Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #228: The December camp roster

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

Quick reaction from Greg and Belz on the 26 players called up for Camp Candy Cane, including the apparent lack of experimentation in midfield. Greg also goes on a rant about St. Paul as a location for a February qualifier.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/drop us a question at this link and we’ll try to answer it: https://forms.gle/vEatDVE6wsMzekep8 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. It's Friday. Earlier today, Greg Burhalter announced a 26-man roster for a December camp in the Los Angeles area, which will be capped off on December 18 with a friendly against Bosnia and Herzegovina. What's up? Bells, what's happening? Hey, did Greg Burrhalter actually announce it? Did he like, did he, did he already had like a press conference or something? He did have a press conference. Yeah. I missed that. There were some quotes that trickled out, particularly about the one I saw the most, get the most traction was D.K. was left off just because he's banged up and needs a rest.

Well, in any event, I'm like imagining now all rosters should actually be Greg Burhalter, like standing up in isolation, just reading names aloud one by one. Yeah, just on a little wooden box in some town square. Right, like just to add that amount of gravity. And then the players have to stand up and walk to the front. Kind of just like a cat, like, like you're about to draw lots. Yep, yeah. Bit of a game of a throne or not, not getting a thrones, a hunger game.

Hunger games, yeah. Or what was, what's that short story you have to read when you're a kid? That's what I was thinking of. The one with Salem's a lot. Is that what it's called? I don't know. It was, all right. It was horrific.

It was horrible. All right. So this isn't as bleak as that. No. Less bleak. We're just going to give a quick reaction to the roster and then head off for the weekend. it's a mix of regulars for the U.S. men's national team and then some young guys. Let's run through the list. Why don't you do it, Greg?

Okay. So at Goalkeeper, and there's a bit of light editorializing here via the order that I'm going to read the names. At Goalkeeper, we have Turner, Sloanina and Polskamp. I think, you know, very speculative call-ups with Sloanina and Polskamp, more so with Polskamp, who got a few games at Kansas City. So-Nina won the starting job at Chicago, what, midway through the season, which is awesome for a kid his age to be doing. How old is he now? I think he's in 04, so probably 17. Signed, I think signed for Chicago at age 14.

Really cool. Obviously, Matt Turner is the incumbent in this camp. Yep. What about fullbacks? Fullbacks, we've got Paredes, Reynolds, which is cool. Reynolds coming over from Roma in season cool. and not cool depending on that. Pretty not cool.

Pretty significant portion of not cool there. What roller coaster for him. So just, I'll run through the names and I'll come right back to Reynolds. Jonathan Gomez from Louisville SC, whose season, I believe, is over, but we'll be joining Real Sociedad in January in La Liga. So that's also pretty cool.

George Bello, Brooks Lennon, and then I kind of have Justin Chey as maybe a right back. I don't know where he's going to fit in this group. Yeah, I think. I hope he fits in as a centerback somehow, but yeah. Mostly been playing right back for Dallas when he plays. Going back to the Brian Reynolds thing, like total roller coaster of Reggie Cannon being sold early last season,

Reynolds coming in and like immediately fitting into MLS and looking good, very good at times. Yeah. Huge drawn-out transfer saga. Finally gets where he's going. there, Roma's coach is canned, and in comes Josie Marino, who does not, I don't know if he would have played under the old coach either, but has not been enjoying the new regime at Roma, and now he's coming back for a camp during the season. So just nothing of what you would have expected for,

I don't think anything that has happened to Brian Reynolds, anyone has expected at any point. No, it's been, it was a huge surprise when he started playing so well, I thought, for Dallas, because I, you know, I had seen him with the youth national teams a few times as a forward and as a winger and just thought, well, I don't put that much hope in his future contributions to the national team. And then I, like you said, I don't know that he would be playing no matter who the manager is at Roma right now. But I guess Marino doesn't, ensures that he's on the bench. Anyway, it's going to be cool to see him in this camp because, again, we don't really know what his level is. His level when he was at MLS was pretty good, and he's still that player, or potentially still that player. So he could come in and, like, very much be good enough to start at right back in a December camp roster. I hope he does.

I mean, because the other option would be Brooks Lennon, right? I guess, I guess Shea would be the other option, but I'd rather Reynolds get the start than Shea at this point. All right. Go ahead. And we'll run through all the various omissions by position after we get through this roster. But that's the fullback list. Centerbacks, we've got Walker Zimmerman. We've got Aaron Long, who hasn't played since he did his Achilles seven months ago, eight months ago.

