Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #260: Which players have under- and over-performed in qualifying?

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

A day ahead of the roster release for the final window of World Cup qualifying, Greg Velasquez walks through a pretty careful assessment of each player who’s gotten minutes in qualifying. Belz tags along.support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedsign up for our weekly newsletter: https://scuffedweekly.substack.com/ join the Discord: https://discord.gg/X6tfzkM8XU buy our merch: https://my-store-11446477.creator-spring.com/drop us a question at this link and we’ll try to answer it: https://forms.gle/rfzSEZJwsvnWSCxW7 Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. We're going to talk today a day ahead of the release of the roster for the biggest trio of games for the men's national team since who knows when about who has performed, who has underperformed, and who has overperformed our expectations when World Cup qualifying started last September, since World Cup qualifying started last September.

This was a suggestion or an idea thrown out in the Discord. maybe a couple of weeks ago now by Phil Sock 8. I want to get his credit in here. And I thought it was great when he suggested. He was kind of talking about how we spend so much time. We, I mean, not just us, but just the general soccer narrative spends a ton of time on like Burhalter and his choices. And it's like, okay, where do we, where do we at some point stop doing that and actually start talking about the players themselves? And I don't remember if he said or not, but it expanded from there to be like, not just Burrhalter, but we also spend a disproportionate amount of time.

talking about the player sort of at the bottom end of the roster. Right. You know, like there's the running joke about Christian Raldon eating up 90% of the discussion when he's played like under 90 minutes total in World Cup qualifying. And there's, there's a lot to that. I will say, like, I think for a lot of us, the goal is to be able to get to where we don't, we can just talk about sort of the marquee players. And what I mean by that is like, I want all of our games to be decided by

the marquee players. So when we lose a game, I want to be able to just say, yeah, that's because Christian Poulsick did not perform in this game and not have that like low hanging fruit of like, well, and because we started, you know, like Jackson, Ull as our six. Like, I want to be away from those decisions. So it can all hang on the very best players and there aren't any of these other sort of outs because that's what I wanted to be. I feel like Canada was actually kind of close to that where you can say we, we set up a few chances for our best players. They didn't pull them off. Matt, you know, even going towards our goalkeeper on the other side. And that's why we didn't get the point.

He didn't make a play on the laryn shot. Right. So that's why we didn't get the points. And that's where you like just can live with it. Because that's what you want. You want to give your best players the best chance to do it. And if they can't do it, then that's just how good we are. And we can kind of, you know, look ourselves in the mirror and say this is where we,

this is how we measure. But the point is we're not quite there yet, right? I mean, that's why we talk about the margins so much. The margins have had a big impact on. some games, you know, that candidate game notwithstanding. I think it's fair to say that. And I think there's always going to be discussions around those fringes, like, are we getting it exactly right?

And then the question becomes, okay, but is the fringe, you know, cost or liability, is it greater or less than, you know, the swings in our marquee players? Like if Christian Poulosick is absolutely having it, and I know I'm just using him because he is sort of, you know, the face of the team going back to last cycle. are his swings so great that like whatever else is happening down at the bottom of the roster shouldn't even matter it's just like pool sick has to deliver yeah yep so one one other one other note is uh the rosters i said the roster's coming out tomorrow it's coming out in the evening 6 p.m eastern time 5 central gregg yeah it's an absolute it's an absolute shot at podcasters they're just like we're not going to give you any chance to try to record a pod. Yeah, podcasters and people with children in general.

But it's so that Burhalter can be interviewed on SportsCenter, which is good. That's a good, I think we should all be glad that that's happening. So, and then he'll do a media availability at 7 p.m. Again, no way I'm going to be able to attend that. But enough about me. Who is the, who are your underperformers? Oh, we jump in, we're starting with the underperformance. We're going to, we're going to start just calling people.

Yeah, because I think that's the, that's the interest. I think that's the most interesting part. Yeah. All right. Well, I was talking about him a ton in the intro, but like I actually do probably put Christian Poulosick at the top of the list so far. And that's, we're talking about expectations, right? So we're not talking about absolute performances.

I mean, he scored the match winning goal against Mexico, our biggest rival off the bench. So he had 20 minutes and he scores a goal. But I also. think it's fair to say based on expectations and knowing what he can do, I think what we've gotten from Pulisic has underwhelmed. He wears the number 10 for the team that just won Champions League last year. You would expect more from him than we have gotten. I think, and I actually don't think that's controversial at this point.

Pretty much everybody agrees. And there have been a bunch of, you know, there's been a bunch of sort of rationalization. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean, you know, he has been dealing with injury, so he's coming back to that. He himself has talked about putting an immense amount of pressure on himself for the national team to carry the team and to write the wrongs or the last cycle. And so, you know, the hope is that he's sort of tried to lift that pressure off of himself. And it's possible that it's happened. He's looked a little fresher.

