Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #233: Monday Review — McKennie returns, calendar year records, coolness

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Let's be honest. Things are slowing down. Vince, Watke and Belz convene to talk about how much the 17-win record means, reassess USMNT player coolness, and review the action from the past week. Use the shownotes as guide if you'd rather not ponder whether Weston McKennie and Sergino Dest are actually cool.0:30 intro and news9:15 coolness23:00 January Camp is Jan. 625:20 game action rundownsupport 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 336 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 in the state of the player pool. Let's start with some news. Waki. I think the big news is that the people are not all impressed by Greg Berhalter winning 17 games in 2021, not on the slightest. Um, yeah. And I, like, I think the main thing here is that, so MMA saved Greg. Save Greg. Without them, we'd be ready to get Greg out of here.

And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be, we wouldn't have won the games that we want. Much appreciation to Greg for, for, for winning three games against Mexico in the calendar year. Um, but we kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're not having it. It's the point. The people aren't having it or we want more in 2020. How many games did we shithouse our way through it?

I can't even believe we played that many games. I was amazed by that number, to be honest. I'd say everything in the summer, we shithoused our way through it, right? Yeah, pretty much. Yes, definitely. I guess my main thing on the 17 games is, you know, Greg Velasquez on the podcast we recorded yesterday was like he doesn't he doesn't care about calendar year records and whatever and i get that but it's all trivia the whole thing everything we're talking about is trivia so like you know these

artificial things are i'm fine with that and the the main thing for me is this has been results wise it's been an incredibly good year uh like the the three wins against mexico that vince just mentioned and you know for it to be sort of tied up in a nice bow with the most wins in a calendar year ever. I'm happy about it. I'm not like, I'm not saying that's a bat, you know. I'm sorry.

I'm not saying it's nothing. But the credit, the credit should go mostly to the players and not great. That's what I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. I don't disagree with that. I don't think. I have such a hard time.

I have a hard time making the like the overarching Greg Burrhalter assessment. Don't you guys? I mean, I mean, maybe you don't, Vince, but yeah. I, I, I do. struggle with it because I feel like if it does seem like if he if we lose it is more his fault and if we win it is the player's fault which actually kind of makes sense but I wouldn't want to be a soccer coach if that's the case sounds hard like I guess uh Greg can make it a lot

easier on itself if he just got out of his own way I think is my main thing like I was talking on discord um two days ago I think uh after the game I was like man why why can't Greg just make his layups. Just make your layups, man. You know what I'm saying? Easy two points right there off the glass. What do you think are the two easy, the two biggest layups he missed in the last week or so? In the last, okay, in the last week, number one is like, so Johnny did play well, but why are we playing Kellyn at the eight is my thing. Like if Kellyn gets meaningful minutes at the eight in the remaining qualifying games, my head will explode. Like, we've seen it.

We've seen it's like, it's not good. Like, why are we doing that? For me, he was sloppy. He was sloppy on his one bounce pass. I think that was a pretty clear layout missed too. All right. So let's move to the next, let's move to the next news item. Vince, this is yours.

Yeah, so, um, y'all know I'm from Louisville. people in Discord know I'm a I'm a huge Louisville City fan season ticket holder a racing Louisville fan a season tickets for them as well but Jogo you know Jonathan Gomez getting in I saw a tweet that said he was the first active USL player to earn a cap for the US men's national team and I just think that's a huge deal man it's a huge deal just to be able to have a different pipeline available for kids to progress through, not having to go through MLS,

to be able to reach Europe, and for there to be proof of concept that, you know, this works. Like, Jonathan Gomez is a trailblazer, and for my club to be the club that facilitated this, it's just a big deal, man. And I think when I was, like, getting into soccer, This is something that when I was listening to Toto Saka Show and caught offside, they really drove home the fact that you need to support your local club.

Like if you have a local club, if you have a club by you, definitely support it. Like you, if you listen to Scuff, right, you are aware of the whole global soccer ecosystem and how the lower level clubs play a big part in it. And we need the same thing here in America. Like every club that plays soccer has an ability to pull their own weight and develop players. So I was just, big shout out to Jogo. You know, I was in the stadium for his first start. I was in the stadium for his last start playing for Lou City.

And just to see him grow, see his growth from his first year to this year. I'm just excited to see him for Societad. in the coming year. Totally. I wonder, and I'm just hoping that there's some kind of secret sell-on clause deep in there somewhere. So Louisville City gets something out of it, you know? Because that's, because the proof of concept doesn't mean anything unless they,

the proof of concept includes some financial remuneration for the, for the developing club. I mean, it means something, but it helps to make it happen again if they make some money. Right. But it seems like. Lou City's front office basically screw themselves there without having oversight over the contracts that the Jogo and multiple other players signed under Hackworth, which I mean, I don't know if you, I don't know how familiar y'all with Lou City's footballing structure. But basically, like, our head coach was like the only one with football knowledge, like, in the front office. Like, the rest of the people are just business people.

So Hackworth was basically running everything and had, you know, carte blanche to do whatever. So do you kind of sign them to short contracts? So they can't really, they don't have leverage to negotiate longer stuff? Is that the, uh, there was a clause basically that if Hackworth left, then the contracts of the players would terminate at the end of that season. Oh. So Hackworth. Yikes.

