Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #314: Monday Review — Musah & Reyna persevere, Ferreira brace, Pepi debut & the Queen

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Vince, Watke and Belz work through the weekend's action, which was limited somewhat by the death of Queen Elizabeth. Musah and Reyna both lose but play ok. Jordan Pefok and Union Berlin are top of the table in Germany. Jesus Ferreira scores a brace against LAFC. Pepi debuts and gets an assist for Groningen. Full rundown.0:30 intro and Queen Elizabeth5:00 Reyna10:50 Ferreira17:30 Pepi22:45 Pefok28:40 Musah32:25 McKennie...and much more.support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed 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.

From the USSF approved territories of Georgia and Kentucky, and also from the FIFA approved territory of Brooklyn, this is the Monday Review. I'm Adam Bells. I've got Vince and Waki with me today, and we're doing the Monday review. We do them every week for patrons, but only occasionally on the public feed.

Let's start with Queen Elizabeth. Her death at the age of 96 on Thursday led to the cancellation of all English soccer games this weekend. What do you guys think of that? Well, I think we're all, our first reaction was to be a little bit put off by it. Mm-hmm. But then we got some perspective, you know. And it seems fine now.

And she seemed fine to me. Yeah. What, uh, what, so is what perspective have you gained that, that makes us less? I don't know. I don't know. It's just hard to talk about a very old lady dying. And, uh, and then that people are like tweeting about it. Apparently there's politics involved.

I'm overwhelmed. Yeah. She seemed fine. She didn't. She seemed pretty calm. She didn't seem like she was a big yeller. I think I would have gotten along great with her and I'm sad she's dead. She was old like our entire life.

So of course she looked, she seemed tranquil. Very calm. You know, I didn't dig in much. I didn't need to. I felt like I got everything I needed from just a little picture of her kind of smiling, I guess,

but she's gone now and we're just going to have to move on with it, you know? Yep. Although even now goes to the World Cup without, without an alive queen. And I think some people have suggested that this is going to inspire them, but those people haven't thought about King Charles and how little he's going to inspire them. So like, you know, they lost a queen, but they gained a king.

And I don't know. From their perspective. Untested waters for them. They've never been in with a king before if I've done my reading of an article correctly. It doesn't have quite the same ring to it to me. So I'm going to need a scuffed English correspondent with boots on the ground to let me know how much the queen slash king inspires in everyday life. We just don't know. Honestly, we just don't know.

Harry Kane is, I think, fairly inspired. Right, right. Yeah, Harry Kane is the type of dude, you know what I'm saying? Harry Kane's the type, Jordan Pickford, Harry McGuire. Meg Swanick has done a bunch of things where she goes over. over there and talks to them. I think maybe she should go talk to them about the queen and the king and all that ahead of the World Cup, just so that we can get a better sense of it.

What a fascinating thing hereditary monarchy is, though. You know what I'm saying? Bro, it's crazy. In 2022. So ancient. Yeah. So visceral. Yeah.

Anyway. So no leads, no Chelsea, no North City, no Fulham, no Crystal Palace. It's a remarkable how central the F.A. has become to our Monday reviews and how at the mercy of its whims we are. I feel like if we were doing this a year ago, we talked about Pulisic and then a bit of a mention for Jedi. And that would have been it. Barely impacted our lives. This week, though, times have changed. Yeah.

And I would say, like, Arsenal just announced that we're not playing PSV this week. We're supposed to play PSV in the Europa League. and that's probably the biggest impact is just a lack of Matt Turner matches. You know, they were already going to come at a premium, but he was probably going to be the Europa group stage. Now, this is starting to affect us personally, and I'm going to get my backup a little bit here.

They're canceling Europe games too? I felt like, you know, we'll just cancel a weekend. Overshadow 9-11, and remember it's a little bit. That's fine. We're a little bit annoyed by it, but it's just how the timing worked out. But if they're going to now cancel another week of Europe games, now I don't support this anymore.

Well, the thing is... However pleasant of a lady she was. You know, I'm worried that the parabola is going to be shattered again in a negative way, you know? That Josh Sargent's going to miss a weekend game and then he's going to, you know, he's going to lose his mojo again. Oh, no way. I hadn't even thought about this until just now.

Yeah, if there's a knock-on effect with the... Sergeant Parabala, that's a real problem. But Vince, you're thinking he has enough to carry through. Yeah, he'll be fine. He'll be fine. The momentum, the momentum is just too much. You know what I'm saying? Not even a very untimely and inconvenient death can't.

Well, it was timely. She was 96. I would say it was timely, but it was certainly inconvenient for our soccer watching. Yeah, it could have happened in the summer, you know, that would have been, or during the World Cup. Or she also could have just, like, left a note. Like, I'm, it's been an honor being your queen. I'm very proud of everything I've done. Don't cancel any soccer games this weekend.

Let's make it a celebration. She didn't do that. Maybe she secretly wanted them to cancel all the games. She's like, if I don't leave a note, they'll probably cancel all the games, then that'll be nice. You know what? It wouldn't surprise me if she left the note. She just hit it really well.

Kind of covering all of her bases there. Yeah. Yeah. So note writing is definitely a, 96-year-old venture. You know, it's something. Yeah. My grandma definitely does.

I guarantee there's tons of notes she's left. We just need to find. Right. Giovanni Raina versus Rabe Leipzig is the first order of business. Waki, why don't you start us off? Well, he had a really good quick cross. First timed it with the left foot after getting behind on that side down there. And once I saw that, I felt really good for the whole, not the whole weekend,

but it was just nice to see something really sharp out of him. It was very sharp, including the, uncharacteristically decisive offball movement, the run down the line to entice Jude Bellingham to play it to him. And that left-footed cross, it was a rope. Right at Anthony Modest. Yeah. Gives him a good chance to score on the volley.

