Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #256: Six USMNT storylines we’re tracking in MLS

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

The striker grab bag, the Philly and Dallas projects and the Fourth Eight race are among the national team-related storylines we're tracking in Major League Soccer. Caveats from Velasquez abound, but it's a pretty good discussion and we took a few listener questions at the end.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. Major League Soccer kicked off this past weekend and we're going to discuss some of the USMNT storylines we are paying attention to in our domestic league. Greg, how you doing? Good, Bells. The domestic leagues here in the States are awesome because they're all geared towards like every preseason. This could be the year. You're talking about the players, the individual players? the individual franchises or probably all of them and the fans too like we could do it this year because of the parody that sort of built in or the attempts of parody where there just isn't that like Calvinistic European like we know who the top four are and it's just sorting out the order of them right much there's no predestination here this is a this is a nation of free will um I I do I do

think it's it's I've criticized that parody in the past but it is it does make for excitement, you know, and uncertainty. And a lot of like artificial hope, like quite honestly. Like we get, and it applies to, I think really similarly to all the the domestic guys where I'm like, this guy might have a chance to improve the national team. And it's a long, long list. And then a month or so in, it is a much shorter list.

Yeah. We're going to, we're going to start with the long list. So this is a, this is an, this is an optimistic episode of the podcast. podcast. I think we have six, you know, rough, rough hewn storylines to work with here. Why don't you give us the first one? All right. First storyline are the FCs America, which in this case are FC Dallas and Philadelphia Union. And I think they've sort of just taken over this mantle of like U.S. youth national team development clubs. And I think it's mostly earned. I don't think it's unfair to sort of call these to the the teams who are doing it well.

Where do you stand on that? I think it's totally earned. Like when you look around the league and look for high upside youngsters, a lot of them are in Dallas and Philly. All right. So FC Dallas is basically just starting a U.S. team at this point. They're like first choice front three is Areola Ferreira and then somebody else that's not going to be an American player, O'Brien or Velasco, the new guy that they signed.

Yeah. I'm excited to see him, actually. Their midfield in their first game was a legitimate U-23 American team. They started Pomacall, which, you know, I can't shake that optimism that I have for Pomacall dating back to 2019. Brandon Sarvanya and then Edwin Serio. And then they've got a couple of left backs that are domestic. The starter right now is Farfan, who they swapped Hollingsworth, Hollingshead for.

And then their backup, they're kind of high on allegedly, Isaiah Parker. Yeah. Did Parker even get in, did Parker get in the game on the weekend? No, and I have no idea what to make of him. It's just left bag, again, is such an open, open position backup left back in particular. Like, we literally didn't bring a backup to the last three game window, which is a huge deal in my mind to not even have that level of confidence in somebody. And so any, any little bit of like a blip can go a long way for somebody looking for that backup left back spot.

Yeah, I think of, well, first of all, one other thing about Dallas is their coach is Nico Estevez, who is the, who is a former Burrhalter assistant. He sort of, he swapped just much like Farf, Farfahn and Hollingshead swapped places. Estevez swapped places with Lucia Gonzalez. Lucian Gonzalez is not sitting on the bench next to Burhalter. But we think, at least a lot of us think, you know, Estevez is going to play basically the same system in Dallas that Burrhalter is playing. so these guys should be set up well for the system. And I thought Dallas was quite good. They drew against Toronto, you know, typically a good team, not such a good team last year.

They drew them, but boy, they were really fluid in the attack, didn't you think? Yeah, and like everything we're going to talk about from the MLS weekend, this is a one-match sample size. I have no idea if Toronto will be any good if they were in. any good over the weekend. But it was, it was very fluid. It was a ton of attack. I think they put up two and a half expected goals, and they left a lot of expected goals on the table,

is how I would say it. If you were doing the AVPs, they had a lot of AVPs. Like they were running downhill at Toronto a ton in this game. Hey, before you go on, tell anybody who's listening to this podcast for the first time, what's an AVP and how could you get an AVP and leave expected goals on the table?

So AVPs, if you didn't hear our, John Hurdman presentation episode. We got our hands on a John Hurdman coaching presentation that he did to thousands of, or a thousand Canadian soccer coaches. And that was their target. One of their metrics for how well

they were playing was how many AVPs they could create and an AVP is an advanced platform, which for them just means a situation where they had moved the ball up the field to a player who was either looking at or running behind, the opponent's back four. With a ball at their feet.

Yeah, with the ball under control. So Dallas had a ton of these. They kept turning Toronto over and they were just in full flight running at them. And they didn't convert a lot of those AVPs into the final product like the high percentage shot. They either missed the last pass, like just didn't make the last pass or sort of just, you know, played themselves a little bit too sloppy and lost a chance. but a lot of promising, like, situations before the shot for Dallas. And it seemed to me like $2 million man, Jesus Ferreira, was the key to almost all of it. He was right in the thick of it, wasn't he?

So that's really promising. We can talk about them more. We'll talk about them more in sort of the next storyline. But just overall about FC Dallas and what they're doing like. And I'll couch this, too, for all of the storylines we're bringing up here. there is, I don't actually have a ton of optimism that any one player we talk about is going to actually contribute to the national team in a meaningful way through the rest of this cycle. Like it's, it's getting tight, right?

It's getting down to the day. It's very late. Yeah, it's late in the day to make a case. So other than like Ariola, who's already very much ingrained in the U.S. Men's National Team, it's going to be hard for anyone else to, like, break in. Yeah. No, totally, totally. I mean, these are all long shots, long shots.

I thought Farfond, like Farfant, I don't think he's going to, I don't think he has a chance of being in the national team. But he's worth noting here because he brings a touch of class in possession. Now, I mean, Hollingshead had it too to some extent. But he, I don't know, they were able to, Dauce was able to build through Farfon in that game in a way that I think is going to help. players like Pomacol and Ferreira get on the ball more and so that's

I think that's Farfan's you know contribution to the national team in a way you know if if either of you know Ferreira is very much in the picture right now if Pomacol were to keep getting in the picture

Pavagal is the one that we're really I feel like we're all everyone really like crossing those fingers for I thought can I say a couple about a couple things about a couple more of these guys, thought ariola was just like he usually is, you know, created some danger. He's very active.

Yeah. And not bad exactly, but not, you know, not quite good enough in the final 12 yards, more or less. Is that, is that unfair? I think it's a little unfair. And what's funny is, like, I didn't do a full Ariola recap. I obviously did a full Jesus-Ferera rewere. rewatch and Ariola was very involved in

a lot of the dangerous situations that Frera was either keying or you know, benefiting from. And I really do just think for game one of what Dallas has and again, this is the caveat that maybe Toronto was terrible. Maybe Toronto was really good. Would you quit making

caveats? Good grief. For game one of, you know, Estevez's first match, Arieola's first match with Dallas, Ferreira really being like the first time that he's, I know he's played some forward. before, but it's been a year or so since he was the out-and-night out-and-out-striker. Like this, Pomacall's first game is the center mid and over two years.

