Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #235: Annual Review 2021

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

Vince, Belz and Watke convene to run down some winter break news, hand out yearly awards in 18 categories, and spotlight the top 5 moments of 2021. Happy New Year!0:30 intro and holiday activities rundown14:00 Pepi to Wolfsburg, Cuevas to Club Brugge19:25 Annual AwardsMost Inscrutable PlayerPlayer of the YearLittlest BrotherBest Sh-thousing (Connivance Category)Best Sh-thousing (Unnerving Category)Biggest Change in Belz’s OpinionMost Unexpected Moment (Honorable Mention)Most Unexpected Moment (1st Place)Biggest SnubMost Overrated PlayerMost Improved PlayerBiggest Disappointment (Honorable Mention)Biggest Disappointment (1st Place)Dad of the YearBest goal for countryBest goal for clubCoach of the YearWorst Coach of the Year57:30 What we learned this year from the Behind the Crest youtube series1:07:10 Top 5 Moments of 2021 from Vince and Belz. There’s a twist. 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. We are 32 27 days from the first match of the 2022 Men's World Cup, and we're here to take a look back at 2021. We weren't going to record an episode this week, but I got antsy, so here we are. We'll call this the annual review. I got Vince and Waki here with me. How are you guys doing? I'm doing good, man. Just enjoying my time off during the holidays. I'm doing very well. Very well. It's moved to the peppy to Wolfsburg transfer rumor. It seems to be pretty, pretty legit.

How are you guys feeling about him going to Wolfsburg? Well, we'll see. The main thing that's keeping me from, like, kind of being all the way negative is that they spend some real money on them, number one. If the rumor transfer figures are fact, they spent some real money on them. And I don't think, just the type of player that Ricardo is anyway.

He can't moonlight on the wing or in central midfield. So the minutes he's playing are going to be pure nine minutes. And that's the thing that's probably most important. Yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah, I feel cautiously optimistic, I guess, myself. But playing for Colfeldt is, I mean, it would seem to be not good. It would seem to be, yes. If you want the full-on pessimistic view, which I think goes beyond even Kofeld and Wolfsburg,

check out Bob Morocco's tweet thread about it, you know, about how much, how Pepe's underlying numbers are not exceptional. And there's very little precedent for somebody going from a lower league to a better league and immediately improving his numbers. There's actually precedent for those numbers decreasing as you go up in level. So that's a, you know, bookmark that and yell at Bob Morocco if he's wrong, which he's, there's no reason to believe he is wrong right now, but let's hope he is. You can just yell at him anyway.

Yeah, yell at him anyway. The other thing is Wolfsburg is, you know, has been a little bit of a graveyard for U.S. players. I mean, other than John Brooks, who was purchased by Wolfsburg for $19 million or something like that from her to Berlin. It's a town of something like 100,000 or just over 100,000, so it's not really an exciting place, even though it has a cool name. And I think that that can be a bit of an issue. I think it was an issue for Ullianez and probably for Brian Keo.

I don't really know that much about that situation. But, you know, I hope Pepe can find a life there that is satisfying to him outside of the game, because I think that'll be a little bit of a challenge. Yeah, I mean, at this point, we just got to have faith in him, his family, you know, as an agent, everyone that they've done their due diligence and they've just, and they've picked the right place for them. And I mean, if you're like just being really introduced to Ricardo this year, like I was aware of him, whatever, but the man he's becoming, the young man that he is and everything,

I feel like I can't do anything but trust him. I mean, he seems to be a very solid person, very good head on the shoulders, very great, a wonderful family as we've read this year. So it's all we can do is have faith in El Trane. Yeah, I agree with all that. I agree with all that. So a couple other, well, Waki, did you have anything to say about Pepe? I don't.

Okay. Well, a couple other little things are Maricio Cuevas, a player who's kind of been under the radar for a while. He apparently is headed to Club Bruges, which is good because he's still U20 eligible. We could use him right back for the U20 team, which is going to try to qualify for both the Olympics and the next U20 World Cup this summer. So that's a good news. What's he been doing for the past year?

I think he's been in the doghouse because of, you know, agent club disputation. Where's he from? Is he a galaxy? Yeah, he's at the Gals. Of course. Okay. Yeah. He's a player I always rated with the youth national team.

So I'm excited to see him back in the picture. I haven't seen him. What kind of player is he from right back? He's clever. He's clever in possession. Not a like extremely elite athlete, but good enough. I think if you remember. Pretty composed on the ball too.

That's not the thing about him. So very joker. He's a little Joe go like, yeah. He doesn't have like, I don't think he has quite the sauce, but he's very, he's like dependable over there. And he can hit a free kick. He can hit a free kick with his right foot. Oh yeah, he took like, he scored like six in a row or something

a couple years ago. It was crazy. I don't know if that was the exact number, but it was a very impressive number of free kick goals. Yeah, yeah. So back when the U-16s, I think, think beat, they beat like three other good nations in a little tournament right, like a few months before the pandemic. He was on the right side and Jogo was on the left side and our

fullbacks were, I think, probably are two best players on that team. So anyway, that's, that's the skinny on Kuevas. All that said, please consider subscribing to the scuff Patreon. You can pledge two, five, ten, or even more dollars per month to the podcast. It's the only way we make money and we are hoping to grow in 2022. This is our year. To those of you who already support us on Patreon, thank you very much. Let's get to the 2021 review.

We got several awards. This is a very postmodern approach to 2021 review. We have awards of all sorts. No system to it. Why don't you start Waki? Yes. Most inscrutable player of the year

goes to Sir Virginia Dust. I think the highlight for him was when he wore the full kit basketball jersey to Messi's good press conference, he does Robanas. Is that how you say it? Robana's no looks to know. No, that's not how you say it.

It's Robonas. Robonas. Okay. That's just a silly way to pronounce that word. He does rebona's and no looks to little obvious advantage, and yet somehow is our most authentic player, most inscrutable player of the year, Sir Gino Death. Yeah, I think that's fair.

But I feel like the reason he's, inscrutable is because he could come out and be our best player on the night and he could also come out and be very far from our best player and I don't know what the exactly the the reasons for that are I'm gonna keep it real I had no clue when it's screwed a woman I was just vibed like even even now or did you look it up before I says I just looked it up impossible to understand or interpret understood I mean Well, originally part of my case there was he was sunbathing in socks. Apparently, that's just not what he was doing at all. You know, so it's probably beyond me.

