Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #366: USMNT roundup, aka "How Are We Feeling About All This"

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

Greg and Belz talk about the USMNT coaching vacancy and the state of the player pool, which Greg is bullish about.----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes once a week, plus access to the Discord and 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 we doing? I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. Hey, everybody, quick announcement, and then we're going to get into the episode. Today we're going to talk about the U.S. men's national team, mostly, and how we're feeling about all of it.

All of it, all of it. It just seems like there's this vague picture of the national team right now with a lot of uncertainty, but in a way, like, I'm totally fine with all of it. But we'll get into it. Yeah, I'm ready for your overwhelming positivity. Skittles, rainbows, pots of gold. No wet blanket here whatsoever. I've shed all of my wet blankets.

But I want to mention the women's national team plays Canada tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern Time 6th Central. We will recap that game tomorrow and will be in Nashville on Sunday for the game against Japan. I can't wait for that. Two reminders about our two invitations. one, come to pick up soccer Saturday night at Rose Park

from 630 to 830 local time We have tons of scuffed branded pennies That Greg jinned up last Last spring We've got a nice field With a view of downtown Should be great So come with your boots on

It's a nice level playing field It's kind of I guess grassy artificial turf And then On Sunday morning We're going to be tailgating in... So right now, we think it's going to be in lot five outside Geotis Park. So it's just south of the stadium. On a couple of soccer fields.

It looks like a couple of soccer fields, right? Yeah, that's right. And for that tailgate, we're going to have hot chicken. Greg's been slaving away on the internet, trying to figure that out. We're going to have a keg of bearded iris, which is a good Nashville beer, home style. And then Mara's bringing cinnamon rolls down from Iowa, which is just, I mean, unbelievable. So please come join us, look for the scuffed flag. It'll be on top of my vehicle, which is a black SUV.

But today we're going to take stock. I mean, I guess the first thing we should talk about is the coach, right? Yeah, coach is still totally open, open seat, totally vacant, and doesn't seem like there's any hurry to fill it or to even fill the positions that will be in charge of filling it. Right, the sporting director. And, I mean, there was some. movement that Marsh was going to take the South Hampton job.

So Jesse Marsh fired by leads, what, a week ago now, a week and a half ago. He was going to be hired by Southampton, but they couldn't agree on a contract, I guess. That's the report. He wanted a longer contract. They wanted him just for three months as sort of a relegation scrap hail Mary, and they couldn't come to an agreement. So I guess Marsh is still in the picture for the men's national team job. I was going to say, and maybe Jesse Marsh felt like he could try to negotiate a better

contract with Southampton because he knows the men's national team is always sitting there in its back pocket. Yeah. Like if this falls through because I'm asking for exactly what I want, no problem. I'll go coach the national team for a massive cycle. Right. So I guess that's in the cards. And I, I, I've sort of been promising an episode where we, we spend a lot of time talking about the head coach parameters. Uh, I don't, that's, that's not going to be this episode, but there's a few things I think we should cover. First of all, what is Greg Burrhalter being paid?

$1.3 million. So I'm just going to ask and answer a bunch of questions myself here. But I got to, I'll break in with my investigative reporting, of your investigative reporting. Is that $1.3 million a year, or is that $1.3 million for the cycle? What are we talking here?

No, that's for the year. That's his salary. According to the 2021, Form 990, so the new Form 990, for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2022, was due yesterday and should be made public

on the USFSF website soon, but it's not yet. I imagine he's going to get more money from bonuses from the World Cup, but his salary, $1.3 million. Where does that rank among national team coaches globally? Well, it ranks about where, you know, where we rank.

It's 13th. And where you get in the information from, Bels? That is from a total sports something, I think. Okay. Total Sportal.com. Of course. Now, I have to admit, I don't know what that is, but the numbers, the numbers look like about right.

You know, it's not, nothing, there's nothing crazy on there. Hansi Flick at 7 million is number one. These were the coaches at the World Cup. So what was Hansi Flicks dollars per group stage point? I can't do that math. I don't know it. Oh, man. You tell me.

I don't even, I don't know. I'm going to defend Germany here in their performance. They did well enough to advance, and they got very, very unlucky. And that can happen in a World Cup group stage. I mean, basically the top six, seven nations in the game, in the men's game, in the world, are the ones with the highest. salaries. So it's Germany, Brazil, France, England, Spain, Argentina, and Portugal, one through seven. There, Gareth Southgate at England is number fourth at $3.7 million, according to totalsportal.com.

Didier Deschamp, 4 million for France at number three, Tite for Brazil at 4.18 million. So who is in Greg Burrhalter's neighborhood at 1.3 million? Well, just above him was Paulo Bento for South Korea. and just below him was Roberto Martinez for Belgium. So I guess this is all relevant when we talk about like what could U.S. soccer pay and who is in the universe of possibility? Because, well, let's talk about Joseo Marino. What's his salary at Roma right now?

7 million euros. So are we going to go from, you know, the South Korea, Belgium, sort of area of the of the of the pay scale up up to like the germany France Brazil area of the pay scale for this cycle I don't know if we will it would be worth it to me to have josie merino on the payroll because you're you're not necessarily just paying for results right because obviously what we just saw from Germany you can't guarantee a good coach in no way guarantees results even if they do a good job you're still trying to deal with variants

group draws, like depending on who you draw on your group, whatever. All those things factor into. So it's not like you can just get a coach and be like, oh, that coach puts us into the semifinals of the World Cup. But what you can also get is some outstanding entertainment value from a coach. And Josie Moreno would provide $7 million worth of entertainment value for sure. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. He was, so he's on 7 million euros at Roma. I totally agree. I want Joseo just for the health of this podcast to be hired. He was making 16 million euros at Tottenham. So, you know, there's a, what managers are making at the club level

is just a whole other universe from what they're making for national teams. And I guess the question is, would someone like him agree to manage the U.S. for 2 million or 3 million? Would we be willing to go up to 4 or 5 million? and then you come to another question, which is what is Vlako andinovsky,

the women's national team coach, paid? Less than five million. Less than $1.3 million. He's paid $358,000 a year. And so it gets to be kind of a tricky situation, doesn't it? Right. And the other thing that I think factors in here, I mean, it's not like the,

when you post the men's national team or women's national team jobs, it comes with a set salary, right? I think it's part of negotiating with whoever you're interviewing, and you don't have to pay Greg Burhalter $5 million because Greg Burhalter's resume is not worth $5 million. Flott-Folkos resume is not worth $5 million. If we could get Jose Moreno for the women's national team for the World Cup, we should pay him $5 million to come coach the women's team for the World Cup.

