Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #202: The October Qualifying Roster

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

We talk about who we'd like to see called up, and try to project who actually will be called up. Greg goes for a lean roster, Belz goes for the full 30-man roster. Berhalter's roster will come out mid-week.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. The U.S. men's national team will convene this weekend for another three-game international window as they try to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. We're going to talk about the roster, which will be released in the next couple days. Greg, how you doing? Bells, I'm barely recovered from the last window. Some of the players who played in the last window are not yet recovered from the last window. It's happening fast. It is happening fast. I love it, but no, I just love it, period. Same. That's where I'm at, too. So we face Jamaica in Austin, Panama, in Panama City, and then Costa Rica in Columbus between October 7 and October 13th. I'm hoping to get John Arnold on the horn again for another opposition research episode.

But until then, let's just focus on the U.S. roster. Who do we expect to see? Who would we like to see? this is maybe one of the easier windows in the whole campaign, at least on paper, right? Yeah, and again, not to be underestimated is the two home games versus two away games. I believe that basically cuts out a full day of travel within the window. So, you know, on a, what, 10-day window, you get a 10% extra boost. Yeah. No, seriously, I mean, it's a big deal not to have to make two trips to Central America.

Just one. Got any high-level thoughts? Yeah. So what I'm going to do here, because again, it can be, as everyone kind of knows, who listens to these and sees, you know, rosters projected everywhere in the days leading up to a release. I can get a little tedious just listing names. So I'm going to, the angle I'm taking here is to be sort of the,

the devil's advocate of everyone saying we need 30 people. And I'm going to try to figure out what size of a roster we could actually get away with. I know 26 felt like too thin last time. It sure did. But some of that was sort of caused by the way we constructed that roster and certain things that we knew ahead of time like Tim Wayhouse injury that we just didn't replace going in. So I'm going to try to see how lean I think we could be and get away with just as an academic experiment effectively. Well, yeah. I mean, great.

I love it. I think most people are saying that we need a 30-man roster. That's what I'm going to advocate for. So it'll be good to have a little contrarianism in the pod. It's going to be like, it's going to be like I can name that tune. And I'm going to be like, I think we can do this camp in 25. We can actually be, have fewer guys than last time. I'll be interested to see who you drop, you know.

Before we get into it, I just want to say, we don't say this enough. Thank you to all our patrons. you make the show more viable long term, and we appreciate it. If you've thought about becoming a patron but haven't, I'd like to encourage you to consider it again. You get access to the Discord, which is lively, too lively for some.

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if you need to get in touch with me. So let me just say that discord today is certainly going to see a couple of Kenny Seff highlights that I haven't cut yet, but I will and I'll be posting them. He had a couple of assists over the weekend and I haven't seen it yet. So I don't know how noisy. Yeah, I don't know how noisy they were or how saucy they were. But I'm expecting a little bit of sauce from Kenny. What a teaser.

What a teaser. I put a Ullianez, which is, it means they're about the same distance from the national team, those two players, Kenny Syaf and Ulianez. I put an Uliana's clip on Twitter this morning, just because it's so good to see him siding through the right side of a defense, even if it is in the Austrian second division. All right. Especially, especially if it's in the Austrian second division. All right.

Let's talk about this roster coming up. Okay, yeah, I think you referenced it earlier, but I, think we should have a big roster. I think things got a little dicey in the last window, not so much because of COVID, but because, or COVID protocols or anything. Well,

that was one player left the camp because of that, but mostly because of injury. And, and that is, that could happen in this window too. So let's, let's not let it get to that point is how I look at it. But I only have three goalkeepers,

Turner, Horvath, and Stefan. How are you doing with the goalkeepers? I'd be fine with that. It wouldn't surprise me. So I should say to, like, even as I'm going to say, here's how few guys I think we could get away with. There are so many guys. I got like probably 45 players who wouldn't, it wouldn't surprise me or even, like, upset me or worry me if their name was on this release.

So the pool has expanded to the point. The comfort level I have with, like, the depth of the pool is pretty massive. I'm just trying to think of, you know, could we get away with fewer and still have? have a viable camp. So I think three goalkeepers is totally fine too. Did you already name them? I did. Turner Horvath and Stefan. Wouldn't surprise me if Sean Johnson's on there over Horvath for Horvath hasn't been playing. I don't care either way. I'm fine with Horvath because I think both of us expect Matt Turner to start all three games. Yeah, I think that's the safe bet. And, you know, there was some concern that Stefan wouldn't be able to go down to Panama and then be able to

get right back into the game day lineup game day roster for manchester city but those those quarantine rules in the UK have been relaxed a little bit they're less stringent now and that should be shouldn't be an issue not that it was you know as you pointed out on the total soccer show crossover episode Manchester city may have been totally fine with stephen having a quarantine for 10 days when he got back from this international window and nottingham forest could be the same with Ethan horvath at this point. He hasn't played since the new coach took over. So we'll have to monitor both of those guys to see if they actually can get into some soccer games. There you go.