He's had a good run for him. Yeah. So I'm hoping he looked good in the Honduras match off the bench. I'm hoping that that's the case. And it's definitely possible. There's no way that we just shouldn't think that Poulosik has it in him to flip that switch and to be the player that we know he can be even for the national team. Worth remembering that he, I think we've mentioned this, but he, last time he was in Orlando,

he just went off on Panama the game before. I mean, he might, he may have been in Orlando since. I'm sure he loves Disney World. But he, but he, he, the last time he was playing a World Cup qualifier in Orlando, I don't remember the stats, but he had a huge game against Panama. It was kind of a triumphant night, made bitter by what happened a few days later. Also worth noting, he's only played 380 minutes out of the, what, 11 games, so 990 possible minutes.

He hasn't been super available for us. So that's just, again, that goes back to the injuries. And, you know, he's probably never been full, full strength in this cycle. So here's the hoping that this window is the window. Yeah. couldn't come at a better time. Who's the second underperformer for you? For me, it's Matt Turner.

And it's because my whole thing on Matt Turner has been, this is a guy who is such a good shot stopper that he's going to win us points in qualifying. And some of this just comes down to a little bit of luck as far as, you know, you goalkeepers can't save everything so they can't always get the incredible saves. the shots have to set up right to be right in that range of just barely saveable to make it spectacular.

Turner hasn't really had any of those. He's maybe had one in the Canada home match. And then he did allow a pretty soft goal in the Canada match away, which was the deciding goal to determine the points. I forget how much, how many points do you take away from him for his lack of box control on the Panama own goal? I can't even remember.

what your take is on that. I mean, they kept swinging corner kicks right at him, basically, in that game. I don't really put the Panama goal on him, the own goal from Azardaz's head. Because they had a bunch of bodies on him. I get that goalkeepers, you know, you want them to win, you know, overpower people. But realistically, he's not going to be the first player to get to that ball so he can't come for it. Okay. In my mind.

So it's basically the, it's basically the goal he allowed at Canada away. That's pretty much it. His job is to be inhuman. And I know that that's unrealistic and goalkeeping is a harsh business. Like, same with Poole's like, I still want Matt Turner to start our games because he is our best shot stopper. And he's the most likely player to win us points by keeping the ball out of the net. But with when he had the chance to do so, came up just a little bit short. Okay.

And that's what we're grading here. We're literally, we're literally grading like, why are we where we are points wise, performance? wise. Yeah. All right. So the next one you have here is Kell and Acosta. Don't put it all on me.

You weighed in here. I did. I wait. I've weighed in on Acosta because I don't know that I agree that he's an underperformer. I think it's close. But he was,

he played very, you know, he played quite well in the Gold Cup final. He did some heroic things throughout the summer. he had, well, why don't you tell me why you think he underperformed and then I'll tell you where I think I disagree? So I almost added a new category for like wild swings because I feel like Acosta has basically been who we think he should be in qualifying. He's had a bunch of appearances.

But the Panama game, he was really bad, like really bad. Yes. And that's huge. And the whole idea for Acosta, expectations wise, is that he's going to establish some kind of a floor. for us performance wise and he fell below that floor or I guess set a new floor away to Panama that calls that whole thing into question right he fell through the floor yeah and then the other bit is like it kind of gets forgotten but he was he was one of our eights in that Canada match at home too where we couldn't penetrate at all and I know that's that's also a whole team thing but like it just

it's another sort of a instance where he isn't doing enough to add so so it's kind of like when he's been when he hasn't been bad like in that panama game he's basically been a neutral presence and i know you're probably about to tell me that he was very very good in the honduras home match which i will concede happily uh i just barely put stock in that game performance wise because honduras is really bad yeah i know that's tough but it's like all right matt turner had to clean i mean that that's going too far turner didn't do anything in that game either but it's like that it's going to be hard for me to give somebody a ton of points in the home match against Honduras.

Yeah, I didn't go back and watch his performance against Canada at home. But I do know that in my notes from the game, I had Legit and Acosta not sharp or toothsome enough. And so I, at least the first couple of times I watched that game, I did find him wanting. He was, I thought he was pretty okay in the Honduras game. He did the Honduras away game that we won four to one. Um, he played as a, I think he played as a six Canada home, right? Um, because it was, no, he wasn't eight. That was Tyler Adams as a six and then it was a Costa and Legette as the eight.

So again, that was a big central midfield issue. Or at least it should have been like a sign that that is a central midfield issue to run, uh, cost and legit as your dual eights in, in my mind. Well, I guess he sort of talked me into it. I mean, I guess I was, I'm so mesmerized by his set pieces and, um, and I, and I, You know, I think he is a, he's a decent option off the bench to, like, see out games. He's played that role quite a few times. After the Panama game, he didn't start another game until Honduras at home in St. Paul, the most recent qualifier.

So he did, he did lose some ground, I think, in the depth chart as a result of his performance that day. I think that's, I think that's definitely the case. But, again, he hasn't fallen off Burrhalter's chart the way that, say, Sebastian Legit has. Who is the next man up, by the way? So I think it's totally fair to say Legit has been underperforming. He was coming in as sort of the third eight, an absolute staple in Burrhalter lineups.

Every camp, like he would be the guy that Burrhalter seemed to trust to do anything. He needed a job done. He'd be like, all right, well, we can always just have Sebastian do it. And obviously no longer the case. Yeah. I think it would be fine if he doesn't play again in the, in the qualifying campaign. I know a lot of fans would argue for that.

