Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #355: A window-by-window overview of what's ahead in 2023

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

Greg and Belz talk through the year ahead for the men's and women's programs. First a brief discussion of the urgent tasks ahead of the USWNT, then whether Berhalter can continue, then the year of (hopefully) experimentation that's ahead for the men's program.0:30 intro and USWNT6:15 Berhalter and the USMNT--Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes (more than 50 last year), plus access to the Discord including live call-in shows, 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. Hey, Greg. Bells, how are you doing? I'm pretty well. Pretty well. Rainin hard here in North Georgia on this Thursday morning. We are going to, let's see, what are we going to do? We're going to give kind of a big picture overview of 2023,

or at least the first half of 2023 as we sort of really kick off the 2026 cycle. And on the women's side, as we enter. into the home stretch ahead of the 2023 World Cup. Yep. The women, of course, have a greater sense of urgency because it's a World Cup year and because we ended 2022 with, you know, three losses and a win and not a lot of attacking verve. We talked about much of that in WOSA Wednesday, which is our sort of new once every two

week's episode with Tara and Vince and me. But we should probably quickly work through the, upcoming schedule for the women. First, they play two friendlies in New Zealand against New Zealand next week. That's Tuesday and Friday. Right. So we're bringing a full strength squad into what is basically a dress rehearsal, I think, to get everyone who a lot of people who will be on the roster in 20, 23 in June and July.

June, July, July August. July August. July August. Getting them acclimated with the time zones, the, you know, the logistics, because both friendlies in New Zealand, all three of our group stage games in New Zealand. You and Taryn Vince noted that New Zealand's team will be anything but full strength. They will be severely weakened. Even at full strength, you know, they're a tier or two below our women's team. I'm comfortable saying talent-wise. So this could be, this could be this actual soccer on the field.

Could also feel very dress rehearsal-ish, not really full speed here. Yeah. Am I actually totally misunderstanding what a dress rehearsal is. Yes, dress rehearsals are supposed to be full speed. This will be like a workshop. Well, maybe the workshop can be just a lot of attacking final third attacking patterns. That would be perfect if we just workshop attacking third patterns and decisions and execution. In New Zealand, I would love that because then after that in February we have the She Belief Cup, which should see the talent in the competition improve significantly,

in part because it's a full FIFA window, so everyone has access to their best players, and also because our opponents are Canada, then Japan, then Brazil. Well, you've bemoaned the fact that we didn't bring sort of more of a workshop attitude to our easier fixtures in 2022. And so, you know, maybe Vlako will do that here. Well, let's hope so. And again, late 2022 in those losses to England and Germany, who else did we lose to? Spain. Spain. That's where we, I mean, that might have been Flotko's first inkling that we absolutely had to do some workshopping. And hopefully he has had that inkling that has inklinged because I think we do. And so let's hope that he thinks the same thing and tries out some new ideas. in January and then really gives them the full test in February.

The contests in February are against Canada, Japan, and Brazil should be good games with good competition like you mentioned earlier. Anything you're looking for from those games? I imagine we'll have a similar roster to the one that we have for these New Zealand games. Yeah, the pool already seems pretty tight, right? I mean, there's Macario who might be coming back from injury around February, but that still might be too early for her. and then

Seems iffy. Yeah, and then it's going to be Smith and Rapino who were both out injured for this January trip might be sort of back in the mix and a lot of that could depend on how some of our other players

acquit themselves. Sophia Smith is going to be in the roster. I mean, there's no question about that when she's healthy. I don't know if there's a chance that some of the, like a Trinity Rodman

and Midge Burr's can knock Rapino out. I mean, it's, it seems like Rapino is sort of locked in as player mentor for the rest of this cycle. Yeah, Vlako loves her so much.

Don't we all? Don't we all? Then there are the FIFA windows in April and June, which will presumably be for tune-up games, and then, of course, the World Cup in July and August. I say we should win the World Cup. We're, we'll be, I'm sure we'll be betting favorites. Do you think we'll even slip out of the top of the, uh, the Vegas lines?

Maybe if we I guess a little bit depends on what happens against Canada, Japan and Brazil, but Yeah, I suppose that's true. It's going to be awesome and it's, it is cool. I know that every cycle it's like the rest of the world's catching up. But I mean, I think it's clear

that the level of soccer has improved around the other top countries. And that has been fun to watch and it's been fun to watch us try to, you know, take on those higher levels of play. So I'm, again, I'm super excited about the World Cup, and part of it is because the level of plays increasing and it's like, all right, are we going to raise our standard too? We've got some talented players out there. Yeah, we do.

