Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #257: Monday Review — Wes out, Pulisic good, Pefok scores again, Sir Charles drags the USMNT

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Vince is back with Watke and Belz for a full recap of the week's action, including Jesse Marsch's glorious victory in the xG battle in his Leeds debut, Vince seeing the North London light on our striker situation, and Weston's confirmed season-ended status. Also, is Balogun the solution? 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. This is a rare public edition of the Monday review. I've got Vince and Waki with me. Usually these episodes are for patrons only, but we still want to get out in front of everyone now and then. So here we are. We'll retreat behind the paywall again next week. Waki, what's your top story since we last convened? Well, I wish it were a happy story, but it's been confirmed that West McKinney is out for the season. on here to talk about it since the injury. But, so I'm still pretty fucked up about it. I ain't a lot. The good news is, it seems to be a regular broken foot. It doesn't require

surgery, anything crazy. I know for a few days, before he got his MRI or whatever we were worried, there might be a Liz Freak injury, which would have been no good, no good. My cousin, my cousin that plays baseball

for West Virginia got one. He got a, he got a, He got a Liz Frank injury sledding January of 2021. And he missed the entire baseball season. He was out for like a solid six months, I would say. So yeah, man, happy that he just has a regular broken foot. So like I can't be really too down about it. He was at the LAFC game last night making appearances, you know,

just being a man of the people as we know Weston to be. Good, good. You know, a broken foot ain't going to get. in the way of anything he has planned. So he's in a, he's in L.A. Doing his thing. What do you think he got out there? We don't need to speculate.

I'm sure he had a great time. I'm glad that we dodged that list Frank injury, which I'm just flip thing, which I'm just learning about, but I'm glad he didn't get that. So really one big question that's left is they say out for the season, does that include the playoff against New Zealand? No, I don't think that's on Maxie Allegory's mind.

Okay. That was my question. I was weird. I was weird if they didn't include that in the release, but I also understand why they wouldn't. I mean, Uve's initial timeline or whatever was two months, right? So, I mean, like two months would have put them up against the end of the season anyway. Yeah. But the thing is about two months for Weston can sometimes turn out to be one month or at least has in the past.

And so I personally was entertaining fantasies of him being back by the end of March. those are the door is completely closed on that now yeah the time is finally here that we have finally reached the point in the cycle where Greg Greg got to do some coaching yep we got to win one game one game and and what for it and so in front of what should be an absolutely insane crowd in Orlando I mean it seems to be one of the toughest tickets to get since the Mexico game I haven't looked at the prices recently, but they seem to be crazy. Okay. Well, that brings us to the second news item, which is a good one, is that Christian Pulosec is good at soccer again. Yeah, he's on a, he's on a good run of form. Still not project restart level, but boy, the level he's at is cause for celebration.

His assist in particular, so a goal in an assist over the weekend, as you all know, at Burnley. His assist in particular was a nice moment, just a lovely ball to the back post for Kai Haverts to expertly dispatch. I also approve of Pool 6 muted celebration on his own, on his own goal, the goal that he scored. It was not an own goal. It was a goal he scored for his team. It was such a gift that fell in front of him just inside the six yard box that he didn't even celebrate.

Just went over. High five, quick high five. He is good at muting his celebrations when they should be like he did in whichever game that was he scored in the last window. Against Honduras when he just did a shrug. He understands the emotion of a goal moment. Probably too deeply. Maybe that's, you know, but he gets it. If he scores in Orlando, he's going to, like the opener, you know,

or a goal to go up to zero or something. He's going to go nuts. He's going to jump into the stands. Yep. I mean, I can just see it now. We get a foul outside of the 18. Pully lines up. Lines up another free kick.

that nobody has has any expectations for. Yeah, like this isn't going on, Christian. We're glad you're stepping up here, but it's not going in. And then he puts it in, top corner. Then he puts it in. And he just carries that momentum. Yeah, he rips off that shirt straight. Lips his shirt to have a message that says, shut up, scuffed.

Shut up, Adam. Shut up, bells. I'm encouraged by his playmaking vision he showed. Talk more about that. Please. Well, he did some good passes. He was looking around and passing. I mean, partly it's just because he got an assist.

So I'm thinking that. Probably doing the exact same thing as before. But in terms of narrative, you know. You know, that pulling it from his right foot to his left foot and then whipping a ball in, an in-swinger with his left foot is not. That's something he's been able to do for a long time. I think he got an assist in the Gold Cup that way a couple years ago, 2019, maybe. that was the one that uh didn't weston score that yeah yeah yeah it was like one-on-one on the wing yeah i remember that um so i feel like we should see more of that yeah this is my thing it's like

so we talked about him doing less you know and sometimes how less can be more and that and that's the thing it's like pulley if you have this this level of class inside of you like there's no reason to just continue being a dribble merchant when you just when when you see the danger that you're putting yourself in you know what I'm saying like get the ball give it get it get it in good spaces and do what you can do you know what I'm saying like like right right there on that on that assist like he could have easily over dribbled and try to get to the end line on his right foot and cut it back which probably would have been cut out yep but no but no he was like you know what Let me just stop right here, get this thing on my left foot, because I can do that.

These are things I can do. And let me just whip this ball over here to score a goal. You know what I'm saying? It's just... It's a perfect ball. Right, right. And if you can do these things, then why waste so much energy doing the other stuff and just get kicked into oblivion?

Like, that's not smart. So we need an addendum to do less. Do less of the stuff you shouldn't do, do more of the stuff you should. Yes. But do more of it through a thought process of doing less. I mean, we're going to have to diagram this out for him because it is complicated. It is complicated. It's a little counterintuitive, a little complicated.

You know what else makes it complicated is with Weston out now? There's going to be a little bit more pressure for him to do more. You know, I was thinking about that. He did a whole quote saying, you know, we're a good team. I don't need to do that much. And then Weston goes down and he's like, oh, well, let's pump the brakes on that, Christian, actually, because he's about to go back. He's about to go back to the old Christian. Actually, if we don't win against Panama, that's a national nightmare. Absolutely. Oh, my goodness. Sorry for, sorry for even saying a personal nightmare too.

