Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #247: Tuesday Review — Honduras pre-game, Canada rumination

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

Belz from Minneapolis, Vince from Louisville, Watke from New York. We wind our way through an extended discussion of Pulisic, the striker position, the weather in the Twin Cities, Canada, Miles Robinson, and a lot of other stuff.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. Okay, Tuesday, February 1st. I just landed in Minneapolis and I'm settled, walk through my old neighborhood. Happy to be back here.

And I can confirm that it's cold and it's getting colder. It's going to keep getting colder all night. It's going to be really cold tomorrow. How are you guys doing? I got Vince and Waki here with me. Vince, how you doing? I'm doing great, man. Still buzzing off that one.

one-0 win against El Salvador. Had a great time of Columbus. Did you? What was the highlight? What was the highlight for you? Well, the goal. The goal was the highlight. Yeah.

The goal was definitely the highlight. Yeah. Okay. So the two Mexico goals happened on my end of the stadium. And then also this El Salvador goal happened on my end of the stadium. And I was on this. And I was kind of on Tim Way aside. So I got to see the ball come into him,

him do a couple guys, get the shot off. Yeah, six for six Are you saying the buzz The buzz was so great from that game That it managed to carry through the Canada game Because that's quite a buzz you must have gotten Yes, yes Because I mean

When like when you're there in person You get a big dove It can say it can absorb Okay, good Non-desirable results That's good So you're in a good place right now That's good to hear

It is, I mean, it's sort of a truism to say that a goal would be a highlight of the game, but specifically for the U.S. Men's National Team goals are highlights because they're so rare. They're so rare at this point. What's going on? What do you guys think is going on? So that's actually one of my big notes for this game. I have a few things that I hope we do differently.

I think we should play so we have just more good shots. And I'm open to let the players and Coach Berhalter figure out. got exactly how to do that, but I think that should be the thing. Let's try to shoot in good places more often. You know, when we talk about, like, talk about Burrhalter, and a lot of people have been more vigorously critical of Burrhalter than, say, I have over the last week, over the last three or four days. But we kind of have to admit that he has, he's created a stable defensive team, and we are

possessing the ball, possessing the ball a lot. but we can't we can't generate chances and without tim we definitely can't generate chances yeah so i'm not sure what the problem is honestly i have one idea that's a little bit counterintuitive and it's if we have pool sick and this is on him for one game come out there with the mindset is i'm not really going to try to do anything i'm just going to kind of be and i think that could that could work you know because he'll still end up doing he should try to do nothing but but he'll end up still doing a little bit, and that will create the right balance, hopefully.

That way there's less pressure on him. It seems like he's under some pressure. I would be, I'm all for Pulisic just deciding to be, you know, assuming he plays tomorrow, which I don't know if he's going to. I don't know. Why do you think we can't score goals, Vince? I don't know.

I don't know. Okay, the one thing that keeps coming back to me is, I think Bells, I mentioned the C before, not like on the pot or anything, but just the correlation between Greg Burrhalter and Mikhail Arteza, okay, Arsenal's coach. Okay. Stick with me. I'm sticking.

But Artetta came in. He did the exact same thing as Greg. He made Arsenal defensively stable. The offense was a work in progress. And it's like the same type. Of course, he was like an assistant for Man City, right? same type of like positional play type of type of system and it just it just basically it looks real sterile it looks real sterile if you just don't have guys um if you just don't have real

difference makers on the on the pitch man i don't know like yeah difference makers i don't know how how else to say it yeah so like for for arsenal it's ended up being uh bekayo Osaka, who's been like probably our best player over like the past year. And when you come, when I compare him and Tim, like, are basically our stalwarts, the two star wars for their respective teams, it's just because they know how to play football. They know, like Tim knows how to like, like we talked about it last episode. Like his brain is a superpower, man. He knows how to play.

He just knows how to stretch defenses. he knows how to set his to set his man up to make a run. He knows how to, and you can see that there's like a little glimmer of hope when Tim's in there. Yeah. And Tim's able to like do his thing. And it's the same thing for like soccer at Arsenal. He's like way is playing chess.

He weighs playing chess. And like, we need more chess players, I guess. What do you guys think about this thing that people, I've seen people talking about of having. way up play on the left and Poulosick on the right. Because Poulosik keeps doing this thing where he's, sorry, I keep bringing it back to Poulosik. But he does this thing where he's dribbling and he'll see a pack of opposing players and kind of cut into it on the right. And we want to come up with a way to get him to stop doing it.

