Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #275: Hypothetical lineups, the offside rule, and late-season club stakes

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Greg and Belz answer a handful of listener questions, mostly about hypothetical USMNT lineups. Then Greg gives a modest proposal for a new offside rule, and runs down the list of promotions, relegations and battles for a European spot that Americans face at clubs in Europe.support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedjoin 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. Hey, we have some questions from long-suffering listeners that have just been sitting in the suggestion box. And we're going to tackle several of them today to start and then get in some other stuff. Greg, how you doing? I'm doing all right, Bells. I'm still recovering from last night's Concaf Champions League game. Speaking of long-suffering fans of MLS and people hoping that MLS will one day win a, Concaf Champions League. Are you pretty invested in that quest personally? No, not at all, but it's entertainment. And it was, there were some very U.S. men's national team adjacent players involved in the outcome yesterday between Sebastian Sosato and his reappearance at.

I love that. That's the first name you bring up. He was integral to Seattle's comeback, unfortunately, for him. Was he? I didn't watch the second half. What happened? How was he? Oh, you didn't, you didn't miss much.

It was just a, it was just a classic two penalties in the last 12 minutes of the, no, I don't know, I don't know exactly how, when the penalties game, but Salcedo just made a sliding challenge in the box. And, like, they crossed it into his arm. And so he took a handball, penalty call stood, and that was, that was the first goal for Seattle. And then Christian Raldon drew the second penalty for Seattle in like the 94th minute after the review was it was converted in the 99th minute to finish so the match finished 2-2. Which is a great result for Seattle because they get to come back home and, you know,

presumably they can get a win against this Pumas team. I saw Rodon put a ball on a platter for, oh gracious. Ruiz, yeah. Yeah. Just Ruiz. I mean, an excellent goal score. Yeah, yeah. I just had a moment there. That was a nice ball.

very nice kind of Tim Waya ask yeah that that was racking up some expected assists there but though I don't have access to those numbers from this competition so we got to lean on people with with the inside information or we could just lean on our eyeballs how about that uh before we get in the questions let me remind you that the form for submitting questions to us is always in the show notes i regularly get requests for this it's always in the show notes every episode that goes out on the public feed has the link in it. So you can always get it there. Or you could, you know, send me an email and I'll send it to you. Um, from Grishko and Eugene Oregon. Question number one, please tackle the Pulisic, Wea and Gio starting lineup conundrum. Assume the entire roster is fit and in form

for Qatar. Is there a good way to get them all in the pitch for 60 plus minutes? What do you think Greg will do? Change formation, play someone out of their best position, i.e. a false nine, bench Musa for Gio or just abandon the dream and plan for someone as the Super Sup. And which one would that be? I'm going to throw, I know you want me to drive this, but I'm going to throw that over to you first. So my initial tendency is to just go with that last route, which is to abandon the dream of that being, you're getting all three of them on there as your full strength 11 and just lean on one of them as a Super Sub. And that could even rotate from game to game. Yeah.

depending on minutes and prior matches and, you know, fitness levels. But again, it's not, it's certainly not a terrible thing to have all 180 winger minutes loaded up with two wingers, 90 minutes each, if you can follow my math, to have like three excellent wingers to split those minutes up with. And when you talk about a group stage of a tournament, you know, you're talking, what is that? 540 winger minutes. So having three, like, it's tough to do that. I'm not following the math anymore.

Somebody's going to have to check it anyway. I don't, I don't, did I even get it? Am I even close? I think, yeah, that's right. 540. Mine in the ballpark. I'm within one order of magnitude. So, yeah, for me, it, I'm, I'm definitely not opposed to, to checking out in the next,

in the summer four match window or, in the fall, some kind of a look with all three of them in the lineup. And I think for me the easiest way to do that is moving geo to center mid. I know I'm going to run into a lot of friction with the Gio Rana false nine crowd.

Giovanni Rana false nine crowd. But I still think that he can add a lot in central midfield even if he's proven that he can add a lot of danger from that sort of free winger role.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with that. I think that we're going to have to abandon the dream of them all playing at the same time for the most part. But the one way that I do like it is Giovani in the midfield. But there's drawbacks of that because Musa brings so much control to the midfield. Maybe Giovanni would do the same. I'm going to just keep calling him Giovani. No, we have to. I'm trying to adapt as well.

Yeah. Yeah. And I do. I think it could, at the very worst. worst, it could be a situational thing where, okay, at this stage in the game, we, you know, introducing an extra attacker and sacrificing Musa makes sense. So we get way on the field. Giovanni drops a level, still brings a lot of quality and attack. Now just one layer removed because, you know, that could be, that could be a thing we need to try to do if we're chasing

late. But the team as it stands is, in my opinion, really balanced. So to have the starting lineup remain MMA makes the most sense to me to give us as much balance as possible in defense and sort of protecting the back line. Protecting the whole field is really kind of what the balance is with that midfield. The games are at four-day intervals instead of three-day intervals, which is what the World Cup qualifiers were at in those three game windows. So it's not going to be quite as grueling as that, but it's still going to be, I mean, fatigue's still going to creep in for people and you know musa may need to be rotated and you know one of the

wingers may need to be rotated just naturally so i think it's totally fine to have an extra quality player who doesn't get on every starting lineup yeah six six quality players for five for five spots seems like a really good thing so it's really just about figuring out if reina can be that versatile option in in central midfield okay that's that's that's that That's sort of my priority for that experiment, is to see if Raina can do a job in Central Midfield Forest. Who would be, like, in the first game, who are you starting on the bench as the, as the sub?

