Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #201: TSS x Scuffed Crossover Part 2

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

This is the second part of a more than two-hour collaboration with Joe Lowery and Taylor Rockwell. Part 1 is in the Total Soccer Show feed. For this episode we just kept that conversation going and answered a ton of listener questions about the USMNT, everything from "How concerned are you about Weston McKennie's dad's deleted tweets?" to "How do each of you attempt to evaluate and attribute individual versus system based errors?" Support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedJoin the Discord: https://discord.gg/X6tfzkM8XUBuy our merch: 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. Hello and welcome to the scuffed podcast. Today is a special episode because we're collaborating with the Total Soccer Show. We've recorded one part already and that'll be in the TSS feed, which almost all of you have already seen, I'm sure. And this is the start of the second part of that episode. We're joined by, of course, Taylor Rockwell and Joe Lowry. Thanks for being here, guys. How are you? Doing well. Thanks for having us. It's exciting to be here. Oh, yeah. It's, it's an, it's been, it's been a hot minute, Bells. I think the last time that I was on the show, we were talking about the U-17 World Cup. Yes. It's been, it's been a hot minute, my friend. I don't, have I done on the show before. I think this might be my name here.

No, you haven't. I'm so embarrassed. Taylor, now you have to live up to Greg's performance on TSS. You have to be Ricardo Pepe. There's no other option here. I mean, that's fair, and I'm going to say some outlandish things and see. how it goes. Greg didn't do that, but that's my version of being Ricardo Pepe is just saying nonsense. And then hopefully it has traction. And you've already heard his trademark laugh. Greg is here too. How are you doing, Greg? I'm all right, man. It's awesome to have you guys at ours for a little bit. Yeah. Well, when we left off, we were answering listener questions, and that is exactly

where we will pick up. So I'm going to jump right into it. First question from Rob Bowley. you get to pick Ricardo Pepe's next club, where would you want him to go, and why? Taylor, why don't you start us off? So I had an answer to this that I thought was sort of outlandish, and that it turns out he has actually been linked with them, and they are actively scouting him. It's A.C. Milan, because you've got Zlatan, you've got Olivier Jaru there, both of whom are presently injured, but also getting a little bit long in the tooth. And I could see him moving there, kind of having some time to bed in with the squad, but then becoming a sort of central attacking option. who can get on the end of crosses but can also hold up play but can also create. It seems like it would work okay. I still feel weird anytime I'm linking an American to a major club like that,

but given that there's already some interest there, and Fabrizza Romano said I think he's linked with, or interest in like 12 different Italian clubs. I just picked one, and I'm going with Milan. Nice. What about you, Joe? I've got a pipe dream pick and I've got a slightly more realistic pick. Brucea Dortmund is the pipe dream pick for me.

Erling Holland's going to be gone soon. If Pepe keeps improving, it's not impossible that he can move over in January after the MLS season is done, play some spot minutes until next season. Then Holland dips out, goes to Manchester City or wherever he's going to go. And Pepey kind of takes over one of those roles. I don't know how likely that is. I'm not saying it's impossible because I do think Pepe is an excellent prospect. He's not all the way there as a player right now.

It's also nice, though, that Marco Rosa plays with two forwards. He uses more of a four-four-two diamond shape. So it's not like Pepe is only going to be able to play up top if there's no other nines in there. He might be able to play as part of a front two. So that's my dream pick of sorts, not that it's impossible. Again, the other one, I'm staying in the Bundesliga.

I always navigate towards the Bundesliga for these players for one reason or another. But Hoffenheim is the other one. They've got a couple of forwards there already who are much more established than Pepe. But it could be fun, right? Mid-table Bundesliga team. Chris Richards is already on that squad, playing under Sebastian Honest, who's, I'm guessing, familiar with Pepe

because of their mutual connections at Byron, meaning that Pepe is training there and Honest used to be a coach in that system. I don't think they overlapped in terms of actually being at Bayern at the same time for a week or two weeks or whatever that training system was for Pepe. But I'm guessing that Honest is familiar with Pepe from one avenue or another.

I think that could be a pretty decent spot for Indel Land. I like that. I like the Hoffenheim idea. Greg, do you have one? Well, I'll go with I'm going to go with Salzburg. My biggest thing is that wherever he goes, he just plays. It's a good fit for him to play. And at Salzburg, you never really have to worry about your competition

that's already there because they're going to be sold in six months anyway. So once he arrives, whoever's ahead of him will be moved on, and it'll be his spot to shine. And as a great Matt Hartman once said, Salzberg are basically the Globetrotters in Austria when they're playing against Austrian competition. So he's going to get reps. Mine was going to be pretty similar to that.

Maybe not exactly similar, but I was going to say Iax, just so he could get a lot of reps in the box, scoring goals, building confidence. The thing about Dortmund, I'm curious what you guys think about this, but the thing about Dortmund that would concern me is, man, those are such big shoes to fill, like probably literally and weirdly. Yeah, I mean, would he pick up Joe?

in your mind, does he pick up the Erling Holland celebratory slack where he maybe almost injures every single one of his teammates anytime a goal was scored? Would he be able to kind of carry on that legacy? I think so. I don't know if Pepey has that spirit in him, you know, the Holland just real wildcard spirit, but I like the idea of him bringing the cowboy persona that he sort of developed or maybe that Etsy Dallas has developed for him. I like the idea of him bringing that to Dortmund and then just trying to chokehold Giorina occasionally, because that seems like that's what Erling Holland does. Maybe there could be some similarities there. I'm down for that.

I'm down for him also going a different route than going to Byron Munich, which is where FC Dallas players seem to tend to end up. So maybe Dortmund can get their foot in the door there and start a rivalry in terms of who gets more FC Dallas players. That makes a lot of sense, too. I feel like Pepe's going to succeed wherever he goes. That's how I feel this Tuesday morning, this Tuesday afternoon. Bells is he already priced out of Salzburg?

and Iax. He's already priced out of those sort of feeder clubs. I maybe, yeah, yeah, maybe. All right, so we're going to have to live with him taking his shot at the big time. Go straight to A.C. Milan. Straight away. Yeah. All right, second question from D.R. Udnick. Has the first half at Honduras soured all of you to a back three? Was the problem, the formation, or players playing out of position? Joe, why don't you take the first crack at this?

that half hasn't soured me at all. The execution was really bad, and the game plan, I think, was pretty bad as well. But that doesn't turn me off of the idea of a back three. I think DOS has personnel that could function in that shape. And Greg, in our first conversation over in the TSS feed, was talking about how one of the tactical staples of this team is a front five in possession where usually, well, like Greg said it,

you can get there in a number of different ways. And you can still get there in the back three shape. I think it sets up players to succeed in certain moments. So I don't have a problem with the back three at all. For me, there were individual mistakes happening, there were system problems happening that I don't necessarily think are directly tied to the static starting formation. I think that's generally true about soccer is.

The problems are sometimes rooted in formations in the starting shape, but most often it's a lot more complicated than that. Yeah, I think I would go with that. And I think it would be for like a kind of, couple bad games to write off an entire formation and approach, I think would be a bit harsh. I do think it comes down to new personnel being played in different positions, and it could have been Tyler Adams at right back, it could have been Kevin Acosta at right wing back, and then you could have obviously started a more conventional sort of right-sided defender there if you

wanted to, but I think when you start to get variations in multiple positions while you're doing a new shape and maybe also trying a couple new sort of system things, I think then you're getting into too much experimentation and it becomes difficult to fix any one thing without having to fix to others. So I do think it came down to sort of being players being played out of position and then also not getting the necessary instruction to be able to make up for that difference. Taylor, do you think the way they're playing is poor enough right now that we should at least dispense with it for a little while until we sort of settle down and start to play decent soccer? Not necessarily, no, because I think there are reasons to use a back third.

