Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #352: What we learned about our players at the World Cup

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Greg and Belz talk through a bunch of big-picture player pool stuff, and the USMNT players at the World Cup one by one, with an eye toward 2026.----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes (more than 50 this year), plus access to the Discord including live call-in shows and round-the-clock access to other reasonable USMNT and USWNT fans online, 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.

Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. We're now two weeks removed from the loss to the Netherlands that bounced us from the World Cup. A little more time to digest what happened. Greg, what new information do we have about the player pool after they tested themselves in Qatar? I think for now I'll stick to the on-field information. And I'd say, I'd say like, man, I keep thinking back to the whole tournament. and like we knew we had I think or we thought we had a solid core of players right and I think what the World Cup showed us is we absolutely did have a solid core of players yeah where uh it's hard to think

of a single like actual starter from that group stage that had a bad world cup like no one had a performance that was a bad World Cup which is just phenomenal uh thinking about what it means for four years down the road because I don't even mean like caveated like for a 21 year old, that was a good World Cup. It was every single guy out there had a pretty solid group stage of a World Cup. Yeah, I think the only, you know, the only person who even you'd have to caveat it somewhat is probably Zimmerman because of that penalty he conceded. But I do think, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying, like, Zimmerman conceded that penalty. He otherwise was quite solid at the back. Yeah. And so that's the thing. So Zimmerman absolutely had the huge

mistake that he had over the over the three games he played total including the knockout game. And so then you say, all right, so was he found out, you know what I mean? Was he found out that you could just attack this weak link and that's all you have to do in the US is sunk? And I'd say the answer's no. And I'm not trying to like excuse it. I'm saying we had going into this, what I thought of as like a bucket full of error prone centerbacks.

And so if you'd give me on any of our centerbacks, hey, this guy's going to make one pretty big mistake over three games, I'd have like kissed you on the mouth, been like, thank you. That's what we that's the centerback pool. That's exactly what I would, I would want. Right. As a sort of a great case, a great outcome. And we escape basically with, I mean, whatever you want to think of it is eight, eight games of centerbacks, four games, two centerbacks on the field, uh, with one big mistake. So yeah, I mean, just a really solid performance from our core 10 or 11 players with a couple of a couple of big mistakes mixed in for a couple of the guys.

Yeah. And I would say looking forward to 2026, the bar to displace any of our fullbacks, either of our fullbacks, anybody in the midfield, and our wingers, you know, setting aside the geo-rana situation

momentarily, but either of our, I mean, Pulisigant way I had a great tournament, I thought. The midfield had a great tournament and the fullbacks had a great tournament. You're going to have to be really good over the next three years to get in front of them in line to start at the World Cup in 2026. Absolutely. And that is like the dream. The dream is not to for this next roster on our home soil in 26. The dream isn't to like find a slightly better Luca della Torre or like a slightly better Calana Costa. It's to have like a full blown another

Weston McKinney to back up a Weston McKinney who has improved over the next four years and is in his prime. playing age. Like that's the dream. That's what we're hoping for is that we don't even have these sort of like clear delineations between role player and starter. And instead it's just a wall-to-wall, uh, outstanding player roster. I should add I should add Matt Turner to that list too. I think you're going to have to be really good at goalkeeper to, to displace him, which is great. And we have, and we kind of have an eternity to do it. Like I know there's like urgency now. We saw there's urgency to find another center mid, right? because MMA ran out of gas for sure.

So there's real urgency to find that player so that we can be better. There's not necessarily like urgency time-wise. Like, oh, we need to do this tomorrow. Like that player will probably just have to emerge over time. And in the meantime, we'll keep using the players who are, you know, roughly in that role, a lucidolatory or whoever kind of filters up for what I'm expecting to be a new manager. Yeah.

Do you think because we have so much time and because we kind of know, I mean, we've talked about the positive part of it, but we kind of know that the drop off from that core to the next level of our player pool is pretty steep. Don't we know that at this point? I mean, isn't that one of the, I mean, Luca Delatorre didn't get a chance at the World Cup, but in a way that tells you something on its own, right? It can, right? We don't know for sure because sometimes, uh, sometimes. Sometimes there's fitness things and the guy came in without having played real soccer. Don't you dare talk about fitness things. And then there's also just a manager trust, right?

And so it's possible that Burrhalter just sort of underestimated how useful some of the role players were. And that was why he was so reluctant to use him. But no, I do think like, you know, I don't think there's any secret that there's a drop off. And we saw that drop off play out in a couple of windows before the World Cup. So, you know, I'm not holding my breath that, like, Luca de la Torre will be definitely the player as sort of the next center midfielder on the list four years from now. I'm hoping he does great. I'm hoping he has a real renaissance in the La Liga. But it's like, if he doesn't, I'm not worried because someone else, I'm sure, will emerge.

Right. I'm not ruling out a Luca Renaissance either, but I do think it's probably unlikely that he is going to be that, you know, similar to Weston or Eunice replacement. He isn't that young anymore. And so I guess, so I guess the point I was trying to get at is if, unless you're really bullish on Luca and say, Callan Acosta, you know, taking a, another step up in their development at this stage of their careers. Shouldn't the focus in the national team be like let's cast a wide net, let's go full scuffed 2.0 and cast a wide net and start to, you know, really invest. I mean, we're probably not going to see the World Cup players in camp this spring or will we? I honestly don't know. I'm really not sure. Like in March you're talking about for Grenada and El Salvador. Yeah, a game we have. to, we have to beat El Salvador. I think we only need to draw.

I think we just, I mean, you could say it's a home game against El Salvador. We need to beat them. But I think for the math, just to get to the June games into the semis, I think we just need to draw against El Salvador. But, like, I guess what I would say is there's no need to change our focus as a national team. Like, it's, we don't have to change our focus away from these players because I guess what I'm thinking is, I agree.

I would, if you are going to offer me, you know, Luca de La Torre, in 2026 or the field. I'm taking the field because Luca isn't so good that he's going to necessarily be favored to hold off all newcomers. Right. But there's no need to just like take that bet right now and play those odds and say, we're going to like not worry about calling up Luca DeLotauri anymore. We're going to call up Jack McGlynn or or the kids.

So I'm going to actually go back to what my original scuffed role would have been and been like, okay, well now the kids got to prove it because there just is not that necessary. But there isn't for me a timeline urgency to replace Luca, even though I probably expect that he will get surpassed before the World Cup itself. The surpassing just has to be evident before we stop calling up Luca. And Luke is just, I mean, Lucas is the stand in for basically every non-starter, right? Every, for this roster. I don't want to make it sound like we are really intent on getting rid of Luca.

It's all of those non-key players that we had in this World Cup. I'll list a few of them. Rolled on who didn't play. Luca didn't play. Kellen Acosta played some. Wouldn't say he had a great tournament. Not terrible or anything, but not great. And then who else?

