Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #212: 9 things we learned in the last international window

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

Anywhere from 8 to 12 things we learned in the October window, including the preeminence of the MMA midfield, the ascendance of Antonee Robinson and our strong depth on the wing.support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedjoin the Discord: https://discord.gg/X6tfzkM8XU buy 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 soccer. As you all know, the U.S. men sit second in the Ocho behind Mexico after six World Cup qualifiers. Not too bad, right, Greg? Second place, always the target. No, we'll get into that. I'll get into that a little bit more as we start talking about things. Yeah, well, what we're going to try to do today is come up with a few things we learned in the last window. There was of course the two zero went over jama the one zero lost to panama in panama city and then the two one went over costa rica to close out the window now everybody's back in europe or in some major american city or mid major mid major american city as the case may be uh and i i guess why don't i turn it over to you what's the first what's your first takeaway from the window

oh i'm glad i get to go first because i'm sure i'm stepping on your toes here we haven't uh talked to each other about what our takeaways are. So there could be some overlap. We might not get all the way to 10. But my first one is that MMA is the midfield for now and that they might even be good. Yeah, that was going to be one of my takeaways. Maybe we should coordinate it a little better. No, I knew that was going to be like, I mean, that is the big takeaway from the window, right? Yeah, the drop off from them to the second choice is kind of how I would phrase it. You know, It's a much bigger drop-off, I think, than I appreciated maybe a few months ago. The writing was sort of on the wall, but.

And we still have to say that's probably the case, right? Because, again, Musa McKinney Adams got the home games, and that matters. But there's just zero reason to think at this point that that is not the starting lineup in midfield for now. Like that, for the next game to start, I just don't think there's any way that you would be like, maybe this player would actually be an improvement on these. Like they might, that might actually happen. But there's just no reason to sort of conduct that experiment against Mexico or even against Jamaica away.

And that's another big thing is that we can actually run that midfield for both games. The fact that there's only two games in the next window means that we do not have to rotate at all for like keeping players fresh purposes. You can debate whether we did it too much or whether it was the correct play. last window, but for this next window, I don't think there's any question that the lineups will be solely based on who is the best players to win that game on that day. Yeah. And when you say other midfielers might be an improvement on the MMA midfield, you mean that in the most academic sense possible, right? Like, it's theoretically possible, but... Yes, correct.

Like, maybe Luca Deloori comes in for Musa or McKinney, or I think that would be the only possibilities there or Busio comes in in one of those roles and somehow there is like a better harmony and more versatility and more like ways to to beat opponents but i just don't i mean that'd be it seems very speculative to try to actually start that midfield against mexico rather than just rolling out what did look good uh in the home matches right yeah well the way i was the way i was sort of thinking about it is yeah they have to be the starting midfield right now and then we and we have to incorporate some new faces, incorporate them a little more thoroughly. And I'm thinking of Luca Delatore and Gianluca Buccio, because Legette enrolled on, and Legette in particular, have come

up short. And Acosta was bad enough in that Panama game that we all got to be thinking about what, you know, what's the best way to deploy him as well. And maybe I'm drawing too many conclusions from that Panama game because it was the collective performance was so bad. But I'm sure nobody wants to see in Acosta Legette, you know, those two together in the midfield, at least for a while. No, I'd agree with that. And I think I almost even pushed back that the Panama game was like a collective underperformance. Like I genuinely think that in that one, you can trace so much of it back to Acosta and legit.

And I'm not usually one to try to do that. Like you go back a window to Canada. and it was those two guys that's the eights in that game as well. They were paired together as eights. And I wouldn't put that entire performance on them. Like that was a totally different level of team underperformance that does not trace back to just these two guys, not doing the job effectively enough.

Like the whole team was too timid. But when you have 70% possession and it's all sort of right around Canada's, the sort of border of Canada's attacking third, that 48th parallel, like that's a different level of. like assigning blame where panama where it's 50% possession and we can't get even get into their attacking third like that I'm really a lot more comfortable being like yes in this game watching it and and rewatching it you can just see that so much of the the blame lies with these two guys yeah okay I just I was just trying to be careful but I but I'll take your I'll go with your

way of thinking about it um I mean how so how excited about uh because, you know, we're going to get back to these three game windows. We're going to need other players to be available and effective. And I wonder, like, what's your depth chart after the first three? Like, how would you play them if we had a three game window next week, you know? I'm going to torpedo the format of the podcast already because now I'm going to get into my second takeaway. So I'll have to skip yours and you'll have to do two in a row because we're already there. is that the drop-off could be precipitous from M.MA,

from Musa McKinney Adams. And I don't think that's shocking to anybody. But we had been feeling a little bit okay about, I mean, so many, for so long we were referring to like the issue of finding our fourth eight. And I think now we're like, okay, well, actually, who's the third eight? Because LeBJet just was not nearly effective enough in that Panama game. And I actually don't think that we should just, my controversial take in this podcast, I don't think we should just throw the jet out.

I think he has shown that he can be useful in certain ways, in certain roles, even in World Cup qualifiers, not just like racking up production and friendlies. He has been decent in some of the qualifiers in this campaign. Yeah. Are you thinking of the Honduras game mostly, like the second half of the Honduras game? So he was good at things in the Honduras game. Do you disagree? Do you want to say that no, he was really the same guy?

