Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #372: The USMNT roster for March

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

Greg and Belz talk through who could be called up for the matches against Grenada and El Salvador, and Greg gives a starting XI for each game. Lots of striker discussion, and hopes for trialists in midfield, and some experimentation with Tim Weah at left back.----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. We should get a roster for the upcoming matches against Grenada and El Salvador in the next week or so, and we're going to kind of work our way through the player pool and talk about who we'd like to see in this camp. Greg, how you doing? Bels, I'm pretty stoked, man. We've got, I feel like, real developments. They're not necessarily real developments, but there are things happening, and it's, you know, between Pulsick and Rana playing together in a Champions League game. MLS kicking off so seeing a bunch of sort of fringe faces getting a chance to start getting back into season.

Tim Tillman. Yeah. I'm excited about for reasons unknown, getting these minutes introduced at LAFC. I don't know, man. And then the game's actually coming up where we're going to get a real roster. It feels like a really kind of exciting time. I know some people are kind of down about all our relegation battles and all that, and I just, I'm not too worried about all that. Yeah, I am kind of down about West McKinney being at Leeds, I got to admit.

But, you know, he'll be all right. Yeah, for sure. I'm down, but he'll be all right. There's all that like, oh, my gosh, look at all these guys in relegation battle. And I feel like, you know, one of the last guys to go through that relegation battle was like Tim Ream and Jedi Robinson. So getting relegated. And here they are. Champions of the world. Probably like the two world-class players we have at the moment.

Yeah, world-class. Top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top players. So anyway, I'm excited. I'm excited because we're going to get a roster. I don't know when, potentially soon. So we can stop just digging through Instagram follows for content. And then this roster that I think is going to be coming out, it feels like it will be impossible for this roster to be disappointing.

How's that for optimism? I agree with that. But back to the world-class thing. I'm going to say this. I'm going to say this, all right? Gary Clapton doesn't listen to this podcast. I'm very sure. But to pretend that he and tactical manager,

who I don't have a big problem with tech, I'm like, I get along with them all right. But to pretend that they are like freedom fighters against some big machine for saying that the U.S. hasn't produced any world-class players, absolute balder-dash, totally ridiculous. It's like the fakesest thing I've ever seen in my life. You are not a freedom fighter for saying that the U.S.

doesn't produce world class players. That's obvious. Who's even arguing? Some people are saying Tim Howard was world class in 2014, but not very many. And you can't be world class. I don't even know what world class means, but let's just pretend that I do. You can't be world class for one year, you know? If you're world class, your class is permanent.

So I just got to say that's annoying the hell. of me, that doesn't make you a truth teller or like somebody fighting against the big machine to say that. So I'll just weigh on the world class thing because it's such a wheel spinning phrase, right? And we've been through this before. I think a few years ago, I feel like it was like somebody said Pomacall at a world class ceiling. And then that turned into a whole thing. Here's what I'm saying.

Just eliminate the world class thing altogether. So you don't do the wheel spinning on what it means. And just basically name a player. So like if you think Poole's Sick is the best player we've ever produced or Dempsey or Donovan, just name a player that's like one tier above that player and say how we haven't produced any players at this level or certainly better than that. So whoever that player you want to name that's one tier above Clint Dempsey, name that player, name who it is. And then say, you know, there are tons of players better than that guy and we haven't produced any men's players at that level. Yeah, sounds good to me Spin your wheels.

Why haven't we produced, why can't we with a nation with this over the last 30 years, how have we not produced a player at that level? Well, but you know, if you want to do performance art, pretending that you're a freedom fighter, then you wouldn't follow any of that advice. Anyway, I do respect Gary Clibben and some of the things he's done, and I think he's a fun guy to talk to and communicate with on a personal level. But come on, man.

All right. You and Milwaukee and Vids had probably the best comment I've ever heard about. Without Strawman, most of the soccer discourse would evaporate completely. Yeah, that's what it is. It's a straw man. Like, there's this huge contingent of people out there saying America's been producing world-class players. There's not. That's not a thing.

All right. What's your context for these upcoming games? Because I think you've got some thoughts here. Yeah, so just what we're walking into when we hear what this roster is for, and we all know this is not the toughest competition level that we're going to be playing against in March. Grenada away in what is effectively a meaningless game because the only thing that matters to advance in Nations League is a result against El Salvador at home, where we need at least a draw. So the competition's not that tough. So then the question becomes like, do we bring the full strength? team that we can bring or are there some other considerations we give to you know players who are

technically now healthy but just coming back from injury players who have been on a grind for the last 24 months basically since we returned from COVID with world cup qualifiers the world cup various summer events do we give any of those guys a window off rather than fly them across the ocean um or or is it just bad optics to leave your strong some of your strong players at home and say we don't need you for this window. Is that a thing we can do? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

I'm a little torn about it because even think of a player who's healthy and playing, you know, playing full games right now like Daryl Dike. Do we really want to fly him across the ocean and then down across the sea to Grenada to play a friendly down there that we're probably going to win handily, given his injury history? I don't know. And I guess you guys the same question about Pulisic and Raina and... I mean, you can apply to anybody. Yeah, you could apply.

Even guys who weren't injured, like Jedi Robinson, who just plays nonstop from when they were in the championship to all these three-game windows he played for us, almost every minute in the World Cup. And now it's just like, why? Why bring this guy over? Make it play against Grenada. Make him fly again and play against El Salvador. and then flying back, and he's got to jump right back into where Fulham are trying to make, like, the European places.

