Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #329: CCV struggles, Reyna's fit, Pulisic's bright

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

A midweek review from Greg and Belz. Also McKennie scored, Tillman was pretty good, Sargent was physical but not dangerous, and Mexico called up none of the dual nationals who one-time-switched to El Tri.----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. This is another midweek review from us here at Scuff. This time I've got Greg with me. Greg, how are you? Doing all right, Bells. I think we can keep this short and sweet, which I know is our MO when we talk about soccer. Because it wasn't that long of a list of players this week. I feel like without the championship in action,

some of our, some of our, like a lot of the EPL teams are on break. So, yeah. There was a little championship. There was a little bit championship action. Yeah, there was just a lone game. So I don't even check to see because sometimes the schedule would be like, you know, like match day four is what it'll say on one of these makeup weeks. So I don't know if that's what Norwich had going on or if it was just a one-off for them.

I don't know. And I can't be bothered to investigate. So like you said, we are going to get in the weeds. But first of all, I got to say up front that this game. getting in the weeds on performances is my heart's not in it completely, at least not today, because I'm sort of observing in myself a gradual process of release, where I'm like releasing myself to the World Cup and sort of the magic of it. We're not going to get better as a team between now and then. We're not going to play again. It's just time to dream and hope and see

what happens. That's how I'm, that's how I'm feeling this morning. Dream and hope, but no, not worry. There's no, there's no anxiety hidden under there bubbling. I've worried so much over the last, you know, three years. I don't know how much worry I have left in me. No, it's totally fair. I think, I think it's at the very least, the worry has totally shifted from what it was three years ago to what it is on the eve of World Cup 2022. What's the big worry? I mean, the big worry now is that the very good players that we have just won't play very well together in the tournament. Right, right. And that our left centerback is going to give up like six goals in the group stage by himself.

That's another worry. That's another worry. The thing with our good players not being able to play well together is we're not going to get any positive data on that question between now and November 21st. So I might as well just rip van winkle it and go to sleep until November 21st and see what happens. I guess that's what I'm thinking. As for left centerback, we did have some action this middle of the week. Cameron Carter Vickers and Celtic Drew Shachtard Donetsk. CCV, I'll just give a few things and then we can get into it.

But CCV is the, you know, he's one of those left centerback options. One of the better ones, I think. At least that's what we have thought for a while. what I have thought. Anyway, he got caught upfield on Shoktar's goal, a good strike by Mikhailo Moodrick. A good player, Moodrick is. But he was... If he's not a good player, then we're in more trouble.

He made Celtic and CCV a few times look pretty average. No, I saw there's some, like, there's just transfer rumblings around him. I think he's a good player. He's putting on numbers. For anyone who doesn't follow Shoktar Donetsk, I think he's. putting up like a goal and a half a game. They don't have his ghost numbers. But through 400 minutes, yeah, he's putting up 1.62 goals plus assists per match.

Wow. That's non-Penn. So his numbers are pretty absurd for his league play in Ukraine. He passes the eye test. I mean, we've seen CCV against Rao Madrid and Venetius Jr. And I don't know. I think it's a Moodrick looks good. But I only mentioned that caught up field on Shaktar's goal just to be, you know, thorough.

He was caught up field because it was a set piece. He did get back, but just couldn't close on Moodrick fast enough after he shook the other guy. And Moodrick came across the top of the box and then blasted one from 20 yards. An excellent goal. Got to kind of tip your cap. Yeah, CCV worked really hard to get back. Got probably overpursued just slightly, but not so badly that he was completely out of the play, he over pursued at the point that when Moodrick cut in, he had a little

shooting window. CTV recovered to even close a significant portion of the goal off. And the screamer from Moodrick went kind of just over Joe Hart's right shoulder. That's Joe Hart, not England starter against us in the 2010 World Cup. Yeah, still around. Still around. CCCCV did get caught a little flat-footed earlier when Moodrick ran in behind him for a through ball. Do you have anything to say about that one? It's just a pitch control moment. And it wasn't like Shoktar weren't outnumbering Celtic.

They just kind of had control of the ball and sort of the left channel without much pressure. And it was just a guy on the left channel able to pick his head up. And in their little half court offense, just hit a ball between CCV and the right fullback in behind CTV that Moodrick just ran onto. So, I mean, there's no really way around it. Like, CCV just didn't control that space and didn't control the runner. Didn't control Moodrick's run. And Moodrick ran onto the ball. And it was a very alert play from Joe Hart to come out, close the angle down, make a really good save.

