Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #242: Roster Reaction

Episode Date: January 21, 2022

The pivotal window of World Cup qualifying is upon us and Gregg Berhalter announced his roster today. Greg and Belz get into it. Don't worry, we don't spend much time kvetching.support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedsign up for our weekly newsletter: https://scuffedweekly.substack.com/ join 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/rfzSEZJwsvnWSCxW7 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. The U.S. men's national team faces El Salvador, Canada, and Honduras over the next two weeks. Games that will, in large measure, determine whether we qualify automatically for the men's World Cup later this year. It's a huge window. Huge.

Impossible to overstate how important these games are. And Greg Burrhalter announced his roster earlier today. Greg, let's get into it. Here we go. huge window, right? Like this will basically tell us at the end of this where we stand in part because of the games of our opponents playing, namely Panama. Yes, yeah. Or Mexico.

If Mexico have a complete meltdown, but I'm expecting them to hold serve and I'm expecting the cushion to be established based on Panama's outcomes. Yeah, those Panama outcomes are really, really important. I should mention on Tuesday I'm going to record a opposition preview show with. John Arnold, the getting conca caft writer, and we will talk at some length about Panama. He called it the anti-Panamo Social Club is what we're going to do. That's great. That is great. And again, Panama, for anyone who hasn't been keeping up, Panama, have two of their toughest

games of the campaign in the coming window. They play at Costa Rica and at Mexico. That's right. And then I think I, at least my heart wants to think a sneaky tough game against Jamaica at home. So. To our players, to our group, 28 players. Yes, yeah. Let's go through the roster.

Why don't you take us through it, please? All right. Four goalkeeper, Stefan Turner, Johnson, and Slonina. Sloanina, the, what is he, 15 years old now? Did he just turn? I think he's a little older than that. But, yeah, like 17 now. All right.

It seems like that's just an experience in camp, kind of a call, which is awesome for him. as a reminder, we no longer even need to dress three goalkeepers for match days. And I don't think we have in any of our qualifiers actually to this point. I think we've done the smart thing, which is if you don't need three on one day, you should only dress two and use that extra spot for like a specialist in the outfield. So super unlikely. So Nina actually makes a game day roster. Just a cool experience to have him in camp.

Yes. Definitely. And, and yeah. I'll throw in a little, I'll throw in a little Daniel Smith theory. I hope he doesn't get mad at me for publicizing it, but he was saying you could almost read it as a shot actually at Mexico and Ochoa because Ochoa moved saying Tata, believes in him and wants to give him things he has a chance.

Ochoa, not in Mexico's 30-man roster with four goalkeepers. So throwing Sloanina in could be considered like, hey, if you choose another country, who's to say what's going to happen, you stick with us. You know, we give people shots. We're going to give you a shot. Right. I mean, I wouldn't put it past Bralter to do that at all. No downside to that play.

On the other hand, Julian Raohos looks like he's set to have a, just as another aside, set to make a real contribution, I think, for L3 in this window. Still, I know it doesn't make you as sad as it makes me, but it makes me sad. Well, I hope he does great. I hope he has three assists against Panama. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Everything can kind of align. however you want it to in that way. Centerback, who are we bringing? Who are we not bringing? So we're bringing Miles Zimmerman, Richards, Mark McKenzie, so four centerbacks.

That's it. The big omission, once again, two camps in a row now in my estimation, John Brooks. He's been excommunicated, man. It feels like a banishment. And again, there's, you know, Burhalter said it was a form issue in the press conference, that it was nothing but form. I do not buy that. I think you can try to make a case that like he's had some mistakes.

I mean, you don't need to make a case. He's had some mistakes for the national team. He has also won us some games. He won us the Honduras Nation's League game at home, bailed us out in like the 86th minute with that delivery into the box to West McKinney. And that is kind of the thing that only John Brooks can do, right? Like he is, again, we'll get to another comment Berthelter made in the press conference. He is the best passer in the pool for my money.

So leaving him out while he might have some rough edges is does us a huge disservice for taking away a skill set for games that could come in very handy. Yes. Let me read the whole quote from Burrhalter because I was just listening in on the press conference. I'm sort of in the distant part of the press gallery. I don't even really get a chance to ask question. But I can listen. And here's what he said. There's absolutely nothing beyond form with John, you know, answering the question why he's not in the camp.

