Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #182: Gold Cup roster reaction

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

Lots of new faces, and a couple of faces we just can't quit. A look at Berhalter's 23-man roster for the Gold Cup, which kicks off for the U.S. on Sunday, July 11. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Thanks for joining us for the scuff podcast. We are going to talk about the upcoming Gold Cup. Burrhalter announced his 23-man roster on Thursday, and this is the final opportunity for competitive minutes ahead of World Cup qualifying. So let's pick it over. Greg, how you doing? Good, Bells. I'm very excited about the all-important Gold Cup, which again in our universe, basically whatever is happening. with the national team in any given day is all important. I mean, it's obviously a B team slash B minus team roster. And I took a little exception to Alexei Lollis taking exception to someone calling it a B team. He said that was quote unquote offensive.

And I'm like, I'm like, hey, dude, even if you have 150 players in Europe, even if you have 150 million players in Europe, you still have an A and a B team, you know. You can only have 23 guys on the roster. Anyway, it is a B team. Should we jump right into the lineup? Let's get right to the names, the good stuff. We waited an extra day for him. Let's not waste any more time.

Yeah, such a long wait. Goalkeeper, we got Brad Guzon, Sean Johnson, and Matt Turner. Thoughts? I was, you know me. I was disappointed not to see Tim Melia. Somebody pointed out on Twitter, and now I feel terrible because I've lost. their, uh, lost the tweet.

Uh, but Kansas City are off for the next, like, a couple weeks. They took, uh, they took a gold cup break. So we're playing the full group stage in Kansas City. Uh, Emilio was right there to be our third string. You'd barely miss any club games for it. Uh, and instead we're taking Guzon away from Atlanta. Uh, I think he'll miss like five games if we get to the final, six games. Um, but I mean, whatever.

We want Matt Turner to play the whole gold cup. Which feels a little bit like Burrhalter and McBride and Ernie. Stewart twisting the dagger in Carlos Bocanagra, you know, you wouldn't let us, you wouldn't let us have Miles Robinson for Olympic qualifying? Guess what? We're taking Guzon for five games. It might be. There might be a little bit of that. Again, we've been talking about the beefs. This could be a bit of the beef. It was good to hear Burhalter seem to indicate that Turner is his, you know, likely first choice, making, making reference to the groundswell of people talking about Turner's outrageous statistics and shot stopping.

So it feels like Burrhalter is convinced that Turner's ready to fight for the job. Yeah, a little bit of a credit where credits do clarification here. Burrhalter said it was all MLSSsockor.com writers. And the truth is the Turner groundswell started with American soccer analysis. Elliot McKinley and John Mueller, you know, that whole crowd. Right. And that's what MLS.com had used their analysis to start sort of making that case as well. It's very good analysis and the eye test continues to back it up.

Yep. So hopefully Turner gets all the minutes or a lot of them. If not Turner, then Sean Johnson. I would prefer not to see Guzon between the posts. Um, right back. We've got Reggie Cannon and Shaq Moore. Oh, by the way, I don't think there really are any snubs when it comes to goalkeeper. I'd like to talk about snubs as we go here.

Achoa, Berthalter made a point to mention that Achoa was brought into Nations League so that he wouldn't miss five games with Rayall Salt Lake. I thought it was more important for him to get those games in MLS. I can't even think besides, I mean, I guess Mili is a snub. I'm sorry, Greg. Thank you. I appreciate your condolences. No, no snubs. Again, in my mind, I was going through thinking, like, well, who are the American eligible

backups in MLS? We talked about it a little bit, and I was mentioning Fries for Philadelphia, but with Andre Blake getting called up for Jamaica, Fries will play. But, like, there aren't that many. I feel like I was getting to, like, Jonathan Clemsman or Melia's backup in Kansas City, Pulse Camp. But if we'd taken Melia for our number two. but yeah like Jonathan

Clemsman feels like it could have been a useful third goalkeeper to not disrupt people's club schedules for someone who's not going to play any games Right because the other name that comes in mind for me at least is Marsankowski and he is The starter for San Jose Just like a Cho is for Real Salt Lake

Yeah Bono at Canada Or not at Canada Canada at Toronto But he's kind of been rotating with Westberg up there Anyway We're definitely talking about Give me a few more goalkeeper.

Okay, right back are Reggie Cannon and Shaq Moore. The only real snub here would be Julian Araujo, but that was mentioned as a non-sporting decision by Burrhalter. It's because Araujo is not quite ready to be captied. This playing for the U.S. and the Gold Cup would make him a permanent U.S. men's national team player and not allow him to play for Mexico. he wants to keep his Mexico option open. Yeah, and that makes sense to me.