I thought they would go back three against Honduras because that did feel like a game where they were going to be more bunkered and more defensive. El Salvador or Joan, I think, thought would be a bit more open, a bit more expansive and try to press a little bit. But against a more defensive team, I think it makes sense to go with a back three because we often see that number six for the U.S., be it Tyler Adams or whoever else, dropping between the two centerbacks, and then you still have that same basic shape. And I like the idea of starting in that basic shape with a ball playing centerback in the middle to sort of cut out that middle man and allow us to get more readily into attacking situations, theoretically at least. So I think I'm okay with them persisting with different formations in different looks. I think, as we talked about in part one, I'm sure we'll talk about later on in this one,

it comes down to the instructions being given to the players and the sort of comfort those players have with those new instructions, but also with the sort of basic loadout and formation. Greg? I'll just kind of piggyback on everyone else. I don't think the formation is necessarily ruled out. And I think one of the other things that plays into that is we haven't looked so effective in a 433 that we have to stick to that. You know, like, oh man, we got away from what was really working for us to go to this 3 in the back. You know, no matter what formation we go to, I feel like we are going to be including at least at the moment, like one kind of average player.

We don't have, whether it's a 433 or a 3 in the back, we're going to be trading some. some mediocrity for mediocrity somewhere else. So I don't think it's a matter of like, well, we need to run back three to get our best players on the field because I don't necessarily think we have three elite centerbacks and we need to drop one of our midfielder's for them or vice versa. So I'm still open to any number of, again, combinations of personnel, just need to see that they're well prepared to do the job. I'm totally open to the possibility that I'm oversimplifying everything.

but my thought is like we need to win the midfield. We need to have a presence in the midfield that is mobile and physical and win second balls and sort of exerts control over the game. So then having two midfielder's in the middle of the pitch troubles me a little bit. But, you know, I'm curious what you guys think of that. Yeah, I know what you mean. I think where I'm more okay with it is that with that back three, as I envision it, it's very aggressively high up the pitch.

So either it's at midfield or you have one of the back three stepping even further up than that. And then that allows everybody else to move further forward and you're kind of putting the opponent under even more pressure. But if you do get, as we did in this last round of qualifying, that back line staying maybe 20, 25, 30 yards behind midfield while the front line is 40 yards from midfield. Suddenly we're spread out over 70 to 80 yards.

And that's way too big of a space. And I think that's where that midfield, too, is just so easy to exploit. So if you're pressing everybody up and keeping those numbers more condensed, I'm less concerned about it. But I take your point, Bell, that if you're not going to have that sort of aggressive high line, and it doesn't seem like they will, then maybe it does make more sense to go with a more conventional 433 that we've seen from them before, because, again, it puts people in more familiar positions, and it allows them to then adapt from that same shared level of familiarity. That was Burrhalter's point after the game as he thought the backline wasn't aggressive enough,

and he thought the front line was getting a little too stretched. That was his explanation for the first half. I actually have the same sort of concern, even an attack, is that if you're running sort of just those two, that they might feel a little bit like they're on a tether to the back line and they can't quite be as adventurous going forward, and that would be an issue for me too. So when we're running the 433 and you have Tyler Adams is a 6,

my guess is those eights are like, we can run wild. We've got Tyler behind us, we can do whatever we want. And I want them to have that mentality. I do want to have that freedom from that that they're feeling to go forward in their movement off the ball, on the ball, whatever. So if the back three would stifle that, then no, you got to bin it. Bin it indeed. Yeah, I mean, I think it's basically whatever allows us to be aggressive in the attack when the situation calls for it. And I think for a lot of Kaki Kavikov qualification it does, then, yeah, I think if it's going to be the 433 that puts numbers in and around the box and gets sort of overloads on one side but still has available available.

players on the opposite side. I think anything that helps us get better attacking chances more consistently, and then we take those chances more consistently, I am good with that. Okay. Let's move on to question number three. Kenneth Seiden asks, and this is sort of an off-the-field concern, how concerned are you about West McKinney's dad's deleted tweets? Either many players on the team spent this window partying or Weston is playing the victim and throwing players under the bus to do so. neither of those seems ideal. I guess I'll throw this to you, Greg, even though I know it's going to make you deeply uncomfortable.

I love the rumor mill in global soccer. I think it's a bit of a false dilemma. I don't think those are the only two choices. We've entered the high school soccer scene here. I mean, it's very possible that West McKinney hasn't done any of those things. He didn't necessarily throw players under the bus, and it doesn't mean that there were a lot of people partying. It could just be that Weston McKinney's dad was frustrated with the situation for his son and vented on social media, which I think is not an uncommon thing.

And I guess what I'm saying is it makes zero impact on the actual program. Maybe I'm not online enough, but I don't know. Actually, I'm online enough. I know that. But I still don't really know what Kenneth is referencing. Can somebody fill me in on the context to these particular tweets? Yeah, John McKinney, Weston's dad, said that he wasn't the only player who broke COVID protocol, and he was, you know, actually was protecting his teammates.

And then he deleted that tweet. So that's basically it. He also retweeted somebody asking, when is Greg going to be held accountable? Greg with 4Gs. And why was his jog through downtown Nashville, not a violation of COVID policy? So it seems like, yeah, he was, I think, too. it's confusing when we're talking about Greg Burhalter and then I'm turned to Greg Velazquez.

But yeah, I think to... Oh, welcome to my life. Yeah, honestly, in part one, Bill was at one point, you said, like, yeah, I had a conversation with Greg about this. And I was like, oh, you and Burrhalter just chatting? Like, you buried the lead on that one, my friend, and then I realized what it happened.

But, yeah, I go with Mr. Velasquez that this is a parent kind of defending their kid. And it's not great when that kid is very high profile and has a bunch of people who would then be paying attention to what the dad is doing on Twitter, but that's what Julian Green's dad has done for a very, very long time. And we're not approaching the Adrian Rabio levels of this, where it becomes a disruption within the locker room and a disruption amongst the families when they're watching the players.

So I think until we reach that point, it is just for me a dad coming to the defense of his son, and you can agree on whether or not that was the right thing to do or whether or not that defense was necessary. But I think I understand where it's coming from. I don't think it's that big of a deal. I would much rather just have Weston come out and say, yeah, I made a mistake, and I'm going to learn from it, I'm going to be better. And I think he sort of has done that, and I think he will continue to prove that. That might just be my pro-Westin-McKinney bias showing, though.

I've long said that the biggest thing standing between the U.S. men's national team and France is more drama surrounding the national team. So I really just see this whole situation as an absolute win. Yeah, I'm not. To answer the question, I'm not concerned at all about it. And I think, you know, people are people. And this was an emotionally charged situation, I'm sure, for Mr. McKinney. And, you know, cut him some slack, man.

It's like this cultural puritanism where we, like, you know, we sentence people to death over the slightest offense is just, I don't know. When you say cut him some slack, do you mean West McKinney's dad? Or do you mean Weston McKinney? I mean, Wes McKinney's dad, he made a mistake. I mean, he surely thinks of it as a mistake, otherwise he wouldn't have deleted the tweets. So, like, you know, let people, let people, it's okay. It's all right.