Goalkeeper, the least interesting position for this roster episode. I mean, not in general, not in general. How about fullbacks? Who do you have for fullbacks? And how many? So here's where I think we could get away with four. And people, we brought four last time. We got into some trouble with it.

But that's because I think of the way we used the four. that we brought. So last camp we brought Anthony Robinson and George Bellow is the nominal left backs. Dest and Yedlin is the nominal right backs, but as everyone kind of knows, game one, we start Dest and Yedlin together, which is going to really make rotations difficult at that point. You've kind of tied your hands rotation-wise. And then Dest gets hurt against Canada at halftime. And so now everything's out the window and you're really kind of scrambling.

And that's how you end up with Tyler Adams playing right wing back in your third. third game. So this time around, I still think we could do four. You just construct it a little better. So to do four, I've got Sergenio Dest, Anthony Robinson, and then I've got DeAndre Edlin has a backup right back, and I have Joe Scali who can deputize it left back or right back. So Scali making his senior team debut in this window.

Yeah, I'm not too different from that. I only have four fullbacks too as well, Desk Robinson, Scali, and a row. Now, I'm afraid Julian Arajo is going to decline a call-up if he is called up. So in which case, it would be one of Yedlin, Bella, or Shackmore, and I would have to go with Yedlin as well. Just because I didn't think Bello was super great. Obviously, he was culpable for that one goal against Honduras. And then Shackmore's not playing that much, or at least not as much as Yedlin is. and Yedlin, you know, Yedlin's pretty much a nailed on starter for Galatasarai right now,

which is a bigger club than Tenerife. So there's my sort of easy rationale for Yedlin. And again, you could bring five, you could bring five, and everybody would be, like, that would solve any issue that comes up. There's, like, almost no contingency you can think of there that's going to get us into hot water. I just think you could still basically do the same thing with four and survive an injury. one injury through the camp and still have enough flexibility to rotate over the three games. But I think actually, even as I'm doing the, my preference would probably be to have five

and bring in another true left back behind Anthony. So be Bello, probably? Yeah, I think it would probably be Bellow, right? Again, at that point it would be even more of just like one more body to have in case of a double emergency. Yeah. I mean, Vines is injured. Bellow, so Bello probably is kind of, he's sort of uncontested in that spot at the moment. The good thing about that, those four, whether it's, or at least the first three, Dest Robinson and Scali,

is that Dest and Scali can both play left back and right back. And Dest, you know, we've sort of been critics of playing Dest at left back, at least I have. And he shouldn't have, as you pointed out, he shouldn't have played left back in that first game of the last window because it burned through all our right backs in one game. or gave them too many minutes. But Dest did play pretty well as the left back for Barcelona over the weekend. So who knows? Nobody knows anything. Well, we know Anthony Robinson was a huge impact player.

He had the assist against Canada. He had a goal against Honduras. I think that it becomes clear that Anthony needs to play probably two-thirds of the minutes in this window. And so does Dest. So at that point, like, Dest, the time that Dest isn't. playing right back. He probably doesn't need to be playing left back. Yeah. That's how I'd put it. So I'm sticking to four. For my little experiment here, I'm going to get away with four fullbacks. Same with me. Only differences, I would like Arajo to be the fourth one in the event that he

turns down the call up. Then I'm fine with the headline. Center back. Hold on. Sorry, real quick, just to not let us get out of the fullbacks yet. I was trying to go back and see who actually found this on the discord, but I can't do it. So my apologies to whatever eagle-eyed listeners out there. But they spotted that Julian Arahou is not on U.S. Soccer's sort of in-house weekend watch guide for the Los Angeles Galaxy match. They did have legit listed, but not Arajo. So if anyone wants to put weight and meaning into those things, that could be sort of a signifier that Arajo has not going to be involved. Yeah. At a certain point, you can't keep calling him up, right? I mean, he's turned down two call-ups. I don't know what the, I don't know what the ethics are of how often you need to call somebody up. But you turn down two call-ups, then you do run the risk of not getting any more call-ups, I guess.

Well, my guess is if anything, it'd be a Raho essentially telling U.S. soccer, you don't need to keep calling me up. I'm moving elsewhere with my talents. Yeah. I mean, I guess the turning down two call-ups is maybe that on its own is enough signal that he's going elsewhere. I'm bummed by that, but I won't dwell on it. Centerback. I'm going to take five centerbacks. I'll just, I'll list them off. Brooks, Richards, Miles Robinson, Tim Ream, and Walker Zimmerman. So you're dropping McKenzie from last. window? Yeah, I don't know that Burrhalter's going to do that.

He definitely favored McKenzie over Zimmerman in the last window. Zimmerman didn't see the field, but yeah, I prefer Zimmerman at this point. So right, so last window, we brought six. Only four of them played at centerback. So Sands played, but he only played in the midfield, and Zimmerman didn't play at all. So I'm going really thin here again and just going with four fullbacks. Now, centerback, I'm sorry, centerbacks, centerback is the position group that did not get hit by any injuries in the last camp.

