Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #193: The September roster, rotations and exhortations

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

Berhalter called up 26 players for the first three World Cup qualifiers of the 2022 cycle. The time has come! We discuss the selections (mostly pleased) and spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to rotate for three games in seven days. There will be lots of tough choices and on-the-fly conundrums but from the comfort of our desks in Middle America we have sketched out some possibilities.Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedDiscord: https://discord.gg/ayz9QekfeRMerch: https://my-store-11446477.creator-spring.com/ 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. The thing that stung most about Coova, the 2-1 loss to a Trinidad and Tobago side that had nothing to play for who knocked us out of going to the 2018 World Cup was the sluggishness of the American performance. This is Bell speaking, by the way. Maybe it was the lack of rotation. Maybe it was a lack of collective morale, intra-squad strife, maybe the overall American malaise. of the moment, whatever it was, that team didn't have the fire. They didn't play with the required intensity in unglamorous corners of the region when it counted most, and we missed the World Cup. Now is when it counts. Every goal, every point matters. So here's a message from one fan, Just Bells, to the young players about to embark on this qualifying campaign.

Gio, Wes, Tyler, Sogenio, Antony, Josh, Miles, Chris Richards eventually, we assume, Eunice. Timmy, Brendan, Conrad, and Ricardo, if you and your teammates come out focused and serious and flat out just play hard, the fans will adore you for it. And we will most probably win and most probably go to the World Cup. So let's do this, boys. Greg, how you doing? Bells, it's happening. It is happening. Four years in the making, it's happening.

I think you left out George Bello. I'm just going to point that out because I was. I did leave out below. Well, just because I was going through how outrageously young this team is, and Bellow is another 2002, same age as Joe Raina. And it's just incredible. You know, our big thing when we started this was, will we have that savior by committee? And the sergeant at arms at this point is having to keep people out of the ante chamber.

The committee has arrived. Yeah. There are many qualified applicants to the committee who cannot join the committee anymore. It is a very exciting time. I mean, the big news, you know, the big news, for me at least, is Pepe choosing to play for the USA. It appears to be, it sounds like a permanent thing. I'm expecting it to be named a federal holiday here in the next couple. I mean, they have to go back to this date and call it a federal holiday.

Or maybe they'll save it for his actual debut. And I know this means a lot to you in particular, Bells. You've been really wanting specifically, you know, a Mexican-American player to, choose the U.S. to have both options than to choose the U.S. And so, yeah, it's a pretty cool moment for, I think for a lot of people. I mean, I love it. I've got my, I always have my half of my Mexico shirt on under a U.S. shirt. I don't know if some of our newer listeners are aware of that.

But I just, I love the fact that we are going to have a little bit extra Mexican representation in the pool. Yeah, it's awesome. Because it was, you know, if PEPP you weren't in this roster, there would be no Mexican-Americans in the roster. And we don't have to get into all that. You could go back and listen to the interview with Herc if you'd like. But this is positive.

It's like it sets a precedent. Every single time a player chooses, it sets a precedent. It goes in the bank for one side or the other. And, you know, it makes it seem more likely that maybe if Jonathan Gomez eventually, you know, makes it to that level, maybe he'll choose the, he'll choose the U.S. Maybe Julian Araujo will choose the U.S. Who knows? All right. But enough enough.

It's super happy, super positive. Let's get this September list going. Fair enough. Okay. At goalkeeper. We've got no surprises. Turner, Horvath, and Stefan. Centerbacks, John Brooks, Miles Robinson, Walker Zimmerman, Mark McKenzie,

Tim Ream, and James Sands. We will discuss this in detail, but let's just get through the list. Fullbacks are Bello, George Bellow, and Anthony Robinson on the left. Serginio Dest and D'Andre Yedlin on the right. Center mids, a little bit light in this category. We got Adams, McKenny, Acosta, Legette, and Rolled on, listed in the roster as a central midfielder. And then the wingers listed in the roster as forwards would be Pulisic,

Raina, Aronson, Wea, and Conrad de la Fuente. And then the strikers are Josh Sargent, Jordan Sibichu Pfeck, and then Ricardo Pepe. So, any high-level thoughts? The high-level thoughts are that this roster is a celebration in my mind. You know, we've talked for a while about how it feels like the player pool is getting cute-proof. Like, there are just so few places to pick cute players, and I think that mostly played out here. There could be some of the most minor quibbling spots, which there will always be, you know, by the definition of, you know, tiering players or ranking players.

whoever is 27th is going to be pretty close to 26th. So there will always be those discussions. But overall, man, this feels like a good roster. I'm excited for the potential to scoop nine points here. And mostly I'm just excited to see them actually play soccer. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we already covered peppy, but before we get in, we're going to talk later about how to rotate through these games, these three games in one week.

before we get to that, let's talk about the midfield. It's short-handed, I think. You got five guys nominally listed as midfielders, three games in seven days. What does this mean? Are we going to do three at the back? I think Burhalter kind of dodged the question in the presser,

but definitely didn't rule it out. He should dodge that. You don't need to just give things away that you don't have to. But yes, when you look at the centerbacks and the center mids, it would suggest the possibility of three of the back. And for me, I think it's an easy one to say

a lesson from the Gold Cup was to at least give yourself that flexibility. We went with three in the back and the second game of the Gold Cup, right? Or the third, I'm sorry, against Canada. Yeah. And could only do it for 10 minutes. And then Zimmerman got hurt

and then we didn't have the centerback depth to continue to trot it back out again. So whether he plans to or not, he at least makes sure he has the flexibility to if he decides to. How's that? Yeah, I guess the flip side of that is, does he have the flexibility to go with the regular 433 for all three games?

And I'm not sure he does. You know, at least it's going to get, it's going to get tenuous, unless one of the centerbacks, James Sands, is deputized as a center mid in a 433, which he can do, at least has done it for club, or if Gio Raina is brought into the midfield as an eight, both of which, I guess, I guess the rain of thing seems a little more possible than the Sands thing at this moment, would you say? I think they're both possible, man. And again, you have to assume that the lion's share of the minutes are going to Adams and McKinney and Acosta and probably legit, right? So you're just looking for bits and pieces, little places to nickel and dime your way into minutes for those other places.