It's fine. It doesn't make any, it doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, yeah, Twitter fundamentally doesn't really matter. And I think with that in mind, like, I don't have an issue with the tweets or with what his dad did. I mean, it always just goes back to, I have an issue with what Weston did, and that, he did break protocol. And the Greg Burhalter thing is sort of a mislead because that wasn't in violation of the U.S. national team's COVID protocol because they were going with what the local

regulations were. But Weston certainly did. And I think also broke team protocol at the same time. And so that's the one where McKinney was probably number two on my team sheet. If you were asking me to, like, submit my players I most trust or whatever, I think he would have been on there. And And that was a big moment, I think for me in having sort of come to believe that Weston McKinney can do no wrong to have him literally do several wrongs and then get sent home was an odd thing to have happen in an already confusing window. It was not a helpful or useful thing aside for making us seem more like France, which I guess is sort of useful. Yeah, you know, Chris Russell, aka Waki, made those videos about how helpful West McKinney is. and then I had him, I made a little podcast with him and asked him, how helpful do you think Weston is now?

And he says, p, not helpful. But, but I mean, I guess I feel like, yeah, there's no excusing it.

There's no excusing, like, the breaking of the rules, but like this, this idea that this is an unforgivable thing is, it's hard for me to get my head around. And, and,

um, except that, you know, there's sort of the violation of trust. It's been reported that, that he was making a big thing about team accountability and responsibility and then promptly went out and broke the rules. But, man, I hope he's back in the next window and we can sort of put this whole thing behind us.

I know this is going to be ridiculous. But it has, like, we also maybe have the makings of a bad romantic comedy here. Because there is a world in which, like, maybe he broke protocol because this was the one true love. This was the person he's meant to be with. And maybe if West McKinney ends up marrying the person who he broke COVID Protocol 4, then it becomes a Hallmark movie and especially if we win the World Cup it makes even more sense.

So I feel like we can spin this in a certain way it just depends on what the behavior was if it was maybe less of a romantic storyline and more of a hey I'm going to go out for a fun evening and then I'll be back. Maybe that doesn't work quite so well. I'm only cool with that rom-com if we all get invites to the wedding.

That is really the biggest thing that's holding me back from feeling good about that particular idea. Yeah, I mean that goes without saying. That is guaranteed part of it and we also get producer-crase. I do really appreciate that you brought up that possibility, Taylor, because I feel like that's something that would never come up on our podcast. I'm so angry at Kenneth Seiden right now for asking this question.

Who should play Weston? Let's talk about this for a minute. Because the answer is Michael B. Jordan, but we can talk about it more if we want to. It's up to you all. The answer is Weston McKinney. That's probably fair. He's ready for the big screen, I think, at least. Eric Cantonov played himself.

Let's get Weston playing himself and see how it goes. I like that. Let's move to the next question. Number four, going to roll two questions together here. Neil asks, do you guys think Matthew Hoppe deserves a shot at the nine with the first team? And then USMNT Talk asked, with Zardis Healthy and Hoppe's club situation settled, who gets left off or does Burhalter take a bigger roster like you should have for the first window? Greg, why don't you take it first?

So I think somebody's getting left off here. I don't think there's, I mean, if we're talking about Pepe, Zardis, Pfeck, Sergeant, and Hoppe, my guess is one of those guys gets left off. You could throw them all in camp, but I guess what I'm thinking is, why would you? There's no situation that's going to require all four, five of those guys to play minutes.

So at some point a coach just has to make a decision and say, I rate this guy ahead of this guy, or this particular situation I want to have covered by this player and this situation calls for this player. So those are the two I'm bringing, and this guy just is behind right now. I think Clemsman actually used to always say that.

just there are other options ahead of him so at some point like a coach has to make that call and so I wouldn't I don't think too many of the guys who would get left out would have much argument so if sergeant gets left off he's just going to have to say yeah I didn't take my chances maybe I didn't have the best conditions to excel but I didn't make the most of whatever I had and that's just the way it goes Joe I also think somebody's going to get left off I don't think I really don't necessarily have Hoppy in the nine depth chart right now from Burralter's perspective. Not that we couldn't see him play there. I'd actually be genuinely interested to see him play there.

But I think you can get away with putting Hoppy on the winger depth chart and still bringing a bigger roster. And so maybe you don't have to cut as many guys from this particular conversation. But either way, I agree with Greg. I think one of the out-and-out-n-n-nines is going to be cut, and it's not going to be peppy, right? It's not going to be Zardez either. I would wager. So it seems to me that it's either going to be Jordan Pfefock or Josh Sargent. For me, it's Josh Sargent who's probably not making that squad because then you take three nines.

And if Tim Way is healthy and if Matthew Hoppe is called in, then you have two other guys who can deputize at that spot pretty confidently. And then after that, it's an issue. But I think there's plenty of players that can play that spot without bringing four out and out nines. And at that point, somebody's going to have to stay home. I feel like Hoppe is a player that I know a lot about and simultaneously feel like I know nothing about. because the times I've seen him look the best, I think for club or country, was when he was playing as that left winger,

but basically that was sort of a name only, and for the most part was dropping into the center of midfield to create mismatches there, but then also playing further forward as almost a second striker. Like, I liked that combination of things. What I get confused by is that's not really what I think Pulisic does in that same role, or even Raina does in that same role, and then certainly not what Conrad de la Fuente or Tim Wea would be offering.

So I think, like, if you put a hobby on the wing, he's doing a different job than the other players who are playing there, at least in my mind. But then also, I don't feel like we've seen him in the number nine spot, at least for the U.S., or at least in enough of a way that makes me think, like, yeah, that's a guy who should bump other people out of the pecking order. But I also feel like there are reasons for him to be put in there because he does have that combativeness. He does have that energy and just belief. And I think that is an important part of what Burrhalter wants to see in this team and then has proven he can perform at that level. just in a different spot. So basically I'm saying there are reasons for him to be included in the squad. I don't know in what position and I don't know in terms of depth where he would be.

What do you all think is his best position for the U.S.? See, this is my point. I don't, well, that silence tells me things. I don't think we can say for sure right now, right? Like we've only seen him really in one spot with the U.S. men's national team. We've seen him at other spots for his clubs. But I don't, I at least am not ready to answer that question yet because we haven't seen him at the nine. I thought he did a lot of things well on the wing,

and I thought there were also some pretty sizable deficiencies in what he was doing and being a little bit careless with the ball in moments. But I don't know that we have an answer to that question just yet, Taylor. I'll say I have no reason to think that he can't challenge or even the starting number nine spot. Again, I keep talking about how fickle that position is. And, you know, when he played on the wing in the gold cup,

it was a lot because of how that roster was built, and we didn't have a lot of wingers to use. So he was making us better by playing on the wing than using other options. And the other thing to remember is that was supposed to be sort of the Darrell Dike show, getting his real audition as the number nine, and that didn't go as well as expected.

So it's totally possible that Hoppe could come in and be like a peppy level striker for us or have that kind of a performance, and we'd all be really excited and be like, oh, we now have our number nines for the next 10 years. So I guess I'm just saying by the end of this window, we will have our number nine sorted out through 2026 at least. Yeah.