Right. So it's just a consideration. I'm not going to be upset if any, like, there's, I don't think there's really a wrong answer here for these guys. It's just something where I'm curious to see how the, again, and it's for an interim coach, right? They're not even going to come play for the new men's coach who, you know, needs to get to know them. They're going to be playing for Anthony Hudson, who doesn't at all need to get to know them. Yeah. I guess it can become kind of insulting to some of the players

when you say, hey, he should go down to Grenada, but we should save the other guy for El Salvador. Because I was thinking, like, Pulisic, Pulisic's just back from injury, just made his first appearance in, what, a couple months for Chelsea in the Champions League fixture midweek. But he likes Orlando. Like, he's, I think he likes, he's a Florida guy.

He likes Florida. He likes Florida. He's had two fantastic World Cup qualifying performances in Orlando. I think the last two times he's been there. Maybe he wants to come to Orlando and play El Salvador. And, you know, it's a nice place to see a game, all that. But man, he probably doesn't want to go to Grenada, does he? Yeah, right. But he's still got to go. He still got to ride the plane, travel with the lads. And then just maybe pick and choose who plays in that game. And I think that's what we'll get to is that's what I'm kind of hoping is that we, effectively bring a full strength team. Even that kind of like is a hazy thing right now. Because again, after the first 12 to 14 players, it's such a fog. And one of the advantages a lot of the fringe guys had over the past few years

was their sort of familiarity with Burhalter, with just being in camps, makes it easy for them to come in. You know, they're no hassle players. And that doesn't matter anymore. Like, it doesn't really matter that they bring that continuity.

So they lose that sort of incumbent. fringe advantage. So I don't even know what the, I don't think anyone can really say convincingly what our strongest overall 25 player, 26 player group is. But we definitely know sort of who the 14 are. So it's like, do all 14 of those guys show up? Or do we let Tim Ream play shuffleboard at the center?

Well, well, we all take the international break. Right. And I think I agree with you where there's no, like, it's case by case and probably no wrong answer for most of these. I think the games, we should be able to handle these games fine. I guess my bias would be to favor players who weren't at the World Cup when there is a question and, you know, maybe leverage any enthusiasm they have for getting back in the picture and, you know, giving them a fresh look.

Well, let's start with some of those players. So let's start up top because I think that's definitely where a couple of those players reside. So if we're talking about which strikers we bring to this window, Bells, who are you, who's sort of the candidates? Who do you want to bring? How do you want to use them? Okay. So I think I'm excited about D.K. I'm excited because, well, for several reasons.

It's that one clip, isn't it? It's the one clip where the ball gets fired into his feet. He flicks it up to himself, spins, touches it over a guy, and wallops it. That one helps a lot. Yeah. That one's a big data point for me. I mean, it was fantastic, just a fantastic sequence. But he also, a couple games earlier against Middlesbrough,

kind of slalomed through three defenders and drew a pretty good save from Zach Stephan. He doesn't see a ton of the ball for West Brom, but when he does, he's good. You know, he's good with his back to goal. I think he is, I think he's underrated for the, softness of his feet a little bit. And are you grimmised?

It's the Barnsley reputation, right? I mean, the Barnsley ball, that sky ball system that Barnesley was running, like he touched the ball with his feet three times a game. It was all up at his head, everything above his shoulder. So, but yeah, I think people who'd been watching a little more closely saw at Orlando. He had, he had this in him at times. Right. And you can see it in West Brom, like the goal he scored on Tuesday was, you know, off a ball

that carombed off the top of the crossbar and then he headed it in. So it was kind of a scramble goal. But the lead up, the buildup to it was a long pass into his feet at the top of the box. He holds a guy off and then he just touches it into the path of his teammate who takes a touch around the left and then hits the shot that gets saved off the crossbar onto D.K.'s head. So I think he's doing, he's got a little bit more sense of the space around him and the way his teammates are moving that I think he's been given credit for.

And also his feet are a little softer, like I said. He's also, you know, he has six goals in, what, 866 minutes since the World Cup and one assist. He only played 13 minutes of the season before Qatar. So the scoring rate is fine, but it's the underlying numbers that are actually really encouraging. He's not like Levendowski level. He's not putting up a dollar per 90. But he's at 0.58, which is a little. better than Hazus Ferreira was last year.

That's expected goals and assist, right? Yeah. Sorry. XG plus non-penalty XG plus XA per 90. Non-penalty. He hasn't taken a single penalty this season, I don't think so. And this is a big deal because he's still, he's still overshooting it just slightly. But D.K. in the past had been the guy who was overshooting it like significantly.

So you had to wonder when that sort of a hot streak would run out. But the fact that now he's really, like the performance is showing up in the underlying numbers is super encouraging. And his, yeah, his numbers, and this is in the championship, his numbers are really solid right now. So yes, I'm really hoping that D.K. gets in. It still seems like the striker hat is going to take a few windows to sort itself out. I don't think there's any question about that.

But I hope D.K. gets his run. And to be honest, I've got him, I'm hoping that he starts against Grenada. That's where I've got him. Okay. Well, I was hoping, I don't, I'm worried about him getting a lot. injured down there for some reason. Because I mean, he's spent a lot of time injured over the last two, three years. But so I was going to start him against El Salvador and have him play for 60 minutes.

The other thing, the other sort of caveat on him is he's, he fades a little bit as games go on. Like, so give him an hour against El Salvador, let him get his hat trick and then, and then we move on. Is this precautionary? Because you just know you can trust the Orlando field more than you know you can trust the Grenada field. Like is it the surface? What are we talking? Or is it just the travel?

