Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #364: Which U17 men's national team prospects to watch for

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

Two cycles ago Tim Weah, Sergino Dest and Josh Sargent led the U17 men's national team. One cycle ago it was Gio Reyna and Ricardo Pepi. A new U17 cycle is upon us and Matt Hartman joins the podcast to talk through the roster for the Concacaf championship, which serves as U17 World Cup qualifying and starts Saturday. Now it's Cruz Medina and Oscar Verhoeven, Pedro Soma and Keyrol Figueroa who we'll be watching. Let's see! Let's go!----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes (more than 50 last year and on pace for more in 2023), 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, everybody, the U-17s, the men's U-17 team goes into Conccaf World Cup qualifying, the Concaf Championship later this week. They start off against Barbados on Saturday, 8 p.m. Eastern Time, then they play Trinidad and Tobago, and then Canada over the ensuing week. I've got longtime friend of the podcast, Matt Hartman, here with me. Matt, how are you? I'm doing well, Bells.

How do we feel about a new U-17 cycle? Excited as ever? I, you know, a little less excited than I was about the last U-17 cycle. I was a newbie when I watched, you know, Carlton and Sergeant and Wea. I mean, you've, you're not new to this. You weren't new to this back then. But for me, that was, I think, magical in a way that can't be replicated. Would it make you feel old to know that that was,

three U-17 cycles ago. Yeah. I mean, I feel old. No doubt about that. But how, what was your first U-17 cycle that you paid close attention to? I would say it was probably the

2008-2009, the Freddie Adieu cycle. Okay. I was still in high school. It was when I really got into the sport. Freddie still the greatest US-U-17 of all time, probably. Oh yeah, like in my like maybe there was some like crazy player. Maybe like Donovan was crazy or something like that. But since I've been paying attention, it's hands down for what you do.

Yeah. Should I just read the roster first of all? Yeah, sure. Go for it. Okay. The goalkeepers are Adam Bodry from the Colorado Rapids. And then Duran Ferry from the San Diego Loyal. He replaces Diego Cochin, who is, I think, a highly touted goalkeeper at Barcelona, but he's out with an elbow injury. Suffered in training, I assume, right? And then defenders would be Christian Diaz from L.A.F.C., Tyler Hall from Interim Miami. Aidan Harangi from Eindrake, from Eindrake, Frankfurt. Now, Diaz and Tyler Hall are centerbacks.

Harangi's a fullback. Stuart Hawkins from the Seattle Sounders is a centerback. Sawyer Jura is a... sort of a utility fullback from Portland and then Oscar Verhoven a fullback, a natural right back who also plays left back for the U-17s from the San Jose earthquakes.

Now remember these are all 2006, well I guess there's one who was born in 2007. These are very young people. Right. Born in 2006. And then midfielders, we've got, according to the roster, Christopher Aquino,

who is a, has a really nice left foot from Seattle Sounders. Adrian Gill from Barcelona, Tahabrune from the Columbus Crew. Cruz Medina, a name a lot of you will recognize, also from the earthquakes. Edwin Mendoza, also from the earthquakes. And then Paolo Rudasil from the L.A. Galaxy.

And then Pedro Soma from U.E. Cornia in Barcelona, actually, a small club in Barcelona. And then the forwards are Micah Burton from Austin FC, Brian Carmona from Charlotte FC, Carol Figueroa, Minor Figueroa's son, who's in the Liverpool Academy, and then Ezekiel Soto from the Houston Dynamo and David Vasquez from the Philadelphia Union. So what are your, Matt, what are your general thoughts on the pool, on the group? Sure. So I'd say very deep with attacking midfield types. Outside of that, there are only really a few standout players that speckle the roster. That isn't to say that the roster is bad by any means, but there is a level, I'd say, that's consistent across the roster and only a few of the players really stand out above the general level of the group. We have lots of tricky, technical, solid guys. that don't have all of the pieces or haven't put it all together yet to jump that X level

and be what we consider like the blue chip prospects that we can write into our 2026 roster, hopefully. Right. Frustrating lack of wide players, only one, I would say, true winger and limited full-back depth. So compared to previous cycles, the last couple of cycles, at least, I'd expect this team to beat the Ophemy. four cycle that never was, the cycle that got canceled due to COVID. Right. But they'd probably be underdogs playing against the O2 group that was led by Ricardo

Pepe and Giorina, and you'd probably have to handicap them a goal or two against the 2000 group that starred Andrew Carlton, Timi Waya, and Josh Sargent. We could expect some good soccer, some good team soccer that will have us in contention for the title in this tournament. but I don't think it will end with fans writing too many names into their 26 roster. Yeah. It kind of reminds me, when you say that, it kind of reminds me of the U-20s who just played, you know, some wonderful soccer last summer in the Concaf Championship,

and they're heading into a World Cup here in May. They played very well together, but it seems like they're similar in terms of not having a ton of very very obvious senior national team talent. I mean, you may disagree with me a little bit on that, but that's my take on it. And I, first of all, do you agree with that? Like, is the U-20 group similar in that way? Yeah, I would agree. I'd say the one name that exists here that we'll talk about that maybe has a chance

of coming out of this tournament and people are set, would be saying, like, wow, that's a kid that we really have to keep our eyes on. and a couple of years from now, you might be, you know, the type of kid that doesn't go to the U-20 World Cup because he's already in the national team, that player being Cruz Medina. But, yeah, for the most part, I think the U-20 comparison is a really good one, because we're going to play the same style of soccer and the same strengths of the team still exists that we have at the U-20s, which is like four or five interchangeable. guys as like in that 10-8 wing style position that we saw.