Yeah. We should say he followed that later with, I think, a really bad attempt at a first time pass that kind of went straight out of bounds. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But it was kind of one of those. If it was bad enough,

you kind of just completely discount it. You don't even think about it anymore. So I just threw that out of my mind and just carried on with that really good cross through the next phase of the game. Yeah, fair, fair. And he's out there, you know, next phase doing good long dribble glides in transition.

And then a defender tries to catch up with him and the defender's falling down while he's running in behind him. You know, he's just like run straight into Geo and the defender goes to ground and that's classic Geo. I take a lot of positives from that. Yeah, if we're picking a play of the week,

for Americans abroad, is it him knocking that guy down or is it him hitting a left-footed cross that was not finished for a goal? I have him knocking him down as my play of the week, the scuffed play of the week. Thank you for, I was going to do kind of a big segment about it, but you've called it out now. I think it's good that we're just getting out of the way. Just go in order. It has to be. You know, we've been talking about just in these cameos that he's made, just, you know, the lack

of, he hadn't opened it up all the way. He hadn't taken the governor off completely. Right. But as we keep seeing these cameos coming, you know, because Copenhagen in the midweek, this game against Leipzig, you can see he's starting to get more comfy, starting to get more comfortable in his body. My boy is almost back. Yep. Yeah. Exactly.

Go ahead. There's a little bit, there was a little bit of a reaction like, oh, this game wasn't that good. But for me, it's what Vince said. It's about getting comfortable in that body. And I think he did that today. But this would cat. Dorman visits Manchester City on Wednesday, which is a big opportunity for Raina to play his old teammate, Erling Holland. Who knows if he'll be in the starting lineup.

But it's the kind of game I think Giovanni will get up for. I thought it was interesting that Marco Rosa was on the touchline for Leipzig. He's just recently replaced Domenico, Tedesco. And it occurs to me that at some point Raina is going to have been coached by every manager he plays against in Germany. You know, this is a revolving door over there. They have such an aggressive rotation in Germany of coaches. He's going to hit them all. You're exactly right.

And I just want to stake my claim now. The G.Rena is by far our best attacker for the U.S. National team. Yeah. Yes. Duh. Yeah. Okay.

I guess we should mention the Copenhagen game, right? Because he was better than that. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Greg and I talked about it on Friday, but we should, yeah. Yeah, we should mention he had two assists. They were both very, very nice.

So that's why people are saying this wasn't as good of a performance as the midweek one because, you know, they lost 3-0 to R.B. Leipzig. The man can just wake up, get out of bed, and create some chances. That's right. You know, it's just, it's effortless. It's, you know, he completes that one, two, gets that cross-in. It's just boom, right there. Whereas, you know, some other players that play for the national.

team. It just takes a lot of effort. A lot of effort, a lot of tries. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And Gio can comfortably err on the side of lower effort. Right. Exactly. That's one of the advantages of talent, you know? Yes. Because he doesn't, I mean, that's what makes, I think, makes him so dangerous relative to the rest of the attackers on our team is he's like, he's just chilling, you know? He's like, those two passes. for assists. They're both pretty simple passes if you know to make them, you know. Right. But most people don't make those passes. Most people are, their heart rates pumping, they're getting all agitated when they get the ball in that position and they do something

stupid. I mean, even professional soccer players, they do the less optimal thing. He seems to be at a point where he's just sort of calmly selecting the correct option, executing it flawlessly, and then, you know, basically closing his eyes and taking a nap as he trots back to the midfield line, you know? Yeah, basically. And I mean, I guess we should point out that he didn't necessarily choose the optimal decision on the carry, on the glide of the transition where he dumped the guy. Because he got a little greedy.

Yeah, he could have passed, couldn't he? Yeah. He might have been able to rack up another assist. But, you know, it's neither here or there. You're not going to, you know, you're not going to be 100%. in, you know, decision execution. Yeah, he did kind of just kick the ball into the defenders, and it looked like you could slip that ball over to the left there

is maybe what he should have done. Let's move to Jesus Ferreira. We take a small amount of sort of oblique criticism for not spending enough time on MLS players in the Monday Review. And I think we should start with Jesus Ferreira's brace against LACC. His season total is now 18 goals, fourth in May. Major League Soccer. The first was a quick restart on a foul just outside the box on the end line. Ariola put it on the ground and played it quick and simple to Ferreira who's kind of showing towards

the corner flag. Ferre lets it roll past him and then I think toe poked it hard past Maxine Kropos, the LAFC keeper from a tight angle hit it hard with the toe. Underrated technique. It's also possible he hit it with the top of his boot. I don't know. The TV angles weren't great. It was a nice finish. Second one came on a free kick also from a tight angle. He hit it at the far post, and I think it was meant to be a pass to the back post. But Gareth Bale got a nick to it with his head and just barely changed the trajectory of it, and it went over the keeper into the side netting instead of off to Cropos right where he was diving. So I think that's a little bit of a lucky goal.

But anyway, two goals. He also created a shot on his own shot in the first half, stepped around a guy when it was pulled back to him just inside the top of the box, but then he side-footed it softly at Cripo. But we don't care. We don't care about that because he's getting the XG. He also did a lot of nice dropping and dealing against a 10-man L-A-FC, who were down a man because Ryan Hollings head got a doggso red card for bringing Ariola down on a long ball. So he's keeping up at the very least in this mad rush for the striker spot, which it's a

position we had been worried about now so much is happening. We're over the moon, really. Right. We're spoiled for choice now, wouldn't you say? We got Ricardo Pepeppy and playing against Cambor. We got Pfeck continuing to be a very successful Bundesliga striker. Union Berlin, top of the table. Unbelievable.

