Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #211: Office Hours, Vol. 4 — Songs and chants, Pepi, chess, nicknames, etc.

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

A highly-focused investigation of several a baker's dozen soccer-adjacent topics, including a philosophy of songs and chants, the paucity of USMNT nicknames, a rough power ranking of chess ability among USMNT players, and what sort of crime could get Berhalter fired. New Pepi song at the end.contact: [e-mail] us a question at this link and we’ll try to answer it: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdJdevo3myfLQuaH5LwZRmahNTSimCwP3VQLLXu5I_yxZWfvg/viewform?usp=sf_linksupport 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. Welcome to office hours. Waki, how are you? Doing very well, Adam. How are you doing? I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. Got a new Ricardo Pepey song. That's the thing I'm most excited about right now. I'm excited about it too. It's very good. Thank you. Very strong second song. Oh yeah. I appreciate that. What I hope turns into an album. We're going to play it at the end of the episode to avoid the sort of, analysis segment that we did on the other when I released the Bousio song.

I think we both want to avoid that segment, right? Yeah, I want people to be able to form their own opinion on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So let's jump right into questions and start, try to start with the broader ones and then move into sort of player-specific stuff. First, we should, I think,

revisit Jesse Howe's question about the U.S. youth national teams. He wants an update. So here's an update. The Fed has hired a U-17 coach. is Gonzalo Seigades, and he is a former Costa Rican international coach in the Chicago Fire Academy after his playing career with that team, and it has been the U-15 Boys National Team coach since January 2020. Now, from what I understand, he'll be taking on the 2006 and younger age group, because

since there is no 2021 U-17 World Cup, the 2004s and 2005s, they're just going to have to make their way to the 2020, I mean, the U-20 World Cup or the U-20 age group. and I'm hearing that there will be a camp for these 2006s, aka the U-17s for the 20-23 cycle, that camp will be the first week of November. So a little bit of progress on the... Yeah, that sounds like good news. There's been a bit of mystery surrounding the team.

For instance, is Anthony Hudson the coach of the U-20 team? Because I thought he was, but it's not on the Wikipedia. He's been moved from U-20 coach to national team coach. I enjoy the mystery around it. Yeah, he's now the successor to the throne as the, as Greg Burhalter's assistant. No, I don't think he is. But it is a mystery. He's probably not the U-20 coach, but it's not definitely not him either, I guess.

That's how I'd put it. Well, it'll be exciting to find out who you 20 coaches. Although I guess there's no tournament for them either. No, not until 20. Or I don't know when it is. Not until 2023. I mean, they got to get to work. So it will be nice for the youth national teams to actually get going again.

Yes. Speaking of World Cups, FIFA wants to have one every two years. What do you think of that idea? Well, I tweeted and I got some negative feedback on it. I was thinking that eventually I'll probably be completely fine with that. I was just plotting out 10 years from now when that's happening. I think I'll have adjusted and I'll be fine with it. But it's an issue that is a pretty tense issue I've found.

Almost as tense is when I mispronounced Rubona. So I'm kind of on a streak of mispronouncing a word and then having an opinion about the World Cup that people don't like. So I'm really reevaluating some of my stances. You mean, you don't usually get a lot of negative feedback either, right? Well, that's because I scrupulously avoid it. But then once you start mispronouncing words that apparently everyone else knows how to pronounce. You really come under some fire there.

Yeah. What do you think about this World Cup situation? I think we may have talked about it before. Have we? I hate it. I hate the idea of World Cup every two years. I don't have a great reason for that, except that I just like how it is right now, very much.

It is pretty good right now. I understand your position. I understand your position too, though, by the way, which is basically that you can, you know, grow accustomed to anything. We can. Yeah, but the part of the, it was so great. having it, it makes it so intense, you know, that's the part that would be a, be a disappointment.

Yeah. That it's every four years. Lose that intense. So that would change it, but capitalism, you know? Well, I guess, yeah. It's special. The World Cup is special and it'll be, it would be less special. I'm like, you know, the 100 millionth person to probably say something like that.

Questions from Joe Campbell. He was hoping, he said, I'll just read it verbatim. is a very well-written question. Was hoping for some help slash guidance on how to deal with the US fans' chance being incredibly annoying to me. My questions are, number one, can people change? Number two, could I learn to like, appreciate the US fans' chance?

And number three, should I just tune it out? Let me know your thoughts. I am of the mind that people can change, but also they tend not to. Yeah. You know, if you don't see someone for 15 years, you see them again, they're basically the same person in my experience. And so, what was the second part of the question?

I think it's instructed for that. Could I learn to like, appreciate the U.S. fans' chance? I think you cannot learn to like or appreciate if you don't already like some. And specifically the one I'm thinking about is the slow clap USA. It's kind of like the cilantro of chance. You know, you either really like it or you're like, I don't, this isn't for me. Does anybody really like it? I don't know.

