Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #174: Switzerland Roster Reaction, and the big summer ahead

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

It's all coming to a head, and the upcoming Nations League window is a dress rehearsal for World Cup qualifying to which we should all pay close attention. Plus our reaction to a very pleasant roster drop from Berhalter. 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 scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Welcome to the scuff podcast before we get into the roster for the friendly against Switzerland. I'd like to step back and sort of set the stage for this big summer that's coming, if you don't mind, Greg. No, not at all. I love stage setting, and I really appreciate when you do that for me. So go right ahead. I think, you know, some of this will be me stating the obvious, but it is glorious, obvious, if you will. So big picture, we have a coalescing player pool that is having an influence on games at the highest level. It's entirely unprecedented. Our 22-year-old left-winger is among the most dangerous attacking players in the world. That is not an exaggeration.

And he'll most probably play and make a difference in the Champions League final. for Chelsea against Manchester City. We have a swaggering 20-year-old right back who started 22 games for Barcelona and plays alongside almost every week, the greatest soccer player of all time. We have a 22-year-old box-to-box midfielder who got an assist and lifted an Italian cup midweek for Juventus,

and people barely noticed. Yeah, and before anyone jumps in at you and is like, okay, but look at France. France's Euro roster. Obviously, you know, France is sort of the untouchable benchmark at the moment, but this is absolutely, like you said, entirely unprecedented for a U.S. men's national team fan. In this, in our U.S. men's national team universe, this is unprecedented. And it's not even really arguable. Totally.

Yeah. I mean, it wasn't even like this 24 months ago. And, you know, you got the list goes on. Giovanni Raina at Dortmund, Eunice Musa at Valencia, Chris Richards at Hoffenheim, these youngest players in the pool bring so much immediate utility to the national team. Tyler Adams and John Brooks both turned in high-quality seasons and their clubs have both qualified for Champions League next season. Tim Wea might win Liga-uh, off the bench for Lille, just to be fair.

Two young Americans are battling in the championship promotion playoff. Two young Americans are starting games at Stryker and the Bundesliga, and most of us aren't even sure that either of them is good. So. And that's the other point. People love to bring up like, okay, but the U.S. as a team haven't proven anything, which is entirely true. But I don't think that you can, like, you look at it and say, okay, but we don't know anything about it.

You can say we don't know for sure what it's going to look like once they get together on the field in World Cup qualifying. But I, you know, it also seems silly to me to say we don't know anything. Like, we do know that this is a lot. of quality historically for us on paper. And, you know, there is plenty of reason to believe that they can put together really solid run through CACF World Cup qualifying. It's not for sure. It's not a given.

And there's definitely room to be massively disappointed if you, you know, set your expectations up high. But I am setting my expectations pretty high. And I think what I think we'll see is that like you said, they're coalescing. and I think we'll see that coalescence, is that how you'd say it, over time, over this run of qualifying games through September, through October, through November, it'll be a nice way to see whether or not progress gets made on the field

from what I think is a very high starting point. Yeah, it's the drama is in whether Burhalter can put it all together. You know, that's sort of the driving question as we head with this truckload of newfound soccer blessing. into World Cup qualifying. We have our chance for redemption, and like you just said, we're armed with the best talent we've ever had.

The upcoming Nations League window is both a dress rehearsal for World Cup qualifying and a chance to beat Mexico, and so in every way, it's more important than the Gold Cup. First choice U.S. players will get the lion's share of the minutes in this camp,

which is designed to mimic the three-game World Cup qualifier windows coming in September, October, and November, and then obviously next year as well. The Switzerland friendly on May 30th serves as a proxy. I think this is interesting. Burhalter talked about it a couple days ago. A proxy for the club game in Europe that will precede World Cup

Qualifier windows for most U.S. players in the fall. So it's a four-game window, and the Switzerland-friendly acts as like that club game on Saturday or Sunday. And then the three games in quick succession on June 3rd, June 6th, and June 9th, against Honduras, hopefully Mexico, and then Costa Rica. will be a lot like the World Cup qualifying window itself. I know everybody kind of understands this, but I'm just laying it out there.