He would need to show some kind of a bounce back, right? And it would have to be like, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he's in camp. But he would need to, I think, feel like you feel like he would have to look like a different player in front of Burrhalter. Because otherwise, if he looks like the same player, even if he looks fine in training, like there's just now this doubt that like, okay, well, you look fine in training going into that Panama game. And then we got what we got. So it's just you got to do something to prove that you're beyond that. Yeah. I say he could easily start against Mexico and the Azteca.

Yeah, I mean, Burrhalter doesn't care about this stuff. Well, you know, he does. It's not fair to see he doesn't care. He does care. He hasn't played legit since the Panama game. But, um, all right. Next is George Bello. Yeah, let's just lump Bello and Shaqmore in together.

Bello had one extra start. He was in one extra camp and he was also very much in my mind at fault for the Honduras goal away. Got yanked at the half. Yeah. And he still came back and he was subbed at half, came back next window and got a start against Panama where once again he looked out of his depth positionally. And he was playing opposite Shaq Moore who also seemed out of place positionally. Neither of them in camp since that game. Boy, decisive.

Decisive action from the Gipper. And for Shack Moore, that's understandable. We have a lot of other options that are pretty vetted. With Bello, we clearly do not have any other left backs that we're super comfortable with behind Anthony Robinson. So we'll have to see where he lands in this coming window. If he's sort of back in Burholter's Good Graces, after his move to the Bundesliga and decent amount of playing time,

he's definitely in the mix for Armenia Bielfeld. Yeah, he just got to start over the weekend, his first start for them. I mumbled my way through that, so I don't know how you, I haven't heard you in Wachie said. You didn't say it as badly as Waki said, Groider Firth. Last guy I have here on the underperformance list, and I put him on here, is Jordan Morris. And it's, I'm hoping that he's getting back into form. I know he's been scoring goals at least, which is always, it's better than not scoring goals, I guess. But for the national team and for the early matches for Seattle, he just, he just, he,

definitely was not his old self, the old self of 2019 and 2020, where he was a battering ramp, battering ram, bulldozer. He was very timid, just trying to stay afloat with the ball at his feet, almost always bringing the ball backwards rather than attacking forwards. So for now, Morris has underperformed. Again, that's something that could easily be a switch flip because we've seen him do it in the past, and we know he's coming back from an injury. So it's just one where I'm hoping to see it once or twice in full, at full speed for Seattle, hopefully before we have to see it in a World Cup qualified.

That's the end of your underperformed list. I want to add one more name here. Go on. I'd say John Brooks underperformed, has underperformed. He only played in that opening window. He only played in, well, he did not play in the El Salvador away match. He started and went full 90 against Canada, and then he started against Honduras away and was yanked at the half along with George Bello. Now, you could argue he has been unjustly excommunicated after that first window.

And there's definitely an argument there. But he was a bit sloppy versus Canada in his distribution. And we've talked about this goal a lot, but he could have done more to stop that Kyle Lerring goal. I think you mentioned maybe he was he was trying to seal off the passing lane across the face of the goal. And that's that totally makes sense. But he's running with Kyle Aaron. Kyle Aaron has a tap in totally unmarked with John Brooks three steps away. And then everyone was bad in the first half against Honduras.

And I think probably I do agree with you. You said in the past that Brooks has come in for some unjust criticism for, you know, stepping and getting beaten, which is going to happen sometimes for a player. That goal was mostly on George Bello for not tracking Brian Moya. But he didn't cover, the point is he didn't cover him. Brooks didn't cover himself in glory in that game either. And we did come back and score four goals in the second half without him on the field. Given how highly we rated John Brooks going into World Cup qualifying,

you'd want to see a better showing from him in the first window. So I'd call that underperformance. That's fair. I'll give you that. I'll still like do more apologizing for him. Just in that like I wish we would have been able to see him with more of a full functioning team. And I don't think that John Brooks was the reason that we weren't a full functioning team. Like some of the other guys who have sort of been, you know, half banished or fully banished at this point.

Brooks very much, you know, as we do know, same with some of these other key players we've talked about for underperforming Christian Pulisich, namely. We do know Brooks has something he can offer the team. Like that long distribution can open teams up. We've seen it. We even saw it in his limited time in qualifying. We definitely saw it in the Nations League. We have seen that quite a bit. So I wish we would be able to see if that can add something to our now more functional group than the groups that he played with.

with in his 135 minutes in the first window. Yes, that's totally fair. Before I would really be like, okay, he's just way off. He's hurting us. And I don't have anything to base this on. It's just a little flutter in my stomach, but I'm starting to suspect he's going to be back. You think so?

I'm less than 50-50. I feel like Aaron Long will take Chris Richard's spot in the call-ups, and Mark McKenzie will still be there, and that'll be our four. But I will be happy to, be surprised. Yeah, I would leave, I would, I would, I would replace McKenzie with, uh, with Brooks. Just bring five, bring five centerback spells. There's no, there's no reason to leave Mark home.

