Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #327: Who is on the bubble for Qatar and who is going

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Greg and Belz talk through the USMNT roster for the World Cup, which begins in exactly one month, and the decisions that still need to be made. Striker and centerback remain deeply intriguing. ----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Please support us 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.

Welcome to the Scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hello everybody. I'm Adam Bells. Got Greg Velazquez. Greg Velazquez himself with me. Hey, Greg. Bells, welcome to Thunderdome. Thunderdome.

Explain that joke to me. Oh, I'm literally just talking about the bubble watch we're about to do and how there's a bit of the zero sums to it. There is. Many things are not zero sum, right? Many things in life, many things in society, not zero. zero sum, but the World Cup roster, it is. It's a little bit of the zero sum. Yep.

So there we go. So that's what we're talking about today. We were talking about the players on the fringe and how in some positions people really seem to be trying to get into the World Cup roster and how in other positions people are really trying to default their way into the World Cup roster by virtue of other players playing poorly. Yeah. Some people aren't trying very hard to get in either. Maybe that's what you meant by defaulting in.

Just quick reminder, the opening group stage game against Wales is a month from today. Tis upon us, folks. And the roster itself, which what else are we going to talk about except the roster at this point, will be announced with some fanfare on November 9th in New York City. Is it possible to even incorporate new information at this point? I'm honestly not sure if Burrhalter will. I think you could. I'm not even going to go too far to say it's right or wrong.

wrong. Like these decisions on the margins are on the margins mostly for a reason because there aren't excellent choices or or there are a couple of very good but hardly distinguishable choices. So, you know, that's why. No one's saying, what are we going to do about Christian Pool Sick? Because that is a very obvious choice to make. So yeah. So yeah, so by definition, sort of this is what we're talking about. And I don't know if Burrhalter will allow the last four weeks of things to combine with the showings in the last window because that's a big deal too. So if he takes those and puts a lot of weight on those and then takes new information and like, oh man, combine what I just saw with what I saw against Japan and I got to lean,

I got to lean away from this player. Or if he or if he just goes, nope, I've already got three years baked into this. We're not going to change course this late in the game. I'm not sure. And we'll talk more about the specifics who that affects throughout this segment. Yeah. You know, that reminds me of a newspaper thing, an old newspaper thing, if you'll indulge me for a second. Like people talk about some people when they're writing, they talk about writer's block, right?

I can't write because I have writer's block. I can't figure out what to write or how to write it. Well, the best cure for writer's block is, do you know what it is? I assume it's to leave your computer in your desk and walk around and like, I mean, that can help too. Edibles and... Yeah, but really the best cure is a deadline. Like, when you have a deadline coming up, writer's block, you just have to do it and you do it. And I wonder if, you know, with a deadline coming up, it's now crunch time.

If Berlter won't make some more, I don't know, pragmatic decisions than maybe we have come to expect from him. It's a hopeful way to look at it. But, you know, the deadline's here. Okay, are we who we're taking to the World Cup? maybe we're taking John Brooks after all, you know? BFAC. I've got, I found BFox number. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know. I feel like I don't really have a clear sense of what Burralther's going to do on the margins here. Let's get into it. Goalkeeper. Who do you think is fighting for a spot still? So I think it's still Stefan Johnson and Horvath fighting for two spots. That doesn't necessarily mean that Stefan isn't going to be the starter. But I still look at it as, uh,

he's got to convince Burrhalter that he shouldn't tell Stefan that Stefan maybe has a little bit of an ankle knock in late October because that's kind of been my theory. Yeah. If Stefan keeps having the performances he had been having, that unfortunately we did a scan and you've got a little bit of a, you might not feel it, but you've got a little bit of a knock in your ankle and we're going to let you recover over Thanksgiving. Yeah, the mystery knock. You have been saying that for a while. But I mean, what do you make of the fact that we keep hearing sort of the rumblings that Stefan really is Burrhalter's guy and that he's going to stand by his man? Like the last people to say, the most recent people to say it were Nico Cantor and Thomas Rangen. Like, look, I have no reason to believe that they have inside information on Burrhalter.

But they said it on television. Maybe they have a little bit of an inkling. Isn't it still possible that Burrhalter sees Stefan as the number one? It definitely is. And again, the fact that Burrhalter started Stefan at all when Turner was available through World Cup qualifying already didn't make sense to me. So, you know, I already like kind of assume that he doesn't view things the same way that I do with the goalkeepers. And that could definitely still be the case. And Stefan has not had the kind of like Howler-Paloosa run of games that he had over the past 10 months.

