Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #448: November USMNT roster reaction

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Greg and Belz talk through the roster, who may step up in the absence of Pulisic and Weah, whether Gio works as a winger in Berhalter's system, and react to a handful of clips from Berhalter's press conference.Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon! Patrons get a private feed for two episodes a week, including the Monday Review with Watke and Vince, and a Friday show usually with Greg and Watke. Patrons also 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/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. No Pulisic, no waya. How do we proceed? How do we go on? Greg? Worryingly, we're super worried because it's Trinidad and because these games matter. We have to get results over two legs or we won't go to Copa. And no, I'm just doing a bit.

We are not worried at all. We are going to, I think, pretty comfortably overweigh. home, Trinidad. I understand that there is going to be some PTSD for some folks who are like, how can you possibly say that after 2017? Right. But we have played Trinidad three times since 2017, all in the U.S., which we should note, but it's a two-legged affair here.

So we get that padding that we didn't have for that fateful game in KUVA. And our results in our three times we've played them since failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, the June 2019 Gold Cup. I believe we were starting Tyler Boyd. You remember that. We won that match, 60. The February 2021 post-pandemic friendly at the end of Camp Cupcake. I believe Jonathan Lewis was our starting winger in that game.

We won that match 70. And then in July, 2023, this last Gold Cup, we've posted that lineup several times. It is not necessarily our world-beating lineup, and we won that match, So I think we will be fielding, even without Pool Sick and Waya, I think we will be fielding a lineup that is going to be strong enough to win this game comfortably at home and coast through the away leg to advance. Yeah. I agree.

It's just, it's instructive. Like, how bad were we in 2017? I mean, maybe Trinidad declined also. Trinidad, Topago declined also, but boy, oh boy, happy to see those days in the rear view mirror. Hey, like, I get, if this was a one-off game for Copa America and we were going to Trinidad to play it, like, I would be anxious. I mean, there's no safe thing. You know, we went to El Salvador, who has been terrible lately. Can't beat him at the Cuscott Lawn.

It took a late winner, or late equalizer to tie 1-1, right? I get that there are conditions, but that's the whole point. There's always going to be conditions that are unfavorable. And so if this were a one-off in Trinidad, yeah, I'd be stressed. And pool sick and way of not being there would make it doubly, triply stressful. But because we have this padding of the home match to attempt to run up the score, where even Trinidad pulling off some kind of a miracle away, wouldn't, won't be enough for him.

So that's where I'm at mentally as we pour ourselves into two matches. against one of the worst teams we've played this year. Yeah. And it is, yeah, despite how weak the opponent is, it is an exciting opportunity to qualify for Copa America. I mean, that's, it'll be nice to have that settled once we have it settled, you know, knock on wood. Let's do the roster.

So goalkeepers are Matt Turner, Ethan Horvath, and Gagas Lonina gets his, you know, I think his second call up. he has one cap for the national team. So that's kind of exciting to see him. It's going to be Matt Turner in goal. Presumably, and it should be. And it is kind of interesting that Gaga's here because the U-23s will also be playing. They announce some games in Europe.

So they're actually bringing Gaga for this window instead of sending him to the U-23s, which, again, you don't know if he would have been released by his club for the U-23 camp. But it seemed like an opportunity to maybe get him some match minutes without him having to travel very far if he stayed and played. Who are we playing? Iraq and Morocco, maybe. I can't remember. I do know it's at the Pinatarr Sports Arena, which Trucicciccos will recognize as a, you know, consistently a venue for our youth national teams to play at. So it's Iraq and Morocco?

I want to say that to it is. So, yes, we're going to ship Gaga back stateside to not play. And then we'll probably ship the Chicago Fire Kid Brady, right, over over to Europe to actually play the games, is my guess. Yeah, yeah. We don't have that roster. That roster hasn't been released yet. And I'm sure it'll be the last second with all of the wrangling you have to do to figure out who can go. And you've got MLS playoffs, et cetera, et cetera.