So I'm open to the idea. I'm open to the idea too. I'm not, as I said, I probably said a couple times on this podcast. I'm not that optimistic that it'll do anything. Because, like, you know, he could also just make the choice to not dribble into the pack of players, even if he's playing on the left. You know, he could find an overlapping, find an overlapping Anthony Robinson or, I mean, I don't want to be too hard on Pulisic, but if, but I think that difference makers thing is, is a, is, we have a real lack of that, obviously. And it's, and a big part of the lack is the absence of Giovanni Raina. and another big part of the lack is that Christian Pulisic is not a difference maker right now.

And I guess nothing encapsulates that truth more clearly than the way he sort of fumbled away that one chance he had 1 v1 with Alastair Johnston against Canada. Exactly the situation we want him to be in. Exactly. Exactly the situation. Like don't get me wrong. I am very much here for the Gregslander. like what the hell are you supposed to do man if if if pulleys out here looking like this I mean we we we we we know what the issues are with the striker position um we know

Brendan Aronson's Aronson's limitations as far as like potentially being like a focal point of an offensive system he's he's not necessarily there yet so it's like it has to be politic and as far as like going on the right I think the right would suit them just because, I mean, I noticed like maybe like two or three times, like Anthony Robinson, like I love him. But dude, he's just going to, he's just going to bomb down the touchline no matter what. Like one time, Pully was kind of ISOed on the wing and might have had the opportunity to take some, I don't know who it was for Canada, but take the player one-on-one.

And here comes Anthony Robinson, man, just still. Bringing more defenders into the area? Yeah, yeah. He could have just stopped. He could have just stopped short, kind of like underlaped, not that he necessarily can do anything in that area and not necessarily that he's going to receive the ball right there.

But like, dude, just let, just let Felicity go to work. And so, like, he, Anthony did that probably like two or three times last match. And if you put, if you put Pilly over on the right with Serge, who's a better interpreter of these, of these situations, I think you get a little bit more out of him and he can just if just just let just play wing for a little bit you know what I'm saying just be a winger you don't need to be an inverted inverted forward I do think I remember seeing Anthony underlap wants at Follum so it is theoretically possible but

there is a risk if Christian is out wide that Anthony is just going to run into him he actually did run into him in the alsafador again but who ran into who in that situation it was Anthony, Anthony did it. I'd slow motion debt. He just, he just tripped on the ground and just dove straight in the, the, I was like, but recovered well from that moment. Sure did. Sure did.

About the El Salvador? Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about the other, the other problem, which you mentioned, Vince, is the, um, the striker. Waki, are you feeling like you, you wish PEPI would have started on Sunday? Um, you know, I'm moving forward, but I would think he should start this game.

I'm not going to look back in, you know, not anger, but disappointment. I think it's time. I think it's maybe, maybe, but, you know, it's two days have gone by, and now I think he should be the starter against Honduras. Also, that was his big game, his breakout game. Last time he played them, right? He won the, not only got his debut soccer ball, he got his game ball. Double ball performance. So it's peppy for me.

Another thing is, you know, all this said, it would kind of be unreasonable for Honduras not to lose to us given they just got eliminated. And now they're about to play the coldest soccer game in history. It has to be just a miserable situation for them. And I think we should win this game. How stubborn would that be of them to actually not lose to us? It would be absolutely infuriating. I mean, at this point, it kind of seems like, like, like whether they try or not, not, it's possible that we won't win this game just because of the conditions.

That would be quite a, quite a, uh, a fumble on our part. But it's not going to happen. Positive, you know, positive mental attitude. Just go out there and have fun. That's what I would say to the players. Yeah, it could be, it could be just like a absolutely miserable zero zero draw. Or, I mean, I feel like it could be anything from that to us losing on some fluke, fluke situation. I mean, this is a fluke situation. It's going to be zero degrees during the game.

Or we could, you know, we could end up scoring a bunch of goals and just like pounding them into the grass. I don't know. I'm sort of, I'm sort of prepared for everything. I will say, I know people get tired of us talking about the weather, but there's only one more day of weather talk for us for now. But I was walking to my friend's house. I'm staying with some friends in my old neighborhood. and I had to walk like 10 blocks from the train station. And by the time I got like a block from their house, and it was like 15 degrees out, you know, not that, not that bad, relatively speaking. My legs were like starting to burn a little bit.