Something like that. Henry Kessler, Austin Trustee, who's a left centerback. And then Kobe Henry, and tell me what you know about Kobe Anri. I'm going to pronounce his last name various ways. Okay. He's a centerback very much. And I thought he was pretty good for the U-20s in Revelations Cup. Last month, Matt Hartman and I recorded something about that late last night.

And I just published it this morning. But Hartman doesn't agree that there's that much positive to say about Kobe. But I, you know, I said what I said. I think he's promising. He looked like a pretty solid defender with some ability to distribute. Is he, you know, does he look like he's on a trajectory? to displace any of the centerbacks we have in our pool right now before 2022. No, he does not.

All right. Well, I appreciate your long-term optimism then. Your cautious long-term optimism. Defense of midfielers, this is where we get a little bit, a little bit, what would we call this? A little bit crisis. And we've got Acosta, Eul and Cardoso, as what I'm considering our defensive midfield pool here. Yeah.

Acosta, like, very much still in the. picture for the senior team, neither Ewell nor Cardoso inspiring much like excitement, at least for me. For me either. I mean, Cardoso could come in and look like a totally different player than he did in Olympic qualifying, but if he's the same player, he was an Olympic qualifying. Yeah, no excitement for me. Right. In Olympic qualifying, he might have been our worst player, well behind Jackson Ewell. And then Jackson Ewell has been totally unplayable with the senior team since then. So this is one of those, hopefully the transitive property is not still in effect here, or hopefully they have both made huge leaps.

Have you been watching any of Cardoso? Uh-uh. Have you? I've been catching some of his, I've been kind of Y-scouting him a little bit, and basically what I'd say is he still looks identical to how he Y-scouted prior to the Olympic qualifying fiasco, which is just like, I don't know what he's,

you don't see anything on the tape that is anything. Like it's very much just him sitting deep, mostly him sitting deep, sometimes on the same line as the centerbacks. collecting it under no pressure, moving it in an unambitious way. And it's just like, okay, well, he is definitely existing in this soccer game. I don't know how anyone is judging his play at the moment. Yeah. Maybe there's some information out there that we're not aware of.

I don't know. And again, I hope he looks good. I hope he's a kid, right? He was 20 during Olympic qualifying. So there's definitely room for a player like that to take a jump. He's got some shine on him for playing in Brazil, you know, and that's never going to fully go away, probably. All right. So that's our defensive midpool.

Our lone center mid in my mind is Cole Bassett. I don't know. We don't have any other real true eights and no other players list. The other midfielder listed as Christian Raldon, who has only been playing as like a half-space winger for the national team in World Cup qualifying and mostly in the Gold Cup as well. So I'm reluctant still to call him a center midfielder. So I don't know. This is the one spot in the roster that just doesn't really make sense to me. It's my big gripe of a roster that is very inconsequential.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess rolled on as a center mid does make more sense in the context of this roster. But, and that is how he's listed. But, yeah. I don't see Bass. as Bassett to me is like a box arrival slash hustle merchant, you know, and I don't, I don't see him being anywhere near an adequate, you know, depth option behind Musa or McKinney.

Well, my thing is, this is a great chance to call him in to see that, though, right? So, like, I don't think we're going to see that from him either, but this is what this camp is for, right, to bring in a Cole Bassett and to check him out. When we get into Theo missions, you know, I'll talk about some of the times. where I feel like we haven't done this enough and it's hurt us. And so, you know, I have no problem. Certainly with Cole Bassett. I just feel like we went light in this position unnecessarily.

Yeah, well, I'm curious to hear who you think are the omissions in this spot because it does seem a little bit thin, broadly speaking. Who are the half space merchants? So we've got Jordan Morris back, which is pretty cool. I mean, really cool, right? Very. No, I'm excited about that. All right. And I've got Roldon here listed.

as sort of the other senior player who, again, has been doing this role for the senior team in World Cup qualifier. So he's clearly still in the picture. I've got Caden Clark and Taylor Booth and Cade Cowell listed here as well. Yep. And this is work. Go ahead. My thing with Clark, which is related to your point about us being thin at center mid is he does. I mean, in the universe of possibility, it seems like it's possible that he could become.

a full national team contributor over the next 12 months. I'm not saying it's going to happen or even that it's likely, just that it's possible. And if that is possible, we should really be, and he's kind of a tweener.

