Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #251: Monday Review — Signs of life from Pulisic, striker watch, fullback watch

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

Watke, Vince and Belz talk through a middling weekend of action for Americans abroad. Next week's Monday Review will be on the patron-only feed, so this represents a little bit of a changing of the guard.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. Happy Valentine's Day. This is the Monday review. I've got Vince and Waki with me. Let's start by talking about Christian Pulisic.

He's back. Is he back in his full glory? Well, I can say that the doom saying was premature, and if he's not back in his full glory, it will be very soon based on that performance. Yeah, what did you think, Vince? he looked good. I don't know.

I guess I'm still looking for a little, a little bit more, but he looked good. And it did make me, it did excite me that he skipped past a few people again. Like that, out of all the things that I saw on that match, that was probably the most encouraging.

I liked the moment where he was very briefly and quickly bear crawling on the ground. Oh, yeah. Just scamper back up. That was a moment of him just being, as opposed to thinking he was, animalistic there. Yeah.

That stop-start explosiveness seemed to be more in evidence in the club World Cup final than it has been lately for Pulisic that really encouraged me

and he just seemed to be playing with a like more freedom more freedom and yeah, more animalism. We need that from him. He also took a free kick.

Yeah, he did. But here's the thing about his thing about his free kicks I wonder if has he ever put one on frame in training? I don't, I've never seen it. I have to imagine he will, he would have at least once or twice. Like he's, I've never seen him take a free kick and think like that was even close to. Did you see it?

He knocked the, he hit a security guard who was on the phone and he knocked the phone out of the hand and went flying. Did he really? Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I watched that free kick, it just reminded me of, like, being in Nashville. And when he had that free kick, like, towards the end of the match. And, like, you know, you get a free kick right outside your box like that.

Everybody's on their feet. You know, just waiting to see a moment of brilliance right there. And it just, and, you know, when, like, all the air lets out of the whoopee cushion, Like when the free kick disguise, just guys off for him. It's just like, ah. And that's all we get. That's all we get. We don't get a ooh, you know, where a keeper makes a nice stop or something.

We just get, every time Pooley lines up for a free kick is just a, ah. Yeah. But, you know, the rest of the game is good. Yes. It was. You know. It was. And just to follow through on the details here, Chelsea won the Club World Cup in extra time against

Palmaris, the Brazilian club. I've been thinking lately about who will step up and carry us across the finish line next month, you know, in our three World Cup qualifiers. And this performance does make me start to think it will be Christian Pulisic. I don't know if you guys remember, but against Panama in Orlando in the last World Cup qualifying cycle, he had a huge game. Scored, I think, at least one and assisted at least one in a big romp before we headed down to Kuva and, you know, ended ourselves. And he was but a small boy then. Now he's a small man. He's a small man.

Small sometimes bearded man. Yeah, I don't want to say too much about Orlando, but I got good feelings. You know, I got good feelings. I mean, I always have, I always feel good about about how our national team is going to end up. And I got faith in my guys. But, like, I think I think Orlando is going to be absolutely. Absolute scenes as we as we talked about last, last episode. Pulisic taking the team across the line would be the best from a, you know,

storybook narrative standpoint. You know, he had his struggles, but then he, he rose the occasion. Yes. Yeah, it would be a very accessible storyline for everyone. Not me. I'd rather see Tim Weyer. Well, we know Tim Weir is going to be, going to produce.

I mean, I feel like I know that. Yeah, yeah, I know, but it. I'm fine with it'll be a nice cherry on top just for me yeah I'm comfortable with any player that wants to do it to be honest I'm comfortable with any I don't care if it's Walker Zimmerman on set pieces like as long as we get through

Christian roll done I'll be okay with it all right all right let's talk about Serginio Dest he was he went the full 90 in a two to draw with Espagnol the Catalanian or I'm sorry the Catalan and Darby.