Presumably, some people do. They're doing it. It was poorly executed in Costa Rica, that's for sure. And even when it's well executed, it's, you know, it's just an Iceland knockoff. Justin in the chat is saying that he likes the, he likes the slow clap USA chant. For me, when I'm so used to hearing USA chanted in one very particular way, really since Burr. Earth, you know, USA, USA. When there's that gap between that U and that S, I'm overcome with this angst just watching

on TV. I can't imagine how intense that is in person. Yeah, it was hard to even get, it was hard to synchronize it with the drummer in Columbus. I think that's just because everyone's so used to that one USA chant. Yeah, the muscle memory is there, I guess. I don't have a big problem with the classic USA chant. It just can't be the only thing we do. you know.

So I guess that's why we do the slow clap USA chant. Well, we have different opinions on the classic USA chant. You don't like it. I love it. I love it. I don't know why. I like that they chant it at American players in Europe. It's like a universal language.

Also, it's a little bit silly. And you can really, even if you can do it a little bit ironically and it has the same effect at a sporting event. That's true. It's really versatile. It is versatile. That's true. And it's simple and easy for people to remember. But you're writing songs.

It's a part of you once these songs you're writing to eventually be sung by fans in the stadium, right? Yeah. Part of you. I wrote the peppy song with the hope of it being singable by a collective. I don't know that I succeeded at that. But we'll see, I suppose. You're just going to have to pump out enough songs and probably put put some pressure on not pressure but get some american outlaw leadership on board get them

really liking your song maybe you're performing at them at a tailgate coming up in um in the mexico game yeah i need a i need a i need three or four other singers to help me to to be able to really perform it but um yeah i did email american outlaws about i to to let them know about the busio song and they said yeah we saw it it's great but um too hard to sing and it's too hard to teach people to sing. Ryan in the chat points out that I guess some people haven't heard the peppy song yet, but they will. You have the word,

you say the word inevitability in like two syllables somehow or three, but he points out that it's going to be really amusing to watch the stadium get in sync on. Yeah, I got to say, that could trip them up. Yeah, that's a fair point. I do think that inevitability, people like it's I mean Ryan and I disagree on this but I I'm wedded to it because I like the way

it's a little bit complicated to sing that word but I don't think impossible so people like to sing I think people like to sing stuff that is a little bit tricky but not too tricky you know and it's well if they're saying the busio song was too hard I think they're going to have the same they're going to raise the same issues with the peppy song okay well we'll have to try again next time. Also, thinking of the Gianluca song, it's kind of, it's a little bit plaintive, you know? Oh, Gianluco, I'm so sorry. It's not really a stadium song, is it?

No, it's not rouse. I wouldn't say it's rousing. It's a great song. Yeah, I mean, if anybody has ideas on how to, I mean, I'll, I'll stay in touch with American Outlaws. And I don't want to come down too hard on the chance as they are, because they're, you know, people are working hard at that stuff. No, they do a great job.

We don't have Rogers and Hammerstein yet helping us out. So we're all in this together, folks. You have any other ideas besides chance and songs? I'd love to see, I haven't really fleshed out the full idea. I'd love to see some flares, you know, and just kind of like really get a little bit, cross the line a little bit out there. flares, smoke bombs.

Those would be the things I would add. But otherwise I'd keep going as you're going. Introduce some kind of controlled menace to the atmosphere. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say brawl, but don't do a brawl. Definitely don't do a brawl with opponents. If you do a brawl, have it just be an intra-supporter group brawl.

Yeah. Just to kind of throw a little twist out there. I hate brawls. I mean, I could watch one as long as nobody gets hurt too badly, but when people start really getting beat up, I can't even watch that stuff. Yeah, maybe don't do a full brawl then. I don't even want to,

I definitely don't want to be in a brawl. Alec Dreisinga asks, what is our naming convention for our future front line? We have the MMA midfield, but CPR, Christian Pepey and Raina, for saving us post-World cup miss, PPG, Pooley, Pepe, and Gio for increasing our points per game. Something else entirely?

I like both of those, I guess they're not called acronyms, but those initial abbreviations. But the one issue I have is a part of me feels like you need to either go with all first initials or all last initials. But I guess that puts us in a spot where the initial combination isn't as good. So it would be like CRG or PPR. So we have a decision to make if we go with kind of

go the traditional and use one of those or just do one that sounds a little bit better like the CPR or the the PPG. Yeah. So I could go either way on this.

I mean CPR gives off the connotation of being almost dead so I don't know that I love that one. MMA is great because it sort of, you know, it is, it is a, maybe it's not intentional, but for me at least, it's a reference to the cage match, you know, got a bunch of, yeah, I wonder if we even have to have one, or you only use that three initial abbreviation in special cases where it just really

works really well. Also, who came up with that? It just sort of happened, and now it's what everyone says. Yeah, I think Seuss is trying to take credit for it, but it seems, seems to have, sort of cropped up and it's the etymology is not well understood. It'd be interesting to do some research into. I don't know if interesting is the right word. It would be something to do some research into. Timbo asks, has there been a better nickname than Antony Jedi Robinson in the recent USM&T pool? The Captain America stuff is so blasé at this point.

