Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #181: Gold Cup roster wishlist and projection

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

Long episode on the Gold Cup roster, who we’d like to see from the 60-man preliminary roster, and who we think Berhalter is likely to select.0:30 intro and USMNT Gold Cup roster1:06:13 the USWNT Olympic rosterFor anybody looking to learn or brush up on their Spanish, check out Jesse Howe’s private tutoring. He gave Belz a free lesson to help improve Belz’s poor pronunciation of Central American names, and it was great: https://www.qualitytutorsintl.com/To join the Scuffed Podcast Discord and support the podcast with your money, visit https://www.patreon.com/scuffed  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. Good to be back together. After all that Nation's League glory and some time to think it over, today we're going to focus on the Gold Cup roster. What we'd like to see, what we're likely to see. Larger considerations beyond the list of call-ups for this tournament will come up because the World Cup qualifiers are fast approaching. We're also going to talk about the women's roster for the 20th. 2020 Olympics taking place in, as you know, 2021 in Tokyo. Greg, how you doing? Bells, how do you think I'm doing? We've got a 60-man provisional roster, which is just nerd heaven for us. Seeing as how we already have 23 players, not on that list, or about 20. So we're essentially looking at like the 80-deep roster of the U.S. men's national team.

We've got the women's roster for the final Olympic squad. We've got rumors surrounding a lot of other Concaf rosters for Gold Cup, which are intriguing to stay the least. So it is a good week for spreadsheet nerds. Yeah, the news is that Mexico and Canada may be bringing A squads or something resembling A squads when we are definitely not. Right. So Mexico, again, this isn't official.

The official ones will be released very late June or first day of July-ish. But the rumored Mexico squad is effectively a full-strength squad. minus a couple of overage guys who might go to Tokyo for the Olympics. Alfonso Davies rumored to be in the Canada final squad, which effectively makes it an A squad. Right. His inclusion. The Jamaica Provisional List has a ton of,

I mean, has all of their big hitters plus like their dual national targets that haven't been capped necessarily yet, but that are rumored to our switch and be joining up for Jamaica. So that adds a whole new element to what they could bring to a tournament and to qualifying. Yeah. And we're in a group with Canada,

so that's, we may face Alfonso Davies and the rest of that A team, whatever that consists of. Right. So even just to go on a tiny little gold cup tangent there for the knockouts or for the path we could see, if we're playing Canada for the first and second place in the group,

which again, don't even assume that that will necessarily, the case, but if we are, and we lose and finish second in the group, the side of the bracket that would likely put us in would be a quarter final game against either Costa Rica or Jamaica. It'd be the winner of that group. And then the semifinal would be the winner of Mexico's group, most likely. So that could potentially be a like Jamaica or Costa Rica in the quarter, Mexico and the

semi, and then whoever in the final, if we don't win our group. Yeah. Conca Calf Murderers Row as it goes. But here's the question I have is, like, I've been sort of training myself to think of this Gold Cup not as a tournament that we were, you know, even expecting to win because we sent all our best players to Nations League. Burhalter said very early on he weren't, he wasn't going to send the same players. He sent to Nations League to the Gold Cup.

So, like, you know, am I wrong to not really care if we do that well in the Gold Cup? it essentially turns into a slightly better version of the Olympic qualifying group, right? So in that one, the consequence of missing out on the Olympics was that we didn't get to see our team play in the Olympics, which would have been a lot of fun. So, but yes, the overall consequence as far as how it affects our first team going into World Cup qualifying, which is sort of the big high stakes matches. I think you're right. I will say that I think it's actually great that our opponents could be bringing their strongest squads or roughly their strongest squads

because if the whole point is to audition guys to see how they could hold up in qualifying, I'd much rather see them playing against the toughest teams if they get humbled, they get humbled, and that would be really good information to have rather than kind of what we saw in a lot of the friendlies leading up to Nations League where we're just destroying El Salvador's backups,

destroying Trinidad's backups. Like, let's actually see how we look against their best players. If we're going to really test these guys out, let's have it be a meaningful test. Yeah, for sure. But that's how I'm thinking about it is as a test for these players, for these 15 to, the players ranked number 15 to 40 and the scuff top 40, you know, made it rest in peace. And if they've gotten, like, destroyed against the backup teams, that would have also told us a lot. but it kind of just felt like that wouldn't happen.

Like if Canada were sending their reserves and it just felt like we would probably navigate our way through. And just like in 2019, it'd be like you can stumble your way to the final in a lot of time, a lot of gold cup additions. This just makes it feel like we can't do that. Like this makes it feel like our opponents will punish us if we don't execute. If we aren't good enough, we'll see it and it'll come out in the outcomes rather than just in kind of. of like unconvincing victories. Like Alfonso Davies will beat you. And Canada's already shown that they will beat even our best players if the execution

isn't there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Even more reason to be excited about the Gold Cup. And so the, again, the provisional roster is 60 names. We're not going to just list all 60 right now, but we will go through the whole thing because we're huge nerds.

And at this point, if you're listening to us, you're not here for brevity. No. I think what we're going to do is go through position groups. So we'll tackle each group as a position group and say who we kind of would like to see. Maybe if there are any players we don't really want to see, which hopefully it doesn't get as mean-spirited as it might sound at first glance. And then who we expect Burrhalter to bring. Yep.

And I should say, go ahead. I was going to say, and we talk about snubs, but it's a 60-man roster, and literally the only snubs are Luca della Torre, who, as we all expected, is out for club purposes, as along with, I assume, Dwayne Holmes and Kenny Seth for the same reasons. And then, like, when the roster came out, I think my literal reaction was like, so the only non-club snub here is Keaton Parks, right? Out of 60 names. Yeah.

And that's really stretching. Yeah. We're to the point where I think it's hard to talk about snubs, period, just because the high end quality is so high, at least on paper. and everybody else is kind of in a close proximity to one another. Right. You just have this morass of players. Yeah.

I was going to use the word morass later in the podcast. Now you've ruined it for me. Was that in your notes? Did I see your notes? My subconsciously stole it? We can use it twice. We can double up on morass. I had Murderer's Row ready to go for the women's segment.

Boy, we're stepping all over each other. As we're going through this, we're going to pull a few questions from the Discord. And that's, this is a good opportunity for me to mention. The patron-only Discord is live and well. You can join it by joining the Patreon. I'll put a link in the show notes. We're having good discussions in several channels there. And it's like people are disagreeing with me at least.

And nobody ever disagrees with you, but I get disagreed with all the time. So it's like, you know, it's a marketplace of ideas. I'm taking a little, I'm taking a little guff for hyping, up Shea so much and his somewhat disappointing performance last night. I thought you said, I thought you were talking about Breck Shea for just a second there. Chee, Chee, Chee. Gotcha. It's going to be really important to hit that, yeah, to hit that.

And then there's also a nice discussion of the Red Bull development pathway in the baby Nats channel. So check that out if you are so inclined. One question from the Discord comes from Jordan, Nat fan number nine. he said maybe discussed the relative roster strengths of the U.S. versus potential opponents. And I think we kind of already discussed that. So you're welcome, Jordan. The other thing I'm seeing is people saying that, you know,

Mexico's running their guys into the ground. And it's possible that they're going to, you know, put them in a, I think if anything, that will have more to affect on their players' club seasons than their potential for qualifying. Like, I'm sorry, I just don't think Mexico are going to 2014 and be in any danger. of not qualifying. Yeah, they got enough. They got enough horses.