It's probably, it's probably my favorite player on the team Tim Wea. It's tough. That's really tough. But I try to focus on it as a positive thing. I think I would probably, well, you can't, you can't put Pulisic on the bench. against all the narratives, doesn't it? Well, and this is also where we're very much in hypothetical territory because Geo Raina may not even be fit to play. And if he is, he may not be fit to play 90 minutes or 60 minutes.

So, you know, we just saw what he can do off the bench. We've seen Pulsick come off the bench. We've seen Waya come off the bench and all be explosive additions on the field, which again is why I don't feel too, like, too much urgency to throw off the midfield balance to get all three of them on the field at once. Okay. From Ryan, hopefully that answers the question, Grishko. Thank you for it. From Ryan in Milwaukee, here's a stupid hypothetical.

Let's say FIFA suddenly allowed an additional field player for international competition. What would our starting 12 be? And I would just refer, for me, I'd just refer him to the previous question. And we'd throw three wingers on there, probably drop Raina in underneath the nine and above the tens and just, uh, you know, try to run and gun. For sure, right? Yeah, we run a 4-4-3, which is an excellent formation to use against your focus group. If you're trying to add a little difficulty to your starters in training,

and you want to make them really earn their spaces, make them play against a 4-4-3. I would call it more of a 4-3-1, well, 4-3-1. A 4-3-4. All right. Well, I'm going 4-3-1. three where Raina is the one in between the two bands of three. That's the best one. That's the best one, yeah.

And then his second stupid hypothetical is what would our starting 10 be if FIFA were suddenly to remove a field player for international competition? And he ends his question with thank you for your patience and cooperation. Well, I see what you have written down, but it was where I was going to. You drop one of your centerbacks. You just have to go I mean, that's the fun way to do it. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so you got to go 3-3-33, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we've got the versatility for that. Adam, all our center mids can cover for that extra space that's now vacated. Yeah, who would be the lone centerback if we had, if we had a, you know, Dest on the right, Robinson on the left? I think at that point it's probably miles. If it's one centerback, I'm probably running Miles or Richards.

Yeah, because you need the extra, you need the extra mobility. And I think Miles is better at carrying the ball than Zimmerman, and I think Richards is better at passing the ball than Zimmerman. So either way, you're getting some kind of like trait, like at least one quality trait from a distribution role because you can't rely on just the other guy doing it. I know it probably feels to some people like I pick on Richards about this, but it does come to mind that you'd have some aerial deficiency there

if he was the only centerback. Yeah, you're right. But I'm going to assume a lot of teams are going to take away an attacker and go really, really cautious with their 10. So hopefully that would make things a little easier. I don't know. It's going to be a lot of consequences that we haven't fully thought. through.

Soccer's complicated enough, Ryan. Come on. All right. From MCB in New York City, says he heard this on TSS. That's the total soccer show. And would like our take, what's your best 11 of guys

with zero ocho minutes? Greg, you have one of your myriad graphics produced on this. I didn't actually have this prepared, but it was pretty close. So this is, I haven't listened to TSS's version of this yet. I wonder how much overlap there's going to be. Neither have I.

But I've got a lineup here that I think could probably win a gold cup. Could definitely win an off-year gold cup. Give it to us. Give it to us. So we have Ethan Horvath, who's an excellent goalkeeper to run a goal, and we can back him up with Sean Johnson and Gaga-Slonina. So we have three very good goalkeepers with zero-o-choh minutes. We can run Cameron Carter Vickers and Matt Miasga out there at centerbacks.

CCV team of the year. in the Scottish Premier League. Right. So again, historically for the U.S., that seems like he would have been a no-brainer, like, starter for us, any other era. I'm going to get a little bit more aggressive and younger on the fullback, so I'm going to go with Joe Scali and Kevin Paredes.

So again, Scali's got like a thousand Bundesliga minutes. He's no, like, totally unproven player. I had to... He didn't just fall off the turnip truck. Come on, guys. I was hoping to like manage to do this with four swingbacks, which is definitely a commonly accepted term for players you can play either right or left fullback. But I had to give in and bring Paredes in.

Though I think Predis has played on the right side for D.C. United, but more in like an attacking role where he'd come in on that left foot. We're going to need a D.C. fan to correct us on that. I think that's true. But, okay, please correct us if it's not. But Scali can definitely play both. And then we've got like Duane Jones who can play both. I have Aaron Herrera listed here because he's just had such a good attacking year in MLS last year that I am curious to see what he could do.

Definitely a swing back. Definitely, yeah, he's swing back. He was also good in the Olympic failure. I mean, maybe good's overstating it. But he was goodish. Yeah, he was threatening. He was doing things, which was the bar to clear. Yep.

Do you have guys that you want to throw in on that back line or in goal? Well, I had you go first because yours is better than mine, but I had the same centerbacks. I had Slanina and goal. I kind of forgot that Horvath hasn't had any caps. It's easy to forget that so many of these players have just not played in the Ocho. And then, yeah, caps in the Ocho. I have Reynolds and DeWan Jones is my fullbacks. Brian Reynolds.

There you go. still have some faith in his upside, and we'll see, you know. The center back one is crazy, because we have CCV Miazga, who are, you know, again, fine stand-ins, and it's not even like,

I mean, we've played like eight other centerbacks. We've played a ton of centerbacks to even, and to still have these guys left over as the ones with zero minutes. Yeah. So it's just insane what our centerback plateau looks like. Who are the eight centerbacks we've played? I mean, the one that,

the one that comes in mind is McKenzie. He's gotten some minutes, but Richards, Zimmerman, Robinson, Long's gotten a handful of minutes. Tim Rine played the opener against El Salvador, and then we haven't heard from him since. Yeah, okay. Who are your midfielder's in this? All right. So, no-o-11. I'm going with Williamson as a six.