We do need to raise our standard. Two notes. One, I've mentioned this quite a few times on the podcast lately, but we will be in Nashville for the Japan game, which is at 2.30 p.m. local time at Geodas Park where Nashville SC plays. And Vince is going to be there. So we, meaning you and I. my family will be there. I believe some of your family will be there and then Vince will be there too

and several other members of the Discord. So we're trying to get a big group together. We try to have some fun, play some soccer. Haven't quite sorted that out, but we're working on it. The other thing is, like I said earlier, check out the WOSO Wednesday episode. I think we're just getting started with that, but I think it's going to be good.

First episode was great. Love the first episode. So well done to you, Tara and Vince. Thank you. Let's move to the men and probably have a little longer discussion since you and I haven't. We haven't convened since the Gregorian calendar switched over. Not as anything happened in that. I mean, we're only 12 days into January, so I couldn't have missed much. A few things have happened.

We will. Well, let's talk briefly about the coaching situation first. It won't be Zadon. It won't be Zadon. It won't be Martinez. Martinez. No, it won't be Roberto Martinez. According to Jeff Carlisle, it's probably not going to be Greg Burrhalter either. And I'll play the clip and then I'll explain why I think it's meaningful. Just a second. What do you think? Where does this scandal leave Greg Burhalter and his candidacy

moving forward to get another four years with the U.S. Yeah, I agree with you guys. I mean, I don't think there's a way that Greg Berhalter can continue as manager of the U.S. men's national team. So that was on Football America's earlier this week. And, you know, it's informed speculation from Carlisle. But I think it's fair to say he's the dean of the men's national team journalists at this point. And it is worth listening to when he says something like this. Yeah. And it's interesting because I'd be curious to hear him expand on that because he says he can't continue, right?

I don't think he can continue. And I'm inclined to agree. I don't necessarily think it's because of the drama. As I'd said, when the initial geo stuff broke out, for me, that was all the more reason to keep him because that's fantastic drama. You know, almost having to send a player home, all the intrigue around that, how it was managed to stay quiet through the tournament and only came out after. Like, I love that kind of drama around the team. But then it gets into like some real serious non-sport stuff. And for me, like I understand, you know, and as Greg Burhawler's saying,

said in his comments to Harvard. This, the part of this story. His comments to Harvard. Is that, is that correct? I don't even think fair enough. He was just standing outside Harvard speaking to it. No, the part of the story gets very like, you know, unintertaining very quickly when it's talking about, you know,

a trauma that a real human being had to endure 30 years ago. And while that trauma never should have been shared, you know, with that person's name. attached to it. Like everyone's saying it's none of our business. To an extent I disagree with that. Like if our, the head coach of our team has charges of domestic violence against them, I don't think that's none of our business. It shouldn't have, no one should have been named for the person you not to actually, you know, suffer the trauma. But I do think that's to an extent our business. And I don't actually think that when you have, when you have that history that, you know,

Greg has admitted to having that I really don't think that that person should be the face. of the men's national soccer team program. So for me, that actually is like, okay, the reason it came out was obviously like bad faith from the Raina's, but the incident Greg described, I'm like, okay, well, then he shouldn't be our coach anymore. You know, I didn't play the whole clip just because I wanted to kind of move along, but that's basically what he said. Okay.

Even though it was a long time ago, it's just, U.S. soccer's in a situation where they can't, that can't be. I mean, they didn't use those exact words, but he can't be the face of the program. Yeah. And in that case, yeah, I'm on the same page as Carlisle. And, you know, there will be coaching candidates. There's a pool of coaches we can draw from that won't have that history. So I want to draw from that pool.

By the way, Jim Curtin, so similar subject, but slight change of subject, Jim Curtin was quoted by Jonathan Tannenwald earlier this week saying something that I thought was kind of interesting. He said essentially, 2026 is such a big deal that every coach in the country should be willing to even be an assistant to sort of get things done. So he's sort of like the spirit of what he's saying is it should be all hands on deck. And I'm, I think implicitly he's saying I'm willing to be one of those hands on the deck. I mean, we'll see. But that's kind of, it was cool to see him say that. He's often talked about as one of the potential candidates for the job.