And so I can't even imagine, like what, is anybody going to be out there with exposed skin tomorrow? Hopefully you have a full squad with sweatpants. You know what I'm looking like the Canada, the Canada keeper man I mean it like like it seems like there's no way around it fully bundled just some eyeballs poking out yeah man I mean some some bala clavas on

you know what I'm saying like I don't know what else I don't know how else they're gonna be able to play I don't either I don't either like you gotta have you gotta have like tights like spandex on and then sweatpants over that probably if you really want to be like anything resembling comfortable those you brought up the striker position and I would just like to say that I say it, say it, man. Look, look, man, okay, let me, let me preface this statement.

Let me preface this statement by saying that I love everyone that plays for the U.S. men's national team. And by nature of them being professional athletes, they are a million times better at anything that I will ever be good at. So now that I've gotten that out the way. I don't want to see Jicey Zardez again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, man.

Like, like we've seen enough. He's been a mainstay since Greg was hired. He's an MLS player, so he's had all the camps. You know what I'm saying? Like, bro,

enough. Enough, man. I can't take it. I can't take it anymore. Yeah, he runs. He presses.

He may or may not be in the right spots at the right times or whatever. But what's that matter if the ball's going to ricochet off his shins, man? What does that matter? Yeah. I was probably too wishy-washy on Zardis in the Canada recap, because mostly because I don't, I want to be careful to not pretend that I know the game would have gone better with somebody else in there. Because that's because I don't. I don't know. But I do admit I was too, too wishy-washy. I think it didn't work out. It didn't work out. It didn't work. If we wanted to play ugly with Canada, maybe sit back and invite them forward and hit them

in transition or even like, you know, just find some way to hit them in transition with like a couple quick passes. Maybe Zardis is the guy, but we didn't end up doing that. We ended up possessing ourselves to death, which is kind of a hallmark of the Burrhalter attack. And, and Zardis didn't get involved. So retrospectively, I would have liked to see Pepey start that game. And I, and I, and I, and I agree with you, Waki. I want to see Pepey tomorrow. And if it's Ferreira, fine. You know, I'm not quite as excited about Ferreira as I am about Pepey,

but I have to admit that that's a little bit just sentimentality on my part. We also, we don't have a striker that's clearly very good right now. So it's, we do not. Yeah, and kind of understand the decision. Moving forward, moving forward. But we have, yeah, yeah. No, you know what? No, no, I don't.

I can't even give them that. because it's like we've we've let Josh go you know we let Josh go into the wilderness to try and find itself you know what I'm saying we got we got PFOC just at the crib chilling like I mean like let's let's let's cycle through let's cycle through some more some more guys man I don't know like in the in these world cup qualifiers we have a headed on goal from Jicey's Arda's the possibly possibly the best finish that he's had in a U.S. Miss National Team shirt. We had this,

we had this Canada disaster class. And then we had him denying Tim Way and assist that they would have been seven out of seven goals for the U.S. Yeah. So it's like, bro, I've seen enough like, bro, do you all remember back? Okay.

So the 2019 Gold Cup was like the first time we saw, Josie, right? Boy, that's... The first time we saw Josie? I'm pretty sure that the first time we saw Josie was great. Okay, yeah, yeah. And before then, everyone was like, I don't understand Greg says some.

The shit, it looks bad anytime we play it because we were playing a whole bunch of balls at Jicey, and Jice who were doing Jicey things with the balls that he was receiving. And then as soon as, like, Josie came in, and we had a guy with some, with some real quality at the striker position, we were like, oh, okay, now Greg's system makes a lot more sense.

And it's like, yeah, I mean, yes, like Josie got hurt and all these. I mean, he continued to get hurt and all these other type of things. But like, we saw the baseline of performance that Jicey was given us, and it wasn't good enough. And we saw how the whole team lifted offensively once we had like a real striker in there. And it's just. And we saw a little bit. We saw a little bit of a bump.

from Pepe, I thought, at the end of the Canada game. It still felt mostly hopeless to me. But, you know, he did a couple nice little things in combination. We should say anything else on the striker situation for you guys? No offense to the Zardaz family. I'm just saying. I would love to have a beer with Jazi's artists 100%. He had to block replies to his tweets, you know, because people get so angry at him.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, like never a tweet. somebody. That's the way. You're so weird to tweet out of flare. Why do people do that? It's juvenile. It's trash behavior, honestly. I got no time for that.

Yeah, seriously, guys, please. And I try not to, I try not to use first and last names too. It's just like, dude, you, like, parents are out there, family members.