Yo, I'm not trying to lose to Panama or draw against Panama and have to fly spirit back to Louisville. Okay. You know what I'm saying? I think if that happens, you're going to have to rent a car. I'm not trying to take the double whammy dog. Look, we need this dub so at least that can carry me through the flight, all right? Just, I mean, you know what I'm saying? I'm flying spirit because I love the U.S. Minnesota team. And you know that that's what I had to do.

I wasn't trying to pay $700 to get down to Orlando. But please do not make it a double whammy. Please, yeah, please. No. Just be sure you're wearing your bedazzled jeans because they won't let you on without them. Yeah, yeah. Should we go to the third news item? Yes, please.

Charles Barkley says that the USM&T is bad. In the announcement that Turner will be covering the sport, which is a little bit of an interesting. That's not really important. We can just address that he thinks they're bad, but it was a nice moment. Ernie? Ernie? I'm going to tell you this.

I think Barclay distilled what I assume is the prevailing sentiment about the men's national team in our culture. So that's it. That's it. The men missed the last World Cup. So they suck, which is, which was true. They did suck. And we're still not qualified for the next World Cup. So that stands.

And they still got paid more than the women who were winning World Cups and Olympic gold medals, you know, which is kind of a nice encapsulation of. women have gone through in human history. So as Barkley put it, shout out to the women, but not the men. And the only way, the only way to get past this is for the men to qualify for the World Cup and win a game or two. Yeah, that's it. I mean, I've held this position for a long time that once we get on the stage of the World Cup, if we do get on the stage of the World Cup, the nation is just going to fall in love with this team. I mean, yes. I think so, too.

We're young. My good personalities, not necessarily exciting, but we have exciting players. And yeah, yeah, I think this World Cup's going to be going to be the time. I haven't even watched the video because I saw Charles Barkley's face in like in the little clip to click on the video. And I was like, ah, he's about to go in. He's about to go in. I couldn't even bring myself to, I couldn't even stomach it. As a matter of like content generation, I wonder how much he just wings that or like he knows he knows the jersey's going to get thrown at him.

Did he say, no, no, no, throw me a women's jersey so I can get this bit off or like, I wonder how he does it. Because he's so good. I mean, I know not everybody loves Charles Berkeley, but he is so good at delivering something when the camera is on him. Like elite. He's an excellent on TV. Elite. I love him. I love Charles Barclay.

I do too. It's for me, it's him and Stephen A. Smith. Yeah, that's the, that's the team right there. Not Skip Bayliss? You don't? No, he's nowhere near as good. No, he's not good. But, uh, yo, uh, Bills, I did see the JJ Devaney was like, is, is Charles

Berkeley really an encapsulation of, you know, modern, uh, common America or whatever? Yes. And, uh, I replied back and the answer is simply yes. Like, I mean, come on, dude. Yeah. Absolutely. What are you talking about? Have you like maybe the purest encapsulation. Yeah. Right. I mean, you know, we got a whole bunch of sickos listening to this pod, but like, y'all, so y'all, you know what happens when you try and talk to your friends about soccer. You see the glaze that comes over there as. I've stopped doing it. Yeah. I don't do it anymore either. Not even family. Yeah. My family brings it up. I changed the subject. Seriously, my mom this weekend or last weekend when I was.

was in Charlotte. She was like this are. Okay, so my brother had a baby. And so I was at my brother's house and his fiancee's mom was like, oh, Vince, what's you doing now? And I was like, oh, you know, just working. Well, my mom was sitting next to me. She was like, you know, you're going to tell her about your podcast?

And I was like, no, no, I'm not. Why would I? Why would I tell this? Never tell anyone about a soccer podcast. she go on. The 60-year-old lady from South Carolina, like, look, man, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah.

I'm going to segue into the next news item because it's about, this next news item is important because it's about growing the game because Jesse Marcia just started at Leeds. And if he's successful, then that would be just great for us. So he lost the first game, but he won the XG battle. It's the headline I'm going to go with. Yeah, it was 1-0, right? Yeah. And I saw there's some, go ahead.

I have some feelings about Jesse Marsh, but you know what I'm saying? I'm going to see how this goes. Oh, no, no. What are the feelings? I mean, I just didn't like how he went about getting out of Leipzig. Like, like not that. By losing a bunch? The whole the whole distress look fat on me thing, right?

Yeah, yeah. Just the whole. And so I'm kind of sourd on them. Just because it's like, bro, you really just got one way, one way you can play, like just one,

not even. He won the XG battle events. He won the XG, you know, he was winning the XG battle at Lifesick, too. That's what I'm kind of worried about. Because it doesn't matter. If he loses,

he's going to get fired. And it's already, there's already, you know, there's already like talk shows in England, making fun of the way he pulled a huddle together on the team. I mean, it's just,

it's going to, it's never. ever going to end. He's got, yeah, he just has to, got it, just win,

baby. I mean, that's the, that's the podcast today, just frigging win. That's it. Burrhalter win,

Marsh win, enough already. Let's go, let's talk about Fuller and Bolligan. Alex K. and D.C. asks,

could Fuller and Bolligan be the answer to our striker problems? Do you guys have opinions on that? No, I'm holding back. I don't,

I don't, I don't invest emotionally until I know. That's going to happen. So, I'll defer to you. on this question. Football London reported that he is close to a switch to the U.S.

I mean, who knows if that's true. I think eventually he could be a answer to our striker problems. I do think he looks pretty good for Middlesbrough, but he has no goals in 11 appearances. The way I see him is a bit of a smaller striker, so mobile, good with both feet, pretty comfortable on the ball. He can dribble by somebody,

and he's interested in making good passes. But he's not like, you know, he's not this like, all world number nine who's just going to tomahawk the ball in with his head and rise above everybody he's not he's not the aerial threat that pfok is i don't think a little bit closer to maybe like a timwaya or a jesus ferrara the way he plays he drops deep a lot to pick up the ball makes a pass and then makes a run into the box so i think maybe eventually he's the answer i don't think he's the answer before march or probably not uh by the world Cup, but who knows?

