Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #316: The roster for the last friendlies before the World Cup

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

Greg and Belz work through the roster, and Berhalter's press conference, ahead of friendlies vs Japan and Saudi Arabia.support Scuffed on Patreon and get all kinds of benefits: 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.

Welcome to the Scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. We have a roster for the final two games. The U.S. will play before the World Cup. Friendly is on the 23rd and 27th against Japan and Saudi Arabia. And we also have some Champions League action to catch up on. Greg, how are you? I got to say, Bels, I'm doing good. You know, roster leaks, notwithstanding,

there was still that rush, you know, of the announcement when you finally see the names and you race through it to see who's there, who's not. But I got to be honest, it's a little bit bittersweet because I'm also kind of mourning what I think is probably the undoing the dissolution of the striker hat. I feel like the striker hat has probably run its course at this point. As in maybe you don't believe Greg Berhalter when he kept insisting this isn't the final roster? I mean, I believe him in the technical sense because that's exactly what a coach believes. I mean, Berhalter believes that too, because he knows that you map out all these different contingencies. And so, of course, it's possible that X, Y, or Z could happen and you have to bring in a new player.

Players could play their way out of this group in this camp, I imagine. But I think this is about us. I think this is what the roster looks like in his mind right now, barring, you know, Tim Wayan, Jedi Robinson. Right. Well, let's listen to what he said about that beat just because it's, you know, He disagrees with you, at least formally. It's important to keep in mind that this is not the final roster. It's not the final roster for the World Cup.

A lot can happen between now and November 9th is when we're announcing the final roster. The actual date for FIFA is November 14th, and a lot can happen between the 9th and the 14th. Not only is it not the final roster, but the final roster isn't the final roster. And again, of course that's the case, right? If someone does a hammy, you know, walking around their apartment after their roster's been announced, that's it. We replace it. We replace him with someone else. And we probably have a, he probably has a good idea of who those replacements would be in any scenario.

But no, I do. I mean, I do think some of that is just sort of coach lip service about, you know, nothing's guaranteed, which again, from a purely logical standpoint, of course that's true. Right. Right, right. But I'm reluctant to believe that there are any players, healthy players. who are like locks in his current no mind for the 26 that are not in this camp. I'm basically, I mean, we're just talking around. I'm talking about Pfok, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's mostly Pfok. I mean, Ream gets a little bit of a shout there too. I think he's sort of in the same, a similar category, not the same category. Let's do the roster. So the goalkeepers are going to be Matt Turner, Ethan Horvath, and Sean Johnson. The way I have it split up is the right backs are going to be Sergenio Dest. DeAndre Edlin and Reggie Cannon. I mean Scali, Joe Scali is also in the roster.

I'm calling him a left back just for the purposes of this exercise. Centerbacks would be Walker Zimmerman, Cameron Carter Vickers, Chris Richards, and Aaron Long. And then left backs, Joe Scally, as a swingback sort of. And then Sam Fines. I appreciate your editorial decision to split the right backs up and the right backs and the left backs up with the centerbacks. because it is a little bit, it's actually kind of vague of how Burrhalter is going to approach this, right? We're going to learn a lot, I think,

even from that first lineup announcement against Japan of who he considers the next left back with Jedi out because it could be desks, it could be scally, two nominal right backs, or it could just be true left back sandbines. Yeah. Well, let's let me,

since we're on the topic, let me play Burhalter's clip about that because he was asked, Are you open to playing a right-footed left back, I believe, by Ivis Gilarsep. Regarding the openness, you said more open to play a right-footer at left back. I think we've done this a lot of times. We played right-footers there. When you think about Sergenio, the goal he scored against Jamaica, remember that one?

Think about Nations League final. Sergenio started on the left-hand side just in this last win. Joe Scally played on the left-hand side. So that's something we've always been open to. I think it unbalances the defense when you can have a fullback coming inside. So, you know, one of the things we're preparing, if Anthony Robinson can't go or he gets injured or suspended in the World Cup, is who can fill his shoes. With Sammy Vines, I think this is a great opportunity to look at him. He's a guy that, you know, is in the form of his life.

I've been speaking close with his staff, with his coaching staff. They've been very impressed with him. And then the other option is to look at a right footer there, which I'm sure we'll do in this camp. So, you know, we're excited about, you know, the opportunity to look at some other guys. We're going to miss Anthony. But, you know, hopefully he's going to recover and be back in time for the World Cup. That sounds like Vine's going to be the first name there, right? That's not how I took it.

All right. Honestly, I mean, we're all just like reading between the lines here, but I think Vines, Vines is getting a shot, but sounds to me more like the inverted left back is going to be the first choice, unless Vines really. I don't know. What do I know? All right. And I know we're just totally breaking up this roster listing that we're doing. But his discussion of playing those right footers on the left side, they tended to go kind of poorly. Like we've got a neutralized Serginio Desk when we put him over there.