We think that, you know, we think that, you know, he has the opportunity to play a role with us in the future for this window. We decided based on how we're looking at these games and what are the strengths of our opponents that he wouldn't be the best fit for this particular window. We're hoping that he regains his form for Wolfsburg and they can. They can start winning games and move themselves up the table. And he's a key part of that. So a little bit of shade thrown there, I would say. And then later in the press conference, he said, he answered a question about Tim Ream. and said Tim Rieme is the best centerback we have on the ball,

which is also a little, I think a little disrespectful to Brooks. So, yeah, I'm with you. I don't believe that this is all about form. I think there's got to be something else going on. Again, no question of my mind. And I could, again, get to the point where you say, okay, he's third in Burrhalter's mind. He's behind Miles, Zimmerman, and Richards. And Burrhalter doesn't want to deal with this whatever, whatever, like, beef they seem to have.

for his fourth centerback. There's just no way he's behind McKenzie. And again, I could see him being behind the other guys in certain respects. But in that Jamaica game down in Jamaica, when we needed to start playing direct, which is something Burrholder said we needed to do, we did not have a centerback who was able to do that, who was able to pick his head up with the time that we had and hit a ball into somebody in the attacking third.

We needed that. And I could see us needing that in this window. So I kind of just disagree with the Burrhalter rationale of looking at the opponents in this window. Like El Salvador, we are going to have the ball against El Salvador. We're going to have the ball against Honduras. There's just no way that we are going to be in a situation unless the other guys just cruise. Like we will need some of that centerback distribution. It will help us.

We might not need it to get six points at home, but it would help us get six points at home. Of that, I have basically zeroed out. Yeah. It's a matter of optimization. And it's, yeah, we're in agreement on that. I know there are some who disagree, but yeah, I agree with you. That said, I do think, like I said on Twitter earlier, I think even without Brooks, we can get nine points in this window. And I know we're not supposed to talk about nine point windows after the curse of nine point window talk in the first window.

But we can get nine points in this window without John Brooks. So I'm, I'm ready, you know, I'm ready to go. Can we also just mention, well, I should do this in all these position groups. Chris Richards playing regularly. Zimmerman, and I know we went into depth last pot as well, but just a recap of the guys who actually are here. Zimmerman Miles off since the end of the MLS season, both guys played in the playoffs. So shortly after the November window, they've been off for two months. Mark McKenzie has not actually played a game in a month, despite him being technically in season with Gank.

So they have a game this weekend, but he appears to be third. choice centerback so he has not been playing for them of late yeah that's the weird one especially weird one is mackenzie over brooks that's again as a camp guy like as a camp guy i'm fine with that in the sense that like if i agreed that john brooks was fourth string and he was like a true fourth string where he was behind the other guys in every uh capacity then i would be fine leaving him at home for a better locker room guy i just am so in disagreement with there being zero situations where John Brooks would help you a ton. So that's where I lose it.

And before we jump over to the fullbacks, just one more guy that I was barely half hoping to see in here was Cameron Carter Vickers, mainly just because he again is playing matches. So I'm not devastated that he's off. But it is just another one of those examples of we do have some guys in season around the fringes who aren't getting looks in favor of guys who are well out of season or not playing. So it's one of those things where I feel like

this roster in particular is going to require a little bit of like cognitive dissidents from the from the crowd who is very much about club playing time club minutes matter like you need to be playing for your club to get in with the national team luckily I've never been that in that camp I've very much been like case by case call up the guys who give you the best chance of winning so for anybody who's going to be jumping on board with that now to to sort of defend this roster and these choices, like, welcome aboard. Right. Yeah, it is, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't square up.

It doesn't square up at this point. It doesn't square up with, with the club minutes as like, you have to be playing for your club to get a call up. It totally squares up with, you know, the coach just has to essentially make a subjective call, pick the guys who he thinks will give him the best chance of winning. And that, that is the guideline I agree with. I disagree with several of the choices, but that's, that's neither here nor there. And again, I'll just say again, I, I'll just say again, I,

I very much hope that these subjective choices made by Greg Berthelter result in nine points. That's my official position. I just, yeah. Should we move over to right back? Right back. That's the heaviest position on the roster, right? Yeah, four of them. We got four.