Like this, this looked really good. It was really fluid, really fun to watch. So, you know, if that's the baseline and they keep building from that, it's obviously going to be in big part because of Areola succeeding. Like, they'll all have to be succeeding to play this way. So I don't know. I was very entertained and I'm very optimistic that it will at least continue to be like worth watching for American players.

Last year, the last couple of years, Dallas was bad to watch. They were, yeah. We had so much hope that they would be fun to watch and then they never were. Let me make a little plug for the Monday reviews, which are patron only, where you could hear something Waki said,

where you could hear Waki say something like Dallas is not horrible to watch anymore. But, you know, those, on the business side, those episodes are patron only, except for next week, the first of the month, we're going to put in the public fee. Give everyone a little taste. Give everyone a little taste.

All right. A little Monday taste. Do you have more for Dallas or do we move into the FC Philadelphia Union? I want to say that Cervania and Seria Zerillo were pretty good, but not good enough to say that they're pushing their way into the national team picture. Cervania probably a little better than Cereo. And again, it's just fun that.

The supporting cast of these guys that we're super excited about are also American players and American youth players, right? All of these players would have been eligible for Tokyo. So it's just, again, it's just that extra little added fun for diehard U.S. men's national team fans. Yeah, both of those guys were in Poland for the U20 World Cup in 2019, along with several other of our favorites, including Pomacol. Okay, you want to talk about Philly? So Philly's more of like the youth national team of the MLS. sides, right? Like, Leon Flack, I know, is like the established starter. He was good all of last year, and he's only like 21. But then they've got the babies. They've got Jack McGlynn. They have

America's little brothers, baby brother, Paxton Aronson, and they've got Quinn Sullivan, who people are just really excited about. I can't even say for sure where I rate them, because I haven't watched a ton of them play. They are, McGlynn gets some starts, but mostly these are players rotating in off the bench. So they definitely seem like four down the line, right? they would need a huge breakthrough or a huge step to, you know, become starters for Philadelphia and then also jump into the national team picture. But it's just cool that we have three players like this on a team. For me, Paxson-Arensen is clear of the other two, like in terms of upside.

Now, I've been wrong about this stuff a lot before, so take it for what it's worth. But he seems really good to me. And I mentioned this on Monday, but he near. really scored in his cameo on what I thought was a really nice first touch. So there's a clear. You saw the play, right? Yeah. There's a clearance on a corner kick that he had won, a clearance that falls to him

at the top of the box. And he takes a really nice, a sneaky good touch to bring it down cleanly right in front of him. And then it has one on the half folly. And it actually is blocked by one of his teammates, goes out of bounds. But it looked like it was heading top ends on the left. I mean, who knows. But it was a, it was really nice.

And he had several other good moments, like an outside of the boot pass in behind. And it's to me, the real interest in all, both of these teams for the, like the World Cup at the end of this year, after Ariel and Ferreira, who are already in the picture, is the two Paxton's. And I know, and I think, I think Paxton, the younger Paxton, the one with an E is a total long shot. total long shot. But it seems like at least there's a 1% chance, you know, whereas it doesn't seem that way with McGlynn and Sullivan to me.

Right. And again, most of this is just the volume, the volume of Americanaity here in play. And I know some other teams are starting to, like you're starting to see some of that, but there is just a different level of excitement. I think around Philadelphia, they've, you know, they've sold Aronson and McKenzie over the last couple of years. So they're sort of proving their model that they can develop. help these players, move them along, integrate them in the first team, move them along.

Where do we put Uncle Ali? Where does Badoia fit into this? Is he just a happy American uncle here? I'd love to talk to him about it. Allie, if you're listening. I'd love to interview you. Yeah, I mean, he's a locked in starter for this team. He's he does a lot of good things in that right channel. And I don't know. I don't think he's in the cards for Burrhalter, though. I've been doing like a half-joking bit about if we're trying to rotate at Mexico City in this coming window to save players and we're already down McKinney.

And we don't want to, you know, run Musa in the altitude ahead of the all-important Panama match that we may as well just throw Badoia at him. He's got some good experience with the U.S. national team, like out of all of our other other eight choices. I don't feel great about too many of them. So let's see what Badoia can do. Yeah. I mean, if we're going to do some unorthodox stuff at the Azteca, I'm all for it, you know?

What do you think? Should we move to the next storyline? Yeah, let's hit the next one. But it's just really promising. And again, those two sort of are the leaders in this, certainly reputationalally, but they aren't the only ones who are bringing young Americans through and getting them into the first team. And so it's been an awesome storyline, particularly for us who when we started this whole endeavor, it was the opposite, right?

It was such a, you know, just a like graveyard of prospects who never even got integrated into the first team to the point that, you know, a lot of the big early scuffed favorites were the guys who refused to sign with MLS, like maybe sat out a entire year of playing soccer so they could move over to Europe at age 18. and it is just so night and day that I have to like mention it every time. Yeah. Wesen McKinney, very notably, left FC Dallas at the age of 18 to go play U19 for Shalka for a year. He played U19 soccer for a year for Shalka

to get ready for his first team debut at the very end of the next season. And then we had... Would he have played for Dallas that, you know, that year? I don't know. And that was followed by... Dallas fans hit us up.

Right. That was followed by like the whole class of like Mendez, Yanez, Ledezma, Soto, who have obviously had mixed careers since their decision. But at the time, this whole, what we're seeing now with Philadelphia with Dallas, like this just didn't exist. This wasn't like they passed up on this life to roll the dice in Europe. Like this wasn't a thing. And now the fact that it is is just, it's ridiculous.

Like it's, again, it's hard to believe sometimes. how far this has come in such a short amount of time. Yeah, to steal a metaphor from the early days of the podcast from you, we're just producing a lot more lottery tickets by giving these young guys minutes and giving them a chance. Because you're not a lottery ticket if you never play first team soccer. All right. And the second storyline is the striker grab bag.

Should we talk some more about Ferreira? Yeah, we talk about all the different strikers. who have not distinguished themselves, who haven't separated themselves at the U.S. men's national team level. And I think that has, we haven't really made any progress on that, right? Through qualifying.

There were hints that maybe Ricardo Pepi was doing that, but he has certainly sort of fallen back to Earth, we'd say. So we have a few strikers in Europe who are in the picture. We've got Pepey, we've got Pfeck, we've got Sergeant, we've got D.K. And I think after that, unless you're talking about Christian Ramirez or Haji Wright,

you're looking at the other names in this bag coming from MLS. And I think Ferreira, for me, has a really strong case to have his name be, you know, shuffled more towards the top of the hat when you're pulling the names out. Does that do any of those metaphors? Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. I still want Pepe to, like my heart wants Pepe to be the guy, but he's not the guy right now. And Ferreira was cooking on Saturday.

So he was cooking on Saturday. He was cooking against El Salvador too in his lone start for the national team in a World Cup qualifier. So in his last two competitive games, the MLS opener and the El Salvador qualifier, his team has generated like five and a half expected goals. Which just, I think for me, again,

I'm sorry, Bells, another caveat. They might not be good opponent. El Salvador, not very good. It's a home qualifier. We should expect that level of production. regardless of who's in. But we did it, right? He wasn't like that idea that the false nine might be an issue in creating chances or

or any of that. The early returns on Ferreira have been good in that sense. The team has not looked like lost. The team has not struggled to create good looks. Uh, the looks have been there. Yeah. Totally. I mean, uh, he had a, I mean, he was dropping in and he, he, I said he was cooking.

