Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #250: USMNT transfer window recap

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

Greg and Belz talk their way through the transfers of the past window, everything from George Bello to Arminia Bielefeld to Kobe Hernandez-Foster to HamKam, with a special focus on the players who are battling for a spot on a World Cup roster.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. We're a little late to this, but the transfer window in Europe closed at the end of January, and there was a lot of American activity. And I think it's best to think of these moves as part of a race to get on the roster for the World Cup later this year. Let's talk about that a little bit. Greg, how you doing? Bells, I'm good. Before we get to that race, there's another, there's another runner in a race that I'm going to treat like a transfer because he's been out injured for so long. And that is, that is absolute podcast favorite, Jonathan Aman. He's back from injury. I mean, hopefully, hopefully, right? Like, he's got a bit of the Nick Tatteguise about him. But he's been injured off and on his whole career. He's, what, 22 years old now. And I know we've added a lot of listeners in the last couple of years. so they might not know about Jonathan Amon or sort of the legend of Jonathan Amin on the podcast, which is just that he was a huge favorite of ours when we were talking about all of the young players that could emerge through this cycle, you know, and so many of them have and have come good. Amon never could get past the injuries. He's playing in a Danish club, FC Norchland, and he was just an exciting player, right?

He's a left winger, attacking player and electric at times. So it's just a really cool thing You know you and Vince and Waki We're talking about the good vibes And giving Tara all of her love for the good vibes In the Discord now And like Jonathan Amit is coming back Is the best vibes

Yeah he has a great smile Jonathan does And just an infectious smile And he is he is a good cut in from the Cut in from the left and shoot Or take the guy to the end line And pull it back kind of winger. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think Jonathan Amon is putting himself in the race

for the World Cup roster for later this year. But that's not always the most important thing, right? This is still just like about cheering on these American players. That's like what 90% of our podcast is following all these players around the world. So Jonathan Amon is such an easy player to cheer for. Still have no idea if he'll even like really get back to full fitness. Again, these these long-term injured players such a record of like stop start stop start long stop but for the for the moment it's cool and there's a cool video of a man talking about his return so I'm treating this like the biggest transfer of the transfer season all right I know no objection for me the truth is most of the players who transferred in January are not going

to make it on to the World Cup roster you know um so I I think it's probably worthwhile to just talk about, go over some of the basics. There are several players who, if healthy, will be on the roster for Qatar. And, you know, Christian Pulisic is one. West McKenny, Tim Wea, Tyler Adams, Eunice Musa, Sergenio Dest, Anthony Robinson, Walker Zimmerman, and Miles Robinson, and then Zach Stephan and Matt Turner. And then it's almost certain that Callan Acosta will be on the roster, too. But that leaves, you know, a couple of backup fullback openings, at least two.

two backup midfield slots, a couple of centerback positions, a winger or two, and the striker position still up for grabs pretty much completely. So let's say it's 11 spots still open on a 23-man roster. Do we know if it's going to be a 23-man roster for the World Cup or not? Is that? There hasn't. I mean, the only thing that would suggest there isn't is speculation from Euros going 25 and then just sort of like the general nature of the world at this point.

and the absolute like shambles it would be if a 23 man roster gets hit with six COVID absences. You know what I mean? Like you have to not have the game turn into a farce. So I could I could see FIFA just being like, let's open this up to 25. There's almost no downside to that from FIFA's perspective, I think. You know, we can talk about the intra squad issues that that could create. But it wouldn't surprise me at all for it, 25 players for the, World Cup.

Okay. So if it's 25, then there are 13 spots open. But let's talk about strikers who made a move in January. We've discussed some of these transfers already, but some of them we haven't discussed. Josie Altador to New England reunited with Bruce Arena. Does that do anything? Does that do anything for you? Altador to New England?

It doesn't. Well, I don't know. I mean, you know, if Altador gets helped. healthy and gets on a good run of form this summer. He's probably in the mix, isn't he? I mean, like, again, I've been saying for a while now that I just have all the striker names in a hat with Jesus Ferrer being the prettiest name for me. But, like, Al-Dador could totally put himself back in that hat.

