Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #286: U20 player pool rundown ahead of Concacaf Championship

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

The tournament kicks off Saturday for the U.S. U20s against St. Kitts & Nevis. The top 2 finishers in the tournament qualify for the 2024 Olympics, and the top 4 qualify for the U20 World Cup in 2023 in Indonesia. So it's a tournament that matters quite a bit! Matt Hartman joins the pod to talk through the players on the roster, the ones who aren't for various reasons, and a few other things.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. The U-20 age group, as we often discuss, doesn't have the same urgency as it did three years ago when we were about to undergo a youth revolution on the senior team. But the U-20s still matter, and they are about to try to win the Cockcalf Championship in Honduras. In this tournament, they can qualify both for the next U-20 World Cup and the Olympics. It would be nice if they did both. And the first game is Saturday against St. Kitts and Nevis. Matt Hartman has joined me to talk through who will be there and what to expect from them. Matt, how you doing? I'm doing great bells. Let's get to it.

All right. First, let's talk about who is not there. Who is age eligible and is not there. And age eligible means you were born on January 1st, 2003 or later. So the big name, that's not, the big names are not there. Number one is Ricardo Pepe. Why is he not there? basically he's too good to play U20 soccer anymore is the short way of putting it the long way of putting it is that you know he's he's basically on the on the edge of a world cup of a senior world cup roster and

even asking him to play U20 soccer at this point is kind of a weird thing to do for a guy you might bring to your to a senior world cup and is playing Bundesliga soccer So yeah not not playing Bundesliga soccer particularly well but um yeah he's uh he's a senior team player and I would guess he's probably on the plane if the plane left tomorrow 6040 yeah is on the plane yeah I'd agree with you so like if all if we had the rest of our full strength u20 team I think asking ricardo peppy to play in this tournament maybe happens but we're basically

asking him to play with like the B squad here which is would be like further insult to injury I think yeah that's why so that's why we're starting with who's not there because there are a lot of good players who are not there and in general wouldn't you say that that's a good thing for them and their career that they're not there oh yeah totally totally so that the second one is gaga slanina famously committed to play for the US after much hand-wringing he he was invited to a Polish camp but he wasn't released by Chicago right? Yep. MLS players

not getting released has been a common theme of this tournament and we'll continue to be as we get down this list of guys who couldn't make it. He starts every game for the Chicago Fire. You can understand why they don't want to release him for this. Justin Shea, what's the story with him? Yeah, kind of a similar thing to Ricardo Pepe where he's a guy who is highly rated and made a big move to a to a bonus leger club.

And, you know, for guys like that in that sort of situation, I think that the Federation is viewing it as more important that they get a full preseason in with their team than play in this tournament against the likes of Cuba and St. Kitsa Nevis. There aren't many questions those guys can answer against that competition. So. She back in Hoffenheim. Well, I don't know if he's there right now, but he'll be there this fall, right?

Yeah. Brian Gutierrez, Slunina's teammate in Chicago. I didn't see the news on this. Was he also not released? Yeah, he also wasn't released. He's, so he's a name a lot of people maybe don't know, but he, um, he started six games for the fire this year and almost always plays, uh, kind of a sparky attacking half space. merchant attacking midfielder slash winger right and it's it's almost like of the ones we've

listed so far this one is the most okay because we already have too many sparky attacking half space wingers on this roster and gutier isn't necessarily better or worse than any of them so if he's if he's going to be playing for the chicago fire and these other guys aren't going to be playing for their teams i'd rather bring the other guys so there you there we have already uh a good striker, a good goalkeeper, a good centerback, and a pretty good wide attacker slash attacking midfielder. And then we have our left back, Jonathan Gomez, who was, I believe, called into Mexico's U-20 camp and accepted and then left with an injury, right? Yeah, that's what was reported in the men's national team Twitterverse, at least.

on their prelim roster I don't who knows if like how real that injury is right hopefully it's completely made up and he just didn't want to commit to the Mexican national team but either way we kind of dodge a bullet here without with having Gomez not be cap tied to the Mexican national team

another another left back who is age eligible but is not on this roster is Kevin Perettis he's at Wolfsburg does not play did not play very much this spring but you know super high potential player I assume

in the same boat as Justin Shea either not released or not called up because it was more important for him to be in preseason with Wolfsburg yeah I didn't see like any confirmation of that but I just presume that that's the case if they did it with Che there's no reason why they would do anything

any differently with Bredas another left back Caleb Wiley not released by Atlanta yep not released by Atlanta and he's a guy who looked pretty good for this team the last time they got together so it's a it's a small loss to not have Wiley here Atlanta being one of the MLS teams

who generally don't play ball with the Federation with releasing players that they don't feel like releasing so and he was good in that, I think it was in that tournament in Selya, right? Yep.

Moses Nyman, he is not in this camp either, the midfielder from DC United. Yeah, it just hasn't, Moses just really hasn't had a good last year, six months, just has been injured. Stock has kind of fallen a little bit, even when he has played. So who knows? I would imagine that he would be on this roster if he was. if he was healthy, but he isn't, so he isn't. Yeah. So who else is not here that you're aware of and think is worth noting?

Yeah, sure. So there are a couple of guys on other national teams that are going to be at this tournament. So Jeremy Garay is another guy that you may remember was the last time this group got together for a tournament. He was kind of like the backup six didn't play. all that much. He accepted a call up for this tournament to El Salvador. So it'll be there, but just not in a U.S. shirt.

