Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #403: USWNT World Cup roster, plus Gold Cup look-ahead

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Greg and Belz talk through the women's roster for the World Cup -- omissions, transmutations and injuries. Then we briefly discuss the Gold Cup roster for the USMNT ahead of Jamaica on Saturday night.27:00 Gold Cup discussion starts----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support us 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, the roster for the U.S. women's national team is set. It's not exactly full of surprises, but it is a World Cup roster, so we're going to talk about it. And at the end, discussed the Gold Cup, which kicks off for the men tomorrow against Jamaica. Just as a reminder, we face Vietnam in the first game of the World Cup for us on the 21st of July, The Netherlands five days later And then Portugal on August 1st Send-off match versus Wales

Is July 9 in San Jose Greg, how are you? Man, I'm doing all right. It feels like This is the first World Cup in a while Where you can't guarantee that we're getting out of the group Really? Is Portugal, you think that Portugal is that scary?

No, they're not. They're absolutely not scary. But in the past, like with the 24 teams You're going to have three teams get through kind of a situation. And it was like, well, even if there's a catastrophe, we'll get third and be one of the third place teams that advances. Now it's just like if there's a catastrophe.

I mean, Netherlands are the Netherlands, right? So it's not like you can just chalk that up as three points. No. So then it just comes down to like, yeah, if we have a stumble, it's at least possible to miss out. And we've seen world powers do that plenty of times on the men's side in the 32 team format. So you got to, we're going to have to like,

we got to show up, we got to execute. Yeah, particularly against Portugal, right? I mean, that's the, because we could lose to the Netherlands without even stumbling. That's where that, that's where that door to not advance opens, because that is a possibility. And then it really does just come down to like, oh, man, we have to, we have to do the business against Portugal. And we should. Again, we have, we're going to talk about this roster that is very much good enough to win a World Cup. So we should.

But it's, it's soccer. It's 90 minutes and weird things can happen. Yeah, before we get into who's there, let's talk about who's not there. The obvious ones, the big injuries to players who would be locks, pretty much, if not for their injury, are Becky Sauerbrun, Kat Macario, and Mallory Swanson. Am I missing anybody there who would definitely be there if she weren't injured? Sam Mewis, but she's been gone since the Olympics, so it doesn't feel like we're, We're missing her now, you know.

Sauerbren announced her omission a few days ago on Instagram. She said on the Snacks podcast, Lynn Williams's podcast, that she thought she could maybe squeeze in and get 15 minutes a game or something to start the tournament or maybe later. But she understood that Blockcoe and his staff didn't want to bring a center back with those kinds of limitations. Well, it's kind of interesting because then they just did not replace her. And the rosters will talk about there's only two centerbacks named.

I guess Emily Sondett kind of can be a centerback. And you're talking about Julie Ertz, maybe. Yeah, Julia Ertz says, I mean, she's a World Cup winning centerback, 2015. She was dynamite in that spot. So it's next to Becky Sauerbrun. So we know she can do it. We know she has done it. But yeah, it's, you know, it's you still could have brought Becky.

not saying we need to or didn't need to, but again, we didn't replace her with a different centerback to cover ourselves there. Right. And we'll get into some of the sporting omissions to. McCarillo, that's been talked about a lot. She's, she announced it weeks ago that she wasn't going to make it back from her ACL injury. And then Mallory Swanson on an absolute tear late in 2022 and early this year before she blew her

petal tendon in April. A real tragedy that. I mean, Macario and Swanson both, but, you know, Swanson's was brutal because she had been playing so well and was, it happened very recently, April 8th against Ireland. Yeah, and just the suddenness of it. And, yeah, that was, that's quite the roller coaster. Yeah. Now, the sporting omissions, I think this could be a much list or long, much of longer list. I'll start with Ashley Hatch, who missed the cut at Stryker. She had been pretty much a regular up until now.

I don't mind. I don't mind that she's not going to be there. I don't think she's a game winner at a high level, even if she does continue to score goals in WSL. And Vlako's explanation was that Sophia Lynn, so Sophia Smith, Lynn Williams, Trinity Rodman, And even Alyssa Thompson can play as nines. We haven't seen a ton of that under Vladco, but okay.