There's definitely a bit of a log jam, certainly at the top of the right back depth chart with Sergenio Dest. And then it comes down to, I think it's probably a smart choice to wait a little bit to see how things shake out between O'Raho and all the other players fighting for that second spot. Edlin, Cannon. Who else we got there? Shack Moore, obviously, is nearby. I mean, yeah, there's nobody else.

Brian Reynolds, but outside of those, there's nobody else really credibly ahead of O'Raho. I mean, Aaron Herrera and Kyle Duncan are, I think, in the mix somewhere down the depth chart. But, you know, I think Daniel Smith said earlier today he, today he would take A Rao over Reynolds. And I think I agree with that, even though, you know, Reynolds has the pedigree of being bought by Roma. I think Cannon has been, you know, uneven. And Shaq Moore is kind of an unknown playing in the second division of Spain in lovely Tenerife. So I think, yeah, I think, and Burrhalter made this point. I think Arajo has a shot at being in like a World Cup 23 for the U.S.

I think he does. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, go ahead. He definitely does. But if, you know, when you know Reggie Cannon, on the provisional roster too and you're deciding whether or not to be cat tied. I, again, I totally think it makes sense to not do it in a tournament where you're like,

oh, well, I will be the backup for Reggie Cannon here. I won't even be the one playing, so there's no reason to seal my decision now. You know, there's literally no harm in just waiting to see where I, where the club filter sort of end up in that club filter. Yeah. I do think if you're a bettive. person, you would say Araujo's real shot

at being a World Cup starter is probably in 2026 rather than 2022, but just to sort of acknowledge that potential reality. I also think, and I don't know how much you want to get into this, but it worries me a little bit

that he doesn't want to be captied because he is a player who's been a part of the U.S. set up all along. I'm not blaming him. I'm not criticizing him for that. But it just worries me a little bit because then, like, what's the precedent? What's going to happen with, I mean, Effra Alvarez is already going to play for Mexico in this Gold Cup?

What's going to happen when Richie Ledesma is like a borderline member of the first choice 23? Is this going to be the same, are we going to get the same situation over and over again with all Mexican American players? I don't know if it'll be with all Mexican American players, but I think it will be much more common. And again, it's just because of the unique situation that the player pool is in, where you had all these totally wide open spots on the roster in the, you know, in our full strength 23 for the past 18 months. And now so many of those spots have been just sort of walled all by very good players that,

you know, it makes a lot more sense now to be like, oh, man, I can't just jump right into the spot. There's no open slot waiting for me to just declare. I'm going to have to beat out players and I might never get through here. So this is an inevitable part of expanding the player pool and increasing the quality of the player pool that we're going to have more of these guys sort of on the outside looking in who are going to declare for other countries. And in some cases it will be for smaller countries like Alex Raldon going with El Salvador. In other cases, it will be players going to equal or stronger countries who might just have a little bit of a gap at a position that they might be able to sneak into. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, I think that's true. It makes me want to put on my bike helmet. But there's no doubt that Greg Burhalter has been in like constant communication with O'Raho. So it's not like, oh, we're just ignoring somebody. And so they're going to feel slighted and leave. It's very much going to be like, oh, they have the complete picture of information of where they stand here. And then they can make the best choice for themselves.

One other, I think, piece of information, which could be playing into Aarjo's state of mind, could not is that it does look like after the last window, Dest is going to be much better on the right than he is going to be on the left for a variety of reasons. But probably a more effective player there, you know, in general, but also that that Dest Brooks combination on the left side is probably not a combination we want to go into a tough game with. So if Dest is, Desd is far and away. He's a start.

He's a starter for Barcelona. after all, far and away the first choice right back. Anyway, so should we talk about the two guys who are in this camp? Yes, I was going to say you're not letting me talk about Shaq Moore, who I'm very excited about. Bring it on, bring it on. Let's talk Shaq. I don't have much to say about him.

I just wanted to say that I've been tracking the guy since he went to like Reus on loan in the Spanish second division, and then that team basically dissolved while he was there and stopped paying players and stopped existing. And so he made the jump to Tenerife where he has been, he didn't start out just walking into the lineup, but he worked his way in on the left, moved to right wing and is now playing right back, sometimes right wing back. And I'm just really happy to see him in because, again, he was, he acquitted himself very nicely for the U.S. through the Dave Saracan wilderness of 2018. Yep. And so I'm just glad to see him back in.

I have no idea if he will, how he will look. It wouldn't surprise me if he looks very comfortable. Similar to Canon. Yeah, that's kind of what I've been saying for a while. I don't know if Canon at the U.S. men's national team level is anything above any of the other sort of replacement level options we have outside of desk. And so this will be an interesting chance to see that if we ever see him take the field. Yep. Yeah, I'm hopeful we will get to see him.

