Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #175: Now is a good time to pay attention to the U.S. men’s national team

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

A sharable opening 10 minutes in which we try to persuade casuals to start paying attention to a USMNT program that up until today has mostly produced bad news. Also a dive on the Nations League roster. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Scufft podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Thanks for downloading this episode of Scuffed. We're going to do a brief opening segment for people who are not paying attention to the U.S. men's national team, which is obviously not our normal audience. And I'll tell you why. I spent the weekend with my parents and a couple siblings and my dad and brother independently, both thought the U.S. had failed to qualify for the next World Cup. They're not precogs, are they? They are not. This is the opposite of that. They were thinking of Olympic qualifying failure, which they probably saw a headline about, and in their inattention,

conflated that with World Cup qualification. These aren't anti-socker guys. They both play the sport and enjoy it. They just don't care about the U.S. men's national team enough to know the slightest thing about it. And it struck me right there that a lot of people just are not paying attention. And by golly,

They should be. I love that you're a bit of on a mission here to just spread the good word. Yeah. So this is evangelism of the lowest order. But there's a lot to be excited about and reason for optimism at the next World Cup. And most people in America don't know that. So this opening segment is for you to share with somebody you think is even slightly swayable. If you know anybody like my dad and brother, send them the link to this episode.

I'm hoping we can win over a baker's dozen or so. I'm just going to amend that slightly and say that you cannot send them the link to this episode. You need to, like, dress yourself up, go to their door, knock on their door, and ask them if they have heard this podcast or the news and then explain it to them and play this podcast episode to them. Better yet memorize this entire disjointed monologue and then receive. sight it at their door. So this is a message geared to the not attentive fan.

If you've been casually tracking the men's national team, you probably have an unfavorable impression, and it would be warranted. You might summarize soccer in America this way. The women are good. The men are bad. The men failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, which up to now is pretty much true.

Someone paying a little more attention would remember that we lost Mexico twice in 2019. and didn't look all that good all year. The second time we lost to Mexico was a 3-0 drubbing. Then COVID hit. Then we failed to qualify for the Olympics in Tokyo. So we must really be in dire straits, right? Well, can I give a really side, like, tangent on,

or a ridiculous casual sports analogy for our Olympics. Yes, please. Qualification failure. You can tell your family that the Olympic qualification is basically like the college football, blue-gray bowl game. and again, for the people who I'm threading this needle where no one's heard, none of you listening have heard of any of any blue-gray college football ball game.

It's like a college football all-star game. And it hits the Olympic comparison because you're already talking about an age restriction because you're talking about college players. You're not talking about anybody who's the best player in the world because they're playing in the NFL. And then you're not even talking about the best college football players because all of those players are too busy getting ready for their actual national championship bowl implication games.

Right. So we're talking about a very small subsection of our not most talented players who didn't qualify for the Olympics. It still sucks, but it's a very good analogy for the Olympic qualifying failure. It is because that was not our, those were not our best players. And you might even argue, and some have, they weren't even our second best group of players. So this dire straits narrative, which is understandable if you're if you're feeling that way about the national team, that's not how it is. We have by far the most talented group of players we've ever had, most of them under the age of 23, and we are about to start playing the games we need to win to qualify for the 2022 World Cup.

To understand how seismic the change is in the level of American talent, you've got to understand the Champions League and how rare it's. been for an American to play a key role for a Champions League contender over the past two decades. So what's the Champions League? The Champions League is the top level of the sport in the world, a tournament between the best clubs in Europe, which runs every year concurrent to the regular season. How many players a nation has in this tournament and how many minutes they get in that tournament are very good proxies for the quality of the talent produced by a nation. Think of your, think if you're like a basketball fan in Slovenia and you're like, okay, we got Luca Donchich for the Dallas Mavericks, one of the best.

players in the NBA this season. Now you start to get a few more. You're thinking, like, we're going to be really good at basketball. Slovenia is going to be really good at basketball. And actually, they are. They won the Euros last, like, the last time. So, imagine, like, if you can imagine that in reverse, the Champions League is like the NBA for a Slovenian.

Champions League for an American is like the NBA for a Slovenian. Gotcha. I'm following. The top four nations for Champions League minutes are every year some combination of France, Spain, Brazil. and Germany. That gives you an idea. Basically, the top,

arguably the top four nations in the world and soccer. And when you say the top four nations, you mean the countries with the most players playing? They're not all on one team. They're all spread out over all these different teams in Europe.