Yeah, I mean, agreed. Okay. I got one more news item, and that is, I just thought it was quite a moment for Efraeine Alvarez to silence the 75,000 in Charlotte with an absolute Galazzo. Did you guys see this goal? Yes. Holy smokes. He, he, um, absolute upper 90, uh, and it tells him to sh at their franchise home opener. and then gets booed.

So that's pretty dramatic. Efra is obviously a player from Mexico now, but he's a former U.S. youth national team player. He is an American from Los Angeles who switched to Mexico when he was a U-15. And he's always been a fun player to watch. So that's probably the most interesting moment in MLS for me. It was a banger.

It was a banger. No doubt about it. Yeah. Now, Waki, so we're just kind of going to be cycling through weekly features until we find something that really works. But we got clip notes coming up later. But before we get to those, let's do some weekly awards. Yeah.

So this is an award segment where we try to honor things that were done well this weekend and some maybe smaller moments that normally wouldn't get full attention. This first award, this is probably the biggest award. It's the best passing award. And I think we should hand this out pretty much every week because passing is so important in soccer and something that American was. wants to be good at. For me, the winner this weekend was Hazius Ferreira.

And now people are going to say, well, shouldn't it be pool sick? He did those great assist. Hazers-Ferreira did about four or five really good passes they really liked that were kind of incisive. So I want to make sure we recognize and award that. Yeah, he does that thing where he gets it, he gets it and then gets it out from under his feet so fast. And that one to Hot Air O'Brien, that O'Brien just kind of stumbled over.

I mean, it really put him in on goal through three defenders. That one was my favorite. And when Bell says stumbled over, I mean, this man stumbled over it. It was like, you know, like, you know, when somebody falls and it's like, oh, oh, they finally fall. Like, it was one of those. Looney Tunes S. Fall. Yeah. From O'Brien.

O'Brien is going to, you know, he's going to take some, he's going to catch some today because he's always, he's always involved in everything good that Ferreira or Pomacall do. And, um, and ruins it. Yeah, and ruins it, basically. So he might be catching pretty much all year. That's just, it seems that way. All right. Until that Velasco, uh, guys, starts playing for Dallas.

Next award is the best overturned gold. award, definitely this goes to Georgie Mahalovich. I was looking at the notes of the spelling of Georgie's name and I got terrified. I knew how to say it, but it's spelled differently than I'm used to sing. Anyway, he dribbled straight through the Philadelphia Union full half of the field. Unfortunately, the plane started with him

supposedly fouling a player, according to Barr. But it was a great goal that was disallowed. What a goal it was. It was awesome. And I do think it was a foul, but calling that goal back is definitely a no fun move from the ref. Yeah, it was, it was nice to see him carry the ball like that right there, because I never, you know, I never really thought of them as much as, as much of like a ball carrier. No. Just more of like a kind of a Jesus Ferreira type, just receive the ball, turn, you know, get it out, play it past, whatever. But, like, like, like, a, kind of a Jesus Ferreira type, just receive the ball, turn, you know, get it out,

pass whatever but like like the running power he showed there was very impressive very impressive and i and i like every time i see this kid man like he's just getting better and better and he does he does look strong he looks bigger it looks bigger even looks taller i assume he's not taller but he just he has a larger maybe a larger emotional presence is what it is that's probably what it is although he does seem actually bigger too what's the next word okay the next word is moments of small encouragement award. That goes to George Bello. This was his best performance from Bielafeld to date. He played for 20 minutes against Augsburg, and he did some neat little dribbles and passes. Some of them were in the box. And I see it as signs he can

be a real Bundesliga fullback, maybe not a superstar. But he gets the moments of small encouragement award. Yeah, I mean, a moment of small encouragement for him is a moment of large encouragement for the rest of us, wouldn't you say? I mean, we need, if he can, if he can take the, take the step forward at left back, that, uh, that job is available. The backup left back job, I mean. I've, yeah. The thing with Bello is he can, he can absolutely be a superstar, maybe.

But it just like, because like the tools are there, uh, it just seems to be between the ears right now. Yeah. Just like figuring out how to play. which it seems like fullback it's a lot more difficult to play than it than gets credit for I think as far as like knowing when to push up knowing how to not get caught how to not get caught up and get the space behind you expose all those different type of things it seems that can only come from experience so they're putting him into very advanced

it still seems like it's fullback but very attacking positions so it was I think it was a wingback one time this seemed almost like a wide midfielder but so I don't I wonder what they're where exactly he's going to fit in there I always try to keep my emotional guard up with bellow because I like him so much and so that's why it's just a small encouragement award I don't want to get ahead of myself

and and I would also just like to just like to point out that Bielafeld and Augsburg currently sit above the relegation places. They're 14th and 15th, so they're not safe or anything, but if the season were to end of the day, they are not getting relegant. I was sad that Pepe didn't play in this game

because he and George Bello are quietly, maybe the closest of friends on the entire national team. If you go through the behind the Crest series and just videos that the national team releases, they are, sitting next to each other or walking next to each other about 90% of the time. Is that right? I never noticed that.

I think it's just because they both came in. They're very young. They're the same age. They knew each other from the U-17s World Cup. So yeah, but Ricardo Pepe didn't get to play in this game. But that's another issue. Should we move to the next award, which is the softest red card award, which goes to Miles Robinson. He got a red card.

In the first half, he said something mean to the referee. while also not giving the ball back quickly enough. And then the second half, he slightly nudged the opponent in the back and was sent off. So congratulations to Miles Robertson on that. I don't think it was deserved, but it happens. Yeah. And they lost, Atlanta lost 3-0 in Colorado. I don't, I know, I mean, he wasn't at fault for any of the goals.