Yeah, that's a question from PC. Do you think there's a real risk of burnout or will Mexico, Canada, benefit from bringing their A teams? I tend to think they will probably benefit to some extent. And the burnout risk, like you said, is not so high that it's going to ruin their qualification campaign. I don't think it would do that for Canada either. You know, unless Alfonso Davies and Jonathan David both come up with like season-ending injuries in the Gold Cup, that would be bad.

Okay, let's get into the roster. The men's roster. Starting with goalkeeper. We're going from back to front, as is the preferred method. Matt Turner, Sean Johnson, Tim Miela, who I was very excited to see his name there, Brad Guzan and Bill Hamid. Yeah, and we're just going to say who we'd like to see here and who we wouldn't like to see. I guess I just want to see Matt Turner. I don't really care about the rest of it.

That's my position. I want to see Turner start. I'd be upset if anyone else is like the number one starter. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the backups gets a game in the group stage, though, again, we might not have the luxury we had last time where we had actually qualified advancement, and we were just playing to decide the winner of the group in 2019 in the final group stage. game against Panama. But again, even in that game, whether you finish first or second, the Concaf had been rigging the tournament effectively to keep the U.S. and Mexico on separate sides

of the bracket. So you'd never play Mexico unless you were in the final. They didn't do that this year. So now winning the group and coming in second in the group could be the difference between Mexico in the semi or Mexico in the final. Okay. So if we, like you said earlier, if we get second in the group and we beat whoever we face in the quarterfinal, then we play Mexico, assuming they make it in the semifinal. If we will get first in the group, don't see Mexico until the final. Right. First in our group and first in Mexico's group are on different sides of the bracket.

First in our group and second in Mexico's group and vice versa are on the same side of the bracket for the semis. So all that to say, it's very positive, it's almost assured that all three group stage games will matter. It seems really unlikely that we would have already won the group with a game to spare. So we might not see the backup goalkeeper. It might be number one goalkeeper. the whole way because we can't afford to take any risks in any game.

Okay. So Matt Turner. Yeah, I mean, he's been... He's been incredible. He's been incredible. I mean, he had that highlight real game over the weekend and a 3-2 win, had some incredible saves. Yeah, it'll be really fun to see him in a wide open goalkeeper battle for the men's national

team, number one. And this is another case where... Playing stronger opponents is going to be a much better test. I was like, okay, well, we'll play three-week group stage games, and, you know, he might not see a shot on goal, but I feel like that's not going to be the case this time around. I would like to see Tim Melia make it, and I feel like it wouldn't just be like a nice jester.

He's a really good goalkeeper, and I want to see him on the squad. Okay, okay. Who are we, I know we have Canada and Martinique in our group. Who are we, who are the two teams vying for that fourth spot? in our group. Do you remember? So it's four teams. Okay. And it's Haiti.

It's like St. Vincent. I had it. I listed them at some point. I think it's Bermuda. And then I don't remember who the fourth possibility is. But they're playing in like a little semi-final the week before the Gold Cup opens to to secure that last spot. And there are I think three of those little semifinals going on, three little four-team tournaments.

Haiti. The last three of opens. Haiti's a, can be a respect. opponent so absolutely um all right let's move on to left back because i think i think the goalkeeper situation i think we both we agree give turner all the all the minutes he can bear and let's see how that goes left back who we got so left left back provisional roster inclusions are uh sandbines george bellow kevin parades uh is jonathan gomez yes jonathan gomez yes jonathan and Chase Gaspers.

And we're including Paredes, I think, in the left-back situation based in part on Greg Burrhalter, George Berhalter's comments in his interview with Bobby Warshaw. Yeah, he name-checked Paredes at some length when Warshaw asked him if there's anybody knew who we can expect to see in the Gold Cup. Now, he didn't go so far as to say he's definitely going to be in the roster, but talked about him a little bit, said he can play full-back. even though he acknowledges that Perides has mostly played left wingback, as I think has exclusively played wingback for DC United.

So, yeah, that caught my ear. Because I kind of had Paredes, Gomez, and Bello in the same category. Like, none of them is entirely convincing for various reasons. Gomez plays in USL. Bello plays for a not very good Atlanta United team. It doesn't always look that great. Paredes, you know, DC United is not that great. But, you know, the fact that Burrhalter specifically mentioned him unprompted,

or at least unprompted to mention him, it's kind of interesting. Yeah. And again, Burrhalter is really, really intentional and I think very specific in the way he speaks. And in this one, I think he sort of steered Bobby's question towards brand new names on the 60 man roster. So less about like the final Gold Cup roster and more just like trying to come up with somebody who we just never seen on a roster before.

Okay. So that wouldn't include Bellow. You know, I mean, Bella wouldn't, bellow's been capped under Burrhalter. So I'm not, I'm not reading quite as much into it. It'd be cool to see. I mean, almost any of these guys would be pretty, pretty fun to see.

It'd be interesting. But we assume Sam Vind's on there, right? Yeah, I think, and I'm glad you said that, because I think Vines, even though I'm excited about Gomez, Paredes, and Bello, not as excited about Gaspers, to be honest, but I'm excited about those three young guys. Even though I'm excited about them, I think the drop off from Vines to them is pretty significant still, just in terms of like reliable defending. What are you smiling about?

I'm picturing Chase Gaspers in the next post-match press conference talking about you as a hometown guy who never had your back. I'm not a hometown guy. I'm not from Minnesota. I was a ex-patriot in Minnesota for an extended period of time. If people weren't following all the women's national team goings on, that was a reverence to Carly Lloyd saying that I think about Jonathan Tannenwald. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Beef, there's so much beef in U.S. soccer these days.

I feel like the beefing has pulled back a little bit on the men's side in the last 12 months or so. I mean, Josie's been beefing. Jason Christ is beefing. That was a, we got significant beef in the last six months. Yeah, I guess I would quibble with the word significant. So, so I want to see Vines and then one of those three young guys I'd like to see in the final roster, but I don't have a strong preference on which. But we want to see, we want to see Vines against Albert Elise, right? we want to see him against Lozano.

Like this would be, these would be the tests, the matchups we want to see, because if we're going to use him in qualifying, that's what he's going to have to do. Yeah. And I think there's a... Leon Bailey, like, let's see this. Right, totally. There's a big picture thing here where it seems to me, one thing we learned from the Nations League window is that Sergenio Dest is not only better

on the right. Well, he might be just as good in the attack on the left. I don't want to get into that. But he is, I don't want to see him on the left next to John Brooks because that is too much, that's too weak of a defending left half of your defense. And I just, it just scares me, especially when we play good opponents to have Desk next to Brooks. Not because Desk, I mean, not because Desk absolutely can't do it, just hasn't really done it yet. So let's play Dest on the right and let's identify.

a left back who can defend and is just reliable in possession and maybe occasionally gets forward. So I think Robinson is in pole position. Anthony Robinson is in pole position even though he is a bit chaotic. I'll say it again, especially in possession. Especially on the slopes of Austria. Oh man, was he ever? Yeah.

Super chaotic in that case. And when he was tackling Geoerrena from behind on a 45 degree incline. But, but, I tell you that that's my second theory on, on Eunice Musa not playing. It's because he actually got hurt when Anthony Robinson did him on the slopes and they didn't want to announce that that was the reason. I never heard that theory. This is totally just made up in, there's no grounding to this whatsoever, even less grounding than my theory that he was just delaying his cap tying for another window. Yeah. Well, I think, so I think it's Robinson in pole position because, because he has a speed and the, you know, sort of different.

defensive chops. I mean, he can defend. And he can occasionally get forward. But then who's the second? Who's second in line? And maybe we can find somebody who is a little better than Robinson in possession and provides a little bit of that getting forward. Although, like, because Brooks is back there at left centerback,

we don't want Robinson to be bombing forward all the time. So Vines is in the conversation. That's how I'm looking at it. I mean, he's in the conversation. He's on the provisional roster, so he's definitely in the conversation. No, there's saying he's in your conversation. Right. Yeah.