I don't remember him being like that good or that. I don't remember anything specifically excellent from him in that game. I mean, can you refresh my memory? Like, what was, what did he do in that game? It was basically the things that we have always said that he can do well when we sort of defend his inclusion, which is that he can be a part of like a funk, he can be this cog in a functioning attack.

And he had four or five moments in Honduras where he was pretty good. And they were all in like the last 30 yards of the field where he just, he doesn't, he wasn't slowing us down. He was keeping things moving. He was attacking with some verve. He does, he attacks off of the ball. He actually had a couple of good moments against Canada in that game when he was close to the final, when he was close to like Canada's goal.

He had three or four moments in the last 30 yards where he helped set things up. And then he actually like even going back to El Salvador, which probably no one thought about in a while, he came in for 15 minutes in that game and also did a couple of decent things where he meant like basically it was him who got us to enter the box with the ball like he put a ball into either onto PFOx head at the six yard box or he

put the ball on PFOX thigh inside the box so like he has had these moments where you basically can't flat out say he can't be useful like he he wasn't drowning in those games it was just in this Panama game where he was like totally abysmal and it was I think abysmal and like again a very specific area of the field he just simply could not or would not

advance the ball from the edge of the defensive third into the attacking third for whatever reason I I don't know what's going on there yeah so at a minimum his role his role needs to be much more narrowly circumscribed I guess for sure and I think and I totally think he's going to like tumble down the depth chart in the the in the uh for the eight so i don't think anyone's saying oh no the jet still our third eight i feel good about that not that there were like that wasn't a consensus going into these windows yeah i think you know a couple other things about because these these first two takeaways of yours which are kind of the same as two of no the two total oh all right i was going to say two totally separate

takeaways um is uh i think we do have to find out more about boosio and and lucodellatory i don't know how we're going to find out more about them we haven't we don't we're You know, every game matters, every point matters. But they both looked good in their cameos in this last window, Delatore against Jamaica and Busio against Costa Rica. Now, admittedly, those were relatively low pressure situations. Low pressure, both in the sort of figurative sense and in the literal sense. Like, there was not a lot of pressure on them on the ball in those games.

But still, they looked pretty good. And I've never liked Buccio as an eight. but as long as he has a game sort of in front of him as an eight then I'm I think he it works a little better than if he's if he's trying to turn and deal in traffic you know with um you know with his back to the goal 40 yards from goal that's that's where I think he struggles a little bit like receiving in between the lines but maybe we'll have to wait yeah and we'll have to wait to see how wrong about that you are but you definitely no I'm I'm obviously also like I have my concerns about Buzio's steel in a situation where he is going to have to have

traffic running at him the other way that he has to deal with. He didn't have a lot of that in Costa Rica. It was actually a perfect setup for him and he did very well with it. But it was like he started out as the right side at eight with Aronson on his side. And I think by then Costa Rica had because they were chasing the goal. They moved to three in the back. And they basically weren't playing like a left wing back. The left wing back just wasn't. I mean, they're chasing a goal in qualifying. It doesn't matter. You have to take risks. So it was basically like Buzio and Aronson just had this awesome built-in attacking advantage down the right side. And they, they fed it. And then Yedlin came in as a wingback. Yedlin came or Zimmerman came in for Aronson.

And Yedlin just slid up to a right back. And at that point, Buzio was almost playing like a right side of 10. Yeah. With Yedlin getting around him. And Hoppe coming over to join from the other side of the sort of half space. And they were just eating Costa Rica a lot. life up there. Again, because Costa Rica were left that side open and were taking risks. So it was a perfect setup for him to look good, but he did the job. Like they exploited that space to good effect. Yeadlin did have some good moments in the attack. But the thing is, Busio didn't have, like, what I'm saying I worry about with him is receiving the ball in like a 360 degree situation, which he didn't have, he didn't really face that. He was, it was very much 180 degrees once he got the

ball. And he didn't have to do too much strong defending like you would expect him to have to do against, say, Mexico. But sort of answer your question of when do we test them. It'll be in a game. We have to do it. Like there's definitely risks involved. But as we just saw, there are clear risks to what we thought was are like definite third

and fourth string eights going into the window or going into qualifying. So there just is no, there is no obvious solution at this point. or there's no safe play at this point. You're going to have to take a risk either with Buzio or Luca de la Torre or, I mean, what would be the safest play? What would be the most, like, conservative play here? Just sticking with your legit Acosta guns? Mm.

I think that, just because I have a conviction that Burrhalter likes to antagonize me personally, that's the most likely outcome. Because he'll just say, hey, they had a really bad game, but they're better players than this, which I think is probably true to some extent. And we'll just, we'll try it again, you know, and really give them the right pep talk going into the match. Here's, I was wondering, would you rather,

if we're going to take risks, would you rather put Busio at the six or Busio at the eight? Just with the premise that Busio starting a World Cup qualifier at this point is a risk in and of itself, you know? The eight for sure. Okay. And just assuming that we will, you know, somebody at some point will have to clean up a couple of messes there. Whether it's just, again, pitch control kind of a mess where he just isn't holding the space or defending the space he needs to.