And a similar thing for Tony Leone, who is one of the better, you know, he would be one of our starting centerbacks, I would say, if he was on our roster, but instead he's made the choice to play for Mexico instead. It's been pretty consistent about that choice lately too, right? Yeah. He's lost.

Is he lost? At youth level, he's certainly lost now. He's like officially lost. Who knows for, you know, centerbacks, it's a long jump to the senior national team. So who knows for sure. But it's sad to see just because he'd be a pretty important player for us. You've been eye on him for a while. He plays at L.A.F.C.

For what's worth. Or actually plays for Las Vegas Lights, right? Right on loan from L.AFC. Yeah. And then one more guy I want to mention is, a Colascio who was the kid who was in, he's Canadian American on top of several other nationalities who kind of made headlines by being in that in the Nation's League camp for Canada. That was, didn't exactly go as planned for that Canadian team.

But he's like a tricky winger at that Español in La Liga. he got into one game at the end of the season, which kind of, yeah, kind of put him on everybody's radar. And he's basically said that he wanted to, he accepted the Canada call up because he wanted to see what it's like, and he hasn't closed the door on representing anybody.

So if he was at, he decided not to accept a call up for the tournament for similar reasons to some of the other guys we mentioned where he wants a full preseason, or at least that's the stated reason. You know, maybe just not ready to pick aside yet. If he was on that, if he was on that Canadian U-20 team,

he would almost undoubtedly be the best talent on it since that kind of the team is missing Marshall Ready, who's their other super duper talented U-20 player. And he would probably start for us as well. I've only seen very limited tape of him, but he's explosive in a way that nobody else on this roster for us is outside of Cade Cowell.

You're talking about Coletio, Luca Coletio, yeah. Interesting. Never heard of him. Well, I guess I did see somebody tweeting about him a couple days ago, but. And then there was some coach's decision omissions. Let's just, let's breeze through those if you would. Yeah, coaches, decisions we think because, you know, some of these guys could have not been released.

It's hard to say for certain. But there's the list of guys that we're going over here are guys that have been in the conversation with this group recently. So that we're talking about Kate and Pierre, Jacob Green, Kobe Henry, Danny Lava, Casey Walls, and Dante Sili. Yeah, just all some of those guys were on the prelim roster somewhere. weren't just guys who I think that if we needed them, if we wanted them, they probably would be on the roster. Yeah. Seeley, Sealy's a little bit surprising, but he did kind of fall off in the Netherlands, didn't he, towards the end of the season? Yeah.

And again, it's kind of a thing where he, I think he's in the States now, but he's heading back to PSV soon. It might just be a thing where, like, you know, he was a borderline. line starter for this team may be a bench option and we weren't going to keep him away from PSV for him to fill that role yeah makes sense all right that's that's the people we can think of who are not there um let's go through the roster uh and then maybe talk about the opponents a little bit and get a get a starting lineup this doesn't need to be one of our you know traditional three-hour episodes i'll try my best no i'm mostly just talking to myself in the audience not you talk as long as you want Matt

the goalkeepers are Christopher Brady and who plays for the Chicago Fire and then Antonio Carrera Nico Carrera's little brother who is goalkeeper at FC Dallas what do you know about these two guys yeah so all of the goalkeepers in this group are really good

we have we already mentioned Sloanina. We have a couple of other guys that didn't make the roster. Jeff Duesnup and Alex Borto, who is the injury replacements, yeah. Between them, Brady and Carrera,

I really would be with any of them. I would be okay with any of them starting for this team. It's just a super deep position. Chris Brady specifically, he's kind of always been like the one B to go. Gagga Slonina's 1A. Yeah.

I would say that if he were healthy, he'd be the starter for this team just because he's a pro-ready shot stopper in a similar way to Sloaninez. But he's just getting back to fitness after a long injury layoff. So I was actually kind of surprised that he made the roster because of that. And I would imagine that Antonio Carrera will be the starter just because Chris Brady hasn't seen a ton of game time recently. And Carrero certainly looks the part, big, athletic. He tries to play with his feet more than Chris Brady or Slonina do, which I appreciate. But he's not the finished product still a way to go in order to look like a professional goalie like the Chicago kids do.

He also has that the downside of having played for one of the more dominant academy teams in the country. It doesn't get a lot of reps. Right. So a lot of practice with his feet, not a ton of reps at taking shots. And it's kind of a problem at every level for Dallas because North Texas is quite good. So he's kind of never played for a team where he's had to stand on his head outside of maybe. that one U-20 game in MLS preseason in Florida where he played against FC Dallas for our U-20s

where we heard that he kind of stood on his head in that game. Interesting. I know Buzz Carrick's really high on him, right? Or the last I heard, Buzz Carrick is high on him and said the goalkeeper coach is kind of a hard, you know, it's kind of a tough customer and was bringing Carrera in at a really young age to train with the pro goalkeepers,

which is not something that he would, do as a, you know, as a charity. So. Oh, yeah. No, he career is super good. I like, I wouldn't be surprised if like, you know,

five, 10 years from now of the goalkeepers that we've mentioned, like he's the one that's in the best spot, you know, like in the national team pitcher and whatnot. Yeah. Just because he has all of the tools. It's just like,

if we're talking about a U-20 win now, like a tournament that we want to win, uh, the Chicago guys, I would just pick a head. ahead of him. Okay. Nothing against his,

a career is long-term projection. Okay. Well, let's, let's break the defenders into their positions. I think the left backs are no, Allen,

and then is Michael Halliday a left back? Holliday's a right back. Okay. So, yeah, it's going to be Allen at left back, and then Kuevas and Holiday at right back with one of them flipping.