All right. So centerbacks, why don't you give them to us, Greg? All right. We've got Uncle Tim Ream. Is he Uncle Grandpa? What have we used both? Anyway, Tim Rame. He mentioned in the press conference today.

with Burrhalter, this November 17th will be 13 years to the day to his first national team cap against South Africa. Outstanding. Outstanding. We all remember that game. I want to say it was the mixed discurrood special. I don't remember. Chris, Chris Richards, who has been the nailed on starter for the last two windows for

Burrhalter. Ream has played one game in each of those and then rotated out for the second game. Don't know if he's sort of being phased out when we integrate new players. Don't know if he's just, again, he's a grandpa now. Like we got to save those legs that when he gets back to London, he's ready to play and he doesn't have to miss Fulham time for internationally. Who knows? But we got Richards there.

We've got CCV fresh off of a bit of a thrashing in Champions League midweek. So hopefully Celtic can thrash somebody else in there, fun domestic league before he joins. And then Miles Robinson gets to nod. Atlanta still alive in the playoffs So that could be interesting if Atlanta advance and they just take him anyway or if they make a concession There are plenty of other options that we could use if if Miles somehow has other obligations Yeah, Atlanta has a rubber match against the crew what like this weekend

I don't know so Fullbacks are Sergenio Dest Anthony Robinson Joe Scali and Christophore Lund presumably Destin Robinson going to get the starts. I think that's a safe bet. At center mid, we're bringing McKinney, we're bringing Musa, we're bringing Luca. Luca missed a match over the weekend with injury, but apparently he's reported to be back in full training and available for this weekend. And then we've got Johnny Cardoso coming back and Leonard Maloney coming back.

He's back after his debut. Big smiles on that kid. Yep. What do you say? His chest is full or something like that. My chest is full. I felt it when he said that. And this isn't exactly how the Federation breaks down the roster, but the next category is like attacking mids and wingers, right? Kind of a mix of forwards and midfielders from the roster. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I see that now. Yeah, so we've got Gio and Malick, who I kind of think of as our prime candidates to be the attack. stacking mids. We got Brenda. We've got Kevin Pretis, Alex and Dejas, and then Paxton Aronson. So we've got the Aronson boys, hopefully traveling together. Hopefully we'll get

some Big Brother's Little Brother zaniness. And it will be, it'll be interesting to see who plays what role in the Big Brother Little Brother dynamic between the two of them. Yeah. You think Paxton's going to play the Big Brother role? I hope, I hope for Watkey's sake that that is what happens. Yeah. Yeah, I, we'll get into the clip later, but Barthar said essentially, yes, some of the people listed as midfielders can play on the wing in this, in these games. That's been sort of true forever. And then who are the two strikers? We've got Baligan. We've got Pepe. So three straight camps where those are the strikers. I think this, I think this makes a ton of sense. I mean, Baligan is for me, like clearly A1. And then for all the guys that I think of is still in the head. And then, um, for all the guys that we, I think of is still in the head. I haven't taken really anyone's name out of the head. I'm seeing some rollercoastering around some players who are having dips and surges. And for me, like everyone, no one's really dropped out. But I don't see any reason not to just stay, keep the continuity with Pepe going because

no one is making an airtight case and Pepe is 20. So if anyone's going to actually make like a leap here, Pepe seems like a prime candidate to do it. And even if he doesn't, he's fine. And even if he is only averaging like 15 minutes a week of actual playing time, he's scored four goals, you know. I mean, it's not like he's in terrible form or anything. Haji, Berlter did say the, you know, the striker situation is not settled.

There's, it's not a two-man job. He shouted out Pfok and Haji Wright. And I said Pfok is injured for a few weeks. So that helps explain. his absence. And I wouldn't, again, I wouldn't object to any of those guys being in over Pepey. I don't think Pepe has any kind of like a particularly compelling case to say he's number two. It's just he's, he's as good as anyone else to be the number two at the moment.

As soon as Sergeant's healthy again, I'll be like, we should get Sergeant in. Like, not like it'd be fine. I will actually want Sergeant in as soon as he's healthy. He was playing so well at the beginning of the season. Still, that Fottmop keeps pushing his return date back. a little bit all the time. So we'll see if he gets back before Christmas. All right.