I don't really worry about him being like a giveaway machine. I don't think that that's him at all. No, he's very tidy. Yeah. So it's not like that kind of a mess where, oh, he had it taken off his feed again. Like we have to put those messes out from Musa, right? Right now, like Eunice Musa does that. And we need guys like Tyler Adams.

Wesson McKinney does it too. Yeah, like those are those are the kind of messes we have to clean up. So again, there is, we don't have any perfect solutions with any of the guys. So I'd prefer to put Busio as the eight where we do at least have a built-in safety net behind him. Okay. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, there's part of me, which just goes against my core principles for going back for years. But there's part of me that thinks, you know, he's a little, he will be a little more comfortable at the six. let's just take the risk that that pitch control problem will not be such a big problem.

I mean, we've got Miles Robinson to put out some messes, right? Yeah. Chris can put up some mattress. Yeah. Well, let me do my, let me do an ad hoc takeaway off of this. So we'll just call it number, we'll call it number three, which is, you know, West McKinney is absolutely crucial. You know, so this is definitely sort of take away one A or one B or something. But he's absolutely crucial because he does, there are a certain number of fans who don't like McKinney because he is so messy.

He can be so messy. And this has been true of him all along, basically since he became a professional soccer player. But if you look at, and he was especially messy in that Costa Rica game, there were a lot of messy moments, particularly when he was dribbling forward or, trying to play a pass forward. Even the second goal came off of a very poorly hit diagonal switch from him that was mishandled by Keisha Fuller. But if you look at Ben Harald's, you know, the half-spaces player grades, which I always find very interesting, and you look at the event detail, McKinney had 26 events in that game compared to, I think, the second most were Adams and Musa at 17. So these are events that Ben Harold, who does this regularly,

so he's not like, you know, he kind of has an idea of what he's doing. These are events that he considered noteworthy in a positive or negative way, you know, in the game. And that's just an amazing amount of involvement from McKinney. So even though I would say, I'm just off the top of my head, I would guess probably nine of those would have been like clear negatives, mostly on the ball in transition. there are still like 17 really positive moments from him and that's as many as all the moments some players had in the game so I understand that's more than the team had against Panama that might even be more than

the team had against Canada yeah yeah I guess that's my point is like he we just have to live with that in possession in attack we just have to live with his inconsistency on the ball and because he does so much that's valuable. And I guess that's really just sort of a reinforcing point about our need for the MMA midfield. But Wes McKinney, I'm a fan. It goes back to acceptable mistakes, right? When he's making a mistake because he's trying to take,

like do something with high reward, even though it's high risk. And maybe it shouldn't be that high risk. Maybe because McKinney has whatever these deficiencies are, they're particularly high risk, you know, for losing the ball or turning it over, where other players might be able to do them more cleanly. But he's trying it. And that is a far cry from what we've seen from a lot of other players on this team.

So it's like we have to do these things. We will never get to the point where we can just make, you know, 35, 90, 85% percent, like, plays to lead to a goal. We won't get to like that Man City, Barcelona level of, like, I know Barcelona is an outdated team to compare that too, but where we make all, like, just have this total clockwork machinery running to make all these high percentage plays and then suddenly we have a tap in. Like, we are going to have to make low percentage plays or attempt low percentage plays at some point in the process to get ourselves in front of goal. And a lot of those are going to fail and we, it'll be the end of the attack. Some of them will come off and that's, that's the game, right? Yeah. Well, the one exception

for McKinney from that game was when he, when he kind of got mesmerized by the Rondo down in our back left corner and gave it away. But for the most part, it was exactly what you just described, which is him pushing the game and then just taking a poor touch, trying to beat somebody or, you know, playing a pass that doesn't clear the first defender. But it was an attempt like trying to play somebody in behind or something. So what is that? Is that three takeaways? That's three. And you owe us the second one. You owe us another one. Okay. Yeah. I. I think this is a sort of a big picture one, but the U.S. can play decent soccer, I think, is a

takeaway from this window against admittedly weaker opponents, but in both the Jamaica match and more clearly the Costa Rica match, the U.S. found ways to unlock a defense. You know, the more I sit with that Costa Rica match, the more I notice and am convinced by how much we got the ball in behind, into the box, at the feet of Aronson and, and way in, you know, that man city zone, sometimes Dest and sometimes Robinson, we just didn't have the final ball. And I am, you know, you mentioned you were going to do some analysis of the final 22. I'm working on it. It's, uh, it's painstaking. So it takes some, it takes some time because I'm basically, you know, do it's like a survey of like not just the times we actually did hit a ball in or

got in, but also you have to take a new account the times we passed up a chance to do that to hit a ball in because it was like, oh, this is actually, you know, if I'm looking at these choices, this was the time we chose not to just fire a ball into the mixer and instead try to soccer our way through it a little bit longer. Okay. Well, I'm very interested in that analysis. We just didn't have the final ball, but that step forward where we're actually combining and getting attacking players into the box with the ball at their feet in a little bit of space is a big encouragement that Burrhalter isn't hopeless, you know, for me. And I know some people will take issue with that framing but the Panama game and the first five halves of the first window were pretty bad and Jamaica

is a struggling team so to see us come out and play that way against Costa Rica after going down a goal and really impose ourselves that was a lovely thing to see even if it was still uh you know kind of a nail biter of a game for for much of it well and now we get we get another giant test right in Mexico because we have never done that against Mexico uh in the burr hall era and weren't doing it against Mexico in the last cycle either. So I'm not that encouraged. I'm not that encouraged. I don't know what to expect, man.

