Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #341: Final check-in; Wales looms

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

With Watke and Vince, irrational optimism, first goalscorer, first assist, best goal celebrations, Dest's bleach job, the Esquire photo shoot, who we sub on in the 30th minute to protect our lead, and much more.----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes (more than 50 this year) by signing up for our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the USSF approved territories of Georgia and Kentucky, and also from the FIFA approved territory of Brooklyn, this is the Monday Review. Okay, Friday, November 18th, we got three days before we play Wales. It's the Eve of the World Cup. I'm Adam Bells. I've got Vincent Waki with me.

How are you guys doing? Great. Great, feeling good. Three more sleeps, ladies and gentlemen. Three more sleeps. I'm beginning to have some nervous, excitement creep in and it's just I think it's just going to ratchet up the closer we get and it's time. With every passing hour, I just feel like we're going to we're going to beat whales worse and

worse. What do you go up to like four zero now? Yeah, yeah. I'm about there. By the time Monday rolls around, you know what I'm saying? It might be 10 nil. So that's just how I'm feeling. That's just how I'm I don't know that I'm that bullish, but I do, it does feel like that 2 p.m. kickoff Eastern time on Monday is just going to be sort of a sweet release. The universe is ushering me to that moment. It's going to be a long, a long buildup to that game on Monday, isn't it? We got to, there's in three games, we got to sit through. Imagine being a player. You got to, you got to sit there all day. Like, that's a very late kickoff. Very late. As soon when I heard what time. it was local.

I was like, oh my God. 10 p.m. Yeah, that's crazy. Do you think that means they've adjusted their sleep schedule, so they're kind of hanging out playing video games late into the night and... Yeah. Sleep isn't really late? For me, like any sports team I've been around,

like when it's... When you have weird things like that, usually, you know, the coach will adjust everything to get on that schedule. You know, we had that scrimmage or whatever. whatever the hell yesterday. I'm assuming that they probably did that around 10 p.m. Hopefully. Yeah.

Yeah, it's late. It's weird. But, you know, these are young guys. They can hopefully handle it. Did you see the news about Qatar doing an about-face on beer? No beer. No beer outside the stadiums now. The Supreme Committee just decided that, like, this morning.

Yeah. I feel like they had time to make that decision sooner. They just wanted to make sure, like, because I, I don't know if you also saw that the FIFA officials got there yesterday, I think, in their hotel rooms weren't ready. So the Qatarian officials just wanted to make sure the FIFA officials got there, got to Qatar. So, you know, it was, it was guaranteed that they couldn't pull this from them and was like, yo, we're actually not going to be selling beer. I think it's just inside the stadium, what was it or something? Well, it was already true that they weren't going to sell beer inside the stadium, but they were going to, the compromise was that they were going to sell beer outside the stadium,

but within the perimeter of the stadium property. Okay. And that's what's been disallowed here at the 11th hour. And I see, you could still get it at the fan zone or whatever. Yep. I would have lived to have been a fly on the wall on that bureaucratic infighting in Qatar that must have gone on within their ministries of. sports and entertainment. Someone was very unhappy,

but they got overruled by some powerful people. Well, Budweiser is unhappy. Did you see? They put a tweet up that said, well, this is awkward, dot, dot, dot. And then they deleted it. Yeah. I just think whenever you have a governing body

called a Supreme Committee, they're probably up to no good. You don't want a Supreme Committee around. No. Yes. That just gives off, you know, an all-powerful vibe. And you don't want anyone to be all-powerful. That's right.

Because, you know, abuses will come. But, but 0.0, I felt like if I was in guitar, I might, I might buy one just to, just to feel something, you know, just to feel. Just to feel alive. Yeah. Just to feel alive. And I might even, I might even stagger my walk a little bit. Like, like I got a buzz. I drank near beer when I was over there

And if you haven't had any alcohol in a long time Mentally it feels a little bit like it So I would just recommend everyone do that Give it a shot Okay Let's get to this Wales game How are we gonna beat them? It's very important

We're gonna score some goals Yes The first thing we need to do Is not let them score in the first 15 men Yeah that's that's really important But also If we do then we'll just go score goals.

So don't overthink it. Try to let them not score, but if they do, just respond. Simple is that. Have y'all seen that we've either scored or been scored on in the first 10 minutes of a World Cup match for, I forgot when it goes back to, but it's a long time. Really?

Yeah. I'd be good just putting it into that streak, whether we're scoring or not scoring. Right, right, right. Right now, let's just, hey, let's just kill this first 15 minutes. Just settle in. Just settle in. Let's get comfortable.

Because we'll wear them down. We got an engine in the midfield. Oh, do we ever? A three-man engine. That's how we're going to beat whales. That's how we're going to do it. Right. Yeah.

