Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #192: September World Cup qualifiers roster projection

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

Who is Berhalter likely to select, who could be his cute selection, and who do we wish he'd select that he probably won't. The overlap between Berhalter's choices and ours is much heavier than it was in the past, because, as Greg puts it, the pool is increasingly "cute-proof." 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. That's the acapella version of the intro song, brought to you by Matthew Doyle, who dared me to record and publish it, which I've done. Thank you for the prompt, Doyle. He's a polarizing figure in this little ecosystem of ours, but make no mistake. He's always been a great friend of scuffed, and we appreciate him. To the soccer. A roster for the world. World Cup qualifiers in September should be released in the next couple of days, and we're going to talk about that. Who do we want to see in this squad? Who do we expect to see?

It'll all be rolled up in a single recipe over the next hour or so. Greg, how are you doing? Bells, I'm all right. I'm at this point, like, checking my 10-day forecast for San Salvador every day because we are, by the time this post, that 10-day forecast will include the opening match day of World Cup qualifying. Yeah, the 10-day, like the one on weather. Whatever, whatever your preferred weather app is, look at the 10-day forecast for San Salvador.

Hush, this podcast is sponsored by weather.com. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, it's so close. It's weird to have it be so close. We've been waiting for this for so long. We're working with, I think, a roster of 26. Is that the parameter that you're working with? So I think I landed on that, but that wasn't the starting point.

So what we're going to do today with our roster talk is, we're going to go through sort of what our guiding principles are that we think Burrhalter is probably adhering to, or at least sort of theoretically, and then trying to stick to that because, again, there are so many permutations with all these windows and now with all these sort of injuries that are piling up, which isn't that strange because as our pool has expanded drastically over the summer, that means that more guys are going to be injured. If you have more guys you're thinking of including, you're going to by default to have more injuries. But I think I landed on 26 because I think my guiding principle here for Burrhalter

is that he will probably keep it tight for this window. It'd be easy to let it sprawl with all the positive performances, a couple of breakout players for clubs. But I think for this opening window, the key guys, we already know who they are. And I think he's going to keep it tight, establish some rhythms, establish some patterns for the actual play, window, travel, logistics. and then maybe next window maybe start to get a little more expansive with his call-ups. And that's just simply to like set a tone. Basically, yeah, I think so. And I don't think that's a bad idea.

Again, it's speculation that that's even going to happen will be, you know, the roster will come out and it'll be 35 names. But I'm just kind of thinking that that would make sense. Like there aren't big holes that need to be filled like immediately. All sort of the question marks are very much at the fringes, I think. my opinion. So there's no real urgency to doing it this window when you can get a lot of information for some of these new guys by just watching them over the next few weeks in Europe or at their club and then seeing how the picture looks for them in October. Well, what about just bringing

in players for the experience of going to San Salvador and going through that together? I'm thinking of people like Joe Scali, George Bello, Conrad Delafonte, who maybe wouldn't be in a 23 or a 26, but they have a good chance of being important for the team two months from now or three months from now. Why not bring them in and just have them be part of the team so they can experience all this? So again, he might.

Like that might happen and there's plenty of arguments you could make for it. I think my sense is, if it were me running the show, I would prefer to keep it limited right away. You know, those are going to be sort of get acquainted missions. And I think I would rather, in that first camp, just get everything clicking, everything running smoothly, no sort of distractions or having to focus on X, Y, or Z when you can just streamline everything, and boil it down to the barest of essentials and just focus on that job at hand. And again, I think the players we have,

the key players very much are known quantities. So it's easy, I think, to just keep the focus on them in the opening camp. You might have some filler that might not be in it for the long term around them. And then come October, you figure out who you need to start integrating with those, I don't know if you want to call them speculative call-ups or sort of those get acquainted call-ups. Okay.

Well, I said, you know, Conrad and Scali and Bello wouldn't be in a, you know, a 23 or a 26. There are people who would disagree with that, right? Sure. There are people who would say, you know, Scali started left back against Spire Munich. He doesn't have anything more to prove. He played well. He should be, you know, the backup left back or whatever. And I'll make clear, you know, we at Scuff have never been opposed to speculative call-ups.

So I would not be like, oh, no. No, we can't have Scali in this camp. It's going to cost us. I basically think that there is going to be very little marginal cost for omitting some of those names, some of those breakout names or some of those fringe players. Because, again, we might be talking about the 24th through 25th, 26 spots on a roster that are sort of break in case of, break glass in case of emergency guys. And the other thing to remember is we can, if those emergencies occur in game one,

we lose three guys to injury like Aureola in the Gold Cup. You just add guys after the fact. You call them in the next day and they meet you in Nashville. Yeah. Yeah, there's no rules about this. This isn't the World Cup. It's the Wild Wild West for qualifying. Yeah, and then the other, you know, there's a couple other things, top-level things.