Joe Hart, not England starter at the 2010 world. That would be that Joe Hart, correct? So CZV kind of had some more blushes spared there. And then that play gets even more forgotten about as we get later into the game. And Moodrick once again contributes to CCV's woes. Just an amazing sequence, this one we're about to talk about. It starts with Shachtar playing it around the back. And somebody, I don't know who plays a cross-field ball kind of to nobody across his own box, across Shokhtar's box,

but nobody from Celtic sort of intercepts it. I don't think it was intended for Moodrick, but it falls to Moodrick's feet. He flicks it real quickly out to the left back and then makes a run in behind. And he gets played into space. CCV is the only one with a chance at intervening. Moodrick is quick, as you can see on the video if you watch the game or the highlights. And CCV gets there, makes a desperate sliding challenge, gets there late. And Mudrick hurdles him and he's in on goal.

pretty much. And he leaves CTV for dead. He squares teammate Danilo Ccon in front of goal for an open net. And he misses it. It's got to be one of the worst misses of the season so far. Kind of guided, just kind of guided it over the end line with his left foot. And I'm not really sure what happened. Oh, I mean, it is comic.

We'll get to the CCV's choice here in a bit, but I love this sequence, right? So CCV is skinned, and it's as Moodrick kind of barreling down sort of that left edge of the box towards goal by himself. He's got that one runner-Sikon level with him, the eventual shooter. There's one trailing defender who's trying to catch up after CTV goes to ground. And then there's one more trailing attacker after that that you don't really expect to get involved. Now, the defender who maybe could have done something here, in my opinion, makes the wrong play. And he makes the wrong play trying to catch Moodrick to deny a shot. He's never going to get there in time.

So what he probably should do is just hope for the best that Joe Hart from that angle can make another big save and at least take away that square ball to deny the open net tap in. He doesn't do that. He goes sliding in late. Doesn't prevent anything other than just, you know, eliminating himself from any further action. But now we get to the fun part, which is the square to Sakan. And so Sikon is all alone. The ball is like ever so slightly behind him as he's running, you know, in on goal. Yep.

But whatever, like he has all the time in the world. And sometimes with that much time, you get caught between two minds. Do I just hit it first time? It's a little behind me. It's awkward. Or do I settle it? And that's what it looks like happens here. Sikon kind of takes like a settling touch with his left as he turns his hips backwards a little bit.

But that settling touch also kind of goes towards the goal. And in the end, it was neither thing. And it wasn't on frame. And it just trickles over the end line. I'm going to make the case for a third choice here from Sikon, the technically probably incorrect, but aesthetically perfect one. and that would have been, as that ball's coming in a little bit behind him, to just keep his hips square to Modrick and the ball, just kill it right where it hits him and just backpedal out of the way

for that last trailing attacker now, who's all by himself, to just come in and thump it into the open net because that would have been the perfect sequence. It was never going to happen. That kind of thing is almost, that's like colder than a Paninka at the end of a penalty shootout. Like it's otherworldly. It would have made every best team goal.

comp for like the next couple years and instead Sikon's going to go on every worst miss comp for the next 20 years. But yes not great for CCD. For our purposes, yeah. CCV CCV's got a you know, he's got to time that better or just not, you know,

the game is 1-1 late. You got to like be played a little safer. Because he can, he had he had time to sort of run into the path of Mudrick, stand him up. He didn't have to go for that you know,

hero challenge. And yeah, it didn't work, didn't work out. It's funny to watch Celtic after the, after the miss too. You're kind of like,

oh, what do we do now? I can't believe they miss that. We do not deserve to still be level here. And so, so, yeah,

I know Mudrick is fast, but I think from that distance, I mean, there was still 50, 40 yards from goal. I think CCV has to just bank on himself to be able to stay with the man.

and, you know, just shepherd him into a less dangerous scenario than what ended up playing out because, you know, Moodrick's still going to be having to control the ball while he's advancing. So, yeah, totally the wrong choice of it. Even if he fouls him, even if he does clean him out, it's probably a red. Yeah, look like a red. It's not necessary. Like, you don't have to go in there. This isn't like a, with CCV catching up, it's not an obvious goal scoring situation, like as long as CCV just stays on his feet. So wrong choice.

