Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #280: Morocco & Uruguay look-aheads, Velasquez on the roster

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Greg has his say on Berhalter's call-ups, plus a quick look at Morocco and Uruguay and how we might line up against them.support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedScuffed listener survey: https://forms.gle/sBXXSaJ8jnP6RZDY6 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 talked about the roster a little bit in the Monday review, which is, you know, just for patrons. But as usual, the people want Velasquez. So we'll start with your reactions to the roster, Greg. It's going to be pretty subdued. I don't think I'm going to give the people what they want here. You know, it mostly picks itself. There are basically just a couple of spots. that are up for grabs and we are getting a couple of names to test out in those spots. So that's exciting. One or two other places in my mind, basically just one place where I feel like it is more frustrating because I think we do need to see some people and we're not going to.

And that's the, that's sort of that fourth eight slots that we just don't seem interested in testing people out, especially in what I consider sort of a low stakes, low pressure camp. So just to give the background for those of you who aren't following this as closely as we are, and I know there's not many of you in that category, but West McKinney, Eunice Musa, and Luca Deloere are the first three-eighths, and the question is who is the fourth, who would be the fourth? We've got McKinney and Musa as what seems to be sort of the nailed-on starters, and then right now, Luca Deloire would be the third one, who presumably would play for either of them if they either had to come off or were injured.

And this has been a little bit of a pattern. Burrhalter feeling like he doesn't need to try new people at this spot. Yeah, for me it's been the pattern for Burrhalter since he's taken over. And it's almost my lone frustration with this roster. Otherwise, it's pretty solid. And it's one of those where there's not even a guarantee that if we audition new players, we would find an improvement. But we have in the past, right?

Like we have done that in the past in situations where a guy came in and did upend Burrhalter's depth chart, almost like. reluctantly for Burrhalter. The most recent one obviously is Luca de la Torre, who you know, you kind of discuss this in the roster projection episode but he

it took a long time for him to get his chance and I don't think it coincided in any way with like an uptick in his club form. It's not like he finally turned a corner. You know, he was his first matches for the U.S. and qualifying were in the January window when he started against Honduras. That's not true.

He came in off the best. bench late in a to see how to win against Jamaica yeah yeah so we got those 10 minutes but then he didn't go play in the subsequent game in Panama when he his skill set again using hindsight here his skill set would have been I think really valuable in that game and I think you know I'm not even trying to use the hindsight angle to like retroactively criticize burrhalter for that decision I mean that you could have that conversation for sure it'd be worth having but since we're just talking about this camp like for me my criticism is like use the hindsight to and sort of do some introspection on, on the process.

Like, what's the process here? How did, you know, in hindsight, Luca Delatore would have, you know, helped us against Panama at Panama. In hindsight, like, Luca De La Torre probably would have helped us against El Salvador at El Salvador. In that game, the opener of the qualification campaign, where we started Brendan Aronson in the midfield and ran Conrad de la Fuente out at the left wing. Like, we could have started Aronson in his better position and started Luca de La Torre. in Center Midfield, but we weren't there, right? We hadn't tried Luca out enough to have been there. So, like, in my mind, you use this hindsight to be like,

why wasn't Luca ready for that? Why didn't we have more information on that? And it's because we didn't give him enough opportunities to test them out. And that all just goes into, like, the running frustration with our central midfield auditions, again, going back to 2019. The last two really low pressure camps we had were in the middle of qualifying because we had a camp in December,

like a nothing camp, no games attached to it, and we had a camp in January, or a friendly attached to it against Bosnia. And then we had that pre-camp in January, before the January window, with no games attached to it. And in both of those camps,

we did not bring in a single new eight to audition. And so that just becomes my frustration is like, I get that Greg has his depth chart in his guys, but like give yourself, again, that little opportunity to be wrong because we've we've been wrong in the past about the depth chart. So like let somebody have a chance to show that they can improve things. Yeah. And people will say, well, who should be called in to be auditioned?

Is there anybody? And there are people. There's, I mean, Palm call comes to mind. So does Tim Tillman. I don't know if he, you know, it's not clear that he would accept a call up right now. His brother's acceptance of a call up is not binding on Tim. as far as I know. Eric Williamson, who subsequently, you know, after the roster was announced,

has been, got injured from Portland. But he wasn't called up while he was still healthy. So clearly that wasn't going to be something we were going to try. Keaton Parks has been a very good central midfielder in the league for the last, for basically the best team points-wise in the league for the last four years. No call-ups for him either. So again, there are just, there are players that we could check. to see if they would improve the floor.

