Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #373: Roster reaction — Reyna & Pulisic back, Dike & Pepi in

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Greg and Belz do a quick reaction to the roster for the games against Grenada and El Salvador. It's a good roster!----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. The roster for the Nations League matches against Grenada and El Salvador is out, and it's a fun roster. All the guys who played a key role at the World Cup are there except, I may be missing somebody, but I think except Tyler Adams, Walker Zimmerman, and Josh Sargent, who, you know, you could argue about whether his role was key or not. CCV, CCV started a key match for us. Yes, good point, good point. Performed ably. Yes.

on the other hand Taylor Booth Brian Reynolds get a look at them Darrell Dike getting a look I'm interested super interested like our preview for this roster was very much of a

like it's hard to not it was hard to come up with a roster that wasn't going to be really interesting given sort of the personnel we're dealing with right now and where they all are at in their career trajectories and this announcement

paid off yeah well I think we did a roster episode a week ago could go. I'm glad to see that basically what we wanted at Stryker is the, is the truth. Peppy and D.K. Pepey and D.K. You don't need a third for this one. You got two games. The Grenada game is a formality, both in competitive level for Nations League. It doesn't really matter what the result is. And also in like evaluation for evaluation purposes. We played them in a

nation's league before the World Cup. And it was similarly useless in like player assessments. It was just kind of a little fun outing for the boys. Yeah, so you've got to imagine Peppy will start one of these games and DK the other. I think you wanted DK starting against Grenada and Pepey against El Salvador. Yeah, but I'm totally willing to flip it too. I guess really what I would end up reverting back to is start the one you think is better against El Salvador. Yeah. Like in my head, it was like, well, DK, you know, if the field sucks and we've seen some pictures of the field we think we're going to be playing on from recently,

and it does look like the field surface is not going to be pristine. I was like, well, then you can always run it off to D.K. But really, we should be working backwards from El Salvador because the Grenada match doesn't matter. So even if it's not an ideal situation for Pepey, like, who cares? Like, play the lineup you want against El Salvador back into the Grenada lineup. It's Kirani James Athletics Complex. That's the stadium, I believe we're going to be playing at. a 8,000 capacity stadium that seems to have a lot of track and field occur at it.

There's a national cricket stadium just next door that's much bigger than the soccer stadium. So maybe I didn't realize Grenada may be a cricket country. That seems like something Watki should be on top of. Yeah, try to get into it on Monday. Let's just go through the roster if you're okay with that. Yeah, let's do it. It's a blast. Turner, Horvoth, and Stefan

at goalkeeper. So, no, no Gaga. Which, again, totally fine. Like, I don't know if Turner's going to get both games, but again, the grenade game doesn't really matter. This could be a nice, nice, would we call it a consolation prize for Zach Stephan for missing out on the World Cup. Do you think he would view it as a, quote, nice consolation prize? I don't really understand egos, so I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to just not answer this question.

How do you think Zach Steffen feels? I think he may not view it that way, but I don't know. He might be like, hey, I'm happy to be back. I am happy for Zach Stephan. I really do like, you know, value sort of the human elements to this stuff for the national team programs. So I am glad that he gets to come back into this program after the crushing disappointment, I'm sure, of missing out on the World Cup.

I'm glad he's back and I'm hopeful. I do hope that he actually gets 90 minutes in this window. He's about to get, he's about to get promoted to the, to the Premier League. I don't know if he would continue playing for Middlesbrough, but, uh, they're killing it. That's good, you know. I mean, he's had, he's had his struggles this season, but good to see his, you know, the overall program succeeding. Um, all right, defenders. Uh, and I assume we want Turner to start against.

I mean, that's my vote. But again, I, I don't want to be, uh, taking the result for granted. If we throw out Horvath or Stefan for that game, I would also be fine with it. We won't, though, right? We're not bringing our number one goalkeeper overseas to not play. If we weren't going to play him, we'd just leave him at our song. Plus, he's not playing. So this is the chance to get him games.