I would do that. I would love that and welcome. in a heartbeat. Yeah, I think, I think that's right. There's no, it's not like there's a salary listed at the bottom of the job posting. But I do, I do think it's something we have to think about is what influence does the disparity between what the men's national team coach and the women's national team coach have on this, you know, who we hire and how much we pay them to coach the men's national team for this

very important cycle. For sure. The 26 cycle. Because implication here would be that, you know, if we land Josie Marino, we're basically saying that salary is not a factor. We will go out and hire the best coach we can possibly get. And again, when we say possibly get, that now means with salary taken out of the equation.

And sudden the question just becomes, are we doing that for the women? Is Vlato literally like, do we think Vlotco is the best coach that would take the job? Or is it just, you know, weighing in financial considerations and the fact that we can get Vlotco for less than half a million a year

Is that what it is? I think it's probably more just the remaining baked in disparities on the women's side versus men's side pay scales. Yeah. And I think and some people will point out, I'm sure, and it's fair, that there's going to be a whole bunch of new revenue coming in from the Copa America and from hosting the World Cup. So, I mean, there's got to be some way to bake that into like what you pay for the coach. but still, I mean, it's not always The way things play out in the public discourse Isn't always like attentive to that nuance, you know?

So I think U.S. soccer has to be pretty careful on this front. Would Jim Curtin do it for $1 million? Or $1.3 million? I'd say, yeah, probably, right? Jim Curtin would probably do it for free based on income. Yeah. Do we want Jim Curtin? You asking me?

Yeah. I don't know if I've weighed in too much on the coaches. I would basically be fine with Jim Curtin. There are very few coaches, I think, that I would be like, no, we definitely don't want that guy. I mean, I was like, if we end up naming Mikey Vars, our current U20 coach to take over after the U20 World Cup, we'd be like, sure, whatever, let's see what he does. So, yeah. I mean, that'd be fun.

If Jim Curtin gets a job because we can't land Josie Marino, sure, whatever, if we can't get Vincent Company or Michael Carrick or any of these like random coaches whose teams I've been watching over the past a few months, like, whatever, Jim Curtin could be fine. So I don't feel that strongly about it. And the interesting thing about this cycle is, without the roller coaster of qualifying and the experimental opportunities that provides, you know, you don't think of them as trying to be experimental, you have to win your World Cup qualifying games or you have to set out to.

but regardless, you still get information from them and can respond to that information. It's going to be a strange cycle in that regard. Like almost all of our games will just be friendlies, which are always really difficult to draw real conclusions from. You know, the intensity is much lower, and the stakes are so low. Whoever the coach is,

they're going to have their initial idea for how to play, and that's basically what we're going to end up seeing at the World Cup when it comes around, is whatever their initial idea is of how they want to play because there won't be that like chance to constantly evolve based on the responses to games that you've played in meaningful situations. So, you know, when you talk about Jim Curtin,

whatever his ideas are for how to play, that's almost certainly what we're going to see at the World Cup. You won't see the, like with Greg Burhalter, we saw stages and we saw evolution. I know people like to say he was like this rigid coach, but he made real drastic changes over the large time. that he had to work with the team.

And we're not going to see that. Whoever the coach is this cycle, it's going to be, if it's Jesse Marsh, we know exactly what we're going to get in the World Cup today. Like we know what style he's going to trot out and we'll live or die with it in the World Cup group stage. Yeah. Well, what do you think of the argument that Jim Curtin is not, you know, he doesn't have the experience, he doesn't have the resume to, you know,

take us to the semifinals or whatever. You know, with the caveat that even a even, even Pep Guardiola could come and coach the men's national team and go out in the group stage because of like, you know, German style variants. I mean, it's, do you just discount that, you know? Like, because there are people who will say, we need to, we need to get somebody,

we need to get somebody proven, we need to get somebody big. I mean, I, I, I, I just don't have. have an answer. Like I don't, I don't think that if we, if you told me, again, I want Josie because, one, again, the entertainment value. Two, like he has, he literally has proven that he can win, win games. He can win tournaments. He's got Roma, like, third in the Saria right now. Like, he's not a novelty coach. He can win things, right? But you- Croif said he's a, he's not a football coach. He's a titles coach.

There are worse ways to describe the guy you would want as your, as the head coach, your national So, no, like, if the choices are Jim Curtin or Josie Moranio, I don't, like, I don't think there's any question. You're like, oh, well, we should put Josie in charge of the team. But if you're trying these guys and you can't get them, and you're like, okay, well, it's Jim Curtin or, you know, another somewhat like random coach from over here. And you don't have someone with the anywhere close to the pedigree we're talking about. I don't have a problem pulling Jim Curtin's name out of the hat. Okay. Why don't we hire someone battle hard in Latin America?

