Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #476: The USMNT Nations League roster

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

Greg and Belz talk through the roster for the game against Jamaica and (we hope) the final next Sunday. No big surprises. We give our XIs for the Jamaica match, and Greg has a curveball. Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon! Patrons get a private feed for the Monday Review, which is, among other things, a run-down of club action for national team players every week with Watke and Vince. We have recently added patron-only content that’s available every Friday. 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 SCUFFED TRIP TO ITALYInformation sheet on the trip: https://earthlydelights.notion.site/Italia-24-with-Scuffed-info-sheet-50449936319a48babe75dea13eefdae1Form to fill out if you’re interested: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYPo58LFY5kfsU2qkxzfTXY9RxDiHXUblnAQ-VHsq2nD2gsg/viewformOTHER LINKSScuffed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAoundrEkZUgZ13IE5XIqrg We’ve streamlined and revamped the merch we’re selling. Check it out: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Scuffed on Discord: https://discord.gg/X6tfzkM8XU 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 SCUF podcast, where we talk about U.S. soccer. The U.S. men's national team returns to action a week from today in Dallas versus Jamaica. First real game since Sergenio punted the ball into the stands and we lost to Trinidad. Greg, how you doing? I'm doing great, bells. I am thrilled that we are back with the men's program. I'm thrilled that we have a roster that, again, is just fun. It's fun to see the core still be the core.

It's fun to see some of the curveballs knowing that we're excited for basically all of them. Like there is no curveball that we're not excited about. And then, you know, a game we were kind of a game. We were kind of playing that I hope wasn't too mean-spirited in the Discord for the months of this downtime on the men's side was who is the most disappointing player that could reasonably be called up to this roster. And we were talking about players like Brendan Aronson. And it's like, what are we now if Brendan Aronson is going to be like the big disappointment to even be included on a roster? And again, I don't even, it's too mean spirit because the whole idea is Brennan Aronson is a fine soccer player. Yeah, yeah.

Who played a real role for us in qualifying for a World Cup and then being a utility player in a World Cup where we got out of a decently difficult group. And that suddenly is the guy that's like, if he makes it, it's not quite as exciting as, if some other up-and-coming player makes the roster. So all that to say, like, it's a happy time. I think so, yeah. And, you know, spoiler alert, Brendan's not on the roster. We're obviously here to talk about the roster that was announced yesterday on the Paramount Plus broadcast. By the way, that was the first time in a while I've sat there and watched like an hour of that pregame show.

It is really fun. They are all over the place. They had Alessandro del Piero on there for a while with Tierra Henri and the whole the regular crew, Kate Abdo. It was great. So I recommend that. Let me make one announcement, since we're talking about the men's team. You know, this trip to Italy, which we, George Croatia and I are planning, is it's so close to being sort of like the customs officer's rubber stamp is hanging over the paper. It's almost final, but there still are a couple spots left.

I'm going to put the link to the information about the trip. This is a trip to Italy to Turin, Lake Como, Milan, and Venice. And we're going to see Yuvai Milan on April 28th, which is sort of like the headliner of the trip. We'll also see a game where we might see Joe Aquini and Compt for Como, John Luca Busio and Tanner Testman for Venetia, and then, you know, fly back the following Sunday. So if you're at all interested in that

and maybe something shook out in your calendar and you can make it happen, check out the links in the show notes and get in touch with us because there's still a couple more spots. Love the Joe Keeney's in there as a draw, but obviously Como is the draw. Right. It's one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

Now, Burrhalter, in his press conference yesterday, he said, you know, this roster is only, a slice in time. Everybody is still in the mix, including Brendan, including some of the attackers that have been having really good seasons and didn't get included. But I gotta say, it is starting to feel like this is the group. And, you know, this is the group minus, you know, a couple of the players we already mentioned. And if there's someone, but if there's someone new who's going to come in and help us for the Copa this summer, like someone who hasn't been a part of the camps so far, They're really going to have to do some amazing stuff over the next couple months.

Yeah, I'll agree that if it's a brand new player, yes, they'll need to be amazing. But there are definitely some guys who can who can wiggle in right at the fringes, whether it's Brenda coming back. Obviously, I definitely don't think that he is like phased out the way some of the, I guess we'll call John Brooks. Prime age players from last cycle were clearly, are clearly, you know, done with the squad. But Brenda, like Kevin Perretus, like some of these guys who are right at the edge

and could end up being third and fourth wingers, those kinds of players could definitely come in and be depth pieces. And there's still time even between now and the Copa for them to be like, I guess, key depth pieces. Right now it seems like, you know, if a Paredes is there, it might be more of a filler piece. We just need a body, but we're not really going to go to him if a game's on the line.