So we kind of rode the luck there. But we had Zimmerman for cover. But we managed to get through it with four, even using three centerbacks in the final game of the window. So I'm going to say we can get by with four, and I'm going with Brooks, Miles, Richards, and McKenzie, because I think Berlter has McKenzie ahead of Zimmerman. plus

was ever being domestic means that at any point in a pinch you can call him up. I'm sure he's got a go bag pack for national team duty. He'll be there in however long it takes an airplane to get there. Okay. So you're just going with McKenzie because Berhalter will go with McKinsey, most likely. A little bit of that. I think he likes McKin, I think he likes McKinsey more.

I have no issue with any of them, McKinsey, Ream, or, Zimmerman playing in a World Cup qualifier. But I think there is an advantage to calling in the guy first from Europe only because it'd be much easier in that contingency, in the emergency where somebody goes down to injury or suspension to get Zimmerman there. He's an hour and a half away no matter what happens. So he's sort of, he's the option that you can bring in at the last second.

Whereas you bring Zimmerman in and leave McKenzie, it might be harder to get McKenzie six time zones over to deputize. Yeah, that's true. I guess I just see, I see McKenzie, you know, losing markers in Belgium. I mean, you posted some clips in the Discord a couple weeks ago of that. And Zimmerman, you know, Zimmerman's a huge set piece threat. I have very little confidence that are, you know, sort of disorganizing the opponent with the ball attack is going to, you know, switch on in the next three weeks. so I want somebody, I want Zimmerman there. So he, you know, just, I don't even know that he's going to play.

But if he does play, he's a threat to score a goal on a corner kick or a set piece more so than McKenzie. So that's where I'm coming from. That's fair. And let's use this moment to sort of try to undermine foot mob ratings because it's really hard to rate centerbacks because so much of their position is about controlling space defensively. And yes, over the, I think it was the midweek match that. McKenzie just lost his man a couple of times, one of them for a goal. But I don't know if that shows up on footmom at all because he was so far away from his man that he couldn't challenge for the duel.

So it's not even a lost duel. And I think he was like a 7.5. I think it was 7.8, if I remember correctly. Well, it was a dominant showing then. Yeah. And one of those was a goal and the other one was like should have bet. Like, well, we don't use that terminology on this podcast, do we? It was very much could have been a goal.

Anyway, I think the big news here is Richards, Richard's got to be called up. He's playing very well for Hoffenheim. And, you know, Miles Robinson had that great window last time in the great Gold Cup. So we got three. And I still have faith in John Brooks. You know, I know a lot of people are mad at him for how he played in the last window. But I expect him to bounce back.

three centerbacks that I have a lot of confidence in in Brooks, Richards, and Robinson. I'll do a mini Brooks bit here then and just say, I don't even think, I don't even really consider it a dip in form for Brooks. Brooks gets like turned the way that he got turned in, in that Honduras game, like once a game for as long as he's been playing with us. So for me, it's just like, oh, yeah, that happens to Brooks. It happened to get Switzerland a bunch of times before the Nations League. It happened against Honduras in the Nations League.

I actually don't remember if it happened against Mexico but it might have been because we were pinned back so much that there wasn't as much open space for him to have to defend but then it happened again against Canada not just where he lost his marker on the goal but I think Tejohn did him

on the sideline or towards the edge of the box in open space and then he got done in Honduras when he had to step up into midfield so he is always going to get turned like that he's he we coined the battleship term for him because that happens sort of pretty frequently.

So it's just like we know that's going to be part of what happens to John Brooks. We just need to minimize the effects or the consequences of it happening and get as much as we can from him from all of the other areas that he's very good at. Yeah, he's the USS Brooks. He's the original battleship. Yeah, I mean, the thing that I think a lot of fans are especially frustrated with him for is not, so much the battle shipping as it is him, him losing his marker on that Canada goal. You know, he had, he had Kyle Aaron on his shoulder and he just let him, he let him walk into the face of goal unmarked. And I think people are that pretty frustrated about that.

And I can't, I can't blame him, you know. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, even touch on the Honduras one. I don't think that was, I don't think it's like he quit on the play. I think he just made a bang, bang decision and thought, and, you know, he gambled to take away the cut back at an angle rather than taking away the square ball. And it's, it's trying to read what's Miles Robinson going to take away, what can Matt Turner get to, and where's the attacker going to go? And he happened to get wrong, get like all of it wrong and ended up leaving the tap in wide open. And then in the Honduras school, I know there were some people ding in him for like lack of effort to track back

once he got beat. But when you look at that play, once he's, I mean, he got beat so bad that he was completely out of the play to defend the only three Honduras attackers going to goal. So at that point it's not really even his job to like sprint back into the box to catch the guy who scored. He can't do that. So Bellow's job is now to do that and

Brooks's job is to essentially become like a midfielder and track back into the next layer of defense and there was no one arriving for Honduras to defend against. So once he got beat so badly, he was no longer out of position in the sort of the secondary role of what he was supposed to cover.

