream backing him up. I think that's probably all right at this point. I think, one, he's a good minutes-eating guy. Two, I still think Burrhalter just values him as his left-footed passing backup to John Brooks. And Brooks definitely is not going to start four games in this window.

So in almost every other window, when Brooks is not available, Ream steps in as the starter. And then at right centerback, Aaron Long, Chris Richards, and Matt Miazka. Matt Miazka. So do we want to start with the Miyazka question mark or the Long Richards situation? Let's start with the Long Richards situation. So I still think that Richards is going to be with the first team here. I still am not sure where Burrhalter has him one or two. And I'm not sure that, again, that it matters for this window because I think there's going to be rotation anyway in starting roles, not just in like, I mean, I don't think Long is going to need to come out after 60 minutes.

minutes, but game to game, I think, we'll rotate. Yeah, I guess, you know, I do think Richards is a, is a better player than Aaron Long right now. I think that. I mean, he plays in a better league. He does more things with the ball. He doesn't seem to be, there doesn't seem to be much drop off defensively from Long to Richards, if any.

But, yeah, I guess Burrhalter has shown that he has a lot of faith in Long in the past, and there's no reason to believe that that's changed. I do think, you know, Richards is a, he's a standout. I don't think you have to be a homer to say that he's a standout young centerback in the Bundesliga. His time with Hoffenheim has coincided with a very, like, overall, very good run of form for that team. And obviously he's not all responsible for that, but he's been part of it. And it's like I would start Richards over long. But like you said, there's four.

games here. There's plenty. It's a tune-up. It's a tune-up window, the Nation's League trophy, not what's the value of that trophy, notwithstanding. So it doesn't matter too much, I guess. Do you definitely want him here rather than sending him to the Gold Cup to start five out of those six games? Yeah, I do. Because I think, I want him, I want him to get reps with Brooks and Dest and, you know, passing to the feet of Musa and McKenney, if at all possible. Same. I'm totally the same. I'm very much hoping that he starts against Switzerland. And then I'm hoping that in that game, he doesn't look shaky at all and just looks commanding and adds another layer of distribution from the back that we don't necessarily get from Aaron Long. And that he essentially would like take over that sort of number one spot or we'd get into like a 1A, 1B situation until he eventually is full out 1A.

I think we're close. I think we're pretty close. Even, you know, even trying to think, within the shoes of Greg Burrhalter. All right. So Matt Miazga. Yeah, I guess I'm ambivalent about Miazga at this point, but why isn't he with the Gold Cup side to provide his veteran leadership? So I think, so I, I'm not even sure where Miazka and Zimmerman sort of stand in Berhalter's mind, but I feel like Zimmer might still be ahead of him.

I put Zimmerman in the Gold Cup to do that leadership bit. He's played with the domestic guys a ton through different January camps. So I feel like he would have sort of that built-in leadership in all the behind the Crest videos that we all pour over every time they're released. Zimmerman always seems to be in a leadership role. So I think he's going to be sort of the, you know, the camp father there. And I think Miyazka just comes in as one of those minutes eaters who can step in and do a job if you need him to. And it's not like he's, it's not like that's crazy to even. and think that he's fifth already on the depth chart.

Yeah, he could be. It's like we've been talking about for months. The centerbacks after Brooks, and now I think Richards are all kind of in the same rough boat. So you go, I'm calling five steadbacks. Oh, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say that not that the boat itself is rough,

just roughly in the same boat, you know, in the same group of people. What were you going to say? Sorry. No, just five centerbacks. I think you, again, I think you want the extra guy for the four window, for the four matches to build in that flexibility. Make sure you're at no point scrambling to fill a spot.

Let's move to the midfield. No, let's talk fullbacks first, Bell. I'm not going to let you skip. Well, I'm looking at your graphic and you got it all. You got the fullbacks up by the wingers and the midfielder's down by the centerbacks, and the centerbacks are out Y. Nobody enjoys, nobody enjoys my fullbacks high. I enjoyed. I'm just trying to defend myself for my how I'm proceeding here.

Okay, fullbacks. So Gino Dest, obviously, and Anthony Robinson probably starting on the right and the left in at least one of these games. And then we've got, it seems like Reggie Cannon is a solid sort of third option at fullback. Then what? Then what do we got? Then it's a little questionable on how we handle this. I think D'Andre Edlin might go, again, as one of those bodies. We don't necessarily need to evaluate D'Andre Edlin, I don't think. I think Burrhalter knows what he has there. So it's not like we would need to see him play in the Gold Cup to see what he's capable of.

I think, you know, he's obviously a very experienced professional so he can jump in with a group and be just fine. So I wonder if he'll be that extra man in the position group. And then on the left side, I think it would be very easy to say that in Greg Burrhalter's Sam Vines is the backup left back. Is that fair? That seems to be the case. I don't know if it still is, but it was a couple months ago. But this is where I think Vines could, it could be another Turner situation where we

haven't seen Vines do a lot with the national team. He hasn't had a ton of reps. He's still fairly early in his professional career. So this is where he might go to the Gold Cup because so many of those left back minutes are going to get eaten up by either Anthony Robinson. starting or potentially Sergenio death starting. I assume both of those things will happen in this window. Yep, I think so.

Not a lot of minutes left for Sam Vines. So this is where give him four or five games in the Gold Cup. And that leaves us with who as the backup left back? I'm bringing Daniel Levitz. Give me Daniel Levitts as my backup left back for this window. Wow. How the turntables turn. You don't think he's,

do this? I mean, he's been, Berhalter has spent a ton of time with Daniel Lovett. It's very comfortable with him. This, again, is just sort of the perfect. We're going to talk about this with a lot of, a few other guys in position groups. He just seems like a perfect guy for this role. To eat minutes, to be a good locker room presence, to show up on time for flights. Yes. Yeah, dude carries his own bag. And that's what you need in some of these situations. you're not going to have to explain a bunch of stuff to him. He's got like a thousand minutes for Burrhalter. He would fit right in with the group, and he's doing his job,

and then that lets you get closer looks at a couple other guys in July in the Gold Cup. I'm fine with it. I did not expect us to be calling for Lovitz to be on a first-choice roster, but it's really not probably not going to be an entirely first-choice roster, as you have sort of explained. Maybe, and that's a lot of speculation. I'll also just say, though, I don't know that Lovitz is necessarily like a worse left back than Sam Vines. I don't necessarily even think that's the case.