And he has been playing, to be fair. He has been playing. And he has been like just a totally. normal average goalkeeper, which is a huge step up from, like, that sounds harsh. But that's a huge step up from like this, this howler goalkeeper that he was. Right. Almost like you began to expect howlers that the bar is now so low that like when he has a game where he has four saves and allows two goals, that's like a narrative buster because he didn't

go on a walkabout and allow an open net tap in. So it's like, okay. And to be honest, if he cleans up the howlers, then it becomes a lot less like worrying. I still think we should start our. outrageous shot stopper and Matt Turner who statistically and I test-wise like has been outstanding for the U.S. and for his clubs.

But at least if we do go with Stefan, there's a chance that he will just have a normal goalkeeper game. Yeah. And, you know, do normal goalkeeper things and hopefully won't be the difference between points and no points. The odds of a non-normal goalkeeper game

are still way too high for my liking. But yeah, so I guess depending on if Stefan really, really is still fighting for a spot or not, it's, I guess you could say there's either two or three spots open here. And Johnson and Horvoth probably Johnson and Horvoth fighting for that third spot, right? Yeah, probably. And this becomes totally irrelevant to it for those two guys. I mean, it's not. Whichever one goes, that will be an awesome experience for them.

But I think what we've seen from Turner now over the past two months is that he's not going to lose a spot because he's not getting minutes at Arsenal, right? Like the minutes he's played at Arsenal, he hasn't looked rusty. The minutes he played for the U.S., he didn't look rusty. He's going to play. If Stefan doesn't irrationally remain Burrhalter's number one guy, Turner's getting those minutes. It's not going to be the case where we're like,

you know, that was kind of the discussion back before the European season started was if Turner's not playing, do we have to go with Sean Johnson because he's at least playing soccer? And no, the answer is no. Turner is looking good. Yeah, Turner is not. going to lose his place due to not playing games for Arsenal. We just recorded the Friday review, which is for patrons only.

You know, link in the show notes. I'll leave it at that. But you can, you could hear Vince Waki and I talk about, Vince Wachey and me talk about what's happened this week. And Vince made the point that because Arsenal's already won their Europa League group, they might play a much weaker squad in their remaining Europa League games which means Turner will get more chances for saves

because he only he made one save on one shot against PSV yesterday so he doesn't get a chance to really like flex his muscles and maybe he'll get a chance to flex his muscles more if they you know if they if they trot out the academy team in their next Europa League game let's hope so I haven't looked at their standings

to see if they've actually locked the group up because you still want to do that in Europa because they have that's what Vince said anyway yeah okay uh yeah let's let's hope so because yeah i've seen the things where it's like matt turner hasn't given up a goal in 400 minutes and we saw those with step in two with man city and it's like okay but you're talking three shots right like you can't use minutes as to tell for a goalkeeper who's playing in a completely unbalanced competition uh so yeah we want to see him we want to see him stopping shots but we what we haven't seen is any sign that he's totally out of it because of lack of match

time, he's, he's, he's Stefan, between Stefan and Turner, they will play every World Cup minute. So, you know, Horvath and Johnson are going to be one of those two will be along for the ride. Just does not matter who it is. Okay. Let's go to fullback. I think we're all pretty clear that Dest and Robinson are locks at fullback, Sergenio Dest and Ante Robinson. Who's fighting for the, who's fighting for the other spots and how many other spots are there? So two to three other spots, right?

I don't think we're bringing six fullbacks. So we might bring five. Burrhalter likes him a four right back roster. So he could bring four right backs in Jedi. But I think the other spots are down to Scali, Yedlin Cannon, maybe Shackmore and Sam Vines. Cannon's hurt and has been since the U.S. camp in September. I didn't realize that. Yeah, I assume he's hurt.

He hasn't played again for Bovista since that. and he injured himself in that camp or right ahead of the camp. So I think that's what we're looking at. I don't think we're going to bring in John Tolkien or Dewan Jones or that ship has sailed. Our backup left back is either going to be Dest or Scali swinging over or it's going to be Sam Vines. Who are you feeling strongly about here? And what are people doing to make their case? Yeah, I'm not a full, full on Scali lad.

I won't take on that mantle, but I do want Scali there. I think it should be, I mean, ideally for me, it'd be Scali, shack, and, and,

you know, toss a coin between Yedlin and Cannon if we're going to bring five. Cannon, I guess, has something to recommend him in that he can play a little centerback

in a three centerback formation. I don't know that that's really a thing that is going to be applied. Did you hear my eyes roll super hard? I saw him. I'll report that to everybody. I mean, I think unless we get a big surprise at centerback, like Brooks or Ream,

I think we're only bringing four centerbacks. So we probably are going to get five full backs. And I'm guessing Scali is one of them. I know not everybody thinks that's true. And when you really comes down to it, it's going to be Destin Robinson playing most of the minutes, if not all of the minutes at the World Cup. Yeah, light a candle.