I don't think he necessarily had to go to New England to do it, so the transfer doesn't mean anything too much. I would have been very interested to see him playing with Bob Bradley as well. I think the Outdoor issue is going to be at this point, like if we're going to be a high-pressing soccer team, does he have a role to play in that even at his best? No, probably not. Or would it just be like he'd be a very precise kind of a player to be like, okay, this other team is just giving us the ball over and over again. Our press can't actually do anything because they're not allowing us to press them. Now could Josie Altador step in and be that facilitating forward who can also be at times like a lethal finisher.

I say that, I mean, his movement in the box is very pointed and effective. Yeah. Like, you could see him having a good effect maybe in that Canada game where it was all about just, you know, having a little moment of quality in the box, which we never really had. Exactly. The Canada game, the Jamaica game on the road, like those kinds of games where they just give us the ball. And we've got to find a way with our attacking pieces to break them down. All right.

Ricardo Pepey to Augsburg has been well covered on this podcast, but we'll see he didn't play last weekend because of the big freeze. And we'll see if he gets a start this weekend. Right. Very few of the players who were in St. Paul for the U.S. got back over and played on the weekend. It was mostly just settling back into, you know, thawing out and settling back into their club. And then D.K. to West Brom, that's also been talked about on this podcast, but he got hurt.

So he's out for a couple months, it sounds like. Yeah, that seems to be a really bad timing for that because that's almost the season. You know, I don't know if he'll get back for a few games left. West Brom are in, like, positioned a challenge for the playoff. So they need some points. So if he does get back and he's ready to go, I think he'll still have a wrong. to play in that. I'm just hoping they're not in like,

you know, totally eliminated status by then. Yeah. What was, so Pepe's price tag was 20 million to Augsburg, DK, what, eight and a half to West Brom? Eight and a half million?

Yeah, something like that. Just insane, right? And that's after Sergeant went for 11 million to Norwich in the summer. And then one of the other guys in our hat is Jesus Ferreira, who just, he didn't move. He's still at Dallas.

But his pay got bumped up to like two million a year. Get paid, bro. Our forwards are making some money. Yeah. It is funny that like Pepe, D.K. and Sergeant, you know, all, you know, nearly 10 million or more transfers for strikers who just aren't, you know, aren't that proven really. None of them is really that proven. But, I mean, I guess D.K.

DK is the one with the biggest shout for being proven because of the way he played for Barnsley last spring. But we should probably mention, you know, Sergeant. Sargent was sick last week, so he didn't play. But we should probably mention Jordan Pfefock. He scored another two goals over the weekend for young boys. I don't know. He's a... I honestly don't know who should be the Spikers.

I know you usually pull a name out of a hat, but I guess that's the way to think of it. But I just don't know. I'm saying, and Pfeck was linked to some clubs, so he's doing enough that I guess putting his name. and some headlines would get some clicks, which is a, you know, that's a positive sign, right? Mm-hmm. And there may have been real, real legs to it.

I think a Syriac Club, I don't remember which one. It might have been Venetia. Like, we joke about everybody going to Venetia, but they actually might have been linked to Pfok. Seems like he could do some, he could do some good for Venetia. I don't know. So there's three, basically three striker positions open.

And there you go. That's the reset on the transfer window for the striker position. Not as much activity in the winger position, but what do we have? So the big one is Brendan Aronson not moving, despite several reported from, you know, trusted outlets that leads United from the Premier League with Bielsa in their ridiculous pressing scheme and just run like crazy, which is a perfect fit for Aronson. We're prepared to pay like 24 million pounds, which is like a third. $30 million fee that Salisburg turned down.

And so the thought is that Leeds will continue to pursue him over the summer. I don't know if the dollars will be the same in the summer, but that's a huge deal, right? Like that's Aaronson at this point, probably our fourth string winger, uh, is a $30 million player. Like, again, this is sort of just to speak to how unprecedented the times are. And I just would not pay $30 million for him. Well, I have to wet blanket this. This is somebody else's money.