Celtic are eliminated with a draw. They're eliminated from your Europa competition. Like the third place team in the group goes to Europa League playoff. Celtic now eliminated from that. Shakhtar still with a chance to actually advance. But at the worst, they'll go to the Europa stage. So that's it for Celtic. And when we get to Rangers, we'll find out that's it for Rangers too.

So Celtic and Rangers like overachieved enough to get to the Champions League and embarrass themselves kind of so badly that they're now out of European competition altogether. Yeah. So also I would say some alarm bells for the CCV coalition. You know, he's for, in my mind, he is the, he is a solution at left centerback because he is reliable. And, you know, defends resolutely and doesn't make a lot of mistakes.

Obviously, this game is some data contrary to that. And then he also had some problems. versus hearts over the weekend. He conceded a penalty for the equalizer right at the death in the first half. Somewhat questionable decision from the ref after video review, but not an obviously wrong one, so that's a mark against him against CCV. Whether it's like technically a penalty or not,

kind of doesn't matter. It was naive to kind of go in on a ball that, again, not instantly dangerous. So the last thing as a defender you want to do is turn a not particularly dangerous moment. into 0.7xG chance for the opponent. Right. And then he got beat on the third heart's goal,

or I forget which goal it was, second hard school. One of the hards goals, he got beat, a ball fizzed across the six, and he just gets beaten to it by the attacker. He lifts his hand as the ball goes into the net to say it's offside, but it wasn't offside. He just, the guy just darted around. him and got his foot in there and bundled at home.

He also got dribbled around pretty easily another time early in the first half. I don't know. I don't know. He does good stuff. He blocks some shots and some crosses. He's very strong in duels, aerial duels. But it's, I don't know. I don't know who should, if Chris Richards isn't healthy, I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know that we have a good option at left centerback outside of maybe Tim Riem and John Brooks. I think like Tim Reams music is playing here right like it because so CTV is is looking worse against much better competition than some of the other options who are looking bad are playing against. Um, but that's sort of small consolation, right. And and when you have Tim Ream who at the very least isn't just being pantsed routinely playing every weekend against better teams, um, than anyone else, uh, I think it's hard to, it's hard to say like regardless of fit at this point. it doesn't matter if somebody fits well

if they get pantsed doing the job that they're supposed to be doing. So I think you almost have to just default back to Tim Rame or if John Brooks can actually play a couple of games and just show that he's got the cardio for 90 minutes. One of those two guys. I think you just have to. Yeah, it'll probably be Riem if it's either of them.

I had somebody email me late last night and say quit talking about John Brooks. He's not going to happen. He wouldn't fit with the team anymore. more. And he hasn't, he's been out of favor for two years. And, you know, I quibble with some of the facts. But I do understand that there's probably some listeners who are tired of me bringing up John Brooks. But two years. Come on. He was playing in September. He was playing in September a year ago. I know. I know. I made that point. I made that point. He started 29 games for Wolfsburg last year.

He was, he was, he was in favor there. He's not, he's obviously not playing at Benfica right now. So there's no two ways. There's no way around that. No. Well, if you're saying time away from the group, like Tim Reem and John Brooks stop playing with the group at the exact same time. So if it's because they've been out of the group for long, then I guess Ream also is not an option.

I think that'd be silly. I think if either those guys can solve a problem for you, you try to solve that problem. Yeah. I do think it's more likely we'll see Ream than Brooks. Reem and Baraltor seem like they've always had a pretty good relationship. But I guess we'll see. We'll see on November 9th, big party in New York City for the roster release, 5 p.m.

Eastern Time. It'll be on TV somewhere, I suppose. Let's go ahead. No, I mean, that's the outstanding question, right? It's going to be the PFOT question and then the centerback question. Do we bring in one of those two high-level players? And I say high-level because they have, Green and Brooks have both demonstrated the ability to play at a very high-level.

Whereas really no one else has. Like CCV has been measured several times in European play last year in the Europa League, now this year in Champions League. And he's been found wanting at that level, right? Like we know he is not there. He's been good in the championship. He's been good for Celtic on a team that's always going to dominate its domestic competition. But he's never shown at the level higher than that, right?

So we're hoping that Chris Richards can get back to healthy because he's at least shown, you know, in spurts that he can play. play at the, at a Bundesliga level. For sure. But yeah, otherwise we are just, we are just picking between some very mediocre options that have not been covering themselves in glory of late. What is J. DeMerey up to right now? It's funny.