I mean, Jedi's on one ankle ligament left. I don't. I know. He's playing. He's playing. So if he's playing, he's fit. Like,

I'm not as worried about the ankle ligament as that language like made it. That language made it sound catastrophic. He said he's playing on one ankle. It's not easy to play on one ankle. But he looks fine. He looks, I don't know if you watched any of his minutes yesterday, but he looked totally fine.

So, yes, we're hoping that those. two play the whole meaningful allotment of minutes. And if not, the left back is the one that really scares me. Like, if you throw Yedlin in it right back, I'm not thrilled about it. I'd rather probably throw Scali, but I'm also not thrilled about Joe Scali going in and being our right back. We lose a ton of verve going from desk to anybody.

So it's really just going to be like, who's the best band-aid? And I'm hoping that Scali is there. And then I think Yedlin probably gets in. just because he's D'Andre Edlin. Seems like a good guy to have in camp. We don't have any other much better options. Tim Wayl loves him, which goes a long way in my book. So I would be fine with four fullbacks.

I don't know that the spot you gain from only bringing four fullbacks gets you anything better given the rest of our pool. So I don't think saving that spot buys. It's going to buy you Christian Roldon. You know what I mean? It's going to buy you Paul Ariola. Jordan Morris, yeah. So you're not getting yourself sneaking in like some totally. game-breaking player by going short on fullbacks.

That is an interesting point. And when I totally agree with that, like, at a certain point, a 26-man roster, it probably goes beyond what we can credibly bring to the World Cup. Well, I mean, we can credibly bring many people, but, like,

it doesn't really matter 24, 25, 26 that much. No, just make sure you've got balance for injuries. Like, make sure you have some floor-setting player. But once you've done that, the last four slots, those guys can't help. Those guys won't help us. Whoever your preferred guy is,

like I got my preferred guys, but they're not going to help us. Jack Moore is not going to be like, oh, thank goodness. Now we can win this game, this knockout game, because we'll throw Shaqmore in there. Right.

He can set a floor. There you go. All right. Centerback. What do we got? So we have the striker hat going on, which is alive and well still, but the centerback hat is a lot sadder.

I think there is a centerback hat and it's a very sad hat at the moment. Zimmerman has played well. He's played well in World Cup qualifying, even in the windows where we didn't do great in the September window. Zimmerman was actually the one making adventurous passes. He's breaking lines.

He's looking for that long ball that might open people up. He's doing it at an acceptable level, certainly to be one of the starting centerbacks. The rest of the group is just all in various not great places. Chris Richards. Chris Richards fighting injury. And once he gets back, if he can get back, he's fighting a minute scarcity with Pallas. John Brooks and Tim Riem are fighting system obsolescence.

Brooks isn't really playing much, but, you know, here's to hoping he gets in. His centerback partner had a catastrophic mistake and their cut match against like a third division side. So maybe he'll see his minutes fall. Who knows? Who was the, I saw the catastrophic mistake. Who was the guy who made the mistake? I think it was the kid, right? Was that Silva, Silva, the one who played who played so well?

well against PSG? Yeah, I think so. Like the 18 year old who's really doing well. I doubt he's he's very good. Yeah. I mean, this is this is a Portuguese team who makes their bones by selling these kids off. That sounds terrible to say selling kids up by developing the identifying developing players and then you know making massive amounts of money when they eventually move on to a bigger club. So they're not the type who's going to like immediately bench this kid because he made one mistake in a cut match. So I don't see Brooks's minutes really escalating over the next five weeks. I do think he looked fine in that cup match.

He looked like he can play a 90-minute soccer game. He didn't make any, none of the mistakes were his that I noticed. But yeah. And that's what it comes down to. We also don't need to see what Brooks can do. Like we know what Brooks' level is. So yeah. So if he is match fit, I would love for him to be an option.

I don't really think he is going to be considered. Yeah. And okay, let me clarify this. way the way I view it. If we don't bring John Brooks and we end up starting either Aaron Long or Mark McKinsey in the World Cup, that is ridiculous. It's a ridiculous thing. It's a ridiculous thing for Burrhal to have gotten us to this point. I mean, I'm not disagreeing with that at all. And again, the only way, like legitimately, the only way that's vindicated is if Aaron Long just has a belt or distributing the ball and like makes no defensive mistakes.

And probably if we just show that we're going to kind of abandon our possession attack and just let Aaron Long play Aaron Longball. Look, there are other outcomes that it can come off, right? Where if we don't get pressed really heavy and Eunice Musa has a, as like the tournament of his life. And so ball progression doesn't turn into an issue that that we like sneak by with Aaron Long just not making a lot of mistakes. Mark McKenzie not making a lot of mistakes. McKenzie can at least earn his money, you know, with some with some district. He can ping it.