I just don't understand him. He's a weird dude, though. He is his own guy. He's his own person. But, I mean, I think part of this is just youth. Like, like, as he matures a bit, we'll, we'll see who the real search is. All right. All right.

Player of the year, you know, the U.S. soccer gave the player of the year award to Christian Pulisic. And I can sort of see that. You know, he scored the game winner in the Nations League final and in the qualifier against Mexico in Cincinnati. And he also won Champions League with Chelsea, which is a big deal. But for me, player of the year is West McKinney. Involved in two of three goals in that Nation's League final, scored one, put one off

the post for Raina to tuck it in. Iced Mexico and Cincinnati, which we can get into later. But that was a, boy, that was a moment for me. And I think all of us in meaningful competition, which includes the Nation's League and qualifiers, by my definition at this very moment, the U.S. went 5-1-0. That's five wins, one draw, and no losses with him on the field, or him starting games. And then we went one, two, and one with him off the field. One win, two draws, and one loss. That's a pretty telling statistic there.

and then he's just a much more important player, I think, for the U.S. than Pulisic is and has been for a while. Imagine. Imagine not thinking he's our best player. I'm bringing up again. I mean, he's our guy, man. He does so much for the team. And when you go back and think of, like, his performances throughout the year, you can see where his assortment of skills just pops up. Like, it's Costa Rica when basically we.

he dominated that match possession-wise and had him had him bunkered in. Like Weston was the one on the ball, spraying the ball from side to side. The Mexico goal that you just mentioned, he's finishing off plays. He's creating opportunities, involved in everything, tackles, winning headers, just controlling the midfield. Like I think he has a potential to be a world-class midfielder, especially when you consider the fact that this is, on how you want to account for some of his time with Pierlob, maybe like his second to third year being a full-time center midfielder. Right.

So yeah, the sky is the limit for us. Are you guys thinking maybe the fix was in on the Bio Steel Mail Player of the Year Award? That went to Christian Pulisic. No, no, because, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, goals and big goals matter. and for, you know, for something like that, a player of the year award given out by U.S. soccer. Okay. So we're not making charges of a conspiracy,

but the thought does occur to us. I wouldn't say the thought occurs to me. How do they even decide it? How do they even decide the thing? It's not a, is it a fan vote or something? 15% of it is decided by a fan vote. The rest is by players and coaches. media. Well, I'm going to tell you, I didn't vote. So, I mean, like, how many fans y'all think

voted in this? A thousand? Yeah. 850. So, I mean, the name, the name recognition of Pully. And of course, you know, the scandal that marred Weston's 2021, that we'll get into a little bit later. I really thought I was going to get you guys to go along with a bit there on the fixed thing. But I'm going to keep trying. I might keep at it. And actually, we're going to do it. Sorry I missed that. I missed that invitation. There's nothing to miss. Just, all right.

Let's go to Littleest Brother of the Year. That goes to Brendan Aronson. I don't think that needs any explanation. We'll just go ahead to the best shit housing, and this is in the connivance category. Kelvin Acosta, when he disrupted a cutter penalty from being taken for over two minutes

through just persistent disruption. First, he stood by the taker at the spot, talking S. I'll just say it. He was talking. shit and then he refused to leave and then he'd do contract from an opponent causing a scuffle. That was a

great sequence. Best shit housing of the year in the Knavins category. And really, and really, hey, before you move on to the next one, really like a moment that was made legendary by your video. Let's be honest. That video is canonical at this point.

Well, thank you. Yeah. It was really, it was all Kowen. It was all Kowen. And as a shit talker myself, Um, like, like I just, I just love Kellen for just being that, that pure shit talking like, like, there, there are people like, supposedly they say Gio like does it like under his breath kind of. Well, well, this moment they were getting to in a minute. Not so much, but Gio kind of does it like slightly or whatever. Kellan, you know that man talking shit. You can see it in his neck movements. You can see it in his hand movements. You know what I'm saying? The way he's just like, like his face, everything. You can see it. He's like, yo, I'm here to talk some shit. And. which is why he's a better he's a better fit the six and the eight like yeah he's so nonchalant about it that i love that about him you know yeah should we go to best shit housing unnerving category yes this goes to giorena it's from when he out of nowhere spent it over to a honduras player

who he judged to have dove and he leaned over into him and told him to get the effort up p word and he yelled it right in his face. And then there was a big fight after that. It came out of nowhere. It was a shocking display of ferocity. And that's the best yet housing in the unnerving category for the year. Yeah, what a moment that was.

That was a new side of geo to see publicly unveiled in such a way, I think. I love it. I love it. It's just, let's just get to the World Cup, man, because everything else is going to fall in the place. the nation's going to fall in love with these boys. I can't wait.

The biggest change in my opinion, this is Bell's talking, is Sebastian Leget. I will insist. And so I've gotten a lot of guff for this, but I will insist till my dying day that Leggett was a useful player for the U.S. and even a spark plug in 2019.

Then the pandemic happened and his game fell off in 2021. He got tired and he had a lot of, you know, had some serious personal, issues in his life, his sister dying. But I did have to change my tune on him this fall. I still think he might come back stronger in 2022, but for now I have to admit he wasn't that good, even though I was kind of defending him throughout the summer. So that's my biggest change in opinion.

Yeah. I mean, I'm basically right there with you. The Sebastian that we saw in 19, from that, I think from that first, camp that Greg had on. It was like, this guy's a difference maker. I remember that camp when the whole talk of the thing was Georgie Mahalovich. And I think Seba came on and replaced him specifically and like just just started like balling immediately.

Just turning, driving at the defense. I think he might have came away with a goal and or assist or something. But yeah, he's, he has been a good player for us in the past. And if he gets back to that form in 2022, that'd be. be a big deal for sure does that you know that reminds me the georg you mentioned in georgie reminds me of how the the hype machine for georgie fired up so much in that january camp of 2019 berhalter's first camp i remember paulton orio was writing yes whole articles about how good georgie was dude he was like the talk of the camp like it was so weird yeah and and then he had a good year this year

georgie did but boy that was not that was that was that was not a real thing when we were talking about how good he was in 2019. I was just going to say, I think Jonathan Lewis was good then too. That was another one. Should we go to the next award? This is the most unexpected moment. First, we have an honorable mention. It was the time in the Nation's League final

on live TV when security chased a man on to set, and he jumped over the railing as Clint Dempsey watched him jump over, and then he turned and grinned straight at us through the camera. This is just part of the of the craziness. was that Nation's League final.