He seems like a great teammate. Okay. Yeah. How's, have you been paying attention to Aaron Long? I have not, really. I haven't, I haven't watched too much of him, to be quite honest, but I also would be totally fine as bringing him in. He's, I feel like he's the kind of centerback who plugs right back into what he was doing before. Uh, so I think, I think, you, he's, he's, he could add the exact same thing he had been adding for us in the past. Okay. I did go back. You know,

I mentioned that I wanted to watch all of Wolfsburg's conceded goals this season to look at Brooks. So I haven't been able to do the whole season yet, but I did watch back to the winter break. And they've conceded 11 goals in the Bundesliga since Christmas. And I would say he's at fault, you know, partially at fault at least for three of them, which doesn't seem that bad. I mean, other teams are going to score goals and centerbacks are going to be at fault for him.

The two scored by R.B. Leipzig were both. He was heavily involved in those and like getting, you know, just getting rinsed just inside the box on one of them before the cross went across. And then he got megged on the pass on the second from R.B. Leipzig, which is, you know, some would say,

well, whatever, he has long legs. But he was not only to get magged, he was holding the attacker on side who received the ball and shot it. And just not great. And then in the 3-2 lost to Freiburg over the weekend, he was the closest to Vincente Grifo on a goal where he took a touch and then volleyed it in with Brooks not very tight to him, even though that was his man. all the rest of the goals, you can't blame Brooks for since Christmas. So I'll get back to you on the rest of the season at some point. But he's clearly not just like a liability that you can just target over and over and over again in the Burma's League to get cheap goals. No.

I still think his speed is an issue. But my instinct was that he was more at fault for goals recently than he actually has been when I watched it closely. So that's my sort of tepid meacopa. That's kind of how these things work, I feel like. When you talk about players having disastrous form and crisis and form, and it's almost, almost never quite the way it's portrayed. No. To that extreme.

Words like disaster and catastrophe are often not accurate. Before we get to the overperformers, let me quickly say that we are an ad-free podcast, your support on Patreon is how we make money. We are grateful to the many people who already support us. Thank you. If you are able, please consider joining that group. The link is in the show notes. Now, who overperformed?

All right, so I'm starting this with my guy, Tim Wea, for sure. And I have been high on Tim Wea for a long time. I did not know that Tim Wea would come in and be as outrageously dangerous as he has been from the off. I really thought honestly that he could be a very good, like, role player for players to play off of. But he has, I'm not trying to like oversell it, but he has single-handedly created a ton of goals for the U.S. men's national team. So he has been like the, I think the sort of qualifying savior to date. Absolutely. Easily our best attacking player.

And again, this is he's played 400. it's 470 minutes. So he's played half the available minutes and he's made that big of an impact in the time that he's had. I was going to say you were already so high on him. So how has he overperformed your expectations? But you anticipated that question and answered it.

I do think even now, there may be some lack of appreciation in the general fan base for how good way it has been. I mean, on this podcast, we talk about him nonstop. But I don't know that I, get the sense that everybody is so sure that he's been so good as we are but i'm sure we'll probably never get this because again because of uh you know everyone's always injured at some point uh but i'm really curious like whether he would be considered dropable for like the the match must match must win

match of the window uh it seems like we won't have to make that call because georrainea probably not fit to start necessarily i guess maybe maybe we'll find out i guess that even that might be uh jumping the gun way at reina as well as well we're recording this came off the bench for Dortmund and I believe has logged an assist in their match against minds today. So, oh really? So yeah, so he might be in a position where we do have choices to make between Pulisic, Raina, and Weaa because Ferreira's the false nine. And I don't want to hear anything to the contrary. Okay. Another, another overperformer is, of course, Weston McKinney. I feel like he, even this summer was not

rated as highly as or as he definitely is now. He really come into his own, made the team his own dominated the games that he's played. He's played 624 minutes, but he has been missing for several key moments. So suspended internally for two games,

suspended externally for yellow card accumulation for the matchdown in Jamaica. So yeah, so he hasn't been there as much as we'd like. But when he is there, he bosses it, doesn't he? Yeah. Yeah.

He was even really good in the Canada game. Just a lot of the good stuff he did was 50 or 60 yards from goal. Or kept out by a spectacular save on his set piece header because he's a set piece monster. He is. Who else overperformed? Anything else on McKinney? I think we're good one with McKinney. I've got Ricardo Pepe here.

And I know I'm still actually like lukewarm on Pepe as being like a guy that we have to have in as a starting nine or even have to have him. in camp. But when we started qualifying, I don't think anyone expected Ricardo Pepepey to play a huge role. And Ricardo Pepey has played a huge role. And he's done it ably, I think I would say. So again, I haven't swung super high on him that he's been elite, but he has been an able striker.

And I did not think that was going to be happening when we began this process. Back in 2020, I even had moments where I thought, I'm not sure Pepe's going to be like even a good MLS striker. I think you probably remember me saying stuff like that privately. And so, yeah, he's, so all that to say, I shut up about that when he had a good season in MLS, at least a good, top line statistically, good season. So I think, I think he overperformed a little bit, yeah. It's just, again, it's incredible to be where we are and have a 17-year-old 18 now, right?