Jordan Morris came on for some garbage time minutes. I wouldn't say he distinguished himself necessarily. Who else? Shack Moore did not play well in his. one cameo, and then Joe Scali didn't play. Who else was there? Jesus Ferreira, not great in his 45 minutes. Right.

And then Aaron Long didn't play. So you have that group that I think, again, you just take the field. But the field will present itself in their club matches now. The field will present itself when the field is ready. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that's sort of the stance that we were kind of fighting against in 2018, 29. And I think that was like the correct approach in those years because there were no incumbents.

But now we have this like actual incumbent class that just got to the knockout round of a World Cup. And all we're trying to do is is find depth around the edges. And if a Gio-Rena level player emerges, it will be very obvious. I mean, there won't need to be this back and forth. And yes, I am saying that at this point like a Jack McGlynn is not a Giorina level player. Right. So that's kind of where I'm at is the field has so much time now to make their case via club play, via whichever fringe camps they get invited to that I don't think we need to like clean house and say we're moving on from any of the role players in this World Cup who proved that they weren't there yet.

We can just let the field make their own case. Okay. And we'll be, you know, we'll be on top of that very much here at the Scuff podcast. a draft of, I think we kind of a little bit, the parameters that I played a key role in setting were not exactly right. And so it was a little confusing to people, but it's still a fun exercise. I think, um, what was the Keaton Parks rule? Why wasn't Keaton Parks the number one overall pick? Too old. He was in 1997. So we had some, we had some rules like you had to be born in 1998 or later, had to have less than five caps. And, um, yeah, I think,

it maybe was a little needlessly confusing. But still, it was fun. And there are a lot of exciting young players out there. And there's going to be a lot of, I think we're going to have a lot of fun as a fan base sort of tracking their development. It's awesome. And again, there's so little pressure for them to hit in mass.

Right? We need like two guys to hit. We need a center back to hit. We need a backup left back to hit. Let's get a striker to help us out here. then one center midfielder who could eat minutes and we're cooking. Well, I want more than eating minutes. I want somebody who's, you know, can challenge.

I think it's not too much to ask for somebody that can challenge Weston McKinney and Eunice Musa for that starting spot by 2026. Is it? Is it too much to ask? Oh, absolutely not. Is it greedy? It's, I mean, a little greedy, but no, it's not too much to ask. It's just like, I just think of it as gravy.

I just, I think at that point it's all gravy. Well, I like gravy. I want gravy served with a lot of different meals. It's, it's only gravy if we, I mean, I'm not trying to be argumentative, just sort of like, like exploring the point. It's only gravy if we're happy with a round of 16 appearance, you know, because I think, even though we spent nearly two hours discussing that Netherlands game and I, and I, my strong feeling was that we were, it was not a bad performance from the U.S. overall.

We got, we had some lapses that were very obvious and that cost us big. So it's not like it's necessarily a repeatable thing that the Netherlands is always going to beat us three to one. Even despite that, I mean, we got beat fair and square, you know. I mean, that was, we came to the end of the road and it was, it wasn't some tragedy that the result went the way it did. The result was fair. So I guess on the gravy point, I want us to be better than we were in this last World Cup in 2026. Don't get me wrong. I listed off like four pieces we needed to hit to then get after those four pieces hit.

Then it's gravy after that. So I still need a big payoff in four spots. Can you list them again, please? So we're talking about a centerback, back up, left back, a striker. and one more backup center mid that we trust and love. We love all of our boys, but we got to be able to trust them too in a World Cup knockout game or in a group stage so that the best players are a little fresher

going into the knockout. Okay. Well, we're not going to talk about GioRana too much. Well, a little bit, a little bit, but not too much in this episode. We did a full breakdown. I thought it was quite good on the Monday review of the entire,

set of events that we know. And then we had, we did spend some time discussing the revelations given by 29 on Twitter spaces late that Sunday night. It's a, it's a great episode. I think a lot of people are enjoying it. And you can get it if you join the Patreon for as little as $2 a month, up to however much you want to pay.

Up to a million. If you want to pay, it's a million dollars a month. You can. But $2 a million dollars a month, this pod turns into a nonstop geop. GioGate pod. Yep. It'll just be GioGate forever.

And then with that $2 a month patronage, you will get the Monday review delivered to your phone every week, even when we don't talk about GioGate. And then check out, you know, also check out the draft episode we did if you're interested in sort of, you know, who may break in and challenge Eunice Weston, maybe even Christian Pulisic for a starting spot in 2026. But we do want to talk about Gio a little bit, right? Just a little. For sure.

For sure. You guys' masterpiece on Monday, it was fantastic. And then like it's just, for me, this is just a joyous event for the national team because the beauty here is it's not happening during the World Cup, right? We're not having to do this in real time. We're just looking at a train wreck that has already been cleared from the field. Like, we've already cleaned the train wreck up. And now there are a couple of barbs being traded about about the train wreck and the fact that

no one was even supposed to know about it, but now people know about it. Yeah. And so this is like the perfect kind of drama because it has so little, like, effect on what's actually going to happen next. Yeah, we have three and a half years for the barb trading to quit. And while I was like lean, pretty strongly lean that, you know, we need a new manager. Greg has served his time. I've flipped completely with this.

And I can't imagine how anybody doesn't want Greg to come back to see how this drama continues to unfold. You're not serious. How do you not want this? If it continues to be a huge issue, then he'd be gone after a year. But like, how do you not want that first Nations League semi-final with Greg and Gio staring at each other? Like, that's entertainment. This is what we have to have.

Gio sitting on the bench, throwing his shingards. The microscope on everything. You know what I mean? Every look. I want somebody new. I want to get past it. I'm not that interested in another. But I hear you.

I hear you. It would do numbers for your, for your listenership. That's the key. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And then the other bit,

the other bit on Gio, the actual, you know, the sort of as it related to the World Cup. Because I'm getting, I'm getting hit from a lot of sides here because I was saying, you know,

even after that first Wales game, it was like, okay, clearly Gio, Rana, not playing in a World Cup game is not. a soccer decision. Like there's no way a manager doesn't have Gio Raina enter a game for soccer

purposes. And Bells, I got to kind of give you some real credit here because you were kind of cagey with the conversation on Monday. But like we have had some information shared with us before it broke publicly. And one of the things that was shared even before the Wales game was the thing that Gio, you know, said in his Instagram caption eventually, which is that he already knew he was going to be playing a limited role in this tournament. So that had been shared with us, and it was shared with us that it was because of an injury. So when people are saying now, like, how are you going to keep twisting and doing mental gymnastics to say that it was an injury, Gio didn't actually contradict that.