That's not really what you want at the club, is it? No, not at all. Right, right. So not particularly stable. So basically from what I understand, Lou City became aware of these dealings and other possibly shady things. And cut ties with Hackworth. After the first game of our season this year,

first game of the U.S.S. season and then ultimately that meant that Jogo's contract didn't go till May of 2022. It just ended as soon as our season was over in November. Well, it's good for him moving to Real Sociedad. I'll say that. But still, probably. Do not let the terrible business practices of Luce City overshadow the, the momentous occasion that this is. Okay, okay.

We got to revisit a couple things from the last week. I told my wife how I told the story about my daughter ripping open the Christmas presents. And she said, oh man, you left out the best part, which was that my son, who was the older brother to that, to my daughter, when she was coming back to the table or when he found out that she had ripped open

a bunch of Christmas presents, he goes, he kind of blurts out in his little shouty voice. He goes, well, maybe she doesn't know about the Christmas spirit. So. Christmas spirit, famously is one of the ghosts that visited Scrooge.

Yeah. And she didn't know about it. So how old was she at the time? She was three. Yeah, man, three-year-olds don't give it damn about no Christmas spirit. It is it just want whatever

as soon as they can have it, which is immediately most of the time. Yeah, no doubt. So let's go to Let's go back to coolness on the U.S. men's national team. Because I know you were fired up last Tuesday about this. Maybe the fire is cooled a little bit, but you got some stuff to say, Vince. Look.

All I want to say is I give my opinions on who's cool. You know what I'm saying? So first off, I'm going to put part of the blame on Waki because he put me on a spot. He put me on a spot. I was unprepared. I did. You know what I'm saying? So I just started shooting from the hip.

And, I mean, I don't take any of my, I don't take any of my calls back. everyone that I mentioned in this last pod was cool. I'm not like, no doubt about it. But then, okay, you know, pod drops. I'm on the Discord. And everybody just has their opinion. They're just spouting off people that are cool.

And first off, I'm like, did you even put any thought into this? Because y'all said Reggie Cannon. Hold on, hold on. Okay, that's ridiculous, first of all. What are the, what did they object to that the players that you said were cool or were they just throwing out more

options like that because that's that's absurd they objected to they objected to surge which I think is just unbelievably wrong um surge is cool because he just doesn't care

like he's itself you know what I'm saying and that's and that's the type of he has a type of self-assuredness I can get behind you know what I'm saying I agree with that. Yeah, I've kind of come around on him. I see where they're coming from, but I think he is authentic.

Right. And it was just, it was really killing me, bro, because I was getting, like, I was getting stoned in the, in the discord. You know what I'm saying? People are just, hey, no, no, he's not, he's not cool. How could he be cool? Like, Serge did a TikTok dance. They were putting this out of, like, real. Well, the TikTok dance was not, was not cool.

Well, go ahead. Backup dancers and it was staged in front of some skyscrapers. Look, TikTok dance was not cool. I don't want to get into it about this one point because I take your point that otherwise he is cool because of authenticity. But the video itself, the TikTok video where he's a choreograph dance with three backup dancers and he comes towards the camera and puts his hand in it to close it out. We don't need to get into it. What I'm going to say is you can't, I was going to say you can't point out any. any one moment or factor to point out somebody's not cool.

But you know what? I'm going to do this for Reggie Cannon. So I can't, I can't not say that. But all I'm saying is we got a whole bunch of middle age, you know, that 35 to 46 year old, probably older. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. White, man. I'm 34. I am white.

So, I mean, look, man. And then on Twitter, I just see a whole bunch of dog avies in my mentions. You know what I'm saying? A whole bunch of flannel, which, again, I guess I'm sending shots at bills because I'm seeing in this video right now. I'm going to wake us a flannel. But it's not real flannel. It's not real flannel, though.

Let me just be clear. Look, all I'm saying is in the words of Teddy Ray, if y'all familiar. You 36. You 36, bro. Like, like, what kind of, what kind of damn, what kind of opinion? have on the younger generation in their in their corner rankings yeah well i think okay that's i mean it's a fair question but i think we kind of have to figure out like what do what do we mean by cool

you know and i think i've i've put some thought into this i've put some thought into this so i think there's one way to talk about it which is like admirable in some way you know or admirable on the field and i think this is definitely not what you think of as cool right i don't think that's what cool means at all, but go on. Absolutely not. Okay. So that's not cool. What about impressive on the field as in like visually appealing?

The way they play is cool to watch, like fun to watch. Like, I don't think we have that many players like that. I think. I would say that's smooth. I would call that player smooth. But they could be smooth and cool, but they wouldn't necessarily be cool as a result of being Smith. Look, I'm going to say the only thing on the field that I'm a factor.

into these cool rankings is celebrations. That's the only thing you can do on the field that'll make you go up or down in my, in my, in my, in my cool rankings here. So, Sellies. And,

and I would say that our celebration game is, uh, not good, but, but I, uh, so I thought about it and I'm gonna put, I'm gonna put, I'm gonna put Polic.

Polic is cool. Policic is cool solely off the celebrations. I'm sorry, I know it's a stretch. I know it's a stretch. Because there's not much there outside of that. But the shush, that's iconic. Okay, that's an iconic photo is going to live on forever. And the man in the mirror, the man in the mirror is iconic as well.

