Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #216: The November WC qualifying roster

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

No Brooks! No Luca! But Scally and Ferreira get the call and Pulisic returns. Greg and Belz walk through the squad that Berhalter has selected and pick XIs to face Mexico next Friday.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's soccer. Thank you for downloading this episode of scuffed. Hey, Greg, how you doing? Good. I'm ready to react a little bit to the roster, feeling a little bit cute. Ooh, yeah. Greg Burrhalter has called up 25 players for World Cup qualifiers against Mexico and Jamaica on November 12th and November 16th. I'm going to just give some basic facts here for those who aren't paying close attention, which is basically none of you who are listening to this. but the U.S. sits currently second in the octagonal table. As you know, the top three teams in that table automatically qualify for the World Cup. We have eight matches left to go out of 14.

This upcoming window is really big. Mexico at home is always a big deal, of course, and then this Jamaica away match is a chance to rack up points on the road. Can you talk a little bit, Greg, about how you, the significance of these two matches in this whole 14 game tournament? Sure, sure. you're talking about my like a tipping point model. Yeah, please.

So, so I was inspired by the, as everyone who's followed national elections closely over the past decade or so, it's probably seen the 538 tipping point graphic goes from dark blue to white to light red to dark red of the most important states for candidates to win to win the national election. And so I was just kind of messing around with the same kind of a concept for our World Cup qualifying campaign with dark blue being our easy. games where we should expect the most points, going down to like white, which would be the games where we should expect very few points, and then figuring out, adding those points up to figure out where we need to hit sort of that

22 to 23 point estimate to secure automatic qualification and dodge the playoff or to fail to qualify automatically with even fewer points. And so like the Mexico game is simply, even though it's a huge rivalry game with huge emotional significance, from the, from like the campaign stammer. point from qualifying, it actually is not the, like, by any means, the most important game to

win or get points from it all. And I know that might sound sort of counterintuitive, but like, that's, like for a democratic candidate to win an election, they don't have to win Kentucky, right? Like, that's not the state they need to win. You look at the more likely states to, that you're going to win. And so you focus your energy or you really, like, invest in those states, the swing states. Jamaica Way is one of those swing games where winning that game can give us a huge boost in qualifying. And losing the game actually can hurt us quite a bit. So that's why it has sort of more significant impact on our qualifying chances. It's a swing game.

Yeah. And also, I mean, part of it is that Mexico is, Mexico is not in competition with us right now for that third spot. I mean, they're right, they're ahead of us. I mean, I guess they could fall off and become a competitor for that third spot. It's super unlikely, right? They haven't lost yet in qualifying. So they're getting the points they want. They're denying points to other teams.

They're probably furious at us, actually, for that Panama result as well. Because if we get a draw there, Mexico's eight points clear of the playoff. First place, yeah. So they're basically partying already. So, yeah. So that's kind of, that's how I'm thinking of it. And so, yeah, losing to Mexico would hurt emotionally because it's our biggest rival. But it's going to be more.

Though on the flip side, because of some of the other results we've already had in qualifying, I know we're sitting in third, but we enter qualifying in Cockcaf already with a ton of wiggle room, right? Like just based on the ELO math, we're like 95% favorites to qualify before any game has been played. So we're already these huge favorites. but we've surrendered some wiggle room like with our results because we've dropped points in other swing games Panama away was a swing game El Salvador away swing game

and Canada home one of those swing matches so we've already sort of forfeited some of our wiggle room we're still favorites to qualify but now if we have like a two bad results if we lose to Mexico and Jamaica now suddenly it's like oh we are we have real concern now like legitimate concern where you might be down to 70% to qualify, which, you know, again, still better than 50-50, but given the advantage we had going

into it, that would be a huge, huge slip. Yeah, given the advantage we have going into it in our fragile emotional state as fans of the men's national team, I like to focus on Panama because they're in fourth with eight points to our 11. That puts them, you know, they would qualify today for the intercontinental playoff to get into the World Cup. But they have two, I think very winnable games for them in this window. They face Honduras at home and El Salvador on the road. So they have a decent chance to come out of this window. I mean, who knows what will happen,

but they have a chance to come out of this window with 14 points. And, you know, so I, even though I get your point that Mexico is not one of these, Mexico is not Florida in a U.S. presidential election. But it's still given that result in Panama City in the last. window, it sure would be nice to come away with six points. So I don't know how many, I don't know how many points we need from this window, but I know what I want, and that's, that's six. Okay.

If this is, if we're sticking with the election analogy here and we get six points, that's like, that's like a Democrat winning Texas. Like, we're cruising. With six points, we are, including like a Mexico win. We are in business. Because remember, we still have Panama at home, which will be huge favorites in. I know you still have to do the job. of course.

But that, like, that game lingering on the calendar is tough for Panama to try to overcome. I know it's like, you could see it as an opportunity. But like to have to get that result, to get to scrape points back or to keep us from completely extending the lead is a tough to ask for Panama. Yeah. Yeah. We have Panama at home. We have El Salvador at home and we have Honduras at home.