He was pretty good, right? I thought he was good. I thought he was tidy. Because the Juvenus game started at 245 and Barsas started at 3. And so at the end of each half, I tuned in it for 15 minutes. And yeah, he seemed to be doing some work. He wasn't touching the ball a lot and was pretty high in possession. But, yeah.

He was moving to different positions, it seemed to me. Yeah, lots of tucking in between the lines. he just plays I feel like he just plays mostly safe with Barcelona like he's not completely comfortable giving us the sauce but that's okay

that's okay and he was not at fault for either of the goals no matter what you see on any of your social media platforms wasn't his fault yeah balder dash absolute balder dash

didn't he seem a little more adventurous last year yeah well he's you know he's got he's got the cold eyes of javi on him all game now and uh you would you would think javi would want his players to express themselves instead of the way he's come in here and viciously shackled our sergenia's confidence so you'd think and he's he's he's supposed to be some sort of great football mind i don't buy it you know i buy it yet yeah strong strong anti javi sentiment on this

podcast for sure. He seems like he's probably pretty fine, but I don't like anyone not being really unusually supportive of Sergenio Desk because he's just, he's just a delight, isn't he? He is. That video of him with Reggie Cannon coming out of the, coming off the field in St. Paul, that really speaks to me, you know, how encouraging he was to hit one of his, I mean, he's not really a competitor for minutes, but, you know, I guess technically he is. Well, he was kind of bear hugging him as they walked together and he said something to the effect of you were a warrior and I love you for that or something.

Is that the general sentiment? I love that from you. I love that from you, which is as close to saying I love you and you can get without saying I love you. I guess it is somewhat distinct from sight. I love you. So I took that video two ways. Okay, it's like it could be the earnest way that you all are taking it. But also, like, you know, I've, like, I've been that guy watching my teammates do something in, like, extreme conditions.

And I'm sitting there on the side of that. I'm like, man, couldn't be me. Could not be me. And I feel like that was that was Sergenio putting. He did. He did seem delighted to not be playing that call. Like, putting his arm around a frozen Reggie. Like, ah, man, you fought.

You fought so good, bro. look at you, your frozen ass. Look at your earlobes. I love that from you. It couldn't have been me, but I love that you got the opportunity to do it. Why not? Why can't it be both? Both an expression of relief that he wasn't on the field and an expression of admiration

for Reggie for doing it. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. And helped by him probably not feeling too threatened by Reggie Cannon for future minutes. He did seem very happy on the sideline during the game. though too when they would cut to him blowing out fog now that we've talked it through it does seem like you know it was it was the least sergenio could do put his arm around reggie yeah and can we can we go ahead and bring up the report that came out about the messy the messy farewell

yes oh yes yeah so so apparently surge was uh on the beach chilling and i guess didn't look at his itinerary, you know, I don't, I don't know how they keep, they keep schedules for, for soccer teams. I don't know if it's in WhatsApp or whatever, but, but that's apparent, but Serge apparently forgot that he was, uh, needed to be somewhere. And for anyone who's not familiar, this is, uh, red basketball jersey gate where he wore it to Messies for Will press commerce. And it, it came out the reason why is he had, he hadn't planned to do that. it just sort of happened because he was at the beach that's what it was right so it starts off like well you know give give sergenio a break he didn't he didn't know he was supposed to be at messies farewell

and it ends off with like how did he not know he was supposed to be at messies farewell so it's you know the plot sort of thins and thickens at the same time right and and this will be uh my my last point on search but um people you know when we have the uh our first edition of the the the cool index, people are telling me, like, you know, Serge can't be cool. He's a try hard, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But like, dude, if you can be that aloof as a young professional athlete, you get all my respect.

You get all my respect. Like, like, Serge is just his own person. And literally no one or no thing is going to change that. There was the athletic article about him. he would as a kid sometimes not skip school but just forget to go to school like he wasn't on purpose skipping classes he just would forget it would be like tuesday and we forgot that that's what he does today as a 12 year old he just had football on the brain he's like no school it's Saturday man man you play is at uh at 2 p.m what are you talking about school he's also the player that you know how there's little interviews where they start asking players about their teammates And they ask one, who's the person that's most likely to be late? Everyone answers him so quickly, and they laugh that it was even a question. I think he's just time.