I know we had the goal against Jamaica. But as we broke down in that post-friendly pod, like the right side of Jamaica's team in that match, this was right after COVID, like was barely playing professional soccer. And even when they were, they were not very few of those players were playing at a high level. It was like USL2 guys out on the field taken on Sergenio Dest. And Christian Pulcic, who was his partner on that side of the field. So, you know, that was the one big highlight of the right footer on the. the left side. But then that Mexico Nations League final, Dest was

almost completely ineffective in his 50 or 60 minutes. Against El Salvador away when Desk played out there totally ineffective in that game. It was just kind of a waste. And then obviously Joe Scali wasn't contributing to the attack. I think it's fair to say

in his friendly appearances. Certainly not in any kind of a difference-making way. Right. And I think if you want to one issue is, which we haven't even discussed yet. If you're going to have Desk playing inverted left back, you need a left winger who's going to hug the touchline, you know, feet on the chalk. And we know Christian Pulisik doesn't generally like to do that. I mean, I guess he could be instructed to do it and follow the instructions, but he likes to come inside and, you know, go at the box from the middle.

It's strange, Bell, so you're already demanding that Jordan Morris start as our left winger. with Serginio Dess behind him at left back, but I'll let our fans, I'll let our listeners hit you back on that one. Yeah, no, I'm not, I promise I'm not doing that. All right, let's move on to defensive midfield. It's very straightforward. It's Tyler Adams and Kell and Acosta. They are going to be the defensive midfielder's at the World Cup.

I think you could put money on that. And then center mids are Westa McKenney, Eunice Musa, Luca Deletore, and Malik Tilton I do want to play a quick Burrhalter clip on Tillman because, you know, we've noted that he didn't play as well in his last two games in our various episodes. This is Burrhalter. He's done well, but he needs to do better. He needs to increase his level, you know, disappointed with his last couple of performances against Ajax and Celtic.

But he's got a ton of quality. And, you know, that's the conversations I'm having with him is that he can help this group. but he needs to pick it up a little because he's a guy that the coaching staff was highly impressed with and think he's got a huge ceiling. So it's great to see the start what he had and now it's going to be about in these next bigger games, right, when he's in the championship league, he do the same type of thing he's doing in the Scottish league. That's going to be interesting to see.

Sounds about right, doesn't it? And it's like I think some people on Twitter took exception to this quote saying, well, like as if he was picking on Tillman, but it sounds to me like it's an open door for Tillman. This is a challenge to him if he can raise, quote, raise his level here in the next couple months. He's going to go to the World Cup. Yeah. And I'm glad Burhunter used the word sealing there because, you know, we've talked about it.

This is exactly what you would bring Malick Tillman to the World Cup for is a couple of moments. Like, you know, he has a tiny sample size of actual professional soccer. So, you know, when he has two bad games in a row, that's like a significant portion of his career. But he had two or three good games before that, right? So it's like you're going to have this wide band of performance possible outcomes. And so you bring a guy like Tillman, I think, not because he's ever going to be the starter in this tournament, but because he might be a guy who can come in and produce something when you need it. And so I think that's probably all he has to keep doing is showing like flashes.

If he shows a flash of something brilliant, and it might need to come in this camp, or it might need to come in the European games, because I don't know that flashing brilliance in the Scottish League is going to be enough to keep him on the spot. Because I imagine, I mean, again, just because of how stacked we are in some of these attacking positions, it's going to be hard for him to, I think, sneak in when Tim Wea comes back over.

I think Greg Burholter, obviously very, very, much trusts Jordan Morris and Paul Areola. And those would be the guys Tillman would have to sneak in over once Waya comes back if everyone's healthy. Yeah. One of them. He has to sneak in over at least one of them. And I think what it sounds like to me is if Burrhalter can trust Tillman to go out there

and essentially play hard the whole time he's out there, then that's going to give him a much better shot at coming, you know, getting on the roster. he did say So Wei and Jedi are injured obviously they would be on this roster otherwise Berthelter said he basically called them locks for the roster which is not you know that's not news

the wingers are Christian Pulisic Giovanni Reina Brennan Aronson Arieola and Jordan Morris of course Raina and Aronson presumably can play in the middle at center mid and then the strikers

and this is where most of the controversy. Most of the questions from in the press conference were about this are Ferreira, Sergeant, and Pepe. So Pepe's kind of back from the wilderness. He got his, you know, first significant minutes in Europe in a long time at Grunning Inn over the weekend. And he's back in the roster. And Burhalter did a lot, fielded a lot of questions trying to explain, why is he here and Pfeck is not. And I don't know, do you want me to play? I have kind of a long clip on that. Should I play that? Let's hear what he says.

So it's a question from Doug McIntyre. I'll include the question because it kind of makes the answer clearer. Yeah, just regarding the strikers, Ricardo Pepe comes in, the reasoning behind that. And you mentioned PFOC scoring, but he's not brought in. You've talked in recent weeks about, you know, picking the right, the players that fit the best as opposed to necessarily the best players. How much of that came into the decision on Jordan? Why didn't you bring him in despite the hot start he's at?