I mean, I guess he's a has-based manager. He's kind of a midfielder. We should just be grooming him for that number eight job while we have a chance to. And I mean, maybe that maybe, hopefully that's what we're going to do in my mind. It doesn't look like it based on the roster announcement.

What do you know, like, Have you done an analysis on how often the roster announcements are violated? You know what I mean? No, I haven't. I remember, but it's it's most, it mostly holds up. I haven't done, I haven't, I can't give you the numbers. But it mostly holds up. And I know when Poole-Sick was oscillating between forward and midfielder coincided with when he was like playing as a 10 for us and when he finally got switched out to the wing.

But no, I don't know for sure. Clark and Booth both, I think, are in that in that mold of tweener. And again, part of the tweenerness is our, the way we do our formation is kind of set up as like a, the roles are blended. So that makes guys who even if they have a clear role on our team, the way the U.S. sets up, makes them, forces them into sort of a tweener. So Booth and Clark, I think, could both maybe function as center mids, but I'm not sure how they're going to, how they're going to be deployed here. Yeah. Yeah, and let's talk about the forwards real quick.

So we've got Pepe, Ferreira, and Zardez. Pepe and Ferreira both in the last camp. Zardez was injured for the last World Cup qualifying camp, but he seems to be back or is going to be working his way back during this camp. Right. Okay. Omissions. Let's talk about some omissions.

There were some rest omissions. We mentioned D.K. already. Yeah, then you've got Miles Robinson, Paul Areola, and Sebastian Legit, who all again have been on almost every roster that they've been available for for Greg Burrholder. So I think it's safe to call those real like rest omissions whereas with Dke like you don't know for sure

because he's left out of rosters even when he's healthy and fit and in fact he's left out of rosters in favor of some of the guys who are in this camp. So it's not like he's just, you know, there are a bunch of European guys taking his spot that he would have been ahead of for a December domestic camp. Like it's the domestic guys who are actually still ahead of him. So it's hard to know where D.K stands in the scheme of things with Greg Burholder.

Yeah. The quote from him was he's, like I said earlier, he's banged up. He needs rest. Something like that. We've got guys in the playoffs. Well, we should mention, you know, Lijette's been a constant topic of conversation on this pod. We should mention that his like, you know, his sister did die suddenly a few months ago. And this would be his like, this has been the last couple weeks have been his real first chance

for time off this whole season. So it's not hard to imagine him needing a little bit more time over the next couple months. Yeah, absolutely. It's like impossible to imagine doing anything at a high level, you know, like what what it's like to try to keep doing that through some kind of that, through that emotional sort of upheaval and grief. So yeah, absolutely a case of, you know, if this is to help him get better mentally and get his health, you know, of course, like, take whatever, take whatever is necessary to do to make

sure you're right. Yeah. So there's, there's also some, um, some guys still in the playoffs. Yeah. So with New York City advancing over New England, we've got Sean Johnson, James Sands, Tavon Gray, uh, Hulu's looked good at right back, right? Like an interesting, uh, guy filling in for Tinnerholm. Yeah, I don't, I don't feel qualified to say how good he looked, he has looked.

Has he looked good? I think he's looked good Okay I'm okay saying he's looked good All right And Sands You know Sands was subbed off Like right before

Extra time The other night But I I assume he was his usual Sort of reliable self Yeah he got injured in the game I don't know if he's gonna be back For the next game or not

New York City's just Losing guys constantly So they're walking wounded Going into that conference final Okay Salt Lake, we've got Aaron Herrera, who I think would have been a good inclusion in this camp, but obviously not available. And then we've got all the Philly kids who I think I saw that the U.S. had Paxton Aronson lined up to come to this camp, but since they're still alive in the playoffs, he won't be there. I don't know if like Flack or any of the other children would have been in.

The other children being Jack McGlynn, Quinn Sullivan. and I think Aronson's the cream of that crop, to be honest. Seems like it. Yeah, seems like it. And then we've got George Imajolovich, who's not in a playoffs, but he's on a trial in Italy, I think, leaving today. So he's not around to join up. Bologna, yeah.

And then some injured guys are Parks, Keaton Parks and Alan Senora. Is it Sonora or Sonora? Signora. He's got a till day on that end. So, yeah, so those guys are injured. Signora might be back this weekend. He still has a couple of club games left as well. So he would have been joining the camp, like maybe in progress if he could have gone there at all. Which, you know, so that that was just even more doubt cast on him with the recovery from injury.