I surely will get to see him at least a little bit. And then Canon sort of is what he is. He's, I think Burrhalter spotlighted a need for consistency from him in the press conference yesterday, just saying he needs to like, he needs to narrow the band of potential performance levels that he, that you can expect from him. I thought that was an interesting comment. Should we move to centerback? Let's do centerbacks. Okay.

We've got presumptive starters Miles Robinson and Walker Zimmerman and Burrhalter, all but guaranteed that in the press conference yesterday. And then Donovan Pines and James Sands. Again, I would say no real snubs since Burhalter said club situation kept CCV-EPB Miyazga away. And I would say, I did say on this podcast that I wanted Che in this camp a few weeks ago. but watching his performances as a wide player for Dallas has cooled my advocacy, I guess you would say. I'm not mad. I'm not mad about his omission.

I wouldn't be mad if he was there. I'm just not going to raise a stink about it. Yeah. And this isn't a position where we're, you know, like in the attack where you're going to make a change every game at 60 minutes. We're playing Miles Robinson and Walker Zimmerman until matters are settled. You know, we're not, I mean, or James Sands looks amazing, or Donovan Pines looks great in the week-long camp leading up to game one.

It's Zimmerman-Robinson. And I kind of wanted to say that, too, when we were talking about Turner. I think for the most part, Burr-Halter got the big pieces right for this roster. And that's so far Turner, Walker, Zimmerman, and Miles Robinson to put us in the best position to test out some of these other guys that we want to test out. And to test these guys out, too. These guys still need more tests going into September. Yeah. I mean, Miles Robinson has three caps.

I think Walker Zimmerman has 12, several of those in the Saracan era, I believe. Yeah, and Robinson once again left out of the 2019 Gold Cup in favor of Omar Gonzalez, which I will repeat every time I get a chance to. How many appearances did Omar Gonzalez make in 2019? I don't remember how many appearances, but he was in camp for 10 matches for the U.S. So that's why I get fussy about some of these call-ups, because again, that opportunity cost of not being able to work guys in. and then there's just a cumulative effect where, you know, when people are talking about, well, you can't do 17 experiments in one tournament, that's totally true.

But why are we in a position where so many of these guys would be considered experimental? It's because we didn't necessarily use all of them throughout the last two and a half years when we had opportunities to. Yeah, and that brings me to a quote from Burrhalter. He was really, I think he really sort of lowered expectations for sands and pines in his comments yesterday. he said, quote, at centerback, we're thin. When you look at the options at centerback that we ended up choosing, Donovan Pines and James Sands have very little international experience. We have two solid starters in Miles and Walker, and behind that it is pretty thin.

And this is where we talk about using this tournament to develop a greater player pool to prepare for World Cup qualifying. Which brings us back to the point about Omar Gonzalez, getting so much international experience under Burr-Halter. adding to his... Thank goodness for that, just in case we need him come September. He's ready to go. Yeah.

Now, Jimmy, again, these guys are young, so it's not like we had tons of time to implement these guys, but we had CCV, and we don't need to relitigate all of this. But James Sands has also not been in any of the Olympic qualifying games or any of these. He was not making any camps.

He wasn't in January camps. He wasn't in the U-23 camps. So that's, again, where that frustration is of like, oh, well, I wonder why we don't have a lot of guys with international experience. Yeah. Sands, and I would say Sands is for me probably going to be more useful for this team as a midfielder than as a centerback. I know he's playing centerback for NYCFC, but I would like to say, I don't think it's going to happen. I mean, Burhalter's given no indication that it will, but I would have loved to see Sands at the six as a hard man, a hard person.

but it doesn't look like we're going to see that. No, I'm not optimistic, but I'm okay with that because when we get to the six, we'll talk about it. Let's get through our left backs quick, because that shouldn't take too long. It's George Bellow and Sam Vines. Again, no real snubs. I think Kevin Perretti has a shout. Burhultner made it sound like Bellow and Vines are kind of on an equal footing, and they're going to be competing for the starting job here, which is cool.

That'll be fun to watch. I just want to stop here and say I have no major qualms with the roster in the back the field. It's pretty much fine. And I'll let's move to the midfield where things are getting a little bit different. All right. Let's talk about our second six. Presumptive first six, Tyler Adams, not in this

camp, obviously. So the options are, according to Burrhalter, did he mention Calin Acosta? Are we just saying that because Acosta's definitely played there for Burrallter? He did. Yeah, he was clear that the options are fourfold. Acosta, Callan Acosta, Jackson, Ewell, Jean-Lucubusio and Eric Williamson. He mentioned that specifically that Williamson could be the six.