Yes, he's playing against El Salvador. Yeah. Yeah. And probably most of our first choice players are. I mean, you'd think that's how it's going to go. Anyway, fullback is Serginio Dest, Jedi Robinson, Brian Reynolds, and Joe Scally, the newcomer here is Reynolds, who has been playing. We've talked about it a lot on the Monday Review, which, by the way, we published a three-hour

episode on Monday. I think most people are enjoying it. Half of it was about Raina, the Raina report. Half of it was just run-of-the-mill Monday review weekend recap type stuff. The thing is, we recorded right before the report dropped and had to sort of scramble and figure out something else. Anyway, we talk about Reynolds a lot on the Monday review, but I don't know that we've talked about him much on the public feed.

He is definitely playing better now than he was 12 months ago or 18 months ago. Still some defensive issues, but not as many as there used to be, I don't think. And he's also very confident in the attack that long frame, those whipped balls in from him from wide. he is a weapon in Belgium at fullback. Yeah, hopefully we do, right? We brought four fullbacks. And I don't know that we should really count on the Timwaya fullback experiment playing out for the national team in this camp.

So it doesn't look like it. It totally makes sense that you kind of consider Jedi and Scali as your potential left backs and Dest and Reynolds as your right backs. Nice little balance there. Again, no idea how Hudson is going to divvy up the minutes. I'm still hopeful that basically nobody starts both. games. And so we kind of have a maybe Scali and Reynolds get that, get that first game. Yeah.

You think that's, you'd think that's what'll happen. Dest, by the way, pretty much frozen out in Milan. It'll be, it'll be fascinating to see what happens with him this summer. He seems like he's going to go back to Barcelona and then they're going to have to find a way to sell him. Right? Yeah. I think that's probably the case, right? Barcelona made, in the past, made a big deal about wanting to unload a player and then when it doesn't happen, that player ends up playing for them.

So it could be that Dest if he sticks around at Barza could find minutes there. But I definitely think it's in its best interest to be trying to find a new home. Yeah, maybe somebody somewhere in the Bundesliga or something. Four for four, though, for fullbacks from our preview wish list. Again, depending on where way I fits in, he was our fifth. Centerbacks. Riem, Tim Rame, clearly sort of the boss of the centerbacks right now. Miles Robinson back from his Achilles injury.

You know, he's been playing for Atlanta United, Mark McKenzie and Austin Trustee. I'm a little confused by this, but definitely not mad, definitely not appalled. So you're talking about the absence of Chris Richards and CCV, right? Yeah, and Walker Zimmerman. I mean, I guess Zimmerman's just, they weren't bringing anybody from MLS. Not that I want Zimmerman in there so bad. I'm just like saying, why are we doing what we're doing here? Oh, I think it makes total sense.

And even before we knew about this April friendly that's going to be against Mexico outside of a FIFA window, I still thought that like looking at the full slate of competitions from now through the Gold Cup, and I think Hudson mentioned this, you know, there's a lot of programming. you can map it out and think about the minutes available and how you want to do it and definitely get to the point where carrying some MLS players into Gold Cup is going to be less disruptive to the Euro guys. So if you can get a chance to look at the Euro guys in this window and then in the Nations League playoffs,

assuming that we qualify for them by getting a result against El Salvador, that's a better use of the players' time. And then you kind of just put it on the MLS guys to get through the slog of. for the gold cup. Okay. And give them that responsibility so that you don't eat into European preseason. So what about Richards? Are you bummed that he's not here?

Yeah, I'm pretty bummed about it. Are you? I am, but I guess I understand it. You know, he's not, he did have that three-game stretch of starts right at the end of of January and the beginning of February against Manchester United and Newcastle and Manchester United. But since then, he got a knock in that Manchester United game, apparently, wasn't in the squad against Brighton, and since then he's gotten eight minutes.

So he's not playing. I wish he was in the camp, but I guess I can sort of see why you might want to get a look at Austin trustee right now and maybe let Chris Richards cook. And the other interpretation here or the other rationale here could be, again, the minutes available, right? So if you're looking at what minutes are available here, the match against Grenada. is not particularly good minutes to play. So if you know who you want to start against El Salvador,

and if it's not Chris Richards or CCV, then playing them against Grenada is like a waste of their time. That's true. So trustee and McKenzie, if they're a little bit lower in the pecking order, you might just be like, well, we'll waste their time a little bit instead. But also, you know, give them a chance to get into the group and enjoy this experience. as McKenzie always seems to, based on his podcast recounts.