He's in my conversation. Whereas Gasper is in the provisional roster, but not in my conversation. Gotcha. Well, Vines will immediately, you know, be a much louder portion of the conversation if he puts Albert Elise in his pocket for a match. You know what I mean? Like that's, so this is the chance he's got to seize it. I wouldn't say Vines ever got like pantsed or done in the Olympic debacle down in Guadal

Alhara. So he doesn't have any of those sort of like a giant red flags. So but those were against the kids. And so now he's got to do it against against the grownups. Yep. That's it. I think it's a really good opportunity for Vines to establish himself as a national team player. And maybe Bello Gomez, even Gasper or Paredes surprises us.

All right. Centerbacks. We've got Miles Robin. Walker Zimmerman, Cameron Carter Vickers, Eric Palmer Brown, Henry Kessler. Do I get his name right?

I feel like I'm getting it wrong. Yeah, it's Henry Kessler. I always think like Henry Kissinger, and I'm like, surely his name isn't Henry Kissinger, Kessler. Justin J. Donovan Pines, Austin Trustee. Yeah. I'm going to say the ones I want to see

are Miles Robinson, Cameron Carter Vickers, Walker Zimmerman, and Justin Che. And that nails the four I wanted to see even before this provisional roster came out. I think that there's some elements of Carter Vickers having a lot of these European guys are going to have this. Questions around their club situation. He's still on the books at Tottenham's.

He's pretty clearly not going to play there. So he's got to sort that out going into the season. So I'm not sure what that means for his Gold Cup inclusion. but I'm hoping that it's solved around the Gold Cup. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you've been on the CCV appreciation train for a long time now, even when it wasn't fashionable. It was fashionable and then it wasn't. And now it maybe is a little bit and Greg's been faithful all along.

Well, you know, when Richards isn't available, when Aaron Long's out, like we've got to find somebody who can, you know, give us some cover. And when we were talking about like this group of guys we had in this provisional roster, I think Robinson and Zimmerman are sort of like clear leads, certainly if you're projecting out Burralter's depth chart. And then out of the other guys included, for me it was a question of like, if you're trying to win a soccer game now, surely Cameron Carter Vickers is ahead of the other guys on that list. Yeah, I think that's totally fair. Now, I think Miles and Zim sort of speak for themselves. But I think Che probably deserves some explanation given his, I think, I think, I think, somewhat disappointing performance at right wingback for Dallas last night.

He didn't look amazing. And I think you got to give him a little leeway for two reasons. One, he's very, three reasons. One, he's very young. Two, he's, this is his first time out with Dallas since coming back from Byron. And then, and three, Dallas is an absolute dumpster fire. Like nobody on that team looks good. it's a soul-destroying process to watch one of their soccer games.

And I guess it's because I always go into it thinking, oh, this is going to, we're going to see somebody play well tonight, you know, one of these young guys. Pepe was in the starting lineup, Ferreiro was in the starting lineup, Che was in the starting lineup, Pomacall came off the bench. But man, it was so, so bad. And I don't know, how much can you take away about any individual player's performance

from a game like that when the team is just in such disarranted? Ray. Yeah, it's the Verde Bremen effect, and it's, you're trying to pull like a couple of, you're trying to see if they can pull any positive moments out of that sort of fire. And Heserer pulled a couple out, not that we're talking about him right now, but just a couple that, you know, were eye catching. He had an absolute gem of a 45-year-old, 45-yard, you know, lofted ball over the top that O'Brien, I think, just absolutely massacred his first touch. The correct pronunciation would be, O'Brien. O'Brien.

Apologies. Yeah, just turned it into a nothing. Couldn't even get a shot off. Got played clear in on goal, like a youth soccer breakaway, made a meal of it and destroyed Jesus Ferreira, expected assist stats on the play. It's going to matter for teams that are shopping him. O'Brien had, maybe the worst soccer game I've ever seen

a professional soccer player play last night. It was so, so bad. but let's not dwell on that. Is it possible to get Jim Curtin to coach both Philadelphia and Dallas? Can he, what are his, does he enjoy flying? I don't want to be mad at Lucci. I mean, like he, you know, he's played a huge role in the best academy in the U.S. Formerly the best academy in the U.S.

It's Philadelphia now, right? Okay, I guess it is probably Philadelphia now. I don't know. I'm not ready. Talk about your, talk about spending 30 minutes watching an 11-year-old play soccer. I didn't, I didn't spend, for the record, I watched the first six minutes of that tape. That's it. We have to mention this, since we're talking about the Philadelphia Union Academy for some reason,

this kid named Kevin Sullivan that has a new highlight reel, 26 minutes long on YouTube. Posted by his brother Quinn Sullivan, right, who is a Philadelphia Union player, also. a child. Yeah. So he's a child and he posted his younger brother's highlight video. Yep. And it is a very impressive highlight video. An 11-year-old playing soccer.

Against 14-year-olds. And absolutely dominating. I think he scored like 3 million goals last year or something. So anyway. I'm not laughing because I'm saying he's never going to turn into anything. I'm laughing because it's very unlikely that he plays a part in the 2022 World Cup cycle. Yeah, I'll agree with that I mean, it's just as likely that he doesn't play a part in any World Cup cycle as that he does.

There's a lot more that goes into it than being a baller, you know, as we know. Okay, which brings us back to Justin Chey. And your first sort of a mulligan for him was that he's young. And I just want to say that that leeway at this point has a lot less wiggle room when World Cup qualifiers are six months away than it did back in. 2018 when we started the podcast. Two months away. Two months away, yeah. When we started the podcast and we had two and a half years and as Peter Vermeis reminded us, what we had was time. What we had on our side was time. That is no longer the case for a lot of these prospects. So you've got to be it now. You know, to a certain extent, if you're not there now, you can't use like, oh, but I'm only

18 or I'm only 19. I'm going to get better. That's great. I want you to get better. And I hope you do. But we've got to win, we have some must win games in September. That's fair. And in that in that spirit if he if he plays in dallas's next game which i wouldn't say is guaranteed uh if he plays and he doesn't look significantly better than he did last night then he comes off this roster and we're going with eric palmer brown for me i would take it i wouldn't know be mad about that that's in my conversation but again for me i'm it's kind of like turner i'm expecting zimmerman and miles to uh eat up almost all of the real minutes in this competition and everyone and whoever else is there is going to be get introduced to the cam get introduced to

the program okay ccv might break in because again i think he's a guy who can win you some games today yeah uh at this level but uh i i'm not expecting austin trustee even if he's there i'm not going to be too mad because i don't think austin trustee is going to be starting in the in the knockout games could be wrong could be wrong hopefully hopefully i'm not underselling austin trustee let's go to right back who do we have so at right back we've got reggie cannon who's the first repeat name from the nation's league roster first guy to be on both those rosters in our list shackmore who i'm super excited to see even on the provisional roster julina rajo uh kyle duncan and erin harrera uh what are you excited about from that group well i don't want to see

uh i don't think we need to see cannon anymore in this camp even though he probably is the top of the pecking order here. So I'd like to see Shack Moore and Julian Arahu. That's who I'd like. And you want to go, you want to elaborate on it at all? Are you just like, that's who I just want to see? I'm just curious about Shack Moore. You know, he was in the mix.