Yeah, you know, that's a good question. So starting with Pepe, you know, keep in mind this is a guy that scored three goals for us in World Cup qualifying, right? And has had a tough time since then. And exactly what you said, we're trying to get him confidence. We're trying to get him into the group and see if he can make a push for the final roster. You know, that's TBD right now. You know, watch this game this weekend in Gronegan or in Cambura. And you can see that, you know, he can be dominant in the Dutch League.

And now it's a question of if he actually is. And can he really take his game to the next level? But we saw some good things from him and we'll get him in the group and see what he can do with us. Regarding Jordan, again, it's a difficult one. You know, when we wanted to take a look at Pepe, we wanted to take a look at Josh due to his hot star. And he's been with the team for a while as well. So it's never easy. And there was a decision that we weren't going to bring in four forwards.

We didn't feel like we had enough game time to give four forwards an opportunity. So we went with these three. And we're pretty confident. We know Jordan's profile. We know what he can do. And we didn't feel like we needed to see him in this camp to determine whether he can be on the roster or not. Yeah, it sounds like, I mean, he's formally leaving the door open for Pivok to be. in the World Cup roster, but

it's probably he's not going to be on the World Cup roster, right? There's enough there, right? There's enough there for Pfok truthers. I don't mean that in a, in a, it sounds condescending. I don't mean that in a bad way.

I want Pfok on this roster in the World Cup. There's enough there to cling to, right? That it's possible that unless Pepey lights things up in this camp or really starts killing it in the Netherlands, that Pfeok can be added without a second thought, right?

Like we don't, we bring him, man, he's good, we drop him into the group and we're fine. So there's enough there to cling to it. But this is definitely one of those cases with Pete Pepey in where, you know, for these national team call-ups for as long as we can remember, form matters unless it doesn't, right? Yeah. Yeah.

It's always, always, always about who the coach believes in. And form is like, always feels like a secondary consideration. And I don't even mean that as a complaint either. I personally think that's the right way to do it. I don't always agree with who a coach thinks is the right player to do something. But I'm never just like trying to argue on a technicality that this player is informed so they should be called. I don't think it should be like a revolving door of who scored the most goals over the last 10 games. That's who you bring in.

I don't think that's a great way to build a team either. So I can respect this. I don't think it had to be either or like I think that PFAC could have been in even if there aren't enough match minutes to go around. It's the last camp, right? It's the last setting that you have to the group together. Right. And I think, so I think even in that sense, it would have been important. The training is probably like in a lot adjacent to PFOx flat.

So the camps in Germany, PFOx is in Germany. So it feels like we could have had him in without doing, without too much trouble. Yeah. And if we wanted him to be more familiar with the group, part of the team spirit, that we have a clip about that. We'll play later. then you would want to bring him in the camp, I would think. I mean, several other reporters came at the PFAC question in various ways, Goff, Strauss, Tannenwald,

and Burrhalter basically just kept praising him and the success of the early part of the season for Union Berlin, but he didn't give any more real explanation for his omission other than, like we know his profile, we wanted to evaluate other players. And again, Burhalter kind of prepared everyone for this with the talk earlier in the week about looking for the right profile, not necessarily the right striker, which again, I tend to agree with this, like, approach to building a team, but also where I think you run into issues is, I don't think you, to construct a roster, especially with 26 players, three extra players.

I don't think you want carbon copies of positions the whole way down. I think that you can run into some problems here. And this is, this is really the big question for me is, you know, we've talked about this. A lot of people talk about PFAC as the chasing a goal option, right? That's how we've kind of framed it to. I don't think that's quite accurate, right? So you're not necessarily just going to bring PFOC in anytime you're chasing a goal. What matters is sort of how you're performing and if you're creating chances.

So if you're performing well, you could still find yourself losing late in a game. And for anyone who's listened very carefully to this podcast, we discussed variance before. So, you know, you could, you know, Tim Way, I could set up Christian Poulos, for a perfect tap-in opportunity that he hits right at the goalkeeper's shins, right? Or Gio-Reyn could cushion a ball expertly to Jesus-Ferrera who skies it over the goal. Like those things can happen. But if you're creating those chances over and over late in the game down one, you wouldn't just say, well, we've got to change up.

This isn't working. Like it's working. You just need the ball to bounce your way one of those times. So you wouldn't necessarily change there. What Pfock represents to me, and the reason I think it's probably hard for a coach like Burrhalter to really want to bring him in is PFOC represents like a hedge, almost like a hedge against everything that the team has been working for, everything that Burhalter has been trying to build.

Yeah. Because what you're saying is like, I think we're going to play this way. I think this is how we're going to succeed. And PFAC doesn't fit into that. But what I'm thinking is like, there is a chance and you have to leave open the possibility that it just does not work at all. Like everything you've been trying to do is just absolute rubbish. once you get on the field.