It just feels like Burrhalter kind of has moved Vines up. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, we got to see a lot of Lovitz and he, you know, he didn't, he was a okay defender, right? But, like, getting forward, he was pretty ineffective. Even though there's a nice arc to his ball from the from the wide, you know, has a nice trajectory to it. It just never. Well, he was never asked to. He was always playing that like stay home left back.

So it was not like he was doing this. It'd be a different role that we'd be asking him to play. I just, I just think it's a little, it's one of those where I think the Sam Vine's like, meteoric rise within the national team to like default number two just feels like a little, I don't, unfounded. Like I don't know what it's necessarily grounded on. I think he's fine out of all the left backs. If we pull out of all sort of the MLS left backs,

if you pull his name out of the hat, fine, bring him on. But it doesn't necessarily seem like he's, you know, he's not dominating the league the way Alfonso Davies was when he made his right. You know, it's not that situation. No, yeah. And I know he started over the weekend. I did not watch that game, Colorado's game. So, yeah, okay, love it's at left back.

Let's move to the midfield. Well, the midfield's pretty fun. It's, you know, as the hashtag fourth eight may indicate, the eights are, well, I guess I should do the six first, right? Second six. Yeah, let's get the six out of the way. So it's, it's Tyler Adams, obviously, as the six, assuming he's healthy. And then who's going to be the second six in this camp? And is this second six the true second six?

So the Burrhalder second six, I think at the moment is Jackson Ewell. And I think Ewell is going to be in this camp. Because Adams is not going to start all four games. So unless Berlter wants to run Acosta or someone, I think he's going to start his true second six. In what he thinks it's Jackson Yule. Yeah. And I think Acosta, you know, Kell and Acosta played as a six in the European window. earlier this spring and I think he could he could be there too in that role although he'll

probably come as if he comes in this camp he comes as an eight nominally that's that's my guess and again it'll be there could there could well be some uh flex there and what what position those guys play yeah like I said I think I think Musa Musa can play as a six Acosta obviously can play as a six in this system I don't I don't know that we have to you know we have to get too rigid about it, about it. But for the purposes of this exercise, Ewell is probably going to be in this camp. Yeah. And do you think

Ewell should be here? Do you think he should be setting the tempo in the gold cup? Are you fine with him being here? I'm fine with him being here. Probably because I hope that he, I still think his athlete, I mean, he's scoring bangers in MLS. I mean, that goal

he had over the weekend was a pure delight. And then he also, you know, he had that really nice goal in the loss to Honduras and the Olympic qualifying. So, you know, he's, he's, I didn't really know he had that in his toolkit, but he does, apparently. In any case, he's too, I still worry about his athleticism at the, at the highest level. And I'm hopeful that we can sort of, and it sounds terrible. Sorry, Jackson and your family, but hopefully that we can move past him, you know. but so I so I would like to think of him as sort of a filler like a minutes eater in this camp

but there's really there's really nobody else there's really nobody else obviously at the six to compete with him at the moment so probably not and the guys that we would want to see there we'd want to see get a lot of minutes maybe and to have them test out I thought you were going to say I want to see jacks and eagles athleticism get tested against a decent European team and then two pretty good tonic three pretty good yeah there we go Yeah. So there's all kinds of reasons to have them in this camp. I'm good with it. Okay. Now let's get to our eights, which have definitely become my favorite position group of this team. Yeah, kind of me too. Obviously, okay, so it's McKinney, Moussa, and for us, Legit, as the top three, eights.

McKinney and Moussa definitely the top two and then Leggett the third. And then how many others do we need in this camp? I'm going to just again assume that we're bringing into slightly bigger camps. We'll bring two. We'll have an extra man in this midfield position group. I think Acosta's going. The way Burrhalter brought him over the Atlantic Ocean for the European window in March makes me think that he's very comfortable with Acosta. He could have brought Roaldon and he did not. So he brings Acosta over unless Acosta has somehow been jumped by some of the guys who were busy with the Olympic qualifying.

And let's be honest, none of those guys covered themselves in. glory. I think I think this is definitely going to be Acosta's spot for Nations League. Okay. Yeah, I agree. Isn't it funny how you never say he covered himself in glory? It's always he didn't cover himself in glory. That is, that is well observed, bells. Until today, starting from today, people will be covering themselves in glory left and right on this podcast. I'm going to go on mow the lawn and cover myself in glory. So, and then who, so who's your extra who's your extra you said you're going to bring two more a cost is one of them yeah i'm bringing i'm bringing christian rolled on i'm a big christian rolled on guy always have christian rledon who has been

covering himself in glory for the seattle sounders and major league soccer he really has been interestingly enough not as a number eight but more as a front three uh player uh likes him uh he gave him a ton of minutes in 2019. He is like the consummate locker room guy. Like he is Johnny locker room. So he will do any role you ask him to do. He's not going to complain. You could say, hey, I'm bringing you along on this four-game window just to serve as a dummy in practice.

And he'd be, I mean, he'd be there instantly. So he's perfect for a minute-eating guy who you don't need to learn anything else about. I mean, we're going to learn anybody who plays you, you're going to learn a little bit more about just, you know, accidentally. But you don't, I mean, you've assessed Christian Rodon, but this is definitely a job that he has made for. Yeah, rather than, I mean, the way I perceive his job back when he was getting all the minutes was receiving the half space and then turn and create.

And which is kind of what our wingers do now. And now he's, I think, maybe a little deeper, a little more fluid, doing a lot of different things. And maybe the role suits him a little better than the role did. that he was performing in 2019. Well, I don't have high hopes for it because it was the role he played against Canada in 2019 as one of those sort of two center mids sitting in front of a back three. He was, but to be fair, he was there with Michael Bradley.