I agree with you, Joe, that we should, that Sargent's the one who should be dropped. Because somebody does have to be dropped. Yeah. Can I push back real quick? Can I just push? So the only thing I'm worried about with the idea of just dropping Sergeant right away is we have two home games in this window.

and I think it's very possible that we are going to have more of these games where we have 70% of the possession, and it's going to be about breaking teams down. And I'm just wondering what you guys feel about, out of all the strikers, who's going to be the best one for breaking a team down who's sitting in a bunker? Is it going to be Zardez or Pfefok? I'm not saying Pepe can't do it, but do we have reason to believe that Zardez or Pfefok would both be ahead of Sargent in that scenario? I don't think we have reason to believe that.

I don't know that we know for sure. I think Jossi Zardez gets a lot of underst. deserved flack. I think his ability to drop in and Link has improved. I don't know that it's as good as Josh Sargent's ability to do that. I will say the thing that Burralthur has brought up before after Josh Sargent has gotten a start in a game that fits, roughly fits the description that you're talking about, Greg, where the U.S. has a lot of the possession is he still talks about sergeant needing to be more active in the penalty box, right? And so it is a tradeoff to an extent. If your nine's always dropping into midfield, they're not going to be as available in the

penalty box most likely. But for me, even if it means sacrificing some slight advantage in breaking a team down in possession, I probably, based off of what we've seen from Sergeant, really for his whole U.S. Mansational team career, I'd still prefer someone like Pepey who's going to be more active inside the 18 that's going to be able to provide that last little push, which at times is the hardest one to get in and actually put the ball in the back of the net. That's the thing for me is, yeah, Sergeant is probably a little better at linking up, but he gets lost. on his way to the penalty area. Or he gets little brothered in the penalty area.

And I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of seeing that. I want him to stay in England and think about that. I agree. And I think there's also an argument that, like, with all that said, he does sort of keep getting called in, aside from maybe when there were injuries.

But other than that, I think of him as a more or less ever-present fixture. And I wonder if that is also a problem. That maybe he needs that moment of getting good. drop to be like, all right, I really got to make some decisions here, figure some things out. And just like, I think you can use that check sometimes to know that you need to like pick yourself up, but also if it means he stays with Norwich and has more training and is able to get maybe more into the manager's thoughts, that's not the worst thing either.

So I think there's a silver lining if he were to be left off, not saying he necessarily will be, but it wouldn't be the disaster that maybe it would have been to me a couple years ago when I felt like Josh Sargent was the truth and going to be winning. the World Cup back to back in 2020 and 26. And I guess we should keep in mind we always have Heses Ferreira to be our possession forward so we can expect that call up

or at least a discussion around. Yeah. I mean I wouldn't mind seeing Ferreira called up at all maybe even as a tucked-in-linger. I think what you said, Taylor, is like maybe the, that's the thing that pushes dropping Sargent over the edge to

being like a positive for me, because I am sort of agnostic about the differences between those three guys, Pfok, his artist and sergeant, like none of them, none of them is clearly going to be more effective than the others. So, hey, let's let Sergeant have a chance to have that check, like you said, and think about what he's doing and maybe, you know, get some starts as the nine for North City in their relegation campaign. Yeah, I mean, they're all, they're all, like, mediocre to okay pizza.

It's like, it's good, it's pizza. It can never be that bad. Like, that's kind of how it feels. It's like, yeah, it's hoppy. It's sergeant. Yeah, it's artist. Whatever. Sure, let's go for it.

Let's see what happens. Yeah. And then, at least with Pepey, we have this feeling that it's pretty good pizza, you know? Yeah. It's pizza with bite. It's got a lot of seasoning to it. I'm into it. Yeah.

Well, the first time I had it was good, but I'd been drinking quite a bit, so I don't know what's going to hold up. That was two a. Like, it's always going to be amazing to it. Yeah. Let's see how it tastes in the cold light of there. There. Number five, question number five, Samuel Garcia asks,

how do you all see Panama remaining on the UK's red list influencing the roster selection for October? Break out your spreadsheets, gentlemen. Well, first, can somebody just outline real quick? Who would potentially be affected by that? Because it shouldn't have any effect on, say, Miles Robinson. Right. Yeah. I think I can do that.

So Christian Polisic, if healthy, Zach Steffin, Ethan Horvath, Josh Sargent, Tim Ream, Anthony Robinson. Am I missing any other English-based guys, folks? You got Duane Holmes and Huddersfield. Definitely. And then you have. Dwayne Octavis Holmes. Right, right. Let's show him the respect he does.

DoH, yeah. He'll be there for sure. So that's the list of players, at least the one that I got, that won't, as of now, unless something changes, be able to travel. to Panama. Is everybody with me on that or my way off? I think that's right. No, that sounds right. Polio. What is COVID? Well, it's really only the goalkeepers.

I mean, it's fine for Polisic not to make the trip to Panama, in my opinion. And then it's really only the goalkeeper. We're going to have to bring some extra goalkeepers, right, to the, on the roster so that we have enough, unless we want Christian Roldon to be the third goalkeeper. So you, or you just, do you call, do you just leave them home altogether? Or do you think like that'd be too much to not bring Horvath and Stefan? Do you think you bring one of them and then just bring Sean Johnson? Yeah, I mean, I guess the main thing, I don't, I feel like we're going to see Stefan

in any camp where he's available, right? I mean, he's, he's, he's, brother's guy in a lot of ways. But we just need to have a non-horvath and Stefan goalkeeper, so we don't just travel down to Panama with one, you know? You know what I'm saying? I mean, I'm kind of into the Christian role then as our backup goal goal. His MLS numbers are great, guys. His numbers over at ASA are just top tier.

As far as I can recall. Oh, maybe that's Alex rolled on. Darn, I can't remember. It doesn't matter. Well, the goalkeeper overriding issue here, I think, or governing thing here is Matt Turner starting all three games, right? Stefan just finally got back to playing with cities in the lineup today, depending on when you're listening to this for their cup match midweek.

But does anyone think that they're going to rotate or do you think Turner is getting all three games? It's a really interesting question because I do think if they were going to rotate, it would be Stefan in the second game, Turner in the first, and then we see what happens in the third. But if it's Stefan being unable to travel to Panama, if you are going to rotate, that means he starts the first one, but that feels like it would be a disservice to Matt Turner. So maybe it ends up as Stefan being in camp and he plays that final game. Maybe he doesn't play at all. But it's more, I definitely thought there would be rotation for sure.

And now I'm realizing with that red list limitation, I don't know how much there will be. Yeah, I don't think you really need to rotate, especially with this Panama situation right in the middle of this three-game window. I think taking the job from Matt Turner right now would be incredibly harsh. I think he's earned that spot over the summer and now through the first window where I thought he was one of the U.S.'s better players. I don't see him losing that job anytime soon, to be honest. Yeah, he single-handedly won us the Gold Cup. come on he did use both hands bells just to recap yeah and I would I would just that funny that's what we made it is pretty funny it got me it got me I don't even frame it as

being like harsh on Turner like I see those things as being too it's it's a risk you're taking a risk if if you're putting on a keeper who's less likely to to keep the ball out of the net so I see it as like it's an unnecessary risk in a moment where we really need to be uh optimized our chances of points. Giving Stephanus start, would it be cute to do that? For me, yes, it definitely would be, but I've been, I've sort of been on banging that drum for a while now. Yeah.

I don't know, Bells, you haven't weighed in yet. You're kind of being coy here. Wait on, wait in on what specifically? Yeah, so you can weigh in on the goalkeeper situation, or you can also weigh in on any the other, I guess you said pool six. Yeah, no, I think I'm off, I want. Turner to start all the games. I agree with you. It's a risk. It's a risk to do otherwise. I would almost be more comfortable with Horvath than Stefan, just based on shot stopping.