They just have so much talent at big clubs all over Europe that when you tally up all the minutes in Champions League, it's like France, Spain, Brazil, Germany, France, Spain, Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, whatever. Year after year after year.

England's up there too, but we don't like to talk about England. So from the beginning, now we'll get to the American presence in this tournament. From the beginning of time until 2016, only four Americans ever played a major role for a team in the knockout rounds of this tournament. And they were spread out over many, many years. John O'Brien for Iax, Demarchus Beasley for PSV, Eindhoven, Tim Howard for Manchester United, and Germain Jones for Shalka. That's it. From the birth of Alexander the Great until the second year of Donald Trump's presidency,

that's the list of like key players in a Champions League knockout round from America. And even even more context there. I think Jermaine Jones's run, who is the most recent player on that list, was like 10 years ago. It was like 2012, 2013. But yeah, there you go. That's a lifetime in the world of sports. Exactly.

And everything has changed. Everything has changed in the last three years. Since Christian Pulisic's breakthrough at Dortmund, the history of Americans in the Champions League, has been completely rewritten. This past season, we had five Americans playing key roles for teams in the knockout rounds. Pulisic at Chelsea, Gio Reno at Dortmund, West McKinney at Juventis, Tyler Adams at RB

Leipzig, and Sergenio Dest at Barcelona. Over the last 20 years, the U.S. has averaged 550 total minutes in the Champions League. We're talking group stage and on each year. This past season, we got 2,461, and we're going to get more. this weekend when Christian Pulisic is going to be in the Champions League final. And it turns out an American either way is going to lift the trophy, although Zach Stephan is less impressive since he's a backup goalkeeper for Man City.

And already we have at least 10 Americans in Champions League next season. That doesn't put us on a level with France, but it puts us on a level, as anybody who listens to this podcast will know, on a level that is completely unprecedented for us. And now that this is all true, Starting in September, World Cup qualifying begins. We are about to embark on the most meaningful 18 months of the World Cup cycle. I could bore you with the details of all that, but suffice it to say,

this upcoming window of games, including the Nation's League semifinals, and hopefully final, will be a dress rehearsal for World Cup qualifying. It's the first time that Burrhalter is playing a first choice group of players in a meaningful competition, you know, arguably, and a chance to beat Mexico with this new generation of talent. with most of it healthy, most of it. There is every reason to pay attention if you care at all about the men's national team. Any questions, Greg? Here's another hook that I think might help some people,

because I bet a lot of people who've casually followed the U.S. men's national team at one point in another have heard of Landon-Donovan. And I think they probably started to tune out of the men's team as we kept waiting for the next Landon-Dondon. And so I just want to tell you the next Landon-Dondon is here, and we have like five of them on this roster. Right. Landon Donovan was a fantastic national team player.

He never really succeeded in Europe, you know, at the highest level. Which is... And now we have. Yeah. Yeah. And that doesn't even have to be a prerequisite. It's just the only thing that these current group of players is missing is the, sort of the opportunity to showcase it, the way Donovan had in the World Cup. And these guys are going to get there and they are going to have that opportunity.

And I'm excited for what they're going to be. going to do on that stage. But it starts here, get it on the ground floor. That's right. And the ground floor is this, is this four game window starting with Switzerland on Sunday. The Nations League is a tournament that nobody understands.

Like even pretty serious soccer fans don't really know what it is. Just don't worry about that. Just watch the games. Because it is, because it is the beginning of this, like this chance for redemption, the beginning of the push for the World Cup. And, you know,

the World Cup is going to be fun. The World Cup is always fun, and we're going to be in it this time, 2022. All right, to everyone who is a regular listener of this podcast, our apologies for telling you a bunch of stuff you already know. We could, even still, if you just set that prelude to some dramatic music bells, I feel like we could make a good hype video out of it. Yeah, let me see if I can find some, uh, some good music, some Gustav Mahler.