So you have, it'll be a completely different dynamic if he's sitting there with Tyler Adams. But, no, I just think I think Berhalter feels he's a versatile player because he did. He did play a lot in that 10 role too, that hybrid 10, 10, 10, 8 role. So totally fine with him coming and being a body and just being, again, a great teammate and allowing us to get a closer look at some other players in July. He is a really nice guy. I think I interacted with him very, very briefly at like a camp in Minnesota a couple years ago. And like everything, you know, he was just super nice, like body language, the way he talked to reporters and stuff. He was like making a point to be kind.

And, you know, you don't always see that. Yeah, if someone from Minnesota compliments you on your kindness, then you're being very, very kind. Yeah. Should we get into the wingers? Yes. I think it's pretty easy to say that Pulisic and Raina are the first two wingers on the team sheet. And then it's going to be Aronson and Wea, right? That's where I'm at.

I'm still a little nervous that we won't see a Wea's name. Like it's just something we've sort of taken for granted that he's for sure in the group. He's playing for a title chasing team in France. Playing some. But we don't know that. Playing some. Playing occasionally. But we don't know.

Like we don't really know that that's the case. And it might be that Burrhalter just isn't convinced or doesn't think he's the right fit. I don't know. But, you know, he's only, I mean, he's only been to the one camp so far in the Burrhalter era. If he, if Berhalter were to take him to the Gold Cup. and sort of showcase him there, you know, presumably showcase him there. I would not mind, honestly. Right.

I'd like him in this window, obviously, for the Nations League, because he would start. Like, if you're the number two winger, you're getting starts. We're not going to start Pulisig and Raina every game. So he'd get plenty of minutes within that window. He wouldn't get five games worth of minutes that he would get at the Gold Cup. Yeah. But I want to see him with the first team. It'd be fun to see him be like the key attacking piece in the Gold Cup,

kind of like he was at the U20 World Cup, to an extent. But I would much rather see him how he compliments players in that first group. I was exchanging emails with somebody that, somebody who lives in Kansas City, a mutual friend of ours. And I was like, hey, we're going to try to make it to Kansas City for a, for a soccer game. And this guy's not a soccer fan. And I was just, as I sent, after I sent the email, I was thinking, well, like, If we do go to this game and he's like, well, who should I watch for in this game?

If all the good players, if none of the good players go to the Gold Cup, I'm like, well, you know, he has a chance of being like the fourth choice winger, you know. It's going to be kind of a bummer. But that's a, you know, that's a narrow way to look at things. If way over there, then you could say, like, this is a, you know, this is a legit potential star. Right. This guy's going to be playing Champions League soccer next season. And then so I've got a fifth guy in this position group

And if assuming he's healthy it'd be Paul ariola and once again You got to be noticing a trend here with like the mentality of these players Paul ariola is the locker room guy yeah He's he's like a Burrhalter favorite He just does not have a complaint in him So he will go in and do whatever you ask him to do Okay I'm I'm fully on board with all of this maybe not Lovitz, but

Hollingshead. But that's what I mean. You're not going to bring in like a new guy like a Hollingshead or a Gasper or I mean, I don't know. You're not bringing Via Fania back into the fold just to be an extra body who is brand new. Like you get comfort food in these spots. Finally, Stryker. Who do you got?

I think we'll bring three strikers. I think Sergeant and Zardez I feel pretty comfortable putting some money on being there I don't know who the third striker will be I know who I want it to be or I know who I think should be at least number three

on our depth chart at the moment but I don't know if it's in his best interest to be at this tournament Who are you talking about? Well obviously I'm talking about Jesus Ferreira No I'm talking about Darrell Dicay I mean I thought maybe you were talking about Ferreira

DK, I think, should be here. I'd like to see him with the first team, but the championship promotion playoff final, if they make it there after the semifinal, is May 29th. So it's kind of a situation where I know it's like he could get there, he could get to the second game on June 3rd, but even that's tight.

And then it's also about how many minutes are going to be left up for grabs if you really want to see Josh Sargent get his minutes. and you don't have the May 30th game to play with for DK. Are we happy with just seeing him for 90 minutes total for the entire window? I mean, so you'd have Sargent start the game against Switzerland, and then D.K. You disagree with that? I don't know how we're going to do that Switzerland game. That Switzerland game could be a hybrid reserves.

So you might already be giving some. minutes to your non-first choice guys with the idea of all right we got to we have to beat honduras so we have to make sure that the team we put out to honduras wins and that might be sergeant starting the honduras game you know that those are the these are all these different variables that i don't know how burrhalter's approaching it but it's possible that there just aren't a ton of minutes left for if if dk could play in that switzerland game boom we're in he gets at least 90 minutes there or you know at least 70 minutes there he gets another start uh in the fourth game so another But I just don't know how many minutes are unspoken for that he could get if he's going to miss that first game of the window

Yeah Whereas we send him to the gold cup in July and he's He's looking at 400 minutes Yeah That's a good point man I hadn't really thought of it like that because I mean I don't know that sergeant is So far ahead of everyone that he automatically is the one we want starting against Honduras I mean Braalter may want

Zardis in that game, you know? Or I mean, assuming Zardis is in this camp. Excuse me. So, yeah, and then you could do, like, Sergeant and Zardis sort of split time against Switzerland, and then they're presumably both ready for the Honduras game. Yeah, there's ways you could do it, but not having that, not having that Switzerland game for, for D.K. does cost a problem. I also, one other thing about Sargent is I think of him as a continuing project.

Like we all are. Every human is a continuing project. But I think of him as a continuing project in the sense that like I would like to see him against Switzerland because I want to see him against good competition for the national team, even if it's only for a half hour or 40 minutes or whatever. Yeah. So how about this? I don't think that Darrell Dicay right now is Greg Burhalter's number one striker. Is that fair? Probably.

Yeah. So whether it's Sergeant or whether. other Zardez, those sort of like priority minutes are not going to go to Daryl D.K. And he's missing, so he's missing the 90 non-priority minutes against Switzerland. And so for me, I'd say I wouldn't hate, I'm not going to be like mad if he's on this roster for Nations League, but I would love to see him get 350 minutes in the Gold Cup. And I know the tradeoff there, the issue there you get into is that's going to cut into his European preseason, assuming that he makes a move full-time to a European team.