And through two games of the World Cup, maybe you're sitting on one point of zero zero draw with whales and you've attempted four shots in the entire tournament. And you have to be like, it's not working. We thought it was going to work.

We worked really hard at it. We've got a switch. Yeah. He's like the red phone option. Yeah. And so it's less like chasing a goal and more just like chasing any kind of offense. If you suck.

If you suck. If it just is not working at all, it's like, okay, this guy can come in do something else. And again, I know his numbers are a little bit inflated based on its underlines, but it kind of doesn't matter. He's playing well enough in the Bundesliga where he's making an impact. And I don't just mean bottom line stats.

I'm talking like you can watch him play and you can see how he disrupts teams and that benefits his partner up top Becker, right? You can see him do these things that influence the game. And you can see why that could be useful if the current way we want to play doesn't quite match him. But if it's the current way we try to play, just is not working. Yeah. So it's almost like a humility thing to be like, it might not work.

Burholter apparently is just if he leaves him out and runs with Pepey Sargent and Ferreira in Qatar. I mean, he's just fully going all in, right, on what he thinks will work and he's committing to it. And hell or high water, that's what we're going to go with. And it could. It could work. Yeah. And it's possible, you know, we just, we all just made this all up, this idea of a change of pace option, whatever you want to call it, red phone, nuclear option. whatever. It's like maybe Burrhalter's never really been thinking about it that way. Like he doesn't,

he doesn't consider that necessary. I feel like it is kind of a good idea, but to have that option, but that's, that's where I land. And the same thing kind of applies with the, with the centerback. So that's the same thing for either Tim Ream. I mean, John Brooks isn't playing for Benfica yet and may never get on the field for Benfica. Who knows? But those guys, you know, he talks about having a type of centerback. And I understand it, right? I understood that Brooks could When Brooks lost out in that window, when he was hurt allegedly for that window, he was called up to in October. And it made sense that like, okay, well, we would start the pressing centerbacks anyway.

But there could be situations where you don't need pressing centerbacks and you need a distributing centerback. And if you've only brought one type of centerback, then, again, you're just putting all the eggs in one basket. And with 26 players, that for me seems unnecessarily. necessarily risky. Okay. Well, a few more things on the press conference. He was asked, Brahmaelter was asked about Brandon Vasquez, not nearly as much as Pfok, but he was asked about him.

And he said essentially he's been playing well. He's had a great season and he feels bad for him. But he's up against players who have familiarity with the group experience in big games for the national team. And, you know, he did bring up Pepi's scoring three goals for us in qualifying quite a few times on the on the call he also brought up that sergeant has played some played in some important games for the u.s not hasn't performed particularly well for the u.s but i think they're you know my opinion is there are reasons for that that are sort of out of sergeant's control a little bit yeah

if ever there was a perfect like a world example of of our brick wall height metaphor it's it's been peppy and sergeant over the past four months uh where sergeant has finally been measured uh you know i don't i don't think it's necessarily just like he hit a streak of hot form i think you know obviously a huge drop in competition level is going to lead to more chances to attack. And that's what we're seeing. So we're just kind of measuring him. It's not just that he's a hot hand. It's like, oh, we finally get to measure him and he looks good.

And for Pepe, it's been the opposite, right? He stood behind a much taller brick wall in the Bundesliga and you couldn't see him anymore. And so I think this move to the Netherlands is huge because, you know, if he had stayed at, if he had stayed at Augsburg, I think there'd be less reason to call him in because you wouldn't necessarily anticipate that he's going to start playing, that he's going to get sharp. And it's not that he's going to get worse. It's just he's not going to be, I mean, he's not going to be match fit. He's not playing enough.

But by going to the Netherlands, he's still the same guy he was a year ago when he, when he captured the imagination of U.S. fans down in Honduras. But now he's going to get to play again. Like, we can be pretty sure he's going to play in the Netherlands. And so it's like, okay, well, we'll bring him in now ahead of all that, all those minutes he's going to get trusting that he is going to, you know, get back to match fitness and be ready to. to go in November.