He's done that for Portland, which is true. Greg? So, like, in theory, I don't necessarily have a problem with what's going on here, right? Like, we've got three possible seconds. We have four possible second sixes, and I'm not high on Yule after the Nations League, but that won't matter if the other, if most of the minutes go to, all the other second six is available. Where it gets dicey is, like, Ewell has started basically every game that he has been available for for Greg Burhalter since the Canada win in 2019, incredibly.

Like, the only games Ewell hasn't started for us up until the Mexico win were the November camp in 2020, which was almost all European base plus Sebastian Legette. And then the March camp in 2021, which Ewell was at Olympic qualifying for. he has been the guy. So when it wasn't Tyler Adams, it has been Jackson Ewell. So the worry here is that that continues, and Burralter just continues running Ewell, and so we don't get experiments at the second six. Now, Berhalter did say Bousio will play in this tournament. We don't know where.

But that's sort of the worry here at six is that we don't get enough of an experiment. I'm just hopeful that we will. Yeah, Berlter said Bousio is going to be. We could very well see him as an eight in this tournament. And I guess I don't hate that necessarily. Yeah, is there a possibility that Ewell gets phased out the same way Will Trapp did? He kept getting called into camps, but he didn't play after that. Did he not play after that loss to Canada in Toronto?

So Trapp's minutes basically disappeared, even going into the Gold Cup in 2019. he got into like the dead rubber game where Burrhalter rotated everybody for the last group stage game against Panama and then he started the Mexico friendly with Alfredo Morales as like a double pivot in September that's right

but he was basically gone but he kept coming to camps he was still in the October camp in 2019 still in November camp in 2019 and then has not been in camp since so he was basically phased out but still there like he just kept sneaking in in with the rest of the group and no one noticed him

but he was done, you know, and so there is a possibility. And again, I'm not trying to be like, we need to just be done with Jackson Ewell, but we definitely need to be looking for other options, other non-Tyler Adams options, and getting them reps. Even if we think it's, even if Buralter thinks it's Kelan Acosta, okay, like, I saw enough in the Mexico game, Callan Acosta's the guy when it's not Adams. We need that, we need reps for that guy then. So it can't, I'd be devastated if it was just like 400 more minutes of Jackson-Ewell

playing the six and Busio getting a came. prayer up prayers up that that is not the case so i um yeah i mean i i think acosta does need more reps i'm fairly comfortable with him at the six i really like to see uh busio and williamson get some experience in that role let's move to the number eight which is a which there's a lot of overlap here it's it's sebastian legett christian rolled on and then i think Williamson Acosta and Bousio could all be conceivably an eight. I mean, you will even play it as an eight in the Olympic qualifying disaster.

It seemed like Christ was just kind of throwing everything at the wall there as the tournament progressed. Now, maybe now is a good time to talk about snubs in the six and eight positions. Who comes to mind for you? So for the fourth eight discussion, there aren't too many guys. that like I really, really wanted to see, we already know why Luca De La Torre is not here. And then Paxton Pamacall is another guy who I'm very interested in seeing in this spot. But again, he is barely getting minutes for FC Dallas, which we attribute partially, at least, to his fitness and trying to ease him back into everything, which makes him not an ideal candidate for a tournament roster. So, and Burrhalter addressed him specifically, along with some of the other FC Dallas guys, just saying they,

they hadn't quite done enough yet to be involved. And that could mean they haven't shown enough soccer ability or could mean, you know, Pomacol and Ferreira both coming back from injury, Pepe just now starting to sort of take over for Hara up top. Pepey. Pepey. I'm sorry, Pepey.

So I don't have too much qualms with the fourth eight situation here. I think we should, I think we'll see some tryout from Williamson. I'm hopeful that he gets a run. I'm not sure how Roddon is going to function. here, whether he'll be used as an eight or if he'll play higher up the field. Again, he's had this real renaissance at Seattle. Everyone's sort of talking about the great season he's having, but it hasn't been as an eight.

So if you use his great season as the reason to call him in, but then, you know, take him right out of the spot that he's doing really well in for Seattle, doesn't make a ton of sense. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's a whole bunch of potential omissions here that I think have a shout, like Leon Flock, Cole Bassett. I mean, you could even throw Frankie Amaya in there if we were going to truly be trying to like see new players.

Dwayne Holmes, one of your favorites. Julian Green. Yeah, Julian Green, you're reaching out like Alfredo Morales. But mostly, again, the biggest one I wish we would have seen would have been Keaton Parks, who wasn't even on the provisional roster. or so they're all sort of names that were in the hat and I guess for this tournament we picked out Eric Williamson. Yeah.