American Dream is a bit better, especially considering it comes from Erling Holland. But if you could give us some analysis on who needs a nickname and what the current power rankings are for US M&T nicknames. That would be helpful. American Dream was never going to stick because that already means something. And Holland's, you know, he's from Norway or forever, so he wasn't to have a good to grasp on that. But we treated that like that was going to really be Gio's nickname. And I don't think that was really ever in the cards. But I would say Jedi is the strongest. But that has the advantage of it having, he's had it since a very young age, so it's completely organic. And that's the challenge you always want to.

to do with nicknames. Other than that, what other ones do we have right now? Well, El Tren is a pretty good nickname. Oh, that's really good. That's kind of the only other one I can think of, though. One thing that occurred to me with nicknames, I think Gianluca Busio, he normally gets called Luca. Oh, really? From what I've gathered, or at least not pretty often, it gets called Luca. but when it was Luca de La Torre in there, he can't be called that. So that's another consideration with all these names. But I think with most of our players,

you either just go with, the art is in choosing their first name or last name to call them, and then shortening them when appropriate. Yeah. Yeah, it feels... For the most part. It feels good to call West and McKinney, Wes. I like that.

That's really strong. Not that many people... Maybe, I shouldn't say not that many people. It's not as widespread as it might be. it'll come around. I bet. In the past, Deuce was a good nickname.

And I thought Landy Cakes, not great in terms of sports nicknames, but maybe as a term of endearment, it's okay? I thought that was an insult. Was it? I thought that's what people called him

who didn't like him. They thought it was soft or something. Maybe I... Somebody from the chat's going to have to... Somebody from the chat's going to have to settle. Yeah, someone could fill us in on that as we carry on with the nickname. I'm being told I'm right.

Okay. Basilepti. Okay. Okay, so that, yeah. What, on that name from other than that, I agree, Captain America, we probably can't use that. That's more just used by the local press in Italy or England or wherever when a new American place comes there who's good. Right. Does anybody else have a shortened name in the pool right now that you can think of?

Besides West. Pooley? No one calls Tyler Ty. I wonder... Surg. Moose's name is probably just too good on its own. Yeah, Eunice is a fun name to say, I think. They call Sergenio surge, which I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Okay. I could consider getting into that. I think Brendan Aronson is kind of just the name you have to say the whole name. Brenda? Brenda, I'm not comfortable at that. I'm just always going to say Brendan Aronson. Somebody says, I had to dip it on the chat here. Somebody says, I'm really worried about when the fan base starts trying to find a moniker

for the way at Aronson Pepey front line. Lap? That's a good thing. Yeah. Maybe we don't do it in that case. Or we just say whap. Yeah, let's not. Can we go to the next question?

Sure. More buildings and food asks, which of our dual nationals would start for the other countries they are eligible to represent. Now, mostly he's asking about Kalin Acosta and the Japanese national team to settle an offline argument with a friend. I can take some of this, if you don't mind. So would, I don't know enough about Japan to know if Acosta would start for that. I know Kevin Perides would start for the Dominican Republic.

Okay. Well, Acosta, no, would not likely start for the Japanese national team. their six is Wataru Endo, who is the starting six for Stuttgart and the captain of that team. So I don't think Acosta is starting over him. Maybe he could get in as an eight. I don't know.

He'd probably come off the bench like he does. I guess he is now starting. I had a dream he was starting against Mexico and people were really mad. I think it's gotten bad that I'm having dreams about that type of thing. That is bad. Yeah.

I feel like I've had... I should make some changes. I've had some dreams along those lines. I think Pulisic would sometimes start for Croatia. If he was playing for them, Dest, maybe, but... I think he could challenge Blind and Dumfries at fullback for the Netherlands, but he wouldn't be a lock starter, I don't think. Musa and Brooks would not.

way I would if he represented Liberia, Raina probably would not start for Argentina, though I suspect he'd get some call-ups. So, you know, most of our dual-nats are going to get more playing time with us than with the other country, which stands to reason. Well, they're young. You know, they'll get there. Hopefully in the future we can say that all of our dual-nats would also be starting

on whatever other team they could play. Yeah. I guess it doesn't matter that much, but it would just be nice to be able to say. Yeah, it would. I think we're always from that. Dylan from California asks, well, is there anything going on in the chat that we should know about? They're still on abbreviations and nicknames. Okay. For the most part. Some people are saying instead of WAP, we say P-A-W. One thing I disagree with, this is Stan, who is my... favorite account with USM&T and other than the other people I know who I like USMT only he's

great too I realize I shouldn't have picked out one I like the most also same he's saying this is something I disagree with on him actually I don't know if he's saying we should go M-Rob and A-Rob for Miles Robinson and Anthony Robinson I disagree with that I think we always just say Miles or Anthony and I've tweeted about this so maybe he wasn't saying that he was just he was just saying the nicknames. It's just something I wanted to break up. He's corrected that. He's corrected that. So we can go to the next question. Yeah, I like Miles and Anthony too.

