Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #230: Monday Review — Dest’s rough patch, bing bong, Ledezma’s return, etc.

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Vince, Watke and Belz convene for the Monday Review, a full rundown of the news of the week, the action of the USMNT player pool in the past week, and a handful of listener questions.0:30 quick revisit of the World Cup qualifier location discussion2:00 The News (Champions League wrap, NYCFC lifts MLS Cup and Ronny Deila removes his clothes, Camp Candy Cane vibes, Araujo's Mexico debut, transfer window incoming)12:15 The 23, an unabridged look at the player pool right now, jumping off from their performances in the past week1:06:10 Listener Questionssupport 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. This is the Monday review. We're 343 days from the first match of the 2022 Men's World Cup, and we are here to take stock of the American campaign to qualify and the state of the player pool and a few other things. First thing I got to do, this is Bell's talking, is revisit the World Cup qualifier location discussion from last Monday. A few of you were not happy with the way I framed it, which was as a narrow matter of are these. locations in Ohio and Minnesota racist, the main thing I fail to acknowledge is that some fans really do feel alienated by these Midwestern locations. Now, whether the intent is racist or xenophobic isn't the whole story because the parts of the country that have the highest percentages of Latino population are not getting qualifiers except for that Jamaica one in October, which we talked about last week. We do need to make Latino communities which know are not centered

in the state of Ohio feel like they're part of U.S. soccer. And when something makes people in that group feel unwelcome, we should take that seriously. I apologize for not doing a good job of acknowledging that on the pod last week. Like I basically said at the end of that segment, I'm good with qualifiers against all non-Mexico opponents happening at pretty much anywhere in a stadium of any size. I'd be happier with Dallas instead of Columbus

and Orlando instead of St. Paul. For friendlies and Nations League going forward, we should definitely give the coasts and the south a full helping of U.S. men's soccer as soon as we can. Um, yeah, I would, I would just say if like my, my tone or anything came off as, as like, not, not appreciating, uh, the feelings of others, then I would definitely like to fully apologize for that because, um, as a minority myself, I know, I know what it's like. So, yeah, definitely, once you're all to know that you're heard and it's all like that. Okay. Into the news. The Champions League group stage is wrapped. And the draw is officially commons. complete. I'm going to read off a bunch of facts here. Wea, Pulisic, McKenny, and Aronson advanced

to the round of 16. Leal and Chelsea will square off in a home-away tie. Yuva plays via Real, and Salzburg plays Byron Munich. Good luck with that. Brendan. And then Raina, Adams, and Dest go to the Europa League where Dortmund faces Rangers, Leipzig faces Real Sociedad, which is Jogo's new club, and Barsa faces Napoli. In the Europa Conference League, Ledesma and PSV face Maccabee Tel Aviv Conrad de la Fuente and Marseille face Carabag FK and Cameron Carter

Vickers who we have not talked about much on this podcast lately and Celtic play Bode Glimbte Glimt is one of the stranger soccer names in Europe Yeah I'm just learning about that team

for the first time Did you see that they had a real They turned the draw into a real comedy routine where they had to They put all the balls in the wrong spots So they had to redo it Yeah I woke up to

that snafu. I'm not sure I fully understand it yet. I read about it. I read about five articles about it. I still don't really understand what happened. So I feel like we're looking at a situation where Barsa doesn't, where they don't make it out of the first round of the Europa League knockouts. Yeah.

Good. All right. The next item is that in New York City FC won MOS cop. Very exciting. congratulations to them. Sean Johnson with the penalties win is he are penalty specialists now. We can maybe talk about that later. Kvon Gray, the second youngest player ever to start in the MLS Cup final.

And James Sands got an 8.5 Fottmob score. And he did that without an assist or goal, which I don't know if I've ever seen a score that high. Without one of those events. Counting stats, baby. Counting stats. Yep. I just saw the video of him saying Bing Bong. I thought that was kind of fun.

Yeah, I didn't know about what that was all about, so I thought he had made it up. Oh, hold on, Waki. You live in New York, right? I live in New York, but I don't go out of my apartment. So I notionally live in New York. I don't feel qualified to talk about Bing Bong because I'm just a hayseed from the Midwest, but apparently Waki's not qualified to talk about it. I am now qualified because I knew that I should know, so I looked it up. I asked my sister about it, like, because she lives in New York and I asked her what Bing Bong was like a while.

go and she was like you just wouldn't understand it's a new york thing and i was like i so it's the sound that the subway door is closed they make that sound and then the subway they do they do understood yeah it's all nicks it was nicks fans who coined it right on uh well if we want to really get into the details which i don't know that we do but i'm going to uh there's this show called it's this web show i don't remember what it's called maybe it's called side talk that is what it's called that's their interesting that's their, it's in their intro. And then people started saying on that show.

And then one time during a Knicks game, someone came up and said it. And that's when it went kind of crazy with the Knicks fans. And I will tell you, if you haven't seen the NBA's Christmas commercial, Bing Bong made it into there. They had Deez-a-Mero in it. And, yeah, they scream, they scream Bing Bong in the commercial. My sister worked on that. And so New Yorkers represented.

I'm just glad I know what Big Bang is now Well I feel like even you know Despite all this fascinating stuff We've buried the lead which is Ronnie Daila His word being Bond And he promised to take off all his clothes If they won MLS Cup And they won and he did

He stripped to his underwear On Portland's field The disrespect What I like about him so much It's just his confidence in his own body Yeah I wondered what his like Hair grooming regime was

when I saw that. Dude is absolutely hairless. Yeah, so he did nine push-ups. Why nine push-ups? Is there any significance to the number? Couldn't quite get to 10? I don't know. Dad, like I get your weight up, my boy.

And then we should also mention that Alfredo Morales is on this team. A long time around the edges of the USM&T player pool. Maybe he hasn't gotten a fair shake. I don't know. But it's good to see him win some hardware in MLS. he didn't get mentioned when the national team tweeted out congratulations to players oh man then he's really out yeah because i mean they they include everybody um but i did watch what was that the revolution the revolution match i watched pretty much all of it

and and alfredo did not really impress at all i was just like he looks like a guy in the mLS i was expecting a little bit more but he just he looks like a guy I mean, I got on a title winning team, but no doubt still. Meanwhile, the Carson camp continues out there. I don't know how much there is to talk about that. They just continue to prepare for Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is on Saturday. The only real news coming out of that that I noticed is Burhalter has them doing crossword puzzles again. I don't know if you guys remember they did crossword puzzles in his first January camp.

Also, they appear to now have team issued. black Nike hoodies, which I read as an adjustment to the style preferences of the group. So those are the kind of the two main things that I'm saying from there so far. Like really? I just wonder like now, especially with like the World Cup coming up in 2022. I wonder what the vibe is like because I mean, there's there's spots up for grabs, man. And I wonder how like how cut throat it is right now. Yeah, it might be a little different vibe than the earlier ones.