And again, this is assuming we aren't going with a full reign of the center mid transfer at some point. So I think he can get away. I think he can for sure still get away with a 433 with the players we have on this roster for the whole camp. I don't know if I expect that necessarily now because of the numbers in play. But the other thing I'll say is, are there other center mids that you wish would have been here then? We'll probably talk about some snubs. But are there other center mids in particular that you're like, oh, I definitely would have felt better if they were in this camp to get through this window? I mean, the one who comes to mind most obviously for me is Williamson.

Like, it seems like it would have been nice to have him available. But he doesn't seem to be completely rated by Berhalter. I mean, he did play in the final of the Gold Cup against Mexico, but he didn't play very much before that. It's very confusing what Berhalter thinks about Williamson. So he's the one who comes to mind. I know that people are going to talk about Luca Deloitte d'Ore and who else. in that mix.

For me, that's about it. Julian Green would have a, I mean, could maybe put his name in the ring, but again, I don't think he's been playing a position that would translate to one of our center mids very smoothly. I think he'd be more of like a half-space guy. After that, it's tough. We'll go through all the snubs in the common theme for almost all of them, especially the ones with experience in the summer camps,

is that they aren't playing right now for whatever reason. Either they're still recovering from Gold Cup and still getting integrated into their club team, or maybe there's a move in the works, and so they just haven't gotten back into their lineup. So it's tough. You're not really looking at a long list of center mids who you'd want to bring in. I'd go to like Keaton Parks, but again, he has no experience with the team. This isn't the time that you're going to try to, like, integrate somebody that far into the fringes. I think it's much more likely that you would just be like, all right, well, Sands has been through camps with us.

we'll plug him in in an emergency. I know I'm not huge on Roll Don as an eight, but he saw out the Mexico game for 40 minutes, so he's a guy you can plug in in an emergency or to just eat minutes. There aren't a lot of obvious answers. Yeah, and that is a fair point. And I guess the critic, the really strident Burhalter critics would say, well, we haven't tested these guys enough because we've given all these

minutes to Legit and rolled on over the past several months. And then there's probably some validity to that. I mean, it's certainly an argument that we have made on this podcast specifically about rolled on in the past. For sure, for sure. Roll done. And then you can even go back to some of the choices at six, which you put together a very nice animation for.

But yeah, you could definitely say, like, it would have been nice to have gotten some of those guys more minutes instead of like the minutes that went to Jackson Ewell. But where we are right now, I think it's totally reason. reasonable to run with what we're running with and not use the very first window of World Cup qualifying to try to like audition or evaluate new players. And it does seem that Burhalter has mostly gone with the sort of the streamlining that you mentioned like no, I mean even Conrad's not a new phase because he has been in a camp before.

Sands was just with the, you know, with the team through that grueling gold cup campaign. So he's like he's very he's very familiar and same with bellow. So there isn't really anybody new. There's nobody new on the roster. It's peppy. Yeah, it's peppy. Yeah, yeah, that's it. And again, the other thing to keep in minding is we are not limited to these players.

So if there is an emergency, we just call Williamson or we call Luca and they meet us in Nashville for the second game and off we go. So we're not limited to just these 26. If something happens that leaves us light, we don't just have to run. ride through it, we just bring in a new body. Yeah. Okay. So I like Sands. I want to say something about Sands.

I like having Sands there for that, that 343-4-3-4-33 flex that he provides. We've talked about this before. He can play in the middle of a three-man centerback line and then, you know, choose when to become essentially a central defensive midfielder and just move back and forth between those. I like that role for him. It's pretty much the role I like, the only role I like for him as a centerback.

And so if Burrhalter's bringing him to do that, then I think that's pretty cool. And I like it. Yeah, I'll stick with the centerbacks here and I'll jump on to Tim Reem, who I think, you know, people are going to have questions about. Ream is playing regularly. That does, again, like we talk about when we get through some other snubs, that seems like that could be an easy tipping point for some players for some decisions. Riem has already been playing with Follum.

He's probably five games into a season already. And I also start to think of Tim Riem as basically a player coach at this point. Yeah. He is by far the oldest player on the roster. Even our goalkeepers are young. It is insane how young our team is at this point. But Ream's like five years older than the next oldest player. Who is Sebastian Leget, by the way.

Our second oldest player is the ancient. Yeah, the ancient Sebastian Leggett. We are a young, young squad. And Reem is, Ream's always like standing up talking to Burrhalter on the sideline, even like even when he's not playing or not about to play. So he's kind of like a player coach almost. That's,

I honestly think of him that way. And that doesn't mean he won't play. I don't know if he's, if Burrhalter has him, you know, in mind to start one of these three games. And in whatever game, you know,

potentially that John Brooks doesn't start or is a third centerback. Or God forbid as a left back fill in seems unnecessary. but can't rule that out. Yeah, I'll say I do, I am not 100% comfortable with either of the backup fullbacks, Yedlin or Bello. I mean, I'm stoked for Bello that he's, that he got this, he got the nod here.

He was quite good in the Gold Cup final against Mexico. He's still, he's just still very young and his sample of like excellent performances is small. And I wouldn't even say that the goal cup final performance was, was quote, excellent. It was, he was, he held his own. So I, so that, that's a little bit of a concern. Maybe things, things go sideways and suddenly we do see Riem at left back.

It's not like, like we have certainly seen stranger things. And I'm not, I know, I get why McKenzie, well, I get why Richards is left off. He's not playing. But neither is Mark McKenzie. Yeah. McKenzie has probably like 400, around 400 minutes so far the season. So he hasn't like completely not played. He's just fallen off and he hasn't played.

He has 400 minutes? Belgium started their season, I think, in July. Their new season started. So he's got like maybe three or four starts under his belt already. But then those were in the first few games of the season when their Colombian kids were still at Copa America or just getting back from Copa America. Since they've been back, McKenzie's minutes have fallen off. So it seems like the trend is he's sort of falling out of the rotation there a little bit. There could still be some moves like the, we don't need to get too deep into McKenzie's future.