Yeah. Yeah. And Axton Aronson and the players like him shine in in the U-20s. Yeah. I mean, it was a joy to watch them play the U-20s. And I expect the U-17s will be pretty fun to watch too. And so maybe in the long term, it's better to have teams that play well together because the really obvious talent will come along and it's good to have this higher floor.

For sure, yeah. I mean, like, this isn't like the fact that we don't have a clear blue chip or two in this group isn't necessarily a failure of American soccer or the development system. I mean, it is certainly partially affected by COVID and the lack of development for all of these players that we would have hoped for that we usually see between U15 and U17. but, like, you can't, there's no formula for a Christian Pulisic or a Giorina. Like, at a certain point, they're either going to happen or they aren't. And we have some of those types coming down the pipeline. It's just this group just doesn't seem to have one. We probably should devote an entire episode to this at some point. But can you give us just a quick answer on how you think MLS Next Pro is doing at developing players?

Next Pro specifically? Or MLS Next? Both, actually. Okay. MLS Next is doing an okay job. There were definitely growing pains coming over from the Development Academy. There are still certainly some things that I would do differently. But at a certain point, you need to hit some milestones in regard to like the geographic

spread of teams, maybe including some teams in here, there are some teams at MLS Next that are nowhere near the level that are included just to give other teams a game to play that doesn't require them to travel 200 miles and stuff like that. That is like, you know,

there's like some decent arguments for and whatnot. But for the most part, I think we are at the very least to the point that we were at when the DA closed in terms of that, that development system. Okay. I'm like, MLS Next Pro is,

um, I still describe it as, um, shambolic. The level is bad. It's going to get worse this year compared to last year. As a lot of the better players kind of took notice of what the league is and have left for,

uh, other leagues or Europe or have been like, where are they going to? They're going to USL and stuff? Yes. USL, USL League 1 still exists. There were a couple of players that mostly like college draftees who just like

decided to go back to their country. Like if they were in the US to go to like us like if they were from Germany and came to the US to play for a college traditionally like if they wanted to go the pro route, they'd just stay here. But seeing some more players go back. And then you have the Canadian Premier League and whatnot. And I think there was also teams took notice that it isn't going to be a USL. Like no matter what you try to do, it's not going to be like a USL-style atmosphere.

The attendance for these games was quite often literally zero. Teams stopped throughout the year. So teams stopped playing in like stadiums even and would just play the games on practice. Fields. And then it just kind of got to it's, what it is this season is like a recognition across most of the league that this is essentially a U-23 league. It's, it is going to be, it's an extension of, of the academy that that presents upside to MLS teams as an ability to sign players to give, um,

college, give players like an alternative to college that keeps them in-house and on, oftentimes lower and shorter-term salaries than they would need to put them on in MLS. So I'm not against MLS Next Pro as a theory, but I think it's got a long way to go. And you can make a pretty good argument that it is a less effective development system than the USL loans and the USL teams like the MLS2 teams in USL that we had a few years. years ago. Why? Like, what, is there some argument for it that remains, uh, compelling at this point? Or should, should they just like send them all, send all these teams back to USL? Um, I don't think they're going to send the teams back to USL. I think like MLS and USL have

like a fundamental difference in how they see these development teams, like the future of, of these development teams where there were some conversations of like as like for usel to kind of like split them out a little bit in one way or another and then i think to you know provide a better product for the louisville cities of the world right yeah usel doesn't want doesn't want louisville city to have to play the tacoma divines basically exactly yeah like um especially at home you know but like even away games is kind of hard to justify putting a good team together if you're Louisville or Phoenix

if 60% of your schedule are going to be played in front of like have no ticketing potential so if that was going to happen I think I must look that in and said like I guess we may as well just bring this in house and do our own thing with it but

like the downside of it is that for some of these even some of the players we're going to talk about today. Like, their immediate future, not only like this season, but probably for like the next two seasons is going to be an MLS Next Pro, even if they sign a homegrown contract. And I would, I would say that for a lot of the better players we're talking about, I would already call the league something close to non-challenging for them already, which is not a great

environment for a 16 or 17-year-old player. Right. The level just isn't there. I would call it, it's certainly worse than USL. It's, I would call it worse than League 1, and I'd even say that high-level college is, is a better quality of play. Not great. Not great.

I guess there's nothing stopping MLS teams from sending players on loan to USL still, right? They can still do that. Right. Sure. That requires good relationships between MLS and U.S.L teams. Those tend to not be tremendously good. They certainly aren't on the West Coast. You have teams increasingly willing to take in,

USL teams increasingly willing to take in MLS Academy players and things like that. Orange County and the L.A. teams don't seem to get along very well. Oh, yeah, didn't the Galaxy try to evict Orange County from their stadium last year? Essentially, they tried to kick them out of their stadium by outbidding them and then not putting a team there to actually play in the stadium or something along those lines. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah.

All right. Well, yeah, like I said, we should probably have an organized discussion about that stuff. But it's always good to hear what you say about it with your finger off. the pulse. Who, um, so the names that are missing from this roster, let's talk about those first.

Uh, we mentioned coach, Cochen, the goalkeeper. Who else? Yeah, the Cochin one is really a bummer because he would have probably played every single game at in goal for us, uh, in this tournament.