They're both cool names. Yeah. Dylan from California says, is there a personality type missing from the USMNT? Do we need an existential depressive or a wild card? What do you think? I would not go, I don't think you actively need, you want to have an

existential depressive on your team. you know yeah probably like it could be like I'm sure there are existential depressives who are good players but you don't need to actively seek one out based purely on that personality type so I would go with more just like a confident person who moves through life but also maybe is trying to prove prove all their doubters wrong that seems to be the most successful athlete personality type yeah people without self-doubt kind of or what you want I think

there was some study about swimmers that the ones who i don't know the study well enough to accurately say what it was but the general idea was they did some test where the ones who thought they were faster than they were from like you know a younger age they ended up being the most successful swimmers just because they thought they were good enough so they just kept at it so we kind of want that yeah i mean it can go it can get to really extreme proportions that that that attitude, right? Like Steve Jobs was famously like that. He bent reality to his will kind of by making things, you know, making things happen that people didn't think could happen. Yeah, it's a huge advantage if you're trying to become a professional athlete, because it's

really hard to do. I mean, another person who does that, who is sort of believes much more highly of himself than he ought is our former president, Donald Trump, you know? he's very good at that something of an outlier in that in that area which you know I guess to a certain extent all politicians have to be like that to some extent but

yeah but he lives it yeah he was born in it we have some Greg Burrhalter questions sly Ellie sly Eli asks what would it take for Greg to get fired before the end of qualifying I would I would think it either five consecutive

of losses coming up here or a crime, a rather serious crime. Yeah, embezzlement. Probably a felony or a misdemeanor, but with some, like, other stuff going on around it. Like, if he, you know, I guess we, I don't need to detail the exact hypothetical crime. Give me the, the, the, the, the places in the code that you would have to violate. Well, we have enough lawyers, attorneys in the chat. Maybe they can give you some codes, but I'm thinking it would be the borderline case, be a DUI, he would really need to do something in the aftermath of the DUI to ensure he was

fired and it would need to be on film or it's or just like a really severe DUI. I get that all DUIs are bad, but you know, there's more severe DUIs than others, aren't there? Yeah. You need to get a DUI for being in a parked car. It can happen. Yeah, he needs to be only like 30 over, maybe more 35 over and blow like a point. or point... Try to run... Go ahead. Point what?

I can't remember exactly. 0.06 is normally the limit, so at least 0.09, but I don't remember the scale on that, so I could be wrong. Yeah, I think to be really drunk, you're looking at 0.15 or something, or 0.12.

Okay, let's get them up there, though. Then, I was... I was thinking, like, if he tried to run from the cops and got one of his area stuck on one of those chain link fences and that was caught on in film, that would be. I would love to see him running from the cops. He doesn't seem like he probably breaks a whole lot of laws. No.

Maybe in his younger days. So I think it is going to need to be just a bunch of losses in a row. It would have to be a catastrophic succession of losses. Also, then they'd have to pay another coach. They'd be paying two coaches. I don't think they want to do that, because I don't think they have a bunch of money. We're stuck with him, guys.

We are stuck with Greg. And I'm rooting for him, like I said, a few days ago. Totally rooting for the guy. Matt Herm asks, is Greg Berhalter the Michael Jordan of soccer coaches when it comes to bounce passes when the ball is out to touch? Dude's bounce pass game is fire.

If you define it very, very narrowly, that yes, he is the Michael Jordan soccer coaches, but only in that he does bounce passes and no other soccer coaches do bounce passes. And Michael Jordan did do Pounce passes because he was a basketball player. So narrowly, yes. But that was how the questions asked. So yes.

Yeah, good job answering that one. Solo asks, has Greg asked you to stop making videos of, he's talking about Greg with 1G, Velazquez, the scuffed podcast co-creator. Has Greg asked you to stop making videos of Burhalter's throw-ins because of the tactical advantage that he says they give us? how why would Greg Greg Velasquez has not asked me to stop making videos

of Burrhalter's Thrones are you sure they meant Greg Velasquez yes because because Greg Velasquez has talked about how he doesn't want to talk about it that much the the bounce no I think he doesn't want to talk about it because how dumb it is no no no he he really thinks there's like there's a there's a well-drilled thing

that the U.S. is doing where we do these quick restarts and Burrhalter is like quickly passes it to the person. Oh, I thought it was a joke question. Well, it is. I don't have a serious answer to that question. I assumed it was a joke question about Greg Burhalter, who also has not talked to me. Yeah, it is a joke question because, you know, the idea that Greg Velasquez discussing our throw-in strategy is going to alert other national teams to it and, like, help us lose our advantage. is somewhat ridiculous.

You can do a quick restart without a bounce pass though. Well, yeah, it doesn't have, but the bounce pass isn't, maybe the bounce pass is like a signal or something. I don't know. Oh, is it communicating something? I don't know. I've seen some bounce passes. He's just flinging some of these.