Good, good baseline. All right. All right, let's talk about the roster for the Nations League, which was released yesterday by Greg Burrhalter. And Burrhalter also has done a little bit of a media tour. You hit a podcast with Bobby Warshaw that dropped late last night or this morning. So why don't you run us through the roster, Greg, since I burdened everyone with that soliloquy. All right, so the roster will start with goalkeepers and our work our way to the forwards as usual. Zach Steffen, Ethan Horvath, and David Ochoa,

and the only change from the Switzerland game is Stefan coming in for O'Dunce. Yeah, just to be clear, the Switzerland game is on Sunday, but there's a different roster for the actual Nations League, which is Honduras next Wednesday, and then Mexico and hopefully Mexico next Sunday. Sorry, please continue. That's the plan. That's the plan. Surely Zach Stephan is starting the two,

the two Nations League games. Yeah. Centerbacks, we've got John Brooks, but then because of Aaron Long and Chris Richards' absence, it did get a little interesting for the centerbacks. Tim Rie, Matt Miazga, and Mark McKenzie fell out the centerback line. Justin Shea, who is in the Switzerland group, not on the Nations League roster,

but more surprisingly, or at least more interestingly, obviously. some of the MLS names who might have been candidates to replace Longin Richards, not in the fold. So that'd be Walker Zimmerman, Miles Robinson, probably just those two. It is pretty interesting that Miyazga is favored over Zimmerman. That would not have been, I don't think that would have been guaranteed for anybody watching the national team over the past year. Because, again, like this roster is to win the games. Burrhalter is picking at least the first 15, 16 names here. to beat Mexico in the final.

I mean, beat Honduras first. But that's the goal here. There's no, there's no piddling about. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about it. So Shea is not going to be on the nation's league roster. Since, you know, Daryl Dike is with the squad right now and is going to travel with them and presumably we'll play against Costa Rica,

even though he's not on the roster, do you think the same thing will happen with Shea? I don't think so. I'd kind of be surprised if he plays even against Switzerland, and maybe just like a 10-minute cameo as a here-you-go, like harmless kind of... I guess, I mean, is he going to travel with the squad back to the U.S. and be with the team, you know? So even then, I'd say probably not. In his comments, Burhalter said that they were going to have a traveling group of 25 players, which is the 23 on the roster. Plus, he's already said, D.K. is going, when we get to the forwards, you'll find out that D.R. I'm sure you haven't heard this yet.

D.R.L.D.K. is not named on the Nation's League roster, so he can't participate in these games, barring a player pulling out for injury and D.K. being named as the replacement. But D.K. will travel with the group. And Burhalter said 25 will. So there's another player that hasn't been named to the public yet. Not sure if that player has already been decided upon. I had said it was for sure going to be Paul Ariola, but that was because I mistakenly thought that Ariola was in camp already in Switzerland. He was not in that group. So now I'm changing my answer to maybe Julian Green is the guy who follows the group along. and then plays in the Costa Rica friendly.

But I don't know, man. Yeah, we don't know. We don't know. But I guess I should say, I agree with you. It's going to be Stefan in the Nations League games. Who's it going to be in the Switzerland game? Going back to goalkeeper first time. Ethan, well, I think it'll be Horvath, but Ochoa wouldn't blow my mind.

Yeah. I kind of hope it's Ochoa, but you know how I am about Ochoa. The centerbacks are interesting because we don't have anybody. We always talk about John Brooks needing a good compliment, you know, because he's not the quickest. So that's why Aaron Long made sense next to him. That's why Chris Richards was going to make sense.

They could cover for him. And now we have four centerbacks that I would argue none of them is as athletic or as long or Richards. Now, Mark McKenzie is plenty athletic, but he is not quick. Like, you'll have a guy,

you'll have a guy next to him, and then a second later, the guy's five yards past him. It just takes him a second to turn around. His change of direction isn't very rapid. I'm not saying he wouldn't be wonderful in a 200-yard dash. I got some static for that on Twitter yesterday. But, yeah, I think I'm a little worried about the speed of the centerbacks sort of across the board.

And let me just add to that too, because Berlter is insinuated, again, as we get farther in this roster, we can't get through three position, two position groups without derailing completely. He's insinuated that Jackson Ewell is going to be getting some tests in these games, which I assume means a lot of match minutes. And Jackson Ewell left with two of those centerbacks as their protection as we attack with both our fullbacks getting high is a little bit terrifying. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

It is a little scary. Because I'm not optimistic that Tyler Adams will actually end up playing in this window. So it's going to come down to a day. decision between whether Ewell is going to be able to protect our centerbacks or whether we need to go a different route with Calana Costa or as you have long been asking for like dropping Eunice Musa into the six. Yeah. I mean I'd be sort of equally happy with them. Well, we haven't even gotten to the midfield yet. Let's do that. Let's do. So, so Bells, to answer your question, no, I don't think Justin Shea is traveling with the with the group to the United States.