When we talk about the 2010 game, when we recap that England game, I'm for sure, I was going to like make the demerit comparison because I feel like CCV is what demerit was, right? that just attentive defender, no nonsense, just do whatever you can to protect the goal. And that is, for me, that is CCV. So that's what I'm hoping he can be is our 2022 J de Merritt. Yeah, I mean, we're going to recap that tonight and publish it sometime in the next 10 days or so. Bocanagra at left back, man, he was good.

Anyway, all right, Giovanni Raina versus Manchester City. He went 87 minutes in a zero-zero-zero draw with the world's best team, I think, arguably. Did some cutting stuff, like cutting-edge stuff in the first half very early. And then he had a shot from the left side of the box that was decent, but not enough to trouble the keeper. Kind of a carbon copy of the shot he took to score over the weekend against Stuttgart. But didn't hit this one as well. Yeah. Incidentally, he had another opportunity earlier, like two minutes earlier, where I,

Adiyami could have squared it for him in a similar situation and he didn't. And then, of course, Raina gesticulated. And then the next time they came down Adaymi was very careful to pick out Geo Raina across the box. And then Raina kind of scuffed the shot a little bit. In the second half, I would have liked to see him kind of interrogate the defenders around him a little more. But, you know, he's a little bit, I don't know if tentative is the right word, but play backwards a lot. And although he did play a lovely

clipped ball to Adyemi at the back post in the second half, which was kind of the highlight of the game for him, I would say. Part of that's just the nature of this game, right? This was very much a shadow boxing event because Man City knew that Zero Zero wins them the group. Dortmund knew that Zero

zero zero secured advancement to the next round. There was just no reason for either team to really try to interrogate each other. that that uh i mean adi emmy was ii emi was definitely interrogating concello over on the right side i mean concello and um who was the centerback i forget we're just i mean he was running in behind him getting all kinds of joy over there

but but yeah you're right it was a zero zero draw is a good result for both sides yeah they both take it and they get to rest up next uh next leg so um so the big thing though that was raina went in 87 minutes right It's huge for our purposes because we've everyone, I mean, the discussion has basically just been. There's no way Raina can start games for us. Like we shouldn't expect him to. Let's just bank on him coming off the bench. But if he can start, like he absolutely should because he's our best player and it's much better to have him on the field for 70 minutes than 30 minutes.

Whoa, what did you just say? I don't, we don't need to quibble about best player. He, he, we are better. Excuse me, Greg? I'm sorry, Matt Turner's our best player. Giorina is our second best player and he needs to be on the field for 70 minutes instead of 30, if that is an possibility. It looks like knock on wood that it's an option now because he started and went, what, 67 minutes against Stuttgart over the weekend,

went 87 minutes against Man City a few days later. No word of any kind of injury and now we're what three weeks from the World Cup. So he can keep ramping. I'm hoping that he comes off the bench over the weekend and then he doesn't need to necessarily start that last dead rubber in the Champions League. So I'm hoping that they now use him sparingly and then maybe start him one more time before the World Cup. Okay.

Well, anyway, that's fantastic news. His health, his fitness is fantastic news. And he does, even though I wouldn't say it was an amazing performance from him against Man City, he still looks very good, looked very good. Yeah. And very few people have amazing performances against Man City. They're a hard team to look amazing against. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Let's see, Wesen McKinney versus Benfica. Just get it out of the way. John Brooks did not play. McKinney scored a goal in a scramble, and I think did some assured work in possession. Not a solid outing from him. And then maybe the highlight of the game outside of the goal for him was that lovely touch with his left foot

to cancel a guy down the right wing. Did you see that one? No, I mean, I need someone to clip it. I'm surprised Vince hasn't put that out there yet. Yeah, I clipped it, but I didn't put it anywhere. He gets a ball that's about chest high, played sort of in the direction of the left back, who was marking McKinney.

And McKinney just reaches out with his left foot and touches it around. the guy to the inside and then runs around him around to the right. It's very, it's very lovely. He's, he's kind of in, and then his cross, his cross that he plays across the box gets cut out. And then everybody for Juventus is kind of mad at him, that the cross gets cut out. Juventus eliminated from advancing into the Champions League, and they'll actually, like,

have to earn it to get into the Europa League, because Josh Cohen and Maccabi Haifa are level them with points and Juventus have PSG to go. So, uh, what a disaster. Yeah. Where like,

they, they really need Pierlo back in a bad way. Yeah, they need, you know, they need Zadon and. Yeah. I'm in his manager.