With the engine. Who's going to be the first goal score for us? For us, I don't care about whales. It's going to be, for me, Poulosick. I think he'll do a late arriving run. I think it'll actually be to the near post. That's kind of his preferred one. He'll come in from the outside.

and then Giorana will probably do just a little weighted pass across and he'll post it will arrive, kick it in, probably with his left foot, and then he'll do the tiger tattoo celebration with the knee side. Strong. Yeah, I think that's very likely.

Mine is Josh Sargent. I'm swayed because, partly because I want to be swayed by your prediction, Vince, that Burrhalter will start the Missouri native against Wales, he'll get, again, a perfectly weighted ball across the six from Raina and he'll just thump it home. Or maybe he'll croyfe it at pace over Wayne Hennessy's left ear. That thought has occurred to me too. Either way, Sergeant opens the scoring. Okay, so you have Raina doing it too. I have

his cross a little bit weird. You have it perfect. But maybe, I think looking back at the weird weight, it'll turn out to be perfect when we think about it more, and it will have been on purpose. Okay All right Yeah Vince Yeah for me So I think it's gonna be Gio

Gio just a moment of individual brilliance Like that vertigo Oh yeah That's the one where he cuts in off the Off the left right and curls it Yeah that was a gorgeous goal Yeah yeah

It's gonna be something like that He might not be playing on the left But it's gonna be It's gonna be something similar Where he just You know what I'm saying He just announces itself that he's back.

Yeah. So he's going to go solo. That makes a lot of sense to me. I could see that happening. That would probably be my second pick. It'll almost, for anyone who doesn't know where to go, it'll be a little bit like the Jermaine Jones goal, but more refined. Yeah, he skipped through like three guys and then didn't get quite as hard as

Jermaine did, but he curled it into the same basic part of the net. Yeah, that's the thing. He hasn't been skipping much for Dormant. here lately. And I think he's just been saving those precious, precious strings on the ham. Yep. And he's going to pull him, he's going to pull him back out. He's going to pull them back out.

He's going to go. Chopping and skipping. Mm-hmm. Yep, yep. They all coming back. The chops, the skips. Yeah. Here we go.

Let's get a question from Jorge because it's relevant to this. So, guys. This is Jorge from the Bay Area. Just curious about where you guys is thoughts on. Who has the best? goal celebration in their locker. We know Sargent does the salute, and Wes has the magic wand.

We saw Gio a couple weeks ago, do the AB celebration. I have a feeling that Freda has got a little bit of spice, maybe some Columbia spice in his locker. Love to see a goal. If I mean, see he'll have to start. What do you guys think?

My question around Ferreira's celebration is sometimes they will like, an intensity of confidence in them, which may have been just a product. He was struggling for goals, and he's kind of off that now. So maybe that'll be back. I'm really,

I was really encouraged by Raina's A, B celebration. I think he has more. I think he has more. He did execute it quite well, didn't he? He did. He did. For me, I just think that,

Maybe the mountain boys got something up their sleeve. And they're probably unlikely to be on the field at the same time in this World Cup, I would think. But if Tim scores, there's going to be something happening. And maybe he just runs over to that corner where D'Andre's warming up and something, and some magic's going to come from it. Some magic is going to come from it. And that's the key. Yeah, I think, yeah. I really like

Waya. I think I'm going to switch mine to to Wea. And that's another thing to look out for is we're probably going to see some really good bench involvement in celebrations. If we can, you know, get the right moment. Obviously, we need to go score the goals.

But if we do, I think that could be the story. Let's see what this bench is doing. And just, as far as the more reserved celebrations, I like, like, I am a fan of the sergeant salute. I just think of all the base celebrations that we have, that's probably the best one. You know, we've talked about the Pully Tiger.

Yeah. And it just being, you know, it misses the mark for me. It does. But Josh, simple. You know what's going on. His last name, Sergeant. He's saluting. Simple as that.

Yes. It's very contained. He stays within himself on it. He's comfortable. And we'd love to see the tiger celebration get there. but I agree it's just doesn't I mean we'll see how it works on the big stage but yeah hopefully he's taking all this time

hopefully pulle is just in the mirror getting his forearm placement right his pro nation his pro nation which is very important you know what I'm saying because you know you gotta have the you gotta have your radius and on a point it pointed in the correct direction for it to line up with your with your eyes and nose there so

yeah Seems pretty tricky. I like Wayas, you know how, you guys know me. I like Wayas sort of like glider takeoff celebration. He scores and then he just like, he stretches his arms out and he runs along the line until he, you know, until he sort of finds a terminus somewhere. I love that. The salute's fine.

The salute's fine, but the problem is like if sergeant scores first, which is what I've predicted, is he going to go just do the salute just like he does for Norwich City after he scores a goal against Coventry? He puts in a harder run than normal and uses the salute in the closing phase of it and then the bench closes on him. Right. It times it perfectly.

I could see that, I guess. Right. Like, he's going to give you, he's going to give you, so he's going to give you a little something that you can, that you can like bells. But then also he's going to finish it up with the salute. The salute's coming.