And I'll say just very selfishly, if, if, you know, Pepe being in this camp raises the odds that he's going to be in the World Cup roster, which raises the specter of him scoring a goal at the World Cup, which then I would respond to by posting the Pepey song I wrote. So I'm very selfishly, I'm pleased that he's still in the mix. Because I'm probably not going to be posting the Busio song anytime soon. Unlikely. I mean, yeah, it seems unlikely. No, I'm excited. I hope there is that peppy song. I hope you end up having to make a red-headed curly song for Josh Sargent. I'm so, I'm like so excited that we finally got to measure him because, again, as much as I'm like the Ferreira voice, I feel like I would gladly sit him for a Josh Sargent who's who looks better. And I don't think that's unlikely at all. I think Josh Sargent could look better in a week. And that's it. He could be the start. starter. So I'm, I'm super pumped to actually see him take the field for a functioning U.S.

team. Norwich won again yesterday. Should be mentioned. He scored a, he scored the third goal in a three-two win, a kind of a scrappy header off a corner kick, a good, a good header off a corner kick. And even though he was playing on the wing and I think he had a quieter performance, Timu Pookie is, it turns out, is still very good at soccer. And it's, it's a shame that sergeant doesn't get to play center forward, but it's totally understandable. Dean Smith has some tough decisions to make. And we're seeing again that it still matters less than just being at a much lower level of competition. Like his last three goals have come when he's playing on the wing. I know set pieces, maybe got an asterisk on it. But like the fact remains, just by being on a team that is

capable of attacking, he gets to attack. And that we haven't, we hadn't seen that for three years. And we kept saying, we won't know until it gets to a team that can attack, whether he's the problem or the team or whatever combination it is. But now he's on a team that gets to attack, and lo and behold, he's pretty good at it. Yeah. It's so much less about what position he's playing and rather whether he's actually getting into the attacking third

with his team. Playing the same position he was playing in the Premier League last season, except when he was playing that position in the Premier League, he was basically a wingback. Now he's basically a second striker. So it's good. Despite all this excitement, to wet blanket it a little bit.

Like, I still do think striker is going to be a relatively weak position for us. So even though I give Ferreira a ton of love for the chances he creates, I still think he's probably, you know, even though I was leaning him out of everyone in the hat, I still think relatively he's clearly like one of the weaker players in our 11, certainly in the attack, in the front three, front five when Dest is up there, Jedi is up there. Yeah. So sorry. Sorry to throw that damper on it.

No, that's okay. I count on you for some dampers now and then. Let's, um, Berthar got another question about familiarity over level, which is sort of the underlying thing behind, well, familiarity slash fit over level, which is the underlying thing behind the questions about Pfok and RIM, but especially Pfok. And here's what he said about that. Yeah, you know, I don't think there's a case where there's a huge talent discrepancy. we went with, you know, the guy who has experience or has a body of work over, over that talent. You know, you're talking about minor differences, I guess, in some cases. But, you know, for us, I don't think we're going to be, or I know we're not going to be the most talented team at the World Cup.

And we're going to have to compensate for that by being, you know, a cohesive unit, by working for each other, fighting for each other and having a great team spirit. That's just, we're going to have to do that. We want to be successful at the World Cup. So part of it is leaning on guys that have been there before and been around the group before and I understand the team culture and understand their teammates really well. You know, that is part of it. It's not the only thing, but I would say that is part of the discussion that we can go through

when we're picking roster. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, it's got to be part of the situation. I don't know that that is necessarily the main thing with PFAC now that I, now that I listen to the clip again. But because he's been with this group, at least in, at least in two camps, right? Oh, yeah. He was in, I mean, he was in a few in Europe, or at least one in Europe, right after COVID.

He was in the Nations League camp. He was in the first World Cup camp in September. And then he was in the March camp down in Diasteca. So, yeah, so he's been around enough that, again, that is the hope is that he's been around enough that you can just reintroduce him to the group, especially if. any of the three forwards that we have in this next window, you know, look way out of place, which could still happen because, again, with our entire roster, there is actually like such small sample sizes we're dealing with that if somebody really has a shocker, we've seen it

before, they can be gone the next camp. So two more things from the press conference I wanted to talk about. One, Berlter Fielded a good question from Mike DeCour at Sporting News, at Sporting News, about not having a clear number one goalkeeper playing at a high level. And it seemed pretty clear. Burhalter is a little bit uncomfortable with the situation. He said, quote, we're working through it. But he did say that he is happy with Matt Turner's progress at Arsenal.

He thinks he's actually improved as a goalkeeper there. And Horvath is starting for Luton Town. And Sean Johnson is starting in MLS. And both Horvath and Turner and also Stefan have good experience in tournaments. He said about Stefan, I don't have a clip of it, but he said, you know, Stefan just needs to focus on getting in a rhythm and training and getting back on the field for Middlesbrough. He's been dealing with some nagging injuries, I guess. I don't know how much that is just a face-saving thing, but it does seem like he, you know,

he wasn't even in the squad for the last game for Middlesbrough. You'd think he would at least be in the squad if he were healthy. Yeah, you just never know how, I mean, for a backup keeper who's not going to come in anyway, like you might just rather have the other guy give stephen the whole day off i don't know so i'm not i'm not going to draw too many conclusions about his middle's bro status uh it wasn't ideal when the the manager was talking about the uh the backup maybe sticking through it but that could still just be the manager building up the confidence of the guy who's got to do the job for the next two games you know to say uh you know i've fully back him you can't believe what anybody says you really can't i mean

It is. There are so many different incentives for how to frame comments from coaches. Well, that's one of the frustrating. I think one of the things about Burhalter's comments on Pfok is you get the sense, you know, as question after question comes at him about why doesn't Pfok fit, that Berthelter just doesn't want to get into why he doesn't fit because it could be construed as criticism by Pfok himself. I mean, so he was very, very careful.