I meant it. I meant it literally. He was cooking. He was, he was, he was, he was, he was. his dish in the ball all over the place. Just recklessly generating chances. Now, sometimes he's a little loose in possession, but I think you kind of have to kind of take that with the,

take that bad with the good because he's just, he's playing with sort of a freedom that is, that's fun to watch. And it's going to, it's going to result in some, you know, sometimes he tries to first time spray it out to the, out to the wing and it's not going to quite come off.

But most of the time it did come off. He's such like a vibes guy for me, which is one of the reasons I really love watching him and hope that he does establish himself as our starter because he doesn't even just spread out to the wing. He's going to like try to get just the right spin on it to like curl it around the full backs that it actually continues moving up to side. Like he's always trying that kind of stuff. He is. It's true. I love it. You know, when I think about the strikers to the U.S., I think of them in like three areas, their ability to play in the buildup, like to combine and build

up because I think that's a really important piece for Burrhalter. Their ability to be like that fox in the box, which for me means good movement, not necessarily like finishing skill, but like the movement to get into the right place, to arrive at the right time, to lose a man in the box. And then the third piece is going to be in defense, in the ability to press and know the angles and work with your front three and midfielder's behind you. And I think Ferreira for sure has two of those, right? I think he for sure can do the pressing piece. And I think he can for sure be the buildup player. I think in the buildup sense, we don't have anyone else even close to him.

So it's all going to come down to whether or not he has that nose for positioning in front of goal at those crucial moments. That's the unanswered question for me. And I'm hoping that Dallas gets those reps. And again, the way they played over the weekend, there's going to be reps. Yeah. Well, he did have, he had a very clever, scored a clever goal off the bottom of his boot. That was called back because ariola was slightly offside. but you know I love that kind of instinctive finish

and he got in lots of good spots I guess he had two shots he was clocked for two shots missed kind of couldn't get his feet right on a ball that was fizzed across the face of the goal by ariola and then took a left-footed shot from a pretty poor angle and then what did he do what did he do after he took that shot so he got it and he's running free and on goal you know at the near post

at a sharp angle but he's got a shot you know Like he's facing just the goalkeeper, and he puts it just to the out-of-bound side of the near post, just too sharp an angle. And then as he misses, he doesn't react yet, but then he looks over his shoulder across the six-yard box and sees that he did have the square that could have been a tap-in. And this is like 90th minute. This would have been the winner. And that's when he went full surrender cobra, which for me tells me that he is such an intelligent player.

Like that's what he's disappointed about. Not that he missed the shot because that just happens. but that the optimal play would have been the cutback. A lot of times, like, the guys who don't pass, who shoot instead, you can tell they don't really feel sorry about shooting because they're like, no, I'm a striker, I'm going to shoot. But for whatever, like, I should have, like, the correct play here would have been the cutback to the on-running wingers.

Yeah. His other two shots, I should note, the one where he's called offside and the one that he couldn't get his feet right, both from Ariola, he played Ariola both times. So that's that combination angle. I know we're spending 25 minutes on just Jesus Ferreira for our MLS storylines, which frankly I think reflects my feeling towards his MLS season. But he played Ariola with a great pass on both occasions. Like on the run on the first one where he like has a nice flick to just get it around the defender

to put it in Ariola's path. And then on the second one, like playing on the half turn as a striker. And again, the only other player I feel like we've ever seen do those kinds of things for us is Josie Altador. Ferreira offers And not with the same Not with the same level of like Panash sauce Panash is a word that flitted through my brain too

Yeah But yeah so enough of those little nuggets In this game that I'm still very optimistic That Ferreira can do something for us That'll be worth watching Worth doing his you mentioned playing on the half turn He does I noticed he had this he has this ability To get the ball out from under his feet so quickly

Like you can receive it and then get it out and put a teammate in a very good position. I mean, he was just, he was just, he was just generating AVPs like a, that's really what it is. I mean, that's really what comes down to. And he's receiving them too, because as Hardman said, like, you can create him or you can receive him. And he's doing both of those things.

So I hope it's not just a Toronto effect. I hope Toronto aren't just like actually worse than anyone thinks this early in the season. And I hope that they can continue to do this. against everyone they play. What do you say? Pepe versus Mexico at the Azteca, Jesus against Panama? That's what I want.

I actually don't want for error to start at the Estaca. I want to play ugly up, like I want to ugly up the Azteca game, and then I want Ferreira to come in and just cook at home against Panama in perfect conditions. Yep. All right, the other strikers who are active,

we're not going to spend as much time, I don't think, on the other ones, because there wasn't as much good to say. Now, Jazi's artists started on the bench with Miguel. That's Miguel Barry, who's going by Miguel on the back of his jersey now, starting ahead of him. The response on extra time from those guys was, well, maybe this is, maybe Jossie's on the trading block now,

make a good trade target for several teams who need a striker. I don't know. But it does complicate things a little when our striker is on, one of the national team strikers who started a game recently is on the bench for his club. And there's no guarantee he will be forever. It certainly complicates the narrative, specifically when the striker starting ahead of him

is also an American eligible striker, right? Like, that's the rub. And I know Zardez isn't a particularly popular striker with a lot of the fan base to begin with. So this is going to be like, if he gets called up in March, if he doesn't reclaim the spot in Columbus and still gets a call up in March,

like you can just imagine what the reaction will be. Are you imagining it? Yeah, I kind of thought maybe Zardis was going to be left off now because of, because he just didn't get it done against Canada. I mean, it wasn't all his fault, definitely. But I thought maybe this would be an opportunity for Baralter to do one of his rare move-ons from a player.

I don't know. I have no idea what to make of this. situation and how it will affect Burralter. Like, I still think that if the plan is to ugly up the game in Azteca, like Zardez would be in the running to do that. Yeah, that's true. Especially if we have other guys out there that we can throw in for the last 20 minutes if we have to actually try to chase a goal and do fewer uglier things.

But I don't really, I don't know. It's one of those where I, again, going back to these names in the hat, I don't particularly care for Zardez. I do think that there is an incumbency effect that is. is real and actually like not insignificant at this point. You know, if you're going to be like, well, now we have to call in Miguel Berry. Like, I don't know if it works that way. If you can just bring a new player in and be like, here's how we press.

Here's the really like coordinated pressing scheme and defensive scheme. Because we're going to be defending a lot, I think, in Mexico City. We're going to be playing against the ball a lot, even if that's not our intention, even if we don't go in to try to ugly up the game. I think that will just naturally happen anyway. So that could be a big deal, like to just bring in somebody totally cold to the system. And this isn't like super complicated Burrhalter ball complaints that people have. This is like you have to know how to play coordinated defense.