I'm going to show my ignorance here and just be honest and say, like, I don't even know what ended up happening last time with South America and the countries that were on the red list, because as I understand, a lot of the Premier League players weren't allowed to go, but then some did, but maybe they didn't. I don't really know how it works. So is the issue that You can't travel there and then immediately return to England. Do you have to quarantine for a while? And that's the issue, or can you just not go there at all if you want to then go back to England? I think it was the middle option, the one where you have to quarantine when you get back to England,

and that was going to affect whether players could play for their clubs. But I didn't follow up on it either. I was outraged, and then I forgot about it. Yeah, that's about my standard day. I'm with you on that. So then it would be then acceptable for those players to be called in. they play the first game, then they don't travel to Panama, and then they're there for the third game, and then they return home barring injury or sort of any unforeseen circumstances.

So that would be one way of doing it, which then means maybe we have a larger squad called in for that one. Would you all be on board for that? I wouldn't object at all. Hey, Taylor, actually, just running it out like that, like you laid it out, it's also very possible. Man City could just be like, no, Stefan, you're fine. Go ahead and go to Panama. We'll be, you can quarantine. We're not going to be too bothered about it. Interesting. All right, so there we go. It's fine. It's all solving. Stefan can play against Panama. I'm sure that's what he wanted.

To go to a Red List country and then have to quarantine while being maybe the backup to Matt Turner slash very much likely the backup to Matt Turner. That's perfect for him. I mean, the shortness of the list that Joe read out there makes me think that, you know, the bigger issue for bringing a big roster is just the possibility for fatigue and injury than the, you know, the U.K. Red List situation. Should we just turn this into a roster size question then? Sure. Overall, ignoring sort of the Panama.

Sure, yeah. Implications. Yeah, I'm thinking 30 players minimum. I had 28 to 30. Yeah, that's about where I am. And it was 26 last time, right? It was 26. I'm at 30.

I'm at 30 based on that. And Tim Wea got injured, and he was not replaced to my recollection. And then eventually Jackson Newell came in after some other injuries. But it started out of 26 and then dropped to 25. and I think we saw why having a bigger squad last time around would have been helpful. And again, or maybe I said this in part one. I can't remember now what I've been saying. But I sympathize with Great Berlter for some of the challenges in terms of roster callups for the September window

because you have players like Reggie Cannon who aren't fit and they have weird club situations. You have Matthew Hoppe and Chris Richards moving from one club to another club. And ultimately for their careers, you don't really want to mess with those timelines by taking them out of that situation and bringing them to the national team setup. but now in October theoretically assuming players get healthy again you should have a much bigger pool of available players that you can bring in

and I see no reason why you wouldn't bring at least a few more guys and get close to 30 the only challenge I can see with that is the bigger the squad is the harder it is to train and I've never led a professional training session before I know everyone's so shocked by that so I don't know how hard that is to do

with four or five more guys than who came in last time it can't be that difficult but maybe that has a part to play here as well who knows so then it would be turner stephen johnson horvath and then it's turner and johnson going to panama potentially unless mancity don't mind zach stephen going is that is that sort of how we're seeing it wouldn't that be kind of offensive to stephen if mancity was like go now you can go ahead no do you think it's fine i mean he's playing i'm assuming he's playing are they playing the league cup today i think he's he's out of it yeah he's in the line are we convinced that pep knows who zach stephen is

That might, maybe that's where we should have started with this whole thing. Cold. He definitely doesn't spell with me. Just to get to say that. It's like ZACH, ZACK, I never get it right. I'm just going to squiggle and hope he doesn't notice. There definitely are more options for this camp in particular because of the extra month now that the European players, especially the ones who played in Gold Cup or the ones who are transferring,

have gotten under their belt. So I definitely think that Burrhalter could comfortably call a larger camp. Like I don't think he was dead set on 20s. six in September and then it was just like that's what we got to hold it to and I want six centerbacks and I want five center mids and now I'm going to fill those spots. I'm sure or at least I think it was more like he was just going position group by position group and picking guys until he ran out of guys he trusted who were available because of their club situations. And so now you add I think by my count I've got like 14 or 15 extra players who were probably

not available in September who are available in October. so I would very much expect a little bit of a thicker roster. That would be great. If you don't mind me, I wanted to ask something because it was brought up a little bit ago. It's going to sound like I'm inviting hostile or joking responses. I'm not. I'm genuinely asking this.

Does anyone have an explanation for why Jackson Yule was brought in, why he was the replacement player, and he doesn't end up playing. I'm assuming the idea is, like, if they need somebody to sit deep and play long balls, or he has familiarity with the team, and there's some level of chemistry there, But aside from that, it's not one that made sense.

I know y'all talked about that a little bit, but I'm not sure if you all had any suggestions or solutions either, but it's one that continues to make me scratch my head a little bit. I can't explain it. Can anyone else? I think we landed on he was the least likely player to break curfew, and that was the deciding factor. It's, they needed a domestic guy, right?

So, again, it's a corner that we backed ourselves into. So at that point, you need some. who's domestic who's not going to be flying eight time zones over and you need somebody who's who's been there before so you're not trying to re-explain everything and that that's sort of who we landed on for a center midfielder. I don't know that, I mean, you know, I just don't know that there was anyone else who, who do we have that would have fit the bill besides, besides you, given those conditions that we've sort of built on. I guess it would probably have been Eric Williamson if he were fit, right? Is that the consensus opinion? He'd just been injured.

Right, like very recently. So it's hard. There weren't a lot of guys that could have come in. And like you're saying, Greg, part of that is because that situation likely wouldn't have occurred at the roster if the initial roster had been larger. And so you bring Yule in and that allows you to have a little bit more cover in central midfield so you can shift Adams or Acosta wide, which is what ended up happening with Tyler Adams for that last game.

So there is some logic there, but it wasn't like Jackson was going to come in and start balling, likely at least. I never even thought of that, Joe. I mean, we could have just gained a central midfielder by bringing in another right back. So keeping Tyler Adams there and not have it. But in any event, I don't expect you. Does anyone expect you will to be on this October list even if we expand it? I don't.

My head hurts from the right back suggestion that didn't really occur to me. And now I'm more frustrated than I was. Thanks, Greg. But we have, I mean, you think about the midfield options now. After injuries and shenanigans, we've got McKinney back. presumably, Musa back, Busio's sort of settled in. So we have all these more experienced players

who can experience with the national team who can kind of come in and fill those spots. You know, Greg, the more you disparage this idea that Weston McKinney broke COVID protocol for love, the less likely I am to give you an executive producer credit. You're now an associate producer credit until you get on board. Jackson Yule would never, ever be the subject

of a romantic comedy for those reasons. I'm just saying. That's fair. Jackson, you would definitely be more of the best friend. He definitely is. He's the guy that is playing basketball opposite West and McKinney while they talk about their love lives. Yeah, that makes sense.

Offering very good advice. Of course, of course. Let's go to the next question. Let's try to handle this one quickly. Number six, Ian asks, do you think Eunice Musa will get a lot of minutes this window? Ian is concerned that Greg Burhalter doesn't rate him after he did not play at Nation's League.