So I don't even like, I know that was another thing of, well, he at least needed to work harder to get back. But that wasn't really his job anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't blame. I mean, I guess I blame him a little bit for getting beaten at the top of the box, but not that much. Reference to your earlier comments about that's kind of who he is as a player. It's, and I don't blame him that much for that goal.

I do whether it was a lack of effort, which I'm willing to concede it was not, or just like a poor decision, him not. sticking with Laren on that Canada goal is something I do ding him for pretty hard. It's a hard ding. That's fair. That's fair. Should we move to the number six? Yeah. So my running total now, I've got three keepers, four fullbacks, four centerbacks. I'm at 11, 11 players.

And I'm at 12 because I have five centerbacks. The number six, who do you got? So I've got Adams and Acosta. And I know Adams missed out for Leibzig, so this is where it's going to start to get dicey based on actual available options in reality. But right now I'm just rolling with Adams and Acosta. Okay. I'm doing Adams Acosta and James Sands. And let me defend that a little bit.

I thought, you know, Sands did not have a good game against Honduras. There's no getting around that. He had several moments that stuck out in a bad way. But I think he might look better if he's in a 4-3-3 as a, as a holding midfielder, instead of in a two-man midfield with, even by Burrhalter's admission, way too much space to cover because the backline wasn't getting up fast enough. And according to Burrhalter, the strikers were doing a little bit too much freelancing in the press. So, hey, Sands had all kinds of ground to cover, not his strong suit.

I think he could actually be a useful player for the national team as a holding mid behind two eights. So I want to bring him. And partly he's there in case Adams can't make the trip. And also, once we switch to the 433 in the second half, Sands no longer, at the very least, stood out in a bad way, right? So there is something to suggest that he can blend in and do the job and not be a negative in that preferred role. And we also didn't get to see him in a three-man back line,

in part because we were so stretched at midfield. I don't know what would have happened if we'd had more midfield cover. if Sands would have still been used in that role or if he would have actually been in the back line instead of one of the other choices. Yeah, I think he's the closest corollary we have to Adams as a defensive midfielder because of his sort of his alertness to danger

and the way he closes things down. He's not as fast as Adams, but he is a fast thinker the way Adams is, I think, on defense. So. All right. Well, I wouldn't hate to see him. I feel like he's been off a little bit for New York City since.

Well, I feel like since the Gold Cup. But yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. I think, I mean, just a little. He doesn't look like he's been himself. He hasn't been sort of like as flawless as you come to expect from James Sands in those sort of defensive moments. Okay. But I think it's still also very possible that Burrhalter just trusts him after the Gold Cup and after helping him out a little. bit in the second half against Honduras to at least just do the job. But I'm leaving them off

because my experiment requires it. As any good scientists would do. Uh, nope. The number eight, let's talk about it. Who do you have as your, uh, attacking midfielders, I guess you'd call them? All right. So I'm reaching here a little bit, but I'm calling it McKenny, Leggett, Musa, and Bousio. You know, speaking of Bousio, speaking of Buccio, speaking of Buccio, I think, Bersia, Hulter may differ with us dramatically on the number six position. You know, it could be a very good, decent chance we'll see Yule as one of the six is called up, especially if Adams is injured. I think Bousio may be called up as a six too.

Just throwing out. So I've got him as an eight, but he's cover at the six, you know, potentially, especially if it's in a game where the other team is just totally bunkered and there isn't very much back and forth, then I think that helps minimize what, what I'm, I still think is Buzio's weaknesses. It's less cage matchy for me and just, again, more about controlling that area of the pitch. Maybe those are just two ways of saying the same thing. But I think in certain games, like, there's very little risk to playing Bousseo is that deep midfielder, like defensive transition risk.

So I think he'd offer an option there while also giving you some depth at the eight. Okay. Well, I continue to not be convinced by Gene Lucubusio, so I don't have him as a six or an eight. My eights are McKinney Legit and Musa just like you, and then I want Luca Deletore there. I think, you know, the thing about Deletora is he plays for a team that likes to possess and build out of the back. and I did a small amount of elementary math and figured out in his past five starts, he's attempted an average of 55 passes. So he gets on the ball a lot.

And he's good with both feet. He's tricky enough to elude the first defender regularly, and he's pretty ball-secure. So we've talked about how we need our aides, we need our aides to find the ball. We need him to move and find the ball. And I think Delatorre is doing that as, well as anybody in the pool in the middle of the park, I think, right now. So I really want to see him in this camp. He reminds me a lot of Keaton parks.

I feel like they're both. Deilatoria and parks are both these little like Rondo merchants. Alon Signore is kind of the same way. When I check his video from Argentina, like you can just always, the ball security, I think, is the big thing, where no matter how tight the space is, they find that little solution to get the ball out, whether it's in a moment that they're. going to lead to a great attack or if it's just that moment of taking this really chaotic situation and creating a little bit of calmness.