And that does take time. So I don't know that Miguel, by being ahead of Zardaz in Columbus, necessarily jumps him for the national team. No, I don't think he does either. And I don't, you know, I'm not quite as wild about him as maybe some other people are yet. Are there people wild about Miguel? I think Matt Doyle's pretty wild about him. Well, only if he can beat out Brian White. Right.

I mean, his goal was he did, so Miguel did score a goal. We should mention that. It was a highly noisy goal. I think did it deflect off of two people? I can't remember. It was at least one deflection. And other than that, he had, he attempted eight passes. So he's not, we're not talking about a hate.

Jesus-Ferrera level of culinary excellence from him. But he did have a nice little back heel to set up a shot. So that was nice. What about Josie? What about Josie? So Josie's at New England came off the bench. And the question's going to be, like it always has been, can he regain the form?

You know, if he gets back to his 2018-19 levels, is he back in the picture? And, you know, whatever. Like, is it even worth doing that hypothetical? I don't know. like if the 32-year-old injury-prone player can get back to the level he hasn't been at in four years, does he have a case? Probably.

Yeah. I don't think he solves. I don't. So somebody asked, let me find the question and ask it. Yeah, more buildings and food in Indianapolis, the capital of the Midwest. What? What? Yeah.

When was that decided? We'll get to that point in a sense. second, asks if Zardis has lost his spot on the depth chart for the crew and remains a backup until the March window, how many goals do you think Josie Altadour would have to score before being added to the roster instead of him? I don't know that that Josie instead of Zardez is really the dilemma we're facing here, but I don't, I don't think Josie's going to, I don't think Josie's going to be in the picture. Right.

It would be a really, really big renaissance from him, physically, mostly. Exactly. Because I don't know. He's going to have to score a goal every, because he's going to play off the bench, I imagine. I don't know how many games he will start for New England. So, like, he's going to score a goal every 12 minutes that he plays. I don't know. I mean, if he does that, that would actually, you know, make us answer some questions. But I also don't know what kind of striker we could, we would need for him to be to be useful for the national team.

Because I don't think he's a guy you're going to start and run for 70 minutes, especially the way we try to play against the ball in the amount of, like, work that we're asking our strikers to do defensively. That's not Josie anymore, right? Yeah, it's not. And hasn't been for a while. Did you watch his clips from that game? Or did you watch that game?

No, I'll need to now. He didn't look that great. He didn't look that great. I love Josie, man. I mean, if you haven't listened to his interview on extra time with Andrew Weeby, it was excellent and I highly recommend it. But I don't know, man. When Weeby asked him about the national team,

He basically said, I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about the New England Revolution. And let's just take him at his word, you know? And by the way, Indianapolis is like maybe the seventh city in the Midwest. I mean, I think it's top ten, but it's not top five. I like to tackle this in more detail when we get a chance to. But I don't think it's anywhere near capital of the Midwest. I think I can say that without.

Capital of the Midwest. Let's get one thing straight. The capital of Midwest is Ankeny, Iowa. So Josie, yeah, like I love Josie, too, and I hope that he continues to do, like, those little, again, I love him as a playmaking forward. I think, you know, when we talk about those components, I think at his peak, he had the playmaking side,

and he had the sense in the box to get in a dangerous spot to score side. I don't know that he ever had the defensive play against the ball side. So at best, he's going to get back into, like, being two out of the three things we need. And is he going to be any of the three things we need? is he going to be anywhere near the level that we need him to be at? It seems unlikely. Yeah.

But we love him. I think I just wanted to have him on here because I actually do love Josie. And I always loved how he played striker. And if he does start scoring a bunch of goals, even in cameos, and, you know, if he gets healthy enough where he's regularly starting games and scoring goals, yeah, it's going to be a thing, no doubt about it, regardless of his fit for the national team from a, you know, pressing standpoint. the other sort of strikers in the hat and we put them in the hat just because their numbers their underlying numbers have all been almost like indistinguishable is like C.J. Sapong with Nashville. Brian White who just seems to constantly like score weird goals, not weird goals, but just like, oh, Brian White scored again.

Like he is a leading scorer for the domestic striker pool in Vancouver. Abobesi in San Jose, Rubio Rabin, like all these players. almost like indistinguishable statistically, which is why they're all in the hat. But at this point, again, that makes it really hard to pick any of them over, like, even the incumbent Giazzi Zardez because they aren't

separating themselves. They're just sort of like the same. Yeah. I didn't, I have to be honest, I didn't watch the performances of any of those four strikers. It is cool that Nashville got a win on the road at Seattle. That was a, you know,

it seems like Nashville's going to be pretty good again. And Walker Zimmerman was quite good. Had some line breaking passes. But that's not, that's not the storyline, pals. Nashville is actually FC America. It's just they're like the FC journeyman national team.

Yeah. I didn't, they have like an entire back eight. That's domestic plus the Pong. MCB, one of the most, uh, provocative people in the Discord.

he suggested we play Nashville's back seven, back seven at the Azteca. And throw, you know, so Dallas's front three, Nashville's back seven and what, like a Costa in the midfield against Mexico and the Azteca. I mean, whatever. Like, again, I'm totally fine with trying to do something weird. Like, as cute as you want to be for that one, Greg,

like in a way that preserves the best healthy players for Panama. And just as a quick side note, the reason for that is all we need is for Canada to get a result against Costa Rica and then beat Panama and we go to the World Cup in the top three. Right. We just have to beat Panama and we need Costa Rica to drop any points at all in this window. Or for that ugly like a team in Azteca to make to ugly up the game enough that it finishes zero zero or one one on a set piece, whatever. And we steal a point like a point plus the Panama. win does it too. So, like, just don't even try to play soccer down in Aztec. If we do, don't, don't get me wrong. I will be the first person who's like, amazing. We played soccer

in Mexico City and took it to Mexico and got a one-one draw. But I would also be totally fine. Like, I'm not a man of principle here. Totally fine. Just making it the worst soccer game ever played to get that zero-zero-zero draw. Yeah, no, my principles are totally out of the window at this point, such as they were. The third storyline, is that we're going to cover today is the fourth eight debate. It's back. We thought it went away for a while, but it is very much back, right? It has been since the Panama match away.

Yeah. So one of the goats from, not the acronym goat, but like a goat as in somebody who gets scapegoated. It is totally flipped in meaning over the past 10 years. It's crazy. Deservedly so was typically. a lot of criticism from that game was Sebastian Legat and he's now of course in New England

playing for Bruce Arena and playing with Josie Altador I thought my takeaway from watching some of his performance there is he's going to look more comfortable in that in a somewhat more attacking rather than box to box role in New England

I don't think it means much for the fourth eight debate now whether Burrhalter agrees with me on that is sort of a different question yeah and I think we've been saying that for a while is that legit as that box-to-box player for the national team is essentially playing out of position like he's much better individually when he's playing closer to goal almost like if you were playing a half-space merchant for us that would suit him better but he's

not going to crack that group because it's pool sick reina way out and air so it's like you know he's always been sort of a stand-in placeholder in that in that eight position and he just did it in a way that in Panama where he's no longer a viable placeholder because he doesn't set a high enough floor anymore or he's too much of a liability there. So unless Burrhalter watches him succeed with New England in a more attacking role and just thinks that, okay, all he needed was a little bit of a confidence boost

and now he will play with a different body language and that will do the trick. I also don't know how much that's going to get him back in because, again, Legette hasn't been on the field for the national team since that Panama disaster. Yeah. It's pretty, really striking that he hasn't been on since then. And I used to think he could be a good box-to-box eight

or a good number eight, you know, kind of working between the lines. I guess I was going mostly on that second win, that second game in Nations League against Canada when he, you know, when he was, he just seemed sturdy in that game, but it didn't, it doesn't translate somehow to like the sort of the moment-by-moment day-in, day-out work of a box-to-box midfielder. Like he doesn't quite have it. He was playing a 10 in that game.