There's no guarantees that they would. So we don't know that we're hurting ourselves here. But it just feels like missed opportunities. And it's felt that way going back a long time. I feel like you were just or we were just as circumspect about Luca Deloitte, back when he wasn't getting played. We always caveated it with saying he might not be the solution here. But it turns out he is the solution or he is part of the solution.

I was just watching back a little bit of the game against Panama, all the 5-1 win. You know, and the first 20 minutes of that game, we're pretty taught, you know, it wasn't a, it wasn't a foregone conclusion yet. And he was, he's doing a lot of good stuff, man. He was like doing a lot of the stuff we need in the midfield. And he really had to, he really had to force his way in and make himself inevitable almost.

I mean, that's overstating it. He was not inevitable. But, you know, he, like you said, there was some reluctance on Burrhalter's part. it seemed like to really give him a shot. He was left out of the November camps altogether. So, you know, we had that October camp where he played sparingly at the end of a two zero win, didn't get into the Panama game where, again, his skill set would have been very much needed, especially in like a desperation mode where we've got to make something

happen and we just chose not to. And then in the November camp, he was just left off altogether. And again, there's some suggestion that he would have been left out of the January camp as well, but for Gianluca Busio missing out for COVID. So again, like we do, there's this pattern of like very reluctantly introducing players, not doing it nearly as efficiently as we could. Again, having Luca missed the entire November camp for anyone who's like, well, you can't just throw a guy in.

Like, that would be the time to do it so that it's less of an issue later on. And that's exactly what like a camp in this summer would be. We're like, we'll introduce some guys now. If they do hit, then you're not trying to throw him in cold a month before. for the World Cup. Yeah. Well, welcome to the scuff podcast,

right off the bat. And in passion. It sounds like I'm really, it sounds like I'm really fussy about that roster. But again, this is like, it's down the list of priorities, but it just,

it felt like it could have been a freebie. And again, this was the exact same thing that happened in December, where it's a total freebie camp and we just, we ran out, Acosta and rolled on as the eights

with Jackson Ewell behind them. Was it? No, with Johnny Cardoso behind them. and Jacks Nules, the other central midfielder on the roster. And it's just like, what are we doing here? What are we, what are we learning in this, in this mode? So, that's the thing.

We had a chance that we could have learned something that maybe could have helped us. And it seems like we're, we're not going to take it. Well, I guess to be, you know, totally fair to Burrhalter, Malik Tillman and Georgie Mihalovich are both listed as midfielders in this roster. So presumably they will get. some kind of chance. I mean, he definitely talked about Tillman specifically as being in contention for that spot. I mean, we're going to do, I don't know what kind of literary device this is,

but we're going to do like to have done the fourth date discussion first of all. And then I'm going to talk about a few nuggets from the press conference that Burrhalter did and then give the roster. So I don't know. Most people have to know the roster part. Yeah, it's like, we're not breaking any roster news here. The reading of the roster part doesn't have to. come first.

Just a few things that Berhalter said that I thought were interesting. So he said, Desd-Reynum, Miles Robinson, of course, Pfok and Sargent are injured, and Richards' day-to-day, but, quote, it may be something we're not going to risk at this stage. Richards didn't exactly break his foot, but he hurt his foot badly against Canada. And then got injured for Hoffenheim. The rest and relaxation crew is what I'm calling them is Sam's. James Sands, John Luke Busio, and Ricardo Pepe. And I think the rationale here, whether you buy it or not,

is that these guys all made the move from MLS to Europe in the last 12 months and just got done with first seasons. And, you know, that has all that has taken some acclimating and it's going to take some more acclimating, I think, for all three of them. So they're getting sort of almost a mental break as much as anything at this point. And while that makes sense, you know, that holds up,

This will be their last chance to get a break before the World Cup, assuming that they are all still, you know, playing somewhat regularly through the fall. But also, like, I just want to say, like, also don't really ever take press conference answers as like the whole truth. Oh, yeah, of course. And I don't mean in any nefarious way. It's just like, you know, there are hundreds of little factors

that go into coaches, assessments, and evaluations, and, you know, they have to aggregate all those. in their head and balance everything out. So it's really easy in a press conference to just, you know, say, focus on one thing. Like, arrest will help them a little bit. But also, you know, we can afford to rest them maybe because they aren't particularly high up in our plans.