I think you're probably right. I wonder if the, because this isn't technically a cupcake, this is a candy cane. Oh, right, correct, correct. They're probably still basically the same, although we should probably maybe next week get into the differences between those two. I hope it's intense. The crossword puzzles give me kind of a grandpa vibe, and I'm not sure I like that, but maybe they can carry the intensity over to like, you know, five across and it's 12 down. Yeah. Actually, Vince, to your point, last time they did crossword puzzles, they were doing them as a group.

And then in the photo I saw, it looks like they were working on them alone. So maybe that is kind of the cutthroat. That's an adjustment to the cutthroat vibe. And I think the black hoodies really gives it like a tryout type of vibe to me. Yeah. I mean, just like, you get these black hoodies, you got to earn your red, white, and blue. Exactly. Yeah.

You got a bunch of people wearing black hoodies going off on their own doing crossword puzzles. They're not sharing answers, you know. It's, we're playing, we're playing for jobs now. Is there a clearer recipe for intensity than that? I don't know. Vince, you got any news? I don't know if this is news, but I mean, I would just, I would just like to tell everybody to relax a little bit about, like, like every, like every, every, every weekend for Americans abroad, doesn't need to be some. It's just one data point.

You know what I'm saying? Nothing to get too high about, nothing to get too low about. You know, you see people and it's like, ah, not a banner week for Americans abroad. Yeah. Well, like, if it has to be a banner week for us to get excited, like, like, when are we getting excited, man? You know what I'm saying? We got to have three goals to assist from the whole contingent in order for us to be like, hell yeah. Like, like, no, bro.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. We don't need to, we don't need to act like the sky's falling. anytime somebody doesn't start or whatever. Like, we need to trust the players. Like they, our guys have shown, first of all, that their mentalities are elite. Like how many times has it, as it looked bad for Christian?

Next thing you know, he's back in the 11th until the next entry. But that's not the point. That's not the point. They just trust on our boys, man. They've shown that they've been able to cut it at this level. so like why we need to why we need to be insecure about it you know what I'm saying I hear all of that but you also got to remember that

for a lot of us we just don't have a whole lot going on our lives you know so this is kind of it's just I kind of get invested every weekend so that's but I realize you're right yeah like whether Pulisic starts or not for Chelsea does probably have a big bearing on people's sense of self-worth mm-hmm certainly mine Well, I think part of it is just, for me, part of my evolution on this has been like thinking about fitness and health, the health of players, you know?

Like, I'm totally okay with Pulisic coming off the bench for Chelsea if it means that he is healthy come the next international window. And I sort of apply that, I apply that framework to kind of all of them. But anyway. Right. Yeah. Next, next thing I got is Julian Araujo making his debut from Mexico. got to memorialize that he was the right back in a two-two friendly draw with Chile in Austin, Texas. He played well.

Looks like he's going to be right there in competition for that right-back job. And I still think it really sucks for us to lose him, even though we have other exciting options. It does. It does. And before we get into the rest of it, I just want to acknowledge that transfer season is approaching, and it's going to be overwhelming for us. So we'll just need to make some editorial choices on which ones we think are working. mentioning. I'm going to err on the side of mentioning as many of them as possible. So if I,

just pull me back if I'm doing too much of that. Yeah, I'm good with that. We are going to get into one, one of those transfer rumors here shortly. But let's start with the midfield in the 23. That is anyone in the 23 is anyone who's in the mix for making the World Cup roster. Tyler Adams came on in the 63rd minute of a 2-1 win over Man City, which ensured Leipzig's qualification to Europa League. It was 1-0 when he was subbed on and Leifes had got a second goal before man said he pulled one back. On the weekend he was a 71-minute sub and a 4-1 win. It was 2-0 when he came on. I know the lack of starts can fire people up. Reference Vince's point from earlier, but it seems like he's fine to me even though he's lost some playing time

under the new manager, Domenico, Tedesco. Yeah, it does seem he is losing out at least temporarily to Lymer. So, but Lymer should look out. because Tyler Adams is coming for that spot again, rest assured. Yeah, he'll be back. And he looked decent. I guess Man City specifically, I didn't get to see his minutes on the weekend, mostly because of ESPN not having the game to pull up. Yeah, ESPN really S-H-A-T the bed this weekend, didn't they?

Tyler Adams posted an Instagram story congratulating Chris Armis being at Manchester United and that sparked speculation that now he is going to transfer to Manchester United. See, that's an example of one I probably didn't need to say. John Luca Bousio, this one is, I think, a little more interesting. 90 minutes in a 1-1 draw with Juventus, which is a huge result for Venetia. And I thought they were kind of on the front foot a lot of the time. And they're now six points above the relegation line. big match against Sampdoria, who's also in the relegation hunt, you might say, on Sunday.

And their fight to stay up in Syria, that is, Venetia's looks like it might be fascinating in the spring. I noticed a very good tackle in the 38th minute where he just pried the ball away from Bernadeschi, I think right in front of Venetia's penalty area, put him down and came away with the ball. He did this again in the 82nd minute. That kind of used the ball to trip the guy thing. and it seems like he was getting stuck in another good counterpressing moment in late in the first half

so mostly just a metronome in possession but his ability on the ball isn't the question about him yeah he looked self-assured out there and he had he did some remonstrative body language that I really enjoyed too what was that I didn't see that it just little protest to the ref

not a ton of them just he clicked it up a couple notches It was a big match, man. You know, he was feeling itself. You know, it was a, like, he was really able to find some joy against that, against that Uvei midfield, which some people would probably say, hey, Vince, you're in the mud right now. No, I'm not.

No, I'm not. I said he would get exposed against the better teams in Syria. And you know who's not one of them, you know who's not one of the better teams in Syria? You vented, okay? You can definitely have some joy against Locatelli and Rabio. and I would just like to say, Rabio, I think he's never shown me anything,

especially from like, from PSG, YuVe. I'm like, yeah, he's all right, but nothing special. And I feel like he's one reason. If you feel like, oh, man, Christian's playing his way out of Chelsea, blah, blah, blah. Look at Rabio. Once you get to a certain level of club, you're not going to fall too much lower.

You know what I'm saying? Christians at Chelsea. if he has to leave Chelsea, he's not going to Norwich. All right? You know what I'm saying? Another big club is going to come scoop you up. You're going to get chances. I mean, and, but yeah, during this game, I had a huge event happen in my life

and probably a defining moment for me as a parent. I was watching this game on my laptop while doing some cleaning. You know what I'm saying? I was in my basement, whatever, had some music playing. Me and my daughter were playing. And then she like darts off into this into a closet. And I was like, oh, she's just, you know, playing this closet. I didn't think anything of it.

