Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #183: A transfers rundown and the Gold Cup group

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

We talked about transfers -- the done ones and the undone ones. Then we got to the Gold Cup. The Haiti match on Sunday is kind of the "big one," if there is such a thing. Berhalter should run out his best lineup and it'd sure be nice not to need points from Canada a week later so we'd better get 3 against Haiti. 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 downloading this episode of scuffed. We are going to briskly discuss the transfer window a little bit and then get into the group stage of the Gold Cup and whatever else comes to mind. Hey Greg. Bells, how are you, man? Can't wait to talk about transfer speculation. Love speculating about transfers. I thought I heard you were going to start a spinoff podcast just talking about transfer rumors. All transfer talk. Love it. I'm just going to, yeah, it is. I'm going to name a U.S. player, and then I'm going to list every club in Europe.

That's monitoring him. That's monitoring him, keeping a close eye on Kaden Clark. I want to talk about it just because it's been requested by some patrons. And, you know, there's been a lot that's happened over the last couple weeks that we haven't really acknowledged. So some of this will be actual transfers. Some of it will be rumors. and we're not going to, we're not going to try to, you know, mediate those rumors and decide which ones are more credible that much. I actually will say that we do have, I mean, because of like MLS is such its own sort of like organism,

we do end up with a decent amount of like credible. These actual talks are ongoing rather than just like, again, spin a wheel, name a club, name a player. There's a real, real chance of this happening. You know, like PEP, Pep once, Anthony Robinson kind of stuff, which maybe is true. Who knows? You know, who am I to say? I don't know everything. We can't disprove it.

So the first one I want to talk about is Caden Clark. He is gone to R.B. Leipzig in the winter. That's officially official now. And Jesse Marsh is saying nice things about his cockiness in the press. So I'm just, I just want to acknowledge that and say, let's go, Caden. He's still recovering from an appendectomy. not in the lineup tonight, I don't think, for the Red Bulls. But a good young player, and it'll be exciting to see how he does in Leipzig.

Yeah, and this is going to be another one of those things where, again, Leibzig, as was brought to our attention, last time we talked about this, don't have a U-23 team or a U-19 team even. Now someone's going to have to correct me about the U-19, but they don't have like a Leibzig too playing in the fourth division anywhere, like a lot of the other Bundesliga teams do. So it's sort of either first team or bust for Caden when he gets there. Yeah.

And if the bust means he goes on loan somewhere for a semester, that's fine. The second one is Gianluca Bousio. The rumors of Syria interest have continued for about two years now. And I'm just going to say it's time to put up or shut up, Italy. You know? Put some money now. Just Italy in general, right? Because Bozio has Italian lineage, Italian passport.

Is that what he has? Yeah. Well, yeah, he has an EU passport, I think. Okay. So he doesn't count against their foreign player, non-EU allocation budget. Correct. Okay. Okay.

And do we think he's going to go for the $10 million that he was rumored to go, that Kansas City was rumored to have priced him at, what, over a year ago now, right around MLS is back last year? Yeah, I don't I don't see the $10 million evaluation, but I mean, I'm famously Someone who doesn't see it with Bousio the way other people see it, so Right, right there are degrees of seeing it and you don't see it at $10 million You could I mean if you found out he's going for six million and add-ons and be like sure Let's let's have him over there but 10 million would surprise you. That's what you're saying

Yeah, six million six million still seems a little high to me but But, you know, I'd happily pay $4 million for him. All right. I mean, not you personally and your Men's League team. Yeah, we don't have that kind of freedom from the board. You don't have that war chest? All right, who else is on the move, potentially? Chris Richards, the latest rumor is that he'll be back in Hoffenheim for another loan,

and I think that's just dandy. He's looking sharp at the end of the summer. He is at Byron, you know, for preseason. but I think another year with his with his friend, is it Sebastian Honus, the coach of Hoffenheim? Sure. Another year, another season with him would be great for Richards. And I think that seems both plausible and positive.

Now, Tanner Testman, this one kind of seems crazy to me, but he reportedly flew to Venice to join newly promoted Venizia, which is Italian for Venice, in case you're wondering. Still not official, but seems more or less done, I think, in this case, pretty cool for him. And he doesn't have an EU passport as far as I know. So interesting. Benizia just moved up, right? They just got promoted from second division last year.