just going to run with we're going to ride timway and christian pool sick uh the whole you know what i mean like that kind of a uh role is is definitely up for grabs where somebody can sneak in as that fringe player yeah i'm a little disappointed we'll get into it we'll get into a lot of the narratives and work through the whole roster but i am i'll say right alert kevin preface isn't on the roster right another spoiler alert um uh third spoiler alert Haji Wright's not on the roster. And I guess that's the one where I'm like, he could have definitely been on this roster as a winger, especially considering we only had, we only really have two wingers on the team. It's crazy to be back into 23-man rosters, isn't it? Like, it's a 23-man roster for this event in March, the Nations League playoffs,

and you can't change from game to game. So whatever 23 are your 23, it had to have three goalkeepers. You know, we learned in World Cup qualifying kind of in real time that you had a 23-player roster that could change between from any game to any game. And on game day, you only had to have two goalkeepers on there, The third goalkeeper rule was gone. Probably a COVID consequence. But now we're back to three players on the 23 have to be keepers.

And it just means the roster is super tight. It feels like a super tight roster saying that as we're about to go into the Olympics in the summer that are 18 player rosters, which is just comedy. But even 23 now feels like how do we do this? How do we get everybody in that needs to be in? And that's going to be one of the fun things about this window is if you're struck, like we've got three strikes. here, spoilers. And if you come in and actually like struggle, even though you're, you're building your good case with the club, like there's going to be somebody who's going to be making a case potentially to knock you out come Copa. Yeah. Don't struggle. Josh, Rico. Yeah. Balo. I mean,

like nobody's, nobody's safe at this point other than Western McKinney. So it's, it's going to be a fascinating window to watch. Yeah, lots of, lots of things to watch. Let's go, let's go to the goalkeepers. I think there's just not a ton to say about these guys, but it's Matt Turner, Ethan Horvath, and who's the third? A Lionel Messi teammate Drake Collander. Yes. So Turner still the clear one. I think Ethan Horvath now is the established number two. There's no real injuries a goalkeeper to speak of. I wouldn't really say there are any snubs in the goalkeeper position. Like, Other guys who you might be interested in would be like Gaga and Brady. I think Gaga is he officially going to the U23 camp that's going to be going on this month as well?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. All right, but it would make sense. Gotta assume he'll be in that U23 team, which is, has a camp next week. Yeah, concurrent, concurrently, but not in the same place. They play Guinea and France on the 23rd and the 25th. 22nd and 25th, sorry, in Spain and in France. And we'll have to follow closely to see if we can find streams of those games.

And then also, again, like those rosters are always going to be like last second deals or tend to be last second deals because you're always finegling with clubs since they are not mandatory releases. Yeah. And I guess this is a good time where I should play a quote from Burrhalter where he talks about the equation Nation's League roster versus Olympic roster. here it is. Those are exact conversations we had regarding the goalkeepers.

You know, we thought it would be valuable for them to play international games rather than come for the experience of being in the Nation's League. We talk about Kevin Paredes, very similar. He has an opportunity to compete in a high-level international U-23 games, so we thought that would be better for him. And, you know, Paxson, we didn't think was really going to factor into the senior team this window, but he's another player that will benefit from having the games in the U-23. So there is that balance.

I think you're going to see that even more with the Copa-America roster, potentially earmarking some guys for the Olympics, some guys for Copa America. But, you know, it's continual conversations with the leadership here and the coaching staff of the U-23s to make sure that, you know, we're having the appropriate conversations. So there's some explanation of what's up with Paxton and Paredes,

uh, makes sense to me. Makes total sense because again, these aren't friendly. So this isn't something where you can go in and say, okay, I'm going to give Kevin Paredes 30 minutes in the first game and then, uh,

start them in the second game. Uh, it's, we have to, we have to play these games to win and we don't know what the end game state is going to be. So if it's, if it's one zero,

uh, against Jamaica, we don't just put Paredes in for, um, so if you're not sure if you have any minutes for him, you, you, in the U23 camp.

And again, this is what the U23s are supposed to be for. It's supposed to be for guys who haven't fully broken through. Predus has had a couple of chances with the senior team. He didn't blow the doors off. He had a nice runway. He and Malik both had a nice runway match Trinidad at home, you know, and they weren't amazing. So it's like, okay, well, you'll get more chances,

but you're not necessarily going to get them as soon as you would have if those games and performances had gone differently. Yeah. Yeah, the Olympic. Olympic roster is going to be interesting to watch because there will be a big, uh, some, some level of attention on those games and we want to, we want to show well at the Olympics. But, um, I'm excited to see what France's team looks like, what those names look like, because I don't, I really don't know. I don't know if it'll be

all sort of like U-23s under the radar or if they'll have like some of their U-23s who are very much on the radar already. Yeah. Tierie Henri, the coach of that team, by the way. Kind of cool. Um, centerbacks. Well, I guess the last thing I'll say on goalkeepers is, yeah, Turner will do the playing, very likely, and Horvath plays if Turner gets hurt. I guess that's just me being redundant with you saying they're one and two. Yeah, it's nice that Horvath is playing again. I mean, I'm not, you guys get to chat about him on the Monday review, but he's getting 90 minutes a weekend, so I love it.

