Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #408: USMNT v Trinidad + the Monday Review

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Greg, Watke, Vince and Belz recap the group-winning victory over Trinidad from last night, and then hit a few Monday Review topics, including transfers, transfer rumors, and Pulisic out on the golf course.----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 U.S. beat Trinidad and Tobago six to zero on Sunday night in Charlotte, finishing the job so that we win the group on goal difference and likely play a struggling Canada side in the quarterfinals of the Gold Cup on Sunday. Got Vince Waki and Greg here. How are you doing? Doing all right, fellas. Hey, it's been 12 goals since my last confession on here,

so I'm excited to really dig through all these sins. Yeah. That's right. We did the, you did the Jamaica game with us, but not the, but then it was me and Tim Sullivan on the same kids. Yeah, Tim Sullivan. Welcome to the pod, buddy. Great, great job. Great job by Tim. Also, I mean, you, you know BJ got to be proud that we were able to put up a touchdown multiple times, multiple times. Yes. And, you know, as I tweeted yesterday, to see the U.S. men's national team put up a touchdown in the same stadium where my brother scored,

I think multiple touchdowns. I think it was two. Two NFL touchdowns in the same stadium. Great to see it. You love to see it. Yeah. Crowd was great. That's one thing that's really surprised me

is these crowds in these matches. Yeah, 40,000 announced attendance in Charlotte. Yeah, there's people like in the upper, upper, upper decks. We may have gotten some help from the Honduras game afterwards, but I don't think that dampens it any. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard about that. I saw McKellie's tweet. But, yeah, still.

Speaking of other Gold Cup results, we could also spend a whole episode talking about Mexico losing to Qatar if we wanted. So we'll have to get into that later in the broadcast. This episode will serve as both game recap and Monday review. But we got transfer rumors to get into a member of our Discord shared an elevator with J.T. Batson. Christian Pulisic was on the golf course in Florida. And of course, Mexico is really, really, really in the mud. So much more to talk about. Any big picture thoughts?

Let's start with you, Waki, on big picture thoughts from the game. I think more business-like leadership from BJ Callahan. They're just out there getting the job done. That's probably the biggest picture for me. Then obviously we have Ferreira's ruthlessness in front of goal. Yeah. The Pirate of the Caribbean, what do you guys think of that nickname? It's fantastic nickname.

It's tremendous. It's really good. Was it Tack who came up with it? I don't know, but there's so many, I mean, there's so many different visuals you can run with on it. There's a lot of potential there. Yeah. I think it's an outstanding name. If I were to nitpick it a little bit, I guess the idea behind it is he gets goals against Caribbean countries.

Yeah. So the pirates were attacking European ships. Hmm. Around the Caribbean. Yeah. But not necessarily. Okay. I see you're saying.

So it'd be better if you were actually somebody from one of the Caribbean countries plundering. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I see what you're saying. That is a tough one. I don't know if I'm considered. It's a great nickname.

I don't need the metaphor to be perfect. I just had to get that off my chest. Okay. So in the movie, though, which is, you know, a canon historical fact, pirates of the Caribbean. Are they attacking European ships? I can't remember exactly what was that going on in the movies. I felt like there was a lot of side action going on that wasn't the core business of pirating. Yeah.

Yeah, a lot of curse, a lot of curse breaking or curse break pursuing, I think. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, what could be considered a curse? Yeah. Uh, being really bad at the World Cup. I mean, you know, not, not just the World Cup, not just the World Cup, but, you know, other than, uh, one goal against Panama, uh, like, I think all his, all of his, all of his goals have been.

exclusively Caribbean in nature um yeah so so so yeah I mean you know the the the goal scoring monkey uh you know that that monkey can be considered a curse yep he's got it off his back no you make a very very strong case

for the nickname I was surprised by the speed at which this nickname took hold because I was you know going through the discord as the game was happening and everyone already knew to do pirate jokes and I never even heard of it before. See, this is how you know you got something though, for sure. Yeah, no, it's strong. Well, I knew it was something because I showed,

I'm at my parents' house in North Carolina right now, and I very briefly explained the joke to my dad, who is a, you know, he's a soccer fan, but very, very casual. Very briefly explained the joke to him. And then I showed him the video of, you know, Captain Jack Sparrow arriving on the top of the show. ship that sort of sinks into the water as he lands on the dock and then all the you know everybody looking at him as he walks by and my dad was like cracking up like he thought it was hilarious

and i was like wow yeah it is it works yeah yeah these are the connection points that uh you can form like when i uh like i recently just got my brother all aboard and and what got them all board is when I showed them the the Westin fight yeah you know it's just it's it's those things you got to you got to keep trying uh you you you kind of want to be discerning right you kind of want to be discerning you like you don't want to get uh to the point of annoying and potentially get written off but but you know when when you have something that you consider uh you know might be gold and might break through to the normies uh you you got a you got to proliferate at every opportunity.

And the Hayes, the Hesus one is perfect because, I mean, it's definitely like, you know, a lot of, a lot of jest. There's definitely a lot of a level of like, this is all he is. But if he ever does, like, fully come good against good teams, it's still a perfect nickname as his origin story. Right. So it'll stick, it can stick with him whether he, like, flops consistently against the good teams and only does this against the smaller teams.

or if he like really becomes one of our guys and and like is doing well, he still will always have this as his origin. Yeah, exactly. What else? What else, Waki? Well, go ahead. Well, I have one and I have more questions about the pirate again. Actually, just one more.

Is it, do we just call him the pirate or is it you say pirate type things in relation to him? I haven't. I'm still learning about exactly how to use it. You have to call him the pirate of the Caribbean. Every time. you can't you can't call him captain captain jack ferre i don't know i mean is there any takeoff on it that's kind of what i'm asking what is there is he getting a specific pirate name i think there's still a lot to to not figure out but to realize here in in joy i'm excited

yes i have to say i like captain jack ferrera that's nice i'm with it like uh so so especially because maybe like Jesus could be considered, you know, a Latin Jack as far as you, you know. Yeah. He's a little bit, he a little bit has the look. Okay, let's run through a few other things, Waki. Some more positive. Reynolds earning himself a first team camp, seems to me. Looked good.

I think he passes the Velasquez cheat code test, doesn't he? Probably, I don't know. I mean, all of the. All the positives, Hesus included, are very much just like shrugs until we get to the knockouts. And even the first knockout game, well, hopefully it's Canada, but I don't know how much we can even take from Canada. But it's very much just going to be like, he's passed the test to start the knockout game. And then we'll have to see how everyone does in these games before we start to see if they're going to be fringe hanging on folks for a full strength camp in September. because those camps are going to be, again,

they're going to be really competitive to break into. This next one I've got is even more of a shrug. Maybe a quiet James Sands renaissance in the works. A turnaround job. I'll just go to the next one. Well, Sands has been quiet. Reynolds has been good. But if Ferreira score and all these goals earns him like a hilariously sort of mocking nickname,

I don't know that we can necessarily take Reynolds's attacking performances and be like this vaults him into the into the A team. I feel like we just got to be be careful out there everyone. I'm with Greg. Yeah, I mean, I'm not I'm not so sure Ferreira doesn't deserve to be with the A team, you know? I mean, we'll get into it more in the timeline, but that first goal, that is a that is a repeatable elite combination move that he is doing there.

The touch up and then the volley before the defender can get a foot in the way. I don't know. He's pretty good. He's not perfect, of course, and he was bad against the Netherlands, but... Yeah, I'll give my frere a non-wet blanket take and it's that I feel like he was still in the hat.