There's Pulisic's COVID diagnosis, which it seems like he should be able to make it to the U.S. for at least the second or third match, if, you know, assuming everything, it's, It's just a sort of a run-of-the-mill 20-something getting COVID and it's not that big of a deal. No idea there, right? I mean, total mystery about what he's up to now, whether he's still like doing training. I mean, if he's seen anything, is he posting things like working out, training, anything like that? I haven't. I'm not as busy on Instagram as some others.

If he's on couch rest for two weeks, you know, I have no idea. But those kinds of things could play into it. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it's like, I don't care. I literally don't care if he's. He's not gone off his couch for two weeks. If he's cleared the day that we play, Canada and Nashville,

he's wearing a uniform and starting. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you almost feel like, I feel like we don't really need to have him in the 11 against El Salvador anyway, or at least you could argue we don't need that. And we're hoping to do like a how do you rotate episode once the roster is out,

and the roster could be out anywhere from tomorrow to Friday. Who knows? For sure. So we'll get into that But so I mean it wouldn't it wouldn't be too bad to just have him come for the second and third games and not even Pretend that he might play in the first one The other thing right the other thing is well go ahead go ahead and it'll all just come down to actually what his like cardiovascular fitness is at that point like COVID is

Is not easy on the lungs for a lot of people so To sort of just assume oh well he had it this day we can just you know mark put 10 Xs on our calendar from the day He tested positive And he's good to go after that. Like, that's also a bit of a leap that we can't quite just say that straight away. Well, the good news is we have some other good wingers, other good half-space merchants. The other thing is other injuries. Like, Zardis is out two to four weeks with hamstring tweak, right?

Yep, saw that. Ariola, Paul Oriola. How long is he out for? Is he definitely out for this window? Haven't seen a firm date on it yet. Just know he left that game injured and then he didn't play in their next game wasn't in uniform. Haven't seen anything on a timeline, but maybe some of the DC folks out there can correct us. D.K. hasn't played any soccer since the Gold Cup.

It could be a shoulder injury. It could be something more encouraging, like a move in the works. Who knows? And who else? Tim Rine left the Fulham match with an injury. And again, for as much as it feels, like Tim Ream is always on the cusp of not being in the roster anymore, in the fans' minds,

he sure does start every single important game for Greg Burhalter. Yeah. Would you categorize that as cute? That's, at this point, we're cute adjacent. But Ream Pop probably hurt Eunice Musa out injured still for the opening of the season. And then Paxton Pomacall is like a guy on the fringes, I think, or who would be. Is he even on the fringes? I mean, or is that just in our minds that he's in the fringes?

I think he'd be in the discussion. Again, when, you know, if the new bar to clear into that midfield is like Eric Williamson or Gianluca Busio, there are going to be a lot of guys in the discussion. We're back to that fourth eight being kind of a wide open race. Yeah. Okay. And then, Kel and Acosta, I don't think he's injured, but he is not played for Colorado since the Gold Cup either, right?

No, he has. He got 90 just over the weekend. It was his first game back. So he got 90, and then Eric Williamson came back in and got 45 after a few matches out. I saw that. Yeah. Okay. So Acosta's back in the game.

Zimmerman back from injury. He's played now in 90. He's got a 90 under his belt. I think that's pretty important news that he, you know, he played, he made a cameo in the previous match, and now he's fully back to health. Should we start with the position groups now? Yeah, we'll just go position by position. We're going to, again, I'm going to be going by my guiding principle of a tight streamlined camp with the emphasis on just setting the tone.

Bells, you're free to disagree if you think that getting some guys in and getting acquainted should be a priority for this camp. We'll give the guys we think are coming. Then we're going to throw in a guy who Burrhalter could include as like a very cute selection. and then we'll throw in sort of our wish list if we could just if we could run the show for a day. So if the wish list comes at the end, the first thing is what's likely to happen? That's right. That's right. Okay.

So we're talking about primarily what Burrhalter is likely to do. I think so. And then obviously, as always, we'll let our own opinions bleed in because it's inevitable. Yeah. Goalkeepers. Easiest, easiest picks in the lineup. Turner, Stefan, and Horvath. I guess the real question is who starts.