So it could be something like that where you kind of leave a gap between, you know, Ream and Miles, if that's kind of what you're thinking. And then McKenzie and trustee sort of get the scraps of the Grenadie game. And then for Nation's League playoffs where you're going to get two better competitions, two better games, you can think of like Richard's picking up those minutes and having it be better use of its time. Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense to me. Likely we'll see Reem and Robinson against Del Salvador, you think?

I would guess or Reem and McKenzie. I'm not sure where Robinson is, fitness-wise. I mean, he's playing for Atlanta. He looks fine, and Atlanta's doing playing well, you know. So that'd be my guess as well, but it's hard to know where Robinson fits after almost a year layoff from the team. Right. it is it is uh it's kind of interesting these fulham guys ream and robinson anthony robinson that is no break for them no uh no time off they're just going straight from a a scrap for a spot in

europe right into camp so busy guys like nobody nobody got a break right nobody is off just because unless unless you want to count richards and ccv but again i think that may be more of like we just don't want to waste your minutes with the team against Grenada. But none of the World Cup core players. Except Tyler Adams and his hamstring injury. Yeah. Which maybe it is a real injury, but what's that? I was going to say the omission is mostly injury-related, Josh Sargent and Tyler Adams.

This could be one of those injuries that's not really an injury. You know, maybe, but the leads have announced he's going to miss a weekend match against Wolves. Is that right? And unless they were already planning on, like, dropping him from the lineup for soccer reasons or for, you know, just load management. That's not one you would, you would not sort of like voluntarily take a player out of that match. That's a big one for leads to stay up. Yeah. And then is Sergeant still not back for Norwich?

He's back. And I think he played over the weekend. We should know that, right? Subd on at half against Sunderland. So just getting back. from, like an ankle knock or something. Okay, midfield. Go ahead.

Oh, no. So midfield, we're looking at McKenny and Musa and Luca, who I think are sort of the core guys available with Adams out. And then it gets a little experimental here. Brenda being considered a midfielder makes total sense. And then Alon Senora and Johnny Football from the Brazilian League. Yeah, Johnny Cardoso. I don't know.

I guess. I mean, he has, there's somebody in, US soccer who really believes in Cardoso, or at least is really intrigued with him, because he keeps getting these call-ups. I guess maybe we'll see like a Luca Cardoso double pivot or something. I don't think so. I don't know. In my mind, Cardoso is still sort of like low man here.

Once we found out Adams couldn't go, for me, the choice would be like replace him with a Costa. and then you can sort of try to run the same thing you would have run with Adams. Or if you're not going to do that, then you switch over to what I actually was hoping to see against Grenada, which is going to be only two, you know, true center mids. And then Brando is like a 10 ahead of them. You had it as Luca and a trialist. Which are these two trialists, Sonora or Cardoso do you want to be paired with Luca? I don't care.

I think I'd probably, my preference would probably be Sonora, but it doesn't matter. Let's just see. Let's just see what happens. That's the fun of this kind of, that's the fun of this whole next early portion of this cycle is getting the core guys who I think everyone pretty much agrees on. And then filtering in three, four names at a time, these guys around the edges who are sort of breaking through or coming up or aging into their prime and seeing what they can contribute. So this is like the fun of it. And just being able to see how Johnny or Senora look next to. to the key players and just enjoying it mostly. Yeah. That is, that will be interesting. And I don't know that Cardos has ever really gotten that chance. Or Signora for that. I mean, definitely not Sonior.

Senora at Juarez in League of Mekkes. We didn't think maybe he did, or at least I didn't think he did really enough to get another call up when he came in in January. But he wasn't like, it wasn't like he was bad or anything. anything just fine. Yeah, a little bit tidy. And again, there might be some other trialists that are maybe going to get some time in the April match, namely Tim Tillman, who I'm hoping breaks in there. But otherwise, yeah, like, this, it's totally fine. Like, draw a name out of a hat, put them in with the first team, see how they do.