They're searching Twitter. Believe me. So just, just trying, just try and keep a chill. So back to Honduras real quick. It does look like Albert Elise and Romel Kyoto are in the roster, according to what U.S. soccer put out earlier today. So that's not a great bit of news. What are they doing?

Why would they do that? They could go. They don't need to be playing in this. They have nothing to the game from this. Go home. Go relax somewhere. Go back to Europe or wherever. Go somewhere nice.

Go to France. Go to France. It's a lovely in France, Minnesota. I mean, you don't have to necessarily go back to France. Like, like, enjoy your extra two days off, three days off, whatever. You know what I'm saying? Just chill. But stay out of Minneapolis.

Yeah, anywhere but Minneapolis in February is where you want to be. Odd decision by them, but I guess we'll have to live with it. Albert Lise has the feel of a man who may not be bothered that much by the cold somehow for me. Like, even though he's from Honduras, I feel like he's, I don't know. He's strong. Very frustrated by him showing up. I guess that's credit to him, but I certainly wouldn't.

I'm not that. I'm not a team player like that. Maybe he feels pressure in some way. What about Miles Robinson? It feels, it's weird to me that the ups and downs of a centerbacks, sort of the public opinion about a centerback, or, you know, like, end of the summer,

he was considered the best centerback in the pool by a lot of people, not by everyone, but by a lot of people. And, and now we see him, you know, he's probably, he and Matt Turner maybe share the blame equally for that goal

that Canada scored early. And then Robinson, Robinson gets most of the blame for the, for the late goal, although it's, there's, I think there's only a couple tablespoons of blame in that.

It's possible that we as humans form really strong opinions about players too quickly sometimes. Because, I mean, that's just a possibility. But he seemed to just make a mistake and was, looked kind of a little bit out of it a couple times. But he wasn't, he wasn't bad, was he? He was getting manhandled by, like, to John Buchanan and Jonathan David, I think, a couple times. For me, just the visual of him, like, stumbling behind Laren. as Laring goes to score is just like I was just looking at him like that

you know that Simpsons meme where I don't know who the, I don't watch the Simpsons for real, but the character just looking down like pathetic. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about? I don't know that meme, but I understand the word pathetic. Yeah. I was just, I was just looking at my I was like,

damn, like you? I hate that. Yeah. Of all of our players, he's the one I would have not picked to be doing that, you know, of all of our centerbacks. Yeah, just like the, just, just, just stumbling behind in the most pitiful way. They're like, like, not, I mean, I guess it could have been more pitiful if you, like, fell on his butt, but, but like, just, you're stumbling over while this man is just, just

strolling about to square up Matt Turner and take a shot, man. It's just, that shit was disheartening. I'm not going to lie. We should not. We should not, I guess this is kind of obvious. We should not let Hunter a score in the first 10 minutes of the game. Because I don't think I can handle it. So just like, let's cut that out.

And let's also try to score in the first half this time. It's getting a bit too stressful to not score in these first half. Yeah. Oh, one other note I have, Burrhalter should not do a behind the back pass when we're losing. That's like one of my other big notes. Just people do not like it. People get really upset about it. Yeah.

So I was about to say, Waki, I meant to ask you about this because you tweeted about it about people, about people coming in your mentions. What was so what happened there? I make videos about his behind the back passes. And so anytime he does that, people start adding me. And if he does it at a time when they don't like it, they're somewhat unhappy with me, which doesn't completely make sense. It doesn't completely make sense to me. It's not, I know, I'm not doing them behind that. I pass it.

You're definitely encouraging them, though, Waki. I think you probably get a couple, a little bit of blame here, in my opinion. I'm being honest, they probably maybe, maybe you should get a little bit of fun. Another question I have is, how do you feel about Weston's long throw-ins? It didn't really go that well against Canada. Do we want her to keep doing them? My question is, do we have a plan? I mean, the plan involves a long throw-in, but like, what is the rest of the plan?

Is there a plan? Yeah, I was looking at all of them. And the plan is the centerback stands with his back to goal kind of at the corner of the six or something like that. And the plan is they hit it to his head and then they flick it on and back a little bit. But we never have someone standing covering that space where it's going to get flicked to. So like three times they just were on a counter attack. So if we're going to keep doing, let's have someone stand there. But also, when Weston's not in the middle, unless he can throw it and then somehow run in and get the deflection, which I don't mind maybe try it.