I'm ashamed to admit we, I don't think we've chatted about him much, if at all. We should, though. centerbacks we got chris richards tim ream miles robinson and mark mackenzie yeah we've got uh we've got cameron carter vickers injured uh walker zimmerman uh injured i don't know if zimmerman would have made this list or not it sounds like ccv would have we've had some you know people who uh who know people saying that ccv was like a last second fitness decision um and so we don't know who took his place. My guess would be McKenzie. I really wish CCV was there. I just love our giant teddy bear of a centerback. It wouldn't surprise me if he plays this weekend for Celtic. He's done that before

where he misses a camp because they don't want to stress him too much, but he still plays for his club. So be prepared for that and don't necessarily lose your mind about it. Or do. Go ahead and lose your mind if that's how you like to experience it. But it's a, what do you think of the group overall? Well, I think CCV, Berhalter mentioned in the press conference yesterday that CCV's just been off and on injured, which is true. And it seems like it makes sense, even if he does play this weekend to let him stay in Europe and try to get back to full health. He seemed, Berhalter seemed bullish on his chances for the COPA roster. And of course, Walker just had surgery. The snub here is probably Austin trustee.

And reading between the lines, here's a quote from Burrhalter about it, but reading between the lines, it doesn't sound like trustee agreed with his omission. And with Austin, you know, it was another conversation with him explaining it. And I know it's difficult for the player because, as you can imagine, he's saying, okay, I'm starting in the Premier League. How am I not in your squad? and, you know, I can understand that argument. But from our perspective, you know, we went with these four centerbacks that we think are suited for these opponents, are suited for what we want to do in this camp.

And again, it's not a permanent state. If Austin continues to perform at a really high level, he'll get an opportunity with the team as well. Is Austin performing at a really high level? I mean, I'm not sure that's true. I mean, Berhalter, I'm not, I mean, Burrhalters can be generous as much as he wants, but, yeah, I mean, that's it. Like, on paper, he's a Premier League, I mean, he's a Premier League centerback. On paper, it seems like he should be in camp. If you watch his games, he's fine.

He's not, like, great or anything. No, it's one where, like, watching him for Sheffield, watching him at Birmingham, like, there's, he hasn't really added to his game that would sort of just anything to his game that would distinguish him. He plays a, he tends to play on a team that's doing a lot of suffering. You know, suffer ball's been kind of the theme for us.

And so if we were playing in that kind of a game, then it would probably give him even more chance to sort of, forces away into a group. But I don't think we're going to be playing a lot of suffer ball against Jamaica and hopefully not against Mexico either. So it just doesn't. Or Panama. Or Panama.

Yeah, apologies or Panama. So, I mean, he hasn't been performing at a super high level. Neither have some of the other centerbacks. So it's very much just like who you want to go with. And it's, I'm not losing any sleep on our third or fourth centerback. I did check it on McKenzie,

kind of funny enough, on his, on his stage and like his very last action before this roster was announced, was to gift a chance to the opponent on like a long ball over the top. he's running back onto it clearly in position to make a play with an attacker sort of trailing behind him and he tries to head it back to his goalkeeper and he just doesn't put enough on it and so the attacker actually just runs on to McKenzie's header and forces an incredible save and Gank maintained their one zero lead but it was just kind of funny it appears to have been a

one-off I checked his last three games before that no other gifts of that nature so we'll just chalk it up as a fluke and not a like typical McKenzie play. Yeah. And McKenzie, like, as we've discussed many times on this podcast, he can hit a nice pass. You know, he can strike a ball cleanly with both feet, and he does have that in his game,

which not a lot of our centerbacks have in spades. So one oopsie every now and then, I guess is okay. And I was struck yesterday just on the more positive tip by how major of a development it is for Richards to have established himself firmly in the lineup for Palace. I know there's some injuries involved in that equation, but he was at a point, he's 23 years old, he was at a point where he probably needed to do that this season,

or like this season or next season or soon, to be the kind of centerback we want him to be. You know, we hope he can be. And he did it, and he's not playing perfectly either, but he's doing a lot of good things, and I'm thinking he's, you know, he's starting. I'm not sure who starts next to him for us against Jamaica, but probably he starts.