I don't know. Oh. Maybe, maybe a little bit, uh, premature to let Pierlo go. Del Piero would probably help. Yeah, I don't know.

I have mixed feelings about it because if they lose Allegory, then they lose a manager who just absolutely loves West McKinney. But, I mean, they're going to keep playing like this. It doesn't matter. He's fine for the World Cup and he will find, if Juventus isn't going to be his long-term home, he's going to find a place that he can contribute

because he has enough tools, like he has sort of like a weirdly unique collection of tools that someone will make good use of him. He does have a weirdly unique collection of tools. As Waki always says on the Monday reviews, we're going to win a game at the World Cup if he scores a header. And as far as predictions go, it feels about as good as any.

Pulisig versus Salzburg. Got the game winning assist. Chelsea did Chelsea 1-21. Should mention Juventus lost 4-3 to Benfica. They were down 4-1 at one point. So back to Chelsea Salzberg. Pulisic had a hand in the buildup to both goals. Not a scintillating performance for him,

but he does look bright and bursty, don't you think? Even at wingback. Wing back. So, yeah, so we got to stop using position names at this point and just use full paragraph descriptions of what he was playing. He looked good. He looked bursty. He looked composed and controlled,

which I think is a huge thing. He didn't look bereft of ideas. He wasn't a head-down dribble until you lose it. player. Looks like he could maybe start at the World Cup. Unless Adam Bells and Bobby Warshall have anything to say about it, Christian Pulisick might still start at the World Cup. I mean, it's not crazy.

Like, you know, when Warshaw did his bit a couple years ago, the options were Pool Sick or Corey Baird. I think there's at least inklings of like reason, Bells, in your Christian Pulisick super substance. Because Giorina is outrageous. In Tim Waya did things Tim Waya did for us in qualifying and right now is doing them for Lille. So there's at least a grain of rationale there that I'm going to give you. Thanks.

Yeah. I probably shouldn't have said that on Twitter, honestly. It was a bad idea. But I can't back down from it now. And I guess I just have to caveat it by saying it's very marginal. Like, Pulisick when he is like when he is on one of his. hot streaks has to start. The problem is he hasn't been,

and I know you don't really believe in hot streaks, but there's like different ways that Pulisic plays. And the way he played for us through most of qualifying, you got to say, at least the way I look at it is Waya offered something very unique on the right wing and did it so well that he became our most important attacking player in the absence of Giovanni Raina. Now we have Raina back,

healthy. He is, he does control the space around him in a way that I think even Pulisik doesn't. I don't even need to try to sound smart that way and say it. I just think Rayna's like, I think he is our best player. Now he hasn't, no, he's not as proven as Pulisic, but so I think, um, you got Raina tucking in with Anthony bombing on the left, off the left of him. And then you have way out wide with Sergenio tucking inside of him on the right side. And And it works pretty well. It could still work pretty well if it's Rain and Pulisic, which I think is probably what it will be at the World Cup.

And I'll be fine with that. I'll be totally happy with that. I'm just talking about a marginal, I think a marginal difference. And people are free to disagree, and they do. Many, many people do disagree. It's a credit to Tim Wea, too, because of what he's done for the U.S., and again, hopefully what he's doing and will continue to do with Lille, which is he's on an attacking tear in very limited substitute minutes.

But it definitely creates this issue because, you know, if you need to have way on the field and dropping pool sick just seems crazy, you know, there are definitely ways where you can fit all three of those guys in a front five, which we tend to do. And it could involve dropping one of the center midfielder's, whether that's Musa McKinney or Adams. That just is going to create another firestorm of conversation. The huge, like the huge crime here is that Giovani Raina was not fit for the entire time that we needed him to experiment through this stuff to figure out what the actual best configuration is. And so what we're left with is like we don't want to tinker with MMA necessarily because that sets a really nice floor for a World Cup to start a game with.

Yeah, that's my view of it. Like it's tinkering with MMA is just a little too tricky for me. Yeah, there's that risk involved. Even though I'm definitely open to the possibility that Raina in that midfield would make us better overall, it's a gamble, right? That works and doesn't blow open our faces defensively. And so, so yeah, so this is what we're left with. We're just left with a firestorm of opinions on which of the undropable players is going to get dropped. Yep.