I know that Netherlands 45 is going to loom large over him until he gets a chance against a good team, if he can put it behind him. but I think for me he was still in the hat. You know, Balgans his own thing. And then after that, there's a hat for who else is going to be in any camp. And I've never, I would not have had a problem if it was Jesus.

I wouldn't have a problem if it was one or two other players to any camp. So, uh, this game hasn't meant much. The two, the last two games with all the hat tricks haven't meant much, um, necessarily. I do agree Wells that he, uh, he, he's demonstrated some tidy technique in some of these shooting opportunities. It seems like he's doing it on purpose because that's three times now that he's popped the ball up off of the floor directly under him, right? And then smashed it. Yeah. At least three.

And so that's cool. And I like watching it. It's fun. But it hasn't moved the needle much for me because he was already kind of a tidy player in those moments bar 45 minutes against another one. It's probably about 60 minutes against Mexico and the cash go. Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt in my mind that he's doing that on purpose.

One more wet blanket thing I'll just throw out there for any folks who are maybe a little bit newer. You know, talking about, well, two hat tricks in a row has to mean something. And it genuinely literally does not have to mean anything. The 2013 Gold Cup, a man by the name of Chris Wondelowski jumped in with five goals in the group stage. I think a hat trick and then a game with two goals. By the end of that tournament, he was benched. Like, couldn't even remain the striker through that tournament. Didn't play in the final that we won one.

zero so uh you do very much just have to enjoy the game as it's happening and then immediately wipe it uh for anyone who's who's racking up stats yo um so i'll throw one one thing on to the to the jesus uh defense uh i guess is uh it's it's not just the goals um so for me i feel like the thought of hazus's ability to play um and and and help our uh uh collective ability to create chances and be a connector and things like that. Like, I feel like it's been more theoretical than actual, in my opinion. And like in Jamaica, I thought he was just, he was close to sublime as far as like making the most out of his touches. And really helping create a lot of danger.

And then we saw it in this match too where he said, where he set Alex, Alex and Dejah's up, which, you know. If we want to talk about the opposite on the negative side, we can get there. But, like, you know, after a brilliant combination, really, between those two where he set him up for what could have been a shot. But I think that that for me has been just very encouraging to see his general overall play. Picked out the perfect pass to Roldon to in the first half, the one where Roldon, Wift. Yep. Yeah, so the knock, the knocks on Ferreira have been, have been a moving target because, again, a lot of the knock early on through qualifying was the finishing and just the finishing because he was doing almost everything else right, pressing, connecting, creating chances, getting on the end of chances. The ball just didn't go into the net form.

Then the World Cup comes around and he was legitimately bad against Holland, which is a separate thing. He was bad in a way that he was not ever bad in any of the other games he had played for us. So you still have to sort of separate those two out. And if you are a finishing truther, then you're still not going to be convinced. If you're still someone who says, we just want to find guys who are contributing to chances for our team to play in that role, then he probably hasn't ever left and probably hasn't hurt himself certainly through this Gold Cup so far. Hey, speaking of just as a quick aside, you know, if you'd like to support this podcast, join our Patreon. The link is in the show notes. I've noticed something that is interesting lately.

I wanted to see if Greg and Vince noticed this too. The finishing truthers on the women's side are sort of coming at us. And all of a sudden, a new group of people who have never had this debate before coming into our mentions. Yeah, the whole Alex Morgan thing. Yeah. People say XGs doesn't matter. What is this baseball? why are you taking penalties off the totals yeah yeah yeah i mean it's like oh man we've we've

had this conversation before and that's why i'm saying if if that's your plane if you're on the plane where you're saying uh the plane of like just count the goals count the penalties count the goals like fine i'm not then i'm certainly not going to change your mind uh and somebody who's you know racking up penalties is will all will always remain in the discussion uh i mean i just i think at this point, it's clear where I stand. Can I do a, can we stay on this for a little bit longer? Yeah. If anyone who isn't tired of yet, because Hase is the perfect one in a couple of games he's had sort of encapsulate this perfectly. So the game against Jamaica, I'm not going to talk about his hat tricks because I legitimately don't care about those teams in the games he was playing.

But the Jamaica game, you know, it's a sort of a valid, mediocre opponent. And he looked good in that game. And he got some positive reviews, even from people who, who tend to be very critical of him, tactical manager saying he was good against Jamaica, so that's what we should focus on if we're going to talk about him. But he didn't take any shots in that Jamaica game. He created two chances, two really good chances. He was somewhat involved in Vasquez's goal at the end,

and he was tidy throughout the rest of the game. And it's like this really fundamentally shows how you assess striker play and how you sort of analyze it. Because if you go back to his World Cup qualifying starting debut against El Salvador, He created a couple of really good chances, one for Eunice Musa that was saved from point blank and the Jedi Robinson goal. The difference in, and he was generally tidy in buildup play throughout. The difference between the El Salvador game and this Jamaica game is that Hesu's got on the end of two very good chances. One, he set up for himself, the other Timwaya set up for him for that point blank bouncing ball with a keeper out of the frame.

And he missed him. So if your way to assess strikers is converting those chances, then you're going to say that was a bad game against El Salvador, whereas the nerds would tend to say, oh, no, no, you want him to be doing the stuff where he sets up goals and getting on the end of chances too. That's a fantastic performance if you're trying to say, this is a guy who contributes to chances. So I feel like those are sort of the two lanes you're going to be in where do you think it's better to just not create any chances so you don't miss them? Or is it better to always be sort of on all ends of chances? Yeah. I just got three more quick pause.

that I think are all wet blanket proof that will get can also get us into the timeline. All right. Cape Cowell smile after scoring. Everyone loves that. Brandon Vasquez just so he's he's more handsome every time he steps out on the field. And then third, Jay Lenoil's breathing exercise and fourth a game. They're really intense. Yeah.

You talking when when he was doing his like a quad stress? Or was it? No, during that. I didn't catch those. I'll have to look at those. I'm talking about during the National Anthem. All right. He's going to a heavy rhythmic breathing exercise.

Yeah, almost like deliberately hyperventilating. Yeah. Getting himself into a trance. I like it. That's focus. Oh, sorry, but on the brand of Vasquez, a handsome thing. I just want to say, like, like, it's one thing to be handsome. And then also, but that he, he, he, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he

He's going to rub it in your face when he scores that goal, though, too. You know, his celebration to just stand there and preying a little bit. Yeah. You know, that's, that's, I like it. I like it. Yeah, you do not want to let someone that handsome score on you. All right, let's do the lineups. We had Matt Turner and goal, Brian Reynolds, Miles Robinson back from a knock at right centerback,

Jalen Neal and then Dewan Jones across the back line. James Sands, John Luca Bousseo, and George Imhaelovich in the midfield, Alejandro Sendejas, Jesus Ferreira, and Christian Rodon across the front line. Hold on, bro, you're not going to give Christian Rodon its proper latinification? I felt like I was, I felt like I was, that would be a bridge too far. Christian, you know what I'm saying? Christian. Rule done. I don't know. I feel like such a poser.

And then Trinidad was Marvin Phillip and goal. Alvin Jones, the guy who scored that banger against us back in 17. Leland Douglas Archer, Sheldon Batoe, and Tristan Hodge across the back line. Luke Singh and Naval Hawkshaw in the midfield. Levi Garcia, who was excellent at right wing, or he's kind of all over the front of the field. but Levi Garcia, Kevin Molino, Jovin Jones, across the band of three, and then Malcolm Shaw at Stryker. Again, Garcia was a handful for us. And I do agree that Jalen Neal was mostly steady, but he got absolutely unmanned by Garcia a couple times.