I mean, he's the one with the most hype right now, I think. And I think I was going to make this point later, but the issue for me isn't so much because Burhalter saying that Ferreira and Pepe haven't done enough is not a ridiculous position for him to take. I mean, you're welcome to disagree with it. I may even disagree with it a little bit, but it's not ridiculous to say that. The problem for me is that it's compared to who, you know? And I think Ewell and another player who we're going to mention later, Jonathan Lewis, are in this roster.

That's the issue. It's the inclusion of those two players. That's the roster. That's the problem for me. It's not the omission of anybody specific. Just including those prevents us from looking at any of these sort of marginal names. And that's the, I guess that's the issue. For me. Should we move? Go ahead. Go ahead.

No, I was going to say, when we talk about the Wingers, I'm sure I'll get into it. Yeah, Wingers is a kind of a confounding list. It's Paul Ariola, Nicholas Joe Keeney, Matthew Hoppe, and Jonathan Lewis. And the snubs, I guess, could be Caden Clark's appendix. the one I'm the one I'm most interested would have been most interested in seeing in this role is Hases Ferreira and then there's there's a few others which I'm sure you'll get into let's talk can you talk about the Wingers a little bit so the Wingers is where this roster I feel like goes into full Olympic qualifying mode of of just being a absolute like head scratcher right so we talk about Burhalter getting cute with his selections and for me like Jonathan Lewis is already a selection

that's a bit too cute, like overthinking it. He's not an obvious pick at this point. I think he started one game for Colorado this season so far, and he has a goal against Cincinnati, which always comes with an asterisk. And just it doesn't really make a lot of sense. He's 24. He's not like a kid with a bright future ahead of him where he's got a tremendous upside anymore. So it just feels a little strange.

And then you add on to the fact that the other wingers on this list are two guys, who aren't really wingers and Nico Gio O'Kini and Matthew Hoppe and the entire winger selection is just way too cute for me. They have the chance to vindicate themselves in Burrhalder's selections if they play really well. But if they don't, like it's just like with Christ and the roster he put together, it's super unbalanced and Burhalter just kind of has to wear that if they don't perform well. Because there's no real reason that these would have been the four wingers you end up with. Ariola makes perfect sense. But after that, it's just like, what?

Like, why would, out of everyone available, and it's not the first string, there are still plenty of other players who just seem like much better fits for a functioning tournament roster. Yeah. I mean, Ferreira, the question, I guess, for me is, is the, is the half-space merchant going out of business, at least temporary, temporarily, you know? It sure looks like it. I mean, Joe Keeney and Hoppe are not half-space merchants.

Lewis definitely isn't. Lewis is not very good at soccer. Let's just be really honest about that. Relative to other players who play at the highest levels, even at MLS, and certainly... Lewis is better than me at soccer. Lewis is better at soccer than I will be at literally anything in my life. But in relation to the player pool, he's not terrific.

Yeah. I mean, is he better at soccer than you are at? making spreadsheets? My guess is yes. I have a lot of nested if statements in my spreadsheets. No, so again, the issue here is, well, let's talk about the half-space merchants, too, because even against Honduras in that Nation's League game, we weren't necessarily using our wingers exclusively in that sort of half-space role.

There were plenty of times where Pulisic and Rayna were both out wide, and the half-spaces were occupied by McKinney and Legette sort of clearing out the lane, for Ewell to operate in, clearing out the center of the pitch. So we do keep those guys wide sometimes. I thought it was pretty muddled when we would do that against Honduras, with Robinson and Dest kind of sitting back and not as involved as I wish, certainly Sergenio Dest would have been throughout the buildup. But it's not like this would be a total shift from what we did with our A team to keep those guys wider.

Perhalter acknowledged that Hoppe and Joe Keeney aren't true wingers, but he said they can run in behind and Hoppe specifically can quote, execute the role that we're talking about pretty well, end quote. So this raises the question of what role we're talking about. And so maybe it is the same setup as that Honduras match. And I do think, you know, Hopi has played on the wing for Shalka this past season. Joe Aquini has played on the wing in his career. I think they're both interesting players.

I know you're not much of a Joe Keeney fan. But I like some things that Joe Keeney does. I think he's very intelligent in his movement and, you know, can be a good passer if he's comfortable and sort of on, on form. But I'm kind of interested. I would be kind of interested to see them as wingers to see what we're trying to do. Maybe we're just going to lump it up to D.K. And have them run off him, you know, just practice a negative, more negative style of football. Like we're at the point where that's what we're hoping for.