I don't know that they're communicating anything. He doesn't do anything other than the bounce passes from what I can talk. Okay. What about he does behind the back bounce passes? and yeah so like how is that good for a quick restart well it's the most efficient way to um see Greg got into this other last podcast he said it's the most efficient way to convert the energy coming towards you into energy going back to the person you're throwing the ball to as opposed to catching it and then like you know balling up your energy and then pushing it forward he's just like

using the momentum of the ball to go around his back and you know what I'm saying did you guys talk about this on a podcast I missed it we did. I mean, I think, yeah, we did. Huh. Okay. On that long Costa Rica one. So, Greg has not asked you to stop making videos. No, he has not reached out to me. Secrecy is not airtight in this situation, I don't think. I mean, listen, if he wants me to stop, you know, I will, but he did have to make a stronger case than just quick restarts. Because I don't buy the bounce pass being essential to it yet. Yeah.

but it's a conversation worth having. Certainly. Certainly is. Jonathan Failer asks, well, first, what's going on in the chat? I'm not allowed to look at it, so. You are allowed to look at it. It's, there's no questions right now. I don't think there's, I'm not saying the chat's not doing a good enough job,

but there's not something that sticks out to me that I should bring up. You know, that might sound like criticism of the chat, but. Okay. Stan, USM&T is saying that, no, I'm not going to read that because it was just saying something good about my videos. I didn't realize that's what it was.

That would be arrogant of me. So we can go to the next question. Okay. Jonathan Failer asks, why doesn't Greg do what I want 100% of the time? Now he's talking about Greg. Jonathan is talking about Greg Berhalter. Why doesn't he do what I want 100% of the time? Sometimes he gets very close, like 98%.

But then one player is left off the roster or that one guy I don't like gets the start and I get absolutely furious. So what's his problem? It's a very good question. I don't know if it actually needs an answer. I just think it's a really well-written question. It is. It contains the answer within itself. I just think he loves to antagonize us like me personally. He will he did have that stretch and um I can't remember what it was. It was earlier this year where he, the lineups he was speaking were almost exactly what we wanted for like three games in a row.

Or what the internet wanted. It was amazing. Yeah, yeah. And there was, but then there was in the last game, it was Ariola and Stefan who were the odd men out in the lineup. And then Aureola got hurt

and Way of replaced him, of course, which was made it a nice you know, basically. And people got, they were kind of excited about it to have way in. So they started responding excitement to the national team account who had to stop replies on the tweet. I think I've got that correct. That was a bit of drama before that game.

If you consider things that happen on Twitter to be dramatic, which I do. They can be. Okay, questions about players. Bucky from Pittsburgh. By the way, Bucky from Pittsburgh and somebody else, Dylan from California. to this too. I love it when people put where they're from in the question. And I think I've made that clear previously, but I just want to reiterate it. You can make a rule they have to have that to be answered. Although I guess we don't want to put excessive restrictions. You're right. We shouldn't do

that. Well, now I'm thinking we should. So I just have to get into Google forms and do it. So Bucky's question is, in this scenario, Poulosick remains healthy. Do you think keeping Adams as the captain will help Pulisic from feeling the need to put everything on his own shoulders and dribble into 15 people. My instinct is it actually will help a little bit, although he will be fighting his natural inclination there as well. But that's just me being optimistic. I do think, yeah, I think it'll help. I was thinking about this yesterday. I think actually playing in a World Cup will help too because it'll be so, you know, people be playing for their lives.

and everything has to be optimized. I can't imagine Pulisic being super wasteful in a World Cup, but maybe that's optimism too. And I do think Adams should be the captain. What's that? One slight concern is I was reviewing, or Justin, who's in the chat, found Pulisic's chess handle,

and we've been going through the games together, and we're going to do like a report on that. But one thing we've noticed that we haven't seen enough games to say for sure this is true. Pulcic does tend to get a piece out alone in attack, kind of operating on itself. So we're worried if like, is that just kind of how he's wired? Or, you know, was it just an off game, chess game? I kind of regret even bringing it up now because there's so much more analysis to be done. But definitely something to bear in mind.

Oh, man, I am really looking forward to that analysis. Yeah, we found the accounts of an amazing number of players. Joss Sargent's pretty good. Is he? Jirano has one. Weston has one. I think that's the key one. Were you guys saying last week in secret office hours after the regular office hours,

were you guys saying that Pulisicic is actually really good at chess? He is good. He is probably the best chess player on the team. but there's a weird situation where Antid Robinson is also kind of good he just doesn't play as much Josh Sargent is also better than you would think like he's better than Gio

I guess that's not that surprising but I'm spoiling all the stuff that were research I shouldn't I'm sorry Justin for we can stop talking about it I just think I mean chess aside I think Pulisic is just not a guy who can take responsible who wants to take responsibility

for a team in the comprehensive way Tyler Adams does and so I don't think it's controversial to say that Tyler Adams should be the should be the captain and not Pulisic Agreed. AJ Baby Boy. Captain America.