And I will say that that was a little bit troubling. Even Shaw and Malino, really, those are the three that stuck out to me. they were mostly handling their business in dual specifically. Like, I mean, the game kind of starts out with Malcolm Shaw holding up the ball like three or four times against our centerbacks just like with really no problem. Yeah, I'd say handling their business would be an understatement. They were just like, hey, we are the actual grown-up players here out of everyone else on the field. The USJV and then the rest of our guys are just going to have to learn a little bit from us. I've always liked Molino

I remember seeing him live a few times in Minnesota when I live there and I feel like he is a good soccer player Any thoughts on the lineup, Greg? No You can toss out just about anything for these And now we get to really assess and analyze the lineups Once we get into these knockout games Probably just a semi and final

A few things I noticed early on Some good passing from deep from Neil the field is kind of funny Stu Holden kept pointing it out on the Fox broadcast it was turf laid I mean it was grass laid over artificial turf and I think it was the ball was bouncing kind of funny bouncing in a muted sort of way

I guess we can kind of think through this as we go through the timeline I think they adjusted very well through the turf throughout yeah and once they figured out they knew how to recalibrate their passing by the end and I wasn't noticing, or maybe I just got used to it. I think you're right. I think they figured out that you had to put a little bit more on a pass to get it to where you wanted to go.

Sue's really good at talking about the field, by the way. So the first big thing is 10th minute, a Trinidad chance. Georgie Mahal is dribbling back to his own goal, a little out of control along the left side line. And he just runs right into Garcia, gets stonewalled by him. Garcia picks up the momentum that Georgie had developed. developed and dribbles into the to the end line, whips it across for Jovin Jones, who tries an extremely high level of difficulty, chest high, full volley with his left foot at the back post,

sends it over, but it's a, you know, it's a pretty decent chance. Good aesthetics on the volley attempt, not a great giveaway from us, and you get into a little bit of like, is it because he and Jones aren't used to playing together? So, DeWan Jones, so is it where, like, he was just expecting DeWan to move into a different area so that he could have passed his way out of that jam and then since that didn't happen, he just sort of lost his way. I don't know. You don't want those giveaways from your eights.

So as far as Georgie, you know, reliable eight, you got to sort of mark that against him. Yep. It's a, it's a merit. Yeah. 11th minute Reynolds fizzes one across as he does from the right side. And nobody makes the backpost run. And Brian stares daggers. at Georgie who is kind of, I think Georgia was kind of hoping for a pullback, sort of cheating

back towards the penalty marker, but maybe should have just made the backpost run. And that's another one too where it can be not playing with a bunch of guys like chemistry because Ferreira makes that pullback run all the time, right? He just sort of will cut his run off and try to stand in that pocket. So he was already occupying the 45 degree cutback. And neither Georgie, and I think Roldon, who was. was still on the left at that point. We're filling that

deep lane. And I just want to add in that it's a hell of a stare. Yeah. The stair could put him into an A team camp. That kind of stare? We don't have a better stare than that on the pool.

I wonder if Raina will eventually progress to a stair, like since I feel like he can't I feel like he feels like he can't do the big arms anymore. Yeah. The big full body shrug. I wonder if he'll ever, like, sort of at least inch back towards some kind of a reaction that could be a stare.

I can definitely see. I think it would make sense for him to add a stare. I think he should do that. Definitely. The goal comes around the 14-minute mark. It's a good string of passes back to front with Georgie acting as the hinge. He finds Duan Jones in space who taps it out to Roldon. Raldon kind of loses the plot, but then gets it back to Jones, just manages to.

Jones takes a touch to his left and then fires a low left-footed ball at Ferreira. This is what we talked about earlier. Ferreira takes a quick touch and then side foot volleys it out of the air before the defender can get his foot in the way. It's very clean. I love it. Excellent finish, 1-0 USA. really enjoyed Sands and Reynolds early in that buildup before we really could swing it to Georgie to swing it out because they were kind of in this dead end that was like the longest lasting dead end I've ever seen where they just passed back and forth to each other on the right sideline in our defensive third like five or six times. Yeah.

And so finally Sands kind of made a quick movement to sort of peel off of his marker so that he could open up and fight Georgie. I don't have much else about the about the rest of the goal Well there doesn't seem to be full consensus About whether the pop-up element of the control was Intentional I think it was Yes

I just wanted to get you guys reaction Yes Vince Yes yes for sure Am I'm surprised there's any doubt Given that he's done that exact thing At least twice in the last week before this I should also give Duan a little bit more love here. That was a really nice fizzball low.

Didn't just hit it pointlessly across. A little bit of purpose for him. Yeah, he's, well, I guess we'll see what happens when we get to the knockouts. But does it seem like DeWan has surpassed Tolkien in this camp? It's tough to say. Yeah, genuinely have no idea. And they're both kids, right? So with Reynolds against Yedlin on that right,

side. You can see I was like, well, let's, we should now, you know, we've, we've eased Reynolds in against these weak teams. We got to start seeing what he has against a better team. Because, you know, obviously Yedlin will be phased out if, if not now, soon. Is that obvious? I don't know if it is. But Tolkien versus DeWan Jones, they're both like kids.

And so they're both still going to be just sort of fighting for left back backup minutes or that backup slot for the next six years until somebody really ill. like, nope, it's mine now. Yep. Yeah. Plenty. Go ahead, Vince. Oh, yeah.

I was going to take it to the 19th minute real quick. This really isn't that note worthy of a moment. But it's another Jalen Neal pass. It's another Jalen Nell pass. And you referred to him, we didn't really give it a timeline on it, but you referred to him as the game was starting as we glossed over those first 10 minutes. But, um, so, so this goes back to something that Greg Burrhalter talked about, uh, I think in

that it was like a reporter roundtable that they had in Spain. Uh, I want to say it was before the Saudi Arabia match, but after Japan. Okay. Where, you know, vibes were at an all time low. Vives were at an all time low in the, in the GigiG tenure. And I, so, so I think. He called it. I think he called it.

He called everybody together. Grant Wall, Meg Swanick, all the heavy hitters. All the heavy hitters. And one thing he talked about was trying to develop Aaron Long and Walker Zimmerman into becoming better passers. And the one thing, the specific thing he mentioned,

I think the quote was, when you watch top level centerbacks, you know, they don't declare where they're going with the ball until like the last second. They're very deceptive with their eyes, with their body shape, et cetera,

and Jalen did it in that first pass to Georgie. He also, I mean, this is just a simple pass out to DeWan Jones on the left flank. But he, he kind of makes up for his ability to, you know, he's not entirely comfortable with his left foot. It doesn't seem to me. But he makes up with that just by the ability to just, you know, look everybody off. And then he just, boom, swings his right foot through. and passes out to DeWan Jones. And this is something that, you know, Aaron Long and even Walker Zimmerman haven't really

quite mastered so far, you know, in the ensuing game, we got, you know, infamously, Joe Godangate gate from which Walker Zimmerman yelled at Joe Scali after Walker Zimmerman tries to pull off this exact skill, like this exact skill. And Joe Scali isn't on his toes, right? ready to receive a pass. Bells, if you could play the clip for me. Here we go.

Yeah, for anybody that's new, to the Patreon, to the public feed, this is something we discussed in length. Joe got Danga Gate, where Walker Zimmerman was trying to, you know, just trying to impress his coach,

make sure he's on that plane and pull off the very thing that they've been working on in training. Surely they hammered it after that, in the ensuing trainings, after the Japan match, I mean, especially when Greg cites it, you know, within that roundtable. But yeah, Jalen Neal, he seems to have that part down.