Like some of my friends that I showed the behind the crest too, like I showed them the behind the crest. And even then, I was like, this does not explain the entirety of this match. Like, there was just so much more going on that the behind the crest didn't even catch. Of just, like, pure madness. That was the sports event of the year. And I would say Dempsey wolf grinning at the camera as after the runner jumped over the railing was really the coup de grace of the thing.

the whole night. Like, like, like, it was, there was so much insanity in that game. And that just was like, the perfect cherry on top. Bro,

because like, it was like, yo, is this man alive? Like, like, he was, he just fell straight out of the,

and like, like, and the only reason to even believe that he was alive was the fact that Clint was smiling. You know what I'm saying? Right. But the fact that you didn't know, was it a 20 foot drop?

Was it a 50 foot drop from that railing? And Clint still just grinning right at us. There was something diabolical and wonderful about that. Because maybe he was dead. And Clint was just like, yeah, what's up, y'all? You know? I assume he's okay. Right?

We would have heard about that. But we didn't know. That's a good point. That was what was so striking about the moment. Is this man dead? And Dempsey smiling at you, as you wondered. You know, also, what was that like, that was like in between full time and extra time? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like a high attention moment. Like, yeah. Yeah. Maybe that was the best moment of 2021 now that I think about it. Well, that was just my honorable mention.

But I'm now starting to second guess my, that I met because I have the most unexpected moment for me was the stretcher children. Mm-hmm. in the Nations League semifinal just versus Honduras in Denver when a player went down and the next thing we know the camera cuts to like a medium shot

of really actually kind of a close-up of a stretcher being run out by a team of small children so I'd be just from a pure unexpected standpoint I was not at all expecting that to happen and that was I thought an even stranger moment went than watching the man jump over the railing.

Because I was watching the game with someone else. I remember just turning to her. Like, what is going on? Is this what's happening right now? Why are they doing close-ups of these children? All right. So maybe I don't remember this correctly. But didn't they like actually try to pick them up?

Didn't they put the stretcher down and the guy laid on it? There were a whole ton of incidents with the stretcher children. They had a whole game of activity out there. It was really exciting. It was like Honduras. It was a game where it was also the worst game because it was just constant shithousing of players going down. So they're just constantly running out of these stretchers on the whole game. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And like putting them on the, like trying to lift him onto the stretcher, lift it up. They couldn't get him buckled at one point. And then Weston McKinney had to help get the player buckled up. Yeah. On the stretch. Weston had a very active day with the stretcher, too. I think it's a good idea to have the children on stretcher duty when we play a team like Honduras because it adds a level of shame and absurdity to all the like sort of fake injuries. Yes.

It's a nice touch. I hope we keep it up or return to it. Me too. Biggest snub of the year. So a player who's just been not given his due by Burrhalter, not given minutes. I'm curious what you guys think, but it feels to me like an unknowable deadlock between Dwayne Holmes, Luca Delatore, and Timmy Chandler.

And there's, you know, they're all very different situations, those three players, and there may be reasons for their omissions, their persistent omissions. I'm going to, I'm going to say it's Luca De La Torre, partly because of how much I respect him having posted a comp of himself to Twitter and then getting called up

right after that. So he just has this place in my heart for that. As far as I know, he's the first player to ever do that, other than like a youth player, like a 14-year-old. I think that's further evidence that Greg has a burner that's widely known about. Remember that in the war shop pod?

He brought it up, and Greg was quick to shut it down. He denied it. Yeah, not very credible. That man got a burner. But between... I would have to say the aides are the biggest deal just because, I mean, we kind of have an aid problem at the moment. And no Dwayne Holmes or Luca. I think we kind of felt that at times throughout the year. Yeah.

Well, Greg Velazquez isn't here to bless us with his presence, but I do think, you know, he would, he's been on the, he's been saying Dwayne Holmes would be a useful player for a long time and continues to beat that drum. And we still don't really know. We still don't really know what happened with Dwayne when he was in the goal cup camp in Minnesota, I believe, in 2019. And he's never been back. Something horrible must have happened in that time, you know, because there's no way. There's no way he shouldn't get another look with the national team after that. Probably playing better now than he was at that time for Darby, Connie? He's not a perfect player, but he's a, he's a, he's an MMA type eight if he wants to

play the eight, you know? Absolutely. All right. Most overrated player. I'm going to say probably Brendan Aronson. He's a hard worker and he scored goals against Honduras and Canada in the first window, but since then he's been, um, underwhelming, I guess is the way to say it. Less effective than Ricardo Pepey, uh, since that first window. And I think he's been, um, um, underwhelming. I guess is the way to say it. Less effective. Uh, uh, since that first window. And I think, you know, a lot of people are impatient with Pepe. And yet there's no impatience with, with Aronson that I can perceive in the fan base. A lot of people have written him in Penn for Qatar.

So I think he's the most overridden player right now. And, I mean, I would probably agree with you, to be honest. I've had a heavy anti-Branden-Arensen agenda ever since the, mainstream soccer media was saying he was better than Tim Wea in that Costa Rica match post-Nations league. And at that point, it was personal for me. But I would like to say, just thinking about it objectively. I mean, he could probably also be our most improved player of 2021. In 2020, no one was thinking about Brendan as being a third, fourth strength,

fourth string winger for us and being being good enough at it to the point that we're like you know we don't we don't totally need christian if christian's out we got a replacement for him um so that would be quite a trio of awards for him to get littlest brother of the year most overrated and most improved well well it just that would be a serious haul oh sorry it just goes back to what we were talking about, man, as far as like, you know, the numbers on the board, the G plus A, I mean, that that's going to reign supreme in a lot of fans' minds. And for me, I'm more about the overall performances myself. And he does, he does tend to, if we're not finding those transition opportunities,

he's going to find itself fading out of the game. I mean, of course, he can press. but I think like every every single one of our front players compress like that's I don't think Brendan is is that good at it to where that's really a concerning factor yeah yeah um but yeah overall overall Brendan's a big a huge winner in 2021 he might be a little overrated now but still he's a good player um I'm I'm a back him a lot to probably improve some more in 2022. I mean, if he just cuts the little brothering out, what, 15%.

Like, we really got a, we really got a guy on our hands. You know what I'm saying? So just hit the weight room a bit. And I think we're going to have a real player who could potentially go to the top. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting, though, that he gets those three awards. Littleest brother, most overrated and most improved.