AJ Baby Boy says with rumors now of multiple Premier Leagues looking at Pepe, what are some teams that you would like to see him go to? I guess I don't actually want him to go to the Premier League The only real team that I ever actively want someone to go to is Dortmund Yeah But that might just because our best players have gone there and it's gone well

It's a good place to go The rest of the places I just kind of base it on what other people seem to think is a good place to go I could go with IAX I could go with Iax Yeah, okay I could add that to the list with Dorman but not England tired of that place tired of hearing about that place

no I don't even want to have to watch those games tired of hearing about that league tired of their literature and their music enough is enough go to the Bundesliga yeah go to the continent well you can watch a Bundesliga game without feeling like you're doing

you kind of you're going out of your own doing your own special little thing by watching some weird Bundesliga game at Saturday morning you know Yeah. That's why I think he should go to the Bundesliga. He's been tied to pretty much every club, though.

Right, he has. Why is a Bundesliga Saturday morning game weirder than a Premier League Saturday morning game? Well, there's fewer people watching it. It's not weirder. It's just like you feel like you're, it's kind of how I feel about travel. If I'm going to travel to a place,

I'd rather go to a place that not a bunch of people are going. And if I'm going to watch a soccer game, I don't watch a game that not everyone's watching. I see. I don't know if other people feel like that. I did feel that way about you watching USL games for about a year. Like I was on some secret, you know, had discovered something secret and useful.

It turns out to still be a secret, but not very useful. Yeah, the trouble is there, it's not a great use of time. Strange days those were. BW.W. asks, I'm just curious to hear Wacki's take on Ricardo Pepe as a persona. We were all just so grateful that he picked the U.S. and then that he immediately turned out to be helpful that I think we haven't noticed much about him

besides the heartwarming family story. Very important question for those of us deeply interested in U.S.MNT personality adiosyncrasies. What is this guy like? Well, I don't think he's fully revealed himself yet. That's maybe the big thing. I'd say he has an aura, a clear aura, and he manages that by saying very few words.

even like when in stories written about him it will mostly be the writer talking and then he'll come in to say something that isn't that profound but it's just like a very simple thing and then they'll have an anecdote about him taking out of the trash or something and it's like impactful somehow so I think it's just the aura and we'll have to wait and see beyond that he's very careful with his words it seems like

and has a lot of self-possession for an 18 year old And the chat, Nate Wells asked, how important is the Camaro to Pepe's persona? You've thought about this a lot because it's in your song. Yeah. I mean... I think it's pretty important. Yeah, if you want to punch...

If you want to write a song that punches up the quintessential Americanness of Ricardo Pepe, then, you know, that picture of him with a Camaro was a gift straight from heaven. So I made use of that for sure in my song. But I agree with you. I don't think he has revealed himself. And maybe he won't. Maybe he's just a, he just wants to score goals and go fishing.

Kind of like. Although one real thing that Buzz from third degree pointed out when you were talking to him is that he just unusually, he's extremely and genuinely confident. Without being too, without seeming all that cocky. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't. That's the one thing we actually know about. I don't have a bad word to say about him, you know, until at least he's 22. Yeah, how many games are, if he has like two games where he doesn't score, then maybe we'll start saying some bad things about. Yeah. It's going to be hard. He's built so much goodwill over the past two months.

It's hard to imagine it turning like he did for, like him being treated the way Jawsie's artist is or something by the fan base. It just seems impossible. Yeah. probably impossible. Patrick Conway asks, with a Kel and Acosta's dip in form, which USM&T player is most likely to pick up his ability for shithousery feels like a big skill someone needs? I think shithousing is, I'm not convinced it can be learned, so it would have needed to have been kind of latent within them and looking around, there's not obvious candidates for that. I would be, if I were to make like a weird pick that I don't have evidence for, maybe

Brendan Aronson. I don't even know why I think that. And then maybe if Joe Scali breaks through. Yeah. But I can't, no one else I'm thinking of. I can't, I mean, I think, I thought Adams was more of, like, was more of a shithouser than he has turned out to be. He kind of, he was on the wrong end of some shit housing against El Salvador, I believe, or maybe

it was Honduras. No, it was El Salvador. Oh, Camus in the chat says Hoppy. So yeah, that's definitely one. I was kind of already including him in that. But yeah, if he can

get on the field more, if he can really go through. Tempo points out Raina. Raina is definitely very solid there. I would say those are some of our strongest guys in the shit housing. But in terms of new guys, that's where I'm not sure.

Acosta does feel like a singular talent, though, in some ways. Yeah. Because he's right in the middle of it, and it's all pretty controlled and purposeful, whereas with Hoppe and Raina, partly just because they're younger, it might not always be. And they're not in the center of everything.

Right. But Acosta is, and he always looks profoundly innocent, his eyes wide as a baby dears. And, yeah, I don't know that. I mean, Adams will go down to draw a whistle if he feels like he's in trouble or, you know, he'll grab an elbow and stuff. But he can't get a yellow card for like an open field hit the way he did in that game in the first window. That's just Kellyn Acosta would never. Yeah.