Sure, let's do it. The salaries are typically more in line with what we are, you know, what Burrhalter is getting paid. When you look at like the league in Argentina or the league of Emekis, the level of expertise is arguably greater. I mean, that's maybe a proxy war debate, but arguably greater than the domestic coaching pool. Take, for example, Guillermo Almada. He was in talk. He's a Uruguayan coach of Pachuca, used to coach Santos Laguna. He's generally considered, I think, the best coach in the Mexican league right now.

He's coached in Uruguay, Ecuador, and now he's in the class of manager that is considered by the Mexican Federation for their head coaching job. Like, he was on the short list. Now he, I don't know his, like how his teams play in any sort of expert way, but he does seem to be pretty good at getting results. Now he doesn't speak English. He doesn't speak English. I don't believe. So I asked Twitter whether they think English language ability should be a requirement.

And the poll is still going, but with 11 hours left and 4,244.4.4.4.4.4.4.2. votes in, it was 52.5% saying no, it should not be a requirement and 47.5% saying yes, it should be a requirement. It's a pretty, I mean, in a presidential election, that'd be a landslide, but in like, you know, in an assessment of the fan base's views on things, it's a pretty divided, at least, you know, the people who responded are pretty divided on it. And I do think, well, go ahead, Greg. So I responded and said, no, they shouldn't have to speak English.

you just need to make sure you have a plan for how you're going to communicate your ideas to the personnel that you need to communicate them to. And I think you can do that even through a language barrier. So if Guillermo Omada, if we watch the way he coaches and watch the way his teams play and watch, you know, whatever, and he checks a ton of boxes for us for how we think the team should be run and potentially could be run with our player rule. And we're like, no, this is the guy. then I don't think language should stand in the way. Yeah, you could have him be the head coach and then Hugo Perez as like his assistant or something.

I mean, there's ways to figure it out. But there's also the argument that this is going to be a media-heavy World Cup cycle. You know, the coach is going to have to go talk to the American public about soccer more than usual. Well, it's just a nice chance for the American public to brush up on their Spanish. I'm concerned. I did email, and then the sort of question is, does U.S.

soccer considered a requirement that the manager speak English? There was a statement from Ernie Stewart in 2018 that it was a requirement. And so I emailed USSF to see if that's still the case. The response was, as you might imagine, quite equivocating. A spokesman told me that, quote, while speaking English was mentioned, it was more about ensuring there could be clear communication with players, end quote. So it might be a requirement, but it also might not be. I think it's kind of going to be up to the sporting director who's hired.

I'll be honest. I'd be shocked if they hired somebody who does not speak English. I would be pretty stunned by that. For the reasons you're saying, like, they know that they're going to be marketing this team like crazy for the, for hosting the World Cup. And I think they'd consider it an obstacle. Yeah. I guess I'm not sure they should. But if it's Jose de Marino, it's all, it's moot because he speaks English just fine.

He speaks English hilariously. He's very good at speaking English. All right. Anything else on the coach? No, I don't, again, like I feel so unable to say that this coach is a slam dunk for actual on-field outcomes. And this coach is a huge miss. I'll weigh in real quick on Jesse Marsh, I guess. Yes.

The fact that if it were a longer. cycle, I would actually be like with full qualifying, I'd be less likely to want Marsh. But again, because we, again, we know what he's going to do. The frustrating thing would be if we watched it fail miserably for a long time and him just never changed because he just is not going to. That would like really wear on us, I think. But again, it's not going to be that. It's going to be, we're going to have the three group stage games in 2026.

I know we have to cope America too. But that'll be like the first field test to like try to fine tune it. And then you fine tune after those tests. But like, Jesse Marsh's system could work in the World Cup with our personnel. Like, it could. So I don't know. I don't know if it's doomed to fail. So I'm not like, he's not high on my list because I don't know.

I think his brand of soccer is questionable at times. Like the full murder ball. But it could work in a group stage with our team. So he's in with a shout. and it'd be a fascinating experiment to see that play out at a World Cup. Okay, yeah, I think the backlash against Jesse has been a little bit much, even on this podcast, if you listen to the Monday reviews. But yeah, I find, I just, like, one of the best things about Burrhalter

was that we had this solid defensive base, you know, and I don't know, I don't know if Jesse can ensure that. Yeah, yeah. And for all the other coaches, like I kind of assume there will be some level of like tinkering and looking around at what you've got. And like, and again,

with Jesse, I just don't think it's going to be that. I think it's going to be like, okay, here we go. Let's do murder ball. Yeah. See how far it takes us.

The tinkering is all with the psychology of the players behind the scenes. So to the player pool. Here we go. I'm, I have been feeling, I mean, you know, engaging with you on the subject has sort of changed my mood a little bit, but I have been feeling kind of blah about it. And here's why the 15 or so players who played at the World Cup to me seems like are still the 15 or so players who will probably play at the next World Cup, adding Chris Richards. But, you know, that's kind of it right now.

I'm the total opposite of blah. So whatever that is. Halb. Hulb. No, I'm totally the opposite. And even though I mostly agree with you, I do think that the core of this last World Cup will be the core of 2026.

And if it's not, hopefully that means a lot of good things have happened. But I think the roster churned just outside the 11 is inevitable and will be super fun to watch. So, you know, hopefully we get to see that core of 8 to 10. I'm only calling it 8 to 10. I know you said 15, but I feel like the core group is probably 8 or 10.

8 to 10. It's going to be fun to watch them age into their prime. They were children in Qatar. We're going to get to watch them age into their prime. And then improving the bottom half of that 23-man roster is also going to be huge, and I totally expect it to improve quite a bit. Yeah.

Yeah, I think as I look at what you're saying, I sort of agree. I guess part of it is, Luca Delo Tore didn't get a chance at the World Cup, really. Well, he didn't play at all, did he? No, he played zero minutes. Zero minutes. And maybe that was a fitness thing, but maybe it was a little bit of Burrhalter saying, like, yeah, he's pretty good, but he's not going to help us here.