He played like three games there for Portland last year. He's not all the way back yet from injury. It doesn't seem like. but there's a lot of creative license here. And I'm going with Pomacall and Tillman as my dual eights. Yeah, I did this in haste and forgot about Tillman. But my... You're going to have to answer for that on Monday, I feel like.

Yeah. Oh, there may be some pretty fraught accusations. The six for me, I had either Polster, Servania, or Morrata. To be honest, I didn't know who I who was best among them because I haven't been watching any of them much, or at least not very closely, you know, Cervania I see. But, and then, uh, Palmacall and Nagby as the two eights. Love a Nagby shout. Uh, and we, I mean, we still have like Keaton Parks.

I have, uh, I have Taylor Booth kind of in mind for this because I'm really hoping that Taylor Booth will come out next year as like the next Luca De La Torre where, you know, he's sort of just been buried because he's with Byron Munich and you're not just going to get games for Byron Munich. So it's easy to just sort of not know if he's good or not. Similar to how De La Torre was buried at Fulham and just couldn't play. So, you know, I think the running bit was that your eyes would glaze over

when you would hear his name discussed because you just have no information on him. So it's maybe he's good, maybe he's nothing. But Booth is on his way to the Netherlands this fall. So it could be like carbon cop. Yeah, is he going to Deiotaute? He's going to Utrecht? Is that where he's going? Yeah, yeah.

So the question will be, if he's good, will he have enough time there to show it? Because, you know, we have the September window. Very little soccer to be played before that window. So if he's not showing it yet, it's just going to be almost impossible to get into a camp. And then if he doesn't, pretty much impossible to get into the World Cup roster. Maybe he should just set his sights on 2026.

that's yeah even if he is a luka it's probably just going to be too hard to uh essentially make that conclusion all right your front three so i'm going with uh i'm going with my guy dwayne holmes of course i am um and then uh opposite him and the other half half space i'm actually going with uh geokini i feel like uh feel like i might get a little bit of pushback from from the georgie fans out there But I just feel like I was really happy with what Joe Keeney did in the Gold Cup in his limited appearances there

So that's who I'm running with for this and then up top I'm going with Vosquez just because he's got really good underlying numbers at the moment better than what Dke had better than what peppy has had From his time in MLS and what's his non-penalty XG per 90? Do you have he's at like point six Somewhere on point six which isn't it's not not it's not blowing doors off it's not he's not he's not He's not Carlos Vela in 2019, but it's good. And again, it's better than what sort of the grab bag of players that we had last year and mostly this year were putting up. So just going to run him out there. See what he does.

D.K. and Haji on standby. Okay. I've got Kenny Saif as my right half-space merchant. You would. You would do that to me. And then Dwayne Holmes as the left half-space merchant. Bells, my man. I forgot about Nico.

I did this in haste. I did this in haste. And then... You gave it exactly the amount of thought that it deserves. Maybe that's, yeah, I'll go with that. And then my strikers, Christian Ramirez. Sure, there you go. He's putting up goals, too.

So you went with the goal score. Hajie right is right there. You know, I now have a little bit of a soft spot for him. I've been, like, advocating for a giant hat of strikers anyway. So, Ahjee can be in the hat. How big can the hat be? Is it unlimited? Is it an unlimited hat?

I mean, this is a, this is like a, only constrained by the imagination. All right. From Sam, well, that's our, uh, no-ocho lineups. From Sam in Vermont, another lineup question, as the title of the podcast episode would indicate, what's your over 30 USMNT 11? All right, I'm letting you take this one because it was kind of like not very fun to look through all the names of the players who are overthrothed. It's not an inspiring group, really. But yeah, I think we could come up with a pretty serviceable 11.

And I'm going to go with Sean Johnson in goal, Ryan Hollingshead at right back, Timmy Chandler at left back. I'm gritting my teeth and I'm starting Omar Gonzalez at right center back and Tim Riem at left center back. and Tim Reem at left centerback? You've got, so this is where I don't have too many, too many add-ons, but I was going to say, like, I think Matt Hedges could make a shout here. I have, is Gonzalez playing for Toronto right now? Yes, but I don't even, I don't, I'm not even entirely sure if he's starting. Hedges always looks shaky to me when I watched Dallas, but it's better than not playing

if it turns out Omar's not even playing. Omar started half the games. Fine. Sold. Make it hedges. All right. So yeah. So Omar's only started half his games.

I feel like, Bells, you're just, you're really holding on to, you know, what Omar used to be. Back, the player he was back in 17.

And then my, my defensive midfielder is going to be Alfredo Morales. I'm just going to throw, I'm just going to throw Dax McCarty's name into the mix.

Okay. And then it's a, It's Bedoya and Nagby as the eights. Love it. Love it. Keep them there. But also, this is not a 433. This is a 442 diamond.

Yep. Nope. It plays. It's an homage to the over 30s. And then Joe Corona is my sort of 10, I guess. And this is where you have overlooked mixed Disceroot. Greg, where is Mick's playing right now? Playing in Europe.

He was playing in European competition. He was in, like, the conference league, or Europa League and then the conference league. But I don't remember the name of the team. I just remember that it has the same initials as Marseille. He's playing in Cyprus for Omonia. Hmm. That can't be a bad place to be. So he's a natural 10.

I feel like he does the job for us there. Okay. And I'm not even sure Corona is playing for the galaxy. I don't. Corona, no. I think Corona's in Sweden now. Isn't he, like, he's in the Alvesvenskine? I'm really tracking the over 30s closely, aren't I?