He just said, you know, he knew he was, or he'd been told that his role was going to be limited. So it totally continues to be consistent that it was limited because of injury. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe that was, maybe that was just like a smoke. screen back then a long time ago, like a preemptive smoke screen, uh, to save face or whatever else it might have been. But like that was, that was the rationale that we had when we found this out, um, was that he was, he was still a fitness concern. That there was at least disagreement about his fitness, you know, and yeah, like maybe, maybe geo didn't agree, but, uh,

and that honestly tracks really well, right? Like if you have a guy who's, who's cleared, like, We don't need to go too far back to see that a player who had been cleared, like Giorina, to play a certain number of minutes against a team like, say, Saudi Arabia can still injure himself. That green light to play a certain number of minutes isn't like a invincibility card where he cannot possibly get hurt in those 30 minutes that he's allowed to play. And Giorina got hurt against Saudi Arabia. And so the idea being, even if he's cleared to play a certain number of minutes, a coach could still decide, I don't want to risk him even for those minutes he's cleared to play.

in this game because I would sure love to have Gio Raina available for a later more important game. Right. And that was kind of always my, you know, non-s, not a soccer decision rationale was that you're, you're not just weighing, you know, 70% Giorina against your alternatives who could come into this game like a Jordan Morris. Because again, I think against the Netherlands, we saw that even when he's not at his best, geo-rena can still be a very effective player. but you're weighing it against

is this going to cost me Geo Raina minutes in future games? My only thing with the whole not a soccer decision statement is that it does seem to me I feel like I've said this a few times on the podcast but it does seem to me like there's an element of mystery here

where there is some soccer decision there's a soccer decision and a health decision sort of intertwine in a way we can't fully unravel and there are going to be some people who say there is no health decision here. You guys are doing mental gymnastics. There's no health decision.

You're doing mental gymnastics because you want to defend Greg Burhalter because you're getting paid by MLS. And guess what? We're getting nothing from MLS. We're just trying to figure it out. We're trying to call it like we see it. But where I may differ from you slightly is I think there is a little bit of a soccer decision there. Like I think we can get through this. I think we can win which game was it where Jordan Morris came on?

at the end? Was that Wales? Wales. I think we can get a goal with Jordan Morris here. We don't have to risk, or I think we can sort of do what we need to do with Jordan Morris here. We don't have to risk Giorina. As soon as you throw the word risk in there, it's not a soccer decision anymore for me. Do you know what I mean? Like that you're, you're, you're, by adding in that math. Oh, of course, of course, of course. But if you add in any math as far, like, you're not making that call if Giorina is fully healthy. So you're not having to do that. So there, there's Definitely soccer decisions of like, can we accomplish what we want without using him, but you're only doing that because it's at least partially no longer a soccer decision.

Right? I mean, I feel like there's no way around that. So for me, it's no longer a soccer decision or you can't call it a soccer decision. It's what you're factoring in his health here. Because if it was, if it was, you know, fully healthy Giorina, you're not asking that question. Yeah. Okay. I want to make one point in really very much in defense of you, which is that you've been criticizing Burhalter about all kinds of stuff over the last month.

Some of it, these like these mouth breathers on Twitter don't even, they're not even paying attention to, which was we had paying subscribers of the podcast angry with us for the way we handled the recap of the England game. I mean, they weren't explicitly angry with us, but they were kind of frustrated that we weren't more celebratory because you spent like half the episode of critical. criticizing, seriously, and I think it was great that you did, spent half the episode criticizing Burrhalter for sort of being lukewarm on it. We didn't go for it at the end. Like, a draw got us nothing. It didn't get us anything in terms of the math of advancing in the World Cup. And the last 15 or 20 minutes didn't look like we were even trying to score that hard. And I think a lot of people heard you talking about that.

And they were like, come on, Greg, have, come on, celebrate. We just drew England at the World Cup. And so it's just like, no, you're not. not going around defending Burralter for stuff. You're criticizing him for some stuff that people are, other people aren't even noticing. Well, now I feel, I feel obligated now to, to share that I've backtracked even from that England criticism, at least on the Discord, because, you know, after we saw our, our players' legs falling off in the knockout rounds, I was like, okay, now that we, now that I'm seeing the energy exertion levels here, maybe it was wise to just shut things down in England,

against England, even if it meant taking, taking the one point instead of going for three. because there's a cost. There might not be tournament advancing cost, but there's energy cost to having Eunice Musa go all out trying to chase a goal in the waning moments of a game. Right. So I've already caved on that bell, so maybe big MLS has gotten to me.

Yeah. I mean, I don't mind when people say that we're wrong. Like, that's fine. We're wrong sometimes. But when you go further and say that we're dishonest or something like that, that's just like you know goff that's what i say to that all right so i guess i guess we can just dovetail right into i thought georeno was very good in this in his 50 minute cameo uh against

the netherlands he's so smooth he's so untroubled a lot of hope for what he will bring to this team over this next cycle yep and maybe he he can be sort of a guide for the next georena you know here's how to here's how to handle bad news at the world cup And for the record, I don't, it's not like Burrhalter is in that whole geo thing. Burrhalter is innocent in some way, in my view anyway. Blameless, I think blameless is the better word than innocent. The situation, in my opinion, shouldn't have gotten to that point, you know. And maybe it's all on Raina.

We may never know fully, like, what the subtle sort of disrespects and so forth were that happened. but, you know, I would have liked it to have been headed off at the pass. Yeah. I mean, if it could have been handled better, I wish it would have been. That's a good way to put it. In the end, we get the best of all worlds because we get an incredible soap opera after still having, you know, the solid performances that we got in the tournament itself. Yeah.

If it could have been handled better, I wish it would have been. It's such, that's fantastic. All right. Should we go through the players who actually played at the World Cup, including Giorina? Yeah, up to it including Giorina. Okay. All right, let's start with Matt Turner.

Guy did pretty good. Yep. Did he do enough to become Arsenal starter is the big question? I don't know. I'm not that much of an Arsenal watcher. Ramsdale's pretty good, isn't he? Arsenal are not going to drop their starter in the middle of the season when they're top of the table.

I'm confident in that. Yeah. He was, Turner was excellent with his feet, which was, I think, the big surprise to me. He did what he needed to, shot stopping-wise, conceded only a penalty in the group stage. And then there was nothing he could do on those three goals from the Netherlands, except for perhaps point out Denzel Dumfries to Anthony Robinson. Yeah, the takeaway, if there even needs to be one, is that Matt Turner is well and clear our number one goalkeeper. And if there had been any doubt prior to at least the roster being announced way back when,

all doubts are erased at this point, I think, for literally everybody who follows the national team. Yep. Seems like a great dude, too. And I appreciated his little message to young players after the World Cup when he was on the stage with Lollos and Dempsey, I think. Anyway, Sean Johnson and Ethan Horvoth did not play, of course. Let's get to the centerbacks. So three of them played, Walker Zimmerman, Tim Ream, and Cameron Carter Vickers. Ream was excellent in this tournament.