And the next thing I know, she comes out of the closet, runs past me, runs to her mom. And next thing I know, my wife is like stomping towards me. She's stomping towards me. And she's like, why is she saying she found a Christmas present? And I was like, ah. Oh, no. I forgot, I forgot the, I forgot the Christmas presents were in there. babe, I'm sorry.

And, but, but of course, the sorry did not, did not mean anything. She, she still found the mini trampoline. Oh, mini trampoline. That's nice. That's a good gift. That we were about to, um, that we were about to give her for. Yeah, the word sorry, the word sorry starts to lose its power, doesn't it? After time.

Uh, yeah, sure does. Um, and, and I felt, I felt terrible because of course, we work very hard to, you know, give our four-year-old a nice Christmas or whatever. But now it's just money coming out of my pocket. So thank you, Venetia, Yuve. I might take all the small claims court because I got to. You have to get another, you have to get her another gift now? Bro, this was coming from Santa.

This was a Santa present. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yes. So now we got. So it's now, you have to get another one from Santa now. Correct. Correct. I feel like, you know, this makes.

makes me think we should do some kind of, I'd be interested in this, some kind of webinar on how to watch TV and have a kid at the same time. You know, how to watch soccer and have kids at the same time because it is complicated. It can get hard. And when things get quiet in my house, like when nobody's bothering me or nobody's like trying to get my attention, then obviously something bad is happening somewhere in the house. Yeah. But like somebody discovering a Christmas present or whatever, you know. That's a great case study for a course. We could do an online course on it.

I think that's the way to do it. Maybe you should head it up, Waki. Could you? I do, I would like to. And maybe we can get it accredited through U.S. soccer. Or United Soccer coaches. Or United Soccer coaches. Let's get kind of deepen our networking with folks by putting out some coursework.

Also, Tessman played in this game. I got to, I know this is annoying for some people, but I got to say one more thing about kids. Last year, Vince, my daughter, who is four now. got so mad about something that she went into our bedroom and started attacking the the already wrapped Christmas presents. She like ripped a bunch of them open. Some of them were for her. Some of them weren't for her. I've never been so mad at that kid.

Okay. So my daughter isn't the only one prone to fits of rage. Cool, cool, cool. That's good enough. All right. Tanner Testament, please, Wachke. apologies everybody. I just mentioned he played in the game and he looked okay.

Yeah, I think he's coming into his own a little bit, man. He's been playing well. Specifically in this UVA game, yeah, he was okay. He was like responsible kind of for like two chances that Uvei got. One from just kind of kind of going fishing, like somebody showed for the ball. and really that should have been taken care of by like the front line of Venetia's defense there

but he kind of went up and followed him then somebody just played a ball that took out the entire midfield because when Tanner's up there that's I mean it took out in Venetia's entire midfield and they were on the back line and that resulted in the chance

but overall I just think he's looking like back up six material as soon as he came on the field got a foul that maybe with a little bit more experience turns into a

turns into just a clean tackle like he was almost there probably like an inch or two away from just from that being just a clean tackle he's he's just good man

he can carry the ball can has hit some very impressive switches that I've seen over these past few weeks one thing I'm really impressed by is I'm not exactly

exactly sure how he did this. He came to the team. He's kind of this junior player and he's wearing the, he's wearing the number eight jersey. He just walked straight into that and got it. I noticed that for the first time this weekend. I don't know how that's possible. Those type of things he can do when you're bigger than everyone. You know what I'm saying? You think he came in and I made some physical threats. I wouldn't put it past him. He's been around football culture, I guess. Yeah, that was another thing I was thinking. A part of me is still a little bit disappointed that we never got to see how good of a field goal kicker he would be. I think he made the right choice, but I'm just curious to know.

Because I don't know if he ever actually kicked a football. I would say based on his passing range, he probably would have been nice. Yeah, I think so too. Just thinking like he totally made the right choice. He could be in Clemson working for no pay or maybe, oh, do NCAA football players get paid a little bit now? They can, but I don't know. I don't know how much money a kicker is going to get on the free market. Right.

So he could be working for very little pay in Clemson, or he could be living in Venice making a lot of money playing soccer. I mean, it seems pretty clear to me. He made the right choice. My theory is that whole thing was a bit of shenanigans, some dabbo, some dabbo shenanigans. A bargaining ploy. Yeah. Yeah, he probably just got his ear at like, I don't know, Christmas or something.

It was like, look, Tanner. You can come kick for me. Blah, blah, blah, tamas. You know what? Uncle Davy, I can't say no to you, well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, he was never about to do that. No way.

All right, let's move to Weston McKinney, who's still missing from that Uve side that drew at Venetia. The only reason I want to bring him up is because that result in his absence seems to bode well for his quick return to action. Not that he even needs anything boating for him. He's going to be fine. Yep.

Yeah, and he's back and trained. You know. Eunice Musa, a 90th minute sub and a 2-1 win for Valencia over Elke. He appeared to be playing center mid on this, which I was very excited about. Yeah, I mean, it was a 90th minute sub, so does it really matter, Waki? Well, no, but I don't think, yeah, I don't think he actually touched the ball either. But it does indicate that the coach is at least aware that that is the position that he's able to play. That's true.

Luca De La Torre had some good moments in a full 90, faithfully documented by Daniel Smith on Twitter, also gave up a penalty for the game winner in a 2-1 loss. He remains intriguing, has a nice way of poking the ball away, just before an opponent gets a foot in. I would like to see him soon. Yeah, I was watching that and the other guys. So that's the action from the midfield.

Do we get any new ideas for the midfield as an alternative to the MMA thing? this weekend or are we static there? I would say so Luca and John Luca are both options for the so if we if we if we did one thing in last Monday's review it was I think helped me define the the positions in our midfield as far as like MMA goes and potential replacement for him. So you got D-Mid, box-to-box roll. You got, well, excuse me, I didn't put a comma there. You got the D-Mid, you got the box-a-box roll, and then you got the progressor, of course.

And the progressor is very important because the build-up aspect is where Weston kind of struggles, right? So the progressor is very important in getting the ball to our attacking third. So I think we have two good options, to be honest, and Luca and John Luca that I would like to see Tried at that progressor role with Weston and Tyler, hopefully. This is a good time to just call an audible here and bring up a question that we have slated for the end of the pod. Ian in Stunning Southern Illinois says Raina hasn't made his return yet, but once he does, how on earth are we going to utilize? him, Wea, Aronson, and Pulisic. That is, if we stick with him as a winger. But if you drop him into an eight, who do you bench there?

The curse we have wished for of great depth. So I think Raina's like another, what do you think of Raina as an eight, Vince? Love it. Love it. So I think that's the position that he's going to settle into as he matures. And you can already see how he just receives the ball so smoothly, how he glass. with it, um,

can play one-to's. Who's, who's coming off the field in that case? Yeah. Well, the beauty is, the beauty is that nobody, there's never going to be a moment when we have everybody healthy.