He was in the conversation a couple years ago. And seems to, how long has it been since he's been called up? It's been a while, I feel like. He's never been called up for Burrhalter. I think he was in the, he played, I think, left back in Syracan's last game against Italy, I believe. He was starting and played fairly well in that win against France, you know, before France won the World Cup. Yep, most usually a right back. He got some run at left back in his, when he finally settled into a club in like the Spanish second division.

And then eventually transferred over to like right wing. And now I think is pretty much playing right back again. in Spain. Yeah, I've always kind of appreciated how he plays, and I think the right-back options we have outside of desk are all kind of tough to differentiate from each other. So let's bring in somebody else. I really like Kyle Duncan as a player, too.

I don't, so if he's there instead of a Raoho or even instead of more, I'd be fine with that. I see Herrera. I respect what Herrera does. I respect what he brings. But I just I don't I don't think he's a plus fullback at the international level And again, it's it's very likely that none of these guys will be that for us in this cycle in this qualifying cycle because again Sergenio Dest is is you know the nailed on

First Choice fullback we'll just call him the fullback whether he's right back or left back So these guys are all sort of fighting for a backup spot as it is So I'm not there aren't there aren't two names I'm gonna be too upset about seeing even if Fredi Kenon's on here. We do need some like continuity. So if Reggie Cannon is one of the continuity guys, I'd certainly prefer him over a few other continuity guys that we'll talk about in just a moment. Yeah.

Speaking of which, let's move to defensive midfield. All right. So at the six, if we're kind of building our team around that same four, three, three with a, with a six and two eights. Kellyn Acosta maybe as a six, he's on the provisional roster as a midfielder. could be a six or an eight. Jackson Ewell. So both those guys repeats from the Nation's League rosters.

James Sands, who's actually listed as a defender, but we threw him on here anyway because it's our show and we can do that. James Flack, Gianno Cabusio, Johnny, and Andres Pereja. So it's Johnny Cardoso and Leon Flock. I think James Flock was a press secretary for Nixon or something. I'm locked into the Nixon administration. You always were. All right.

All my spreadsheets just have the last names of these guys. And I never listen to games with audio or I never watch games with the audio broadcast on. So I never hear their names spoken out loud. So I'm always like guessing on pronunciations and apparently also first names. So you just listen on mute? Well, I got, I have small children and they're not going to have the soccer game audio on. We're listening to Peppa. Yeah.

Fair enough. I'm hearing Peppa and watching soccer. Yeah. Kids are always so reasonable about that kind of stuff. So I think I want to see, who do I want to see at the 6th? I want it to be Acosta and James Sands. I want to see Sands and I want to see Nixon spokesman Leon James Flock. No, I want to see Flock.

Why Flock? Tell me what you like about Flock. Basically just that he's 20 and he just walked in to a starting lineup for the supporter shield winners as a six I mean that's something right? Yeah I don't know is that anything? Yeah it's not it's something he works hard he's he's competent I don't know I wouldn't hate boozeo there either but for me I'd actually rather see Buzio somewhere else on the field if he's going to be included

maybe maybe that's maybe that's nonsense and it's clear at this point that he's this the six is his position but i'm still just looking for a little bit more defensive stoutness sturdiness i can i can point you to someone who maybe is not looking for that and that would be gregg burhalter uh and i so i i do sort of suspect that busio will be might be there as a six because he's so similar to jackson ewell And I assume Jackson Ewell will be there too That's what's gonna be I don't want to say crushing But I was also gonna say I wouldn't even mind seeing Eric Williamson Playing in the spot or getting a run out there

But should we address the Jackson Ewell Likely inclusion? Yes, please do The floor is yours Like it's a very serious matter that we need to Kids we have something we need to talk about Again, if he's included, I'm hoping that he absolutely just nails it and hits a line-breaking pass every fourth time the ball comes to him and just looks lights out. But it just feels like giving him more minutes after what we saw in the Honduras game, even a little bit of what we saw against Switzerland, is just using this time that we could be exploring somebody else instead. and I really, because if we bring him,

then we're probably only bringing one other six, unless we're doing the Olympic qualifying routine again, and we bring seven defensive mids and play them all out of position. So I just would, I just, my hope is that we just see other players do it. And they might all look terrible.

And we'll be like, all right, well, that's why Ewell's getting the minutes because Sands looks totally out of place and doesn't give us anything. And if that's the case, then fine, we've, Ewell's got 800 minutes under Burrhalter. He comes back in in September, I guess,

or we have to go a completely different direction, but it just feels like it'd be a bit of a waste, a bit redundant to run him back out. Yeah. I agree 100%. It does feel like we've beaten on this dead horse a lot over the months, but it, or especially over the last couple weeks. But that's how I feel about it too. I should say with regard to Busio, I have some people who are very furious with me for not

rating Boosio enough on Twitter. And I just want to say, I do, I think he's playing really. well. He does a lot of good stuff. He does a lot of stuff very nicely. He's technical. He can play that diagonal pass that we've come to associate with this position for the men's national team. He's even, he can even step forward with the ball and dribble past some guys. So there's a, he does a lot of things that are really nice. He's not defensively stout. And didn't you just say that basically? And I, and I'm just, I just can't, I can't abide that anymore from the position. We need people who

win battles and are alert to danger and shut things down. And that's why I really want to see James Sands. I think Acosta is fine in that position. We don't, we, the second six, fourth, eight dilemma is currently, in my view,

not a crisis because Acosta sort of is adequate in both of those roles. So I think he should get more reps, he should be sort of the bar for the other guys. Flock, I wouldn't be mad about Flock being involved in this roster at all, whether that's as a six or as an eight. Is that how his name is said?

Is it Flock? Sorry to take us back to pronunciations. I took a Spanish pronunciation class, not a German pronunciation class, so I don't know. All right. So to go back to Buzio, and again, I don't know, maybe his defense is up to par. We were saying the same thing about you all. Like maybe we're wrong and he can, he is above us, whatever threshold is required. But then he just got like done for athleticism so many times against Honduras in like one-on-one battles.

Once he gets done, he's not capable of recovering, which is another huge advantage that on Acosta had over him, where Acosta can recover after getting beat slightly. For Busio, again, if he can't hit that threshold, I don't think his distribution in any way like is so good that it over overweight, outweighs that. And that's always the question. If we put a guy in there whose distribution was just outstanding, like John Brooks level distribution from that spot, then you can, you know, settle for a little bit less of that defensive cage match winning. But if they're not, if they're still just basically an average distributor, then it just for me, there's no, there's no tradeoff. You don't have the tradeoff anymore. So you're just sacrificing,

ball winning, recovery, protecting John Brooks, which is a massive priority. and you're not getting anything in exchange for it. So I think I'm on the same boat, but I wouldn't mind seeing if Buzio is passable in either category, distributing or defensive jobs. Yeah, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be intrigued to see him in this roster, the final roster. But it's not what I would do.

Well, and just to go back on the Yule thing, the other thing I kind of worried about if worries even the right word, is that he would come in after that Hunter's game, and then he would look great against like these group stage of that would be really weak. But again, because some of these teams are bringing stronger rosters than we anticipated potentially, it could be the case where, again, if he can't do it, he will be re-found out. And maybe that would be the end of the experiment.