That's right. So yeah, so that's kind of crazy. I mean, I'm sure they're trying to look for budget options to try to help them stay up. But, I mean, they've got some ambition to stay up, I'm sure, right? Yeah. Now, it is hard to sort of draw insight from the dark comedy that is FC Dallas. But, but, I mean, Tessman hasn't been a standout player for Dallas this season. I mean, is it fair to say he was a standout player last year?

I think that would be a little bit of a stretch, but. No, I think you're buying him off on spec, right? You're buying him for the tools that is showing it at a young age. and for being able to step into a game against grownups and not being bossed around at all. And I assume that it's similar to what sort of Boozio is looking at too if teams are looking at Bozio. Although Bozio's sort of maybe more on the technical end of the spectrum.

Is that fair? I think so, yeah. But no, I don't know what to make the Testament deal because, again, he was falling out of favor, if you want to call it that this season, but it sure seems like that's more because they had a deal in the work. rather than they just rated Serio over Testman. Yeah, that could be.

Because Testman did start the season's starting games for Dallas. But, you know, who knows what's going on there. They got all kinds of considerations in that front office. Another FC Dallas player, Justin Che, started off kind of rough with Dallas, I thought, but has played better each time out. I also think that at right back, which is not his position. Brian Shreda reported that talks for a transfer to Byron Munich are ongoing a couple weeks ago or a week ago.

I guess I see no massive rush for him to go back there. You know, just from a men's national team perspective, he's getting regular minutes and improving for Dallas. Probably better to play right back there than centerback for Byron 2. Although, you know, I could be talked out of that. Yeah, and Byron 2 again in the 4th division at this point, whereas when Richards was there, they were, they played their way into the 3rd division and then won the 3rd division with Richard starting almost every game.

Um, it, it's interesting because you can, you see it both ways because of what just happened with Richards and the fact that he, you know, played there for season. And it was a lot of people saying similar like, uh, oh, look like comparing him to Mark McKenzie in particular, where McKenzie is an all, uh, MLS player for his season with Philly and wins his supporter shield. And it's kind of, there was kind of this like, uh, uh, narrative about like, maybe Richards made a mistake. Look, look, what McKenzie's doing in MLS. Uh, and then, you know, again, three weeks later, three weeks into January, Chris Richards is now starting for Hoffnheim in the Bundesliga every game. He kind of walked into their starting lineup.

So it is hard to draw any real conclusions about is it better to be playing at Byron's reserves or is it better to be getting minutes than MLS? It sort of always comes back to like, is Che really good at soccer or not? Is he just like good enough already? Or is he how much of a work in progress is he? I'd forgotten that that brief period of time where it was considered that Richards had made a mistake by not staying in MLS. But, you know, we apply our very, in my case, limited minds to this stuff every single day. We're bound to get caught up in a moment or a month, you know. There's just, it's because there's always going to be these sort of conflicting paths, or not conflicting, but there's no transitive property here.

Or because this worked one time for somebody that this is now the best way. to do it. It's always going to be sort of like case, like we always say, it's case by case. It depends, yeah. The answer is it depends. But Chee, the good news is, I think Chee, I don't know if the who scored rankings are showing this or not. I haven't checked them,

but like the good news is Chee looks, I think he does look like he knows how to play soccer. He's not transcendent, but he was, I would say, probably Dallas's best player on the field through the first 60, 70 minutes last night, which is not a high bar, but he was pretty good. He looks like he knows what he's doing out there. You definitely wouldn't have said that in his first game, right?

No, his first start. Yeah. He's settling in, and that's good to see. 17 years old seems to have all the tools to be, you know, to play at a high level if he can, you know, get everything sorted out. Same could be said for a lot of people. Josh Sargent. apparently not going to go to Frankfurt

because Frankfurt does not value him at the 10 million euros, I think it is, that Verde Bremen does. But I'm not sure that Verde Bremen valuation is going to fit anybody else's valuation of Sargent. I guess there's a little bit of a rumor that Leverkusen is back in the hunt

out today on the on the Transom. I'm kind of agnostic on what happens with Sergeant. If he tears up the two Bundesliga, we'll all look back and be fine with that. And if he moves to a Bundes League club and does okay, we'll all be fine with that.

It's just going to be hard to know what the best move is until after the next season, until this time next year, you know? Yeah, he's such an enigma of a player at this point because he's buried in not exactly what we would consider goal FC for Verde Brayman. Yeah, just plugging away in the German Rust Belt. They're getting a new manager, new manager coming in.