Like, that could be the unstated part of that equation. Yeah. The only one who I think is maybe an exception to that is peppy. I think it would be surprising if he were, like, not high up in the plans at this point after having been so thoroughly committed to by Burrhalter and throughout World Cup qualifying and having his moments, you know, where he was extremely helpful in getting us to the World Cup. I think that, I think that stands up pretty well.

The miscellaneous category I have here is Williamson. He said he's, you know, still getting back to health, which is technically true. And before he got injured last weekend after the roster was announced. He mentioned by name Sam Vines, John Tolkien, and he said, he mentioned by name Sam Vines, John Tolkien, even Kevin Perettis still being in consideration for the left back spot. He did not mention DeWan Jones, Greg. Well, we've got one swing back in the camp, which is what I wanted. We got so five fullbacks, one of whom Joe Scali can play either side.

He did, Berthelter did say that Bello is the one they want to see, get the reps in this camp. I know, I know, that's what I was going to say. He didn't really explain that or like what that. That's one where, like, retroactively, I will be upset if Scali sees no left back time. Because, again, the other thing where I think we can make some progress with our roster construction going towards November is to find a better floor for our backup left back. Yeah. Just a more perfect backup left back is what we're looking for. So again, same thing.

Fourth eight, backup left back, these are like, can we improve our contingency options in case they're needed down the road? hopefully this stuff never ends up mattering. It very well may not. And then goalkeepers, one of the more candid things I've ever heard from Boralter is him talking about Kagas Lenina. Of course, Slenina committed to play for the U.S. United States of America, which is great news for the future. And Baralter's quote was, he has a very promising future, end quote. But, and I quote, it was hard to put him on the roster due to his current form, end quote. And apparently that's what he told Gaga, and Gaga received that guidance well in good nature.

And that seems all very healthy. Yeah, I mean, that's the business, right? If you're a goalkeeper, you can't just make like a series of high profile errors and then expect to still be part of the national team picture. It just doesn't work like that. Who is on the roster? It's Horvath, Stefan, and Turner. I see. I see.

Very clever, very clever. Sean Johnson, he said, is in good form, but it's more important to look at Horvath, Stefan, and Turner. That's what Berhalter said. Fair enough. Gaga just has to learn some hard lessons, I suppose. And then Berthalter was asked about Richie Ledesma,

and he said that Ledesma said that he is not ready to compete for a spot on this team right now, which is an interesting thing for Ledesma to say. But they did talk. according to Burrhalter. And then on Brooks, you know, he did get a few questions about Brooks.

He just said, quote, trust me, he's not out permanently, end quote. But he did mention his, his change of club, his pending change of club.

I thought a great quote about Malik Tillman, and Burhalter did pronounce it Malik. It sounds wrong. I know, but. That's how it's, that's how it's,

on a Bundesliga preview video that I watched that was made when Byron were about to play Groetzer Groethe Foote. So yeah, Malick against him. So that's, I'm going with Malick. And Timmy, I think. How does Wackie say it?

Gertorfert. On one of Tim Tillman's social media profiles, his down just says, call me Timmy. So I don't know if that's like a, you know, a bit that the young people do or if he is like, it's a plea to anyone in the media,

but I'm going to just go with it. So it's Timmy Tillman now. I like it. I like Timmy Tillman. He's still nice. Yep, still nice. Thanks for keeping that. PG.

The quote Burhalter gave about the younger Tillman, the one who will be in camp, is he said, no, they asked what were the conversations like that brought him into the fold and how did you sell the program? And he said, well, we just painted the vision of our program. And then he said, he kind of looked away from the camera

and he said, although the guys didn't speak to him directly, he's referring to the players currently on the team. Although the guys didn't speak to him directly, I think they speak for themselves in terms of what they're doing on the field and the clubs they're at and the age they are and a lot of players are excited to be part of this group.

This was certainly the case with Malik. And I feel the end quote, and I feel like that's a really cool thing that there is this sort of, there's a vibe with the men's national team that's appealing across borders. Oh yeah, I don't think there's any, like, denying that the kind of excitement for, for what this team is. And again,

like the, the fact that we are, uh, you know, almost like an entire roster, but certainly an 11, uh, that you could trot out in, in an Olympic eligible age bracket is just, it's, it's, it's, it really is just crazy. Uh, and you can totally see why somebody would be excited about that. It's everything's so wide open and, uh, it really is like, it's got to be the easiest picture to paint in the world about, you know, how bright the future is, whether it turns out that way or not. Right. Like, we're making the present look bright with the, with, at least with, you know, the potential

of the players in the first team. Yeah, I was, you know, digging in a little bit on Uruguay. And I don't know how you'd sell somebody to join that national team. It's so, so stacked. There's so many good players. Unbelievable. Oh, and then the other thing is Hajee, you know, quite a few questions about Hajie, right?