Or again, maybe he shows that Honduras was a one-off sort of bottle job, and he completely outclasses everyone on the field and midfield. He does seem to be in a funk because he plays. He had that, I think you put the clip on Twitter of him playing a pass across the field to basically nobody against Orlando City. San Jose lost this game 5 to 0, by the way. And it was picked up by Nani and a couple passes later found D.K.'s feet in the box and he slotted it in near post with his left foot. Two goals on the night for D.K. And not a good night for Jackson Ewell by all appearances.

So he's struggling right now, I think. And we've said it before. In Honduras, it very much looked like a mental thing. We talk sometimes about when you play better opponents or more intense opponents, windows are smaller, space starts to evaporate quickly. That wasn't necessarily even the case in the Honduras game. Like he was getting the ball with pretty big windows in a decent amount of space, and it was just like he just kind of turtling up a little bit and not hitting a pass

that we basically know that he is capable of hitting. So maybe he does just, maybe Burrhalter thinks he's just going to power through it. And these Gold Cup reps are necessary so that he can come out the other side for qualifying. Yeah. That's the optimistic take if he's, if he's on the list. Yeah. All right. Into the eights?

Yeah, the eights, let me to read them off. We've got, Hassani Dodson. We've got some fourth eights in here. Hassani Dodson, Cole Bassett, Frankie Amaya, Moses Nyman, Tanner Testman, Eric Williamson, Paxton Pomacall, Sebastian Legat, and then perhaps Kellan Acosta. Who do you want to see? I badly want to see Eric Williamson. I badly want to see Paxton Pomacall play 20 minutes a game.

And after that, I don't really care. If it's Legit and Acosta coming back in as sort of, again, those continuity picks, fair enough. I won't be too bothered about anyone else being excluded. And I'd even understand if Pomacall's excluded given his still limited participation for FC Dallas. Yeah, I was just going to ask you, how likely do you think he is to actually get called up

given that he doesn't start right now? And he comes on, well, he started one game over the weekend, I guess, but played only a half. He played 45, yep. His minutes are carefully managed. Right. And I think that we could do the same. I actually don't think that's that big a deal,

given the number, like, the fact that we would be carrying four eights anyway. I feel like it'd be easy to use him even knowing that his minutes are he can't play 90 he can never you can't start a game with him and play him 90 minutes or even probably 75 minutes you know he basically becomes an impact sub and for a lot of his FC Dallas appearances he has been an impact sub he's made an impact despite swimming as upstream as it is to swim for FC Dallas super upstreamy swimming there in frisco um Okay, I want I want to see Legette Pomacall, Williamson,

and and who else Bassett? Is it Costa one of your sixes? Yes, yeah, he is. Okay. I've got a Costa in Sands at the six

and I'll take Legit Bassett, Williamson, and Pomacall. Okay, I'm not mad about it. Any of them that you're like, don't include this player. Don't even want him taking up a spot. I think Nyman has a little ways to go. Dotson, I think I have a pretty good idea what kind of player he is. I don't think he's on the level of our first team or is going to get there soon.

But I'm not going to shut the door on anybody. I'm just like Greg. I'm going to move into the wingers. Okay. I never shut doors. And we'll say again, Luca de la Torre, from the reports essentially chose to be left off to make sure he got a full club preseasoning. Do we talk about the math there?

Should we talk about his math? Yeah, well, I don't know the math. What's the math? So in the report, at least in the interview on the athletic, he basically made it sound like that was him trying to put himself in his best position to get called up in September for qualifiers. It would be to have a really strong preseason with his club. and come out like hot for his club.

And for me, like that, that particular math is super backward. Like, I think that puts him in the best position for his club. But I feel like it seems almost unlikely that that's better than being right in front of the coach who would have to pick you for super meaningful games and getting four weeks with him. Yeah. I didn't know that he said that. That is, surely when he talked to Burrhalter about it, Burrhalter, would have disabused him of this notion? I don't think so.

I mean, Beralder seems like a guy who doesn't, he seems like that like guru who never is going to tell you what to do. I'll always just be like, well, what do you want to accomplish? How do you want to do this? Yeah. What are you trying to achieve? Then you've got to make the best decision for yourself. The best kind of guru, the Socratic one.

Okay, so that's the De La Toro situation. I do kind of wish he was here. I think you're right. I think he would have a better chance of getting called up in September if he performed well in the Gold Cup. He's already a starter for Heracles. What difference does it make if he's in preseason or not? I don't know. Whatevs, Luca?

I hope he does have a great season and preseason. All right, left wing. Who do we have as a possible left winger? We're kind of just making these up, these positions now. but and I forgot we're not calling them left wings anymore, Bells. Someone didn't update the sheet here. These are half-space merchants from now on. We're not calling them wingers.

I don't agree with that. It makes too many people angry that Geo Raina's still called a winger. Like, they can't get past it. So half-space merchants. So on the left half-space merchant. This is going to be horrible. We've got Julian Green, who again, I'm totally making this up. I have no idea if that's where Burralter sees him.

Julian Green could be one of the eights. Cade Cowell. Mamo Rodriguez, who I'm super excited about being on this list. Georgi Mahaolovich and Jonathan Lewis, neither of whom I'm super excited about seeing in the Gold Cup. No, let's not see them in the Gold Cup. And can I just do another little rant here? Yeah.

Tangent. We'll call them tangents. Please. Because I've seen people saying, like, are we trying to this are we trying to like give people additions like what's the priority here talking about who should be called up and i feel like for me my my like frustration guideline is going to be the dividing line is going to be like who helps us win world cup qualifying games like for those guys you bring them so i'm talking they're like walker zimmerman uh sebastian legett if he's on here it makes sense to

me he's a guy that we're going to use in world cup qualifying games it's other guys who would be considered like retreads uh who uh who would be considered like retreads uh who aren't going to help us necessarily win World Cup qualifying games that I'd rather see go to super experimental call-ups. So in this left wing spot, if it were coming down to Georgie and Lewis versus Green or Cowell, like for sure give me Julian Green and Kate Cowell for this tournament. Or Memo. I would actually pretty much really enjoy seeing Memo on here too.

Yeah, I want to see Green and Cowell. That's how I'm looking at it. but memo i wouldn't i wouldn't be mad about memo i i i do definitely want to see green so if if memo's going to be there let's pull let's pull cowl out and let him bake a little bit longer in the almeda oven all right and cow could be i guess a run a candidate forward too who knows who knows where he fits in yeah right wing is the options are paul a i'm sorry what i'm sorry what did you oh yeah i'll i'll say it one time just to humor you Right half-space merchant, totally not an appropriate tag for Paul Areola, but Paul Ariola,

Caden Clark, Christian Roldon, Chris Mueller, and Corey Baird. Interesting that we have rolled on in this spot rather than as a midfielder. Yeah, pure speculation here based on what he's been doing for Seattle. He's been playing more of like a front three position, very much. much a half-space merchant rather than like a traditional center midfielder. And he's looked very good doing it. So it would not surprise me at all to see Burrhalter also make this adjustment. He did this with Brendan Aronson, took him out of central midfield for us, put him in that

half-space on the left side, has had good returns on it to date. So it wouldn't surprise me if he does the same as Roldon. Yeah. I want to see Aureola and Clark. I'm pretty sure on that. I just think it's hard to imagine a gold cup without Paul Ariola in it. And Caden Clark just announced this morning that it is official. He's going to RB Leipzig in the winter transfer window.