Yeah, and whether they rotate or how it'll work. So that'll be fun to watch. The only way I think we get cute here is if you leave off the third string keeper, like if that's Horvath in this case, it might not be. But whether you just let him stay with Nottingham Forrest, he's played one cup match, hasn't broken through in their league matches yet. So do you just leave him home since you might not? not play him over the window and let a Brad Guzan, you know, travel with the team.

Yeah. Stefan and Horvath appear to be settling into a rhythm of not playing much this season. So that's something to watch. Let's go to centerbacks. Who do you think is most likely? So I've got John Brooks. I've got Miles Robinson. And then I have Chris Richards and Walker Zimmerman as my rounding on my four.

and it wouldn't surprise me if we only bring four to start with. But this one, there's some wiggle room. Who do you have for coming in? Well, if Ream is hurt, then I think that is a pretty good guess of what will happen, you know, those four. If Ream is healthy, I would be a little bit surprised if Richards came instead of Ream. So yeah, so people are going to, I think, balk at that. Do you think that's just a Burrhalter thing, or do you think you would probably not bring Chris Richards? No, I'd bring Chris Richards.

Okay. For sure. I think that would be cute of Burrhalter. Yeah, that'd be cute. For me, Ream is probably the guy who would have been in here in addition to those four, and then his injury might just mean leaving that fifth spot blank. I'll give a little bit of like the rebuttal to the people who just can't believe that Well, I guess I want Chris Richards there too

But the people who can't believe that some people might want Miles Robinson to start over Chris Richards Because I'm seeing a lot of angst about that And work in my experiment in my head is that If you took that, like we've been looking for a partner for John Brooks We thought it would be Chris Richards, but we haven't really seen him play for the national team yet And so the hope was when he finally got a chance to actually get good minutes for the national team We were hoping it was Nations League He'd step in and look the part and everything would go swimmingly

he gets hurt so he can't do it. And then he's not included for gold cup for whatever reason. But what I like to do is I take that gold cup performance that we saw from Miles Robinson. And if you just take the Robinson off of his shirt and put a Richards on there. And if we saw Chris Richards do exactly that, exactly what Miles Robinson did in that gold cup, everyone would be like, yes, this is exactly what we needed to see. We see him now do it for the national team. Instant lock, he's right next to Brooks and we have no worries going forward.

So it's just like Miles already did it. Miles did exactly what we needed to see Chris Richards do. I've got no problem with him starting. It would be a little cute to leave Richards out entirely. But again, it could be that this window, the emphasis is on Brooks and Miles, and he goes with the guys who are in the other camps, Gold Cup and Nations League for his backups. Yeah, and it could be, it's possible there's something going on behind the scenes

with Richard's club situation and it would be most beneficial for him to stay. who knows but I do but yeah the if you remember the person who was the centerback who did get to play in nation's league because in part because or presumably in part because richards was injured was mark mackenzie and he you know he showed flashes of good stuff but he also you know did not prove himself 100% reliable he had the like the famous how like shocker against mexico in the open

opening minutes and had a few other moments that were not, not great. So it feels, I think the centerback position feels a lot better than it used to, but it's still kind of, it's Brooks and Miles for me and then, yeah, you know, who knows? Then pick a couple. Well, and then, and then Richards, because, you know, he did it for Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga against good, like against teams like RB Leipzig. So that's as big of a test as you can face pretty much as a professional centerback. I mean, you know, it's in the ballpark of as big of a test as you can face.

That's definitely the hope. The beauty of this is we saw Miles do exactly what we were hoping to see Chris Richards do. But we could still see Chris Richards do the same thing. So we could just have or maybe even like degrees better. So we might be in a situation where we have two guys who are giving that level of performance. And that would be fantastic. This is going to be kind of a theme for me throughout this is that I do, I'm not so interested in the streamlined camp as you are. I want to see.

No, I mean, I acknowledge, I mean, you're the coach. You're the one who's actually coached soccer in real life, unlike me. But I just want to see, even if Richards is brought in to get further acquainted and to understand the system better and to understand the stakes and doesn't play, I still want him there, you know. And I'm going to say that about a few other people, too. Well, again, I want him as one of my four. So I want him in with either a plan to play or a comfort to rely on him should he be needed. So for me, he's not even like a get-acquainted guy. I want him in as the four.

I just, based on his, what half a dozen or dozens or so games with Hoffenheim, I basically just trust him more than I trust a Mark McKenzie or Matt Mioska. Yeah. And I- James Sands will throw on there as a possible fifth because of the additional tactical flexibility he might offer. Yeah. Given his center mid, centerback hybridness. As a middle of a back three.