I mean, that's not the beauty, but that's the reality of this, you know. That's true. Right. But then a fully healthy side, I,

even though it pains me to say it will probably, it would probably have to be Musa. Because like, Gio's giving you the cage matchability. He's giving you the ball security. He's giving you. giving you the progression and where Musa, he probably, he probably needs a little refinement in the final third. I mean, we know Gio has that. Yeah, where, where Musa's, where Musa doesn't put a shot on frame,

Raina puts a shot on frame. It's kind of how I look at. The whole MMA alternative discussion probably deserves its own full podcast. Really? I mean, at least in our little hyper, aware little ecosystem. But, yes. Yeah, I think it's Raina, De La Torre, and Buccio,

and I'm worried about Buccio still. Yeah. Even though I, even though I've apologized to him. When I was watching this game, even though he did make a couple a couple good defensive plays, it's still like, when he closes down a midfielder, they are not bothered. You know what I'm saying?

It's like, like, Like they can feel somebody like coming coming and like check their shoulder. And you can kind of see when they see his John Luca, they're like, oh, okay. Let me just let me just go ahead and collect this ball, get it off my foot. Like he's not, you know what I'm saying? He's not going to boss me off of it or anything. You know what I'm saying? So.

Yeah. Well, last last midfield note here is Kellan Acosta is in camp with Burrhalter, obviously. And Sebastian Leggett is taking some deserve time off. Anything on those guys? Sebastian Legert might be going to the revs. Reunited with Bruce Arena? Reunited. Reunited.

I think I like that move. I mean, seems to just be in a functional team, functional good team. Hopefully we can just see, we can just see more week to week of Sebastian playing well. Seems like always past few.

years with the galaxy been a little start stop start stop yeah a little messy but hopefully we yeah all right um and and and obviously um with the sister passing and everything just just wish the best for him hopefully he can take his time out properly grieve and and come back and and start bowling again 100% let's go to the fullbacks uh serenio dest has a lot a lot of kind of interesting things going on with him he got subbed off at the half against byron in Champions League on Wednesday. He rode the bench Sunday against Osasuna. Javi last played him at right wing

in that 3-0 drubbing in the snow in Munich five days ago. I guess he was nominally playing wing, but he was 1-V-1 with Davies a lot, pretty high in possession. Thought that's Alfonso Davies. Clearly got the better of him in that first half. And Desk looked a little shook. Didn't have much panash in the attack

until he got hooked at the break. But we could say he was set up to fail in a position he's not great at. The first and only time he played a game at fullback under Javi or started a game at fullback under Javi was against Real Batis on December 4th. It was a loss at the Camp New. He did get a little bit of a stew going

in the second half with Dembele, as we mentioned last week. But in general, he was also a little bit jittery in possession and got worked by Wanmi once, notably in the first half. So I don't know. He doesn't look entirely comfortable and there's this persistent rumor that he's on his way out at Barso.

What do we want to happen? If he can leave, I would definitely want him to leave, man. I mean, it just seems, I mean, there's just no point to staying at Barcer. Yeah. And like, and when he made this,

when he made the transfer, we all kind of see, we all kind of saw this happening. To some extent, we don't know if we, like, saw like Barcelona like Messi leaving Barcelona and them getting to this point. But I think most people were like, yo,

Bayern is the more sensible move, which, you know, young kids aren't going to make sensible moves all the time. And especially like a kid comes from IACs, of course he's going to want to go to Bars. So it is what it is. But if you can leave, yeah, yeah, get out. I think it's time to go to Bayern and just get jacked. Get on there.

Get on their steroid or maybe not stare at whatever their regimen is. Get on that. I just want a real jacked up Serginio deaths. I would love to see that. Shavi stock is way down, by the way. I used to respect him. I don't longer do. I mean, I really want him to go to, I really want Des to go to Byron too.

If, you know, partly to get jacked and partly to just get like slapped with a ruler by Thomas Mueller every time he does something wrong, you know, just like, focus, Succino. That is the that is the player combination I do want to say. You know, how familiar are y'all with Pokemon? Not very, a little bit. Passing familiarity. Okay. I just feel like a Jack Serginio will look like Machap.

So if he says real Pokemon heads, no, okay? Just picture a Jack Sergenio and picture Machop, the Pokemon. I could definitely see Sirginio looking or a Jack's Serginio looking like a Pokemon. on. So I would like to see what this guy looks like, but that definitely makes sense to me. It does. I mean, apparently Byron's looking for a right back, right? They need a right back. And is this going to happen? Is this realistic that he could go to Byron? Well, it seems like Barka does need to sell players because they don't have any money because they did such a bad job with their money the past however long. So it seems like he's definitely reasonable he's going to get sold because he's worth, I don't know, 30 million or something.

Yeah. Right. And I mean, so as Byron was in for him before. So I mean, why not? Especially if they can get him out of like a little bit of a discount, say 20 million. And then I don't know. I don't know. I don't know anything about soccer business.

All right. Anthony Robinson, not in the squad, not in squad. Apparently, he had a heavy cold. There wasn't too much reporting on that. He just had a very severe cold. So he was out the game. He was actually on the bench this past game. He just didn't get in.

I think he's still recovering someone. Okay. Joe Scali, I didn't watch the latest gladback game. What do you got, Waki? I watched it. He was playing right back, and it was just kind of sad because how bad gladback is. And there's been some debate

whether their nickname should be sad back or sad sack. I think sad back is the better option. Scali did have a really good pass, though. He was mostly fine, maybe not that good. And on one of the goals, maybe he could have been positioned a little bit better. I'm not a defensive specialist here.

Yeah, I think that goal, so like the guy he was trying to like account for was like kind of like a midfielder making a run. And like his teammate had got to a point where they have recovered and he could he and he should have like got out like yeah i think he i think he could have been shifted over a yard or a yard and a half and had had his body open to make that run over there yeah like a solid two or three seconds earlier he should he should have got out to that winger uh but well actually wasn't a winger it was angelino um

Angelino got the ball cross-in goal um from there because he i mean he had so much space to get this cross-in and it was it was a dime as Angelo does. Man, he does, doesn't he? DeAndre Yedlin, any additional respect to remove from his name? Well, he was playing, he might, I guess he's playing right now as we're recording. So that's just kind of more evidence that we, in fact, do not put enough respect on his name. Look, man, I just want to let it be known that I actually love DeAndre Leighton as a person.

Very cool guy. probably the coolest person on the national team currently if we had to if we had to take up a vote. I think Wea will be cooler than him in five years, but Way is still young. Right. So it's still developing. Right. Way is still very earnest, you know. Who do you, who else do you consider a cool offense?

