Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #555: USMNT Annual Review 2024

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

Greg, Belz and Vince talk through the events of 2024 for the U.S. Men's National Team, and give traditional awards like Player of the Year and Goal of the Year, voted on by Scuffed listeners, but also less traditional awards like "Most Inscrutable Player" and "The Kingslayer." Join us to look back, celebrate, mourn, etc.Survey to gauge interest for another spring trip to Italy: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeBAz7e4hyZ6HjZhmCalnrfQfJIKeZSi1faC-6hJMwftz20CA/viewform 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. Hello, everybody. This is the fourth annual review for us of the U.S. Men's National Team, not a Monday review, but an annual one where we kind of take stock of the whole year. It'll be on the public feed. It's been a tough year. The COPA was a disaster. Burrhalter got fired.

A large portion of the fan base appears to have gone dormant. But I got to say when you buckle down and go through the event, Vince of the year. There's plenty to enjoy. And we're going to do that here. Waki is still on a break. I've got Greg and Vince here with me. Greg, how you doing? I'm good. I was riding the same roller coaster as a lot of folks through the calendar year. And I think you're right. I think we're now at the phase where we're all sort of climbing back onto the roller coaster cars and just sort of waiting for the bar to drop. We thought we're all kind of getting our seat belts on, but it is, it does feel like a lull. Yeah.

Vince, how are you? I'm doing great, Adam Belles. I just want to say, if you did jump off during the low, I don't want to see you in Seattle or L.A. Okay, in 2026. The Potch bus has left the building. So, yeah, we're gone. We're out of here.

You've been left in the dust. You are now smelling our fumes coming out of the exhaust. If you jumped off, if you jumped off, don't try to get back on. baby. I'm joking. But I do feel like it's time. You know, when that calendar flips of 2025, man, like, you know, a year and a half away.

And you saw how quickly we've gotten from Qatar to here. So, you know, those 18 months are going to go by in a flash. What are we talking about? Like seven windows left or something like that? That sounds about right. We got the Gold Cup this summer. We got March window. Yeah, Nations League in March, I think that'll already be a little bit of a twist in the roller coaster.

Like, we'll get some, we'll get a good adrenaline rush out of that. I feel like we always do. You know, one thing I didn't mention at the top, which you brought up, Vince, is that we now have Maricio Pocitino as the coach. And I'm not sure that without the exact sequence of events, the disaster of the Copa, the firing of Burrhalter, that we end up with Pach as the coach. I mean, had we had Burrhalter decided not to come back in 2022, and we got a new coach back then, which I think many of us wanted, it probably is not going to be somebody of Potch's caliber. So, you know, God's plan.

God's plan works out for the best for us. If Burr Alta doesn't come back in 2022 with the beginning of, or I'm sorry, at the beginning of 2023, mid-2020. by the time it was all said and done. We would absolutely be Jesse Marsh led going into Nations League and the Gold Cup. And you'd probably be doing like a pretty fine job. Yeah.

But it's cooler that we have posh. It is cooler, yeah. And some would say we dodged a bullet. I mean, someone maybe even in this room. I might say that. Would anyone hear you say that? I would definitely say that. I mean, the players will say that.

I would say that. Don't let what's going on right now. Those little Mickey Mouse wins that Jesse Marsh has gotten confused you. you know what I'm saying we'll see what the real is in March unfortunately we don't get Mexico and Canada

not to overlook Panama I already have the 9 p.m. final on that Sunday night in the calendar. The Panama double dip is nice since they're the team that knocked us out of the Copa since I feel like that'll be a nice sort of full

circle end the transition from Burrhalter to Potch with Posh eliminating Panama after Burrhalter failed to do so. Yeah. Let's get to some awards. Let's do it. I want to start with a couple repeat winners just to get him out of the way.