Okay. Probably Kovas to cover the other side when needed. Rotation likely will be in effect because the games are every two days. This is a more crowded, crowded fixture schedule than even the World Cup qualifying windows. Yeah. And to that effect, bringing like nine midfielders and six defenders is an interesting choice. Yeah. Kind of, kind of would want to have more than three guys capable of playing fullback.

but you know it is what it is maybe we'll see Paxon there and sent it fullback I thought you were going to go with Cade oh yeah what I just totally missed a golden opportunity there oh man losing my edge Noah Allen is the

the one true left back on this roster he seems pretty good to me mostly playing in MLS next though he has gotten a few first team looks in open cup and I think at least one in the league. He's a good crosser. Defensively seems responsible and decent in the cage, in a cage match.

Seems like he can hold down the spot at left back for now for this team pretty effectively. Yeah, totally. Like I think you said decent a couple times in there. And that's just kind of what I think of him as. He doesn't really like jump off the screen to me as a guy who, who is like an outrageous talent or does anything at like a plus plus. level, but he can certainly get the job done. I worry a little bit about him in combination, but he's not a guy that I think will win or lose

us a game at this level. Okay. So let's just step back for a second. And like, how much do you think the results at this tournament matter, you know? This is going to be a two-part question. Okay. In the grand scheme of things, like almost not at all. but because of like boogeyman holding over our head in terms like with the Olympic qualifying thing.

And the U20 World Cups are fun. I'd like to be in those. Yeah. So I do think that the results matter. The results for the U20s matter as a whole in terms of like an individual player performance. Like one guy laying an egg against the team in this tournament, it's not like, you know, that's not going to hurt. them long term or anything like that. It's just, it's still just a youth soccer game, right?

Yeah. But I was going to say the same thing is that, like, we do want to qualify for a U-20 World Cup. So, so in that sense, it doesn't, you know, if Noah Allen can do a good enough job to get us to that, that's, that's exciting to me, you know? He doesn't, even if he doesn't look like he's a future national team player and he may be a future national team player. I don't know. But certainly not

most of these players will be. Right. I mean, it's like what are like, if we were fully healthy and we had everybody available, Noah Allen's like our fourth left back or something like that. Yeah. I don't know. Like, I guess the thing that you're trying to get

at here and what I'd say is like, if Noah Allen doesn't play well against Costa Rica or or Mexico or one of those bigger teams, like, you don't blame Noah Allen because it's this is a pretty big jumping level for him you know yeah he he hasn't been with this team so yeah well I'm excited to see him and and I guess so my other question was how many players do you think if you had to put a number on it how many

how many players from this roster are going to get capped by the national team team. It's a really tough question. I kind of want to look up, I kind of want to look up the monster from the Cockback Championship. Right. That's what I'm trying to think about, but I bet it would be like, it would be super variable, right?

Because like the last couple probably have like five, five, six, something like that. But those ones from, you know, like the 2013, 2015 teams, I don't think have that many. But, and like also, we should preface this whole thing by saying, I'm not counting like this guy got two caps in US men's national team January camps. If we're going to go

with guys who make like a, how many guys from this roster, I think will make a legitimate impact on the national team, I think, I think I'd realistically be happy with like three. With the understanding that we have another like three to

five from the 2000. three 2004 age group who aren't who are on the list of guys who aren't in this group for this tournament that are also going to make an impact right yeah i was trying to look at the the roster from the the 2018 concaf championship u20 championship i and i can't find it real quick here but uh palma call was on that team mendes yanez yeah i have it open so it was uh Brady Scott, Jalen Lindsay, Chris Gloucester, Mark McKinsey, Matt Rial, Brandon, Servinia, Juan Pablo Torres, Alex Mendez, Justin Renix, Paxton, Yuli Lanaias, David Ochoa, Griffin, Dorsi, Manny Perez, Anthony Fondana, Julian Arajo, Io Achanola, Isaac Anking, Sam Rogers, and Frank Iamaya. I think there's more people on that list playing for other Conccaf national teams. then there are playing for hours.

Yeah, we lost Akanola and Ochoa and Araro. And I don't, none of those guys actually are regulars. The closest is McKinsey to our national team. Yeah, and he's out of favor. So who knows, man. Yeah. I mean, I still have some hope for some of those guys. They're not that old yet.

but um yeah interesting i guess chris richarders was not on that team no he's not on the wikipedia roster for that team at least but i don't remember him being on that team yeah okay so alan allan at left back uh the right backs would be maricio quavos and michael halliday i'll take i'll take quavos i'm really glad to see him back he was in no man's land for a long time because his agent and his club didn't see i Now he's at Club Bruges in Belgium.

I do not know what his prospects are for, you know, breaking in with the first team this year. But hopefully he has some prospect for that. Just have to see what happens. But he's a player that I enjoyed a lot back when he played with the U-16s. It was kind of like Kuevas on one side, Gomez on the other side, and we had the two best fullbacks in any game we played in. So I'm excited to see Kovas.