And then we have Canada away and Mexico away and Costa Rica away. that's after this window is over. I mean, so with all that, uh, sort of mathy preamble, let's, uh,

let's go to the roster. Start with goalkeeper. Why don't you start us? All right. We've got Turner, Stefan and Johnson, no change from, uh,

the prior window. Like I was wondering if maybe Guzahn would sneak in. It's the third. He's been having an excellent, uh, campaign for MLS. We're, we're just going to talk about campaigns this whole podcast.

Um, so I thought there was a chance, but, uh, no real issue here. There's, It's incredibly unlikely that our third goalkeeper will have any thing to do on the field in these two games. Yeah.

No quibbles from me there. Now, fullback, we've got a little bit of a change. Anthony Robinson, D'Andre Yedlin, they both come back from the previous window. And then we have, we've Burhalter has added, Joseph Scali, the youngster at Barisha Munchin-Gladbach. And then Reggie Cannon, who's recently returned to the field for Boavishta in Port. And then Sam Vines, who's playing regularly for Royal Antwerp in Belgium. George Bello is left off and Sergenio Dest is injured, apparently, he has a back injury. Is that a real injury?

I would assume so. I mean, it kept him out of a Champions League match, so the injury is definitely real. Is it possible that once he was out of that game, they're like, oh, we could also stretch this and keep him out of, keep him home for the next week and a half and not put him through flights. and, you know, anyone who knows anything about U.S. Mexico knows that it's not going to be a delicate affair. So, you know, there would definitely be incentive for Barcelona to do that, but there's no indication that that's the case. That's a big, that's a big loss. Huge, huge loss. I feel nervous about it.

I mean, after Pulisic and Rain, I have, I have, Dest is probably our best attacker. Yeah. Well, I mean, he scored the, he scored the Galazzo against Costa Rica. a lot of times the source of our build-up in possession from that right full-back position, our playmaking full-back. Shack Moore also dropped from the last window. Notably in the Bobby Warshaw podcast that we referred to as one of the, as the fifth gospel, I guess,

bellow and I shouldn't say that both of those guys were singled out because I don't think Berhalter named either one of them, actually, but he just called out the performance of the fullbacks. most specifically their positioning, which we'd kind of discussed when we were talking about some of what we thought were Bellow's deficiencies. Yeah, you brought it up. But Shaq Moore was the one who was subbed off.

Bellow, so it could have been, it could have just been more and Burhalter was just protecting him. It could have been both. We thought we saw it with Bellow. But it's, again, it's like, all right, so, you know, he meant it. Part of it could just be canon coming back from, you know, the wilderness at Boavista where he wasn't playing.

Sam Vines back from a broken collarbone. I've checked out his three games since he's been back. He's technically played four, but one was a cup match against like a lower division Belgian team. And his passing looks very good. I really like it. He looks brave on the ball. He's always trying to find a solution even under pressure.

He'll get in tight rondos. His cage match has been unconvincing to the point of being like kind of a liability, to be honest. Huh. Well, I don't expect to see him on, I mean, we can get into the lineup. the lineups we would like to see against Mexico later in the podcast, but I don't expect to see him against Mexico.

I mean, that's going to be Anthony Robinson for sure, right? I mean, it should be Anthony Robinson for 180 minutes, this window, right? I mean, unless we are cruising or getting destroyed against Mexico and you concede that you can get him off to rest him for Jamaica,

there's no reason Anthony Robinson won't play both matches. Is my thought? Any disagreement there? No, no, none for me. Okay. The more interesting question is what happens at right back. Very interesting question for right back. Let's move on to centerbacks.

Why don't you take them? All right. So we've got John Brooks, Miles Robinson, Chris Richards, Walker's and Merritt, Mark McKenzie. No, we don't. Okay, I'm getting word that is incorrect. Which makes sense. There's no reason to bring five fullbacks to this camp. So I'm sure who must be McKenzie that's left out?

It is Brooks. Brooks has been left out of the roster, and he even gave a statement to Doug McIntyre about it. Kind of interesting. Yeah, really classy, really classy move from Brooks. It's a great PR move that definitely helps Brooks look great. And I think it also takes a lot of,

I don't want to say, I guess I shouldn't say it takes the heat off Burrhalter. It can, it can be a little deflection. It, you know, it absorbs some of the spotlight for sure. But what do you make of this, Bels? Well, let me read his statement. Brooks's statement. He says, in life and in soccer,

nothing is ever handed to you, nor should it be. The decision to leave me out of this camp isn't surprising, given some of my recent performances for the USMNT that aren't up to my standards. My job now is to work hard to be the very best I can be. I feel great about this week's Champions League performance and my recent play with Wolfsburg and will keep building on my performances there

until I reach my goal of helping the USMNT reach the next World Cup. So that's his statement. Pretty classy. He also, you know, a little bit of a, he was careful to put in there that he's playing well in the champions. Right. He definitely defended his form, right? He's saying, I'm not a bad. I haven't been a train wreck, you guys.

I don't, I'm not sure how to feel about this. I mean, I would, I think very clearly I would prefer Brooks to be in like every camp. He does have his deficiencies, though. And we've talked about those on the podcast. I don't think there as, I mean, I'd take him over. McKenzie 10 times out of 10, though. I guess that's how I feel about it. Right. And so there's the angle that he's not necessarily beat out for a spot by McKenzie,

right? There's, I think a legitimate angle that says, okay, if he's not in the plan to start these games, then John Brooks isn't a guy you travel if you don't have to. And that's been the case for all of his national team career as far as I can remember almost like anecdotally. I'm worried now someone's going to prove me wrong. But I feel like there are a lot, a lot of windows. even World Cup qualifying windows where John Brooks would fly in, play a game,

and then fly home without playing the second game of a window because it's like, okay, we got one game out of him. We never intended to play in both games and if we're not going to keep him around, like let's just get him back.