We'll start with the Weston McKenney Award, which is given to a player who's counted out, but then proves he shouldn't have been counted out. The 2003 winner was Wes, and we named the award after him in 2023. And the 2024 winner is also going to be Wes. Once again, he was excluded from the project this past summer when a new manager arrived. And once again, he stuck it out, made himself an important player at one of the biggest clubs in the world.

He capped off the year. I mean, the year is still going. So there's another game, I think, for him to do more stuff. And he scored a goal just over the weekend. But he capped off the year, I think in a lot of ways with that scissor kick banger in Champions League against Manchester City, assisted by Tim Wea. I think for the West McKinney Award, for West to receive it is a no-brainer this year. Any disagreement? No, I think for Wes, with the award named after him, and once again, publicly being left out of the project,

I think every year that he does that, he has to win the award. But it was nice that there was like a little bit of competition with even Tim Wea, who I feel like had a bit of a down year, was kind of changing positions last season, and now he's dropping goals and assists in a way that he hasn't at the club level ever in his career. It's very true. It's true. But yeah, this one even more improbable than 2023, in my opinion, because Yuva bought like

a $100 million worth of midfielders to compete with Wes. To replace Wes. They were there to replace him. You replace that man. And somehow it's like one of those, I don't know, know, one of those like cartoon scenes or like an action scene or something where like the hero is in the improbable circumstance. And like the action that you see is like off the screen or whatever, whether they go into like an office room or something and it's like 50 on one,

but somehow, somehow Wes is the one opening the door. The door opens, right? You're thinking anyone's going to walk out except for your hero. And, you know, first thing you see as soon as you walk out that door is uh it's just Wesson McKinney trademark smile uh straightens his tie

brush the little brush a little dirt off of his suit jacket yeah and he goes back to the kitchen or whatever that he's uh checks his watch I can make breakfast

yeah he goes back to assuming his role as a waiter or whatever you know um but yeah that's just that's just what he's done he's doing it all with a bum shoulder too, you know?

I mean, it's not fully offy. That shoulder is still cyborged up. You know, that's a heavy duty sling or whatever that is he has on his arm. Douglas Louise, I haven't heard of him since. Would he give a penalty away early for Yuvay? I don't think we've seen that man since. And yeah, I mean, he's even playing,

he's even, last two starts, right, have been a left back. Out of all the places that he's played in his career. I don't think we've had a left-back appearance. And he's even doing new things, adding new bows to his quiver. I mean, it's truly incredible. Like the ingenuity, the ways that he finds a way to play, like, you know, obviously we all prefer him to play in the midfield.

But, like, I feel like one of these days, because YuVe does have like a little bit of a centerback injury crisis right now. You know, playing Kalulu and have played Locatelli at centerback, all these different types of things. They are one more injury away from Weston McKinney. A centerback even. So, yeah, man. He really can play every position on the field at this point, at least somewhat serviceably.

So honorable mention goes to Tim Wea, as Greg mentioned. And then another honorable mention goes to Richie Ledesma, who seemed to be a lost cause after that failed loan at NYCFC. But now he's logged about 1,000 minutes. at PSV, including five appearances in Champions League, mostly at right back. But he's doing well. He scored a really nice goal in the Air Divisi a few weeks ago. This, of course, warms my heart.

I think for any longtime listener of scuffed, this is a pretty heartwarming thing. It's really cool. And I think it also is telling how he's doing all this. He's playing for a PSV team that is absolutely rolling over the entire Dutch League. And it barely like moves the needle for Ladezma from a national team standpoint. And again, I think that almost tells you how far things have come that a guy who normally just by describing what he is doing would have made him a nailed on roster inclusion.

Like I don't think anyone's like, we got to start, we got to get Ladezma in camp. I think it's almost, he's still like a total afterthought from the national team side when we don't have a backup right back at the moment. we just didn't bring one to the last camp. And we have this kid doing what he's doing. And it still isn't like a cinch that he's included. Maybe I'll just have to fire up the campaign after the first of the year, you know? Yeah. Get real, real strident about it.