Should we go to Pfok? Very unbelievable. Just real quick about Jesus. I just really love the create his own shot thing. Yeah. It's just something that you don't really see. too much from strikers I mean you got strikers maybe take a touch

get it out of their feet smash it or something but like he'll like Jesus can really just receive the ball at speed and just like step past a guy and get a shot off of course we want to see you know him slide at home

in that situation but there's been some discussion on Twitter in particular about this sitter discourses but I've seen it been described by do you guys have you guys been following this at all?

Is this a potential area for discussion? What's the argument? I don't know. I saw Greg Velasquez getting into it. I didn't know if you guys were following along with that. I think somebody posted a video of all of Jesus Ferreira's shots for the U.S. and arguing that he misses too many easy ones or doesn't put it put on frame

when he could put it on frame. I don't know that I'm entirely unsympathetic to the point of view, but I do, you know, I do sort of trust math. Basically. And I just don't know. Like, I don't know. People are like, he just can't finish at this level. And it's like when you're comparing a World Cup qualifier against El Salvador and an MLS match against L.A.F.C. Like, if he's doing it in MLS, I'm not saying he should be able to do it at the World Cup level.

But what I'm saying is you can't use these El Salvador matches or whatever the hell when you have the counterpoint of him doing well in the MLS. You know, those should cancel out, in my opinion. Yeah. Well, the thing is the shot that he created for himself against L.A.F.C. was, I think, like you sort of said earlier, something that most of our strikers wouldn't be able to do. You know, they receive a pullback just inside the top of the box.

Sargent's probably just taking it first time and it's getting blocked. by the defender in front of him. Old sergeant would do that. New sergeant would not. He would just bang it right into that top corner once the queen is, I guess she's still going to be dead, but once they start playing the handskin. Once she is officially six feet deep. Yeah.

I'm afraid they're going to do another national time of morning when she is around her funeral, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. The thing is, I think maybe, sergeant would just, you know, he might, new sergeant might do better, but I think typically he's not going to, he's not going to do what Jesus did there and, like, take a couple clever touches and get around the guy. And I, and I don't think, definitely not, P-Fox's not going to do that. Most, most of our strikers aren't going to do that.

The thing is, once he gets to that point where he has the, you know, he's created the shot for himself, if you, if you, I would back sergeant to put that in the back of the net more than I would Ferreira at that point. And I know this isn't science or math. I'm just telling you like my gut feeling about it. The thing is, Sergeant doesn't get to that point. Ferreira gets that point. And then he just kind of, I mean, you guys saw the shot, right?

He just kind of, he just kind of passed it to the keeper. So I don't know. It's complicated. He has some subtle shots in his repertoire. So sometimes they will look like very tame passes to the keeper. He tries to pass it in the corner a bunch. Yeah, he does. You should have tow poked it on that one.

You got to remember this man's 21. Like, I think, I do think there's a possibility that we're looking at a real, a real, real player here. And, you know, he got given the DP contract. He got some tools put around, put around them to succeed. And he's succeeding. So where it goes from here, I mean, it is what it is. Like maybe he scores in the World Cup Maybe he doesn't

We shall see But I I think we should not sleep on the Like everyone's just arguing about You know this cycle The World Cup coming up whatever But do not lose fact Do not lose sight of the fact

That Hazou's potentially Is a major major talent Okay I'm with it Yeah me too Ricardo Pepi versus Camber Subbed on at the half

for his Groningen debut, remember he's on loan from Augsburg where he could not get regular minutes and he's playing in the air to Vizzi now. I thought his first four actions were all tidy, layoff, buildup type stuff, nothing amazing, but looked crisp, better than he's looked for months.

Yeah, to me it was immediately noticeable this is a better situation for him. It kind of looks more natural out there. And he even gave him the number nine jersey, which I'm kind of impressed by that he pulled that off. It's tough to go in on a loan and get the number nine straight away. Yeah, how do you do that?

I don't know. I assume maybe the person who had it before it left and they, well, you get it now. Holland is such a unapologetic selling league, you know? They're just moving people out all the time. Yeah, maybe it's an easy place to get the nine. It's still an achievement. No, yeah, for sure. None of us could go just like show up at a team in your.

jury division and be given the number nine straight away. In the Yuri division? Is that what you called it? Yeah, the Yuri. Yeah, that's what I call it. That's how I pronounce it. And then I don't apologize for the way I pronounce it there, the Dutch League. No, you should.

You should, you should carry on. And then it was a Groningen throw-in from deep, kind of maybe flicked on or dummy toward the center circle. Pepe's chasing it. and one of the Comber centerbacks gets their first dinks it over Pepe's outstretched foot, but then tries to play it back to his centerback partner. And Pepe's already running in that direction, so he just collects it. And actually he doesn't even collect it.

He just plays a simple one-touch pass out to Souslov, his right-sided attacking partner. And he's off, makes a good far post run. Somebody else makes a near-post run. Souslov ignores them both, cuts in on his guy and has one from the top of the box. scores, and that's the game winner 1-0 on the road in the Air Divisi. It's an assist, but perhaps a little noisy, but still a good play from Pepe. Yeah, noisy, but also the entire play, too, is related to other good things he had been doing the half in terms of movement.

And so those all aggregated together into it being a credible, creditable noise that it was created by it. Also, Souslov is just the best possible name for an assistant attacker. who I consider, that's now what I consider Suzlov to be as Pepe's assistant. Yeah, there's noise and then there's creditable noise. And I think this very firmly falls in the category of creditable noise. I'm going to agree with you there. Yeah. Yeah, so that's what I got, a little untidy toward the end of the game.

But Groning Inn got the win. They faced Sparta Rotterdam on Saturday. It's always going to get sloppy at the end against Cambor. We've watched enough your division to know that. Let me ask this. Is he going to be on the September roster? Maybe it's a little bit too late, you know? Man, I was going to say yes if, I don't know.