I'm going to just go ahead and guarantee that he is the starter. If he's not, it's like a pre-rotation, which I don't think we're, I don't think we're that confident going into Jamaica. No, Jamaica's actually kind of dangerous. Yeah. And so Richards is starting, and it's kind of a nice juxtaposition here to throw Chris Richards, just Premier League starter against like Austin trustee

Premier League starter to just say Premier League starter isn't just some set standard of what a player is. Right. Okay, that's the centerbacks. I think we covered it. Fullback. Serginio Dest,

suspended for the game against Jamaica because of the aforesaid punt and Jedi Robinson, Joe Scali. Christopher Lund. Christopher Lund gets another call out. He's in. this was a question because again we had so many other players that we were trying to see if we could squeeze into this lineup that we were we were curious if he were going to bring four fullbacks it seems like you almost have to with desk being suspended for a game there's no real injuries we were dealing with in the fullback position and I wouldn't really say there are any snubs again I think on my on my wish list I was I was hoping we would just go three so we could sneak haji right or somebody else into the roster

and run with Duan Jones as like a swingback where you can get away with that risk because he could play right or left. Berlter went safe, which is totally understandable and brought one for each side. And, I mean,

there's not really too much more there, right? Yeah. I mean, I think I like Jones more than Lund, you know, in a game we have to win, but it's marginal. Yeah,

you can't argue with Lund's smile. in general demeanor. No, you can't. No. The moral compass he brings to the team. I mean, I'm referring to when he was looking on aghast as Sergenio walked off the field at Trinidad after the red card. Okay, center mid. Oh, I guess I should say this is a big opportunity for Joe Scali to sort of stamp his ground. Yeah, you've got to assume he's going to get this chance because unless we get cute,

which I'll describe the cute scenario when we get to. get farther along in the roster, but the most straightforward play with death suspended is Joe Scally starting right back. I don't think there's really any doubt that that's what's happening. Yeah. And so he'll get a chance to play, you know, most, if not all of the game

in a knockout game against a pretty solid regional opponent. I'd like to see him show us that he can really excel. The last thing we saw Joe Scali doing was getting rinsed against Trinidad at Trinidad, so it wasn't a great moment for him. And he's had some ups and downs this season. I think he's played the last couple games, but before that he was inactive for a few weeks. We'll see. Center mid, a lot of action in this one.

West McKenney, Gio Raina, Tyler Adams, Johnny Soccer Cardoso, Cardoso, Eunice Musa, Luca Deletore, and Malik Tillman. Tillman listed as a winger, but I think that was just because they had to balance out the names on the list. It would look bad aesthetically. Their graphic design guy is like, no, you got to call one of these center mids forward.

No, it obviously speaks to, you know, the flexibility in the versatility of a lot of these players in conjunction with kind of how we tend to set up, which is good. But yeah, this central midfield group is,

fun, right? I mean, we've got I think everyone that we wanted to be here, Leonard Maloney is out injured, and this is where I think the big storylines are. So we've got the midfield configuration, aka the Westin Line, aka the Gio Saga, aka the Malique era is upon us, aka Captain Stay the Captain, aka here's Johnny,

and like all of this is going to be wildly entertaining to see. I mean, huge news. Tyler Adams got on the field yesterday for Bournemouth, played the last 20 minutes, helped his team get a win. Pretty big deal. His first action for, you know, since the Great Depression, really.

We're getting used to this where Tyler Adams misses a full year of club and then we get him back for 30 minutes at a time. And then suddenly he was like, and every game started for us in World Cup qualifying after barely having him before that. So let's hope that this is another, we get another solid year out of the kit. Berthelter said something about there being,

you know, like they think that in conjunction with Bournemouth, they've decided he can play 45 minutes at a time. So they've really been investigating that. He also said, Bournemouth don't play this weekend. So, because their opponent is still in the FA Cup

or Bournemouth are still in one of the two. So they don't have a match this weekend. It must be their opponent in the FAA Cup because of the Pornos is in the FAA Cup they would be playing the FAA Cup this one. How about that? Fair point.

So he gets full recovery time after his 20 minute runabout. And so yeah, so hopefully he can do 45 and then on short rest go 40, roughly that amount again. Is that kind of what we're hoping? I don't know. I kind of would be surprised

if he just starts against Jamaica, but maybe it's that simple. I mean, he's back, so he's back. Start Johnny. Start Johnny. I would say so. Sorry, you got to start Johnny. That's my call, too. On Geo, you know, he, Berlter was asked, essentially, I mean, it wasn't just Geo, he was asked

about players who aren't playing much for their club. How do you sort of think about that? And he said, it's tough. We know that it's a transition to move from one league to another, to move to a higher tempo league like the Premier League. We know Gio can perform for us. He does. He has performed for us regularly.