Anything else on Pulisic? Just the assist. Like, I don't really believe in assists as a counting stat, like expect. assisted assist is pretty useful, but the positive here isn't necessarily that, you know, the shot that Havert ends up with that goal. The positive is that Poulsick, again, draws a bunch of people to him with his control, with the threat that he poses. Yep. And then instead of losing it in a dead end, releases a ball to an open player in a very good attacking spot, whether Habert shoots from there scores or, you know, does another soccer action and creates a 2V1 somewhere else, I don't care.

Poolsick creates that moment for Havert to operate in. And that's huge for us. And if you can imagine him doing the same thing for Giorina or Timiuea, like that's a really good outcome. Yep. Yeah, I was going to say it's, the assist is a tad noisy because Harvard's hits a really, really nice left-footed shot. But yeah, like you said, he drew the attention of three defenders before squaring it for him.

Yeah, crucially, releases it before those three players easily dispossess him. All right, moving on to the championship, a little bit lower level of competition. Sergeant versus Burnley, Burnley won 1 to 0 on a penalty. Not a great outing. I feel like I've said this about every player so far, but also not a bad one. Mostly he's just winning long balls

from that sort of target winger position and laying them off in this game. I do think, I mean, for those of you who haven't been watching Sergeant, his ability in those moments is pretty impressive at this point in his career. I don't know that you could have said that about him a year or two ago.

But he is a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, the, the, the, the, the real question for me is why is, why are they, why is Pookie playing in the middle and he playing out wide? I, I, I, I, I, I know that that sounds like homerism and I always sort of discounted it as that, but you watch him now, Pookie's not winning anything in the air. he is pretty good at beating people around the corner. I don't understand why they're playing all their long balls to a winger, just so I'm curious if this is a new trend, because I don't follow the full trends in the game well enough because we're locked into our U.S. bubble. But, you know, there is an element to floating that ball up to a target winger

instead of a striker. The striker's got to deal with whichever centerback chooses to go for it. And then the other centerback is going to drift behind to clean anything up. whereas the winger has sort of protection from the sideline and they're just going to be dealing with one man, right? Sergeant, whenever he's going up to get that ball, has one man with him. And so he,

what's impressive is sometimes he just controls it flat out. Yeah. He literally just controls it. Other times he just, like, is able to knock it into a space where his team has a slight advantage to win the second one, which is also useful. We saw the U.S.

do this a little bit last window to Jordan Morris with a little bit of effectiveness in that second half against Japan. And so I think this is on the words a little bit. a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. More effective than whatever we were doing in the first half. But this idea of having that player out there with that physical presence, not to run him behind, but just to hold off a player, hold off a fullback sometimes, who's generally

a smaller, not a 6-5 brute. There might be, some people might have just found some value in that. Yeah, I mean, that definitely describes this game for Sergeant. He was up against a left back who was pretty small and he was dominating him. but kind of interesting here because like this game for me for sergeant reminded me a ton of his first three games for norwich in the championship and you know no one was like he's doing fine he was basically doing fine in those games too but you can't just put a whole season of those games

together when you go down a level into the championship and have it be a good year but when you have this kind of a game as your floor surrounded by a bunch of other games where you've been very good uh this one doesn't seem as dire right yeah that's fair uh you know I don't know. I still don't know how much or to what, you know, to what extent Burrhalter rates Sergeant. It's kind of hard to tell. But he continues to look good. He'd be a totally fine starter against Wales. I'm going to plagiarize Bob Morocco here, who I think was plagiarizing Pep Guardiola. But the sort of textbook response to Wales's 541 formation is to hit him back with like a 212-3-2, which is. I get all these numbers I'm listed might sound like gibberish.

That's kind of like our two, three, five. It's just kind of the way you set it up. Would have more of like two high presences. And Josh Sargent gives you, if you start him in that game, that gives you a lot more flexibility to leave him high as one of those sort of two up top to occupy their centerback players. So who would the other one be? I mean, so at that point you can get fancy with it, right?

It could be pool sick. It could be, it could be, Waya. It could be, it's probably not going to be Gio Raina, but Gio Raina would settle into the center of that three underneath those two. So he'd end up being the guy with the most space to operate in as the centerbacks are occupied and the wingbacks are occupied. Yep. Yeah, I don't see a place for Christian Pulisick in that 21, two, three, two, two, three, he'd easily be high. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding everybody. All right. James Sanz and Malik Tilman played Nopoli, Nopoli's reserves, I guess,

lost 3-0. So Rangers Rangers are also not going to be in European competition after this next leg of Champions League. I thought it was maybe Tillman's best performance

since Rangers knocked PSV out of Champions League qualification. It might be that how low is that bar though? Pretty low. Rangers weren't doing much, right? This was Napoli and pretty much

full control of the match. But I'll say, say, you know, this is probably enough to clear that bar for me. Malek Tillman's moment at like the 40-minute mark where he totally rinsed a Napoli centerback to get completely beyond him in the box. It got me to perk up a little bit. He's capable of that. He can do it.