So injured, aside from Pfok, people who are injured, Sergeant, Tim Wea, Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, of course. Other notable omissions, can you think of anybody? I mean, again, we are really reaching to be calling any of these omissions notable. Other than, I guess, it's, like, kind of notable for where we are as a program that some of these guys don't feel, it doesn't feel super urgent to get any of them in. And that'd be like Haji.

If he keeps chugging along in the champo with putting up the underlines that he is putting up, I think he will start to be like, no, we probably should get Haji in, especially if Pepe doesn't show any kind of elite in what he's doing with PSV. But right now, again, no real urgency in my mind. Taylor Booth, same thing.

He's not lighting the Air Divi on fire. No. hasn't really been for almost a year now. Yeah, it's been slow going over there. Austin trustee, starting now for Sheffield United in the Premier League. Yeah, I was hoping to see him, and there's a little bit of badge F-seeing going on with that, or league crest fcing. Is that a thing?

Because you can, I mean, you can put the qualifier on there that he is a starting primary league center back, which is pretty much true. but it's going to be that's going to have a shelf life of about six months before Sheffield or a champo team and then he's a starting champo centerback. Right. So that shouldn't really be the basis. It's just going to be about evaluating him and whether or not he's a clear upgrade over anyone else or whether or when it's time to give him more of an extended look.

I hope he gets one eventually. It'll just be kind of fun to add another centerback to the regular rotation hat. Seems like he will. Hey, this is Bell's coming in from the future. I apologize for Greg's audio and the rest of the show. Our call dropped in the middle. And when we got everything set back up, we didn't set it up correctly. So please bear with us.

We'll try to make sure we don't let this happen again. Then of course, there's the John Brooks omission, which is, you know, it's been the same thing for two years now. Jesus Ferreira, you know, he's in the hat, I suppose. Yeah, Ferrer for me is similar to the other strikers, and he's kind of just a massive shrug, whether he's included or not. I was kind of hoping to see him just because the last time we saw Hayses-Ferara, one of the last times we saw him for the national team. He was dropping three goals on Trinidad and Diego. So it would have been just fun to have him in there as the pirate now that we're playing Caribbean.

It would be. I mean, lean into it. Or like lean into the myth here. Right. Yeah, that'd be great. The other, oh yeah, Koliosho, we don't have, you know, any word that he has committed to the United States. So I guess he's an omission, but not really. And then a couple other things from the Burrhalter Press conference before we get into some clips.

He said the Pulisic and Way injuries are not too serious, just too short of a deadline to get them into this camp. And we are used to this sort of thing, he said, from World Cup qualifying. accounting for players who aren't there, moving people around. Here he is responding to a question from Mike DeCorsi. The questioner is DeCorsi. Yes, Greg, I realize that you can't share every strategic change you'll make. But is there the possibility that players who might be currently listed on the roster as midfielders might find themselves playing in those positions, where Tim and and Christian would be.

I think so. I mean, you know, we've, we always have a fluid attack. We, we have players maybe lining up as wingers and dropping deeper into midfield or into the pockets, maybe pushing the fullbacks higher. So there's a number of different things we can do. You know, our objectives to put players in, in the right positions that they can make an impact based on their skill set and really taking advantage of each and everyone's individual strengths.

I know it's a little controversial, but I, I've, I'm pretty sure I've talked myself into geo playing left wing in this game. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a bizarre controversy for me. And I don't know how much of it's tied to like a bit of the, bit of the Burrhalter outishness of like wanting to criticize his prior use of geo, where geo was almost exclusively used as a nominal winger, uh, leading up to Qatar. being nominal. Yeah. And that's exactly what it is, right?

Like if you're just locked into what their, what the name of the position looks like or where they appear in the pre-match graphic, then you can say, why is Gio on the touchline? But he's never been a touchline player for us. Like, no matter what, he drifts wherever he wants to. He'll drift from the right to the left, left to the right, constantly central.

So he is in a free attacking role. Greg is always used him as a free attacking player. what does change would probably be his responsibilities defensively and against a Germany it was interesting to see how that played out against a Trinidad and Tobago who will not be interesting really at all to see how that plays out. We will never be spending long stretches of time in our defensive block. So he's not going to be doing a ton of rotating shifts defensively.