And then I've got Ramirez and Bafa Picot as my two strikers. Seam like they complement each other pretty well. Okay, I wasn't sure if they had a good relationship in playing. CJ Sepong and then Jaziz Ardaz, who has recently started for the U.S. men's national team. also options in that over 30 cohort to play up top. Did you see the quotes from Caleb Porter about Zardis? Yeah, Caleb Porter jumping on the finishing discussion train. Yep, he doesn't know about XG, I guess.

So we do need one of the nerds to clarify if like conversion rate tends, when conversion rate tends to fall off. Like surely as you get older and less able to manipulate your body in the ways that you used to be able to do, that should probably have an effect on the kinds of shots that you convert, right? Like, you're still wily enough to be in the right spots, maybe even wilerer, I don't know.

But, like, yeah, your actual ability to physically execute might actually, where is that sort of considered the easy part of finishing at the highest level? I wonder if that does start to fade at a measurable rate. Certainly does in my experience. My underlying numbers in Sunday league are, off the hook, but, you know, can't strike the ball. All right.

Now, so we've built these two different restricted lineups. Does the No-Ocho Group win heads up against the over-30s? Yes, I think so. Yeah, I feel good about that. It's a young man's game, isn't it? It certainly is in the United States at the moment. Another question from Ted in Duluth, Minnesota. he asks about DeAndre Yedlin, where does he rate all time in terms of the USMNT and as a fullback for the men's national team?

Will he become the most capped outfield player to never net a goal? On such a young team, there's a lot of potential for future greatness, but this is surely Yedlin's last shot at a World Cup. I think he deserves a lot of credit for setting a floor of performance and for his consistency. I think his, you're always talking about, you know, he'll come in and put in a challenge. that sort of sets a tone. I'm not sure where he ranks all time, though. I don't think, you know, Tony Sane in the 2002 World Cup playing right back, I think surpasses anything Yedlin's done it right back, right?

I think probably. And then Chirondolo, just with his longevity and his contributions to the various runs that we've made through the World Cup, I think are always going to kind of leave him ahead of Yedlin. I mean, Yedlin still has some chapters to write, you know, hopefully. But, you know, when we can romanticize those bygone days, I think most people would still pretty comfortably put Shrunnel ahead of him. Okay.

Speaking of romanticizing bygone days, I do want to, I do want to do recaps of the game, the 2010 game against England and the 1998 game against Iran. Are you up for that? Of course. We just got to figure out the right. It's going to be on Y Scout. They're on football, footballia.net,

whatever it is, the full match website. But we've got to figure out when we're going to do that. Like, when's the right time to do that. If anybody has an idea on when the right time

to do that is, let us know. It's going to be the lull after the September games before the World Cup. Is that, is that, will there be a lull there? I think there's going to be a lull.

That's probably right. Yeah. Okay, those are the questions we're going to get to. A few other subjects. There's a potential change to the offside rule being trialed in the Syria I-U-18 league, I believe. And it is... Yeah, they're running with Vayner's daylight definition, right? Yeah.

And I don't... I'm not sure how to feel about it. What do you think? I hate it, to be honest. because, or at least I hate some of the discussion around it, which is like then you won't have the fractions of an inch off side calls that we're getting now. And like, of course you still will. Like no matter where you draw one line, one dimensionless line,

you're going to have those. He's on by an inch or he's off by, you know, whatever, a toenail, an armpit, whatever it is. So that that won't go away. And it's like this idea that the other thing I don't like is sort of almost like this unspoken expectation. that everyone will still act and behave the same way they do under the current rule. And then you just get, you know, then the new rule just catches these marginal cases. And that very obviously will not happen. Attackers will start their run slightly earlier because they will have more room to run into.

It could totally change the way defenders have to play because they can't give up half a body length because it'd be easy for attackers to gain leverage with half a body link. That's all you need is to, you know, have one. foot in front of a defender to keep him on their on your hip whereas right now if you have one foot in front of the defender you are offside because you can't have any playable part of your body over the line so yeah uh i mean how do you feel about well the one thing that the one thing that appeals to me about it is that it could result in more goals i guess the the goal scoring rate in that league has gone up um i think it has statistically significant uh clip but well you can do that

just eliminate the offside rule if that's what you want. It does seem more complicated, like actually more complicated than the current rule to me. And that's kind of what I worry about the most about. Like there will be some equilibrium reached between the decisions that defenders make and the overall tactics of playing defensively and how it sort of balances out with this change in the interpretation. If it's made, certainly shouldn't happen ahead of the World Cup because this could take, like a while sort of figure out the nuances of

in how to play it like optimally. Yeah, definitely should not happen before the World Cup. Can I throw out a really like tedious attempted like a solution to this? Yes, please. So I feel like the big issue here

is this is the fact that the VAR and the attempt to use it to solve offside and the you know the delayed flag by assistant referees to allow play to continue. just in case you're wrong and you want to flag someone offside, but we'll just let the play happen and then go back and check it later. Well, what happens then is you create goals that wouldn't be created otherwise, right?

And so this goal that is created and comes into existence, it's really hard to chalk that off psychologically, like for people who are trying to enjoy the sport. Yeah. That sucks. It really does. Excited. And then to have it chalked off by like this grid line on a geometry project, like it makes it even worse and almost like it becomes a parody of itself.

And those are things are all true, but that is just a consequence, again, of saying we have a one, you know, like a one line that determines offside and we can enforce it exactly. So I feel like you can, you can, in the VAR era, you can have a correct offside or you can have a satisfying offside, but it's really hard to do both if that's how you're going to enforce it. So my attempt of the solution is to leave the rule. as it is and continue using the delayed offsides, but then just change how you overturn it if you're going to attempt to overturn it. So if the AR watches the play, thinks the player's offside, let's play continue,

a goal is scored, then the AR lifts the flag up. You use the current language with the AR to confirm it. So if I've lifted the flag up and said, nope, this player was offside. If they're onside by even a sliver, then you overturn it and the goal,

then you overturn it in the goal counts. That's the, that's the current language, right? But you trust, you're giving the AR more of the benefit of the doubt. Does that make sense? Maybe, I mean,

so, so how does that give the AR more of the benefit of the doubt? Or I guess you're saying, all right, so you're trusting that the AR sought that way. So the AR lists a flag, calls it offside.