No, it's not that I don't like Joe Keeney. it's just again, I don't love him forced into a winger role. Again, it just kind of sounds very chrysish, Chrysian to be like, no, no, no, Joe Keeney can totally play on the wing. Like, it's going to be fine. It might be, but we're very much just like, okay, I guess we're just going to take your word for it, which is what we kind of did going into the Olympic qualifying, like, okay, I guess this is what you're saying you can do. And then we very much did not do what we, what Christ said we could do. So that's just where it is.

And again, we had some very obvious solutions to even if you want to just consider them stop gaps, to stop gap for a functioning tournament roster. Chris Mueller would have been just fine as a winger. So to pick three of these guys over somebody who had obvious gap-filling qualities, I'm going to say again, in an alternate universe, Dwayne Holmes would be on this roster and everyone would think that makes total sense. and everyone who's like the Jonathan Lewis truthers would be considered the crazy ones

but here it's very much flipped around where like I take a ton of stick for being like Dwayne Holmes you guys still exists and plays this sort of tucked in winger for Huddersfield in the championship but somehow just is not on the radar at all anymore when Jonathan Lewis is the guy and we're calling it.

Joe Keeney the reason I'm not super excited about him he has zero goal, zero assists in his last 10 games, 900 minutes, not even 10 appearances, 900 minutes for a bottom of the table League 2 team. They just avoided relegation on the last day. I mean, I don't know. We're talking about guys for Dallas who apparently haven't done enough

to be included here, but Joe Keeney has, I don't think he was on the bench for four out of their last eight games last year. You know, it's a little bit just sort of personal preference of who I personally would have been more excited to see. but it just again it feels like you're forcing a guy out of position who doesn't have much of a resume to stand on anyway so we're just going to have to see yeah it does feel a little bit ad hoc and it does i mean listening to burhalter's press conference which i didn't get to do until today you do kind of i i kind of wonder like how much thought is he putting into some of these decisions which i which is not a thought that's occurred to me before but like ferrera not doing enough i mean ferrera was spraying the ball over the field playmaking for Dallas a few nights ago and a pretty pleasing to the eye performance as a not as a half-space merchant but as the you know sort of a second striker which is a role that is

pretty analogous to the half-space merchant and to to leave him off the roster even though burralter has in the past favored ferrera you know he's he's shown that he rates him a lot even when he wasn't doing so well at Dallas. And then to bring in Joe Aquini for that role instead, it's just kind of weird. I don't understand it. Right. So you can say Ferrer, it was just one game for Ferreira. And you can be like, well, Joe Aquini's numbers are much worse, but I guess it's good

that they've just been much worse for longer. Like he's just done all, he's been playing for a lot longer. So we'll just trust him. Even though, again, the numbers definitely are not, not helping Joe Aquini's case much. And again, we're talking about the third or fourth string at a couple of positions on the total reserve gold cup team. So a lot of these guys aren't going to have great numbers. If they did, they'd probably be, they'd probably have been playing in the Nations League. Yeah.

But and, you know, perspective is needed here. It's not like the, like you said, these are the third or fourth people on the depth chart for the national team. The thing is, we do need to, we need to shore some stuff up. Wing is not one where there's an urgent need to shore it up, to be fair. But we need to use these opportunities to figure things out. Yeah. And again, my biggest worry is actually just that we'll just grind, that some of these players will just grind things to a halt in this tournament.

So very much in the short term, like this will stunt our ability to play decent looking soccer in this event, which will hurt our chances of evaluating a lot of different players. Yep. And then we get knocked out in the group stage in the Gold Cup and scuff podcast's numbers hit a crater. Not the group stage, but maybe in the quarters. And that's kind of what I mean. Like if this all looks terrible and we go out in the quarters, like, we'll look at some of these selections that, again, we're just sort of very cute and be like, yeah, maybe we could have just brought somebody in who would have complimented Daryl D.K. a little bit better. Like the guy who plays beside D.K. every weekend. Yeah. Yeah, hopefully the cuteness pans out, you know, sometimes cuteness does. Sure didn't in Olympic qualifying. Well, let's talk about one of the things that could solve that problem then up top.

And that's, we'll talk about the strikers now, D.K., hopefully as striker number one, very capable of taking a non-cute game, non-attractive soccer, and turning it into a victory. Yeah, I'm excited to see him. He's one of many things that are positive about this roster. I don't have a big problem with Jazi Zardis either. The snub here would be Peppy, but again, he had one, you know, he had one good game after not playing a ton for a very, very bad Dallas team most of the season. So I understand him not being on the roster. Not me. I wanted him on the roster.