What a story to not even be on the roster or not even be on most people's projected roster back in June. And then he was clearly our best centerback in this tournament, I thought. Just his physical limitations never really reared their head. He was calm on the ball. which was a huge asset to us. Such a massive difference between him at left centerback and, say, Aaron Long. And so, yeah, great. He's going to be a little old to play in 2026, I think.

Even the contrast between him and Zimmerman. In Zimmerman, the contrast between Zimmerman and Long is already Stark. So the contrast even between Ream and Zimmerman for comfort on the ball and passing, I think was on display there. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. He had this great tournament. and then as soon as the whistle blew against the Netherlands, he was like the only player on the squad

who immediately aged out of 2026, I assume. But you never know. Crazy things have happened. I'm sure, you know, if the roster stay at 26, there's a spot for a veteran player who's not going to play and maybe Tim Rhyme will be that player. Right.

I mean, there's no rush to get rid of him at this point, right? He's the only real ball playing centerback we have who's actually playing soccer. So depending on what happens with John Brooks at Benfica, or Chris Richard's getting healthier, Mark McKenzie cleaning up some error-proneness. Like, RIM could keep being the guy for through the summer, like through the Cup of America.

Yeah, through 2024. Like there's no, again, there's no hurry to get him out. I think he probably will eventually recede, but, you know, we got time. Chris Richards can play right back, right center back, and Riem can be our left center back. Yep. Yeah, speaking of right centerback, Zimmerman, what's your, we have sort of talked about him quite a bit already, but.

I mean, the mistake was a big one. It ended up having no real effect on the tournament, I guess, because I don't think even getting a win against Wales changes much of how the rest of the games play out. Just from the way Iran beat Wales, which made it the Iran game a must result anyway. We couldn't rest players. We couldn't rotate against Iran no matter what. we had to go out for some kind of a point. So just, you know, the consequences of the mistake weren't actually severe. So really it just came down to the limitations being on the ball.

Because defensively, aside from that mistake, he was really quite good. Yeah, he's so imposing physically too. But yeah, his lack of comfort on the ball sort of, I thought, became clearer in this competition than it had previously. So the question becomes can we get a guy who has the same defensive qualities who is even a little bit better in distribution? And again, Chris Richards is probably that player within weeks once he's actually playing again. Yeah. Not quite as good in the air as Zimmerman is, despite the fact that in Germany they called him Air Richards. And that could have been a big deal.

Again, that could have been another positive consequence for having Zimmerman in the starting lineup would have been set piece. dominant. I don't really put it on him, just like I don't put it on McKinney, that we couldn't really do much with our set pieces. They needed one more giant in the air. Yeah, and Ream was not that. Unfortunately, no.

And then, so does Zimmerman sort of, he sets a floor that Chris Richards has to build a floor above? Or is he, I don't know, what's up with, what happens with Zimmerman? now. So for this one, I think Zimmerman's incumbent status, like his reps with the squad were important for going into the World Cup, but I think now that we have this eternity before our next

really big tournament, I think his incumbent status loses a ton of its value to the point that like, there's essentially no harm here and just being like, okay, well, CCV is going to be, like, CCB could already be the new floor. I mean, it's not crazy. He might not be, but you could test that out and see if CCV gives you everything Zimmerman does minus a little bit of aerial dominance, dominant plus a little bit of better passing. So I really do think Zimmerman kind of immediately loses that holdover value that he had going into the World Cup because we don't need that level of familiarity or repetition over the next two years.

So it could be CCV, it could be Chris Richards. Those are probably the big two that I'd say warrant. warrant the time right away. After that, I'm less, less bothered. If it's, you know, Mark McKenzie getting some reps, if it's Eric Palmer Brown getting call-ups. Yeah, I want to see a lot of CCVN Richards over the next couple years.

And Zimmerman probably, you know, I would imagine he wants to spend some time with his family, spend some time with his family in March and not go to January camp. But maybe he does. Maybe he's a sicko. Maybe he just wants to go to January camp. I don't think we need to dump him.

Like, I don't think it needs to be dropped and be like, okay, we're moving on. You're going to be, how old's it going to be? 32 in 2026. Let me check that. It's only three and a half years. So yeah, you got to do the half year math now. Okay, so he's, okay, yeah. Did you say 33 and a half is how old is he able to?

No, I said, is he going to be 32? He, his birthday is May 1993. So, yeah, he'll be 33 at the next World Cup. Okay, so there you go. So he could, again, he's another one where I would definitely bet on the field to take over from him, even maybe to make a roster in 2026. But there's not really any urgency to dump him completely or even necessarily to drop him out of, out of like minutes contention. But I kind of, again, I kind of just expect it to happen. New manager will probably want to see what they have and won't be tied to, all right, but who do I trust?

because they haven't built up that kind of trust with anybody yet. Aaron Long, should we dump him? Unless the new manager is Jesse Marsh. Does Aaron Long actually increase in value if we're playing full Red Bull style? I don't know, maybe, but I still don't. I still kind of put him in the thank you for your service category. Yeah, again, he's another one who had a lot, I think a lot of his value was the trust that Burrhalter had with him. and trust at this point is just a kind of a low value trait because even if a guy you don't

trust screws up, you bring in a new guy and he doesn't do very well. So what? It's three years from the World Cup. We got time to have guys screw up, play themselves out of the pool, and then see what sticks. Okay. But for the narrative, it would be incredible if Jesse Marsh came in and Aaron Long was his starting centerback. I don't think I want either of those things, really.

Do we want Jesse Marsh to be the national team coach right now? I do not have a single pick that I want to be the national team coach. I don't even have any criteria. It doesn't have to be domestic, doesn't have to be foreign. Like, I really will not have, I almost never have any sense of who will be a good national team coach and who won't. I'm rooting for Jesse Marsh every weekend at Allen Road and across the fine land of England. but they gave up so many goals. They gave up so many goals.

Like crazy amounts of goals. And I don't know, you watch the World Cup, watch the other teams at the World Cup. We're not going to run a Red Bull style system and be successful in the international stage. That's not going to work. All right, fine, Bill. So you can have boring soccer.

I think we're stuck with that to some extent. Fullbacks, fullbacks. Fullbacks. Anthony Robinson, huge asset to us. He has his limits as a player too, but I don't know. Nobody's going to catch him before 2026, probably. No, this is one I'm definitely not betting on the field here. And it's just because he's set such a high floor at a position where it's so hard to find left footed, you know, players.

So he's definitely the, I think he's the betting favorite here to be our left back going into 2026. And, you know, I think he, I think he can still find ways to fit better and get more out of, like we can get more out of him. You know, he's not an excellent attacker, but he's not just like get it and lump it in. Our team just kind of played like that because there are plenty of times in qualifying and even in this tournament where he gets that ball out wide as it's getting fed to him. He's head up reading the play. And if a player is making an intelligent run, like he'll hit the pass. There were times like sergeants running diagonally into space in the box. And, you know, Jedi doesn't just fire a ball across.