A good one from Henry Bushnell, which was like, was he off, would you have considered him off the radar? And Berhaler said, you know, when he was playing winger for VVV Venlo, and I don't remember which year this was, but it was sometime in the last couple years. Two seasons ago. He was at Venlo for a season, and he didn't score a single goal in like 1,500 minutes. And I don't have his underlying numbers there.

And then he was at Sonder Yike. Oh, yeah, Sonder Sky. Yeah. Sondryke. It might be that. In the Danish division. So those two things kept him in and out of the playbill. He was, you know, in and then out.

So I think he was on our right radar, but he would dip off. It was a weak signal for sure. Yeah. Well, he was on them national team radar too. According to Burrhalter, he said we were watching his games and, you know, we were, you know, paying attention. But at that point, he was not clicking for him. And it was not, he was not playing in the right position, in our opinion, to make. an impact. And so yeah, I mean, I guess if you want to call that off the radar, he was off the

radar. And he said, there's been a mentality shift for Wright this season, started slow, started doing better and is now able to, quote, dominate games, end quote. I watched a lot of Haji clips over the last few weeks. I think there's some truth to that. And so it'll be good to see him. Glad to see him. Yeah, I'm going to be glad to see any kind of experiment with any kind of new face at the striker position because it's felt so hard to like differentiate any of the of anybody from anyone else for again since 2019 like uh it was hard to take players off of the back then it was like hard to take players off of the playbill because it's like I don't know maybe Novakovich really is going to be our our best striker like you just nobody was really

at any point setting themselves apart um and that has kind of still played out that way we've been you know, there have been a lot of players who did get a lot of excitement going for him. Darrell D.K., sort of the most recent one, ahead of qualifying. And then, you know, between injury and some lackluster performances for the national team, like that star has faded quite a bit. And the thing is, any of those stars could be reignited in the next three or four months. You still got a little Novakovich stock? Man, they were one game, he was one game away from getting promoted to the area a couple years ago.

So, I mean, I don't, but it's, it's. It's like I'm not holding stock on almost any of these guys. Even Ferreira, like my pet favorite, I just have no idea what he's going to look like up against the level of competition we're going to be at in the World Cup. Yeah, it is a little concerning to me as well. One of the thing Burrhalter said is that he's going to experiment with a three-man backline in this window.

That was in response to a question from Sam Staiskel. And I don't know how I feel about that. I don't think I like it that much, especially it's hard to, it's hard to justify, you know, when you sit down and try to put a three-man backline together, how, we're not, that's, that's a lineup that is not going to allow any auditioning in the, in that number eight position, right? So, so that's my take on it. That's where at least that's part of my, uh, my interpretation of it is, it's like an end around on the, on the eight situation.

Like, so instead of auditioning a new eight, we will just. eliminate one of the central midfielders and by doing that you're going to fold Adams and Acosta into the group that would just be playing in that two of like a three four two one and by the two I mean the two center mids of the four line yeah the outside players being like the wingbacks yep and Berlter mentioned the three four two one specifically because he talked about when he was talking about Malick's role and how he sees Malick is maybe a pocket winger in the three four two one okay and I think I think that would for sure be Georgie's role as well.

He basically does that from Montreal already. And I don't think either of those guys fit well as one of the eights in the 433. Berhalter, you know, I gave Malick a little bit of a play there saying if his defensive work is up to it. But I think it's a huge reach to think that his defensive work will be up to it. We'd ask a ton in both ground coverage and essentially like commitment to our eights. Like they have a lot less freedom. It might not seem like that because McKenney can do a lot of things out of that role.

And so can Musa and hopefully Luca will too. But like the actual responsibility that we put on them to control the field is immense. And it's nothing like what the wingers get to do, which is like. Slack off out there. Yeah. I mean, you get to be a little bit like a little bit very much more like chicken head cutoff situation. Right. So.

Yeah. Slacking off is not the right way to put it. I mean, they do have to run a lot. You do a ton of work. Right. But like it's going to be all like just add value by doing all this work. work, which is, again, which is where like a Brendan Erinson thrives, Paul Ariola does that kind of stuff.