It was already 3-0 when he got the red card. So I had somebody messaged me say he had a rough outing. I guess I don't know that it was all that rough other than red card, but it was soft. I agree it was soft. He didn't have, I don't think it was rough. I didn't think so. It was a Rapids fan who messaged me that, so, you know.

Okay, well, you know how those Rapid fans are. The next award is the Courage and Face of Futility Award, and it goes to Luca DeLatory. He did a bunch of defending and faced wave after wave of PSV repressures. It was completely hopeless the whole time, and he did. not have a good game at all, but he didn't give up. He didn't storm off the field. And sometimes you're just watching something and it's not going well. And you just appreciate them that they keep going. Yeah. The courage in the face of futility award could also be known in this case as the moments of extremely small encouragement award. I would say it was not at all encouraging,

to be honest. Okay. Barry. Adaboy, Luca. Final award for this week is the Ethan Ravath reemergence award, which goes to Ethan Horvath. He, he, this is award for people who kind of disappear for long stretches of time and then suddenly reemerge. That's why it's named after Ethan Horvath. And he won it this week because that's what he did. I don't think he played since September or so. But now he's played the last three games for Nottingham Forest because the starter got suspended.

And he's played really well. And in, you know, on the Nottingham Forrest blogs, they're saying things like he's putting pressure on Bryce Samba, who's the name of the starter. So they're very vaguely written blogs. They don't think they put that much work into them. So I don't exactly know how close he is to actually competing for a starting job, but he's done very well the past few weeks. The fact that he's played three games couldn't have happened at a better time for us

with Stefan out kind of mysteriously over and over again. And then Matt Turner, you know, hobbling around announcing the gender of his unborn child to the world. Yes. So it looks like we're going to need those two, the top two keepers are out. And it looks like they may be out come the end of the month. So good, good thing to have Horvath available, I guess. It really is a, kind of a mysterious situation on both Stefan and Turner.

But it does seem like we need to assume they're not going to be there. Oh, and I watched a cop, a comp of Ethan. And like, he's good, man. he is good he's so good like like some of the passes he can hit yeah like i mean it he's he's just a very good player and it's not going to be it's not going to be an issue and an issue to see him between the posts um against mexico panama costa rica if it is him it might be might be Sean Johnson. Who knows?

It would seem kind of fitting for him to just be the starter in this critical thing. He had the Gold Cup thing and all these kind of root for him. Nations League, Nation's League. Nation's League. Nation's League. Yeah, nothing would be more Ethan Horvath than for him to qualify us for the World Cup and then disappear for the next three years. And then show up for the World Cup after that.

Yeah. All right. Great. Great awards, in my opinion. Um, clip notes is going to be just one, one thing today. And that's going to be, well, why I turn it over to you, Vince? Um, yeah. So last night, um, I was deciding between going to bed and hopping on Wisecout real quick.

And I was like, you know what? Let me, let me just go ahead and hop on Wisecout. And the first person I pulled up, of course, was Timothy Tillman, because I wanted to see how we did this past weekend against Bokham. and like I pulled up the Y-Skout and I see the first clip and I'm like, hmm, see the second, see the second clip. And it just kept getting better and better to the point to where like the fourth or fifth one, I'm just like standing up, like jumping up and down, cheering. Like, come on. Did you really, you really, did you really stand up and jump up and down? No, no, I did not.

I was, yeah, I was laying on the couch the entire time. But, yeah, so, like, I was, I was going to just clip a few plays. And every single play, like, they kept coming up, I was like, man, this is, it's a clippable, this is clippable. So then I just ended up making my comp debut. I'm putting my hat into the comp ring. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, I just made a Tim Tillman comp from this, from his last match. I put some I put some commentary over it.

Oh, nice. And it'll be, it'll be in the, in the Patreon. So what, what sort of stuff is he doing in this exciting comp? Obviously, don't spoil it, but, you know, what, generally, what's the texture of it? Yeah. Yeah, it's the whole Tim experience. Like, I think the first clip is like a nice ball from midfield just to release an attacker in space. let's see

you get him making off ball runs for him to be the attacker that received the ball in space you see a speed in the open field you can see his ability to pass one time just to take one touch and get out of his feet you see the ability of him

on the dribble he splits two guys at one point and then from the negatives you also see like he's not the biggest cage match guy in the world. And that's kind of putting it lightly, to be honest. It's all about him just deciding to get stuck in. And it's just, it just seems to be a normal progression for him from transitioning from being a forward to being a midfielder. But as far as like the physical tools, and I was thinking like, it's kind of, he's kind of somewhere in John Luca in that way.

But the thing about it is, this man is very fast, much different. from John Luca. So that leads to him, like, getting to a lot of loose balls and being able to be an outlet in the attack and stuff like that. And so I was just, I was just real encouraged by this game.

He's a good player, man. Good player. He may not be that strong in the cage match, but he is good. He is ball secure. He has a full grown man, ball security. Extremely ball secure. Extremely.

All right. So that video will be, it's actually post. hosting here in five minutes on Patreon for supporter shield and up subscribers. I should I should take care of a little housekeeping here. Number one, the scuff podcast is now on Amazon, Amazon Music. A few people have requested that and I made it happen over the weekend. And then, you know, just my normal plug. If you are able and are interested, consider supporting us on Patreon. The show is in the, the link is in the show notes. And that's how we make money as a

podcast. Let's move to go ahead. I was going to add on to the Patreon point. Do that. If you listen right now, just just hop on the Patreon, man. If you, if you enjoy my tweets, which some people do, some people don't. So I do my best work on the Discord without a doubt. That's where I spend most of my time. And like all the, all the stuff that gets tweeted gets filtered through the Discord first. Yeah. So if you're on the fence, but do want to be in a disqualmie. with Vince, you know. Do that. Yeah.

I will say you are very good at the Discord. There's some people who are good at it. I don't know that I'm one of them, but you are one of them. And it's true. I'll just be on there chilling, talking music, doing whatever, you know. But yeah. So anyway. I know you, Vince, have a striker.