We can check that box. Lots of nice passing from him in this game. And I would say Trinidad wasn't quite as easy to pass through as St. Kitt's and Nevis, but pretty, in the end, pretty easy to pass through them. But those passes from Neal from the back into the Amoeba definitely. eye catching. Yeah. Okay, so can I get it one more time, bells, please? Absolutely.

Thank you. Does that bring anyone else to like the over 30 leagues? Like, you hear that every 20 minutes. From a field somewhere. There's nine fields going on to one team. Somebody somewhere. He's pissed at some. We got a bunch of good combination play from, I thought,

Reynolds and Busio in the next few minutes. At one point, Roll Don, loses it on the break. I thought there was something for everybody in this. game. You know, rolled on, Ferreira looking good, Ferreira missing a chance later, rolled on doing some good stuff, but also, you know, losing the ball on the break. Ferreira tried to dribble past Molino once and got just ended at the top of the box. 24th minute, some good hunting impacts from us, and then good crisp passing out of it from Sands and Georgie into space

and Zendahas gives it away. Does he want to go in on Sendejas? So I was just going to ask, is this the one where it just like runs under his foot? Yeah. You can just like it. It kind of lets it run towards the corner flag. It's just like, bro, come on, dog. Come on. You know, like, you know, we talked about it before.

We're not totally sure that you can like win a spot until the A team. But, but I think you can give it away. You can give it away. And for a man that was, you know, in that Nation's League camp, I just, I just, I just, Hey, man, you got to show me something. You got to show me something. Please. I'm begging.

I mean, we, we, you know, we're not totally desperate for wingers, but I would certainly like to have another one that I could depend on. He's got. The day I needed to have more of a Jesus for her window than what he's had, I think. Right. For that September call up. So I think it was a Matt Hartman tweet where he said, uh, the, the showings from. from Alex and Alan Signora have shown him that Liga and Meckys is a deeply unsuriously

which I mean you know who's to say who's to say I don't know I feel yeah I feel like Sendejas obviously has tools that would be useful to us I guess we've talked about this already but he has tools that would be useful to us but man it's like to use a total soccer showism. It feels like he had a quicksand performance last night.

Like he just couldn't do anything right. Yeah. Trinidad gets another chance around the 27-minute mark. This is just a red flag for John Luca Bousio gets beaten at midfield by Levi Garcia and carried on Garcia's back all the way into the box where he, Garcia gets a shot off, saved comfortably by Matt Turner. Maybe it's unfair to ask this right after this rough moment from him, but what am I supposed to make of Buscio these days? Greg? I have nothing because I didn't watch too much of him in Italy this year. He was kind of like in and out of lineups, in and out of injury is one of the reports. It's hard to get injury

reports once a guy drops into a lower league like that. So I genuinely don't know why I feel like I feel like maybe we'll learn a little bit more in the knockouts because I have a feeling that they were sort of integrating rating Busio in now with the intention of starting him for the next match. So I don't have a good answer for right now. I don't know exactly what role we're going to ask him to, we would ask him to fill for the full strength team.

That's kind of the big question I have. Like, where does he fit in? He's not going to be Raina's backup, is he? I mean, is that what he's sort of aiming? Is that what his best cases? possibly with the way he's playing. I mean, because right now it seems like it's Alan Signior.

It seems like it's Alonsohnior based on call-ups and whatnot over these past few camps. So I don't know. I don't know. It's possible, but I will say that these are good games to assess John Lucas specifically, in my opinion, because, you know,

play these Caribbean nations that have that just got athletes on them. If you watch Trinidad and Tobago in this match, the one thing that stuck out to me, we talked about the business handling at the top of the timeline, but just yet, I mean, they were, I mean, not just those attackers I mentioned,

everyone was handling business. And I, and, you know, I pulled the stats up while I was rewatching the match just to make sure I wasn't tripping. And, like, you know, dual percentage, you know, Trinidad 149 to the U.S. is 39, 56% to 44. Like, and yeah, it played out that way.

And this is John Lucas' primary weakness, right? It's just, and main question, if you're wondering to yourself, like, can he cut it at that top level? And it's just, so, so, you know, like, while Trinidad Tobago might not have, you know, the skills. to keep up with us. In that moment of a duel where all that you're trying to do is beat the other guy for position. The cage match. In a three-yard square. Yeah, yeah, the cage match.

It remains to be seen. And we saw this last Gold Cup, too, with John Luca, where, you know, like Haiti was rough for him. Jamaica was rough for him. I remember those specifically. So, yeah, like, maybe he should only play in gold cups. I don't know. I don't know. We talked about this on the Monday review where, you know, I said that Syria was a nice lander spot for John Luca because they don't got a lot of athletes.

And they just don't. Like, so I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to see more. Hopefully, you know, in the knockouts, he can pull something out and show us that he's improved in that area. I doubt it. I thought about after he scored the goal. I thought about pulling out the, you know, the song.

But I'm not, you know, I'm not sorry anymore. Going back to like the Signora line, I really don't take too much from the Nations League roster about like a true depth chart or like not even just Hudson's or BJs or Greg Burholters. I really think it was like, again, you know who your top 14 or 15 guys are and then you're just going to bring in some. bodies, test him out, kick those tires. Like, I just don't think there's any, because again, Signor has barely even been playing for Juarez. So I don't think it was like we've seen so much good stuff from him that he's, he's the guy we will call on if we need to win a game in this Nation's League playoff.

I really do think it was just like, we can get him in. We can give him to this camp. No, no harm. So I just feel like the last four or five guys on that roster were no harm guys. And it's just like, we're going to use our, we're going to use our best players here. Okay. Okay. And part of it is just really anything to prevent having to call up Keaton Parks.

Well, it's funny you mention that because Sonora has been diagnosed with the right hamstring strain and Aiden Morris has been released from camp for personal reasons. And I guess there's, we can still pull a couple guys from the preliminary roster if we want to. Yeah, you can add injury replacement. So I don't think that will apply for Aiden Morris. I think if a guy just takes off, we just got to let him take off. But yeah, so if he's like medically ruled out for Sonia, then we can replace him. And I don't know. I think I saw that Jordan Morris will be staying.

And then I don't know what Aaron Long's status is. Medically. I read somewhere, Aidan Morris, there's a chance he's going to come back. Okay. Okay. Well, it looks like, I mean, I guess we have six days until the game. The game is on Sunday. But I guess there's a decent chance we'll see Busio again.

We brought Kessler back in 2021, right? Didn't we bring Kessler in mid-between for Walker Zimmerman? I don't think he played. That's right. There's a 34th minute Ferreira in the box again off a Roldon cut back. He tries to dribble past, who was it? one of the centerbacks and gets crowded off the ball pretty easily. So I was going to say he's very good at the quick shot,

but maybe that's kind of a necessity for him to be good at. Yes. Yeah, he's a small fella. Yeah. 38th minute goal USA. It's a slick Georgie Mahalovich through ball to Sendejas making a good run on the left side overlapping. And Sendejas whips it across.

Ferreira meets it on the backpost, kind of tries to nudge it. across the six. I don't know if he was intending to shoot or pass there, but the keeper palms it down kind of back to him, and he takes a touch away from Philip, the keeper, and then sweeps it goalward with his left foot. Defender gets a touch, sends it into the side netting, but it was only like a foot out from the goal line. For accredited with the goal, his second of the night, two zero USA. So I think you was trying to put it back across for anyone to arrive onto. I don't I think he was shooting with his first touch. Decent little footwork again, he gets those little, like, sneaky touches in to round the keeper from the range once the keeper sort of spilled it.