I think he's 19 now. To even have his name in the hat is ridiculous. And the fact that he's in the hat and also did deliver. I mean, the guy, the kid delivered the goals that we needed in the huge moments that we needed them. Because it could have been very dark without those goals. Like that's an overperformance. I mean, again, I realize that I'm actually probably lower on him than a lot of other people. But I just don't think there's any way to look at what he has done so far and not be like, this is really cool.

Yeah. He was involved in winning six points, and that is massive. And I think his struggles at Augsburg have sort of colored things a little bit for me, too, which is not really relevant to whether he's overperformed or underperformed for the national team, but it does affect how I think about him. Who else overperformed? So speaking of helping us win the actual points on the board, Anthony Jedi Robinson has been delivering in the attack.

Pretty solid in defense, save for a couple of moments. He had the really bad match away to Jamaica, but that wasn't enough to put him in the wild swings category for me because he's been like very good everywhere else. Every other game, basically, right? I mean, we don't need to go game by game for him, but like, yes, he's delivering assist. He's delivering goals.

He's delivering danger. I know some people still think that he needs to clean up his service, his delivery, and I'll agree that we as a team have, haven't been great at actually picking out the ball into the box. But he just just the fact that going in, again, going into qualifying, there were definitely still people on the fence about whether he should be the starting left back or whether it should be desk on the left and pick a right back out of a hat to start on the right.

Yeah, now it's no question. He's the he's the starting left back. And I think his ruggedness is so valuable too. He's like he hasn't been hurt at all. He seems like he could go 180 minutes. every three days if he needed to. So all that together. Agree, he's an overperformer.

All right. I've got his opposite number here. I've got Sergenio Dest, who has been, again, just dynamic on the right side. And I know that's kind of a cliche or vague term, but he adds that element of danger and like, could he do something on this possession? And the answer is always like, yeah,

he might do something right now with the ball of his feet. and again, he has had a limited impact in the sense that he's only played 425 minutes out of 990 due to injury. But when he's out there, he is a game-breaking player. But isn't that what we expected of him? I mean, he is a fullback for Barcelona. He's been a game-breaking player capable of being a game-breaking player basically since he was started playing at Iax. That is fair. I guess what I would say is for so many of these guys, we should really be thinking, like, because they're all 18 to 22 years old, my expectations, even though I was hopeful, we're still just like, I don't know, maybe he will, or maybe he'll just get totally abused on the defensive side and we'll find out that he just can't do it at this, at this level, in the international game.

And for Dest, his attack has been what we wanted it to be. And his defense has been stout enough. He looked, he looked rough in the El Salvador away game, and I think that's probably even being too. but since then there have been almost no questions about his defensive performance. I thought that one moment he had with Alfonso Davies against Canada at home was kind of the thing that I was afraid of is just him lacking a bit of resolve or something in the moment. And I still am a little concerned about that. But you're right.

By and large, he has not been a defensive last. liability. Yeah, if your one mistake happens, happens, I shouldn't say happens, if your one mistake comes against the best player in the region, and it's one mistake over 425 minutes, I think I'm comfortable saying he's definitely been good enough for the region. Yeah. And that goal against Costa Rica beating Kaler Navas, within it, just an absolute blast from the, just from just outside the box, that covers a multitude of mistakes that did

don't even exist, you know. All right. I've got Walker Zimmerman on this list. I think his performances have mostly just been steady. I think he, but because, again, he came in as maybe the fifth or sixth choice centerback going into qualifying. I think I have to say that he has overperformed the expectations. Even if all we're getting from him is steady, no nonsense defense,

with also the set piece threat that he offers and delivered a goal on against Hunter. doors at home, that's going to be for me enough to be like, yeah, that's, that's more than I thought we were going to see from Zimmerman this window or this, this campaign. Yeah, and strong, and strong Papa Bear energy. Yes. On the team. That matters, right? That stuff, that stuff does matter. Yeah. It's true. He was not, you said fifth or sixth choice. He, he wasn't, uh, he wasn't even going to be in the camp, the second camp, right? Did you, did you already say that? He didn't play in the first window at all three games, was not going to be in the second camp, Which, again, I was kind of baffled by, not baffled by, I thought he was ahead of McKenzie, even going back to, like, Nations League and kind of assumed that that McKenzie starting in those games over him, not, Zimmerman, not even being there was just a quirk of the Euro to domestic schedules and camps.

So I was surprised when the windows rolled around and it was clear McKenzie was actually rated ahead of him overall. But now, now it seems like it's, it's, it seems like it's, Zim is at worst 1A in the centerback depth chart. Yeah. McKenzie and Zimmerman have reversed positions. Eunice Musa, you have him as an overperformer. And I feel a little bit like Dest here. I think he's about what I expected of him. He hasn't had a bad performance.

He isn't very goal dangerous, but he sure can't tilt the field. And that's, I mean, that's what we always thought he was going to provide, right? Yeah, that's fair. I think you'll just get the extra credit here for, having a better, you know, a more accurate assessment of what he would give us. Again, I was hopeful that he would, but, you know, the guy didn't play a Nations League for whatever reason. And so there were those sort of like murmurings that like, no, we just jumped the gun on yet another young prospect and he just isn't ready to contribute yet. You got to give him time.