He played, that was like the one game that Burr Alters played a 10. So Legette played a 10 in like a 433 or 4, 2, 3, 1 almost with McKinney and Jackson Ewell as the double pivot. So he wasn't playing that eight. You know what I mean? Like we had a three man back line with, we don't have to go through all the candidate tactics. We had Riem as the stay-at-home left back. We had our two centerback staying home. So that was our back three.

And then McKenny and Ewell is the two. and then Legette was part of the five, the front five. And that's where he can be successful. But, you know, the experiment with him as an eight, I think, is pretty close to run its course. He would need some kind of like a real eye-opening performance to, I think, to get back in that picture. Or we'd have to build the team around him. Yeah, or there'd need to be an injury run at the Half Face merchants and be like, all right, well, let's run a Legit out there, which we didn't do even in the Gold Cup

when we did have a half-space merchant crisis because we brought all of the wrong players to play those positions. And we still didn't use Leget there. So anyway, Legette needs to be in the fourth eight debate for the same amount of the season because he was the favorite. He was the third eight for the longest time.

So he's going to have to play his way back in because I think he's definitely on the outside at the moment. Worth noting he scored a goal in this game. A very nice goal. Well taken. Late arrival in the box and then side foots it with his left foot into the side netting far post. And that's something he's been doing for the national team too. When we get to the box, he has been good.

He's scored a bunch of goals. I know they're in friendlies and you can debate how meaningful those were. His issue has been when we're asking him to pick up the ball and transition from a defensive third. Yeah, and move the team forward. And certainly when he's like the lone player given that responsibility, that's where it's been, or, you know, the brunt of that responsibility, that's where it has just been, he's had worse and worse games going back from the Gold Cup over the summer. He does have a knack for arriving in the box, though,

and a knack that, like, some of these other guys I don't think quite have. For instance, Paxon Pommackal. Like, he's, in my opinion, much better than Legit at a lot of, that other stuff, moving the team forward. He showed that for Dallas over the weekend. But, you know, I don't know that I've ever seen Pomacall sort of arrive in the box and score a goal like the way we've seen Leggett do it so many times. Well, here's to hoping because he's now playing center mid.

This is another big takeaway from the Nico Estevez era already is that he's a center midfielder. And I don't know if last year was all about the injury or if it was Lucci not trust him there. whatever, it doesn't matter. Nico loves him as the center mid. Hopefully, Nico's on the phone with Greg saying, you got to give him another look. I know the last time you saw him was 2019.

He was hurt, whatever, whatever. Get this guy into your camp. But Pomacall could be, I could definitely see him becoming the third aid for the national team. So that's what I'm hoping. It does matter to me a little bit why he was playing on the wing last year. Because I think if it was just, Lucci thinks we got to put Paxon on the wing.

because, you know, for tactical reasons or because that's where he's best suited or because like the other guys on the team were better than him at midfield, then that, you know, that calls Lucci Gonzalez's judgment into question. I love it that you turned it and it was, it's a worry about Lucci. It's not a worry about Pomacol might not have the chops. It's very much a Lucci problem. We saw the proofs in the putin. We saw him look very good as a number eight in this game.

We've seen him play well as a central midfielder in the past. He doesn't look good as a winger. I don't think he looked particularly good as a winger all year last season. No, not like a standout winger. He looked like he, I feel like you could see some of the center mid qualities that he could offer while he was playing winger. But no, he never looked like a good winger. He's a ball winner. Like, he's a guy who wins the ball a lot and is really, really hard to play against.

You put him out on the wing, I don't know. He's not going to beat a lot of people 1 v1 very often. Who else is in the fourth aid debate? So Eric Williamson, but he's not back from injury yet. So it seems like there's no way that he could get back and get matched fit ahead of the March window in a way that Burhalter would trust him, which is unfortunate. I had high hopes for him.

I still think he was actually our best eight from the Gold Cup, where everyone was auditioning. All the domestic guys were auditioning for this national team pool. Those are the two that I'm big on, Pomacall and Williamson, and I'm bigger on Pomacall. Again, Williamson's just cutting it tight with the timeline. And then I have to throw in my Keaton Parks love still. Are you not as high on him as you are on the other two?

Or are you just not as high on him as you are on the other two because you know he's not going to get called up? No, I'm not as high on him as the other two because I don't think he has anywhere near the range of Pomacall and Williamson. And I think that is important for the way we play. I love Parks' vibe. I love his aesthetic the way he plays. But I don't think he can do, even if he can, even if he's like a better ball progresser than the other two, I don't think he offers. the whole picture for the national team fit that Pomacompson do. And I don't think it's really that close.

Parks is still just another one that frustrates me that he never got any look, whether it was with the Olympic age group or with the senior team, given what he's done for New York City. Yeah. And then the others sort of tangentially in the mix. Yeah, we've got Kelvin Acosta. I should say, peripherally. Let me change tangentially to peripherally.

Acosta played a. for L.A.F.C. in his debut and Burrhalter has shown a willingness, not even a willingness. Like, he has no problem playing Acosta's Yate, despite some concerns that we might have. He hasn't given those concerns. He's been giving those concerns short shrift, frankly. Disappointingly. He doesn't listen to us.

So Acosta's definitely in the picture as an eight, right? Hopefully more so, again, as the backup six. But this Mexico game will be very interesting because Tyler Adams on a yellow card. So, you know, and with McKinney out, it wouldn't surprise me if Adams in Acosta both start the Mexico game, which is really worrying because it leaves us with two exhausted sixes at best to start for the Panama game. Yeah. Jordan, the moderator of our Discord, he says, how could you, how dare you deny Tyler Adams the opportunity to play in the Azteca and the last meaningful qualifier there in a long time? And I'm giving that particular concern short shrift.

There's definitely a divide between the sentimental discorders and the like brutally optimal mathematical mathematical. Like, no, if it lowers our chances of qualification, abandon it. Yeah. We have to beat Panama. That is the only, I mean, that that's, that gets us there pretty much, you know? Yeah. And I don't want to step on our Panama previews, toes that we'll, I'm sure we'll eventually record. But, like, I don't even know that, like, Acosta could help us in that Panama game at home.

Like, if he's rested against Mexico to start him specifically against Panama instead of Tyler Adams, against a team that probably will sit back, like, maybe Acosta would be better with his set piece delivery and, you know, not as much, like, emphasis on him moving the ball forward, hopefully. Okay. So if you expect Panama to play to sit back and you need Acosta. his set piece delivery in that game, then sure, Adams can play at the Azteca. It's a sentimental optimization win-win.