They could look okay. We could play a little bit. Mexico are not like the all-powerful juggernaut that we've kind of almost like built them into over the last four years. Like we have definitely lowered our own expectations significantly. We've seen Canada play them several times now. I was just going to say that. Canemaw is, I mean,

Canama. Canada. Canada's doing it. They did it at the Gold Cup. They did it in Mexico City at the Azteca. And that shows that it can be done. But can it be done by us is the question. I mean, somebody was saying, oh, Matt Hartman commented on the tweet that John

Hurdman and Greg Burhalter were exchanging notes. And he goes, oh, yeah, definitely a net positive for the USA there. But that's what I mean, that's exactly what I mean about lowered expectations is why can't we do that? It's not like Canada where this like smooth playing soccer team a year ago or two years ago. So they've put it together and in their last two games against Mexico have like looked like a really solid soccer team. And I would argue that we have in certain areas of the field just as much if not more talent than Canada. I don't think that's a controversial take. So like why can't we?

Why wouldn't, why should that be thought of as some Herculian tax? ask. I don't know. I don't know why we can't. I mean, but we haven't been close to that. I mean, so that's why I say a takeaway from this window is encouraging because it was, I had some doubt. I know you had more faith about it than I did, but I had some doubt that we actually could play that way, even against Costa Rica, especially coming out of that Panama game. But we could.

And so that's great. Let's see if we can do it against Mexico like Canada does. All right. Where are we at? We're at number. That's, is that four? Is that, are we counting on? And we don't have to, you know, we don't have to get to 10. We don't have to stop at 10. We can just, I can put whatever number I want in the title of the. I'm a strict constitutionalist. Okay. So number five and I'm jumping back in now, right? Yes, please. All right. Brendan Aronson and Timwaya are the best third and four string wingers we've ever had, even if Timwaya for some reason is apparently the fifth string winger. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think I agree. Why he is the fifth string winger right now is goofy and cute, and I don't understand it. But maybe it's changed since the Costa Rica game. In any event, watching those two guys playing soccer last window was great.

I know neither of them looked particularly good against Panama, but I would also say that everyone was just, you know, not, even everybody was invisible in the front three because we never moved the ball up to them. So I don't really hold it against them. In the home games, they were electric. Aronson was mostly good throughout the window. Waya was unplayable for the time he came on against Jamaica and then instrumental in being dangerous on numerous occasions against Costa Rica, including on both goals he was involved in. So to think back historically about what our backup winger situation was or often even who our second winger on the field was

it's just it's just like incredible where we are today way as way as off ball movement in particular just really makes me happy to watch you know that he he brings that verticality by just knowing where the space is and he the way he moves into it it must got to be terrifying for the opponent um and he did you know he does he moves he moves he moves he moves He moves big, like he has great leverage, the ability, like, and this is a huge deal for me, because Aronson doesn't really have it. But the way, way I can get a ball with somebody riding his shoulder and then, like, gain half a step past them and just never let him back around is just fantastic.

And that's going to be a massive deal. That's a huge part of actually getting something from your verticality is sort of the ability to not get caught once you get that ball in behind. And it's not like get caught where he's just going to run the goal, but the fact that he can, like, gain the end line because he can turn that corner. That's been awesome to see. So again, just really excited about where we stand, despite the fact that our two best attacking players

have been absent for most of World Cup qualifying. Yeah. Yeah, he, I don't know what the final 22 analysis is going to show, but it seemed like he, in the Costa Rica game, Wea was hitting balls, you know, like fizzing balls across the six. maybe like a half a dozen times that were a foot off from being like tap-ins, you know?

And I feel like the gods of variance are going to smile on us on that front at some point. I know sometimes we're hitting the ball, we're just sort of smashing it in there and hoping, but some of these balls were like, they were aimed at someone's feet right at the six,

and they were just cut out by a sliding challenge. So there's a lot of that. I think also, you know, Aronson is more of, of a half space merchant than Wea. Like, Waya, you know, Wea offered, I know, I'm not saying way I can't do it. I'm not saying way I can't do it.

I'm just saying, I'm just saying, you know, Aronson doesn't have that ability to get in, get an edge on somebody the way Wea does. But he is super comfortable, you know, dropping in and picking up the ball. And he's, you saw him doing it yesterday for Salzburg and there went over Wolfsburg. So there's sort of like two different looks, you know, I think.

Yeah, and they're, and they're both functional. in their weak areas too, they're still functional. And that's also a huge thing where they're not so one dimensional that like, oh, well, if you can just take this away, they're completely ineffective. There's room to improve certainly on some of the areas. Even with like way I'd be in a good half space merchant, there are times where like watching him you feel like he's actually dropped too deep.

Like he has this burst to create separation. But he ends up like bursting all the way he covers so much ground. All the way back to the center circle. Yeah. Yeah, he actually gets like actually from the defensive line. all the way to the midfield line. And now that midfielder can just turn around and actually put some pressure on him. It's like,

oh, you got to just stay right in the middle of the pocket to time it so you receive it right in that middle of that. But anyway, like, again, that's nitpicking to the point that against Concaf teams, it's not usually going to be that big a deal. We'll see against Mexico because it does seem like we could be leaning on those guys again in this window. Yeah, the latest is, uh, Geo's out for at least another week or two, uh, from Dorman. And Pulisic, I don't know, what's the latest on him? He's out for this weekend, right? Yeah, probably two weeks away.