I'm not saying I'm a big fan of that of him being the next national team coach just saying I thought the quote was interesting Yeah you could read it as him you know volunteering to be the kit man or it could be him you know making a play To his who he hopes will be his assistance if you can get the job Right right right Yeah I don't really I mean the same thing when when we were going through this in 2018

Through the search for a coach I really don't have a lot of strong takes on who's going to be a good coach for the national team it's really hard to have like a home run guarantee ahead of time or to have like a certain flop. I mean, who knows Anthony Hudson's going to put on a masterclass in his interim year of 2023 and he's going to be the guy. But the one thing I do want to say is I do wish that like the search and maybe it will would include some more like obscure players names. I don't feel like it has to be like a name that we've all heard of before. I don't know that that is, you know, necessarily like the pool. should be restricted to. So a couple of, you know, examples that have been kind of tossed out in the Discord

would be like a Vincent company, somebody who's turned around a team style very quickly in short order at the club level, even if he doesn't have a long resume. And I'm not saying we can just go out and get whoever we want who's done this, but, you know, just some of those less sort of heralded or less recognized names in the coaching game, rather than the same ones that always pop up every time there's a head coaching search. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. And I think it should be somebody, ideally for me, it'd be somebody who's a little bit of an outsider and not part of this sort of cabal is a freighted word.

But, you know, this like tightly knit group of graduates of ACC universities and people who grew up in, you know, two or three specific towns in New Jersey. It's like, come on, we got to do a wide. search, bring in somebody from outside, make it an actually self-sustaining system that isn't like a family business. Like, you know, we follow Mark McKenzie closely. Like the guy who just took over at Gank, right, has, he was at Mechelen, Mechelen in the Belgian League before and brought them to like a respectable level, takes over at Gank and they're just cruising through the Belgian League right now.

And I don't think they've brought in a ton of big money players. They've unloaded a couple of centerbacks for decent money. But like that kind of a turnaround is kind of what catches my eye to see if that maybe that guy has the right vision, the right chops to install something. And again, I'm not like, oh, it has to be somebody foreign. But I just think that we should be looking at those kinds of resumes as well. Put them all in sort of the binder and pour over them for a bit. Right. Yeah.

Let's do it. Come on, guys. Come on, Brian. Come on, Ernie. So first thing on the schedule is, well, big picture. It really is a year for the men in which new players have a chance to announce themselves, I think. We have a U20 World Cup. We have a U-17 World Cup in November.

Two trophies available to the men, but these are trophies, the Nation's League trophy and the Gold Cup trophy, that won't necessarily demand full-strength rosters from us. So there's hopefully time and time. room for experimentation in lots of windows too lots of FIFA windows aside from the things I've mentioned yeah not just room for experimentation but almost like necessary experimentation and I don't mean necessary because the team calls for it like our 2026 goals demand experimentation right now but more like the players who would normally make up our best strongest group should not

necessarily be playing all these windows they should actually be arrested which means that the the guys under him will be sort of experimental inclusions. You know, case by case, but the World Cup itself wasn't necessarily grind, but the qualifying leading up to it, following like the COVID pause, like it has been an absurd 18 months, 24 months for so many of the players who had big roles in qualifying in the World Cup for us that for all I care, like take the whole year off if you need it. Otherwise, maybe just come back and play Mexico in the nation's league semis and final. Yeah.

You know, I actually think that's sort of the perfect time. Should we run through kind of the calendar quick? Yeah, well, okay. So Camp Cupcake first. We'll get a roster here at some point. Anthony Hudson in charge, Mikey Varus helping him. It is kind of meaningless, I suppose. Totally meaningless.

And I think that everyone realizes it, including U.S. soccer. And I think that's why we don't even have a roster. It's obviously not going to be a three-week camp. And it doesn't need to be. It's an interim coach. The group that's going to come together here is a totally one-off group that will like never assemble again. So it's not like we need to get them a ton of reps together. There's no face time with whoever the coach will be presuming that it's not going to end up being Anthony Hudson long term.

So yeah. So this can't. If we don't even have put that out into the universe. If we didn't already have these friendly scheduled, we could totally bin this whole camp and it would not matter one bit. So I get why they're like not having. an extended thing. They're going to fly the guys in like the day of the game, play it and send them home, send them back to their preseason.

Okay, so March, then March comes, while the Camp Cupcake games are against Serbia and Columbia, the 25th and the 28th. So not next week, but the one after that. In March, we play two not very daunting opponents. First, Grenada, and then El Salvador, who we are competing with for top of the group. in our, you know, to get to the semis. I think. So El Salvador's already played all their games, but us.