Either way. It's like how Weston, Weston will run off and just, you know, go crazy. But then he'll also make sure to wave that wand. Yeah, he has to shake everybody off, find a spot, and do the wand. I think, can I, I'm going to change how I think Sergeant will incorporate the salute. I think he does it as he's sprinting, which I don't know if we've seen from him.

Ooh. I like that. Maybe it's risky, but I could see the emotion of the moment, that being what happens. What if he does it while he's, while he's running and he just salutes like, three times, you know? Like right hand, left hand, right hand? No, just right hand over and over again as he's getting mauled by his teammates. That's going to be, it's going to be a lot of forearm movement there.

It's going to be, it's going to be a little bit difficult to read what's going on, I think. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be, I would advise him not to do that. I would advise him not to do that. And I remember somebody brought up, like a while ago, if we were going to, if we're going to give our opinion on the Harry Potter celebration that's employed by Wes. And I'm just going to say I don't like it. He's comfortable with it though.

So I keep doing it, I would say. I just feel like I had to put that on the airways. We're talking about Airways. We're talking about Airwes' celebration. Like, what about Weses? So, yeah. Wesis is the weakest. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the official position of the Friday review. Okay. So we did a, Greg and I did a primer episode that you can pass around to your friends and family. I mean, that's the idea of it. I don't know how well it sort of works for that. But we did it. It's episode 338, if you want to check it out. And we had a, we have a sort of a corrective issued by MCB, faithful listener, big discorder.

Let me play it real quick. It's great. Hey, guys, MCB calling from Harlem. I've already shared the primer with a couple of folks, but you guys are way underselling the relative accomplishments and quality of the United States men's national team. Advancing to the World Cup seven times is serious business. Getting out of the group stage three times.

Serious business. Making an international final, serious business. Being the reigning Concord Calf Nations League and Gold Cup champion, serious business. And the fact that the U.S. is finished ahead of the hex more times in Mexico, serious business. You have to put things in relative terms. The U.S. is one of the top 25, 30 men's international footballing nations on earth, no doubt.

Furthermore, the U.S. is by far the best country where soccer is not the number one sport. And by super duper far, the best country where soccer is not even the number two sport. You've got to put some respect on what these guys have accomplished over the years. I think it's a lot of good points there. That was really strong. Yeah. We've been put in our place and that is that is correct. I mean, you guys aren't really culpable.

I'm the one who said that the women's national team is good and the men's national team is bad. And that's how most people think about it. And that's basically true. I think MCB is right. It's not bad. It's not the right way to put it. He's right, though, by and large, you know, getting out of the group as much as we have, a lot of countries would kill for that. Yo, and I'm happy, I'm happy he brought this up because I've been meaning to talk about Mexico for a minute.

Because I've just been thinking about like ever since I found out that our one knockout win was against Mexico. And, you know, have y'all seen the trailer to the, that Metal Arc documentary, the Mexico U.S.? You mean Grant Walls documentary? Well, yes, and in cooperation with Metal Arc media. Okay. Yeah. Have you guys seen it? No.

Okay. Well, you know, supposedly Mexico's in there. They're talking a lot of big shit. You know what I'm saying? they're talking about, you know, when we come to the U.S. We take all the stadiums over blah, blah, blah, which, you know, they do. They do. But, you know what I'm saying?

They, they don't have a leg to stand on, really, to talk to us or to talk down to us, right? They're on some type of upper echelon because really, in the grand scheme of things, they are one of the biggest disappointments in world soccer. One of the biggest disappointments in world soccer. So let me read this to you. The most populated nations in the world, okay? We got China, India, U.S., Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico.

Okay, so we got Mexico. One, two, three, four, five, two, seven, eight, nine, two. Mexico's the top, by far the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world by population. Right. So three places behind Brazil, if you take out China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, I mean, which aren't, with all due respect, serious soccer nations. You know, we got the U.S., Nigeria, Brazil, Russia, and Mexico. And you're telling me, a soccer crazed country with 127 million people,

can't make it pass around the round of 16? Yeah, that is the fact. And they lose those us consistently. and yet, and yet they sit up here on this perch looking down on us talking all types of stuff. And I just don't want to hear it, bro. I just don't want to hear it. Like other nations can talk, you know, when, you know, you get Mexicans talking about the soccer culture here and the lack of pressure and blah, blah, blah. What is that pressure done for you, Mexico?

Because all you've done is pissed down your leg for 50 years. So I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. Thank you, MCB. And thank you Mexico for being so ass. By the way, Mexico plays Poland on Tuesday at 11 a.m. Eastern Time to open their World Cup campaign. They're in a group with Poland, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia. Personally, I hope to get out of the group.

I want Concaf to succeed in general. But I agree with basically everything you just said, Vince. Waki, any thoughts on the Kinto Partido? I don't have any. They're not going to get there. That's the thought, Waki. They're not going to get there, right? Just say that.