He's 18. And then he finally came into the second window healthy and has been a, a. Hiller in central midfield for us. Even that Panama game in which we looked really bad, the one or two good moments we had in that game did go through his feet. And he came off at the half while Legette and Acosta saw out the rest of the game. Yeah, Muso was good in that game by virtue of having a couple of good moments balanced out by his bad moments.

He had a lot of bad moments in there too. But his bad moments were trying to do something, which is more than we could say for the rest of our midfield in that match. Yeah. And his whole match against Mexico was, again, you think about an 18-year-old doing that, that's just nuts. It's nuts that that happened, that that game film exists of those young players doing that to Mexico. The time when he rolled, he let the ball roll past him and left at San Alvarez.

Yeah, pick a moment. I feel like he had four or five moments where, again, at 18, he's just grown manning a bunch of Mexico veterans, World Cup veterans, World Cup qualifying veterans. And it's just something that that's where the joy is. So if we're talking about overperforming, like, just him delivering that amount of joy for me, he gets pumped up to the overperform list. Okay. Yeah.

All right. I'm convinced again. So what's the next category? So these are just the formed players. These are players who didn't necessarily overperform, didn't necessarily underperform. They're formed. they've played, they've played and they have been, uh, players. Tyler Adams, I would say there's an argument to be made.

He's underperformed a little bit, but, uh, but I think, I think I agree. He's, he's, he's, he's very good at defense. He's very okay with the ball at his feet. I've been saying that for years, Greg. Give me some credit. He is. I was going to say the opposite. I was going to say there's, it's possible that he's overperforming, but because what

he is almost inhuman at is preventative work and preventing things from happening before they happen. It's almost hard to appreciate that what he's doing. So it won't, it won't come across on video the way it might, even if you could watch it live in the stadium. I know you've been to some of those games to see the amount of options he takes away from players from opponents. We just need some more advanced models before we can truly put him in the overperformance. category. Okay. Miles Robinson.

Again, I think, so you have him as formed. I think we could maybe argue he's underperformed. In fact, let me quit vacillating. I will argue that he has underperformed. But only because the expectations were so high. He was very good in the Gold Cup. Maybe our best player in that tournament overall. And people were saying, no, he's a first choice centerback.

but he had he had the miss against Elsov you guys can't see it but Greg just Greg just like made a very disappointed

cock of the head it was a full body eye roll I gave the full body eye roll no I'm with you he did he missed that chance and then I know you're going to talk

about the Canada game in in Hamilton he didn't just get ragdolled on the goal he was getting ragdolled all over the place now we could blame Burrhalter for putting him in when he's so out of season but it was a tough one for him that day.

And I would have expected him to be better. He also had that giveaway to Brian Ruiz against Costa Rica. When that game was only 1-1, we were totally bossing Costa Rica, and he gifted them a chance that only 47-year-old Brian Ruiz could avoid scoring on. So, I mean, I'm just joking. There's a lot you have to do between midfield and the goal to score a goal. It wasn't necessarily going to be a goal, no matter who he gave. gave it to, but it was a bad giveaway.

And so I'm going to say, I think he underperformed. Please. I get it. I get it. But like you said, like you said about John Brooks, centerbacks make mistakes in games. He's been playing 720 minutes. That's almost double our next. No, it's not.

Zimmerman has 500 minutes. But he's played a ton of minutes at centerback. He's going to have a couple of, if you want to call him, Howlers. And they're not always going to score on them. Canada did. Brian Ruiz didn't. But I'm just almost like, yeah, you got to give, you got to give centerbacks a little bit of a couple of those mulligans. Okay.

Maybe that's too forgiving. I'm just looking for, I'm just looking for evidence and grabbing it wherever I can see it. That's all. All right. I've got Brendan Arnson here as the guy who's given us what we, what we kind of expected from him. And I think that's about right. I mean, he runs like crazy. He wants to be involved in everything.

he doesn't always find the ball when he's trying to be involved in everything, but he's going for it. And, you know, he delivered a couple of good statistics in a couple of the early matches that were important, some that weren't as important. But either way, I still think, like, the limitations of Brennan Aronson are there

in the style of play we used. But he has been pretty good, which is what I was hoping for, what we got, and we've needed, because of the amount of time that Christian Pulisick has missed, uh, Gio Vane Rana has missed and even Tim Way has missed. So Aronson has been the like steady winger at about 650 minutes.

And it's been needed. Yep. I cause on all of that. He, I'll just add that when we're at the game in Nashville, even before he scored his goal, he was the player who stuck out to, uh,

to my spouse, Andrea. Um, she said, who's that one that's running around a lot? lot. I like him. So, yeah. That's awesome. I agree. He's been, he's been, he's been exactly as we expected. I'm going to, I'm going to lump a bunch of guys in here together now. DeAndre Edlin, Chris Richards. I'm going to even put Mark McKenzie in here, Reggie Cannon, and Tim Riem. Can I,

can I lump all those sort of defenders in? Yes. All right. They've all been solid. Give me, give me, if there's any of them that you're like, no, no, no, no, he wasn't actually. very good or he's been outstanding. Make your case now. I just want to briefly say, I think I had hopes that McKenzie would take a step forward and become a little better than he was when he, you know, when he had that giveaway at the beginning of the nation's league game. And so he hasn't, really?