Because I've tried to do that, but I'm not cool at all. So that's a problem. I don't think I have really good answers on that. Let me think. A lot of people, so let me ask y'all about this. So do you all think Weston's cool? No. Okay, okay.

I'm just making sure we had a consensus here. He is absolutely not. I love you. I love Weston. I love Weston, but I feel like if I had to spend like extended amounts of time with this, man, we might fight or something. I don't know. I'll admit I did at one point claim he was cool. I just wasn't thinking it through enough.

Okay. But let me think. So you got DeAndre. Yes. Hold on. Let me scroll through this. It's a tough question. I think the answer is we just really don't have very many cool players. DeAndre, Serge, Eunice, of course. Eunice has got that, you know, the London, the whole thing about him, you know what I'm saying? Raina might be cool, right? Like, Gio? Is he not cool?

No, he might be something of a soccer nerd. Yeah, I'm not going to give it to Gio yet. I'm not going to give it to Gio yet. Let him get like the 21 and then we'll make that determination. John Luca. I'm going to give John Luca a little. I'm going to give John Luca a shout here. And let me look for a white person. I was going to say Chris, Chris Richards is, I think Chris Richards is pretty cool.

Like he's got charisma at least. Oh, you know what? So I think Walker Zimmerman might be cool. He gives me cool vibes. I'm not going to lot to you. I feel like Walker is is a guy I could chill with. Thank you on behalf of all white people for saying that. Walker's one of my money.

I guess he is kind of cool. He's self. He has the advantage of being an older guy, but he wasn't cool when he was 20 or 21. I think he's matured into it. Well, I think we can all agree Sam Vines is not cool. And he started for Royal Antwerp over the weekend. I wanted to say,

So Jonathan Gomez, well, Waki, what do you have to say on this? My thinking on him, and this is just pure optimism mostly, he's going to have a really solid camp, and then he's going to push his way into the full national team in 2022. That's my big prediction. Yeah. I mean, maybe probably now it's not the time, but I do want to at some point acknowledge how jealous I am of Jogo that his next stop in life is San Sebastian, Spain. Yeah, and that's going to play into it. Yeah, it's a, it's, it seemed like a beautiful.

place ever since I had pimples and I read the sun also rises and that part where Hemingway's swimming in the conca. So we should do like a we should do a junket to the Basque country sometime. I do think we should plan, plan at least on paper some junkets just because it's nice to imagine going places. Yeah, paper junkets. That's a good, that's a great idea. Yeah, I would just like to say shout out to soccer.

because without following soccer, I would not have any clue what the Basque Country is. And like geopolitics and learning about the world is like a big reason why I love this game so much. So shout out to the Basque Country. Shout out to all y'all's weird names with exes and stuff in it. Yeah. Love y'all. Well, it is an interesting thing to look at like who's playing at the most charming seaside cities in.

the world, which Americans are. And it's going to be Jogo, I think, at number one, once he lands at Real Sociedad. But, you know, John Lucas is right up there, him and Tanner. Tenerife, Shaqmore, Tenerife, has got to be pretty high. Yeah. Stryker, you guys ready for that? Yes. Ricardo Pepe, Jazi's artist and Jesus Ferreira in camp with Burrhalter right now.

What's there to say about this? Dan Hunt says if Ricardo Pepe leaves, he might lose his spot on the national team. That was the big kerfuffle from a week ago. I think that's really all that's going on on that front. Yeah, what do you guys think about that? Dan Hunt coming in hot. I mean, I guess he's just doing some posturing. I assume.

I don't know. He's trying to get, either he's trying to get people to up the price or, he's just being an a hole which which is which is the less ideal out of the out of the two options. I don't know. I didn't read that much about it, but the vibe, the vibe's not, it's not great. Not great. I just hope Peppy that he does move. I guess it's not the end of the world if he doesn't know.

I wouldn't be so interested in him moving if Dallas weren't so much of a chore to watch. So it's purely for selfish reasons. I guess that's probably playing into my thinking too. But I mean, where he goes does have to be. it does have to be like the ideal location for him to make sure he makes his way into the first team hopefully before

once the World Cup start November to like the Netherlands or Portugal or something or is he better than that like I'm of the opinion that everyone needs to start out at like a you know just go to a little starter club and get your feet under you

and really start bowling. I think we should send him more and more people to Venetia. That seems to be going pretty well. Definitely. Be fine with that. I guess in that sense, it's like Dan Hunt's not wrong, you know?

Like if he does go to A.C. Milan or whatever the crazy rumors were. Yeah, it's possible Dan Hunt was just saying what he was thinking. And that was it. Yeah. It's just that he's been, well, you know, Dallas has sold a lot of players lately. I guess it's the hangover from him holding on to Pomacall too long or something. I don't know.

That makes me a little annoyed with him. They let the other players go pretty easily. That wasn't too painful. But I guess Peppy is kind of a different tier. Man, they straight up a hoodwinked Roma. You know? They did. Bamboozled them.

Jordan Pfeffach There's not too much to say here But he was subbed out at the half versus Sion on the weekend Sergeant What did you think of sergeant's performance I thought he was not that bad Against Manchester United

Perhaps even okay Or maybe even slightly good In certain respects He looks competent But not goal dangerous Which is kind of how he's looked For 100 years Yeah, I just

So I was thinking about this When when When Well we haven't got to it yet But spoiler Chris Richard scored a goal this weekend But when he scored a goal And I typed his name in all caps

I was like You know you know how you do when you're excited And somebody score is this Richard You know And I was just like I started thinking about it And I was like hold on Once the last time I typed

Josh's name in all caps and it's been a while. It's been a while. And then this thought got me going down into a further rabbit hole, which was like, okay. So then I started telling myself, you know, progression's not linear. You got to understand take some time. I was like, yeah, it's definitely not linear. And then I started thinking, so if it's not following a linear progression,

what kind of path is his career following? And I would just like to say, are you guys, are you guys math people at all? I'm not. You're all familiar with the... I'm a little bit familiar. Y, equal X squared and the resulting graph that comes from it? No.

No, sorry. It doesn't sound good, though. Well, the shape is called a parabola. It's... So, oh, like the bad kind? Or the good kind? Well... Is it, is he dipping down and they're going to come back up?

Yeah, yeah. So it kind of, it basically looks like a you. And so this is how I'm kind of thinking of Josh's career right now. I don't know what part of the, of the you he's on. But I, so I think he's at the valley here. And he's going to, you're saying you're, you're an optimist here then. I feel like you have to be because what else, because what else we about to do? Yeah.

So. So the, so the y equals X squared means you start off good. You have a dip in the middle and you come back. To good again? Right, because think about it. When you get to zero, zero times zero, zero. And so that's the dip. But then as you go, yeah.