Joe, why don't you punch in on that one? I desperately desire Eunice Musa to play a lot this window. I also share Ian's concern that Greg Berlter doesn't rate him. Does anybody know what went on in Nation's League? Like, why I don't understand why Eunice Musa didn't get on the field, and I know he's still working his way into the program. He hadn't had a lot of camps before that. But Eunice Musa, like we all talked about in part one,

is a player that we all rate and have in our chosen three and Greg's, I guess, off on the side because he's doing his permutations over there. But Eust is a good player, to me, at least, and Berlter-Gle, he has to rate him on some level. But I do share Ian's concern that he won't factor in as much as I want him to. I'll just jump in and say there's a theory that the reason, I'm not saying it's true, but there's a theory that the reason he didn't play in Nations League is because Berthelter was allowing him to have some time to breathe and not get captied at the age of 18. and have the whole summer to, you know, not feel like he was pressured into it

and then come in, guns blazing in the fall. And then, of course, he was hurt for the September window. I buy into that. I do, because I think the one thing that we've kind of heard consistently about Burrhalter since he's taken over is that he is good at managing both the individuals and the squad as a whole. And I think that's why we've gotten the dual national commitments we have. And it's why I think a lot of people have stayed on board. and even somebody like Kellan Acosta, who seems surplus to requirements when he first takes over as manager,

is now a key part of the squad. And I have him, like, in my top 20 players who'd be going to the World Cup. And that's not, again, a thing that I really expected to be the case. And so I think Berhalter is very good at sort of taking these things into consideration, taking the playing experiences or lack of playing experience into consideration, and I think probably does have that level of communication. I think there's probably also an element of, like, just, like, unproductive, Is that the word?

Undervativeness? There we go. Unpredictability to Eunice Musa that maybe doesn't fit with what Burrhalter wants as his plan A, whereas somebody like Sebastian Leggett has been there knows exactly what Burrhalter wants, or theoretically knows exactly what Berhalter wants a player in that role to do. And Musa maybe is seen as more of an impact player or a player who can change up the tempo or the vibe. So I go with Joe that I would love to see Eunice Musa start. I do not think he will start that first game at the very least.

Okay. I think the other variable here is Musa is again still coming back from injury. He hasn't started a game for Valencia yet. And he came in early. He came in early because of an injury, so he was an unplanned early substitution over the weekend. And it doesn't appear to be 75 minutes fit. But I really hope that he is like a 60 minute sub in all three games. Because I do think he has the ability to control matches. in a way that a lot of our other midfielders don't. Certainly as we get down the rotation depth chart, so I'm really hoping that he has a big part to play. I'm also not going to be shocked if he isn't called at all for some reason because I just feel like nothing shocks me anymore with some of these roster decisions. All right, I got a really good question, I think, from Bob Morocco,

who we all know and love. How do each of you attempt to evaluate and attribute individual versus system-based, errors. Taylor. My answer, not surprisingly, is not going to be succinct. So if somebody has a succinct one, I welcome them to go first. Otherwise, I will tell you my sort of broad answer to this question. I'm ready for the sprawly one. Sorry, let me jump in real quick.

I don't know that all errors have to be one or the other. That's just what I wanted to preface this with, is if they're not simultaneous errors, then there's one that could be very closely caused by another, and it does get murky. So, okay, that's just what I wanted to slide in before we get into this whole conversation. I'm not sure it has to be one or the other all the time, like system versus individual. Okay, I'm done. Go ahead, Taylor. Yeah, I think that's definitely a fair distinction. And then the thing that I am very mindful of is how often first view when you're watching it live is based on emotion

and is oftentimes, for me, at least based on preconception of what a player can do. And I think we've all experienced that probably when I would spotlight, oh, this guy did this really, really well. And then I would go to Twitter and see two clips of that player in the same game. doing that same thing only not doing it well. And I'm always wary of sort of highlighting something in a positive or negative way, and then having that be more so, like, just happened to be what I was looking at in that moment or happened to be my, like, awareness of, oh, this guy isn't always great. Josh Sarge is an example, that watching him at club level for Verda Bremen,

I remember being frustrated by his lack of closing down, and that was a thing we saw in World Cup qualifying, and I spotlighted that, and some people took issue with it. And so that's where I'm always mindful of, is that bias, or is that a thing that I'm a observing and then can kind of have draw conclusions from. And so for me, it's about watching it that second time and removing some of that. Like, here's what I thought happened in the emotion of the moment to look at it again and see, is a thing happening consistently? Is it a pattern or is it an outlier?

And if a player sort of constantly looks confused and is always looking around or, honestly, if it's Tyler Adams having to have words with players on a consistent basis, to me that is the system sort of letting the team down. down. And if it's a player being out of position always, and it's little things like Greg Burrhalter throwing his hands up in the air. You'll see that on the sideline. You'll see him aggressively coaching or calling somebody over. And to me, that is the system not working or the individual not understanding the system. And I think to his credit, Burrhalter will often not throw people under the bus and not overtly criticized. But I think we'll point out when things weren't going the way he

wanted them to or when like things weren't being executed as well as he would have liked. And so I think it's a combination long, or like long answer short. It's rewatching the game, but trying to see if a thing I noticed once happened multiple times and if so, why, but then also incorporating post-match quotes from the players and Greg Burhalter to understand what they were trying to do or what they felt like was a problem and then seeing if that vibes with what I observed. Great answer. Greg. So my sprawly version of it is like when you're watching the game,

and you're watching, you know, whichever player you got your focus on at the moment, are they being asked to do something that you know that they can do? And so that's sort of where it goes into is whatever they're doing, should we expect them to be able to do it given their player profile? And if the answer is yes and they're failing, then it's like, all right, this player is short of the ability, like doesn't have the ability to do it. If this is supposed to be their strength and they're being put in a position to use their strength and they can't do it, then that's an individual limitation.

and we are going to have to find another way around. But if you're watching players and it looks like they're being asked to do something that they can't do or there's no reason to think that they're good at doing those things, then it becomes like a system issue. And then the other part of that is if everyone on the field looks like they're playing well below what their individual strengths and abilities are, then I think it's pretty easy to say that that's a system issue as well. And you would say that that has been the case a lot of the time with the U.S.

with the USMNT? A lot of the time, yeah, I definitely would. Something I'll point out too, because I talked about it in the first part of the show over at TSS's place. You know, I know Bob Morocco, who asked this question, pointed out a lot of the issues in the El Salvador game where players sort of just missing passes, like, again, a wide open player that they just miss. And I do think that's an individual breakdown.

But like I kind of also said in that one, sometimes that's a symptom of not fully understanding the system, not fully understanding what you're trying to accomplish. with these what we should be considered sort of simple actions to execute. And so when that's happening over and over again, then I do start to say, all right, do these guys understand why you're asking them to do these things? Or are they sort of always trying to solve the whole problem all at once because they haven't been well prepared with the mindset of what you're trying to actually accomplish as a team? I like how you said over at the TSS place because many of you may not realize it,

but we recorded the first half of the episode in Richmond. Yeah, it was really nice you all to fly in. I didn't expect that. The second half of the episode in Des Moines. I've always wanted to go to Des Moines. Dream Smaller. I hear they have good schools in Des Moines. I don't know.

I heard that. Joe, can you take a crack at this one? I would love to, Bellas. Thank you. I think with my disclaimer that I already set out up front, setting that aside, I think a big way that I try to figure out system errors at least is to look at what patterns are playing out on the field. Not necessarily in terms of attacking movement or off ball runs

or patterns in the final third to create goals, but what are trends that we're seeing on the field? And the Canada game really does stick out in my mind in this way. The Canada game, the U.S. went long over and over and over again. And after the game to tie into what Taylor said, Burralter talked about those long diagonals and how they weren't moving the ball fast enough and how they didn't really have a lot of success with those diagrams.