If Jordy was a little bit hurt, like if he had to, like, miss the window. But he's back now. So I just don't know. Let's think about it. It's a close call. It's a close call for old Greg Burholter there, isn't it? What do you guys think? The thing is if he's going to bring four strikers, I feel like Rico would be the one that he would make an exception for.

Yeah, you don't call four without him. Right. I'm with you on that. We got Jesus, Josh, Jordi. No, that's a good way to think about it. It's going to be three strikers unless it's four. And if there's four, it's peppy. Pepe determines whether it's three or four.

So we shall see. And you know he's worth it, you know, to have that flex position. I mean, I'm rooting for him. I want us to have a true Mexican-American star on the team. I know that, you know, people don't always want to hear that from me, but whatever. I want it. Bell's a huge peppy guy. Huge.

I remember like when we were watching the the Costa Rica match together in Columbus watching the Costa Rica the Costa Rica match together like at full time like immediately out of all the players that played well in that match

Bells just turns to me and was like Peppy man Peppy was great if you remember No he was just he was basically just fine in that game he did not score nor says but Bells was on it

I'm not even sure what I was referring to there I mean I guess I'd have to go back and watch that game but I don't know I don't know what I was I don't know what I was talking about let's move to Jordi Jordan Pfock versus Cone Waki take us away

yeah you had a moment of high class a run a little diagonal into some width there than a deaf little touch pass Meg to the defender teammate scores it took a deflection on it so it didn't count as an assist but I do count it as an assist, even though it was an own goal.

So it was a little bit of a change of pace from him. He's normally not doing things like that. No. And then he did take a penalty labor that was saved. It was a bad penalty. We can just run by this as quickly as possible. He basically just side-footed it straight to the keeper. It was a little to the right, right?

It was a little bit to the right. It wasn't anywhere close to enough to the right. You've got to kick it all the way into the corner there. Right. Yeah, when... When the keeper is just catching the pin, it's just catching the pin. It's not that good a pin. You're just comfortably falling to the ground and comforting it into his body there.

Right. Using the ground. Right. Like a young baby. I took one penalty kick in my playing career as a child and I missed it exactly like that. So that was particularly hard to watch. I cried after I took it. Did you cry?

Not watching the game. I just backed when I was a child. I didn't cry this time. Okay. But it is an intense memory. Never took a penalty after that again. Was never asked to. Oh, Chris.

I think partly it was the crying, you know. Yo, you, uh, I was like 12, so. I don't know. It seems like you have a lot of traumatic soccer experiences in your life. Yeah, I didn't enjoy playing soccer. It was very stressful. I'm just, I'm happy you stuck with it, I guess.

And in your transition to watch. I quit. I quit. I quit playing soccer. I did not stick with it. it, but I'm glad to be now be talking about it. Yeah, right, right. That's what I'm saying.

You didn't swear it off completely. It's more fun to watch it than play, in my opinion. Which I've noticed most people probably don't agree with that. They probably like playing it more than watching, but. It depends on who you play with. I played some pickup yesterday because my league game got canceled and I was playing with a bunch of, you know, people who don't play soccer that much. And it's not as fun.

You end up just running around a lot and being frustrated. It's very, very tiring, too. Yeah, that's how it goes. if you like if you if you hoop with like football players it's not a good experience a lot of bank shots a lot of bank shots when you play with football a lot of bank shots a lot of just foul a lot of bodying in the paint that down there yeah I mean not even just in the paint you could be bringing the ball up and somebody's just going to shoulder check you for no reason that you try you're going to try and call a foul and then all of a sudden it's going to be like you're going to

have to fight for this foul call um um whooping with football players is not recommended. Yeah. Anyway, so he missed a penalty. We were talking about... Right. I think it was good that we got into all of that. But the rest of the game, I thought he was otherwise good, moving around, posting up effectively.

Including for, you know, he arrived for a good-headed chance at the 6th with the man on his shoulder. He didn't make it. He hit it a little bit wide, but it's about getting in those positions. Yo, he... I mean, when Waki says there was a man on his shoulder, there really wasn't man on it was it was very much a man on a shoulder it wasn't a slight man on a shoulder he was all the way on him that it wasn't a bad mischance it just you could have seen him turning it a little bit and going in yeah um and and that's the reason why i'm uh warming

up to jordy it's just the he's a wrecking ball mm-hmm oh the amount of destruction they leaves in his path is just commendable Are we going to call him Jordy? Are we going to call him Jordy? That's what I call him, yes. Okay, because the commentators call him Jordan now. Obviously, everyone knows all the, following the ins and outs of his different names. It is just a little bit of a weird situation where it says Jordan on his back.

They call him Jordan, but his Twitter says, call me Pfuck. I think he just forgot to change that because he came out with it. He changed it to call me Jordan. His formal statement was call me whatever you want a few weeks ago, right? Right. Which isn't as strong as a Twitter name. Yeah. Call me what you will.

Union Berlin won and is first in the Bundesliga, as we mentioned, just a miracle. I recant saying that they were going to get annihilated by Byron a week ago. They drew them. And then this past weekend they beat Colin on the road. Colton's a good team in the Bundesliga right now. I think they're seventh. and I had to notice, because it was a little confusing because it looked a little bit like the Union Berlin Stadium, but the setting for Coln Stadium is a lot like the one in Berlin.

There's forests stretching out in one direction from it, and it looks lovely. I kept thinking I was watching a home Union Berlin game as well. So you were not alone on that. Yeah. It's very far from Berlin, though. It's actually, Coln is actually closer to Paris than it is to Berlin. Very close to the Netherlands. Dortmund, Einhoven, Brussels.

You know, I was talking last week about Sam Vines and how I watched this game against USG because USG is a good team. And then Europa League play this week. USG won. It was a Jordy-less Union, but they got the dub. USG got the dub, 1-0. And then USG played Union Sanguilois. played against

gang this weekend and lost one to zero. So they're kind of all over the place. Mark McKinsey's team, Gank. Let's talk about, we'll get to that, but let's talk about some midfielders.