Serginio Death, D'Andre Edlin, Brooks Lennon, the big surprise, big winner, and Reggie Cannon. Right. And I, you know, a lot of people are saying, well, why Lennon over Scali? And I, you know, I, I guess that in a vacuum, that's a good question. But my, my thought would be, why not both? You know, why not Lennon and Scali? Especially given, like, all the COVID concerns and, like, you know, there could be people showing up to camp who have test positive for COVID. And then we're going to have to, like, call in more people.

28 players is, you know, I guess it's more than usual. It still could be more, and I don't understand why Scali is left off. I'm not mad that Brooks Lennon is in the camp. I'm just, like, why not bring Scali too? Sure. Well, I'm also, like, at some point cut it off where there are guys who just, there's no scenario where you will use them. And so throwing in Lenin and Scali on top of Canon and Yedlin with Dest as a presumptive starter, that, like, is beyond superfluous to me.

Like, I already think four right backs is superfluous. I hate, hate, hate that Anthony Robinson is the only. left back on the roster. Yeah, well, Scali could be the, you know, could deputize his left back. He does it. He's done it quite a bit for Gladbach this season. I don't know if he's done it that much lately. I got you there. But yeah. So that could make sense as four right backs plus two left backs. I mean, it's still superfluous, obviously. But I mean, I can see that. That's just where I was thinking, you know, if you're already set at right back, but if you're going to bring four, Scali would also be a left back option. Right. Now, Burrhalter, I mean, we might as well talk about left

back while we're doing this because it's all kind of connected. Anthony Robinson, like you mentioned, is the only left back on the roster. Now, Burrhalter said he thinks Dest, Yedlin, Cannon, and Kell and Acosta can all cover at left back. So he feels like that position is taking care of. And I guess. I hate it. I hate it.

That is a totally rational thing to do in a 23-man roster for a six-game tournament or seven-game tournament. but to not just bring that cover just brings back all the memories of the very first window where we burned through our right backs in the first game and ended up having to stick Tyler Adams there. It's like, okay, Tyler Adams can deputize in an emergency at right back, but you don't need to create the emergency where you need Tyler Adams to do that. You could just bring another right back. And even in the time, at that time, it was like, we could have thrown Brooks Lennon on that roster. We could have thrown Aaron Herrera on that kind of roster.

So the same thing could apply here with a left back, like any of them. Vines, Bellow, Duon Jones, Joe Scali as a right back playing out of position. Like just bring somebody so you aren't forced to throw Serginio Dest over there. Yeah. So really the Brooks omission and the left back, the paucity of left backs on the roster are, is it fair to say those are your two biggest problems with the selection? Yeah, two biggest grives for me. And again, those are, they're as great.

go, like, they're minor in the sense that like there's, it's very reasonable that they would, they don't actually rear their head and become any kind of an issue. It's totally possible. Anthony Robinson just runs 270 minutes that left back for us in the window. Yeah. He's used to that kind of a schedule. He would, you could do it no problem. Barring an injury. So rugged. So rugged. Barring an injury, barring yellow card accumulation. It's fine. And it doesn't become an issue. Again, it's just we've left that door open for an issue. And we've got, you know, maybe some other contributing factors that could increase the likelihood of some soft muscle issues that I just don't like us playing with this freezing cold fire.

Yeah. Before we get to the midfield, let me just say once again, this podcast is ad-free and we are supported by Patreon subscribers. Please consider subscribing. Thank you to everyone who does subscribe. You get to be part of the Discord. You get some exclusive video, though I can't promise too much of that. But most of all, you just support the podcast, and we appreciate it.

Thank you. Midfield. Let's do the midfield. Who are the sixes on the roster? It's Adams and Acosta. That's the list, right? After that, we'd be putting an experimental guy in. Yeah.

That's fine, right? I mean, I think so. I mean, I'm fine with it so long as, like, the experiment is. I mean, I guess I don't know. You know I want McKenney as that experimental six if it comes to it. I think James Sands in this kind of a roster could be that contingency guy. Sands left off. He's just moved to Rangers playing a little bit there already.

Because, again, Tyler Adams is on a yellow card. So you're looking at a possibility of like needing a backup to the backup here over a three-game window. So I'd have preferred a third six, but again, we're talking about some contingencies in play there. I thought that just occurred to me. Maybe Burrhalter is really just scapegoating everybody who was involved in the first half of that Honduras game. Because, you know, it was really his. It was, I mean, in your view, I think in this podcast view, it was his mistake.