And the, yeah, okay. I'm good with that. So Sands qualifies as like a possible wish for just that flexibility, but I'm not super crazy about him being there or not. Well, we know from Gold Cup that he struggles a little bit more as a centerback in a two centerback formation. He just doesn't have the elite athleticism for that.

So let's go to fullback. Oh, I want to say one more thing about Richards. It is a little bit frustrating that his club situation is what it is right now. He's not, doesn't appear to be in the first team. No, I mean, he's in the plans. He came on and played as a sub for Alfonso Davies in the last game for Byron at left back for a few minutes. And like, that's the minutes he's gotten.

for Bayern Munich so far in the league. That's a little frustrating, and I think it does, you know, you do want somebody who's sharp and, you know, playing at a high level. He's not playing at a high level right now. I mean, he's training at a high level, but he's not playing at high level. So there's a, I just want to acknowledge that point of view. Sure. The issue there is neither, Miazga hasn't played a minute since his 90th minute

cameo against Honduras. So Miazga over the summer only played one minute for the U.S. He just moved to the La Liga on loan. So he hasn't played any soccer either. And then McKenzie is sort of fallen out of the rotation. He'll have a chance to play this coming weekend. Otherwise, he's looking at a month without games going into the window. Yeah.

Yeah, when you put it like that, there's no, we have. Richards has to be there. It has to be. He has to be there. He's actually my wish list centerback. I really hope he's on there. Okay. Let's do fullbacks.

Who do you have? How many fullbacks and who are they? All right. So fullbacks is my first cop-out space where I'm bringing Sergenio Dest. I'm bringing Anthony Robinson. And then I am also bringing a right back and a left back. Draw their names out of a hat. So the names in this hat from which we will draw are...

Yedlin, Cannon, Moore, Shackmore, George Bello, Sam Bines, Joe Scali. Scali is actually my wish list pick. So I'm cheating. getting ahead of the game there. Okay. Yeah, I think I'd like to bring five fullbacks. Dest, Robinson, Shaq, Scali, and Cannon as a, you know, Scali perhaps just to get acquainted. But Cannon there, Canon there as sort of a serviceable breaking case of emergency situation.

and then, you know, the lion's share of the minutes go to Dest and Robinson and more. But, yeah, you know, I tip my cap to your agnosticism about it. Scali as one of the four would be really interesting and probably a huge reach, just because, again, he doesn't have the Burrhalter familiarity that all of the other guys have. Also, there was a report that he had not been in contact with U.S. soccer up as of like a week ago and that makes it seem unlikely that he's in the picture for this for this call-up.

Yeah. Yeah, so I guess I have to put him as my wish. I'm not too bothered about it. So Dest, Robinson, Shaq, and Cannon, I think that seems somewhat likely. Cannon is one of Burrhalter's guys. I think it's a very,

there's a very small chance that he wouldn't be on this roster. Yeah, there are man management ways around it because Cannon has barely played I think did he just get in as like a late sub in their last game I don't think so I'll have to double check now they play today

yeah they play the play as we speak I think he didn't have to see he didn't play last weekend but there are definitely like you know grounds to leave a guy out if he's if you know he was hurt through most of the gold cup and now he hasn't played since then um

yedlin hasn't been playing much but he's like you know he's gone through a preseason and he's seen the field a few times for Galatasarai and he started against Mexico in the in the Nations League final. So I think Burhalter does respect sort of at least the toughness that Yedlin brings to a Concaf scenario. So I don't know why I'm even going on about it. There's again, pick the names out of a hat for me. They're all serviceable. I think I think you're going on about it because it's not because it's not real clear who those you know, third and fourth picks are going to be. I make it sound like it might be clear, but it's not. Yeah, Yedlin actually went 90 in a Europolete

qualifier midweek last week and Galatasso plays today. And then they have a midweek second leg against Randers on in the middle of the week. Yeah. All right, let's do center mids. Okay, center mids. This is a pretty exciting spot because it feels like Tyler Adams is back and ready to go at full strength for us. So he's the first name on my team sheet with Weston McKinney joining him. I think Kalin Acosta looked good in 90 minutes for Colorado. Did you watch it at all? So he's basically playing at like the bottom of a triangle with Mark Anthony Kaye ahead of him on the left and I think it's Jack Price ahead of him on the right. Cole Bassett like shifted out wide left. But it's interesting to see because again,

my hope is actually that we see Acosta McKinney Adams in midfield together with Acosta as the six and Adams a little bit higher. But I, I don't know if anyone else shares that. I don't really. Because I, well, just to agree with what you said about Adams earlier, he does look sharp right now. He, he, did you watch any of that Red Bull Leipzig win? He looked real good. Energetic, clean on the ball, progressive with his passing.