Yeah, I guess it's the travel and just the predictability of the field. I don't know what Grenada's field is going to be like. Maybe it's going to be gorgeous. I don't know. A little more on XG. I know we talk about it. We have talked about a lot on the podcast. But just to give you a sense of the landscape,

DK's at 0.58 non-penalty XG plus XA per 90. Like I said, Levendowski's up around 1, like 1.0.0. zero. That's where, you know, all the top strikers, all the top players in the world are up like above 0.75 XG plus XA. Yeah. It's a down year for Levindoski, right? Yeah, he was over, he was over one every season at, at Bayern Munich. And now he's just done. Insane production. Yeah. So that's, so that's like the elite sort of end of the spectrum up there close to one per 90. Now, if you look at the rest of the U.S. striker pool, like I said, DK. at 0.58. Ferreira. at 0.56 in 2020. I imagine he'll probably be in the 0.6 range for the season.

That's kind of where he lands. And then Josh Sargent down at 0.46. Now there's the caveat that he plays in the midfield sometimes and plays on the wing. So that's, you know, that maybe helps explain his lower production. But maybe it doesn't. And then Ricardo Pepe's at 0.36. So he's way overperforming.

well yeah he's overperforming his numbers yeah he's way hot right now and and we we also again want to make this clear because I feel like sometimes the heat we take for our focus on this is almost like we don't acknowledge that XG volume does not translate from league to league in the sense that you don't just do a straight comparison of what sergeant and Dike are doing in the championship versus what Freire is doing in MLS certainly

not what Levantoski is doing at any of the big four leagues he's played in like it does not when you move from a from a weaker league to a tougher league your volume you should expect to see that volume drop yep so so again what dk and sergeant are doing is super impressive because we haven't seen this kind of underlying number uh in a in a more competitive league in a long time yeah and sergeant while we're on the subject of strikers sergeant is another another player who's been hurt he's missed three games and i think what and what did um david He said just before the Millwall match on Saturday. He's close, but not quite close enough.

He won't be back for Millwall. Maybe he'll be back for Sunderland this weekend. But I think that would, you know, if he's not back for Sunderland and he's just coming back right before the international window, there's an argument to be made he should be allowed to stay and help Norwich push for promotion, which is their big dream, of course. Yeah.

One of the kind of thing that I'm factoring into this because again, I don't want to think about the windows in a vacuum, despite the fact that we're operating sort of on the interim coach basis, so you never know what the next windows are going to look like. But if you look ahead to the summer, you know, we have the Nations League and we've got the Gold Cup, gold cup gets tricky because it runs into European club preseason. So there's that to consider. Sargent is a guy who I don't feel like him missing his Norwich preseason is that big a deal. He's a very known commodity at Norway He's not shopping for a new club that I know of

So You can sort of pencil sergeant for a ton of minutes in the gold cup If you want to Again, I don't know if that's how US soccer is thinking about it But if you if you sort of allocate a lot of those minutes to Josh Sergeant Then that could free up this window For a couple other guys from the hat Yeah

And for me to be DK and Peppy Those are the ones I want to see Start in this I think Pepe do fine down in Grenada. Has he ever been hurt? I don't think he's ever been hurt. It's invincible. The last time I'm ever saying that was literally about Giorina.

Oh, boy. The September World Cup qualifying window. Yikes. A man's invincible. He can play all three games. That's right. You did say that. And still, you know, is he back?

Is he, we can get to that in a second. No, I have D.K. and Pepe as well. Those are my two. and I really think you only need to. You could bring another one. But man, you're just flying a guy around a lot for not very many match minutes. So I would be totally fine if we just brought D.K. and Pepe for this window. Again, you could pretty much grab anybody from that, and I'd be like, sure, cool, this will be really fun to see how they do.

But I think for this one, DK.K. and Pepe are at the top of my list. Okay. I'm with that. we should mention Ferreira seems to have picked up where he left off last season, a brace last weekend. Oh, he's doing better than that. He left off last season pretty cold, like again, and that was showing up in his underlying numbers as well. So his production had dropped off his performance had dropped off a bit towards the tail end of the season, not like off of a cliff, but it had dipped. So if this is what he's going to start doing, and this isn't just, you know, the fact that this is how strikers can work sometimes with goals and bunches.

Yeah, this would be a definite uptick. Okay. I guess big picture on the striker, does it feel do you like everybody's just falling back into the hat? Yes, I think so, but part of that is just the lack of U.S. games we have because, again, I think there are guys who could jump in. And, you know, again, D.K.'s underlying numbers in the championship sergeants, those guys could easily make the job theirs

and put some real distance between themselves and the hat in short order. Yeah. Well, one more thing on DK. It just occurred to me, which is fairly obvious. But his, you know, his physical presence is a distinctive feature of his game. And there is part of me that says,

like, we're not going to, Josh Sargent is going to be a good striker for the rest of his career, probably. It'll be a good striker for the national team. But D-K adds like a differentiator with the way he, like, kind of can occupy a centerback and get other people involved. And if he continues to, like, get better at, you know, going the full 90, being able to get other players the ball as they're moving off of him as he improves at that, like, maybe he is the guy who could be like, the guy, you know?