It was Burrhalter's mistake that set us up for that sort of disastrous first half, where it looked like we might come out of that whole window with only two points. And it was, you know, it was red alert time. And then after the half, we pulled it together. But Sands, I don't think we haven't seen Sands since. that game, right? And we haven't seen Brooks either. Two players who take a lot of stick for their performances in that game, even though they, you know, you could very, very much argue that the problems in that game that they encountered were the result of Burrhalter's decisions.

Oh, I don't think, I don't have any question about that either. I'm not, I'm not saying that, you know, individual mistakes are just like, totally excused, but definitely not put in a position to succeed. And so, you know, I don't think it's Burrhalter content. saying like these guys screwed over my genius three three four three against Honduras and as a result they're banished. But yeah, if he's just gauging them, you know, in a vacuum on their performances there, that is going to, you know, hurt them in their standing. Yeah. All right. So Adam's in Acosta at the six.

And then we have, we have, it looks like five eights on the roster. I'm only calling them four, but yeah, five eight. Five eight listed. We've got McKinney, we've got Musa. Again, presumptive starters. Hopefully, again, hopefully Adams McKinney, Musa just run, we just run them all three games, start them all three games. I'm hoping for the points standpoint and that they're up for it. Backup eights in this camp, Legette, Rodon, and Luca de la Torre.

Roldon listed as one. He played as an eight in the December friendly, so Berhalter finally giving him more run out as an eight. He's definitely sort of a tweener in how Berhalter has used him. over the past six months. Yeah. Well, it should be mentioned. Well, first of all, I'm happy that Luca Della Torre is back in camp, and hopefully he gets a chance to be useful for this team,

whether that's off the bench or, you know, starting in a game where we, you know, maybe Adams gets a yellow card or, um, quit, quit cheering for Adams to get a yellow card just so you can see Luca Dela Tore. I'm not cheering for it. I'm not cheering for it. I'm not cheering for. But I'm just saying there's like, you know, things can happen. God forbid it happens, but somebody could get her.

hurt. So I'm really happy about Luca Deloire, you know, just as, just as I am unhappy about Brooks being left off. One thing Burrhalter said in the press conference is he thinks that with the limited travel in this window, you know, that's a big priority in the way these games were scheduled all within, you know, a quick pond, pond, what is, what's the term? Puddle jumper, a quick puddle jumper from Hamilton, Ontario. He says, with that.

close proximity. He thinks a player can play all three games, start all three games. And so maybe we will see that the Musa McKinney Adams midfield start all three games, you know, I don't think it's out of the question. Wouldn't surprise me at all Berthorlter is leaning that way, in part because of another midfield omission who was omitted due to the pandemic ramifications, and that's Gianluca Busio, who started in place of the suspended McKenny in the last window, not available now. So if Burrhalter's talking about that already, the midfield could easily be,

if he's already talking about sort of lack of rotation, and I know he qualified that later on, in a comment we'll get to. It could totally be the case that he's just like, the drop off is enough now that I'm even missing my, you know, third eight from the last window, that I'm just, I just got to lean on McKenny and Musa.

Yeah. And it sounds like, yeah, Busia was on the roster and then he tested positive for COVID. That's what Burralter said in the press conference. So it's possible a Luca Deletoria, was added late, you know, which takes a little... And we're saying it's possible because we heard tell of lucididididolary being out just before the roster was released and then lucid alitory being back in.

Yeah, that rumor was floating around. I don't know how, you know, I don't know how much we can believe it, but it's plausible, certainly plausible. Now, Winger, who do we have? So here we've got sort of all the healthy key guys, and that's Christian Pulisic, Tim Wea, who thankfully made his return to Leal midweek. They've got another game this weekend. We'll see what he does there. He got like, what 30 minutes.

Yeah. What a surprise blessing, you know? Oh, man. That's a huge relief. Brendan Aronson as a third sort of key winger through much of qualification so far. He's played a ton of minutes in qualification because of Pulisicuea and Raina's touchy availability. Yeah. But way up for me is a huge one.

Even though I don't expect him necessarily to be, you know, match starting fit, the fact that if it comes to it, we can bring him off the bench to chase points. Yeah. Just massive for me. So I feel a lot better about the six points at home. And I feel a lot better about the potential seventh or ninth point on the road.