But the point is, you're right, his minutes have fallen off a little bit too. But he is playing. And the other thing is he probably is not transferring anywhere soon. And Chris Richards is, it seems very likely that he could be moving out of Bayern Munich over in the next like four or five days. It would have to be in the next four or five days. Yeah. And so then maybe that's just Burrhalter's throwing him a bone or using that as a reason to keep him out. Was that your biggest surprise?

Was Richard's your biggest omission? Yeah, I think so. But I get it. I guess all I'm saying is I don't feel comfortable with. McKenzie scares me. McKenzie scares me back there. He still does. And I want him to succeed, but he makes me nervous.

He was, I would say he was, he was, he was good against Honduras in the Nations League. You know, in all of the friendlies, he's been fine. He hasn't played that many games for us, oddly enough. Right. The friendly against Costa Rica, which was, you know, Costa Rica seemed to be tanking to get rid of their coach. But he was fine against Honduras. And that's a decent data point. And that's true.

And even though he wasn't great against Mexico or he had those really bad moments, I do think it's important that he didn't like completely melt and collapse afterwards. Also true. And we're not playing Mexico in this window. We're playing teams that are not as strong as Mexico. I don't know. I don't know. Again, I think I would probably have three of these centerbacks ahead of McKenzie.

So if he's our fourth centerback, he might not see minutes. But if he does, it's not. I wouldn't give him minutes. All right. I would stick with Miles and Zimmerman and Brooks. That's what my rotation will be, and we'll get into that a little bit. Should we just run through the snubs as we just talked about Richards? Yeah, please.

Can you do that? All right, I'll kind of go back to front here. So no goalkeeper snubbed, obviously. Chris Richards left off. I hope that's not offensive to any of the other goalkeepers in the pool. Please. That was offensive to other goalkeepers in the pool. Richards left off.

Again, at this point, if you're not keeping track of what he's doing with Byron, he has 45 minutes plus, I think, two minutes of stoppage time nonsense in the league. but 45 minutes in the Pocal where his first was his first action of the season yesterday and it was in a 12-0 game so it's not a competitive environment and again it seems likely at this point that he's either just getting back to health

which is why he might have only played 45 minutes yesterday or he's not enough and he's not in their plans enough that he didn't even start the Pocal match so he could be on his way out on loan or to be sold yeah I hope he I hope he goes back to Hoffenheim.

I don't know if that's still in the cards, but yeah. All right. Go somewhere where you can play. Fullbacks, we've got Reggie Cannon, Shackmore, Sam Vines, who are all on the Gold Cup team, and there's going to be a trend here, but who have since just gotten back to their clubs

and Vines' case, he actually transferred to Royal Antwerp from Colorado Rapids, and all three of them are either just now working into their club's minutes or in the case of Reggie Cannon not being included at all. so he could be looking at a move here in the next couple of days. Hard to know what's going on at Boa Vista. It's a bit of a train wreck there. But again, the theme here is the players who are at the Gold Cup from Europe,

who are just getting back to their clubs, aren't being worked in yet. So this World Cup qualifying window is just at an awkward time for them to play the Gold Cup, don't play for a month, and then come back in and play. They basically have all been left out. Yeah. And I, so those, you go ahead and do some more snubs, please. You just love hearing about snubs. Joe Scali is a guy who you could, you could consider a snub.

He's breaking through in the Bundesliga. He had a rough outing. He got kind of rinsed by a player who's going to rinse a lot of Bundesliga fullbacks in their last game. Musadiyabi. Yeah. And interestingly, I'm going to call it interesting because it's, it's not something you celebrate. I think both of Gladbach's other top fullback. got hurt in that match.

Scali started on the left. The right fullback got hurt. Scali moved over to the right. And then I think the left fullback who was coming back from injury got hurt again. May they have re-acravated it. Is that right? I didn't know that. So it was just a disaster of a match for a Gladbach.

And unless they move for more fullbacks in like an emergency transfer this week, it seems like Scali is going to be looking at decent playing time. So he'll have this opportunity now because of this. So again, totally fine leaving him there. The timing of this window is just a little tight. for maybe including him again, especially when you have other options who have done very well for themselves, either early in the season with Robinson with Fulham or Bello in the Gold Cup and then with Atlanta afterwards. We just have a lot of guys who are very match fit.

I'm not a big like form guy. Like, oh, if Gio Raina has a couple of bad games for Dortmund, I don't care. He's playing for Dortmund. So that kind of form doesn't matter to me. But match fitness is obviously very important. And there might be questions about, you know, how match. fit Joe Scali can be. Yeah, fair enough.

I'm not raising a stink that Scali's not there. I do think it's interesting how our full, you know, we think of, a lot of us think of our right back depth as sort of unassailable. Like, we have so many good right backs. And that's part, you know, that's been some of the message we hear from fans on why Julian Arajo may choose to play for Mexico. Is that the depth that right back is so good? And that doesn't seem, that doesn't feel as true, right?

now, as maybe it even did to me a couple months ago. Cannon and Yedlin and Moore are all kind of, I don't know, a little bit indistinguishable in terms of how good they are. I think, last thing I'll say about dual nationals on this episode, but I think if Rao really wants to get in and make a run at it at being on a World Cup roster for the U.S., he has a chance. Like he can, there's, the door is open. And I hope he goes for it.

100% agree with that. It's kind of like what our centerback situation was over the past year and a half. We have a lot of options that are serviceable. None that necessarily stand out in a great way. Even Brian Reynolds at Roma, they don't stand out in this huge way. But that door is open and the young guys especially, Scali Arajo Reynolds, could definitely explode in a way that we've seen some of our other younger kids sort of explode. And if any of them do, it's the job's theirs, right?