Yeah, it's a very clever exercise. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited. And then, you know, if we succeed against Honduras, which I think everyone is expecting we will, we better. We play Mexico for the trophy on June 6th, and I'm sure Berhalter is eager for that, I'd think, after the 1-0 lost Altrey in the 2019,

goal cup final and then the 3-0 drubbing in the friendly a month later. That was really pretty embarrassing. And, well, let's not get out of ourselves. Everyone's like, oh, man, but if we lose to Honduras, we'll play Costa Rica twice in a row. Maybe if we beat Honduras, we'll play Costa Rica twice in a row. That's not out of the question. Mexico are the best team on the field at the moment, sort of in that proven sense, in Conca Calf, but they're also still human beings who could lose a 90-minute game to Costa

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, so big picture, it's like, it's about the pool coalescing. The even more immediate thing is, you know, if everything goes to what we think is the plan and when we do face Mexico in Denver on June 6th, that's the, that's sort of like the near term challenge. Because because really, with what Burrhalter's trying to do, breaking Mexico's press by passing through it and beating them by being better at soccer, that's the project. That's the whole national team project in a nutshell right there. We haven't done it yet. It sure seems like we have the players to do it. Are we going to do it? Two weeks from now. And man, I talked about how I think we'll get better as we go through qualifying. And there is, I mean, as much as we got burned in 2017,

there is cushion in Conco-Cath qualifying. I think we'll start at a, you know, a point and then gradually improve. If our starting point is that we do beat Mexico's press, like play through it on June 6th, that would be an even higher starting point than I sort of expect. Yeah. I don't expect it, but I don't, you know, I guess I don't not expect it either. I think it's like it's kind of a toss-up because we have the players. It feels like we have the players to do it.

But we don't have the culture to do it yet. We don't have the precedent to do it. Anyway. We do have the players to do it. And it's actually something I'm kind of excited by. I know there's some worry about how many of our players are injured. And I'm kind of, I mean, I'm disappointed. I'll always be disappointed if, you know, whoever we want to see can't play.

If Tyler Adams can't play, if Chris Richards can't play. But also, if we really think that our pool is so much better, and we're all so excited about it, and we're all scrolling through the posts of USMNT only, who's constantly throwing, like, these success stories out of it. Like, we have to at some point be like, okay, we're good. enough to win even without such and such a player. We have to be able to do that. If we can only win if John Brooks is playing, then maybe our pool isn't quite as good as we think it is. If we can only win if Tyler Adams, if every single player is available, then we're not really there yet. We've got to be

able to win when we're missing three guys. Because we're going to be missing three guys basically every time we play soccer game. Every group of 25 competitive professional athletes, you know, before the game, the manager always has a pregame press conference where they list who's not available because they're injured. That's almost a given. It's much more unlikely to not have that situation. When it comes to playing out of Mexico's press, playing through Mexico's press, that is, I do have my doubts that we can do it without John Brooks. So maybe we're not that good. Well, we're going to find out. We're going to find out what Mark McKenzie and Matt Miasga can do. Right. And I think, you know, in an even more immediate sense,

Nothing makes the fan base happier than beating Mexico. I think a successful late May, June for the national team would re-energize the fan base. It would certainly energize me. And, you know, if we managed to do all that Burhalter's way, passing through them, all the better. If we beat Mexico, the Barnsley way, I won't be mad. It would just mean that Berhalter has added new Berhalter ways to his quiver. So let's get into the roster. but first two more preambles, very quick ones, two requests.

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I've done an awful lot of talking. Do you want to start with the roster? Just give it to us? Sure. Well, before we do that, it's the roster specifically for the Switzerland game. We'd expect, we know there will be changes between Switzerland and Nations League against Honduras

because some of the players in this group aren't even on the provisional roster for Honduras. And also, we know there are very likely or definitely possible changes to happen even from this list and who will end up being. available for Switzerland because of club commitments that aren't set in stone yet, but that are likely to affect it. We'll address those as we, as we'll address those as we hit the players. So goalkeepers, we're talking about Ethan Horvath, David Ochoa, and at this point,

Euro-based friendly staple to Turu Udonzee. Yeah, he said, well, how many camps has he been in already? It's getting, I think he was in March and I think he was in November, right? Yeah. That's great for him. Yeah. Great. Defenders, who do we have?