There's no salary cap. There's no, like just, just buy him, just get him over to Leeds. Yeah, I mean, I'm all for it. And all the best to him, but I'm telling you, I would not pay $30 million for him. So I'm in the camp that actually doesn't want him to go to Leeds because it's too good of a fit. And I need to, I need to like see how Aronson does outside of that system because I care about the national team. And I don't think we're going to Bielza style murder, murder ball anytime soon. So I wanted him, he was also linked to A.C. Milan.

I wanted him to go to A.C. Milan. Like, look at how he does outside of that run and gun, full press, air raid style. Yeah. I'm on board with that, too. So the other wingers who moved, Paul Areola left D.C. United to go to Dallas. And I say this, you know, it'll be, it's always interesting to see what's going on to Dallas. You know, it's probably the club that I, the club in MLS that I watch the most. And this has an effect on the striker position since he'll presume...

presumably you be playing with Jesus Ferreira a lot. They've got that exciting winger from Argentina that they signed. And Paxson-Pomacall playing in the, hopefully playing in the midfield. So there you go. Paul Areola, maybe our fifth string winger or sixth string winger. I don't know. Again, wherever he lands, he'll be our best six, like,

six-string winger we've ever had. I don't think, like, I have no question about that. He gets a lot of, he gets a lot of guff for being who he is. is, but like, he's, he's a very serviceable six-string winger. Last cycle, he was like our third best winger. We, we had to have him do something. Yeah, if only he had put that bicycle kick away, everything would be so different now. It wouldn't be quite as stressful.

Well, transfer-wise, like, Ariel to Dallas is really interesting to me. In Dallas, in general, like on paper for this coming season, really exciting. Like I have a lot of like eagerness to watch them. I'm hoping it doesn't just crash and burn straight away. But there's a, I think the season starts like the 26th of February. So those guys will have a month of games. We'll have a month of games before that March window where, you know, these guys could really make strong cases. Yeah.

And we know Greg Burhalter is watching MLS very closely. So I'm just kidding. Okay, midfield. We think there are two spots left after Acosta, Musa, McKenny, and Adams. You might think Luca Della Torre has the inside track on that fifth spot after his performance in Honduras. But maybe not. Who knows? Yeah, I'm the guy who takes forever to, like, really put somebody in stone.

I still don't have Aronson in stone for the World Cup roster at 23. And so I'm very reluctant to be like, oh, this is just who Luca is. It was a really good game for him. but it was also against the worst team in the region who had completely conceded and we have you know we just have to see more like it doesn't mean I'm not using it to try to knock him I'm saying we just don't know yet how that's going to translate

to Mexico and the Azteca or you know even the Panama home game where there's going to be a lot riding on it so that's the next thing I'm hopeful to see yeah so Acosta's going to L-AFC from Colorado so he's going to be playing for Churundalo we don't know if he's going to be a six or an eight or a left back. Right.

LAFC's so funny because they had Walker Zimmerman as one of their centerbacks and were really good. And then they sold him. And they basically haven't been good since. So we'll see what happens with the cost of there. Hopefully he gets a, you know, like a regular starting spot as a midfielder for them. They paid a lot for him So he's definitely like a starter I mean they're banking on him starting for them

And being a key piece And I think well like Chirondolo Has a lot of name recognition of course But he he didn't have a lot of success As a coach in Germany I think he wasn't he like I think he was fired as the The Hanover second team coach

Or something like that Like it didn't I mean maybe there was There's a lot I don't know about that situation, but I see, I see his hiring by LAFC and I, I don't know, I wonder how much of that is just them going for somebody with a lot of name recognition. Yeah, I also don't know, but again, it's just going to be another one that's curious to watch, just like Nico at FC Dallas, like, all right, let's see what, let's see what these guys can do. I mean, we got a taste of what Tom Rahmott, like Tob got his shot with Houston. And there are so many other factors that go into

success as a manager. Obviously, Tab did not have a successful season. But yeah, it's going to be fun to watch Toronto have a go at it. That's the extent of my analysis there. James Sands goes to Rangers. I haven't been able to watch any of his. Has he played for them yet? He has, but he apparently hasn't been rated in his performances because I don't think

he's gotten off the bench in their last like three games, including their demolition versus Celtic where they got to, Rangers got destroyed, and then them getting destroyed wasn't enough for the coach to be like, okay, well, let's try James Sands. Hmm. Well. It's only an 18-month loan. He can come back.