So we'll have to see if he does stay, If that new manager can get them playing in a way that they can tear up the double Bundesliga, we've seen a couple of examples of managers coming in and turning things around very quickly. We've seen it in MLS. We saw it with Christian Pulisic and Chelsea. Not that Pulisic immediately jumped in and was an offensive staple under Tuchel, but Chelsea turned things around very quickly. So it is possible to get in a better coach, no matter what your team level is,

that can fix some problems relatively quickly. Yeah. It's just so funny that so much of our time, my time and emotions have been wrapped up in Verde Bremen and FC Dallas over the past 18 months, two years. And by the way, you know, just to take your little Easter egg there about the double Bundesliga to its logical conclusion, you should have said that Byron 2 got relegated from the triple Bundesliga to the quadruple Bundesliga. D.K., is he moving this summer? I don't, rumor mill seems to have slowed it spinning. I haven't heard anything lately. Well, I hadn't really heard anything before either.

It was just like very vague. People just kind of whispering the name Everton or like what was the, I haven't seen any, any like Tom Bogart scoops on this. Have you? No, I mean, there was the scoop that Orlando had him valued at 20 million and wasn't going to pay, wasn't going to accept a penny less. I don't know how verified. that was, but that seems to have

burrowed its way into the consciousness of the fan base. Yeah, so Orlando City is pretty good right now as MLS teams go and he's going to get plenty of chances to score. He's obviously at the Gold Cup with the U.S. men's national team right now. No news on the transfer front for Darrell D.K., as far as I know. But that's going to be the bigger question for this month is, can he just destroy teams like Haiti, Martinique, can he do it against like a Canada?

And then in the knockouts when we play, you know, higher level teams in that as well, can he sort of be a just one-man scoring show? Yeah. I think it's a lot to ask. It's a lot to ask. It is. Let's find out.

Anthony Robinson, some of the craziest rumors are flying around about him. Pep wants him. No, now wolves are swooping in. I think wolves would be okay. That'd be a good move. Can I just throw this at you? Who's Wolves' new manager?

Do we know? Have they named one? I don't know. Okay. I felt like it was another Portuguese guy. So you're just saying, like, sight unseen, go to wolves, play for wolves? Yeah, mid to lower top table. They have played the three at the back quite frequently.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, if he, it honestly doesn't. really matter that much. If Robinson ends up at like a mid-table championship side and plays really well, I don't think it makes that much difference for his place in the national team. We talked about this when he moved from Wiggin to Fulham, or before he did, that like the championship might actually be the best suited, like the league best suited for Anthony Robinson. Just fly, like just take off and run. Like run forever, never stop. get up the line, just that sort of back and forth flow of games.

So if he doesn't move, I'm the same. Like, all right, just run it back with Folham. Otherwise, name a team in the Premier League. Sure, go ahead. Give it a run. Yeah. He's not the kind of lad that likes to faff around with the ball, you know. He just wants to get it and go.

Conrad de la Fuente, that's an official official one. Sold to Marseille from Barcelona. the fee was $3.3 million. Godspeed to him as he fights for a regular spot there. It seems they value him. I mean, just based on the way the announcement was handled and everything, it was like this was a legitimate signing of a player from Barcelona. So it'll be interesting to see.

We haven't talked about KDLF too much in the last few months. But he's still out there. He's still playing soccer. And this will be a kind of cool look at what it means when teams pay $3 million. I mean, $3 million isn't nothing. So it's also not like you're not buying, you're not like necessarily buying your wins for $3 million. You're not buying your way up the table like, oh, we're going to get this $3 million

player and that's going to move us three spots up on the table. So it'll be interesting to see what kind of commitment they give to a guy that they just paid $3 million for in terms of, in terms of, you know, opportunity on the field. I mean, it's a, if you can buy a player for $3 million, million and sell him for 12. It's a really good investment. And I'm, I'm, I'm sure that's part of the equation with Conrad. Ethan Horvath, rumored to be headed to Fulham, which would be fine. And the championship, he'd apparently get a shot to win the starting job. Just needs to be a regular starter, I think. I mean, that's the main thing, right? And the championship is a level

that's like good enough but also attainable enough for him to get that. I honestly for Horvath, for any of the keepers, I don't care where they go. I do want them playing just because the more they play, the more we get to see and sort of assess them. I don't think they necessarily need to be playing. I mean, as Horvath just showed, you can make a lot of, you know, excellent reflex saves, even if you've been sitting on the bench for two plus years. So it's more just like, again, it's that curiosity of like, I just want to see the guy play because I'm interested as a fan. So hopefully, yeah, hopefully he gets to choose.