So that's a big deal. And, you know, I'm not sure he's the second coming of Christian Pulisic or, you know, whatever. I'm not sure he is as good as everybody thinks he is. But he certainly could be. And he's a good player in Major League Soccer right now. He's producing now in Major League Soccer. So that's one of those where it's like, yes, he's young. Yes, it's very possible, very likely.

He gets a lot better than he is right now. But we can still say that his production now would also be enough to warrant a call up for this kind of an event. Yep. Let's go to Stryker. But before we do, let me read a question from Eric Milazzo from the Discord. He says, I feel that any minutes given to Josie and Zardis will be wasted minutes that could go to Ibobese, Hopi, peppy, et cetera. Thoughts? So for me, it's exactly what I talked about before about my sort of like frustration cutoff.

I think Zardez could well be a guy we call up for World Cup qualifying. So if he's included, I'm not super mad. I would still prefer to see two or three other strikers on this roster just because, I still don't think the Zardez bar is that high of a bar to clear and some of these young guys could already be there or close to it. So I would rather get extended looks at them to find that out rather than using one of the slots on Jazi Zardez, who is an extremely well-known commodity for Greg Berhalter in particular.

So I guess I'll go D.K. and Ferreira if we're going to have two strikers. If there's a third, I'd take, I'd be okay with Zardis. I'd be okay with Pepe. I'd be okay with Eboise. Hopi. I'd even be okay with Hopi. I don't have that strong of an opinion about it. I just want to see D.K.

A lot. And, you know, watching Dallas last night, I'm kind of prisoner of the momenting myself here, but watching Dallas last night, Ferreira's just a better player than Pepe in combination. And if we want that out of our nine, Ferreira is the guy for me. Pepe, I'm still.

super like optimistic about his future but he's um he's still a little raw still a little raw and not certainly not a dominant striker but we're basically just talking degrees of curiosity here right like almost every name on this list or at least the ones you mentioned like you'd be pretty like all right cool at both i say like let's let's see what he does here let's see what he does with 20 minutes a game yeah yeah i'm afraid there's going to to be a lot of disappointment in these games when some of these guys come in, but maybe we won't get into that right now. So who are you, who are your two strikers or three? So I want D.K. to be there and I want, I'm hoping that he is like the primary, primary guy. But after that,

honestly, pick some names out of a half. I'm very curious about Rabin and sort of what he's gone through in his whole story and the fact that he's mostly looked pretty good, uh, since, since starting for Salt Lake. I'm a big Ferreira guy too, just for the style of play he has. I think it's super pleasing aesthetically. And I'm not above just wanting that for a gold cup. Hence my obsession with Kenny Seth.

So if it were D.K. Rubin-Ferra, I'd be very happy. If it's any other combination of names, I'll be like, oh, this will be cool to see also. Yeah, yeah. So should we, run through what are our actual preferred 23s here? All right, you've got yours?

Why don't you give yours first, and then I'll just say where mine differs from it, because there's going to be a lot of overlap. Okay, so I've got Turner, Johnson, and Malia in goal. Agree. This will be our first differential, I'm sure. Or do you still with me on that? Because you don't care about the goalkeepers. Yeah, I'm with you.

I'm with you on that. I just want Turner to be there. I am only bringing Sam Vines of the left backs. So all of you are like, I'm interested in all these different leftbacks. I'm like, cool, cool. Let's just bring Sam Vines and leave the other slot for somebody else that I'm more interested in in another position. Okay. Yeah, I want to see one of the three young guys, whoever, whoever Burhalter thinks deserves the opportunity.

All right. I've got, I've got Canon and Arahoe, but I would actually prefer more in Arahoe. So this is our, this is our call, right? give me shackmore and julia rajo shackmore would also provide some cover left back if we're only bringing vine so my bases are covered there but again we also have calen acosta who did it against mexico in a final so in a pinch calen accosta can play any position yeah uh yeah that's that's a really

good thing about a costa i think that versatility centerback who do you have i've got miles I've got Zimmerman, I've got Cameron Carter Vickers, and I say go ahead and bring Justin Che. Yep, I agree with that. I do with the caveat that if Che doesn't look better than he did last night, and his next appearance for FC Dallas, send him back down to, you know, whatever other place he can go to. And bring EPPB, Eric Palmer Brown. EPB or Kessler, because Kessler can play that left centerback role, which I don't really think that CTV plays a lot of or Zimmerman. on their weak foot, I think would be an unnecessary ask.

Okay. Defensive mid. So I've got, I've got Sands. I've got flock. Okay. I've got Acosta and Sands. Right. So there's some of our overlap then.

Give me Acosta, give me Legit, Pamacall, Williamson. Yeah, Legit. Williamson might end up playing some six. Right. It'll be a triple pivot, right? Yep. Legget Bassett, Williamson, and Pomacall for me.

So we differ in that I don't I'm not bringing flock That's basically the only difference Yep so far All right, my left wings Give me green let's do Mammo I want to see Mammo I think it'd be awesome Mamo and Green Yeah I'll stick with Cal and green just to keep it spicy

So let me jump on that one more time Because I didn't say this about Mamo before But Mamo is also like a tailor made fit for that like playing in the half space and I don't know that cowl really is so oh he's definitely not yeah is that is that safe to say yeah cowl's not going to come in and playmake in the half space and maimo can do that like that's that's what he does he basically plays as that very like tight in kind of like a tighter front three for houston so I think he's a very good stylistic fit for this group and I think julian green kind of would be too uh if he's not playing as an eight

Yeah. Right wings, I think we have the same ones in Areola and Clark, unless you've changed your mind. I'm going to go, I'm going to get throw a roll down a bone here, in part because Clark just had his appendix taken out. And I feel like it's going to be a hustle to get him in in time to compete in top-level soccer matches. Okay. And then at Stryker, you've got D.K. and kind of pick a name out of a hat. Is that what you're still? No, no, no, I've got three spots because I've saved one at left back, so I'm going D.K. Rubin and Ferreira.

Okay. And I'll say D.K. and Ferreira, since I only have two spots. Thanks for jumping on the Ferreira train. I feel like, I mean, it was definitely getting lonely. He hadn't played in forever. Finally, he came back healthy. So it's nice to have, like, a buddy on the Ferreira train. I'm happy to be your buddy on that train. He was a little profligate last night, I thought, with his attempted long balls. as the hopelessness of the evening in Los Angeles set in, but he did a lot of nice stuff too. So I totally noticed that too. But I want to say like it was almost like it was on him to hit that ball.

It was like it was kind of like a red bullish thing where it was like, okay, you get it and you put yourself in a position to receive in a good spot and turn. And now it's your job to like force it into the teeth of the defense. Sometimes it'll come off. It almost never will. But that's what it kind of felt like. It didn't feel like he was giving. Uh, like ignoring these other better options, it felt like it was his job to hit a through

ball, whether it came off or not. Maybe. Yeah. Because they had, they had like two runners ahead of him at all times. He was kind of playing underneath two forwards. That's, that's sort of what my read on it was. I'll have to rewatch his, all his clips. But it was like, oh, he's clearly just like, his job is to hit it through a seam,

whether the seam exists or not. Just, and they just hope for a second ball or something? Maybe. Just play, just hope that eventually he's, Yeah, there was a scene where it didn't look like there was, and you'd get in. Okay. That's me forgiving all his turnovers. Fair enough.