He works on his own time. And that, I do appreciate that about him, too. Yep. Well, full support for Soginio here. And it does seem like, to bring it back to like sort of the on-field stuff for a second, it does seem like he played well enough yesterday that he's not going to be frozen out going forward. I would imagine he's he's going to continue to get chances. Not that that was ever really in doubt, but yeah, they, they didn't register Danny Alvesz for the Europa League. So he's going to be,

he's going to be playing. And I would assume most of those games. Danny Alves is, of course, out with the red card for this past weekend, but he'll be back in the league next week, I would imagine. Let's do a little, a little bit of a striker watch here. We had, as far as I could tell, three strikers in action, not counting Hajie Wright, who I did not check in on. But Vince, what did you think of Ricardo Pepe off the bench? He was getting some cardio in, doing a lot of running. And that's mostly what I saw, to be honest with you. He was doing a lot of running.

Held the ball up once, maybe twice. I mean, that's about it. He won a header, and he won a long ball on the air. that's about all the clock true he got in one goal scoring position where a teammate could have headed the ball across to him otherwise there wasn't a whole lot but he was vigorous i thought i thought he was i guess i thought i thought i noticed like three or four decent moments of hold-up play but i could be you know i just i could be inflating that in my mind so so there was one but where like it kind of looked decent but when you watch it back his touch was extremely heavy and i know this because

he chased after it. And it looked good. But when like the ball comes off his shins and he's just chasing after it, I'm like, ah, you didn't mean to do that. Okay. Well, at least nothing we can get super excited about from Ricardo. I thought he was good enough to maybe get a start in the next one. Augsburg lost again.

Josh Sergeant versus Manchester City. I thought this was fascinating to see. Wy Scout that the first time he touched the ball, the only time he touched the ball in the first 20 minutes was with his head attacking a corner kick. So that's a, it's that kind of night. You know, you don't even see the ball for 20 minutes. And then you're already, you know, I guess, I guess it was only one zero at half time, but it ended 4.0.

And he continues to, or he was playing out in kind of a right mid type position, right? Yeah. From what I saw. Yeah, I'm just happy he's recovered from his illness. He's back playing. But yeah, nothing was going to, I mean, nothing good was going to come from this game, more than likely. Just Manchester City just swarming Norwich every time the ball got to their feet and taking it from them more often than not. Jordan Piffock scored again.

Can you believe it? Thrashing home a loose ball in the 72nd minute in a 3-1 win for Young Boys versus Basel. that was a six-pointer between the second and third-place teams in the league. Young boys goes to second place now. Huh. What are we going to see Jordan next month? Look, all I'm saying is if we're putting all the strikers in a hat, I mean, there has to be some type of criteria that would put someone ahead of another one. And for a striker, specifically, you would think, you would think that it would be scoring goals over,

over everything. So I would like to see him in the March window, but it seems unlikely. I actually don't know how likely it seems, but yeah, maybe a little bit. Maybe unlikely. I don't know. And I mean, like, you know, people downplay the Swiss League,

and like it's, it is understandable. But I mean, Basel is one of the big clubs. He's not just beating up on Swiss watchmakers, you know. Young boys is a pretty silly name for a soccer team. It's probably been talked about at Northium, but it has to be said. I'm sorry, but there's this dude I follow on Twitter that basically remade. He put all the U.S. men's national team players on young boys because we have a young team. I wonder what is the, what's the etymology of that?

Does anybody know? Why did they call them young boys? I think when they were starting, the team was comprised of, I guess young boys on it but I haven't looked I will look into it for next week we can do a full report on that

It seems like it was a widely agreed like a widely accepted naming convention to call your team the old boys right? Oh yeah that's right old boys and I'm sure there are others um

that's the real answer but why but what I don't know what constitutes a young boys team and what constitutes the old boys team. I mean, a boy is a boy. I don't know. Fullback watch.