You know, if it doesn't go well, he just comes back or they terminate the loan. He's back in New York City winning trophies. Yeah. 18 months is a long time, though, man. Cole Bassett Definord Club in Rotterdam, the second biggest city in Holland. I've actually been to their stadium. I went to a game there once.

Who were you watching? Were you watching Van Percy? I don't know. I didn't know enough about soccer at the time. It was 2001, or 2002, maybe. I don't think that would have been Van Percy. I think that would have been a little too early for the Van Persies. I can be wrong.

We can need a Dutch fact checker here. Pretty sure it was a Europa League game, and it was like a Turkish club they were playing. or something. So yeah, that's good. The first game he was available, he was on the bench, didn't get in the game. Fire Nord won at like 4-0. But again, Fire Nord are challenging for first place in that league with IACs and PSV. So a nice little experience for Cole Bassett.

And this is a permanent. This isn't a loan. This is a permanent deal, right? This is a transfer. Man, off to check. There were a bunch of the 18-month. moves and I don't remember if he was one of them. I kind of think he was.

Yep, it's an 18 month loan looks like June 30th, 2023 is when he presumably goes back to Colorado. So those I'm curious about whether like how much wiggle room there is to like call it off early if it's not working. If it's something we're like, oh, this is great for everyone involved, keep it going. Or if it's like, ah, the guy's not really breaking through. you can have him back. Yeah.

The only other midfielder to mention is Sebastian Leggett joining Josie with old friend Bruce Arena in New England. And, you know, it does seem like a good thing for LeJet to have a change of scenery. And we all know Bruce is the ultimate players coach. We need to see, we just want to see him bounce back, right? Because I think there is a back that he could bounce to. I do. I think so, too. One more that's like a tweener is Caden Clark, who, you know, had the highly publicized move to Leibn announced like six months before he could actually move, but then didn't actually physically move.

He just had his rights purchased by Leibzig and then loaned back to Red Bull, New York in a bit of a convoluted manner that's, you know, a bit MLS-ish. But, so he's a Leibzig player on loan with Red Bull. Yeah, on loan throughout for the whole of the upcoming MLS season, not just through the summer. So it may be a while before we see Caden Clark in Europe. The position where there really is, you know, I started this all off, but we're talking about there being a race for spots on the World Cup roster. And like a lot of these names are not probably going to compete for that.

Like Cole Bassett seems like a long ways from it. And I mean, James Sands, I don't know if he's. He's a long way from it, but it seems unlikely. So, but a position where there really is some competition right now is fullback. And there's several, several transfers. DeAndre Yedlin to enter Miami. What do you think about that? I have no problem with it.

Like, I don't worry about like the step down in competition. Turkey has been kind of a disaster of a league competitively. They aren't doing great in their European competitions. Galatasarai has sort of fallen off a little bit. The big clubs have sort of fallen off. Bashikdas has kind of had a drop. So in D'Andre Edlin sort of is the player he is, right? I don't think he's going to turn a corner from his current level of play into Turkish League.

So I think it's great that he's going to come back to Miami. I guess I shouldn't say great. Great. I'm fairly just indifferent. I think if no one jumps him out of the young kids, that's fine and he'll just continue to be the player that he is as our backup right back. Yeah. As long as he's getting paid well and enjoying life in South Florida,

seems great to me. Kevin Perretis went to Wolfsburg and he was on the bench the first weekend. Didn't play, but good to see him on the bench. He was apparently a player that Berhalter rated a lot in the December camp before he got a knock and couldn't play in the Bosnia friendly. Um, so I do think there's a, and given the fact that we don't have a backup left back, we didn't have one in the last camp. It does seem like Paredes has a chance if, you know, assuming he can start getting on the field for Wolfsburg and playing well.