Yeah, which still hasn't been formalized in any way. And then there's also the very real possibility that Barnsley doesn't even make this final, you know? Like they have to win a game to get to this May 29 game. A two game series, yeah. Oh, is it a two? On aggregate. Okay.

So he'll play on the 17th and the 22nd, for sure. Those games are going to be set opponent to be determined. Okay. And then the winner of that two-legged series plays in a final at Wembley, like a single game. Yeah. Well, I guess my take on it is I could go either way. If he's in the first choice roster, that's a good sign that Burrhalter sort of has caught the fever and is like, you know, as into D.K. as the rest of us are. because he's somebody who does put the ball in the back of the net

and is really difficult for defenses to handle, even if he doesn't exactly fit the profile of what Burrhalter is looking for. And then, you know, we could also go, we could do the nuclear option and start D.K. against Mexico and just say, hey, Chris, hey, Chris and John just bang it up to him all game long and see if, you know, see if those aging centerbacks can handle it. I wouldn't hate that one bit.

But anyway, that was also my long way of saying, if D.K. is not on this initial list for the Nations League. It's certainly not the end of the world. And the consolation prize, presumably, would be that he gets a ton of medicine Gold Cup. Okay, cool. The big disappointment would be if Burrhalter still just doesn't seem to rate him at all. And he's just like, he's the third man on the Gold Cup roster.

Yeah, that seems unlikely. but um do we need to do we need to pick who the third striker would for nation's league would be then if it were not dk yeah uh who do who did you put on there we've got uh jordan stevichu we've got hases ferrara we've got joaquini Soto acanola i feel like uh just got his first start nicholas peppy i'm sorry ricardo peppy boy i think well I think we can rule out Josie at this point, right? Josie Alt. Probably.

I hate ruling people out altogether, but he's had a hard time staying fit for Toronto. A temporary ruling out of Josie Altador. A conditional ruling out. Let's see. I think I would like to see. Boy, I don't care. I just don't care. It's fine.

I mean, it's fine to not care. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think Bobisset is sort of out of the picture, it seems, from Burrhalter's perspective, for now. I don't think Hoppe, you know, Hoppe did score, have that hat trick and scored two other goals in the Bundes League. I think people, like, put way too much into that. I mean, that's cool that he scored those goals, but I don't think he's, I don't think. Well, and remember, we're looking for a guy to carry his bags here.

We're not looking for somebody who's, who you're, starting from scratch with here's how we play, here's what we do. And I think that's a big deal. So that's why I'm going to say it's probably going to be a Jesus Ferreira or a Nico Joaquinu who's been in a ton of camps. Even Sebastian Soto wouldn't make me mad. He's been in a lot of extended camps. He's spent a lot of time in U-20s and World Cup qualifying. So he's been in the setup for a long time. I don't think Soto is anywhere near our third best striker. But whatever. Like That's not what this would be. Yeah, I mean, I guess I would, I guess I would vote for Joe Aquini then if we're looking

out that way. Give me Joe Aquini, let Ferreira and D.K. Alternate games in the Gold Cup. Let him cook in the southeastern United States. All right. Is that a roster? I believe so. Yeah.

You know, one guy we didn't talk about was Brian Reynolds at right back. It's just, it's an easy one. It's the same thing. I don't know that he would be in our. top three right backs anyway. But either way, I think the one thing he needs a ton of is minutes at a high level. So if we're interested in him for real for this cycle, get him into the Gold Cup and let him play there.

Yeah, I mean, for me, he's one of the going to be, hopefully he's at the Gold Cup. And he's going to be one of the big reasons to tune into those games to check out his progress. Because the Gold Cup isn't, the Gold Cup is going to be fascinating for this reason that you're going to have players that you that hopefully have a high upside and have a chance of being contributors still in this cycle but aren't quite there those you know that's that's my jam right there you know right when you're when you're when you're on your spreadsheets going like eight deep per position like you desperately want to know who who is filling those spots and this

gold cup is perfect for yeah it should be a good wheat from the chaff experiment um all right the much-awaited segment. So many of you've been waiting for the fourth eight and the second six, also known as the Gold Cup roster. That's what we're looking at here, right? We're giving full tryouts to guys. You get six games, you get a ton of timing camp. I'm assuming six games.

We could get knocked out. We could not advance out of the group. You're going to get an extended camp. You're going to get a lot of face time with the boss. This is your chance to shine. Yeah. If you at least get called into camp. and you're not totally ignored Keaton Parks.

Should we start at the back with goalkeepers? Yeah, and remember, everyone keep in mind, this is full wish list territory. But I don't think anyone in here that we're going to include doesn't have at least some case. Yeah, totally. So why don't you do the goalkeepers first? All right, I'm going to do mine because our opinions here could vary wildly. I've got Matt Turner starting and more or less like the, locked on starter for all

again hopefully six games does everyone know who our groups are do you know who our group is for the gold cup no i don't okay so we've got canada for sure we have martinique for sure which uh side note on them since they're not an actual fifa country they can't qualify to a world cup uh i don't think we get an elo boop elo bump from beating them in the rankings which would be like a two or three point bump in the uh because it's an official regional competition anyway martinique is in the group and And then there's still a team that has to qualify in, and that is either going to be Haiti

or somebody who's going to lose to Haiti. So it's going to be Haiti. So we're probably going to have Canada, Haiti, Martinique, as our group. And Canada and Haiti are decent teams. So if we're sending our backup squad to this, like we might not be all the way through for our third game. So we might really need to put our solid lineup out there to win that game. It's, it is, it's an interesting challenge for like roster construction because you do want to win.

I think And But you don't want to be it's obviously not the priority So you got to like sort of balance that in a way that is that is tricky Well I'm not buying that all the way so what do you what do you mean when you say it's not the priority Well the priority is the nation's league camp you know okay so okay so you're saying Out of our out of our best best players we're taking the we're doing our dress rehearsal for the nation's league But then out of everyone who's left we're we're

picking our best guys, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay. But, but, you know, like, um, you will is an example of a player who could, who could, you know, arguably be better than, you know, the guys we have going to the gold cup. And, you know, it could, we could have a sort of a midfield disaster like we did in Olympic qualifying. Um, and now we're going to solve that problem.