How about that? There's a lot of did not plays here. Joe Scally did not play for Gladbach. I have a, he technically came on for about a minute at the very end. But he effectively did not play. Although they did score a goal that happened in his general area. But I don't think it was his fault.

But he could have blocked that cross, though. Maybe. possibly. A couple tablespoons of blame for Scali maybe. Paredes also did not play, although John Brooks did, and Fott Mob called him the man of the match and a two-zero win. Interesting.

But will it be good enough to get back into... Are we ever going to know exactly what happened? I don't think we need to talk about it again. We're not going to know. George Bello got another half-hour runout for Bielafeld, Armenia-Belafeld, 10 minutes more than the previous week. Put in a really nice cross, one of them, that was headed wide.

Otherwise, I think, just looked tidy and pretty good with his team having the better of the possession while he was on the field. It's good to see him looking like he could be a Bundesliga fullback, because that is what his job is to be. Yeah. I don't know. The main thing I took away from watching him. was it was it was just nice seeing him sprint like down the touchline to provide the width and and get involved in the attack that's all yeah and then um brian reynolds went 90 in a two one loss for court rike and kyle duncan was not in the 18 for boost end um so i would say no major movement on either the striker or fullback

positions, the striker who does score goals continue to do so, whether that gets him called up again is a open question and none of the fullbacks is making a really, you know, obvious big move right now. I mean, I would argue that Scali already made his big move by becoming a replacement level Bundes League of fullback at the very least, at 18. Um, yeah, that's fair. Although it is possible we got slightly out ahead of our skis on Scali.

Because he was playing because of injury and he, he does seem to be well behind the players that have come back. I don't think so, man. I don't think so. Like, I just, I mean, like out over our skis out.

Like, he's 18. And when he was playing, he was, he was average to good. Well, he started really, really hot.

right for the first I don't remember how many games and he's just been pretty decent or okay in times he seems to appear that's one that's what I was saying he like he doesn't seem like there was one point when

it seemed like he might be very close to being a starter for the national team or at least a backup that everyone wanted in camp for sure and maybe people still think that but it seems to be not as strong

of a sentiment as it was two or three Well, wouldn't that be the natural? Like, that's what you would expect. Like, this man didn't play at NYCFC. Like, he hasn't had a professional season. Right. I'm saying, I would, yeah, I think we all expect it.

But there was a moment where we were all very, I was a much more hardcore scally lad two months ago, is what I'm saying. If they're scally lads dropping their affiliation and backing out of the clan now, then, you know what I'm saying? I'm buying up all your memberships. buying all the stocks you know what I'm saying I'm the Scally Lad

all right I am still in Scally Ladd club unless there's such it feels like it's it's almost Scali Ladd membership rules are a little bit too strict I feel like if you say something

well maybe Scali isn't as good as I once thought now I'm being threatened with losing my scally lad no no no I'm not saying that I mean I'm saying I mean, the talent that you saw earlier in the season is the exact same. He's probably getting a little leggy right now because he hasn't played a full professional season ever. Yes. And that is my...

I've never been a scally lad. I've never been a scally lad. He's fine. He's fine. He's fine. For me. If we want to bring him as a backup left back for Anthony Robinson, fine. If he's a backup right back, fine.

but he's not he's not close in my opinion to dest or robinson i mean of course but look okay okay you you guys have made your beds okay when i when it's time when it's time to repent i respect i expect for you all to be up at the altar call front and front and center i'll come to i'll come right to you and i'll remember when the when the doors of the church open repenting for having once pointed out that he was not a clearly starter for the national team for a stretch of time. Is that what's going to happen? That doesn't seem fair. You know, we don't need to go on like this. This is a spiritual question that Vince needs to answer, though. How much repentance will be required of Waki? You out here casting the first stone when? I don't think I cast a stone.