He's like, it's a nice weighted pass into sergeant's path. And we now get to play soccer in the attacking box. So I think he's got some of those tools. I think by the Netherlands game, he was so gasped that it was impossible for anything to really happen for him. Besides, you know, make a lung busting run and then take a big swing at it. A lot of macro, a lot of macro movements from that game. Yeah. The micro adjustments were a bit off.

Fine motor was failing at that point. He and Pulisic don't have great chemistry together either. I think it's fair to say. But maybe that will improve over time as well. Well, new manager might flip Pulcicic and let Geo Raina cook over there with Jedi. Raina would be good at knowing when to ignore Jedi. Yeah. Yeah.

You'd have no trouble ignoring him. I would think. I don't know that Pulisic has much trouble ignoring him either. But, okay. fullback, starting fullback, Sergenio Dest, again, I thought he had an excellent tournament and he's going to be tough to unseat before 2026 as well. Yeah, I think so too, just because again, he's a very good attacker for a fullback. And he's a pretty good attacker, even if he weren't a fullback, which is going to be...

And a pretty solid defender as well, I think, yeah. And that's going to make him tough to replace. So like even Scali, who's doing, who's way ahead of where I think a lot of people would have put him going to, going to a couple years ago. What does he have like 20 to 30,000 Bundes League of minutes now? I don't think it's that many.

Take one of the zeros off. Yeah. But that's, you know, he's got this nice foundation, but there's no indication that he's ever, that he's going to be the attacking dynamo

that Sergenio Dest certainly can be. Yeah. I would have liked to see Scali spell some people at the end of some of those games, but he's not the he's not the level up solution, I don't think, at fullback. Did Scali stock go up just by seeing like what Shackmore was bringing at the? Yes.

100%. So seeing that and then also seeing Jedi, you know, totally running out of gas. And again, if Scali was an option to give him a little bit of time at Leftback, that could have bought Jedi a little bit, a few more fine motor moments in the last game. I thought, and we want to. don't need to belabor it, but yeah, more was pretty bad. And then Yedlin was actually, he actually was okay in the, in the Netherlands game in particular. Play that nice, that slide roll pass.

It was, nice, yeah. Yeah, he had a couple other, like, nifty touches in, like, the midfield took some risks that we had to take, you know, when we're trying to chase for a goal, like some technical risks. That was kind of, like, not what you expect from D'Andre Yedlin. he's another one who's going to be interesting whether he'll be like a good leadership guy as he as he gets older whether that trait isn't necessary now that we have you know 15 guys who are world cup veterans now that are all going to be starting well maybe not off 15 of them will start but they'll be they'll be getting a lot of starts right well okay so there's the full backs let's talk about the midfield it was Tyler Adams well

let's start with Tyler Adams. He played almost all the minutes. Do you play all the minutes at the six? I don't think he came off, did he? No, he played everything. Yeah. He did have the big laps where he didn't track Memphis to Pye or didn't order someone else to track him.

And that set us on a course to losing that game against the Netherlands. But otherwise I thought he was very good. He had some moments against Iran where I thought like, who is this Regista? you know. And the expectations for his passing, I think, are tend to be low. Yes. So a few good passes like that will put him above expectation.

But also I think that's baked into the valuation of him. Like if he can give you the defensive coverage and he can hit a couple of those passes, then he's, then that's pretty good. And that's pretty much what we're after. Yeah. And it's hard to talk about any one of these guys without talking about them as a unit because as a unit, they're so, they just have so much force. And, yeah, I won't use the word power, but it's, there's a, there's a dynamism to that midfield as a unit that is, I think, was, was eye-catching.

Not just to the people we played against, but to, like, people who are watching them in the World Cup. And I don't know who's going to, who's going to break through past these guys. Yeah, they were, they were everywhere, is what it kind of felt like, especially in the, group stage, you know, where, you know, again, you got to take all the statistical stuff with a grain of salt for the World Cup sample because we're playing three teams that are completely different than any other teams in any other groups. So the opponents aren't common. But our counting pressing numbers for the teams we played against were outstanding. And counter pressing numbers? Yeah. And so much of that is MMA. And their reading of the game and their willingness to cover that

ground. And I don't know, it is hard to think of somebody necessarily passing them for these starting for these starting roles. So what it comes down to is whether or not there will be some other delineation of roles in the midfield that could see one of them become redundant slash open up some good rotational possibilities. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that's a question we're going to be wrestling with for the next four years. It should be really fun. to wrestle with that question because we're not like the players we're talking about to to test in are not going to be it's you know we're not doing a sebastian legit case here where it's like all right but do we need legit in here it's going to be like okay but does georina fit that spot and that will be that's some that's good wrestling yeah yeah and i guess the thing specifically that i'll be wrestling with is do we get that same dynamism if it's just two of them and by sacrificing that dynamism, that reading of the game and that ability to, you know, win the ball, so forth,

do we sort of undermine the entire, the entire, all the good things that we had in this World Cup to try to, you know, to try to get more cutting edge on the field? I don't know. I mean, that's, that's the wrestling meet right there. This is your, you're Dan Gable talking to me right now. Right. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, McKinney, Adams was, I thought, quite good. McKinney was excellent, especially against England, played that ball against Iran to key the move for the goal.

Musa was just kind of what we've been praising him about for months, just able to progress the ball with his dribbling and really hard to take the ball from. And boy, is that, boy, is that an asset. Yeah, internet. That's so perfect for the international game where you can't run a team like clockwork, right? Like you just can't get a full team to run that tidily, that neatly together. So it sure is nice to be like, okay, well, we don't need any moving pieces to this clock. We just get the ball to Eunice and he can solve the problem with no real supplemental help. Yeah, he's a one-man clock.

So, yeah, so that's fantastic. If you guys didn't notice, Greg just kind of like went, no. Not really, Bells. I was trying to figure out if one of his nationalities was Swiss, but I didn't think it was. No. Italy, pretty close. All right. What were you going to say?