Maybe the idea is for Weston to throw it long to the sixth to the centerback, say Chris Richards, he flicks it back to the back post and then somebody heads it back across the face of goal. And by that time, Weston has arrived and he heads it in. Yeah, he comes soaring in. That's the thing. And in the meantime, you know, I don't know that we need to necessarily keep doing them. I think maybe it was because, because he wasn't doing them as much early in the qualifying, it might be because the field was so narrow. That made it played into it.

It seemed like it was a big part of the El Salvador game, too, though, right? Yes. No, actually, it only seemed a big part of it because it was really noticeable because they had this thing where I think that Serginio was going to take it, And then someone else came and got it. Then Weston came jogging over and took off his gloves and got a lot of camera time. But I think you only actually did one full really long throw. And I spent a good amount of time looking at clips of long throw in the past couple days.

Yeah, you know what? I remember that because I was like, there was somebody standing right there for like, Sougenia to throw it into it. I was like, bro, just throw it in. Yeah. And then like I saw Weston just running over. And I was like, ah. And this is another problem with us offensively.

It's like, bro, we can't. We can't get Weston in the box. box. Yeah. He hasn't been near the box for a while. Get him in the box, because especially against like a low block because he has to be the trash hit guy. Last time we know of him being near a box was in Nashville as far as I know.

Hey. He didn't even play in that game. Go figure. Who do we think the Mitch? Did you and Greg already decide who, what the midfield should be? officially. No, we didn't. We didn't.

We should decide that. What do you think? I assume Acosta, Weston, and then if Musa's ready to go, then Musa? If he's not, then... I mean, I guess I wouldn't be displeased if Luca Deletore got a chance in this game. I mean, we should be able to control the game. Yeah, this would be the type of game here. would make some sense in.

So I say go, we could do like a Weston, Musa double pivot with Luca in front. I would like that. Yeah, I mean, I guess I would like that too, but it just seems like there's no chance.

I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not going to happen. Hold on, hold on. We were, we were just trying to get Weston in the box.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he can still get in there. Okay.

That's why I was thinking of Costa. Yeah. It would be nice if we could get him in the box more. It's just, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. We need someone to take the playmaking load off of, you know? Yeah. We need Pulisic to play better, man.

I mean, I think that's a lot of it comes down to, we need Pulisic to be more dangerous. And I don't know, you know, I had, somebody tweeted out of comp of his, his performance against Byron back in, I don't know when a long time ago back when he was at Dorman and just how electrifying he was and people were saying in the in my menten and I retweeted it I quote tweeted it and people were saying in my mentions well you know it takes a long time to fully get back from a hamstring injury this is what happened to messy once and I was like I don't have I don't have the energy to fact check that but it's a hopeful sort of way to think about it I guess that's good to know pool of see yeah and be coming into form sometime later this summer hopefully already having helped qualify us for

the World Cup. How long did it take Tim Way to get back from his hamstring? Not very long. Yeah, I mean, it didn't take two years. I'll tell you that. It didn't take two half years, man. I mean, Jesus, but, but I will say the hamstring was a little far, a little bit of time ago, but the ankle, yo, I turned my ankle in March of 2021. Like, right after I got vaccinated, I went hooped for the first time in a while. And that first hoop session, I did. I turned my ankle. And that thing really just got better, like, a few weeks ago. Like, they were still paying on and off.

So maybe he's not able to explode off of that ankle the way he would like to. Speaking. Yeah. And remember, like, first came back, too cool was saying, like, you know, he still has a little bit of pain. And, I mean, it just kind of, it kind of looks like he's just not there, man. the agility side to side is absolutely not there like that that is like undeniable at this point i will admit he does not seem to be striking fear in the hearts of opposing defenders yeah i said i tweeted the other day he's out here looking like cori baird so a little bit and i feel like in a in a first choice

11 this current iteration of pulisic which i which i as well as the whole nation is hopeful is not what he's going to be, you know, forever. But this current iteration of Pulisic, he's not in my starting 11 anymore, you know, it's got to be, it's got to be, like, you know, absolute first choice starting 11, it's got to be Raina and Wea and Poulosic can come off the bench and try to make a difference that way. But not like this, not starting playing like this for me. Right.

Because, I mean, because, like, imagine that he didn't, like, get that Mexico goal, which of course he did get the Mexico goal, but it was like a very particular way that he went about it, right? He just made a run and caught a centerback nap and kind of dunked on him. Yep. But like that that wasn't, you know,

that wasn't a flash of, of anything. That wasn't vintage, holistic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not vintage bully, man. Well,

in a way, a little bit, it's like it was him arriving in the box. May that's, if he said, starts, you know, baby steps, just start arriving in the box. Sure. That was kind of one of his big things for a while.