Yeah, I agree. It's kind of wild to me that he's like even still eligible for this team. I feel like we've been talking about. talking about Maricio Cuevas for like years and years and years now and he's still U20 eligible. We have. I feel like he got in on some of those early draft episodes we did and stuff. Yeah. All right.

What about Holiday? I don't really know him, know what's going on with him. Yeah. So he's a right back kind of a big kid, gets up and down the end line, athletic, kind of a, I'm trying to think who to compare him to. Brian Reynolds? Yeah, Brian Reynolds isn't bad. Maybe a little more Joe Scally than Brian Reynolds.

But he's a big kid who kind of hugs that line and we'll get up and down. I'm not really sure who's going to start between him and Kuevas. I'm with you that I'd start Kuevas, but Kuevas is also the one who's probably better suited to flip between the two spots. Yeah. So unless you're doing like a Sirginio Dest type play a right back, play a left back situation, maybe he might just be the backup at in both locations, but they're kind of like, they're they play kind of differently.

Like all three of these guys do. So it's going to be interesting to see how how the team adjusts to them moving around. And Holiday, he can cross the ball, not quite, I wouldn't say he's quite as good a crosser of the ball as Quayvas is. But I think Quavas offers more options against like a compact defense than Holiday Will, who's very much kind of straight line. He's getting, yeah, straight line, Anthony Robinson style. Yeah, Quavis can combine. He can also hit a free kick. like he scored a couple goals on free kicks for the

for los dos right so yeah I just think that quayvoss is a better fit for the team but we're gonna see a lot of both of them because of the roster situation yeah okay centerbacks

brandon Craig uh from the Philadelphia Union Marcus for Kranas also a Los LA Galaxy 2 player and um Jaylen Neil, LA Galaxy 2. Who's your favorite of the three?

It's pretty close to me. I kind of view these centerbacks as a whole. Maybe there's not like a standout in terms of like some of the guys that we've had in the past where not necessarily in the qualifying, but we've had some pretty strong centerback performances at this group. Like Mark McKinsey was good for our U-20s, Carter Vickers and Palmer Brown and those sorts of guys. I don't really view anybody, any of these guys at that level, but they're all fairly solid guys. Brandon Craig is my favorite of them. He's great on the ball and step into midfield and make a play, a smart kid.

His talent's undeniable, but it's still not clear if he can be the guy at centerback at this level. Phillies brought him along slowly since transitioning him to centerback a few years ago, and he still hasn't gotten MLS minutes. And I think there's a reason for that, which is just kind of that he struggled a little bit when he's had to play against better levels of competition. Shouldn't at all be a problem against St. Kitson Nevis, but once we hit the big boys in this tournament,

I do start to get a little worried about the centerbacks as a whole. Okay. Yeah, we play St. Kinsnevis and then Canada and then Cuba. and the top three teams of that group of four all advanced. Yeah, and then it's a big knockout round too. I don't know if you looked at the tournament, but like there are teams in the knockout round that aren't even in the group stage. Oh, yeah.

So if you do well in the group, you might end up playing another really small team in the knockout. Like if we win our group, we play Nicaragua. Okay. In the next round. Okay. There's going to be a lot of minnows to play against. All right, so Craig's your favorite.

I watched, I didn't watch that much for Kranas's clips, but he's got a pretty good frame. And I did see that he got picked on a bit in a 50 loss to Memphis 901 recently. So I don't know. What do you know about him? Yeah, it's, like I mentioned, kind of a little similar to Craig where his talent is obvious. The athletic profile is there, and he's not a liability in possession.

it's just not there for him on a moment to moment basis in USL. Good chance that he starts with Jalen Neal, I think. Well, if he starts, I think it would be because his partner would be Jalen Neal and they have a level of familiarity from starting together, playing together with L.A. Galaxy 2 for a couple of years now. And I do think that that centerback, that it makes sense just for that reason. but more so than Neil or Craig I worry about for Craneson to the better teams. Yeah. Yeah, I guess you got to be locked in every moment.

And that's, you know, that's hard even for a 27-year-old veteran. Neil is kind of a willowy fella. I thought he looked pretty good in that tournament we were talking about where, where, you know, Casey Walls didn't look good. By comparison, certainly Neil looked great in that tournament. But I don't know. What do you think of him long term? Yeah, he's a super solid player.

Of the three guys here, I think I'd probably say Neil has the highest floor. He's very consistent, especially compared to these other centerbacks. And I think that's incredibly valuable in the tournament like this, where we're not going to get a ton of consistent. consistency from our back line. So I'm not worried about him in this tournament. He's a pretty good centerback for this level. I just don't know what his ceiling is long term.

I'm not sure that he's going to be. He's one of those guys, like the guys I mentioned earlier where they had great U20 tournaments and then like parlayed that into national team consideration. he kind of has a way to go and his club situation and being at the LA Galaxy isn't a great thing You're saying that in terms of it's not going to be

It's going to be difficult for him to get first team minutes Yeah the pathway just isn't there Yeah Which is weird because the galaxy Galaxy 2 has been sending players to These U20 teams for a long time Yeah all right let's That's enough on the defense

I think the defensive midfielers probably are going to be Daniel Edelman and Alejandro Alvarado and maybe Jack McGlynn. Yeah, I mean, to start definitely. I think you'll fit Obed Vargas into that when he shows up. Oh, yeah. When he joins in. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, with that kind of like 8-6 group. What do you think of Vargas?