Well, I was going to say, so what we found out in this World Cup was that there aren't any midfielders after these guys right now. So it's hard to say Luca de la Torre stock went up. You could speculate that it went down. You could say this would be consistent. with Luca just being not good enough to be playing, or you could say combination of him being hurt, his current club situation just didn't lend itself to him getting into such like high intensity, high stakes situations,

and just cross your fingers for him over the next six months with club. Yeah. I wish he had gone to a club where he would play, would have been playing for the last three months. But, say, Levy. Christian rolled on, didn't play either. Kellan Acosta He played

He was one of the players who fell asleep on that restart Not fell asleep is too harsh But was a little bit slow to react To that restart that led to the penalty for Wales It was a throw in And he got behind He got caught behind Aaron Ramsey I don't know

Nothing I don't think it's not really changed either way Right? Is there anything about what he did in that World Cup that makes you think like, oh, we can get more out of him or oh, he's just not going to be up for it? I think it would be, with all due respect, I think it would be too bad if he is on the roster for 2026. I think that would be a disappointment that more people haven't come up and done a good job of asserting themselves over the next three and a half years. I think that's probably fair

And it'll be it'll be about like You know He was also he came in as an eight He was playing as an eight for us Which we've been saying for decades That's a bad idea Well it's one of those words like even even the spot We're like okay well he can he can be Tyler's backup because no one else can

Yeah So if that were the case that would have been one thing But the fact that we couldn't find another central midfielder to play as an eight Instead of Calacosta is what is what's like Make like I don't think Kelan Acosta will be in our eight depth chart in 2026. Yeah. I don't think so either.

All right. Let's move to the wingers. We got some wingers, don't we? We do. We do. Poul Six goal against Iran is, I think, probably my favorite men's national team goal of all time now. It's, I've watched that tactical video of it hundreds of times. It's so fun to watch.

So, yeah, he, that 40-yard. run he made, which you described so well in our recap of the game, was just heroic. It was incredible and so cathartic for that to happen that way. I thought, I went into the footage, you know, going back to watch the footage of the tournament. I went into the footage thinking I was going to see a whole bunch of wastefulness from him in the final third because we kind of, you know, we sort of discussed that a little bit that he would, he's a little bit more willing than Waya to just bang it off somebody's shins. And I think he is a little bit more willing than way it to do that.

I'm not backing off of that. But I don't think he was so bad in that way in the final third in this tournament. He was mostly tidy on the ball. Sometimes he would knock it back to Jedi. And then Jedi would just blast it across the box. Yeah, there's definitely an aggregate phenomenon between the two of them. Yes. Because between the two of them, one of them is going to be like, all right, time to just

I'm just slam this across now. Time to pull that trigger. Yeah. Whereas the other side of the field is Timwaya and Sergenio Dest. And whilst they may occasionally do that, a lot of times they're going to be like, ooh, time to get a little cute with this ball. Yeah. That's right.

There's definitely an aggregate effect on the left side. And I just think his ability to progress the ball. I mean, the numbers on that are pretty, again, grand assault because of the sample size and stuff. But the numbers on that are pretty impressive. if he's in like, he's on like the messy, uh, Namar category of the, of the plot graph. For receiving,

like the receiving on one axis and passing carrying on the other axis. Yes. So he is, he is either getting the ball in great spots, uh, receiving it to help the team get upfield or he's doing the one or he's the one making the pass or carrying the ball upfield. Yeah.

Yeah. So the issue becomes like, oh, we just, he just needed to have himself to, to pass. you want to get up there. And that's where Gio Raina comes in. Yeah.

I mean, another issue is, is he converting those moments into like actual goals and goal dangerous situations? Sort of he is. Sometimes he is. Well, so that's my big takeaway. And it'll go to all of the guys we've been talking about. And that's, that's, uh, the final third patterns. Like, that's, that's what we got to use this eternity for.

We got to, we got to find four more players, uh, that can, that can actually help us, you know, compete in World Cup knockout games, and then we need final third patterns like crazy. Yeah. I mean, Josh Sargent has only played like 100 minutes with this team in the last year and a half. So getting just some reps with a lead striker here could be all it takes. Let's get to the strike. Oh, we're not, we're not at the strikers yet.

We've got to finish the wingers here. Yeah, we talk about where. Oh, last thing on Pulisic is his ability to arrive in the box is just fantastic. I think he's become really, really good at that. Now, Wea, his movement is world class. He combines well with everyone. And I think he mostly makes good decisions in the final third and mostly executes those good decisions. I'm going to list off some things he did that I didn't like just to avoid the

avoid charges of bias or something. But he overcooked a cross against England. He undercooked a cut back against the Dutch after collecting the goalkeeper's parry of his pretty good shot from outside the box. He couldn't get the edge on Nathan Ake a couple times. And then, you know, really his worst moment, according to you, Greg,

was trying to head that looping, deflected sergeant shot at goal in the first half against Iran instead of trying to bring it down somehow. I've watched it a lot of times. I'm not sure it was going to be possible to bring it down without just getting buried. Well, I made it clear that if he didn't have, wasn't going to be able to bring it down, then he needed to invert and go for the overhead. That's true.

You did make it clear. Yeah, I forgot that. You said you should have done a bicycle kick. Yeah. If you can't wait for it because you're going to get tackled as you wait for it, then you just got to get the power on it somehow. So it's a, it's a physics game at that point. You just got a, you got a flip.

Yep. I'm totally on board with that. Yeah. I forgot. And you know, too. way it has that in his bag. You know he would go for it. He doesn't eliminate a lot of people on the dribble. So I think his effect sneaks up on you, like how good he is can sneak up on you if you're, while you're watching. But if you go

through his touches in the penalty area and his crosses, he is generally doing good stuff. Like he's trying to pull it back the way Denzel Dumfries does and just a lot of good stuff. Go ahead, Greg. Well, just going to say, he also has great technique on a bouncing ball. any ball like from distance. So he will, you will give you some shooting danger from distance where other players might just decide that

he can't even attempt this shot. He can get a shot off from distance that other players may not be able to. And we've seen that in qualifying in various other games. I have some numbers here. I love your paper rustling effect.

He does not have a single bit of paper in front of him. He adds that in post. He added the paper rustling. It's not true. Touches in the penalty area. Pulisic had 19. Way ahead, 14. Crosses.

Pulisic had 14. Way ahead, nine. Shot assists. Pulisic had seven. Way ahead three. Did you say crosses were 19 to 5? What did you say the crosses were? 14 to 9.

14 to 9. Okay. Yeah. And then passes received per game. Pulisic actually had a little bit fewer. 24.62 at the World Cup. Waya at 25.75. But I think a lot of that has to do with how much tiki,

ticky-tacky stuff goes on on the right side compared to the left side where it's just like, where they're just pinning their ears back and going for it. And then progressive runs is the big, big difference between them. Poulsick had 19 and Waya had five, which squares with the eye test. Waya doesn't try to dribble through a crowd very often. What about you? Go ahead, Greg.