At the very worst, the backup job. Yeah. It doesn't feel like Shaq Moore is going to explode to a new level, right? Right. He's, and I'm fine with him, you know, being on a, on a U.S. squad and playing in a meaningful game. I think he, I think he, he'd do fine. But, like, yeah, he's surpassable. I was hoping to see him.

He was, he was one of the names, again, very, I have very few issues with the roster overall. But I was hoping to see more just because I've loved, uh, following more through the Segunda and thinking that he very easily could be a passable depth option anyway. Yeah. I think I would have preferred him over Yedlin. I mean, just on like sporting merit, I think there's like an argument that Yedlin's experience is valuable and specifically his experience in World Cup qualifiers away in

Concaf, which I'm not going to discount. I think that probably plays a part here. Same reason I think he probably started Mexico. Nations League final Okay Other Snubs So I'm going to move into the midfield

And we already talked about Williamson Wasn't great in his first 45 minutes back from Austin Or from whatever he was out for The like this health and safety protocols He was down in Austin playing in like 100 degree weather Not his best video to send to Burhalter The couple days before selections have to be made I'm not sweating it too much again

If there is an emergency we can bring him Or someone else in The other guys we mentioned Luca De La Torre and Julian Green. These are the two exceptions in that they're both playing. Luca De La Torre has been playing for Heracles since the season started. And Julian Green's been playing for Firth in the Pocal and now in the Bundesliga. So those would be like the other guys, but we haven't integrated Green into the team yet. So you'd be using some level of time and energy to get him up to speed.

And De La Torre, I mean, we basically just don't know enough about him yet. He was in the March friendly. That was his first camp with the team and got about 30 minutes in that camp. Didn't play in the Gold Cup. And remember, like, this was one of those things where there was just a lot of balancing that had to be done for a lot of players,

whether to come and play, which would mean missing your team's preseason and then being slowly integrated into your club team, which is what we've seen from a lot of guys who are not called into this window. Or he could have played gold, or he could have stayed with this club, which is what he did.

And then he doesn't, get the opportunity to shine in the gold cup the way some guys did to stake his claim. So he's just kind of in this limbo right now. And just like with some of the other guys, I don't think there's any real urgency to try to get him in. Yeah, I would have, I mean, now in retrospect, it would have been awful nice to have him in the gold cup, if nothing else than just to see what, you know, see what he had. But say lovey, I guess. I wanted him in the gold cup, too, just because it seemed like,

his job at Heracles was not in doubt. Like he was there every game starter at last season. So it's not like, oh man, he's really got to, you know, make a statement to keep his spot. Whereas it was the opportunity to make like the full statement at the gold cup. And I don't know that it certainly doesn't seem like Burrhalter was begging him to come to the gold cup. It very easily could have been that Burrhalter was saying, hey, look, like, I'm not, I'm probably not going to bring guys who go to gold cup, go back to their clubs and then aren't playing because that's what we've just. seen happen. So it's, it was, again, there was this double-edged sword situation where there might not have

been a great option, at least to get into this window. We'll have to see what happens in October for Luca and these other snubs we're talking about. Yep. All right. Um, yes. It's Hoppy, right? Matthew Hoppe is the...

Yeah, he's the big snub, I think. Other than Richard's most surprising, but again, it fits the same theme of, uh, he hasn't played yet since the gold cup final. He hasn't played. And this isn't punishment. This is, again, just like being realistic about match fitness and combining that with the other options that we now have in the pool that are really good at soccer. It just means that you don't have to force somebody back who's not match fit. We just have this sort of luxury now.

I was looking at the Coova 26-man roster from its announcement in October. It doesn't have the quality that we're seeing here. Yeah. Yeah, we got to just keep saying that. how much of a celebration this is. We'll say that until we take three points from this window. Right. Well, yeah, that's, when we get into rotations,

there's some stuff to say about that. So, any other, any other stuff? I mean, Zardis is hurt, so there's really no striker snubs. It is a little surprising me that Conrad made it as a winger, not a snub, but the opposite of that. Well, you want, especially in a 26-man camp, you wanted him. I was ready to actually, as soon as we got done recording last one, the projection,

I was ready to be like, oh, duh, of course Conrad has to be there, because Pulisic is a maybe. We don't know for sure if he'll be able to play or what his status will be. He has to pass, you know, these tests to even travel to the U.S. So if anything goes wrong on a test, like, that's it. He's not coming. And, like, you don't want to then scramble to get a guy. So, yeah, it's no-brainer to have somebody in.

And then at that point, it's either Conrad or it's, I mean, Ariel is hurt, so it would either be Conrad or Jesus Ferreira. Like, there aren't any other real... We're not bringing Lewis back in, I don't think, so. Joe Keeney just played for the first time, I think, yesterday after the Gold Cup. So, yes, Conrad makes total sense. Super happy that he's here. Okay.

There's the rosters. They're the snubs. Yep, that's great. Let's talk about how to rotate in these games. And I've got some detailed proposals, but I've got to be honest. It could all go out the... window if that El Salvador match doesn't go smoothly. And it may not just have to keep reminding ourselves of that.

That's the reality of these matches. We like to pretend that we can go into a place like San Salvador and easily get a result, but it's a little like pretending you can use the U.S. military to create a Western-style democracy in Kabul. Fair enough, Bells. I totally don't think it's going to be easy. I know I've been going on about us getting nine points from this window. I don't think it's going to be easy at all.

I don't think we're going to waltz through teams, but I still think we will edge them. And, you know, you get the full points, whether you beat them 5-0 or 1-0. So I just think we're going to, I think we have the talent now to do it. And the other thing, I'll just say real quick when we're talking about rotations is,

the formula is not, we hear the formula all the time about win at home drawaway. It's like the most repeated non-general relativity formula there is. But that's not the formula. That's never been our formula to win at home draw away. the formula has always been to successfully qualify through Conccaf, win at home, and then beat the weakest opponents in the hex on the road because you're going to lose to the strongest hex opponents on the road. That's been the formula. Mexico and Costa Rica have historically been the ones we lose to on the road.