Yeah, so I'm saying. So that goes back to your point of like just being, just existing. Just be. You know what I'm saying? Just get the ball, give it up. You know, let the attack go down the right side if it needs to and just make runs in the box. Yeah. Don't feel like you have to come get the ball.

You don't have to come get it. Just move around quickly in different directions. and from time to time you'll get it. And then when you do, pass it to another player. Then keep just doing that. Yeah. A Zen, a Zen version of Pulisic. I'm in for it.

Yeah. You know, another thing, you know, we're talking about our nines. And I guess this will be my last sort of Pulisic bashing thing, I say. We talk about our nines, not being good enough. But, you know, Ferreira did create, get on the end of some good chances and helped create some chances you got the assist on the goal. against El Salvador. I think Ferreira, I'm not just, I'm not just, you know,

shilling for Greg Velasquez's point of view here when I say, I do think Ferreira was, you know, he was involved in creating a lot of danger in that game. And so that's good. In this game, yes, on Sunday against Canada, our nine didn't even have a chance to be dangerous. Like the ball, we weren't even getting, they weren't even getting the ball near the goal. And so, I mean, I do, I do.

think Zardis wasn't good enough, but also like, if, if Pulisik's not, if Pulisic can beat somebody to the end line and, you know, eliminate a couple guys, that creates all kinds of chaos for the defense. They're scrambling and then there's opportunities for the nine. If he can't do that, then the nine is just kind of like stuck in mud right in the middle, in the middle of the field. There's nothing really to be done. That's why, that's why all our chances are coming from Tim Wea, because he is able to eliminate a guy here or there.

So I think the nine problem. and the Pulisic problem are connected at this point. Yeah. And Brendan, he's just not that guy, man. He's just not that guy that's going to, he's not going to really beat people, 1V1. Greg has talked about his, Greg Velasquez, that is, has talked about his issues as far as, like, backboarding,

like playing one-toos and whatnot. He's, he doesn't, like, you can see it. Like, I would say don't, like, don't get my agenda wrong, okay? My agenda was pro-tim. It wasn't anti-Brendon. I'm still high on Brendan. Like, you see the times where he, like, flashes his talent, where, like, he received the ball, made that nice turn,

and then the, and sprayed that pass out to Anthony, I'm pretty sure. Yep. That was very nice. Yeah. Very nice. Probably one of our prettier actions of the day. but there's just not enough there for when

I mean you know the attacks on your shoulders man yeah need a little bit more if you need somebody to beat a guy 1v1 mono Emono Brennan Erinson's not going to do that at this level yeah and then with Way and Pula sick

they try to beat guys in kind of different ways his way all he needs to do is kind of half beat him and then he can play that ball and that's kind of a core thing of what he does As Poulosike is like, I'm going to get all the way around this guy and then also get all the way around this next guy. And when you're struggling, that can sometimes not go very well. Right.

That's sort of, that's a good summary of the current state of Poulac's game. All right. So I think we're close to being done here. Do we want to talk about Tim Wea's absence in Canada or should we stop looking back backwards and start looking forward? I think we got it, right? So I was going to really rip the Fed until I got some more information. It doesn't seem like they totally dropped the ball. Oh, that absence.

The vaccine, I was confused. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the vaccine absence. Yeah. yeah I was really going to get on the Fed because at first when when like the initial reporting came out and it was basically like yeah we found out two days ago that he wouldn't be that he wouldn't be able to cross the board I'm like bro two days like you're telling me we had all this time between windows and y'all couldn't get this sorted out um but but it seems like there's a little bit more nuance there so it just it is what it is at this point um yeah if you

I guess if you really want to know what the details are, you probably do. He got one vaccination and then he got COVID before he could get the second jab. And that counts as fully vaccinated in France. I believe it counts as fully vaccinated in the U.S. I actually don't know for sure. It does not count as fully vaccinated in Canada. And, you know, there's a lot. There's a lot of different regulations to keep track of.

I mean, somebody did at least on some level drop the ball at the Fed. on that but I don't know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get to go come down too hard on the bookkeeper there yeah I mean he he got a he got a game's rest and this is really important game so maybe we wouldn't have chosen to rotate him but yeah that's that's a good way to think about it because this is the game this is a game we absolutely have to win yeah yeah like yeah I guess he needs to be here for the must win it sure does hurt to lose to Canada though doesn't it yeah man I don't like them. I don't like them. Yeah. They got some good players. And they're, I was going to say fun to watch play, but. Yeah.