I'm not saying he's going to be, but there's at least a little bit of a rationale for it. Yeah, fingers are very cross for these guys. And then the other names wouldn't surprise me at all to see or here would be like a Pfok, who's back playing about every game for Ooniam just off the bench, gets the last 10 or 12, doesn't do a lot of striker things that we associate with strikers. Like his underlying production numbers are abysmal. But again, he's in a much tougher league than the championship or MLS. And he's doing some things.

Usually he's doing his job for Union at the end of the game, which is to hold things up well. He's actually pressing a little bit more than Union had in the past where he's advancing high up the field to chase a little bit. So we're seeing that. Haji Wright just came back from injury a couple of games ago. So I think he's played in two straight games now off the bench as well. Is that right? And then kicking off MLS, we've got Brandon Vosquez. and I'm still a bobbasi who for me like still belongs in the hat I don't know and again when you have a new coach you can kind of throw out sort of what the old pecking order was for these very marginal cases and there it wouldn't surprise me at all if a new coach might consider a bobbisi ahead of ferrera or vaskas like there's no real separation other than what the old coaches have done right yeah burrhalter just didn't didn't vibe with Jeremy for some reason

Okay, yeah, I don't know, have, I don't, I want it to be DK and Peppy. I do respect. Any of the ones who show up, man, like, well, and the other thing to remember is whoever shows up is going to probably have some success. So we got to keep that in mind, too, that speaking of, you know, levels of competition, uh, none of these games are going to really say that much about, uh, the relative strength of the call-up. Karma is owed to Pepey.

If anybody gets to get a game where they get, where they're going to, you know, going to have a lot of success. I think it should be Ricardo Pepe. Should we, let's move on to the wingers. Pulisic and Raina, as we mentioned, are both just coming back from time off slash injuries slash injury concerns in some combination. I mean, with Pulisic, it's very straightforward. He was hurt.

Now he's back. Raina, a little bit less straightforward. I guess I don't know if we, I don't know if we want to demand Pulisic come back. for this camp? I don't know. Raina, I'd like him to come back just to sort of, for the politics of it, bring him back in, reincorporate him as much as he can as we can, and, you know, sort of set the stage for further involvement as he, as the months go forward.

Oh, I definitely want Raina back. And it's for the reasons you just said, but also because he is just fun as hell to watch. Yeah. Like, I continue to think he's one of our best players. You know, I think that you, whether we, whether his minutes are very carefully managed by us or not, like, get him in to camp and whatever you get from him is going to be great. And, and again, in games like this, I feel like he, this is exactly the scenario where you would get to see Geo Rain and Cook a little bit. Well, you mean lots of time in the middle of the field and, yeah, like weak opposition. not a ton of defensive responsibility

is probably going to be required here so this is just going to be like hey we need some unlocking done Geo here's the ball do your thing yeah I'm for it do you lean one way or the other on Pulisic I'd bring him for sure

again I won't be disappointed because if we don't bring him it's going to mean minutes for another player that we're probably interested I think, you know, like, some of the guys who might be in contention for like a trialist spot here are also currently injured. And that'd be like a Taylor Booth. Alejandro Zandahas, both those guys not back with their clubs yet. So it's getting really tight for them to get back.

Malik Tillman, I don't know exactly where he would fit in in our formation. But another guy who's missing games for injury right now. So clock's ticking. But, you know, we still have Brenda if we want to bring him. If we don't want to let him relax a little bit in the UK, we still have Kevin Paredes is a guy who I'd love to see trial a little bit. On the wing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so.

Yeah, we cover this on the Monday review with some regularity, but I'm just not seeing it, really. Well, give him a chance, give him a little bit of a chance here. Okay. With our boys, again, against Grenada. Yeah. That's a good time to see if someone. has anything there,

or at least to enjoy the mirage of it. Just a, yeah, fair enough. Just a general reflection on Booth, like you said, he hasn't played for a minute, but he has been really good for Utrecht this season. I don't know if he's been so good that he's, like, that there's a realistic possibility that he pushes one of the guys we brought to the World Cup

out of their spot. I mean, it seems unlikely to me, but maybe. Yeah, it'd be, I mean, it'd be like, we're going to see if he can back him up first, right? Well, first we'll see if he can back him up. And then if he makes a big jump and suddenly it's like, oh man, how do we decide between Booth and Tim Wea? Which, again, that seems a long way off. But if we ever get there, hallelujah. But let's, again, let's see if we've got guys who can eat minutes a little bit.

So if he's back and healthy, would love to see him in the group. Speaking of Tim Wea, like... He's a left back. Is he a left back in this camp for us? I don't know. That's an interesting question. I want to see it. I flat out want to see it because I love Jedi.

And Jedi did a lot for us in qualifying. He did plenty for us in the World Cup. but I also think he's a he was a little bit of a limiting factor in our attack in Qatar and if you you know in that front five that Jedi occupies if you switch that with Tim Wea I think that's an upgrade in the front five for sure I'm sure there is a cost defensively but I'm interested in seeing what that cost is not even for like him taking over full time but just having that up our sleeve as a possibility for rotation for game state yeah I'm very curious about Timway a left back.