He can ping the ball. It's just like there's a lot of other stuff going on with him. But yeah, so those are the next two guys on my list, right? And so they're fighting like howl of frequency to maintain their places because McKenzie still has that tendency. I mean, we saw it in the window in September. Like he just, he just stands on the ball and lets Saudi Arabia. take it from him, a Saudi Arabia that was barely interested in playing,

are still able to, like, just turn him over at his feet, catastrophic stuff. You all dissected the Aaron Long playoff moment pretty well, I think, in the Monday review, where you let Vosquez just race right past him, fell asleep at the wheel, and that's their season. And again, for Long, you can't do that because the whole reason you're on the team, Aaron Long, the whole reason you even get considered is because you're supposed to be the guy who never lets that happen. Yeah, exactly.

You can't say what happens to everyone. It does happen to everyone. I'm the first person to say that, which is why you shouldn't expel excommunicate players who it happens to who are really good at other things. Right. The John Brooks and to an extent, Tim Riem, like you can't get rid of them because it happened to them when you know they can at least deliver a bunch of other qualities. So there you have it for those guys. Yeah, we barely even mentioned Riem and he's playing. playing pretty well, I think, for Fulham.

I mean, he seems to, he keeps his spot. They just won 3-0 yesterday over Aston Villa. I mean, Tim Rame got Stephen Gerard fired. That's, I mean, if we're talking about what we're going to do with. And he's about to get Jesse, he's about to get Jesse Marshfire, too. But yeah, like, he's already winning points against England. And we're still a month away from that matchup. So, again, I think he, yeah, if we're to the point where we're, you know,

looking at McKenzie or Aaron Long starting. Like, you have to be like, where does Tim Riem fit into this? Cameron Carter Vickers is the other guy. And I feel like what he's fighting is just uncertainty. This uncertainty with the group. And that's, again, a bit of a dilemma of our own creation. CCV has been CCV for about five years now,

where he's just chalking up 2,500 minutes per season in the championship. And he just never got a run with the U.S. so we just don't know what he would do in our group. Yeah. I know he was injured for the last camp, but when you leave it late, you leave it late. So while he see when you say when you say when you leave it late, you're talking about Burrhalter, not including him earlier in the cycle. Yeah.

I mean, that's what it comes down to. We had Omar Gonzalez in for a year before he finally got dropped and CZV. was right there that whole time, even when we knew like, I don't think anyone thought Omar Gonzalez was going to be a factor in the 2022 world. World Cup. So, yeah, so, I mean, there is sort of that regret that you just kind of have to now bake into current selections because the current situation is we don't know what CCV will look like with this group. We would just have to hope that, you know, hit that sort of professionalism that he's

displayed in all of his lone stints in the championship where he's been juggled from team to team could maybe serve him well here where he could just come into a group, find out what his job in his job is and be like, okay, I can do that job. Yeah. I'll say, I'm not going to go in depth on it because we talked about it just an hour ago on the Friday review. But the difference between, for me, the difference between CCV and McKenzie is when you watch CCV play, that dude is locked in to like people moving around him and like snuffing out danger. You know, he's very, very keyed in and alert. You call it professionalism.

It's there in spades. You can see it. McKenzie's not like that. McKenzie seems like he's a beat behind a lot of the time. Even against Westerlo, they won the game 6 to 1. You go through and look at all the times Westerloe shot the ball. McKenzie's not the solution in these moments for his team. He's around, he's there.

But where you see CCV making a B-line to intervene at a moment that is crucial, you just don't see that from McKenzie as often. And I'll just, I'll just kind of lump Eric Palmer Brown in with that too, because when I watch Eric Palmer Brown's games, when I watch, not as all touches, but I watch all of the shots that, uh, twa, twa. Yeah, you got it. Tua, uh, allow. Um, Eric Palmer Brown just checks out of place. Like all the time, he doesn't finish a play. Like, one one actual happen. He'll just stand straight up and be kind of out mentally while the play is still happening. And again, that's like, uh, for a goalkeeper, that's the huge red flag. We're like, hey, finish this play out. Like, like, we might need you. We might not. But if you get called into action, we can't have that half second delay, quarter second delay where you have to like, oh, recognize and get back into doing athletic things. And again, that is from watching CCV, he brings that to the table.

And that's what I want in the World Cup, right? I want that player who's ready to just defend for his life, protect the goal at all costs at all times until the ball is in Matt Turner's hands or out of bounds or in the back of the net. Like you have to just keep doing every little action you can to minimize the chance at the other team scores. Yeah. So, you know, we leave out Brooks or Ream and we end up starting CCV or Chris Richards next

to Walker Zimmerman. I'll be, I mean, I'll live with it. I'm anxious, but yeah. I mean, I'm anxious no matter what with the centerback hat. Right. I'll be anxious with John Brooks in there. You know what I mean? Like, I will still be like, oh, for sure.