That's the one problem that we're about to solve right here on the show. So I don't know. I, I mean, I think, um, yeah, Vines. You know, Vines could end up going with the first choice, going to the Nation's League window and not coming to Gold Cup. And then you're, then you got like what George Bellow and Daniel Lovitz in the Gold Cup. I mean, it's, there are some little choices on the margins that could make a big difference in whether we can get out of this group, you know, and that's sure. Sure. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, I got you. And I don't think anyone's ready for, for a disaster like failing to get out of the Gold Cup group on the heels of. of the Olympic qualifying failure. I, go ahead. If we're talking about like how we rate our backups, you know, the whole thing about the Olympic group was these are obviously backups to backups. So it's disappointing when they fail,

but you console yourself by saying that. If like our sort of actual backups to the full strength team can't get out of a Gold Cup group, that'd be a big punch in the right in the stomach. Yeah. And it is interesting how few, of the players on this project this goal this scuffed wish list gold cup roster how few of them were involved with uh olympic qualifying well that that's sort of another uh wrinkle and it adds to the

variability here because if the guys down in guadalajara had kicked ass uh that probably would have made it pretty straightforward to be like okay well this guy was you know he'd been in a couple of the senior team camps in december and january and now he did great down in marching guadalajara makes sense to have him just continue on into this Gold Cup group. I mean, he would have probably gone to Tokyo if we'd done better in Guadalajara. But since that didn't happen, it becomes a lot sort of trickier, or way less likely. Those guys aren't just sort of written in heavier ink. Right.

There's a lot more data needed, you know, a lot more known, unknown, unknown. So you got Turner getting all the men. it's at goalkeeper. I do want to note that David Ochoa is the starting goalkeeper for Ray Alsall Salt Lake. There you go. It's a pretty big deal. It happened. And he's instantly become like an MLS wrestling.

Maybe the most entertaining person in MLS. Now let's go to centerback. No, no, no. You've left out one of the more important wish list goalkeepers here. Oh, okay. Who you got? It's Amelia. Is that how you say it?

Yes, I believe so. Well, there's your Kansas City connection. Yeah, Alex is going to be so thrilled to be able to see Tim Milla in person. I don't know that he's ever been capped for the national team. Outstanding penalty kickstopper. He's probably like 34 years old. It seems really unlikely, but it's just one of those where there doesn't really have to be any reason that this is Brad Guzon. You know, like I don't know that today to win a game, do you start Brad Guzon?

on over Timelia? I don't think so. I don't think so. Peter Vermeis, given the choice, wouldn't just be like if he could have him for free. I don't think Peter Vermease is like, oh yeah, give me Guzan. I can finally get rid of Tim Mielia.

No, he's not. Would Peter Vermees be cool with Tim Miliah leaving his club for, you know, six weeks, whatever it is in the middle of the season to sit on the bench the whole time? Yes, MLS is super forgiving. He can afford it. He can lose him for six weeks.

And, you know, He's got a great defensive setup there with Jalen Lindsay. He's not giving up any goals. We're fine. Okay. All right. Goalkeepers, done and dusted. Turner, Amelia, and Echoa, right?

Is that your, who, do you have anyone else on your wish list? Are you so indifferent to everyone besides Turner, the, in Ochoa? Yeah, I am pretty indifferent, but I do want to see Ochoa there. And I think, I think it does make a lot of sense for Turner to get the reps in the goal. And, you know, there is the possibility that he will have to, come up big in the group stage to get out and those those shot stopping analytics they don't lie there's also a nice possibility of penalties in the gold cup so right you could get a you get a couple of PKs all right centerbacks yeah centerbacks why don't you go first because I have a

I have a request for the cosmos here all right I've I kind of just pick most of these names out of the had Zimmerman's on here for his U.S. men's national team leadership. Spent a ton of time with Burrhalter to date. And seems pretty steady. Steady presence at Nashville has been steady with the national team. I think he's an easy guy to include. After that, I've got Mark McKenzie. I've got Miles Robinson.

And I'm throwing on Cameron Carter Vickers because I want to get a look at him. Okay. I don't hate any of that. And I definitely want McKenzie there because I still think he's got like a, he's got the upside that we need to test at a high level and get more looks at. But I'm ready to do a predatory cap tie and call up for Justin Che at Byron 2. Totally on brand with this, calling for essentially a reserve team player to be called up. But he looks really, really good.

He looks better than Richards did in the same league at roughly the same position. that is Chris Richards. I think he looks better than he, than Richards did when he was first getting going in at Byron 2. And he's got all the tools, man. He's like really smooth on the ball. He's a modern, he's a modern centerback in the making.

And we need to, we need to corral him. And it'd be harder to do it for World Cup qualifying than Gold Cup, right? Yeah. And he could, he could come in. I mean, I can't imagine he has, Like, you know, it's going to be too big of a problem for him to be there for that long, extended camp.

And I think he would come in and compete for a spot. Real quick, tell me your favorite trait of his so far that you've seen from the limited video. I mean, it's limited. He's got like, what, four or five games for Byron 2? Yeah. And this Byron 2 team, by the way, just to keep everyone, because I don't know how many other people are following Byron 2 closely. Chris Richards won the triple leaguea with Byron 2 The Triple League you're not going to let that go

And Justin Shea currently Byron Byron 2 are in the relegation zone of the triple league So the level of quality And I know that's a team thing It's certainly not like You know Richard single-handedly Brought Byron 2 up But you know

It is a different level of play at the moment Yeah I suppose Give me his favorite Give me your favorite trait of it It's his ability with the ball at his feet. He's, uh, he can, he can dribble like a attacking fullback, but he plays centerback, you know, and, um, he seems to be really good, like he checks all the other boxes. He's good in the air. He's alert. I mean, he scored an own goal in the last game, which was like, really

unfortunate and bad, but that kind of stuff happens. And otherwise he was, he was very, very good. He can hit a, he can hit a long diagonal. Uh, he's athletic. I think it's like everything's there. And I, yeah, the level, they're not as, that, that Byron 2 team is not as good as the Byron 2 team that, that Richard's won the trophy with. But that's not Chey's fault. I mean, he's only joined, he's only joined in the last like month and a half. Yeah, no, I was throwing it out there as potentially a lower bar to get into that team.