So all this to say, like the 3-4-2-1 for me would be like a way to get around the eight issue because now you've got your midfield crop for those two central midfield spots is Adams, Acosta, McKenny, Musa, and Luca. So you suddenly have five guys for two spots. Instead of in our 433, when you're talking about the eights, we have three guys for two. So just nowhere near enough cushion there. but plenty of cushion in the 3-4-2-1. Yeah, I hadn't thought of it that way because I was trying to figure out

how to put that line up together and nothing really is satisfying to me. Now hopefully I get like totally proven wrong and Georgie or Mallet come in and are like lights out as an 8 in our 433 if they even get tried there. I'm just really skeptical that's the case. Like Georgie's defensive work for Montreal, he doesn't do nothing. But he is like, for most of their mid-block defense, he's like a, he's like a spectator. He's involved when the ball's on his side. You know, he's got, he's got like assignments.

He's got to cover and work. But he's like, once the ball's past him, I mean, he's a forward. Interesting. Yeah. I have not, I've not checked up on his defensive work. So at Montreal, so thank you for doing that. Yeah. And again, it's not laziness.

I don't know. Maybe he can do all this stuff. but it's speculative at best to be like, no, he will totally be able to do the work of these central mids that play for the U.S. I feel silly doing this because we did read the roster on Monday, but let me just do it again. It's Horvath, Stefan Turner. I'll do it really fast as the goalkeepers, left backs, Bello and Robinson, centerbacks, Cameron Carter Vickers, rewarded for a great season at Celtic with the call-up, which I think is good. Aaron Long, Eric Palmer Brown, Walker Zimmerman,

and then the right backs are DeAndre Edlin and Reggie Cannon, calling Joe Scali a swingback. That's because he could play their side. The D-Mids would be... Let's hope he plays both sides in this camp. Well, yeah, I mean, more important that he play on the left side, right, than on the right? I think, I mean, there's always a possibility that he is actually good enough to be our backup right-back. Like, I wouldn't rule that out offhand to jump to number two,

but I think that's way less likely than him coming in to be able to set a floor as the backup left back. Yeah. The floor is, we got a decent floor backup right back already. Yes. A couple, provided by a couple of players, too. So the defensive mids would be Acosta and Adams. The eights in this camp or the ostensible eights would be Deloere, McKenny, Mihailovich, Musa, Roldon, and Tillman, although Greg just explained how he thinks Mahalovic and Tillman might be deployed.

and then wingers would be Brennan Aronson, Paul Areola Jordan Morris, Christian Pulisick, and Tim Wea who is on a very, very good run of form lately for Lille. And then the strikers are Jesus Ferreira and Haji Wright. We already covered the no new eights thing,

which is kind of the, I think, the main gripe here. Do you think we'll see Reggie Cannon at Wright centerback? Because he has played there quite a bit for Boe Vista in Portugal. I mean, more than anything... That was his position. More than anything else, yeah.

Yeah, that was his position in the second half of the season. And it was actually like he got dropped temporarily altogether when he was a, when he got kind of jumped it right back and got back on the field as they switched to this three back system. So it wouldn't surprise me. I think I would probably rather see a designated centerback play that, but I have very little. to like really care if that's the case or if reggie can do the job i think he's um i mean the thing that i like about him in that spot is the added mobility and you know bring some extra mobility to the three-man back line although i guess you know ccv is plenty mobile so is so is um

eric palmer brown right it's it's one of those we don't have anybody we don't have outstanding centerback so it's not like I'm desperate to get one of those and would be disappointed if Reggie was the guy. I just feel like I would probably rather see the more experienced centerbacks tested out first. But I'm not going to, I'm not strong on that. I guess that's the thing that makes it, that's the most unsatisfying about making this lineup is none of the centerbacks is like exceptionally exciting on his own. You know, so just to add another one on the field and then have to take off one of the midfielders or one of the winger's. It just feels

defeating a little bit. Though again, I am excited just to get some real minutes from some of these guys who have been just considered fringe options for going on three years now in CCV and EPB. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So there are four games coming up, as you know,

Morocco a week from today, I believe. Is that right? Yeah. And then Uruguay, a week from Sunday, and then Grenada and El Salvador. And I, so, you know, I don't know how much rotation we're going to need to do, but we probably will do some. How do you, well, maybe I should talk about Morocco first. What do you think about that? Yeah, give us Morocco.