A lot to be excited about there. So then you're saying put him at the 8, Acosta at the 6, and McKinney at the other 8? Yeah, I mean, we're talking real triple pivot stuff, and it just gives Adams a little bit more license to go where he thinks the game takes him, and I just very much trust him to do that. But again, I'm not going to be bothered about any configuration of midfielders we throw out with those three guys. And I don't even mean just all of them together. I mean, wherever Adams plays in midfield, I'm going to be pretty happy about it,

just seeing him out there. and then I also got I've got Legette in there is basically a lock and then I think it gets a little interesting and I'm going with Roldon who I don't love at all

in Central Midfield for us and this so this one's a total like Burrhalter pick and then I think probably maybe Eric Williamson Yeah it's hard to say I mean the other options would be him bringing in

like Luca della Torre Gian Luca Bousio Palmicle's hurt Moose is hurt. There's no way Keaton Parks is getting a run out here. No. Though I wish we could see it once. It's not a time for experimentation.

No, I don't. So it doesn't seem like any of those is going to happen. Maybe. William, Williamson just got back again after the long spell, played 45 minutes. That was like up and down in Austin. I think it was like 100 degrees. They were down 3-0 at halftime.

And he came off at halftime. So he was hit or miss. He had some solid moments. He also, like, ended after about 20 minutes, he ended up being pushed out wide right. It felt very like Dave Sarekinish, where suddenly Eric Williamson was like the right man in a 4-2-3-1. So for whatever that's worth. I did notice that Austin was just passing through the mid-finding a lot of pockets of space in that midfield to receive and turn and drive at the back line. What's up with?

NLS is so crazy because you think like Well, Portland's a pretty good team. They're not going to, they should be able to do pretty well against an expansion side. And they're getting curb stomped in the first half. I don't know. What about Raina as a midfielder? You know, that's the, all the kids are talking about it.

Well, he's been playing as like a pseudo-8 for Dortmund. Again, there's so much hybridity now that it's hard to saying he's an eight doesn't mean one thing for one team. He might be this kind of an eight for Dortmund, whereas the U.S. plays this kind of an eight. I've had no doubts that Gio Raina could play that position for us for the U.S. The worry has been for me

does it hurt us a lot to take him out of the advanced attacking line? Where most people want him as a 10, well, that's where our analog of a 10 plays up higher. If we drop him into that midfield, do we lose the strength that he brings to ball retention to cage matches pressing from up high? And I still have those concerns,

but I certainly wouldn't hate to see him in midfield with another very good attacker put in in the right half space. How about you? Where do you stand on the big rain of question? It's very tempting. I think I need you to articulate more clearly what your concerns are. Because I know you've done it a lot, but I'm slow on this stuff.

Because it seems to me, well, say you do Adams and McKinney as your six and your eight, which I think is what a lot of people have as their sort of lock. Then you could put Raina as the other eight. And then you could put Tim Wea in there to stretch the line as a right wing, or Brendan Erinson as a half-space merchant, a more pure half-space merchant. What do you lose when you do that? So for me, sort of what you're going to lose in possession,

or you might not lose anything. The worry is just going to be how it stays, what shape it takes as you're building, because are you having Wea pinch in or, let's say it's Tim Wea. And then Sergenio Desk moves up on the right side and Pulisic wants to come in from the left side. So those guys end up being your 10. So now Raina is not going to be doing the job of a 10.

He's going to be doing the job of like a shuttling 8, which again, I think he could do that job really well. And it might be that his ability to connect defense to attack makes everyone else in our pool look terrible. And suddenly we've hit on the formula to really get more out of our possession. And that would be awesome. I do still worry that the drop off from Raina to either Wea or Aronson or Conrad, in one of those attacking spots could be significant and could be enough that it's not worth

it to do that. Yeah. But it's an experiment I would certainly like to see run. Well, I mean, talking about the left side of the field, when Sebastian Leggett has been one of the eights, one of the things he's, I think, rightly received praise for is his ability to, you know, sort of defer to Pulisic and do whatever it is, Pulisic's not doing. So if Pulisic tucks in, he makes a run out wide. or, you know, if Pulisic staying wide, then he's in the 10, that sort of 10 spot as an 8.