And so if you give me two iconic moments after you score big, big goals. Big, big goals. I was going to use another phrase that was NSFW, but I'm not going to do it. but yeah like after you do that and then you and then you he does confident celebrations that are sort of out of sync with the rest of his personality actually and he really commits to them so he definitely appreciate that I have trouble calling him cool just because I've watched so many interviews he does and he'll end up talking about like chapstick or something and how he he loves chapstick but he also doesn't think it works and it's just like what are we talking about here

so I'm thinking maybe like like when we with these celebrations celebrations, we're getting like the pure, undistilled version of Christian. That's possible. He doesn't seem comfortable, you know, with all the interviews and talking. He's like, yo, I'm not, I'm not about this talking. I'm going to score on you. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to lift my shirt up.

It's going to say, man in the mirror. I'm going to let you know, Mimo Ochoa, that actually you wish you could be me. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a champion's league winner. You know what I'm saying? Nothing on your resume compares to this. Like, I'm not. hearing it. And so, I mean, to be able to do that, man, like, you, you, you, you got to be cool. But, okay. So let me get to, let me get to Weston McKinney. Because there was,

there was some people that were like, yo, Weston's cool. And I would say this about Weston. Weston just like, he's the guy, he's a guy that plays too much. You know what I'm saying? You got, you got that friend. You always got that friend that's like, yo, he's like, Like I mess with them. But like I can't take them everywhere. I just can't take West and everywhere because I can't, because I can't always, I can't always trust you to be chill to like not just fly off the handle and do whatever.

Like so I've been thinking about this with Nashville specifically, right? It was him and John Brooks going out. Right? Yeah. Notice we didn't hear anything about John. Okay. Notice we didn't hear anything about John. And, and of course it came out that West.

broke curfew twice, and maybe that's why, like, the, uh, the punishment was handed down. But I'm willing to bet you that part of it was just because of Weston doing something extremely extra that, like, he didn't have to do. Like, yo, Weston, you gone out, you got a curfew, get your business done. You know what I'm saying? Do whatever you need to do and get back to the damn hotel. Be discreet, but he can't be discreet. He can't be discreet, man.

Weston's the guy that's always going to. blow up your spot. You know what I'm saying? Y'all trying to I mean, who knows? Who knows what you're trying to do with Weston? Like, I don't know. You're trying to, like, Weston comes over to your house.

You're trying to lie to your parents about going out. You got to put the gag order on Weston. Like, Weston, no, you do not talk at all. I do all to talk. I do all to talk. Because as soon as Weston opens his mouth, he's going to blow up the whole thing. And now y'all can't go out. You know what I'm saying?

He doesn't messed up the whole lie. You were supposed to be staying at Weston's house. Weston told his parents he were staying at your house. You know what I'm saying? He's just that guy. And so to me, it's just he's not cool. And then also, so I'm sorry, Waki, I know you won't get in here. But the lack of cooose shown in the all or nothing, in the all or nothing when he's just,

no, that's what I was going to say. It's like, bro, you out here like, yeah, you know, we Americans, you know, we like some ranch. We like some burgers, you know, some pizza. Like, they're just going on, bro. So who is he talking to? Keep that in-house. Keep that in-house. Kealini.

What was? It was Kealini. Kealini's looking at this man like, bro, like, y'all do what? Like, you know. He's sitting there thinking that McKinney is gross. That's what he's thinking. Right, you can see it on his face. He's like, bro, these Americans, you know what I'm saying?

You can just see it on him. He's like, is this transfer going to work out? Like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, and then the next scene, they cut to him just rolling down a hallway in those shoes with roller roller skates that come out of the bottom of them. The Healy's, of course. Why is he doing that? Because he's west. And those might have been the first time Heelies touched northern Italian soil, definitely.

Like, I don't know. I don't know about the South. In northern Italy, I would guarantee you they have never seen a pair of helies. I mean, I love Weston because he's always going to be him, but he's like, guy, you got to rain in a little bit. Yeah. Again, I think we're getting back to like what's the what is cool. And I have a definition that I want to run by you guys. This is sort of beyond soccer.

But for me, I think the definition that makes the most sense to me for coolness is just having some higher level awareness. that I want to be, I want to get in on, you know, when I, I sense that somebody has, somebody's aware of something that I'm not aware of that I want to learn more about or like get tuned into. And oftentimes, I mean, oftentimes by necessity, it has to come with like a certain level of verbal intelligence to be able to express it, to be able to express something that is intriguing.

And I think it's partly because these, these players are all, like they're in these very still. interviews, that's where we hear from them, where they're like, well, you know, just trying to do what I can for the team and, you know, everybody worked hard. I'm like, none of what they say in these interviews is cool. Yeah. It's all just like clap trap from the PR department, you know? So you're not going to get that in an interview.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, you're not going to have, I mean, at the end of the day, these guys are still kids, right? Like, and they haven't, they're not other than Western probably, because of the, you know, lesson, like I said, he just, he doesn't have a governor. You know what I'm saying? They're going to, they're not assured themselves enough as kids to be able to just be themselves in an interview. You know what I'm saying? Okay. So maybe maybe it is true because we need to kind of not evaluate based on the interview, move the cool evaluation out,

and come up with kind of a new metric for doing that. This is going to be an ongoing conversation, No, we're not going to solve it today. Yeah, well, I think what a lot of these, a lot of people do when they just try to decide who's cool is they just like look at how, you know, people's clothes. Like how much money do you spend on clothes? And then therefore, like the ones who spend the most money on clothes, they're the, they're the coolest. That's not that cool to me. No, it says it says not that, bro. It's a, it's an overall vibe thing that you can gather around.