The AR, like, shows that the player was, in fact, let's say the player was offside, like by the current definition. And it's just like, hey, nice work AR. You've got keen eyesight. You're really,

good at your job. The player was just barely off side. You got it right. The goal's wiped off and it would have happened that way anyway, even with the human assistant referee in the old days, because you're pretty good at this. Isn't that how it works right now? Yes. That basically is what I'm saying. So that

wouldn't change anything. It's only if the AR calls the player onside allows the goal. Then when we go back, if we're going to overturn it, that's when you use the daylight language. Oh, so there has to be. You with me? Yeah, so you have two different offside rules?

You have two, to overturn a player who is ruled on side. There has to be daylight between him and the defender, him or her. There can't be any, yeah, yeah, yeah, there has to be daylight. So that would mean that to overturn it, it would have to be so clear and obvious that there is an entire, that there is an actual gap between the two players. Interesting. That way, like, because you still don't want to have blatant off sides, go against defenders because that feels unfair,

like, oh, that dude is so far offside. Yeah. But if the AR thinks that they're on side and the camera in the lines show that it's at least close enough that there's no daylight, then the call would stand, even if the player would have been offside

by the rules as they're currently ridden. I kind of like that. Yeah. So... It took me a while to... It was a time to understand. It's because I spent a time explaining the first scenario,

which isn't an actual change. in the rules. Got it. I think that was my mistake. I get it now. Yeah. That's very intriguing. Yeah.

That essentially just defines what clear and obvious is, right? So to overturn somebody who's on side, again, the goal here is still like to have a fun, entertaining product, right? And so like you don't want to chalk off goals left, like left and right by these fractions. So say, all right, well, the AR thought the guy was on. The human being thought the person was on side. So the machines have to tell us that it was. way off to overturn the human being.

Yeah. In this case, because that way we keep more goals on the board. Hmm. Wouldn't there be a problem with the two different rules? I mean, wouldn't it be confusing for defenders? Like, no, because everyone's going to play it the same way, right? You have to play it the way the rules are written now because that's how the AR is going to attempt. So the only time daylight comes into it is to overturn an on-side call.

by the AR. The player is so far off side that you can, that there's actual daylight between the bodies or the playable parts of the attacker and defender. That's how far offside they are. Then we're going to overturn the AR who thought they were on side. Can you imagine, can you imagine explaining this to new soccer fan?

I mean, I do kind of like it. I think a better way of explaining it is, uh, the rule continues to exist as it does. And, uh, in order to over,

turn an onside call it has the offside has to be clear and obvious to the point that there's daylight between uh the defender and attacker right so you're just define you're essentially defining what clear and obvious is in a different way than using uh it is like technically by the rule onsite or offside like that that's all you're doing but if he's if the a r rules him off rules the player offside the player scores a goal you go to v a r you're not looking for daylight you're just looking for him to be slightly offside. Right, right. He has to be, if you're going to overturn the offside call,

they need to be on side as the rules currently written. Otherwise, you just congratulate the AR on being very good at judging offside. Something about the two different. Overturn. Yeah, the two different standards is, I think will bother some people and it seems not quite right to me. But I think it's technically what the heart wants. I think it's what the heart wants. Like everyone hates that some beautiful soccer moment is wiped off

Because an AR was so good or the computer now is so good that it's got like the armpit offside So you just say all right well yeah the computers can do that but let's if if the human being thought it was close enough to be on side Then the computers really got to prove it. Yeah, okay I mean I I think I kind of like it honestly I don't have any suggestions. None. We'll have to clean up the way it's written because soccer does, I think,

try to lean towards elegance overall and simplicity. So we got to make the law a little like as tidy as possible. I think once I understood it, it didn't seem as complicated. It felt kind of complicated me for a while there. But I'm, you know, not the smartest guy. All right, let's do club stakes. We're coming to the end of the season.

A bunch of our players have important battles in the table. Some of them might get relegated. Some of them might get promoted. What do you got, Greg? You've put this together. Well, it's just a lightning round because it has been hard, I think, to keep track of everybody. There are so many now. So let's just go league by league.

Does that work? All right. Going in alphabetical order, seria. I think that counts as alphabetical. Weston McKinney and Juventus are on their way to Europe, but they are nowhere near winning a trophy. So they're basically just, you know, seeing out the rest of the season. Their Champions League spot, right?

Yeah, they're in fourth or eight points clear of Roma with four games left. So comfortable end of the year for them. So Weston can come back at his leisure if he comes back at all. On the other end of the table is Venetia. Venetia, Busio, and Teson are in Dead Last. And it doesn't seem like they're going to get out from that. There's six points from safety. They do have a game in hand, but they're only averaging like two-thirds of a point per game.

So they would need to go on a nice little run of unexpected results. It could happen. It can happen. But there's nothing... Second half of the season. Yeah, there's nothing suggesting they're on their way to fighting through this. What about the Bundesliga? Okay, so Boondislega, we've got Byron's running away with it, so no one's catching them for the trophy.

But in European slots, we've got Dortmund, who are incredibly comfortable. They're way ahead of everyone else in second, way behind Byron. I think Byron already clinched it. Yeah, yeah, Byron of clinched. Tyler Adams and Red Bull Leipzig are just two points clear, I want to say. In fourth place, so they're in fourth place. Now they're two points clear, and there are three games left. So they are sort of holding on for dear life.