It's almost impossible to do that. What a paradox. it's an achievement. It's going to call the Brendan Aaron triple triple word trouble seriously because when you think of the

when you think of the attributes one has to have to achieve all three just like you know the the frailty and the just like the look you know what I'm saying the little brother look

you got to have that and then also that little brother look gets you into the hearts of the America's heartland you know what I'm saying they're just going to I love you off the rip because you look. Exactly.

So it actually makes a lot of sense those three would go together. Because he's your little brother. You're just rooting for him so hard and you're so proud of him that he's improving. And as a result, you overrate him. Yep. And then here comes the cold calculated ones where it's like, oh, actually, you know, he's actually done a lot. And he's pretty, he's pretty good. So, yeah.

Shout out to Brendan. Yep. Yeah. Come on the podcast sometime, Brendan. love you. Biggest disappointment. Jesse Marsh is firing at Arby Leipzig is my call for that. But Greg Velasquez has some detailed stuff we need to get into after that.

But Marsh did get the job at Arby Leipzig. He was groomed for it. Everything seemed well set up for him, at least on paper. And then he got fired before the fall was through. Kind of a bummer. Kind of a big bummer, really. Yeah, like definitely a bummer. and I know I talked about the

does this dress made me look fat energy, but like the more we talk about it and I mean, not the more we talk about it, but the more like we've read into it about the situation there at Leipzig I feel like it's looking worse and worse for him just because like the

front office people at Leipzig were basically like, look this team's very good and should be better than it is we have a team built to possess the ball and Jesse's basically running up into their office it's like, dude, I'm a one-trick pony.

Like, I can't, I can't coach a possession-based team. What the hell did you hire me for if you wanted me to coach a possession-based team? It was just like, man. Like, it's just disappointed that he couldn't figure this out. He couldn't get it going. It remains to be seen if the Desco does any better for real. Right.

Well, it just, it just, as far as, like, the Germans are very, like, civil and nice, typically, you know, and it's just like the amount of stuff that's come out about this, I'm just like, damn, this seems, uh, it seems not good for his future, uh, future job prospects. Yeah, you wonder where he's going to land. The Germans did have a rough go of it, I would say, in the middle of the 20th century, early middle. But other than that, after that, they've been much better better. Yeah, it's just the impression I give is that they keep it very buttoned up, very professional.

And, you know, for all this stuff to come out about Jesse, it's just like, they must have really not like this man. But maybe they have to keep it so buttoned up and professional because of just the chaotic fire that burns within, you know? Anyway, German history. What a thing. Number two, biggest disappointment. This is Greg Velazquez's contribution here. he would say the Olympic qualifying roster and performance. He notes that those included include Sebastian Soto, Jonathan Lewis, Benji Michelle, Andres Perea,

Cardoso, Johnny Cardoso, Hassani Dodson, and Jackson Ewell, and those excluded from that roster, who were available. Ricardo Pepe, John Luca Bousio, Eric Williamson, Tanner Testman, was a injury replacement. He was barely played once he was added to the roster. James Sands, Keaton Parks, and Paxson, Pomacall. And then Ernie Stewart's post-mortem was, Outsiders believe that the players that are not there are always better than the players

who are there and don't qualify. No. That's a quote from Brian Strauss article in Sports Illustrated from Ernie Stewart, who is the general manager of the U.S. men's national team. This was bad, man. This was a bad, bad showing by the Federation. So as an aside, I would just like to say, am I the only one that hates Ernie Stewart's face?

I don't hate his face. I can, I see where you're coming from. I don't know what it is. But I mean, basically, he just looks like the type of guy that was this quote. After leaving out, a person is about to transfer to the Bundesliga, a person playing big minutes in Syria. Another, another, another, another guy who is also playing big minutes in Syria. Like, what, like, what are we talking about here?

Yeah. A, a MLS Cup champion? Bing Bong. Like, what? Yeah. It's like, it's like he did, it's this, like something somebody would say who doesn't really even care about what's happening, you know? Like, try to care about it, Ernie.

I mean, if you read the sentence really closely, outsiders believe that the players are not there are always better you know he's technically right they're not always better yeah i guess well i guess inadvertently he's calling out of venezia and wolfsburg as being outsiders which they are but uh i just thought i should give him a slight defense just because just because we were talking about how bad his face is and how much we don't like his face so i'm just kind of an instinctive thing that just it just occurred to me I have no comment on Ernie Ernie Stewart's face for the record. Well, we came out pretty hot.

Pretty hot on his face. I'm sorry, Ernie. What were you going to say, Vince? Oh, no, no, I just said I'm sorry to Ernie. No, don't apologize. Do we not apologize to Ernie? We can't backtrack. We got to stick.

No, no, no, I don't really mean it. You do not mean that apology, Ernie Stewart. We don't like your face. We being Lockhe and Vince. Adam is fine with your face. Bell has no opinion on your face, Ernie. What's the next award, Vince? Oh, okay.

So this award was made especially for this year. And this is the dad of the year. And this one goes to none other than Airborne 69. I don't even know his first name. I think is John. John McKinney. John McKinney, Airborne 69, as he's known on Twitter. Dude, I don't even like 69 jokes like that, but this was just...

It's not a 69 joke. That's going to make it so good. He was born in 1969. It was so perfect, so perfect. So, of course, in Nashville on the day of the game, right, so wasn't it the day of the game that we found out when lineups? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we found out Weston's not playing. West is not even on the bench.

comes out later he's been sent home for violating team protocol basically as I alluded to last episode being a little bit too horny being a little too horny for Greg's liking

and and and here comes Airborne 69 hopping in on Twitter I forgot who he was responding to I think it was Tenorio maybe yeah it was he was

responded to a Tenorio tweet. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, that's what it was. Hold on. Let me. Okay. Here we go. Right here. John McKinney, Airborne 69. Weston is a better person than most and could have now named. He said, named and dropped. Okay. More violators. But instead of taking it out of the chin and we'll bounce back. People love you when it fits their narrative. He's a decent young man.

If you only knew one side, then you think the worst. And, and of course, since this award is dad of the year, a strong defense from dad, Airborne 69, defending his son for being horny.

Yeah. And it's, it's just like, if you read, if you, what really killed me about this, like I got more last out of this than probably anything

that happened this past year, other than the Nation's League final. But like, you read between the lines, Weston's like, I mean, John's like, come on, man.