The other sort of eights, maybe in the domestic picture, would be like Christian Roldon, because he is a utility player for Seattle. Sometimes he's in their front three. Sometimes he plays center mid. Burhalter seems to adore him as a camp body. I'm certainly not enamored with him at center mid for us,

but, you know, keep an eye on him, I guess. Georgie Mihailovich, we mentioned him on Monday. He had a really nice assist in Champions League last week. I think he might. Did he also score a goal in that game? I can't remember. But you saw a little bit of final third quality from him that he don't see from, you've seen a shortage of in the national team over the last few months.

But again, where does he fit? He's not really a winger. He's not really a box-to-box midfielder. he's kind of a 10, but we don't really have a spot for that. Right. And even if we did, it would be occupied by Gio Raina and Brett and Errantson, which is who Georgie, you know, probably is then fighting for for like a half-space merchant role. And, you know, best of luck to him.

I hope he continues to play really well. But just a really tough spot to crack into. It should be noted, though, he's had a good past 16 months or whatever, like standout. Yeah. And ironically, is it ironically, unfortunately, I guess for him, he circumstances have not, like, allowed him to be in any of the fringe player camps. I think he would, well, is that fair to say? Could he have been in the gold cup? He was in the Olympic qualifying roster, but we kind of have to increasingly just have to throw that entire experience out as data about any of these players.

Yeah. No, I'm talking about like Gold Cup. It wasn't included in the Gold Cup roster where maybe he could have been doing some half-space merchant. for us. Then that December Candy Cane Camp, like he was, I think, training in Europe with, you know, trialing or just training. And so he just hasn't been available

to get that look at side by side with some of the other fringe players. Okay, what's the next story line? It looks like we have, it looks like we've made it through three. We have three more. Okay, we've got bounce backs. This one will go fast because it's basically just can Aaron Long and Jordan Morris play their way

back into the national team? Yeah. I thought, you know, I'm glad Aaron Long is healthy. I didn't, from what I could see in that, that went over San Jose, I didn't see anything like screaming out to be back in the national team very quickly. Morris, I thought Jordan Morris looked pretty bad on the weekend. What did you think? Yeah, I would totally agree with that.

Like, it was rough. Basically didn't do anything positive in the game. And again, this is one game. I'm not saying this is who he's going to be. for the next month, but nothing positive. In a couple, like his most impactful moments were two really bad negative dribble giveaways, where he, like, dribbled it back towards his own back line, got clear the midfielers, and then like tapped the ball backwards to a Nashville player

to then run at the centerbacks. So a really tough outing for Morris. And like, it's not... He got fathered by Walker's everything. Well, that's going to happen to a lot of people. But Morris also wasn't very good in that Honduras game. he very much looked like he was just trying to like survive when the ball came to him, stay afloat.

None of that like bulldozing, vertical, dominant winger run downhill play that was his calling card when he was having those outrageous seasons with Seattle. And so it's another one of those things where if he doesn't give you that, he's not really like a press monster. You know what I mean? Like he's not giving you anything. If he's not giving you that downhill running. So I'm hopeful we see that from him over the next couple of weeks.

I'm very curious what will happen if we don't. If he still gets a spot on the team just for, you know, like he's already earned it, I guess, in Berlter's mind. But, yeah, I don't know what that's going to look like. He probably has some credit in the bank, you know, over time. But, yeah. And he also has time. He also has time to get back to full health and back to that, those bulldozing ways. Yeah, his past map from that Nashville game was pretty bad.

Like, I don't think there was a single arrow pointing forward. Everything was going backward. So again, just something to keep an eye on. One game, like he is just getting back to really playing matches after missing a season. So hopefully those hips do start aiming at the goal a little bit more, the attacking goal. Yes. The other Morris brother, as you have it put, have it in the notes. Aiden is back for the club.

Columbus crew. And good to see him back from a pretty bad ACL injury last spring. Every ACL injury is bad, I guess. He was so-so in possession, but looked incredibly stout in the tackle, which is kind of what you would expect from Aiden Morris. Number five, next steps. Yeah, just some players were hoping to see who had like a, maybe their coming out party was last year, and we're hoping that maybe they can show us a little bit more this year.

in all long shots to be part of a 23 or even like an extended 25 player World Cup roster, if that happens. Yeah. But first on the list is Chicago Fire goalkeeper, Gabe Sloanina. Yep. Gaga is what they call him, I guess. Did he start over the weekend? He started over the weekend.

Another shutout. I feel like he hasn't given up a goal through preseason or their one regular season match so far. And what kind of adds a little bit more interest to Sonina right now is that Turner and Stefan are both injured at the moment, as we're three weeks from the roster announcement. Yeah, it's easy for me to forget that he's actually a legit MLS goalkeeper because he's so young. But he is. He started basically the lion's share of their matches last season.

And here he is starting at the beginning of the year. And again, I have no idea where Burhol. like actually rates him because when he was the fourth goalkeeper in the camp last last window, that can mean literally nothing. Like it can mean that you're, you know, the assistant coach's nephew and we just want to, you know, have you around for a good time for you. I don't know where Burrhalter rates him. But, you know, like with Turner and Stefan out, we'll find out if those two are still out

because if he's the second goalkeeper on the list, like that means something. Fourth goalkeeper means nothing. if you're if you're sort of number two you are rated yeah so the others are kaden Clark and aforementioned aidan Morris we already talked about him but Clark came in off the bench for Red Bulls and that win over San Jose it does seem you know the fires of the fires of hype have cooled a bit on Caden but he's you know he's got a lot of talent. And then you've got DeWan Jones,

Cade Cowell, and John Tolkien. The one who I paid attention to this weekend was Tolkien. And he is good in possession. He has an unbelievable hair, has unbelievable hair. And these guys are lumped together because they're left backs. I mean, Cowell playing left wing back. We could probably put Andrew Gutman on this list for Atlanta. Again, because any solid showing at left back is going to be enough to be like,

like should we call him up? Is he worth calling up? Yeah. I thought Tolkien's showing was solid, but I guess I'm getting a little more skeptical, you know, just watching like somebody hold their own in MLS and saying, well, that's a solid showing. That's good enough to do it for the national team because I can't see how he would overtake like Bello or Vines.

It's at least not in the near term. He does seem to struggle a little bit defending in space. In isolation, Tolkien that is? And even though he's great in the cage match, but when there's like some space out there, it does seem like he can get left behind. What were you going to say? Well, I was just going to say that's totally fair about being solid.