He always gets, like, you don't even always know how many touches he's taken until you see the replay. And you're like, oh, yeah, there's a little extra right there to just help his angle out. Yeah, that, what was the left-footed touch to get away from the keeper? The little one was the coup de grace. So it was funny watching Georgia just sit there and wait for and wait for Alex to make it to like make the run all the way around him to the point of where he could play the ball. Again, you get a lot of like over 30 league vibes right there. The slowest overlapping in the history of U.S. soccer. Timing was good though.

No one was about to stretch a hamstring on that play. 40th minute, we get a good ball in behind from Reynolds to Ferreira on the right side, and Ferreira's kind of running in space and squares it for Rodon. I honestly didn't see how he could get it to anybody in the moment, but he squares it for Rodon perfectly. Rodon coming across just inside the box, but not any closer than the penalty marker. And Christian Roder wiffs on it pretty much a swing and a miss.

and I thought, you know, there's a lot of people on Twitter who enjoyed that. I almost kind of off, right? Was he off all game? Did anyone else, did we kind of touch on a little? It certainly wasn't on. Yeah. I mean, you have all this space. It looked like he had some other, like, right ideas.

A lot of times he was waiting for that super slow overlap, but then misplaying the overlapping runner either undercooking it. Maybe it was a field. Maybe Stu would tell us it's a field. I think the field, I think Roldon struggle with the field. Okay. Well, it was a tough night for him when he had like a chance to really again emphatically destroy a weaker team.

And he definitely didn't do that. Yeah. I mean, Vince, I feel like you've been keeping an eye on him. What was your, what was your read on his performance here? Man, I've been wanting to see the Roldon show. He got to start. It has yet. The red curtain has not opened up yet.

Yeah. I was glad he was in the starting lineup. But, yeah, he didn't really, didn't seize anything. We get our goal right at the end of the regulation. There's a penalty called on Alvin Jones, who'd been flying around that right back for Trinidad, had been flying around and throwing himself into challenges. He gets whistled for a foul on Georgie going to ground to try to stop him on the dribble,

ref points the spot Jesus Ferre takes the chance and puts it away sending it left when the keeper guesses right 3-0 another hat trick for Jesus I like his extremely understated celebrations

yeah what's going on with that they feel it to me they feel directed at his critics somehow yeah there's no way to identify where exactly in the celebration that is but it seems like it's there

It seems that way to me too. I think any player who has critics, I feel like it's always going to be the tendency to attribute their celebrations towards those critics. That's true. Always. But that has not changed how I feel about it, to be clear. Real clever from Georgie here, again, to sort of create that naive moment from Alvin Jones. Georgie, like, pulling back, like, he's on the run, heading towards the end line. Pulls the footback like he's going to hit the cross.

He gets Alvin Jones to go sliding in. And then he just doesn't hit the cross. He just lets Alvin Jones slide through his legs to go down. So that's really well played because penalties are very valuable. So if you get a stone gold way to draw one, you should absolutely do that. So that's my Georgie bit there. Yeah. We had another shout for one a little bit earlier when somebody ran past Trinidad's goalkeeper

and Kieber wrapped him up pretty well. Who was it? Was it Juan Jones? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was Brian. That was Brian.

That was Brian. Brian coming in like a freight train. Yeah. That's right. That's right. I hadn't really seen a play much like that before. It was a good. There was just a lot of contact in the buildup to it.

So you can see a ref wanted to just swallow the whistle, take the easy way out. And just say, hey, both sides, both sides, whatever. You know, just keep playing. But it was dead like, if. If there wasn't a foul on Reynolds earlier, it was definitely the goalkeeper diving into Reynolds' legs and actually wrapping a hand around his ankle. Good way of tripping him up. Again, something BJ would have appreciated. Yeah.

Open field tackle. All right. Let's get to the second half and kind of cruise through it here. So 50s. Go ahead. So I just want to ask a question real quick to my more seasoned. USM&T watchers because it seems like just following the discourse on Twitter, mostly about Jesus. But, you know, I see a lot of people saying that we shouldn't take for granted the fact that we have a, that we have a minnow spasher.

So like were these games, I don't know, before now, were they like traditionally like slogs that we like barely eeked out or like, so what's going on? They've been both. We've had tournaments where it was slogs and we didn't have. have anyone smashing the minnows. And like I said, we've had tournaments where the goal difference at the end of the group stage is 16 0 and it gets a little slogier

maybe come the knockouts. You know, we barely got by Haiti last gold cup, 2021, 1-0 win. And then we smashed Martinique and then sort of snuck by Canada in the group stage. So you got to

sort of adjust for the level of competition and the competence. But we have definitely smashed minnows in the past and I feel like actually we're going on a while now being like thank God we can smash minnows but yeah we've we've had minnow smashing capability in the past okay so I was just wondering if like I don't know the ability to like use the ball now the simple the system implemented by hashtag the coach what was to what's to credit for you know our recent renaissance but okay I think the system definitely makes us look less messy in the first two-thirds of the field.

I really do think that. I really do think that even though we have had plenty of games against these weak teams where we haven't struggled with the final score, I do think that we just have a much more coherent look about us for thirds one and two. And then it just comes down to like, how clean are we in the final third? And even though we did kind of try to hit some crosses in that were a bit aimless in this game, there is definitely, I think, a tendency that you're seeing for players to look for an entry pass to another teammate eight yards away from them as we get closer to the goal, which I appreciate. Lots of cutbacks too. I mean, lots of getting to the Man City Zone.

All right. Fifty second minute. I just got to clock this. Neal taking a tactical yellow after getting turned by Levi Garcia. He just gets cooked. It's a smart foul. Love to see that, I think. that yellow there, but also don't want to see him get cooked. And he does, spoiler alert, it happens again three minutes later. He gets turned over on the sideline, and Garcia dribbles past him.

I don't know, it looked a little bit like how Josh Winder got beat by one of the Ecuadorian wingers in the U20 World Cup. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But we do got a, we do got a inform the people, full disclosure. Levi Garcia, he seems to be a pretty decent player. Yeah.

It plays at A.E.K. Athens is one of their, seems to be one of their best players. It's pretty productive. It has been pretty good in the Greek League. Only 25 years old. So, you know, he's a, I mean, he was a handful for us. And he's also a good player. I do got to throw the Greek League tax on there a little bit because Oberlin Paneda plays there. But he seems to be all right, though. He's a bro. He's a real professional.

Orbelin Paneda has come in for some serious grief from Vince over the last few weeks. He stinks. The Mexicans attacker. We're putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to beat Mexico in this tournament, I feel like. with some of the mud comments based on their loss yesterday and general trajectory. Pressure, I can explain that to way easily if we lose in Mexico. Come on, come on. I've got so many excuses already.

Ferreira misses a header on a driven DeWan Jones ball from the left wing, open goal, very firmly hit cross. Ferreira just couldn't get, you know, behind it and over it to direct it downwards. He's got a flail about him on these specific crosses, doesn't he? Like where he leaves his feet late or something just looks really strange about it. He had one of these in one of the summer friendlies before the World Cup, where it's like fired in at him. And it looks like the ball is actually taking him off of his feet. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it was Japan. That ball from Serge, for sure. After a beautiful ball from Geo to unlock the whole thing. But, like, I think it's the fact he, like, keeps his torso back as he's jumping. You know, he's not, he's not, his whole body isn't, isn't in a straight line. It's, it's, it's doing something weird, like half of a Y. Like, like a Y without that extra, that extra prong attached.

And it's just. His legs fire off too, like after the ball hits him. Yeah. Yeah. Which, I mean, that, that, that, that, the cross from Jones was, was absolutely cooked. I mean, I think it was fired in. Yeah, it was. Next thing I got is a 62nd minute.