Oh, baby, here we go. Here we go. Nine point talk. Who are the other two? Yeah, rounding out the group, Paul Ariola and Jordan Morris. Not huge surprises there. Burralter loves him some ariola. You kind of know what you're going to get,

which I guess is the advantage he has over, say, a Nico Joaquini, who I really like and I feel like had an underrated performance at the Gold Cup, albeit in limited capacity there. But I'm not too broken up about it. We have other guys who could fill in that winger roll in sort of a lock picking capacity as we get to the forwards and we talk about Jesus Ferreira.

And then we have Jordan Morris as sort of the bulldozer who we have available off the bench, which I'm glad to see him. I'm hoping that that means he is really sort of getting that sharpness back after his lengthy break with the Achilles, right? Yes, yeah. No, no, no, no, ACL. I think he was ACL and one was the ALEs. Okay, yeah, that's right.

And then didn't, yeah, yeah, it was an ACL, you're right. And then, so that leaves off Conrad de la Fuente, like you said, Nico Joaquini, and of course, Giovanni Raina, who is injured. I should mention other aides who were left off who were in this camp were Cole Bassett and Georgie Mahalovich. A lot of glowing reports about Georgie floating around out there and his performance in camp. So it's a little bit of a surprise that he didn't get called up. And then Bassett, you know, he's heading to Fine Ord, which is Robin Van Persie's Childhood Club.

They actually look like each other too. So that's kind of interesting. That was a great poll, by the way. Well done on that identification. And Matthew Hoppe, Matthew Hoppe is another guy who, again, decent outings in the Gold Cup on the wing, back to playing for Majorca in subsequent appearances. So it could have been another sort of in-season guy, but not playing a ton. So it's not like he's just been, you know, putting 90 minutes in every week. No, not playing particularly well either from what I could tell.

But, yeah, it's, it is interesting, though, like with Ariola specifically, I, and I, I tried to get into this into the newsletter in the newsletter this morning, but it does seem like if there's any doubt between like an MLS player and a European-based player, and maybe you could argue there is no doubt. Maybe you would say Ariel is a much better player than Nico Joaquini, like hands down. I'm not sure I'd agree with that,

but like if there were any doubt, Burhalter's going with the MLS guy. And I'm not saying that that's like a conspiracy. I'm just saying it's like that's sort of how things break out because of these January camps and, you know, just physical proximity to the players. And it is frustrating. It's frustrating to fans, you know.

But, yeah, Ariola gives us that, I don't know, he gives us that reliability, the consistency or something. It's that sort of tight, tight band of performance for Paul Arieola and specifically with Paul Arieola, because I try not to like lump all the MLS guys together. I will in a second to respond to what you said. But you hear that a lot, right? Like, oh, well, we're just going to replace, especially when I'm calling for like a Marquis Delgado. oh, we're just going to replace one MLS Fifer with another one. And it's like, I don't like the idea of lumping them all together. They can give you slightly different things and you're looking for like the guy who fits in to give you, you know, the best, even the littlest edge you can get.

That could make the difference between one point versus three points at Jamaica or zero points and one point at Panama. So like I don't have a problem specifically with Paul Ariola being the fourth winger in a camp where we're missing Giorina and Jordan Morris is just getting back. to health. But I definitely do think there's just a structural advantage for MLS guys. And if you talk about that, you know, that narrow band of performance and that consistency, Burhalter just has a lot more information on those guys. So as a coach, he's going to say, all right, I know Aureola is here. And, you know, he can say he won't be lower than this level.

He won't be higher really than this level. I can pretty confidently say that. Nico Joaquini could be higher than that, but he could also be a lot lower than that. And so that's where it gets into, you know, the coach just going with conservative, like minimize your risk through World Cup qualifying,

call a guy who's not going to lose to you, and you can agree or disagree with those kinds of decisions. But I think, I think it's like, definitely like it's a rational approach to the problem. Yeah.