Plus they've got the DFB Pocall coming up, the final versus Freiburg in a couple of weeks. Plus they've got the Europa semifinals, first leg of which is today. So they are trying to win some trophies and they're trying to hold on to that fourth place spot. Fryberg behind him and Freiberg in the Pocall final. What an interesting club, Freiburg is? I love it. Tell us about Freiberg. Are they the ones in the black forest?

They're in the black forest, yeah. I mean, it's just they have that Christian Strike, the sort of, I don't know, full of personality manager who's been there for a long time. Boy, they punch above their weight, it seems. If anyone's wondering why Bells knows so much about Freiberg is because that's where Alex Mendez would have gone, went. Right, that was Mendez at Freiburg.

Yeah, I used to watch his U-19 games. and watch the high-speed train go by in the background as he was as they were playing. So in days long gone, in days long past, Bells was spending a lot of time watching Fryberg. Yeah, we did a, we did a youth national team slash GA Cup episode last night. And I do have to admit that I enjoy, I did watch some soccer specifically to make that episode. But I enjoy watching youth men's soccer quite a bit less than I used to. I used to be a lot more fun back in 2018 Well there was the whole we had the whole world ahead of us right we were so young

We weren't so young Yeah there was a real like there was definitely a wide openness as as you know as it panned out There was absolutely a wide openness as our entire team is Olympic eligible at this point We are we were vindicated All right speaking of vindication Hoffenheim does that work? Are Hoffenheim vindicated? They are basically just playing it out.

They could still get like a Europa Conference League spot. Okay. If they gain four points, but they're basically just running the clock out here. That's Chris Richards and Justin Chey. Richards is on loan, so I don't know what his next season will be if he'll even be with Hoffenheim again.

And Che is on one of the 18-month loans, right? Okay. So he'll stick with Hoffenheim again next year. And he has gotten on the field a couple times, so, you know, that's good. There's some promise there. Into the relegation fights in the Bundesliga, and it's not even a fight for Tim Tillman and Julian Green, they are going down. But they are, at least even now, with a few games left, one point better than Shalka were

last year. So they're at 17 points. They've at least outpaced Shalka. Incredible. George Bello and Armenia Bielfeld are two points from the playoff. So they're not there yet. They would need to net two points on the team ahead of them to get into the relegation playoff, which Germany has.

They are. They are. They are. If the season were to end plays. Go ahead. Sorry. Third bottom team plays the double Bundesliga's third top team in a two-legged playoff.

Okay. They, yeah, and they're below the relegation line. Right. They need to gain two to get to the playoff. They would need to gain six on the team ahead of that to actually auto-maintened safety. Well, I hope they stay up. But not at Augsburg's expense. Augsburg is basically just seeing out the season at this point, right?

Yep. So the Bundes League of Dead Rubbers include Augsberg and Pepe, who are now seven points clear of even that playoff spot. unfortunately they got into that position while Pepey has basically not been playing soccer for them so he was playing a lot while they were towing the line of relegation they dropped him from the lineup and his minutes have decreased sharply even off the bench and they have worked their way to safety so

that's not super encouraging for him and his role there but they spent 20 million on him they're now safe so we'll see if you can get a run out here over the last few games yeah hopefully Brooks and Paredes and Wolfsburg, very safe, not going to achieve anything one way or the other. Joe Scali with Gladback and Timmy Chandler with Frankfurt also safe.

Timi Chandler and the Europa Semis also playing today against West Ham. Oh, yeah. Did he get on the field in that game against Barcelona? Or not? He might have. He hasn't been playing much either lately. He got one Bundesly to start randomly a couple weeks ago. And I was like, oh, he is.

He got some minutes. and I think he's come off the bench really late like stoppage time sub in a couple other games but no he's his role is basically disappeared for Frankfurt say that at your own peril I mean I'm just describing what's happening

I'm not saying anything about him as a play and we'll see hopefully maybe he can maybe he still has a part to play to like you know sort of his crowning achievement here in the in the Europa League if they can make a make a run against West Ham

and then the winner of Leibzig Rangers in the final. Which Burrhalter is apparently going to be at that game. I think I saw that headline. What about the Premier League? So in the Premier League, we've got, we have Zach Stephan who very easily could win the league and is still Ivan the Champions League

for a double, a famous double for an American player, technically. City are one point clear at the top over Liverpool. and they beat Rail Madrid in the first leg of the semis in the Champions League. I really want nothing against Stefan, but I really want Real Madrid to beat. I know this weird to root for Real Madrid as the underdog. But I just always like to see the Premier League teams lose in Champions League. That's fair.

I love Luca Modrich, so I will never be upset if Modrich is winning, if he's enjoying himself. We also have Poulosik, who's comfortably secured a Champions League spot. They're in third, seven points clear with a game in hand. And then Chelsea have the FAA Cup final versus Liverpool in a couple of weeks. Okay. That would be interesting to see what Poolec's role is through the end of the season. Yeah, they've got Manchester United today.

So we'll see if he gets some action there. Again, not really much to play for. I mean, they could be caught technically by the fourth place, fifth place teams, but they're doing pretty good. Josh Sargent is going to be relocated. There are 10 points from safety. That's not happening for Norwich, so they will be a championship team next season.

Maybe for the best. We'll have to see. We'll have to see if you can turn that corner in the championship. In La Liga, what do we got? We've got to Gino Dest on his way to Champions League. They will not catch Real Madrid for the title, but there are six points. safe for their Champions League spot with five games left and they're pretty good at soccer.