And then we have not gotten a lot of great results in Honduras or El Salvador, by the way. In the hatch, A much smaller sample size. Much smaller sample size, yeah. But anyway, yeah, so the last three times, I've said this before, but the last three times we've qualified for the World Cup,

we won two road games, drew one road game, and lost two away games. So if you drop points at El Salvador and say, oh, but it's fine because we can draw away, that means you have to get those points at Costa Rica or in Mexico City.

And you're just really eliminated, getting a lot of wiggle room that you want to build in. So the formula is to win as many points as possible against the weakest teams in the group and go from there. And we start with, you know, El Salvador is one of the probably two weakest teams on paper in this group. Yeah. But they play, I mean, another shout for that John Arnold episode where we talked about

El Salvador, Canada, and Honduras. But we, I mean, El Salvador played well in the Gold Cup. They played with Mexico. They played with Qatar. They gave up a couple of bangers early in that game. They had a really bad mistake early in the game, like a howler from their central midfielder, Darwin, Saren. And Qatar punished them on the counterattack.

But El Salvador was in that game all the way to the end. They came back, scored two goals late. They were knocking on the door late. They could have gotten another. This is a team that our goal cup squad really struggled. against, especially in the first half. So, yeah, okay, on paper, they're not very good. Josh Perez couldn't even, you know, couldn't even make it as a, as a bench player for

L-AFC, and now he's a starting winger for El Salvador. He must be really bad. Well, no, it doesn't always work that way. He's been really good for El Salvador, so. And like, I said this on the Discord chat this morning, but, like, this is the, and then I'll quit beating my drum, but the, this is the, this is a huge game. San Salvador. Like, this is a, this is an event that's about to go down a week from tomorrow, a week

from today. And it's going to be a crowd that is just rabid and they want to beat the U.S. And the players are going to throw themselves into this. It is going to be pretty intense. And, you know, if we come out of it with anything but sort of like a humble reverence for the Concaf region, which is what I'm advocating, then we could easily get punished. And then we go, if we drop points against El Salvador, then we're facing, I think, a strong Canada team,

or at least a Canada team that can punish us three days later in Nashville. And, you know, things could go sideways very easily, I think. I also don't doubt that. So as much as I'm like nine points, here we go, you're totally right that we could go down to El Salvador and get hit in the mouth. And then you're totally right that Jonathan David and Alfonso Davies do the business against us in Nashville. I don't have a great response for that other than it's going to shape how I how I build our El Salvador lineup in our hopeful rotations.

Yep. Well, let's do it. I mean, I guess three overarching questions for me is which match do you play three at the back if you're going to play three at the back? Which match do you start George Bellow in if you're going to start George Bello? and how do you keep this midfield feel fresh? But why don't you do, why don't you give your El Salvador

is how you want to do it? You give your El Salvador lineup and I give mine and... Yeah, and I'm going to give you my sort of guiding principles here too. Like my guiding principle for El Salvador is that that game is actually the toughest turnaround game of the window.

And by that I mean, we have guys coming from all over the place arriving at different times. Some of them playing Saturday, some of them playing Sunday, some of them in the States, some of them in Europe. and it's just going to be really tough to get everybody on the same page,

like ready to go for that game. And so I am taking the tack from Susweta's suggestion and basically building a team that leans domestic for that game. I think it'll be easier to get them together, basically like a lot of the Gold Cup guys, to have them play as a unit and just go down and win a cage match, the cage match against El Salvador, in part because I think El Salvador,

are going to try to play against us. You know, that's the report on them. And I actually think that could play into our favor to just press the bejesus out of them with a cage match 11. Yeah, I like that. So then you would bring in, you bring in a bunch of MLS, like, well, as many MLS guys as you can for that starting lineup. Kind of, yeah, just not going to, yeah, I'll just run through it. So I'm going to go with Turner and goal. I think Turner is my number one.

I think Berthelter will rotate, go. goalkeepers, which again is a huge admission already that Stefan is no longer the untouchable number one in his eyes. And to be honest, Berhalter could already have. It's possible Turner already is the number one in his eyes, but he still might rotate. Again, it's sort of a man management, sort of balancing egos and massaging the personnel there to keep everyone happy. But anyway, I'm running with Turner.

Or maybe to balance his own ego so that. He doesn't have to admit right off the bat that anyway, yeah. I should also mention Ethan Horvath, did I already say, excellent in his Carrow Cup start a couple of days ago. You didn't say it yet. I've heard you say it elsewhere, but yeah, that's cool. Oh, my days. They were playing Wolverhampton. I think Forrest rotated a bunch of their starters playing a bunch of like children with numbers in the triple digits.

And they were shelled, I think to the tune of like 25 shots, 13 on target. And I posted them before I realized that you can get copyright strikes for posting EFL highlights. But he was making saves that were not run-of-the-mill saves. So he might have seen more saves in that game than Stefan might see in a season for his man-city duties. So a very promising Ethan Horvath shot-stopping display. The data on Horvath has been good, man.

I mean, there's no doubt about that. Hopefully he can win that starting job at Nottingham Forest. So you've got Turner and goal. I've got Turner goal. So this is where I'm going with the Gold Cup centerbacks of Miles and Zimmerman. So I still have Zimmerman over Sands. I think Berhalter probably has Zimmerman over Sands. But that's my, those are my two centerbacks for this one.

I just don't want to put Brooks directly into the Central American climate straight out of coming from Europe. This lets him get kind of acclimated to the group, to the team and setting. And we'll run him out against Canada and Honduras. Okay. Miles, I'll just give you a spoiler right now. I have Miles starting all three games. So one of the nice things about having all these kids is that kids never get tired. So we will run them forever.

Okay. Yeah, I have acquiesced to a Robinson Zimmerman pairing for the first game on that, on that logic. And also because I really want to throw our best possible lineup against Canada. Exactly. That's kind of where I am too. So I'm going with Bello at Leftback. This is the game I start him. Wow.