So we've got, hold on, let me pull these up. I know you have them in the order of the press release, but I hate going in alphabetical order. I want to go in the order that they're actually going to play in. So centerbacks, we've got John Brooks, Matt Miasga, Mark McKenzie, Tim Riem, Grandpa Tim, Tim, and then we've got the baby of the family, Justin Che, who I'm sure that gets you pretty excited. You were hoping to see him get a Gold Cup call up. Berlter just skipped straight ahead and said, nope, we've got a game before Gold Cup. Let's just get him in immediately. What do you make of Justin Shea's inclusion? I like it, of course. He's a dual

national who has expressed interest in playing for Germany. He is performing well for Bayern Munich's second team at 17 years old, at centerback mostly. So I think the wise move is to incorporate him into the program, even if he's, even if he's not ready, even if he's not ready to actually see the field. And I don't know that he's not, you know, he might be ready. Kind of doubt it, but we'll see. And yeah, and it's a great introduction to the squad. It's a good introduction, good way for him to meet Burrhalter. I really do think of it as like college recruiting for some of these guys. We did it in the December camp in Orlando with Efra coming in and Perea coming in, even though I don't think Perea had filed his switch at that point yet. And it's just like,

yeah, come in, like come take in a game day. Come see what we're all about leading up to the game. You probably won't wear a uniform on game day, you know, but just come see what's happening. Feel it out, and it's a chance for Berlter to sort of test him out. Test out as character and his ability. Absolutely, yeah. And I think, you know, people like Weston McKinney,

and I mean, I don't know if Che will stay around, stick around until the actual Nations League window, you know, You know, will he make the trip across the Atlantic to play against Honduras? I don't know. Well, he's not on the roster bells. Oh, yeah, he's not even on the preliminary, is he? Yeah, so he's one who's not on the provisional roster. So this is definitely just like a one off for this.

And I wouldn't expect him to travel through the whole thing just for the Costa Rica friendly after. Yeah, probably not. Fair, fair. I missed that. So forget what I just said. I was going to say it would be cool for him to meet Pulisic. But whether he meets Pulisic or not, You know, he's going to get to spend time with Wes and McKenny, Serginio Dest.

Who else has a lot of charisma and is young? Giovanni Raina, Giovanni Raina, you know? I mean, it's Tim Wea. That's a crew that I think a 17-year-old player at Byron 2 who grew up in Dallas is going to be, like, interested in getting to know those guys. Yep, cool uncle Sebastian Legette. Yeah. No, it's crazy. When you're talking about Justin Chey, like even Reggie Cannon, I mean, at 22 is like a senior citizen for a 17-year-old.

So like all of these guys are going to be these great mentors or just, you know, guys for Justin Chee to look up to and want to prove something to too while he's in that camp. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't think of Reggie Cannon as sort of the rock star that Weston McKinney is. But I'm sure he has some, we'll have some important guidance for young Justin. All right, fullbacks. Please, please, you tell us who they are. All right, we're loaded up with right backs here.

We've got Sergenio Dest. We've got Reggie Cannon, DeAndre Yedlin, back in the fold, finally. And then Brian Reynolds. And then the lone nominal left back is Anthony Robinson. Yeah, no real surprises there, even though it is imbalance, because we know Dest is very likely to play some left back in this upcoming window and probably throughout World Cup qualifying. Yeah, and you don't need a ton of balance for a game like this

because it's a one-off, it's one game. You don't need to be like, okay, then we need to have backup for game two or anything else. For this game, we didn't need, if Vines is even going to be on the Nation's League roster, we still didn't need to fly them out for this game. This can definitely just be handled by the guys we've got here. Yep.

All right, midfielders. So this gets fun. We've got our Adams-McKennie Musa, triumvirate. And then we've got Legette, Kellen Acosta, who again, another camp that Burhalter flies him across the ocean four, which I think still tells us quite a bit. Jackson Yule.