You know what? This actually makes a lot of sense because we've been talking about when's you going to turn the corner and it just never happens. And in this parabolas scenario, that's why. There's no actual corner. That curve as we're going down it is going to be invisible. Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm.

Just suddenly without seeming that anything having changed, Josh Sargent is going to be shooting up to the moon there. And maybe at a potential exponential rate. So why are we assuming he's going to improve at an exponential rate, though? Well, I really like it. Maybe he's on, maybe he's just to the right of the valley right now because he had a pretty, like a slightly better than average performance against Manchester United. Yeah. So I was thinking like what the peak was like at the top.

So I think the peak was maybe that Peru match. Okay. Like, so did you all remember that feeling after Peru? Oh, no, that wasn't the peak, Vince. What was the peak? Peak was when he scored those three goals in the group stage of the U-20 World Cup. Okay, fair enough. But the Peru match was shortly after that, not that long after it, I don't think.

Less than a year. Do you remember how good you were feeling at that point? Mm-hmm. And the back heel to Jonathan Amon. So it's just... Oh, I remember like it was. yesterday. Oh, it's just steadily went down, went down, and we're approaching

the valley, either we're approaching the valley or we're at the valley, and we just got to stay with it. It's coming. I got to mention this for like the hundredth time on this podcast, but that goal he scored against Ecuador in the U-20 World Cup, where like Tyler Adams was involved, he received it with his right foot with his back to goal, and with one touch brought it around him

to set himself up for a left-footed strike and then just thrashed it past the goalkeeper. That was, that legit made me think he was going to be Robert Lewandowski. I'm an idiot for that, but I was like, that is elite stuff. And now he came, get a shot off. Yeah. But, but it's coming. It's coming.

Just trust it. Okay. Another theory I heard is this was from mock Ryan in the discord that he hasn't turned the corner just because he's walking out a very long hallway. So that's kind of a compliment to the parabolo thing. It's definitely a shape involved. but we should just kind of nail that down exactly. Yeah, it's a hallway in some very avant-garde art museum

that's shaped like a parabola. Yeah. Okay. Jeremy Ababa Say is on a provisional roster for Cameroon. Bobesay was a teammate of sergeant in that U-20 World Cup, by the way. And Cameroon is one home-and-away tie opponent to be determined away from qualifying for the World Cup. I'm not sure the Bubba's going to break into that squad,

but he's also not likely to break into the U.S. squad, got snubbed for the Olympics. He's probably got a little bit of a gripe, maybe more so than the Alfredo Moralesis of the world for not getting enough looks from Burhalter. So it's a little sad to see him leave, but can't blame him if he eventually does. Yeah.

And then I guess some other striker semi-news is D.K., there's a rumor connecting him to West Brom. Whereas old coach from Barnsley used to be. That's maybe, that's just a very early rumor. But it has been said by someone. I mean, it sounds good to me. If you can just go over there and play bully ball. Yep.

Let's do it. I love it. We're skipping around the field a little bit, mostly because the desk stuff was more, I moved the desk stuff up. But here we are at Wingers. Richie Ledesma is back from a, year-long layoff after an ACL injury.

I thought he looked excellent for young PSV on Monday a week ago today. And he was on the match day roster for both the Europa League loss at Rea Al-Soucad and the 2-1 win over NEC on Sunday, which took PSV to the top of the table. So anyway, if he can get into the first team and he looks like he's operating at roughly the same level he was operating at when he first broke into the first team. I think he can compete for a spot on a World Cup roster for the U.S., you know, hoping to get him on the podcast too. Yeah, definitely.

I mean, I remember when I saw the clips from the match, I was like, ah, man, he's looking like, so it's looking like he's graduated from the, from the ersty division level. He was just like absolutely balling. I was just like, he looks like a first team player. and so I'm happy that he was on the bench for these two matches because it lets me know that PSV knows. Yeah, he's a first team player. So, yeah, I mean, if you're playing,

if you're playing ball for PSV, you're definitely in the mix. So let's see what happens. Christian Pulisic, a 65th minute sub for Zenit, I mean, versus Zenit, got an assist midweek. What's up? Yeah, this is a, I really like this. play a lot because this is this is like the the type of plays that he that he I guess he doesn't make for us or hasn't been making here recently as far as like

just getting the ball releasing it getting it back finding someone else's feet and find the Werner's feet for the goal this is what he's capable of and for some reason it's not translating to a ball for the national team right now so Greg got to figure it out, man I mean, there's no reason. And of course he hasn't played with MMA yet other than

he played with him in Mexico right? Yeah, against Mexico. So we're talking about that quick combination stuff he does, right? Oh, yes. Where it's just bam, bam. Yeah, he's really good at it. Yeah, he just doesn't do it for the U.S. Like you said, it is kind of on Burrhalter to get more

out of him. Yeah, man, we got to see it. Like, there's no reason. And hopefully he knows that he can't just be carrying the ball all willy-nilly against these against these Concaf teams that are just going to put him in the dirt.

And then on the weekend, he did not play. He did not get in the game. And this seems to have to do with Chelsea having just a lot of good attackers. They're so stacked, man. It's another level. Yeah. It's his life at a mega club.

Yep. This is what it is. Raina still not in the squad for Dortmund. Tim Wea, unfortunately, the quote from the quote from the club is Pa Avant-A-V-en-V-V-I-Han-Vier, I guess, not before January. So it could be a little while, unfortunately. Isn't French just so much more beautiful? Pa-A-A-V-I-Vierre. I feel like it's definitely more beautiful than English.

maybe not when I say it looking at it on paper like wow it's so lovely yeah yeah definitely I mean I think so I have strained my quad before and also strain my hamstring

and I think a quad pool is just a lot more straightforward to come back from than a than a pulled hammy so I'm still holding out hope that as soon as So as soon as the clock strikes 12, he'll be good on January 1st, 2022. In the French news story, it said thigh, which one is that?

I don't even, is it a hammie? It's a quad. I thought that was the, I thought that was established. That was a quad? I think it's his quad. Okay. Okay. But yeah, once again, we run into the medical terminology translation issue between.

I don't know if you would. So the hammy, that's part of your posterior chain. I don't know if you would call that your thought. Okay. Oh, it's just my ignorance then. Possibly. And mine. It's a beautiful language, though, the French.

The ignorance of a man that says Jan Vieer. Brendan Aronson beat Sevilla. So R.B. Salzberg is going through to the knockout rounds, and R.B. Lebsig is not kind of crazy. But they beat Seville with a hockey assist. Got an assist. on the weekend versus Tyrol. Both of these plays came in transition,

what I guess isn't surprising since it's a Red Bulls-Hawsburg team. And this is just, this is what Brendan does, man. He's so good in these transition situations. Just receives the ball, finds a pass, and gets off his feet. Like both of these were very nice plays.