Yeah. Adams is not a dark artist. he can you know do some stuff but he's not he's not on the level of a cop maybe he's a dark artist's apprentice it's like he has a chance hopefully yeah Calvin asks in a related question if Adams and or Acosta pick up a knock before the next round of qualifiers who do you call in at

the number six oh do you have an answer for that is it Boussio yeah that's that's it it would be a terrifying but also fascinating experiment to have Bouscio as the six in a, you know, really challenging. I would prefer just a new player suddenly emerged who's really good at reading the game in defensive passing. We can play at the six. Well, I guess it all comes down to like how far do you think Bousio is from being, having

the defensive chops to handle that job? Because he's changing, you know, he's changing every week in Italy. Yeah. And he was awful good on the ball in that cameo. against Costa Rica. Like, delight. It seems like maybe he could get to being perfectly good enough at it in the next year or so, hopefully.

Maybe, yeah. Or maybe we'll just be so good with the ball with him as the six. It won't be as much of an issue. I had, there's one thing in the chat. Nate Wells asked that I just want to say, I don't think we can answer it now, but I definitely want to flag it because I want to research it because I think it's a really important question.

Is Pepe, will he be able to keep his Camero if he moves to Europe? and do they have Cameras there? Anyway, we can move on. That's something I want to look into the laws of bringing cars to Europe. I think you can, but, yeah. And then Scotty has a really good suggestion

that we should start keeping a spreadsheet with data on the vehicles of all USMNT players. That's a really good idea. Okay. You're going to do that? Yeah, I think it would be good to have more things in the spreadsheet too. cars is a big one. And it would be just good to know,

like, what's their favorite food and favorite color? I guess it's not that useful, but it just would be nice to have all that information in one place. Yeah. Because it's out there. The sort of the climax of that Desk video when you say he doesn't even like the color red. Yeah.

Desd is an interesting case because he wears that red basketball jersey everywhere. I made a video about this. But he told a quiz show that his favorite color is blue. And then on Instagram, he has a bunch of these pictures where they're heavily green-themed. So I don't know. I think he might have just been under some time pressure looking back. I've gone back and watched the quiz show he did. I think he just blurted out of color.

Could be, yeah. And he doesn't really have a great sense of what his favorite color is. I don't either. I mean, I think it's green. I always say it's green, but is it really green? I don't know. What's your favorite color? Blue.

but I don't, yeah, I'm the same kind of way. I don't like orange. I don't love red either. It's either blue or green. Do you guys have? Go ahead, sorry. A good information from the chat from Solifty, new Chevy Camero and Corvette sales banned in Europe.

So Pepe will need to import the car if he wants to hold on to it. Or find a used one, I guess. Well, he doesn't have to buy a Camaro in Europe. he just has to transport his the Camaro he already owns Yeah I wonder how much that costs No we'll look into that

We'll look into it Why were Camaros and Corvette sales banned in Europe Just anti-Americanism We'll need the chat to look into that It's not included in the clip that's showing up there Fuel efficiency says Tim Okay

Do you have a chess stats spreadsheet already Yes, Justin and USMNT on Twitter. Justin is keeping that. And he has the, he's still building it out. It's got their ratings, their accuracy, and some other stats that I'm not competent to explain. But yeah, it's an ongoing project, and we're thinking, Justin has suggested we put the Camara information in the chess one.

I might want to keep it separate. just because that Camaro type spreadsheet is going to get pretty big. What kind of, what's the end product of this project going to be? Is it like going to be a PowerPoint presentation or a video? I think we're going to, Justin and I had a chat for a while. I think I'm going to turn it. It's the best way might be to start.

We're going to do an article where we have transcripts of what Justin was saying and we show some breakdowns of where the big mistakes were in the, in the game that we analyzed. And then from there, we'll see how many people are interested in the chess matches of American soccer players. And then maybe we can figure out something from there. But can you actually watch an animated version of the... You can watch all of their games play out and click through and look at the stats of what

was the right move and what was the wrong move. It's very exciting. Oh, man. Godspeed. So we have some miscellaneous questions. We're at 47 minutes now. can, you know, no problem wrapping it up here shortly. Vic from Austin asks, if Concaf announced today that it was merging with Comma Ball,

Kamabal is the South American Soccer Confederation, for all future competitions, not including the current cycle, would it be a net positive or negative for American soccer? This means the Gold Cup, Concaf Champions League, et cetera, would cease to exist and their South American counterparts become Pan American. I wonder how this World Cup thing changes that. would think it would be kind of cool to be in Copa America every year. Beyond that, I think travel would be an issue. Because South America is a lot further away than I realized. I was looking at a map of it. Oh, and it's so long, too. It's so far from Colombia to, like, Argentina. So much farther.

Did you know the north, the north part of Brazil is closer to Canada than it is to the south part of Brazil? Seriously? Yeah, I saw, I saw, I was looking, bunch of maps yesterday. Found this Twitter called Amazing Maps and then they have a sister account that's called Terrible Maps.