Fair enough. Yeah. How about fullbacks? All right. We've got desks. We've got Canon. We did bring Edlin and Robinson to this Nation's League. Brian Reynolds is the Switzerland fullback that's not going to travel with the team. We had kind of speculated that maybe like a Sam Vines would get the Gold Cup instead of being involved in the Nations League and that we'd bring along sort of just a filler. And instead we just didn't bring a filler at all and we just brought Anthony Robinson and three right backs. So it sure seems like the plan is going to be some rotation amongst them with Dest filling in it left back

within that rotation. Yep. Dest Canon or Dest Yedlin left back, right back set up is, seems very much in the offing. At the six, who do we have? I put Tyler Adams, Kellinacosta, and Jackson, Ewell. I think we'll probably see some combination of those three playing the position. Like I said, even if Adams is healthy, which I don't expect him to be. I'm just preparing myself for him not taking part. Is that an emotion, an emotional technique or like a like a true prediction or what? Well, it's one of those things where he's not ready yet. I don't think he's not even in the Switzerland roster, is he?

He might be. I can't remember. But the issue here is it's a freebie. You can put him in this final roster because if he's hurt, you just switch him on the two days before the game. And it's no problem. We already have guys there. Bringing in Daryl D.K. as the third.

I thought we were going to bring three forwards anyway. So if you had to drop Adams and add D.K. to the list, no harm done. Like it's just an easy thing to do. so I don't think that his inclusion is necessary an indication that he's back to health. Okay. I hope he is, but it sure seems like the safe bet is that he's not.

That's been the trend with Adams for a couple years now. And it makes you wonder if he's, is he going to be healthy for a World Cup or anything? You know, we'll see. What it makes me assume is that we are going to need Plan B quite a bit. quite a bit through qualifying. So even in this tournament, if we don't have Adams, or potentially even if we do, I don't know if he'd start and play both semifinal and game two 90 minutes in each game. So if we're starting Jackson Yule and then two slower centerbacks against Honduras,

like I said, that's really kind of frightening to me. So I'm listening to Acosta in the sixes because I think he could end up being the Honduras starter. Yeah. I mean, Romo Kiyodo has to redeem himself after that terrible miss in MLS over the weekend, and he's going to be chomping at the bit to run at Yule, Miyazga, and Brooks. Okay. The more advanced midfielder's, the eights. So I'm calling these guys McKenny, Musa, and Legette, and I pushed green up a line.

I don't know for sure where Burholter sees him, but it could easily be as another one of these center mids. But for the moment, I'm kind of penciling him in as a potential winger backup. And green is, just to be clear, on the Switzerland roster, but not the Nation's League roster, yeah. I was getting ahead of myself. So, yeah, so there's the rest of our midfield for the Nations League. That's everyone accounted for. Getting into the wingers, we've got Pulisick, Raina, Arensen, which is just a great group of wingers to bring to this tournament.

Pretty exciting stuff. Yeah. Yeah, that's, those are the four. For any of those would be U.S. men's national team fans, all four of those guys would have been Olympic eligible. They're probably also our four best wingers. Yeah, they were Olympic eligible. They were just not released by their clubs because clubs don't have to release players for the Olympic qualifying tournament. And that's why it's more like the Blue Gray Bowl than it is like the World Cup qualification.

Yeah, let's talk briefly. Before we move on to the strikers, let's talk briefly about the sixes in the eight. a little bit more. You've said that you want to see Ewell tested. And Berhalter says he wants to see Ewell tested, presumably against Switzerland. What if we should just don't need to, what if we don't need to test him?

What if he's just not a good enough athlete to play the six for the U.S.? Why don't we just quit wasting time and just put Mousa at the six? Musa Legette McKinney. I mean, I don't have a great, answer. I think the idea is to see whether or not Jackson Ewell and what I'm going to call his passing, his distribution from deep to determine whether that is going to be enough of an

asset, that it could be enough of a benefit through World Cup qualifying, that we want to have that option off the bench. Because again, we can bring, we could still use Musa, the same way I'm talking about Acosta, we could still do those things and use those players as the like-for-like Adams replacement if you want to call it that and then we would have this second option if we were like okay but what we need now is I don't know pinpoint long range passing so if we want to have that option we need to see if you will can be that guy and still hold up to the other duties of that position yeah because I don't I don't think again I don't think it's a good roster for a tournament to have only like for like replacements with people I think that's a

poorly constructed roster okay I don't know that Ewell is going to be able to do all of the jobs that mean that he can be on the field in a game like that. But that's what I think the idea is to find that out. Okay. Yeah, I mean, there's a part of me that thinks it's not going to work. But we'll see, I guess. We should see this weekend. That's going to be the best part.