Well, I don't, yes, no, they're not going to get there. They're not going to get there. Okay, so let's do first assist against Wales, back to the present day. I guess Waki and I have already sort of tipped our hand here. Who do you think is going to get the first assist? So since my first goal is an unassisted GO moment of magic, The first that says it's going to be Christian Pulisic on a corner

So this is going to be in like the 27th minute of the Wales game Yeah something like a corner coming in I mean you know More than likely Weston McKinney just rising up Heather on frame goal Right past Mr. Hennessy Yeah that's it Yeah that makes sense to be I have so just backing up I have

Pool 6th I have him scoring first I think that'll be in the 16th minute because we're not going to, we're going to just like leave the 15 blank like we were talking about. And then I think, I agree that second goal is 26th minute. I think there's going to be a near assist in the lead up to that goal, and that's going to be Raina, who's going to have a little chip into sergeant that's going to barely get saved.

And then, bam, two, right there on the corner. All right. Okay. Let's talk, well, let me play one more clip. This is from North Carolina. Hey guys, this is Daniel from Raleigh, North Carolina. I just wanted to say that I think the Wales game, I'm optimistic about it,

but also it could be a very good data point because I watched that Ukraine versus Wales game to get into the World Cup. And Ukraine was pretty easily slicing and dicing the Welsh defense using the ball and in possession. And I think, for one, that makes me optimistic that we should, be able to do that because Ukraine does have some real talent like Zincenko and Mudrick, for example,

but I think we also have at least that same level of talent, if not higher, in the attacking side and in the midfield. But also, I think that if we're unable to replicate that success that Ukraine had, I think that also says a lot about the state of the program, whether that's a result of the system that Greg's implemented or the talent or both. But either way, I am feeling optimistic about that game. Let's go U.S. I think, you know, Greg said something similar in our, I guess, Wales preview a couple days ago that if we, if we can, we should be able to break them down at least some. If we can't, then it's a big problem.

But forget about the can't part. We're going to do it, right? We're going to do it. Yeah. We've already outlined them pretty much slicing them completely open to get a two zero lead pretty 50s. So we're all on the same page. Yeah. So I remember watching, I remember watching, I remember watching

that match, the Wells Ukraine match at the American Outlaws tailgate in Cincinnati before the Morocco match. Oh, was it the same day? Yeah, it was the same day. It was the same day. And yeah, I just remember like just seeing them slice them up, just being sliced up, everyone, the bar was kind of going crazy. Well, because everyone was rooting for Ukraine, right?

Everyone was rooting for Ukraine because of, you know, what was going on at the moment or what is still going on. It continues to go on. Right. But yeah, they were chance after chance after chance. Hennessey stood on his head. So, I don't know. Yeah, Hennessee stood on his head.

So did, I mean, Ben Davies. He was kind of heroic for them. All right. Biggest reputation enhancer for the U.S. at this World Cup. I guess in the modern era, the World Cup isn't quite the showcase it used to be, but still a showcase. who's going to get a big bump in their reputation? Well, I actually have two.

Okay. So, number... That's allowed? Number one, Eunice Musa, just because of... Because he's Eunice Musa. You know, he's going to get the ball. He's going to make people just look stupid. Like, if we get full-flow Eunice in one of these World Cup matches,

I think he might end up being a... maybe not a household name, but he'll be a sicko known name. You know what I'm saying? People aren't ready for how easily they're going to see him go by people and then just run into space for 30 yards. Right. And the fact that he's, you know, that he was English or whatever and England lost him and he came through the Arsenal Academy and stuff like that, I think it'll just like, you know,

build upon the legend of Eunice Musa. And so I think that's going to happen. like if I could put money on it I would I would put a lot on it yeah there's can I just respond to yeah he to borrow a Joseph Martinezism there's a really good chance he's going to father Aaron Ramsey in this Wales game you know right Aaron Ramsey a Mason Mount you know what I'm saying we he's about to he's about to make a tour all through the British Isles there um and number two for me would probably Matt Turner because the more I think about it, the more I do, you know, we have a match winner.

We got a match winner in goal and Matt Turner hasn't had much of an opportunity to show what he can do for Arsenal because he hasn't faced many shots. And so, like, I mean, there's going to be, you know, there's going to be some shots given up in this tournament. And Matt Turner's going to come up big on him. I don't know, like maybe against England, we're facing a period where we're under siege and, you know, Matt just does this thing and shows Arsenal fans, shows the world what America knew already and basically shows what he did in the MLS. So, yeah, those two. I love that answer. Mine's kind of more boring. I just said Raina, not because his talent was underappreciated.

I think he is widely viewed as a, you know, an elite talent. But because he's been injured so much in the past year that he hasn't been able to really show it. And a healthy, energetic World Cup probably catapults him to that sort of, that status of constant transfer window headlines. Which, by the way, Eunice is already, that's already sort of happening with Eunice even before we start playing. Before we start playing. You know, there's Juventus rumors. and what was the other one? There's another one, I think.