Shannon Gomez hits one off the post, an absolute would have been an absolute banger if he, if it had gone in. It came after a Matt Miaska, give away at midfield and a quick counterattack. Just a ding against Miasga, mostly.

We did so many of those, oh, go ahead, Ben, sorry. I'm just saying, I just want to say Matt we was doing some, he was doing some not good stuff once he came on. Yeah. Yeah, I forget to mention he came on at the half for Miles Robinson, whose minutes were being managed carefully.

What were you going to say, Greg? Oh, just we had a bunch of those little giveaways that, even as they happening, like, that's not a good giveaway, but it's probably not going to turn in anything. And then this one still felt like that. And then that rifle off the dude's foot, you're like, oh, my days, that was, I guess they could threaten us a little bit. And I think we were still kind of monitoring goal. difference at this point against what Jameco

were doing. So there was a little bit of there was a little bit of like oh no we got to we can't have this. But I just want to mention that Georgie gets the absolute, he gets a little four-arm shiver here from Gomez as he tries to come in and make an intervention to prevent him from shooting.

He sent the man to the ground. George went flying and I just want to note that. Yeah, Georgie, I think sort of a mixed evening for him any what do you think Greg about georgie overall i think it's all warm up so i'm not i'm not like uh i don't have too many flags that i'm worried about uh yet uh and and again hopefully it's hopefully it's Canada in the in the quarters kind of best of both worlds we we keep the Mexico final dream alive if Mexico can get there uh but we don't have to play another like

tiny country we get we get a crack at a uh you know unimpressive Canada but it's It's still Canada. So I feel like that'll add a little bit of a little bit of heft to the quarterfinal matchup that we might not have had otherwise. Right. They are pretty glum coming off the field there. George, you did? Yeah.

Yeah, that's too bad. He'll be hungry for his next outing. It's fun. It's interesting to see this, you know, see these guys all competing for a spot. Because even when you're up 6'0 to come off and be glum, I mean, San Dias has been glum both of the last two games. It may just be partly the way his face looks. Georgis?

Yeah. But that's possible. That's a possibility for sure. 65 minute mark, we get our fourth goal. It's Cade Cowell who had come on, races on to just an atrocious back pass, sits the keeper down by cutting him left to right, and then sits Shannon Gomez down before thumping at home. I love the shot faint before the shot.

shot for zero. And then he does that very nice smile that we talked about earlier. I was really relieved that that shot didn't kind of bleed wide of the goal. Right. And it felt like it was going to. I still can't kind of believe it didn't. I'm exactly the same. Yeah.

Yeah. So I was just like with every additional sprinkle of sauce onto the, like onto the goal there, I was just worried that he might mess it up. you know i mean when he went for the initial chop i was just like bro just shoot the boy i was like just shoot it but but you know it was very nice you know chop came off the faint came off too beautifully uh yeah it was it was nice to see and then he stroked it just inside the post cal also nearly scores four minutes later um cuts him from the left sideline dribbles past one guy I guess he sort of beats two guys

although the guy who's coming in on his right shoulder doesn't seem like he's really trying that hard and then tries to beat the goalkeeper near post hits it off the post out of bounds but it's a nice, all around a nice take would have been a wonderful goal. Yeah, and I just want to, like I've been, you know, I've been on the fence about K. Cal

I haven't necessarily declared one way or the other but by just like like this this specific uh take i guess uh in this match like really it like it was just the way that he exploded the way that he like just changed direction because you know he's walking he's walking his marker down a little bit and the marker's giving him a little bit of room to to cut inside um which i think he's he's respecting the fact that Kate is, you know, just a freak athlete. And just the ability to plan his foot and cut inside the way he did. Just, I mean, extremely explosively.

Extremely explosively. Just on a dime. Like, we talked about the lack of the lack of suddenness that Jordan Morris now lacks. And, yeah, like, I just felt that this was noteworthy. Just for that. Just for that point of it, really. Like, he's a, like, he's a complete athlete. You saw the balance

in the goal before With the chop With the faint Which was You know When you see faint There are different levels To the faints

Right His was very nice And that you know Just up on one leg Really really sells it Like brings his Bring his leg back And brings it like all the way forward

To really get To really get Shannon to the ground Before he strokes at home So I just wanted to point that out that like really you know we've seen you know crazy athletes in soccer before um and some of them don't always deliver on on their you know athletic gifts or whatever but like i don't know it it it might be too much for for me to bet against you know yeah you know it's interesting i like i said i was watching the game with my dad and when cow came on i said he's you know

he's a promising young player he's still very raw And then almost immediately he scores that goal. And my dad's like, that's the guy you said was raw? And I was like, yeah, you know, pretty raw. It's like, you're just going to have to trust me, dad. Pretty raw. In my head, I was like, you know, he's raw and his offball movement and his understanding of the game. And, you know, I didn't want my dad's eyes to glaze over.

He probably jumps into the starting spot for a knockout match with the, I mean, with the execution of the goal. obviously the goal itself is you know hands down like a giant gift gift wrapped uh with that back pass but but because of the way he executed drew a little more like raised a little bit more of a of an eyebrow and then this this little shimmy into the shot off the post um because some of the other winger options have not necessarily impressed so uh it's like all right well if these guys aren't going to be good at the complimentary uh thing that we were hoping they could be good at we can at least get kate cow in there and he might have a moment of magic against against some steep, like, better competition.

In the Fox studio shows, they've been talking a lot about how some players are starters and some players are more natural as substitutes. And they're thinking, Kade's more of a substitute. Is that a real distinction between types of players who can start or sub? I'm going to let somebody else answer this question. I'd buy it for Kate, Gell.

I mean, certainly for the full team, he's not in the starter conversation anyway, so he would definitely be a sub. But, you know, like Vince just kind of described, one of those Trinidad defenders was not interested in defending by the 68th minute in a 4-0 game. So it could be where if a guy's a little bit slower after 60 minutes and Kate Cowell's running against that guy, those feet could get tripped up a little easier. Yeah, okay, good. Because they were saying because the game opens up at the end there. Yeah. Because he wasn't very good against St. Kitts. as I remember.

Anyway, Reynolds beats two guys to the Man City Zone in the 72nd minute. This is where he really looks like he's just carrying people around the field. He drags it back to Vasquez. I think in a low-key, very nice way. He knew he couldn't pull his foot all the way back. And he just kind of wrapped his foot around it and dragged it back towards Vasquez. I really appreciated that skill there. And Vasquez takes a shot.

it's blocked over for a corner kick. 79 minute mark, we get our fifth goal. It's Yedlin plays it to Gressel in the Man City zone. Gressel cuts it back for Bousseo, who's arriving at the penalty market, takes a touch with the outside of his right boot. I don't know that it was the outside of his right boot. It takes a touch with his right foot and then just slots at home,

side foots it in at the near post. A very tidy goal, 5-0. So we just talked about Cal maybe inching his way in towards starting the knockout. And I'm like, do we just, do we end up running Julian Gressel as our starting winger in the knockouts? Because we just want a complimentary piece. He'd set up Buzio, was it Buzio that he lofted a ball to into the box earlier too? Yes. When we were on the break.

So it was like Gressel may have his limitations. But at this point, we are, we are just looking for even a little bit of like one thing to add to help the rest of the attack out. Maybe he's making his case. Yeah. I mean, he does, he can pick out a pass, that's for sure. That's what he wants to do. He just wants to pick out a pass to somebody in the box. There's a Vasquez miss on a good ball across from Cowell, I think it was.