I think I said we got out ahead over our skis a little bit on scally. I mean, the truth is he was a, he was a, he was an week starter for the first half of the season. And so I guess, correct me if I'm wrong, Vince, but you're saying how, like, that's not getting out over our skis to get excited about that when he's 18 and he didn't even play in MLS. Yeah, that's my thing. People are saying, like, we got over-excited. We should have pumped the brakes.

Like, for what? Bro was 18 playing every week in the Bundesliga and was average to good. Okay? And, and nothing that has happened since the, uh, the winter break is making it's making me change my mind on that. Like you see the talent that he's going to be a baller. Like he is there is no question in my mind. Like from what we've seen this, this season, like he's,

he is a, I mean, I wouldn't put it. He's a Western level prospect. Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't put him. Wow. No, look, look, if I'm lying, I'm dying, bro. I'm not going to put him in the Christian Gio tier, but he's in the Tyler Weston tier, no doubt about it. Weston McKinney is currently the best player in the entire world.

And I was, I mean, I didn't have a podcast at that moment, but I was leaving that train. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay, fine. All right.

Let's move to, let's move to Busio, because Venetia got a huge win for them over to Reno. um two one came back from one oh down we see i got an early yellow and then uh had to come off i think mostly because of that in like the 50 second minute or something like that but um did you guys you guys have any opinions on how he played because i can i could say something real quick if you do or if you don't he was playing very deep is all i and i did not really enjoy watching he was playing deep um the beginning the first like 25 minutes of that game which is absolutely disgusting um

I, like, just got up and got in the shower because I needed to clean myself off. I needed to rid myself of that sin, of watching that match. Oh, and that yellow is, he's going to be suspended this next game. Just making sure y'all know for when he's not in the squad, nobody freak out. He has a yellow card suspension. Oh, really? Which means more time for the godson of. of Sweeney.

Tanner Testman. But before we get to Test Man, I just thought, I thought he did look busy, Busio, that is, looked busy and responsible in that deep role. Like he was, he was,

he knew his job was to keep track of attackers and try to snuff things out. And I thought he was, he was good in that respect, good in the sense that he was responsible and active. But I still, I still don't know how, can back him to win the majority of his individual battles.

I mean, he didn't. He got in there. He's scrapped, but he doesn't, like when he wins the ball, he only kind of wins the ball. Or he doesn't win the ball at all. And I still feel like that's, I don't know, that's just not going to fly for me. Yeah. With the national team. Yeah.

So can I talk about Tanner real quick? Go ahead. Yeah. So Tanner Testman's up then. for John Luca. And I think, yeah, 52nd, 55th minute, whatever. And I,

so, like, I did watch those minutes. He, like, he didn't do a lot either. He didn't do a lot either. But I did notice that he, he might not be good in the air. I don't know. Maybe it was just a bad game. But he lost a couple headers that led to Torino chances.

Which, it's like, that really shouldn't be happening. You're like towering over every midfielder in Syria. So yeah. Yeah. He's a big man who plays small. He's like a center. He's like a center at Northwestern.

You're sure? Speaking of American football, he was taking the goal kicks. He was lining up like he was doing kickoffs. And it was interesting to see. You don't see that that often at the professional level. Huh. He was doing goal kicks? or at least once.

Yeah. I don't know if the keeper was hurt or something, but he was lining up and just kicking it down the field, like an NFL kicker. Let me just, before we get on to a few other folks, let's, let me just say this. We've explained this to our patrons, but this is the last Monday review

that will go in the public podcast feed for a little while. We're going to make the Monday reviews. We're trying to make, we just passed 900 patrons, is awesome and we really appreciate it. But we're trying to make the Monday reviews a way to make patronage more value, more valuable. So with the exception of the first one each month, the Monday review is going to be, is going to go on the patron only feed of the podcast.