I think it was both Milan's. Yeah. Yeah. So word may be out on Eunice already. I think, yeah, I think those three are probably the smart money. So I'll just give a dark horse pick here. I'm going to say Joe Scali. I think he's going to unexpectedly get his moment.

I don't know exactly what's going to happen. You know, maybe he just does a charging run and a crosser, maybe a shot. He shoots it and it goes in. And then... Would that be crazy? He just built to have his reputation enhanced. It'll probably be too enhanced, really. Something's going to happen then his reputation is going to be inflated by something.

And we won't hear the end of it from the scally labs. You're damn right. You damn right. Which, like I guess could happen. It's a dark horse. I'll admit it. It is a dark horse, but it seems like the U.S. is working with Serge to basically build up his fitness. from what I've read from Paul and Sam's reporting that, you know, he's not necessarily hurt,

but they do have him off to the side just, it seems like he's just running a lot. Okay. So we don't want this to happen. We don't want this, Gally thing to happen. Because we want Desk to play all the means, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah, I'm a little worried about that.

But not that worried. I'm not that worried. Not that worried. Speaking of Dest, his bleached hair. What do you guys think about it? I like it. Yeah. And he has the confidence to do it.

I think that's the story. Yeah. He's going to be big change. He hasn't done that before and he's doing it right before the World Cup. It's a statement. I think it's a good statement. I don't know if it's his absolute best look, but it's not really important. It's more about the mentality at Foster's.

So I don't know. It might be up there for me. It says, I think it looks really good. I think it looks really, really good. I'm, it was a great bleach job by whoever did it. Yeah, I'm going to give props to all involved. Did he do it before he arrived or did you have the team barber do it? Because I don't know if the team barber has done bleaching.

I have no clue. But if I had to guess, I'm going to say he did it before he arrived. One pro is that it's going to be more annoying than usual for our opponents when he dribbles past them. So we can really get in their heads, you know, a bleached guy, a bleached hair guy dribbling past you is not fun. And the other thing. is another pro is that it counteracts Aaron Ramsey, who has also gone with a semi-bleached look

again for this World Cup. And we can't just let that stand. We can't just have a guy on the other team with bleached hair and just sort of allow that to happen. It's better for us to counteract it with our own guy with bleached hair. I feel strongly about that, actually.

And I do think the right number of players with bleached tear is one. I don't remember which teams would do this, but in the past they would all bleach their hair. Like, oh, I don't think. that's the right approach. So I think if we're going to have one person do it, I probably would have picked Sergenio.

So I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good about it. Giorina has once again confirmed his choosing to play for the U.S. was not a difficult choice. Yeah, he, they keep, the reporters keep asking him about, um,

you know, whether he was going to play for Argentina or however many other countries. And it's, um, I'm glad it seems like maybe this will be the last time that happens. Because it's, it's, It's kind of annoyed me because there was no chance that was ever going to happen.

Right. It doesn't bother me on a, you know, a fundamental level. Just why are we, why are we pretending this is a news story? I can which I guess is what we're doing right now because I am the one who put this in the... Well, Gio kind of enjoys, I think Gio kind of enjoys, you know, sheepishly enjoys the discussion a little bit. Oh, okay, that's probably true. But the kids is American as apple pie. Of course.

It would have to, like, it would have to, it's not just that he's American, he's basically born into the team. Right. He's the least likely person in the history of the world to not play for the United States and his national team. Well, he's a New Yorker, very much a New York kid. And so is Tim Wea, for that matter. I wanted to bring up the photo shoot with those two and Tyler Adams, the three big New Yorkers

on the team. Now, Scali's a New Yorker, and Eunice was born in New York. as well, but these are the three guys who, like, really are from New York, wouldn't you say? Yeah. Yes. Did you guys, what look did you prefer from Tyler, the sleeveless one, or are the kind of the big long, gray trench coat? Yeah, I was a big fan of the sleeveless one. Yeah, me too.

Yeah, yeah, that was nice. That was nice. I liked all of it. I think it's the whole thing is good. I mean, I'm not authority on this kind of stuff, but we'll put the link in the show notes. Wayo went with the big suit kind of. early 2000s preacher

yeah yeah preacher NBA draft pick comedian he's in the LeBron class draft class without right right well let me describe it so

the the photo that I think sort of is the header for the whole thing is the three of them in what looks to be a German parking garage Tyler looks like he's had enough of the photo shoot

but hasn't quite gotten mad Like he's almost mad, but he's not quite mad yet. And he's just devastating, I think. You guys don't think the long gray smoking jacket is that nice? No, no, it's nice, but I just prefer the other pick when he had on the vest with the pants. I just thought he cut that off. I think one challenge for everyone is Timway is basically he has the chops of a professional model. Yeah.