Oh, man. For sure. For sure. Yeah. A miazga, Sands, trustee. Nah, it's not going to happen. I don't see it. Okay, that's the centerback situation.

That's the bubble watch. Defensive midfielder, there's no bubble. It's Adams and it's Acosta and it's pretty much settled science. All right. Center midfield, what are we thinking? So what I keep thinking about with the center midfielder is the central midfield pool is how ridiculous it is that we're like now a month away from Wales. I don't think we've replaced Sebastian Leget yet. We dropped Leget from playing after the Panama fiasco.

And we haven't replaced him. We don't have a fourth eight. Like we, Lucas, Luke is there as kind of the third. But he, Luca, you know, Luca has shown some vulnerability. He's shown to be a, I don't want to say a full like liability. But you also can't just rely on Luca to run the offense in the absence of Eunice Musa. So it's like, where are we with our central midfield pool? I don't know who's even in contention or if it's just like we just have a blank spot and we're just going to fill that with another half space merchant.

and somebody Greg values in camp and roll with five midfielders. Maybe we'll get Sebastian Leget back. No, I don't, that seems unlikely. Let me just say about Luca, he, you know, we were, I was a big proponent of him getting caps back in World Cup qualifying. And I'm not. He should have. Yeah. Yeah.

But I think he's still going to go to the World Cup, mostly because he's an incumbent and because, like you said, we haven't really tested. anybody else out. We tested some guys. We tested Buzio. That's true. That's true. That's about it, right? We ran Buzio out there.

We ran Luka out there. Luca did well. Bousio was kind of not much. And then after that, Caled Acosta as an Ame. Yeah. Kelna Costa will fill the cracks. We'll paper over everything with Acosta.

The reason I can't feel super excited about Luca right now, Luca Delatore, is he has 38 minutes for Seltivigo in 10 possible games. so far this season. So he barely plays. He played almost twice that much just in the Japan-friendly for the U.S.

And he did not play well in that game. He was, I mean, liability might not be unfair for how he looked in that game, right? Ineffective, right? I mean, okay. Never did anything to produce threat.

No. I mean, he had like 10 seconds in the opening, minute and a half where he galloped forward with the ball on the sideline into a wide open space. But that wasn't anything that, you know, he necessarily did. It was just, we found him in an acre of space. So yeah.

So that's just, it just becomes a worry. I think he's still in, right? You don't think he's, he's getting dropped. No, I think he's still in because of incumbents and because of the, because it's not, no, Buccio's not coming back. Probably legit's not coming back. Although we do have some, we do have wiggle room, I think, to make that possible. I mean, I guess who else is even in the universe of possibility?

So Eric Williamson from his Gold Cup stint, but he seems to be on the outs of Portland. My speculation is that he's got some conflicts with Portland's management. Don't we all? Yes. I think he basically elected not to play in their playoff game or the game that they needed to win to get to the playoffs. win game where the coach rude that he Williamson wasn't able to go in the game even though Williamson was fit did you hear that did you see the comment yeah I didn't I didn't track it closely so so it sounded like he just elected not to play it was it comes down as like coach's decision but then

after the game the coach was like yeah we missed Eric we missed having Eric in there even though goodness fit to play so uh he could come in but again seems unlikely he wasn't involved in the last camp and I just don't know that we would, he's going to be six weeks without a soccer match. Keaton Parks would have been one that I, again, I wish we would have given him a look at some point. I don't know that he would have been the answer, but he's not coming in now. Alex Mendez, not coming in now. Yeah, I think, I really think, people think I'm just a crazy person for this, but I think,

I think Mendez should have been, should have gotten a look in the last camp, at least in training. But yeah, it's too late now. And again, these guys were asking for it's super likely that they would have gotten their shot, not looked apart, and just faded in. And Kellan Acosta would have stayed as the last ditch, last ditch option. Yeah. Or we go with the in-betweeners where we go, all right, Rain is filling in. Brennan is going to run in the midfield.

Georgie was going to kind of get a shot as that in-betweener back in June, ruled out with injury. I mean. Yeah, Malik Tillman. Yeah. Tillman, I'm kind of frustrated with Tillman because he doesn't try that hard when he plays. That we fit with our midfield. You know, you can't do that and be one of our central midfielers. Right.