And then Julian Green listed here, but not on the provisional Nations League roster. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's great to see Green get another shot. I think it speaks well of Burrhalter that he's willing to sort of change things up like that and certainly helps with the segment of Twitter that is big Julian Green fans. They have less to complain about. And I'm excited to see him.

I'm excited for him to get a shot. And maybe, you know, I'm hopeful that he'll, if he performs well, here he gets to be in the Gold Cup. Right. And Green is one who is going to be pending his club team's outcomes because they're sitting in third in the double boodness league right now. And if they stay in third. he'll have a promotion playoff to deal with on the 29th.

So he would basically be ruled out of this game, which would mean at best we see him at the Gold Cup because he's not on the provisional roster. So this is kind of his chance to get a look, could get derailed by club commitments. And then Tyler Adams is an interesting one because he's missed the last couple of games for Leibzig with injury. He's already been ruled out of this weekend's game with injury.

I think he's back stateside getting treatment. so we're flying him back out there. And so the question is, is this kind of like what Pulisic did in November where he joined the camp, even though he was never going to play because he was injured and it was just to be there? Or is Adams recovering on track where, you know, the game's not for another 10 days. He could still play. Yeah. I think the answer to that is we just don't know, right?

Don't know. But let's game it out real quick. If he doesn't play, then what are we looking at? Ewell, Acosta filling in there? I'd make it Acosta probably. All right. No, no, no, no. I wouldn't.

I would put Moose at the 6th. Okay. Moose at the 6 and then Legette and McKinney as the 8th. Come on, man. I know. You're on the record. Okay. And the other thing here is, again, there are tons of wrinkles where it might not matter

because this might be kind of a dummy lineup that's really, where the goal is really to set us up for what we're going to do in Honduras. So you might not play the actual guys that you want to use in those spots because they're going to be earmarked for the more important game. If it's a true proxy, you know, I mean, I'm taking this way too far. But if it's a true proxy for a club game on a weekend in Europe, shouldn't Berhalter play all the guys that he wants to play in the Honduras game? No, if it were going to be a true proxy, you'd have to bench the guys that don't get in for their clubs. So you definitely don't play Tim Rheim because he's not.

not used to playing on the weekends. Right. But you do play Pulisic. Musa doesn't play. Yeah. Well, okay. Got to stick to the proxy, though. That's my view on it.

Okay. So Center Mids is fun. It's going to be fun either way just to see what happens. Yeah. I don't, my only thing is I kind of hope it's not Yule starting at the 6th. Unless it's just, like you said, a dummy lineup. And we're just trying to rest people ahead of the games that really matter. And I know that's kind of quite the, that sentiment has a wide base of people who hold it.

But I'm still very much like, well, let's just test you if there are all these doubts about Jackson Ewell and how he'll stand up against tougher opponents because he still hasn't played a lot of tough opponents, then let's find out. Let's find out now so we don't have to find out the hard way in qualifying. The only tough opponent he played was Uruguay, right? Yep, yep. And he looked okay there, but again, Uruguay, even as a tough, yeah, and even as them being a very good team, they still play in a way that would suit him.

I mean, because they aren't like a high-pressing, frantic team, he's in a position where he can kind of collect the ball ahead of their low block and kind of do what he wants with it, which is good to see too, but I do want to see him against more of an aggressive side that has a little more quality. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Let's go to the forwards. Wingers. So we've got Raina. Aronson officially listed as a forward now, so I'm glad to see that transition. No one else really that I would say qualifies as a winger, which makes me wonder if maybe Julie's,

Julian Green could do double duty there and be sort of that inverted winger type. Once again, Dwayne Holmes sorely missed. Kenny Seth. Yeah. I mean, Aronson, Raina, and Wea are wingers. You said that, I guess, and that's enough for this one game. Yeah, same thing I'm always, I guess I'm just super conservative on the minutes, because that can definitely get us through this game,

but does it get us through this game and put one of those guys in a tough position to also start against Honduras? That's all like that all that goes through my mind. Yeah. They should be able to do it. Matt Hartman says that there's enough rest between those two games that it shouldn't be a problem. Yeah. And then at Stryker, who do we have?