So it's just, it's tough to stand next to him. I think Tyler did a great job, and Gio did an okay job, although I love Gio's bathrobe. That he wore a different picture. Yeah. In the picture I'm talking about he's wearing all black, Adidas stuff with white trim, like just extremely large windbreaker pants. They're very large. They're very big, too. It's kind of ridiculous, but he doesn't look, he just looks as utterly self-confident as ever, staring right into the camera.

Yeah. No, that's his strength in the model. His confidence, which is a huge part of the modeling business, as I understand it. But he shouldn't become a professional model. He should stick to being a professional soccer player after his career. I guess after your career, you can't keep doing it. Yeah, you think he should stick to like a front office job or something. Yeah.

I don't know. And then Wea is, he's a step forward from the other two, kind of like the guru, holding a, like you guys said, a big white, a big black suit. Looks like a mega church pastor suit from back in the day. And he's just staring, he's just staring zealously over the shoulder,

left shoulder of the camera and holding a white ball. Like he has all kinds of plans and ideas that he's going to make Tyler and Gio execute on his behalf. Yeah, I can see that. This does have to be the strongest photo spread that's come out for the team before World Cup. For sure. Maybe it's recent C bias, but this, I think it's pretty strong.

We're just kind of nitpicking because that's kind of our job, you know, but it's a good picture. Yeah, big, says big shout out to Esquire. Seriously. And also, did y'all see, like, so this happened in the last window, right, that Tim wasn't called up for it because he had that injured ankle. And he drove from Lille to Germany to, to, to, to make sure that he was a part of this photo shoot, which is just, you know, it's probably the most him way of thing possible.

And this photo looks like he's the one orchestrating the whole thing. It looks like he hired the photographer. And if you read the article, there's a picture in there of him like kind of in action, like he's jumping. He's jumping on his injured ankle. Oh, yeah. Looking at the camera, smiling. Yeah, just very interesting.

Very interesting. Maybe he actually could have been a part of that last one, though who knows. He had to finish up that last little bit of recovery. But yeah. They pull it off. I think they pull it off quite well across the board. And there's a Timway quote from the article I want to read. He said, in a few years we're going to be top class players.

And the football that we're going to play is going to be amazing to watch. Yeah. You're damn right. You're damn right. Another New Yorker is Eunice Musa, like I said. He only spent the first little bit of his life after birth there. Lots of good journalism out there to read that's relevant to, you know, this podcast subject matter. One example is Miran Fader's piece on Musa for the ringer.

So I, you know, there's a few nuggets I want to mention from it. His parents, we kind of know this already, but his parents are, we're Ghanaian, well, they are but we're living in Italy when he was born. But his mom went to New York to visit, I think, a brother, and he was born in New York, and then they stayed there for a little while. He and his mom. They went back to Italy after a few months,

and he spent his childhood there until he was nine. And one interesting thing from the article is his mom, Amina, owned and kept a cooking supply shop in Castelfranco, Veneto, which is a small town, about an hour from inland from Venice. And the shop was a little bit of a house. kind of a hub of the little Ghanian community there. And Musa lived there until he was nine, and then he moved to London. And I'm not sure why.

I have not seen that explained why his family moved from Italy to London. But he was good at soccer even when they were in Italy and eventually landed at the Arsenal Academy. The other interesting thing is how that move from the Arsenal Academy to the Valencia Academy, which he did, I think when he was 16, was a really big gamble, as he put it in the article on his family's part. I hadn't quite thought of the risks of that. But that's a level of enterprise there for him.

He and his brother, who I think has a lot to do with his soccer career. They were like, yo, some young English players are just going abroad because they can get better chances to play. And they did it. And it paid off. It's pretty cool. I didn't realize his mom at a cooking supply store. And it makes sense now because his big hobby is cooking. Is that right?

Yeah. He did a little sit down. They did a know your teammate. thing he did it with Brendan Aronson. Oh, right, right. He's a good cook. He's probably, it sounds like him and Greg Rohltar, are probably the top cooks on the team.

Yeah, I really, really into it. Also, what I took from this article, was it his mom's name is Amina, which is my daughter's middle name. Huh. It's a pretty name. Yes.

Yes, it is. So, so shout, it spelled the exact same way. Oh, so shout, Shout out to his mom. Shout out to my daughter. It's spelled A-M-I-N-A. Anyone who's got to have a child and wants to, needs a name for a child.

Where did you come up with the idea? Because Eden was born a while ago, right? Five years ago. I looked up African names on Google. I was just going through. We already had Eden picked out. And then I was just looking at African girl names, just going through them. And then we settled on Amina.

Nice. Well, yeah, they Eunice spoke Hausa, which is a, you know, a language from West Africa growing up a lot. I think he knows it fluently. And, man, what an interesting guy. Totally an international person.

Yes. Seriously. Like, I mean, they said, you know, when he moved from Arsenal to Valencia, he picked up the language in like a month, I want to say, which I guess makes sense. If you could speak Italian.