Is he noticeably higher people? potential to you than Danny Leva? Than Danny Leva, I'd say, yeah, just because I just think that his athletic profile is better. He does a lot of things that Danny, he also does a lot of things that Danny Leavitt does well and does some things that Danny Leva doesn't do well already, and he's what? 16, 17. Yeah, two and a half years younger.

I mean, I still like both players and he doesn't have like maybe the subtlety. Some of the ability that, yeah, some of the ability that Leva has with the ball at his feet. But I'd say that Vargas is more of a sure thing as a prospect. Just a little more athletic. He's because he's not like a plus plus athlete, but he is quicker than Leva. And just uses his athleticism better too. Yeah. I'd say.

Okay, so Vargas is probably taking over that sixth spot once the knockout rounds start. But until then, it's probably going to be Alvarado and Edelman sharing the job, right? I guess I'll talk about Alvarado. He plays for FC Vizela, and he did get some first team minutes. He got one start at least, and I thought he looked pretty good, physically very up for it. you know, not a, he's, he's strong and pretty fast as far as I could tell. And he was competent on the ball in those limited minutes. I think he's probably a good fit either as a six or as a eight,

if one of your eights is, uh, is Paxton-Arensen or, you know, somebody who's more of an attacking midfielder. Yeah, um, I just, he's just a guy that I haven't seen play recently because he's moved to Portugal. He, so left the, the DA, the MLS next. He was invited to a ton of the, you. U-20 camps in the build-up, basically every camp that we had. And he just wasn't allowed to leave Portugal due to residency issues.

So we just haven't seen any of him, but it certainly seems like the U-20 staff rate him highly. Coach Farras was asked the question about him and said that basically just couldn't say enough about how highly he rates him, said he has a warrior mentality. Ooh, yeah. That we're going to see a good amount of him. I bet he starts. Because we don't have any strikers on this team, so we're going to have to move

at one of our attacking midfielders or wingers up to Stryker. Let me say a plug real quick. As you know, this is an ad-free podcast. If you would like to support us, do it on Patreon. That's how we make money. You can find a link in the show notes. All right, so Alvarado,

and then you're kind of the Daniel Edelman, expert around here yeah I mean I would if it were up to me Danny Edelman is the starter at the 6 until as that

I guess most withdrawn central midfielder until um until Vargas shows up and I wouldn't really mind all too much if he's just the guy

for the tournament being the older player um he's kind of the most Edelman yeah Edelman's in 03 Right, but then you would just like maybe rotate Vargas in at the eight with Edelman as the six later in the tournament. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I would totally play. I mean, if Edelman plays to the level he's capable of, I think that unless you want to go with like a ton of these half space merchant guys on the field at the same time, I think both of them in the lineup makes some sense. Yeah. But yeah, he's, Edelman is a favorite of mine, not the most athletic or technical player in the world, but he'll run through a wall for the team if you ask him to. Most natural ball winner of any of the players on this roster,

the player most used to playing as a holding midfielder, gritty and vocal in a way that a lot of those Red Bull Academy kids tend to be. So we'll see a lot of him especially early on. Yeah. All right. And then Jack McGlynn, he's got that culture left foot. I think he's still trying to figure out the pace of the game at the pro level. Can play as a withdrawn midfielder can play as an eight.

So I don't know. I don't know what virus has in mind for him exactly. Yeah, it's hard to say, right? Because like you said, he does have that elite left foot and the soccer brain. to use it when he has the ball at his feet. But if the game state, and I guess what I'd say is that if the game state is that we have sustained possession and we need a guy to stick a guy in the midfield to unlock the defense,

I think it makes sense to get him a lot of touches. But I just don't think he's athletic enough to make the juice worth to squeeze a lot of the time. You kind of need to hide him in a midfield just because the athletic. he just he gets blown by by players that are not that fast good athletes yeah yeah all right so then the rest of the midfielders would be pax and erinson kate and clark uh Diego luna rocas pookstis and nico securis and then we already mentioned obit vargas so uh let's deal with securis and pookstis first uh uh I saw, I saw Rokas play in that tournament that we've been mentioning, the one in Salaia.

Nothing really jumped off the screen, like in terms of what he offered to the team. It just seemed like he was out there. Maybe there was something where I didn't see. I feel like basically the same exact way, where whenever I watch him, I kind of don't see it. People are high on him, though, or have been, right? Yeah, I mean, I think it's just like, you know, that when you're a piece, tell you that a player is good, then you don't get to see him a whole lot.

You just kind of tend to rate him more highly than the guy that's playing for the Las Vegas lights at, you know, whatever age. It just feels better to rate a kid that's playing in Europa youth leagues. No, but he was at Sporting KC, right? He used to be at Sporting KC. Yeah, a very long time ago now. He moved over there when he was like 15. So, yeah.