Well, he just went in a final against Mexico, so it's hard to say, like, he's not ready for the intensity. I guess. Anthony Robinson, if you'll remember, didn't get the runout against Mexico in the Nations League final, didn't play at all, despite us running through three different players that left back in that game. So, again, I just want to lean on the MLS guys. Robinson's playing a ton of games for Fulham already. That's kind of a reach. He got rotated in the cup match because they full and played their kids in that game. but no, I'm sticking with my guiding principle here.

So Bello left back. Yedlund it right back for me. So it'd be, it's kind of going out on a limb here, right? To have all of these stars come in and then Brooks and Serginio Dest not start in your very first World Cup qualifier. Yeah, I mean, there was, there's an argument made again on the Discord chat this morning that like you can't, this is our first game, our first qualifier since Coova. we got to come out with our best foot forward and, you know, set a tone. And I'm a little swayed by that, honestly, but I, but I was, so I have the same, the same back three of Turner, Robinson and Zimmerman, but I was going to start Robinson

at left back. Yeah, Lenet right back. I do think, and people are going to push back against this, but I do think like, Dest is more built for like, hey, go out there and shut down Alfonso Davies than he is for like, hey, go out, go down to San Salvador and like, you know, see if you can corral Josh Perez on a, you know, at 10 p.m. on a Thursday night. And like, you know, it's just, it's just more. I think Desd likes the, I think Desd thrives on like the facing Davies sort of stuff more than, you know, the duty and responsibility of like winning away at Concaf.

That is my guess, you know. He's still a young person. What I'll say here on the putting your best foot forward in El Salvador is I just I don't feel like convinced that throwing desks in that game and Brooks not that they're bad players not that they're like weak mentally but again just the logistics of it puts them in the best position to set the tone whereas I feel like DeAndre Yedlin is very much a tone setting player. That's exactly what he did against Mexico. He came in and kept wrecking guys every time he had a chance to run through a guy on the sideline. He ran through a guy's legs on the sideline. And so I feel like this is where Yedlin can set a tone. Okay. Well, I'm with you on Yedlin.

I guess since the report is that El Salvador is going to be pressing and trying to play soccer against us, it does make me feel a little better that we can, you know, will be able to create chances in transition. And, you know, all these guys are mobile. Bello's mobile. Robinson is mobile. yet Lens Mobile, Zimmerman and Robinson are arguably our two most mobile centerbacks in the, they're definitely the two most mobile centerbacks we have in this roster. I'll put McKenzie in that list, but sure, I'm not going, we don't need to, we don't need to quibble, despite the quibbling I just did.

But yeah, that's my- McKinsey's not as mobile as Robinson or Zimmerman. That's my back four with Turner. So we just disagree, you're going, Anthony, I'm going Bellow. But again, I'm leaning on the domestic side for this game until we get to the front. But let's do the midfield quick. So this is where I've got Kellan Acosta at the 6th. I've got Weston McKinney and Sebastian Leget ahead of him.

So this is another like first World Cup qualifier. Add Adams to the bench along with Destin Brooks. Well, a lot of people aren't going to like that very much. Well, I can qualify it with like that is just in anticipation that Adams won't start all three games. If we feel good about him starting all three games, by all means play Tyler Adams all three games. and run Adams Acosta and McKinney out there, which is aligned with the midfield I have picked for the Canada home game. Because even though I want to see Rayna in there,

I'm not brave enough to actually project us starting with Raina as a midfielder. So again, this is just got to preserve Adams somewhere. So this is the game that Adams doesn't pick. You may, like, you can kind of draw it out of a hat if you want. But if you're only going to start guys two games out of three, then this is what you run into. Yeah. And I guess you could, you know, you could start a guy in all three games.

Like, I guess you're doing that with Robinson. It's a little bit easier with a centerback than it is with a midfielder. But, boy, it's a lot. It's a lot. So I have the same midfield, a cost of legit McKenny. Oh, all right. All right. So we're just saving Tyler for that Canada game, right?

Well, yeah, I have subs listed as well for these first two games. And I would bring on Bello for Robinson as soon as it's prudent. And I would bring on Adams for Acosta, you know, just to get, you know, as needed and also just to give Acosta a break because he's going to get a lot of run out too. Well, I'm already going to push back in our imaginary hypotheticals here. And I'm not using subs on fullbacks because I'm just going to rotate them from game to game. So unless we have to bring Sergenio Dest on to give us. us some attacking verve. The fullback,

you guys got to run the 90 minutes. We can't use a sub on you. We got to rotate the midfield guys and the attackers. If we have the luxury to use subs for straight rest, rather than we need to score goals in this game. I just have a little more faith in Robinson than I do in Bello, which I'm not saying is empirical. That is just me having a feeling about something.

What a turnabout for you, by the way. Robinson played really well recently. recently for for Fulham he's been playing well. Wild, wild that going from the Premier League to the championship changes your, the level of your performance. He, uh, my mind changes all the time, Greg. You know that. I do know that.

Okay, well, I'm glad we've got the same midfield in. So that's done and dusted. No one can disagree with us there. Front three, front three I'm running, I'm running Aronson Sergeant Raina. And so the theme here is I actually have Raina and McKinney running starting all three matches as well. And again, I would happily start Tyler Adams in all three games if we think that he's got the fitness to do it without a big drop off or injury risk. But in this game, pool sick, I think just coming back from COVID, not necessarily going to be in the best shape. Aronson, I think this is the perfect game for him because El Salvador try to play and that's going to allow him to use his.

ball chasing tendencies to good effect along the sergeant up top, and Raina is just a nailed on starter. Yeah, I have the same front three. And because I think those three will, you know, they'll create opportunities and Legette and McKinney with them. They can, this lineup can get it done. I do worry a little bit that we're not putting that best foot forward with this lineup. And I do worry a little bit that maybe we're disrescent.

expecting El Salvador by like leaving some weapons in reserve, some big weapons, but you got to make choices here. So it sounds like we're mostly on board with each other except for you've got Bello starting and I've got Robinson. That's actually insane that we have the same fully rotated side besides those two. But the nature of this, again, is you have to do this. So you could say we're leaving, we're not putting our best foot forward or we're getting overconfident or whatever, disrespecting El Salvador.

but we have to leave our best players out of game. So we're leaving a few players out of this game. We'll leave a few of our best players out of a other game somewhere else in this window. Like you just can't avoid it unless your decision is to run your players into the ground and really ride those blood oxygen levels as far as you can and see what happens. And I just think that that's a bad approach for a team with our depths compared to teams with the depth of our opponents.