So it would take a big collapse for them to miss out. And then we go to the other end. Matthew Appi and Majorca are just two points clear of safety with five games left. So they're very much in a relegation struggle. And Matt Miazga and Alves are dead last. They are six points adrift. They have five games to make that up. Seems unlikely.

Eunice Musa and Valencia. lost Copa del Rey last weekend and have effectively nothing to play for at this point. They are mid-table. Okay. League of Un. To France, where we have Conrad and Marseille in a Champions League spot pretty comfortably. They got six-point lead there. They're not catching PSG for the title.

So this is where they are. Of course, Conrad has played very little role in any of that. He's been hurt. Certainly in the second half of the season, now he's injured for the season. Marseille also have the Europa Con. conference semifinals coming up against Finord where there's another player who will not, another American who also won't take part because

Colbassad is not registered for European competition for Finord. He did get on the field last weekend, which is good. We've got... Go ahead. This is Eric Palmer Brown and Tuor are in a relegation battle. They're safe for the moment, but they've only got a two-point cushion. So it's tight there.

Way on Joe Aquini, both basically mid-table. Not really much chance of improving their lot. Is Jonathan David headed out from Lille? Is that happening? It seems like there were a lot of rumors about it in the fall. I have not been, I have not been catched staying current on any transfer rumors. Other than I did follow one agent-related transfer rumor about somebody's unfortunate demise, but that turned out to have been exaggerated.

What are you referring to? Tell us, are you not current on who's the most famous agent in Europe? Oh, Mino Riala. He reportedly died. But it wasn't true. It was widely reported that he was dead. Turns out that he is at least not all the way dead. As Miracle Max might say.

Okay. And then in the championship, can I take a couple here, Fullum clinched promotion. That's obviously Jedi Robinson and Tim Ream. What's happening with Horvath, Holmes, and Balligan? We've got some playoff contenders here. So Horvath and Holmes pretty safely in the playoff spot.

They've got nine points to play with before they would drop out, and Horvath and Forrest have a game in hand. Of course, Horvath no longer playing for Forrest. He lost his spot by coming over to play for the U.S. in qualifying, where he didn't play. Just a bit of sad irony for Ethan Horvath who just seems to run into these situations again and again in his career.

Dwayne Holmes has kind of been falling off a little bit at Huddersfield. And this started a while ago. If you're in the Discord, you would have been getting a lot of highlights from Dwayne Holmes earlier in the season from me. And then he really has sort of faded. And my theory, my pet theory was that he was injured,

that he really was injured, but that he came back too early from that. and he just hasn't been nearly as active and aggressive as he usually is. And he's seen sort of his effectiveness, I think, fall off a little bit. But his team's still in the hunt for promotion. Okay. Baligan and Middlesbrough, Baligan's a dual national. He hasn't appeared for us, I think, since like a U-18 tournament a few years back.

They're two points off of a playoff spot. So they could sneak their way into the playoffs. Moving it over to Austria? Aronson and Salisbury. have clinched the league and they've got the domestic cup going for another double this Sunday already. That's right on top of us. They win a lot of Austrian competitions, it turns out. Yeah.

Over to the Netherlands, we've got Ledesma still technically in the hunt for a trophy with PSV. They're four points off IACs somehow. IACs have amassed a plus 71 goal difference over the season, which is staggering. PSV somehow only four points off of them at plus 40, which is also very impressive for goal difference. Four games to go in that. PSV are also pretty comfortably in place for a Champions League playoff spot. Okay.

But we also don't know what Ledesma's role with PSV will be next year. Right. He scored, I think, for a young PSV a couple of days ago. Yeah, I saw that. One of the two. I saw that video on the, yeah, I saw the video on Twitter. So as Fine Art Bassett's at Fine Art as we mentioned, what's there? What's up with them? They're not really close enough to catch PSV for a Champions League spot and I think the next thing they are they are up for is a Europa Conference League spot.

So they've got a three point lead there to hold on to that. They do have the Conference League semifinals that they're currently playing in. But again, Bassett is not registered for that competition. And he's, had minimal involvement in their leagues and surviving. He's another one of those 18-month loans, I believe. So he's just kind of maybe hopefully getting settled in for this past six months. And then if he's going to play a part, hopefully he's got a chance at that next year. Okay. And then I guess Luca Delatore, they're safe.

They're safe at Heracles. They're safe. Yep. They're not going anywhere. And I think, you know, we'll just, the interest in him will be whether or not they sell him. I think he's got one year left on his contracts. what they're going to get anything from him, they'd need to move him probably this summer.

I'm just looking at the, as we go down the list here, I'm just looking at the Portuguese table, because I thought Vizela was in some danger, but they've escaped it, pretty much, haven't it? Yeah, again, and it kind of coincided with Mendez playing less of a role, not necessarily saying there's a causation there,

but he's definitely seen his run of starts dry up, and they are, I think they're one point away from Boevista, they're both they're both just safe well they did Vizela did beat Aruka over the weekend that was definitely a six-pointer and Mendes started and went 80 minutes I think yeah he hasn't fallen off the picture completely he still gets in off the bench fairly regularly so

I don't mean to say he's he's not playing any role here yeah but it looks like they're gonna do it and we had Zach Lowy kind of a Portuguese soccer expert on the podcast a couple weeks ago and he was very clear on how big of an accomplishment that is for them. The last time they were... They didn't have a Twitter account at the beginning of the season. That's right.

I don't know exactly what that measures, but it seems relevant. Yeah, no. The last time they were in the top flight in Portugal before this season was 1984, and they went right back down. So for them to stay up, you know, they're making memories for the townspeople. That's a trophy for them, I'm sure. and I don't mean that facetiously. That's impressive.