Weston's just a little horny that's all. Who do we, like, who do we know? Like, he without horny throw the first stone. All right. Right. And John's just like, look, man, I'm airborne 69. This is, this is a long line of horny. Before you remove the horny speck from your neighbor's eye, remove the horny beam from your own. From your own eye, Mr. Paul's Norio. Okay. That reminds me, that reminds me of the Mark Twain quote about how most virtue has its roots and cowardice, you know? Like, uh, if you're not, if you, you can't go around claiming to be virtuous if you just

too afraid to be horny. And, uh, Weston's, Weston's not afraid. He's not afraid. He's not afraid to be horny. And John's like, he's in Nashville. I mean, and as one does, you know, he just went, went out to this thing. But this, this was taken, uh, this whole thing was taken a lot more seriously by the, uh, broader soccer public, I think than, then it should have.

And meanwhile, me, the whole time, I was just laughing, man. It was pure comedy. This whole thing. Like, the way Landon was acting so sacrilegious about it, the way everyone else was acting all sacrilegious, like. Yeah, it was just over the top, man. It was just so good. It was like, we're talking about somebody being horny.

That's his only charge? That's the only charge you got against this, man. And he was being horny. and acting on too. Oh, amazing. Maybe it's sad. But, and then also, I got to thinking, it's like, dude, soccer as a sport has a very, like, cosmic energy about it.

It's like, you only get in what you give. You only get from the game what you give, you know what I'm saying? That's why Manchester City hasn't won a Champions League. You know, it's like, yo, you got to feel some pain. You can't just buy everybody and then come in here and win the champions. It's like, no, it's not going to happen. You got to feel some pain and you got to feel it repeatedly. And, you know, I mean, we're not going to win a trophy without a little hard arm.

You know what I'm saying? We're not going to win it without building a football heritage. And, I mean, if you follow the sport at all, there are scandals way worse than this coming from the best teams in the land, the land being the planet Earth. Yeah. So yeah, this is just something that's needed. And I wish we would just take our time to just laugh a little bit more. Yeah, I think it's a very interesting chapter in the history of the national team. And then I would like to say on November 13th, Airborne 69, back again.

He quote tweets, USMNT only, who seems like they have clipped a picture of the Mexican paper record. And it says, San major saludan al Nuevo Gigante. I don't really know what that means, but John quote tweeted this and said, I would like to say

thanks to Coach Mr. Burrhalter. I would like to say thanks to the coach Mr. Burrhalter for giving life lessons to Weston. I am even prouder, I am even prouder of for the way he has responded. Hashtag, believe in yourself. Hashtag let's go.

So it all comes from the circle, baby. And, uh, no, that, that, that newspaper cover says say hello to the new giants. That's what, that's the message to Mexico after we beat him. And it was a picture of, of Weston doing the Harry Potter thing, right? Well, it's a, no, no, this is just the point of, uh, the Trinity, as I like to call him. Tyler Christian, well, Christian's on. Weston's back. Tyler got his hands out. Weston's pointing, probably, probably to the man who guided it through him,

who guided him through this treacherous time, none other than Airborne 69. And, you know, we're celebrating. Coach Mr. Burhalter. Yeah, this is just, it came full circle. There was a nice picture of them in Austin after the Jamaica match where they were just, like if you see the smile on John's face, he could. can be happier. He was just like, son, you're back.

He bawled the day. We overcame the horny. So here's to 2022 and hopefully further growth in Western's development. Yeah. That of the year, John McKinney, Airborne 69. Best national team goal. I'm going to say Desdbanger versus Costa Rica. Beat Kailer Navas without trouble.

Top left corner. A huge goal because it brought us back into. that game. What do you guys think? Yeah. I mean it was a huge goal and it happened like right in, basically like right in front of the scuff section inside of lower.com field.

So it was great. We had a great vantage point and yeah, it was a banger. It was surprising. It was very surprising to me at least. I was like, wait, that's a goal. And of course, I'm just giving up that goal immediately, even though right after that goal, we just dominated them and we felt pretty good about how the game was going. You're always going to be on edge a little bit until we got that goal. Yeah, a lot of release there.

There weren't that many bangers this year now that think about it. So I don't even know what the competition would be. We don't shoot a lot from outside of the box. There was that other dust one, but it was in a friendly at the beginning of the year. I think that was this year. Yeah. The other competitors for best national team goal of the year would all be in the conversation because of the significance of the goal. Yeah. You know.

Right. I mean, the other front runners would be probably Pula Sixth game winner versus Mexico. Peppies game winner versus Honduras. You know, there's a few others, I guess. Best club goal of 2021 for a national team player. I'm going to give it to D.K.'s Laser Beam versus Birmingham City in. March just that's the one where he's he's kind of a breakaway but he still has a defender to beat and instead of trying to beat the defender he takes a touch wide and hits a shot from a

terrifically bad angle and it's just an absolute bolt of lightning in the top near corner um XG of like you know some small decimal point and it goes in so that's gonna i'm gonna say that's the goal of the year uh rain has rocket versus bremen in april bro is up there too. Pool of six goal against Real Madrid in the Champions League semifinals right up there. So Gio's is the one where

he like skips past and does it, right? No, that's from two years ago. I know which one you're talking about. This is one, that was in the DFP people call. This one is, he receives it at the top of the box and it kind of skips up and he just rifles it. Ah, okay, I got you.

Coach of the year. Burrhalter because he's the only one he's the only coach I guess we could give it to Nico Estevez but it's not it's not going to anybody else I gave him a B plus

on the year excellent work welcoming and securing the talents of dual national such as Dest Musa and Pepe he has obviously an excellent record versus Mexico that he can lean on

from this year we did get some suboptimal lineup decisions here and there and some the narrowness of his assessments with the pool seems to be a problem. Like he's not bringing in enough auditionees at the 8. But got to admit, it was a pretty good year for the national team and for Burrhalter.

Yeah, it's going to be tough to give him anything less than a, really, I mean, to give him really anything less than a B-plus, when you beat, you beat Mexico three times. Yeah. I mean, like I said, we have to, we do have to, we do have to, the results. We understand the process thing is the one that's going to probably bear out more repeatable results. But, I mean, at the end of the day, the results are the results. But, I mean, you know, the book is still out on Greg, of course. We can never forget that he was going to start ball aerial like it's Costa Rica. Yeah. We should never forget. He was going to do

that, wasn't he? He was going to. Never forget. Never forget, man. I mean, who knows how like, I mean, Tim had a hand in both goals. They were scored there. So who knows, who knows how that game goes? If you're playing, I don't even want to think about it. Well, but, congratulations to Burrhalter on his coach of the year award. Shout to him. Shout to Greg.