Yeah. Outside of the Jonathan Aiman return from injury, Paredes for me is like the most interesting transfer of the, of the window. Like I'm really interested to see if he can break through at Wolfsburg and then what kind of player he'll be there. it seems like it'll be like a left wingback because Wolfsburg run a lot of three centerback formation games. So, you know, can he do that well? Can he look good there?

And if so, can that translate to more of like a traditional left back and a four-man system for the national team as a probably potentially as a backup? But there's nothing that says some of these guys can't jump Anthony Robinson. Even though Robinson has been very effective for the U.S. at times, that's not, it doesn't feel like sort of the insurmountable jump that it would be to like jump sergino desks at right back yeah i mean i i i i rate anthony robinson as like one of our top five players because he is

so irreplaceable right now um but i do agree like he's you know he's a he's a he's sort of a one dimensional guy one dimension a bit of a one dimensional player um so you know let's let's hope for the best for paredes and then another left back i'm i'm I'm curious why this one isn't as intriguing to you as the Paredes transfer, but George Bello to Armenia Bielafeld. And he got on the field, his first opportunity. Looked fine. So really the distinction I make between was I just think Paredes is much better on the ball.

I think Bello has been really affected with Atlanta sort of as an arrival player from the weak side in attack. But for me, like Paredes in attack is so. much more well-rounded. Like he can do a lot of different things attacking that I just don't see those things from George Bello as much. Happy to be wrong. Happy to have George Bellow just proved to be an attacking Deenmo in the Bundesliga or in the double Bundesliga if that's where Beelofeld are playing next year.

But I guess Wolfsberg could be down there as well. But there's just for some reason like watching Peratus on the ball, for me, a way more exciting potential left back play. player for the U.S. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good rationale, I think. And then another transfer, Brian Reynolds to KV. Cortreich in Belgium.

He's on loan from Roma, where he was not going to play under Jose Marino. I watched his performance over the weekend. He looked, we talked about this on the Monday review, but he looked like he gave you some signs of why we were excited about him, you know, his ability to carry the ball, his crossing, his long passing in general. He did kind of fall asleep on the third goal, though. And his marker got in there in front of him and scored that third one for whoever it was they played against.

So I haven't watched, I haven't gone back to Reynolds' game yet. I'm too busy, you know, watching Dwayne Holmes play for Huddling. What was he playing? Was he playing right back or was he playing like a right center back? Because I saw him like listed somewhere as right center. back. Right back. Right back. Okay. Good. Good. No, he could absolutely just step up and immediately be like back in the picture in like the third right back spot. Like there's no reason he couldn't be, right? We shouldn't just lock into the AS Roma troubles as like definitive of what kind of a player he is. Because that kind of thing just happens sometimes with any player. Like our very best players in the world have had those things happen to them at the club level where they're suddenly totally out of the picture. And then they move to a kind of like, even to a comparable level, Cortrag, obviously not comparable to AS Roma.

But it is comparable to some of the other guys he's in competition with. If you're talking about like a Joe Scali or a Shackmore, like those guys aren't at, I'm sorry, Joe Scalli's level is also better than Brian Reynolds. But he could show himself to be, like, competing for that backup spot or probably more likely for,

like, the backup to the backup if there's an injury ahead of him. Or, you know, he could grow, a lot in a full spring of starting every week, you know, assuming he can he could lock down that spot, he'd grow a lot and, you know, become that backup right back. He could, he could jump DeAndre Yedlin and maybe Reggie Cannon, I don't know. I mean, he, the word on him for a long time has been that he, he's the one with the higher, higher upside, you know, he's got just,

like, elite athleticism. He's good in the attack. But, you know, we'll see. He has to, he has a lot of work to do. Kyle Duncan to Oostend, also in, in Belgium. He's played every game so far. He started and gone 90 in every game so far. I haven't watched a bunch of the clips, but watched a little bit.

He looks fine, I think. Yeah. I still have to catch up on Duncan, too, but he's another one where, like, it's, again, just kind of like a curiosity did to be like, okay, so these guys are jumping in. Because another guy who is in the picture is Sam Vines, and he's also playing in Belgium. So it's like, okay, are these guys sort of all at a comparable level?