He's a free agent. So hopefully he picks a place where he's going to have a real run and he can get some minutes. But if he doesn't, if he gets stuck on the bench, I don't know that it will or should affect his standing with the national team all that much. You come in against Mexico and do what you did against Mexico. Plus what he did against Switzerland. I think his name's in the running regardless until he sort of played. his way out for the national team. Fair enough.

Forget about Ethan Horvath's transfer rumors. They don't even matter. Matthew Hoppe is with the U.S. at the Gold Cup camp in Kansas City. I haven't heard anything lately. It seems like he's in the sort of, hopefully he tears up the double Bundesliga category. I have no inside information on Matthew Hoppe.

Hopefully he comes out flying as a winger. Suddenly he's going to be on the, on the winger market. Oh, yeah. Jonathan Gomez, after a good run and form in USL, he's traveling in Europe right now, exploring clubs, letting people know about it with his Instagram story.

He can't move until he turns 18, which is on September 1st. And whether he can play in the fall in Europe at all depends on if the club that wants him is in a country where the transfer window extends past September 1st. And I did look this up. Italy is the only country

in that category of the major countries. Belgium's not in that category. Spain, France, Germany, England are not in that category. So unless he gets transferred to a Syria club from Louisville City, I think the more likely thing is he doesn't move until the winter. All right. Well, he definitely feels like one for the way down the line future anyway. Yeah, I mean, way down the line future anyway.

I mean, way down the line. Down the line. I know. I know. I think in our last recording, you wanted to see him on the final Gold Cup roster. I don't think I said that in our last recording.

I did say it. I did say it in the recording before that. Okay. All right. Reggie Cannon. Hopefully Bordeaux want him. That's the latest rumor. Liga Un Club.

They have a front office guy who moved over from Boe Vista. So it's not about what you know. but who you know. Another example of that. All right. It feels like he wants out. We've talked about this, that he's basically moonlighting

with the national team to stay away from Boa Vista for the summer. So yeah, hopefully his agent is working, working the phones. Yeah. I think what the way Berthelter put it is, sometimes an unfortunate situation with your club can be a fortunate situation

for the national team. Oh, did he say that? Yeah. Oh, my days. All right. Nice. He didn't go into any detail, though. Eunice Musa.

Headed to Barcelona? That's the latest rumor. I don't know, man. It doesn't seem like a great idea, but go where you can play center mid, Eunice. That's my thought on it. And we'll see you in September. Yeah, and like all transfer speculation should be like almost disregarded out of hand. But especially, especially when the big clubs are thrown around,

because those are the ones that people just love to throw in headlines. If you're looking for clicks, saying a guy's going to go to Batiste just doesn't really do it. But the blockbuster trades for Barcelona have a larger audience. That's true. It's true. A couple more names. I think Taylor Booth is kind of an interesting one.

I have no insight, but he did okay in Austria for a team that did get relegated. Now he's back at Byron You know Filling out training sessions for them Filling out the body count for training sessions He's not a Byron first team player now or maybe ever But it will be interesting to see where he lands Maybe he can get a move up

If you allow me to just push on through here Sebastian Soto He went to Porto from Norwich City Seems like he'll have to pull a rap I can't remember if that was a loan or a transfer But either way he's going to have to pull a rabbit out of his hat to get regular minutes for the first team there. And then a few other names.

Alex Mendez has moved from IAX to FC Vizela, a newly promoted Portuguese club, similar situation to Venizia in Syria. Ullianez is at St. Poulton on, that's the club where Booth was with Cervania. So he's there on loan from Wolfsburg. Both Mendez and Yanez need a reboot, and there is no better time than now, wishing them energy and health and inspiration. Yeah, St.

Bolton are now in the double league in Austria. They're not, they were, they were relegated. So, uh, so, if he,

if he can't do it there, then that's when you're really going to have to start asking whether, uh, club soccer in Europe is, is the way Ulliana should be going. Yeah. And it does seem like there be a market for him in, in major league soccer,

but the, but yeah, it's, I don't know, It's complicated. The other, the centerback loan brigade should be mentioned here. Miazga, CCV, and EPB. No official news on any of those.