I've seen the light sort of segment here. But first let's go through the strikers and then you tell us the light you've seen. Can we do that? Absolutely. Okay. Let's start with Jordan Pfock, who looks increasingly likely to be called up in March. It would be, I think it would be a surprise if he wasn't. He scored again in a two-two draw with Luzerne, a diving header at the near post that he expertly steered to the back post after gaining and maintaining position on his mark. It was his 23rd goal of the season, 23 goals this season. And part of me is coming around to just pumping the ball into him when he's, when we got the national team on the field and letting him try to head it into the goal because he's very good at that and we are actually pretty good at pumping the ball in to the box

just haven't been able to put any of those in the goal or very many of them. So PFAC keeps scoring. Wouldn't hate it if he starts one of these games in the next window. I'm sold. I'm sold on that. Lock it in. Yeah.

So I was really, so I really liked how he, how he got positioned on the centerback right there. He basically got into a little rebound, boxout position. And basically that centerback was in hell. Like he was not, he was not getting around Jordan whatsoever. There was no way that he could. He just had to, he just had to accept it. And the header was nice. The header was very nice.

It wasn't, it wasn't an easy header, even though he was totally controlling. in the situation from like the perspective of him and a centerback. Man knows how to use his head. He attempted five shots in the game, four of them with his head. And the fifth was a half folly,

a left footed half folly on the swivel that was actually pretty close to going in. Just went right over the crossbar. I mean, I waffle, I waffle on this striker situation a lot, but at this point, why not bring him in? So it's just funny,

like how many players that we talk about now were like Daniel Smith projects where like Daniel Smith was like the only guy tracking him and sometimes like even I because I was like down on Conrad like after the U-20 World Cup right

and Daniel Smith was still going hard and I'm like bro why why just throw Conrad in the trash and now you see he's at Marse having some difficulty but whatever but like still like shout out to Daniel Smith once again I'm the same his obsession with Conrad and Pfeck, who used to go by Sibichu, and Luca Deloore, did seem like tilting at windmills to me.

Well, Daniel explained to me at one point why he does it. I won't get it quite right, but sometimes a player just doesn't get as detailed attention if they're outside of the, you know, 15 or 20 best players. And so it gives the impression he thinks they're better than, they are, but he's just trying to cover stuff that most people aren't covering, which he does a good job of. Doing the Lord's work. Yes.

Jesus Ferreira. Well, he did win the Paster of the Week award. He also hit a couple shots over the bar. And for a striker, you know, that needs to be noted. His second shot was one you'd like him to do better on, I thought. I cut back to the spot from Ariola. Look like maybe the defender put his foot off on the back swing. but he kind of made a meal out of it.

Still thought he had a pretty good game. Yeah. Josh Sargent. He also had a couple shots up at the bar, but that's fine. He's going to do that. One thing I noticed this week, which I guess I noticed before, he's a pretty good, Josh Sargent's a good athlete, you know, in terms of he's not like, you know, that fast or anything, but he's got good balance.

He doesn't do really, I mean, on the ball, sure, he's going to do clumsy stuff sometimes. but in general his movement is pretty fluid. Yeah, you could see him playing free safety for Boise State, like winning a... Yes, exactly. Winning a low-level bowl game. Absolutely. I liked his movement on that, on his first shot,

kind of ducking back and forth to try to lose his man the whole time the ball is moving around out wide. And then he was just alert enough to find a little pocket of space on the cutback and got his feet right just didn't put it on frame like it was all he did everything right except for the finish

yo but so but we can't overlook his his assist right that he had that was in the midweek yes he's had two assists that were you know

the correct play yeah I mean you know he got an assist against Liverpool you know it was a nice and I would say Yeah. The second one was actually a good play. The one against Liverpool was a nicer assist than the one, I don't know, who was against last weekend.

Oh, that one where he just fucking dawdled on the ball. Just dogged around and pass it backward. Yeah, where Rashidza got a deflected goal. This one was a banger from Lucas Rupp, I think, or Krupp or something. But it was a nice little, kind of a nice little slipped past. A nice little slipped pass, at least forward in the field. And he did a little bit of dribbling before it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He received the ball, turned. He basically dribbled around a challenge. And then just went in and slipped him in. Yep. And the guy hit a banger. But yeah, that was a nice piece of play from Josh. Slipped, I mean, to be fair, slipped him into a spot that was 35 yards from goal. Great, great.

An enormous amount of space far away from the goal. But it was the correct thing to do. And that's what's important. Ricardo Pepe. Well, he didn't play, as we mentioned. So. Troubling. I have some thoughts on the Zardis Barry situation in Columbus.

Zardis came on for Barry in the 65th minute and scored a classic jazzy goal corner. Goes over everyone. And he's running near post towards the corner taker. ball goes over everybody to the other side of the field and then Jazi just sees a little bit of space, runs into it right at the top of the six. The ball comes into him and he thumps at home. So Jawsie is on the board for the season. I thought Barry looked pretty good but not incredible.

He's a big kid that Miguel. He did have a nice turn on Francisco Calvo where he turned and blasted it and it went over the but it was a nice little piece of skill there. It's good to know, I guess. I mean, it's just funny that we're calling in the cruise backup striker. But, you know, I'm just kind of, I've said my piece about Jicey. It is what it is. Shout out to him for scoring.

Yeah. So what, so you've seen the light on the striker position. Let's talk about that. Like me taking this week off or whatever and going to Charlotte, seeing my family, it really just refreshed me. You know, and it cleared your head on the striker situation. Good. It cleared my head, man.

And this thought just came from watching Arsenal again, which I've talked about this before. The two teams I watched like closely closely, closely are Arsenal on the U.S. U.S. men's national team. And we run the same exact system that Arsenal does, like the exact same. We had the same like attacking structure, like the five lanes of attack. like it's all the exact same. And recently, Arsenal has picked up form in the past two or three months, like offensively.