It is, it is a rational approach. It is still a little frustrating, though, because, like, because we're going, we're,

you know, we're scouring the footage to see improvement in players like Mendez or Luca Deletore or Joe Keene, I haven't actually been, scouring his footage, but I assume you have. I assume you have. And we see it, we see, we see, we see something that's interesting. And we see like what we, what we think is improvement. And it, and it, uh, it becomes clear that we're, we're doing something that Burrhalter is not

necessarily doing, or at least isn't influenced in the same way as we are, which is fine. You know, we're just, I'm just an amateur over here, but. Well, and I'll also defend the, the conservative route for the World Cup qualifiers themselves. Like, I think, I think, you know, I think there's a ton of room for scrutiny over a lot of the call-ups for friendlies. And, you know, the fact that we maybe invested too much time putting eggs in certain baskets over friendlies instead of maybe trying to look at some of these other players. And there's arguments against that because Burholt are called in a ton of guys. But a lot of the guys he called in were like way off the pay.

I mean, like when he's calling in like a Christian Cappy over some of these more like higher-end fringe guys, I guess we'll call them. it starts to feel almost like disingenuous. Like he's not going to call up this player who seems really close to the level, but he's going to go all the way to the Danish second division. And it adds another cap so people can say, well, he gave 60 guys their first cap. There's this weird leap that he jumps over certain players to go all the way down to certain levels.

Yeah, like Brian K.O. I can't remember if he actually got a cap, but he was in some camps. But that's all, yeah, I was going to say, it's kind of just getting into a real side road there. Yeah, but a side road that is, you know, relevant on this day, the 21st of January, 2022. Look, if Dwayne Holmes wasn't isolating for COVID, he would be in this camp.

I'm sure of that. Yeah, I mean, he's, he's another example. I mean, maybe he has a secret beef with Burrhalter. All right, uh, striker, who do we have? So we've got Ricardo Pepe, who is just already tearing up the Bundesliga. We've got Jaziz Ardes, who's last match was October 10th for the Columbus crew. He did appear in the friendly for 20 minutes against Bosnia in December. And we've got Jesus Ferreira, who is now the youngest DP in FC Dallas history.

I'm just making all of Ferreira stats up. So two off-season guys, and then we've got Ricardo Pepe. I know I already forgot to do all of the in-season off-season. delineations for all of the other positions. But here we've got Peppy in season, but just barely because he just moved and started playing. A couple offseason guys. Omitted would be D.K.,

who's just getting into playing with West Brom and your renewed favorite son, Josh Sargent. Josh Sargent. A brace for Norwich in a relegation scrap against Watford. And one of them was kind of a scorpion kick. The other one was a towering header. really, really, really. I mean, I'm not, I said last week, I wouldn't be mad if Sergeant was left off this roster.

I can't change my tune suddenly based on like one, I can't, based on one game. But, you know, it is, I think for all of us, really nice to see him score a couple goals. And surely he will not be buying any drinks in East Anglia tonight, you know? He's rounding the parabola for sure. Yeah. I mean, we'll see. But you could see the relief on his face, you know, like when the camera pan to him after the first goal, he just could barely suppress a smile. Well, good on him.

Again, I have his name in the striker hat with a bunch of other guys. So I'm not super upset that he's left off. I love Ferreira. I love watching him play. I hope that he gets a chance. I love Pepe, too. And I know you have, you know, you love him at the point of composition. But it would be nice for me.

I want to see Ferreira get some looks. I hope they all score some bangers, and I think we will have bangers in us in this window. I think that the chances will be there. I hope those aren't famous last words. It is a little troubling, though, that Zardis and Ferreira are so far away from competitive soccer, though, isn't it? It is, but I think Ferreira is just immune to it because he's just made out of silk. And I think Zardez is immune to it because it's all in his head. like he is just such a heady player that you're not you're not picking him for his

you know refined techniques anyway right yeah that's an oversimplification for zardes but i mean you're not calling him in for his incredible incredible subtlety on the ball no so you're calling him for his incredible subtlety off the ball really exactly um and that will persist through uh frigid windchills and three-month layoffs is the hope okay who's who's is a greater love yours for ferrera or mine for peppy It's mine. It's mine for Ferreira. Okay. Good deal.

Mine has existed for longer. Oh, is that true? Yeah, because I was more of a peppy skeptic last year, I would say. I go and, you know, ebbs and flows with this kind of stuff. So against El Salvador, well, let me just say a couple other things, Berhalter said from the press conference. Well, basically just one other thing. He mentioned that he was asked about West McKinney and, you know, the great run of form that he's on. And he, you know, he ratified that whole sentiment.