So not surprising that he's left off. Still just a tough one because I'd like to, I'd really like to see him. But it's so hard for guys like him. And this was the situation Luca de la Torre was in as well. It's hard for those guys to get involved because of their lack of availability. They're not like the MLS guys. You can just pluck for three weeks, sort of whenever you want. Right. To take a look at him. The only time you can get them is when the full team is available, and they're just not, they hadn't been at the level where it's like they forced their way into a look with the full team.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Luke is different now, but that's what it took like that one camp back in March for him to get that shot. And then, and then again, like, now he doesn't have this January, December, winter camps where he's available to come play. so it's hard for him to keep making inroads with the staff. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was just watching, speaking of wasting time on Wisecout, which we were talking about earlier.

I was just watching some, some Deletore clips earlier or last night from the weekend. Man, he looks pretty good. Still looks pretty good. I don't know why he wasn't called into the last camp, but I guess that's beside the point today. What's your next category here of omissions? My next category is the only, like, guys going to like, dang, wish these guys would have been there. Like, I'm kind of pretty disappointed here. And that's Paxton Pomacall, Josh Atensio, and Ullianas.

Yeah. I'm a little more meh on Paul McCall these days just because of, I mean, just because he hasn't looked, I mean, I feel like I've broken record. I've said this like a million times, but I don't think he's looked that good for Dallas. I guess the argument would be that he would look better as an eight for the national team than he would as a winger for Dallas. I think that's the argument and I think it's basically just to like, this is what we need to find. Like this is where we need to be looking at guys specifically is this position of the box-to-box midfielder for the U.S. Yeah. We have so many question marks now after Musa and McKenney that we've got it.

We have to be a little bit more, I think, explored. And what this reminds me of leaving Pamacol off, Atensio, again, I don't actually know what Atensio would have needed to do to get into a camp like this. It seems like a perfect camp for him to be involved in. And it's not like we've already got five eights on the roster, so he'd just be surplus. Like we get into some of the other sort of snubs, if you want to call him that. But like we didn't bring any eights to this camp. Like we didn't bring any.

So it's weird that they could have been here, not taken, not have been like surplus. And we just kind of are like, no, we don't need them. And it feels a little bit like, especially with Pomacol, it feels a little bit like Burrhalter stubbornness creeping in. And it reminds me of like the Eric Williamson stubbornness, where he keeps being left off of rosters and keeps being left off of rosters, finally comes in and looks pretty good, pretty useful right away. And it's like, oh man, we were sitting on that for a long time, not calling it in.

It could have helped us. Like we could have found this out sooner and found a way to incorporate him earlier. And it feels like this is that opportunity with a pomacol or to get a look at Attencio. where there's nobody else in those spots, and we're just kind of leaving it on the table. Berhalter, if you're listening, quit being stubborn. Call up Palm call. Again, I get it. If this is a World Cup qualifying window and he's left off, it's like, okay, that's totally fair.

But this isn't that. This is a no consequences camp. Like, just use it to take a look at some of these players. That's obviously what is happening. So that's my frustration is the lack of eights for a team at desperately needs eight. I know, like, Uli would be great to have two in my mind. I think he's looked pretty good. Granted, he's looked pretty good in the second division in Austria, not a super high level.

But while I like, and they're off, they're on break until like February. So he's available. Yeah, totally available. Schedule-wise, assuming his team would release him, which they wouldn't have to do, even though they're off. But we don't need it. Like, we don't actually need another winger to hit. We are basically, it's almost impossible to even imagine another winger breaking through. when the bar to clear right now is like Brendan Aronson.

So not impossible to imagine, but it is a, it's a tough bar. It's going to be a tough bar for somebody playing in the second division of Austria for sure. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be a tough bar for Jordan Morris to clear. Jordan Morris was playing lights out for the past 20 months before his injury. So, you know, there is stiff competition to get into the U.S. team at that position. And there just feels like there's no real urgency to hit somebody. there. Whereas with the eight, like, we need a guy. We need a couple of guys. Yep. And that doesn't mean that just because we need one, one of them would be good enough.