Okay. Yeah. I think, yeah, the fact that we play with five attackers, one of them being our left back across the top, across the front line, at least currently that's how we play. It makes it feel like it's not a big insult to him to move him back there. I don't know if he can, like, does he ever take it to the end line and cross it with his left foot? I don't know, but I'm fine if he doesn't. I'm fine if he if because What I don't think will happen is I don't think it'll be the case that he just gets it and is just a

Possession recirculation spot like a hub that just gets it there Like dances and then just passes it back to a center mid or center back like he's gonna soccer right? So if he if he's not taking it the end line It's because he's gonna hit a little disguised eight yard pass into pool six feet and then move off of him Let's do it let's go so yeah so I want that combination I just want to see that combination and I'd love to see it cook against El Salvador. So, uh, not to get too far ahead of ourselves because I feel like there's still some

wingers we got to talk about, but I'm hoping that Jedi starts against Grenada and I'm actually hoping against all hope that Tim Weas are starting left back against El Salvador. Do you have, you have starting 11s for both games sketched out? Oh yeah. Yeah. The other thing to think about here is, uh,

you know, we went to the World Cup literally without a backup left back. Like it would have been Dest or Scali, uh, as our backup left back. we just have a giant hole there. So if Tim Wea can do this job, suddenly like Jedi Robinson could become our backup leftbacker. Or we have 1A, 1B left backs.

Yeah. So it's a huge, huge boost in that position. And if Wea loses, if Wea moves from our winger spot, we just put Geo Rain on the field there. So it's not like in any way a huge drop off from the spot way of vacates. Right. I guess it's about him, you know, continue to learn the position. at Leal. But yeah, there's also a bunch of positional versatility built in there.

Then you have a left backup or a 1A, 1B left back who can also play on the wing, also can play forward in a pinch. Good for a limited number of players roster like you have at the World Cup. What about Jordan Morris? I feel like he's definitely still in this picture, right? I know there are plenty of people who want him out of the picture for whatever reason. but I don't think he is out of the picture. I think he's very much sort of like a,

I don't know if you'd call it the bar to clear, but I mean, he's either probably, he's battling for like the fourth winger spot. Yeah. I'm not sure I really want to see him. I do, I acknowledge he's, he looks pretty sharp so far in MLS. What does he have three goals already

and a couple of assists? Yeah, he's, He's not, he's not, like, just running hot either. Like, those, those are, those are real chances he's scoring and creating. Yeah. If he's dominating, if he's running the league this way, like, he's going to stay in the picture. Yeah. Justifiably.

So, again, I think everyone in contention is going to get their shot, whether that's booth, whether that's Peratus. Bredo, we'll keep getting his looks. And we'll have to, we'll have to sort of let these guys sort it out for themselves. on the field. I mean, if it's Morris versus Brenda for, especially for these matches, I'll take Morris, yeah. If he's

not displacing Wea and I would rather get Taylor Booth in and get a look at him if he's healthy than bring in Jordan Morris for this camp. Oh yeah, if Booth's healthy, if Zendaihas is healthy, I would rather get the introductory look on those guys. But if they're

both gone, if Mallet can't play, then I think I'd still bring five and a half and it'd be Poole-Sick and Raina and then Brendano, Paredes, Morris, and then you still have Wea, who I'm just considering a left back, but so you still have plenty of firepower there. Yeah. Okay, what about, go ahead. Were you going to say something else?

No, that's the winger. That's the winger slot. Okay, winger slash left back. But again, sorry, so I just want to point out again, it's hard to be like, imagine being super disappointed, even if you get like the ariola, roll, Don call up. Like, we know where the current, and even the current administration who has a real fondness for these guys, we already know where they stand with them.

And it's not top four, top five contributor. Like, Ariel didn't even make the roster. Roldon was just there as a, you know, as a. Eyes and vibes, baby. As a morale guy. Yeah. Like, they're not fighting for, they're not really in competition for minutes. So if they're there, it's because they just see them serving a purpose within the camp.

Yeah. Okay. All right, in the midfield, if you remember at the World Cup, we really leaned on Musa McKinney and Adams almost to, I mean, to our detriment in the end. We ran out of steam in every game and especially against the Netherlands. So depth is a big, I think, goal for all of us with the next couple years, developing depth in the midfield, people who can credibly.

fill in for those guys. So what should we do in this camp? This is one where I don't have a prescription at all, like bring all of them, leave all three of them home. And it's not, it wouldn't be leave all three of them home strictly to audition new bodies. It would be because of their individual cases, would they be better served staying at home, staying in Europe and just sort of like, you know, gathering themselves. Musa's sort of maybe fading out of the starting 11 for Valencia.

Valencia are in the thick of a battle for relegation. Leads obviously fighting tooth and nail to stay up in the Premier League. Do they need to leave and, you know, get out of their mindset there and come play for us? If they want to, if we want to have them, awesome, let's do it. I'd love to start all three of them against El Salvador, to be honest. But if any or all of them are like, I just want to like keep my focus here, give me the window off, that would also be fine. where are you at no I agree with that I mean it's I guess leave it up to them um but Luca della Torre doesn't get that choice he he must he must be summoned yeah he's got

to be there and I want him starting against Grenada for sure at least starting against Grenada the problem with yeah the probably starting both games really um the problem with uh not bringing, if we don't bring any of of MMA, then who do we play? No, we're still good. We're still good. I got a listed trialists. Like, so I want to bring Luca. I want to definitely start him against Grenada.

I think you probably bring in Kalan Acosta if you want to. I won't, it won't be a big deal if he's not there, but again, he sort of had that Adams backup role and there aren't a lot of other players that we've ever tried there. So that kind of continuity makes sense for me if you're not going to start

Adams in two straight games. And there's no reason to do that. But otherwise, I got a list of trialists here. And I want to have for sure one of them in this camp. And if we end up with four of them, great. You want, well, let's hear who you want to see as a trialist. So if we only have one trialist, I wanted to be either one of the Tillman's. If Malick's healthy, I'd love to see him play the eight.