And I don't know. Maybe that was just a mistake on Burrhalter's part, but if it, to the extent it wasn't a mistake and he just made a pragmatic assessment in the moment, then it says that, you know, Luca will be in the 2026 World Cup team, most likely, if he stays healthy and everything works out. But is he good enough to help us beat the Netherlands? Well, he was coming off a month of not playing whatsoever from injury. So he came in with, he came in from the injured, the disabled list on Zeltivigo to World Cup camp. And the whole hope was that he could play himself into fitness in camp. And so the fact that he missed out, I don't think tells us.

as much at all about whether he could have contributed when fully healthy. So I'm not too worried about that. I will say though, just thinking about how we played at that World Cup, there was a lot of positive play from us, but almost all of it ended after like the 60th or 65th minute of games because we just wore out. And so that's why for me the bottom half of the roster matters so much. Like if we can turn ourselves into a 90 minute team over four games instead of a team that was just like gasping for air over the last 20, that's a big deal.

If you can add in, you know, that's 25% of games. If you can add that to your ability to perform, that's massive. Right. And if we're doing murder ball, we're going to need a lot of reserves. Let's not do murder ball, please. So yeah, so we didn't have, we didn't really have a bottom half of a roster that we could trust, including Luca, whether it was fitness or whatever it was, we just didn't trust him. And then the other thing to remember is just overall our player pool was broken last cycle.

Like the Savior Committee came in and delivered for sure, but it's not normal that you should have an entire lineup of under 25-year-old players at a World Cup. Like the upper end of our pool was just dysfunctional from the lost generation, the missing generation. So what we're going to see this next cycle is a completely different picture. We're going to have this group that just got to the knockouts of a World Cup aging into the same thing. their prime. We get to watch them. We get to see the 23-year-olds who just missed out on the World Cup roster. They're going to hit their prime and some of them are going to sort of be late bloomers. Like we'll have a couple of guys take a couple of steps forward and suddenly they're going to be better than the bottom half of the roster was in 2022. And then we get this really exciting buzz around

some of these new, this next cohort of players who are going to be ready to push even more of these fringe players into the international pasture. And let's be honest, like a lot of the guys from Qatar already kind of had a foot in the international pasture and we already have a good sense of who might be ready to do some more pushing.

Right. Okay. And even if I can just tie this back to the coaching search a little bit, like when you talk about Jim Curtin, you get the predictable response that, you know, he's an MLS guy, he's just going to overvalue all these MLS guys that, are the major debating point in the proxy wars.

And I just think those worries are totally misplaced. Like whether it's any MLS higher, whether it's like a curtain or a Charondolo or Frazier, whoever it is, I don't think they're going to be loading up the roster with MLS players. Because quite simply, our pool of fringe players is going to be much better this cycle. Like it's just going to be better this cycle. Yeah. We are not going to be dealing with like Julian Green versus Christian Raldon.

on debates through the 2026 cycle. Like we just won't. Whether it's Jim or Josie, the proxy wars, I think, are going to be much, much quieter over the next four years. Well, that's good news. Let's hope. Yeah, so, so, so you don't consider Sergeant

part of the eight to ten, the eight to ten in the core. So I don't. I have him separate. I think he's really close, but we basically have three games from him, or two games from him, right? The two World Cup games. And they were really promising. And it's like, oh my gosh, I am ready.

But I don't think we're quite ready to put him in with Musa, with Adams, with McKinney, with Dest, Pool Sick, Raina Way Out. Like, I think, I think Sergeant is primed to be that person, and it's not going to take much. But I just, I don't think we can call him that yet. Okay. So he fits into your prime age, late bloomer's group. I think that's fair. And you could also say he, also.

He was always this good, and we made a mistake by not giving him more runout through World Cup qualifying, and maybe if we had, we would already have seen enough to know that he's there. Sometimes good, sometimes maybe not good, you know. But I think he's going to get, I think he's for sure going to get his chance, based just on what he did in the World Cup. He's doing well in the championship. I don't know. Scored another goal yesterday.

I don't know if Norwich are going to get promoted or even make it into the playoff again. So he could be, this could actually be good for Josh Sargent to get another year in the championship where he can score rather than going to the Premier League where he would very likely see his numbers and production decline. So as far as his parabola, this could be a good thing. Yeah. But yeah, he's a guy who's. Norwich is quite a ways out, I think, from the. Yeah, and there's a cluster. There's a big cluster teams that are doing well enough that it's going to be tough for Norwich to jump over.

all of them. Their ninth on 45 points and tied with West Brom and then they've got, you know, five points between them and Luton Town, who's in fourth, Ethan Horvath's Luton Town. And they've got to get up to sixth to make the playoff. Oh, is there, are there six teams who make the playoffs? Well, the top two teams in the Champo auto-promotes. That's Vincent Company's Burnley, and I think Sheffield United are close to running away with miracles can happen, but...

Right. Okay, so they're very much in the hunt for a playoff spot. Yeah, they're in that cluster, but they're at the bottom edge of the cluster. So they need a lot of the cluster to falter. Okay. Anyway. Well, I'm excited about Sergeant, Sergeant getting back with the national team and being kind of an incumbent at Stryker.

Maybe not a full incumbent, but something of a whiff of incumbency about him. And again, I think that's all we've. To be honest, I'd probably put Brendan Aramson in this category too. So we all know where we kind of land on that front. But, you know, like, that, Brendan Aronson played a lot more in qualifying than Sergeant. But also, that means we have a lot bigger sample of Brendan Aronson and knowing that he is not a guy who's going to sort of carry an entire team or an attack. And we're kind of seeing that with the club. We saw at the World Cup.