He's going to be hanging out waiting for us, waiting for Trinidad to give the ball away, where he will then go wherever he wants, wherever he identifies space that can be exploited. And he will exploit that space really well. His own. Yeah. Bob Morocco posted a screenshot on the Discord that showed, you know, basically when we're going to be attacking the band of five across the front is going to be Anthony Robinson out wide left on the touchline, geo in the half space,

Baligan, you know, obviously leading the line. And then Malik Tillman, if we play Malik Tillman as the more advanced midfielder, he'd be the right half space. and then we'd have our right winger, whoever that is, whether it's Paredes or Aronson or whoever. Yeah. And so I definitely am hearing from Berhalter's response that this could apply to Gio right now. That's what, again, what I'm hoping to see because I want Malick someone on the field. Yeah.

And if we play Gio as a center mid, we could still play Malik in that exact sort of reverse role that we just talked about for Gio or Malik is the nominal winger. Right. It would probably work, okay. Yeah. Because again, that's where they're going to spend all their time in possession. So it doesn't really matter. You're just asking who's going to be responsible in defense for the space out here. There might be some real subtle differences, but it's going to be, they're going to have so much for you.

I think Bob's line up pretty much lines up with what you posted and that lined up pretty much with what I wanted to see before I found out who was it couldn't play. And so I think that gets our best players on the field. if you'd rather have Brenda out there or Paxton Aronson or is it Dejas instead of you know you're probably losing one of Malick yeah no hopefully not um and I can maybe the question we'll get into the 11s but maybe the question the other question would be who starts on that right wing I'd like to see Perettus but um yeah there's two questions there's who starts on that right wing and can it even possibly be as fun as the fun side has been with in way and two genio desks Can they even like, can they even attempt to Philo's shoe?

I think is the real question. You know, Tillman will help make it fun if he is he, as he comes over to combine. But, yeah, probably won't be as fun. Wes can do it. If we do just, even if Wes is a center mid, we kind of shove him out there a lot more to the right, he'll have a little bit of fun. Yeah.

Definitely. Let's, let me play a question. This is a question from Ron Blum, the, the esteemed AP reporter and an answer from Burrhalter. I'll play both the question and the answer. How much of a concern is it Matt being dropped last weekend? And are you worried long term about him fighting for a spot there? And with Ethan's situation there, it looks like he's not going to get any first team minutes at all.

Yeah, you know, Ethan's situation is temporary. We hope in the winter things will be sorted out where he will start to get game time. I had a conversation with Matt. I called him immediately. And this is part of playing in the best league in the world. Right. I mean, this is all part of a player's journey. There's ups and downs.

And for him, it's about being mentally strong enough to endure this. And you've seen it. You see it every week. Players get dropped. And for him, it's about having the right mentality. And, you know, we spoke about it. He's refocused and he's competing every single day in training. and wait until he can get an opportunity again.

I am a little curious how you have interpreted Turner's performance and is getting dropped. It didn't seem like he was bad at all. And then he did have that walkabout last week. That was pretty bad. And that's it. Like now he's on the bench? Yeah, which is fine because it's fine.

I'm not worked up about it at all. What Forrest did when they got Turner after. days after they got Turner in on loan is they went out and bought another starting goalkeeper. You know, they bought another goalkeeper of roughly the same caliber as Matt Zerner. And so as soon as that's the situation, it's for me not really that important. I don't know if important is the right word, but it's not anything that I'm going to be worried about. They had two really, really good goalkeepers. If they decide they're going to lean on the Greek fella,

that doesn't bug me too much as a U.S. men's national team fan because I know what Matt Turner is, and I know that his place in our goalkeeping pool is about as locked in as he can get. So, you know, he went into the World Cup, having barely played a minute for Arsenal. Yeah, that's true. He's fine.