Well, just when we, way I picks his moments, he picks his moments. And that's going to be, you know, very much like anecdotal. But it just pops when he's like, all right, time to do a give and go or time to, like, he just can suddenly blast beyond a back line. Yep. I mean, he made. This is, it's such a good thing that we have these two wingers on our team with the next

guy we're going to talk about in reserve. Yeah. In reserve. In reserve, at least meaning figuring out how to get. him involved. Right. So what is, so what, what, what did we learn about Gio Raina on the field? The dude is a maestro. He's a, he's an orchestrator. And so, uh, while, while he, you know, it won't work necessarily to, to run the same setup we're running right now and get pool sick as a winger and waya as a winger and rena as a winger, clearly two wingers, three guys. Uh, but I just want to

point out that Raina, when waya went off of the field and rena moved to the right side, that total freedom he has as a right winger in this setup was just so fun to watch. So fun to watch him go wherever the space was for him to get the ball and then to see what the next step was going to be. It was fun watching his mind work and fun watching him operate in that space. Unfortunately, we can't get all three of the players on the field in those same spot. So we're going to have to either figure out what the rotation is or figure out how else to set up where they can still be doing the things they're good at. And man, that's what the next 18 months is going to be all about.

Yeah, what are we going to do? How are we going to do it? I guess the 4-2-3-1 is the sort of obvious solution. I was not unimpressed by Gio Raina false nine. Did I say that clearly enough? I didn't think it was dangerous enough. So I don't know. And it was mostly because of Gio not being or that space.

Like there was plenty of times where that striker space was empty, the way people worried it that it would be if it was Ferreira playing as a nine. So I thought there were a bunch of times where we were doing some decent attacking, but that real dangerous area just was not accounted for. Not saying it can't get better. That's the first time we ever did it. It's a World's Cup knockout game against the Netherlands. So it's certainly not something you got to throw out.

But, I mean, I did think the difference was significant. when you move geo into that half-space operator role with a real nine up ahead of him. Yeah, okay. Try everything. Try everything. There's no limit to what we can try with these permutations with these guys. Yeah, we do have to figure it out. So the other wingers who played were Brendan Aronson, who I think will be useful in various ways

for this national team over the next few years. But I don't, you know, it's hard to see him making a big impact in a world. Cup game unless he raises his level. That's my, that's my opinion. So he was, he was better as a winger against Iran than he was as a center midfielder against the Netherlands or in the other games where he's playing center mid. But what he did give us was a central midfielder who could eat minutes. So that was one of the things we talked about. Like he did eat some minutes when we, when McKinney could only go 60 in these games, which is valuable. And it's just, you know, we might want more from him because, you know, of sort of the hype that's following him as he's moved to the

Premier League and just the energy that he brings to every time he watch him play soccer. But even if he's at, even if he never gets beyond just being a guy that we can throw in at center midfielder for 20 minutes in a game, that's still pretty useful. The issue was if we were using him there and Rayno wasn't available, then we had no one to spell Pulisic and Wea. Yeah. He did have that. did have a good stretch of minutes right after he came on against Ron,

where he made some good things happen. And again, that was in that winger roll because he came on for pool sick after the, after the contusion. So we'll just be, we'll just be watching, Brenda, see what happens over the next couple years. Jordan Morris got some garbage time minutes.

I don't think there's that much to say about his time on the, on the field. Let's get to Stryker. I feel like Josh Sargent's going to, set a good floor at striker for us. It's a real shame that he wasn't able to play against the Netherlands because I think he was, I think he was primed to be playing pretty well. He had a very good outing against Tehran.

He also got on the field for Norwich City this past Saturday, so that was a week after the game he missed against the Netherlands. It must not have been that serious of an injury. Yeah, he started and went the distance for Norwich, right? Yeah. And also played well. I thought. Didn't look, didn't look gimpy or anything.

He's just really good with his feet. Well, you know, he's not always good with his feet, but he's good enough with his feet. He's increasingly physical. He didn't really get the ball played into his feet against Wales, but he did against Iran. And I thought he made the most of it. That's basically it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really tidy, really good caboose work.

And then you just get into, again, you know. get into reps now. We got to just get him reps with this first team. Again, not to hammer on this, but let's hammer on it. All of his prior reps with the national team were with an almost unrecognizable group than what he is playing with now in this World Cup. So his first game back in and he gets to play with MMA and he gets to play with Poole Sick and Wea,

that wasn't happening when he was playing before. So, you know, it was a lifetime ago. It was a whole pool ago is how it feels even though it was just, what, September of 2021 was his sort of last competitive inclusion prior to the World Cup. And so now he gets to come in here. And I think that's the obvious place to start building reps is Sergeant in the final third with Pulsick, with Wea, with Raina, with some combination of the MMA midfield, Destin Jedi. And we just have such a great foundation now to build on.

And I think he is the obvious person to keep in that role. Yeah. Isn't it true that his last minutes in September 2021 were playing right wing at Honduras? He got yanked at the half. Yeah, he was playing in like that three, that three, four three, where he was playing like the right winger. And the whole team was a mess. And he got, he got pulled and wasn't called in again until summer. Berthelter, what are you doing, man?

Well, his replacement stepped in and did fine for the qualifying run. at this point I think I think sergeants the clear foundation piece and it's it should be should just be an exercise in attacking fluidity I'm not saying it's going to be fluid I'm saying that's what the exercise is yeah that's the goal attacking fluidity the other two strikers were had you right who scored a very fun goal no one can ever take it away from him I expect him to be you know contending for a spot on the national team for the next few years still quite young. I don't personally rate him as highly as Pepey or Sergeant over the long haul,

but I can't really complain about, I don't think I can complain about his performance in this tournament. Perhaps his effort at the end of the Iran game was a little, I don't know, effort might not be the right word, but like he wasn't as locked into the needs of the moment maybe as he could have been. I don't, like, I was going back through his touches and there aren't too many touches where it's like, oh, that wasn't quite right. So the one that stands out is the decision to shoot against Iran instead of taking it to the corner.

But that's still just like in the moment on the ground, like, okay, he made the call that he thought he could, you know, get a good shot off. And then he just absolutely did not get a dangerous shot off. Yeah, it's not like some egregious error or anything. Yeah, otherwise, he was quietly tidy like in almost all phases. And same against another one. Like he didn't have that much to do other than the big moments where he got played in by the Netherlands and kind of made a mess of it. And then his ridiculous goal. And then the Pulisic sequence.

But none of those are like hugely egregious. Like he's in good spaces when the ball was coming to him other than that super heavy touch he had in that one big moment. Like his touch was pretty clean throughout. Which you can't say for Ferreira. Ferreira wasn't the the finesse guy was nowhere. year as clean on the ball as Haji Wright was in the moments Haji had had it played into him. Yeah. Yeah.

So Haji's in the hat, man. Haji's got to be in the hat for sure. I don't know. I don't know where a new manager will or when the new manager will decide to try Haji out, but I'd be shocked if he just disappears completely. Well, you know, Clint Dempsey was criticized his pressing at the end of the Iran game. And maybe I was, maybe I was just, uh, you know, swayed too much by what Dempsey said.