That's right. It's not solid. Like you do need to probably take that next step and be like legitimately good. Like, oh, wow, this player's doing very well. I left back. Jones is more in that category, wouldn't you say? Yeah, not only that,

but the particular kind of play that you demonstrate could matter. So for example, we keep talking about this SETCA game. Other than center mid, the biggest question I have is, if we don't want to start Anthony Robinson in that game, who are we starting in a game

where we're just going to try to ugly up 90 minutes in Mexico City? And, like, who's capable of that? And so I wonder if Jones would be that player who's just going to be like, you know, Yedlin's mirror image, but playing on the left side. Yeah.

and he had an assist he assisted that legit goal for new england um you know it wasn't like it wasn't like Raquel may out there but it's a good it's a good pullback ball across for legett to finish so and and i think john the story on jones has always been that he's good defensively so right that's what i was going to say the assist is a nice bonus for him it's more about i don't i don't think jones gets a little brothered right i don't i don't feel like he's the guy who's going to fall asleep at the back post. Yeah. So that's where if you're looking for somebody to to just do a 90-minute job,

like he wouldn't be far from my cell phone at the moment. It'd be very interesting to see who Bertholder calls up. And this roster is not that far away now. Like we're, what, like two weeks from the roster? Probably that, yeah. All right, we've got some center mids. Again, they're just kids that were keeping an eye on. And that's Tensio, Lavia, Nyman.

they all got decent minutes last year. Tencio and Lavia with Seattle and then Moses Niman at DC United. And Niman seems to be a starter. I don't know where Atensio and Lavia fall because they've been dealing with injuries. And then- Lava's a little bit more out of the picture. Atensio's more in. That's what happened towards the end of the season.

Attencio's definitely hurt. I don't know about Lava. Is he hurt? He was hurt early, so I think he might just be getting back. We'll touch on in just a second. But then the big one for me, actually, the big center mid story, is definitely going to be Gideon Zell-O-M. Wait, why is that the big story for you?

It just is. I don't think he got in the last MLS game. Maybe he did, but he played in the CCL game for New York City. And, you know, I don't know how many people were still following. It wasn't that long ago following the youth hype trains. But Zalo-M had a significant youth hype train six years ago. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, there are still people who swear by him.

Joey, Anton, Ty, Final Third. They swear by his performances. I don't think any of them are swearing that he is going to play his way into the national team picture. But it's just another fun reminder that, like, they can, they still have some, they could still carve out a little soccer career, a little soccer existence here, even if they never reached the Arsenal Heights that were projected for them. I thought you were going to correct me by saying they don't swear by him. They don't, they have not made him into a deity. No, yeah, to be fair, they just look back very fondly on those performances as a youth national team player. Like particularly, I think it was a 2015 World Cup, right, where he had some magical moments.

Right, right, a lot of that magic. He was like the, he had the Ledesma magic for them at a youth World Cup. Yeah. So, you know, I guess I can't cast too many stones yet. All right. So those are players who are like kind of already established in the league, again, which is crazy because they're 16, 17, 20 years old. And then we have like the new, new blood this season.

And one of the names already is Obed Vargas, who was playing ahead of Lavia, Tencio because of those injuries for Seattle as a center mid. And he looked all right, right? He looked good in CCL. and now he started day one of MLS and looked the part. Yeah, I would say it looked a little better than competent. You know, he actually did some dribble. Like, he can dribble some people every now and that,

which is a little different than Atencio and Lava, but he does sort of, in terms of frame and, you know, overall impact in the game, seems like a little bit better version of Lava. And I don't know how he compares to Atencio. I guess we'll see. Yeah, he's six. 16 years old, right?

This is nuts. He's so nuts. And he might never get to anything. That's the whole point. He might sort of fade out this season and never really become even a key MLS player. But it's still just crazy that it exists is kind of what I'm saying. Seattle's doing it, man. They're trying to develop Academy players as first team players.

I don't know that they've really hit yet, but they're definitely giving it a try. And you've got to give them credit for that. All right. New blood in Atlanta is Caleb Wiley, who I believe is a left back by trade, but came in and played sort of like a left winger to see out a match. And he saw it out by scoring the insurance goal for Atlanta, playing ahead of Andrew Gutman, who is Atlanta's new domestic left back. Yeah. I thought Wiley was pretty good in that U-20 tournament in Guadalajara. Yeah, that's right. Even though that was not a successful tournament for you 20s he was he was a pleasant surprise i thought um you know as a winger i don't know that he has

the quality to be a winger long term but i mean he did score a goal and he nearly had an assist you know in his like 20 minutes of action i do i have to say just because we're a details podcast on his goal he is you know he got played in behind his second touch was highly fortunate. Did you see that? Like it kind of skipped up off his shin and then like just just just landed nicely for him right before. No, I just, I think it's about time. Somebody finally told the truth about this 17 year old scoring in his MLS debut that everyone's so excited about.

All right. Sorry. I'm sorry, everybody. I just have to, I mean, he did score a goal. I don't know how repeatable it was. Anyway, his long-term role is as a left-back, as you mentioned, so it's good to see him getting attacking reps regardless. You know, it's good to refine that.

And he did play a nice pass and behind. He also misplaced a few passes. But most of all, it's the idea that this new blood is, again, sending a very good signal about what the league is doing with kids for most likely what the 2026 cycle will be calling on or relying on for a couple of standouts to join the established, vets, which is crazy to think about of what the 2022 roster will be. Yeah.

Yep. And then the last one is Isaiah Parker, right? It didn't come off the bench for Dallas, but he's highly rated by them? I mean, it seems like it rated highly enough that that's who they're rolling with as their backup. And like in my head, I keep thinking that the way he's been described is they almost like expect him to make the leap and be their starter. But that's mostly sort of reading between lines of. of other people who know Dallas very well.

And Farfond's going to do a fine job of holding things down until that happens. Let's just do a – let's just try to hammer a few listener questions because there's some good ones in here. Owen in Youngtown, I think that might be a typo. It might be Youngstown, Ohio, but it might not be. Might be a young town somewhere. Asked, are there any no-cap U.S. MLS players you were interested in? And I guess, yes, we just talked about a lot of them.

Interested in depends how he's saying it. Like, interested in for the March window, interested in for, you know, no. For me, no. All right, I'm throwing DeWan Jones in. No caps for DeWan Jones yet. Okay. There you go.

You can close the door to Juan Jones if you want. But just again, for a very specific role for that Azteca match, let's see what he's got. Yeah, I'm with you. Jared and O'C. O'C., Wisconsin asks, will FC Dallas play like the USMNT? Will it play like USMNT, colon, the club? And if so, how much will Ferreira, Ariola, and Pomacol benefit from this style?

I think a lot and hopefully a lot. I think so too. I'm already like creating like little FC Dallas patterns catalogs of ways they're trying to play. Like Toronto was kind of, again, hard to judge because they were kind of pressing. They left themselves really like, exposed in the back and Dallas carved them up at times.

So for me, that's sort of like a nice indicator of this is what I want the U.S. to do when, you know, Mexico comes up and tries to step up the field on them. I still don't know how they're going to do against a low block, which is the overriding question for the U.S. as well. German Wiggins in Oklahoma City asks, is it time for John Anthony Brooks to come home to Chicago? The calf roll to Midwest? We've got to ask German Wiggins what that means. Does Brooks have a Chicago background?

Yeah, he's from his, he's got a tattoo of Illinois on his elbow, bro. I didn't know that. I don't have kept up with any of the tattoo discourse. Yeah, his dad is from Chicago, I believe. And I, so this is just, I don't know. I don't know if he should come home to Chicago yet. I love Chicago. It is a great city.