And it's been an issue ever since Michael Artetta got the job. Like, we went through the same kind of process that the U.S. Minnesota team's gone through where like we had the U-shaped passing problem where we just, you know, passing a booth, didn't have any like penetrating, like zone 14 touches or anything like that. And we've turned the corner,

and one of our key cogs in the attack has been Alexander Lacazette. And this is a man that I hate most of the time. And if you follow me on Twitter, you've seen me tweet in frustration about this man. He's a striker, but he doesn't score goals. And you can't really count on him to score goals at all. But Arsenal plays through him.

And if you watch some of Arsenal's recent goals, you can see his value. And it's not just, just his ability to hold, like, to hold off centerbacks and lay the ball off. But like, he's like a real functional football player, you know? Like, he can turn. He can play one-twos. He can set up, and he sets up players to play off of him. And I think, and the thing is, it's like, Greg has said, has said this a few times, right? But we just kind of ignore him because he's Greg. And we don't really trust his, like, opinions on players, you know? You're talking about Burrhalter, right?

Yeah, Burrhooter. And, like, what was that? I think Taylor Twelman said that, like, Greg told him that, like, Jesus is, like, his striker of the future. Well, one of the games he was calling, he, like, mentioned it. That's the type of player that Greg really wants as the striker. Like, we've seen him start Jesus against El Salvador, and we saw the soccer we were able to play

because we have a soccer player in the middle that can drop deep and actually play soccer, like, really play it. Like, not just. get the ball and drop it back off. But like to really receive it, turn, slip some people in, stuff like that. And I think

that's what we should prioritize going forward. We need a soccer player at forward. So not PFAC. Not PFAC. Well, so the way I'm thinking about it is we can bring two soccer players and just to, you know, a score.

So like PFAC would be the score. Like, like, Just pick whoever's in form. So PFOC right now and then maybe Jesus and Josh. Or to shout out Denghis from the Discord, a little Gio false nine action. Like Gio would be, he would be pretty good at it. Right. And so, yeah, this is now my official position.

Okay. I like it. I mean, we saw some of that against El Salvador with Jesus Ferreira. We just didn't, we just couldn't convert. I mean, Jesus is the, he is the best soccer player that we have who can play that position, right? Don't you guys think? Well, yeah, I gave him passer with the week award. I definitely think, I actually do think he is the best soccer player in that position.

He's fun to watch. He's fun to watch when he gets the ball at his feet. He does, he does interesting and surprising things, and he can link up play. I expect, if I had to bet, I would probably say we're going to see Jesus against Panama in Orlando and somebody else in Mexico at the Azteca. I don't know who exactly, but that sounds right to me. Yeah. And I think this, and I think this opens up everything. Like we, you know how we talk about how do we get Weston into the attack?

well, I mean RIP Weston, but you know, we were talking previously about how we get Weston into the attack. And I think this is the key to doing it. Because like in the base offensive shape

that we currently use like there's no room for Weston in the attack, right? We have our five lanes that are occupied by the left back excuse me. That are occupied by the left back, left winger, striker, right back, right winger, right? And so there's no way for Weston really to get in the

box. But if you have, let's say, Jesus, dropping deep and then allowing somebody to maybe replace them or something, then we can maybe see some runs from some runs from deep from Weston or something like that. That looks like the situation Taylor made for Weston, you know, like he would, he would see that space, he would make that run, he would head that ball into the goal. Oh, and then also, my last point. My last point on this is just me thinking back to when we had Josie for that brief period in the Gold Cup. And we were able to do some things through Josie that we, of course, were not able to do through Jayce's artists. And he was able to create some chances for itself, thinking about that, you know, that Mexico one where he turned the guy, turned the center back and missed a chance.

but the ability to do that is, you know, that's a plus in itself. And then there was another clip that I've already clipped in preparation for the video where he plays Paul Ariola in, I think, just off a nice little touch and a little flick, little flick out in the space for Paul to run onto. And yeah, man, I just think, like I think this is what Greg really wants. and I think that's what we need to do. And, you know, maybe you could, because to have a guy that can do all these things and score,

I mean, that's like a, you know, that's like a $75 million player. Yeah. Maybe you can get on Greg for like, why do we need a, you know, $75, $80 million player to make your system work. But, hey, it just is what it is at this point. Yeah. I do think two things on that. I think Peppy is unlikely to not get called.

up. I mean, if he keeps not playing, maybe it gets more likely by the day. But, and then the other thing is, Josie, you know, people are asking if Josie has a chance of being on this roster or being in the World Cup. And who knows what will happen by November, but he's not, you know, he played, he's come off the bench both of New England's first two games and just looks like there's nothing really to say about it. You know, he's just fine. He's fine at connecting passes, but he's not changing anything about. the game. I know you're not saying that Josie should be called up, Vince, but I'm just for those who are asking, I would say the answer is no. He should not be called up. Yeah. And I was even,

even like looking back in those clips, like as far as like movement wise, he was not. He wasn't, he wasn't all the way there. It kind of surprised me. But yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's move to the midfield. Tyler Adams did not play. That's also a bit troubling. He, what's he's like, two, two games in a row without getting off the bench? Um, I think he got off. I could be wrong.

I think he, he normally gets in late, but he doesn't play. It didn't happen this time, though, because they were down a goal, which sadly, they came back. I always like the team to lose when they don't play the player that I, I want them to play. Yeah. Yeah. One of those is Alex

Alex Mendez who did not play but Vizela lost three to one so that presumably reflects well on him to your point Chris Yes And on Tyler Like

He really hasn't been first choice For Leipzig Other than the Jesse Marsh era Like when we really think about it He's been a bubble first choice At some points but yeah Yeah. But he's always gotten, he always gets minutes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Until this weekend. Yeah. I'm going to talk about the silver lining of that because he's been, you know, he's been running hard since he was 16 years old. It's not bad for him to have a little, you know, career siesta right now. Yeah, I'm not worried about it whatsoever. Perfect time.