There's no reason to, you know, he's falling apart all the time. Let's just keep him wrapped and bubble wrap and off he goes. So it doesn't have to be that literally John Brooks is the fifth choice centerback, right? No, it can't be that.

I mean, it's a, it's a complicated thing. Like he, Wachia and I talked about this on the Monday review. I was watching him over the weekend, watching a little bit of that Wolfsburg game where they beat, they beat Leverkusen, right? And that's a big win for their new coach. But there was a moment in like the 21st minute where Brooks, you know, Brooks was in a three-man centerback formation

and he was rambling up through the left channel with the ball at his feet, you know, dribbling by some people and kind of uncharacteristic. but he's got the quality to do that kind of thing. And then there's a counterattack, and he's running back. And it's, we talked about this at length on Monday, but he,

it was almost like nobody on the team expects him to get back in a situation like that. Like, he didn't get back. Alario was running free in the box. And after the, the ball was not squared to Alario, the striker for Leverkusen,

he, uh, Brooks gets like a pat on the back of the head from the goalkeeper as if, like, everything's great, you know? everybody's done what they can do here and a simple square pass to a Lario and it's one zero at that point and I so they're clearly

they're comfortable with you know Brooks the limitations that Brooks has physically at Wolfsburg they understand what they have and they're comfortable with it. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that in like these upcoming World Cup qualifiers that's not to say he's not as good as Mark McKenzie

or that it's right that he's not on this roster. I'm just trying to acknowledge that there is there are some complexities to this situation, I guess. I'm happy to grant that. I just think that, and I think we talked about this maybe in the TSS crossover, that I think any discussion of his like dip in form is massively overstated because I don't think anything we saw those negative plays in the other, in the first window in September are like,

it's new information on John Brooks. This is who he is. He will get beat sometimes in wide open space. and you work to protect him from those scenarios. But the plus side is you have an excellent distributor out of the back. He's dominant in the air. He has a ton of pluses. So if you want to say Chris Richards has simply out surpassed him,

I feel like that's a huge leap. We saw Richards for one match in World Cup qualifying, and he was fine. I mean, I don't think there was anything that Richards did that jumped off the page. So, and I'm a big Chris Richards guy. I think he has a tremendous upside and could be, you know, like the centerback of the future. But right now, it just seems crazy to me to be like, all right, John Brooks, surplus to requirement.

Like that seems total galaxy brain stuff. Yeah. Especially, you know, against Mexico, especially without dest. So Mexico is going to, you know, of course going to play with the high press. They're going to be hard to play through. They're going to test our composure and quality. especially of the back four. So now we don't have Dest,

who is so good in that. He's so well suited for that role of passing through a press or possessing through a press. And we won't have him. And now we won't have Brooks either, who is our best passing centerback by a wide margin.

So yeah, a galaxy brain or whatever kind of brain you want to call it. It's a little troubling. Well, I mean, we'll see. Like, again, maybe Chris Richard steps up and we don't need, like we will get through it without having needed John Brooks. There, again, there's just also contingencies that we are now, you know, removing from our, from our locker as far as, you know, any of those guys,

either of those two guys getting injured. When I say two guys, I guess Chris Richards, Miles Robinson is the other presumed starter. Do you think that's what it's going to be? We'll talk about it, I guess. Let's talk about it later. But you definitely now don't have the option of Brooks in camp. Yeah. It seems like a, it just seems crazy.

to me. Yeah. Well, it's just to be clear, it's Miles Robinson, Chris Richards, Walker Zimmerman, and Mark McKenzie as the four centerbacks. Just because you read it off wrong as a bit earlier. So I just want to make sure people know. The defensive midfielders, I guess we call him the sixes, Tyler Adams and Kellan Acosta. No surprise there, I don't think. It doesn't feel like any to me. Like there was, there's always a question of whether James Sands has done enough, but he doesn't really play. central midfielder for New York City. I don't know who else would be in contention other than Bozio getting some looks. Yeah, Sanz has been playing some right back for NYCFC, right? He's versatile.

Tyler Adams, notably, and D'And D'Andre Edlin, we skipped us, on a yellow card. And Mexico is a game that you should expect the U.S. to get a handful of yellow cards, and he plays a position with a high yellow card frequency. so that's another thing to sort of keep in mind as we think about this roster construction. Yeah.

So speaking of yellow cards, let's talk about that a little bit more with the rest of the midfield. The eights, the center midfielers, are West McKinney, Eunice Musa, Jin Luca Busio, and Sebastian Leget. A notable omission here is Luca Deletore, who was in the last camp

and got a little cameo. I think a lot of us were excited to see more from him. he is not going to we are not going to see more from him at least not in this window and the yellow card accumulation situation is mckenny and adams are both on a yellow card so if either of them like god forbid both of them get a yellow card against mexico which is totally possible uh we're looking at uh sebastian legett kellen acosta midfield again like we had against panama in that sort of disastrous performance in the last window so there's a contingency contingency plan lack, if you will.