Yeah, and we've talked about that on the pod. And I think for a lot of us doing our roster predictions or roster votes in the power rankings that Jordan does on the Discord every couple weeks have been saying that when we list forwards out, all of those wingers you listed don't go on the forward sheet. So a lot of us are saying, yeah, you only need to bring one of the forwards listed, and it's going to be Alex Morgan. So Vlato agrees with us there. it doesn't seem ideal that he used a ton of striker minutes to play Ashley Hatch in the last year

if that was going to be the like his his preference was to use one of those other players so right that's the part that makes no sense it's like it makes what he said made sense but it has is like did it just occur to him last week exactly so I mean I mean I don't know again Lynn Williams was was hurt up until what the January camp down over New Zealand that we took players to do I think that was like her first time play playing in a year or 10 months. So, you know, he might say, okay, now we have these pieces available, weren't available for Alyssa Thompson just came on the scene.

But yes, like, it's, there was some, we'll throw Taylor Cornyack in this too. Like, she played a ton of minutes for the U.S., and then instead we dump her for a player who has zero caps. And it's just like, all right, man, like somewhere there's some kind of a disconnect where maybe we could have integrated a player earlier instead of using another player for a lot of minutes, a few starts that just dropped at the 11th hour. Yeah, like so few real auditions in the past year or so. All right.

Casey Krueger, do you have a strong opinion about her being left off? I kind of do. And we'll talk, maybe I'll save it though for when we'll, actually get to who's going. I'll say that and I'll circle back. Let me circle back to Kruger. Okay, that's fine. And then Tierna Davidson, who fought back from injury, just missed the cut. Vlako said,

she, quote, missed it by a little bit. Dot, dot, dot. Right now, at this moment, we felt like there were other players that fit better in the needs that we may have for this World Cup, end quote. I mean, that's probably the case, right? Tierna probably could have been like doing a sonnet type job where she could deputize at fullback or centerback. But yeah, he's just, Vlocco's just running with a skeletal defensive crew. I mean, even if Sauerbrun were healthy, wouldn't you want it to be cook and Germa starting?

For sure. And so the hope is that they just stay healthy, right? The hope is they stay healthy and play every minute of every meaningful game. that's where we're going to be for this tournament. So that's what I just mean about. It's a skeleton crew in the back. Right. I mean, if there's one position where you can go without much rotation,

I guess it's center back, right? Yep, as long as you don't run into suspensions or injuries. Yep, fingers crossed for Cook and Germa. Yeah, and by extension for Vlachco. Other omissions, players we've talked about, midfielder's Sam Coffee, you know, that was pretty clear that was going to. that she was not going to be included.

Same with Jaden Howell. I'm sorry, Jalen Howell, even further away, she was even further away from the national team picture than coffee by the time this roster was announced. You got a couple of just attackers who are kind of lighten up the league right now in Jaden Shaw and Morgan Weaver,

who, again, might just be a little too late. Hopefully these are named, our attacking options remain stupid, right? Like, again, when you're leaving Ashley Hatch off, who's lighting up the league. You've got plenty of players to pick from, and none of the players we picked are bad attackers. So feeling good about our attacking unit.

And also, again, not to jump straight over a World Cup that we're all very excited about. Like, it is fun to think about what this next group of attackers will get to do in the Olympic cycle following this, because hopefully we do just see, like, just an all-out blitz of minutes for some of these players. Right.

but let's stay with the actual ones who are going to be in this tournament. Right. Well, I mean, Jaden Shaw has been so good this NWSL season. 18 years old. Yeah, as good as Alyssa Thompson has been maybe better in some ways. And Morgan Weaver, you know, she probably has a picture of Megan Rapino in her room that she throws darts at. It's not fair because you said we know all of our attackers are good attackers. and certainly Rapino is a good attacker.