You got to, you got to bring in as much as much information as possible. to be able to make this assessment because it's like how do you express yourselves and in like in the multiple different avenues of life on the pitch off the pitch on the gram on the gram right you know what I'm saying what like whatever the other social media they have like you you got to take it all in um to be able to create a holistic picture on if if this person's cool or not and and really it's yeah like I said it's just a vibes thing

it's just a vibes thing I think Weston might not even be trying to be cool I think maybe cool is on the way out this younger generation they're on hot you know they say what they think and they say it passionately

there's no ironic or move with West McKinney I could be part of it but how you explain Tim Weye he's an outlier he's timeless Timway is timeless

that's why He's not of a generation. He's just of the world. I don't know. I think a lot of people, I mean, they're definitely trying to be cool. Like, I'm thinking of politics specifically. They're definitely trying to be cool. I appreciate your distinction between Southern Italy and Northern Italy

because Healy's my fly in Sicilia, but not in Torino. I don't think so. No, can't do it. Southern Italy is a bit gauche. Yeah. Should we get into the talking about what that happened in games this weekend? Yes. Or no, we cannot.

Oh, there's one more piece of news. We know that the January camp starts on January 6th in Arizona. And then it's going to be a logistical mess because people are leaving and coming in throughout January until it becomes the real camp leading into the qualifiers. It's kind of a mess. It's kind of a mess, I think, or like an ongoing challenge for all of us that being an MLS player makes you more likely to get chances in front of the national team coach. It's like this has been a thing for a long time. It's been a thing since the beginning of Burrhalter's tenure. And it continues to be a thing, man.

We got to see Rodan and Acosta at the eights a couple nights ago. that's purely a function of them two being in MLS. That's what that is. And this is why I think it's okay to kind of worry about, like the choices that Greg makes in these camps, like candy cane and cupcake. Because it's like, okay, if you're playing Acosta at the eight, that must mean that you kind of rate them as an eight.

And so, projecting forward, since he's already done it before, right? Played him in Panama, had to make some sub appearances at the eight. Like he played, he played as an eight in Nashville,

right? I can't remember. Yeah, probably, yeah. I'm pretty sure. And it's like, we've seen the results from these games.

And the fact that he's still doing it in this camp candy cane game means that we're probably in for more killing Acosta at the 8 and that's my main issue here. It's an issue for me too and I think it's like it's going to happen you know, I mean, look at people like Cole Bassett,

congrats to him on the goal. I think he's in a good spot with regard to the national team relative to his starting position just because he's in MLS. He's going to probably get it, he's probably going to be in on that January camp. He's going to get a lot of chances with Greg.

All right. Should we move into the who's going to be on the plane to Qatar? Let's do it. Tyler Adams. What do you got, Vince? So midweek came on at the half against Augsburg. And then in the weekend came on in the 7th minute for injured at Mill Forsberg. In the midweek, I thought he was really good in his 45 minutes.

like really, really good. I thought on the ball, that's probably the best I've seen him in a while. He was combining, he was releasing attackers into the flank. Like, he just, he came in while Leipzig was up 1-0.

They ended up drawing 1-1 with Augsberg, but I would say that was not Tyler Adams' fault at all, and they probably should have scored at least a goal in that half. And then on the weekend, my thought, so I thought he was actually a little bit worse on the weekend because he was, he replaced Forzberg, who was the more offensive of the two, well, of, but between him and Campbell, like Campbell was sitting deep, taking the ball to centerback. So they needed a little bit more from Tyler there. And I thought his, like, his struggles on the turn really showed. because there were like multiple multiple times he could have turned he could have just turned with the ball and drove forward that he chose to pass backwards at least that's that's what i saw yeah i would say he's not an attacking midfielder i'm becoming more and more confident about well i would just i would just like to see him execute a turn once i think it'd be nice he's actually not very good on the turn is he no it's weird because nobody criticizes him So no one ever says things like that.

But he kind of isn't. There are some who criticize him out there. Yeah, he's not that good on the turn. But he is capable of that kind of performance like he put on midweek. Like he pretty good soccer player. And he can he can like dribble through a little traffic and find somebody's feet. He can quickly solve a problem in tight space. Even when he's like baseline Adams, no offensive output at all,

he wins all the little winnable advantages in the middle of the field. And that's just a huge, massive deal. And for us, we don't need them to be great on the half turn. We need him to win all those little winnable battles and find somebody six yards away at their feet and keep him moving. Like, that's why he's valuable to the national team. And he is occasionally surprisingly good in those quick little dribbles to get out of trouble. You kind of forget he can do that. It appears this wasn't entirely Jesse Marsh's fault, this Leipzig situation.

So that's kind of a relief. Some pleasant shot in Freud on that front, I think, for me at least. Wesa McKinney, he's back. Started versus Bologna over the weekend. What did you see, Waki? Well, he was, first of all, looked healthy and looked like one of their better players. And then the other big thing was there's a lot of fog. There was a lot of fog in the game.

I think that's one big thing we've learned this past year is how much fog there is in the Poe Valley. other than that, he got a yellow that he probably didn't need to get. He shoved a guy when he could have just wrapped him up and moved to... There was a guy over Marada, and he... I probably said that name wrong. Marada? Marada? Anyway, he could have wrapped him up.