He actually played a pretty limited role, all things told. certainly not like where a lot of people had him as a must-start player. Yeah, some of the takes were just off the hook there for a while. I think he only got about 100 minutes in the World Cup. Yeah, he was the guy who came off the bench who got the most minutes, right, of anybody. Yeah, other than the strikers who rotated. Oh, yeah. Or centerbacks, I guess, kind of rotated too.

So yeah, so anyway. We've got Sergeant. We've got Brendan Aronson. We've got Luca De La Torre as kind of guys, I think, right on the, you can already consider them, you know, core minus one. Yeah. Let me do, let me say something about Luca, though. Well, go ahead and tell us. No, you got to hit your Luca response.

Well, he is the one, even though I was saying it was discouraging to me for him to not play at the World Cup at all. And part of me took that as a signal that he's just not. not that Burrhalter didn't think he was able to make a difference in those games. I acknowledge that he wasn't fit. So I'm not trying to keep arguing about that. But he is the one I can see making a big impact because he's now, now we see he's demonstrated the legal level quality as something of a midfielder. He's kind of a wide midfielder, but he still plays in the midfield.

And I am excited to see him, you know, now that he's kind of healthy and inform and, you assured of his spot at Eltevigo see how he plays for the national team in March. Yeah, it's awesome, right? What a tremendous development

over the last month and a half. Yeah. So you have those guys kind of right at the edge and then you have all these other prime age players who haven't gotten a huge look for the team

or have kicked on a little bit even since they fell out of favor with the national team and that'd be like CTV, PFO. Well, let's just talk about CTV first. because then we'll get into the striker core. But like CCV could easily just be a great floor setting option for the next seven or eight years at centerback.

Yeah. I mean, and he played. He started and played a whole game in the World Cup. Must win match, right? So that's a great sort of piece to throw in at the last second of the last cycle in ahead of this next coming cycle. On CCV, if Tim Riem is the starting left centerback, which I think he should be until.

Proven otherwise. Yeah, exactly. I think CCV's a really good fit next to him at right centerback. Maybe at the moment, even better than Chris Richards. Richards, very promising, but we'll see, you know. Okay. Crazy talk, in my opinion, but sure, let's do it. Let's see what he's got.

We've got plenty of time to test it out. What's crazy talk about that? I don't know. I have Richards comfortably in the starting. lineup and then it's just a matter of whether it's over CCV? Yeah, yeah, over CCV and if CCV is super worthwhile, then it'd be like anticipating Tim Reams drop off over the next three years and putting Richards and CCV together. But I don't think you should.

I think you should just let Ream and Richards cook a little bit and let CCV be a rotation guy. But I'm not, again, I'm not too, I think it's crazy bells, but I'm not going to get too caught up in it because. Well, let me defend myself very quickly. with a Richards Ream pairing, I worry about our centerbacks getting a little brothered a little bit. Arioli and otherwise. Yeah.

CCVs just so, so dominant on that front. Anyway, continue. Okay, just getting into more of these prime age guys who are gonna, we got to clock in with, Zendaihas, right? Looked good. I mean, he's doing well in League of Emackes, looked decent in a totally meaningless camp, for us, but definitely enough to bring him into another camp, see what he offers.

Agreed. Could be something. Maybe not. Who knows? I mean, he's going to score some goals for us at some point. All right. So we've already talked about Sergeant, and then we can get into the rest of the striker hat of these prime age guys, and that's, or guys who are aging into prime. That's Pfeck, Hajie, D.K. Vasquez. Yeah. Just to add a little context here, do you know which striker got the most?

minutes in the 2022 cycle comfortably the most minutes of those four no just which striker got the most minutes by oh peppy Ricardo Pepe no it's Jiazzi Zardez by a huge margin oh really which again just shows how recently like we even started trying all these new options for the national team Jazi's Arda's had like 1400 minutes but Pepey got the most in qualifying yes that be got the most in qualifying but it still just shows that none of these guys have really played that much for us. And so now we get to go into this whole cycle where I feel like, you know,

three of those guys are probably way ahead of where Zardez was at the start of last cycle. So we, we just have a lot bigger basket. It's a much better hat. Yeah. The stitching's improved. But, you know, if you had to say today, are any of those four strikers going to surpass Josh Sargent?

And that's not like an extremely high bar on the scale of global football. But Sargent, I think, is kind of a step above those four in terms of how we think he can play. Do you think any of them is going to get, is going to be better than Sergeant by 2026? No, I don't. But I think sergeant's pretty good. So, and I think, I don't think it's impossible, right? I don't think it's impossible. So I guess really, I'm just saying we've got some, we have some real contributing pros.

We'll talk about this later too, but all of these guys were kind of listed. We're listing a lot of dudes here. These aren't like pie in the sky prospects of cycles past, right? And we're talking about trying to improve the bottom half of our roster. And these are all like legitimate contributing professionals. Like think of old cycles where a guy doing like what Justin Che just did, getting promoted to the Hoffenheim first team, that'd be huge news. We'd be like, oh my gosh, look at this kid we've got who's really doing. doing something.

Paxton Aronson just moved for $6 million to the Bundesliga. Call them up. Jonathan Go ahead. Which we did. Yeah, we'd be like losing our minds about this stuff and sort of only this stuff. And now it's just like, oh, those guys barely get a footnote because we have like legitimate contributing professionals. Right. Well, I mean, maybe Julian Green is a prime example.

He got promoted to the Bayern first team, however temporarily that may have been, and then got into the World Cup roster. There you go. In 2014. I think the difference here is clear. And again, we're talking about what we need for the bottom half of the roster. We don't even need these guys to be like superstars. We just need a little bit of solidity here to fill in some cracks. Okay.

Who else you have in that prime age late bloomer category? I mean, that's Mark McKenzie, who seems to have, I know you guys still pick out some mistakes he makes, but I think he has significantly reduced. those. And I think that probably is part of why his team is running away with the league and we'll probably be playing in the group stage of the Champions League next year.