Tons of strikers. We've got Sergeant there. We've got D.K. there. We've got Cibachoo there and we've got Hopi there for now. Sergeant and D.K., both players who could end up missing out because of the promotional final. in D.K.'s case, they'd have to win it back against Swansea on the road in the semi-final. But if they do that, if they overturn a 1-0 deficit, they're in the final, which would rule him out of the Switzerland game. And then Sargent is sitting in third last in the Bundesliga, which would potentially pit him in a relegation playoff for the second year running if they don't improve their standing.

They could also get, it's still possible they get auto-relegated going into the last day. coach just got fired after the weekend rough times in bremen um i i i was talking with somebody on the patreon about this and i i think i've long been like hey sergeant just needs to stay in vera bremen and keep this is a this is an aside so bear with me long been that he i've long thought he needs to stay in bremen and just improve his game there i'm i'm coming around to the idea that he could use a change of scenery and if these like you know there's these rumors who knows if they're true at that he that you know clubs higher up in the table and the Bundesliga are interested if that's true then I feel like he should he should make that kind of move well if if cofeld was still was still

going to be at Brayman next season then I'd be all for him moving literally anywhere when they when they survived the playoff last year I was like well I still wanted to move to a to boondis league a team because I don't want him to play another like horrific season for Brayman and then they started that the season a little bit better but it was kind of just fool's gold they were playing some of the weaker teams and the corner was never really turned no that corner it's a tricky corner it's like taking a couch up a up a stairway uh turn got to turn it on its side um so that's the strikers what else do you have in mind the question here is just again going to be how burrhalter decides to use this game uh with his

personnel, which guys are going to end up losing it? We're going to lose to club commitments, which guys are going to be injured. And then what Burrhalter wants to do to divvy up the minutes to prepare them for Honduras, or to keep them prepared for Honduras. And then, again, potentially another game on short rest right after that. So it's all just an open question. You know, you have in mind what you think your strongest lineup would be. But if you trot that out there, then some of the guys in that group will have to play 90.

You can't sub all 10 guys out. You got five subs. You're looking at a lot of guys playing 90 there, and then are you going to play them, trot them out again for 90 against Honduras? And if you do that, are you going to play them again if we get Mexico in the final? So all of those kinds of questions and logistics. And it's just going to be interesting. I don't know that there are any right or wrong answers at the moment, but we'll take what we learn here and use it in September. And that's where the real test plays out.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean. Ochoa. Ochoa. Ochoa is an interesting one. Ochoa versus Hwarvath. Well, I mean, Ochoa Ochoa has won the starting job at RSL. He is a fun player to watch, makes a lot of plays,

makes big plays and big games. He's done that at the youth levels. And obviously he has this big personality, and he can play with his feet. So I'm excited about it. I'm not the goalkeeping expert that you are or the people on Twitter who don't think Ochoa is good,

who don't think he's in the top 100 American goalkeepers. but um but you know so i can't argue with like with you folks on his like technique and how he sprawls when he goes down for a ball but um i'm excited to see him in this in this camp because i here's the thing is i don't think we have any goalkeepers who are very good with their feet outside of a choa i mean i guess you could say on uh johnson sean johnson a little bit yeah i mean he's all right but i agree with you. We don't, we don't, we don't, we definitely don't have anyone who's going to hit Aderson levels in the, in the crop currently, who's sort of at their peak. And most of these keepers that we're talking about are, are pretty close to like prime age. So, uh, so yeah,

so if we're looking for that footwork savant, uh, then right now, Ocho is probably, probably top of that table. Yeah. I mean, he's, he, he, he likes to play with his feet. He, he, he sometimes disguises his passes. He can get a, hit a clipped ball to the sideline. and eliminate some defenders, some pressing defenders. He's not going to probably play in this Switzerland-friendly. I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced Horvath hasn't gotten. Horvath has been in camp a couple of times. I know he was always there with Stefan.