On the ground, he tries to side foot it with his left foot and misses frame. But then Vasquez gets his justice in the 95th minute, a great ball from Cowell in behind for Vasquez. So Kyle's shown a little bit of his provider chops here. outside of the boot, well-weighted through ball. Defense kind of, you know, mailing it at this point. But anyway, I'm going to ask it. What's that?

It's the over-30 league. Yeah. And it's a clever touch to, well, I don't know that it was a clever touch, but the touch stopped him short, and as the goalkeeper is rushing out to him, and then he has just enough room to lift it over Marvin Phillip for the sixth goal of the game. and that's all she wrote.

I mean, I don't mean to shut down discussion. That's all she wrote for the game action. Does anyone have any final thoughts about the game before we talk about J.T. Batson briefly? After the game? Can I talk about J.T. Batson yet, Adam? Very excited. I just want to throw one thing out there.

One thing that, so I feel like, you know, we had a lot of, We had a few little brother moments, not a lot of big brother moments. And I feel like the only, the few that we had were really, you know, we had Brian Reynolds running through like three people on that, on that cutback you talked about. And then, you know, Brandon Vasquez came in a little bit and put his body on some centerbacks, which as Greg said, they might, you know, have been uninterested in defending at that point. But just for the pro Brian Reynolds Brigade, I guess really that's the only thing you could take away from this match is that, you know, Brian, he's just a grown man. Let's talk about J.T. Batson. Yeah, so Discord user Baker, Aaron J.

wrote on an elevator with him last night. And I'll just kind of give, it was only about 20 seconds, but I think we learned a lot about J.T. in that stretch. He was very friendly, engaged Baker, Aaron Jay's son in conversation, asking a lot of questions. Here's the questions he asked. Did you go to the game tonight? Who looked good? Where's home? Do you play?

What position? So was it a hotel elevator? Yeah, it was a hotel elevator. And JT got off on the third floor. So there's speculation that that's where the conventions are. He might have been doing a midnight business meeting. Okay He was wearing a nice jacket

He had a button down shirt A couple buttons lower than most people He was wearing Nike High Top sneakers Um What else This was in Charlotte This was in Charlotte

Yeah Yeah I'm sure they're having a wrap up meeting Got to wrap up the day Yeah I guess that's really it Um I was gonna say

If they were riding an elevator At the stadium him and he asked if he went to the game tonight, then that would be a mark against, that would be a ding on Batson, but. Yeah. But if it's in a hotel, then, yeah, that makes sense. Baker and Jay raised that too,

but his overall energy was so positive, he didn't really want to ding him too much for it. Well, you know, when you, so when you're talking to a kid, you're going to ask him something like that, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, you know, you go to the game today, buddy? Yeah. You know, whatever. Yeah, the rapid fire questions is really, it's great kid management, like in that setting. Like, you just keep firing away at the kid because kids love that stuff. Yeah. The goat, the goat, J.T. Goetton. Comfortable in any of it.

Oh, so I just want to say something to you, Waki, because I got a little problem with how you framed the JT. question to Paul Kennedy, man. What did I say? You said, I believe the quote was, for some reason, our listeners seem to be interested in J.T. Batson. Oh, I did say like that. Why would they not? Why would they not?

And, and, like, it was funny. So you asked the question like that. And then Paul gave, I mean, well, probably one of the most incredible. origin stories. I've ever heard. I've ever heard, man. Like, like, this man was put here on this earth to head up this federation.

Yeah. He really was. He's a man chasing after soccer's own heart. I didn't know he's from Augusta. It kind of makes sense. We were, because someone was pointing out, he has kind of like a southern frat boy energy to him. Yeah. Which I didn't connect that with him actually

maybe having, basically, he is. If you're from Augusta. Right, right. So just as a matter of procedure here, what is the difference between a southern fratboy energy and a northern fratboy energy? I've only been around southern, so I can't tell you. I think it would just be kind of a pace of... It would just be similar to the difference between people from, you know, Philadelphia and the south. in general.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, you know. Like, like J.T. Madsen might be inclined to call Baker, Aaron J. Sir. Might be inclined to call, you know, a random woman that he meets ma'am. You know what I'm saying?

Just those type of things. A little subtleties here in there. It's an interesting question to me. You know, I'm sort of a child of both the South and the North when it comes down to it. and I sometimes I imagine the differences well sometimes I think the differences between the two are

overblown you know I think one difference with the one that isn't overblown I don't think is the northern frat boy is going to say bro at a much higher rate for sure that maybe the main difference okay so with the name like JT

we probably should have probably should have known that he was he was from somewhere in the south. Yeah, we absolutely should have. But the key is we just, we're going to keep learning more and more. And by the end of his tenure, we're really going to understand this guy quite well. What Vincent Wachier are referring to, by the way, is our interview with Paul Kennedy,

which happened last week and is on the public feed. If you'd like to listen to it, Paul Kennedy is the editor of Soccer America. And, you know, truly the OG of soccer journalists in this country. What else? We have some confirmed transfers, right? Yes. Is there any disappointment once a transfer becomes official, and it can't just exist in the rumor realm? Yeah, there was one in particular. I'm really disappointed.

We had Brendan Aronson going to Union Berlin as a rumor. That may have come up last time, I don't remember. But I just really liked the way the tweet about it was worded. I had to delete it and move it into the actual news section because it seems like he is really going on loan to Union Berlin. That's cool. That's a good landing spot for him, I think. We'll take it.

Yeah. And I think since last we talked, Wea has officially arrived in Juventus and Pepi has signed with PSV. I don't think he's there yet. He was playing a, well, it looked like a celebrity softball game of some kind over the weekend. In El Paso, right? I think so. Yes, he was.

He was looking like he never swung a baseball bat in his life, which is crazy. Should we do some rumors? And then we got a few little bits of news to get to, and then we're getting out of here. But, uh, Waki, why don't you give us the first rumor here?

Christian Pulisic remains keen on a move to A.C. Milan. This is per Fab. Fab says total agreement is reached with a player. Then they're, you know, to do a final acceleration to get it signed. And a reliable source from the Discord,

Justin tells scuff that Pulisic came to his church on Sunday and a child asked him about ASE Milan and he said, hopefully we can only hope. Is that right? Yeah. Non-denominational. Yeah. I'm kind of church.

I was wondering about that. You were wondering if he's Catholic, right? Well, no, I was wondering why, like, if you're in a church and then you say we can only hope because it feels like you could you could at least pray for me prayer it seems like a clear opportunity to say prayer yeah you could have you know could have could have added to the prayers that is true that is true well maybe he thinks are more important things to pray about Greg what do you think about that's possible and he's actually said he doesn't when he prays he doesn't ask for things he

He prays that God helps him see it from his perspective. I like that. Yeah. I didn't know we had information about Christian Pulitzer's prayers. This man has done hours and hours of interviews that he didn't really want to be doing. It's one of my favorite things about the internet, just how many Christian Pulisic interviews are out there. What was the one where he talked about how he prays?

Because I don't think I've seen that one. It was, I don't know, it was when he was reflecting on a difficult stretch, which I guess he's had many of. I'll find it. Yeah. I'll find it. Let's move to, we got more to talk about with Pulisic, but let's do the next rumor. Aston Villa have been negotiating with Tyler, or leads for Tyler Adams. They haven't been able to find the right price, though.

Milan was interested. They're out now. didn't want to pay whatever the amount was. Sevilla, too. They wouldn't go above $15 million. So now we have Nottingham First, Forrest and Brighton, still in the interest mix. Okay.