Yep. Worst coach of the year. Jason Christ. Yep. No debate there. Waki. Tell us what we learned from the Behind the Crest YouTube series in 2021. Yeah.

So I went back and did a quick. review of them and just the main findings that I have are the group as Burrhalter often calls them. They're also referred to internally as the Brotherhood and we learned that in January. I kind of forgotten that. It seems like the group and the Brotherhood are kind of the same thing except the Brotherhood. There's a little bit difference there because it's kind of got this eternal vibe to it. It extends both forward and backward in time. We learned that in a call to Andres Perea in January.

He said, welcome to the Brotherhood. He said it so, matter of fact, it's obvious he says it all the time. And we have to, we didn't get into this in the coach of the year, but Greg has to be commended for, it seems like the group, it's just good vibes about this group. And as the head coach, he's the. The group of the brotherhood. Oh, the Brotherhood, excuse me. But they seem to be brothers who like each other. I think the Brotherhood includes past players too.

So he's in the Brotherhood. And once you're in the Brotherhood, you're always in the Brotherhood. You're never out of the Brotherhood, whereas you can be out of the group. Alexi Lalas is in the Brotherhood too, then. He's in the Brotherhood. But he's like maybe a little bit estranged from the other brothers. Or maybe he just created that specifically for Perea. Because he was like, yo, we're going to call you up for this for this Olympic camp and then you're on your own, buddy.

But you'll always be in the brotherhood, though. That's the thing. All right. The next big thing is there was a convergence toward kind of a minimalist, minimalist fashion sensibility within the group. It's going to be complicated whether it's called the group of the brotherhood going forward. I'm just going to say group. So we saw a lot of black sweatshirts, a lot of white t-shirts. those were predominant and then really basic stuff around that

and we saw that in the behind the cross series and on Twitter and Instagram one potential piece of discordance with that is of course Brendan Aronson he kept insisting over and over again in this series on wearing his Dolce and Gabana backpack which is brown and has Ornac's accents and there's this design on it and it's not I don't it doesn't really fit for me yeah doesn't sound like it fits at all.

Too big, exactly. So he spent a lot of money on it. You know what I'm saying? He wanted, he wanted to make sure that y'all saw it. Yeah. So another thing we learned is that Burrhalter used the F word quite a bit, actually, a lot more than

certainly I realized. And it seems to be, it's tough to tell because it's always bleeped, but he seems to do a pretty good job of it. He seems to use it well. Yeah. Who else uses it a lot is Tyler Adams. in those videos. Yes.

Those guys love the F word, especially Tyler. Yeah. Well, I didn't think about it until now, but I would say Tyler, Tyler Adams, pregame talks seem to be less useful for me, for me, to me at least. I don't know, I don't know how much it's helping anybody else prepare. Yeah, they could be stronger. They could definitely be stronger. Yeah.

We also learned that they do a pretty unusual number of hallway warm-up activities. You always see them warming up in the hallway doing jogs more than you normally see in other behind-the-scenes videos for other teams. I don't know if that's just because the other teams aren't showing us that, or we're specifically warming up in the hallway more often. Another thing is, they seem to really like soccer tennis, particularly the goalkeepers. And then broadly, they're just, we don't really have any non-likable players within the group. Even our heel and potential heal, if he can break through Raina and Hoppe, they're actually kind of likable.

And one complaint we do have is we're just a little bit too likable. So I would love to see next year we have a genuinely unlikable person emerge. Yeah, who would that be? Who could that be? I don't know. I don't think we have any candidates, to be honest. Yeah. So those were my main findings there.

Vince? When I was watching the Jamaica behind the crest, the away locker room reminded me of some that I had to use in my days playing small college football. You know, it was kind of like, you know, they just weren't all the amenities that they were probably used to at home or definitely used to at home. and, you know, with their clubs or whatever. And that's a very underrated part of playing on the road. You know, I'm saying look good, feel good, play good. Well, sometimes with some of these locker rooms, especially that one,

like, you know, they had to, like, meet in the hallway, room so cramped and everything. It's just, sometimes it's hard to feel good when you're in one of those situations. And those are way locker rooms. They just, you know, it's hard to focus on your play sometimes when you're just like, should I even be sitting on this bench right now? You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. It's just. It was, it's the national stadium of Jamaica and the locker room looked like the, you know, the locker room at Iowa Mennonite south of, um, Iowa City, you know, high school. It was, uh, it was very small. Right. And it's, and it's just, especially with, this is part of where maybe our youth does come into play because, like, I remember, I remember my.

second game in college, we had to go down and play a school in Mississippi. It was in Jackson, Mississippi. And we go in their locker room, and it's just like, it was not suitable. I don't, it was probably, this, like, stadium was probably, like, about to be condemned and, like, all this type stuff. But it was just like, I was totally, like, not worried about playing this game. I was just so out of my zone. You know what I'm saying? And I play terribly because I was just like, man, I'm trying to get, I'm trying to go home. I'm trying to get out of here and go home, man. Like, I'm not even worried about playing right now.

And that's just, as, that's just some of the things that, like, we don't, we don't account for it because you just, we're just not inside, you know what I'm saying? And when, when we wonder why things look different on the road, it's, it's not any one thing. It's just all these small differences accumulate. and it just it can just throw you off if you're not laser focused on what the mission is and what you need to accomplish.

I did notice that in the latest orange slices, Chris Richards and Mark McKinsey talked about that at some length, just how difficult it was. It is to play those games on the road. They did not talk about the locker room, but they talked about a lot of the other stuff. And I think it's true, like all these things

sort of add up. still would like to CSB Canada on January 30th yeah hey man that's that's seeming like that's seeming just like a huge game

as far as just emotion for like particularly for you Bells it seems like you really want this stuff huh I do yeah I need I need I need I need Weston to have a big game and um

what is it about it does Adam have does he want to win this even more than the rest of us? Do you have a deeper emotional? Is there something specifically about this game? I guess it's this. It feels, you know, we have this generation of young talent coming through

and arriving right now. And we had, we beat Mexico and it just felt like there was a great release to that. Like this was a moment. That World Cup qualifier win over Mexico felt like a turning of a page, like the beginning of a new era. Even more so for me than the Nations League win or the Gold Cup win because we dominated the game or we dominated big portions of it.