Yeah, I would like to see Tillman. But what was the rationale for there not being any MLS players or only one, Miles? So it wasn't explicitly stated, but I think, I mean, Hudson mentioned the filter. So clearly it's not like, again, this isn't pure soccer decision making here. But that April friendly against Mexico is not in a FIFA window. So I'm guessing there's essentially an arrangement where we're going to leave, like with all these MLS clubs, we'll leave your player home for this window, which we could take them to. We could take your guys out for this window.

lose them for a couple of games, or we leave them with the club, and then we pull them in April instead. So it's like a net nothing for the MLS team because they'd lose them for games one way or the other. But now it's, it's just going to be April instead of March. It'll be now it'll be the Allstate Continental Classico instead of the, instead of Nations League qualifying. Right. Because again, like it would have turned into, I mean, we would, if MLS wasn't going to release the guys, it'd be like, we'd be. Fielding, I mean, what, Grand Canyon University is down in Phoenix? We could have pulled that group up and just let those kids play against Mexico

and collected the gate from Mexican fans coming to watch Mexico. But if we can get the MLS players, there aren't a ton of guys who I think are really demanding call-ups, but there are, again, enough fringe players sort of worth a punt that it's going to be, I think it's a worthwhile exercise. Yeah, you can bring in. Vasquez and even Ferreira in, I'm talking about in April, but I guess

let's stick to this roster for now. All right, that's how that roster informs, I think, a little bit of this roster, at least on the margins. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Okay, so we already mentioned Brenda, but the other half-space merchants, or at least people who would generally consider half-space

merchants, Christian Pulisic, Giovanni Raina, Tim Wea, not going to not list as a defender here, Taylor Booth and Alejandro Zendayaas. And, you know, it's cool that Raina is back in. I don't know that there was that much doubt,

but he's coming back. And according to Anthony Hudson, no resistance to the idea from him. He's doing well, focused on his soccer, and he's a good guy, a quote, good guy. Yeah, and all of the, all of the, like, Raina bit of this,

the Geo-Rena bit of this this whole scandal and unpleasantness. I think that will all evaporate the first time he sets a teammate up for a shot. Like then it's done. It's probably already done with the players, whether they like him or not.

They've played with tons of people they don't like. Like, that's not an issue. They'll get in and kick a soccer ball with anyone who's good enough to kick a soccer ball with them. But from like the fan side of things, as far as Geo goes, like that's it. He passes the ball to somebody who gets a shot

and it's like, yes, he is totally fine playing with this group of players. Yeah. And it is fun to see Pulisic back. Hudson called him an inspiring person, which, you know, I guess I can kind of see it. Great to see Booth get another chance. It won't be his first camp,

but it would be his first cap if he gets on the field. And then San Desh, we were all pretty impressed with him in January. Yeah, impressed with him enough to get another look. and here he's getting his other look. He just came back from injury as well. Just played like 10 minutes over the weekend for the first time in a month or so.

And then Booth has not played yet for Utrecht after his injury. So he made the bench for their last game but didn't get in. So we'll have to see hopefully he gets some minutes this weekend. And we don't know how back to send out for a second. We don't know how many caps he's going to get in his career or even if he'll keep getting caps after this camp. It's not clear. But I do think it's a good win for U.S. soccer to win a dual national who is an important player for Club America. You know, that's a huge, massive club in Mexico.

And I think people will notice. And, you know, I think it's a big win for the Federation to get him to commit to the program. I mean, at the least, it's some fun banter, right? because Mexico aren't exactly cruising right now. So it's like any player who's choosing between the two of them might feel that they can break through in either for either program. Yeah. This isn't Bolligan choosing between us and England, right?

So yeah, good on us. Speaking of Bolligan, Hudson was asked about him in the press conference this afternoon. He said they have an open, continuing dialogue, and that's all he can say about it. he didn't say a lot in the press conference in general i would say is that a lot of words yeah a lot of words were said i don't know that that's really the goal to reveal a lot of stuff in these things and there just isn't much like this is still just a matter of like the core is the

core if any of them had to be gone for some reason then maybe explain that uh but otherwise yeah you're looking at the core and then it's just going to be a conveyor belt of uh exciting but totally unproven prospects to cycle through with them. And then like we said, DK and Peppy at Stryker, probably one will get each of the games or each of the starts that is? I'd assume so, but who knows, right? It might just, there might be a one and a two here. This might be an A, B situation, and the starter starts and the bench guy gets the last 15.