She's going to go down as a very good attacking player. I don't know that she's really that good of an attacker right now. She's a ball playing winger. She's a regista playing on the wing. I mean, there are going to just be sort of squad considerations here. And I think a lot of players fall into that, maybe too many fall into squad consideration, you know, building a complete squad,

including, like, personalities and making sure you have the right personalities to go win a tournament. And also, Morgan Weaver might, might be just like riding the high of an outrageous Portland team. She obviously contributes to how outrageous that Portland team is at scoring goals.

But it might be a little bit of an air raid situation for Morgan Weaver. That's true. Although you can see that she's got some real pitch control ability. You know, she controls her destiny. Anyway, we don't have to get into it too much. Yeah, Morgan Weaver left off. So let's do the actual roster.

Okay, so we've got in goalkeeper, we're bringing three. We're bringing a listener, Casey Murphy, and Aubrey Kingsbury. So the one who misses out who we didn't mention in the omissions, Adriana Franch, who had been sort of third keeper for the last year, has lost her starting spot in Kansas City and does not make the flight. Yeah. She's struggled Good thing none of the other goalkeepers have struggled so far this season in NWSL That would be bad if any of these three goalkeepers had struggled at all this season

So Neher's having a tough one this year And we just have to hope that Either if she's starting she pulls it together or a Vlako just runs with a Goalkeeper who hasn't sort of started to fall off the age cliff 12 goals in the last three games Chicago has conceded. Which, you know, maybe Casey Kruger has something to say about that too.

But, um, all right, defenders. All right, so for defenders, we've got Naomi Germa, Alana Cook, Emily Fox, Crystal Dunn, Emily Sonnet, Sophia Huerta, and Kelly O'Hara. And I think you can basically just write in stone Germa, Cook, Fox Dunn for meaningful games. Yeah. We're hoping that we have a non-meaning, I keep saying,

meaningful because we're hoping we have a group stage game that doesn't matter. That's always the hope. Yeah, if we can beat Vietnam and the Netherlands, which we totally can do, then the Portugal game becomes somewhat less meaningful. Let's see. Give us the midfield, Greg. So the midfielder's are Roosevelt, Lindsay Horan, Julie Ertz, Andy Sullivan, Lindsay Sanchez, Christi Mewis, and Ashley.

Ashley Sanchez. Christy Mewis and Savannah de Mello. So this is where I'm going to dig in a little bit. Okay, please. I'm digging in here, and it's going to be like, it's going to be circular because where I'm digging in is going to be Crystal Dunn. And so, you know, we don't have Cat Macario. A few months ago, Vlako was talking about Crystal Dunn and her, you know,

the fact that she sort of has to play left back for us. And he was talking about, okay, well, she can say she just wants to play midfielder, but if she does that, she's suddenly competing with Cat Macario and Rose Lavelle. And that actually makes total sense to me. You know, I'm like, okay, you've got these almost like World 11 type players in Lavelle and Cat Macario and Crystal Dunn. So we can get them all in the field by putting Crystal Dun at left back. We don't have that situation anymore.

Cat Macario is not going to be here. Rose Lavelle is being, I think, taped together as we speak. She hasn't, Lavelle hasn't played since what? You just checked this, didn't you? April 8. She hasn't played since the game where Mallory Swanson, tore her patella tendon. So yeah, so she could be looking at three months off

since her last match, and I don't know what her availability or fitness will be. And so if we are now in a position where we are not starting either of those two players and we're starting and Ashley Sanchez, who's a fine player, but Crystal Dunn's Crystal Dunn. Like, I would much rather,

if Lavelle's not available, be starting Crystal Dunn in midfield and then bringing on our third fullback, which in my opinion would have been Kruger. So Kruger left out entirely. For me, if Lavelle can't go, I would be having done as the attacking midfielder. And Casey Krueger is starting probably right back with Emily Fox at left back. Fox at left back, yeah.

You think Kruger is that reliable of a defender? I mean, that's exactly what I would say is I think she's more reliable. And so more reliable than Huerta, certainly more reliable than O'Hara. Again, I understand O'Hara being used as a vet. I mean, this is her fourth World Cup, right? Right. Incredible. Like incredible.