But Berhalter doesn't seem super interested in finding out more about Horvath. So while I kind of expect it to be Horvath, you know, I don't think there's, I don't think there's too much like where I'm writing his name down in ink for the Switzerland game. I think it would upset a lot of people because I think a lot of people are still very, very high on him. Well, we should mention here that something you mentioned a couple weeks ago, which is that Matt Turner is probably in the top three goalkeepers.

He's not in this camp, most likely because he's going to be the number one goalkeeper at the Gold Cup. That's not, no, we don't have any inside information on that, but that just stands to reason, sort of. Yeah, that felt like the way to do it. to me. I think we might only see Ochoa from this group into the Nations League because I feel like Stefan's coming back for Nation League and then I could see Sean Johnson being Stefan's backup for those three games. So Horvath might get this game and then stay in Europe. I don't know.

What about Brooks? Do you think he's going to be on the Nations League roster? Do I think that Wolfsburg will let him go, you're saying? Yeah, because he had this like phantom foot injury a couple days ago and he's not, I don't know, it seems like there's a decent possibility he will not be involved. I won't be shocked by that. I won't be shocked by basically any of our European guys being told, no, you're just a little bit too injured to go play. Pulisic even. Like after Pulisks' Champions League game, it wouldn't surprise me at all if there's a report of

some little injury and that he's unavailable for the Nation's League. And I can't really begrudge club or player if that happens. Oh, I can. You probably do some begrudging. I mean, yeah, I think we didn't qualify for the World Cup last year, folks, last cycle. We need to get this right. And I think, yeah, I'm not criticizing anybody who isn't going to be there if they're not there. but you would think Poulosik would say, hey, man, I remember crying on the field at Kouva.

I don't want that to happen again. Let's get this sorted out in our dress rehearsal and come into the World Cup qualifying tournament, you know, full speed ahead. All right. Well, Tuchel has laid a lot of groundwork. I feel like every press conference, he says, well, we could have started Christian Pulsick, but I didn't want to re-injure him and lose him, so we kept him on the bench. And so I feel like they're like read on Pulitzer already is that his hamstrings can go at any moment. So get through the Champions League, hoist the trophy, put him on ice for the summer.

Yeah, I suppose. But Tuchel can't keep him out if like, you know, if it comes down to it, if it comes down to like the legal situation, he has to play for the U.S. if he's called up and accepts. Yes, no. No, it's the injury bit. So I was talking to somebody else about this online. And it's just how, like if these clubs say, no, he's hurt. I mean, McKinney was left out of the March friendly for injury when the roster was announced.

And then he still played for Juventus the weekend after the announcement that he was out injured for the U.S. So in between the announcement and the actual game. So there are those little things where, you know, how injured are they? They're a little bit injured and they aren't injured enough to miss a World Cup. qualifier, but maybe they're injured enough to be held out of a nation's league at altitude with very little rest. You know, like there's those little gray areas. And then the question becomes how much would the U.S. want to fight it? Because I think the U.S. can, like, evaluate the player independently with a physician and try to make a claim that, no, they can still play. But that's

kind of the nuclear option. You don't want to do that. You don't think. So, yeah, so it just comes down to how badly we want the player and how good of a job McBride and Ernie can do convincing the club that, no, we're going to take good care of him. It's not going to be a Miles Robinson situation. Yeah. But that's the risk, right? And clubs have no incentive to let these guys go for this if they're a little bit hurt, like to let them play through any kind of an injury at this point. So, you know, it's just a lot of these sort of compromises for a non-world cup qualifying window. So very possible it could be, we could have, we could not have Brooks, not have Pulisic, not have Adams for the, I mean, you could even argue that those three omissions are even

on the high end of 50% chance. I mean, Richards, Richards might not be back anyway. I mean, Anthony Robinson's missed several games for Follum and I'm sure they're trying to think about putting a price on him for as they're getting relegated. And that's, you know, we're obviously talking very like worst case scenario there for all those guys. Yeah, I mean, Richards, the fact that Richards is not in this camp and not playing for Hoffenheim this weekend does indicate he's not, obviously not healthy yet. And why rush him back for Nations League if he can go and play in the Gold Cup? I mean, maybe, there's probably arguments against playing in the Gold Cup too. Yeah, man, like I said, it's all these compromises until September.