Before we, I mean, what else is there to say about it, really? Anything? I don't, I don't think so. This is just going to be one to enjoy. Again, the Grenada game is going to probably be a bit of a mess. It probably won't be like the Grenada home match because, you know, if the field quality is going to have a pretty big impact on the level of play we should expect. I mean, we all saw the El Salvador away game.

It could very much resemble that more than it resembles any of the home games from the World Cup cycle. Yeah, fingers crossed, nobody gets hurt. Friday, that's Friday, March 24th, so a week from this coming Friday. at 8 p.m. Eastern time, Grenada versus USA. And then El Salvador on Monday, March 27 at 7.30 p.m. in Orlando, which some of you will be attending. So the other big thing here, Bells, and you tell me how you see it, do you think without Tyler Adams in camp, how do you think we arrange ourselves? Yeah. I'm just going to put you on the spot and say, give me your El Salvador 11 and shape.

Like what's the what's the configuration here? Well, I was going to say well I was going to say that Turner and goal, Des Robinson, Ream and Robinson across the back line, although I could be I could be talked into McKenzie starting there. And then in the midfield, you wanted to be Musa and McKinney. I think probably Musa McKinney and Luca. and then have who would be the deeper one. I kind of like Luca and Musa as a double pivot

and then McKinney further forward. But I don't think any of them's a natural fit as like the guy who you feel like is totally responsible for shutting down the middle of the park, not at least in the way Adams is. But yeah, so I'd say Luca and Musa and a double pivot and then McKinney

somewhat more advanced, but really make it a trivet. Yeah, yeah. I'm wondering if we see a little bit bit of a trivet. What's, is that, what's your, what's your preferred shape there? I'm starting McKinney and Musa as a double pivot and I'm throwing Raina ahead of him in the midfield.

So as a 10? Yeah, he'd still, I mean, in possession, he'd have the exact same job he had in the game against Holland once Hodgey Wright came on, which was basically go wherever he wanted as a nominal winger and pick up the ball and then try to do cool things with it. So that would still be his job. But in defense, he'd sit ahead of him. I'm just going to bank on El Salvador not posing enough of a threat that we are going to sit in our low block for very much time. So Raina's not going to be expending much energy there.

And it's going to be more about letting him use the entire game to show off what he's got. Silence, silence any remaining critics. Yeah, on a pristine field in Orlando. And then, yeah. So I would, you want Raina in the middle. I was, I said Musa McKenney, Luca. And then I guess to round out my starting 11 against El Salvador, it'd be, I think I'd go Raina, Dike, and Pulisic across the front line. Just dropping Timway, huh?

Not a single thought about it. I mean, there's some thought about it, but... So yeah, by me putting Raina in the middle, I'm basically dropping your Luca and I'm adding Timway out of the field. And Waya's going to sit on that wide right flank and it'll be desk kind of jumping in the midfield and being more reserved. not full Reggie Cannon mode. He'll actually kind of go in and be more of like a midfield player, uh, swirling around wherever he's needed.

Is, do you think Taylor Booth's going to get a cap this camp? Man, that's, uh, he'll probably get a run out. I think, but with 25, like,

you never know. There are going to be a couple of players who don't, right? Yeah. And I feel like him coming back from injury, uh, Maybe is a prime candidate for that. Yeah. Let's flip a coin on Booth.

I hope so. I want to see every guy, pretty much every guy on this list gets a minute, certainly all the attackers. Well, I really want to see the new improved underlying numbers, Darrell Dekai, playing with Pulisic and Raina. And way, I mean, I'd like to see way off the bench, too, in that game. So like we said, all the attackers need to get in. Brian Reynolds needs to get in. Midfield and centerbacks, I'm less worried about seeing those auditions, but the attackers are where the money's at in this camp.

All right. Well, we'll recap next Friday's game on Saturday, and we've got the money review coming up on Monday, WSO Wednesday on Wednesday. Please join us on the Patreon if you are able, or at least consider doing that. Links in the show notes. Thank you, Greg.

Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.