You can't really do that and be one of our wingerers either. No, no, you can't. And I think, I mean, I can see the rationale for Tillman in that, like, if we're in a situation where we need to throw somebody out there who can make something happen and score a goal, there is a, you know, theoretical. chance that he will be able to do that at the World Cup. But, oh, man, some of his performances have been rough. I know he just scored a goal over the weekend. He,

I think he had like, you know, he's involved in creating a goal a couple days ago. But like, there are big portions of games where he doesn't try. He just doesn't try. Like, I don't know what he's doing out there. Well,

to even move away from the trying, the try hard side of it, you know, after his first couple games where he had done some, like magical things. It's like, oh man, if he can do magical things, he can be a late game magical option for the US and World Cup. Because again, that spot's cheap. The 26 spot is cheap, in my opinion for the World Cup. So like if he can do this, but he hasn't been doing it too much, right? And so we have other players actually who do those. I think I've sort of made this case before.

But in 2014, when we bring Julian Green, we're bringing him because if he can do something magic, he's coming in and like Graham Zuzzi's going off. You know what I mean? Like we're taking off someone who's not some attacking Dino Mo, who doesn't have that in their bag. So it's like, okay, this is fine. We'll roll the dice here. In 2022, we have those players already on the field, right? G. O'Rena's already on the field. So if you're looking for one moment of magic,

Tom Waye, Christian Pulsook, if you're just needing that one moment and that's what you're having to bank on, you're not going to take that guy off, even if he's tired, to throw on Malik Tillman for a chance at magic. You're like, nope, I'm rolling with the magic we already have out there. and just praying that they pull something off. I'm not bringing in Malik Tillman instead of Timwaya. Like that's just not what I'm going to do. I'm just going to ride with this guy and see what happens.

You're not bringing in. You weren't going to bring Julian Green in for Clint Dempsey. You know what I mean in that World Cup? You were going to bring him in for Graham Zuzzi. Well, we're deep in the, on the other hand, on the one hand, on the other hand, weeds. But like, if Pulisic is absolutely exhausted and can't do anything in the like 80th minute, then maybe you bring in Tillman for him, you know?

I could see it, but you're going to hear from Big Brenda on that one, buddy. Yeah, bring in Brendan. I mean, maybe the center mid thing's not so bad because Raina can drop in there. Aronson can't sort of drop in there. That's not what I'm going with, but Raina can. Yeah, okay. All right, let's move to, let's move to Winger. Yeah, there's a Cinderid bubble.

Winger bubble, it's hard to care, to be honest, because we've got our four wingers pretty well. all sorted. And after that, it's just like, okay, give me a tryhard guy if you want, if you want Ariola, give me the target winger if you want Morris, leave them both off. I don't care. I want all of the minutes to go to Pulisik Raina and Wea. Yeah, I think Paul is important because just because he works his ass off all the time.

And he can score a difficult goal now and then. I think he's got to be there. But, I mean, just as a, you know, just as an option. And I'm not too worried about Morris. Like, I don't need him to be there at all. Georgie could be in this discussion, I guess, as a, you know, as like a lock picking half-space merchant. But I still just don't see the scenario where he's going to go in over, way out, over Aronson, over Raina, even situationally. So if he makes it as a surprise, that'd be a really cool story for him, given, you know, how he got his start when Burrhalter's first

camp in 2019 comes full circle, all of that. Yeah. But yeah, it is. It's really just hard to worry about who the fifth winger is going to be. Yeah. And it does help. It does help with the center mid issue, too, I think, that we have for pretty good options at winger. I mean, you may not agree that Brennan Aronson is a pretty good option.

I might not even agree, but we kind of have to say it because Big Brenda. No, he's a totally fine option as a center. Yeah. He will give you something. give you, you know, the frenetic Brendo performance. He has played well. He has played well the last couple games, too. And occasionally those

turnovers will give you something. I mean, he's not going to bully an opponent for 90 minutes, but he'll harass an opponent for as long as he put him out there. What is going on here? So it's going to be, it's going to be Pulisic-Erensen, Wea and Raina, for sure. Four-Wingers. Are we going to bring two more wingers? We might, and that's where those Those extra spots at fullback and centerback, they could get swept up because Berlter just likes some of the winger options, even though they don't play that much, right?

Like he likes Ariola, even though he doesn't give Ariola time in World Cup qualifiers. He gives it to Morris instead when Morris is just back from injury. He likes Christian Raldon in camp, even though he never gives Christian Raldon minutes. But if he doesn't have like a use for a fifth fullback, he could just bring four. I'm just going to bring a dude I like. I'm just going to have him with me, hang out with me. Yeah. I can totally see Roldon.

I mean, I think Ariel is in, for sure. I could totally see Roldon being there for that reason. All right. Let's move to your favorite subject. The striker hat is back. And I'm a little bit glad. I'm glad that it's back because all of our strikers just keep scoring goals. That's a good reason for the striker hat to stay alive.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everybody is. playing well within the paradigm in which they exist, you know? Like, including Hodgi Wright and Brandon Vasquez. I watched that game last night where Cincinnati lost to Philadelphia. I thought Vasquez had a pretty good game. He played well.