Now, I don't think, I don't think Raina is as selfless an individual as Legit is, probably, or as, you know, as good off the ball with his movement. But he could do that stuff, you know, you could make it work. Robinson could be more of a stay at home who occasionally bombs forward and doesn't, I don't think we need to see Robinson on a high line in possession with the, forward, you know? We don't need that from him. I don't hate it. I think Bob, I think Bob Morocco posted a

rotation that would accomplish Rain at the 8, and it was actually Serginio Des being more of like a inverted center mid in possession, where Wayas stays high and Raina can get higher up the field and it's then desk pinching in, so you still have sort of your

horizontal balance of players across the different horizontal lanes. So there's, again, there's tons of different ways to arrange at that sort of balanced shape and possession. And you could definitely do it with Raina in more of an eight role. And again, you could even do it with Raina starting out as that eight, but kind of like Legette has done in the past,

he steps up in and becomes more of the 10 rather than just sitting in front of the six. So we don't have to get too bogged down on all this. We can definitely go nuts with the tactics once the rosters come out. Wouldn't hate to see Raina in that midfield at all. I don't know how likely it is. Do you think it's likely? No, I don't. And I think part of the argument against it would be like, okay, sure, we do have these exciting

wingers. Like what, you're not sure that you're thinking maybe there's a huge drop off from Raina to Aronson. And I think that's a fair concern. But there's this, all this talk about how we have all these exciting wingers. We have Waya playing for a good, well, it used to be a good league on team. We got Aronson at Salzburg, and now we have Conrad de la Fuente. So why not move right into the middle?

Well, the argument against that, I'm setting all this up to say the argument against that is, well, it's, we have these three game windows. So it's not about just like putting out the best possible lineup for one game. It's about having good lineups for three games in a row. And we are going to need those guys to play on the wing, whether that's for 40 minutes in the second half. against one of these games or starting one of these games. So I don't think there's like this, I don't feel this huge sense of urgency that we have to get right into the middle. Right, right.

That's what I'd say. It's not an ironclad case, but it'd be interesting as hell, and I wouldn't hate seeing it. Same here. But you don't think, you don't think it's likely either. Probably Burrhalter will bring him as a forward

and play him as a half-space merchant. I think that's a starting spot. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if we see a little bit of within a game, you know, like a little shift towards that after a substitution. Wouldn't be crazy. I mean, Burrhalter has done a lot of like unrehearsed, at least unrehearsed in matches, changes.

Like you think about that Mexico final in Nations League. Think of all the wild positional flexes there were in the run of the game. So he did it in the Gold Cup with, I think Zardez was playing at some point like a wingback. Like he'll do some of these things and trust that the guys are capable of doing it. and Raina is a guy that I trust in a lot of different places. Yeah, I'm getting kind of annoyed thinking about all those unrehearsed positional flexes. So I've got, for this, we're still in the central midfield.

My cute possibilities, I think, are rolled on, who I expect to see. And again, who I just don't think controls the middle of the field well enough to be an eight. I really wish that if he were going to be in this group, it would be as like a flex half space merchant. and then I think we can't we also can't totally rule out Jackson Ewell being called up again Have you ruled that out? I sort of have subconsciously ruled it out

I need to... It'd be Boozio instead, right? Like if you were gonna do like a full-on deep-lying playmaker selection, it would be Boozio who could also at least deputize as an eight. Yeah, arguably, I suppose. Okay. All right, so I think that does...

Yule's probably ruled out and it'd be Boozio on the fringe. I don't have a strong wish here because I don't think we need to be I don't think we need to be experimenting too much but yeah definitely Adams McKenney Acosta Legette and then if it's Williamson enrolled on so be it Sands I think would make sense as a holding mid backup but it doesn't appear that we're going to see that either

should we talk about the wingers let's get into the yeah let's get into our half space guys you go first this time Surely we're not going to be that dissimilar. It's going to be Pulsick, Raina, Wea, Arensen, Conrad, and Hopi for me. So this is an example of me wanting to bring everybody. No, obviously not everybody. But Hoppe was so good in the Gold Cup that we need to see more of him.

And Conrad has been so good in Liga-A-A-A-A-A-on so far that we need to see him, at least in the camp, get him acquainted, get him to be part of this group that's trying to qualify for the World Cup, even if he doesn't play. And if he does happen to get on at the end of a match, great, you know, let's see what he's got. So that would be six.

And if I think at this point, we're looking at like 24, 25 players, not including the forwards in my proposed roster. So what do you think about the half space guys? really sprawling. You're really sprawling here. Now, Pulisagreina Way, I'm pretty sure Aronson are locks.