But again, it just feels like this is where you got to find that out. And even if you're a little skeptical, it seems like Berhalter is just skeptical of Pomacall at the moment. Like, give yourself that chance to be wrong the same way we needed to give ourselves the chance to be wrong about Eric Williamson. Well, when you put it in that context, the dire need for backup eights, I'm all fired up now. I'm fired up. It's dire. I'm fired up. I'm fired up. I'm so mad.

All right. So, and then there's a bunch of kind of omissions that people may mention, but don't get you fired up, I guess, right? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not terrible. And even the other guy, I'm not super bother about it because it's not like they for sure are guys who are going to help us. But again, just like we have the chance to find that out. The other guys, it's like Guzan and Marsankowski,

Bill Hamid and goal. No urgency there again, because we have Matt Turner and Zach St. and pretty much nailed on one too. So, yeah, there's no other needle movers. Fullback, though, there are some interesting ones.

I would have been interested in seeing DeWan Jones in this camp. He looked good in the semi-final against New York City. He's had a good season for the revolution. And left-back is another area where we need guys, but we've got three kids, right?

We've got three very young players in the camp to take a look at. So it's hard to be too fired up about that. He's also a right-footed left-back. So he's not like a real, like a pure left back really. You're doing a no true left back right here, Wells? I mean, is that is that not a thing?

No, that's a fair, that's a fair qualifier. But I'd be happy to see him in a camp. I'm not, I have to admit I'm not that familiar with this game. Yeah, he's super athletic. Like, he covers a ton of space in transition. So that, for me, that like helps. That makes a big deal. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the best things about Anthony.

Right. Kyle Duncan, who's on his way to Europe, might have been available. I don't know if he was going to, if he's leaving early to get to Belgium. He had to Belgium, right? Yeah. Bustende. Yeah. So, but again, it's not like it's urgent to get Kyle Duncan on the field and test him out. Same with James Tolkien, his teammate at Red Bulls.

John, John Tolkien. I'm sorry, John Tolkien. Is James Tolkien an author? Who am I? I don't know who James Tolkien. token is, but I was impressed that you got Henry Kessler right. Remember how many times we've, George Kesslinger? I've got Jonathan Lewis on here, which I know he's had his run out a ton, but again,

because there's sort of a lack of other options in the half space merchant spot, he's had his best run of form for Colorado and probably of his career the past six months. So it wouldn't have surprised me to see him here. Yeah. Doyle's just throwing stuff around his apartment right now. He's so mad that Lewis was omitted. Well, I don't know, man. It's another one of those things that is working in favor of Robin Fraser, who's turned

Jonathan Lewis into a very, I think he's been turning him into an effective number nine. I think Lewis's success has been playing, like, as a forward. Huh. Well, who are the forwards? Who else are the forwards that were omitted? So this is sort of our grab bag of forwards who are all putting up, like, identical numbers. And that's besides D.K., who's said to be out for rest. We also had Josie, Miguel Berry, C.J. Sapong, Brian White,

all just sort of doing the same level of stuff for MLS. Any one of whom wouldn't be out of, none of whom would really be out of place in a December camp roster. Yeah. But again, no urgency. I'm not like fussy that they're not here. Yeah, okay. It's just the midfield, right? I just feel like the midfield is a little bit thin and there's no reason to put it.

I don't care that this roster is unbalanced. Like, that doesn't really matter. It's not a roster that needs to win anything. I'm just, I'm a little fussy that we have this gap in a space that we desperately need to find functioning stand-ins. Well, I don't think, I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't think Josh Atensio is probably going to be that guy. So I'm okay with his omission, but you've talked me into being a little bit. I was joking earlier about being really mad, but you've talked me into being a little frustrated about Pomacal's omission. mission because we do, we do, not to be a dead horse, but we do really need to figure that out.

And Luca Delatorio wasn't in the last camp, so who knows if he's even going to be in the next one? So we're just going to go straight back to, you know, Acosta deputizing as an eight or Buccio or. That's what this camp. I mean, just glancing at the roster, that's what it would suggest to me here is that Acosta is the starting eight in this group. Yeah, I guess you're right. And the other difference with Pomacol is we have seen like a level of play that is high enough to be a U.S. men's national team contributor, right? It's not like it's all projecting. It's like he's played at that level where we would be very comfortable having him in the camp, even if he's not necessarily hitting that level the last month and a half, two months.