I mean, it feels like something where the read here has to be right, that Burrhalter simply trusts Acosta and Leget had a one-off poor performance, right? Like, that's the only way to read it, is that that is not indicative of how they're going to play, that they will fix the issues in camp that plagued them through Panama, and it will be a better performance. Because if that's not the case, you simply want to. wouldn't bet on that, on, on, on those players. You just, you would absolutely not carry those as guys you could very realistically

need to use in World Cup qualifying matches. Yeah, I just look at it. He's just ride or die with those guys, man. They're his guys and they're, they're, they're going to be with us throughout the qualifying campaign. Which, I mean, Acosta, I think they're in different situations. Acosta had, in my opinion, the draw. off from his usual performance to how he played against Panama was much steeper than the drop

off that we saw from Leggett. Leggett was already not playing well, I don't think. And in half spaces, the half spaces account on Twitter, Ben Harold has like this chart that he trots out of Roldon's performances. I have to admit, I don't even know what it's charting, but I trust Ben to be sort of a reasonable person. So, and it shows like a downward trend line over the last two years. I saw you were commenting on it earlier today, too.

Yeah, because I was going to talk about it too here in that, in that, like, I genuinely think we have seen a complete change in how Legette plays over the last seven or eight months. I don't think it's like he has always been bad. There are some players who have gotten a long leash that I thought were never particularly effective, remained ineffective, and then eventually like there was just a tipping point where they got dropped. Legette started out as effective. Like you can go back to a 2019 pod, I'm sure of ours, most likely after the Canada win, where we talk about him and we probably are glowing in glowing terms because we went through all of 2019. It's this like,

deliberate plotting possession team, and he wasn't really a part of it. And then he would come in off the bench after 60 minutes. And it was like, all right, enough of this nonsense. Like the goals that way, fellas, let's go. And that was him. Like, he was doing that. That was a, he was a breath of fresh air. Yeah, it was, it was electric at times. And that it just is absolutely not the player he is right now for the U.S. So if we're counting on him to be that, then we, again, we just have to pray that we turn him back into that player. And I don't know if that's possible. I don't know if we'll see it. I don't know if he'll even get on the field in this window. But it's definitely, there's been a steady decline in his effectiveness. And it feels like

even his willingness to try to do those things. In direct contrast to what we see Luca Tela Tore doing every week. And if I'm going to throw this in here, what Dwayne Holmes has been doing the last few weeks as well. Yeah. I mean, I know it's all a joke. Everybody thinks it's a joke. But you're serious. Like Holmes could be useful for this national team. 100% would like give you that progressive mindset. The same thing Musa comes in and does. I don't think Holmes does it on that level, of course, but like it's like a mindset. We need this mindset of like, hey, we have to go this way. We've got to put, we've got to make this defense, make some decisions. Like, let's go. And we have to have some of those guys in the

midfield. I'm actually really curious to see Busio what he'll look like. Burralter in the press conference said Boozio is pushing for a starting spot. which I think is good enough to say that he is the third choice eight at worst going into camp. But he's a completely different type of player. He is not going to run at you, right? He's not a physically imposing player the way Musa is, the way Dwayne Holmes is. Luca Dela Tore isn't physically imposing, but he's like, he generates momentum with the ball at his feet going forward. He does.

In a way that Bousio does not. Right. So Buzio is going to be very much more like the string polar, which is also valuable, but it's going to be a different kind of a thing. and I'm interested to see how that's going to work in Concaf. Yeah. Moussio is more of a weaver of tapestries than the others. I was going to say, when you said Holmes is a little bit like Moussa, it's like Musa's like a posh Holmes.

And Holmes is kind of, you know, just a scrappy guy from the Midlands compared to Moussa. That's fair. I think that's fair. Is Mousa born in London? No, he's born in New York, right? Oh, yeah. Born in New York, but very much a London guy. right should we okay and then mckenny i mean obviously mckenny's obviously uh a lock in this and i think

it's it bears mentioning that he has we we've been talking about the word fungible on the podcast lately and he is very very non fungible i think the panama game the panama panama panama proved that when he didn't play the canada game proved that when he didn't play so the the canama panada games um and and and then the first half of honduras and he his ability to push the game and is so valuable to this national team. And he's playing well for Juventus too, even though that club is struggling mightily by their standards. Yeah, I just saw, I just saw one of Cranks' comps. And I don't know if it was the Champions League game or the weekend game, but he just looked like he was having fun out there. Like, he is in control

all the time. And I know that's a bit of a contradiction because we also know of him is a bit sloppy at times. But even, even in those sloppy moments, like the body language just exudes confidence. Yeah, yeah. Scoring goals too. Scoring with his head, scoring from the top of the box with his right foot. He's coming into this window in good form.

Sorry, my apologies, Greg. He's in good form. All right. The half-space merchants, the wingers on this roster are who, Greg? So we've got Pulisic in from injury. We'll see what his output is this weekend in minutes if he plays for Chelsea. He came off.

the bench for what 15 minutes in the Champions League game against Malmo. Yep. Yeah. I thought he looked good too. So it's good news. It's good news that we have him. Even if, you know, people are saying, well, we have, Aronson's been doing so well that that's, you know, we're fine anyway.