Like, he's fine. He's going to be good. I would prefer him playing. But as far as his standing within the pool, like, it's unaffected whatsoever. Okay. A couple more things from the press conference. This is Berhalter giving an update on Luca Kulio show, albeit a brief one. No, I speak to Luca regularly and everything happens in due time. And, you know, we're in continual conversation. So we'll see what happens on that end. That was it. Just in continual conversation. And then...

Has Wahee, so I don't mean, but has Wachey weighed in on this? Because Wachie staked quite a bit on, on Bolligan coming. Well before it was certain, well before it was announced. Has Wachie put anything on the line here for Colosio? Because if he's not, I don't want to. I want to be the one of you. So I'm just going to. Coliocio's coming.

I was going to say it's hard to keep track of all the, like, certified guarantees and, you know, strong stances taken on the various, podcast episodes. This is my strong sense that I'm wrong way. Coliocho's, it feels like it. He'll be on the Copa roster. And then,

yeah, that would be awesome. It would be nice to get him in a little before that. Buy COVID though. Buy Kobe's in. He was asked, Burhalter was asked by Donald Wine, the American Outlaws,

the famous American Outlaw, where he sees Peretti's playing, given his positional versatility over the years. He, wine brought up D.C. United where he played, you know, basically all the wide positions left back, left wing back. I mean, I think he played some right wing back too there and wing. And I liked Burhalter's answer because it kind of squares, it's kind of squares with

my impression of Paredes early. Here we go. You know, we really like his versatility. When I first saw him at D.C., you know, I immediately thought, you know, this is the left back of the future, a guy that can really step into that role. And, you know, for us, we have a lot of, you know, we've been watching his work in Wolfsburg, impressed with what he was able to do in last game as a wingback and, you know, think that he's versatile. So we like that versatility, especially as we have needs in the winger position.

We think he's a guy that can slide in nicely. You know, he played in the Amman game, did a good job. He came in in the Germany game as a winger, did a good job. So he's just continued to make progress and we're excited to be working with him. There it is. I assume we'll see him on the wing in this camp. Yeah, I think so too, especially with how Lund has been playing. It's a backup blackback that if we need to spell Jedi, it seems like Lund would be the guy to do it.

And I think this has just been a really good integration process for Prattis. I think it's very possible that Brutus continues to play well. And as long as he is, no one else is making a real. substantial claim to even being the next guy to be auditioned. So I think we just keep running with him and keep sort of giving him those minutes and those chances and let him build up his own claim as he's going along. And he hasn't really, he's never been like spectacularly bad,

which is sort of the bar to clear to just keep getting another level. Yeah, I mean we did highlight his jitters, or at least I did in the Oman, Was it the Oman game? Yeah, his debut. I'd say his real, real debut. Wasn't his full debut? Well, it was his first meaningful game with, like, the first choice roster.

And he was obviously quite nervous. And I put a video out about that and got, had some people mad at me. But, you know, it wasn't me writing him off or anything. And he has, I think that last performance for Wolfsberg, even if you take the goal out of it, like he scored a goal over the weekend as a left wing back. He was pretty good in that game. He did a lot of good stuff, pretty assured in possession. And it gave me the sense that he can set like a higher,

like start to set a pretty decent floor with his performances with the national team. And I think it'll be interesting to see that's one of the big questions for me in this camp is will Kevin Paredes come out of this camp, having sort of reshaped the winger depth chart a little bit? Because it's really, it's really Pulsick and Wea. arguably G.O. depending on how things shake out positionally for him.

And then you got Brennan Aronson, who has, and so I guess the question is, can Paredes overtake Brendan Aronson in the depth chart? Maybe it won't happen in one camp, but it could start to happen. Yeah, I mean, it's totally possible that Paredes could actually like start, you know, like, I don't think that's,

we all want to see it because we're all in a hurry to do these things. I can totally understand the decision from a manager to run Brenda instead because of Brenda's inertia. You know, I mean, like, just his longstanding role with the team. That does matter for prior doing these things in this kind of a situation. And again, there isn't a huge hurry here.

If the plan is to integrate Redis and Brenda starts in the home leg against Trinidad and Tobago, like, that's not like, oh, no, this was devastating to the chances of Brettas really being fully integrated by the COVA. You know, there's plenty of time to do this. This is what the plan. And I do hope that Brett is does get his chance, and I hope that his play makes it clear that he is the guy, to be another guy's backup. Right.