He did not say almost anything about PFOx game to justify the exclusion. And maybe that's just because Pfok still has the inside track over Pfeppi and PEPI's getting a shot. But my gut tells me it's not that. It's the other thing. Well, it just goes back to there being no return for Beralta to do it. I don't mean no like no return back to a relationship. I mean, there's no returns in value to saying something overly critical. about a player there.

Like there's just, there's no benefit to doing that. There's no money in it. So, you know, in my mind, that's probably the correct coach speak. Because again, who knows? Even if these are his first three,

two of them could go down injured next week. So you've got it, you're trying to keep every door open for every possibility. Yeah. Whereas with Tillman, I think there is a return to being a little bit critical

and telling him to kind of get it together. Yeah, you're challenging him, right? Yeah. What about with Stefan? What about what is Stefan? What are we doing there? Are we going to, is that a challenge that he just needs to get into a rhythm and training?

Hmm. It sounds like Stefan maybe on the outs to me. I mean, your whole thing back in the day was you can't bring Stefan as the third goalkeeper because he's because he wants to be the starter. So if he's not the starter, then he doesn't come, right? Yeah. I mean, that was speculation, right? Because that's, that would be a clear demotion.

You would clearly be demoting a point. player. And I think that's a tougher thing to manage. You know, then, you know, Sean Johnson's never been first choice. So he comes in knowing what his role is to have to like have the conversation with Stefan of like, hey, you're not the guy anymore. And, you know, you play a position where you're not going to play because you're not the guy anymore.

It can be tough. And that can be a tough for the locker room and you need a certain mindset to become a backup goalkeeper. And I'm not saying Stefan doesn't have it. I'm just saying, I don't know, because, he was never the guy at Man City, right? He never got demoted at Man City. He was always the backup, and I don't think there's any real,

he ever had any real intention of becoming the number one. So it's hard to know how he would handle taking a clear demotion, an explicit demotion. Yeah. Well, one last clip from Burrhalter. This is taking a question from Sam Staskel about Tim Riem, who Staiskel said, is playing quite well for Fulham in the Premier League.

No, he has been doing well. His team's doing well. He's been captaining the side. And, you know, some of the things that we're looking for in our centerbacks is to play a high line, cover a lot of space behind him, be dominant in the air, dominant on offensive and defensive set pieces. And, you know, that's not Tim's strength. And, you know, but he's a guy that can help the team with the ball.

He reads the game really well. and, you know, it is a very good player. In this particular camp, we went with slightly different profiles. And, you know, we'll give these guys an opportunity to see what they can do. There's that. And I should mention he did name drop, you know, Berthelter did name drop a bunch of players at the beginning of the call who were not there. He praised them all and said he didn't make clear which ones were going to be omitted

simply because others were selected over them and which ones were being omitted because there was no need for further evaluation ahead of the World Cup, which I think is what he was saying about Pfeck. But he mentioned Stefan and Slanina. He said Shackmore was a difficult decision. I appreciate that, Greg Burhalter. And then he named dropped Miasga, McKenzie, Sands, Ream, and Palmer Brown at centerback. He talked about Johnny Cardoso and Eric Williamson said they're both playing well at center mid right now.

And then, of course, he talked about Pfeck and Brandon Vosquez. as. So a bunch of people got name dropped and praised in their absence. Any, I don't know, any thoughts on Ream or any of the other omissions before we kind of move on from the roster? I mean, I think he's kind of setting what is what a 30 player pool is, right? Because I think they'd even talked about that having about a 30 player pool that was in contention. And that's probably, that's probably what it is. So if you didn't get name dropped there, you're probably not in. So sorry to Dwayne Holmes, but I just don't think it's going to happen.

I know I've said I've made peace with it before, but I really hadn't. And only now am I making peace with Dwayne Holmes' omission. I'm sorry, Greg. McKenzie and Miazka, I think, are, you know, clear floor setting players where in a pinch, if we bring them in to Qatar because of injury or, again, shambolic performances from long or CCV or Richards in this next camp, it's like, okay, drop Miazga in. McKenzie like these are these are pros who've I mean how many teams has Miazga switched to midseason and just kind of jumped in and been fine so I think we do set a nice floor in some of these in some of these spots for the most part again about this roster feels pretty solid and and the one sort of real head scratcher is Pfok but you know we get the reason I think everyone understands the reason even if they completely totally disagree with it right Yeah, plenty of people disagree with it.