I guess several clubs are in the running for CCV. I hear much less about Miaska and EPB. But be nice for them all to settle down, find permanent clubs and, you know, get that sort of nailed down for their careers. Sure. Just make a home for themselves. CTV seems like the kind of guy who could, who could. sort of step into a relegation fighting club in the Premier League where they're like, all right, we're going to defend for 85 minutes out of every game, sit back there and, you know, protect the goal.

Like that makes sense to me. Miaska and EPP like make a lot more sense in a second tier league. Yeah, I think that's a good distinction. And Miasga maybe, you know, maybe could do it a little higher up than EPP, but. Too mistake prone. He's not going to save you from relegation. He's too mistake prone. Yeah.

I don't know. That might be a reach. He is pretty mistake prone, though. All right, let's move on to the Gold Cup, unless you have any more transfer rumors you want to get into. No, we're super excited about the Gold Cup. We've got the global soccer hierarchy here with the Gold Cup Sunday. We've got Euros probably right below that, maybe on equal footing with Copa. So this is great.

This is an exciting time. Yeah, it's, you know, Everybody knows this already, but England versus Italy in the Euro final and Brazil versus Argentina in the Copa America final. So, yes, you've got Namar and you've got Messi and you've got Sancho and you've got... Sancho even going to play? Miles Robinson? Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure.

Yeah, and Miles Robinson, right? So we face Haiti in our little world here. We face Haiti on Sunday, Martinique on, is it Wednesday, or? Thursday, a midweek match, and then Canada the following Sunday, the 18th. So we got to finish top two in the group to advance, and I don't even want to hear about our knockout round opponents until we have six points in hand. Well, we already know it will be either first or second in group C, and group C is Costa Rica, Jamaica, and that's really all that matters.

It will be Costa Rica or Jamaica. Okay. Well, I said I didn't want to hear anything about it, and there you go. I'm laughing because, you know, there is a lot to talk about Mexico's full strength roster and whether or not we have any chance of beating them. And it's like, do we have a chance of getting to them? I think it's a better question. The earliest we would play them is in a semi-final.

And again, I'm not super pessimistic. I actually feel a lot like I did with the Olympic group. And again, there are a ton of familiar sort of emotions with this roster and the Olympic roster. but I just have no idea. I don't know what to expect. It wouldn't surprise me. If we make this run to a final, it also wouldn't surprise me if we bow out in the quarters. Yeah.

I mean, I feel I am encouraged that we have like Sebastian Leggett in the lineup, you know, on the roster, because I feel like he will bring a little bit of aggression and positivity to that midfield that we didn't have in Olympic qualifying. we also have better centerbacks Anyway So you've been diving in on Haiti What do you think of them What do you think of that team So Haiti's like an interesting case

And part of my Haiti dive in Was to also dive into like a lot of our Concaf friendly opponents Of the past six months But here's what I'm going to say about Haiti I think I think Haiti in this tournament Is going to be sort of the dividing line

Of an opponent Who is good enough to beat you if you're not very good. And I say that, again, in comparison to some of these other Concacaf friendlies we've played recently, where we just, you know, massacred them. And if you go back and look at their rosters in those games, these were not very good teams playing not very good versions of themselves. So back in November, we played Panama in Europe,

and that Panama team had like three players in their starting 11, who started their most recent games. in World Cup qualifying knockout matches. So obviously, you know, that was a heavily, heavily rotated Panama side. And Panama aren't very good even at full strength. They're not terrible, but they're not a top tier, Concaf team, even when they're at full strength. El Salvador was the same, two or three guys from a team that,

from that starting group that played against us in December that we just destroyed, only two or three guys from that group were in their World's Cup qualifying playoff. group. And the same for Trinidad and Tobago in January, who Trinidad didn't even make it to the playoff, to the Ocho knockouts. They lost in the group stages. And then they just went to penalties against French Guiana to make it to the Gold Cup. So they're like, they're like the 11th best Concaf team. And again, they were bringing a weakened version of themselves to the friendly against us. So the idea is those teams that we played in those friendlies, like we could not lose to them.

Like we were just, um, there was no way that they could beat us. And I'm saying Haiti is a team that can absolutely beat us if we're not very good. Okay. Yeah. And I follow all that. I did. I did. It's, it's well said.