And we have put instructions, I have put instructions in the Discord in on Patreon for how to get that feed to show up. And I'm available if you have questions. But this is kind of a big change for us. We have never really consistently made a patron-only episode, and we're going to take the most consistent episode we have, which is the Monday review, and make a patron-only. So if you are not a patron,

the next time you will hear us three together is Monday, March 7th. And then, you know, from henceforth after that, the first Monday of each month. We hope more of you will sign up and support the podcast, and thanks to all of you who already do. now, West McKinney. I mean, what a guy. What a guy.

I came on here a few months ago, and I said, imagine. Imagine not thinking that he's the US M&T's best player. And, I mean, I feel like we still got some stragglers out there. We still got a few stragglers. Not a lot. Yeah, yeah. Are there some, I suppose. I mean, look, it's, it's, it's,

Tom. This man, he's, he's on taking it up like three levels. He's taking up like three levels, bro. This, like, when he got that transfer to UVA, everyone was like, yeah, that'll be good. You know, he can just be a cog in the machine, you know, be around like a lot better players. And as long as he just doesn't make obvious mistakes, you know, he'll be all right. And it'll be good for him. But he's, he's one of the key driving factors to the team. No doubt, no doubt. he created a lot of chances. He consistently creates a lot of chances.

Yeah, and that was like, in those like first 25 minutes of the second half, he, he had at least like three, three to four key passes, which are passes that lead directly to shots. And yeah, I mean,

it's just a joy to watch, man. Like one touch passes, dribbles, nutmegs, whatever you want. This man got it. Whatever you want. whatever you want him to do it he's he's going to do it so you just like that i would say that

one thing that started to stand out over the past i don't know a couple months is that his one-touch passes seem to have gotten quicker and more consistent and that's really helped him build a rhythm i think yeah he's i mean he's basically good at everything at this point did you guys see the um I don't know, the comp that Cranx put out from the midweek game against Suswell. Oh yeah, yeah. Like, dude almost scored like seven goals. I mean, he didn't score a goal, so that's true.

But he, uh, he, you know, he's getting in, he's arriving in the box like a, like a madman and putting, putting shots on frame. I guess he didn't have as, as much of that going on yesterday, but. Youventus got the point on the road at Adalanta. I think that's pretty much positive for them. So good news out of McKinney land. What a guy.

Our best player. Yeah. That is a take that has certainly been vindicated. Vince, you said you watched Timothy Tillman this weekend. I did not. What did you see from him? He's a dual national? Yeah, so I

Who is Timothy Tillman in the first place? Yeah, tell us who he is first of all He's a black man, a German Stands about six foot tall He's a dual national Was born in Germany supposedly I don't know too much about this man to be honest This is my first time one

Well you've given us a lot already Where does he play? Oh, he plays at a look Bells you can go ahead and say that the clap name for me. I would say it, and I don't stand by this, but I would say it is Gruyter Firth. All right.

There. I think the team that's currently last in the Bundesliga, where Julian Green also plays, but nominally at this point, and he's like, he's basically like a box-to-box midfielder. He's six-foot. Can run.

Like, from what I saw, he was nice he was good at receiving the ball one two touch passing could carry it got in the box for a couple for a couple chances scuffed a shot also important

he takes set pieces he takes set pieces for a squad took the corners took a free kick um yeah I was just impressed man I was I was impressed watching they're playing her to Berlin

and yeah, I'm pretty interested in him. So would you put him as a player that you would be excited to watch again? Or what is your level of excitement to watch his next game? I'm trying to get a sense. Yeah, with our current aid situation, I'm going to be watching them every week. I'm going to watch him. Yeah.

Yeah, from what I saw in this match, I'm pretty excited, man. Like, he's a good player. He's a good player. He's 23, same age as Weston. He fits my profile. I think ultimately, the best thing that the U.S. men's national team has going for us is that we're just so large and physical and athletic. And he's another physical athletic person that we can play.

Another person who's kind of excited about Tillman is Greg. Greg Velasquez. He's been talking about him a lot on the Discord. And Tillman took a while. to sort of settle into his position because I think at Byron he was kind of a winger, kind of a striker, and he, I don't know, I guess he's sort of gradually migrated back to being an eight. It's the same thing that happened to Julian Green, really.