I wanted him as a third striker. I would have been fine with D.K. Zardis and Pepe and drop one of the other two forwards. But it does feel like it sort of closes the door on Pepe for a while now, you know, unless he, you know, unless he absolutely explodes in MLS over the next few months and then becomes like just forces his way into a World Cup qualifying roster. It's going to be hard to bring him in if he's, if he's not like, you know, a top five striker in the league. And that's one of the other big questions here is how comfortable will Burrhalter be down the line, including somebody in qualifying who hasn't been called? called up before because that's where a peppy or a cade cowl, for example, like if one of those 18-year-olds does kind of get big, we will have missed this chance to have had them in camp, getting them that international experience that Burrhalter has sort of bemoaned that's sort of missing

for a lot of players. So this would have been the chance to do that instead of a Jonathan Lewis who's been in a bunch of camp. So even if Jonathan Lewis like goes nuts and scores 10 goals over the next 10 MLS games, it wouldn't have been a problem to call him anyway. even if he weren't in this gold cup, he spent a ton of time with Burrhalter, a couple of January camps. You know, he's had the Olympic experience.

It would have been very easy to bring him in. But if Cade Cowell goes nuts over the next two months, and come September we're interested in him, it's going to be very much like, okay, he's coming in cold. We have to introduce him to all of these national team things. And that's not always easy to do. So it's just one of those other little tiny details

talking about backups backups, where I'm like, ah, this could have paid off a little bit more in the future to have introduced a couple of these other high upside guys in this tournament. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it all comes back to that, the inclusion of Lewis and Ewell for me. That's the main criticism. And I'm sticking to it.

But the big pieces. The big pieces are there, right? So if we're talking about the positives, we've got Turner. We've got Miles Robinson, who could be in contention for that, like, fifth centerback. spot or fourth center back spot even. I like Walker Zimmer and I feel like he's always held his own for the national team. He's never been like the source of our problems. We like that Williamson's in here.

I think I can say that safely. We like that Buzio has basically been said he'll definitely get a run out in this tournament. And then D.K. is the big one who could end up being our number one striker by the the first week we played El Salvador. Yeah. Okay, yep. Still an overall, the picture is still positive overall.

I'm going to give my starting 11 if we got to win one of these games, which we do, you know, kind of have to win all of them, but you said you don't want to do this, right? Well, I don't want to do it just because I don't think I could. this, again, this roster is just like the Olympics,

and that there's no obvious way it fits together in a way that's particularly satisfying. So I don't have an 11 that I confidently say. When the A-Team was playing Honduras Nations League, I feel like we felt good about nine out of the 11 spots, right? Yeah. How many spots are you feeling good about with this left?

I don't mean good about like you feel good about the players, like that you think you can call as starters. Well, I think... We're about to find out. Let's play this game. Yeah, I think, well, I think Turner, Zimmerman, Miles. Canaan. I think I would be happy with any of the fullbacks, really.

Shackmore or two. I think I'd prefer Vines over Bellow, but I'm willing to be proved wrong on that. I know there are some people who disagree with me about that. And so I guess that's four out of the back five. And then I think Acosta's the clear number one at the six in this roster. I mean, there's like no doubt in my mind about that. And then it'd be Williamson and Legette as the eights.

For me, I feel very confident. Those two as the eights. And then obviously, D.K. as a striker, I feel confident about. And then I'd go with Hoppe and Areola on the wings. Hoppy on the left, Ariel on the right. Is that, do I feel confident about those choices? I'm not sure, but they'd work for me, you know. I'd like to see it.

All right. No, that makes sense. And so maybe it is just like the six in the left wing, right, are kind of the big question marks. Is it going to be Acosta or is it Yule getting another runout? Or do we go straight to Busio and running behind Legit and Acosta? Burrhalter did mention without naming it the triple pivot, right, in his comments about the center mids? I thought he sort of hinted at it, but did he mention it, really?

I mean, he didn't say triple pivot, but he talked about like he sounded like he did when he started talking about the press. back in like February of 2020 where he was like, you know, I think about it and I get excited about all these center mids that we have who can like really get after the ball. And so in this press conference, now he was saying I get excited about all these center mids who could all interchange

and drop in and play the sixth. It was very much like a welcome to the party pal moment. I miss that, but that's great to hear. Yeah. So yeah, so very hopeful that, you know, that comment would definitely suggest, I think, that you will wouldn't be the guy he's thinking about in that scenario.

Not that he's going to boss that out in the first minute of the first game. But it's not impossible. That we get a Buzio or a cost immediately in game one at the six. Midfield interchange, man. Love to hear it. Would love to see more of it.