They're kind of fun to watch play, actually. I mean, kind of like, I mean, their play style isn't, isn't the greatest. But I do like their players individually. Like, Tejohn's electric. Jonathan David is also electric. Yes. Kyle Larian, very good. It would be nice to have those players.

It would be nice to have those players on our team. I know it was too late, but. One of them, man, we could have got, like, I think the reason why we don't have Jonathan Davis, because we rated I.O. Iconola over him. I think that was the story. And now they have I, O'I. Connolla, too. No, they have the story. I didn't know that story, but if that's the case, it did none of that want well.

We should get to the bottom of that. It is, I guess I'll just say when they get out on the run, whether it's, against the U.S. or anybody, it is fun to watch, you know, it feels like something's going to happen. It feels like there's, there's going to be fireworks, and oftentimes there are. Yeah. And I would just like to say that Sergenio Dess put Tejan in his pocket. He did. He put that boy in his pocket on the road.

People were telling me that he couldn't play on the road in Concord Calfe. And I said, just wait, man. I mean, you know what I'm saying? these are, at the end of the day, these are still young kids experiencing all these things for the first time. Like, you know, we have talent. But, I mean, there's a lot more to being a good player in any sport than talent. Like, an experience, experience is a part of it as far as, I mean, just knowing how to play

the game. And so, you know, it's, it's, we should, we should kind of resist making two. many snap judgments on players as far as what they can't do because they're still young right so it's like you know i i just kept hearing all this noise you know surge can't play on the road we should we should sit them on the road i'm like bro he's played one road qualifier before before canada was it's el salvador yeah yeah i think so that was it right you didn't play in jama he got hurt for um before the honduras game or was he hurt during the honduras game i can't remember okay before because he got hurt in canada that's right he got hurt in canada again that's right and

he was playing pretty well in that game too but all i'm saying is uh surge he's that guy you can play him on the road you can play him at home uh and and the the most question part of the game is is defending showed up, showed up on something. He came out with some real defensive intention from the beginning. He was challenging for headers very aggressively. Not well. He wasn't challenging well for them, and he didn't win them because he's not good in the air, but he was putting in that effort so you could see he was clicked into that.

He wasn't even really anywhere close to winning the headers, but he was jumping up there. He's pretty short. It's not a big guy. Yeah, he's not going to be. He's also not a leaper or timing. He's not going to timing it either. He's not an air person. He's very much a ground person.

He's a ground person. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's it. That's a really encouraging thing to take away from the game, especially, like, you know, if we do go to the World Cup, you know, we're going to need Sergenio Dess to play defense. And he's doing it right now. He didn't.

I will say, you know, if any to one of our many Canadian listeners, there are none, I'm pretty sure. But if somebody from Canada were listening to this, they might say, well, okay. Okay, Desk put Tejohn in his pocket, but Tejohn also put Desk in his pocket. You know, like, Dest didn't get a ton of joy up the flank. I mean, that was a battle. That was a really tough, intense battle between those two.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it was fun to watch. It was fun to watch. They had their hands in each other's pockets and they're kind of doing a little swirling around. Just to just imagine that. I keep forgetting that the game's not tonight. It's tomorrow, but tomorrow we got Panama.

playing in the Azteca, Mexico. This is a game that Panama should not win to. It would be unreasonable of them to win it, right? Outrageous. It would be outrageous. I mean, Tata's job is on the line. Yeah, man. The Panama, it's been real cute.

It's been real cute. It's been a valiant effort, you know what I'm saying? But it's, hey, it's time, okay? It's time. Yeah, come on, Nick. Go ahead and quit all that. Quit all that. It's time to come home to your homework.

You went outside playing. We don't, we don't, we don't let you play until the, the street lights are on now, buddy. All right. Get in the house. Get in the house. Get in the house, Panama. We're talking about Panama or Mexico here. Panama, you get in the house, Mexico, you get out there, you go outside and you take care of business.