I thought he had quite a few good moments. A few German Wiggins, American Wiggins has the comp on Twitter. I don't know. If we get that kind of performance, or if we get that Tillman, that version of Tillman for 10 minutes off the bench, we probably should bring him to the World Cup is how I look at it. Again, I'm not going to object to him at all because the 26th spot is sort of a pointless spot. Even with that little moment that I was like, okay, all right, Malik, I'm still not going to be like excited to see his number go up and Pool Six number in red in the 10th minute in the 80th minute of a game where we need a goal, right? I'm going to be like, no, just leave Khrushu.

But if there's a COVID outbreak and we're down six players and Malik becomes like the wild card now that we really need to bring in, then it's like, okay, fair enough. If we're running Josh Sargent on one wing and we need a moment of magic in the 80th minute, Tillman for Sergeant makes total sense to me. Yeah, I'm fine with it. Sands didn't play, right? He's kind of out of the picture there. Don't think Sans is in the picture for the U.S. So I hope he does well. They're not going to have yet.

He's playing in Scotland the rest of the season. He's a professional soccer player in Scotland. And I bet life isn't so bad. Sergenio Dess is hurt for Milan. I thought I saw something about muscle fatigue. Probably not that hurt. Firm fingers crossed. Yeah, so he didn't dress.

And we'll just wait for that report for the weekend. And then two other quick items. In Europa League action today, Jordan Pfok faces Braga. Sounds like Matt Turner will not be in goal for Arsenal against PSV. He has a slight injury as well. Richie Ledesma will be on the bench, you know, roll the dice six times. He probably gets on the field two of them. That sounds about right.

Pfok, though, they're playing for it. They're in third to point behind Braga. So is that he pronounced it? I don't know any Portuguese. Braga, I think, is good enough. Yeah. So they can still get into second in the group. It's going to come down to what they do today, basically.

Braga's pretty good, too. They're one of the big three in Portugal. Is it okay to call them a big three? Am I leaving out? Sporting? Is that? I guess sporting is kind of, yeah, I don't know. But Braga is right up there.

It's right up there. No, last thing I'll say is no Mexican-Americans on El-Tree's World Cup roster. They announced it. Not a big surprise. I think Julian Araujo is the only one who even had an outside chance and he was passed over, not just for the roster, but for the 15-man practice squad that they're up against. That's just saying that's what happened. That's what happened. I don't know. Yeah. So the question for me is, you know, you can jump to did they make the wrong decision? Would any of those guys be on our final, the Julian Arahoe be our backup right back.

I think he would have a chance. Yeah. His name would be in the hat, right? Yeah. Because he could play stay at home right back too, couldn't he? Yeah. I could get him in. All right.

Well, we wish him the best as he continues to try to be an Eltree player. Well, yeah. I mean, some of the talk from the Araho Ochoa camp back in the day was that, you know, they're not appreciated for the, for the, you know, elite, elite talents they are by the U.S. Soccer Federation. Yeah, but Mexico gets it. Well, maybe Totha's just picking the wrong players. Who knows?

Oh, by the way, I'm going to have John Arnold on tomorrow to talk about, do a big, a big old conca catch-up. And we'll talk about that. You're a machine. Also, hey, by the way, so if you have any, you know, jump in the Discord and hit me in pod chat with questions you want me to ask John Arnold or topics you want me to cover. I'm always looking for that. And just as importantly, I'm going to get Ryan March from Alternative Wales,

which is actually a pretty fun podcast. You should look it up and try to listen to their international soccer stuff. I was on a different podcast with him, and he was great. He was really fun to talk to. So I'm going to have him on next Thursday. And if you have any ideas for topics or questions to ask him about whales, that all-important whales game, you know, email me, send a pigeon, whatever, put it on the Discord. I'm looking for help with that episode too.

Anybody, anything else, Greg? No, we are good here. Okay. Quick and dirty, short and sweet. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.