Somebody asked me to do a cage match 11. Like who are the best cage match players on this roster? And I'm going to do that right. now very quickly. I would have the same back five, Cannon

and Vines at fullback, Zimmerman and Miles at centerback and Turner at goalkeeper. And then I would put Sands at center mid at the number six and then Acosta Williamson at the 8. And then Joe Aquini, Ariola, and D.K. As my front three.

Obviously, it's Joe Keene on the right, ariola on the left and DK at center forward. That's my cage match 11. I enjoy thinking about you having an actual goalkeeper cage match depth. Yeah, I was totally making that up, that one up. I have no, like, what does it even mean to be a goalkeeper cage match winner?

Turner pulled out of a challenge in the playoffs against Orlando last year. Did he? He dropped him down. His own man was going to clear the ball. It was like the worst goal he's given up because he doesn't give up bad goals, but his own man was going to clear it right in front of him in kind of a loose ball, pinball situation, and he was going into it hands first. and like the guy had the full back swing ready to swing as hard as he could through it

and Turner pulled his, pulled his arms out, and then the guy, his teammate pulled out of the challenge too. So the ball ended up just bouncing right there for Orlando to score their goal. So, well, I'm sure as hell not taking Guzon on a cage match. So I guess it's Sean Johnson. It kind of surprised me only because Guzan absolutely passes for a bare knuckles boxing character in a Guy Ritchie film. he's got the look of it but um i've seen him fall over too much watching the boggle on the net um let's see

why is bread because i'm catching strays on this podcast episode how many times has he for atlanta has the ball has he watched the ball go in the net and then just kind of falling over that's not that's not my cage match hero all right you feel you feel strongly about that one should we should you got anything else on this roster i'm We're going to be doing recaps. The games are 11th, the 11th, the 15th, and the 18th of July. Right now it's July 2nd. So we've got a little time to prepare, and then it's going to be a firestorm of soccer.

Yeah, no, I'm excited to see it again, excited to see the big pieces, especially. And again, even if the fringe guys are struggling, that's just more opportunity for the big pieces to step up. Yep. How's that? Glass half full. Glass half full of Alaska Lasquez Let's talk about the women

A little bit U.S. women's national team Beat Mexico 4 to 0 last night A brace from Kristen Press And then goals from Tobin Heath and who scored the Who scored the opener again?

Opener came from Sam Mewis assisted by her baby sister Older sister older sister Christy Mewis The big one was Tobin coming back into play at all Because again She'd been included on the final roster of 18

after being out for several months with injury. And, you know, it was reported that she was really close to being back to fitness. So it was good to see her get in the game. And then the fact that she scores a very Tobin-Heath goal, like 30 seconds after coming out of the field, is pretty much a storybook. Yeah, it was a goal from like 35 yards, rang it off the inside of the post. The other big news is on that Olympic roster front. The Olympics just changed the rules.

And I don't know if this applies to the men's side as well. I'll have to double check their roster rules. Who cares about the men's? The Olympic roster for the women was 18 players. And then you had four alternates. And they just like just changed it two weeks out, or however far out we are from the Olympics, that all 22 players are now considered on the roster.

And you just have to name 18 on each match day. But that 18 can change from game to game. So that's huge, especially given, you know, the age of our roster. This helps us a lot. The fact that the U.S. has outrageous depth. So our players 19 through 22 are excellent soccer players. Other countries might not benefit quite as much because there's going to be a big drop-off as they get into those players.

Whereas for us, like our 25th player would be an outrageously talented player on an Olympic squad. So good news on that front, just in general. More Olympians is better. Sounds like Anthony Blinken's been greasing some pockets. That's the Secretary of State of the United States of America. Well, I'm just, I'm kind of appalled that you would suggest the Olympics would be in any way corruptible. My apologies. My apologies.

Have they figured out whether the, whether they can bring their children to the Olympics? That, like, triggered my little outrage button as a father of three that Alex Morgan tweeted that she, she still hasn't gotten word that whether she can bring her child who she is nursing at the, moment because the ILC said parents can bring their children if necessary and she's like well what does if necessary mean i guess you have to i don't know talk to and this is because this is because of uh this really strict uh restrictions on uh people coming into the country right for COVID I see I believe I that that that actually makes more sense yeah but still it's still pretty brutal for a any any parent with uh you know any any any any tiny toddler age child.

I'm with you. That'd be crazy. And to not know a week out, like that's giving me high blood pressure right now. Yeah. Well, the women play in Mexico again on Monday. They never lose.

They always win. Anything else we should be thinking about heading into the Olympics? Greg? I don't believe so. I think we're in pretty good shape Olympic-wise. I'm excited for that as well.

Okay. I think we're done here. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see ya.