Tyler Adams did not play, but was on the bench for R.B. Leipzig, as Tara says, healthy and resting. That's good. Excellent, really, that he's back healthy enough to be on the bench. and then I'll just say quickly, Alex Mendez, I thought he played pretty well again for Vizela. He's so elegant on the ball. We all know that.

I guess the real question is, is he defensively responsible and stout? And I think that question is still kind of unanswerable. But he did have this one pass where he receives a ball, I don't know, halfway between the center circle. the opponent's box takes a touch to his left as if he's going to play it wide and and this plays a disguise pass right to the feet of the striker right at the top of the box I don't know canceling out like six defenders with the pass and the and the attacker on his team just took a poor touch it was a

necessarily a heavy pass it had to be it firmly to get through all those bodies but it was uh it's just a nice reminder of the like the the quality that Mendez has Yeah. And the stuff that he can bring. And the thing about that pass is like the, usually when you see a pass like that, at the centerback level, like they're kind of split apart. But the centerbacks were pretty much sandwiching the striker. Like there was not much of a window to fit that in because one of the two centerbacks

would have just cut it out. But yeah, that was a dime. And I've been thinking about this a lot as far as Mendes specifically. and just like the U.S. Ms. National team, because I've been trying to figure out, you know, we all talk about the talent we have. I'm trying to figure out what, you know, what is soccer talent, I guess, because it can be so many different things. And the thing I keep coming back to is like, we really don't, you know, we got quality on the ball, but would you, how much class would you say we have on the ball, you know? You mean in the group of players that was in St. Paul? Yeah.

Canada. Yeah. Yeah, like class. Class is like a totally, a totally different thing, right? Yeah, I think Mendez is different. Go ahead, Wachie. I'm trying to, this distinction between quality and class makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah.

And I do think you're right. We have quality, but class is a little more of a refined thing that you get with a little bit more mature. Yeah. Maybe that's how I'm thinking of it. Just that, that moment where you're like, damn, he just, he just passed that ball to that guy in that moment. How often do we feel that when we watch the national team? Not very often. I don't think. Yeah, not that, not that many times. And it's like, it doesn't mean that like the guys we have are not talented. but, you know, I mean, with the nature of international soccer, man, you just need, you kind of need that. You just need some people that are going to, that are just going to unlock something for their teammates, you know, regardless of tactics or whatever.

Somebody is just going to play a ball that's just, you know, a capital B-A-L-L, you know. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Mendez can do that. in a way that I don't think anybody else in our player pool quite can. Although I think the closest would be probably McKinney for me. The pass, I talked about this already, but the pass he made to set up Tim Weas shot from point blank in St. Paul, that little outside of the boot, touch pass and behind.

And I think about the one he made, the one he made the Brendan too in the Canada match in the second half, the past I made it to Brendan at the top of the box where he got the shot off that one was that was nice too but yeah we need more of that we need more of that it's probably not going to I've said this in other places but we're probably not going to see much tinkering with the roster ahead of the March window I would imagine it's going to be basically the same group that came in January

plus Gio Raina maybe plus John Brooks by the way Giorina did not play this weekend but it seems to have been illness and not related to his previous. And we need a player to start getting sick, please. Yeah, we still have time. We still have time for him to get back to full fitness. Oh, and I guess, but before we,

I would just like to say the Gio definitely is one of those players. With class. Yes, I was looking at, uh, I know I talked down on San G's name a couple episodes ago. I'm sorry. I just discovered your YouTube like last night. And he put together. like the top 10 club goals from 2020.

And the things Gio can do, nobody can do. Nobody can do in this pool. Yeah, he can score goals with class. Speaking of class, that pool of sick chance in the club world cup where he, he took, he did like a little one-two and then took a shot with his left foot that was just wide. That was encouraging. That would have been a goal with class had it gone in. All right, we got,

I mean, the Super Bowl happened last night. Did you guys watch it? I did not watch it. Yeah, I watched it. Who were you rooting for? I mean, I guess the Bengals, because, I mean, I got a lot of friends that are Bengals fans, you know, just being in Louisville.