I feel like we should, you know, it's good for our, for these young players. This is a very young roster to have to face a team like that, you know, just like, you know, Burrhalter, Burrallel, still can't stop talking about how good that. Honduras game was for the group when we when we beat him on the late goal from Pfok but I think like you know for this second tier third tier of US players it's gonna be good to face a Haiti who can beat you but isn't gonna dominate you probably yeah and I'll even give some more perspective since I went down this rabbit hole we may as well you know give the full the full picture here give us all

the contours of the hole so if you go back to 2019 in the Gold Cup in 2019 Haiti actually got out of their group, and they did it by beating Costa Rica two to one as one of their group opponents, so that's what got them out. They beat Canada in the knockouts, three to two in the quarters, and then they lost to Mexico in the semis,

zero one, but it took Mexico the extra 30 minutes to beat them, and Mexico won on, I'm going to just call it a dodgy penalty. I haven't gone back and rewatched it technically, but I'm confident in saying that it was a super dodgy penalty. and it was in extra time or it was in the last 30 minutes of the game

that the penalty was in the last 30 minutes of the game so the penalty didn't send it to extra time it was zero zero going into the extra 30 minutes and then three minutes in Mexico get a penalty award which again I'm not going to watch I'm just going to assume that it was a super soft penalty absolutely no business being given and Mexico hold on to win one zero

yeah I remember Haiti was kind of fun I mean, there was an energy about that team that maybe the current side doesn't have. I don't know. Well, then they went into Nations League, and they were in a group with Costa Rica and Curacao, and they actually tied Costa Rica in both games they played against them. So they've gotten results against teams that are, you know, Ocho competitors. So their last Ocho opponents would have been Canada in the Ocho playoffs, which Canada won. But Canada only won 1-0 in Haiti,

and then it was zero zero at half time at the second leg. So Haiti going into that second half of the second knockout leg, we're still one goal away from doing it. And then, I don't know if you remember, 30 seconds into that. A horrible goalkeeper error, right? Right. Immediately in the second half, which is just the back-breaking error because suddenly now you need two goals.

And when you're the huge underdog and getting one goal is a big enough ask to try to get that to know that you're now two goals back, that's sort of the last straw and then they conceded twice in the last 20 minutes. So two more time. So I'd say it kind of flatters Canada, but Canada also absolutely dominated that game. And it took a lot of luck for Haiti to still be in it at that point.

But they were fighting. It was like goal line clearances, you know, like a goalkeeper standing on his head apart from that horrible own goal. But this is all to say that Haiti, again, if you don't play well, Haiti won't just give you the game. You have to still play well to beat Haiti. And so if we don't beat Haiti, that's basically a big problem.

Yeah. What do you think is going to happen? Are we going to beat Haiti? Yes, I think we beat Haiti. Haiti still give up a lot of chances. It's mostly just like a symptom of one-on-one weaknesses. So going back and watching the Canada game against him, Mark Anthony K just dominates his 1-V-1 matchups

anytime he gets on the ball, which he might be better than anybody we have in our midfield. I don't know how you feel about like a Mark Anthony K versus Sebastian Leget comparison, but I would probably take Mark Anthony K there, there. Yeah, I think he does well in individual battles and does hit some nice passes. I don't know if I'd take him over Legit.

That's fair. That's what it was. That's what it basically looked like is he could do guys on the dribble or he could sort of sit back if they gave him time and he'd pick out these really incisive, progressive passes that would set guys free. And you could do that because Haiti's back line isn't super disciplined or organized. They don't cover gaps very well. They can get dragged out of position.

So you'd see that happen, or you'd see Alfonso Davies just, you know, destroy a guy down the sideline 1 v1 and be able to find a mostly open guy in the box. So they can be – Haiti can very much be had in attack. Who's going to do that? Who's going to destroy somebody up the line? I don't know. And that was the same reason I asked about Mark Anthony Kaye is because I don't know if we have that player. Like, is Boozio going to do it?