So I wouldn't hate it either. I'm honestly cheating a little bit on my Boozio pick because his picture was on the U.S. Men's National Team Twitter's tweet about which games to watch this weekend. And so I think I'm using that as like the thumb on the scale to be like, I think they're calling Boozio in here. So that's how I landed on him over De La Torre, over Pamacal. So that's where I landed.

Yeah, that'll be frustrating to me if it's Buccio instead of Delatore, but. They could both be in. There's no reason they couldn't both be in. We saw Buccio as an eight in the Gold Cup, and it was not, not pretty. I mean, maybe it wasn't all his fault, but like for that job of, you know, sort of operating in a 360-degree, you know, way of playing and not, he just didn't, he didn't have it, I didn't think. Yeah, I would also say it was unconvincing. And again, I would actually prefer to see De La Torre in that role.

I just feel like at this point, it's unlikely that it's De La Torre instead of Boosio. I feel like the best hope is that it's both. Okay. Maybe I'm reaching and maybe that's, maybe Boozio's still very much on the bubble in Burrhalter's mind. Yeah. We'll find out Wednesday or Thursday. But you don't have Pomacol? I was kind of expecting you to have Paxton in there.

Yeah, I still have high hopes for Pomacol. But the problem is he doesn't play as a midfielder for Dallas at all. And so for Burhalter to, maybe I'm doing a little bit of the same thing as you just did with Busio. But like for Burrhalter to call up Pomacol and play him as an eight, he would have to be sort of exactly on the same page as us with regard to Pomacol, the sky. the skill set that he offers and like the need for that in the national team and I just don't think he probably is you know I wish he was I wish he was as smart as me

I'm just kidding I'm just kidding I'm just kidding totally kidding about that but I do think Pomacol's Palmicole plays on the wing for Dallas he hasn't and he's theoretically good as a midfielder we haven't seen it for a long time for Dallas

and I don't think he looks particularly good on the wing for a team that's not very good at all right now. But, you know, Pepey still manages to look good as a striker, even in games that they lose. So I just, I think Pomacall needs a little more time to simmer. All right, well, I'll throw this out there too for that watch guide that I'm taking a lot of cues from that U.S. soccer produces.

Pomacall is not included in it. Even though Pepi and Ferreira, Jesus Ferreira actually gets listed on there as a player who, as a U.S. pool player to watch. Do you think they realize how much palace intrigue is generated by that watch guy? Like some intern is putting that together. And yeah,

I don't expect to see Pomacall. And I'm not, I'm not upset about that, really. I think, you know, like Buzz Carrick said on the podcast a couple weeks ago, he needs a little more time.

Just sort of get back. to what we thought he could be. That's how Buzz put it. I don't know if I agree with that 100%, but I agree with it a little bit. Well, for what it's worth, I think Pomacall would be an excellent call-up, and I actually think he would be an extremely useful player,

even if you can't count on him to go 60 minutes, even if he thought he could give you a solid 30, where you might start to run into an issue is you might not think Musa is ready to give you 60 minutes at a time either. He just had his first start for Valencia over the weekend, went about like 80 minutes and kind of looked gas towards the end of it. So you get into these problems of like, okay, but we can't call too many of those players who don't quite have starter minutes in them because we have to start a bunch of guys over

the three games. So if everyone else were fit and ready, and we know Adams has some issues too, if everyone were fit and ready, then I think I would be better gambling that Pomacall could help you in cameos. But I feel like it's tough to find that spot for him. when you really need some guys who you can count on to play. I mean, you're going to need guys you can count on to play 90 minutes. Yeah.

Like Luca Deloire, who's just been playing 90 minutes every game for the past two months. But the truth is that position, the number eight, continues to be pretty thin. I think there's, you know, it's McKinney Leggett and then, you know, some question marks, like you mentioned with Musa and his fitness. The other name people will throw in here is Julian Green, but I think you agree with me on this, or maybe I agree with you in saying it in the first place, but I think him as more of a half-space merchant,

tucking him from the wing. That's kind of the role he plays for Grosite of Firth. I don't see him as number eight for the U.S., and it doesn't appear to be, he doesn't appear to be in the plans right now anyway. Yeah, for sure, I don't seem as a sense. midfielder for us. And, yeah, and I don't think that he's done anything to improve his standing since September.