Yeah. I mean, I do firmly believe he would look better for Dallas if he was just a wrecking ball number eight. instead of, you know, getting the ball with his feet on the chalk and trying to beat people, which is, I don't think has ever really been his strong suit. But let's shift it back to what is exciting about this camp. So what do you have that you're super excited about? Well, I'm really, I'm really excited. Yeah, I'm really excited to see Jonathan Gomez in this camp, chance to, you know,

win another dual national battle, hopefully, and get a very fine soccer player, you know, but with a lot of potential, he's heading over to Real Sociedad after the winter break or during the winter break. Hopefully he can work his way into the first team at some point this year. But he's a nice player. He was one of the best defenders in USL for Louisville City. And he's a very good attacking fullback. Yeah, and just the fact that, again, it's a left back.

So every left back is going to get a bit of a U.S. men's national team magnifying glass on them, right? And it's the same with the other guy I'm really excited about, which is Kevin Paradez, who I know has sort of been not really playing true left back and like a four-man left back for DC United. But just going to just going to put all my hopes on his ability to also do that in addition to being able to be a left-wing back slash full-out left-winger. Well, he has the quickness and the sort of bite to defend out wide, I think. So I'm optimistic about that too. I'm happy to see Justin Shea get called up, even though he has had his struggles as a right-back.

I do think he fits better as a centerback long-term. He played as one of three centerbacks in our second U-20 game, the one against Columbia, and I thought looked much, much more comfortable and better there than he did as a right-back. But I guess it remains to be seen, whether Burrhalter sees it that way. And it's the same with Che.

Che is allowed, we're in a place where Che is allowed to just sort of keep developing at his pace and there isn't any urgent need to like get him in up to speed for the senior team and he's got to contribute tomorrow. No, I would think he's there to get acclimated. And it is, like you mentioned earlier, it's really exciting for Long and Morris to be back from injury. Exciting is maybe not the right word. It's like it's heartwarming to see.

I'm glad that they're back and ready to try to contribute. For me, it's both. Like, I am excited to see what they can do because, you know, Jordan Morris did contribute a lot to our attack in the time where he was healthy. So it is going to be exciting to see whether he has that level in him still. We might not see a ton of it, you know, giving it to one game situation here, and I don't know what his fitness is going to be. He went 90 for Seattle in their playoff loss, sort of Salt Lake.

But I am excited. And then for Aaron Long, I really appreciate what he has done for the U.S. team. His role has been very ably filled by Miles Robinson and to an extent, Walker Zimmerman. So I'm excited for him. I'm excited for him. Yeah, that one's definitely in the heartwarming category.

There's definitely less urgency now to have Aaron Long back fully healthy. He's pretty fungible at centerback, I think. And, you know, we've seen a lot of him, and I'm not sure I would feel comfortable with him trying to pass out of the back, not even as comfortable as I do with Zimmerman. And, you know, Zimmerman comes in for a lot of criticism from the fan base for his passing. So again, this roster doesn't need to win a game. That's not its function to win a one-off game. But tell me what you think this 11, an 11 from this group could look like, just a quick one.

Well, if Morris, I didn't realize Morris went 90 in that playoff game. He did? I think so. Okay. I think he played all of regulation. And then I think Roldon moved back up to the front three for the extra time. Because I did watch all roll. I've been Wyscout.

I've been wasting so much time during the holidays on YS scout. So I was like, let's see what Roldon is up to. So he moved back into the front three. He took Morris's spot for the extra time periods. Okay. Well, I guess I would say this is my wishful 11. Turner and goal. I'm, you know, to harken back to one of your old tropes, Greg.

I want to have, I want to have controls. and, you know, experiments on the field together. So Turner, be a control. Turner and goal. Reynolds at right back, long and Zimmerman at centerback, assuming long is ready to go. And then Gomez at left back. And then Acosta at the 6, Clark and rolled on as my eights.

I really do want us to try to make Clark comfortable in that part of the field. and then front line of Ferreira, Pepe, and Morris. You get no complaints from me about if Ferreira's playing in that half space. I don't see it happening just because of the way Burralter's talked about him, but I would love it. So I would take that lineup in a heartbeat. I want to see, I want Pepe to start because I want him, I want us to keep getting a larger sample size on him, you know.