It is the capital of the Midwest, indisputably. but yeah I don't know if he should come back I do want to go through all of the goals Wolfsburg has conceded this year and really like dive in on those maybe even all the shots and because people come at I say John Anthony Brooks is slow

Jay Brooks is what they call him I guess Jay Brooks is slow and people are like well you're just going off of a few bad performances for the USMNT and I'm thinking, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I have to do the work, so. I don't think I've ever said he's slow. I think he is, it's his turning radius.

It's his hip swiveling that is slow. I think straight line speed, he's probably fine. You're like, you have question marks about that. We may differ on that. The impetus of that question, I'm guessing, is that Wolfsburg announced that they will, that Brooks will be leaving at the end of the season. This is the last season with Wolfberg.

he was making a very good money as a central defender for Wolfsburg seems unlikely that his next contract will be at that level in Europe so the question would be I mean I'm adding to German Wiggins question here would an MLS team be willing to pony up above the market value

because DPs make DEP money and it doesn't matter Yeah I don't know I think I guess I have to go through the I have to go through all the goals they've conceded this year to come up with my answer I think you should come home to Chicago.

I just in the abstract, I think he would be a very good version of a DP centerback for MLS because his strength is actually like creating play. Generally in MLS you're paying for attack offense. So Brooks, you'd be paying for that delivery that he provides. Yeah.

That's probably it for today, I think. Just another note to keep in mind, you know, if anyone's like having anxiety, because I know people get a little bit worked up about European players coming back to MLS and, you know, playing at a lower level. Like, keep in mind that the calendar in play here, because Hector Herrera is coming back to play for Houston.

He's coming from Spain to play for Houston. Like, there's not that much time before the World Cup. They're going to, Herrera's going to finish out his contract so he'll be done playing in May. Then if he stayed in Europe, he would have two months off and then he would have another two and a half months before the World Cup. So you're not losing like a ton of, of that ultra-competitive environment, if that's what your worry is.

If that makes sense. You'll basically just be, I mean, MLS will give you, you'll play through the summer instead of having the summer off if you move to MLS. And then you would have that little bit of overlap where Europe would have kicked off and MLS would sort of be wrapping up. No, that's a really good point. And that reminds me I should ask one more question before we go. But it's not where I thought you were going to go when you said if anybody's having

anxiety right now. I was like, I was about to lay down on the couch and have you tell me that it's all going to be all right in the Crimea. It might not be. No, go on, go on. Lojo MD in the Maryland suburbs of D.C. asks, why do some USM&T MLS pool players resist going to Europe and does it matter? Can they fully develop in MLS? He says he's perplexed by Miles Robinson's desire to stay in Atlanta, similarly frustrated by Donovan Pines's staying at D.C. United. he says, but in listening to your interview with Eric Williamson,

I noted how much he seems to be getting from being on the timbers and playing with Diego Chara, wondering about how MLS helps hurts our players' ability to reach their potential. Thanks. Oh, man, we can go a lot of different ways with this, huh? Yeah, my answer is going to be kind of boring. It's just going to be, it's case by case, you know? It's so case by case because it does seem like Eric Williamson is benefiting a lot from the players he's playing with in Portland.

But, you know, I mean, you have to imagine that, of course, challenging yourself in Europe is going to make you a better player. So I don't, yeah, I don't know. My big thing is, you know, the way he frames it is can they fully develop in MLS? And for me, like, even that is just such a almost undefinable thing. Like, if the idea is, in order to fully develop, you must be playing at the highest possible level you're capable of playing at. That doesn't mean Liverpool for everyone.

You know, that may mean, you know, this player could play at a mid-table Bundesliga team or is about there. So they need to challenge themselves at that level. It's like, sure, definitionally, they need to go do that to get to the highest level. But they could also overshoot and, you know, fall off entirely. And now instead of having a player at X level, you have a player who barely even exists in the game of soccer. So it's trying to find that fit. and I basically try not to worry about it too much. I think if no players are going over to Europe,

like that's probably a big issue. That means we're playing it too safe. But I never think it's a situation where every single player needs to go to Europe. I think as long as the door is open and some players are going across and developing that way, then we are going to be hitting the right,

we're probably hitting a close to good balance. Yeah, I want, I guess, the last couple years have made me want players to prove themselves in MLS as like legit pros so that they at least have a baseline to go off of and to come back to if things don't work out when they go to Europe and then go to Europe.

And it is also true, if we're ever going to win a World Cup, we need 50 players at Champions League teams or something like that, you know, some ridiculous number that we don't have. I don't even need that baseline MLS. proof. Like, again, I think any player can go about it anyway. Like, I guess I'm looking at my depth chart right now. And like the two players right next to each other are Tim Wea and Brendan Aronson, right? Like Aronson did the MLS proof thing and then is at Salzburg and now, you know,

is playing in the Champions League. Wea didn't go the MLS route and just did it his own way for PSG and is now playing in the Champions League. So I just, there is no, there's never going to be like you have to do it this way or this way is too risky. It's always just going to be like, we just need a lot of volume. Because some of the individual players, even ones who make good choices, right? We've had players go to, like, the best development clubs in the world that are known for their development. Even that's not a guarantee that they're going to develop.

Like, they could still sort of fall off the face of the soccer world. We're not going to name any names, but... Well, it fall off the face of the soccer world and then end up in Portugal and play pretty well. I was talking about a bluster, but sure. If we're at the point where MLS clubs are giving young players a chance, and we are, then, you know, I think when Yanez and Mendes and Soto left and just all jump ship at the same time, like you said, it wasn't that way. It wasn't clear that they would get a chance. And it was clear that they were going to have to sign a, like, a damn near usurious contract. I mean, it's for real.

Yeah, no, it was bad. Well, other than Ledesma, who went straight to Portland because they have the minimums. So Ledesmas was making good money right away. Well, I mean, the contracts that they had to sign in Europe may have been usurius, but also the contracts that they would have had to sign in MLS. Usurious is an exaggeration. Obviously, it's not usurious. But, you know, these like three-year contracts with like two option years for the club

at like 70 grand a year, you might end up being the, you know, the best winger in MLS. less by that fourth year, you're still only going to be making $70,000 a year. Like, that's how it could be. Right. So instead you roll the dice. That's the way those deals were structured. So instead you can roll the dice with this Bundesliga team that's going to pay you like $1,500 a month. Yeah.

And you're just hoping that you're betting on yourself to come good. It's a, it's, neither option is great, right? Was. Neither option was great. Was great. Was great. It was 2018, 2019. Yeah.

But it's changed now. And, um, So, yeah. Now MLS has thrown contracts at 14 and 15-year-olds. I think we've, in the last two weeks, have set, like, the record twice. We, MLS has set the record twice for, like, youngest player ever signed. Well, so more substantive discussion about that than I thought we were going to. All right.

We got to get out of here. Let me just say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. To all our patrons. And if you are able, please consider supporting us there. That's how we make money on this podcast. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.