And then what happens is Canada then beats Mexico too a couple days later. And Canada ends up top of the table after that window. And Canada stole points from us in Nashville. And so now I'm thinking like Canada is the real threat to me having sort of narrative satisfaction. faction in this World Cup qualifying cycle. We have to beat them so that it doesn't become like, yeah, the U.S. is good, but Canada's the, you know, Canada's the one who actually won the group or won the octagonal.

That would be a real bummer. It can't happen. No. It can't happen. All right. Yeah. I'm convinced. And I find Canadians a little bit smugn.

Yeah, they're the worst. And the last thing, notice from these behind the crest videos, is they really enjoy the, to dance with the American outlaws after wins. You can see it in their faces. They really seem to be into it and love to share that moment with the fans.

That was cool. Yeah. Little hand flap, the alternating hand flap, like, woo. Yeah. Right, right, right. Good dance. All right.

We're going to, closing segment today is going to be top five moments of 2021 for the U.S. men's national team. Vince and I are going to do this and Waki's going to, you know. Evaluate. Yeah. Evaluate. So Vince, number five top moment for you of the year.

Number five for me would be Tim Wea's switch to set up the desk banker. After. So, of course, we had a nice transition moment, started by Zah, Zach Steffin's sort of okay chip over to the left side that then we then proceeded to bring up the field.

I think it went from Brendan or Eunice. Somebody. It ended up in Tim Weill's feet kind of close to the end line on the left side. And he had the wherewith all to pick his head up and hit a switch over to Eunice.

This was just one of your top five moments of the entire year? Waki, I'm going somewhere with this. Okay. Okay, I'm sorry. But I mean, okay, I think it's worthy because I don't think a lot of, a lot of attacking players hit this pass at all. Okay. Nor do they even look up to even find the pass.

Okay. And that, and that, of course, set up a 2v2 on our right side with Eunice and Serge. And if we can get Surge in a one-on-one situation, we see what happens. Okay. So that's the best player, first best moment of the year. All right, great. Yeah, I would share a little bit of your perplexity about this, Waki, but I think Vince is going somewhere with it.

I would say the number five best discreet moment of the year for the national team was that actual banger from Des, because he had a lot of work to do, cuts in on his left foot, and then hits a rope in the top left corner, beats one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time, and gets us back level with Costa Rica in that game. a game that we really did need the three points from and did eventually get the three points. Absolutely. Number four, best moment of the year from you, Vince.

All right. Number four, we're going back to the Costa Rica game. Timothy Wea, his forced own goal, which should have been a goal from him, in my estimation, to give us the lead against Costa Rica. Okay, I think I see where we're going here. So, of course, we talked earlier about Weston and the, the amount of things he's able to do. In this game, of course, he was basically dictating our play.

He was a guy on the ball spraying it from side line to sideline. He misses a pass here that is in misplayed by Costa Rica defender. Comes to Serge's feet. Serge slips Tim in. Tim hits a rocket, okay? That goes off the post, hits the backside of the keeper into the net. Yep. A huge moment for us.

are the deciding goal in the match. And yeah, that was my fourth best moment of 2021. Okay. Fourth best moment of 2021 for me is Pulisic lifting his jersey to reveal the words, Man in the Mirror after scoring the game winner against Mexico and Cincinnati. That is going to be a pretty iconic moment, I think, in the history of the national team. Of course, he's responding to comments by Memo Ochoa. that when the U.S. looks at Mexico,

well, when the U.S. looks in the mirror, they see Mexico, which is his way of saying, like what we are measuring ourselves against Mexico. They are the standard in the region. I don't think he's entirely wrong about that, but it was nice to have that be bulletin board fodder for the U.S.

and so much so that we prepared a T-shirt underneath Bullisix jersey with the messages, in the mirror after he scored the game winning goal. So great moment, number four for me. Yeah, of course. And I love it. To have the Cajones, to even, to even wear the shirt. Like, you see, if you see pictures match, we have our white kits on, you can see man in the mirror through his, through the kit. So he walks on the pitch. You know what I'm saying? All the Mexico players can see that he has, that he has a shirt on this man in the mirror.

And did they stop him from scoring? They absolutely did not. And that's the type of energy I'm trying to manifest all 2022. You know what I'm saying? Just to have the faith in yourself that, yes, I'm going to do this to you and there's nothing you can do to stop me. Yeah. I need some of that energy. You need me too.

What's your number three? Go ahead. I would just think about it. Yeah, it would be great if we could get that energy. This is a great example of not having it. I mean, yeah. Go down to the bodega. to get a sandwich.

Yeah. All right. So with number three in our dual in our dual track, top five players of the year. Now we're going to the Mexico match. The Mexico match in Cincinnati for World Cup qualifying, Christian had came on in this situation. And Tim gets the ball over on the right wing. It gives a little step over, step over, a little push to the in line. and then a cross for Christian Polisic

who scored the first goal against Mexico. That was a, like that happened right in front of me on the stadium. You talk about a release. So you're saying the step over, step over was the... And then lacrosse. Yeah. We're talking about Tim here specifically.

His involvement in this. All Christian had to do was headed in because he put it right on a platform. Yeah. And then an underrated celebration where after he delivers the past Christian heads it in Tim just walks away with his arm stretched out

like you see me I did that I am noticing that all of your moments seem to involve Tim Waya just wanted to point that out we can go on though yeah it's nice to point out okay my number three moment is Ricardo Pepe's game winner versus Honduras

this was a this was a very very good headed goal from an 18-year-old in his first game, in his first qualifier for the national team, his first game for the national team. And it's a game that we were down 1-0 at halftime. Could have gone very, very disastrously in that second half. We did end up winning 4-1, thanks to really good performances from Anthony Robinson and Ricardo Pepe in that second half and others.

But this goal on a cross from DeAndre Yenai Yenai. Edlin is as big of a goal as we've had in this last year. And a good one at that, I guess. I won't just keep rambling about it. Right. And I mean, you have to think about, if you're listening to this podcast, you care a lot. And you have to think about where you were mentally in that halftime period. Oh, man.

When we were losing, 1-0, away to Honduras, we looked terrible. absolutely terrible. James Sands couldn't, like, he looked like Bambi out there on that field. While Andy Nahar was just cooking up a whole N1 mixtape against us. Yeah. It was, it was, it was looking disastrous. Absolutely disastrous. And of course, we, I think this is the first time Greg had to make half-time adjustments.

Like really, that he really actually did it. Like, because, I mean, he didn't sub at half-time, like up until that point. And so the pessimism was kind of warranted. And then, of course, made a couple switches. And we came out and then we had to do in that second half. But yeah, definitely a huge moment. It was time to fire Greg Burrhalter at halftime, for sure. But he rescued it.