That's going to be one of the good parts about this because we know that in a pinch or if he just looks, way off. Fine. We start Acosta against Honduras. We run Acosta again against in game two if Adams can't go and we get on with it. Or Musa, I'm sorry. I know I know I'm just ignoring your, your pleas here. It's, it's probably, I mean, that we have no reason to believe Musa will be nominally placed at the six. Now, like we said, Pulisa Crayna-A-Arensen, very exciting wingers. And let's talk about the strikers. Who do we have? We brought, this is the biggest surprise for me, Josh Sargent and Jordan Siavichu, and the surprise isn't necessarily that Siavichu got in over DK. It's my biggest surprise is actually that Giazzi Zardis is not on this list.

Because Zardis has such a good rapport with Burhalter and Berthar has relied on him so much? That's basically it, yeah, we're here to win these games. And so, you know, Burhalter's had one camp with Siavichu. That's it, just the March camp where he played a little bit at the end of game one started game two. And that's, I mean, that was like a three-day camp. That's a, it's a big deal to call him in for these games where you are expecting to rotate or, or, you know, there's a very real possibility that you're going to have to do some rotation here. So we're counting, he's counting on Steve Choo to win these games for us.

Okay. Yeah, that is a surprise. And I'm not sure I saw from Sibichu anything that was particularly notable in those, in that last international window. But Burrhalter, Burrhalter said in his press conference that he liked his movement in the box, which I think is basically Jazi's Ardaz's, like, number one strength. It's what allows him to compete at the national level if he's going to be able to.

But he also, Berhalter also highlighted see if he would choose, little moments of combination with Pulisic, with Wea from that Northern Ireland game. And I'm guessing that's what, you know, won him the job over Daryl Deky. D-K isn't necessarily that kind of combination player, at least we haven't seen it yet. D-K got a couple of good chances in that Northern Ireland game, but it was mostly from just sort of running beyond the line, which is not, I'm not saying that's a bad skill or trait to have in your toolbox either. But in this case, Burhalter seemed to want to go see what at you, or at least that's what he was going to, when the game was going to be on the line, that's what he decided to run with. You know, Matt Hartman and I dealt with this question in a listener question podcast, but I, I really did want to hear your response to it.

So I'm going to ask it now. Given the way the setup has evolved for the national team, where our wingers tuck in, and they're basically tens, and they can end up central, they can end up on the other side, you know, Raina and Pulisic, they're definitely not chalk on the heels, wingers. So they're coming inside and playmaking from the half space or the channel. do we still need our forward, our striker to drop really deep and catalyze the offense with combination play?

Or is it preferable now that we have those wingers tucking in that way, is it preferable to have a striker who is dragging the centerbacks around, stretching the line, running in behind the way D.K. did to get those chances against Northern Ireland. So I'm still inclined. My personal preference is still to have the player who can, I mean, let's be honest, my personal preference is to have one player who does all those things. Yeah. But I still think that a priority is still to have a striker who can come back and combine.

And again, from the start, we've had two tens, like from the start of the Burrhalter era, we've always had two tens. So that hasn't changed. And from the start, watching Zardaz do it way back in January 2019, I was like, oh, this looks like a role that was designed for Josie Altadour to come back and be this little playmaking forward. And Zardes is just holding the spot for him. But then Zardas just kept holding that spot and kept not being super effective at doing that

job and was like more and more frustrated watching him attempt to do it. So no, I still think that, I think that has always been present. You could maybe make the case that Pulisic and Rana offer it at a high enough level that they could somehow compensate for a forward who can't do that. But I still think that that is a priority. But to go along with what your, your, dream was for the Mexico game, which was D.K. starting and like Poulosik and Owea or Raina, whoever, running beyond him, I still think that that is, again, an option

that you want to have, a plan B that you want to have, so to have D.K. on the bench. And that's why I thought maybe we'd bring three forwards. And in a one-off World Cup qualifying game, we might see that where three forwards dress because you don't have to keep your roster intact from game to game. But no, I do still think that we need to, we will continue to emphasize the forward coming back to combine. And I'm all for it. And that's where it's going to be sergeant's sort of a job to impress because I feel like Sergeant at this point is Burrhalter's A1 guy. Yeah. Do you have that sense or do you think he's the backup and see what you started? No, I think Sergeant is A1. And so I don't know what that means for the Switzerland-friendly. I don't

know if that means he rests for Switzerland and then plays against Honduras or what. But yeah, I think I think he's got the inside track. And this is a big chance. for him to turn the corner. I'm really curious to hear. I've said this to you before, but like, you know, I've spent two years saying sergeants are much better fit than Zardez

and people, like a lot of times, the response is like, but he doesn't score goals. He can't, how can our starting striker not be scoring goals? Uh, and now sergeant very much appears to be the,

the current, or I guess the number one. And he has never turned that corner. So very little has changed. Right. in his club situation over two and a half years, but I guess nothing needed to. He still managed to summit the mountain.