Yeah. If the overall team isn't as strong. No, I'm with you. I like what I've seen from Chey. I've watched just limited video, but what did stand out to me too was his dribbling forward with the ball, his ability to dribble past the first pressuring defender,

not like taking him on with a move, but just recognizing when that first pressure defender had like committed to taking away a pass to just step past him with the ball and then pass into the next line. Yeah, very comfortable, very comfortable with the ball at his feet. Yeah, he's that little change of pace dribble. And, you know, I do kind of like the idea

of seeing CCV in this camera, getting another to look at him and I see the value of Zimmerman behind the crest and I guess I would kind of be fine with Che over Miles Robinson you know or it's a wish list so you're allowed to do this I think Burrhalter likes Miles a lot but here's here's the other outbells we haven't discussed this yet but we don't know for sure how many players we're going to put on our gold cup wish list roster the Eurozone for their regional tournament competition are allowing 26 players. Right.

So we're wondering if Conca Calf will follow suit and we'll get three extra guys to put into our team here. Yeah. And if we get those three extra guys, then for me, Shea is a no-brainer. Bring them in. All right. It's our wish list. It's 26 guys.

Bring them in. But if I have to choose who to cut from the four that we have here, McKenzie, that you have here, McKenzie Zimmerman, Miles and C. I guess I'd probably It's a toss up between It's really a toss up between Zimmerman and CCV and Miles And this this is another reason that not getting to Tokyo hurts You know we would have had four more centerback spots to to fill up with with guys who almost certainly won't play a major part in World Cup qualifying the cycle

But it would have been nice for our eight deep spreadsheets But you know I this is my favorite thing to do and I know it's kind of annoying for some people but like you map out a future for Justin Che. Like say he does about what Chris Richards has done and he gets alone to a to another mid-table Bundesliga club, one in need of help going from lower table to mid-table. And he does that, you know, next season. Then, I mean, that's a great, that's great depth that's centerback. You know, I think, I don't think that's, I mean, obviously there's nothing set in stone.

It's not necessarily going to happen for Justin Chey. but the signs are pointing in the right direction, I think. All right, good signs, good enough for a fifth centerback at the Gold Cup. And it's not like if we're getting into five centerbacks, the guys we're talking about there are going to be like Justin Glad, Henry Kessler, Eric Palmer Brown. So there's no one who's certainly like demanding that spot ahead of him if we get a fifth. I liked what I thought Kessler had a pretty decent Olympic qualifying showing.

I didn't think Glad was terrible but we kind of know what we're going to get with Justin Glad at this point he's not a he doesn't have the upside of a Justin Chey Justin okay upside Gold Cup yes sir

should we go to fullback Fullbacks another kind of exciting position group I think the aforementioned Brian Reynolds probably hopefully starting it right right back for in the goal cup and then

if Vines is moved over here, great. If not, let's give Bello a pretty robust runout. George Bell. Yeah, whether it's Bello or whether we decide, like, Aaron Herrera's good enough to play left back and be a decent option or right back. Would those sort of be your three fullbacks to account for Binds's fence straddling, tournament straddling?

Yeah, I don't, we don't have a good pure left back in this. spare parts department, I don't think. So I guess it would be Herrera. Or Lovitz, or back to Lovitz, right? Yeah, kind of agnostic. I'd like to see George Bello, and I'm not sure he will look the part at this level. He has sometimes looked the part for Atlanta and sometimes not this season, I would say. He's got a lot, he's gotten a lot of faith from the coach.

But some of his performances have been good and some have been not so good. as Gattuso said. Sometimes good, sometimes shit. What is the role he's playing for Atlanta? We're not going to go full like Joe Lowry, MLS tactics here, but what role is George Bello playing?

Well, there was one game where he was really coming inside and playing almost like a hybrid fullback six position. He did not look comfortable in that role. So when I'm watching him play, that's what I'm thinking to myself is like, man, the role George Bello is playing here is the role that a very good soccer player would be playing.

Right. And he doesn't quite have it yet. I mean, he's a kid. But they're asking him to do like a lot. Yeah. For a kid. Seriously. Yeah.

So that's a good thing. That's a good thing that the coach believes in him that way and puts that kind of responsibility on him. And he's got the technical, I mean, he has a technical ability. And I think he has, I think he has the athleticism. But he's, you know, he's not. totally locked in. It doesn't look like sometimes. Anyway, he's the high upside left back we have

that's playing professional soccer, unless you want to consider Sam Vines in that category, and I'm not sure I do. Well, we still have Marco Farfan who could be unlocked by Bob Bradley. And we've got Matt Oling's head, who's still, like, one of FC Dallas's best players year after year.

Ryan Olingstead, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. I feel like him and Matt Hedges might still be like the same person. So we only have one right back so far. Who my, my wish list, which is, is, I don't think it should sound crazy, but it kind of is weird that it does sound so crazy is Tim Chandler. I, I'm fine with that. If only to get USA Soccer 3333, 333, 333, 333 off my ass. Chandler, you know, I mean, there is a.

To be fair, there is a decent argument that a player for one of the best teams in the Bundesliga who occasionally plays and sometimes starts deserves a backup spot in the Gold Cup for the U.S. men's national team. That's what I mean. It shouldn't sound crazy. Like, if you say that out loud, it's like that should not be an unreasonable stance. Yeah. It's not. And I don't want to hear about like, oh, he's looked bad for the U.S. in the past.

Like so many people looked so bad in our tactics list era. because Chandler never played for Arena. So even if you like Arena's tactics and say, oh, Arena's like had some semblance of what he was doing, Chandler never got that. He was always playing in Klinsman's sort of just express yourself style soccer. So I would very much like to see this Leverkusen role player.

I'm sorry, yeah, Eindrick Frankfurt role player play in what we're kind of assuming is a decent tactical setup. Yeah, and he can play either side. I mean, he can deputize on the left side if he needs to. So, sure, Chandler, Chandler, I'm great with Chandler. I think the chances of Burhalter agreeing with that are seem pretty low. So maybe it's Kyle Duncan as the second right back. I'd be fine with that.