Number two moment of 2021 from you, Vince. All right. This is, we're going back again to the World Cup qualifying match against Mexico and Cincinnati. Timway, I guess, has the ball on the right wing and hits a ball into Weston that he then dummies for Hazel Farreira and the ensuing play results in the West McKinney goal to go up 2-1. Boy, this one seems like a strength. That's great. To go up 2-1, I guess, Mexico. Adam, what is yours, number two? Yeah, I'm obviously taking this much more literally than anyone else here,

but number two for me is the shush. Another goal celebration from Christian Pulisic, he roofed a penalty kick in the Nations League win over Mexico. We won three, two. It was a emphatic penalty. And I think up to this point, I thought of Pulisic as a pretty bad penalty taker. Don't ask me to pull up the stats in my brain

because I don't have them, but he always looked pretty unconvincing hitting penalties. This was a convincing penalty. He went over to the fans and shushed them of fans who were almost certainly fans of the Mexican national team because that stadium was full of Mexican national team fans. And then somebody snapped that picture of him and Wea and Raina and several other guys, and it's just like a beautiful sort of piece of art that photo is. It truly is. And like I said earlier, that match was the sports event of the year.

Like I got a couple of my friends that do not watch soccer at all to watch that match. And they told me the same thing. Like that was the most fun they've had watching sports in 2021. Yeah, I was feeling the same way that you did, Bills, when it came to Pully taking that pen. When he drew it, I was like, who's taking this? Because Pully's not a PIN taker. And then as we learned more about it, about it, like him walking up to Tyler and be like, where should I put this?

Tyler responds, top bins. He puts it top bends. Like, come on, man. And then the run to the corner, shush the, shush the fans. I mean, this is what, 70% of Eltree crowd. Got to be. At least. More.

Right. It's an iconic moment. No doubt about it. But it's not your number one moment. Nope. What is the number one moment? Number one moment. Okay, we're going to the match after.

We play Mexico and Cincinnati, Jamaica Way, the one that we were just talking about it a little bit earlier. But the first goal, where Tim Weig collects the ball, plays a little bit of skill, shifts it, left foot, right foot, back to his left, back to his right. Draws a defender in, plays the past to Ricardo, and Ricardo then lays off the Tim. Tim takes what one could consider a bad touch, but I think he was just setting itself up for this finish. Swims around the defender, left foot finished, off the far post, and into the goal beating Andre Blake, USA1, Jamaica, Nill at that point.

So what are you on? What are you on about? This is your number one moment of the year. It's my number one moment of the year. And when I saw that Bells wanted five moments from the, this year. And I said, you know what, Tim has been significantly involved in our last five goals scored for the U.S. Minnesota team. And I would just, and I would just say, it's your fault, Adam. It's your fault. Well, I don't know, I don't know that we have to say

it's anybody's fault, you know, it's just, it just is. It's fine. And as I, as I started, as I talked about earlier, I had developed a small agenda against Brendan, uh, for people saying that he was better, um, than Tim against Costa Rica. And these, five moments here were my retribution. You know what I'm saying? This was the time that I could come out of hiding and say, I told you guys. I told you. Well, I, I, I appreciate you being explicit about using the top five moments to serve

your agenda, you know. You damn right. You're right. I am because I'm a petty person. I appreciate being open about it. That's not hard. So, yeah, man, here we go. Five, five, the last five goals scored by the U.S.

Minnesota team. Tim Wea has played a huge part in all of them. Yeah. And should have two goals and one assist. He has one goal and one assist. But go back and watch his goals. You'll see. Yeah, he's been balling, no doubt about it.

And is a, I think, written in Penn. Well, what's written in Penn? He's a starter for the U.S. right now, for sure. You're still injured, though, right? Is he going to be in there? Well, we don't know. We don't know yet. Yeah, I do have one thing to say about St. Paul before we go, but my number one moment, you know, over here being earnest as usual, is McKinney's second goal versus Mexico in the qualifier.

It was the, you know, it was a little bit of a fortunate bounce after that aforementioned ball in from Wea to Ferrara, dummied by McKinney to Ferreira, to McKenny, back to Ferreira. and I can't remember if there was another back before it, another tap back before it got ricocheted into McKinney's path in the box, but it fell very, very kindly for him. And then he just coolly puts it in the left corner. Actually, kind of an underrated finish, if you go back and watch it. It's very nice to watch.

And then he goes off and does the Harry Potter celebration. But the reason for me it's the number one moment of the year is because it was, some would say, well, you got to choose the game winner by Pulisic, sure.

I mean, I get the argument for that. But at that point in that game, it was still a little bit tense. And that goal just said, game over, you know, that's it.

Game over. We're the better team. Dosacero, and we don't have to, we don't have to worry anymore. Good times are here again. Yeah. Yes.

It was just, It was just released, man. Like, shout out to JT. Mini from the Discord. They were sitting next to me and my wife. I think it was his girlfriend. I'm not sure. If it's not your girlfriend, I'm sorry, bro. But, you know, we were just like, everyone just started hugging.

You know what I'm saying? High five and whatever. It was just a great time. I was looking at the Mexico fans around me. Just giving them the nod. Like, yeah. Yeah, you see it. You see it.

Was it? Were you concerned that J.T. Minnie's real girl? friend would be listening to this podcast. Look. I don't know. I don't know. But I would just like to say, you know, just this whole thing.

So like from Weston's goal on, it was just a party. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like up until the full-time whistle, I mean, even after that, walking through the concourse, dos of Ceres,

from everybody there. I walked down, I walked down to, like, the field to just, like, see the players. And then coming back to the, coming back to the tailgate spot, we all met up again. Waki, bells pulled up. Eventually, we had a long time for bells. But, yeah, it was just screaming a whole lot of let's go.

It was really cold, and then Adam made us go to a bar. I just want to go to sleep. Yeah, that was a bad idea. I should have gone to sleep. Well, I really like your guys top fives. My one note is, I wish we'd gotten the stretcher children in there somewhere, but I understand it. And they already got a separate award. So I think that's fair.

Yeah. All right. We've gone a long time. Unless anybody has any closing thoughts, let's put a bow on 2021. And we'll be back Monday, I believe, for the first Monday review of. the new year. Happy New Year. Anything else, guys?

Just happy new year. I would just like to say Tim Way at 22. Tim Way in the midterms, baby. Yes. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see ya. All right.