Four World Cups, a bunch of Olympics, but not necessarily a high-performing player at the moment relative to other options. By the way, that reminds me something they said on the Diaspora United podcast, the one with Shea Butter FC, who, by the way, raised more than $25,000 last night to go to the World Cup. Get it. Awesome.

But they said, we have too many leaders and not enough soccer players. Yes, yes. That's what I would say. I think that's spot on. Again, and I feel like part of Sonnet's inclusion is her locker room presence. But again, how many of those players are you bringing at the expense of who you're going to, who you would rather use if someone actually is needed to play in a soccer game? Yeah, I wonder, so I guess Kruger is the solution to the problem if you want to play Dunn in the midfield.

But, yeah, I mean, I guess if it's Sanchez who's starting, the drop off from Dun to Sanchez is pretty, significant and then the maybe bigger than the drop-off from Dunn to Kruger at fullback. I mean, that's what I think. I feel like you've got to put your money in the attack if you've got it. But that's the question, right? Is it bigger? Is it a bigger drop-off?

So I think it's even, again, less about the drop-off and more about the relative value of the position. So I think we've got to get the goals scored. And again, when you have Lavelle and Macario as options, you've got money in attack right there. Like, that's a, that's like your luxury attack. And when you don't have them and you're like hoping Ashley Sanchez can do it, you're putting way too much attacking money in your left back spot with Crystal done

when you should be front loading that, that budget. Okay. This is a very, this is a very useful metaphor that I'm making very appropriate. I have no idea. It makes sense. I think it makes sense, yeah. I mean, hopefully Lavelle is, you know, gets healthy. She's apparently available this weekend, potentially available at least.

Sanchez has been playing well in NWS, although she's never been convincing, I don't think. No, never been fully convincing for the national team. No, and then the other big one here is DeMalo, who I think, I mean, this is awesome that she's on here. And, you know, we talked about how it's kind of crazy. We were giving Taylor Corniak a bunch of minutes, and now DeMalo comes in at the last second. But also, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I feel like it kind of doesn't matter because the U.S. national team for the last

18 months has not had any real rhythm to its play. So it's not like dropping somebody and adding somebody the last second is going to like throw off all this fine-tuned machine that has been humming because that has not been the case. Yeah, Corniac was a rhythm buster

for the most part. I mean, whatever rhythm there was. Right. Right. Let's talk about the forwards. Unless you got anything more on the midfield? I don't think so. I mean, where are you had on it? I think what is going to happen,

I'm curious to see if DeMello even sees the field for Vlako. He feels like he's going to play Haran until she expires. And Lavelle, yeah, like we talked about, she hasn't played since early April. I imagine we'll see Ertz Haran Lavelle as much as possible with Andy deputizing a bunch. I think, I feel like, that's going to be the key for as long as

Lavelle is healthy, and if Lavelle's not healthy come World Cup time, I think it's going to be Erd-Soran and Andy. You know, I mean, I just think... Well, Blacco's gone to Ashley Sanchez quite a bit, so... That's true. It doesn't surprise me if that's where he goes. And again, that's where I'm just like, Howie's starting,

with all due respect, Ashley Sanchez in this spot when Crystal Dunn is right there, also on the field. I'm not sure I fully agree, but I get your point. We shouldn't devalue the job of left back either, you know? No, I get that. I get that.

I mean, there's like this, like, superficial idea that if you play on the left back, if you play a left back, you know, you're nothing. And if you play in the midfield, you're a star. And like, you know, fullbacks touch the ball a ton in soccer. And they, you need your fullbacks. I mean, look at the U.S. men's national team with Dest and without Dest. Oh, yeah. It's a, it's a huge job.

It's super important. It is. And it can be an absolute difference maker when, again, you have the luxury to put a crystal done at left back and add that kind of attacking nuance to that position and still have, you know, in your super high leverage attacking midfield spots, best players in the world type players. It just, I just am going to, I'm hoping that it doesn't turn

into a frustration point during the World Cup. That's what I'm hoping. And it might not. Like, Lavelle might play a ton or Sanchez or DeMello could come in and like cook a little bit. Like, let's hope that that happens. Right. Yeah, you think Demela's going to play much?