So unless he was left out of the September camp as like a consideration for the opening of their season, I don't think he's pushed his way in. Okay. One other name, Christian Rodon, who was listed as a midfielder in the last release, I don't think he didn't play any minutes in central midfield in that window in September. He only played as sort of the front three. So I don't know where he's going to be listed. I'm expecting him to be on the list,

but wherever he's listed, I still think he won't play in central midfield. He'll probably just come off the bench and play up top, up front. Yeah. Although he, you know, I agree he's probably going to be in the roster. I'm just sort of resigned to that at this point. He can deputize as an eight if things, you know, really go sideways. you just you just did like a well bells if things if things go sideways uh that's like the last

time i want him uh the last scenario i want him as he aided i'm like if he's on the roster and we're cruising three or four zero and it's a chance to relieve mckenny of minutes or tyler adams of minutes uh and do some rotating then sure throw christian roll down in the midfield but i i worry about his uh again his pitch control as a central midfielder in a tighter scenario, in a tight game. Why is that, why is there such a contrast between the way Roldon plays for Seattle and the way he plays for the U.S. in that way? I mean, I think of him as like a, you know, totally reliable, just workhorse for Seattle

who scores goals, gets in on the attack, does everything well for them. And then he comes, and he can't, you know, he can't help control a midfield for the U.S. against El Salvador, you know. Well, he's been playing as a front three man for Seattle, too. season he's having, which is like a career year for him for Seattle, has been as mostly as like a front three player. He's every once in a while played in midfield, but Seattle fans can correct me if I'm wrong. But I think the majority of his time he's been playing is like a front three, whether it's a like almost like a true 10 underneath two forwards or sort of tucking in from the

right. That's where success has been. And then when I have seen him play midfield, it's been in very like low pressure situations, both when they have possession and when they're defending. So where I don't think he's going to fit in well is if he's in the U.S. men's national team midfield in like a high press cover a ton of ground, do a ton of dirty work in that kind of role. Like I don't think that fits him at all. Okay. All right. Well, he's there. I mean, I guess I don't know what the ideal scenario is for him to drop into that role as a number eight.

But if we, you know, if Musa, if we get a bunch of injuries, a rash of injuries in that spot, then. I guess it's Acosta and Roldon, who are the most likely to slide in there. And that's assuming Adams is healthy and Acosta can even make that slide. Should we move on to the wings? Let's talk about our wingers. I've got a lot of wingers. Pulisic, Conrad, Wea, Eranson, Matthew Hoppe, and then Paul Ariel and Christian Roldon. I include ariola and Roldon just because,

well, ariola because I know he's a sort of reliable, danger adjacent, pressing winger, rolled on just because I know, you know, he's been okay as a wing for the U.S., and I know Beralt's going to call him up.

I'm more excited about, obviously, the first five, Conrad, Pulisic, Conrad, Wea, Aronson, and Hoppe. And so this is where I get into, like, it's too many guys, so we have too many people here. So when people are talking about calling in a 30-man camp,

Like I got to ask, what's the scenario where where those guys are all needed? They are. Or is it just because. Is it just because like there's no obvious cutoff point where there's a clear drop from one to the other? And so you feel like you just bring them all? Maybe that's maybe that goes into it a little bit. But, you know, there's a decent chance Pulisick isn't getting. I mean, what's the latest on his injury?

Is he supposed to come back midweek? I don't know. Haven't heard yet. Okay. So there's a possibility that he won't be there. So then you're down to, you're down to Conrad Way, Aronson, Hoppy, Ariel, and rolled on. I think you give those guys get 60 minutes in one game.

You know, two of them get 60 minutes each in one game. And then you bring the other two in for 30 minutes. And the next, you know, you can use everybody by the time the window's over. And without like, without doing anything too. crazy, you know? All right. All right. I mean, I guess it just seems, it seems like you're just like,

planning superfluousness. Like, you're going to, you're going to, you have guys who you're not going to use because if something happens to player, A, you know, you know, this is your next man up. And, like, Conrad just doesn't have a role anymore. There's no, there's no scenario where Conrad plays outside of, like, suffering three injuries and somebody getting kicked out of camp for breaking COVID protocol. I will say Conrad's probably the one I would drop of the first one I would drop of the first five. Because, partly because I haven't seen him really do a lot of half space, half space merchanting for Marseille.

And I think, I think we've got to bring Matthew Hoppe in and Wea and Aronson. So, you know, if somebody's got to be dropped, probably Conrad. All right, so I'm in my experiment, I'm only bringing four. I'm being super ruthless with my cuts. This definitely won't happen because I'm cutting some of Burhalter's favorites. But I'm bringing Pulisik, Aronson Wea as sort of the first three, assuming Raina is out. And then I'm filling in the fourth spot with Jesus Ferreira. Yeah, I wouldn't hate that either.

I mean, he is on the watch guide after all, so he's practically guaranteed to be called up. Ferreira added, Dwayne Holmes dropped, so it was like a, it was like an even, sort of an even Steven situation for me. But like, I want more of a lock picker,

and I feel like Ferreira is, like that's his job as a lock picker. Not that he's getting a ton of locks to, to attempt to pick with Dallas, but he's shown that skill, and I just really enjoy watching him play. So I have him on here. Again, I just think that throwing bodies on after that

is just unnecessary. I do have, we'll get to Hoppe in a second. I've got them on here as a forward, which also factors in here. The number of guys we have who are really versatile and could play ahead of other guys outside of their own position

makes it seem like we could get away with fewer total bodies in camp. Yeah, well, we do have Wea and Hopi who could both play as strikers. So yeah, I do have a lot of wingers, no doubt about it. I really want to see I mean I'd be happy

if Hoppe got a few minutes as a striker for the national team but I thought he was so he was I don't know if you call him a lock picker but maybe a lock smasher for the for the U.S. at the Gold Cup you know he played some nice passes to

generate chances out of nothing which you're not going to see from Ariel or rolled on so all right should we move on who else Who else has a shot here besides Ferreira? What about Mahalovich?