And that might be true. But like, it's going to be much, much better. Even if Aronson starts and goes 60 minutes, at the end of a game, if you, if you're looking for that solution to have Christian Pulisic go on the field for the last 30. rather than maybe some of the other choices that we usually have. So we have Pulisic, we have Brennan Aronson, we have Tim Wea, Paul Ariola, and I'm Willis Christian Rodon here because as far as I know, he hasn't played center mid for the U.S. in World Cup qualifying yet, but he's played on the wing.

Yeah, is that true? Okay, sure. Yeah, I was going to say, I think Pulisic and Aronson either off the bench for the other is a promising proposition, you know. Right. And that's kind of what I mean. So even if Berlter did this last window saying they thought of Aronson and Arroyola as one player for the Panama game. But like if you think of Pulisick and Aronson as one player, they will get those two guys between them will get you through a wing spot through a match. And it's, again, that's huge to have that level of talent to be able to bring in for that level of talent.

Yeah. And then we have, of course, I think playing pretty well for Leo right now. The forwards are Ricardo Pepe and Jesus Ferreira. Ferreira's a little bit of a surprise, I think. But he's been playing extremely well for Dallas. In a role that I don't think exists for our national team, is that fair to say? I'll disagree a little bit. There might not be an exact analog, but I think it exists enough.

I just don't think it's the striker role, the way we play it when he's not in the game, when it hasn't been Frera. Frera has, I think, two caps for Burrhalter, both January camps, and he played like the nine, and he played it pretty differently from what the other nine's played it. But as far as his FC Dallas role, I think you could easily throw him in on either of the winger spots and he could do almost all the same things.

I think Aronson's actually kind of a good example of it for what he did last window where he just had sort of freedom to go everywhere. He was a left winger, but he would go wherever he wanted to to get on the ball, to combine.

And I think, like, Ferreira would basically just have it play it the same way. Okay, yeah. But in the press conference. What did he say in the press conference? Burralter said they think of Jesus as a nine for them. So I'm not saying that's worrying.

I just mean it's not the position that fits what he does at Dallas. And the other thing that kind of throws a wrinkle at it is he's the only other forward we brought on the roster. And he would completely change how you play it. So it's not like, okay, we're going to give Pepey arrest. Let's just bring in someone and keep everything else the same. If you're going to bring Ferreira in, you will have to make a lot of change. changes around him, I think. Would you want more, you want more like Wea and Areola on the wings to run in behind?

Or I guess Pulisic can do that just fine too. I think any of them can do it. I just think it's like a strategy change. Like it's a huge tactical change. So you don't leave yourself the option of just keeping your tactics the same. Whereas like, in my mind, if you just brought a third striker, even if you don't love your options, you at least have a like for like. And he might think of Tim Wea as that.

He referred to Wei as another guy who could Burrhalter referred to Wea as another guy who could play a striker if needed. So maybe he's the like-for-like change if we're going to go that route. But that also seems like a reach. We've never seen Wea play the nine for the U.S. Yeah, right. Yeah, and it's in the snubs in the striker position. I mean, I guess you'd call him semi-snubs would be Josh Sergeant, Jordan Pfock, and D.K., who's scored a lot of goals for Orlando City lately.

Matthew Hoppe and Conrad Delafonte also not on this roster. Hoppe's not playing much at Mallorca. Not playing at all, actually, currently at Mallorca. And Conrad is playing for Olympic Marseille, but I guess he's considered surplus to requirements. And I'm not sure I disagree, really, on that. No, I haven't been broken up about it either. Conrad strikes me as somebody who routinely looks like he's about to be

dangerous, but then doesn't actually do the dangerous thing. Yeah, that was kind of the knock on him back with the U-20s a little bit, too. Okay, so we only have one pure striker, though, on the roster. It seems a little weird, but... That's where it feels really cute, right? And again, just to give yourself the option, just sort of another roster note in roster dynamics here. We did find out as far as game day match roster and like how many guys you can dress

on the goalkeeper front, they did change the rule back in October of 2020. So right as teams were coming back from the pandemic pause, and I'm guessing related to that, you actually only have to designate one player as a goalkeeper. And that, again, that's probably because if you had your 23 going into a game day and then your backup goalkeeper tested positive for COVID and couldn't play, that would actually require you to take a field player and put him as a backup goalkeeper spot, even though he would be fine as a field player

and then not be able to play on the field. Does that make sense? That L-SAT problem? So my guess is that's sort of the rationale for scuttling it, the three goalkeeper requirement. So you only have to have one. Obviously, you're going to carry two for injury, but on game days, we should never have three goalkeepers

for a one-off match-day roster. You should use that extra spot for a, another field player. And that's where it takes me back full circle to the forward discussion. It really seems like we should have three forwards available to give yourself more flexibility in the kind of forward change you want to make. Yeah. Does any of those three in particular break you up that they're not there, Sergeant Pfeffer or D.K.?

Because Zardis has obviously hurt. Zard has hurt. None of the three in particular break me up. What I kind of expected or was hoping to see was Pepey. And then one of Ferreira or Sargent as sort of the one style of striker. And then one of DK or Pfok as sort of the other guy in the like end of game where you need to really like get on the end of a cross or you're playing more direct. And so that's kind of what I was hoping to see. Yeah, we don't have.