They say he's close. They were saying he was close, but I don't, I mean, none of that can mean anything because you can be close. And they aren't lying to you, but that's just how injury recovery works as you're close. And then suddenly there's a setback. Right. It's like me when I'm telling somebody that I'm almost done editing the podcast.

Yeah, and I think that's a contrast. The winger situation is a big. contrast to the midfield because the prospect of not having Pulisic and Raina is suboptimal but it's not it's not crippling it's not paralyzing at least in my own mind right now

if we were losing if we were if one of those three midfielders was unavailable it'd be a much bigger problem I think for the for the US than us missing Pulisicic and Raina which is weird but it's but I think it's true should I go on to the next one? Yeah, give us your next one.

Okay, I was pretty hard on George Bellow after the Panama game, but I've gone back and checked that out, and he was decent. And I think he's showing that Burrhalter's faith is well-placed, and he is a serviceable second left back. Now, my frustrations were that his service wasn't beating the first or second defender, which is true. And there were a couple messy moments in possession, also true. And then he had that headed clearance to the top of the box that we were, that we talked about in the podcast, which was frustrating and dangerous.

And he also doesn't pop off the screen for like the decisiveness of him snapping back into shape defensively. But he also hit a couple very, very good passes, like plus passes in that Panama game. And like they really stuck out because we didn't have much of that in that game. So he did that. And then he also, he really holds his own defensively in one-v-one situations. And against Panama, he was occasionally elegant in combination.

So I think the basics are kind of there for him to keep getting better and be that decent left-back option we need. So I'm just taking back some of the edge of my criticism against Bello. At the same time, at the same time, I would put Robin's, and Dest in sort of the same position as the midfield is like absolutely a huge step down

from them to their backups. And yeah, I guess there are all kinds of knock-on implications to that, but one of them is I don't want to see Dest at the wing. Because that's all the rage at the moment. I mean, you know, a few people are saying it, right? Ronald Combin. So, so I think I agree with that. that like Bella was, you know, fine on the ball against Panama. He definitely wasn't like our

problem when he had the ball at his feet. And I think he was also good one v one defending. I still think that he was, he's like, I don't know if he's like having to think about where he needs to be both in when we're sort of defending high up the field. But then even as we're transitioning into possession went from farther back, like I still felt like he was off of the pace as far as being in the right windows to be available, and then defensively hitting his man at the right time. So it felt like part of our issue in that game was Panama kept finding the space between our wingers and our fullbacks.

So they'd keep hitting that ball. That's super easy. It's not super easy. We're inviting it. That's the switch we've been allowing teams to hit against us since January of 2020 when we switched to more of like the 433 pressuring look. But we give them that ball to like their weak side fullback. And the idea is that usually that's a longer path that the ball is to take.

And our fullback is waiting and watching and will pounce either our fullback or depending on where it is, our midfielder on that weak side, the weak side eight, like bust their tail to arrive and not let that guy collect it for free in space and pick his head up and hit the next pass. And Panama kept getting that ball for free. So it's some combination of Legit, Bello, and Tim Wea not taking that away, like, or making it difficult. And I thought a lot of it seemed to be, for me, was actually on Bello, where, like, he was too far back. And even when we'd hit it and Legette would get there, where it was his job to get there, he would arrive. But then that guy would still have too easy of a pass up the line to Bellow's man. So if Bellow isn't going to go meet that ball way up high, he at least needs to take away the next domino so that Lejet doesn't arrive. Like, as Legett arrives, that Panama player still has to have a bunch of difficult choices to try to execute.

and we were still giving him like an easy pass just straight up the sideline super safe and effective for Panama because we weren't arriving at all of our marks at the right time. Okay, yeah. So that was my big sort of issue with Bello and that's not even just on Bellow. Again, this is team-wide stuff where it's hard to know who's really at fault. Like whose job is it to tell him when to release and go up field? Is that McKenzie? Like there's so many, is it Matt Turner?

Like there's a lot of different ways that that can. can be that that can fail and and I'm not even so I'm not pinning it all on bellow but he was the guy who wasn't arriving at the right time okay yeah I mean I acknowledge that he's he seems a little bit sleepy in his decisions but he's a young he's he's really young and um you know he's played now two world cup qualifiers away in this cycle and he did have the bad mistake in the win against honduras to to let his man waltz in there and it wasn't his man but let a man waltz in there without marking him. And, uh, but, you know, if you put like sort of step back a second, he's, he's doing okay. He's doing okay. He's not, he's not a disaster. And he has a, he still has

a lot of potential. Definitely. Definitely the case. All right. Um, what, what do you got next? All right. So my next one is that we're still kind of talking about the table in the wrong way. The current conga-calf table and that, you know, we opened up talking about how we're in second place. And that's great, you know, talking about how the last window was a roller coaster and whiplash and all this. And I would say that there really isn't a roller coaster yet. We're still definitely on it.