Georgie Mahalovich. There's a small but noticeable groundswell of support for the, for the young attacker in Montreal. For like the assist leader in MLS? Yeah. I mean, you love assists as a metric. So it's not just assist. His like underlying assist numbers,

if you want to call him that are also excellent. Like all of his underlying numbers are very good. I wouldn't hate it at all. I feel like he's in the same vein as Ferreira where it doesn't feel like he has a perfect role within how we usually play as a national team. And if we did have a role that was better suited for either of those guys, they would be obvious candidates to fill that role. Other than the fact that they were part of the disastrous Olympic team, and I think that sticks to them a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, it sticks to him.

And I thought he had some poor performances for the U.S. even before that Olympic qualifying tournament. All right, let's do strikers. Who do you have? I'm just bringing three. I'm bringing, I'm bringing peppy, I'm bringing hoppy, and I'm bringing Pfok. Huh.

No Zardis. Again, you just don't need any more body. So if you wanted to go Zardez instead of Pfok, like sure, like definitely peer number nines at that point. But we don't need four strikers. You know what I mean? Like there isn't a time where you're going to need your fourth striker. If you,

whoever you rate is a third striker, that's going to be as deep as you go. Yeah, I'm in a little bit of a situation with the strikers where I don't know how to rate them. And so I do kind of want to bring everybody, which maybe is what I'm doing with the wingers as well. But, but definitely peppy.

And then Zardis and I'm going to say Pfok. And then, well, of course, we'll have Hoppy and weigh. I can also play strikers. We'll have five strikers. Sargent's the only one I'm comfortable leaving home, and that's because I think he maybe could benefit from more time with Norwich, and he's been so impotent for the U.S.

It's almost like, let's just pull the plug on that for a little while. He's a frustrating player because, you know, you watch his involvements in a game, and he does some nice stuff. He does nice stuff in the middle third. but he's nowhere close to gold dangerous. And then people will say, well, that's because he's not getting any service. And that has been what people have said for the past three years about Josh Sargent.

But there's also that little lingering bit that's like, but maybe that just is the case. I feel like the, I feel like the striker woes for the national team are a lot of like a team-wide issue. It's not just Sergeant. And I feel like Sergeant becomes the easy scapego. because he's also the one who's not doing it at all for his club. Everyone else is doing it for their club, right? But what's interesting is, like, you throw those guys in who, people who like to talk about form, those are all the in-form guys, it's not really happening for them with the national team either,

as of late, as of the most recent sort of meaningful fixture list. So I've got some numbers here, if you'll bear with me. I will. I will bear with you. So since we've moved into Nations League semifinals and finals, that's Honduras. in Mexico. I'm talking about the Gold Cup other than Martinique, which I think it's fair to leave Martinique out compared

to the other opponents we played if we're talking about our effectiveness against World Cup qualifying opponents. As opposed to like Haiti, who I think is right on the verge of the Ocho. Yeah, I'm with you. So we've got those Gold Cup teams, and then we have the three-game World Cup qualifying window that we

just played. And in those games, we have Darrell Dike, who is in form for Orlando, then in form for Barnsley, he's back in form for Orlando. He had zero goals in 245 minutes. We've got Jiazzi's Ardès, who everyone likes and talks about, well, at least he scores goals.

And his only minutes in those games came in the Gold Cup. And his non-Martinique minutes, he had one goal in 340 minutes, the goal against guitar. We have Jordan Pfock, who is basically as in form as any striker the U.S. has had in years. I think he's got like 11 goal contributions in 900 minutes for BSC young boys this season. He had one goal in 175 minutes, and then we had Josh Sargent with zero goals in 265 minutes. So everybody we have played it forward since the summer has really struggled to contribute to goals. Like this has been a team-wide issue in my mind, and it remains to be seen whether Pepe can just solve it outright or whether we can solve the team-wide issue or whether we will just continue to be frustrated with whichever striker. plays for us last.

Yeah, the only, the only striker whose numbers sort of pop out as different from those are Ricardo Pepi's, right? I mean, he, he had 90 minutes and he had three, maybe four goal contributions if you're, you know,

super generous to him, including one goal. Well, yeah, we're going to call it one goal, one assist. And this is where we get into how murky and how important, like sample size is on it or how,

how sort of a, how much of a wild card sample size is in the game. the national team arena because like you also have to try to separate okay what did this player create or what were they responsible for creating and sort of what were they presented with and and with peppy since he only has 90 minutes it's kind of really easy to talk about what he was presented with uh he got the goal on a header which is like not actually that high of a percentage chance so that's not going to be like he's always going to get a goal on a header per game uh in that scenario and then the other the other chances he got

which he was very good about taking advantage of were kind of gifts, I want to say. And this is going to be, I'm not trying to like dump on Pepey or what he did. But that second, I'm sorry, our third goal, which came off the Roldon turnover. Roldon causes a turnover, if we're saying that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's basically just like a gift. So Honduras hits the ball directly into Roldon.