We definitely do not have that option. I mean, Waya is not that kind of player really. No, Wayo will be much more like a Sergeant Ferreira type in my mind. But that's also speculation. We haven't seen him play striker for us before. Yeah, he's physically, he's not, he's no, you know, he's no wallflower, but he's not, I don't think, I don't think he's going to be like backing somebody down and like winning the ball and then at the same, in the same way that Pfeffer, D.K. could.

Okay, what else? What else should we get into here? How are we going to, how are we going to look for this Mexico? go game. Yeah. Well, first, do you have any other, like, broad stroke thoughts on the group? A lot of good players in this group, right? Yeah.

No, I mean, I'm happy to see a lot of them. My big problem is, I mean, we're just, we're talking about the striker situation. That doesn't bother me as much as the, as the possibility of a Legette Acosta midfield in that second game. I think that's, that could be really bad. But then again, you know, maybe Legette turns it. around. Who knows? And Acosta, like I was trying to say earlier, I think Acosta is a pretty good national team player. I think he did have an uncharacteristically poor game against Panama, and I would

expect him to play better in this window. I'm not so sure I feel that way about Lichette. Kind of just another Acosta note, too. He's missed the last two Colorado games with a little injury. So he's, he, Reggie Cannon left the last Boe Vista game with an injury. By the way, I'm just calling it Boe Vista because I heard you say it. I have no idea. Is that how you say it? I only say it that way because Taylor, Taylor Rockwell says it that way. Okay. Well, that's how we say it now. I've never been to Portugal.

I have to double check to make sure that I'm right about Acosta being out, but I'm pretty sure he's missed a couple of games now for Colorado. So, I mean, even if he is sort of your backup six in your mind, like if Adams gets that yellow card, we don't have a backup back up, backup six, and Acosta's going into the camp injured, it's worrying days there. there are four days between the two games which is one day more than we've had in the last two windows between games so I think there's a decent chance Barthalter just goes like

with the same 11 maybe maybe make two one or two changes for both games you know definitely definitely no reason to rotate for recovery I don't think it's it's gonna be all about matchups but I just mean as far as actual bodies if Adams is suspended for Jamaica for some for a yellow against Mexico. We're relying solely on Acosta and again, he's coming into camp with a knock. So I guess James Dan's be on standby. Maybe, yeah. A D.K. might be on standby at Stryker.

He's not too far away from Jamaica. Maybe we'll see Walker Zimmerman at the 6th. Walker Zimmerman's actually our other target forward. If we need to throw in the target forward, I would be like, oh, I guess it's going to be Walker because it's not going to be Ferreira. Yeah. So let's talk about this lineup against Mexico. How would you line it up?

I think we'll agree to agree that it should be Turner and goal. That's still where I stand. You know, kind of the other thing about desk being out, for as much as Stefan does have a real advantage on Turner with his ability to play the ball with his feet, that advantage gets reduced in value, sort of the worse your players are that you're hitting the ball out to. So when you're hitting it out to Dest, that's great. You can float a ball out to Dest and he can under pressure collect it and play. If you're floating a ball out to DeAndre Yedlin, that's like not really a thing you want to be doing.

So Stefan loses some of his value with Dest being out, in my opinion. But either way, I think against Mexico, Mexico are going to get shots off. I want Matt Turner in their stopping shots. Yeah. Okay. Well, so we also agree it should be Anthony Robinson at left back in Cincinnati. Who do you want it right back? This is a really tough one, and I'm going to take the cowards way out,

and I'm going to put DeAndre Yedlin there. I coward. It's tough, man. I know Scali's done it against Byron Munich, and he's been doing it in the Bundesliga. Mexico's Mexico. They're going to be coming at us in waves. I don't know. I'm just not ready to do it.

I really wish Joe Scali would have been in October. camp so that this wouldn't be throwing him to the wolves. Like, we're throwing him to the wolves in this game if we play him, because we didn't integrate him last camp in maybe some more favorable conditions. Why wouldn't he be able to handle it, though? I mean, I know Mexico's Mexico. They'll be coming in waves. I mean, George Bello played left back against Mexico in the Gold Cup final and looked okay.

Surely Scali can look okay. He could. He absolutely could do it. And it wouldn't, like, be a huge surprise. It would be, I would actually be a little bit surprised. again, even a, I don't expect Sergenio Dest or DeAndre Yedlin to get through a game against Mexico unscath. Like, they're going to make mistakes.

So I guess from that side, yeah, he should play. And then we shouldn't be super hard on him if he's not flawless because against Mexico, none of our fullbacks are going to be flawless. No. And I think, I guess the thing that's really tantalizing for me about Scali at right back in this game is that he can play with the ball at his feet in a way Yedlin cannot do. And I think in a way, Canon isn't quite able to do either.

Like a, he's a protagonist with the ball at his feet, not on the same level as Sergenio Dest, of course, but if there's a continuum of protagonist, he's closer to Dest than he is to DeAndre Yedlin. All right. And Canon somewhere in between Scali and Yedlin? Yeah, I would say so.