I was looking through all of those. Cool. I didn't realize that's, that is a striking fact that the northernmost part of Brazil is closer to Canada than it is to the southernmost part of Brazil. Oh, Jordan has a good distance

fact here. The trip from Seattle to Buenos Aires is longer than London to Tokyo. How about that? Yeah, man. Crazy. Yeah, we, my, I think I've said this before, my wife and I, and our six-month-old son at the time, almost moved to Columbia for a year. It didn't quite work out, but we went there for like three weeks to scout it out. And I wanted to go to some other parts of South America on that trip.

But then I started looking at flights and stuff, and it was like, it was like a nine-hour flight from Bogota to Buenos Aires. I mean, don't, don't quote me on that, that it was nine hours. but it was really long flight and expensive as well. So we didn't. We just stayed in Columbia. Anyway, all that to say, I do think there's some logistical challenges, but I agree with you. It would be a net positive.

It'd be awesome to, to, um, and we- I've never been to South America. I'd like to go there. Yeah. Columbia is fascinating for me because it's, the weather is determined by altitude, not by any sort of north-south. movement.

So it's like all about how high you are on the mountains. That's what determines the temperature and the climate. Maybe what would happen with the merger is there would end up being a lot more games played in the U.S. because it's a lot closer to Europe, right? And the infrastructure is all here for stuff like the Copa America. Yeah. I think just for they would make more money if they came from the U.S. too. But there's probably some hesitancy from, if I were South America, I maybe wouldn't

not want to do this because Cop America, as it is pretty cool. But as a fan of the U.S., I would definitely like it. It would be cool to play qualifiers in Bolivia and stuff like that. Yeah. I think they'd have to do like qualifying tournaments and one location or something. Or just like, well, we'll figure out the logistics on this later.

Maybe they, yeah, we will. Maybe they have to do like all the away ties and like, do all the ties in South America in one bunch and then all the ties in North America in one bunch instead of having like home, home away home windows and just be like home, home, home and then away, away, away. They're going to have to completely change qualifying if this two-year thing is going to happen. Yeah. I haven't read about it.

Is it definitely, is it definitely happening? I don't, I don't know about that. No, I don't think it's definitely happening, but it kind of seems like this stuff gets floated from Geneva and then this sort of, you know, Infantino just kind of sees how things play and then decides whether to pull the string or not. C.S. Let's move to the next question. C.S.

Is it impressive or ridiculous that Bell's mispronounces a name in multiple ways instead of just sticking to one pronunciation in his match recaps? Most recently, Navas. and Borges. It is ridiculous, and I am ashamed. I apologize. I will do better. I won't be perfect,

but I'll do better than I did on Navas and Borges. And I will point out that I did land on the correct pronunciation of Borges at the end of that episode. You seem to do a decent job overall pronouncing things, but I guess I don't know how to pronounce words, so I'm not one to judge that. If you're doing a good job or not.

Yeah, that was a firestorm over your pronunciation of Robona. Man, that was intense. It actually wasn't. You can just not look at your Twitter notifications and everything's fine, it turns out. Yeah, Niceville says it's not happening. Okay, the World Cup over two years. Are we done?

Yeah, I, I, we'll just, let's just listen to the Ricardo Pepey song on the way out. People in the chat can listen to it if they want. I put it in the office hours thread. Jordan points out, traveling for World Cup qualifiers would be tough but doable. Copa, Libertadores would be a no-go.

Can't play a home game in Seattle on Saturday, and then a Copa-Lib game in Santiago on Wednesday. And in a way, league game in Toronto on Sunday, it's just not sustainable. Yeah. Although Chris Richards played against Costa Rica on Wednesday, and then Friday played in the Bundesliga. That was pretty impressive.

He started both games, too, didn't he? He came in, like, the 36-minute because of an injury. But he played a bunch. I assume they weren't planning to... But the weird thing. thing was they were playing three center backs, and they could have just to not play them on a two, but they didn't. Or maybe they'd never play with two. I don't know. All right, let's open it up for everybody to talk.

Thanks everybody for listening. Thank you, Chris. We'll see you. Ricardo Pepe, oh, Ricardo Pepe, oh, Ricardo Pepe, oh, that's inevitability. He's all. He's all. He comes from El Paso and he chose the USA Ricardo Pepi is out In San Pedro Sula he rose up and saved the day

Ricardo Pepi is ours He scores goals all day He scores them every way He comes from the border and he chose a USA Now he's coming and showing He lays it off and we're flowing Into the box he's going And he's ours

Ricardo Pepi Oh Ricardo Pepi What's that sound I hear Oh that's inevitability He's ours He's off He went off to Dallas He was only 13

Ricardo Pepi is out Now he drives a red Camero And he piss his gasoline Ricardo Pepi is out He scores goals all day He scores him everywhere He comes from the border And he chose a USA

Now he's found your back shoulder And you might as well keel over Because he's going to score a goal here and ease us. Ricardo Pepe, oh, Ricardo Pepe, what's that sound I hear? Oh, that's inevitability. He's on. Ease on. Ease on.