Okay. Which will be even better. Like we'll get to see CCV in the Champions League, McKenzie in the Champions League. Those guys are going to get some tests. Georgi Mihailovich, another guy that I think is going to have a tough time breaking into the national team. But still, like, he's definitely kicked on.

He kicked on towards the end of the ML. his MLS run and now he's uh was getting some minutes right away with AZed which is no small feat just because they have high standards they're in a title race yeah yeah and he he's been hurt last couple games I think or something's going on I don't know why he's not playing but reportedly injured yeah okay and then we've got a I'm just going to throw this guy out there to Tim Toeman who I think if there's going to be like a crack in the proxy war like this guy could cause it so We've been following him for a while. Vince loves him.

I really liked him at Firth when Firth was struggling in the Bundesliga. And then once they dropped, it just seemed like Tim Tillman wasn't a guy who was too interested in playing in the double Bundesliga. So he's now moving to Los Angeles FC. And I'm hopeful that, again, like he just provides a better option in central midfield than even like Kalam Kosta. Because that's what the fourth eight floor is right now. Yep. Yeah. I love that you call it the double bundesliq.

we go. Never changed that. All right. Who's the next cohort? So, yeah, so then we got the kids, right? Now we're back to the scuffed bread and butter, which is these kids. And speaking of fourth eight, Malik Tillman could be the guy like right now. Yeah.

He's played very well lately and seems to have grown up a lot this season. Yeah, I mean, it's totally possible that he could have done this job. in November in Qatar. I think that's a reach to put like a lot of trust in. So I think it's totally defensible that he at least wasn't like your center midfield backup

to give Eunice Musa a break. That would have been a lot to put on, that'd be a huge risk to take that his sort of center midfield floor was that high. So I'm not sure that his omission from the World Cup is like a glaring mistake.

But watching him play center midfield now, you're like, okay, he's got a lot of tools. Yeah. so comfortable on the ball, really good on the half turn, and man, quite goal dangerous, good at arriving in the box. Yeah, think about that for set pieces, like where we were so weak in the World Cup, to add another target.

And again, he was, he's a big kid. He is not, like, one of our wispy tweeners. He kind of, like, I kind of consider him a tweener still between, like, that winger role we have and the center midfield role we have. But he is the tools to actually be the center midfields. job, whereas a lot of the other tweeners, it's like, man, they're small. Taylor Booth maybe won't be able to do this job in center midfield.

If we could get some juice out of one of our centerbacks on set pieces, then we could have Weston, Malik, and whoever the non-centerback to be named later, yeah. So Malik's a big one. For me, like right now, Malik's got the buzz. Yep. But then we also got You got Taylor Booth in the Ayrdivisi Who's doing more of like a free attacking role

So not that sort of A super discipline center midfield job That we might need more of right now He's playing winger basically Yep And he And I don't Give me your Booth take

I mean he seems like he's a good player And I'm happy that he's succeeding At Utrecht But is he gonna displace One of Pulisic or Raina or Wea I mean I it's never I'm not complaining about having a lot of depth and having good players succeeding in different leagues but it just seems like he's a long way from that level

still to me yeah he's a little bit loose with the ball too right he's fun he's excited to watch uh I get some dwayne holmes vibes from him on the ball he it's not the leverage merchant that dway homes is this kind of like a boss baby situation but he uh he's really loose with it he tries things and they like a lot of his trying things end up being passes into windows that never really existed. But right now, for his age, I'll take that in heartbeat. Like, I don't care. He's good enough to be, to still be getting run while making those mistakes.

Right. And he's got some, we got some time to let him cook. And I wouldn't mind. He's also Olympic eligible. Yep, Olympic eligible. And I wouldn't, so was Malik. And I wouldn't mind watching Booth learn to cook a little bit, even with some national team cameos. Yeah, if he's in the next camp, I won't.

I won't complain for sure. I'm just saying like he's not going to, he's not anywhere close to Pulisic, Raina or Wea's level, in my opinion. If he's doing anything, he's just going to make Big Brenda a little bit nervous. Yep. I don't think we're there yet. He is, I mean, I agree. He is within striking distance of Brendan Aronson and maybe, and probably more,

more, what's the word? More cutting edge. Okay. I mean, I can see it. Brendan still as a tweener, you know, he played real center mid-minutes in a World Cup in big situation.

So he's got some, he adds a lot of versatility to a roster. Okay, who else? You guys have been following Brian Reynolds pretty closely now. I'm really excited about Reynolds. Yeah. I have to put my enthusiasm somewhere, and right now I'm putting it with Reynolds.

He's been playing well for Westerlo. It's, I think he lost. He sort of seemed like he lost his confidence after what happened at Roma. You know, and he ended up in Belgium. I know this is sort of mystical gobbledy gook, but he just didn't look like he was comfortable expressing himself on the field at first in Belgium. Now he does.

He is bombing forward with the ball. He can carry the ball. He can play a little one to get behind. He crosses the ball extremely well with both feet. And these aren't just like, you know, lump it in and prey. These are like, these are like laser beams. Yeah. Timmy Chandler level crosses.

I really do think Shaqmore and Timmy Chandler hit really good crosses. So I'm not, I'm not being sarcastic. Okay, okay. And he does it, he can do it with both feet. He's also going out all out on defense. Like, I think he still has some room to grow there, but he's fully committed to the job. and there was that clip a couple months ago of him tracking back 85 yards to get his toe on a shot

and send it out of bounds. So I think I look at like Joe Scali for instance and he seems like a competent fullback in the Bundesliga which is no small thing. But I don't look at him and say like, okay, one day he's going to be a better national team fullback than Sergenio Dest. It's because he's because he doesn't have the attacking, right?