So that's a little bit disappointing because it would have been awful nice to see Richards and Brooks together in the back for a good 90-minute stretch. But, Cé la Vie. Another omission who was clearly a coach's decision was Cameron Carter Vickers. I know you've sort of been on the CCV train lately. And I listen to you. I listen to your podcast. I'm not too been out of shape about it. I'll be kind of retroactively disappointed if you.

He's not in Gold Cup, but like with Che getting in there, again, that's just very much like a college campus visit. CCV doesn't need that. He would want minutes, you know, and I don't think there would be any minutes for him as we're preparing for Nations League. So hopefully he gets those minutes along with like Miles Robinson, a couple other guys in the Gold Cup. Okay. What else? I wanted to mention that Mark McKenzie and Matthew Hoppe have both finished the season strong. You know, McKenzie had a long stretch most of April and the first half of May where he didn't play hardly at all for Gink.

And he started the last two games, went 90 and both. They're both wins. Genk is, if I'm reading the tables correctly, they have qualified or they're very close to qualifying for the Champions League playing. games, you know, late this summer, early in the fall? They have already. Okay. So that's a big deal. Yeah, the rubbers weren't dead when McKenzie was playing in them.

Those two last two games, they still had a chance to overtake Bruges and take the auto qualification. Bruges won it, so Bruges will be in the group stage of the Champions League. Gank had a chance to overtake them as of yesterday, but it didn't happen. Matt Miazga and Anderlecht didn't do their job to beat Bruges. So now the table's set for those two spots. So Gank will be in the Champions League qualifying group stage this coming summer, fall. That's pretty cool.

I think they go to like the third qualifying round. Decent chance, you know, assuming he doesn't move anywhere this summer, decent chance McKenzie's playing in the Champions League next fall. It would be awesome. And then Miyazga, for anyone who cares, his last game is still meaningful, because if they draw or win, they go to Europa qualifying, and if they lose to Antwerp, they actually go to the new European conference,

Europa Conference qualifying tournament. Is that, that's not the Super League? No, that's like the NITs. No, it's not, it's one, it's like, I don't even have a word for it. I think it's the Maui Invitational. And then Hopi, he he's also closed the season strong you know he had a as most of you know he was involved in all

and three second half goals for shalka last weekend against frankfort a second assist and a goal himself kind of receiving the ball on the wing and then cutting in that's six goals and one assist for him on the season we don't talk about him that much on this podcast but that's not shabby shabby at all and um you know shalk is headed to the second bunda's lega but like Hoppy has a place there if he wants it and maybe there's a way for him to move somewhere else and stay in the Bundesliga. I don't know. But he's in the camp too. Yeah, I just want him some more functional. This is a nice introduction camp for him. And if he looks good, again, I don't think the bar at Strikers is necessarily that high yet. There's definitely a chance D.K could

come in and elevate that bar. But yeah, there's no reason Hoppe couldn't look the part compared to some of the other guys. Also note in that game where he scored the goal and got the assist, even though Shalka are definitely on their way down, Frankfurt were still playing for a Champions League spot. So they were definitely going all out. And so he was playing against a legitimate opponent, not just like players already on summer vacation.

And all three goals were really nice, too. I mean, the one he helped set up, the one he actually did set up, and then the one that he scored. So I don't know. I mean, if you remember that hat trick, he scored, back in the fall, I think it was. All three of those goals were nice, too.

So it's not like he's just, you know, the ball's bouncing off him on a corner kick and just happens to go in. Was that a Haji Wright dig? I felt like that was a Haji Wright-Shalka dig. I didn't want to make it a Haji-right dig, but thanks for making it explicit. No, he had a goal.

Haji had a goal over the weekend that was kind of like that. All right. Well, this is great because I want to see Hopi Ann. And again, we've had Nico Gio Aquini in, and we've had Sebastian Soto in. And if those guys are sort of in the running, Hopi can certainly be in there with a shot. Yeah. I think, you know, aside from the possible omissions due to playoffs, and it does, I think I'd be a little surprise if Barnsley pulls it off against Swansea.