So maybe he's underperformed my expectations slightly. Well, remember, that's all. He's only played 180 minutes, which is kind of crazy. He played the, he got the 90 at Honduras where he was pretty good. There wasn't a lot for him to do in that game. And then he got 90 down in Panama where we lost. And he didn't do much in that game either. But he didn't, I mean, there were just not any mistakes.

If you're saying we needed him to, you know, turn into John Brooks for a day and deliver some pinpoint long balls. That'd be fair. But he's played two away games. That's all he's had to, that's tough. You're putting him in tough spots to be the player you want from him. Yeah, I guess the thing, the thing I would say about that is, The fact that he's not playing indicates something about how Burrhalter rates him and about how he plays. And, you know, he's been sort of off and on at Gank as well.

I don't know what the latest on that is, but he wasn't even in the squad over the past weekend. He could be hurt. I'm not sure about that. No, I think he's out of favor. I think he got yanked at halftime a couple of games ago and he's been pretty much out of favor since. No, you're right there. I think also part of it is just, again, he was probably my fifth or sixth. choice centerback going into qualifying.

So it's just like, I think as a fifth or sixth choice centerback, he's pretty good. Like it's pretty good when we can go that deep and be like, all right, well, I guess Mark McKenzie can do it. I know it changes a little bit when he clearly is Burrhalter's fourth man in camp for all these camps. But in mind of mind, I'm just like, as a placeholder centerback, it's pretty, life's pretty sweet right now. All right.

Who else? Who else in the, is that all the formed? Now, I've got two other ones here. Well, I guess I'm also throwing Zach Stephan in this mix, who I think has been pretty much just sort of okay. He had a big save in the Mexico game. He hasn't been asked to do a lot other than that. His distribution hasn't opened a lot of doors for us, I would say.

And he's been fine. Yep. Now I'm going to throw two of the fan favorites and Burrhalter favorites in here, and that Zardas and Ariola. I actually would say they're both just about what we would expect from those two guys. They've played limited minutes. Both of them played under 180 minutes. So they've been guys that we were asking to go in and do a job.

Give me your take on here. Am I being too generous saying they've sort of just done the job we think they would do? No, no. I mean, I was disappointed in the ways artists played against Canada, but was I surprised? And if Areola is anything, maybe he's a slight overperformer because of the energy and brightness he brought on at the end of the Canada game. And he also had a good game against Jamaica, I think. I thought he was fine against Jamaica.

I think that's what it balanced out for me where he was fine, but a little bit wasteful in a Jamaica home match. And so that's why I kept him right where he is. Zardaz, I mostly agree with you. I just think his purpose in that Canada game was to ugly it up. It just, that gets a lot less satisfying when you're down one zero. It's like,

oh, you actually need more than just ugly in the game up. But that's, I feel like what his job was, was to be the physical guy. Yeah. All right. Formlessness is your next category, I believe.

Yeah, these are guys who basically barely had a chance to do anything. And that's Gio Raina, who had nine. 90 minutes in El Salvador where that's supposed to just sort of be his introduction to qualifying. He had a couple of good moments where he created some good chances for himself or others. So it was promising who's as World Cup debuts go on the road. That was something to build on.

We have not been able to build on it because he has been injured ever since. Yeah. What a shame. He put that set piece on Miles Robinson's head. He also clipped a ball onto McKinney's head from after beating a guy down to the sideline. you're putting Ferreira in the formlessness category? It's sample size. I mean, you know where I stand on him.

I think I'm most excited out of all our options. I'm most excited about what he could do for us. But I'm not willing to say that his 90 minutes against El Salvador is enough to make any sweeping conclusions about, you know, him racking up goals and assists going forward. And the same could be said for Luca Delatore, except in the midfield and his performance against Honduras. Exactly. We've already covered John Brooks. Anything to say about Bousio? He kind of got his shot a little bit against Jamaica

and didn't sort of do anything to get me really excited about what he would do in the future. I think he's, again, as placeholders go, I think he's a pretty solid placeholder for certain games. I don't love the idea of him maybe in this coming window as a guy we would lean on in the first two games where qualification will still probably be up in the air. So I'd just say I want more data on him,

just not necessarily right away. Okay. How about Pfok? Pfok's one where I feel like people at this point have very strong opinions about Pfok. Yeah, we talked about him some on the Monday review this week, but he scored 24 goals in the league, not in the league, 24 goals in all competitions in Switzerland this year.

this season. I did think his physical presence was a little bit of an asset. I think I said that last week against Canada at home. But, you know, he's not an elegant sort of Ferrara-type striker. I think we all know that. And yeah, he's either in the formed or formless category for me. I agree his physical presence was useful at Canada. I'm sorry, home versus Canada.