I think Julian Arahu can, you know, he can keep baking for a little while longer. I think he's struggling a little bit for L.A. Herrera's definitely in the mix. I'm not persuaded by Farfan or Viafanya or Hollingshead or even Chris Gloucester at Leftback. Okay, so it's settled. We finally get a Tim Chandler Renaissance. Yeah, just to make that long story short, it's Reynolds and Chandler at right back and vines and bellow at left back. And if vines can't go, then we're bringing Herrera.

Or Duncan. Or Duncan. Okay. For me. All right. All right. To the midfield. Team settled.

To do our second six. Here comes that theme. Here comes that theme music again. All right. Who are your sixes? I want to see the Olympic sins redeemed here. And I want to see James Sands

and I want to see Tanner Tessman as our sixes. And I know that Tessman isn't necessarily like a peer six, but he played a little bit deeper for S.D. Dallas. And I just, we don't have a lot of other options. So I say bring him in. Yeah. I like Tessman. I think the, you know, the criticism of Sands is he can't play meaningful forward passes.

And, you know, that's a concern. But I don't think it, I don't think it matters that much in the sort of the fluid three-man midfield that we seem to be favoring these days. Do you see Doyle's bit on that? No. I heard Doyle talk about it in a podcast a couple weeks ago. Okay. So Sands played centerback, I believe, for New York City over the weekend. And depending on when you listen to this, it was either seven days ago.

And he was spraying those long passes constantly. Now, New York City were up a man the whole time. But he was hitting him. So Doyle was basically saying, Sands clearly has the technical ability to hit these passes. For whatever reason, when he plays as a holding mid, he just doesn't do that. He doesn't spray the diagonals. He doesn't hit long-range passes. He just plays incredibly conservative when he's in the midfield.

And it might be like any number of reasons. It might be that he's not asked to. It might be in the midfield when you're dealing with pressure from 360 degrees. You're sort of internal panic meters going off really quickly and you just play the safest pass. That's what it is. That's exactly what it is. Okay. But you wouldn't mind seeing this, right?

Over, say, a Perea or Cardoso? Yeah, totally. Totally fine with those, especially Cardoso, but also Perea, taking a little break. stand with their clubs. Okay. So Sands and Testman, it is. A couple of second sixes. I mean, who else is in the second six sweepstakes?

I mean, I would have loved to see Aden Morris there if he were healthy and playing well for Columbus crew, but he did blow out his ACL, which is really sad. I was super excited about him. I think Atencio, the other young guys in MLS who may have a shout, like Atensio and Lava at Seattle, are interesting, but not quite there. and same goes for Nyman. But of course, of course, we would not complain at all if they call up like these 2003s to the Gold Cup to be our holding mid. I also wouldn't complain if we went the other way and brought Alfredo Morales in to do it.

Yeah, I mean, Alfredo Morales, if you're worried that you're not going to get out of the group and you need some veteran, I don't know, savvy, why not bring, why not bringing Alfredo Morales? I guess that's how I would look at that. another guy who could play any of those three midfield roles too yeah oh not that we would need to because we have so many other candidates for the fourth eight let's move to our four new fourth eights this is a really exciting position group in this in this roster so uh we got pomacol pomacol's back williamson eric wiliamson who's played very well for portland so far this year

and then keaton parks and lucca deletoree that's my wish list And actually, because we're going to 26 players, I'm throwing Julian Green on there, too. Ooh. A sop to the Euro snobs. Again, again, like three months away from probably making his new Bundesliga debut. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's, Groh de Firth is looking to go up. And, yeah, why not?

I mean, who are the other options? Plenty of other candidates. Who are the other candidates? Yeah. So, I mean, we've got Taylor Booth, who's doing really well in Austria. We've got O and O'Dosoe now who's getting some dead rubber minutes for wolves. Wolves can't go down. Wolves can't do anything moving up the table either.

I think they played him at like right mid. Yeah. Did you watch that game or any of it? I still haven't. I need to get, I need to watch it because I'm really interested in seeing how he develops from some of his earlier. Unimpressive appearance. It's impressive that he's playing. for wolves like no matter what that's impressive um the actual soccer piece of it like i want to see i'm

hoping he's made a lot of progress from his uh earlier in the year late in 2020 appearances for wolves yeah we should i should i should at least watch this clips from that game um there's yeah i mean i guess the argument for the trying to bring in booth over green would seem a little silly right now you know since booth is uh is not even an automatic starter in the Austrian League yet. He's played well, but Julian Green is an automatic starter for a team that's about to win promotion. Other options in that fourth eight group, Brian.

Assani Dotson probably? Yeah, Brian Keo. Yeah, Keo, Dotson, Cole Bassett. Ali Bedoya. Yeah, who else we got? Dax McCarty. Dax McCarty. Jean-Lucabuccio.

Oh, I'm bringing Bousio. Oh, you're bringing. Don't spoil it. Don't, don't me. Everyone pretend you didn't hear that. Bring him busio. No, well, is Michael Bradley? Is Michael Bradley in the picture?

He had a one game, like, got everyone excited for a little bit. Is he coming to the Gold Cup as a six or an eight? I don't know. Probably not. Is he going to the Nation's League actually to be a minute's eater so Jackson Ewell can start in the gold? Like, I think that would actually be the development. that would make the most people the most mad. Yeah, but also make the most sense.

That perfect Venn diagram of things that make sense, but make people mad. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'd love to have Greg Berthor on the phone and ask him what his plans are for Michael Bradley. But I don't. Well, in any event, all of our fourth eight debates can be instantly made moot by Paxton and Pomacall coming into the Gold Cup and killing it,

which I still think is my most likely scenario to happen, is Paxton and Pomacol taking that spot over? And maybe even jumping up to third eight. Yeah. I mean, a lot of us had such high hopes for him after 20, was it, 2019 when he played so well? And then he got hurt. And he's still not back to full fitness. He comes in off the bench for, uh, for Dallas at the moment.