Yeah. Well. Mm-hmm. I just feel like there's no bad outcome there. Like, even if he stays in the championship and becomes a Leeds Club legend, bringing them back to the Premier League, it's all going to be fine. Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. Next one, please. Byron are hoping to sell Malik Tillman to a Premier League club. Hmm. Is he ready? No, he's not, but should he do it? Yes. Let's just see the next rumor.

This is another one of those things, man, where, like, I feel like you got to line yourself up with where you're going. And, you know, with Malick's big, question that I have with him at least is like sustained intensity within a match. I just don't know if the Premier League is the place. I just enjoy this as a like the format of the rumor. We'd like to sell them to a Premier League team. We're just going to open that out there. So any Premier League teams are going to buy?

That's not even. Hey, any Premier League teams? Interested? Anybody with money, please. I mean, he had a very good season. in Scotland, I mean, as those things go. So, surely they can find some buyer that is mutually beneficial. How about the next rumor?

This is a good one because it's a swap deal involving Sergenia Das, which I think is my favorite type of transfer rumor. Barcelona are reportedly willing to offer Deaths to Athletico, Madrid, as part of a player exchange for Yanuk Carrasco. I feel like we've actually maybe said this exact rumor before, or it's just maybe a... Deja vu thing. Doesn't that seem like a bad idea for Sergenio to go to

Athletico? It does. Spanish club where he could easily run a foul of sort of a stern taskmaster, disciplinary and defensive mastermind as your coach sounds amazing. Yeah, right, right. What's that? I think it sounds amazing. I mean, just in so far, Sergenio is just an experience and not an,

actual person playing soccer. It says it's just one of those things. Like, it's very similar to, you know, we had that Western McKinney rumor of him potentially going to Roma. And it's like, I mean, it's either going to go, it's either going to be incredible or it's not. But the, the eternal optimist in me is just going to side with the incredible. It's going to be incredible.

Yeah. Yeah, it's either going to be incredible or incredibly bad. Go ahead, Bucky. Oh, just, meanwhile, he's been training in Austin and putting out some photos of his training, really high production value on these photos. And then he seems to have found a place nearby where he can go off-road buggy riding

through kind of a trail, some part of tour group. That has looked like fun. Sounds like a pot activity. Yeah. He's all right, yeah. One of a kind in it. Also, I just, I don't know if we, you know, we talked about, we talked about Tim for sure.

Have we talked about Rico and Brendan? Like, like, I mean, you know, we brush past it, but do we have any? What are you, what are you thinking? How are you feeling about these? Well, well, I just want to shout out Ernie Stewart for, you. You know, if you were on the fence about Ernie Stewart's job as a sporting director, this has to, this has to throw you on the good side. He's now, you know, he's now a USM&T front office legend for saving Rico's career.

I don't know. Did Rico's career need to be saved? I mean, bro, I mean, it says maybe saves is a wrong word. But, you know, we talk about, you want to talk about fit. Yeah. RICO. Come on, man. I mean, you know, Mr. Chuckie Lozano has a whole legacy built up off the work that he did in PSV.

That's true. And who's his, do we have a sense of who his competition is going to be for minutes? Hold on. Let me, let me look at this roster here. I know they had Luke DeYoung, right? I remember that from those Rangers matches Yeah, Luke DeYoung is the captain He is 32

Yorba Vertesan 22 That's it for strikers on the current roster Looking good, looking great then Love to see it Yeah What about Gio and Joe? How are the New Yorkers doing?

Geo's on vacation with his family. They seem to all be doing well, which is good. Good. Joe seems to be a vacation maybe nearby. It looks like a similar climate and foliage. He went on a boat. He played golf. Christian Pulisic also played golf.

He went on a YouTube channel. If you want, everyone can watch an hour-long video of Christian Pulisic playing golf with Grant Horvatt and Bob does sports who are famous golf YouTubers so Pulisik is entering that world and I think he's going to be in it for a while. You're talking about the golf YouTube world?

Yeah. Yeah. I watched like five minutes of it and Bob does sports seems like a pretty funny dude. He's funny. He is funny. Grant. Grant seems like a nice. Grant Horvatt seems like a nice person. Yes. That seems to be that's kind of what I got as well.

That's the jib. Yeah. He's a good putter, Christian, needs to work on us ball striking. There's not much. I don't think we need to go into that in too much detail right now, but maybe if he keeps going on. Maybe we do. Maybe we do need to go into some detail on it. Okay. I think we go, okay.

I was going to say, I think we could just chart his progress using this as a starting point. Yeah. So over the long term. Yeah, I should say right now, his, no, I'm not a golf expert. I just, because he's been interested, I've started reading up about it and playing a little bit. His swing on his ball striking, it seems to be a little bit outside in. So that's putting a spin on the ball that has it fading or slicing away. And he's going to want to get that swing more inside out to turn that into more of a power draw. That'll help with his control and a draw

you get more distance on. He needs some more distance. When I was watching the video, he does do something like very weird in his like I don't know and like instead of the swing looking like a looking like a you I don't know if you like trace the path of his of his club like he does something weird with it when he brings his like hands up

when he brings the club back he like has to move the club before he starts to downswing like I don't know like Waki said I'm not a I'm not a golf man not a golf man but but yeah the chipping and putting very elite very elite

from Christian I mean he put in a he put in a incredible performance he has a putting green in his backyard in Florida I found out so that may be why

I think he's getting in a lot of practice okay yeah he's very good yeah he was like he was he was nails man and and you know the the match came down to

so it was a tie right yeah it was a tie basically So every one of Christian bullet six puts were needed and crucial. You know what I'm saying? It was like a nation's league penalty against Mexico. It was. And one of the guys was trying to come up with a soccer equivalence for one of the shots.

And I was sitting there. It's a penalty. It's exactly like a penalty. And the Christian, very shy, I thought. He could have been talking more. you really watching this you really feel like this is the real pool of it's like

your meeting right here yeah for sure yeah for sure what else golf wise I think he took one kind of ill-advised shot he tried to draw it over the water around a tree and like I was saying he just like doesn't hit a natural

drawl and I don't think he's out practicing that shot really on the course you shouldn't be trying shots you haven't already practiced but you know it's just he's out there having fun I guess that's most important. Do you want me to play the joke?

Oh, he did a joke that I wanted you guys to hear. He did one joke. Yes, I would like you to play it. I should set it up. He's talking to Bob does sports, his teammate. They're playing in a scramble against Grant. And Bob's about to take a shot, and Bob will hit it in the water. That's what happens.

So you can play it now. I had a gap. I was going to go up to a pitch because that wins right in my face. Yeah, I mean, you definitely don't want to be short. So off a little something? I don't know what that means, but yeah. Oh, I'm sorry, CP. Oh, no, Bob.

That was sought off all right. It was sord. Yeah. You didn't even know what he was saying. No. Dude, I hate to do it today. You guys got enough on his plate. I mean, Jesus.

America on his back. Pretty good. Delvery on the sot off. That was sot off all right. I see so that was I get it so that he said earlier he said before you see I couldn't I was a little joke clarification here it was I guess if you didn't know which part was the joke maybe it wasn't as strong as a joke as I was thinking that when you said it was that was solid off all right yeah it maybe you can't tell from the audio it was a dig at Bob's shot

essentially he hit it really short into the water yeah maybe I'm sure if you had seen it you would have gotten, known where the joke was and thought, hey, that's a good joke. Yeah. Well, I get it now. After you kind of set it up. All right, we got, you know, we've got an hour and a half here. Let's get out of here. Anything from you, anything else from you guys?

No. All right, the money reviews are usually just for patrons, but this is an example of what you get. If you join the Patreon, join us. Link is in the show notes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you.