If Tim Tillman is ready to accept a U.S. call up, bring him in. Again, I think he, I'm comfortable saying he has a floor that would see. certainly be acceptable for this window. Yeah, he has looked sharp for L.A.F.C. This goes back to his Greutherfurt days in the Bundesliga before they got relegated. Like, he just looked like he had some tools that we could use for this one specific task of eating some minutes while we rest one of MMA. Who's next on your list, Donkey Hodee?

It's Keaton Park. So that's not going to happen. We can move on. But again, once a new manager comes in, Parks for me would be like interchangeable with all these other sort of fringe center mids that there's no reason to think that he wouldn't get that call. There's a guy on Twitter named Paul Harvey, I think who very, very much agrees with you. Again, it'll take one manager change and then, and then, I mean, this happened to Calan Acosta when Greg Berhalter took over, is that he had just gone through the Sarah Canera and he was even part of the qualifying campaign. Started in that 1-1 draw at the Azteca. Yeah, Michael Bradley hit the bomb. And wasn't on the field in Kouva to begin with.

If he had been, we would have been playing in the World Cup in Russia, not just because of Kellyn Acosta, but because literally any center midfielder playing next to Michael Bradley would have gotten us to the World Cup in Russia. But it sure seemed like Acosta was on his way to being like a staple for the next cycle. And then Berlter came in,

new manager dropped immediately for a year and a half. So based on his January camp performance and training. Yeah. So this kind of thing can totally happen. And it shouldn't really be that shocking because as much as we have these depth charts in our minds, like a lot of that is just influenced by what the current manager is doing. And there probably isn't that much separating them. Or if, you know, rolls change slightly, there can be big jumps and who falls where.

So anyway, that's my windmill for Keaton Parks. Okay. I will remain tilted. But then, yeah, then you've got, then you've got Pomacol. you've got Eric Williamson, you've got Tanner Testman, maybe, maybe you get a look at Alex Mendez, Georgie Mahalovich, depending on, again, roles or responsibilities,

there are definitely ways to get players in to fill in for MMA in this particular window. Yeah. I don't think we will because that El Salvador game, while it isn't terribly difficult, the result has to, we do have to get a result. So I think that would be, I think it would be just too much for any manager to be like,

we're going to leave all three of our starting center midfielers at home for a game that we have to get a result in. Yeah, I bet we see, I bet we see all, well, at least two of them. I do have some, I don't feel strongly, like, in favor of any of these guys over the others, the trialists, that is. But I did, I was a little frustrated to see Williamson kind of hiding towards the end of that. I said this on the Monday review, but kind of hiding towards the end of that loss to L.A.F.C. when they were pushing for a goal. And, you know, I thought Palmicole was pretty average last year. There's some buzz that he's looking more healthy and stronger than he was last year.

Early, the early returns are that for this season. So that's cool. Tesman is, I think, you know, at least physically very exciting, you know, like a big frame and kind of a true midfielder. So that'd be cool. Mendez has fallen off lately. You know, I'm like Alex Mendez's number one fan, but he's had a, he's had a, you know, a couple of months that make it hard to hype. Well, and again, the hype for any of these guys is, is not, not wild, right?

Like, it's very much just to see, like, all right, are they catastrophic? Or can we get them in here? And this camp probably won't tell us that or it shouldn't, even the home game against El Salvador. are. No one should be out here falling all over themselves. So it would just be kind of baby steps to see, to see sort of what we have in reserve. And I don't know. I'd just be curious to see it. I think there's a process of transferring hopes and dreams from this age group, the guys who are like just over 20. Well, Parks is like 25 now, right?

Yeah. just over 20 and transferring it over to like Nico Shakira's and Pedro Soma who are not playing professional soccer right now. But will one day probably. Yes. And we'll be world class. I mean, that's what May is going to be all about, right? The U20 tournament. Yeah, can't wait.

We get the 17s in November. So, I mean, it won't be far off. That transfer will definitely be happening a lot more aggressively. Yeah, a lot of. A lot of enthusiasm is born at the U20 World Cup. And a lot of enthusiasm goes there to die, too, actually, come to think of it. Like, I remember being so high on Chris Durkin for a while there. And then he played badly at the U20 World Cup.

And I don't know, I think like among the fan base, he never really recovered. I mean, it was hard. It was also, you got to admit it was hard to get those St. Truden games on the TV. So it was hard to follow the kid. Got it hard to get him on the box. you know all right full back so do we bring desks do we bring yes all right okay he needs he needs something to do yeah he's not busy right so i'm i'm all for bringing him here i think he'll enjoy he enjoys florida we got a couple of florida type who doesn't enjoy florida

do we bring jetti to this or do we give him a week off i mean if the plan is to give tim way at two starts at left back then i guess i'd be okay with jetti staying home No, no one should get two starts. I don't want anyone to start two games. Okay. Well, we probably need him. So, yeah, so, I mean, Scali could maybe deputize the kid from Pachuca, Isayas. I mean, there's no rush to try to get him in when, again, we already have our Jedi right there,

and we're wanting to get a look at, like, one of the other best player, one of the other undropable players, if we're going to run that experiment. So yeah, I'm good bringing Jedi, letting him run against Grenada. Yeah. Guy's never been hurt once in his whole career. At right back, I think it would be cool to bring Brian Reynolds. I'm more interested in seeing Reynolds than I am in seeing Scali.