Like I think that's how that works, right? I don't speak any other languages, but... Yeah, unfortunately, I don't either. Okay, so let me play... Just to sort of wrap up this part of the episode, let me play a clip. Hey guys, Ishwar here from New York. Just incredibly excited for Monday, for all of America. They see this incredibly young, diverse group of likable men who will take in the field

and represent us in the best way possible. I genuinely think this is this group of kids are the best of what it means to be an American and I cannot wait to support them on Monday. Thanks guys. Yeah, that's the thing about them is how likable they are. Yeah. Which, you know, makes it kind of even more intense watching. And I'm excited for other people to find out. And a big part of it is going to be Eunice Moose's smile.

When people see that, they're going to, they're going to really like this team. Yeah, like that's the hook. That's the hook right there. They see that. There's no way you can, you can forget it. You know, you want to see more of it, so you're going to tune in. Yeah, it's coming. I love that.

I love that sentiment. I share it pretty much completely. Now, one guy on the team who is maybe apparently not as likable is Weston. No, it's not that he's not likable. Well, it sounds like DeAndre doesn't like him that much, you know. No, they like him. him. He's just a little bit, he's got some crazy energy. Right. It's exactly what we talked about in those first two or three episodes of the Monday review or whatever.

You know, he just can't be cool because he's just, he's too fired up. He's too fired up. You know what I'm saying? He's just, he's turned up at all times. He's on 10 at all times. And it's just, it's hard to, you do need that guy. But it's just hard to. Did he not get in the Esquire photo shoot? No. I don't think so. No.

I think maybe Tim did organize this. Yep. That was a good video, Waki. We should do a whole episode on your journey to make that video. Did I read the Paul Tenorio story on Weston and his background? Weston has a brother that's like eight years older than him or something like that. And his brother's friend was basically employed. Well, not employed, but Airborne 69 asked the friend to teach Weston how to play soccer.

And it basically went from there. But if there's anyone out there who somehow doesn't know who Airborne 69 is, that's Weston's dad. Yes. James, right? John. John. John. John McKinney.

Excuse me. Yep. Excuse me, sir. like little like five six seven year old weston would like hang outside this kid's he would climb a tree and like yell into this kid's window to come out and play soccer man i believe that so yeah the uh so this story's on the athletic uh paul and sam i've been doing this good series of you know basically going to hometown series right yeah yeah um i haven't read brenn's yet apparently Brendan is out, but I've seen, I've read Thames and Weston so far.

But yeah, good stuff. There's a lot of good stuff out there. It's, it's almost too much to, it's almost too much to read at all. Okay. I've got a few other smaller items. We don't need to talk about them much. Just hit them quickly. Fox Sports put out a video of all the players taking turns playing,

operate the game operation. I don't know if there was any significance to that. It was just something they were doing for fun. And then there's an ad of Christian Polisic playing the electric guitar in a speaker commercial. Okay. Which is good. Operation is hard. It's a hard game, I think.

It didn't seem like they were doing that well at it. Yo, yeah, how do you feel about those, those Ted Lassow letters or whatever the hell? I like them. I think they're fine. I read the dust one. I found it, I find it, I find, I find it, I found it charming. Okay. It's, you're not allowed to criticize Ted Lassau.

It's a little cheesy, but it's illegal. That's the bit, right? Oh, yeah. Like, I think so, yeah, I haven't watched a single episode. I will never. But, yeah, like, I just wonder, does it translate to the, to the non-sick-sico? I think it translates more to the non-sicco than the sicko. Oh, but because they do watch Ted Ler.

Lassau, right? Okay, okay. Fair enough, fair enough. Fair enough. I think Ted Laps does it show for normal people. Yeah, it is. It is. Not how I think about it.

You're exactly white, Rucky. But. Wucky is exactly white. Exactly great. It's like, oh, yeah, it's a bit much sometimes for me to be honest. But when I was, but also like, is anybody sitting there reading it? I don't know. Like four sentences on a billboard?

It's more than, often more than four sentences. I think that's the trick. That's what grabbed you. Like, look at all that text. I'm going to read it. It's probably more they meant for it to be shared around the internet. Okay, fair enough. I mean, I'm not a billboard professional, but.

One last thing for me. Have y'all seen Grant Wall's hat? I love it. Yep. I think it's the right hat for the moment. Describe what kind of hat it is for people. You know, just when I was ones, like I call it. So the newsboy hat or...

Perfect. Or a poet hat. You know, he could either be, you know, throwing newspapers out or speak and spoken word. It just depends on. I think it's a good... I think he should wear it more often. He wears it all the time. Yeah.

Oh, he does? Okay. Yeah, I'm not as tuned into his hats as I was trying to pretend there. If I'm being completely honest. Does it look a little British to you? Well, yeah. I think those... That was like the origin.

And somebody told me that they wear him in Piki Blinders and keep razor blades in them, supposedly. I haven't seen an episode of Picky Blinders, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I just, he looks like a British spy or something. Like he's going to take everything that Matt Turner was saying in that little roundtable and just relay it to Southgate. Turn it over to Gareth. Yeah. There's a video, another little thing, there's a video of Christian Pulisic, Lucid.