No. I mean, I wouldn't expect to, but you never know. Like, coaches, coaches find religion at the last second all the time. Yeah. I'm not even saying she should. I just mean, as you get into these extremely high pressure, again, high leverage moments, sometimes the coaches will do unexpected things. Right. If you, if you, based on who Blockko's choice is up to now, you would not expect to Melo to play because she literally never has.

Right. Yeah, there's a cuteness gets washed away, gets scoured away by the pressure. I mean, I'm not saying, I don't know if it's cute to blade to mellow or not at this point. Up front, how about up front? Let's talk about the attackers. All right, so I'm going to split it up into nominal wingers, and that's Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman, Lynn Williams, Alyssa Thompson, and the elder state's been Megan Rapino. and this is a really good group of players. Yes.

This is the money right here. Even without Macario and, well, Macario wouldn't be in this list, but even without Mallory Swanson, who is outrageous. Yeah, these gals are cooking. So not much else to say, right? Like, this is a solid group of players. I guess I, again, am kind of pessimistic about, what we will actually see in the games.

I feel, you know, if we want to do soccer through at FC, then we're playing Thompson, Rodman, and Smith. You know, that's like the, those are the ones who combine and are patient and will, you know, slow the game down and try to try to work for a good shot. But we got these war horses in Alex Morgan and Lynn Williams, and I feel like they're going to get a ton of minutes, you know, and maybe with Sophia Smith on one wing.

Yeah, Alex Morgan, the sort of lone striker, and she has been Vlato's striker since Kat got hurt. It makes sense. She is decorated, highly decorated. She has not been overwhelming in the league this year. She's behind a lot of other players who are on this roster and players who aren't on this roster for underlying production. And frankly, again, I'm hoping that this is sort of an 11th hour of Vlokko thing

where the fact that he only brings one striker means he obviously sees some of these other wingers as options, as viable candidates, and I'm hoping that he sees Sophia Smith as the actual best candidate and starts start striker, and Alex Morgan becomes a very good veteran player to see out a match for 15 minutes.

Yeah, that'd be awesome. If you want Sophia to be the starting number nine, who do you want the starting wingers to be? I'd probably run Trinity and Williams and then use Thompson as a totally different kind of a sub than either Megan Rapino. I mean, you can see the golfing player style between Elizabeth Thompson and Megan Rapino.

It's hard to imagine more opposite players. And then, yeah, I'm hoping for Sophia up top with Trinity and Lynn Williams around her. Okay. I would love to see that. Yeah, that'd be cool. My biggest worry of this tournament, you know, we talk about us not advancing,

is that the players Vlato is holding on to just a little too tight are a listener and Alex Morgan and we underwhelm at those two positions and find ourselves knocked out. Yeah, kind of important positions when it comes to the scoreboard. Let's see. Are you confident that, well, obviously you're not

because you just said you were worried about him holding on to Morgan too long. You probably, odds are, Vlako starts Morgan. I'm sure. Yeah, I think that's probably like 85% in the case. Again, I'm just like clinging to this idea that maybe he won't. Right. Well, who do you think, like when we play Vietnam,

when we play Vietnam in the first game on the 21st, do we come out with our, you know, full strength 11? That's another sort of a conundrum because we definitely don't have to. And again, you got to respect all of your opponents and you've got to get the results. But we will beat Vietnam even if we don't bring our very best 11

onto the field. You know, we're going to get our three points in that game. There's just going to be too big of a distance and quality. So who would you start in that game? I would probably, if it were me, I would probably start the best players. Like my idea of the best 11, whoever the coach is,

whatever their best idea is, that's who I would start in that game, and try to absolutely dismantle them, similar to what we did in 2019. Like score nine goals, and then start taking players off, if you accomplish that, start taking players off very early.