So they only have one game left. Oh, okay. And so we, as far as I know, we need to just tie El Salvador and not lose to Grenada by a lot of goals. Okay. All right. Well, we're going to make it to the semis. So probably, I mean, you know, unless something really terrible happens. But you still don't think we should bring in.

anybody from the World Cup for this window? So I'd go case by case here. I actually, for me, my ideal March window, I don't, I even have to backtrack on that. I don't have one because I don't know if we're going to have a coach yet. If we don't have a coach yet, which would be fine. I don't think we even need to have our coach in place by March. It doesn't really matter again. For my own curiosity, I'd love to see some of the obscure European players who will be

available since it's a FIFA window. So that's what I'd want to see just as a sort of a, as sort of a, a, fun time. And then as far as the World Cup players, I'm just, I'm just thinking like case by case of who hasn't had an exhausting 24 months. So like a Cameron Carter Vickers, yeah, he went to Qatar, but he wasn't involved in qualifying up to that. He's not like been nonstop for all this time.

Bring him in. Chris Richards, bring him in. You know, he hasn't played much at all. Timway. Timway, I should probably come in. Timway, maybe. No, I would not bring Timway in. Like, leave him home.

But maybe a Gio Raina? Maybe a G. No, I think we should bring Timway in because he's not playing for his club. I mean, unless he gets a move. If he gets a move and he starts to. I mean, he's playing. That's the thing. Like he's grinding every week.

He's doing all the things that a player does other than racking up tons of minutes. But he was in all of the qualifying windows last year and then leading up to the World Cup. So he has just been, you know, he hasn't had a pause. He hasn't had a chance to take a breath. And so those are the guys I just want to be able to breathe for a bit. and not have them go in their first international break go straight back across the ocean and play again. I wanted to have that kind of a mental break.

March could be the fun roster, and it's still like the reps won't necessarily matter if there's no new coach, you know, the FaceTime with the coach. I don't need them getting FaceTime with Hudson. But there are so many cool names we could bring in there. Like you could get Peppy back in, you could get D.K. back in. Malik Tillman, you know, Georgie.

Taylor booth. Yeah, like a Taylor booth coming in. Like there are a lot of interesting names who could be like that one level below are real key core players. And you could start to find players who aren't going to be a huge drop off over the next 18 months while the true depth chart sort of sorts itself out. Yeah. I also should mention Alex Mendez. I'd like to see Alex Mendez in that camp as well. So March happens.

We most likely qualify for the semis and the semifinals of Nations League. And then in May, the U-20 World Cup in Indonesia, the original bailiwick of the SCuff podcast. I'll be watching with great interest because I think we have a good team and a team that plays well together. You know, they sort of ran through Concaf qualifying last summer. But I think the thing we're the sort of other thing I'll be watching for is is there anybody on this team who can maybe start helping the senior national team pretty soon? Because nobody sort of jumps out as that, I don't think, from this team, even though they play really well together and their brand of soccer is pleasing to the eye. And so I think what we're going to have here is what we'll get is a good preview, a good fun preview of who we can keep watching. watching later as they all go back to their clubs.

But I don't think it's going to be anything where it's like, oh, we need to get this guy into camp tomorrow. And part of that is just because, again, where we are in the cycle and what the status quo is now and the status quo is 10 to 12 really good players for the senior team and then trying to build the depth around them. And we're three and a half years out. And I'm seeing people saying that's going to go fast and it kind of will. But three and a half years is still a long time.

I'm trying to think, you know, relative to the Qatar World Cup, it'd be like, we're talking, that was that was Gold Cup 2019, right? So if you're three and a half years out, is that even right? Yeah, 2019 Gold Cup. Like, you've got a minute. The 2019 Gold Cup, it was not vital that we get all of the fringe pieces correct. You know what I mean? Like, take a look at some guys, but it's not so important. It's not imperative that you get all of the right fringe pieces in camp or you won't have

time to do it. We're nowhere near that threshold where we got to integrate the guy now or it's too late and his ship sailed and we can't do it before the World Cup. We have an eternity to do this stuff in relative terms. Yeah. And it's going to be, you know, we're just going to have to sort of let the pool simmer for a while and see what happens. Because like that 2019 goal cup final, Josie Altador started that game and Michael Bradley, I believe, started that game too. Oh yeah. Yep, that was Bradley and Josie. Basically an. entirely different era. Josie's last game for the national team.

Is that right? Yeah. The last game was the lost to Mexico and Michael Bradley's was the lost to Canada. Maybe this January will be their sendoff. I saw somebody suggest that. Don't you kind of doubt it? It will not be. It definitely won't be.

I think I actually like your idea better, which is to just let the U-20s run it and actually get them reps that will be useful since they're going to go compete in a World Cup in May. Maybe that's what they're trying to decide now. whether to just make it a U-20 camp. In June, we have the semifinals and finals. It should be fun. The last one was awfully fun.