Now, Vines has the relative advantage of being the left back, where competition is a lot less fierce for a spot on the 23. But it's like, you know, if these guys are at roughly the same level of performance, yeah, there's just absolutely no reason that it would only take a little bit of a balance. or a little bit of a jump to see them really in contention for, you know, two or three, the second or third right back spot. Yeah. And then another podcast favorite,

Jonathan Gomez to Real Sociedad II. I actually, it's been such a busy couple of weeks. I have not caught up on what's been going on with him. He's making the bench, but he hasn't made an appearance yet. Okay. And again,

I feel like that one was, it seemed pretty clear like that he was going, to be a Segunda player. So there were a lot of people after the, was it the December game that he got called into

and played that were like jumping him already on the actual 23 depth chart. And that felt really early to do. Like he'd have to be a real like phenom. NBA high school number one draft pick

coming straight out of high school situation. And I don't think he was ever that. But you know, like he doesn't necessarily have to, we're not counting on him to make this leap ahead of No. November 2022.

Job number one is get on the field in the Segunda division. Right, right. And that might take the rest of this season to do. Not a ton of centerback movement, but there were a couple transfers. What were they, Greg? So we've got Justin Shea moving from FC Dallas to Hoffenheim and he's not being loaned back. He's in Germany. I don't know what the overlap is between, because Hoffenheim's,

head coach used to be Byron's like reserve coach right? Yep. So I haven't done the overlap. Kevin Bacon to see if Chey actually played for him there. I don't think he did. I think Che was playing for someone else with Byron's. Reserves. Yeah.

Reserves. I think they were out of the three league. No, I don't remember. Sorry, I'm bad with my Justin Chea trivia at this point. But he's at Hoffenheim. He's basically with their backup side, I think. That's probably where he'll play games. But even that's just speculation for me.

Do you think he's going to make the bench? Richard is out for a few weeks. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, he was, when he was playing for Dallas in the summer, he, you know, things got, could get pretty messy with him defensively, pretty, pretty quickly. So I think he, you know, he has a lot of refinement left to do before he's trusted by a top half of the table, Bundesliga side, I would think.

But I don't know. I don't know. And then Austin Trusty went to Arsenal. What the? Went to Arsenal, but he's already back with Colorado too. So he probably flew over for the medical and he's already back home in Denver. That one's, I feel like a lot of people asking if this is just mixed discuru to Man City, part two. Because Arsenal also is same owners as Colorado Rapids.

So this could just be like a bit of a bit of accounting, an accounting transfer. but maybe we're all wrong and they have big plans for Austin trustee to lead them back to the top four to the Champions League. Could be. I feel like the centerback position is really just about Richards getting healthy and then whether Brooks can break back in with Burrhalter. Yeah, that's about it. I do think Richards is going to the World Cup almost certainly. Yeah, those are mine too big questions. And then the other remaining questions are,

is CCV ever going to get a look or is it just one of those things where Burrhalter just doesn't think he's the guy? And then Eric Palmer Brown in France playing for, and CCVs at Celtic still. They have jumped to the top of the table. He's in every game starter. So again, talking about where we are, like, it's crazy that he just is not in the discussion

or is not considered necessary playing at a club with the percentage. with the prestige that Celtic has. Right. It is crazy. I have to confess that I don't pay a lot of attention to CCB. And then there's also Aaron Long, no transfer there, but he's, you know, Burrhalter will be monitoring his progress closely,

coming back from injury still. And then Mark McKenzie continues to get called up, just doesn't play. So he's in the mix. Good luck. locker room guy. And that's something that has been attached to him forever, the good locker room presence. He was the captain of the U-20s, even though he came in injured and was barely able to play, still the captain of that team.

So definitely just feels like a very good team teammate. Yeah. And we get a little bit of insight because he also hosts a podcast. So listen to Orange Slices and you get a real first-person view of U.S. soccer. It's a good podcast, too. And Mark does come across as a good communicator and a really nice person. And then I mentioned Eric Palmer Brown, but he's now like a starter. He's a starter for, how do you pronounce it?