Jordan Pfeffach and BSC Young Boys comfortably in a Europa Conference League slot doesn't look like they'll go higher than that, though it's not mathematically impossible. But they are going to see their four-year run as league champions come to an end. Okay. Do you want to do the rest of these?

Belgium? Yeah, Belgium's kind of interesting because they split their table up. So like McKenzie and Gank finished mid-table, but now you move into this four-team playoff, where I think they play everyone twice. And it's all just for Europa Conference League qualifying spot, I believe. Vines finished just barely in the top four with Antwerp. So they're in this playoff that they could, I think, technically win the league still, but they're nowhere close to doing that.

And so they will also most likely end up in Europa Conference League qualifying spot. Europa Conference League, just for the uninitiated, that is basically the starting blocks of the Europa League now? No, it's not even that. It's a separate competition that is like that. So Champions League is the big thing. Then Europa League is the NIT. And now there's a Europa Conference League that is one tier below that. We don't even have a parallel type of competition in college basketball, do we?

I don't think so. It's the, I don't even, I wish I knew enough about college football bowl games to know which bowl game that would be. But, I mean, you're definitely playing it in Detroit. The Music City Bowl. There we go. And then, um, CTV. So they are, they're Celtic and CTV are pretty comfortable with their six points up, four games left, but they do play Rangers in a game in one of their remaining matches. So Rangers could gain three points on them there.

and put a little pressure on them. But Celtic just don't drop a lot of points in Scotland. So even if they lose that game to James Sands and Rangers, they're still probably going to sew this thing up. Sands and Rangers have the Europa semis again today against Tyler Adams and Leipzig. That's probably what they're really paying attention to right now, right? Yeah, I think.

I mean, they're always going to pay attention to the Celtic matchup, but it's unlikely that they're going to be able to make up that ground. And then just we've got, we've got Shaq Moore in a promotion playoff spot in Segunda. And we have Andrea Novakovich, 2018 Kappi for the men's national team. He's there in the last promotion playoff spot in Italy in the second division. Okay. Trying to get up to the first division. Take over for our Venetia boys.

That'd be cool. I mean, not that the Venetia boys would go down. It'd be cool, bells. It'd be cool enough. Not for the Venetia guys to go down. but for Novakovich to come back up. So there we go. That's the lightning round.

You're now current on where everyone is. I guess since we're talking to Segunda, Jonathan Gomez, who made his Mexican national team debut last night, is in a relegation spot in the Segunda, but he's got an out if he can play his way up to Sociedadad's first team. Yeah, they're pretty much going to get relegated. Oh, yeah. They're like seven points away with five games left,

and they're not the kind of team that gains seven points over five games. I want to say bringing up Rangers made me think of Christian Ramirez's interview with Mark McKenzie and Heath Pierce on Orange Slices. He said that he was watching the Rangers Dortmund game, I think it was, on TV, and he tweeted about how good of a game it was, and he just got destroyed on social media. because Aberdeen hates Rangers so much. So he's not supposed to say something like that.

It was a big, like big, big, big, big problem. So that is, that's actually a fantastic anecdote for someone to go in without that sort of local understanding. He was like, man, it's just a good game of soccer, you know? But that's not how it works, I guess. So the other, the other duo in Europe chasing some silverware right now is Katerina Mcario and Lindsay Horan, who are playing this weekend in the second leg of a Champions League semifinal. They've got PSG, Haran's former club. Macarios just been on fire for Leone.

Eight goals in her last six games for them. What is it? Eight goals in her last six games. There you go. So she scored twice in the first leg against PSG. And they are, I don't know, the second game is in Paris. So it's tight. and I don't think there's away goals anymore in the women's side either.

A lot of, I watched her involvements from the game. I had a lot of good stuff from her in this match. The goals were not among those, really. I mean, the goalkeeper just had a horrible, horrible night. No, just we're hoping that Leon can pull this off, and then they would be most likely playing Barcelona. And the final Barcelona have just been running a riot in Spain and then also through the Champions League.

So that would be an awesome final for our two Americans over in France. Leon also on their way to winning the French League over PSG. And then we've got Tobin Heath, who's like our only other U.S. women's national player playing abroad at the moment for Arsenal. And they're one point behind Chelsea on the Women's League there. But Tobin, she would still get a ring, I believe, if Arsenal pulled us off. but she is returning to the States.

She's ruled out with injury for the season, so she has been released from her contract there. So she's coming back to the States, and it will be interesting to see where she lands as the NWSL season kicks off this weekend. I think Vince will know, but I think Louisville will have her league rights for NWSL. All right.

Yeah, that's too bad that she got her. I mean, is her injury a recent thing? She's been dealing with, injuries like off and on, I think even before the Olympics, but I'll have to double check when it really started. But she hasn't been involved with the women's national team since the Olympics. And then, I mean, we also started with CCL talk. We've got Seattle, a bunch of Seattle players chasing that trophy.

2-2 now heading back to Seattle. And then we also, of course, have Sebastian Sosato on the other side for Pumas. So one way or the other, we're getting that trophy. I'm glad we did this, Greg. Because it's, no, I am. I am, because this is just a good, like a good sort of refresher slash check-in on what's going on with everybody. Oh, we did, I know we've been talking about Haji Wright the last couple of days, so we skipped over that. I don't know how I missed the Super League on here.

But Haji Wright's and Antalya Spore are comfortable and apparently living comfortably by your description of Antal. What's it, Antalya? Antalya, yeah. Tyler Boyd, unfortunately, about to be relegated, but I think he's just on loan at Risespore from Bacetas. I don't remember exactly. I think there is also a mathematical possibility of Antalya Spore making Europa League, but it's not likely to happen.

All right, we'll step it up, Haji. Start scoring some goals, bro. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.