Right. It's funny how the, you know, certain personalities on Twitter would have been like really opposed to Sergeant like starting a game two years ago when he was doing exactly the same thing for Verde Bremen that he was doing the last month. But now it's like, of course, yeah, of course he should start. Well, and Doyle had the,

Doyle laid out those two arguments about Sargent that people take, which was he's a good forward, but he just doesn't get any service, or he's part of the problem, and that, you know, he doesn't score goals because he's just not a very good forward. And I think we kind of had a similar discussion where we pointed those two sides out, even back before, like, the Friendlies last year, where he was going to get called up. And it was just like, we knew then, you know, once it was clear that Verde Bremen were just going to be one of those soccer teams that doesn't score goals, it was, it was like clear. that there was not going to be an answer. You know, whoever was making point one and whoever was making point two, there would be no, there would be no, like, determination there

until he either moves clubs or he gets chances with the national team and shows that he could do it with the national team. Like those were going to be the only two ways we could make progress on the question. And so this is going to be one of his first real chances to prove one of those sides right. Yeah. I mean, maybe there's some pressure on him to perform

so that he, you know, he can get the move that I think we all, hope he gets to a further up the table Bundesliga club or you know somewhere else i don't know i don't know what his chances are i'm no i'm no agent or scout but i do i hope that he ends up at a at a club that's you know more mid table in the bundesliga um you know i was just on the total soccer show we just recorded like an hour ago and uh we talked about dk versus sergeant and i put this question to to taylor and joe i said if you're playing centerback which I know you're a goalkeeper, but imagine yourself playing centerback.

Who would you rather play against? Josh Sargent or Darrell D.K.? So, I mean, as a centerback, for me, I'd rather play against Sargent. Yeah, everybody would. Everybody would. And I think, you know, whether this idea of like having a striker who is pushing the line and dragging the centerbacks around and really physical and difficult to deal with and who is like going to get on the end of stuff.

Now, I don't know that D.K. is quite a czar-ist level at like getting on the end of stuff. But I think D-K is a little more dangerous at getting on the end of stuff than Sargent is. Again, we go back to that sort of, is it lack of service? Is it lack of movement? You know, that whole the Doyle dilemma. But, you know, at a certain point, soccer is a game where individuals are competing

on the field against other individuals. and D-K is an imposing individual, you know, and Sargent's not. And so I worry a little bit that we're doing, you know, one way to interpret 2019 is Burrhalter being like hyper-focused in like an almost Dustin Hoffman sort of way on the system. And then, and then, you know, calling in players who didn't seem that good because they, like, fit the system. And that's another, that's a way to interpret maybe the sergeant versus D.K. thing.

I'm just saying, I'm not saying I feel this way. I'm just saying it's a way to think about it. Like, Sergeant, Sergeant fits the system. Therefore, he starts, D.K. doesn't fit the system. But like, when it comes down to it in the minute, in the 60th minute, when somebody plays a ball up top and D.K. receives it, it's more dangerous than when Sergeant does. That could be true. I won't even necessarily disagree with that.

I think the counter would be, okay, but what about in the 65th minute when the ball gets played into the forward's feet? Who do you want to be giving the ball to your best player, Christian Pulisic? And that's the rub for me. And so while as a centerback, I'm going to take a much bigger beating playing against DK than I am against Sergeant. I'll take that beating, but then we'll win the game. We won the game. I'm all bruised up and I got my ass handed to me several times and put on the ground and whatever. But Christian Pulisick was less involved in the game and we won.

Yeah. And even that's, I mean, I'm not trying to make any, I'm not trying to like beg the question that D.K. can't involve Christian Pulis again the game because we haven't seen that yet. But Greg Burhalter is not unfamiliar with what Daryl D.K.'s strengths are. Like I said, Seba Choo's only been in that one camp and he got picked. D.K. had the whole January camp with Burhalter. So Burrhalter's had D.K. for an extended time to examine what those strengths are, what his abilities are and where he can contribute and maybe what his limitations still are.