Eunice Musa versus Ryo Viacano. My first instinct in the first half was we may have jumped a gun on Valencia being a flowing, exciting team to watch. It was a little bit grim. Musu was mostly doing kind of you know, the lower profile mid-field work where you kind of drop back and pass it to someone.

And then he did kind of have one pretty bad giveaway. And there it was one of those types where it was bad enough. You kind of just forgive it. And then, you know, then he was just doing his normal unis-moussa stuff this game. So it's like, was it, it's like the renal one where you just, where you just, you act like it didn't happen? Yeah, basically exactly like that. And then it took probably 30, it was the 37th minute where the first satisfying stretch of soccer play happened. Eunice moved the ball quickly in a stretch of combination play and one of his teammates actually like juggle the ball up in the air at what point and then they played it forward. But other than that, it was a little bit slow out there.

The big moment for me was to start the second half. Moose is combining near the sideline. Now he's kind of pulling a little central and then he gets played in behind and he goes down into the Manchester City Zone. pulls a great pass back exactly to an open team at the penalty they just kick it over. That was the highlight.

And then he did have a moment of flash where he kind of did a headed breakup in midfield. You know one of those ones where you run out of the picture, out of the frame, like the television frame, and you just appear. Right. He kind of did one of those, headed it down,

and now he does a deft little behind the leg heel pass diagonal a little bit, forward to a teammate. It wasn't as good of his big moment, but that was his moment of a moment of flash. And those are, I think, the two things you need to know about this weekend from Eunice Musa. Is you saying behind the leg heel pass a way to avoid saying the word Robona? No, no, it's a, it's when, I didn't know how to describe it, it's when your plant foot is your left foot and the foot you're kicking it is your right foot, but instead of kicking it In front of your left foot, you kick it behind your left foot.

So it kind of goes around with your heel. It's hard to do. Oh, okay, okay. It depends on your body position. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he did one of those in pretty fast motion. He didn't really come to anything, but it's important to do that from time to time. Typical, typical unit's match for the most thing.

I don't know, Waki, if you mentioned the two nice carries he had. I didn't. It's gotten the point. I just sort of leave them out because he does them. but they're important to mention. So can you describe this one? The one that was really nice, I think there was like, so there's a guy chasing him to his left. And then another midfielder tries to come by and scoop the ball off of him and just.

He did him. Yeah, he did him. Unis his close control is so good. He puts the ball basically just like under his body. Yeah, exactly. And then brings it out seamlessly and just continues on. And he's dribbling at full speed. The guy's coming at him, and he's like, I'm just going to tuck this under.

Nope, you're going to come on by me, and I'm just going to keep doing exactly what I was doing. Yeah. So, I mean, just typical unit stuff, like you said, but it's always nice to see and just to mention them. And it just seems that, you know, he's going to have full rain under Gattuso to just be Eunice Musa. And that's the best news you could ever want. Yeah. And it's always going to be a little bit of a come down from that 5-1 win over a Gatuzzo. tafe last week.

You know, you can't match that every weekend. Weston versus Salernatana. Juventus drew at home against Salernatana 2-2. Not the result they want. I thought McKenny, so McKinney's come under some criticism here, but I thought he was better in this game than he has been yet this season, sharper, a little quicker, a little more decisive in possession. Once, I mean, probably the best moment for him in the game was he won a ball over on the right touchline in the 13th minute and played a clever little one-two with Quadrado and then slipped Vlajavich in with the outside of his boot.

Vlah Vajovic probably was offside, but it wasn't flagged. And then he missed the chance. I think he just kicked it over or something. Yeah. So, Bells, I'm happy that you came away from this match the same way that I did. because when I was listening to the pod on Friday, I was cursing your name. How come?

When you were talking about his PSG performance. Oh, yeah. He wasn't that, I didn't think it was that good in that game. I mean, he scored a goal. That was good, obviously. I mean, what did he do? He was fine.

The man's ramping up, right? And so you got to take it in relativity. So, like, when you think about his match last weekend against Fiorentina, where he like had 20 passes in 90 minutes versus the PSG half where he comes on, scores a goal, applies clamps to Namar, and has 21 passes in that half,

completed 19 of them, while also making nice runs to clear out space for Vlovich to receive the ball in the middle so they can progress it. It's just like to me in that PSG match, Weston had his he had his bounce back Hmm You know like like I guess Fierantina

He just It was kind of blah from him But you could but you could see it You could just see it a little bit A little bit more in this match I mean in the PSG match And I think he he built off it a little bit more Against Siler Natana

And with Weston it's just It's just that thing man He has to be in a rhythm I don't know if y'all have heard his interview on the crack podcast. But he kind of laid it out. He was like, man, I have to, for him to be at 100% Weston, he has to like play. He has to play to get there.

He has to play through his mistakes. He has to feel like he's trusted by the manager in order to reach that top form. And yeah, so we're seeing big time moments from Weston. And we're also seeing some bad too. Like this sour and the time of game was not all good without a doubt. And the reaction to his performance was there was not a consensus. Some people were not very happy, we should say, because there were mistakes. My theory for that was he got beat on the first goal a little bit.

The guy beat him down to the end to get the cross off and that soured some people. And then they're going to miss, you know, a bunch of good things he did in the game. Like he did a bicycle attempt that was really good and some bunch of other stuff. moving around. And then another thing with Weston McKinney is he just always kind of divides opinion. So there were people watching this game saying he was out of shape. And then other people, it would be like two tweets later that show up if you search his name, talking about how he's just running all over the place, basically doing shuttle runs out there.