So, you know, just a lot of words, but basically him not playing for Nottingham Forest is not going to prevent him for playing for the U.S. I don't think it will either. The question is going to be how much and in what order, right? And the other question becomes like, is it moot? Is Gio actually hurt? Is he fit? And if he's not injured, injured, is he match fit for X number of minutes? because if he's not, then, you know, suddenly it's somebody else starting in his place

and it's not necessarily fully soccer related. It's fitness related. We've been through that before. We love that. We love cloak and dagger geo-fitness discussions. But yeah, the question absolutely remains, if he is actually fit, yeah, he'll play, but is he still a starter in Greg Berthelter's eyes? And that would be an interesting question.

we won't get an answer regardless because again there will be plenty of plenty of reasonable explanations to sort of brush it off if he doesn't start because he can just say oh yeah he doesn't have the legs or again the rumor is right now he is injured for Nottingham Forrest and that's why he's not making match day squads we're not getting the signed doctor's note on that either no this would all be easier if we would get signed doctor's notes I feel like that's the next step in following the national team yeah injured reserve list or something

something more official yeah should we do that should we do that should geo start if he's actually fit or is it is it Malique time yeah we should we should and my answer is yes I mean if he's not hurt he should start in the midfield yeah yeah that's where I'm at too

you know we're going the discourse having to again the roster the group is so enjoyable that the discord is is breaking down into arguments about whether Tim Wea should be starting or not you know like we're we're really living good when those are the discussions. And for me, like the, I'm going to start falling pretty hard onto the established level line.

What's your established level? Yeah. And that can kind of mean for the U.S. and for club. And Gio has established a pretty high level of play. Yes, he has. Burholders kind of said the same thing. And he has demonstrated it also at a very high level for club. And while I'm super excited about Malik and hope that,

that when he does play for us, he also, like, sets that high of a bar. So far, he hasn't. Like, it just hasn't. He needs more time to show that he can, but it hasn't happened yet. And his wildly successful season right now just comes with the PSV caveat,

where they are just dominating, weaker competition than what Gio Raina has established that he can play at. And while it might be, you're getting unfair to Malik to be like, well, you've got to dominate Dortmund in the Champions League. That's kind of what he almost needs to do to jump Geo Raina just on paper. You know, like otherwise he's got to do it by showing out for the national team. Right.

And I'll say, you know, Malik, I thought Malik had a pretty quiet first half in that game yesterday. But he did do some nice things in the game, especially in the second half. PSV a little unlucky to not be still in the competition. But I thought Sergenio played well too. That's it. That's all I have to say about that. I thought they both played pretty well. Malik did play well.

And like if Malik does start against Jamaica, even if it's Burholt, even if Geo's fit, I'm not going to be like this is a terrible decision. I can't believe we're doing this. I don't expect it because, again, I do think that Burrhalter's going to probably run was kind of that same established level doctrine, where you're going to have to show it either for club at a high enough level

that it is obviously the case that you are better than this core player, because we do have those core players who have performed for the U.S. now. We're not in last cycle where it was just like, well, we have nine filler pieces playing and have been playing since 2019. You don't have to do much to jump them. It's not the case anymore. You got to show us something to jump. Gio Raina. You got to show us something to jump Tim Wea.

And that's, that should be like a welcome opportunity for, for all of these guys who really have that chance. Yeah, I totally agree. That said, I also agree, it won't bother me too much if Malik starts. And even if it's a, yeah, even if it's a total sporting decision. And we know it's not going to be that clear, you know, with Gio's health, because it's kept under wraps. Now, do we all play? So the other thing on Malik, too, is we're not, it's not like where you're saying, saying Malik has to come in and do everything. We're going to build our entire team around him.

If he comes in and starts, he's starting with Christian Pulcic, Timwaya, Weston McKenney, some striker who's very good. Like, we're talking about him being a piece amongst other pieces. It's not like it's going to be like it all falls on Malik's shoulders to do this. Yeah. That's another reason why I'm totally fine if that's the case against Jamaica. If we had to build everything through that player, I would feel much better about Geo than Malik. but I'm going to feel good no matter what.

Yeah, me too. You can't. My feeling good is unassailable. Wes, you know, he's back after that separated shoulder or whatever it was that kept him out for a couple weeks. But he's totally back, as we all expected. Let me play a quote from Burrhalter, which I think gives some new information about just how far out of the project he was at Juventus this summer. I don't think this has been reported anywhere up until now. Now, here's what he said.

We can't say enough about Weston and his growth over these last years. If you think about this, Weston was in a situation where he went back to the event this after the summer and he didn't have a locker and he didn't have a parking spot. And most players would say, okay, you know, I'm done. I'm leaving this club. It's not for me. And Weston said, you know, I'm going to dig in and I'm going to prove that I belong. And he's done not only that, but he's not only does he not belong, but he's proven.

to be one of the best players of Juventus this year. And one of the top midfield is in all of Syria. So it shows his mentality, it shows his growth as a person, and it shows that he's able to take these obstacles and continue on and keep performing. And I think that's a mark of a really good player. Couldn't agree more.