And celebrate every goal vigorously, right? Yes. As vigorously as the goal score wants. Right. They're prerogative. Let's see. anything else. We'll try to get into more detail on

on the opponents as we get closer to the World Cup which is, you know, in less than one month. So coming up fast. Anything else you want to say about the roster? Now we'll be watching closely for that game in July because again

that's your only tune-up. I would also expect you to probably trot out what you think is your best 11 in that game. There's little reason not to. I don't think you worry about giving any information away. You got to try to put them together because, again, with some of the injuries we're dealing with and people pulling out of these, having to pull out of this tournament,

like we need to get some reps here. Right. And a big question is Lavelle's health, probably. Ertz's form, I think, is a little bit of a question as well. I thought she, apparently she had a better game over the weekend than she did in the previous two. Right. Earths has two matches under a belt for the national team since the Olympics, right?

So you don't, yeah, you don't just hold off and be like, oh, we'll just save them for the group stage. Like, we got to see who you think your team is. We've got to see them play together. We've got to see who the team is that we want to play against the Netherlands, really. I mean, you're saying put the full strength team out against Vietnam, but it's the Netherlands game that is going to be sort of, it's going to tell us kind of where we stand, I think. Yeah, I think that's right. and that game is July 26th, a Wednesday, and 9 p.m. Eastern time. 8th Central, Greg.

We got some good luck with the kickoffs for at least two of the group stage games. Yeah, not bad at all. Let's quickly, we haven't covered it yet. Well, before we get to it, let me just say, consider joining the Patreon if you are able. The link is in the show notes, get the money reviews, a bunch of other stuff, access to the Discord, which is very lively. And full of a robust U.S. women's national team discussion,

the Casey Kruger News fell hard on the Discord, I would say. Yeah, Kruger, and then again, just the buildup of coffee, howl frustration for not ever sort of giving them a shot at it. Right. Well, anyway, join us on the Patreon if you are able. Let's talk about the Gold Cup. You and I haven't really talked about it. Nations League was just a few days ago.

Yeah, this is just kind of a nice, nice relaxing tournament for us to follow this Gold Cup. Yeah. When the roster was announced, I'm going to be honest, it was disappointing. And I wasn't disappointed in sort of the choice that USSF clearly made to deprioritize this, sent almost the entire first team from Nation's League back to their clubs. I think that's totally fine. I think it makes sense. Keep anyone who is sort of trying to improve their club situation away.

so they can have a preseason with their club or sort out their new destination and we're hearing some fun rumors of some guys already. I think that's the right choice. Really my disappointment just comes down to Tim Tillman and Keaton Parks and Tanner Testman not being available, I think. If those three guys were on it, I'd love this roster. Yeah, and why isn't like Josh Sargent there or Malik Tillman? So yeah, and that's most people's

guys they want them there are genuinely not available Malik still got to figure out his club and he was dealing with an injury at the end of of that Rangers campaign where they shut him down after their last meaningful match the Cup semi-final against

Celtic. CCV got shut down right after that as well Sergeant. That's right. They shut him down early for their last meaningless match of the championship and I'd seen that he was potentially dealing with an injury. So again, it's really just like everyone understands that the Gold Cup is not what we are considering important. And things are important if you consider them important. And we do not think that this tournament is important.

We're pretty obviously signaling that. I had a, I mentioned this on the Discord, but I had an interesting discussion with some non-sick-o, but very serious soccer fan friends. And they were just appalled that we. aren't sending our A team to the Gold Cup. And I, you know, I'm so accustomed to the view that we should allow players to sort out their club situations, which they acknowledged. I was like, hey, Christian Pulcic's got to figure out his club situation.

And the guy was like, yeah, that's true. But I was shook by it. I was like, man, I've never heard, I haven't heard this put this way before. It's like never comes up in our little universe. And then he pointed out that, as my friend Toby, he pointed out that Brazil, he pointed out that Brazil plays their friendlies with like their best 11 like anytime they play basically. And I looked at some of their rosters. I was like that's actually kind of true.