So he's an enigma and he's always going to be like that for people, particularly for the Juventus fans. I think that's true. It seemed like he got beat 1v1 on the goal. But, I mean, he allowed a cross through a tiny window. after Quadrado got eliminated out wide. I guess he could have done better there. Of course he could have done better, but it's not an egregious thing.

I mean, he's... Yeah, it's not egregious. And especially when you see that the dude that scored the goal was just like running to the back post. It was like, bro, you park somebody right there in that back post. That cross has dealt with, you know, it is what it is. But, I mean, yes, he could have done better defending one-on-one. Juventus fans are getting upset because they're not winning games. And, you know, there was some whistling at West when he kicked a cross over the goal towards the end of the game,

you know, about 15 minutes before he got subbed off. Right. And I would like to say that cross was absolutely ridiculous. Yes. It was crazy. He's got to do a little better there. But, you know, I think that's just a more reflection of the general frustration at, like, a toothless Eventus attack. And I think there's some reason to be worried.

You know, Wes always wins over his managers and he's obviously won the trust of Maxi Allegory. Yeah. But who knows how long Allegory is going to be there. So the process might have to start over again. Yeah, I think it was mostly frustration that they didn't win the game. And then there was some lack of precision in the attacking third from him that if he had done one thing had gone a little differently,

then it would have the impression of it. his game would be very different. He was doing, like, mostly for UVA or whatever, he's like, he's like out wide, playing like right mid. You know what I'm saying? Maybe not doing too, not getting involved as much in the buildup, but I feel like he was dropping in quite a bit in this match. I agree.

Yeah. And mostly doing well. Yeah. I seem like as the game played out in late in the second half, he was increasingly out wide, but first half especially, he was getting in the middle of the, field a lot. One more thing I just wanted to say about Eunice real quick is, you know, we've talked about his fitness issues.

Bringing up Weston's fitness made me think about it. Talk about how like he gets gassed around like the 70F or whatever. And Gattuso just seems like he's going to get it out of him one way or another. He's just leaving him in there. Yeah. He's like, I'm not using a sub on a midfielder. I'm just you, you play 90 minutes. I like that

I like it too One thing I do appreciate About Weston's time at Yvese Is they tend to leave him in the game Like he plays a lot of minutes Once he's in there right Yeah I mean He's not getting yanked at the 60th minute very often

For all the criticism of him And like you know Maybe the fan base isn't completely sold Allegory loves Weston McKinney He plays him all the time As soon as he can Sure does even after the what I really liked was when so that that Furentina match right Weston had a chance

that he passed up he he he was basically in on goal didn't shoot tried to slip somebody in really try to slip nobody in because nobody was open he just tried to shoot the ball and after the after the match Allegory was quoted in an article basically saying like yo Weston needs to I mean he he in so many words he He was like, Weston needs to find that dog again. He was like, he has a chance. He's a guy that I believe in that I believe can score goals. He has to shoot and he has to take that chance.

Then he comes on PSG and we all know what happens. You know, he had Nuno Mendez covering his head like it was an earthquake drill as he was getting dunked on. And I don't know. You guys know me. Weston, I just love Weston so much. He gets me fired up. I do agree with you. I do agree with you that he is, there's a relative, you know, ramping up process going on that is sort of discernible over the last few weeks.

And we need that from him. We need him fully ramped up in November. It's coming. Juventus hosts Benfica on Wednesday. So, you know, check that out. Three Eastern, two central, I believe. Jay Bradley. Jay Bray.

Yeah, right. Jay Brick still hasn't made his debut for Benfica. Ben frickin Fika Scali versus Freiburg What do we got? He had a near wonder assist Off an early corner You know, corner kind of goes over the field

He back shifts Hits it with his left foot Kind of on the inside of it Takes a lot off of it Toward the back post Heder nearly missed It was Julian Weigel On the back post

If you can believe that Oh, what a blast from the past he is Yeah And I think he meant it I think he meant the whole thing I would recommend looking at the little clip if you're like weird little physics plays because it doesn't look like the ball

should have been able to land as gently as it did. It came to nothing, so it's an unremarkable play, but... No, that's not a statement that checks out. Just because something comes to nothing, it's unremarkable? Kind of Philistine, are you? That's true.

And then, you know, with watching a Scali game, he kind of doesn't get to do most of the fun attacking, but he's becoming a defensive stalwart. in my opinion. Is he? Stollward is really strong there. It's really strong. But it's sort of the general idea of it.

Basically, he does more defending than attacking. Did he put the clamps on? He put the clamps on a couple people. And he didn't have any real problems out there that I can remember. He kind of seems to be playing himself on the World Cup team

just by continuing to go out there. Just by showing up. Basically. I mean, that's what he does every week. I mean, he's... I really softened from defensive stalwart, though. Yeah, I definitely would not say defensive stalwart. Because, I mean, that's just a synonym for clamps for just a known clamp applier.

And I don't know if Scali's there yet. But he's always in position, though. That's the thing. He's there. And, uh, I don't know. Honestly, it's pretty boring. watching a fullback play soccer so it's like that we've even said anything about this is to our credit i think i mean specifically for this team like uh glad box midfield is just not good and it just doesn't help

it just doesn't help anything it doesn't help joe uh you know in build up or whatever he's he's receiving the ball most of the time in positions where he just has to go backwards um and this game it looked like an Union match. It's a lot of long balls. Balls just bouncing all over the place. But he's out there. He's doing his thing. And he has been yet to be exposed by

Abundance League or attacker one-on-one. This is the moment where I would give the stat of how many consecutive games he started if I had it, because it's just incredible the consistency he's had in that starting lineup. It's however many games. Glad back has played So let me see

One two, three Four five six Six Six straight in the league Well 90% of success is showing up As they say Let's Let's move to McKenzie

Versus circle Bruges So Mackenzie Mark McKenzie Has started five straight for Gank And Gink has four wins And one draw Over that stretch

The latest was against Union's Union Saint-Gilois and he's demonstrating once a... I know you guys are getting annoyed with me saying. I can't believe how much we hear about this, this team. Ridiculous team. Why?