Williamson's looked, I mean, Eric Williamson looked awful good. Like he's a good attacking player. That goal he scored against Dallas where he just, he like picked up the ball, I don't know, just inside the center circle. And it was just knifed through that defense, a game that Dallas kind of dominated. But he came on and changed it a little bit. Knife through the defense, did a little one, two, and then slotted it past a goalkeeper. Pretty nice. Pretty nice stuff.

How disappointed are we going to be when this gold cup, roster and the central midfield is released what's so what's the discipline this podcast has gone on for what like two and a half hours now um we got to we do got to get moving along here but what's the disappointing scenario no williamson no park i mean i'm i don't expect parks to be on there no parks no williamson no sands pomacol's got to be there right he won't be there because Dallas will like plead to leave him off because of his is just returning to health. That is a long-ail. That actually is pretty plausible.

So it's going to be Luca and Markey Delgado. It gets pretty thin actually of players that we aren't thinking about if you're, like we've named a lot of guys. We have. That's why they call this the fourth eight, man. We leave no stone unturned. Is that good for the, we leave no stone? Is that good for the fourth eight segment this week?

I believe so. Let's close up. Let's close that up. Wingers. And this, I am now super, super wish listy. I'd love to see Greg doing fan fiction. All right. For this Gold Cup, we are starting.

Dwayne Holmes and Kenny Seff throughout. Those two guys are my starters. Kenny Seth is such a complimentary player. All the guy wants to do is make people around him look good and to do it in like the saucy. to wait possible. That's my guy. That's who I want on the field.

And he does fit that tucked in right winger with a golden left foot roll pretty well, pretty well. I mean, that would be cool to see them start a bunch of games in the Gold Cup. I just don't think it's going to happen for either of them. I'm not holding my breath. I'm not holding my breath on stuff. Holmes, it still wouldn't surprise me to see it. And in fact, outside of like some other information sort of other rumors, like I would expect that he still is on the internal U.S. soccer viewing guide every week.

He's looked good in his past U.S. performances. It's just, you know, we have heard from a couple different people that Holmes and Burrhalter didn't necessarily get along. Yeah. And there was like a muscle strain before that Minnesota goal cup game. And then he went home, right, before the goal cup. Yep, he went home almost immediately. after the rosters were initially announced

and he was on the Gold Cup roster, went home with injury, and he'd come into the camp with injury. So I don't think it was like some fake injury where there'd been a blow-up between player and coach or anything. But it just heard that he and Berthelter didn't necessarily get on together

and he's... He hasn't been called up since. Yeah. Okay, so you've got Holmes and Saif. Who else? Who else do you have as your wingers? So then I want to bring the kids and I want to bring,

I want to bring Boozio Clark and Cowell as my three children. Okay. My three sons. Cowell, you know, that doesn't worry that Cal has, is not really suited for that role. He's just dynamic enough, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I mean, that's basically it. He doesn't, he hasn't been playing long enough where you have to know what his role is.

You know, with Morris, I feel like, okay, he is very much in Seattle has been this specialized role. Cald, as we've seen, has now been playing up top. And no matter where you put him, he's just doing really dangerous stuff. So it's like, okay, can we take this really dangerous player and get some use out of him? He's, how old is he? He's an 03. 17, yeah, I think he's 17.

Yeah, you bring him in. Okay, I'd like to see Janice in. So here's where I differ from you. I'd like to see Yanez in this camp if he's healthy and fit, which is probably too much to hope for because he hasn't been playing and he wasn't fit going into the Olympic qualifying. but I still think he's the guy. He's one of the high upside guys on the wing. Other than that, fine, fine with Saif, fine with Holmes.

Caden Clark seems to be making a case for himself in New York. I'm all for that. How about Stryker? I'll just really quickly, I know we're running along. The Burr-Halter guys, we'd be kind of leaving out of this group for Wendon. would be Chris Mueller, Tyler Boyd, Georgie Mihailovich. So I kind of expect to see those names on there. Not terribly exciting.

Chris Mueller, again, had a really great season last year, so sure. Let's look at him some more. He hasn't done, had many opportunities with the national team. The other two Boyd, Georgie, have and have not done anything spectacular. So there is a lot of room for some real disappointment here. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Stryker, though. Striker, we've got some options. I don't think we're going to go wrong with our strikers. You've got D.K. Ferreira and Pepey here. And I think... I'd watch those guys play soccer. Yeah. Sure would be nice if they had some talent around them up front, though.

What did you just say? Well, I mean, just you talking about Mueller and Boyd And Georgie got me all disappointed. Georgie's been doing well for Montreal. Sure. I know I just said I'd be disappointed, but I don't know, man. Holmes and Seth are, and Holmes, Saff and Ferreira is going to be like,

it's going to be my dream, and then it's going to instantly turn, like, just all come crashing down when they look totally out of sorts. Yeah, I mean, you know, you could also see Julian Green as that tucked in left winger, that could make some sense. If DK's not in the nation's league, you know, and I think you made a decent case for him to not be there

and to be in this Gold Cup camp, then yeah, great, bring him in and play him 400 minutes. We kind of already talked about the other guys. There's a ton of other choices too that are all young and untested with the national team. Just another situation where I don't think we can really go wrong. It's going to be,

It's going to be tough for Lucci, Gonzalez to have, you know, if Pepe, Pomacall, and Tessman are all in this camp. And Ferreira. And Ferreira. Yeah. That's a lot of, that's a lot of players to be missing. You still got Serio and Seeley. Yeah.

Surio, we forgot to mention him as the second six option. Ah, yeah. In Servania, I'm sure, is on the fourth eight's list somewhere. All right. That's our wish list. It's not totally unreasonable. Kenny Seff is the lone and Justin Shea, probably the longest of long shots. Yeah.

And it's going to be really fascinating to see how Burhalter sorts all this out, because I have no idea what he's going to do with the Gold Cup roster. It's going to be Georgie. Georgie's going to get 600 minutes. It'll be too mean, but I kind of want to do, once we know who's in the Nations League, I kind of want to do an app where we do like the most depressing gold cup list that we can see. Let's do it. I'm writing it down.

All right. Thanks. Thanks, everybody for listening. Thanks, Greg. We'll see you.