I thought his movement was mostly a negative home against Canada. And then we didn't get to see his sort of his pressing shape or his pressing understanding with the group and how he could coordinate that because Canada was so happy to not have the ball. So that's just sort of an open question. I actually think the game that I probably haven't put enough emphasis on where we probably missed him the most would have actually been Jamaica away. And I've spent a lot of time talking about how we missed John Brooks's distribution in that game. But John Brooks distributing or hitting those long balls up to Pfok as opposed to PEPI or Ferreira, because those are the two

strikers we had on the roster for that window, and they both played, would probably have been our best bet in that match. Yeah, but are we even capable as a team of playing in a way that plays to Pfeck's strengths? Like, well, I mean, we're capable. We have the players to do it, but do we have the scheme? I think we do. I think there's nothing stopping us, even from within our scheme. If there are soft spots in a defense where even if Pfok is essentially creating that soft spot with his advantage that he might have over a player and a guy like John Brooks who can put the ball in any soft spot he wants, we're edging towards like a rule four situation here.

But I think that gets you. I think you can do that within our scheme. I think you can hit that direct pass. Berhalter himself said that we needed to play more direct against Jamaica. So I think right there he knows that you can play direct even within his style. So I think we could for sure work that in. Again, I still have questions about what he'll do defensively. And so that becomes a concern against, say, Mexico, if, you know, people want him starting

in this window. That is a concern. I do feel like having him to come off the bench at the end of a match is kind of a no-brainer if we're chasing. But I don't know. Do you have strong feelings on him for this upcoming window? I think he should be called up and should a minimum be an option off the bench and maybe start against Mexico.

My opinions are going to be much more intense retroactively than... I'm sticking with strikers a little bit, Josh Sargent. I think he's kind of gotten a bad rap for his performances in the games he's played in. I don't think he was anything special against away to El Salvador or away to Honduras. But he wasn't shocking in either of those games. He was just kind of head down, working hard, occasionally making a sense. situation slightly more dangerous, occasionally making the situation less dangerous, which is kind of the life of a striker. Certainly the life of a striker on the road in Conca Calfe where, again,

conditions aren't great for, you know, that methodical buildup play that Sergeant was being asked to contribute to. So again, I think it was a little harsh to be excommunicated, but I don't also have strong feelings that he needs to be there. Yeah. I got stars in my eyes. when he scored those two goals, you know, a month ago for Norwich. Right. When he finally turned the corner? You know, this was two months ago, I guess. Yeah.

We got to get out of here. But you got four more names here. Rod, Sands, Conrad, and Hoppy. None of them played 90 minutes. Roldon gets a ton of attention. But, again, he's been a very seldom used player. I think he has some functionality or some utility in certain roles. I'm not eager.

to see him ever starting a game in Central Midfield. So hopefully we don't run into that this window. But there he is. And Sands was not good in that away Honduras game, at least in the first half, but put in a pretty tough situation. By the way, Bousseo was put in a tough situation playing away at Jamaica as well. That's fair. That's fair. Yeah, Sands was hung out to drive for 45 minutes.

And then he looked fine after he switched in the second half for the 20 minutes he was still on the field. Switch switch from a 343 to which we hardly have ever used. Yeah, putting him in a naked two center midfielder line was just a terrible decision. And once we were at three center mids, even when it was, I mean, it was Sands Acosta and Leggett for a lot of that time. And he was fine in that midfield. But also still has not gotten called up since. Correct. Conrad been out, Conrad didn't even play in that Honduras game.

He hasn't played since the Canada game. And then Hoppe just got a cameo, clock killing. job in the Costa Rica game, I believe, and we haven't seen him since either. So hard to make any real judgments on those players. But that's the group. That's the player pool who have played in World Cup qualifying. Conrad did start the first game of the entire qualifying cycle. He started against El Salvador away and had some nice little moments there.

The thing about Conrad and Hoppe is both really struggling at their clubs. Like, Hoppies, they're not playing, basically. Yeah, it's a, hoppy's a really interesting. one because he was never really that great in the Bundes League either. He had that big run of goals to start the season and then went like the rest of the season without doing anything. But then we actually got to see him for the national team and he comes in and looks like our most dangerous player in the Gold Cup, which is small praise given how not dangerous

we were through most of the Gold Cup. But he was still better than a lot of other guys for us. And so it's kind of one of those things where it's like, okay, well, maybe that's just where our player pool is, uh, once you, once you take out those top four wingers. Yeah. That a player like Hoppy who's getting no, no run at Majorca just might still be the second or third tier, however you want to, however you want to sort of frame it. Yeah, I'd like to see him sort it out.

Let's, uh, let's shut it down. Um, unless you have any closing thoughts, Greg. I did kind of cut you off there. No, no, no. The closing thoughts are going to be, uh, an evening roster release tomorrow that. we're all waiting very impatiently for. It's going to be a very busy week, two weeks ahead for us. It looks like I'm going to have Nico Romaine, former U.S.

Soccer Federation official who's back in the Netherlands now. It looks like I'm going to interview him tomorrow. You know, these things can always fall through, but that does look like it's going to happen. Rostre reaction from Greg and me on Friday after the evening roster release on Thursday. and then Monday review for patrons, John Arnold on Tuesday to preview Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica.

And then, of course, the Mexico versus USA recap, which will come out on Friday, the 25th of March. And then we're all going to be in Orlando on Sunday the 27th for a big day of five aside and then a big tailgate in the afternoon. The Greg Velasquez Memorial

tournament, five-a-side tournament of roses. It changes every time you say it. Every time you say it, it's a new title. Yep. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.