Um, a couple of other names that were just left off as positional casualties because we just have a bunch of options, uh, in that attacking midspace. are Jude Wellings and Aaron Hurd both highly rated by their clubs and could totally work their way into this team by the U-17 World Cup, if not. Before then, Christian McFarlane, the left back from NYCFC, he is both dealing with an injury and undecided in terms of what youth national team he's going to play for between us and England. Axel Perez is a very highly rated

to 2007. I think he's one of those guys. You could maybe call a blue chip who is playing club football in France. Probably not released, if I had to guess. A player that definitely wasn't released is Mattaya Camboni. Akimobisari, who is the 06 DC United Centerback, who has started their preseason games. And due to injuries, looks like he's going to start the season. for DC United.

And then we have a large coalition of guys who are probably good enough to me. Wait, Akimobi's going to start MLS games at centerback? Yeah, he started both of their last preseason games. And DC United has like major injury problems back there. So it's probably not a long-term thing. But I'm sure it looks like he's going to play into their plans early in the season. And he wasn't released. That's confirmed.

Okay. Yeah, then we do, we have a large contingent of, of, of guys who are just either playing in this tournament for other national teams or aren't here because they're keeping their options open on the Mexico roster, Javin Romero, Fidel Barajas, and Fernando Delgado

are all going to be in this tournament for Mexico. All I think you could perfectly well, like, see on this US roster. If they want to play for us, I think the spots would be available. Cole Campbell is the BValbee youth player who is currently playing his youth national team games with Iceland. Brian Destin is a striker at Interm Miami who a lot of people who follow this closely say might be the best 06 striker playing in the United States. I think I'm one of them.

He has he's very good. He's going to be in this tournament for Haiti. on the Canadian roster, Lazar Stefanovic is a centerback who could definitely have been our third centerback on this roster. And Bento Estrella, who many people may remember, the Red Bulls gave a homegrown contract to way back when a couple of years ago when he was like 14. He just hasn't been healthy for the last like 18 months really. and when he has been healthy, he's been playing youth national team minutes with Portugal. Okay. So he'll probably stay with Portugal.

I mean, I guess we don't know for sure. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to say because I'd say in the last 18 months he's only played like 15, 10 soccer games. Okay. All right. So that's the omissions for various reasons. I mean, Fidel, I think, you know, he shows up at a lot of the most recent footage. for this team. He's been playing with the U.S. a lot.

Yes, a lot of these guys have had minutes with us at various points. Stefanovic, the Canadian, was in one of our camps late last year. All of these Mexican roster guys have been with us at some point. I think Fernando Delgado, the goalkeeper with San Jose, is the only one that hasn't been with us super recently. So they're all options still open. I wouldn't count any of them out. Okay.

All right, let's get to the roster that the guys who are actually there. I'm just going to let you talk about the goalkeepers, and we're going to move right into the defenders. Sure. So the likely starter here with Diego Cochin out of the picture is Adam Bodry, who is the U-17 starting goalkeeper for the Colorado Rapids. He's definitely like a traditional American Academy goalie, which is to say he has great size,

some great highlight reel Twitch saves just can put together a highlight of him that's really highlight reel of him that's really impressive he might be good or better than I've seen with the ball at his feet and we'll see that in this tournament if he is I'd imagine but the Rapids Academy isn't really trying to build from the keeper so it's not a skill set that we get to

see that is present on the tape he actually left the Rapids senior team preseason camp to join this group. So they seem to rate him. But I think he has a year of next pro ball ahead of him before he decides what he's going to do at the pro level. I think a super solid goalie for this level, but not the plus plus that I think we could have expected out of Diego Cochin if he were here. Okay. Bummer that he got hurt. That's too bad. Yeah, totally. So the new backup that replaces Boudry is going to be Duranfri from the San Diego Loyal. He's quick both as a shot stoper and in getting the ball in his 18-yard box.

I watched a bunch of tape of him today after coaching got removed from the roster because I had no notes on him. So it was a fun little experience to and an odd kind of. call up that to get a goalkeeper from outside the MLS Next Academy system. So that's cool that we're at least looking in other places that, well, the U.S. National Team Scout is scouts are looking in places that I'm not even looking in. That's always fun. The problem that is obvious on the tape is that he's pretty undersized even as a 17-year-old. He might be 5-11, maybe six, maybe six foot if he's.

he's wearing the right shoes. Right. But, yeah, I mean, backup goalies. Let's not talk about this too much longer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So let's go to the centerbacks. There are Stuart Hawkins, Tyler Hall, and Christian Diaz.

So three centerbacks, right? Right. So the likely starter at left centerback is Stuart Hawkins. He's a great U-17 centerback, and he's going to be a very good piece for this team. tremendous understanding of the game and good positional awareness. He doesn't really move the ball around the field to the extent of the other two centerbacks we brought, but he's also the least error prone. Doesn't jump off the screen and doesn't have the athletic or on-ball traits that

scream future men's national team player. But he's one of the players, I think, is going to have to play a pretty big role at the defensive end if we're going to stop the. Mexicos and Honduras of the world from putting a couple past us in this tournament. Yeah, you kind of need a guy like that. Maybe he'll end up being a rotation piece for Rangers someday. Yeah, good reference, good reference. I'm referring to James Sands.