I don't think anybody's saying PFOx should be starting games for the national team. I mean, at least very few people are saying that. So we're talking about it. There are some. And I think that's reasonable. I think it just needs to be explored further what that means because I've never been one to say you just have to, whoever the guy is scoring at the highest level should be the starter. I do think you got to be like, you got to watch how O'Niam play and watch how he's getting his chances and be like, is that how we would do it? would he be able to get similar chances that he's getting if the team is playing a completely

different way? Like, I think you do have to unpack that if you're going to say. Who's saying he should start, though? I mean, I don't, I think, I don't have a list of people, but it's not crazy. You know, like the refrain you hear constantly is he's scoring goals for the team at the top of the Bundes League table. Now, again, I'm an underlying numbers guy in Union, Berlin, don't appear to have any hope of maintaining their stranglehold at the top.

top of the Bundesliga if they don't improve their actual performances because their performances haven't been good enough. They're running real hot on chance conversion. And Pfeck is a little bit as well for his, even for his couple of goals. So I don't think it's going to last. But again, the point is, it can't be crazy to say that this guy scoring at this level at this level of competition should be the starter. I just don't think that can be a crazy stance. I'm not saying it's crazy. I just don't think it's that. I think most people, at least most people in my little world, seem to understand what we're trying to do in the attack and that PFAC. PFAC would be a great option for, you know, chasing a game when things are not going

your way on the field, but maybe doesn't work if we're trying to build through the number nine. That's fair, but I think a lot of people are willing to accept that, even if they maybe do think that Pfok should be the outright starter. Like, okay, I get that he could be at worst the option off the bench. But I bet a lot of people would say, no, you build things around Pfok. He's the guy who can actually do it. He's proven it in European competition at Champions League, Europa League,

and now in the Bundesliga. Like, that's not nothing, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I disagree with that, but I guess I'm not going to say that it's a crazy way to look at it. So anything else on the roster, do you think? I don't think so. Again, pretty straightforward. The big one was Pfok.

And again, it was discussed to death once it was leaked. and we, you know, we kind of covered it, I think, pretty well here. Yeah, I think it's helpful to listen to Burrhalter's comments in full, or not in full, but at least in some length to get a sense of what he's saying. I do think it's, you know, I do think it'd be really hard. I understand sort of the emotional, sort of the team, maybe team politics thing of it for Burrhalter with leaving Pepe off. He's a striker who scored two game-winning goals for you in qualifying.

And I will contend, I will continue to contend, has played well even when he hasn't scored. Not amazing, but he's been a decent striker for us, even when he doesn't score against Mexico and in some other matches. So I think it would be, I guess in retrospect it would have been maybe easy to predict that it was hard for, going to be hard for Burhalter to leave Pepe off. Yeah, that's what we said, right? Can he do it? Like does he have the metal to do it? And I don't mean it. And like he's a coward or soft for bringing him.

But it definitely was like, is it, is, would any manager just have to be sentimental enough to bring him, especially to the camp? This isn't even the final roster, right? It's the camp. So to give him that one last shot. I mean, look, Connor Casey didn't go to South Africa, right? Like he, he helped get us there with some huge goals and qualifying. Yeah, that's true.

But it's, you know, at some point you got to make a choice. So that somebody did their job to help contribute. and maybe that's what Pepe's role was. We'll just have to see how he looks in September, see how he looks in the Netherlands. And I guess we just go from there. Yeah, plays this weekend Sunday, I think. All right, let's talk a little bit about the midweek action.

When it comes to the Champions League, our boys had a little bit of a tough time. Midweek, I think it's fair to say. Most of the games were yesterday. Today's Thursday. Yesterday was Wednesday. Juventus lost to Benfica. They haven't won

Yuvai hasn't won a game since August. They've won two games and eight tries in Syria and Champions League and they have zero points in their Champions League group after losing at PSG and at home against Benfica on Wednesday. John Brooksless Benfica,

he was on the bench. Tough to break into eventual Champions League winners Benfica. Ben friggin' Fika. And then McKinney himself went 90. I don't know. Didn't look particularly sharp to me, but I don't know.

He, Allegri, who knows if he's still even the coach of Juventus as we speak right now, does trust McKinney a lot. So that counts for quite a bit. Yeah, and we're just, we've got to get used to this new normal that our very good players are going to look average in some of these competitions. Because they're not, I mean, they're, again, they're not the best players in the world, even if they're very good players. So I'm at peace with it and just enjoying the number of games I can turn on and watch with Americans playing in the Champions League where you can throw Celtic on and watch CCV doing it.