If you remember, it was Clint Dempsey's debut as a TV commentator, as a studio analyst. That guy went flying over the wall. Polisic hit the penalty to win it and shush the crowd. And they got that iconic image. And then a bunch of people were throwing stuff at them. And it was a, it was, it was chaos, beautiful chaos. So, so for me, this is the perfect, assuming you qualify for this, this is the perfect time to bring the, the real band back together.

Because, you know, there's, there's the mental aspect of it too. And so when I'm talking about giving people a mental break, not only, if you bring them in March, not only are you like not giving them a break, but you're asking them to get themselves back up for a game down in Grenada in El Salvador. and after they just went through the World Cup and then played in the World Cup. I feel like that's just asking a lot. Yeah. But you bring them back for Mexico after they've had that little break in March

and it's like, okay, come playing this and then you get the rest of your summer off. I feel like mentally that's a much easier ask. Yeah. Come get up for this Mexico game. Assuming we get Mexico, I don't know when we'd play them in the semi or if we have to beat Canada

or whoever to get to them in the final, which we shouldn't take for granted either. But either of those, like any of those name opponents that are going to get up for it, semi-final and final. So I think that's the perfect time to get the full group back together,

full strength, and hopefully by then we are not still running with Anthony Hudson. Hopefully Vince and Company's running the show at that point. Yep. Or Patrick Vieira, if they keep losing at Palace. I don't know. I don't know who we should hire.

CCT is going to put in a good word for his guy over at Celtic. Yeah. Okay, then the gold cup, and that's in July. probably we're bringing a B team, right? I would assume so, yes. And again, it's going to be a lot of calculations and trying to figure out which players are better served

by being with their clubs team in preseason if they're European-based. Because again, even though we're not quite as childish with our player pool as we were last cycle, there's still a lot of guys who are just starting to make the moves over there where if you bring over a, if you bring Georgie into the, Gold Cup or if you bring Brian Reynolds or

you know like do they need to be spending that time with their club team they might be better off. Yeah, it's a tricky one. I guess we'll see. And then the men have windows in September, October and November to close out the year. That'll be when the women are doing their victory tour. And the final thing to note.

So I mean, I don't know what, do you have anything to say about the September, October and November men's national team windows? No, I think by then we'll kind of have returned to the normalcy of like, all right, get the group together. Hopefully, hope a couple of those windows would just be in Europe because again, at this point, so much of the key core players are going to be based overseas that it makes way more sense than flying them halfway across the world. So I imagine we'll start, I mean, I don't know what the ticket cost price calculus is for that kind of revenue generation. but as far as convenience for our player pool,

I imagine we'll start seeing more of these games happening overseas. I hope not. I mean, just because you want to go to the games and also because you want that revenue, that sweet, sweet revenue. I want the revenue for sure. I think it's kind of silly to play games in empty stadiums in like small industrial cities in northern Spain.

I mean, I get it, but like why even have games if you're going to do that? Like the tournament is the next World Cup is so far out. Do it in do it on the East Coast and build the game, you know, give people an opportunity to come see the team play. All right, I'll take it. I'll take it. Let's do that. Let's go to Boston.

The U17 World Cup is the last thing we'll mention. That's in the U17 men's world cup in November. Always feels a little inappropriate to call it a U17 men's World Cup. It's a U-17 Boys World Cup. Just two names, I think, are going to be worth paying attention to Pedro Soma and Cruz Medina, a number six and a number 10, I guess you'd call them. Okay. Yeah, I mean, we're fully into sick-o mode at that point watching the U-17s.

Tell them, remind everyone how are U-17s did in the last World Cup? Not very well. I think they went out in the group, yeah. Yeah. It crashed out in the group and everyone sold their Giorina stock. And then I think he started for Dortmund like a month later. A couple weeks later. Yeah.

Yeah, it was not instructive really in any way about the players. Pappy was on that team. Bousio was on that team. I don't know that we really learned out anything about any of them. But it's still fun. It's always fun. I mean, it's good to be back where it's fun and you don't have all of your hopes and dreams riding on six of these players. coming good in the next year and a half.

Right. I think that's it. That's in Peru. The U20 World Cup is in Indonesia. So I guess TV times might be a little difficult for us here, here on the East Coast. Anything else, Greg? No, I don't think so.

It's going to be, I'm hoping for a pretty entertaining 2023, where again, it's just going to be about watching a couple of new faces trying to break through and then watching the real crew ease back into the setup and start building chemistry and then watching the women hoisted trophy at a star.

Yep, yep, yep, yep. Come to Nashville. Play pickup soccer with us and come to the parking lot and tailgate with us. I've got, Greg, I've got the, I've got the scuff podcast pennies that you commissioned back before Orlando. I'll get them washed and fresh.

and bring them all. Brilliant. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.