But for real, he seems pretty solid, not bad with the ball at his feet. But does he come across a little clunky to you defending 1V1? Maybe like so the thing with Stuart Hawkins and there's another player from his Seattle team that we'll talk about later on the offensive end of the ball is that you get to see a lot of good tape on it on him because the Sounders U17 team is like really bad. They lose to like everybody. So he gets a lot of work and some of the times like you could I could totally see referring to his defending as clunky.

but I'd say especially as far as centerbacks that can play on the left side in this age group get, he's as consistent as you're going to get. It doesn't always look pretty. So there's that, but I mean, it very rarely does at this level. And there's also another thing I really like about him is that he's consistently played like the best soccer of his career like in showcases. So, be a game player you might call that. Okay, okay. It's weird that the Sounders, U-17s aren't very good,

because didn't they, I mean, they won, like, the last D.A. championship, didn't they? Yeah, the unfortunate thing about that is that the team changed, about U-17 teams is that they change for a year. I mean, to go from being the national champion to being getting like trucked every game is kind of weird. Yeah. I mean, like there's some like gaming the system here going on too where like if it's then this happens all over youth soccer where like if you have half a good team at U7 as like 06s and half a good team as like 05s, you'll just play them all up together with the U19s. essentially just like sacrifice your U-17s to have play some, you know, pretty miserable soccer. But yeah, I mean, for the most part, I think, like, it's just like they, that West Coast is kind of like,

and it's presence on the roster. Like, you could see it that there's like a strong West Coast influence here. And it's just because like there are some, like the San Jose earthquakes are like the best U-17 team in the country, both LA teams are very good It's just, you know, somebody has to lose the games Right It's tough sledding for Seattle, yeah But they also won, was it,

Was it the same age group that won GA Cup Last spring against Tigris? Last spring April 2020, I believe. Yeah, I don't know Akeno scored a, like a long-range goal I think they won two zero. right at that sense of it i remember i think we talked about i think hawkins had had a really good

tournament there as well yeah um we don't have we don't have to get into it um all right so tyler hall right footed centerback playing for inter miami um fantastic athlete probably a little undersized for centerback but the the thing you have to love about him is is the confidence and the confidence in his game is clear in his passing ability and the leadership that he presents on the back line. Hasn't shown me enough in his academy tape for me to call him like a top-tier centerback prospect. He just doesn't flash the awareness or passing range that I think we look for in top-of-the-line

centerbacks in these days along with the, in addition to the height thing I mentioned. But he's a very well-rounded centerback and a lock to, start at right centerback for us in this tournament. Okay, so far we're looking at Bodry in between the posts and Hawkins and Hall as the centerback pairing. Yeah, I'd be shocked if it's anything else. Yeah, really hoping for a growth spurt from Tyler, especially since I picked him for my future draft team, which was, you know, let me take a little, another drink of whiskey.

All right, Christian Diaz. So Christian Diaz is going to be the third centerback, I think. He could play both centerback positions, which is nice. Good passing range occasionally makes a highlight real pass line cutter. But the problem with Christian Diaz is that he's inconsistent. The consistency just isn't there yet, especially in regard to his defensive technique, where he could be a little all over the place. I'd be a little worried about him playing against a better team in this tournament.

I mean, like, we have nothing to worry about into like Barbados or whoever we're playing in the first two games of the tournament. And I think he's a good long-term prospect as well. Like if you're if you're judging him strictly from like a traits standpoint, I think he has a lot of the traits that we like to see in high end. prospects, but he just isn't there as a player yet. Like, he's, he's just on, still in the process of putting everything together. Yeah, most of, so most of what I know about these players comes from that game against Portugal in May.

You know, do you know the one I'm talking about? We won two one. We won two one on a kind of a crappy goal from Micah Burton and then a penalty for Cruz Medina. And, um, he got a. came on that game. He just so like barely,

you know, played just a little bit. He seemed, he seemed gangly, gangly, like kind of, kind of trying to find his sea legs.

Right. Yeah, I think that's totally like, that's a common occurrence when you're watching and play. He kind of takes like, like a weirdly wide stance when defending players,

one of you one, but, you know, it is what it is. It works a lot of the time, though it helps. that he's on a very good team. Okay, let's talk about the fullbacks.

We'll start with Aidan Harangi. He's played for both the U.S. and Hungary quite a bit in the last 12 months, more for Hungary than he has for the U.S. Most recently got minutes and losses to the Netherlands and Spain in October. Hungary just getting rolled in those games, I think 5-0 to Netherlands and 2-0 to Spain. he spends most of his time with the Eintracht-Francourt U-17s plays a fair amount of wide midfield

wide midfielder for them and he's gotten some limited minutes in UEFA Youth League against sporting CP sporting Lisbon and Tottenham what do you think of him yeah I think he's the favorite to start at right back here that's based like almost in top of

on the fact that whenever we've had close to a full strength roster together previous to this, he's been the starter right back. I've only really seen him play like, you know, 90, maybe 120 minutes. In our win against Belgium last summer, he kind of locked down his side of the field, had a couple nice passes into midfield. It doesn't surprise me that he's played in on the right side of midfield as a wide midfielder for Eintracht just because the thing that he does really well is getting up and down the fields, you know, and playing good defense all the way. Definitely at like a defensive first player, he's not going to, I think, come out of this tournament as anybody's favorite player to watch.

But he'll help keep goals off the scoreboard and give some, provide some athleticism to our starting 11. Yeah. And he looks very competent from what I can tell, you know, like comfortable on the ball. Yeah, not super saucy or anything, but just solid. Oscar Verhoeven. Right. So Oscar Verhoeven is another one of those San Jose Earthquake players capable of bit playing both fullback positions. I'd imagine he's going to be the starter on the left in this tournament, even though he's right-footed.

just because the other fullbacks have almost no experience at left back. So bringing him, playing him on the wrong side to just to fill that role. But I think he'll be more than capable. You like him. You like for Helvin a lot, don't you? I do. Yeah. He's my favorite of the defenders on this roster.