Because when you lose the Panama game, like you're on some qualifying trajectory. We were on a decent trajectory. We were on the win at home draw away pace going into Panama. And then you lose to Panama and that significantly like alters

your trajectory. We thought, you know, We're now three points ahead. We're in second place. We're three points ahead of Panama who are in fourth. If we get that draw, we're six points ahead of Panama who's in fourth. So that's a massive swing. And so you can basically talk about in KakaKaff.

You have every away match is like a differentiator. It's a chance to really like gain points on the table, if you kind of want to think about it like that. And we lost that Panama game. That's a big loss in a differentiator game. And there isn't really a result against Costa Rica at home that gets. you those points back. Like we're always expected to beat Costa Rica who's a bottom half Concaf team at this point at home. So that's not really a whiplash game. We don't like swing back into a good trajectory. We're basically still on the same trajectory we were on after we lost

Panama. So the real differentiator game is Mexico at home. That's going to be the next one where we can be like, oh, three points here is huge and keeps us, you know, and that puts us back in good shape because you just don't expect, you shouldn't expect three points against Mexico. People quibble with that because they're, you know, like high school football coaches who are like, you should expect to win every game, et cetera. But like actually looking at probabilities of like teams of relative strengths of the U.S. and Mexico, I think Elo is going to tell us that basically all three outcomes are equally likely, a win, a loss, or a draw. So it's like, okay, we'll get one of those results like that none of those will be a surprise or should be a surprise.

We can win, which would be awesome, but we might not. And then, so if we don't get all those points like are we back on the roller coaster? Not really. Like we're still just, this is, this is sort of the ride we're at. And then it's Jamaica away, which becomes another differentiator game. So if we get points in these games coming up, three to six points in these two games, now we're actually kind of getting closer to being back on track for, uh, feeling safe, I should say. Yeah. Yeah, six points from this next window would be, uh, what a blessing that would be. Um, The yeah, the thing I, the thing I notice about it is we have, you know, we have eight games left,

and four of those are imminently loseable games. Mexico at home, Mexico away, Canada away, and then Costa Rica away. And I don't remember when the last time we beat Costa Rica in Costa Rica is, but I think it's been a long time. We never have, bells. We've never drawn Costa Rica away. If we've drawn Costa Rica away, it was before the hexagonal existed. Okay. So we have zero points from Costa Rica in the modern era since we hosted in 94.

No time, no better time than now. But yes, that's exactly right. And that's why, again, talking about what you're on pace to do is also silly. Like it makes me think of like a college football team that has won their first two conference games in the SEC saying we're on pace to go undefeated when you haven't played Alabama yet. Like you still have to like you don't even, it doesn't make sense to talk about. what pace you're on in sort of this imbalanced schedule. Right. So, so yeah, we've got, if we beat Mexico, that really does, I think, beat Mexico, at least

get a point and let's say get four points from this window. That really does put us in a good position. And so a lot hinges on this game in Cincinnati. Yeah, four points this window suddenly makes it sort of a really difficult task for Panama, for example, to catch up to us again. Because there are three points back, plus we've got a goal difference edge. But if we lose to Mexico, you know, Panama can win their next game. I think it's El Salvador away.

Like if they win that, then suddenly we're level again. And is that, are we back on the roller coaster? Like, it can't be that much a roller coaster because us losing to Mexico is like a one in three chance. So it just means that we are still feeling the effects of the Panama lost until we actually secure these points from this next window or until we beat Panama at home. It's an emotional roller coaster, not a, you know. analytical one. All right, that's fair. I'll give you that.

Yeah. Give us your, you're up. Give us your eighth, our eighth takeaway. Burrhalter is still kind of a goofball. We talk about the fit for a player as a half space merchant.

Like, you know, we've talked about this a lot. Does he fit as a half space merchant? Like, does he, can he be that tucked in winger who collects the ball and deals from the, the edge of the box, the corner of the box, or like, you know, the attacking half. And, and so we were, you know, we've been talking about that with Conrad Delafonte, or at least thinking about it.

Like, maybe that's why he's not, he wasn't in the roster for the last, last windows, because he doesn't fit the mold. He's more of a feet on the chalk type winger. But, you know, you start to pretzel yourself, trying to figure out what, what Burrhalter's actually thinking about this stuff, because he brought Jonathan Lewis to the Gold Cup. And then he tried to start Areola in all three games in the last window. And then he played Brennan Aronson at the 8 in the previous window.

And outside of the half-space merchant part of the field, he switched up Turner and Stefan in this last game. And I guess this isn't a new thing we've learned because we've kind of known it all along, but it's just been confirmed even though we ended this window with that good result against Costa Rica, is that there will be surprises in the next window and they won't all be pleasant.