Scali seems like a little bit more of a known quantity at this point. Reynolds has been good on offense, but inconsistent on defense. which kind of has been the knock on him all along. But there is a way to see how he's playing his progress, and that is he wasn't even good on offense at Roma, or maybe even at Court Reich for his first loan, the loan spell. But he has settled in at Westerlo, and is a very effective attacking fullback now.

I also think the falling asleep moments have lessened in number, but there's still a problem. So he's still. cooking. He's still simmering. I hope we bring both Reynolds and Scally and I hope we just split them halves in the Grenada game. I do think like, I don't think you can bring a huge camp

to this kind of thing because again, there's too much logistics to waste everyone's time, all those players' time, but the nature of the Grenada game being totally meaningless effectively means you can do like some planned subs where you don't really have to

worry about how the game's going you can be like we'll play scally for the first half Reynolds for the second half and you know it's totally fine to do that it will be fascinating to see I mean there's plenty of options at fullback I think on both sides now but it will be fascinating to see who's playing in the midfield in these games especially great or even how we do it even how we do it this could be you know this could definitely be a time to try out the uh sort of more of a double pivot with like a more attacking presence less defensive-minded presence who can sort of float around a little bit in possession do you have a strong feeling on McKenney

how McKinney how good McKinney is in a double pivot no I don't yet because it hasn't been used that much like I he's not gonna he's never gonna be like Pierlo in there dropping passes like that but he has he has different ways of progressing the ball effectively so I mean, again, up until he hits his level where he probably doesn't do that anymore. Okay. And then I guess John Tolkien and the aforementioned Mauricio Esaias are somewhere in the picture as well. Ish.

Yeah, maybe. I have no idea how in the picture they are. Isais was one of the Instagram, I think, detective jobs that people did saying that he's following the U.S. now. and that happened like within hours I think of the big Balagan Instagram phenomenon because Balagan stopped following the English national team right so like in my head I'm like oh I wonder if players have just now gotten like official invites to their to their March windows and potentially Issais could be getting a US call up and potentially Balagan maybe didn't get an England call up and maybe there's some frustration there's an opening there

Yeah. That is some real tea leaf speculation. We did not mention Balligan among the strikers. I mean, he would be the top one if he were to accept a call up. Absolutely. Yeah, we would definitely make him understand that he would be our top option for now. Balligan's non-penality XG plus XA per 90 is 0.65. So a little better than D.K.

And seven one hundredths of a goal is kind of a lot. Yeah. And again, I think there's probably a gap in league quality there too. Yes. I feel like the French league at this point, League one, Liga-Un has to be separate from the big four now. In my mind, like, there are separate tiers. So, but it's still better than the championship.

Yeah, it's still, I think, better than the champo. So he's doing things. Balagan is definitely doing things and he's a child. So if we can convince him that he wants to pledge his future to us, he should be starting against Grenada. Yeah. He is 21 years old. Let's do quickly, centerback and keeper.

Centerback. Should we bring in the legend himself? Timothy Ream? I think you do just because you want that aura at the camp right like there's this weird aura around tim Rine right now where you have to bring him uh i don't think like i've been going back and watching fulham and he definitely hasn't been sort of as flawless as the people who are saying that he is our one world class player at the moment uh that's so silly people are actually saying that he's a world class player i think they're saying it half ingest

yeah but uh but kind of half not so man fullum's defense is a bit leaky and they've got they're riding really, they're riding a lot of luck right now too. And like some of that luck shows up in the form of, in like Tim Ream-shaped defensive play because I'm just, I'm just going to say like he, I have him my 11 right now for games that matter until, you know, until he can't do it. But I go back and watch the shots full Malau, you know, from their games. And man, Tim Ream is definitely a lot of times watching and praying that the goalkeeper makes a save to spare him a little bit of embarrassment.

So right now those saves been made or the shots have gone just off frame. But Reams riding some luck to go along with his more earned reputation. Yeah. Yeah, I believe it. I mean, that was even a little bit the case in the World Cup, right? Yeah, a few mistakes, just not punished kind of thing. Yeah. Most mistakes do go unpunished in soccer and in life.

Okay, so Ream bring Ream in for the Orr. and then Chris Richard's not playing much lately. He got that opportunity. Then he kind of got hurt. And then he got relegated back to the bench again. So definitely bring him. He's got to be there, right? He has to be there.

And then I think for me, CCV has to be there. Just because we need to add more minutes to his U.S. bank. Yep. And then I'd just give me one of McKenzie or Zimmerman because I don't think you need five centerbacks. for this match, for this window. Call it McKenzie. I'd like to see that too, because I'd like to just go heavy on the passing side.

Again, given the competition we're going to be facing, I want to be trying to open defenses up. And I think those are the guys who would give us the best shot at it. Okay. Ream Richards, CCV McKenzie. What Euro snobs we are. Well, the other thing, again, is to just know that Zim is available at a moment's notice. You know, like, so we can, if any of these guys are struggling in this window, it's fine. They get dropped and Zim comes in next time. If we have Zimmerman for the Gold Cup, if we need that sort of leadership in that camp, plus just, again, a ton of minutes to give away.

And some of them in a slog, like Zimmerman eats that stuff up. How much are these guys ambivalent about participating in a camp like this? Like I know that everybody says Well it's always an honor to wear the shirt Yada yada yada but like realistically I don't know man Like you hear like the the Ike and Benny and Sal Podcast that they had going for a bit

I feel like that's where you got just even that little bit of hint That some of these camps they could just do without Yeah Yeah you never hear I mean nobody's ever going to say that at one of these camps Or you know When it might come back on them when there's a meaningful call-up that they want to go to.