But I do think, uh, it does. It does reflect, and if you can't admit this, then you're a little bit head in the sand. It does reflect some of his limitations as a player. Like, he is not, he's not on the level of some of the other options for Leipzig when it comes to, like, actually progressing the ball and helping the team create chances and be dangerous.

That's just not, that's not the kind of player he is. I know he's made some good passes in his career. I know he, like, you can find clips that look good, but, like, overall, moment by moment in a game, he's a defensive midfielder. That's what he is. Who can connect simple passes. And he's an out-and-out red boleian player in that he's about counterpressing

and playing the ball forward really quickly. Yep. We're going to get Tyler Adams leads coming soon. Yeah. So a player that has been playing more, I mean, he's been playing too, is Eunice Musa. He played 73 minutes. And it was, he's nothing remarkable, but he was fine again.

He did get a yellow card, so he misses the next match, though. Okay. I didn't watch it. So I didn't watch this game, but I'm, like, watching Valencia is just, it's not it. No, it's not good, yeah. And I found out that, uh, that the manager there was the guy that was at Hattafe, when they were famous for like filing incessantly. And now Valencia is like number one in La Liga in fouling.

And it just doesn't make for a nice watch. What it does do is there's a lot of diving and simulation because both teams start fouling and then both teams start faking it. So actually his yellow was a really smart dive by the opponent where Unis didn't actually touch them at all. Oh boy. So. All right, Luca DeLotore, we already mentioned, got overrun by PSV,

but performed admirably, at least in an emotional sense. Jean-Luca Boussio was not in the squad because of suspension. Pax and Palmacall, I thought he was pretty good, but not involved enough. He was on the left side of that three-man midfield and kind of stayed on the left side. For a lot of the parts of the game that I watched, I wish he would get on the ball more. So tap the brakes a little bit on old packs And Eric Williamson not in the 18 yet

Well do you guys have anything on Pomacol? No No Okay Eric Williamson not in the 18 yet Still working back from that ACL tear Sebastian Leggette Quietly decent versus Dallas

Doesn't really mean much for me We mentioned Georgie Mihalovich All right I think that's it For midfielders wingers Pulisic we already talked about Raina continues to be out

Tim Wea he hasn't been playing he didn't play this weekend he didn't play in the Champions League when they played too he was just sitting there sadly on the bench on his birthday his birthday

his 22nd birthday on the second of on the 22nd of February 2022 he wears number 22 and he's just sitting there. I don't know what's going on. It's probably just a normal soccer thing. It's fine.

Maybe. But, you know, I mean, I mean, we've talked about this with Tim, you know, from a, from a G plus A perspective, it hasn't been there. It hasn't been there. So maybe, maybe it's that. But we'll see. I mean, I don't worry too much, like I've said multiple times. I don't worry too much about any of our guys when they get in these positions. Like this is what they're there for.

This is where your mentality shows up. So get back into the squad, man. Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't matter that much if he's not. I mean, it matters if he's not playing. But he's been the best attacking player for the U.S. since September. I see no reason that him missing a few games for Lille should keep him out of the starting lineup for the U.S.

Certainly not. Certainly not. Brendan Aronson. He played Lask and Altok the past two, the past week. There were no breakthroughs, no revelations, not a whole lot to report, but he continues to be in Austria. Okay. I didn't watch any Jordan Morris. Did either of you guys?

I did not. No, no. His last performance, which Greg and I discussed last week was. So discouraging. I couldn't even bring myself to, so I don't have anything to say about Christian Raldon either. Paul Areola, dangerous on occasion, not dangerous enough in a one-zero loss. What do we have on Conrad de la Fuente? Well, he didn't play either.

And via the aforementioned Daniel Smith, who was sharing a report from a French newspaper that apparently is saying that Conrad is perceived by the technical staff as a player who is too casual and not really serious in the, opposed to his job. This is a quote. And they say he has an unstructured game, his tactical shortcomings, and his lack of professionalism off the field raised questions. So that's a pretty harsh quote.

Yeah, man. I don't know. I don't even know if I should be relying it, but I did read it. I thought, well, that's interesting. You don't want that written about you, even if it's not true.

Yeah. I mean, hopefully, hopefully it's a wake-up call for him. I mean, that's all we can say. it's almost like Daniel Smith is he's like the chief correspondent for this podcast even though he doesn't know it it's because he's the only one who will tweet things that aren't going to get a bunch of likes so it ends of actually tweet cheers interesting stuff yeah Paxton Aronson also did not play so if you had any forward momentum on the younger Aronson tap the breaks on that a little bit disappointing, but that's fine.

It's the second game of the season. He'll fight on. Yeah. Fullbacks. Sir Junior Dust got a little bit of a break, but he was a late sub versus Elchea to close it out. And then Anthony Robinson, he always plays. He did 90 minutes against Blackburn.

Nothing really interesting happened. So those were the headliners for me. Yeah, Reggie Cannon went 90 at Redmond. right centerback in a one-one draw. Nothing too notable there either. Joe Scali. Scali lads, we are back in action. We are back in action.

Are we? Yo, to all the listeners, we, well, not we. I did a Scali lad segment probably like two months ago that we had to cut from the podcast. Nobody was comfortable going through with it. I was pushing for it, but nobody else was. Because Bell's is a wholesome Midwestern man.

And so when he searched Scali on Twitter, I could just hear it. He was like, no, we cannot put this in the pie. You cannot put this in the pie. I confess it was me. It was entirely me who stopped the Scali segment from going on. It was not out of his fault. He was probably eating that up. He was probably out searching Scali all over the place.

You know, I don't like to stifle your creativity. events. I'm not here to do that. No one has any idea what we're talking about right now. That's another issue. Well, well, I've talked about it before, I think. Like, you know, if, if you search Scali on Twitter, be prepared. That's all I got to say.

Yeah, it's a, it's a hashtag with, it's sex stuff. It's some sex stuff. Yeah. Just be prepared. But anyway. Okay, but how about, how about Joe Scali, the player? How about Joseph Scali, the Bruchamundchen Gladbach player?