Is it Troy is? I think it's Troyes. Oh, my God. Are you serious? I mean, I totally believe you, but how? Just edit my part out. And I definitely said twas. That's how I said it.

The first time around. I don't even know if that's right. I don't even know if that's right. It's all I'm going to call it now. He's their starter. He's their starting centerback. So again, he's a starting player in a big five club. And I have no idea if he will be necessary for us in the World Cup runout.

All right. And then goalkeeper, Matt turned to Arsenal. That didn't happen, did it? So it did. It's a done deal from Romano. It's just he's staying at New England until the summer. So it's a bit like Stefan's moved to city where he stayed with Columbus until the European offseason and then moved to, I mean, be instantly loaned to the Bundesliga in that case. But the word with Turner is it seems like he is going to be Arsenal's backup.

They're getting him because their other backup wants to leave. So it's not like they're getting him to just have him around to see how he does, like speculatively loan him out and see what happens. I would assume he is staying to be Arsenal's backup goalie. Okay. All right. And then some lesser known transfers. I'll just run through him real quick. Chris,

Chris Mueller joined Hibernian. Is that how you say it? Hibs. Just say Hibbs. He's in Scotland. Yep, in Scotland. Kobe Hernandez Foster to Hamcam in Norway's first year. We talked about that in the Monday Review.

Brian K.O. is on loan at Nernberg, 2. Taylor Booth is going to Utrecht in the summer? Yep, so he, they were, I think they were trying to get him immediately, but Byron just weren't playing ball, they're, Byron just making Booth sit at, uh, in their, in their reserve clubhouse for the, for the next four months. That's too bad. Jose, Jose Gallegos went to Sonder Skysk, Sonder Isk.

It's pronounced twa. It's just twa. Sebastian Soto to Livingston in Scotland. And then some kind of sad news, Anthony Fontana has no club right now, according to the transfer market. You know, he's, if you watch MLS, he saw some of the bangers he scored over the last couple years. Seems like he should be able to find a place to play soccer, but he's not, he doesn't

have anywhere right now. And then Matt Rao, also from the Philadelphia Union with no club at the moment either. So those guys just ran their contracts out with Philadelphia. Philadelphia, is that what happened? I guess, yeah. All right. All right. I don't know what's going to happen to those guys.

I'm interested in Soto. Like, I still never thought he was, like, going to be a huge high-ceiling guy, but I'm just curious if he can sort of just get his career back on track and, again, actually play soccer games. Is Livingston in the first tier there? Yeah, they're in the first tier. He hasn't appeared for them yet or even made the bench that I've seen. So it'll be, again, his hill have an easy contrast because,

Christian Ramirez is there, the ancient U.S. soccer player. I think he's got a couple of caps in, what is he, 30, 31, and he's just banging in goals left and right. Nice goals, too. Like, he scores nice goals. A lot of them. I would, I would, I had, I had his name in the hat from 2019 on. Like, no reason.

He's indistinguishable from most of the other options. Huh. It was so much simpler in the old days when there was just like one good striker in the whole world. It's Josie Altador. All right. A couple little bits of housekeeping. Number one, we have booked a foot saw court in Orlando for the Greg Velasquez

five-a-side tournament that we're going to have. I was going to say Greg Velasquez Memorial Soccer tournament, but that's not quite right. So that's booked. It's like 10 blocks, kitty corner to the southwest. of the stadium, Exploria Stadium. And this is going to be like, I don't want to say its own thing, but this isn't like the pregame. You don't have to worry about being like, oh, I'm not going to be drinking well.

Like this is a separate thing earlier in the day, so you'll have time to play if you want and then go get cleaned up ahead of the actual full-blown pre-game festivities. That's right. That's my plan. We're booking it from, I think, 10 to 1, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. And then, you know, the games at 7. This is March 27. The game's at seven, so we'll have a tailgate somewhere.

We still have to work that out. But Greg will be there. I'll be there. Vince will be there. Waki will not be there, sadly. The other thing is thank you to all our patrons. And, you know, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Anything else, Greg?

Just pack your flats if you're going to Orlando. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.