So. Yeah. I mean, there isn't, I feel like there just isn't a good analog for this kind of for our sort of every two years gold cup that other federations would have that they just don't care about or that they, you can sort of justify not caring about it. I don't know. I don't know. I'm totally fine just considering this a JV tournament, especially with, again, the introduction of the Nations League changes things, right? That has created basically a shortcut version of the Gold Cup,

which is perfect for a lot of our best players. Right. I get to come over, play their two games against Mexico and Canada, or Mexico and some other top five-ish team in the region, win their trophy, lift it to blast. You can tell they love doing it. Head home, and there's no slog. There's no, there's no, like, mental tax for being away from your club for, you know,

or for not getting an off-season. Because if you do the Gold Cup, you have very little off-season. You go straight back into your club. They're already in preseason. You just jump right back in. No mental break if you're doing that. So I just, yeah, I cannot be bothered to be like, oh, no, we need to, we need to prioritize this. Nations League for me is the perfect compromise.

Yeah, fair enough. I mean, and it should be pointed out, Europe doesn't do the euros every. two years. South America doesn't do the Copa America every two years. It is a little... Why do we do it every two years? I don't really know. I think it's fine to you. I think it's good to get more money in the door for the region, you know, because we're selling out stadiums or we're selling tickets and that money gets spread out over the whole region because other teams can use additional resources. So I'm great with it. And again, I'm great with us just sending our JV team that we know

is still going to play pretty far into the tournament. Right. Usually. I'm not ruling out a round of eight loss here, but... It totally could happen, yeah. Well, should we do the roster and kind of get out of here, basically? Yeah, let's do it. Goalkeeper is Turner, Gagas Linina, and Sean Johnson.

Got some mixed zone audio from Alex Calabrese on the Patreon from Gaga and Sean. I'm just going to plug stuff as much as I can here. Fullback, Yedlin. At fullback, we got Yedlin, Brian Reynolds, Dewan Jones from the New England Revolution, and John Tolkien from Red Bull, New York. Centerbacks are Miles. Hold on. You got any plug there?

You got any plugs with that? Oh, yeah, we have an interview with Tolkien on the free feed. Just dropped yesterday. Miles Robinson, Matt Miasga, Aaron Long and Jalen Neal at centerback. Miles potentially still injured. I am hopeful out of this defending core that we don't hide anybody against Jamaica. Jamaica could be the best attacking front in the tournament that we face

because Canada is sort of bringing their reserves and Mexico aren't very good at attacking. So Jamaica are bringing the squad up top. So I hope we see Brian Reynolds and I hope we see Jalen Neal in that game. Like let's see what they have. Yeah, that'd be good. If they get run over, oh well. we'll regroup, we'll still make it into the knockout and then we'll

see how we can do in those knockout games. Yeah, I love that. That's worth the entire podcast recording right there, that idea. Definitely start Reynolds and Jalen Neal against Jamaica because we might as well. We know Miazga and Long are not going to be probably not going to be playing in the next World Cup with all due respect to them both.

Jail and Neil might. I don't think Gettlin will either. No. Go ahead. No, it was just going to say, like, I just, yeah, we don't need to give them a game that we cannot lose. We don't need to give them Trinidad where we can't lose that game on home soil. Like, we just can't. We never have lost to Trinidad.

We did. And then a year later in the Gold Cup, we dumped them like 6-0. Yeah, that's true. Center mid, we got Aidan Morris, James Sands. Jean-Lucabousio back from the, you know, wherever he's living in Italy. Oh, he's in Venice still, right? He's in the canals, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. He's having a good life, John Lucasio. Yeah, I'm sure he is. And then Christian Roldon. Yeah, if Roldon's the centermate, I feel like Roldon's going to be a plug-in-play for BJ. That's the other big thing is we still get B.J for a tournament. Oh, that makes it worth it.

don't really care here any of them can play and show that they've got something or they can play and be sort of invisible blend in with the scenery types in a in a JV squad and that's sort of about what you expect to

I mean we're always up we're always up for getting more Christian roll down data especially if he you know I'm not saying I'm kind of joking around I'm not saying to like therefore he should play with the first team I'm just saying as to settle our long-running arguments on the Discord,

it's probably good for us to see, you know, a couple 90-minute performances from Christian Raldon in the Gold Cup. Roldon seems to be the perfect last man on a roster type. Seems to be his bread and butter. He's carving out a career. He's not racking up caps. But man, does he get a lot of U.S. gear? Yeah.