Instead, he pushed him. He got a yellow. But they play tomorrow. He plays again tomorrow. Um, yeah, I would just like to say... I would just like to say, imagine not thinking that he's our best player. That's all I'm going to say. This man's every...

For you, Vey. I know it says in vintage Juventus but he's doing his he's doing his thing man like he's just a baller every week starter gets injured comes out of the lineup

comes straight back right into the team like what are we what are we talking about here he's our best player and I'm not taking any answers otherwise

I'm not hearing it I'm going to agree with you in that case I'm not quite as convinced as you are but I'm not going to argue with you How about that? I assume you think it's Tyler Adams?

It's probably McKinney right now. Yeah. Damn right. And going back to my point from last week, remember, all of the, like all of the screaming and shouting over his indiscretions in Nashville, and people were worried was it going to mess up his place with the UVA and all this stuff? Trust the players, man. Trust the place.

Although you also did just criticize his indiscretions in Nashville. No, I did not, I did not, I did not, I did not, I did not, I did not, I did not, I will never, ever be, for being extra. For being extra, yes. But I will never criticize a man for being horny. You, um, okay. Okay. But you did imagine a scenario where he was being extra beyond, yeah, yeah, what John Brooks probably. we did in Nashville. Okay. No, no, no, definitely. But even then, it wasn't a big deal, right? Like, it wasn't that big.

It was constructive criticism. Yeah, it's like, bro, did my, like I said, do what you were going to do, do it discreetly. He wasn't discreet. And, and, and that's what I'm on about. But like I said, I'll never criticize a man for being horny. And that's kind of what I was saying with this yellow, this yellow card he got. Yeah, he just doesn't seem like a guy who, who's going to get away with much. You're going to see it on his face. You know, I'm saying. Greg probably didn't know what happened. But he saw Western. Western had the, had the grin on his face. He's like, yo. Like, like, Weston, come to my office. Come to my office. I know you don't do something, bro.

Eunice Musa. Yeah, he had a cheeky backheel goal in a 3-1 Copa del Rey win over a third division side. He went 87 minutes. Valencia did need extra time to score the two goals to win it. Yeah, I don't know. I just feel like with McKinney and Adams and Musa.

I say this every week. I just want him to stay healthy. We just need them to stay healthy. That's the main thing. That's it. That's it, man. Yeah. Shoot.

All right. So should we go into the backups now? Yes. Jean-Lucabuccio started on the weekend, subbed off at the 69th minute versus Sampdoria. Ended in a 1-1 draw, which is a big match for the relegation scrap. So I'm glad Venetia ended up with a result

Go ahead, Waki He normally has pretty good games This was not that good of a game for him One of his weaker games He also didn't pass the ball forward As much as people would have liked Remember when people used to complain about that a lot That he wasn't a progressive passer

And then I felt like that guy died off Greg V was complaining about it yesterday Or the day That's what I was saying It started to pick back up I didn't even know he was talking about it It's in the air again So that's something we're going to be hearing a lot about in the next, you know, a few months.

Which, this is kind of wild because when I, like, I thought the one thing he did well in that Jamaica match was, was progress the ball forward. So, yeah, I mean, but he does it. He's a confounding player. He really, he really is. And I watch him more closely than probably anyone, because I think I'm going to learn something. something here from this from just watching how he interprets his position and how he's able to make it work in Syria like I think I'm like how he takes his his attributes and and expresses his position because it's just like there's there's some there's some nuance there that I'm missing

I do like I do like the way you know even if he's not you know playing a sithing incisive through ball or whatever I like the way he I like the way he plays in rhythm you know there's always like there's just like a tad a beat of surprise when he uh receives the ball and passes it quickly that I appreciate but

I mean if he can't you know it does feel like we're just retrading the same topics a lot but if he can't like if he can't control the middle of the field at all then it kind of doesn't matter at this point you know yeah and he's also he's also pretty cool we don't need to get into that but he's one of the Up and coming cool people.

Another note, Tanner Testament was kind of good in this game. Was he? Kind of. I thought. There was some people who didn't. Okay. But you're just going to have to trust me then. Thanks.

He wasn't great. He was kind of good. Vince, you say you didn't think he was good or you didn't? No, I was saying I didn't catch the game. I didn't catch this game specifically. But on Luca, very, very. very high on the cool rankings. Okay.

I'm just going to have to bow out of the cool rankings completely. I'm throwing my hat in the out of the ring, as they say, as they don't say. Kellen Acosta, to me, he looked like just a journeyman midfielder versus Bosnia on Saturday night. Did some good things. He hit that, he pinged that one, like 40-yard diagonal that just missed Jordan Morris's foot by like a foot. That was a gorgeous ball. But then, you know, he'd play a couple hospital balls across the middle of the, of our half. So, I don't know, just kind of is who he is at this point.

A good backup six. A backup six. And I would have liked to see him play as a six. Luca Delo Torei got knocked. Heracles got knocked out of the Dutch Cup by Azi Alkmaar. midweek he came off the bench in that one and then on the weekend he started and went to full 90 and a 4-2 win over Grunningen

I thought he looked like himself, missed the frame on a volley from the six that would have liked to see him put it make the keeper make a save and then he was robbed of an assist late on a well-weighted through ball it's a mess man it's a mess the whole midfield

alternative options category is just hard to distinguish from each other. And this is the thing. It shouldn't be a mess. It should not be a mess. Like, if Greg plays Luca, I think we will have a box checked.