And, oh, 100%. I think we got to keep running Pepe out until we learn that he can't do it. I don't mean that we will learn that. I mean, that'd be the only way to not to stop running him out. Yeah. And, you know, it gives me a little bit of pain

to leave Paredes out of the starting lineup. But, you know, if you want to, if Burhalter refuses to play Ferreira as a half-space merchant, I guess it could be Paredes there. Flip Morris to the right and throw Paredes on the left. Okay, yeah, sure. And then just have them pump in crosses the whole time to Peppy. Again, it shows how blended all these roles are that Paredes is suddenly just going to fill in as a, could conceivably, could like, not, not, it's not a wild thought that would be like, all right, he could go up there.

Because in my mind, it's like, oh, well, Roldon will probably be the next man up opposite Morris on the wings. But that's, that's also sort of a, I mean, we're just dealing with a lot of squiggly pegs into squiggly holes. Yeah, it does seem like there are a lot of options on all, like all across the front line, a lot of options across the back line. And then you get it to the middle of the field and you're like, oh, wait, what do we do here? Right. And that's just it, man. I would have been really excited about Netencio or Pomacall debut at 8, even though I'm not super convinced that either of them would do it. That's just, that just feels like what a December camp should be trying to accomplish. Yeah. December in L.A., right? Yeah, December in L.A. and then same.

Paul in February. Not to mention Columbus in Hamilton, Ontario. Is it my turn to do that? Because I didn't get to get in on the St. Paul announcement when you and Jordan and Watki were talking about it. Yeah, man. You're three hours from there. You're very St. Paul adjacent.

So yeah, I'm very, it's a very accessible game for me. And I'm very unhappy that we are playing the game in St. Paul. Can I do my St. Paul rant? Do it, man. Do it, do it, do it. So I've got no problem with the U.S. trying to gain an advantage using the climate against Central American opponents. I'm totally on board of doing that. I think St. Paul has overshot its mark.

And I'm kind of coming at that from the perspective of somebody grew up watching Big Ten football games. Yeah. So that's where I'm going to go. Tackle football. I'm going to use my Big Ten tackle football analogies here. you see this, like you see like high octane offenses come to Wisconsin, come to Minnesota, Michigan, and in Iowa, and play in these like brutally, brutally cold games. And even those games aren't going to be as cold potentially. Whoa, not even close.

Not even close. Yeah. So what you have here is, you know, there is this element of acclamation and getting acclimated to the weather being an advantage. And I'd agree with that. But you get to a point where you lose that advantage and other things start to become issue. that I don't think like people have really processed. And I'm talking like physiological, uh, like numbness. I'm talking like your extremities get numb. And so you have like these, these tackle football players who rely on precision and like fine motor stuff, uh, to operate, right?

And you start to lose some of that. You can't, you can't do those things as well as you can still power through your macro movements in the cold weather. And so you, you lose a little bit of that edge, right? You lose that that, that, that, that, that, that, you can't do that, you can't, In tackle football, it's like the passing game. The quarterback can't throw as well. The wide receivers can't catch as well. But you can still run into people and smash them, right? That part of the game doesn't go away.

And so a lot of times those high octane offenses from the South come up and still win a game. They'll still beat the Big Ten team because they still have better players in a lot of the other positions. Even if they can't play as well as they could have, they can still just outclass them. And I think this applies to the U.S. versus Honduras because our players do those things that require like, the absolute subtlety, right? Serginio Desk's play requires like a real total control of the ball and precise movements and in cushioning of the ball that he will be unable to do in 10 degree weather if that's what we run into.

Like that first touch is going to go away when you can't feel your feet. You can still run through somebody. You can smash into them. You can kick the ball 60 yards if you don't care where it goes. And that's where I feel like Honduras, it starts to swing around. and Honduras starts to benefit because they're all they want to do, if all they're going to do is play against the ball, you can still do all those things even if you're miserably cold. Yeah.

Yeah, it's, it has the potential to be an absolutely miserable evening. So that's my big gripe there is like if it happens to be 35 degrees, we'll be fine because you won't run into that full out like stiffness and inability to like feel your fingers and toes and feet. Yeah. Like you won't hit that level. You'll be cold and you'll be uncomfortable. And that will probably be a real advantage. And that's why I'm totally fine with the game in Columbus because that's what we're going to get. We're going to get 45 or 50 degree weather, which will still be a huge swing from Central America to come from 85 to go to that.

That's going to be freezing for them. But to get to like 9 or 10 degrees, which it could conceivably be in St. Paul, that is such a different animal. Yeah. It really is. I mean, there's a reason they put the bowl games in California and Florida, you know, like, because you can play, you can play football outside in Iowa and Minnesota in November pretty, pretty reliably. But when you get into January and then February, which is often, you know, which is just as cold as January in the upper Midwest, it's, it doesn't, it's not as reliable at all.