It's because he doesn't have the attacking just, set him apart. So he's a very reliable, again, like a good floor setting defensive fullback. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe he will turn that on. Maybe he will turn on the faucet for the attack, but right now it doesn't seem like that's the case. Whereas when you watch Reynolds,

in a lesser league, of course, but you see that there is like a functioning tap that you could very easily turn that attacking water on. Exactly. Yeah. And so you could say, well, I can

I could conceivably see a future scenario where Brian Reynolds actually is better than Dest. Obviously not going to say that right now, but the tap. The tap does exist. So yeah, Brian Reynolds should start one of the March friendlies, March Nation's League games. Bring him in. Kevin Paredes, another cohort guy, now an established professional with Wolfsburg. plays every game. An incredible feat to overcome that club's pathologies.

I don't know. I don't know that it is. I always see that stuff about these teams won't play. Josie won't play young players because Reynolds didn't play. Wolsberg won't play kids because Uyana's didn't play. Yeah. And it's like, I, but Uli just went to an Airdivisi team and they didn't play them either. And they didn't play either.

Yeah. And Aertivisi teams don't have reputation for being hard to break into. That's true. Wolfsburg, they did have Victor Osiman on their roster for three years and did absolutely nothing with him before selling him to Charlotte Wa in Belgium for $3.5 million. Now he's like the best striker in Syria. So that's what Perretti's not just Ulyana's.

What's that? That's what Perretti can look forward to. That's his trajectory. Well, if they give up on him like they did Ossimann. But anyway, we got Peritas doing some things. And he has some, like, a couple of moments that jump off the page. And again, we're not talking regional league, U-19 Bundesliga here. We're talking about grown-up, big-boy Bundesliga games.

Yeah, got a preseason goal, I guess, or like a friendly goal. And we had an assist in a Bundesliga, has a Bundesliga assist to his name. I don't know that there's that much that jumps off the page when you, or screen when you watch him. What are you thinking of? I mean, every once in a while, there's a burst. You get a burst and you're like, okay. all right I like a burst

Yeah Yeah I'll take the burst I It's always Whenever when I'm talking about a burst I'm talking about like with technical Acumen on display as well Like if you can burst with a little bit of technique

That's a that's a valuable trait Yeah Well I do think it's a huge It's a huge matter that he has Earned the trust of the manager enough to play him As much he's been played Yeah he's in the plan Like he's a planned

participant in every match. Yeah. Often coming off the bench to play winger, but sometimes coming off the bench to play fullback or wingback. Future is bright, Kevin. And then we still have Joe Scali and Ricardo Pepe who combined for zero World Cup minutes and one World Cup roster spot.

But again, these are kids. Like Pepe can play in the U-20 World Cup, right? Scali can play in the Olympics. Everyone we're talking here is use eligible. So all of those guys we just talked about could play at least in the Olympics. Paredes is U20 eligible, along with PEPI. Scali is too, isn't he? No, I think Scali is just the Olympics.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, because Pippi and Paredes are 03s and Scali's in O2. Okay. Yeah, I love Ricardo Pepey on this podcast loves Ricardo Pepe because I say it does. Of course I love Ricardo. I absolutely love Ricardo Pepe. Right, right, right. But I, you know, he struggled a little bit lately at Growning in.

Yeah. I think you have to admit that. His team is horrific. And so like, I know his underlying numbers aren't very good either. But like he's getting some reps. He's managed to put together some production enough, I think, to hopefully get a look somewhere else. That's kind of the goal now. Yeah.

I don't, we don't want him to be buried at Augsburg for the next year. We wanted to find a landing spot next season where he can continue to play striker. Yep. And I mean, I think even if he doesn't score any more goals the rest of the season, you have to consider the Groningen loan to be a successful one. He's done a lot of good things. Absolutely. So again, another guy who could very easily kick on because, again, this is a U-20.

Like, for doing what he's doing right now is a totally acceptable place to be in your trajectory for a striker. And I've got the, I also have the, left-back kid here. He was not U-20 eligible. He's an Olympic-eligible, or he would be Olympic eligible. And that's, uh, Isayas? Is that how you pronounce his name? I don't know how you, Esaias, I don't know. Maricio, plays at Pachuca. His manager is Almada. Amada is the one who gave him a chance. All right, so let's, let's bring in Almada. Let's, let's, let's, how are you saying it? I don't know how to say it, Greg, so you just go ahead. I'm just going to say us, sir. I say us. Okay.

But yeah, like he's going to be on this list because he's a left back playing soccer. Who's young. Technical, quick. I think there's definitely an attacking faucet that can be turned on there. Yeah, because- Gets turned on. None of the other guys we talked about, we talked about several fullbacks. None of them play on the left side, so.

Well, Paredes does. Okay. Yeah, but he's, yeah, Paredes. Yes, and Scali has, right? And we can always maybe move Sergenio Dest over there. but none of those are satisfactory backup plans in my mind. Or I'd be disappointed if that's still our left back backup plan three years from now. Me too.

But one of Paredes, Isias, and I don't know, who's the younger... Like a Tolkien or a... Tolcan. Wiley. I mean, that's what I'm saying. It's... Wiley. This is where we're getting into more of the previous cycle long shots.

Yeah. Those guys, Wiley, Gomez, Tolkien, pretty, I mean, Tolkien's a very much established professional, but Wiley and Gomez, I think, still very young, but a lot of potential there. So anyway. Esaias, I'm interested in Asaias, too. I don't know if he's going to, he's a dual national. Is there any indication that he favors one nation over the other? Not that I know of, but I'm not the guy who would know that.

So we'll have to inquire with our folks who track the duels really carefully to see which where they're leaning. Conc Gaff Edgar knows. But anyway, this is all just to say, like, certainly not all of these guys are going to be key players or even backups for the national team. But we just don't need to hit all of them. It's such a different environment this cycle than last. We just need a couple to be solid. And I think we've got enough, and I think it will be fun to watch them. I'm like, we can't even fit all these guys into call-ups.