So when we're talking about we haven't seen yet whether he can combine with those players, it would surprise me if Burrhalter hasn't been putting him in those situations in those camps and trainings to find exactly that out. And maybe he just doesn't see it happening yet. Yeah. What a good answer. I mean, whatever. I'm super, I want D.K. to start against Switzerland and I want him to start against Costa Rica in the friendly. And I hope he just absolutely dominates.

Yeah. And I hope he combines really neatly with Brendan Aronson and Timuea. Right. Yeah, I mean, there's almost no attacking lineup that we put out there that isn't very interesting in any of these next four games. So count your blessings, America. Let's see. We got Pulisick and McKinney staying in the Champions League. Just a little news rundown here.

Staying in the Champions League, thanks to results over the weekend. Tim Wea won Liga-A-A-uh. Amazing. Just an amazing story. Very handsome man. I am coming around to that point of view. And I'm going to put a picture of him with this podcast episode. Face of the team for the next 10 years.

Just that tiny little mustache. Let's see. Sergeant relegated, of course. We already mentioned that. Tears in his eyes on the side. just another, it was just a hopeless. It was just a hopeless afternoon at Ferder Bremen. It's really hard to watch.

So that's rough. And then Pulsick playing in Champions League final Saturday. You left Julian Green's promotion? Oh, yeah. That didn't make the cut. It scored a goal. There's a lot that probably I should be mentioning here. Yeah, Green getting promoted, automatic promotion for Groiter Firth.

And what else? What else is going on? So CCV and D, surely everyone who listens to us knows all these things the minute they have. You heard it here first. DK and CCV both bow out in the promotion semifinals in the championship. So somewhat disappointing, but also most likely neither of those players would have stayed with those teams had they gone up.

Because once you go up, you need to upgrade in certain spaces until you're probably not going to spend money on the low knees that you had on. Or in D.K.'s case, Barnsley probably wouldn't have been able to afford him. I don't know once they're promoted. Yeah. CTV's worth talking about because he is that good compliment for John Brooks, athletic, fast, responsible, prone to a red card now and then. But I think he is a little bit of an omission here, I think. And he's been omitted basically since day one by Burrhalter, right?

Yeah, he got one of the friendlies prior to the Gold Cup, so he was in the camp for a little bit. leading up to the Gold Cup cuts didn't do anything really noticeable one way or the other in his appearance and we just haven't heard from him again Burrhalter in that interview with Warshaw you listen to you know the whole thing like the first 10 15 all right he has a you should

everyone should listen to it it's a great interview Warshot did a great job and I really like listening to Burrhalter speak but Berhalter did say that there was some communication issues that he was apologizing to a player for for not communicating ahead of time the player was not listed on the provision roster and burrhalter said that when he reached out of the player of the player just assumed that that meant his national team career was over and he didn't he didn't really go into any more

detail about that so i didn't so it's just like that is just eating away at me which player was it obviously i'm like he's definitely talking about dwayne holmes yeah who what's the universe of possibility there homes ccv timmy chanel uh could have been julian green Chandler, Green wasn't on the provisional roster, but it also could have been somebody who had a long career like Michael Bradley, like Josie Altador. Yeah. That's probably about it, man.

All right, somebody's... Kenny Seff, Kenny Seff wasn't on the provisional roster. Somebody's got to do a freedom of information request, man. We've got to get these emails. All right, anything else we should talk about here? No, we should enjoy the Switzerland. We should enjoy the Champions League final. We should enjoy the,

friendly on Sunday Go nuts. The women's team announced their 23 player roster for their summer series leading up to the Olympics. Those games should be great. Three games down in Texas in the next couple weeks. Yeah. I think basically dovetailing

with the men's games. Okay. Should we do 11s for the, should we do an 11 for the Switzerland game, or is it just too many variables with the other three games coming up? Well, let's go ahead and do them with all the variables.

Because at this point, the variables aren't, I mean, we know roughly which player, if you're going to go with, like, arrested group or trying to arrest a group for Honduras, then that kind of only leaves you a few players to go with. So it'll tell us what your priorities would be. Well, you know, a point Joe Lowry made, which I had not thought of, was if Berhalter really wants to take this experiment to its logical conclusion, this, like, you know, Switzerland does a proxy for the club game at the beginning, like right before the beginning of the,

international window. Then he need... Did Joe say he should have left the MLS guys in country? No. No, he didn't say that. Oh, okay. He did say, no, he did say, though, that you need to start your... You need to start everybody against Switzerland who you think might be playing over the

weekend. So, like, maybe set yourself up with, like, a worst-case scenario. Everybody going 90 against Switzerland. Yeah. Yep. But this is my marathon scenario where I don't think when you're training for a marathon, you never run the whole marathon. You just need to take them.

through the paces a little bit. So you need to get your body used to the, okay, we just had a game, so we were mentally prepared for that. Then we had to get on an airplane and do that. So for me, going through those motions, trumps the actual minutes on the body. Like cut the miles on the legs as much as you can while still going through the motions.