If we just get to see him. Yes. Like, every time, like, I haven't watched this man play a full match. I'm not going to sit here in a lot. I'm not going to see here a lot of you. but uh like every clip i see he's he's he is driving the game forward like what like what are we doing his close control is great on the dribble has an eye for a pass like like what are we

doing what are we doing we're not even calling this man into camps yeah that's crazy like layla like i said i think two episodes ago richie if richie Starts playing in the Airdivizzi and does the same things that Luke is doing, we're losing our months. Absolutely. Yeah. So I guess we should say Richie was on the squad but did not play this weekend. For game state reasons, it seemed like we should also add.

Yeah, he's going to be slowly reincorporated into that team. You know, he's got to fight for that for a spot. They're top of the table, man. PSV better than IACs in the Ayrivizzi right now. So I guess that would be the difference between him and Luca Delatora if he were starting. He'd be on a top of the table team instead of one nearer to the bottom. Let's go to Stryker, a position for which there is also quite a bit of consternation and uncertainty. Ricardo Pepey had I think the big news on him is those who already didn't rate him have more reason not to rate him.

and those who do rate him are really rooting for him like me and I don't pretend to be totally objective on this. I really want Pepey to succeed in BR9. Feel pain. I feel pain. I feel pain about him missing that chance. If he just hadn't whiffed,

it wouldn't have been that big of a deal, right? And who among us hasn't whiffed? I've certainly whiffed. Oh, yeah. In my playing days. All kinds of ways. It was a real headcase in that box. I mean

So I'm sure a whiff led to Led to the 10th minute yanking No the 10th minute yanking I just let people dribble street by me and score But the game The practice after I was yanked in the first 10 minutes I had a real I had a real spree of whiffs

That really kept me out of the lineup For the rest of that high school soccer season Yeah I was a real downfall Real downfall Total collapse Yeah. So I would just say about Peppy, man, just have some patience.

It man is 18, right? Yep. Still not 19. There's going to be ups and downs. Like, I think when I'm looking at young players, man, if I see. So they're not always going to be consistent in their application. But sometimes when you see skills, you take note of them. And you're like, okay.

Like he has this in his locker and it's just about becoming more consistent with it. So like people are on peppy about his touch. Like I've seen him make pretty nice layoffs, control passes that are coming into him with a centerback on him. Like I've seen him do it. It's just he doesn't do it all the time. And that's going to come with time, I think. So like in the movements there. I just I'm not I'm not going to be worried about that's just not okay that's not that's not something I'm a trip about man

well on the other hand Jordan Pfock scored four goals over the weekend for young boys versus Lugano his goals were I just to kind of tick through him real quick the first one was he pounced on a loose ball after an aerial collision in the box and slotted at home pretty easy finish all things considered. The second one was probably the nicest goal. He dunked on a guy with a glancing header from eight yards out on a cross, just ghosted in on the guy's right shoulder and put him down, put it in the far corner.

And then he got a penalty kick for his third goal, and the fourth goal was another headed goal after a nice bit of holdup play from him. But the thing about that shot was it was dealt with an absolutely shambolic fashion by the Lugano keeper. But anyway, four goals and the, you know, the Twitterati went crazy. Now PFAC is our number one striker. Yeah, it was so impressive. He did this, but he hardly touched the ball otherwise.

It was just he was either scoring or, you know. Flicking it on with his head. Yeah. Yeah. And he doesn't have any games until the qualifiers, so maybe he'll be in the January early. Who knows? I don't know how that works. Vince, anything on Pfock?

No. No, not really. I mean, I would like to see him. Sure. Jaze. I just want to say, I think his little layoff to Jogo was a nice play. He put it right in a spot where Jogo could step into it and put a little vigor, put a little Vim on that shot. I'm definitely not cool.

I just, the words Vim and Vigor just came through my mind and that is like definitely not cool. I'm like, not cool. Vim's making a comeback. I'm calling that. I mean, and like, I listened to a couple, like, London-based podcasts, and they, and they use it quite a bit. They use it quite a bit. Okay. So, I'm, I'm multinational.

Jesus Ferreira, he played winger for the U.S. on Saturday night. I didn't think he was that great. I thought he was too sloppy and, I don't know, not super comfortable as a winger, maybe. And then Josh Sargent's game was postponed this weekend. So I'm thinking, just thinking about the timing, it seems like he could be poised to kind of lie low for a little bit, and then sneak attack his way back into the roster by being okay for like three games in a row. I could see that happening. Okay.

I'm going to predict it, actually. Yeah, at this point, it's kind of like the backup midfielders. I just don't even know what to think about our strikers. Winger position of great strength for us. Let's just get Raina and Way out of the way. They're both still not in their squads, and I guess early January is the latest word, Waki. That's what they're saying on foot mob.

I don't know how much to trust that. I don't even know how FootMob gets that information, but that is where I base my stuff off of. Brendan Aronson is also off until February 2 to get him out of the way. Okay. So basically it was just Pulisic. I don't have anything to say about Pulisic. Everyone saw, everyone watched him play anyway.

Yeah. There's just not much that he's going to do in a false nine role, I don't think. It's almost kind of sad watching him there. Yeah, and then Conrad did play. It was a French Cup game. I don't put a whole ton of stock in the French Cup games. No. So.