And then, of course, Pappy is scoring. Sargent is scoring. Pfeck's not scoring lately, but his team is top of the Bundesliga. So. And they've been cleaning up their act. as far as creating more chances than their opponent in games, which was not what they were doing before when they were building this lead at the top of the Bundesliga,

but they're maintaining it by creating more chances. And Pfok has a hand in that, even though he himself is not creating a high volume of high quality chances. Yeah, you had a nice layoff for an assist over the weekend. I mean, the shot was from 20 yards and it was an absolute banger, but still, it was a nice play from Peefok. Nice piece of hold-up play. the kind of thing that again, that translates, right?

Pfok holding somebody on his back to receive a ball long enough to lay it off to somebody. He can do that against any team we play against a couple of times in a game. So, man, we keep saying it like, he's not, but he's not going to be in, is he? I don't think so. Not with, not with Sergeant and Pepey back. Like, I feel like Burrhaler's like, nope, I've got my three with Ferreira, Sergeant and Pepe. I think so, yeah. I think it'll be those three.

not super mad about it. I, for me, the, I guess my, the thing I feel most strongly about is that sergeant is playing the best of any of the strikers at the moment. And he, he does the most different things the best, the well, like, it's the worst possible way to, you're saying he's well-rounded, right? Yeah, he's well-rounded. He's, he's a physical presence. He's, he's, he's able to on the channel. His first touch is pretty good. He's able to combine. Defends his face off. Yeah. And I don't know, maybe I said this on the Friday review, but maybe it's just a production value of those championship games, which are pretty high. But it's just, there's a crispness and like an energy to the way he's playing and to the,

and to the defense that he's up against that, I mean, you compare it to Pepe versus Doordrecht. It's like it's a different level, you know? And so I. Dorjerk, that peppy clip you showed, I don't know if people knew it because, you know, the Erdivisi already gets knocked on for being easy to score against. So people are like, yeah, but it's, you know, it's a low level. And then people are defending the Eradivizzi. Doordjic are not an Eradivizzi team. They're a second tier Dutch team.

And they're not a good second tier Dutch team. Right. So they play against young PSV, young IACs. young Azad Alkmar. Very low level. You don't play well against those teams. Well, it's not pour too much salt in the womb here. No, I'm just laying out the context.

It's good that Pepe, you know, put on a show of chance creation against a bad team. That's for sure what you want to happen. Yep. Generated 1.76 and XG scored once. Missed a boatload of good chances. I think the goalkeeper had a good game. I think the goalkeeper had a good game. I know you don't care about chance conversion.

Well, I mean, at this point, it's like a running bit about, and then that video was a perfect one to watch people kind of pretzel their way into like, no, these were good misses over nine minutes. And it's like the keeper made saves. And it's like, yeah, you know, one of the ways to not have the keeper make saves is to push the ball farther away from the goalkeeper when you try to score. Sometimes that results in missing the frame altogether. Right.

It's a silly. I think, I don't think, I mean, I don't even think the people arguing about that are, they're not even pretending to be rigorous, you know? It's just, it's just, there's just in their feelings about it. And we all have feelings. I was saying that earlier. I have, I have feelings about Pepe. I think he, I like him better than Ferreira.

It's okay for me to have that opinion, right? Oh, 100%. Like, yeah, my, like, defiance on the finishing thing definitely gets conflated with, like, me feeling that strong. about Frera being our starting striker. Definitely. It does. Because I come in that hard on the chances. Because Frera is the guy who takes all of the mischances heat.

You know, he definitely, Pfok took it for a little bit after the Esteka. But then Pfok didn't play again to generate more misses to take more heat, whereas Ferreira is. And I can tell you, we'll be right back here when Ferreira misses his next chance because sure as you were born, a striker who keeps playing and keeps creating chances, we'll miss another one soon. But yes, I don't actually feel that strongly about for air starting. I feel very strongly about how dumb it is to focus on chance conversion. Totally would not worry at all if the peppy who's playing right now regularly and getting a ton of reps in front of goal is our starting striker in Qatar.

Wouldn't care at all if Josh Sargent was our starting striker in Qatar would be very interested to see what we do differently if Jordan Bfock is our starting striker in Qatar. Yeah. All of those would be cool. I think I would probably, well, forget what I would do. I think, you're right. Burrhalter's going to go with Pepe, Ferreira, and Sergeant. And my guess is... Hold on, hold on.

I'm going to get back to your guess, but you have to tell me what you would do. You just said forget what I would do. No, no, no. I'd leave Ferreira home. I would. I just don't think he has the physical capability to, like, really do what he needs to do. in a game for the U.S. and be a real asset. I think I'd rather I'd rather all three of the other guys play ahead of Ferreira.