And I think there's just like, we just have to, you know, reconcile ourselves, resign ourselves to the fact that Burrhalter's going to do some weird stuff that doesn't really make sense. No, I was thinking about this too, Bells. I was thinking about the kind of the same thing. And it's like, you know, who the manager is is such is a binary thing, right? Either Burhalter is the manager, we fire him. Whereas, so essentially, you just have to put up with these sort of really suboptimal

decisions. When a player does it, you know, when Acosta and Legette have howlers, there's this a couple of things can happen. They can learn from them and, you know, be better the next time, which still might happen. They can just be dropped and you can see their role diminish or be eliminated entirely. Leggett didn't even dress for the next game. Acosta didn't get on the field with managers that just doesn't happen, right? So it's not like Legette or Greg Berlter has this bad showing. And so we're going to, you know, outsource his play calling duties. We're going to hire a new play caller or like Ernie's now in charge of player selections for the next camp. Like you wouldn't do that. You would just fire the guy because you can't undermine the manager

that much, I don't think, in international soccer and keep him on. Like you're basically just saying we don't trust you enough to do these things. No, you just fire the guy. So it is this binary thing where we just have to hope that Berthelter learns. Like he takes that route and he actually learns and improve some of these things in short order because the order is very short. Yeah. Yeah. It just, it's so hard. to, you know, it's so hard to discuss some of these decisions in a rational way because they don't, you know, I'm not even saying Conrad Delafonte needed to be in this camp. I, I didn't lose any sleep over that, but it's just like it doesn't, there's no way to rationalize some of these things. I kind of disagree with that. Like, my sense is like, you can't, you can't just set a single criteria. There's always going to be contradictions within that. It's like the NCAA. picking teams for the tournament and like leaving this team out and this team in.

If you select one criteria, there's always going to be contradictions in that. The overall criteria is very simple in that. Burrhalter believes player X gives him the best chance to win over player Y. That is like the only overriding principle necessary. And so like Bergen-Klemsman actually just said it best when he just said there are other players ahead of him. Like that's as much as that's unsatisfying maybe to hear. Like this is still a subjective process. There's no algorithm that's going to tell you who should be the best fit.

The coach just has to make that call. So Burrhalter just believes that, you know, Christian Raldon or gives him a better chance of winning coming in as a half-space merchant than Conrad de la Fuente. Like that's just, that's just where we get to. Right. And I guess so fair enough. But I guess what we have done as fans, I think, is try to try to build sort of a systematic way of thinking around this stuff. And I don't know. Well, and I don't think that's wrong either.

There are a bunch of variables that are going to go into it. So Conrad being a chalk on the boots left winger isn't probably going to be a great fit with Anthony Robinson, who is now, like, as we'll get into on my last takeaway, like nailed on left back. Undroppable. That weighs into it, all right? Because if Conrad were some amazing left winger, like if he were just a lights out, incredible dynamo attacking dynamo dino mo whichever

then he's still in like that wouldn't affect so it's all these things you balance so you balance the fit and then you balance the player's ability and what they can actually deliver within that fit and so there's no like single overriding thing but you just have to balance them all and do all of these sort of calculations in your head

and then then you just have to make your call yeah okay I have one more. Do you have any more? Yeah, I've got one to go. Okay.

Well, my last one is just that, and again, this is something we've talked about already, but the talent is winning out over Burrhalter's goofiness. So I think, you know, it is a mystery why Canada can ping the ball around under pressure against Mexico in Mexico City and we you know we can't do that we haven't done that with our A team or our B team or against Panama away you know it's a lot harder for us to do that it's a mystery but we got so much talent and I think what we saw in the Costa Rica game is it's it started to coalesce a little bit maybe because of Burrhalter's instruction maybe in spite of Burrhalter's instruction who knows so that's my bullish final takeaway the talent is winning out

that's that's totally fair and again even there there's there's you know specifics there's nuances there's things that burhalter does that kind of make you scratch your head or or you know shout at the heavens and then there's things that he does well like he's the one who took unis musa who plays outside mid for valencia one convinced him to join our program and two is like you are a central midfielder and i think for us that's definitely the right call uh and so he can he can do those things you know there's not it's not like all or nothing with his coaching. There's facets of it that I think have been positive and facets that I'm like, there's room for improvement.

Sergino Dest has been amazing and he's in the program in some part because Greg Berhalter convinced him to come play for us. Well, I mean, partially, I think the scuff podcast had a role in that too. I'm just kidding. We all have our parts to play. But yes, I get what you're saying. But I also agree that I think the talent is going to, I think the town is going to outweigh on the regional level,

whatever misgivings or whatever shortcomings Burrhalter has at the moment as a manager. Yeah. And I don't want to, you know, I'm still, I'm still rooting for him to succeed and I think he has a good chance of it. I agree with that too. And for all like the sort of ranting I might do about it, like I do think that like most of his project prior to 2020. 21 is sort of just in the waistbin or a good portion of it. But he could still be an effective coach at taking what he's doing now, now that the rubber has finally met the road and on a game by game basis,

seeing us improve, like, that could still happen. It just means that it's the effective, where effectively we started over at the beginning of qualifying. I wonder if that would be a useful exercise for him, sort of a fire drill where he like pretends that he's just taking over the team. What should I do now? All right. So I'm ending.

I got number 10 right here. Yeah, 10 or 11, whatever it is. For as incredible as your Gianluca Busio Apology number was, your ditty. I think you wrote it to the wrong person and I think the person that you actually owe the biggest apology to is Anthony Robinson. Okay, all right.

I will remind you, Greg, that I was the one who, sort of, I was the one who made the first comps of Robinson back in 2017. I think he was at Blackburn, maybe. No, he was, let's see, he was on, he was, he made it onto the Sunderland documentary because they were playing somebody. It might have been Blackpool. It was, man, I got to find it now.