I think I saw their roster out there now. It's published. No Zyik. He is on the out. with his manager, so it's not just a U.S. thing where really good players can be on the outs with their manager. So it's one of those where he's said he's retired from the national team. But it's a little bit of like a forced retirement or a mutual retirement, mutually enforced retirement. What a disaster.

I didn't realize that. I mean, he didn't play in some of the last World Cup qualifiers either. He is a good player that they will be missing. It's crazy. It's kind of like Carlos Vela and Gittorito just sitting on the side of Mexico as they struggle to score goals through qualifying. Right.

Can you imagine if something like that happened with us? It probably will as we become a bigger soccer country. So Morocco plays in something like a 5-3-2 and even without Zic, they have plenty of talent. If you run through their roster, a bunch of their guys are playing in Spain and France. Their captain, Roman Saiz plays for wool. He's a centerback.

He's the middle of that five band of five. And probably the most recognizable elite player on the team outside of Zyik, who, again, isn't playing, is Akraf Hakimi, who you'll remember from Dortmund and now at PSG, an extremely dangerous wingback. He plays on the right side from Morocco. And then, you know, the other name that I think is worth mentioning is Yusef and Nassiri.

he's the other big dollar player on transfer market and he's at Sevilla, plays striker, struggled with injury in the fall and then missed some action because of the Africa Cup of Nations, but he scored five goals and assisted two in the league of this season and started pretty much every game down the stretch for Sevilla, which is a strong Spanish club right now. I guess I think if we're going to go with a 343 or 3421,

we should try it against Morocco. What do you think? not for me I mean I I won't be mad at any lineup or formation so I shouldn't have come off so strong there but I would I would rather start in our

preferred more comfortable lineup and then make it like a midgame switch into a 343 3421 if I'm going to be pedantic yeah okay well I mean who who would start for you and the in your 433 against Morocco

So I'm going to be starting what I think of as like the best 11 week in field in this one. So I'm going to put Turner and goal, of course. I'm going to go Zimmerman and Cameron Carter Vickers. It's my centerbacks. Tyler Adams as the six. And then Luca and Musa's center mids, Berthor also talked somewhat extensively about McKinney and his, you know, just getting back to fitness.

So they're going to be ramping him up and hoping to. to maybe get a start out of him in the Nations League. So it'd be Luca and Musa and we'll, again, that's the good silver lining for any of these guys who are injured, is that we will get really good data on their immediate backups. So that's what I'm hoping to see from this one, this game. I've got Jedi as my left back. And I've got, I'm hoping, I'm hoping that Joe Scali starts at right back.

I think he's, he personally is a better right back than a left back. So this would just be like my trick to, ease him into the action. And then hopefully maybe he could get some left back later on in the window. Poulsick for Arawea up top. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

I mean, the only thing that gives me some pause is Uruguay is going to be, I think, tougher than Morocco. No, we're not going into this trying to win points or like, you know, accomplish anything results-wise. So maybe that's completely out the window. but part of me does think maybe we should save our first choice team for Uruguay because they have Ed and Cavanagh coming off the bench. Well, my counter there is that I'm going to run the exact same 11 back,

except Yedlin for Scali against Uruguay. Okay. And then Scali will come in at halftime for Jedi at left back. Okay, well, your plan is much simpler and better than mine, much more elegant. These are the two games, man. like these are the two games where again the quality of the opponent uh even if the intensity isn't quite as high the quality of the opponent will expose

weaknesses and and they will punish mistakes right and so that's that's what i need to see that's what i want the first team out there is to uh get them some real reps in a ways that if they don't execute they're punished yeah uh and can can learn from it i love it i love that um you know if we were going to go with a three four three if we're going to go with bells's back plan of doing a three-four-three against that plan. I would be happy to see like a wildly experimental lineup in any of these games. Well, another thing worth noting is that there are only four days between the games, Wednesday and to Sunday.

So it's kind of similar to what we've been going through all the past eight months. But I'm goalkeeper agnostic between Horvath and Turner. I do think one of those two needs to get a chance. and then I would say if we're going to do this 343, 3421, CCV, Zimmerman, and EPB, and then Canon, Adams, Acosta, and Scali across the four, and then Ariola and Aronson and then Ferreira at Stryker, with the idea of saving, you know,

the first choice roster for Uruguay. Do you have a left to right sequence for CCV, EPB, and Zimmerman? Yeah, CCV on the right, Zimmerman in the middle, EPB on the left. Okay. Yeah, EBB's played a lot of left centerback in a three-back formation. He was doing that in the Netherlands. I think he's done quite a bit of it in France. So I think he makes sense as the left centerback and whether we're going, whether he's in a four or a five in the back or a four or a three in the back. So I think I would, I would enjoy seeing that. Kind of like Chris, Richard's a little bit. He and Richards are both right-footed but comfortable playing on the left.