Fair enough. I'll take it. Before we say what we think Burrhal's actual roster is going to be, let me just do a quick plug for Jesse Howe. We don't do ads anymore, but I got a shout out, Jesse, who is a longtime scuff podcast listener and his vocation, which is Quality Tutors International. He had mercy on me. and my at best uneven pronunciation of Central American names

and gave me a free session with some principles and pointers on how to better say these names on the podcast. That's why I was correcting Greg on the pronunciation of O'Brien, obriyan, not partly because I'm a pedantic asshole, but also partly just because Greg told me before the podcast started to do that. So I found this lesson with Jesse over Zoom, productive and I find almost nothing over Zoom productive.

He's not paying me to say this. He just gave me a free lesson. So just for the record, hopefully I can put the instruction into practice. I'll put a link to his website and the show notes for anybody looking to learn or brush up on their Spanish. Thanks, Jesse. Thank you, Jesse.

Improving our podcast immediately. Now, Burhalter's actual roster, I think it's going to be at goalkeeper, Turner, Johnson, and Guzon. Any disagreement there? Are you putting Guzon as like third string? Yeah. I honestly don't know. I think the third string keeper will be like worked out in discussions.

I can see them like everyone declining the call up because they're going to miss a month of the club season and they're not going to play. So I was kind of surprised we didn't bring like a young backup kind of. Yeah. But what do you do? who's like so so I don't know I don't know who we're going to take I don't know if it'll even be based on like soccer merit or if it's just going to be a convenience I mean Choa and Marsankowski are not on this 60 man roster which is kind of interesting well and they're both starters though so either way you'd be taking them after that's true that's true

they were in third string too so like I feel like a Matt Fries would have been like the perfect guy to bring to this tournament as a third keeper yeah fillies backup fillies backup goalkeeper to Andre Blake oh but I guess he's going to play Because Blake's going to be in Jamaica. All right. Yeah. We don't need to spend too much time on that third goalkeeper. Leftback, I suspect, and I could be reading too much into it based on what Berhalter told Bobby Warshaw,

but I suspect we'll see Vines and Paredes at left back. Just jump in if you have any disagreement. We don't need to linger too much. Centerback. I think it's going to be Robinson, Carter Vickers, Zimmerman, and EPB, you know, assuming everybody's club situation is is uh amenable to that uh right back i think it'll be canon and more i think it'll be canon or a ho but okay but i mean not not too not too busy about it not too busy that's what they say number six i think it'll be ewell and busio because busio is

the the right profile for that position accosta will be in the camp as an eight but But this is just my Boralder prediction. Costa at the 8th? I think you will be there. Same with third string keeper. I think it's a name out of a hat for the backup to, you'll. Okay. That seems very un, what's the word, irresponsible?

You know what? I don't think you name of that. I don't think it'll be Sands. Is that like I want to rule out, I feel like it won't be Sands. And I think it's just because I'm bracing myself for Sands just absolutely not being rated. He hasn't been in any other youth camps or Olympic camps.

So, yeah, so I think it's either going to be boozeo or flock. How could you just discard sands, though? The dude works his ass off. I'm not discarding sands. Not you, but also. Yeah. Is it strange that neither of us think Perea or Johnny Cardoso have, like, any shot here? Do you think they have a shot here?

I mean, Perea does. Walter worked hard to get Perea into the fold. Prea has a shot. It might be, it might be, you and O'O. I think Johnny was pretty bad in the Olympic qualifiers. Perea wasn't, Perea wasn't outstanding, but he had his good moments in that tournament. Okay, all right. Sorry, sorry to dwell.

So you're saying, Eul and Busio is who you're expecting. Yeah, we got to have a couple registas in that spot. And then, again, this is me putting myself in Greg Burhalter's shoes. At the eight, at the eight, I'd say it's going to be legit Roldon, Williamson, and Acosta. I think Pomechal doesn't make the cut. I think Roldon definitely does for Burrhalter. I think Williamson will be this sort of exciting pick in the advanced midfield. And that'll be that.

I'm bracing for Williamson to get cut, the same way he got cut from the Olympics. The same way I had to brace for sands and parks being cut. right on parks. Where do you do all this bracing? Do you find like a quiet room in the house? I have a little bracing corner. Yeah, I have my own little bracing corner. It's under a doorway.

It's like the safest spot in the house. You just get in there and you just brace. Yeah. You know, you guys, you all don't, you all don't brace. Is it like a hug where you hug yourself or you just, you just put your palms on the ground and they recommend bracing for at least 15 minutes a day. this whole roster is so like unpredictable for me that I feel weird even trying to say like Burrhalter's going to do this, this, and this.

I do think Legit and Acosta are in after that, no clue. I mean, Bassett hasn't been rated. He's been dropped from lineups by Burrhalter in the camps he was at in December and January. Was even in the January one? Dropped in December, didn't play. So I don't know. Out of all those guys, Test men and Dotson feel like the most likely. But this is also me.

throwing rolled on up into the half space. So you're probably right that it'll be rolled on as one of the eights. But I don't know, man. I just beyond a cost and legit, it's such a crap shoot. I would say the same is really true of the left half space position. But I would guess we're going to see Green and Chris Mueller. I've kind of just blown up this whole segment of picking Burrhalter's guys, haven't I? Yeah, that's okay.

It's okay. We're just going to, I'm just going to soldier ahead with it. with or without you. Same here, man. I honestly would be the least surprised if our left half-space guys were Georgie and Lewis. That would surprise me the least out of any other picks for Berhalter. Oh, brother.

Greg. Greg B. Please don't do that. And then on the right, attacking mid position, I'm going to say. Ariola's in there for one. Yeah, for sure, Ariola.

And then I would say, I would guess, and Clark will get it. But you're right about his appendix. I think that came on us like a thief in the night, came on him like a thief in the night. And you can never predict when you're going to get an appendectomy. Can you not?

So that was my question. We need somebody, we need like an MD here. We have an MD. We have an MD in the group chat and he refused to answer your question. So just give it a rest. He won't speculate on someone else's like medical history. If they're not,

I was, my question was like, are they always acute? Or did Caden Clark get informed that he wasn't going to be on the roster? So he scheduled his appendectomy ahead of his physical with Leibzig. I don't, I have a kid. Dude, Scott Jorick is going to have a field day with this segment. He's going to get the medical journals out.

So you're saying Areola and rolled on probably? I wouldn't be surprised and I wouldn't hate it. And I wouldn't hate if Clark became like the extra slot that we saved from our fullbacks. because, I mean, again, this is such pie in the sky for me to say three fullbacks. But if we use the extra slot on one of the wingers, that would be fine, too, since we have so many blended winger center mids. And then. Sorry, this is just me saying, yes, it could be Clark and Areola and rolled on all at once. And I think it'll be DeK. Ansardis at Stryker.

And maybe, maybe Ferreira, because Berlter does like Ferreira. and has criticized Lucia Gonzalez for the way he uses him in the best. More beef. That was beef. In very gentle terms. Very gentle terms. Gentle and bleak. Same.

I think D.K. and Zardais would be the most expected pair of strikers. The beef is like little sliders. That's what we have in U.S. soccer right now. It's not Drew-Mabpe beef. No, no, no. Okay. let's talk about the U.S. women's national team, Olympic roster. They're going for...

Yeah, yeah. There's nothing provisional about this roster. This is the roster. Yep. They're going for what? They're like third straight Olympic championship. Is that... So they won it in 2012.

They got knocked out in 2016 by Sweden. And now in the 2020 Olympics in 2021. They're trying to do the first repeat, win a World Cup, then win an Olympics. the subsequent year, even though it's no longer the subsequent year. Yeah. Minor technicality.