Tall, agile, hyper-confident on the ball. One could describe him as Joe Scali with a pinch of Surging Yodesd. Really love his work rate and willingness to do. the dirty work, but the standout trade here is that work rate and willingness to play defense in put together with his

on-ball ability. We just don't see coming out of the Development Academy too many players with his athletic profile and on-ball ability. It's just like I think you could

make a comparison though he's nowhere near us tall to like Brian Reynolds here. Or like even if you watch like 10 minutes of tape of Brian Reynolds, it's just like for a player of his size, his speed to do the things he could do with a soccer ball, you're like, okay, that's a professional soccer player. So he's the prototypical modern fullback in a lot of ways. And the question as to how far he goes is just going to be how much he can improve as a defender.

Because he does so many things right on the ball that if he can get to a competent level, in terms of being able to defend adults, I think he's one of those guys that you can count on being a million dollar player. He's going to be something. Yeah, going back to that Portugal game from the spring, you do notice how confident he is on the ball. I think that Portugal team, I think is pretty good and it seemed like he got found out a couple times trying to do a trick on somebody.

Right. He's a Tri-Stuff guy, and we love Tri-Stuff guy. and we love try stuff guys from fullback. Yeah. Yeah. Especially ones that are tall and athletic. Okay. And then the other fullback on the roster is this Sawyer Jura.

Am I pronouncing that correctly? Yeah. Yep. Soi Jura. Utility fullback plays primarily on the right side for Portland. He's not too surprising a call up just because he's been around this group for a few camps now. and he keeps getting call-ups probably benefiting a little bit from

a fairly weak fullback class behind the other guys we've already mentioned that isn't to say he's a sort of juror is a bad player he's entirely capable but you know just comparing him to names that we've had as backup fullbacks in previous cycles Mauricio quavos John Tolkien come to mind

who we brought to this tournament the last time it was held I think there is a fall off an ability there. Let's talk about central midfielders. Start with Adrian Gill at Barcelona. Sure. So Adrian Gill probably a lot of, probably a name a lot of people are familiar with if they're listening to this podcast. He has that Barcelona pedigree, kind of plays all over the place there.

He's played at the 6 to 10, the 8, right back even a little bit. And though like he's a little bit of a no-map. in that Barza setup, I think we can count on him to be primarily used as an eight in this tournament. And I think that's where he's looked his best with Barsa, and that's where he's played his best minutes with the U.S. youth national team so far. So word out of the youth national team camps so far this cycle is that his talent is clear, but he's had some trouble adapting to the youth national team and Conccaf style of play. Maybe a little bit too much time in that Barza system. And you forgot how to play worse soccer. It reminds me a little bit of Taylor Booth in a lot of ways,

that big club pedigree, incredibly proficient in receiving the ball and moving it quickly to a teammate's foot. With Barza, he's kind of a glue guy. He's one of the players that they could count on, no matter where they play him on the field to help maintain possession, help build out of the back, help build play to more dynamic attackers. So while I have some concerns about him being the guy,

we look for to, we look to change games against better teams in this tournament, and also about him as a high-end prospect, I think we can count on him to be a dependable body in our midfield, and he'll certainly thrive in the games where we really control possession. Okay, okay. So he'll be an eight. What about Taha Habrune?

I don't know any that's a player I don't know anything about. Yeah, so he's he's a player that's kind of come out of nowhere a little bit. He's an easing that's floated around the youth national teams for for a little while now, but it was always kind of a fringe guy. And he got brought into a camp, a youth national team camp earlier in the cycle. And the word out of that camp is that he was like maybe the best player there. So he's one of those, the guys who has really earned his way into the team this cycle. He's probably going to play.

how Brun is probably going to play as an 8 or a 10 I guess in our system they're the same thing I describe him as a holdup 10 that is that he he thrives at finding or driving the ball into zone 14 before finding a pass often playing a teammate in on goal

good size not a tremendous athlete but he he's really good at maintaining possession the question both in this team and in his career going forward is does he offer enough as a creator to play ahead of more two-way players, players that maybe offer a little bit more

in on-ball dribbling talent. Maybe it's open question, I think. I don't have him as a starter in this group, but he'll definitely get a good run of minutes. Okay, okay. The big name is in this entire roster, really, is Cruz Medina. He does, you know, he's, he's,

scored a lot of goals for this team and created a lot of goals, very clever player. I guess the big question is, I mean, he's probably going to look good in this tournament, right? Yeah. But is it going to translate to a higher level? Yeah, that's the question. I mean, like, I don't think there's anybody that's watched him play extended minutes that doesn't kind of think that he's capable of carrying a team even at this level in this tournament, with what he's able to do with the ball at his feet.

The thing with Cruz that I think it's fair to get a little, start to get a little worried about is just, and this isn't to say that I'm more worried than I would be with any other player that we've had in this position in the past, but there's kind of this period where he's definitely grown out of U-17, even U-19 Academy ball. So it's, does he take the next step to, you know, be able to break into the San Jose earthquake team, get into the earthquakes too and really

leave his mark and go to the high level? Or do we see what with him, what we saw with a guy like Gilbert Fuentes, right, who came through the same team a few years ago who was also a borderline transcendent talent against set others 16 years old and just was never able to to put it together, do the same things he was doing against children against adults. So I think from Cruz in this tournament, I think we really would want to see something of a coming out party. You know, him really announcing himself on the Concaf stage and saying, like, hey, I'm the guy who's who you're going to have to worry about when you're playing against me. Famous last words. Right.

You could just delete this podcast. If that goes wrong, it's cool. No, I, yeah, that's it. That's a good answer. We'll see. I guess we'll see if it is a coming out party for him. Whatever happened to Fuentes? Is he, do you go to college or something?

No, he signed a homegrown deal, so college doesn't like that. Yeah. The NCAA, I guess I should say. It's never a good thing when you Google somebody's name and they're not even the first thing that comes up. According to Transfer Market, he has currently a, a free agent. Oh, brother. Poor guy.