But. So I did not know that Marseilla's second and stable until somebody mentioned in Discord the other day. But I mean, I didn't know until you mentioned it just now. That's incredible. Yeah, they've been. They've been playing well. They're riding a couple of Arsenal Loneys. And comrades, comrades playing big minutes.

I mean, basically what this, what this tells me is, you know, French teams, you got to get an American in. You know, Leo won the league last year, of course. Marseille is back probably where they think they should be, where their fans definitely think they should be, which is close to the top of the table. So it's an American effect. Yeah, science.

The other, so I just thought it looks like he's getting calibrated with that left-footed service. of his and it's not quite there. But I appreciate his work in the cage and his ball security. I mean, he's definitely a competent player, which is probably why he continues to get big minutes for a good team in France. Waki, you got one more thing on the winger front, I think.

Yeah, so apparently, this is from Michelle Giannone. Apparently, Kevin Predes was really good at winger in the camp before I got injured. so I thought he might fit somehow into this winger discussion because they were saying like yeah look out for him in the next year he's not normally a winger but then Vince you shared something like an article where Burrhalter was saying we played him at winger in this camp

just because we didn't want to put him through the ringer of playing like modern fullback yeah that article is from the yanks are coming I'm pretty sure um yeah where he just said we just used him at winger because we didn't want to we didn't want to put him under stress playing fullback because he was just coming back from an injury right you got injured to end this season for dc united right okay shout out sanjay sujanta kumar from yanks are coming definitely fullbacks dest not playing for barcelona is he hurt or what's going on there okay so apparently

I think I saw somebody say that I think it was Daniel Smith, the goat. Let me shout out on one more time. But I think he said it translated a tweet to where it said it was an adductor overload or something like that. I'm pretty sure the adductor

is one of your groin muscles. And people on the Discord are saying that maybe this is a front. He's not actually injured. And this is just for transfer purposes are keeping them out of line up. A ductor overload sounds like a made-up injury,

if I've ever heard one. Well, the adductors are expanding. Yeah, but it's the overload part. It's the overload. Yeah. You don't want it to get, you don't want it to get overloaded. That's the guy's a process of things that are happening to the adductor, not something that has happened to it.

Right. Not a doctor, but. I still hope he goes to Byron. Anthony Robinson, Fullen plays today. Yeah. Joe Scally, what do you got on him, Vince? So in the midweek, on Wednesday, he went, he got pulled in the 76 minute and got an assist.

And a two, three lost to Frankfurt. The assist came on a header that he directed towards Florian Newhouse at the top of the box for a nice strike. led to a goal. And I noticed he was playing pretty high most of the match. And Gladbach's 343. He was on the right this match. And then on the weekend, went 90 and Gladbach's 1-1 draw against Hoffenheim,

where he was playing on the left. And my main takeaway from these two games, just watching Scali is just, he's pretty close to an elite athlete. man. Like just watching them just like a traditional athlete running, jumping. He's strong.

Like during the Frankfurt match, Hamada got on the ball, found some space in between Scali and the midfielder next to him, got the ball, turned, started driving forward. And Scali just hawked this man down. Like, just hawked him down like he was a kid and won the ball back

off of him and started going the other way. And that play particularly, like, really impressed me. Like, I just think, I know he hasn't, he hasn't had any caps yet, but I think his floor, at fullback specifically, you can have a high floor of performance just through being an elite athlete. And I think Joe has it. Yeah. That's really encouraging. And I've come to, I've come to, you know, sort of think that athletic floor is, it's pretty important everywhere on the field.

I think it's the big difference between, like, say, a role, well, it's not a, it's, one of the differences between Cia Roldon and a Mousa or something is like, Roldon's just going to get shrugged off and Moussa's not, you know? Yeah, but I think it probably manifests most importantly at fullback. Like you can, you can not be great technically at all. And as long as you're just getting up and down that line and making the defense account for you, every time that y'all have that ball. Yeah, I just think it's a huge thing to ask.

Scali does still look too much like his glad back teammates is one issue. But other than that, he's looking really good out there. And then the other player is DeAndre Yedlin, who's a fullback. We should at least mention that he played. And they drew the president of Turkey's team, Erdogan. 1-1. That's the name of the president, not the team. It's Erdogan.

Erdogan. Juan, Waki. Since we love... It's not Erdog. No, it's like Erdogan. Okay. Anyway, he tied them. All right, centerbacks.

Miles Robinson, Waki. There's a picture of him from Ben Gader in the Discord. Apparently, he's a model, and there's a picture of him modeling some pants in a Dick Sporting Good store. That's all we have from him. Otherwise, he's off. Modeling is cool. I would just like to say shout out Dick Sporting Goods.

I used to work there. I worked there for a solid four years of my life. And actually I, so as Megan Rapino came in my store. And I, yes, and she had a shirt on that said Rapino and large letters on the back of the shirt. And I was still kind of unsure if it was her or not. So I did not say anything to her. And it's one of the biggest regrets of my life. John Brooks started in a 4-0 lost Byron.

you know, that's going to happen against Byron. Yeah, he was fine. Wolfsburg's pretty bad, though. Yeah, so with the two appointments, Leipzig, Heard and Tedesco and Wolfsburg, high and Coffelt, I really don't get the Coffelt win. Like, Tedisco, at least he kind of,

he got shocked in the Champions League for a year. You know, he's done a little something. With Coffelt, I mean, yeah, and it's going about how you would think it would go. so far as the manager of Wolfsberg. It is pretty strange how few coaches that we know about and the Bundesliga because they just keep recycling the same coaches to coach the teams with the Americans that are on them.