That's a heavy paraphrase, but that's something to the effect of what he said. In that particular case, I think it's fair to attribute a lot of the mistakes that the U.S. had in possession, a lot of the weak and pretty tame possession play to the system and to the tactical instructions that were given to them because it wasn't just John Brooks trying to hit those balls. It was John Brooks and Tyler Adams trying to hit those balls and players not really moving in between the lines to such an extent that it really did point all of the arrows towards the pregame tactical instructions. So in those cases, I'm much more inclined to attribute those errors to the instructions and to the system and to the manager rather than there's just one play that sticks out of my mind. It's John Brooks on the ball with a chance to split the lines and play it to Christian Polisick who's tucked inside in midfield against Canada in the first five minutes of that game, I believe.

And Brooks doesn't really look for them and just plays it long. And I do think a share of the blame should go to John Brooks because these aren't robots. These are thinking players that know or should be able to determine when the time to break the instructions. are, but a heavy chunk of that, that blame in the moment has to go to the instructions that they were given. So that's, that's at least one thing that I'll do to try and figure out, okay, what does the blame lie? Does it lie with the individual player on that individual moment, or does it lie with the

instructions in the system that they've been placed in? It's, I think, I think it's a really, for me, at least, it's a really hard thing to distinguish between, you know, like Taylor said, you got to, you have to go back and watch carefully and anybody who knows anybody who listens to this podcast knows i generally defer to gregg on stuff like this so um that's kind of where i'm coming from but i do think it's a game it's it's a game of rhythm you know so if everybody if everybody isn't locked into what the plan is and they're not to use a joe lowry phrase given a platform to express themselves you know freely then you know things sort of compound and things start to look worse and worse and uh and then you

have like individual errors that are sort of the, they're the result of the system in an indirect way. Like the system's not working so things just start to get worse. So yeah, I don't have any better answers than you guys, except that one thing that makes it easy for me is a very simple thing. The further away from the center of the field something is, the easier it is for me to at least figure out in my own mind whether it's an individual or system error because there's just fewer variables. Yeah. And I think a final thing for me then is that I think, like, fundamentally, for me, there has to be an idea that, like, I might be wrong, and I probably am wrong. And so, because I can have these ideas about what's happening.

And so, like, if there's a game when the U.S. is being too direct or being too vertical, if it happens over and over and over again, my, I forget which game it was when that was happening. Maybe it was the Canada game that, like, I assumed that was they had this game plan for, like, Canada will be aggressive so we can hit them, like, we can basically catch them on the counter. we can hit them over the top and we have like the speed on the flanks to capitalize. And then maybe that ball was just being hit too soon or they were too direct. They were too readily looking for that. But then to hear Burrhalter come out afterwards and say, yeah, we were doing that too often. We were trying to be too direct. To me, that then is where it gets confusing because that's him basically saying that wasn't the game plan,

but that's what we kept looking at. And that is weirdly a problem with the system, but also a problem with the coach, that if the team is sort of doing a thing over and over again that they've been told not to do or not been asked to do, it makes me confused. And so I tend to stick with like, ah, it's probably individuals. It's also probably partially the system. But then if I see it again or if I don't see it again, I think there has to be a willingness to say like, okay, it seems like they changed that or maybe I had it wrong.

And that is, I think, a big part of what we try to do at least, and I'm guessing you all do as well, is sort of own when you got a thing wrong, because if you stick to a position as it increasingly seems untenable, then you're just arguing because you don't want to be wrong versus trying to understand what's actually happening. Yeah. Let's do one more question and then wrap this thing up. This is from Farm Nice. I'm curious to get priors from you guys, all four of you, on where the U.S.

men's national team would rank globally if PEP or Klop or pick your favorite coach was the coach instead of Greg Burhalter. I feel like there's a sense in your collective criticism that we should be dominating the region and challenging for World Cup semis with these points. players and it's only Burrhalter holding us back when in my opinion we have a mid-20s type global ranking level of talent global ranking level of talent joe you want to bite that one off first yeah i'll fight back a little bit with farm nice i'll be nice just as farm nice is nice in his name i don't i don't think i've ever gone nearly as far to say with the talent level we have the u.s.

men's national team should be competing for a world cup semi-final that's to me that's completely unrealistic so i i don't really know exactly where that part is coming from. I will say, I do think it's fair to say that Greg Berlther is holding us back right now, right? We've been talking about system errors and we've been talking about, we have talked about over the course of these two shows, some lineup problems. And Greg mentioned players not being put in positions to succeed. Those are all things that you can trace back pretty easily to Greg Berhalter. So I don't think it's unrealistic to say that this team would be performing at a higher level and would be looking more tactically coherent on the field if Pep Guardiola or Jorgon

Klopp or Thomas Tugel, whoever, coaches at the top of their game, were coaching this group. I think that would help the team. I think coaching is a really important part of soccer and having a solid tactical foundation is hugely important. So for me, I think the U.S. has better than mid-20s probably type global talent. I don't think they're in the top five or probably in the top 10 right now, but it's going to keep getting better. And I think you want to harness that talent and give it a chance to thrive instead of hold

it back. and I think a higher level coach like the ones at the absolute pinnacle of soccer right now would do a better job. And to me, that just feels pretty logical. Joe, can I modify the question a little bit? Because when we're talking about Pepper Club, you know, literally two of the best coaches in the world, then it's a little easier to, I mean, to assume. I know it's a different ball game to go to the international side than to be working for Liverpool or Man City.

But what if you just took it to, I mean, do you think it's possible that there are other coaches who would be very attainable for the U.S. that could essentially be a net positive for the U.S. men's national team. Like, does Greg Vanny come in and potentially make us 10% better over the course of six months? You made my life really easy with that question.

Potentially, sure, right? And this is where I run out of answers, right? I don't know if Greg Baraltrow was ever the right person for this job. I'm not saying he wasn't, but, I mean, there are other people that were interviewed that maybe could have done a better job or maybe U.S. soccer decision. interview enough folks. I think that's been a criticism that's been that's been levied against these

decision makers. I don't know what the cutoff is for the level of coach that would have better success with this group. Maybe Greg Berlther and Greg Vanny and Peter Vermeis and Bob Bradley. Maybe they're all in the same tier. I don't know. And I don't really know how we would figure that out besides giving them all an equal amount of time in the exact, in each individual different timelines to determine that. And that's obviously not possible. I do think there are coaches out there that probably were attainable to one degree or another or are now that could do a better job with this group, but I don't know who they are or how we'd tell if they could do a better job.

Joe, who would be, is there a coach in midge league soccer? Because I do, if we're sticking with the idea of like an American to coach the U.S. national team, and I do think historically, I think every World Cup has been won by a team managed by like a coach from their country, I think that tends to be a successful pattern for whatever reason. If we were going to go with an American manager who has a more let them play style of isn't over complicating, is setting

the team up well and then getting the best out of them, like, is it Brian Schmetzer? I know that a lot of people don't necessarily rate him as a tactical manager, but I'm wondering who would you have be that, or who do you think is that person? It's Bruce Arena, for sure. I mean, he's the classic

run and play, don't talk to me about formations. Those don't matter. And he's not entirely wrong about some of those things. But In my view, obviously, there's a lot of different ways to look at soccer. Then let's move it a little bit away from Braccarina. Who has slightly more, like, okay, but I do need you to make this run at this moment. Like, who has maybe a little bit more hands-on approach? I don't know a lot about how these coaches go about their daily business,

but Brian Schmetzer is probably not a bad shout in that regard. I think he's a very good coach and good at a lot of things. I don't think he's really a tactician in my sense of the word, or how I would choose to use that word. so he could be an option. I think Greg Vanny is a good coach. I think Bob Bradley is a good coach. I think Jim Curtin has a lot of good qualities about him as well.