Bozio could do it. Is Eric Williamson going to do it? I mean, it's going to be Ewell's going to start this game at the six. So, honestly, the big thing here for me is Daryl D.K., and that's the reason that I'm so much more optimistic than I would be, because I do think that he's a guy who can give you a goal out of nothing. If D.K. wasn't on this roster, if it was Zardez, Zardez doesn't get goals out of nothing, right? Zardez relies on a pretty functional team that he then is really intelligent with his movement within that framework

and gets into good goal-scoring positions. But you have to have all those other pieces in the build-up. And if you don't have those, Zardez isn't going to do it himself. D-K can kind of do it himself. Yeah. Yeah, I wonder if they'll come out and press us. try to rattle us and I don't know

I doubt that I would sit back and make Zimmerman and Miles Robinson try to beat us especially in Jackson you will make us make them try to carve you up yeah hey interesting I mean it's a I'm not an expert on this I'm not even close to an expert on this

but it is an interesting time in Haiti I mean the president was just assassinated a few days ago two days ago I think in his home so I mean these players are going to have probably other things on their mind then the gold cup trophy or maybe not i don't know i don't know maybe it's all feels very distant to them but i hope uh i hope that that can be resolved in k in Haiti right so in the context of the soccer team they they were already in the united states playing their uh gold cup play in

games i think they were down in tampa no fort lauderdale is that in tampa help me out of my florida of geography. Fort Lauderdale is near Miami, but Fort Myers is closer to Tampa. Sure, of course. I must have mixed those up. So they're already in the state, so then they'll go to Kansas City. So just in case, I don't know if it would have been more difficult getting out of the country or if anything would have changed, given what just happened.

So anyway, yes, back into the soccer aspect of it, I do think we'll be able to be able to to handle what they do in attack. They dropped a bunch of goals on Bermuda. They dropped a bunch of goals on St. Vincent. But I don't know if I'd say like ironically, but ironically, I think our centerbacks in the Gold Cup are going to be better equipped to handle some of the Conccaf attackers that will see than our nation's league centerbacks were, who are our first choice centerbacks. Yeah, because Zimmerman and Robinson are both like athletic and mobile and physical.

and you can only say some of those things about McKenzie and Brooks. Right. So I think we'll actually be more difficult for teams to exploit in that sense. But on the other side, no one's going to distribute the ball like John Brooks was doing in Nations. I don't think it'd be awesome if someone did. Well, there are reports of Miles Robinson's distribution increasing in quality over the last 12 months. Well, let's see it. Do you think we're going to see our sort of full-strength lineup,

Burrhalter's idea of the full-strength 11 in this first game? I do, yeah. Because I think, well, I mean, just conventional wisdom would say you can rest some of those guys against Martinique and then have them fully rested for after a week to face Canada. Those are the two games you really have to prioritize. I mean, of course, anything can happen against Martinique, but probably will be okay. Should be, yep.

And going back, what, 2017, was that the Gold Cup where we beat Martinique 3-2 on a late-ish goal, like a 70th-minute goal to take the lead finally? But yes, I kind of expect the same thing to see the first-choice group, or Burr-Alter's version of the first-choice group, then some rotation against Martinique.

And then maybe somebody in that Martinique game or throughout the week takes over for one of the, you know, initial first choice. guys because like you i think i wouldn't surprise me at all if jackson you will start that first game uh and then maybe gets surpassed by by canada it's going to be eul acosta and legit right i think in the midfield and then uh vines at left back i'm just trying to predict burhalters line up vines at left back canon it right back miles and zimmerman of course mad turner and goalkeeper

Areola on the right wing. Yep. Jonathan Lewis at the left wing. Probably Lewis or Hoppy, I think. Coin toss, if you want to call it that. And then is it a coin toss for D.K. And Zardust, or do you think Berlter is for sure going D.K.? Hmm.

60-40, D.K. Okay. I'll take that. So that would be sort of the least surprising 11? I think so, yeah. I mean, maybe, you know, Williamson would be a surprise, I think, as a start. order in that for that first choice group and so would busio. Obviously so would bellow and who's the backup right back we have?

Oh, Shaq Moore. Yeah. I mean, should we talk a little bit more about hate about Canada because that game should be pretty fun. They have Kyle Laron and Io Achanola and Lucas Cavalini as strikers. They don't have Jonathan David. So that's the only, I think the only first choice player. that's not going to be there.

But he's, but the replacements are not half bad. I mean, Aconola is a little scary to me. Like just, just how, you know, his nose for goal,

his increasing intelligence of his movement and his, you know, just how difficult he is to handle physically. And then Laren is coming off a pretty good season, right, in Turkey? Yeah.

Is he still in Turkey? Yeah. So we've got those two guys. And then, or Akanol is an interesting one. Laren was not in there. I just jumped back over to Laren. Laren wasn't in the Nation's League games against us.