Well, all right. So let's move on. So Cruz Medina, look for him to have a coming out party. If he doesn't, then... Yeah, we might have to take the blue chip title away.

Yeah. Paulo Rudisil from the Galaxy. Yep. So Rudy Sil is the next in the line, in a long line of creative L.A. Galaxy Academy players is that flash tremendous ability on the ball, but leave a lot to be desired off ball. If we play him, if we play with a true 10, he might start.

But I think he's best used as a sub, somebody who we could bring off the bench with 15, 20 minutes left in the game that could really take advantage of a tired defense, and we don't have to count on him to defend for a full 90 minutes. watching his academy tape he kind of plays all over the place 8, 10, false 9 sort of player no matter which of those positions he plays

he kind of you want more from him when the ball isn't at his feet I think though he's not as technically gifted as some of the guys I was referencing with the long line of creative academy players I was talking about with like Efra or Johnny Perez, maybe even account Alex Mendez in that. I think that he, at least from an athletic perspective,

he's perhaps set up a little bit better to get to a point where he's doing. He can do that defensive work, but I mean, there's a tradeoff there and that he's not quite as special on the ball as those guys were. Though he's a very good free kick, free kick taker. And I would expect him to be taking the free kicks when he's on the field for us. Okay. All right. Pedro Soma, this is a player that I'm excited about.

And I guess it's a lot of sort of, what's the word? It's, I don't know the, I don't know the phrase, but I'm hoping that he will be really good. because we need, we need, we need, uh, we need some sixes to come through the, come down the pipeline and be good depth for Tyler Adams and compete with Tyler Adams for starting minutes, eventually. Uh, he, for me, he just looks like, he just looks really steady and clean out there. He's, he has, he has a big frame. And, um, yeah, I, uh, I think we just need a good six really badly. and so I so I'm hopeful about Soma

I've only seen like you know I don't know half a game of his footage total so it's weird that I'm so invested in that but it's but that's what

that's how it is he doesn't also he also doesn't seem you know going back and watching that Portugal he came on as a sub in that game against Portugal he um

he doesn't seem extremely athletic to me just uh not a bad athlete just decent athlete, I guess. Right. Yeah, no, I'd agree. And that's maybe a little troubling for the future projection.

But yeah, like the fundamental problem here is that we know like very little about his club form outside of the fact that he's been rumored to be on the radar of a number of La Liga clubs for several months now. but just based on what we've seen with him with the national team I think he's our likely starting number six he's been I think the best player on the field for our U-17s and close to every game I've seen him play in that Portugal game comes to mind our win over who did we who was the 3-0-0 went on went over in that same window I forget but

yeah he just like tremendously calming defensive presence for our U-17s often in the right place at the right time to break up attacking threats and confident in breaking lines and moving the ball through a press so future projection aside and whether what his future looks like in Spain I think nobody knows but he'll he should I think I'd be disappointed if he isn't one of the standout performers in this tournament. Yeah, same. Just to pull the curtain back a little bit, Y Scout has the U-16 game against Portugal,

like all the footage on it. But our U-16s played three games in November against Spain, Wales, and England. And I assume this was roughly the same group, right? Wasn't it? Yeah, definitely roughly the same group. And we beat, well, we tied Spain and went to penalties. We beat Wales 4 to 1 and we beat England 2 to 1.

But you can't watch any of the footage. There's no way to watch the footage. So there's a lot of gaps, at least in my understanding of what's going on. Right. that that 2-1 win over England is misleading for I think a number of reasons. One was that the word out of that camp was that our two goals were very much against the run of play. And also, England is one of these countries that just has like a small like army of youth national teams doing stuff at any one time. So like you can't count on, you can't even count on like an England U17 team.

being like at any one time there's like three England new 17 teams playing in tournaments so you know you're not quite sure which one you're getting right yeah that makes sense all right well the other the other midfielder

on the roster is Edwin Mendoza I just know in that Portugal game he tried to have a he had a half folly from 25 yards with his left foot and sent it like into the stratosphere that's That's what I know about Mr. Mendoza.

Yeah, I'd say that's a little out of the ordinary for him. He's likely the backup six here to Pedro Soma. With the San Jose U-17s, he's kind of the dirty work guy that allows his teammates like Cruz Medina, for example, to shine as an attacking midfielder. He's not a top-end athlete or passer, but he's smart in his ability to read the play. is also high usage, which is something that you watch, if you watch a lot of youth soccer, guys who just find the ball. Yeah, exactly. Guys who find the ball, like it just doesn't, they tend to have a high hit rate.

So something that you really appreciate. And I think we could do a lot worse from a backup six. Okay. All right. So if you're keeping track at home, we've got Bodry. in goal, Hawkins and Hall as the centerbacks,

most likely, and then Harangi at right back, Verhoven at left back. We got Soma at the 6th, and then is it Gill and Medina? Yeah, exactly. Yep.

If we don't play, if they're too same-y, then I'd say Harpoon starts, but if we're going Strongest 11, I'd play crew. and Gil. Okay. All right.

Let's talk about the wings and the strikers. First off, Christopher Aquino. Go ahead, Matt. Yeah, so a fun thing about Aquino is that he's a native of Pascoe, Washington, which is a small city on the Spokane side of Washington State. For a New Yorker, your grasp of Washington State geography is very, very impressive. we'll say. Yeah, I used chat GPT to teach me what Washington even is.