Like, we can't get these guys all in to a March camp. There just isn't room for everybody. So we're going to get a few of them at a time, a nice trickle of auditionees per camp, hopefully. Yeah, so Greg, who's your favorite player to pull up these days, you know? Like on Y Scout? Anywhere. Weissout or watch their game or like who's the player you're most interested in watching the footage of? Giorina.

Hands down. Okay. Who among the prime age late bloomers and the next cohort is the most fun? Probably, let's see. For the next guys up, I'm probably going to say Malik. But the brutal part here is he's playing in Scotland, and the level of competition is pretty low. Yeah. He's cheat coding his way around a little bit.

Yeah. I mean, I also, I mean, I also, again, not to boss baby this, but I also get some Dwayne Holmes vibes there. And I don't see that as a bad thing. They're much, much younger than Dwayne Holmes is now. But just that, like, looseness, that sloppiness in possession, which I think was a real reason that Holmes couldn't break through if it was all soccer related for a team that really values not giving the ball away cheaply. But again, Malik's a kid. So he's going to continue to calibrate his decision-making beyond the first. four months of his professional career here in Scotland.

Who do you love pulling up to watch? I like, I've liked pulling up sergeant for a long time, and I still do. It's just, you get to see a lot of nice stuff from him. Norwich, and Norwich has a nice kind of environment for soccer games. Yeah, Booth has been really fun lately. Yeah, Booth tries some things, which is, that's a good part of, like, I hate doing the, watching the cops guys and it's just like constantly safe passes. I got to see, I got to see you try things and you got to execute every once in a while.

Yeah. Yep. I mean, Booth, Reynolds is fun. I don't think Paredes is particularly fun to watch these days, but, you know, his bursts notwithstanding. And then I think, Luca, there's just a harmony and a cleanness to the way he plays that's kind of fun to watch, even if a lot of the past. are relatively safe.

Well, let's enjoy the next couple months of this, and then let's get Malik into a little bit better league, Holland or Belgium, whatever. Let's get, let's get, who's the center? Who do we need to move? We need to move Brian Reynolds to the championship. Let him cook there a little bit. Mackenzie and Champions League.

Yep, we'll get Peppy into Belgium as well. And then we'll really be cooking. And again, we're talking about backups here. These are the guys we need to hit the backup spots. Yep. Yeah, this is encouraging. I did not expect it to be. Yeah, enjoy this.

This is the fun stuff. So much of the pressure is off because the first 11 is totally, like, satisfactorily occupied. Yeah, but also. I want them to get better. I do want everyone to get better. I think everybody does need to get better if we're going to beat, you know, a big country in the knockout rounds and advance at the World Cup. Or we could just get lucky.

Just need a little bit of luck. Let's, before we get out of here, why don't you give me your starting 11 for the women tonight? All right. So. And I will find ways to disagree. Okay. Let's see. I got a account for Lavelle being out with.

a little injury, at least not in contention to start, I think, is how they worded it. I don't want to touch the corneic debate, so let's go, I'm going to go back to front, so give me Franch and Gold, give me Germa and Cook at centerbacks. I'm going to take Fox and Huerta at fullbacks, because I still want done to be on, I don't know if it's like minutes restrictions, but we'll work her in. I'm going to go Sullivan, Horan, and Sanchez as my midfield trio. And really what we're doing here, I'm just going to get this out there now.

Sanchez, I just want trying out for the backup job of that position, not behind Lavelle, but behind Katerina Macario, who I think will come back from injury and hopefully be our most attacking midfielder. Horan's just... You're going to put Macario in the midfield? I mean, she doesn't play striker for Leon. She plays underneath one of the best strikers in the world. So she plays an attacking midfield job and goes.

I mean, she can do anything. So you play her back there. So give me Mal and Trinity on the wings. And I want them to be our starting wings. And then give me Alex Morgan up top. But she's just deputizing until Sophia Smith comes back. I want Sophia Smith up top. That's where she plays for a club.

I know it's like it feels very FIFA-ish video game style to just like throw in all your best players and just be like formations don't matter. but Smith actually plays forward for her club. She's playing her non-club position when she plays on the wing for us. Okay. Same for Macario. She doesn't play Stryker for Leon. So put her and let her cook everywhere else on the field.

Let Sophia Smith cook at Stryker. Okay. Well, I guess I don't really have anything to disagree with. But Vlako's not going to do any of that, though, Greg. You don't think so? You think he's going to put, like, when it comes to it, he's going to put Macario on midfield in. Sophia at Stryker?

He might. He might. Like, if he thinks Trinity's there, I don't think he thought that for a long time, right? If he thinks Trinity is ready, then you don't have to put Sophia there. Like, if you don't think Trinity's ready, maybe you feel like you need Mal and Sophia there, so you put them out wide and then it's Macriot, Macario up top. But if he thinks Trinity's ready, then you absolutely get your ridiculous trio up top with Mal, Sof, and Trin.

And then you still have Catarina Macario to just dominate the middle of the field with Rose Lavelle. Like that's an outrageous front five. Is this like a common lineup that people are talking about? Or did you, are you just, are you, are you like being really innovative right now? I don't think it's that innovative. I think it's just a timing thing where Trinity hadn't quite broken into the national team. Right when Makario got hurt. So there's never been a time where we've had all of these pieces together.

And now we could potentially have them. So with Sophia and Kat coming back, hopefully in April. Whoa, Maca Rio. Okay. I think we're good. All right. Anything else? Yeah.

No, I think that's good for us. We'll be back right away tomorrow, right? Yeah. And we'll be in Nashville this weekend. Come join us, pick up, or at the tailgate, or both. Thanks, everybody for listening. We'll see you.