This one probably isn't that, though, because this is, I mean, this isn't January, right? This isn't just like you're in a dorm room for a month with, with, like... Talking about disorganizing the opponent with the ball. Yeah, with almost no real hope that it's going to translate ahead of, you know, unyahu and whoever else, like in Bocanegra. Like, whoever's getting called up to this camp knows that this is, like, a real shot to play with their first group and to stake a claim to beat out like Aaron Long, who was at a World Cup.

You know, like if I can just get ahead of that guy, I'm fourth on the depth chart. Yeah. Aaron Long, by the way, coming off the bench for L-AFC right now. Goalkeeper, it seems pretty simple. It's just play Matt Turner in every game, right? No, it's Gaga against Grenada.

Really? Oh, yeah. Have some fun with it. We got so much leash right now. You got to run Gaga out there against Grenada. Is that a slap in the face to like a Sean Johnson who's put in so much time for no reward? He's never been scored on for the U.S. I don't know.

It seems like Sean Johnson wouldn't want to be there for this camp, but... Yeah, maybe not. I feel like that's literally his MO, though, is to show up at these camps. That's true. Seems like a pretty relaxed guy. I got... Fine. Let's start him against Grenada.

And then Turner against El Salvador? Then Turner against El Salvador. I just noticed Gaga's doing a lot of British talk on Twitter. Have you noticed this? No, like, he's actually, like, speaking audibly, and you can hear a British accent. No, he said, he had a tweet that said, I love a proper Tesco,

which is like a grocery store in England. How old is Gog again? Is he 18? Yes, he's just maybe very good at assimilating. That's what I'm guessing. Like, imagine how impressionable in any 18-year-old is, and they're just going to pick this stuff right out. Yeah, Tesco's a supermarket, and he loves a proper one.

Yeah, that's enough. Give him the grenade a game. Okay. Again, I don't know how the egos, like, that could bruise a Horvath or a Stefan who have been right on the cusp, and then suddenly they're just, you know, totally on the outs. But I don't know. I'm not that worried about it. Like, it's Turner's job. Like, there's no one even close in my mind, so bad give a way.

yesterday notwithstanding like let's just let's just run gaga out there yeah did he have a bit of a bit of a shocker yesterday I mean he had a really bad rondo situation uh though I think technically it'll go down as a completed pass but it was it was uh dangerous should he have come come out and punched that cross on the first goal I don't know man that that gets tough okay I'm just confident that Turner's got the number one spot pretty well locked up. Yes, I'm confident of the same. Give me your 11s for both games and then we'll get out of here. Okay. All right.

I'm going to start from the back here. Against Grenada, we're going with Gaga. And then we're running technically a 433, but it's going to be a little bit different than what we've been doing with MMA. So across the back, it's Jedi at left back, McKenzie at left centerback, C.C.V. right center back. Joe Scali at right

back. But Scali's going to do the Reggie Cannon stay home bit. Center midfielers, we're going to go with Luca. and some trialist, don't care which one. And then it's going to be Brenda as the, like, center mid. Okay. And then what we've got here is, so it's more like a 10, obviously. But in attack, Brendo will go up into the right half space.

And then up in the attack, we've got Tim Wea as the left half space merchant, Paredes as the right half space merchant, and DK up top. Okay. Wow. Would you write back again in that game? So it's Scali, but he's just going to stay home, and the width is going to be Paredes. Okay. So there you go.

That's our 11 against Grenada. They're going to get a result. And the result they need is to not lose by three or more goals. So as long as they don't do that, then that's all we need. Okay. And then who's your, give me your 11 versus El Salvador? You're not going to give an 11? You're just, this is all me.

Yeah, so let's just do all you. All right. All right. You jump in if you're appalled by one of the choices. I promise you I'm not going to be appalled. All right. So we've got Turner and goal. We've got Reim and Richard's centerbacks.

And this is going to be the more traditional 4 3-3 that we've been running. So way at left back, desk it right back, MMA in the midfield, and then pool sick rain on peppy. Easy peasy. Okay. If you want to get really fancy and do the, do a similar. number 10 type player in this. Then you just drop Adams.

You throw Raina in as the 10. Dest goes into playing the midfield in the buildup, and then you run Jedi at left back. And where it just moves over to the right wing. Yeah. Okay. Why Pepey against El Salvador and D.K. against Grenada? I'm falling into probably the earlier notes of them of Pepey,

being more like the guy who's going to play the combination type with the attacker, with the players around him, and D.K. more like, if the field is terrible, D.K. solves it other ways. In ways that I just don't think anyone else in our squad really does. No. Yeah, he's getting, I think he's actually, one more thing on DK, I thought when he played in MLS, played kind of small for his size. Like he wasn't a big, he wasn't, that formidable of a presence, even though he was, he's,

like visually was, of course, but I think he's, I think he's gotten better in the air in the last few years and play, is playing more his size. He gets his head on a lot of shots,

on a lot of crosses over the last couple months. I just think, Pepe, my only reason for wanting to start peppinging, so I'm appalled that you want to start Pepey against El Salvador and D.K. against Grenada. Appalled,

I want them to get like six goals against Grenada. Man, we can score against El Salvador too. We blew them up at home last time. Just didn't find the back of the net in all the chances we were creating. Yeah, I think we all remember that. All right, Greg, have a great weekend. Thanks everybody for listening. You have a great weekend too.

You know, consider supporting us on Patreon. The link is in the show notes. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.