But thanks for me. I thought you weren't even aware of anything beyond the Hudson River. Hey, I go into, like, it's really past the Red Bulls Stadium in Newark. That's true. You do have to cross, you have to cross Hudson to get to Harrison, don't you? I call that a cross-country trip. All right. So yeah, he's from, he's from Pasco.

And you were going to say, you were going to say something interesting about that. Sorry for the interrupt. Yeah, so what's cool about that is that the sounders found Aquino through their discovery program. And that discovery program is kind of a thing where they rotate in kids from small off the radar academies in the Pacific Northwest through throughout the academy year. So I forget the club that Aquino came from, but the Sounders will send. a scout and they'll pick out like two or three kids and then they'll bring them back to the Sounders Academy and have them hang out with with their U17 team for like a month or two. And that's really fun, I think, because half of the teams in MLS still completely write off

the less populated areas of their homegrown territory. So it's that one of those like best practices things, if we're being professional about this, that you'd like to see a lot of other MLS teams get in place. Aquino as a player, first thing you notice about him is that he has a great left foot. Everything he does is with the end goal of testing the goalie with a left-footed strike from 15 to 20 yards. He's on us that Sounders U-17 team that has struggled to score goals at times this season, and games will often devolve into Aquino, just trying to dribble the whole team and occasionally getting taken out for a penalty.

I think he's won like four or five so far this season. How he translates into a good team that has talent all over the field is going to be one of the more interesting things to see in this whole tournament. I wouldn't be surprised if he's the starter on that left wing over David Vasquez, and he just makes that position his through the World Cup. But I could also see his schick getting old. if we're giving the ball to him over and over again, and he's just dribbling in circles.

Like, he kind of often has to do with his club team. Yeah. He's intriguing. I mean, he, I made a little video for patrons about him after he scored that goal against Tigris in the GA Cup final last spring, um,

highlighting his mustache, which I don't know if he still has it, but it was a great mustache. And, um, and then it, You know, his left, like you said, his left foot is, like, it's quite good. I don't know if I, I don't know if I call it cultured, but it's, you know, it's an educated left foot, at least. And he's pretty decent, you know, he kind of played it as a false nine a little bit for them back then.

It sounds like he's not doing that now. He's playing more as a winger. No, they play him all over the place still. Okay. So I don't know, maybe he, I guess we have enough nines on this roster that he probably won't play on the night as the nine, but he, I mean, I'm, I'm interested in seeing how he plays pretty, very interested. All right, Mike, Michael Burton. I think you really like, you really like this player. I do really like Michael Burton.

He was one of my draft picks, I think, in the most recent future draft that we did. potentially the most well-rounded skill set of anybody in the team. He left Austin FC first team preseason to join camp, and I'm convinced that he's a few pounds of muscle away from getting an extended look with that first team after he signs a homegrown contract. Not as flashy on the ball as a lot of the other guys he'll be competing with for a starting spot, but he's such a fundamentally solid footballer that I think you want him on the field wherever it makes sense. With this team in the past, he's played on both wings and as a false nine.

I even think starting him in that 10-8 role makes a good amount of sense. He's great at connecting play and is one of the best idea guys in the squad, like the layoffs, no look passes, that sort of thing. So it should be fun to watch. I have him starting on my right wing. Okay, so you have him on the right wing and Aquino on the left wing? The left wing is close to me between Aquino and David Vasquez. I'll give it to Aquino just because I'm more interested.

Okay. I think Vasquez might be this smarter choice. Okay. All right. Carmona Romero, Brian Carmono Romero from Charlotte FC. Yeah, a little bit of a confusing last name situation. He used to just go by Brian Romero. Then he went by Brian Carmona Romero.

And on the press release, he's just listed as Brian Carmona now. So if you see any of those names, it's probably the Charlotte FC player we're going to talk about right here. He's a homegrown who made his pro debut against Chelsea last fall where he drew a penalty in one of those international friendly matches. Yeah. Shades of Tyler Adams scored. Exactly. That's what I was trying to. I think. I was like, who was the player who?

Yeah. Tyler Adams and let's forget about the 10 homegrowns that also played in that game against Chelsea for the Red Bulls that we now no longer remember. Carmona is maybe the only player on the roster who projects as a true winger at pro level.

His game is largely taking advantage of his quick feet and agility to draw in multiple defenders. and then play a pass to a teammate. Sometimes if he gets one of you one, he'll find the end line. If you can let him get going, he can be unplayable, at least against players his own age. But he's tiny and has had trouble with physical defenders,

even at the MLS next level. One of the more raw players on the roster, but I don't mind him as an addition here, a little bit of a right-sided Christopher Aquino situation. So I have Romero, I have burn in front of him, but definitely a different look. Okay. Well, before we talk about Vasquez, what about Andre Gittal? Like, he's been kind of a mainstay with this age group and he's not in the, he's not on the roster.

We didn't mention him as one of the omissions. Yeah, so the situation with Katow, and it's also the situation with his younger brother, Leonel, who's one of the best 08s that we have, is that as often can happen, his family had some sort of falling out with the Houston Academy, homegrown territory rules being what they are. The option is not there for them to move to another MLS Academy team. So for I think it's been about six months now. Might be a little more, a little less. He's just been in the wilderness, not playing organized soccer.

So I don't know if they have something lined up. I don't know of a European passport there. And none of these players are old enough to even start talking about that if they don't have a euro passport. So I'm not sure what the situation is there. He's certainly talented enough to be in this group, but we're not going to be. we were never going to bring a player who isn't playing soccer to this tournament. I see. Okay.