I probably won't say it again. We mentioned like five times an episode for the past 20 weeks. How is this even possible? We have too many players in this country. We need to get some Americans out of Belgium. I had no clue that they existed before Rangers played them in, champions league qualifying too. Like, just one of the most obscure Belgian teams.

We've never heard of them until three months ago. Yeah. Now they're ruling our lives. Yep, they're everywhere now. I mean, they're demonstrating. So McKenzie, I think, is demonstrating once again that he's the best centerback passer of the ball other than Johnny Anthony Brooks in the player pool. He's just stroking the ball all over the field with both feet.

still a little prone to over-casualness, I think, slow to rotate onto the dribbler who scored USG's only goal. It's just going to be difficult to fully trust him as a defender until, I don't know, puts together a stretch of games where there's just none of that. And I think the more troubling stuff is in previous games this season where he's like, you know, dallying on the ball and then gives it away

and then there's a big chance for the other team. He doesn't have to do this stuff. He has the technical ability and the physical tools to not do it, but he does it. Yeah. Yeah, and I thought Greg made a great point on the Friday pod

just about like a floor, you know, just the floor of our backups. Because, you know, I've been on the James Sands train. But I can't say. sit here and argue with you that he's necessarily providing a good floor. Like this man's giving you like two, three mistakes a game. Some

have went unpunished. Some have. But yeah. Are you talking about McKenzie or Sands or both? Well, I'm just making a point in general. Okay. Just especially at the centerback position. I think you want floor before upside without a doubt.

Yeah. Like if they're called in, you know, we need some people that we know they're just going to do a job. You know, no nonsense. So Cameron Carter Vickers, basically. Basically. The floor. He is the floor.

He is a floor. Right. He is a floor. A wall, however you want to look at. A nice floor. A nice solid floor. If we got CCV, Mark McKenzie, whoever, coming into a World Cup match, you know, it's, it's probably time to lock it down. You know, and we don't need no, we don't need no bozoan us.

Mm-hmm. We just need some solid headers, boot the ball away, all that. Yeah, that's the thing is McKenzie does, I mean, the way he can strike a ball, which is really a pleasure to watch him strike a ball with either foot. He's, and his, you know, in like a shoulder-to-shoulder battle, he's going to often win. So, like, he does offer a huge upside, I think, at centerback. And he has since he was, like 19th, since he was playing with the, 20s.

But yeah, the floor is, the floor, I don't know where the floor is with him. You know, it could be, you know, it could be two game losing mistakes in a World Cup game. I mean, that seems very, very plausible. Yeah, but, yeah, basically the floor is, you know, what he did against Mexico. You know, it just seems like he has, he has yet to fully get that out of his game. Right. But still a top tier talent.

And also he did play the rest of the game decently well. I guess opinions vary. Well, he also got worked one more time in the first half of that Nation's League final. But yeah, yeah. He's going to be fun to watch his career. I just, yeah, just worry about him playing in the World Cup in two months.

What about Jack Moore? Vince, you got a good look at him this weekend. Yeah, I just wanted to check in because number one, I saw a tweet. It came from a Nashville fan. so, you know, I guess I needed to take it with a grain of salt. But still, he was saying the Shaq Moore has been like the best right back in the MLS since he's made the move over.

So I checked in on their game this weekend against the Galaxy. And he was fine. He didn't do anything crazy. He was defensively responsible. Okay on the ball. I mean, really nothing. nothing too crazy. Him and Joe about the same this week.

A lot of back passes, whatnot. Really, I have no more. After watching this game, I do not have any added clarity on our backup right-back situation. We don't have a huge supply of extremely exciting and talented attacking fullbacks. We do not.

I guess it's probably true for most nations. you're going to have a few guys like Sergenia who can do stuff and then a bunch of guys you you know we're just like solid and fullback type type people you know if we don't have surge is it worth putting any of these backup right backs into the into the attacking group of five and probably not probably not yeah um so also just from watching this match i saw walker walker plan and he was good. I think he gave up a pin at the very end of the match on a handball that was, you know, it's just one of those calls where it's like, this is going to be a handball unless I cut

off my forearm. I got to confess, I haven't done a great job keeping up with Walker Zimmerman. Is he basically still a starting center back for us? I think so. Every time I've watched him, he's looked good. He's looked good. And the thing is, his work on the ball is just greatly improved. I don't know if we, I mean, we probably never thought he would be this guy.

But he's just splitting lines all the time, just casually now. And we know he's a plight pulley with that ball over the top. I guess Morocco. They broke the game open there. But, yeah. Well, Walker's still that dude, I think. and he's just also just very active in and around the box. Like as soon as somebody receives the ball, like at the top of the 18, like he's there.

And that's where I saw like Shaq Moore being defensively responsible because he was quick to pinch in and cover that space that Walker was vacating on the right side. So yeah, just. Interesting. I just say get all these guys in camp. Well, I guess Serge is going to play the minutes. Just great. Get these guys in camp and decide who's the backup right back. I'm partial to Scali, I think.

Good, good. I really, there's not much. Let's leave it at that. You're partial to Scali. You're partial Scali. You hear that, everybody? If you want to get the Monday review delivered to your phone every week and get the historic recaps, we're about to publish one about the 2002 win over Mexico,

and get access to the Discord and the live call-in shows that we're going to do over the next couple months, join the Patreon. Patreon.com forward slash. Guffed. Eric Williamson, Vince, tell us what, tell us what happened with him this weekend. And more importantly, what's the, you know, what's his situation? Situation. I guess the situation is that he can sneak in on the World Cup roster as like a fourth, a fourth eight.