Okay. We'll work up a chart. We'll work up a chart. But really, Pick one of these guys out of a hat. Scali Edlin or Cannon. I think it'll be Yedlin because I think it's going to be, I think Burrhalter might set us up more for the street fight side of things.

And Yedlin's my street fighter. Has been the whole campaign. Yep. He's the bag man. He's on a yellow. You said that already, right? He's on a yellow. But that won't.

If we just need him for the Mexico game, that's enough. Even if he gets a yellow, that's okay. Yeah, it's not going to break us if Yedlin's only available for one. Again, you might not at playing either. Maybe it'll be canon and both. I don't know. But I don't feel strongly about it. That's my six-minute answer.

How about at centerback? Who you got? Well, I'm going with Richards and Miles. I think Richards is just a better centerback than neither Zimmerman or McKenzie. So that's what I'm doing. Yeah, same here. I do feel, I mean, I don't feel it all conflicted

about the Richards-McKenzie comparison. I do feel a little bit about Zimmerman that, you know, his, his threat on set pieces. I mean, he just scored a goal last week on a set piece. He's got an assist on a set piece. Is a real thing that we don't. And Richards is not as good in the air as Zimmerman, as we've talked about at some length on this podcast. So there's that. But I agree, Richard's, he's more comfortable with the ball at his feet and, you know,

probably a little more mobile than Zimmerman. I don't know. I think we could see a Zimmerman Robinson. We could see an MLS special back there at centerback against Mexico. Yeah, that wouldn't be shocked. That wouldn't surprise me either. I think I could see that coin toss. I could see the value Zimmerman ads.

I don't think Zimmerman would get through a game against Mexico unscathed either. But I also don't know about Richards because we have so little data on him in the national team. So I think my tendency to lean towards Richards is just based on the fact that he is doing it against really good players every week. No disrespect to actually Cincinnati and Walker Zerman's goals. But it's a little bit different of a game there. Fair enough. Fair a lot. A lot fair.

Let's see. At the 6th, it's got to be Tyler Adams. I don't think we even need to discuss it, right? The whole midfield, right? I know Berlter's saying Bousio's pushing for a starting spot, but again. Pushing what? Pushing who? Against Mexico.

He could be pushing for a starting spot against Jamaica. Like that could actually be, Berlter could be totally like, oh, I kind of have an idea that Buzio will start against Jamaica. And I could see that. Against Mexico, I think you have to go Adams-McKennie Moussa and be, because you're going to get hit in the mouth and you need to hit them in the mouth. So that's what I'm really expecting to see.

I'm excited to see it too because I don't think we've gotten that we haven't gotten to see that midfield against Mexico yet Musa didn't play in Nations League and Adams came in off the bench yeah right right Real quick on Musa just because I love our

because we were the youth soccer podcast forever I think Musa's an awesome test case for our whole rationale that like you have to be trying these kids out because some of them might be better than established options Eunice Musa is interesting because he has done like nothing at the club level

that would justify a call-up like there was sort of that whole faction that was like they've got to earn it at the club you can't just give guys free pass he's like I think he's played a hundred minutes in October for his club he still plays mostly on the wing his FBREF chart has not changed at all

he's like by far the worst winger in La Liga and I'm not even like knocking on that chart like that's a very again it's a really accurate reflection of what Musa is in La Liga playing where he plays. But because we gave him a runout and because he impressed,

like, now he's probably considered like a nailed on starter. And it just goes to like, there are some of these kids who are going to be ahead of their club schedule with the national team. Yeah, I mean, he just seems so much better suited for the role he has with the U.S. than he is

for the role he has with Valencia. as a box-to-box midfielder, you know. And it might just be that he can feast on, like, weaker competition and just, like, even though he's 19 now, is he 19? He was grown manning these Jamaican players, and that's just like, I don't know if he, maybe you can't do that in La Liga, but it's been fun to watch for us. It's a really good fit, because, you know, he is, he does get those reds, upset Valencia out on the right wing.

So he's sort of comfortable in that vicinity for the national team. And oftentimes he is combining with our right winger in the right channel. And yeah. Do you think Mexico's going to mark McKinney on set pieces this time? I hope not. I hope they go full zone. No one on the post or just one guy on the post to keep us on side. And I don't know.

I have no idea what they're going to do. I would assume Tata's taking some notes on it. Yeah. All right. And then the front three, who you got? So I'm starting Aronson, Pepe, and Wea. Okay. How about you?

I'm again, cowardly with Pulisic. I'm not ready to throw him in against Mexico for a ton of time when he hasn't, doesn't have a ton of minutes. So I know he went straight into Canada after not playing for a month with COVID. But this, I don't know, it feels different to me. Well, I guess it depends. You know, if he gets a start for. Chelsea this weekend, then maybe I'd be okay with starting him. Yeah, I kind of want to start

him against Mexico and bring Erinson off the bench. So it's way a peppy Pulisic for me. You know, if he's, I won't be mad if it's Aronson who starts in Pulisic who comes off the bench. But, you know, you know Christian Pulisic is going to want to start that game and make his mark. And he is a better player than Brennan Aronson. So for the national team, I think my John Brooks outrage tweet was calling attention to the fact that Pulcic has also been ineffective and in poor form for the national team. Yeah, I mean, I just, no, he's not been a better player for the national team. Pulisic hasn't, but we know what he has. We know what's, what kind of ammo he's carrying.