Like, he's a completely different player now than he was back then. He was like, like this tiny, tiny winger when he played for the Casey Academy. Now he's just kind of a metronome central midfielder, sort of. Right, kind of. Yeah, tape of him, like, playing out for his club is hard to come by. So I could only really go with what he's shown me wearing a youth national team jersey. reminds me a little bit of Emerson Hydeman at least

youth national team Emerson Hydeman in that he's a tidy central midfielder that is an eight because he's not a six and not a ten not because he's great at being both a six and a ten but he's of the guys in this list he's basically the guy that I've

seen the least meaningful game tape on so I could be way off well clearly varus like something he sees from him what about securis son of jean securis he's at san jose what do you know about him yeah so he's he's a 2005 as well um only a couple months older than obed varga vargas so it's a pretty big shock that he's on this roster just because like we so rarely drop down into the younger age groups for guys who aren't like absolutely bursting at the door and I don't think Securus is that he's one of I would say he's one of the top five player five 10 players in the 2005 age group um but not I think at the very top of that list

so a little surprised um nepotism not because just kidding totally kidding It's not because I don't rate him, but it's because he's another one of those, like, tricky attacking half-space merchants that this roster is already overflowing with. He's maybe the most natural number 10 of the group where he's comfortable in that spot where a lot of these guys have been kind of shaded to the wing for a lot of their youth career. also one of the better athletes but he's one of the better athletes as a 2005 and he's going to be so undersized playing up two years in this tournament that I'm not sure that that athleticism is going to matter a whole lot

expect him to be a death piece here before anchoring this team this U-20 qualifying team next cycle which may be the reason to if it was close to kind of get him in the picture now Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, I'm excited to see both of those guys and learn more about them. The last three, let's see, is it three?

I think the last three midfielders, the ones we haven't discussed yet, are probably the most exciting. Paxon Aronson from the Philadelphia Union, Caden Clark for the New York Red Bulls, and Diego Luna from Ray Al Salt Lake. Very recently of Ray Al Salt Lake, he was at the El Paso locomotive. First of all, Aronson, he's probably my favorite player in this age group, just because he's both a good passer

and really tough in the cage match. A good dribbler. Sort of plays similarly to his brother, but how do you think he's different from his brother? And then I'll say how I think he's different. Well, he's not like the pressure is demon that his brother is. He can run and he's totally a willing defender,

but he's not that insane, like, top 5% in world soccer level of, ground coverage that his brother offers. I think he's probably more capable in the final third. He definitely is in terms of numbers production-wise than a similarly aged Brendan. But I mean, the pressures thing, the ability to cover ground is the thing that kind of makes his brother special.

But Paxton's still kind of growing into his body, right? whereas his brother was athletically ready for MLS at like 18 Paxton is still looks like a kid and I think he plays like a kid in a lot of ways so super talented but

if he he's one of those guys that I'm just kind of hoping has a a Paxton Pomicle type he just shows up in preseason next year and it's just like immediately needs to get every minute.

Yeah. Yeah, because I was more optimistic probably than I should have been about his prospects for playing time in Philadelphia this year because he has not, there's been a lot of stretches of games where he doesn't even get in. And, you know, I don't think he has any starts. At least he doesn't for a couple months. Yeah. I mean, it's also kind of an unfortunate situation in terms of like that team has a logjam,

like a serious log jam at that position, right? where a lot of the guys on this roster we haven't even talked about Quinn Sullivan yet but Quinn Sullivan, Jack McGlynn, Paxson, Aronson I'm forgetting one I think maybe I'm not forgetting one I don't know there's been so many over the years like Anthony Fontana

Brennan Johnson but you know like that's a lot of guys and you can't like starting three teenage attacking midfielders just like you just can't get away with it so They're all kind of fighting over scraps, which in a way I think might be good for them long term, but short term it means that none of them have really gotten a chance to shine. I think it's been, Aronson has been the one who's gotten the most minutes of the three.

Let's talk about Caden Clark, been out with injury for much of this season, but has started to get minutes again lately and I think looking pretty good. You follow Caden more closely than I do, I believe. Hartman. I don't know. I don't know how much you follow. How much do you follow Caden Clark if you had to quantify it? I don't watch the clips from all his games.

I do generally try to find out if he played or not over the weekend. Okay. That's good. All right. Well, I think I think it's your statement was fair then. I do try to keep up on him. And it's going to be. Interesting to see what happens with him in this tournament, right?

Because you mentioned earlier that we don't have a striker in this team, and we're probably going to go with a false nine type guy. I mean, Varus on this podcast basically said as much, you know? Right, right. So there's only like two or three guys that even make sense in that spot. And personally, I think that Kate and Clark is probably the best fit. because you want his final third ability on the field, but don't want to necessarily sacrifice a midfield spot on a player that hasn't had a huge impact so far in his youth national team and professional career in the buildup to the final third.

So I think that's likely where we're going to see him. And I think Varis, both by what he said on this podcast and via their roster construction, construction agrees with us there. Caden just got to find the ball. Find the ball, Caden. Find the ball. Get on the ball. Start cooking.

Luna, but I agree. I agree. I think him as a false nine works pretty well if that's what we're going to do. Because he can combine. He is a good passer. He can combine. And he,

like he said, he seems to be able to execute difficult techniques in the box and score goals that way. Right. Diego Luna is the other kind of exciting one. It can be kind of a chaotic player, but man,

he does cause problems for the opponent. A bull of a young man. Stocky, but quick. And I'm excited to see him. Yeah, he's an interesting one for me because, you know, like the people in this space where the weirdos, sickos

that are following youth soccer kind of like, you know, like to rank prospects and stuff like that. It's so fun. Right. Luda's a guy that I've never really like paid. I've watched a lot of him and never really paid too much attention to him, doubted him as a prospect in the DA.