Yeah. Yep. Let's go to the Canada game. This one's going to be, my lineup's really fun. Then you start. So I'm agnostic on goalkeeper. I mean, I think it should be Turner, but it doesn't particularly matter to me which game there's a rotation in. Well, is that true?

No, no. I think we need Turner against Canada. If we're going to rotate, I actually want it to go, Stefan Turner Turner. I want Stefan to get the El Salvador game and I want Turner to get the Canada game and the Honduras game. Okay. I don't have a strong, I don't have a strong objection to that. So Turner and goal and then Brooks and Miles Robinson at centerback, left and right. Same three for three. Anthony Robinson at left back. And hopefully he will, he will be playing his second game in three days,

but hopefully will have been spelled by Bello in the second half of the El Salvador game. It's all, it's like a house of cards, you know. and then Adams as the six Dest it right back I think he's going to thrive on that opportunity to go toe to toe to with Alfonso Davies or to John Buchanan I mean like either

whoever it is he's up against is going to be a young gun with a lot of excitement around him You know I've been seeing that Yedlin like people saying well Yedlin's perfect to play against Davies when you might not want to have Dest against him and we saw Dest against Alfonso Davies

in the Nations League in Dest's like first competitive match for the U.S. And he was a revelation. So I'm like excited. I'm excited for Desper. Not to say that, you know, Davies is the same player or the same body mass that he was back then. But I'm excited for the Desperst Davies round two. Totally. I think and I think that it's not a matter of does Dest have the ability.

I mean, that's a perfect example. I don't think it's a matter of does he have the ability to defend well. Like he can do it. He did it in the, he does it when he has to. It's just like, is the stage right for him is what I'm thinking about. I love it. So Adams as the six and then I'm going to play McKenny and Raina as the eights. There we go.

There's our Raina projection. Okay. Okay. I don't hate it. I would love it. I would actually love if that's the game we did it. And then Pulisic and Wea on the wings and again, Sergeant starting up top. So I don't know if I said it, but Sargent's another guy I've got starting all three games, even though I like Pfok.

I wouldn't be mad at all if Pfebby started. Pfok, for some reason to me, just feels like the guy you bring in at the end of the game as it's gotten stretched to get you that goal. But okay. So I think the only difference I have then is I have Acosta Adams-McKennie in midfield and way on the bench and you've dropped Raina into midfield and thrown way on there out. So well done, Bells. I just am really enjoying how our echo chamber has actually seeped into our own skulls. We are an echo chamber within an echo chamber. So I also have sergeants starting all three matches because I think he's good at connecting play.

He's a good presser. He's a hard worker. He can always come off in that right around the hour mark. Exactly. For Pinkfog or Pepe, you know. I'm not, I don't have strong feeling. I do want Pepey to play, of course, in this window. But, um, so just, let's clarify, let's clarify the Peppy Cap Tye rules real quick, just because I know I think Stu, I didn't watch the All-Star game, but just there was a, I feel like I saw the transcript of it just from scrolling through Twitter.

Peppy is, if Pepey appears in any of these three games, he's still not permanently captied to the U.S., but he would not be able to switch, file switch to Mexico for three years. So he would definitely miss the World Cup. There's just no realistic scenario where he plays in these games and then goes and plays for Mexico. Yeah, he would have to like, he would have to completely fall out of favor and then fall back into favor as an international striker and then get called up by Mexico. I mean, it's for the 2026 cycle. Yeah, it's like, it's academic, man. This is, this is bleak house stuff. It's for the lawyers to deal with.

If you saw, Pepe was talking about, he totally affirmed his Mexican-American heritage and how proud he is of that. And he totally affirmed that he's from the USA and he loves this country and he's going to play for this national team. It just doesn't seem that complicated to me. I know we want to get into the, I know the details are important. But I think you're right. Anyway, long story short, I think you're right. If he plays at all, he won't be able to play for any other national team for three years. And if he meets a certain threshold of like a certain number of competitive games,

I can't remember the exact number. He's permanently captied anyway. If he plays in any of these games for us, then as soon as he plays in his fourth game after that, no matter what, so even if he plays in this one game here and then three friendlies next summer, if we even have three friendlies, he'd be cappedied. It's when you hit four games if one of those games was an official match. Yeah. Okay.

Good to know. I think, and I just think this is a, this Canada lineup is, it's basically our best lineup of any lineup we could put out there at the moment. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's basically our best 11. Or it's a strong contender for our best 11. And there's still so many, like, so much the team so new playing together that there could easily be like little combinations of players that just end up working better with each other than others

that I'm excited to learn about. Yeah. Now, what do you think Burrhalter's going to do against Canada? Is he going to, is he going to drop Brandon into the midfield? Is he going to try to do a 3-4-3 and to match Canada's 352? I have no idea. I didn't love our three-back system that we ran against Canada in the Gold Cup. But it was a really poorly conceived three-backed system.

We ran a three-five, or a five-three-two by the end of it with how deep we were pinned back. And I don't think there's any chance we run a pure two-striker system. So that ends up being sort of a wasted data point. There's no way that we're going to base it. I don't think off that game. So I really just have no idea, man. We kind of did a little hybrid against Mexico in the Nations League final. But even that was, I think that was closer to a four.

four back system than three in the back. So I... Plus that game was just chaos. I mean, it was... I don't know that there's any tactical learning from that. So if I... If I had to put money down on formations, I would actually probably say four backs the whole way.

That doesn't mean it wouldn't surprise me if we went three. But if I had to actually like take a stand, I would say we'll go with four. Okay. Do you have some inklings over there? What are your inkling? I don't have any inklings. I guess I would just say if I were going to do it, I would probably do the 343 against Honduras. And then give, you know, give Sands that chance to flex from the middle of the three-man back line.