I think I'd rather see CCV in the center of a three if we do that just because I think I'd rather have Zimmerman and EPV be the two that pursue the ball out to the flanks as needed and keep CCV home but I mean that's based off not a ton of tape that I've been watching from him he was part of a three a lot for for Celtic Swansea I was going a year farther back for Swansea when they got to the promotional playoffs And he just seemed really at home in that back three in the middle of it. So that's where I have him in my mind.

But again, this is all, these are all just sort of coin tosses. Well, one cool thing is a CCV Zimmerman, if it's a four-man back line, a CCV Zimmerman pairing is absolutely dominant in the air physically. Morocco, of course, is qualified for the World Cup. They beat the Democratic Republic of Congo in a two-legged tie in March. about the same time we were qualifying for the World Cup. And they are in Canada's group, right? They've got Canada in their group. I forget who.

Is that true? So Herdman, we got them here so Hurdman can watch them. And then Hurdman's got Iran coming to Canada. So we can watch that. That just seemed like a wild coincidence. Yeah. Are we sharing notes? Oh, I'm sure they are.

I don't like, I don't want to, I don't want to be friends with Canada. Soccer wise. So Uruguay surged to qualification after a very slow start in the sacking of long-time manager Oskar Tabarez. Now the manager is Diego Alonso, who you may remember from his stint at Inter-Miami. Not all that successful, but he has been successful as the Uruguay manager because he helped him, you know, sort it out. As far as the roster goes, you know, Diego Godin's obviously a legend. He's aged 36 playing at Aletico Minero in Brazil. His former club teammates still at Aletico Madrid is Jose Maria Jimenez.

Also, you know, he's a centerback for Athletico Madrid. He's big time. And then Ronald O'Raho played right back most recently. He plays as a defender for Barcelona. And then Matias Olivera at Hettafe. He's the left back. And then in the midfield in the attack, it's just gross, how many good players they have. But Betancourt, of course, at Tottenham, formerly Juventus.

He's played, I don't watch Tottenham. But my understanding is he's played a lot better for Tottenham than he was playing for Juventus. And Federico Valverde, the Real Madrid midfielder, and the most valuable player on this roster. So those two, Betancourt and Valverde are the middle of the band of four. It's a four-four-two, generally speaking. And then they have like a ton of exciting young attackers. This fecundo pelistri, who plays for Olives, is really good. And Georgian de Arraskayeta, I'm sure I'm not saying that exactly right,

but he's also quite good. He plays, I think, at Flamengo. And then up top, it's Luis Suarez, who needs no introduction, and Darwin Nunez, 22-year-old striker who scored 34 goals. in all competitions for Benfica this season. And then Edinson Kavanaugh is, you know, he's available off the bench. So is Diego Rossi, who tore up MLS for a couple of years at LAFC and is now in Turkey. So Uruguay is really good.

I imagine they're going to be just like every time there's a World Cup, you know, a real contender, at least for the semifinals. So. Awesome, awesome tune up game, right? Yeah. And, you know, we played them back in 2019 in the second game of a window, and it was absolutely like a snooze fest. Yeah, at Bush Stadium. Even in that game, you could just see again that level of competence where we couldn't get anything through them.

Like, they could just kind of like be going through the motions and still deny us like any good, clean penetration or looks on goal. Our goal came off some ridiculous, like, deflected cross where their guy cleared it off their own man. and it looped back over to a wide open Jordan Morris on the goal line to tap in. Oh, yeah, that's right. So it's like this, even then they were extremely competent and could still like hit us on a lightning quick attack. Not at will, but just like you could just see how nonchalantly they'd be like, oh, hey, something's on. Boom, we're like running at them with their counterattack style. So I'm excited to see what they look like in a World Cup here where they really do have a little bit more incentive to be like,

we have to sharpen up some things. This isn't, we're not just collecting a payday here. Like, let's iron things out. Let's fine tune. Let's, let's do this.

Let's play a little bit. So I'm pretty excited to see what this looks like. And I have no idea what it will look like. Yeah. It's, it's going to be, are you going to go to, have you settled on whether you're going to Kansas City or not?