Stay outside. Stay outside. We're mixing some metaphors, but both of you just do the right thing. Use your head. How much do you guys think? think, like, you know, I was resistant early on to the narrative by some prominent soccer writers that, like, all of our struggles were the result of this being a young team, all of our struggles in qualifying. I feel a little bit like I'm coming around to that, especially watching

the contrast between us in Canada on Sunday, how they were just, some things went their way. there were some mistakes by, obviously the mistake by Turner, the mistake by by Robinson. But there was also just sort of a comfort with like knowing how to win a game. It's, I don't know, maybe I'm just, this is just post facto narrative building. I definitely think it matters. But the reason, I think part of the reason people object to it is because it sounds like we're making an excuse for not playing well.

But yeah, if all these players are going to be better in two and three years. presumably not all of them, but on average. So being closer to your prime would be better and probably, well, certainly more experienced. Yeah, I mean, soccer in itself, I mean, just by the nature of the sport, man, you got to figure out problems, right? And, you know, it's just they don't have all that, they don't have all the answers yet.

They haven't played enough football. Like, dude, all these guys for the most part are in their web. second, third full season of first team ball. Like, Serge is in year three. Brendan is in, what, year two or three? I mean, Jice, I mean, we said enough about Jicy, but. Tyler and Weston. Eunice, Tyler.

Five years for those guys for Tyler and Weston and Christian. But still not, not 10. Yeah. It's just, I mean, all this stuff matters, man. And like the, there isn't a big like margin in between who wins and who loses and in any given soccer game. That's right. So, so it's just, you know, it's just a learning experience, man. It's part of having a young team.

And it's not like there were many options in the, uh, in the, uh, the older generation, of course, the lost generation to supplant these young kids. So it's like, we got to go through the ups and downs. And especially it comes to facing a low block. Like, you know, I've seen, I've seen grown-ass men struggle with struggle to break down low blocks. So it's, I mean. Yeah. And once Burrhalter's been.

It is what it is. That's kind of a funny sign. I like that sentence. I couldn't think of a good. another thing is once Burrhalter it applies to him to once he's been coaching us for the next 10 years he'll be better at coaching so just like we got to be patient we'll get there so when Burrhalter's coaching us at the 2034 World Cup he's going to have it nailed down yeah yeah um anything else anything else guys um well I guess I'll I'll go a little bit further into my Columbus trip Yeah. But Columbus was fun, man. Went to brothers where the AO was having their tailgate.

Met Maxa Montana, who's been on the scuff Discord for a while now. It was great meeting him. Met Donald Wine. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, he was cool. Got drunk. Met J. Hernandez and George from. from first touch.

That was cool. Yeah, man, it's just a good time. It's always, it's always good vibes going to these, going to these U.S. games. My first cap was in Nashville. And they've been, they've been great every time. They've been great every time. I will say that I don't, like, like, I, I don't think it's the crowd in Columbus, but I think it's the acoustics of the field, man.

they just don't, they just don't, they just don't work. I don't know. Like sound, it just gets sucked out of that stadium. That was my feeling at the Costa Rica game. Yeah, and I don't like it. I don't like it. But, other than that. Cincinnati was, Cincinnati doesn't struggle from that, though, does it?

I mean, Cincinnati was loud, didn't you think? Yeah. And, yeah, I don't know what it is. I guess, I mean, I'm not an architect. you know what I'm saying but yeah the acoustics fan it just it just don't

it those games the Costa Rica game and the El Salvador game didn't hit like they were supposed to great great games still I mean like a US soccer game to me is surpassing like any any other sported event

and I've been to oh I speaking of Columbus Burhalter did apparently behind the back between the legs pass against El Salvador that didn't make the telecast. Did you see that happen? I was not focused on Greg.

Okay. Okay. The 61st minute. He also had another pass earlier in the first half where apparently just really long and really solid one that didn't make it. I don't know why they're cutting away from him. But anyhow, I just wanted to check. Yeah.

I was not focused on Greg. I ain't kidding. I feel like all the games I've been to, I don't, I haven't watched Greg for like more than a second and a half, you know? Yeah, the only time I saw Greg was when we went down to, like, field level to, like, clap the players off after we won. And, you know, Greg, Greg came over. Because I was, I was, like, with the outlaws.

So, you know, he came over. He was clapping and whatnot. But I spent, I spent a good amount of time watching when I went to the next to the game. Did you? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, one really good tell throw. That also didn't make the tell against, by the way. Anyway, you can, you can close out.

the show. Okay. Well, I'll just say thank you to all our patrons, February 1st, first of the month. So it's, it hits the pocketbooks today. And we appreciate it. Party tomorrow, 2 o'clock central time at Lake Monster Brewing. Be there. Be square. Thanks for listening. We'll see you.