The guy at number three in the winger death show. Until Coliocho takes that spot, and he is number three. No, it's, they're, there, everyone, everyone's very unproven, and the most proven backup is Paul Arieola, and the guy for that is Brenda, and he's, you know, we kind of know what we're getting from. Yeah. The other thing that, the other thing in working in Aaron Brenda's favor is that he is that Braulter loves his coachability. I mean, he never stops talking about it in the press conferences,

how hard Brendan works and how he does everything you ask him to do, you know, yada, yada, yada. Yeah, that's, that's all hard. We're saying that's true. That's true. It really is like that's the floor thing. Like, even if he's not quite clean enough on the ball to do what I want somebody else to be able to do. He will always give you X and you know that the X won't be nothing. Like even if there's a lot of frustrating franticness, he's going to be doing a lot of chasing.

Yeah, he will remember the pressing triggers and execute. Yeah, and that's not what you want the long-term reward to be from that position. But in this situation, we're in right now for the exact time we're in, it's fine if he's a guy for a little. Yeah. Other big question for me is,

well, I guess I got two more, and then I want to hear what you're looking for. But assuming Geo starts, and let's all hope he does for entertainment value, can we keep him and Balogun cooking? I'm guessing your answer is going to be, of course we can. We're playing Trinidad and Tobago.

Yeah. Okay. And then, you know, I'm interested in the, midfield will how will Wes and Eunice look together will it be that sort of will one of them be more of a deeper lying defensive midfielder again probably not going to be tested that much in this game but something to watch yeah it's going to be a lot of that midfield is going to be interesting it'll be probably most interesting to see where Greg's head is with what he even

wants to try now I doubt he's locked into any thing in particular as this is what it's going to be so this is what we're going to give him a tour, but even just to see what he prioritizes as the experiment. It's interesting. Like, how is Johnny going to fit over these two games? You know, does Luka have a role to play besides just spelling someone? You know, when we don't have Tyler, when we're missing these wingers and GEO could be used flexibly. Like, is Luka the guy that might come on?

We're all kind of talking about Malik, because that's the obvious thing or the most exciting thing. Like, maybe it is Luka again. I mean, there's a lot of different permutations here that would be totally acceptable. And so it will just be interesting to see what Burrhalter is leaning towards to try out first. Yeah. Anything else you're looking for from this camp? We'll come up over the week. We'll try to come up with what would be like the most underwhelming 11 because I feel like that's a good thing to set the perspective.

Because there aren't that many, right? like anyone who would be playing it and be like, oh, we'll at least get a decent look at this new guy. Yeah. Would give us your most underwhelming 11? But it has to be realistic, right? I don't think, I don't think Leonard Maloney is going to be starting in this game.

So it's Trinidad. Yeah, I think the underwhelming parts will be, you know, if he let's say he starts Ream and Robinson, I think that's the, that's the, that's the least intriguing centerback combination. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

It's just less intriguing than having Richards or CCV in there. Because they have way less time, right? Like they just have, you know, Richards with injuries, CCV coming in late by coach's decision. We just want to get more minutes of watching the play. Even though we know they're not really going to be tested in these games. We just, there's just this like urge to have them on the field. like yep they are they are clearly a part of the picture and they're they're going to be sort of the guys for the cycle

there has been a hunger for CCV for a long time I just love him too he's such like a gentle teddy bear the Dejas the Nejas might be a guy uh that I think I would underwhelm a lot of people I went back through all of his gold cup actions because I'm super tedious it's kind of a brand he was actually he was actually like fine in the group stages like pretty pretty clean but what's going to stick in everyone's mind i think are two big misses at the end of the group stage where he's just you know people people really dislike misses a lot miss sitters and then he was pretty pretty rough against candidate i don't know if the miscitters affected him and combine that with a slight jump in competition level but that's pretty rough i kind of wonder if some Dejas is just a real good camp body.