Gotcha. Not because it's for his chances. And that's, again, that's where it's like, that's where the conversation should be going. If it were me, I'd leave Pepey out. I would bring Ferreira, Sergeant, and Pfeck. And for me, Ferreira is actually better in the press than Pepey. And I think he'd probably be better than Sergeant too. and it's not just his willingness to run.

Sargent does all that dirty work. Yeah. I think Ferreira is really quick in that instant of transition because of that like two-touch, really quick, efficient two-touch capability has where we win it. It falls to him even though he didn't show it in that when that ball fell to him in front of goal in the MLS playoff game. But he will like win it quickly and then slip the next person in, you know, whoever's running. Or he'll win it quickly and then get his shot off. So that's where I think Ferreira adds value over Pepe.

So for me, it's still Frera Sergeant and Pfeck. I wouldn't be mad about that. I would start Sergeant, have him playing with Pulisic and Wea or Pulisic and Raina and see where that goes. We've never really, I guess we kind of got to see it against Japan, but I don't know, Sergeant barely touched the ball in that game, right? Yeah, that was a mess. There's no evaluating Sergeant. And that's been the issue, right? Like, people are very sure, some people are very sure that Frera is the wrong guy.

and then they'll point to like how inept we were in those in the last window uh even if they're not just talking about misses um but there's so far there's nothing to suggest that ferrero was the problem uh because he didn't even play half the minutes in that window and the attack wasn't any better when he was off the field than when he was on it uh so so it's hard to make us it's hard to make the positive case for any other striker based on us men's national team play you just have to go to the but you go to the club and you say sergeant is doing a lot of good things at the championship level where they don't want to make it easy for you to do those things. This is not Holland where it's like, all right, well, we're just going to have a free-flowing open game because that's who we are. Championship is not that. And he does it, yeah, and he does it

playing sort of as like a hybrid winger striker too for Norwich. He does it in lots of different ways. Anyway, yeah, I think, I think it's going to be Sergeant Ferreira and Pepe. And we can win games with those guys. We can win games with those guys.

We can win games without Pfok, I think. Haji and Haji Wright and Brandon Vosquez are just life's not fair. They're both scoring goals at a pretty high rate or have been in their leagues. I don't, I think Haji Wright faces some pretty bad defending in Turkey, but still, he's scoring goals and it's just not going to be fair. We have, we have six strikers who I think have a legitimate case to be at, at, the World Cup for a team of the level of the United States of America, men's national team, and three of them are not going to make it.

Yeah, that's fair. Just make sure Pfok's one of the three. It's my only thing. That's your only thing? Okay. Like, I love Ferreira to death, and I love his aesthetic. I love watching him play. If he's the guy who has to make way to get Pfok on, Sergeant can do some Ferrer stuff, fine.

No one else can do Pfeck stuff, but Pfok. So get him on there. That's my only, it's my only thing. Okay. And I think Braalter's going to play Pepe the most. You think so? I do. That's going to be the big surprise.

Do you think it's... Is it? Will it be a surprise? I think it'd be surprised just because everything has been Ferreira in the discourse for the last six months. I mean, look at that. Pepey started against Saudi Arabia, right? And then played most of the minutes in that game? Yep.

And then the telling comment afterwards, not for Peppy necessarily, but for Sergeant's place in the pecking order was Burrhalter saying, I thought Ferrer gave us a better chance to win. Again, tells you where he puts them. Do you think, so you think Pepe's just already going to get the most minutes? So do you think it's because, like, no, Ferreira's going to start and he's going to be terrible. And so 45 minutes in, his World Cup will be over a la Jonathan Lewis at the Gold Cup. No, I think Berhalter has always liked Pepe the most. And the fact that Pepe's scoring goals now gives him the sort of ammunition to do what he

wanted to do anyway. There you go. Okay. All right. So that's... I like Peppy a lot too. You know, I think he's the great hope. Everyone likes Peppy.

I mean, no one wants Pepey to like fail despite the fact that people were saying, I mean, despite all the conversation around what was happening in Augsburg. No one wants it to. It's just like, yeah, this, this happens to a kid who probably isn't quite good enough to go to the Bundesliga and instantly help a team avoid relegation. Right. A bad team. I mean, they're a bad team.

They were a bad team. They were a bad team. Yeah. It's worth remembering he's three years younger than sergeant. Is Ferreira the same age as sergeant? I think he is. Well, Ferreira's like a January 2000 kid. So they're both three years older than Pepe.

And Pepe has a lot of time to become that Bundesliga striker that he wasn't at Augsburg. Anything else we should talk about? I think that's the bubble. I don't think there's a name that we didn't mention that gets into this final roster. No. I don't think so either. Josh Cohen's not getting into the final roster. And we just mentioned his name, so we're clear even if he does.

All right. Well, hope everybody has a good weekend. Thanks for listening. We'll see you.