But honestly, there are many, many iterations of these lineups that would be fine with. Which is why. That's one of the reasons I feel like okay about saying that nine points is there for the taking because there are so many iterations that could work rather than it being like, okay, if as long as everything fits together just perfectly, we can get out of here with nine points. It's like, oh man, there are a lot of flex points for this team at this point. Yeah. I do not want to, I do not want Christian Roldon to start a game in the midfield.

And I don't want him to start a game on the wing either. because we have too many other wingers. So, I mean, that's a concern for me. I wouldn't mind bringing, if we're, if we're beating Canada and McKinney needs some rest because he will have played. I mean, same thing for the El Salvador game. I have rolled on as, like, sort of the guy to come in and eat minutes for McKinney. That's tough, man.

It's not comfortable. I'm the same as you. So he's basically the one guy who I'm like, if he's in center midfield, I'm very uncomfortable if it's like a tightly contested game. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it was very clear in the Gold Cup that he wasn't that good, I thought, in the midfield. So I don't know what Burrhalter's seeing there. But there's other factors.

He's a good locker room guy and stuff. Should we talk about the Honduras lineup? Do you have yours? I have it, but I'm sure by the time we get to Honduras, it's going to be like, who still has legs? Yeah. I was going to say that Honduras is like just piece it together on the day. that you have to piece it together. Which still will put us in a much better spot than any team like Honduras, for example,

who doesn't have their best player in Albert Thelis and who has to piece it together with way fewer depth options who have probably played a lot more minutes. Yeah. I guess if we, so the way I look at it is that the 343 is somewhat appealing in the Honduras game because then we would have a chance to like rest some of it. I mean, we're resting them so that they can go back healthy to their clubs, I guess. But you can't run out. You can't run out the same guys three games in a row for 90 minutes.

So there's limits to this, like we've been talking about this whole episode. So you could do a 343. And then you'd have some flexibility. If Sands is in the middle of it, okay, maybe go back to Zimmerman. Probably do go back to Zimmerman. I guess you could bring Riem in as your left center back? No, I'm going Brooks. Brooks is starting two games in a row.

He did it. He started against Honduras. he started against Mexico. So as long as we give him the El Salvador game day off, then he will have played for his club. I think on Sunday, that's the other thing that I was checking on was like their actual club calendar. Brooks is playing Tyler Adams on Sunday.

I think the late afternoon kickoff in Germany. So then he's coming back. So you give him until the Sunday match against Canada, and then you play him again on the tight turnaround because he just had a week off ahead of the Canada game. So that's my Brooks rationale. And there's no way I only want to get one game out of John Brooks. So I'm running Brooks there.

Totally, totally agree. I don't even know what the hell I was talking about. So then you could maybe, I would have considered starting Bellow at left back in this match. Sure. And then probably start Dest again at right back. I guess it'd be a wing back. And then you'd have, what do you do in the midfield? What are you doing the midfield at this point in the window?

So this is where I'm running Adams-McKennie-Rena. Okay. This is where I'll throw it out there. If any of us win this, whether you get it with Canada or I get it with Honduras, that's going to be a fun day if they announced that 11. Yeah. And then you've got, and then who do you have is your front three in that final game? I've got Poulsiquia and Sergeant.

The other thing is, this is like the game where I think Raina will, be the best suited to play that 10. I don't think Honduras is going to press us. I think they're going to sit play in that sort of 4-4-2 that we saw through most of a Gold Cup. We saw it in the Nations League. And I think there's just going to be room for Raina to operate more as a 10 in that game. So even though he'd be, rather than putting him in that midfield role and having him play

more as a pure 8, like I want him to have a lot of 10ish freedom. And so I think the Honduras game is going to be the game for him to do that. I'm optimistic that's possible. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I have Poulosik Sargent and Wea again. Same. Yeah. But my midfield, if Sands is flexing from the back to the CDM, Central Defensive midfield, I would have, let's see, I guess Adams and McKinney as my eights. For sure. So yeah, so you probably don't have, are you giving Rainer break then and running Poolerick,

way as your three? Yeah, because Raina will have started both of the first two games. Correct. He's very much available off the bench, hopefully. I don't feel strongly about that Honduras lineup. I don't. I just think it's going to be chaos by that point, and it's going to be, it's going to be, the choices are not, these choices we're making on paper aren't going to really fly.

And I'll just add, even for the first two games where we're like more certain about things. they're like eight coin tosses. Yeah. But it's fun to talk about because there are a lot of interesting wrinkles here. Nine points, bells. I mean, I could lie and say I'd be happy with seven, but I'd be lying. I'll be happy with seven. Give me seven points.

I'm walking out of here. Okay. But getting one win on the road to start things off would be, gives, I mean, it doesn't seem like much, but again, in that formula, like you can average out to draw on the road. So getting one win on the road right away

buys you two losses down the line. So that's why it's so huge to not to not fluff the lines against El Salvador away, Panama away. So it's a big one to try to sneak some of these points. Yeah. And I think

that Canada game's going to be a pretty, I mean, it's, it's shaping up to be a pretty soccer game. I'm really looking forward to that. By the way, I mentioned this on the last pod. We're having a scuffed tailgate. Parking lot are. Greg's not going to be there, unfortunately.

He has prior commitments before this was any of this was scheduled. But I think we're going to have a keg of beer and maybe a little bit of food and some other stuff. So come by. Come by and say hi. I will donate to supply to supply a cooler of water. to just have an alternative beverage available. Nope, not allowed. Anything else?

Anything else? Champions League draw happened this morning, too. Big Newsday in the soccer world. We're not going to rehash that here, Bells. You've got to go find out the Champions League draw on your own. There are a lot of U.S. players in it. Yeah, fair enough. Aronson and P. Fawke qualified.

Aronson with a tidy little goal. What was going on with that goal? Kind of just slid it past the goalkeeper. Quick feat. He's got quick feat that one. Phrenetic feet. All right. Thanks everybody for listening.

We'll see you.