And so then I threw Hopi on there. And I know Hopi is, I believe, basically a forward for Shalka and a forward only. But we clearly saw that he can do a job out wide for us. And I think because Zardez is hurt, I kind of already had Hopi penciled

in as a striker as well on the striker depth chart for this camp. And I think he'll kind of be in both those roles throughout a possibility for both those spots. And again, I would love to see Conrad on here. I'm not expecting it because I think this, you know, we talk about these get acquainted slots, but you also have to remember, like, this whole team needs to get acquainted.

Like, they played split up between Nations League and Gold Cup. And even in the camps before that, it was very much like a European domestic split with a couple of guys making the overseas flight. But this group has barely played together. So I think this is like the get acquainted for the entire team. And then these new players might see their get acquaintedness coming later. But Conrad has also been in a camp. So we can't forget that either.

He was in the November camp last year. That's right. So this wouldn't be like Scali where he's never been in a Burrhalter camp. He's been there before. He started that one of those games. too. The one against Wales he started. And he had a big chance. Yep, he started against Wales with Legette as the as the false nine. There's no cute options here, right? There's no cute inclusions. We're not going to see

Jonathan Lewis on this list. Yeah, no way. No way. So that's what we're at. We're cute proof on the wings. Like the only questions are going to be how far, how many bodies Burhalter brings. I don't think we're going to see Jesus Ferreira, though I'm just going to include him on my wish list from here on out because I very much enjoy watching a play. I also have, I have Conrad on my wish list, so I'm hoping to see it. I'm just not going to be like super, super disappointed or angry if he's not on this particular list.

That's fair. I mean, a lot of people will be super disappointed and angry, but not you, Greg. Paula Areola out injured Nico Giochini, I don't know, is really just going to make it. I think he's just going to be below some of these other options. He hasn't played.

I think he's the guy who maybe played like the last two minutes for his first minutes of the season yesterday. I have Julian Green listed here because I think this would be where he fits in best for us. He kind of plays like a hybrid of a hybrid center mid half space merchant role. So for his club.

But I think it'd be easier to incorporate him for us out wide rather than throwing him right into the middle of the rotations. And he still feels to me like a guy who'd be like he won't hurt you, but he's not going to make you a lot better kind of a player at the moment. Yeah, I saw that he, I pulled up some of his clips from the weekend and he took four shots. One of them was a header that was like not that, you know, is a header he should have tried to head in the goal. The other three were all, like, blasts from 35 yards that had no chance of going in. And that they kind of reminded me of the good. He loves the 35-yard blast. Yeah, he does.

And Groreter Firth is going to be struggling this year. But that's, you know, that's definitely not a disqualifier for it, for being on a U.S. roster. That's for sure. Let's move to forwards. All right. I just have Sergeant P. Fawke and Hoppe. So you got Hoppy as a winger and a forward. Yeah.

I have him as the fifth winger because you know, you only usually would need four for a camp, but because it's an extended one, Hoppe gives you the extra body there, and he gives you the third striker where you might only need two, so he's just this utility man in the attack. Yeah. Okay.

Who you bringing? Who you're bringing? Well, I'm bringing Hoppe as well, but I'm going to add Pepey to the list, Sergeant Pfeck and Pepey. I think Azardis's injury, DK's uncertainty are a great, opportunity to bring in peppy and i know you're you're very concerned about predatory cap tying

and i don't i'm not i mean okay maybe in my heart of hearts i'd be okay with it but i'm not going to publicly say that i'm okay with it um i think they if you want to handle this in a appropriate way for the young man then you know bring him to camp let him see what's all about and get him acquainted you know and if he feels like he's he's ready to he's ready to get capped then cap him and if he's not then wait i'm totally on board with that i was going to say he's so he played over the weekend he scored a goal and uh sort of created the other goal for dallas he just works so hard you know even if when he even when it's not all clicking in the buildup and not everything's not perfect soccer wise he's still working

his butt off and in the press and coming back to the ball, he does a lot of little things well and he's the leading American goal score in Major League Soccer tied with CJ Sapong at the age of 18. There we go. I was wondering if we were going to talk about, I was wondering if we were going to talk about Sapong. Is Sapong on your depth start anywhere here? No, I'm too slow moving in my thinking to add him back yet, but is there a strong

argument for it? I mean, the nine goals, I guess, is an argument. Yeah, he's got nine goals, three assists in I think 1,200 minutes. I think he's got like seven goals and assists in his last 400 minutes. So for people who are trying to justify Pepe's inclusion based on like the hot hand, I think the hot hand would actually go to C.J. Sapong, if that's your thing. Is that not your thing? I'm getting a sense that it's not your thing. I'm not usually a hot hand guy, but again, Sapong has, he's got 12, 12 and 1,200 minutes.