Yeah, so in his first start since January 15th, he went 90 and a three, two, lost astute Gart. Had some good, had some bad. The good was a few dribbles and some nice passes. And the bad was in the second half where these boys were just, they, yo, they called ISO on Joe Scali repeatedly. It was crazy. I couldn't believe it. I was going through the Y Scout, and it was like five clips in a row. it was literally five clips in a row of different players taking their turns going one-on-one

in this man and winning every single one every single one won won I mean and like nothing came from yeah yeah nothing came from any of those uh one v-one opportunities but but but something about joe's disposition told them that he was he was food out there and so uh and the thing about why scott is you don't see you don't see you don't see how that you don't see how he's disposition told them that he was he was food out there and so and so uh, you the ball got over there most of the time. So, like, I mean, I assume they were just hitting blind balls in the Joe's space. Like, yo, somebody's over there, and that somebody is going to beat Joe off the dribble. And, yeah, so this went on for like a solid 10, 15 minutes.

It seems like he's not playing with the same, you know, he was flying in the fall, playing with a lot of confidence. And it seems like that's, that, that wins been taken out of his sales a little bit. This was his first start. Did you already say this, first start since January 15th? Um, yes. Yes, I did. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Vince. Anyway, Burrhalter doesn't particularly rate him, I don't think. And so he's a, you know, he's won for 2026, more or less.

I guess I just add that it was his first start since January 15th. Yeah, thank you for adding that. DeWan Jones. I thought he looked good for New England and that went over Dallas. He's just kind of dependable. And, you know, he can be able. beat a guy off the dribble, definitely, like, defensively responsible and all that. My one concern with him, and it's like, it's a concern that applies to a lot of different players in MLS, or at least the ones on good MLS teams. New England relies heavily on their sort of franchise playmaker.

It's Carlos Hill, and, you know, Gustavo Boe is, I don't know, he's, like, second place franchise playmaker on their team. And what happens a lot of times is these, the rest of the team just finds them, just finds their feet. And then they figure it out. Like this is what happens a lot at Columbus with Zeller, Zerlion. It's what used to happen at Atlanta United when they had Almerone. And, you know, it happens a lot in Portland with, with Sebastian Blanco and Diego Valeri, who's, you know, not there anymore. But used to happen with him.

So I just, I do wonder about some of these role players on, on. these teams with really good playmaker because you see Jones Jones is doing a lot of good things but a lot of times it just ends with him just finding Carlos give the ball to Carlos he'll figure it out you know

so I don't know I don't know what Gplus has to say about that or how to control for it but it is a thing yes DeAndre Yedlin it's kind of discouraging that he just came to MLS

and looks like a MLS player I don't know. I'm not trying to be disparaging the MLS, but you know, he'd be looking like a replacement MLS right back sometimes, replacement level. It's just. He sometimes does disappear into the game. I will say Miami is something I've noticed is they're not very good. That was 5 to 1 to Austin.

F.C. who also is not particularly good, or at least wasn't last year. I don't know. Did you guys see the Fobby Herbers? podcast uh clips where he was just talking

an incredible amount of shit about Gonzalo Higuan yeah so so Herbers Oh yeah yeah yeah Herbers and Julian Gressel are both Germans and they have a podcast called what Z football or something

Z something and herbers is a winger for the Chicago fire and they just went in on Gonzalo Higwein the this you know famous striker who plays for Inter-Miamy.

Talking about how his body language was just shockingly negative. And he was yelling at 17-year-olds who didn't pass him the ball to the right foot and stuff. That's pretty interesting. Fabi, if you're listening to this, come on the podcast. All right, let's blow through the rest of this real quick. Brian Reynolds went another 90 in a wild 3-2 loss in Court Reich. He wasn't at fault for any of the goals. Sam Vines, not in the squad for Royal Antwerp.

Centerbacks. Brooks is leaving Wolfsburg, right? Yep. They've mutually agreed. They're not going to do it another year, so he's going to go somewhere else. It'll be interesting to follow that. Richard's still injured.

Let's see, Miles Robinson, we already mentioned. Walker Zimmerman was himself. I don't think he had a great game against Minnesota, but it was fine. Came away with a draw there,

which is probably a decent result for Nashville. will. Aaron Long helped the Red Bulls beat down Toronto. Anything to note from that game? Yeah, he had one goal that maybe he was slightly to blame on, but then he had a really good, headed goal on its free kick. It was one of those ones that was,

he headed it almost all the way out at the penalty spot. So it was one, they're pretty difficult. So that was good. And then Miles and Zimmerman, and both miss some headers. So I definitely want to track how many header balls these centerbacks are hitting in the goal because I think we would be good to have some of those against Mexico or Panama and Costa Rica. It's occurred to me that we should do a, we've already covered the goalkeepers, so we're done

with the player pool, but it's occurred to me that we should do a sort of a recap of the qualifying campaign so far and kind of work our way through all the games. But man, that Miles Robinson miss. El Salvador with his name is everything would be so different if you put the one in that it was it was there for the taking for anyone who doesn't remember you kind of laid out for it but it was very within range for him just to nudge it anywhere into the goal and it just goes over uh for me I focus more on the uh I don't focus as much on the Miles Robinson Miss as I do the the Jicey's Ardes make But you know But the thing Yeah but that was an accident But those are

That's such a tricky one you know I mean I'm not I'm not defending Jaze overall but that's like You know you go up Balls whipping in there Who knows what's gonna happen The Miles Miss was the first thing to happen In qualifying pretty much

It was right at the beginning of the game And he's actually not He scored some goals over the summer But he's actually he doesn't score many goals. Like, he's not actually that deadly on set pieces. He's no Walker Zimmerman. Well, it was almost a carbon copy, except it wasn't a set piece, I don't think. Maybe it was a set piece, wasn't it? Of the goal he scored in the Gold Cup final. The one in El Salvador was very similar to the one he scored. It was, I think it was pretty much from the exact same spot.

Okay. So, you know, you can't have both, I guess. You got to choose which one you get. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.