It's pretty cool that he is so resilient and indefatigable. I'm not sure that's how you pronounce that word, but. Unflaffable, right? That's not going to like get a, You're not going to get West down. Where's 29 in all of this? How do we not have, how do we not get this anecdote four months ago?

29, sleeping at the switch. Come on. Unbelievable. It's fantastic. And like the question now is like, is Weston the only center mid who's nailed on starter for Copa America? And how crazy is that that's the case? I think he is at this point.

Probably Tyler is due, if we're honest. I don't know. It's going to be, there's going to be a lot. Again, it's fun because we talk about established level, and Tyler has definitely established a level for the U.S. national team. And that will go out the window when somebody else gets an opportunity. Like, if in the ideal scenario where everyone's healthy, Johnny probably doesn't come in and start these games.

Tyler Adams starts these games. But because of the health issue, Johnny has this opportunity to jump, to sort of jump the line on the established level. He can establish a new level. And all he has to do to do that is do all the things Tyler Adams did and then do a little bit more. That's all you got to do. Yeah. Yeah, well, I didn't cut the quote, but Erhalter talked about Johnny a little bit.

And he said he almost said he was surprised. But then he said, I'm not surprised, but very pleased that he has adapted to the Liga so quickly. The space is tighter. than it is in the Brazilian League. He has to think faster, and he's doing that very well. He's also covering a lot of ground defensively and doing that well.

So Burrhalter likes Johnny. I think there's no doubt about it. All right, that's the midfield. Any other narratives we need to cover with regard to it? I mean, just the sheer number of things we could see, because like we said, even if Geo is not healthy, that doesn't even mean that Malik is going to be the surefire player

start in his place. Like we could see Weston, Musa, Johnny. Yeah. And that would, again, that would, I'd be totally fine with that. Same.

Be like, all right, that's going to be cool. I can't wait to see this. Again, it's just amazing to be in this place. We've been saying these kinds of things for probably over a year now

and it just keeps getting better. But like, I'm going to leave it to the younger generation of U.S. men's national team fans to like get mad about one of these midfielers starting. over a different one. And I'm just going to sit back and think about what this looked like four years ago. I know.

And I'm just going to chill. Will Trap, Jackson Ewell, Michael Bradley, all good soccer players in the grand scheme of things. But it's a different era. Yeah. Already. Let's see. Wingers. There's only two of them.

No, I mean, unless, you know, Malik and Gio can both play on the wing. But yeah, Christian Pulisick and Timway are the wingers. Almost certainly they're going to start. We already discussed Kevin Paredes' omission. Brenda got a lot of kind words from Burrhalter. He was part of the reason he said that this is just a slice in time and, you know, anything can happen, which I'm sure it's true. So any thoughts from you on this short list of wingers? I mean, this was my wish list.

My wish list had just Pulisick and Way. It had Haji, too, who I was calling a winger. But, you know, and we've been saying this for a few months, too. This was before Paredes kind of established himself as a starter for Wolfsburg. But we've been saying, like, none of the other young winger types have really, like, jumped ahead. And again, to make it totally obvious that they need to be here. And so if that not being the case, you have all these strikers who are doing crazy good things. And a lot of them moonlight as wingers, like bring them into camp is what you're.

I was what I was kind of hoping. I was actually, I wish she'd brought more than three, but, uh, so I'm totally fine of this. I think we're, I think we're fine coverage-wise between Gio Malik being able to play out there. Josh Sargent can deputize as a winger and a pinch. Even bolligan's played some width. Even peppy, yeah. Yeah.

And, and you can always, you know, you're not locked into one strike or two wingers. Uh, we did two strikers against Trinidad, uh, with peppy and Bolo starting. We got, we got options. Uh, yeah. And then you just let the winger kids kind of cook a little bit longer. Let Kevin Paredes show that he is at a completely different level than all those U-23s, and he shouldn't be there anymore. He should be with the senior team.

Let him show it. Yeah, he's not, though. So he's not going to show it. I mean, he's good, but he's not at a different level than the rest of the... He might, maybe he is. Maybe, I don't know. I don't know. Okay.

Two other omissions, I don't think they count as snubs, are Alejandro Zendejas and Cade Cowell. And I just think it's cool. You know, they both played in the Chivas America game last night. And it's just cool to see them both featuring in such a big game. I mean, it's a Champions Cup game, so it's kind of a made-up tournament. But it's cool to see them both excelling in that really. you know, historic rivalry. They both scored. Cal scored a nice header. Sendejas roofed one, roofed a sitter in kind of stylish manner.

So, yeah, and Burhalter's, you know, had nice things to say about both of them too. Sendaias is doing everything right, he said. It's just a matter of him not being selected. And Cade's just not quite ready for this full strength senior camp, which I think on both counts, quite fair. Yeah, Zendias is on fire, so it's not just this goal. He's contributing goal, like counting stats every match, which is, again, great to see. And it's, again, nice to just have this in your back pocket as some as a camp filler when you need one. But we just don't need one right now.