Still up in the air. Okay. It's, it's easy for me to just like decide two days before for Kansas City because it's a, It's a short commute. Watching Uruguay highlights and, you know, kind of digging in a little bit on them this morning made me a little more regretful that I'm not going to be there because that should be a really fun game to see. It'd be a good game to see.

Kansas City, obviously, for anyone to spend there, has a great view of the field. So it's like, I want to go just to be able to see the whole picture, you know, to not be limited to what's on the TV screen. Like my big reluctance is that it would, it could delay our. our day after recording. Yeah, that is, it's a consideration, man. Gotta get home, got to re-watch it. Right. We can sort that out.

Another logistical thing is there's a U.S. soccer announced yesterday that they're going to do roundtable interview formats in Cincinnati with players, and I immediately thought of Chris, Waki, because he's been yearning for more of that type of content, and they're going to provide it in Cincinnati. So you, journalists will be able to interview like multiple players at one time in a roundtable format, which is great because then you get them like kind of arguing with each other and, you know, arguing over who's the fastest, stuff like that. If they need a moderator for that kind of thing, like, Wadke should be at the top of their list.

Oh, yeah. For sure. I'm sure he is. I feel like they should, they should lean into it. I mean, they all already like watch his stuff, like lean into it, get Wocky up there. This is the camp to do it again. No, zero pressure, zero stakes, nice and relaxed. Get them up there.

I'm sure somebody at U.S. soccer has a potential moderator's spreadsheet. And Waki's right at the top. Followed by Winalda. It's Wachy and then Winalda. Because it's actually just reverse alphabetical. But also Valverde, I mean, many of you know this, but Valverde and Betancourt can both hit a rope from like 25 yards. and they've done it multiple times over the last, you know, a couple months. There's been two of Uruguay's goals over the last,

the last few games of qualifying. I think two of their five goals in the last two games were bicycle kicks. And then just like some screamers from Bettencourt and Valverde. So, yeah, it should be quite a show and hopefully we'll be up for it. I wonder if that's why Jedi's back here Because, you know, Jedi was the biggest surprise on the roster for me Because I was expecting that he was going to have that cleanup postseason surgery Right.

With Fulham. So like everyone was talking about it. And I was like, didn't they say he's going to as soon as the season's over, but apparently not. So he's going to have his hands full in both of these games. Yep. Hakee and then, you know, the Uruguayan onslaught. So you're just saying run back the same. lineup as you had for the Morocco game except Yedlin instead of Scali.

That's where I'm going with it. Scali can cover himself in glory against Grenada. I wouldn't, I obviously actually should build into, you should rotate the centerback, at least one of the centerbacks too, so you get a different test because these two games I think are going to be the big centerback tests where they're really going to be put under it. I don't expect any real lessons to take from Grenada at home and even the El Salvador game. while it might be a little less comfortable for us

and I don't mean to say like we're just going to cruise through it I don't think we will be put under the same level of like mistake punishing pressure that Morocco and Uruguay can exert on us yeah well I'm looking forward to going back to the Kuskatlan you know same virtually on via television I bet the players are too man I bet they're I bet they're pumped about getting back there it'd be interesting to know if they are unsatisfying.

Yeah. I've got my same goalkeeper agnostic thing, and then Yedlin Zimmerman, EPPB, Robinson, the MMA midfield, Waya Ferreira Pulisic. So I think that's exactly what you have. So you're getting McKinney into that lineup right here, right?

You're getting optimistic on his injury return. Yeah, if he can't go, I'm totally fine with Luca Delatore. And it would be a great test for him. We'll get to see deeper into his soul. Goalkeeper-wise, you can be agnostic, I'm going to pin you down here.

Do you want to, would you be okay if it's the same goalkeeper that starts Morocco, or do you need to see at least two keepers in these two games? I guess the only thing that would really frustrate me is if Horvath doesn't get a chance at all. If Horvath gets both of the games, I wouldn't mind that that much. I mean, we know what we've got from Turner, you know. Yeah, that's fair. I could go along with that. It's going to be Stefan in both.

and Slanina home on bad form with a bad form slip. All right, I think that's it. Yeah, we'll come back and talk about after these games we'll come back, or even a little bit of forebought. The Grenada game, yeah, it just seems like

it isn't going to warrant that much analysis. But we are going to do a recap. We are going to do a recap. Again, I'm not going to ask you to sign up for the Patreon, but please do tell your friends about the scuff podcast, help spread the word. A lot of you left, reviews and they were mostly positive too so that's great um so i appreciate that tell your friends

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