Then for in USL and now when he got his close to like USL transfer record, they paid at 250 grand RSL did to get him to MLS. I'm like, are you guys sure about that? Because I still think he's eventually going to hit a wall in terms of what he could do against good defenders because he just doesn't look or move like a professional soccer player. But he has these quick feet and like this weirdly effective change of pace that continually made him a problem in USL and might just continue in this tournament and in MLS. I just have no idea what to do with him at this point. You kind of just keep playing him until it stops working, I think. Yeah.

Well, I think he's bursty. Maybe it is all change of pace, but it seems like there's quickness there too. We'll see. Is there any word? It seems like he's going to be a Rayall Salt Lake player and not a Real Monarchs player, at least at first, right? Oh, I can't imagine that they paid a transfer fee to not have him be with the first team. Yeah.

Even if he, you know, even if he plays some monarch. minutes, he'll be training primarily with the first team, I'd imagine. It's interesting. It's an interesting thing for an MLS franchise to pay a transfer fee for a young prospect from USL. Right. And what makes it particularly interesting is that RSL was the only team that could sign him, right, because of the way that homegrown territories work.

So they basically had, they were the only team that, unless they wanted to, you know, trade his homegrown rights to somebody else. They were the only team that could sign him. And like for them to, in a non-competitive bidding war, at least a non-competitive domestic bidding war for them to pay that much money shows that they really like him. So that's promising. But couldn't they have just forced his hand and men like,

you have to come play for us and just send the, you know, send law enforcement to scoop him up? It doesn't work. It doesn't work quite that way. It's close. It's close, but it's not quite that because there's this thing called outside of the United States. Yeah. That exists that he can go to.

All right. Strikers. Let's talk about those. There are three. Cade Cowell, San Jose earthquakes. Quinn Sullivan, we talked about a little bit earlier from the Philadelphia Union. And then Tyler Wolf from Atlanta United, who has gotten. in some first team minutes and I think it's kind of the only sort of actual striker on this roster.

Is he is he even an actual striker? Not at all. Okay. Yeah, he's that he's another like attacking mid slash winger type. I don't think I've seen him play centrally like up top once when he does play centrally it's more of like an attacking mid role. Okay. I stand 100% corrected. Yeah. So I would take like I don't think I any of these guys are strikers. What is Quinn Sullivan's correct position? To be determined.

I don't think anybody on planet Earth has the answer to that yet. Yeah, what we do know is that he's got an outrageous goal per 90 ratio for this team and is visibly still progressing as an athlete. He's one of the guys I think this tournament is going to tell us a lot about. I could see him winning player of the tournament. could see him getting like 60 minutes the entire tournament backing up Cain and Clark as that false nine type guy. But so like for this tournament, I think he's going to play.

He could play in one of the two dual eight roles. He could be coming in off the wing. He could be in the false nine. I don't, I don't, it's kind of pointless to, to put him in one of those spots to lock him into one of those spots because, I mean, he, he's never, he's like the type of guy who has never had a he's never had a like position lockdown at any level like from when I started paying attention to Quinn Sullivan when he was like 14 he was he was already like a game at striker a game at the six a game on the right wing so interesting yeah well even when you look at him out

on the field you don't it doesn't it's not clear what he should be he's like not quite big enough to be a like a real number nine you know or like a classic number nine right and he's like he's almost like a little too big to be a six or something. I don't know. Right. And then like maybe not, maybe not like the best skill set to, to play as like a 10.

It's kind of like the Anthony Fontana problem that they had that they kind of like just eventually gave up on. But I think Quinn Sullivan has like, has like a way more upside than. Fontana. So than Fontana did. Yeah. He's just one of the one of the few guys in this team that can just do

outrageous things with a soccer ball. But I mean, and I don't know, like it's just It's hard to Fontana Fontana's such a weird case because like that That man was scoring bangers in MLS And now he just like does he even have a club Yeah, he's playing somewhere

Well he was he was going to go to Siri Siri B but Yeah according to Wikipedia How he has one game played for Askoli In Siri B as of 2020, too. That's not a bad landing spot, actually. No, it's not.

But they did, but Philadelphia did release him. They just let him go on a free. Right, right. Yeah, they decided not to like renew his contract at the end of the 2021 season. And like you could, you could kind of see the union just not knowing what to do with him. You know, like they tried him in like every spot.

The only spot that really made a ton of sense was as like a second striker kind of thing. And it just like goes against everything that they do structurally. So got hope that like they figure it out with Quinn Sullivan or just get him. Like we're talking, we're talking about, you know, like how many guys they have here, right? And like when you have Quinn Sullivan and Jack McGlynn and Pax and Aronson, like if you can't figure it out, just let one of them go, you know, somewhere else, trade him somewhere else. and then hope that that clears up things for you. Sullivan is the youngest of that group.

And I think the one that is probably the most promising long term as like, if he's going to hit, he's going to hit big type of thing. It's just, I don't know, man. It's hard to see. It's still kind of like, I think he's not too dissimilar in this way from like somebody like Ephra, right? where it's like, with effort, it's still like, it still hasn't gotten figured out.

We're like, he's playing as like this like attacking midwinger type situation when he does play. And he's not bad at it, but it's still just like, it's easier to structure a team when he's not on the field. And that's kind of like the problem that these type of guys have. Yeah, but I mean, Sullivan has scored some really nice goals, but he's not like the, he doesn't have that penchant for the otherworldly quite the way Effra does, does he?