And then he said that McKinney's treatment after the protocol violation in Nashville was a little bit overharsh from the outside world. And I'm sure he has a specific, you know, former U.S. men's national team player in mind when he says that. I think that was definitely the most notable one. So that's kind of interesting. Former teammate? Yeah, former teammate of Burrhalters. So it was Landon Donovan's comments, and if you don't remember. So that was kind of interesting.

Let's talk quickly about, unless you have anything on that, Greg. No, I don't. We were, I think we had moved on from the McKinney suspension as soon as it was announced. We were disappointed that we didn't have him available to play in those games. But I'm not, I'm not judging a bunch of 20-year-olds too harshly on their off-field decisions. No. So the lineup versus El Salvador, let's talk about that really quick. And I guess I would say, I know you don't really want to do this, but I'm going to do it.

And then you can just react to what I'm saying. Matt Turner and goal, but if it's Stefan, I'm fine. I don't want to get into that debate. Dest at right back. And then any combination of Zimmerman Miles and Richards or Richards at centerback. And I think any two of those three is fine with me. And then Anthony Robinson at left back, it's a 270 minute window for him probably, I hope. And then Tyler Adams, Musa and McKinney in the midfield.

And then Pulisic left wing, Pepe at Stryker. And then I don't know who to start at right wing. Aronson, I guess, would be the obvious choice. But he hasn't played for a while. And, I mean, Wea would be the very obvious choice, except that he just came back from injury like four days ago, two days ago. So I don't know. What's your thought on that, who to start at right wing?

So I think your whole lineup spot on. I think Stefan for sure starts over Turner for Burrhalter. I would choose Turner, but say, Lavi, I think it's totally the case that Richards is the only question mark. And I think the only reason he would get bumped up because I think Burralter has Miles and Zimmerman 1-2 would be Richards being in season and being a better passer than the other two. So against a team that might sit back and you need to maybe carve them up, I think it's going to be, I think Richards has a better upside. there. And then I think you're right, right. Right wing is sort of the other question mark. I think it'll be Aronson because I tend to go conservative on guys coming back from injury.

So I don't think you trust Tim Wea to go 60. And at which point I think you basically have to bring him off the bench. And I think Aronson jumps, is still ahead of Polariola. So they're sort of just interchangeable players for me. Okay. So we're not going to try to scheme out the rotation for the next two games after that. Let's just focus on that one. And yeah, I'm good with Aaronson starting.

I guess he's had a couple club friendlies lately lately. One of the question, go ahead, go ahead. No, I think you were just about to talk about Burhalter in the rotation, right? No, I wasn't. I was going to move on from it. Go ahead. No, no, no. Let's, we got at least talk about it a little since he addressed it.

And we're, we don't have to, we're not going to try to actually, like, identify the 11 against. Well, yeah, I said this earlier, but Burrhalter, Burrhalter said in the press conference that he thinks the, the closeness of the, of the match locations to each other means that players can start all three games. And so maybe there's not as much need for rotation. I mean, there's going to have to be some. Now, I don't want to say he hedged, but he also talked about the Panama debacle,

which a ton of the spotlight there was on the rotation. What was his comment on that? Do you have that way? Oh, yeah, that's right. I should have brought that up. He said essentially rotation wasn't the problem that day. it was just that we had an off day, which is,

you know, for sure true. But it was like, I guess it's a matter of like, can those players be trusted not to have an off day again, specifically Sebastian Legit and Kellen Acosta. George Bello is not in this camp. He also had an off day that day.

Same potentially with Shaq Moore and like positioning. Shack Moore dropped, hasn't been back since. And it gets into, you know, that can be true. but there's just an inherent risk if you rotate seven players and they have off days. Now you're talking about your backups off day. You know, if you're putting your starters in there and they have an off day,

it's just, you know, it's going to be a drop from their starting level. If you've replaced seven of them and you hit an off day, you, you get zero points and it's a three point swing with Panama. So, you know, yeah, I think I'm not going to try to game out his rotation. I'm going to be very curious to see how, how aggressive he is with the number of players he rotates. or whether like there's some like pre-rotation early on in the first home match. Hopefully we can get ourselves like a garbage time situation where we're three zero up cruising. Knock on all kinds of wood. I mean, we don't look like a team that's been capable of just throwing up three goals at a time.

No. Second half of Honduras, notwithstanding. Yeah. Right. Okay. But that's what I'm, that's what I'm really excited to see. Interested. Oh, it's going to be fascinating.