So there are talented American coaches out there. I don't know that any of them are necessarily in this next level, you know, somewhere in between Klopp and PEP and Greg Burhalter. I'm not sure that they're in between those coaches. I think they could very likely be on the same level to what the U.S. is operating under right now. Because I do and, and, yeah, I do think that it's, it's all. almost impossible to go from managing a club of the caliber of Man City or Liverpool and the way those two manage those clubs and many other managers like that, where it's day in and day out,

you're sort of going home and watching film, you're waking up and going in and conducting training and talking to players about what they need to do, and you don't have that same amount of time. And I do buy into the idea that you have to simplify things and you have limited time constraints, you have to deal with players being injured or players being unavailable for selection. and so you have to be able to really effectively communicate what you want your team to do in fairly straightforward terms. And I think that maybe is where Burrhalter sometimes gets tripped up. I'm going to assume that Pep Cordiola can communicate ideas

about tactics and movement pretty effectively, but we haven't seen him do it at international level, and I'm sure he can if that's the challenge he wants. The person that I think of as being sort of ticking a lot of boxes, including that maybe he's coming to the end of wanting, rigors of club management would be somebody like Carlo Encelotti. I doubt he ever takes over the U.S. national team, but he's, by all accounts, one who I think puts his players in the best position for them to play, like, a way that makes sense for them,

that puts them in comfortable spots and gets results. And I think that does sort of lend itself to international management, but doesn't really have any familiarity with the United States from a coaching capacity. So I don't know if that would quite work. But I think it is probably somebody who is still trying to play proactive, interesting soccer and changing ideas and putting the team in new positions to do different things, but also fundamentally can say, we're doing this, here's what you need to do, don't do that, do do this, okay, go win, and then they do.

And I think that was Bruce Arena for a while. I don't think it was in 2017. I don't think it should be again for the national team. But I think whoever can do that, I wouldn't hate being the next coach. And is that going to get us to the World Cup semis? I'm taking it back to Farm Nation's question a little bit. That's fair to. Like, I've definitely never thought.

thought that we were going to get to the World Cup semis. Like I'm with Joe, I'm like, we have enough talent where if we get a good draw and things bounce our way, we can get out of our group at the World Cup. Like that's always sort of just my hope for any World Cup because of it's a three-game crapshoot to its day. Yeah, that's totally fair, man. And like, even going back to the very first question when you all, I think y'all were talking about Ricardo Pepe and, like, is he past the point of a, like, a smaller club,

a feeder club buying him? I'm not sure he is, but I bring that up just to say that, like, that is the conversation we're having, whereas that's not the conversation Spain is having, or Germany or England. So, yeah, I think that's a very fair point that we still don't have the depth of talent across the board, and if one player gets injured, if Tyler Adams isn't there, not quite sure what we do. I would have said the same of John Brooks before this past window. Now, less concerned about if John Brooks gets injured. But I think, yeah, the lack of depth across the board, the lack of, like, technical and

tactical expertise across the board is probably the major limitation as opposed to the coaching. Yeah. One other kind of interesting thing when we were listing off, you know, the MLS coaches, Robin Frazier is another one who's been doing a lot with a little. And what's interesting especially about that is because famously his, the person who left the job maybe two coaches before Frazier, very famously said, I'm dealing with bottom level players here. And Robin Frazier is now winning with those players.

While the coach who said that is now the assistant coach with U.S. men's national team. It's Anthony Hudson. I don't know if everyone's as dialed in, but Anthony Hudson went from Colorado to being fired after saying, I can't win with these players, got the U20 job when the U20s didn't happen, eventually just inertiaed his way into the U.S. men's national team coaching staff, which is sort of just another one of those things where you just throw your hands up,

like, are we even really trying with some of these decisions, or do you literally just say, here's what we found, we found this in the couch cushions, he's on the staff now. Anthony Hudson's just like three quarters and a dime that's sitting in between Greg's couch cushions. I don't even want to laugh about it right now. It's making me angry just thinking about it. I'm honestly thinking about like the, you know, you guys are talking about like these corporate structures of like what, how do we? I'm sorry, it was actually I was listening to Bobby Warshall talked to Greg Burrhalter about like the corporate mindset of coaches.

And it's like, okay, so you identified a need. you must have identified a need for an assistant coach in the staff. Like what was the process to then say, Anthony Hudson is definitely the right guy for this? Like what went into those discussions? I've totally doing. He cut a big, he took a big piece of paper and he cut out a shape, a silhouette that fit Anthony Hudson

and then whoever walked through it, that was the person he hired. Yeah, it's a fair question. Like how does Jason Christ continue to get gigs or how did he continue to get gigs? Like, yes, I think the approach to the hiring process and who they bring in has always been a bit of a head scratcher from a U.S. perspective. I think Ernie Stewart and Brian McBride just sat around and decided what they needed was more inflammatory comments in the press, and so Anthony Hudson fit that bill. It's that simple, guys.

I do think, to go back to the question again, I do think this idea that there's a sense in our collective criticism that we should be dominating the region and challenging for World Cup semis is an exaggeration of what I perceive to be our collective criticism of Burrhalter. I think I just want the team to look like good and on the same page. And, you know, sometimes results go your way. Sometimes they don't. But anybody who watched the first five halves of the last qualifying window and says that we looked good is lying straight to your face. So that's how I look at it.

All right. So then you have to combine it with Bob Morocco and say, how much of is it on the coach and how much is on the players. And I do think a significant amount is on the coach. And I basically just now think of it that way, is that our coach has limitations that could hold us back in games, and so far I think has. So it's just like any other player on the field, like, oh, Mark McKenzie might make a mistake. Greg Berhalter might make a mistake with his lineup, and we'll have to overcome that mistake to get a result.

Yeah, and funnily going back to the question, I hope that we qualify for the World Cup. I'm less concerned about making the semis. I really, like, that is where I am. I don't think the U.S. should be, like, definitely easily breezing to the semis. finals, I think this is a team that is, as we've already seen, not guaranteed to even qualify out of cocky calf. I still think they will. But I think, like, that is where my expectations are, is how do you put a team together

that convincingly wins enough games to make us qualify, and then we can worry about that next step. Yeah. My crying daughter disagrees, by the way. Or disagrees. I'm not really sure which one it is. The children are weeping. We've been talking for so long.

I know. Thanks guys. Thanks guys for doing this. A lot of fun for us. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much for having us. This was tons of fun. And if we don't do it again, I'll be sad. Not as sad as Taylor's crying child right now, but still sad. And I agree. It was really nice to get to chat with you on. Really, I just enjoy getting to talk out some U.S. national team stuff with other people who aren't me and Joe having the same conversations that we always didn't act. So when we end up talking about romantic comedies and random other stuff, I'm into it. Yeah, let's do it again. Thanks everybody for listening.

We'll see you.