But when I went back and watched the end of that game, I thought, yeah, he's a little bit, you know, he's a sub who's come on this game that we got to, we got to get three points here. I'd like to see a little more, um, energy from him in that way. But I could be that I'm just, you know, I heard what Dempsey said and then I saw what I heard, but. Just want that hustle.

Got to have more hustle. Hustle has its place. I don't know what the, I don't know if he was told to hustle or, he was told to just keep some things in his cover shadow, it's hard to know. Yeah. I mean, it's not like we were under the kosh at the end of that game, but there was some, there was a little bit of uncertainty in the air.

Jesus Ferreira wasn't his tournament. No, he's not, his stock certainly didn't go up. Again, he, he was put in for 45 minutes against the best team we played against. Is that, is that fair to England? Yeah, that is fair. It's a dig on England, so I'm going to allow it. I'm going to allow my own comment. But he wasn't, he wasn't particularly good.

And by that, I mean, he had no real, like, positive moments. He had some moments that were maybe useful, but not in any way, like, unexpected. Right. And then he had several negative moments that were very much unexpected. You wouldn't, you shouldn't expect that level of negative contribution. Also, still very young. He has a, he has a big successful career. ahead of him.

Yeah, I don't know how much like a new manager would see that and be like, oh, this guy, this guy definitely can't contribute at this level. It would just remain to be seen. But he certainly didn't, like, affirm positively that he can do something at this level. Now, now that we've gone through all the players, yeah, we've mentioned everybody. What do you think? Do you, I'm marking it. I guess one thing I do when I look at this is I say outside of Zimmerman,

who was the lesser of our two centerbacks, but still quite good. Outside of Zimmerman, all the guys from MLS who played were at best okay. Either they were okay or they didn't play or they were bad. And is that, tell me why I shouldn't become more of a Eurosknob. Well, I think you should, I think it's okay to be a Euro snob and that like recognizing that our key players play in Europe because better players play for better teams and there are better teams in Europe. And so that's where our key players are. I'm not, it shouldn't come as a shock that are most of our backup players who are a lot of the MLS guys didn't look very good in the World Cup. I thought you were going to bring up the out of season thing because they were.

all out of season. I don't, so I don't really, for the World Cup itself, for the actual games, like no caveats, right? Like, I don't care that it's out of season. I don't care if you're young. Like, you're, we're evaluating how you did at the World Cup

because that's what you were called up to do, this World Cup. Not, you didn't get called up to gain experience for 2026. Like, you got called up to help this team win a game that day. So how would you do at that? Right. So, I don't, I mean, who were other subs, right?

Like Brendan Aronson was the other sub and he's a Premier League player who starts every match for the Premier League. So I was expecting him to contribute about what he did. Most of the guys in MLS are not what I would consider like are key best players.

And so they performed about where you'd expect reserve U.S. men's national team players to play. That's kind of how I think of it. Yeah, no, that's that all tracks. I guess my thought is just like

you know, I was saying in the lead up to the World Cup, Burrhalter's going to make the, you know, make some pragmatic decisions with his lineups

because it's, it's crunch time and there's no more time there's no more time for messing around. And I think similarly when you watch the team play

against the best competition that it has played, you know, basically since we started this podcast in the most intense games that they've played. You get a, it just has a real, this has an instant winnowing effect, an instant clarifying of like who's got it and who doesn't. And, um, which you don't have when we play Grenada.

It's just confusing. It's a little bit, it may be not confusing for some people who are better at watching soccer than me. But when I watch it against Grenada, I can't even really tell who's good on our team, you know. Um, but now you, you, we play the Netherlands. We play England. I think Iran and Wales. Wales was our least good opponent, but both worthy opponents at the World Cup.

You see who it just becomes clear who's good and who's not. I got to say it makes me more sympathetic to the idea that you have to play in Europe to be ready for the intensity of this kind of thing. I'm not saying I believe that, but I'm just saying it's tempting to me. It's tempting. For sure. I think it's just it comes down to like to make a difference in a World Cup knockout game. I mean, a guy might be able to just sort of play out of his mind for a game, but really we just need really good players. And we only have like 10 or 12 of those players right now.

And so, you know, I would love for us to have a bunch of Champions League knockout players that we can fill our bench with, but we just don't have that right now. So this is just sort of where we are, right? So you could drop some of the MLS guys, and I think there are plenty of players who could make a case to be at about the same level, but I don't know that we left any Netherlands difference makers out of the lineup or off the field. Right. Is that about right? Or do we think, I mean, is it that because Pennied made the flight over there and didn't play very much in the Bundesliga,

but is now playing in Holland that he would have been the difference maker in this game? I don't think Peppy would have been the difference maker in that game, no. I think he might have played a little better than Ferreira did. I mean, it wouldn't be hard to play better than Ferreira did. Sargent, I think, would have

helped us a lot in this game, partly because we saw he could do it against Aron, you know? All right. Anything else? No, I feel like we still have a kind of a break before the club games kickoff. I mean, we'll probably enjoy watching the World Cup final, despite the lack of Americans in it. Very few Americans.

Very few Americans. Take a part in that. And then we still have a sort of a break. I don't know, man. It's tough. It's tough. I kind of just don't care. And I just want to enjoy it.

How about you? Are you like, do you want Messi to get his? I do. I do want Messi to win a World Cup. I love that man. I mean, not really, but I like him a lot. All right. I'll take it. I'll take a messy trophy. I'm always rooting against Europe when it's, you know, I'm pro-Western hemisphere.

I mean, we spent all of the 2018 World Cup talking about Drew. I felt like we talked about him for the entire tournament. Yeah. What a man. What a man he is. And then this Mbappe kid like seems to be pretty good and it's pretty fun to watch him. We're a bit spoiled. It's a pretty awesome World Cup final to have. have. We got a lot in store in 2020, at SCOFT. I think we're kind of going to take a little bit of a break here towards the end of the year.

We'll do the Monday review. On Monday, we'll do a sort of a year-end awards episode slash cycle recap, the week after Christmas, so the last week of the year. And then we're going to get rolling with some different kinds of stuff in the new year. One of the things is we're going to try to have a regular episode about women's soccer, probably with Vince and Tara and me. Hopefully, Greg, we can loop you in on that.

I'm in for all that. We got a lot of women's soccer games happening in January. So tons of, tons of recaps that you are on the hook for, my friend. And then, you know, the U-20 World Cup, the Women's World Cup. So lots to look forward to. I also have a interview booked in January with Joe Machnick, the Hulowl's expert. Yeah. Dr. Joe. No, this is great. Like we got to have, you got to have the cycle wind down episode, but I'm like already piecing together what the calendar looks like, the big roadmap to 2026.

So we got to have an episode where we lay that out too. Like what are the milestone moments here that we can start planning our lives around? Cop America too. We mentioned that already. But that's a big deal if we if we get to play in the Copa America, which has been reported. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.