Yeah, I don't know how, like, CoFelt and Tedesco both had a great deal of shine on them when they started their first 10 years. You know, they were both seen as like potential Wonderboys. and I don't know how that happens. How did they get that shine? And it is because it does seem to persist. I always kind of like Tedesco, but whatever. I don't know anything.

Chris Richards. Vince. Yeah, so midweek went 90 at Rice Center back and a two-two drag in his leverkus in. He had a so-so performance in my opinion. He got played around. So first off, it was pretty clear that his role was to mark Diabi for Levykews and probably one of the more dangerous attackers in the Bundesliga.

So pretty much wherever he went, Chris was. Like he followed him into the midfield. Like he was basically manmarking him for some stretches. But in the second minute, Diabi gets the ball into him. Chris is right up on his back and Diabby plays a one-two with a midfielder

so plays it and then spins off of Chris and just leaves this man in the dust to give a pretty good chance for Leverickus in in the second minute like I said he he other than that he did okay like he followed him into the midfield

won the ball off of him a few times he's good at that I think Richards is yeah he's extremely front-footed. And he uses his athleticism to his advantage in that part of his game. And there were a few times where Leverkusen was like released through play or whatever where they had a breakaway.

And Chris was able to get back and not let the attacker turn the corner on them, kind of ordered them and killed the attack. But I, so when I. I was watching this game, he wasn't, he wasn't good in the air, I don't think. I think he was close. He was actually pretty bad. I could be wrong, but I think I clocked his first aerial win in the 73rd minute. And this is something that people really are pretty unhappy with specifically you for saying a lot.

But it is true that he's not good in the air. and I don't know why people, this isn't obvious to people. It's not even a stats thing. Just like watch him jump and had a ball. It's like it's a little bit awkward. It's not his main thing. And I hadn't even been saying it a lot. I just watched this match.

And I was like, oh, this is, this is not good. And so like, yeah, in the Discord, there's some arguments there. People were saying, because he has more header attempts, that he maybe shouldn't be going for, that that affects his aerial dual win status, to which I would say, wind has a larger sample size. Like,

how does a larger sample size infer noisiness into it? I guess I would say. I wasn't quite getting it all the way there, but... He's not a natural in the air. I think that's fair to say just by watching it. Well, I hate to state the obvious, but just because you're black doesn't mean you're good in the air.

You know what I'm saying? They call him, they call him, they call him Air Richards in Germany, which is like, I don't understand that. I think it's just. They call them that in Germany? I thought we were calling that as a joke. I thought that was the, I thought that's what they called him. I mean, somebody called him that. Oh, for sure.

but yeah yeah he's uh if you watch him play he's just not that good and i don't think it's a long-term concern that's my last thing on i don't think it's a long-term concern he gets a little stronger he'll be fat also it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it's a timing and judging the flight of the ball thing you know it's not it's uh he'll be fine speaking of people who are good in the air walker zimmerman was absolutely dominant in the air on saturday night i guess he won official man of the match didn't have a ton to do I thought he was fine against Bosnia. And then Mark McKenzie.

What about him, Wachie? He started again for Gank against Answerp. And he wasn't starting before, but now he's starting. That's pretty much it. I don't watch the game. I just want to point out, because I do criticize McKenzie a lot. One, he's playing very regularly now. So MCB, just be aware that we've said this on the podcast.

and despite my general skepticism about him, I think he is, I watched his seven of nine long balls over the weekend, and he's a pinger of the ball, man. He can play a nice, he strikes the ball nicely, and he can play a good long pass. He had two of those seven successful long passes were precision clipped passes into Zone 14, basically to the feet of the striker.

And that's a valuable thing. thing that I am paying attention to. Were they with both feet or just one foot in particular? I think they were both with his left foot, which is supposedly his weak foot, but yeah. Oh, and I forgot to say this about Chris, but Chris was good on the ball as like per usual in his match. And he's basically, Richards is basically impossible to dribble around on the ground, too. Maybe you said that too I can't remember yeah

See he's elite on the ground Yeah I would say Ground Richards Goalkeeper Matt Turner had very little to do versus Bosnia and Zach Steffen Didn't play in each the last two games It's very confusing because Google still calls him

Jack Stephen In the lineups they put On When he really They really do. They really do. Like I was, I don't know what I was doing today, but I was looking up a lineup.

I was looking up a lineup for one of the Nations League games like the other day. And yeah, in goal, Jay Stephen, right there. I don't know what the hell's going on. Something is going on. Do we know why? Is that his legal name, Jack or Jay? Or what's going on? Okay.

Why haven't they changed it? Because I've been saying this for months. I don't know. How hard is it to get Google to change something? This is kind of offensive to, I think, us, you know? I think it's pretty hard to get Google to change stuff. It's a big company with a lot of products. We should do a petition.

Maybe, you know, on Google, they say, would you like to take ownership of this knowledge card? Maybe you're going to have to do that, Waki, take over the knowledge card. We would very much like to take ownership of this knowledge card. Yes. I didn't know this was an option. Give us all of your knowledge cards for the names of players. All right. Let's shut it down.

Waki has to drive to his grandparents' house. I got a sinus issue. Vince has child care duties looming. Oh, yes. Thanks, you guys. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, everyone.

We'll see you.