Luca Deletore Tim Reem Brennan Aronson Christian Roldon and Ethan Horvoth going to get a burger in Doha It's kind of interesting

What was the group Sorry what was the group Pulisik Aronson Horvath Deletore Ream and Rieme and rolled on That's not the cool group

Is it No offense But that's No I don't think so It's a burger getting group They just want to get a burger Man And it looks like

It looks in the video Like somebody on Twitter said it looks like Luca is part of the security detail. He's walking like a step and a half in front of Pulisic just like scanning the horizon. He's always in the front or the back. Remember that video when they were going out to training and he was walking behind Tyler and Josh Sargent?

And same type of thing there. I love it from him. Stone-faced. Yeah. Yeah. And if you watch carefully, you can see Grant Wall in the background. Taking notes. Yeah, yeah, like five to ten steps behind telling, he's telling Southgate that you know they're eating a burger wherever they're getting it at.

He's staying low, though. He's staying low in that hat. So just one last thing. I don't know if it was in that Ringer article or not, but I read that Eunice is having a good time being in a primarily Muslim country for the first time. Hmm. He said he was, I think he was out shopping or something. And there was a bell to pray, and he was able just to, you know, he was just happy that there was a mosque, like right there across the street, walked across the street, got his prayer on, went about his day. So, yeah.

Yeah, I think, isn't he, is he the only Muslim on the team? Yes, I think so. Yeah. He said everything is halal. You know what I'm saying? He's just, he's really enjoying it. Yeah. And he's probably fine with the Budweiser decision.

Yeah. what happens after the 26th minute when do we score our next goal uh at you at minute 30 i'm throwing on uh you know air along i'm just getting us a lay consolation yeah yeah we're gonna batten down the hatches at that point yeah i think 70th minute something like that it is going to be strange how how little there will be to argue about on twitter or on the Discord after we drop three or four on Wales and then stun England.

Oh, they'll find something. Maybe. They'll find something. This is possibly Grand Wall's hat. Yeah. We just need to keep an eye on them. There's so much to keep an eye on them. Maybe check them for a wire.

Trust but verify. Yeah. What else, guys? Anything? If Twitter crashes after the first U.S. goal, then, you know, just just meet us on a Discord.

Yep. Oh, yeah. There's, if you, during the World Cup, if you really want to talk about stuff with, with people, there's a scuffed Discord. And it's very easy if you don't know what Discord is.

It's basically just like a chat machine that you enter into somehow through a portal, right? Yep. A chat machine you enter through a portal. It pretty well explains it. It's very different. I was talking about this last night.

It's very different from Twitter. people on Twitter For one thing, I don't think Twitter is going to crash. I suspect that it's not going to happen. But people were talking about it a lot last night. And they're like, well, I'm going to go over to the Discord. And my thought is, well, you don't,

you can't be that messy person that you like to be on Twitter on Discord. It doesn't work that way. You can't just go around replying to famous people and saying annoying stuff all the time because Discord is like a private, you know, it's a private conversation. I'll find a way. It's just a different, it's a way different format.

But yeah, come, come join us at the scuff Discord. A couple of the channels are free. The rest of them are for people who join the Patreon. The link for that is in the show notes. Like I said, listen to that, pass around that episode 338 to anybody you think might be interested, who's like a casual sports fan. Also, I think our episode 33, which was the 10 turning points, since Coova was excellent,

a really good sort of explanation of the Burrhalter era. And I also think the one that Greg and I did about the Wales game, how we can beat Wales, you should also listen to that one. This one, you should not chair. We're going to do better next time.

No, this one's pretty good. This one's pretty good. Hold on, hold on, real quick. I was doing a joke. Real quick, guys. I have word coming through. But we had a group of players going out to get a burger rate. We should have just did what Argentina and Udukei did,

which is they have each taken 2,000 pounds of meat with them to the World Cup so players and staff can have a taste of home in guitar. This is a tweet from ESPNFC. I don't know. Is that preferable to just going out to an outdoor cafe and having a burger? Well, those are expert meat cultures. Yeah, yeah, I was about to say, yeah, so I don't think so. I don't think it's preferable.

That's their thing. It makes a lot of sense. That's their thing. It makes a lot of sense for them. Right. Maybe we should have brought some meat, certainly. Maybe not quite that much. 2000's crazy, but yeah.

Yeah. So Gino's hair does look great. It looks really good. Everything's coming up, roses, guys. It sure is. It sure is. Hazel's for my striker. Okay, I wanted to be Sergeant

But I guess we'll see We're gonna one more thing about the Discord We're gonna have a we're gonna have call-in shows after every game Where you can just call in and get stuff off your chest To some of us And we'll record those and post those for patrons And then Greg and I are gonna recap each game Each US game of course later in the day of the game

And then we're gonna try to do an episode every day Kind of like this I gotta go Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.