Like this is fun. So I'm trying not to get too caught up in the minute by minute by minute performances, especially for guys who, you know, McKinney who's going to be in our starting 11 regardless. And then I'm hoping that then this camp in Germany for the U.S. will be a nice break where. they can really let loose and be in sort of get uh because it kind of feels like that's the vibe around the u.s team right but they get to get in there let loose a little bit and i think it'll be a nice a nice break for everybody honestly it feels like it will be um you know mckenny mcanny mcanny getting whistled out a little bit over the weekend for hitting a bad cross and it's got to be i'm sure it'll be nice to get together with uh with your countryman i suppose uh i hope that's not a

thing to say. Let's see. So McKenny, yeah, McKenny, McKinney, okay. I agree with you, though. All these reps they're getting at this really high level. It seems like it's fine. It's going to be fine when the World Cup comes. Dortmund blew a late, one-zero lead over Man City and lost 2-1 at the Eddie Hodd, thanks to a incredible goal from Erling Holland in the 84th minute. What even is that man? It's Gio Raina's soulmate, I think. Raina started, which is a huge deal. Yeah. So, I mean, again, that's the takeaway.

We've got Gio Raina starting in that game. What do you go? 70. 60 on the dot. 60 minutes on the dot. You know, so he's going to again, camp, this camp is in his backyard. He gets to just mosey over there on his scooter, hopefully play 100 minutes total in the two games. Yep.

dazzle and then and then go back semi-rested. Yep. Yeah, he was okay in this game. Dortman was bunkered for most of it. They kind of, they snatched a goal in the second half before blowing the lead. I thought a couple nice little moments on the half turn from Raina, but didn't get a ton of opportunity to,

to do his thing, which is fine. A.C. Milan won over Dinamo Zagreb at the Sancero. and Desk came on late to play a little right wing. Just kind of ran around out there a little bit. I don't know. He doesn't really look like he's comfortable in that spot, but at least he's getting some minutes.

Hopefully he can get a start at right back. Maybe this weekend, Calabria, the guy in front of him has played a lot of minutes lately. As you mentioned, CTV and Celtic played Shakhtar Donetsk yesterday to a 1-1 draw in Warsaw. They're not playing. Shokhtar Donetsk is a Ukrainian club. They're not playing their games in Ukraine right now.

So that's pretty good. Yeah, I've been waiting for those clips to pull up on WySkel. Because for some reason, I'm like most drawn to watching CCV's clips because I honestly think with Richards' lack of minutes, Pallas don't play this weekend. So his next game, Richard's next chance to play will be after the window. And he hasn't been, you know, in the starting lineup anyway. Like I'm wondering if CCV could be the guy. And so the clips aren't up yet, but once they are, I'm going to deep dive into those again

because he seems to be where my interest is right now. Good. Good. Yeah. I love that. That's your interest. And I don't know that, you know, even if Palace were playing this weekend, the very, very slim odds that Richards would start anyway. It's Gehie and Yocam Anderson, who are going to be getting the starts in that palace side.

All right. The last one is Chelsea Drew Salzburg 1-1. Pulisic came on for the last 10 minutes. He looked pretty bright, didn't he? And played a good ball to the back post for Hakeem Zeech in the 87th minute, I think it was. Zic had a chance to do something there, didn't do much. But I don't know, Pulisic looked all right. Better than maybe he has in the last couple outings.

I mean, a crisp body language. He was buzzing a little bit. I thought every time he was near the ball in a positive way. I know, I know I'm maybe reading too much. into that. But yeah, 10 minutes. You love crisp body language. I mean, there's literally something about the way his feet were moving where I was like, oh, he is like trying, he's looking to do something. It was not laxadaisal, not resigned to, to, you know, things breaking down. Like he looked hopeful every time he got the ball with his entire body that something could happen here. And he did. Within,

within his 11 minutes, delivered a great ball to Zek, nice clipped ball, where he'd cut in from the left over to his right foot and hit a fantastic ball. ZX should have squared across with his head, but instead greedy went for goal to the consternation of everyone else doing their best Giorina impressions. So, yeah. He should have gone horizontal and hit it with the outside of his left foot. Like Holland.

What a goal that was. Unbelievable. Hey, who are you cheering for here, buddy? Like, Holland can't play for us. Norway's not in the World Cup. I don't know. It's an amazing thing to witness that guy, really. Okay.

Sorry, I interrupted you with the Holland. It looked like Poulosik was having some fun. I hope that carries over into Germany for camp. Yep. Okay, hey, I haven't mentioned this, but if you are able, please consider join joining the Patreon. We've got a lot of exciting stuff going on. The Monday reviews will be delivered directly to your phone every week. We have a great interview with Jimmy Conrad, uh, in which he

has the greatest comeback against Michael Bradley that maybe you've ever heard. You have to be a patron to hear that part of it. Uh, so Bradley called him a clown for something he said. No, no, no, leave it there. Leave it there. Don't give him too much. Okay. And then, uh, tremendous interview. You and Waki absolutely have a great way of interviewing where you ask unexpected questions and let them really get into some interesting territory. Yeah, Jimmy's a gamer for that kind of thing. So credit to him. But yeah, I think I felt it felt good off the fingertips, as they say. And then the, I'm still, I'm almost ready to publish the 2002 win over Mexico recap. So we have a sort of a series of historic recaps. We're trying to, we're working on

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You can join for as little as two bucks a month. Thank you, Greg. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.