Injured players would be Colio, whose national team future is still uncertain, obviously eligible for Italy. and then Taylor Booth also hurt and both of them would be Olympic eligible as well, right? Yeah, and it seems like, you know, neither of them back for a while, probably like, again, that might be the end of their COBA hopes,

but man, it'd be nice to have them in the Olympics and if they can pull that off and if they can use that as a showcase to, again, show that they are well above the level of the other players there, then suddenly we are, are cooking and that third striker really needs to perform if we want to make sure that Greg feels the need to keep three strikers on the roster.

Instead of more wingers, yeah. Yeah, otherwise that slots going back to the winger. Christopher Lund, you got to show us something in camp. Keep flashing that smile, buddy, because we can get away with three fullbacks for a little bit. Right. Booth, of course, had a wonderful start to the winter, the second half of the season. You know, we had a hat trick against Volandam, scored another goal. and then do we know what officially his injury is?

Is it a... I don't remember, I just know it wasn't catastrophic where he came back afterwards where he all thought the worst and then he was saying, because he was wearing like the tiny team, he was using like the tiny tim crutches. And then he said, you know,

in some posts that it's not all that bad short term, which for soccer can still be a month. Yeah, okay. All right, and then the strikers. We got Fuller and Balligan, Josh Sargent and Ricardo Pepe I noticed Burrhalter called him RICO in the press conference

so that's cool Hajie and Pfok and Brandon Vasquez all have a legitimate shout let me just play Burrhalter's long quote about the strikers A lot of different strikers scoring goals too that didn't even make this roster and Haji and Brandon Vasquez

and kind of how you weigh roster construction for this tournament for the Copa America and think about the roles you want on your attacking line, how many of each of them you need on a spot. That's Paul. Yeah, so from the number nine position in particular, you know,

you forgot to mention Jordan Pfok as well, who's starting in the Bundesliga every week. So you add him, Haji, who has 13 goals already in the championship, Brendan, who's done a great job in Mexico so far, scoring goals. So it's been really difficult for us. You know, I was over and watched Ballo against PSG,

and I thought he was fantastic, really giving, you know, one of the top teams in the world a really difficult time running behind the line and creating goal scoring opportunities. You know, looking at what Josh has done to come back from the injury and put together a massive goals per minute performances since he's been back.

It's been impressive. And then Rico's done a lot for us, you know, in this last year. And, you know, he's proved that off the bench, he's been a guy that's consistently scoring goals for us and for PSV, when he gets, gets the opportunity. You know, he's putting together a nice season, although his minutes are limited. He's playing at a high level. They're undefeating, and he's competing in Champions League. So it has been a difficult decision, or it was a difficult decision. And for us, it's looking

at, you know, what else can these guys do? What other positions can they play? You know, we've seen Ricardo play line up wide on the left for, you know, for PSV at times. you know, we've seen Josh Sargent play different positions as well. So we're going to have to use some flexibility here, but it's nice to have them in camp. There it is. A lot of good options at Stryker, and somebody's not going to be brought. Yeah. Well, it's a super hard decision.

It's also, it also is easy, in a sense, because it's like you can't mess this up. You can call any of these three, any three of these, I'm going to say five. Sorry, with all respect to Brayne Vasquez. His numbers are just a little bit inflated at the moment. I want to see, I want to see him getting more, uh, higher volume of high quality chances.

Uh, but this is, that's nitpicking, right? We got, we got, uh, I'm so glad that Burrhalter mentioned Pfeck by name because somehow he has become the forgotten man outside of the Monday review,

uh, because he is, his numbers are, Vince, Vince has been, uh, you know, standing up for him for sure.

Yeah. Vince, Vince, Vince knows, Vince knows, Vince knows, Vince knows, and he knows,

and he's, and, and he's matching it with, with the eye test. And it's, yeah, it's crazy. It is crazy that Jordan Pfock,

who's putting up over half a goal, a game in the Bundesliga through 1,100 minutes, barely even gets mentioned as a snub in these things. Burhalter has to say it. No one's even asking him directly about it. That's insane. It's insane.

Yeah. It's because he missed that chance against Mexico. It's all because he missed that against Mexico. But I do think, you know, these are the right ones. That's my opinion. Balagan, Sargent, and Pepey. I would like to see Hajie as a winger, come in and play as a winger, which is mostly what he does for Coventry. It's a little bit of a different role than what he would play for the U.S., but he's still kind of a winger.