So it's not, he's also, both Sapong and Pepe are overperforming expected goals. So I'll wet blanket, both of them with that. There basically is no US striker at the moment that would surprise, like a single striker that would surprise me to be in this camp. Like if if Sapon gets called up, I'd be like, huh, if Peppy gets called up, I'd be like, yay, but it wouldn't like surprise me. It was a dozen DK out, that extra striker spot. if we bring an extra striker could be any of those guys.

It could be a boba, say, it could be Bobby Wood. I'm not going to be mad if one of those guys gets another call up. I don't think I'm going to be mad. I guess I'll be mad if they play and they look bad. But we haven't had, the bottom line is we haven't had strong striker play since Burhalter started coaching the national team. Other than that run of friendlies, where like our striker scored nine, goals in three games, but those were against Concaf backups backups. So it's tough to

really say that that's our new reality. Yeah. I mean, the bottom line is nobody sees the job at all. And hopefully, you know, I'm hopeful that Sergeant comes into this camp, you know, fresh and proves all the doubters wrong. But I've, I've been hopeful about that in every camp that Josh Sargent has participated in since he first made his debut with the national team. as we like to say he's uh he's maybe he'll turn the corner this time so the roster's coming out what we do maybe tomorrow Tuesday maybe Wednesday yeah I've heard Tuesday I've heard Thursday I haven't heard Wednesday yet so that's you're you're throwing out the Wednesday rumor the Wednesday rumor is just because the MLS All-Star game is Wednesday night and you could you know conceivably

release it at halftime when the whole nation will be sitting there with baited breath sense. Peppy's playing in that, right? Oh, yeah, Peppy will be there. Ooh, the plot thickens. There we go. There we go.

If you haven't already, you should check out our episode where we talked to John Arnold about El Salvador, Canada, and Honduras. He's a very knowledgeable guy, and that episode is sort of increasingly relevant as the day draws near. Anything else, Greg?

Well, I saw some of, Somebody on the Discord say that they were going to listen to each segment of that the day of the game we were playing that opponent. And I thought that was a pretty good idea to be fresh about what you were going to be watching. Because it is. It's hard to keep track of all of what John was talking about. Awesome previews. But to keep track of all of that all at once. But the day of the game, I'm going to be refreshing that El Salvador section.

Shout out Den Zara for that suggestion. And by the way, you know, if you're curious about the Discord, we, just this morning, I just this morning did a weekend recap on the Discord channel and we recorded it and some people asked some questions thanks to those folks who did that and I turned that into essentially a mini podcast episode and published it for the patrons. So you can be part of the Discord, you can get the patron only episodes such as they are by becoming a patron of the scuff podcast. Your move, everybody. No way. And we, I say that, I say that flippantly but we really do appreciate all the people who do support the podcast.

That is wonderful and thank you. The only other piece of news I think that we haven't covered is just Otisoui to Brouche, Club Bruch. Owen Otisoui signed from Wolverhampton. It hasn't played yet, but we should keep an eye on that because that's a good chance for him to get some minutes and maybe he'll, you know, 16 months is a lot of time. So people can still emerge as Conrad Delafonte and Joe Scali have shown.

us. The Argentina kid. The Argentina kid just signed for, who do you sign for? Help me out here. Montreal. Mottco, yeah. Yeah. Georgie's going to be setting him up.

Or maybe he's going to be setting up Georgie. Which one is which? It's Georgie. Georgie is a playmaker. Mocko, from what I've seen, is the speed merchant. He's Tyler Boyd. He just wants the ball. He wants to run vertically.

That's my, yeah, that's my scouting report from like a year ago, which was probably the last time Mottko played in a competitive soccer game. Well, one other piece of housekeeping is we are, going to do, Greg's not going to be able to make it, unfortunately, but I will be there, and several other, several listeners will be there, and some of our friends,

some of Gregs and my mutual friends will be there in Nashville for the Canada World Cup qualifier on September 5th. We're going to try to do a live show in the parking lot at a scuff tailgate. Planning live events is not, you know, it's not what I have my degree in. So bear with us. But that should be fun. It should be fun to meet up with people and have a good time, get loose,

and go see the U.S. beat Canada and get their sixth points of the qualifying window. That's right. That's right. Part of the eight-day celebration that will be the September World Cup qualifying window. Yep. So may it be. Anything else, Greg, you want to mention? Nothing at all.

Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.