And so I just wanted to check in to see how he was playing. You know, we got, we got a Timber fan on the, Timbers fan on the, on the, on the pod, on the pod, Jesus, on the Discord. That's very pro-erick and wants to see him included. And shoot, like, I was pro-eric. I am pro-eric. Now, think about it. But, you know, we've had some more aides arrive during qualifying during the time

that Eric was out with the torn ACL, unfortunately. But, you know, he went 84 minutes against Minnesota. Put in a nice performance. A couple nice switches. A few dribbles in the midfield step and past some guys. Just active. He definitely seems like plug and play as far as like an all-action eight. And the type of eight that I like, you know,

one that can give you a little dribble here. You know what I'm saying? Can step past a guy if they need to. I don't know. As far as eights in our national team pool, I would take him over Kellen Acosta. without our doubt Kellynne Ocosta never inspires me

Oh Oh As an eight As a crucial As a As a As a Distinction

Oh okay Okay Okay Because as a six As a six Kellen's got to be the backup For Adams still right I mean that's

That a doubt Yeah There's not an alternative I don't That I'm aware There is no There is no alternative No

All right Well we'll see if Williams is in the camp Williamson's in the camp I mean it should have been Johnny Soccer as the alternative, but I don't know what he's doing. Are we supposed to be watching him?

We are supposed to be watching him, but we're not. He's apparently having a pretty good season so far, right? Okay. I know the last I saw, the last game that Daniel Smith tweeted, he came off injured, like on a stretcher or something. Oh, boy. Let me see. Is he back?

September 10th. When was that? He's the hardest player to follow in the world, Johnny Soccer. I mean, he's really not Because I No, like Logistically it's not hard at all It shouldn't be hard

But there's something about him I actually just found out this weekend That the That Brazil's league Is on Paramount Plus I didn't know this But now I'm gonna watch Sao Paulo every week

That's my Brazilian team Just because I got a friend from Sao Paulo I guess you're gonna add a whole Another soccer game to your Watch schedule Yeah, I got time I feel

I just feel like he needs to put himself a little more squarely in the picture before we go and watching another soccer game because it's a lot of soccer games. He was so bad in the Olympic qualifying tournament. It's hard to forget. I think Daniel should tell us when it's time to start watching. Yeah, Daniel, tell us when it's time to start. The thing is, I thought that game that he came off on the stretcher, it kind of seemed like it was getting to that point. But he's back now. He went 60 minutes this weekend against the C-U-I-A-A-A-I-A-A.

I'm not going to pronounce it. Okay. Desk got no minutes against Samporia, which raises our hopes that he'll start on Wednesday in Champions League at home against Dino-M-Mo Zagreb. No minutes for Ledezma and a tight 1-0 win over WAL-WIC for PSV and then, or WALWIC, I don't know how to pronounce it. No minutes for De La Torre as Seltivigo got trucked by Athletico Madrid. So I think that about covers it. Alex Mendez plays this afternoon in the Portuguese First Division. I'll probably be watching that.

Anything else, guys? We know you will. Anything else, guys? Yep. Oh, Jordan Morris had an assist this weekend. Oh, yeah. A couple, a nice one, right? And set up a nice shot, too?

Are you giggling over there? Yeah. Who? Yeah, you. Me? Oh, never me. Yeah. It was not for real, for real, though.

It was a decent assist. He got out, he got out, got it, was able to basically chase a ball down, ran past to, I think it was a fullback, ran past the dude, basically got to the man's city zone, cut it back to Rory Diaz, gold. So. Yeah. We'll probably see them. Interesting point. People were pointing out on Twitter that Seattle had Lava and Atensio in the midfield that game, that they beat Austin 3 to 0.

So maybe we're seeing a Lava resurgence here? I don't know. Yeah, supposedly Lava's been balling since ever since like all of Seattle Sixes have gotten injured. Like Obed's out for the year. Jalpaolo got hurt. Obed's out for the year? Yeah, yeah.

I think they announced that they, they're just not going to bring up back. Interesting. The man got a stress fracture in his back, bro. Like, I don't, we should probably leave that alone. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like he's, he's what, 17 or whatever, 16?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just let him chill. Let him chill. Well, it's, it's going to be fun. It's nice to have a World Cup coming up. Don't get me wrong. But it'll be nice back, like when we get on the other end of the World Cup and we can just sort of take a more,

a broader approach to the player. Yeah. Because that's kind of looking forward to this World Cup being over. It's getting to be a little bit of a drag. It's like, too much, you know? Let's relax a little bit and just like, I really enjoyed when it was three years out. And you could just be like, what if, you know, what if Richie Ledesma? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, you could just say basically anything. Wow. Very soon we get to do that again and I'm excited. I also want to mention. Because we're doing this for the next 30. years. Yeah, we'll be here. Right. I want to mention Daniel Edelman.

Oh, yeah. On U-20 fame. He has claimed a spot in the Red Bulls midfield. That's pretty remarkable. Yeah. Right. He started, one, two, three, four, five, six straight games. Six straight games for the Red Bulls. And, you know, if you let FlipMob tell it, he's been good. And the people that watch that are on the Discord.

have also said he's been good. And I was pretty impressed with him in, where were we at? Costa Rica, Honduras. I think, yeah, it was Honduras. Honduras. Honduras. Okay. Yeah, I was impressed with him there.

And so to see him doing his thing at the moment, I mean, he's getting, he's getting more time than any of these, anybody else that was on that team. Also, yeah, that's cool. Also announced today that the U.S. women's national team will play Spain on October 11th, so that makes the European swing, a two-game swing. They're going to play at Wembley against England on October 7th. It's coming right up. And then the World Cup, next year, a U-20 World Cup,

which Daniel Edomond might get to play in, and the Women's World Cup. So plenty of soccer coming up. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.