The assist and the hockey assists. Very nice ball. from Brendan there. You know what I'm saying? I do like I'm not I'm not going to call him a transition merchant because that sounds like I'm taking something away from him. But in transition is where he really, he really shines.

And hopefully if he gets a move, it's somewhere that prioritizes those type of situations. Yeah. And the deal now is he doesn't have a game until February 6th. So that's until the next qualifying window. So I think, I assume he'll be in the extended January camp in January that happens before the main camp. But until then, we won't really see him. Yeah, if Salisberg, I mean, Salisburg is not required to release him for that extended camp, right?

They may have some incentive for him to lock in a spot on a World Cup roster. Also, the transfer rumor for Brendan is that A.C. Milan is monitoring him, which is the most, the strangest type. of transfer rumor. Because presumably they would be monitoring a ton of players. Strangest slash least substantive transfer room. Yes. His fierce rival, Conrad de LaFuente, played 82 minutes versus the locomotive Moscow, was not in the squad on the weekend.

I think I've realized part of the reason I'm not as high on him as Vince is, for example, is the Marseille Wingers they just play so wide they're so wide out there and it's just there's something about it that I don't like and that has nothing to do with Conrad it's just the aesthetic of how wide they are it bums me out for whatever reason

wasn't that an old Greg staple like Greg 1.0 wasn't he? Yeah because he was telling when a Bobacy got called up right? He had that man playing on the touchline like that first that first game under Greg yeah somehow marseilles they seem to even more wide even more extremely wide well how much wider can you go than the touchline

well it's because even when the watch when the balls even weigh on one side and then look across the field at conrad you can barely see him he's all the way over there i never seen anything like it well i wish they would just change their tactics i don't i don't really have an opinion about whether they work or not. It's not. I don't like it. He is good at getting the ball and then dribbling past people though.

That's the main thing I saw against locomotive was just his ability to get past people. The final product was absolutely not there. It was actually kind of bad at some point. But the ability to beat him, man, It's definitely there. So we just got to get some refinement in that final third.

And look out, Brendan. I mean, we're probably not going to see Greg 1.0 with like with the inverted fullback, the underlapping fullback as a matter of scheme. Probably not going to see that on the left side unless Jogo, you know, really or maybe Kevin Perettis really like makes a move here on the home stretch. I don't see why I kind of couldn't play more. centrally though. Well, yeah, that's what Vince said last week, right?

But that's probably why I think that. Let's, okay, Jordan Morris is in camp with Burrhalter right now. We don't have anything. I don't think we have anything to say about him. Centerbacks, big weekend for Chris Richards. Vince, why don't you take this since you mentioned it earlier? Well, he had a hockey assist on half the house. First goal.

Nice line breaker on the floor at his left foot. and then got the goal, of course, to give Hoffenheim the win in which, what? Go ahead, go ahead. I think that I don't want to, sorry to cut you off, but I think the big debate here is, does this mean he's good in the air now? Because obviously it was a kind of a nuanced situation where he didn't actually jump. Yeah, I would say absolutely not, to be honest. the person

Marketer kind of made a meal out of it He he intentionally got tangled up with Chris And then when Chris just gave him a little A little shoulder check My man just went flying Yeah I mean

Yeah get in the way room my boy Once again I guess I'm of the school That don't actually have to jump To be good in the air It's all part of it But no he's not that good in the air Is he?

He might not he's not that bad I don't want to get carried away He's not like he's terrible in the air anything. But yeah, this one where he just where he just sent his guy flying and then headed it from a standing position does not make him into like a Sergio Ramos on set pieces or something, you know. He was named Bundesliga man of the match day. I sometimes feel like they pander to us a little bit with those. But yeah, still nice to win something. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. John Brooks

Anybody have anything to say about what happened with him this weekend He didn't play He seems to be on the outs a little bit And they lost right On the weekend Yeah they lost They deserve to lose for not playing John Brooks Although Derek Ray

The commentator did out a tweet thread About An article about John Brooks Who apparently in Germany they call Jay Brooks As in J.A. Y Jay Brooks. But he said there was a little bit of a

Burrhalter and wasn't too happy with him the last thing. Apparently something related to attitude. So that's just a rumor I wanted to promulgate. We should say that Derek Ray's tweet threads of German language news articles are very, very useful. I appreciate them a lot.

Definitely. I really appreciate him too because he's a little bit of an older gentleman who's way better at Twitter than he should be given that. And he's kind of become this half member of USMNT Twitter, I think pretty reluctantly. But he really contributes to it in ways that few other people do. No, I actually think the Germans are very happy to pander does.

I don't know why. I just think that's the vibe I get. The Germans seem to be very happy that Americans are good at soccer. Yeah. Yes. but the other part of that tweet thread was saying that there's like contract disputes going on with the club basically I think he'll be out of contract in the summer is that is it I didn't see yeah something like that he wants they basically he wants more than they're then they're currently willing to offer him and he's his position isn't that strong right now if he's not playing his negotiating position. Yeah. This just seems like typical like last year contract stuff that goes on with the club and player. The stuff about the national team and Greg, I don't know how much,

how much I give to that report just because like, like how would Bill know? Says Bill gets got in with Greg? Like Bill knows Greg's burner? What's going on here? Somebody from the club probably told Bill that, right? That there was like some attitude issue. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not hearing it. Yeah.

Well, who knows even how the word attitude translate in German? It could be something different than what it means to us. Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, I wonder, I just can't stop thinking about John Brooks and Weston McKinney hitting the town in Nashville together, you know. Yeah. People forgot about that. Miles Robinson and Walker Zimmerman are in their offseason. Zimmerman and camp ahead of the Bosnia-friendly Miles at home or on vacation.

We don't know. He posted to Instagram last night that he graduated from college with his diploma. So Miles Robinson does what he was doing at least the past couple days. So congratulations. For real. McKenzie started again. He is no longer in the category of not playing. He's played a significant amount in the last two, three weeks.

Did Gink, how did Gink do in that, Darby? It was Gank versus Gant, and McKenzie plays for Gank, and I believe they won one, won nothing. I don't think they should, those two names should be allowed in the same league, and they're only like an hour away from each other too. But that's a whole other issue. It's very confusing. And then another thing, CCV, oh, I wanted to say it because how important of news it is to me. that he was named the best CB centerback in Scotland by some football publication that knows about Scotland soccer.

So does that change anything for us? It makes me want to go watch some clips for sure. But probably not. Okay. Yeah. Nothing for me about CCV. We need somebody to step up that's like a really kind of an elite. centerback at this point.

You know, to break in. It's worth mentioning in that vein that Jonathan Tompkinson, I'm not saying he's doing that just worth mentioning that the 6'4-19-year-old centerback from Texas was on the match day roster for Norwich over the weekend. Premier League power, Norwich City. Ben captaining their U-23s for a while now, and footage for those games is hard to gump by, so I have no further insight. I mean, we're just waiting for 2020, man.