Yeah. So if you're keeping track, their title, their recent titles are 2012 Olympics, 2015 World Cup, 2019 World Cup. And now they're going for their fourth major trophy in nine years. Yeah. Yep. There you go. So at goalkeeper, it's Alyssa Neier and Adriana French, French.

Yeah. And also just a heads of. But these are 18 player rosters. The Olympics are brutal on roster limit. So we're talking 18 players from, as Bells has called it, a murderers row of women's soccer players in the U.S. Fullbacks are Crystal Dunn, Kelly O'Hara, and Emily Sonnet. And then centerbacks are Becky Sauerbrun, Abby Doll Kemper,

Tierna Davidson, center mids. So that's only three fullbacks and only three centerbacks. That is going to be brutal. So Sonnet doubles. So Sonnet's going to be a fullback. She could also deputize as centerback. And Tierna Davidson has some experience playing as an outside back as well. So there's a little bit of flexibility there.

Okay. The center mids are holding mid Julie Ertz, Lindsay Aran, Rose Lavelle, Sam Mewis, and Christy Mewis. Christy Mewis, the only player on this roster who is not on the World Cup 2019 roster. which was a 23 person roster, right? Right. So you absolutely had to pair down that roster and added Christy Mewis. Okay. And then Wingers would be Kristen Press, Megan Rapino, and Tobin Heath,

perhaps the most, the funnest player to watch of all time, who is American. And then... Yeah, you're talking about Tobin, and Tobin is also coming off of a long-term injury. This is almost since we have, most of our listeners are men's national team fans. This is going to be of a kind with Tyler Adams' inclusion in Nations League where Tobin hasn't played a competitive game in forever. She's been out with injury for months. And so it's a bit of a leap of faith to include her on an 18-player roster.

But also, she's really good. So if you can get even a little bit out of her, the thinking apparently is that she's worth carrying. Yeah. It's good for the television experience. It's a risk, though. It's definitely a risk having her on here. And then the forwards are Alex Morgan and Carly Lloyd, who is 87 years old.

I think she's 39. I think she's maybe turning 39. Yeah, she's 38. I saw it earlier today. That's how old I am. Not far off. So I guess I thought Caterina Macario was like, you know, going to be the future. And she's 21.

She did a one-time switch from Brazil or she chose to play for the U.S. Despite being eligible to play for Brazil. Right. Just recently had her paperwork go through. That might have played into it. She didn't have a ton of time to play for the U.S. She couldn't get a ton of reps in or she got, I guess, didn't get enough reps in, whether it's because she didn't have all the chances afforded to her that she should have.

I'm not saying one way or the other. She generally played like limited minutes in her appearances for the U.S. maybe one or two starts. And didn't look amazing either, did she? Not amazing, no. So she didn't come out and look ridiculous. And that's almost what you have to do when you're trying to break into the best, like, women's team in history.

You know, like this team is stupid good on paper, on the field. All they do is churn out wins. So it's such like the polar opposite of what we've been going through. And, you know, scuffed podcast definitely has a well-earned reputation for championing youth and playing the kids. But again, for me, that's not like a reflexive thing. It's very much based on the situation of the men's team where we have some bang average prime age players and some outstanding young players. And so it's very much like these are actually the better players. You should play them because they're better.

And on the women's side, it's just such the opposite. I think six of the 18 players were on the 2012 Olympic team. I mean, they've got like three major, I mean, these are just champion winning players. All they do is win championships. So you're trying to knock that player out. Like, that's just, it's tougher to do than it is to knock out, you know, a fringe incumbent player. Yeah, for you, the youth bias isn't like an end unto itself. It's, it's interesting.

I always believe it was otherwise for you. he just he just really hates to see people succeed for a long time like get your success and then then get them out of there so do any of the snubs here or the or people who are alternates and may not end up on the roster are you upset about any of them or do you think any of them was a wrong choice from vlockelle it's uh like it's again it gets silly to say wrong choice because every player on here already has a world cup or two to their names. But my personal preference is I wish midge purse would have been included. She's not even an alternate. So that means she's at best sort of 23rd. There's four alternates. Jane Campbell,

goalkeeper, Casey Grueger, outside back, Katerina McArio, and Lynn Williams as a forward. So purse wasn't even an alternate, but she's an outstanding wide attacking player and she can play fullback so she has that versatile element to her for an 18 player squad. We are old. We have all these championships, but we're also a very old 18 player side, which, you know, hopefully the legs hold up. We're old. We have a couple of players who haven't played. Julie Ertz is another one who's coming off of like a long-term injury, hasn't played in a while, hasn't gotten back to playing soccer games, still included.

She's super important. It's really hard to replace her as our number six, but it's still a risk. So we're already down to 18. Two of them are injured. So that's where it gets into like, could we have brought purse instead of an injured Tobin Heath? What's the better decision? It's super gray.

And again, you're talking about the best players in the world at every position. Yeah. I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I remember, you know, Rapino scored those really important penalties in the 2019 World Cup. But I thought she was not that effective attacking from wide. And actually, even though I love Tobin Heath, she kind of struggled to make an impact in some of those big games, too. So where's the, I mean, is that a concern at all?

So it's not for me. I tend to agree with you in there. They weren't super effective or they didn't look as good as they should have. But I honestly think they were sort of tactics out of it. I felt like we didn't put them in great positions to succeed as well as they could have. I mean, they won the World Cup without losing a game. So there's certainly an element of success there. I didn't think that their particular abilities were showcased as well as they could have.

But again, we're splitting such hairs here. But it was it was very much just like a slog, I thought, in 2019. A slog where we are so much better than everyone else that it's just like, okay, well, we're going to end up winning this game, one zero, two, one, whatever. And eventually, Megan Rapino will do something. Eventually, like, you just, you know, even if she isn't put in great positions

against disorganized defenses, they're still good enough that they're going to make something happen over 90 minutes. And that's what we saw happen. That played out in almost every knockout game. Okay. Is it a good idea to bring a 38-year-old Carly Lloyd? I don't know.

I think the argument there is we don't have a second sort of center forward, like an absolute goal scoring center forward after Alex Morgan, that Kristen Press isn't that player, even though she could potentially deputize there in a pinch. Lynn Williams isn't that player. She's more of like be out wide, press like crazy, and just be a general threat. So I don't know.

I'm not going to say Carly Lloyd isn't going to score a bunch of goals doesn't help us win a gold medal, though. Okay. Anything else? Anything else on the women's roster? Do we want to name the World Cup vets who were left off? They went from 23 down to essentially 17 returners. So Ashlyn Harris, goalkeeper, Allie Krieger, Morgan Bryan,

Allie Pugh and Jess McDonald, all on the World Cup in 2019, not in this group. Just to again showcase how difficult it is to take the best team in the world and cut it down to 18 players. Yeah, brutal. Pew's still really young too, isn't she? She's like under 25? Yeah, that's probably right.

She's probably like 23. Which by women's national team standards makes her a baby. Yes, I think I saw that only one of the players on this 18 player roster is under 26. So again, just complete other side of the spectrum from what the men's team is, where our average age in the Mexico final was 23.

Yeah. It'll be interesting to see the changing of the guard after this Olympics, you know? I mean, maybe there won't be that much of a changing of the guard. It's hard to know because, again, there's no one who you're like, this player will definitely fall off now just because they're so good. Certainly some of them will, but you just can't bet against any of these other non-Carly Lloyd elders just becoming the next Carly Lloyd who plays until they're 38.

So, I don't know, it's going to be a fun summer of soccer to watch. Mm-hmm. Okay. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.