He doesn't have like, he's not one of those, like, he has he has magic in one of his feet, but he does occasionally, like, just break people and make something outrageous happen in terms of like the delivery of a ball or just like stepping past a fullback and curl one into the corner less so at the professional level then you know he he just hasn't really showed out too well but he is also younger like I said so his his USL tape means more to me than I'm like two and a half percent more excited about Quinn Sullivan than I was at the beginning of this conversation so thank you mission accomplished um no I'm let's say seven percent more

excited uh K-Cal I mean I think we know what we're getting here, right? Just an athletic freak that teams are going to need to plan for, and that's valuable. Nice to have as a counterattacking threat. If we need to just hit the ball along, Cade Cowles, you know, you can't just sit two centerbacks at the halfway line when Kate Cowell is on the field. He basically needs to play every minute due to the roster roster construction. If he's released on time, I think there's been some, like, chatter that he might not be with the team for the first game, stuff like that.

But... Wait. Why do you think he needs to play every minute, exactly? Basically, because, like, he's the only true... Right-winger? Like, not only, not only winger in general, but he's the only guy that does the thing, right? Which is... Verticality.

can get yeah for yeah basically provide that vertical threat that nobody else nobody else on this team really has a good point so who's your starting 11 yeah so i'd start antonio carrera in goal um if i if i knew that um chris brady was healthy i'd start him instead but i he he's gonna show up at this tournament having like basically not started a game so going with carrera and then i'm going to go with um quavos from right to the left quavis us, Neil, Brandon Craig, and Noah Allen across the back line. The midfield is going to be Danny Edelman sitting behind, Paxton Aronson, and Quinn Sullivan with Cade Cowell,

Caden Clark, and Diego Luna across the front line. And then when we get Obed Vargas, I think I'm going to take out Sullivan and put Obed in that spot. All right. Well, I did separately come to a very similar lineup, as you have here. My only difference would be I'd start Alvarado instead of Sullivan. I was impressed with the way he looked in that one start for Vizela. Nothing amazing, but that's, you know, those are tough games,

and that was like in the middle of a relegation battle, and he got the minutes. And he, you know, that's the same team that Alex Mendez plays for. And they stayed up for the first time in Portugal since 1984. So kind of a big deal for them. And I thought he looked, I thought he looked very, very credible as a professional soccer player in the top flight of Portugal. Yeah, I think that, I think that there's a good chance that you're just like correct here. But it's just ignorance more than anything.

I'm just not, I don't like putting guys up that I haven't seen plays. No, I'm not, I'm not saying I'm, I'm correct and you're incorrect. I'm just trying to give my reasons. It's getting late at night here on the East Coast. So do you have any big picture thoughts before we close it up? I think it's a pretty good roster given the circumstances. Is it better than previous iterations of the teams that we've sent to U20 qualifying? Probably not, but those teams weren't missing like 15 options to bring into the tournament.

all things considered, I feel pretty good about the talent level. I feel pretty good about the tournament because we're not going to play anybody good for a little while. Plenty of time to sort out any kinks. Right. It's not a particularly good Canada team. Canada has talent in the 0304 group, but I'd say that they're, I'd safe, I think I could safely say that they're probably missing like three of their best five players for various

reasons and then outside of Mexico who have to be the favorites at the tournament I don't think that there's another team that can that there's another team that talent-wise threatens us outside of

Costa Rica Costa Rica does have their two best players in the age group in the tournament which means a lot they have Jusin Bennett in the group who is the guy who yeah yeah Yeah, he's good

And they have another guy named Brandon Aguilar Who is also Who was also with the senior national team In this past window He's left footed, right? Yep, that's him He was also very good

Yeah So those are the two teams that I think Like you can't be Mexico and Costa Rica You can't be too hard pressed If those are the teams that we end up going out to But anything out, any other team I think I'd say I'd be disappointed if we lose to.

And yeah. I mean, from a growth of the, this is an old thing, but an old thought that a lot of people have had, but from a grow the game point of view, qualifying for the Olympics is really important, you know, I was just talking to somebody like the other day who doesn't,

who's like, yeah, I pay attention to the World Cup and Olympics, but that's it. And I was like, yeah, you know, that's how people are. They'd pay attention if the U.S. was at the, Olympics. See? So, okay, let's talk about this for a second. Let's say that those people exist in large numbers, which I don't know, I agree with,

but let's say that it is. Is those people tuning into an Olympic game and them watching Diego Luna and Danny Edelman with a couple of, you know, like actual senior team? players like is that really doing it is you know is that going to capture hearts and minds um yes at some unclear rate of return okay but i mean it could be a very very low percentage of hearts and minds that would be captured but some are going to be captured yes you'll get some people who are who get more into soccer as a result of that yeah you're probably right i I mean, is it more than 2% of the viewers?

Probably not, but I mean, not viewers, that group that you're talking about where you say, we're not sure how many there are, but assuming there are large numbers, even if there are large numbers of people like this guy, yeah, I don't know. I don't know how many hearts of minds are going to be one. That's a long, it's going to be a long process.

We can't solve it on this podcast. We tried our best. Yeah, we gave it a shot. Hey, Matt, thanks for doing this. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.