But I did think, it did occur to me that, like, LeJet should still be in California. The Galaxy have a game that weekend. Why not just play your game with the Galaxy? And then come, and then come to that's a good point that's a good point yeah

Joe didn't make that point so he is he remains limited in some ways very few though okay I'm gonna say against Switzerland I'm gonna hope for Natchewa start and and then Destet left back

candidate right back Brooks and McKenzie I'm gonna go with McKenzie we talked about this on the slack last night a little bit and I was torn between McKenzie and Miyazga, but I think you guys persuaded me that it should be McKenzie. And then, yeah, Adams, McKinney, Musa, Poulosik, Raina, Sergeant.

And then take everybody off at the half. Not everybody, but several of them. You can't. You can only take five guys off. In the friendly? Yeah, you get five subs. So do you have six, maybe six subs? Six subs. I don't know.

So you're taking your whole front six off? Well, maybe Adams take Adam. I mean, Adam's not going to play, is he? Let's just go, let's go Musa McKinney, Legit. There's your wish list lineup? All right. I've got Horvath starting, but if it's Ochoa, that'd be fun. I think there's plenty of time for Ochoa to get games.

I shouldn't even say it. There isn't. We're going to qualifying, it's going to be a whirlwind, like eight straight windows. So if Ochoa doesn't play here and doesn't go to the Gold's Cup, then he's not going to get games. Right. But whatever. I'm indifferent. I'm still going to Horvath.

Sticking with it. I've got Tim Ream and Mark McKenzie. I love Tim Ream. Let's run them out there as Brooks is understudy. I don't want John Brooks playing three straight games. I've got Jackson Ewell and Legette and McKinney in the midfield where Musa comes on for McKinney like a halftime. Get him out. Let's just pack him a nice.

Costa can come in for Leggett or. you will, it doesn't matter. Then my fullbacks, who I have way up high, so that's why I didn't read them in the right order, would be, I've got Anthony Robinson and DeAndre Yedlin. So I did the opposite of you. I'm going like all backups, almost all backups for my, for my line. I know you basically started our full strength theme. I've got Aronson and Wayas starting on the wings and D.K. up top.

Okay. Yeah, well, like I said, like I said, I should stress. so that I don't get like, that is not what I think is our strongest lineup available. I think it's like kind of the opposite. It's actually like almost a completely rotated group. Well, one of the, one of the like the dirty little secrets of this podcast is we can say whatever we want on the podcast and we never get in trouble for it. It's what we say on Twitter that gets us in trouble. So like the people who come after us on Twitter don't actually listen to the podcast for the most part.

So we could come out here and be like Michael Bradley at the six, Josie Altadol. regardless of his physical condition at the nine. Lovitsa left back. I mean, nobody's going to care because the people who listen to the podcast, they're our friends. We're a family. No, man, there's some,

when I was talking about Roldon, I got some for it. That's true. Even though I specifically said Roldon is here because I don't think he's one of our top eight-eightes. That's his whole job. I would contend, though, that it was in the first 10 minutes of the podcast because anybody who comes after you for that has a low.

attention span and probably a low IQ. Let's see. You're saying that now, but I'm putting Roldon on the Gold Cup squad, so I am going to hear. Why not? Why not Rodon on the Gold Cup squad? So what do you think, what do you think Burrhalter's going to do? What you just said, roughly? Yes.

I mean, I do, but I do by like a 60-40 margin that I think he'll field a really, really weakened. I mean, if we're going to call it that, a weakened lineup. Okay. On the weekend. All right. Tune in on Paramount Plus on Sunday, or if you're like me, TUDN. Is that game on, even the Switch on Games on Paramount Plus? I know the Nation's League games are, but I just assume that the friendly would be covered.

Scratch that. I don't know. I actually don't know for sure. You're going to have to look up what channel that game's on. All right. We're not the marketing direct arm of our movie. Look, we're not some. We're not some.

We, Paramount Plus is what's airing in English is airing the Nations League games. That's for sure I know that. All right, let's get out of here. Thanks everybody for listening. Good to see you, Greg. We'll see you.