He's got like a whole, he's got like a whole warehouse full of windbreaker pants. Attacking mids, Georgie and Georgie Mahalovich and Alan Signora. If there's... If there even is an attacking mid, right? Right.

I mean, I guess they play as one of the eights. If there's a player that I think could be interesting and fun to watch in this tournament above all the others, for me it's probably Georgie. Like, um, he doesn't get to play that much for Azad Alkmar in the other.

villains, but that's a good team. And when he does play, he looks fun, I would say. He's got some ideas, doesn't he? Yeah, yeah. Senora kind of, I feel like, is in the Roldon camp where it seems like maybe he's just a good camp guy, but who knows? Again, this is why we're going to watch this tournament,

is to see if he has a little bit more than that. Wingers, Jordan Morris, Alejandro Zadehas, Kate Cowell and Julian Gressel, I think we're listing as a winger here. Sure. This is for me just going to be about establishing the Jordan Morris line and figuring out who is better or not as good as Jordan Morris. Because I feel like that's going to be the national team sort of fringe contention line. Yeah.

I mean, I like the way Zendahas plays, but he did get little brothered the, the heck out of him. He got the little brothered. He got the brother littled out of him. There you go. Is that what he'd say it? You got the brother littled out of him bad last time he was out there. And that was against El Salvador, right?

That's who we're talking about? I think so, yeah. Yeah, so that doesn't bode well. So here's your chance to put some positive data points on the spreadsheet, Alejandro. Yeah, we're talking about, on the Monday review, we were talking about batting down the hatches against Jamaica and then just kick it long to Cowell and Morris. Boo.

No, we're playing a game at home. We got to let them play. We got to like open it up and say, do it, fellas. And if you can't, that tells us just as much as if you can. If you can't, you just got to leave right there. You can't stick around. You got to leave the stadium on foot. And then we got Jesus Ferreira.

and Brandon Vasquez at Stryker. Greg? I mean, I'm hoping to see Jesus Ferreira light up a tournament. Yeah. I mean, I want either of them to light up a tournament, but it'll be interested to see where BJ leans out of these two guys. Or if he's just going to go situational. I bet we see a bunch of Jesus.

I mean, he's just a better footballer than Brandon. I think so, too, but I think if we get into, like, I mean, you got some names on the list that seemed to compliment and each other better than others so like a Gressel, Gressel and Vosquez could go well together. That's boring. That's boring. We're just going to give it to the guy who can cross it to the guy who can head it in. That's our strategy.

That we might as well batten down the hatches, Greg. All right. Come on. Show some consistency, brother. You're right. You're right. Let's put the total football side out there. All right.

I'm really with you on Reynolds. That'd be cool to see him and Jalenbo. see if they can be responsible and reliable as young defenders against a good attacking side. I mean, Kade Kowl's always going to be, he's always going to catch the eye, I think. He's no future Barcelona player, but he is very fast and strong and good at striking the ball. And the Jordan Morris line will be sitting right there, so we'll get to see if Kade Kowell at the young age that he is, is close to it or if he's still got a ways to go.

Yeah, I mean, at Cowell's age, Jordan Morris was playing for the junior varsity team at Stanford, right? I'm assuming, yeah. But also playing for the U.S. national team. Yeah, both at the same time. All right, well, so we got a lot of episodes coming up, just a little, I won't plug the Patreon, but a programming note is we're probably going to,

we might roll some of these recaps in with the Monday review and just have a little more fun with them and not, uh, I haven't told Vince and Waki this, so this is, this will be news to them, but we might just do it,

the four of us, uh, doing a recap and, and then talking about other stuff and, just look for that. Uh, we got an, it looks like we got an interview with,

uh, Paul Kennedy, the editor-in-chief of soccer America, coming next week. So if you're in the Discord, help us out, send in some questions, or if you're on the Patreon,

send questions via email, whatever. You can send them however you want. Uh, Enough. Chit-chat. Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks, Greg.

We'll see you.