And I, you know, I don't, have you ever seen like, you know, when it's so cold, that you look down at the concrete and the concrete looks like it's been scorched. Yeah. Everything's washed out. Like there's just this glare of freezingness on everything. Yeah. It's almost like it's so cold. It starts to like burn things like your face and the concrete.

And, you know, I've seen a lot of days like that living in Minneapolis and in Iowa. And there is, I know, we've been through the weather report. We've been through the weather report on this podcast. I love that. But there is a decent chance. You know, it could be negative temperatures at kickoff. We're getting into like this alien landscape and temperature for anyone who's trying to perform at a high level. And that's the thing.

Like people say, well, the players are going to be fine. And that's, again, true unlike the macro level. I think very few if any of the players will die of hypothermia during the game, right? Like, I think that's pretty unlikely. Very few. But there's just this like, there are a lot of other outcomes, performance related in between, you know, peak performance and death by exposure. So I feel like some of those outcomes are just are also worse for our team.

Then they will be for Honduras and what you're going to be able to do. The other one actually is goalkeeping. Like talking about that fine motor stuff, Mexico didn't lose to Canada in Edmonton during that freezing cold game because they wilted. Like I think that's sort of just the narrative and it's an easy one to sort of try to push. But Mexico didn't wilt. Like Mexico fought their asses off. They went down to zero and then they came back and scored an 89th minute

goal and then had two other goal mouse scrambles in the closing seconds of extra time and then stayed on the field after the game to try to like brawl with Canada. They weren't just like let's get let's get out of this cold weather because our delicate tropical Mexican blood can't handle it. Like they were fighting like crazy.

They lost the game because Memo Ochoa had a howler on a shot from distance that he should have dealt with comfortably but I don't know if he tried to catch it. He spilled it right in front of him possibly because his fingers couldn't function and Canada's tapped in the rebound. Yeah. Like for me,

that's the issue that hurts us, the U.S., more than it hurts Honduras because I went through and watched all of Honduras as shots that they've allowed on goal through qualifying, and their goalkeeper

already doesn't try to catch anything. Like he already just parries everything away. So he's not going to change anything about the way he plays in freezing cold weather, whereas our goalkeepers are actually really quite good at trying to catch things cleanly, which could potentially work against them if their fingers don't work.

Hmm. Well, that all being said, we should still win the game against Honduras in St. Paul. We should still win it. It just feels like introducing a totally unnecessary variable that could have an effect on the way we play more than, because again, it will also affect Honduras's ability to do all these precise things. It just might not matter because Honduras doesn't try to do them. Yeah. Let's just hope for an unseasonably warm 25 degrees. evening.

Definitely hoping for that, especially if we're going to be in attendance. Yeah. So we're trying to, we're trying to sort out what kind of event we're going to do in St. Paul. And my latest idea is to do a dance party in the afternoon before the, before the game, just to get warmed up because a tailgate might be, you know, just prohibitively cold. So, you know, stay tuned. If you like to, if you like to party, you know, book your tickets and try to try to get to St.

Paul because we're going to bring a little sock hop. You're going to have a little St. Paul sock hop. The Rondo dance, as you said. I was mad that I missed out on the Rondos in, in Ohio. So I want to get in on the Rondo. Yeah, I'll bring a ball. Some kind of indoor space with enough space for a Rondo. If we're doing indoor, somebody bring a foot saw ball.

They will not want us bouncing an outdoor ball out on that. Okay, yeah, good point. Good point. In their facilities. Anything else on this roster? No, that covered, I think that covers our second annual Camp Candy cane. All right. Well, one other announcement is, well, two more announcements.

One, please support the podcast on Patreon if you are, if you are able. And the link will be in the show notes. And then the second thing is Monday. We're going to switch up the Monday review. We're going to have a new guest. He's a new co-host, I guess. And we're going to try to streamline it a little bit, make it more. make it more focused on the World Cup qualifying campaign, less focused on the scuffed top 40.

That's going to be de-emphasized because it has no broader appeal. Doesn't exist in the real world around us. Yeah. I mean, it's like I'm sort of interested in it, but like we got to stop talking about it and start talking about actually what people care about, which is, you know, the World Cup coming up. So look for some changes to the Monday review. we think we're going to make it a lot better. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.