Yeah, but I, I mean, the game ended up being a lot closer. I thought it would be. But I had a feeling that Bengals wouldn't win. Spoiler alert. Yeah. When I left the Super Bowl party I went to, it was about a few minutes in the second half, and the Rams had just,

or no, Cincinnati had just scored. So they were up. But, yeah, I mean. Nobody cares. Nobody who listens to this podcast cares what we think about it. I have time. That's all I got. It was very much,

very much an opportunity for me to ponder my own, Asian mortality when like, you know, it's like that's my, that's my era up there at the half time. Yeah, I was about to say that was probably like prime, what, high school, early college years? When, when, when, when was that for you? High school. Well, when did, when did that come out? Yes, the wrong guy.

I mean, I would say that's probably like, I was still living in Atlanta at the time. probably like i was probably like seven or eight 2000 1999 to 2001 yeah into high school end a high school beginning of college okay so we'll do one we'll do one listener question uh Gavin and chicago asks is there a different system formation style etc that fits our player pool better than what gregg has brought and i i admit that we maybe have read a question like this on the air before but i don't think we've ever really tried to answer it and i'll i'll take the first swing and you guys can jump in. But the way I think about it is, you know, the formation that comes up a lot that people

bring up a lot is some kind of 4-4-2 where you have a two-striker, a two-striker formation with Pulisic as the underneath one. Or maybe even, you know, peppy and another striker. I don't know. And I just, it's hard for me, no matter how you slice it, it's hard for me to see that being better than a 433, at least on paper. You know, because it means we're going to, it means we're pushing players like Pulisic and Wea,

unless Wea is one of the strikers, pushing players like Pulisic and Wea, one of Pulisic Wayer Arena is going to be further back as like an outside midfielder or something. I don't know. I think there may be a better way to run the national team in terms of formation than what Greg had, than what Greg has wrought.

But I'm not sure I, I see it. You know, I'm not sure there's an easy solution. But I'm open to being disagreed with here. Yeah, I don't know if I would change the formation necessarily. But like the style, definitely. I think like, like I said earlier with Tim Tillman, it's like I like the fact, dude, we have a huge soccer team. Like we can throw out, let's see.

I guess like excluding Christian we can throw out a lineup of like well Christian excluding Christian and Tyler we can throw out a lineup of all people that are like six foot or better and just

and crazy like running jump athletes and like let's just go get people and just beat them into submission like I mean you know we had Greg talk about the the whoop that ass lineup was it beat that ass or whip that ass I'm not

whoop that yeah the whip that ass lineup. And it's like, let's play some whip that ass ball, you know? Like, let's just go out there because I don't think many, I don't think many teams can stand up to like the, the just strength and athleticism we can just throw out there at this point. And I know that isn't, you know, uh, changing the way the worldviews American soccer. No, it's not. But I think it would be fun to watch. I mean, it is basically what we did to Mexico. Right.

And that was fun to watch. It was fun to watch. I just don't know that it would, it's, I don't know that it works as well against like a Canada that's backed in and, uh, stacked up the way they were. But I do like the, the Wopass lineup or style in general. I could get behind that. So that's where I fall down on it, Gavin. I still think the three-man centerback formation, which maybe the chorus of support for that has quieted down a little bit,

but there's probably still some people out there who want it. I still think it puts players on the field who are not as good as the players that takes off the field. Correct. Like centerbacks. We have plenty of good centerback options now, it seems to me. Enough at least. but none of them is like transcendent the way a Pulisic or a Raina or a way a can be.

Correct. Yeah, I don't, I would not entertain any very centerback formations, to be honest. I mean, maybe for a game, if need be, but not for me, not with this player pool. All right. Anything else, Waki? No. All right. Well, you'll hear us.

If you're not a patron, you'll hear us again, first week of March. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.