So it seems like the odds are good, D.K. will be available on the 29th. As for Verde Bramman, who knows, you know. probably imagine the worst case scenario as the most likely at this point. And then I don't know what's up with green. Like what are the, what's going to determine whether they're in the playoff or not? Are they definitely in the playoff or are they? Yeah, worse they can do is third. So they won't fall out of promotion altogether this weekend, but they could go into second

and move up directly and not have to bother with the playoff. Okay. So I think the hope is that Brayman just get auto-relegated, and Sergeant doesn't have to worry about it, and he can come play. And Green gets auto-promoted, and he can come play to. And D.K., I don't know, I kind of want him to go up, so I want them to come back against Swansea. It didn't look super likely in that first game. That's just Barnsley, though.

They never look likely to do anything, and then suddenly, D.K. a goal. So that's their mode. So let's see it successful twice. Read John Mueller's newsletter on Barnsley if you get a chance to space, space, space. It's very good. I think that that's all I got. Oh, the other other omission. Go ahead, Greg. Go ahead, Greg. Can you hear me? I didn't know. I was putting my headphones in. I didn't hear anything you said. It got really choppy. I'm sure it was good on your side, but I hadn't said anything. were saying the other thing. I was going to say one of the player omission we should mention is Luca Deloere.

He, in our minds, is sort of in a perfect position to be a key player at the Gold Cup. He wouldn't get very many minutes in this camp. So let's give him a full evaluation of the Gold Cup. That's how you explained it last two weeks ago. Yeah, that's what I'm hoping. And the fact that he's not here means it's really, I think, It's very unlikely that he would go play in the Nation's League games. I feel like you'd bring him into this.

If that were the case, it does keep the door open for like a Christian Roldon addition to the Nations League, which I took a lot of heat for. But again, it's not because I rate Christian Roldon as even our fifth choice center mid. It's because that position is essentially a wasted call up for the player because they're not going to play very much. They're just going to be there as a body. And you wouldn't want to waste that call up on a player who you actually want to. want to see play. You would want to waste that call up on a very nice person who won't complain.

Yes, and it's not even like a leadership thing. Someone else was like, well, you're saying he's a leader. It's literally like their job is to almost disappear into the lockers. So that's the perfect thing for Christian Roll-down to do. And if we get really good minutes out of him because he is on a bit of a tear for Seattle, great. That's awesome. He's playing well.

And as we've talked about before, it is possible. that he will look better with better talent around him in the national team in a more like sort of aggressive pressing all-action box-to-box eight position than he did in whatever he was doing for the national team back in 2019 yeah the forgotten year yes absolutely so uh i'm i'm not going to be mad if anybody looks good i'll be happy anytime someone looks good for the national team yeah yeah i mean that's how we should all be but but unfortunately it's not how everyone is. Let's see.

I think Sibbutu sort of, it's very expected that he would be here. I wouldn't, it wouldn't be a shock if he ended up starting this game against Switzerland because D.K. and Sergeant may not be available. I think the rest of the roster kind of writes itself, you know. We've talked about all the surprises and sort of wrinkles that I can think of. Yeah, yeah. All it's left to see is how Burrhalter wants to unwrinkle it. Yep.

Which is really hard to scheme out from my guest bedroom in Georgia. And I just want to reiterate that, you know, this is it. This is what we've all been waiting for. I mean, World Cup qualifying itself is what we've all been waiting for. That's not until September. But this is, this is a true dress rehearsal. It's a, it's going to be. really fun to watch, I think.

I hope. It's going to be, it's going to be intense to watch for me. I'm very optimistic that it will also have a lot of fun moments. But man, like, am I ready for that possibility? And it just, everything grinds to a halt. And we've really got to iron some things out through September. Like, in real time, come World Cup qualifying. That's a really good point. Fun's probably not the right word.

It is, it is going to be intense to watch because there's going to be, there's going to be, there's going to be data, there's going to be conclusions to draw, assessments to be made. Anything else, Greg? That does it for us. Have a great weekend, everybody. We'll see you.