He wasn't in the squad. So he's sort of an addition. And then obviously, Aconola is the other edition. And we're expecting Canada to play two up top, like a two-forward setup. So it'll be cool. We could be seeing Iowa Aconola starting against us immediately after filing his one-time switch. So I'm not a guy who holds grudges against people making the choices for themselves. So I'd be really excited to watch.

that game happen if Ocannola gets to start. It'd be hard, like, not to cheer for him to do well, even, even as we're playing against him. Other people will probably not have that problem. He will do well. Like, he will, he will be fine. He, he, unfortunately, doesn't quite fit, like, the Bralter model of what a striker is. I mean, frankly, neither does Darrell D.K., but, um, but, uh, yeah, we may, we may come to look back on this defection, if that's what you want to call it as, uh,

with some with some regret some rue a bit of wistfulness yeah and then they of course they have alfonso davies uh and they're sort of uneven centerback pool uh present in this camp richie lorrea uh at right back and then just like the normal the normal midfield that they bring uh mark anthony k samuel piet uh leum fraser jonathan o'ser jonathan o's And then Stephen Ustakwio and Harry Patton. I'm not familiar with those two, but they're the ones I know. We'll get familiar with them this week. So yeah, so it's one of the, what I'm kind of hoping is that we go into the Canada game with both teams already advanced, similar to how we played Panama in that situation last year.

The winner of the group gets to be on the opposite side of Mexico on the bracket, presumably, assuming Mexico wins their group. So that's sort of what you're playing for there. but that that's enough of a that's a small enough of a prize that you could see some experimental rotation if there are guys that Burhalter starts to think could you know jump over his his initial first choices so that's why that's why I feel like we could see a tryout of sorts in a more in a more competitive match of like a second six or left back you know any of those spots that are really really up for grabs or strike. or if DK goes into the camp as number two to Zardaz.

We're now three days away from the game. When is the last possible moment that the roster can be changed? I haven't seen anything official, but a lot of times in these tournaments, it's up to 24 hours before your team's first game. So it could be, I know the tournament, I think, kicks off on the 10th. So those teams would have to change on the 9th, but I think we might still be able to change on the 10th. Wasn't Yana as a 24-hour replacement down in Guadalajara?

Something like that. It was very close to the first game, yeah. So keep your inboxes refreshed on Saturday morning. There could be an announcement. Kevin Perettis and Moses and Iman have both been training with the national team. Paredes in particular has been really good in Major League Soccer this season and can play left back, at least theoretically. Anyone can. One other quick note just on Gold Cup group stage stuff is the Jamaican Costa Rica group.

just in the gamesmanship side of things that group's winner goes to the Mexico side of the bracket and the second place team goes to the other side so you might see a little bit of gamesmanship to sort of end up in second place in that group to go over and play away from Mexico

Oh man, that seems like a dangerous game that kind of gamesmanship I would definitely if it were me and I'd already advance after two games I would rotate like crazy for game three. Yeah, I suppose. But you got to face Mexico. You got to face Mexico eventually if you want to win the Gold Cup.

Why not face them in the quarterfinals? No, you face them in the final. You give, like if you're Jamaica, you go to the other side because you finish second. You give Costa Rica a chance to upset Mexico first. And if they don't do it, then you go ahead and take care of business. Yeah, I guess that's the math. That's the math, isn't it? Anything else?

I feel like we've talked about this roster for about a month now. And I don't know what else to say. It's been good to see Ricardo Pepe score another goal over the weekend. He didn't have a great game last night. So I don't know. I mean, you still feeling sad about him not being in this roster? Oh, yeah, very much. I would have loved if he had been striker number two behind Darrell Dicke for this kind of tournament.

And I still really wish Jesus Ferrer would have been on the list somewhere. whether it would have been the third striker or the fourth winger, whatever it would have been. And he's been playing well. He had another assist yesterday. So he's looked good. He's looked apart. I mean, he was a little uneven last night.

But yeah, he pulls out some stuff that at least nobody else in that Dallas team can pull out. So yeah. So if there is a late injury, I wouldn't be mad if one of the guys from Dallas. Dallas drove four hours up to interstate to Kansas City. I have no concept of distance and time in Texas. Yeah. If that's a four-hour drive or a 12-hour drive. I don't think it's a four-hour drive.

Just hop on the light rail and up you go. Yeah. Just go jump on the high-speed rail. The tube. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.