Because he is kind of a true winger, isn't he? Like he gets out, he gets running out wide. He cuts in and has a shot with his right foot. Yeah, definitely. They'd sometimes play him up front in like a, like a, it's not really a four or four two, but kind of like in that Jordan Morris role, it's like, you know, something between, you might call him a left forward, I guess. But yeah, I think, like, if we were making this roster a year ago, he's one of the

first names on it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, we got three players left. David Vasquez, the last winger. So, David Vasquez is going to be competing with Aquino for on the left wing. He's kind of, he's another one of these, like, eight, ten winger types.

the thing that he brings in comparison to Aquino is that he's just like he's just like a pass and move combination guy can really set off some good attacking moves as he does with his club team not like the most dynamic player in the world in regard to like getting goals and assists but he's you play him on the wing he's gonna kind of play as like the fourth midfielder. And then he has some upside combining around the top of the box. And he could also put in a pretty good left-footed cross. Not like top got, not like one of the top guys on the roster, I wouldn't say.

But one of those guys that might make some of these other guys look better. Okay. All right. I mean, I think you're, I remember, I mean, you're the amount of. footage you've watched these guys like far, far, far surpasses what I've watched. But I do remember Aquino in that, in that Tigris game last spring. You know, he was springing some of his teammates in behind with some nice passes. I don't know if he's like a pass and move merchant, but he does, he can see a pass.

Yeah, I think we've gotten to a point now where like most of these guys that we're talking about. Like gone are the days where we were starting like, Like, guys. Yeah, like guys that like they were, we were only,

it was only like 10 years ago or so that we were having conversations like where I talked like academy coaches about like a youth national team player. And I'd be like, you know, he's been pretty good with the youth national teams. And it's just like, oh no, he can't be a pro.

He can't pass. I don't want to name any names. But, you know, I've had that that that player exists. So yeah, like I think we're, we've gotten to a point.

Like with the U-20s, like you said, like these guys are going to be able to play some pretty dang good combination soccer. I think that there might only be like one or two guys on this entire roster that's not capable of that. And that's just one of those things where, though it's going to look real pretty, I'd imagine at U-17 level,

it's kind of like a prerequisite for the professional game. Yeah. So you don't get a ton of kudos for being, passable in that regard. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. All right. So the two nines, we got to talk about.

Ezekiel Soto is the first one from the Houston Dynamo. Yeah. So Ezekiel Soto is the 07 on this roster. He is a January 07, so not playing up a whole bunch. Kind of another tall, lanky kid, a little reminiscent style-wise to a young Sebastian Soto, who he shares a last name with, weirdly enough. Strong. Hey, maybe, maybe that's like.

what is it like name it something determinism yeah i don't yeah i don't know i hope not i hope not whatever it is i hope not he's a strong runner great feat really thrives in transition where he could get a teammate to play him the ball when he's at speed um the key with ezekiel soto is going to be consistency when he's on his game we're playing against weaker competition he looks like a true blue chip prospect. He's just like a game, he has a game changing level of influence on,

on his team's attack. But he has a habit of disappearing into the crowd at times. And if you, if you go through that, uh, that Houston Dynamo Academy record, uh, there's a lot of zeros in,

in some of their, their harder games where, um, they just couldn't, he just had trouble breaking through the defense. Okay. So I expect him to be the backup. striker in this tournament, but I also think he'll get some run.

Okay, so the starting striker, that leaves one option for the starting striker. How do you say his first name is it Cairo? That's how they say it in the Honduran media. Okay. I'll get to that. So, Cairole, figaroly, son of former FC Dallas player, Minor Figaroa, as Belles mentioned earlier, when he announced he intended to play for the United States at youth level, which happened, I think, in November. The story was picked up by like all of the Honduran sports talk shows, like their equivalence of like whatever.

Because he's a, I mean, minor is a legend, right? Yeah, exactly. Right. So, but it's just so, it's so strange from like my perspective, at least to have like sports center level productions talking about a guy who's a player who was known by like 0.000. 0.01% of the American public, if that might even be too high. That's an exaggeration. But yeah, it got to the point where the Honduran Federation released an official statement to try to calm the media down, where they were essentially like, these things are fluid.

We're still talking to minor. You know, like, don't freak out about this. But if you want to fall down a YouTube rabbit hole, there's plenty of fun clips out there where talking heads in the Honduran media are going crazy that. Thank you. I do. I do want to fall down that rabbit hole. Yes.

Cool. So let's talk about the player. Physical presence that moves really well. Great in the air. He does enough with his feet to provide some holdup play, though he's probably a step down in that regard from Pepi and Sergeant. And when I say Pepe and Sergeant, I'm talking about U-17, peppy and sergeant out of the players that they are today.

common collected in front of goal and he can score in a variety of ways comfortable using his left, his right with his head like I mentioned, can shoot with power. A couple of like overhead and scissor kick goals, he can really meet the ball in some acrobatic ways. I expect him to start like essentially every minute that we need him to play against the good teams. probably not on the Sergeant Pepe Balagan tier of number nine prospect, but I wouldn't be surprised if he could get there for me a couple years down the line. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah.

So we're looking at probably Aquino, maybe Vasquez, maybe Aquino on one wing, and then Burton on the other wing and then Figueroa up top. Yep. Let's go. Let's go. I'm excited. You're excited for our, who's our opening a game against? Yes, against Barbados.

Barbados. I mean, I'm excited to, I'm excited to watch it. How are we going to watch it? It's on, um, it's going to be like the Concca Cafe. Oh, is it going to be on FS2? It's on some streaming service that I've literally never heard of. And then also FS2. Oh, is it on Vix?

Yes, Vx. VIX. VIX plus, I think. Okay. Well, Matt, thank you so much for doing this. And no worries. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We'll see you.