It's going to be fascinating. Again, we're going to be in Minnesota at the St. Paul Qualifier. We're going to have a pre-party at Lake Monster Brewing starting at 2 p.m. The game is at 6, I believe, 6.30. So people are going to be starting to leave at 5. That gives us three hours to party and talk to each other and maybe do some singing. So we're not going to game out. Yeah, there should be some singing.

You're going to bring your little, what's the little harmonica guy that sets the barbershop quartets? Oh, yeah. Should I bring my little, what is that thing called? A pitch. Here's what I'm most interested in. We're not going to game out the rotation from each game to each game. But I do want to hear you game out what you will be wearing in St. Paul to travel to the stadium and stand for two hours. Oh, yeah.

I've been clear about this in the Discord. I'm like red, white and blue be damned. I'm not going to, I'm not going to worry about that. I'm just going to dress as warmly as possible. And for me, that's a big black Carhart jacket. Okay, there we go. That's what I was wondering. So you put your car heart ready to go.

Yeah, a brown bomber cap with rabbit fur on the inside. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is rabbit fur. And, yeah, what about you? I think for me it's just layers. So I'll have like a thin layer of leggings and then like a thick, thick pants over. I think I'm going to be wearing boots.

I'm going to go with the warm fur-lined boots, not messing around with any sneakers here. No trainers. No, no, no, no. And again, we're Midwest folks. So we're not, this isn't our first cold weather day. Dressing for the cold is very routine for us. It's, you're trained to do it. So it'll be a, it'll be layers underneath with a big, big overcoat.

Get the gloves. I might, I might actually cheat and go 20, 21st century with like an electronic hand warmer. There's no shame. No shame and taking advantage of those kinds of developments over the last few years. Yeah, man, no shame at all. You do not want to have like numb limbs or extremities for like half of the game. That is miserable. That is the worst.

I'll have a tub of Vaseline. You just smear everything with Vaseline when you go for when you go for it. And you just got to be prepared. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. We'll hope to see a lot of you there. Let me do one more question.

This is from Denzerra on the Discord. And he's been asking this a lot. So I want to make, I want to get to it. He asks, when should Tyler Adams deliberately take a yellow card? Oh, that's a great one. Should he deliberately take a yellow card? I guess it's maybe the first question. I'm not opposed to it.

I'm not opposed to it because I'm terrified of the Panama home game. We shouldn't be terrified of Panama at home, but that game is immense. And we won't know just how immense until after the window's over. And so if we're going to play Tyler Adams down in Mexico City, the game before Panama, and he's on a yellow. like you, there's just no way with the intensity and the emotion of that game, you can be like, hey, just rain it in on your, on your, on your, you know, on your afters or anything like that. There's going to be afters. There's going to be a lot of heat. So I'm tempted to say we, we go down to the Azteca without Tyler and have him take the yellow in the final game

of the window if he's still on one. Yep. I think I, I've thought about it a lot. And I think that's the only, that's the only way that makes sense. And if you're going to take one on purpose. It's a huge bummer for Tyler to miss, if he does have to do that, to miss that game. Basically, the last World Cup qualifier in the Azteca for us for a while. Certainly, I mean, very likely before the end of his career as a national team player. Because we're hosting the 2026 World Cup and likely won't have to go through a qualifying. Right. Right.

And then, you know, if we do this, if FIFA does this expanded World Cup field, then it calls future qualifiers into question as well. So yeah, and that's going to be, that'd be a huge bummer for him, but I just don't see any way around it. He shouldn't take the, he shouldn't take the yellow against Canada when we have Honduras, a game that we really need to win three days later. He shouldn't go into the Mexico game on a yellow. Yeah. So I think he's got to take it against Honduras if he's going to do it deliberately.

It's tough. You know, there's also the idea that he's less important when we, We're not carrying John Brooks. He's less important as a destroyer when your, when your centerbacks are going to be Miles Robinson and Walker Zimmerman and Chris Richards. So it's like him missing for the Honduras game wouldn't be the end of the world. But I don't think he should intentionally take one in a Canada game. That's a good point.

Maybe it'll all be a moot point. He'll just get a yellow against Salvador. That's the most likely thing. If we're running on these guys for three starts, he's going to get one. All right, let's get out of here. Thanks, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.