So I'm hopeful that he will turn it around. And then what do you give the chances of Waya starting with, if it's Aronson, if that's, Pool six on the bench. Is it going to be Waya or is it going to be Ariola? Because Ariola was the starter for all three on paper last window. Yeah. I think there's a decent chance Burhalter will start Ariola. And if he does, a 100% chance that I will be frustrated by that.

Wea, yeah, Waya does a lot of good stuff. I know you're like Waya's number one fan. Huge Wea fan. Huge Ferreira fan. This is, this would be an, amazing camp for me, a roster for me, but for this John Brooks O mission. Yeah. And again, the upside is we can, to move away from the way, Ariola conversation, the upside

is maybe Chris Richards just goes lights out, or maybe, I guess maybe Walker Zimmerman does. But it just, it feels like we're really taking a leap of faith on it for Mexico. Yeah. Or maybe Bells, maybe Burrhalder's done the same election matter. that I have and he's like Mexico's free money it doesn't matter guys go out and have some fun with it yeah I doubt I mean I doubt that I doubt he's thinking about it that way maybe he just up until up until like up until and through the game in Columbus against Costa Rica he believed ariola gives us a better chance of winning than Tim Waye which is you know

I don't want to be too negative but it's just a weird way to think about it Like what? I know. And Ariel gets the credit he deserves for working really hard because he does do that. It's just not a distinguishing characteristic for me when you're comparing him to Tim Wea, who also works super hard on defense, covers a ton of ground. Wea was cooking against Costa Rica. He was in that Man City zone repeatedly.

Just didn't quite, well, he did basically score a goal. So there's that. Yeah, and I'm sure it will be Yedlin or Cannon instead of Scali against Mexico. I think it could be either of them. But I guess that question of like, do we want, do we want to, are we going into this for the street fight? Or are we going to really try to play through Mexico? I guess we'll find out what Berhalter wants to do when we see who the right back is. Yeah, and my last note on that is going to be, if you don't want to do the street fight angle,

I feel like you need to throw a whole team out there that's going to be able to, to possess through. Like you can't, you can't go halfway and then try to possess through, you know what I mean? So like, uh,

once we lose desk, it's almost like, okay, we got to, we got to turn into a street fight. So Yedlin's in, uh, everywhere else on the roster,

street fight. Like we're not, we're not faffing about here. What a great word. Faffin about. Um, a few, a little bit of housekeeping. Uh,

thank you to all our patrons. We've really appreciated. If you have ever thought about becoming a patron, check it out, check out, check out the link in the show. Show notes, it's pretty easy, and you can join the Discord. The Discord is great, by the way.

You can go from, like, arguing with someone about Josh Sargent, with just withering takes thrown at each other. And then one channel over, like, somebody's letting me know about the feature on my minivan that I've been driving for two years that I never knew about. And it's totally changed my life. Is that, that's a real thing? Yes, I had no idea what Android Auto is. And then people are talking about it, and somebody said they wouldn't be able to live without.

it and I'm like, I don't know what this is. And then I look it up and my minivan has it. Wow, pretty cool. Yeah, there's all kinds of, there's a, there's been a proliferation of channels and various topics. It's not all soccer related, although that is definitely the focus. The other thing is, I'm going to be in Cincinnati next Friday for the, for the game, and we are still working out the details of our tailgate.

A lot of people, sometimes people DM me on Twitter about this. We're very much planning to do a tailgate. we're working with St. Joseph Catholic Church on like their school closure time and when we might be able to set up in a corner of their parking lot. But I'm fairly certain we're going to have a tailgate and there are going to be a lot of people there and it'll probably be a fundraiser for the food pantry at the church.

Oh, nice. As well. So, you know, stay tuned. And as soon as everything's confirmed, I'll put that out there. But we're hoping to see a lot of people in Cincinnati. and then see Ricardo Pepe's score hat trick against Mexico. What's the, I know you're not going to do Skyline.

Yes, definitely yes to the hat trick. I know you guys aren't going to do Skyline, I'm just assuming, but you did hot chicken in Nashville. What are you going to do for food at the Cincinnati Tailgate? You don't have to make any promises. What foods would you do for Cincinnati Tailgate? Well, there's been talk of smoked pork butt. Okay.

And that's not actually, for those of you who don't know a lot about meat, not actually the butt. Well, maybe it is. It's pork shoulder, right? I don't know. I don't know. It's really good. Pulled pork is delicious.

So that's in the offing in hot dogs and brats, of course, and lots of beer. Okay. All right. That sounds like a great time. Yeah, should be. If you want to make a last second trip, Greg, come on over. I might be able to. Mexico, man.

It's going to be intense. Like for all my, for all my Elo election math, like that, That will absolutely go out the window and it will be just such an edgy, nervous affair. Like going back to the Nation's League games and the Gold Cup games, while those games were super intense and it was awesome that we won them, they simply also don't have the same stakes as a World Cup qualifier. Yeah. I'm sort of terrified and ecstatic at the same time.

It's a wonderful place to be. Anything else we should cover? No, let's save it for our celebrations after, postgame celebrations. Yep. All right. Thanks, Greg. Thanks, everybody for listening. We'll see you.