He'll show up. The guys like him. Burralter probably likes him. He's shown that he's fully capable, being in these camps, not playing a second and not seeming to have a problem with it. So he could be sort of the new vibes guy for a bit. Yeah, you know, Burrhalter was asked about him in the press conference and I didn't cut the clip, but basically what he said is he's been playing really well for Club America.

He's got to figure out how to translate the way, how well he plays for club to the national team. He's still working on that, but he's a very talented player. So, I mean, I think there's a possibility. He's more than just a camp guy at some point, but he's not getting any younger, is he? This is like, what, 26? Yeah, I think that's all right. So yeah, he's not, he's not young. But again, bottom of the roster vibes, guys, I'm totally fine with. There's only two games. We don't have, we're not, not everyone can't play. Like, we just won't, we can't, we can't give meaningful auditions to everyone. And it's also,

play the real players the minutes saying you to play. So there's going to be guys here whose job is to not play soccer. And you want guys there who aren't going to be kind of fussy about that. I think Erinson starting, Brendan Aronson starting at right wing, is a little bit less whelming than Paredes starting. And then I guess the same would go for Luca Deloire starting over Malik in the midfield. because I think that's, I think both of those are both realistic and less welcoming than the alternative. They totally are, and that's where I feel like the whole thing started was that that should help set the perspective here of what we're talking about.

If Luca de la Torre is, like, is, like, playing in the law league is our underwhelming starter and Brendan Aronson with his however many Premier League minutes and now in the Bundesliga as a role player. Like, those are underwhelming starters in a camp where pool is sick and way are out and Tyler Adams is out. And it kind of tells you

where we are, where we've, how far we've come. We have come a long way, for sure. I'll go ahead and give my start. I think it sounds like this is also your starting 11.

I have a feeling they're going to be boxed up here. Yeah. I want to see, well, of course, Turner and Goal, and then Des, CCV, Richards,

and Anthony across the back line. Okay, I'll just jump in here because I think this will be our only difference. I've got Ream. I've got Ream and Richards for the home game because as much as I love CCB, and he has been a distributing centerback for Celtic at times against really weak teams, so probably could do it here and maybe it'd be good to get in those reps. I want the attackers to get as many quality reps as possible,

and for me, Ream and Richards, they're going to be two best passing guys here, so I want them to be keying sequences as much as they. That's fair. It doesn't. also I got to say on the centerbacks doesn't really matter much to me who starts I do want to see Richard start I guess I should say that unis and Wes as the deeper midfielders Malik as the 10 geo at left wing slash left half space merchant and Perretti as right wing and then Fuller and Balligan up top yeah exactly the same I think

I think Perettus could be a fun guy he's a good connecting player so when we're talking trying to keep a fun side and Dest I'm sure we'll have license to go wherever he wants to do his thing we can get some fun get some fun over there yeah

you know like you know you get you get Dest West Malik and Perettus over there you got a lot of potential for overloads and Geo will go join him too Geo doesn't care about maintaining that balance on that weak side like he'll go

because he sees people having fun he's going to go have fun yeah geo feels the game in a way that coaching can never you know tamp down anything else just don't set yourself up for disappointment by really like convincing yourself that Paredes needs to start more malic that's just my that's just my that's just my general encouragement too late should be this should be this should be a fun it should be a fun home game I'm pretty jazzed about the group we got here yeah you know Vince

is gonna be there are you going are you gonna go to the game I'm still working on We've got another, like, obligation in Minnesota, like the day after. And I'm like, man, we might, we might be able to swing this I-35 adventure, but it'd be tight. Yeah, I'm not going to swing it. But if there are details to pass on for a meetup, we will pass those on before. And I'll say this. If there, again, if there is a meetup, it's going to involve a lot of meat because the games in Texas. Or not.

Some barbecue. Good. Definitely good. We'll keep your post on that. Thanks everybody for listening. Check out our Patreon. We got a little show about the U-17, the most intriguing players on the U-17 roster ahead of the World Cup, which starts on Sunday. That's coming out either tonight or tomorrow. And, you know, there's a lot of Patreon-specific content to consume. Thanks for listening. We'll see you.