Yeah, look it up. He was on loan, he was on loan from Everton and he was, shimmying down the left wing doing a lot of good stuff the late Daryl Grove and I talked about him in our fullbacks episode before the scuff podcast

was even created oh he was playing for Bolton I don't know how I didn't realize that maybe I was thinking of Twain Holmes and Bolton was a was a financially kind of a tire fire as he was leaving the club so there was a lot there were a lot of problems there I'm really

embarrassed I didn't remember that should we edit some of this out or should we just go with it? No, leave this in. This is the part of the sausage being made and show. Okay. So, yeah, I just want to point out, when he was at Bolton, I was

making, I was making comp videos and hyping him up. And then I, you know, I did, I did complain about his chaotic energy as recently as what, like seven months ago, something like that. Earlier in this podcast. No, I didn't.

So tell me why I should have apologize to him though. Because for as sexy as Serginio Dest is on the ball, like an undeniable sexiness. Like Anthony Robinson has been just as, if not more effective for us in this World Cup qualifying window. Like he has like almost like he's been instrumental for us in the way we've read in the points that we currently have. I don't know if we're sitting where we are without him.

Oh man. Yeah, he's been a hero. No doubt about it. Like the assist versus Canada, the first Honduras goal and then his movement keyed, was a part of keying the second goal against Honduras. He had a ton of involvement in attacks versus Jamaica. He played Aronson behind for the second goal. Even against Costa Rica, going back to his chaotic on-ball energy,

in that first goal, like it was him, I forget who now, either Richards, I think it was Anthony, Richards and Adams, playing in a really tight triangle under pressure, 30 yards away from Zach Stephens. So, like, he has enough order about him now that we can do those kinds of things. And I'm going to say this, this is like a new stat that I'm introducing today. He was by far the most missed player on our team through World Cup qualifying so far. And I don't mean like we missed him when he wasn't playing.

We definitely did. We've looked bad in the games that he hasn't played in. But I'm talking about actually individual moments where he has made a movement or a run and is incredibly on, and we would really benefit from feeding him the ball, and we miss him. So he is constantly making these threatening runs. We hit him some of the time,

and when we have hit him, he's been effective, and he has this end product, but we've also missed him a ton of time, so we can actually tap into him even more and get more from him than we're currently getting, which is a tremendous amount. I have to search my heart to decide whether I need to apologize,

but I do. I am so, so grateful for him. You know, he has, he's been, he's been awesome. Indefatigable going up and down the line. And, uh, and reliable defensively just feels, it just feels good when he's back there. In a way that, you know, George Bella, who I defended earlier, it doesn't feel quite as good. That's, that's my analysis.

Feels good. Doesn't feel quite as good. But, but, but yeah, getting into the next window then, which I'm sure we'll talk about in depth a lot. Having Robinson and Death together is just a, and the ability to do that for both matches, you know, praying for their health, but that's going to be huge. Is fullback the most important position on the field? I mean, there's no, there's no way to like parse that out. But it's such an important position. It's for us, at least.

That's a great question, though. We do need to figure out now, maybe my survey will kind of show this. It'll kind of bear out. like that's been a huge part of our attack. We said that back, I know, I just called you out for your Anthony Robinson opinions, but I think of the same boat as me in 2018, defending him about the defensive errors he had against Brazil of all teams, but also noting that he was incredibly dangerous for us even in 2018 in the Saracan year,

like one of our most dangerous attackers through that entire span of games. He brings something to the attack as a fullback, which is huge, huge for us. Yeah, it is. And that's why, you know, I think that overloading that we can do with our fullbacks is such an important part of the way we attack, that that's one of the reasons that it doesn't make much sense to, I know Dest is playing winger for Barcelona,

but for us, it doesn't make much sense because that's such a crucial part of the way we attack is to have a good fullback coming up and joining the winger and the half-space merchant. I'm sorry, the winger and the eight. Well, and there you go. That's another Burrhalter bit, right? That's a part of Burrhalter's approach to the, about how to create chances that I would say is unquestionably positive. The way he's structured the team to get the fullbacks as involved as they are, very much a good thing.

Yeah, very much a good thing when Dest and Robinson are healthy. I don't know how, I mean, I think it's a good thing, but is it going to work when those guys aren't healthy? And maybe Joe Scali. Let's see Joe Scali in the next window. There we go. That's a good scuffed way to end it because definitely all of our hopes and prayers will be answered by the 18-year-old we haven't seen playing yet for the national team. No, I'm not saying all our hopes and prayers are going to be solved by that. I just.

But our backup left-back hopes might be improved slightly. Back-up, whatever fullback you want to call it. because remember I'm I'm defending George Bellow these days that's true that's true so you're really you really have it out for Yedlin and more you've always kind of been a Yedlin what's the opposite of a disapologist whereas I've always been in the Shackmore camp I was the I was the only one holding that candle for a long time you have a bunch of Tenerife kits in your closet uh all right hey check out our Patreon

This is an ad-free podcast, so Patreon is how we do it. Links in the show notes. Greg, anything else from you? No, I feel like, again, this is all happening so fast. So we're already talking about who's ruled out for next window by injury. Yeah, we're what? Not quite three weeks from the game, four weeks. Call up, we'll know who the call-ups are in a couple weeks.

We're going to do a tailgate in Cincinnati, or hopefully do a tailgate. Again, running into some Ohio open container laws. That seemed draconian to me. But we're working on it. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.