The championship, we're going to have our Josh Sergeant Renaissance. The upswing of the parabola is coming. And then Tomkinson holding down the back line. Can't wait. Yeah, that's just to say one more thing about just Josh Sargent is Norwich was always going to go down again. So he's going to end up in a good spot in the championship. Goalkeeper, Matt Turner is in camp. Zach Stephan went 90 and a 2-1 lost to RB Leipzig and what was a dead rubber for Man City

midweek got rounded on the first goal was screened on the second goal it's too tricky for me to say anymore he did some good saves though some reflex saves he did he did punch out a corner he could have caught he could have caught yeah yeah that was a weird that was a weird punch I don't know what was going on there but seemed fine but this this is our agenda talking here right now no no no no agenda for me I saw that Like I said, I'm goalkeeper plastic when it really comes down to it. Okay, it was my agenda then. And that's Sean Johnson.

Is he the third goalkeeper now, maybe? I guess he already was, but he would have solidified it. Right. Well, and if Ethan Horvath continues to be glued to the bench and Nottingham Forest, then it's got to be Sean, right? Yeah. And, I mean, made some nice saves on those pins. that his counterpart did not make.

I mean, he could, that penalty shootout could have went on for a little bit longer, but Steve Clark kind of has some shockers. I'm having a lot. Glad to see NYCFC beat Portland, to be honest. To be quite honest. This is your, this is your bias against the coast coming out here?

Well, it's kind of a tough choice between New York City and Portland there, but, But, yeah, I mean, Portland's been like, you know, not very good at developing players as an MLS franchise. I've never really, I haven't really enjoyed watching them since Valeri sort of stopped being a key player. So that's my bias. Those are my biases on the table. Let's do a few questions.

Yock Yalk Yalk in Location Unknown wants to know if we are bringing back player interviews on the podcast. And I can answer quickly. Yes, I'm trying to make that happen. Hoping to get Ledesma here soon and working on a few others. Jesse in Zehwatanejo. He says, no BS. I moved here for the winter with my family. Based on this video of Con...

I know, quite nice. Based on this video of Conrad, wowing his teammates playing piano recently, who do you all think has the greatest musical potential real or imagined in the USM&T player pool? And he links us to that video of obviously, Conrad playing the piano. Yeah, I think it's Tim Wea, and it's real, because he released a trap soul track called Paris that he sings on.

So he's the best for me. That's on SoundCloud, if you want to check it out. His artist name is X-rated. I don't know if he's still doing it, but it was actually kind of good. And then the other, Pulisic plays the guitar, but I think he just picks it up during the pandemic, and I would imagine he's not that good at it, or he's good in a way that's kind of a non-musician type of way. Yeah.

So I go maybe Conrad and Waya. So Tim, Tim Wea and Kyle Duncan did an interview together for the urban pitch that y'all should go check out. Where it's a, it's a video format. The guy interviewing him and them two are all on video. And he's like in his studio as he's given this interview. And they talk about it a little bit. He says he's in the studio like every day because they have a,

a good amount of downtime being professional athletes. And so once he gets in from training, he goes straight to the studio. And that's just what he does the past the time. Does, does he have a studio like with the like with the soundproof glass and the big, you know, board and all that stuff or? I know that he, uh, on Instagram a while back, he was trying to find a studio in wherever he was at the time in France. So I don't think he, he had one in his home in France at that point.

Yeah, this is a, uh, at, it's, it's, It's a makeshift studio. I can't remember the specifics. But, you know, there might have been a sheet or something. You know what I'm saying? Acting that's a glass. But yeah, definitely go check the interview out, though. I just think it's funny that his stage name is X-rated when he's like, you know,

kind of the most boy next door guy on the whole national team. It's a surprisingly explicit song he made. I wonder how it pulls in Liberia. All right. Rampage Bobby, great friend of the pod from Chicago, Illinois, says, what U.S. youth national team player that has not been senior capped yet has the best chance of making Qatar 11 months from now. Most would probably say Jogo, my pick would be Dante Sili. I would go with Jogo too with most people on this.

I'm definitely going Joko. Yeah. There's no way I would say anybody else. although realistically isn't Joe Scali not capped yet that's he might be in that mix that's true that's if I were a betting man

and I was actually going to put money on it I would say Joe Scali yeah it makes sense because he's ex I'm really hoping for Joe go to come through big time um Chris in New Mexico I think most people are right to have started moving on from sergeant

but I hold that hope out of some irrational sentiment I was a bit stoned and watching some Pulisic highlights and thought, how different is Josh Sargent from Timo Verner right now? I don't have access to any advanced data and I don't study a lot of tape, but by simple stats in my eyes, they don't seem worlds apart. I'm crazy, I know. You guys have a response to that?

Well, I would say, number one, Timo is a lot faster than Josh. Yes. I would think. And that's how Werner makes a lot of his, hey, is by being a very fast man. So that's one big difference that I would say. I assume his movement is also better. That's my impression as well.

He's just more relentless. And I mean, ruthless isn't the right word for him because he's missed a lot of chances, but he's ruthless in his movement. Football ref has him at 0.7.0 non-penalty expected goals and assists per 90. That's in the 91st, percentile for his position in the league, which is actually the same position as Sargent,

according to FB. Ref. And Sargent is at 0.29 for that same stat, which puts him in the sixth percentile, single digit sixth. Obviously, it has something to do with their teammates, but for all his struggles, I do think Timo gets himself in good positions regularly. And Sergeant just doesn't do that. And I mean, even with that goal, like from the pulley assist, like he still had a he still had a little bit to do once he got the once he got the ball in that position

and he had to send her back a little a little uh-uh before before getting the shot off and i don't know i don't know if josh josh has that in him right now currently no yeah timo seems a little lighter on his feet a little more on his toes in a good way um dave in pitts says a nice bonus for me about the improving depth of the us m&T is that it lets me actually enjoy I enjoy fringe American soccer stories without having to wonder, is he the guy who is actually going to solve all our problems? Have you felt this as well? And if so, who's caught your eye recently in the zone of fun,

but not relevant to the U.S. men's national team? He says he's enjoying Christian Ramirez. I will confess to not putting much time towards watching the fringe players, just because it's too hard. There's too many players. Yeah, yeah. My answer to this will probably be probably be Conrad, to be honest.

Like, Conrad comes good. Great. If he doesn't become a U.S. national team contributor, then, you know, it is what it is. We don't... I mean, being at a position

of wealth in the Uyghur pool is just something that was not expected. And so now I'm just having fun watching these guys play. Yeah. I feel that way about Uli. You know, who I know some people will laugh at me for even paying attention to him because he's playing in the second division of Austria.

But he's always been fun to watch and I can just sort of watch him and hope and not worry about it. Same kind of with Alex Mendez. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.