He's having a great season, scored twice over the weekend, including a nice hit with his left foot from 20 yards. But yeah, these are the right three guys for me. I think these are the right three for this slice of time. And I think part of that is like, again, the pep inertia matters. Like what he's been doing for the national team does matter. And while he's playing lesser competition than PFOC is playing every week, like the numbers he is putting up are like, well, if you're going to play lesser competition, like, you need to really be destroying it. And he is destroying it. So that kind of matters.

Pfok, I really do want to see. I know the other thing that kind of, the other reason he kind of gets left out is because, you know, we're trying to be this high energy team that covers a lot of ground and asks a lot of our striker. And PFOC doesn't really have that profile. But you, as we also know, you can't press teams that don't want to be pressed. And the last time we played Jamaica down in Jamaica, they didn't want us to press them. And they just kept launching the ball up to us. And we had to find a way to beat them without using the aggressive press as a weapon. And a Jordan PFOT can be a really nice player for them.

that. Yeah. Okay. The hope is the hope is sergeant can sort of do that same job. And I think he can. But, you know, I think he can too. There's, there's, uh, you know, there's an element of like, man, it would be nice to have Jordan Pfock it as a, as a guy off the bench. Yeah.

But he's waiting in the wings. And if, uh, again, if we struggle, if we look like we don't have good solutions and we could use a, um, sort of a more traditional, uh, hold up striker target man. we got PFOC in our couch cushions. And I also totally would not be shocked if Sergeant struggles in these games. Like he has had a few national team performances where he didn't look that great, and that could happen here. I think that covers it, right? Let's do our 11s.

I think we may have the same 11, but, and we've sort of given hints about it so far, but I'll just go first. Turner and goal, Jedi, Chris, Miles, and Scali across the back line. So that's Chris Richards. I want Miles in there over Tim Ream because we're going to face some counter-attacking danger

and we need some speed back there. I think Ream could get cooked. And then Johnny, I think Jedi and Scali just sort of write themselves into the lineup up at this point for this game. And then I want Johnny, Wes, and Gio in the midfield. But as we discussed, I'd be happy with pretty much any iteration of the midfield that

includes Weston. And then Tim and Pulisic on the wings and then Fuller and Baligan at Stryker. I still think he is the guy. You know, he's not putting up incredible numbers for Monaco, but. But he's putting up respectable numbers. Yes. still at I think half a it's underlying at least half a goal per 90 so like pretty solid numbers yeah we're we're a little bit there's some there's some distance between us

bells and this is where okay I get to choose to just be really cute with it so I'm gonna I'm gonna start Ream and Richards because I just liked him room a lot and I wanted to want him to have this and I'm not just not entirely convinced by Miles and he can be So yeah, so I'm going with my heart and Tim Rames in. And then I'm getting really cute with the fullbacks because while Scali should write himself in, from desk Scali, like is a big difference attacking-wise. And so what I would rather do is if we're taking Dest off the field, I want to replace him with another good attacking player. So I'm replacing him in the 11 with Malik, but I'm starting way at my right back.

Okay. This definitely can't happen because there's no way we would have this be our plan. and then just bring two wingers and four fullbacks if we're going to start timway right back but it's not it's not a total like FIFA imaginary thing to know played plenty of fullback right and left uh but it would give you it would give you uh timway as your wide right player in the attack as we try to find ways through jamaica and then you can go johnny mckenny geo actually what i would do is Johnny McKinney Malik in midfield, and I'd run Gio as the nominal right wing

who would just go wherever he wants, because that's what Gio does. Yeah. Then Poole's... Oh, I like that. And then Balligan at Stryker. Yeah, that gets to your best attacking players on the field. Because, I mean, again,

I think Scali's a perfectly respectable defender, but he hasn't shown for national team or for Glydeback that he's any kind of a difference maker in the attack consistently. No, I mean, he's the... He's just, the only reason I haven't had him in the lineup is because I didn't think of putting Timway right back. Just, just start him there. I mean, if anything happens to Scali in the first 10 minutes of the game, like, we got to solve that right back situation somehow.

So instead of like moving Timwaya there, just start him there. Just start him a right back. You're the president of fun, Greg. Just. Yeah. Go ahead and argue with that. It just tells me you're boring. You're a boring coward

I'm not I won't argue with it because I don't want to be labeled either of those things Go back and watch Our Jamaica games And be like Oh no

The fullback here is a real problem They're really target We're really just eating our fullbacks out Like way it would be fine For 90 minutes against Jamaica at fullback Hey maybe Burrhalter will do it I like it I like it a lot

One more announcement I guess The link to the Patreon is in the show notes. We encourage you to consider joining us and getting the Monday review every week and all that stuff. Access to the Discord. Access to Greg's film room work after the women's national team's performance at the W. We're going to be going through Malik versus Dortmund today. All right.

It's mostly just hating on Chuky, so everyone's going to enjoy that too. Chuky messed some things up yesterday, didn't he? All right. Thanks, Greg. Thanks, everybody for listening. We'll see you.