And now it's Roldon who wins his scrap and sort of pokes it over to PEPI. and it is a two-on-one, like as clean of a two-on-one as you can get, Pepey running into space at one defender with Brendan Aronson arriving alongside of him. And Pepey does really well to knock it to the side, but that's where you say, how many times did we present our other strikers with that scenario?

Does that make sense? Like Pepey didn't create the two-on-one. He did a great job executing it, but how often are we getting two-on-ones for our strikers? It doesn't seem to happen very much. And then his last goal contribution, which is actually a miss, and you wonder about how the narrative would have handled it if we weren't rolling 3-1, and Legette would have finished the rebound, was sort of another gift where Adams wins a ball in midfield,

and he breaks, and the defender who was on Pepe just leaves him. So it's not like some brilliant movement where Pepey times run perfectly or does anything else. Honduras just imploded at this point. His mark leaves him, and Adams hits a really easy pass to Pepe, who's now one on zero to beat the goalkeeper. So again, I'm not doing this to dump on Pepey or to. to try to be like Josh Sargent is much better than we think. It has just been a team-wide issue where we aren't creating those kinds of chances. Honduras presented us with a couple of really good ones, and Pepe did well to capitalize.

But we have to be, I'm just very cautious about what I'm expecting from our forward core going into this window unless we solve these bigger picture issues. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair. And I think it's worth reminding ourselves and everyone else that Pepe may end up, Like you said before, Peppy may end up having a really bad game in this next window, looking a lot like Josh Sargent or like Pfok did against Canada.

And we got to like not let the, to use a term, not let the whipsaw carry us back and forth too quickly on our assessment of him. Yeah, I get you, I get you, Greg. Yeah. So you've got, so after all that, you've got, you've got Peppy, Peefock, and. Hoppe, right? Yep. But I wouldn't, I basically, as long as Peppy's there, I kind of wouldn't really care who the other two forwards are. I just think you bring three strikers. And I think Hopi gives you a nice, uh, added ability to play on the wing as we saw in the gold cup and be

dangerous there. Um, so I think that buys you a smaller overall camp list. Well, um, so that leaves, so that leaves me with 30 players and you with how many did you say, 26? 25? Bels, I got there in 24 players. What a man. So I'm shrinking the roster from the last window. I'm just being a little bit smarter about how I build it. Build smarter, not harder, is what they, that's what they always say. What do you expect him Burr-Halter to bring? Do you think he brings 30?

I think he'll probably select his roster from a combination of our two rosters. and then he may add Yule I think Ferreira Yule are two players who may be there that are not

in my roster I mean Deletore part of me would be surprised if Burrhalter called him up otherwise I don't think we're too you know

doing anything saying anything too crazy here like you said McKenzie McKenzie will probably be there over Zimmerman it'll be interesting. It'll be, it'll be interesting to see what, what'll happen? I don't, I'm at a weird

spot with the national team where I don't, like, for a long time, I was like, well, if we just play this player, if we just do this, if we just do this, we're like, what's all going to click. And I'm sort of like not thinking that it's going to click, you know, I don't, I don't see a click coming, no matter what we do. I guess my best hope is that there's going to be enough familiarity and enough reps that eventually something will click and it'll start to look cohesive. I don't know what difference a new player will make

given the current state of things. I mean, there's a part of me who says, well, oh, like if Delatore were there, finally we'll have an eight who's can find the ball and figure it out. But, you know, I've had those kind of thoughts about a lot of players over the years and generally it doesn't pan out the way I wanted it to.

I'm totally with you on that. Like I don't think Matt Miao's going to come in and solve all issues for us or anything like that. But I do think I am somewhat optimistic that it can click. And maybe that's just super naive. But I do feel like the talent is there. The opponents are not strong enough that if we can click even a little bit, I think there's like a contagiousness about a little bit of clicking

that could lead to like widespread clicking. And I do think like this could start to look better. I don't think it's ever going to look like flawless or just like a total like everything's firing on all cylinders. But I think we could get a few cylinders going. I think we could have like a four cylinder situation. So I'm going to, I'm going into this window still a little bit optimistic, even though I was usually the wet blanket.

And I think that the players are good enough if we can give them just a little bit more direction. it's going to happen. Yeah, give me two cylinders. Just two. Two cylinders is all I need. And that'll be great. Get an early goal.

Like, let's get some early goals. I saw somebody tweet this last night. Let's get some nice goals from the run of play. And get on SportsCenter and get some new fans. Like get the nation excited about this qualifying campaign. Thanks, Greg, very much. Thanks, everybody for listening. We'll see you.