I was about to say, Bills, because, you know, like, this, of course, warms my heart. Like, that wasn't enough for me from you on Richie Ledesma. I think the question is, like, can he defend as reliably as Joe's And I think the answer to that question is probably no. So the question is can he defend as reliably as Eunice Musa if Joe, if something happens to Joe Scali? Because again, we did not bring a backup to Joe Scali to the last camp. And obviously, Pachitino would have considered the contingency of if some, if Joe Scali gets hurt, can't go. What's my next choice?

And his decision obviously was, I will just pick one of these other players on the roster who's not a fullback. So that becomes a question is, can Richie O'Desma do the job as well or better than a non-fullback that's already in the pool? And then it'll all kind of become moot when Sergino Dest is back in January. Yeah, well, and it's moot. It'll become moot, but it's also the answer to that question is also no for Richie. You know, like you'd rather have Eunice out there defending 1B1 against somebody who's dangerous. I mean, Richie's incredibly, incredibly, I think, slick and elegant with the ball. Anyway, he gets an honorable mention.

Well, we'll have to see how it goes, though, man. Just like, if PSV unloads, uh, Goose Till, Sabari, um, Malik, of course, like, you know, midfield starts to open up a little bit. I think he's done enough, man. Maybe he slides in there, yeah. Yeah. Comes a rotation guy. Utility player for PSV.

That'd be a pretty great, uh, development in the career, given where he was a year ago, six months ago. Don't count him out. I mean, for the West McKinney Award in 2025. Right. Best commentator is the next award, and it's going to be, I'm going to have to insist on a repeat winner here too. In 2023, it was Maro Suma from A.C. Milan.

For coining the term, Come on Baby, for every goal. Pulisic wins, I mean, scores. I think Suma wins again. Again, it's not particularly close. I want to play, just to sort of prove my point, I want to play his call of Pulisic's goal versus Inter Milan right now. I mean, if that doesn't put your hairs on end, on your arm, down your arm, then I don't want to know you.

Vince is daring people to stay dormant after yet another Christian Pool Sick goal call. Yeah, that's right. I do wonder, I don't know if we've went down this path with Morrow in his call, his signature line, but is that just like the, is that just the average American quote? Like, you know what I'm saying? If you're a European, you think all Americans just say, come on, baby? The genesis of it was him saying, come on, baby, to Mori after he scored his first goal for Ace in Milan, you know. Which was a banger, I think, against Bologna, I believe.

Just a really, really nice goal. And then he said, come on, baby. And then from that on, Suma said it every time. He scored. I had totally forgotten that. So you're saying Pulsig actually inception to come on baby? Like, he, it's actually key coined the phrase that Summa coined. Yeah.

Okay. And that's pretty indisputable at this point. We've got the, we've got the lip reading and the. I mean, indisputable is maybe further than I would go, but I think there's a strong likelihood that that is the sequence of events. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So Summa, in his acceptance speech would probably credit Christian Pool Sick as the writer of Christian Pool Six.

Goal scoring line. Okay. I mean, the man can do it all. Christian Pulisik is doing a lot of things. So now we're going to move on to some awards. We're more on that goal later. But for now we're going to move on to some awards with a little more suspense than those two. I've got one.

And it's called the Shouldn't Have Come Back Coach of the Year award. This one's suspenseful. This one everyone's waiting to hear. Who could it be? It's Greg Burrhalter. Because in 2023, we named him the comeback coach. of the year. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I would say. But he shouldn't have come back. The joy was gone. The weariness, the sadness of what happened at the end of 2022 and the beginning of

2023 was heavy on him. GeoGate sapped his life force. They lost buoyancy. Even though there were other reasons we got grouped at the Copa, and I'm sure we'll get to those very shortly. The team wasn't firing on all or even most of its cylinders at the end of the Burhalter era. So, you know, all as well, that ends with Maricio Pocitino as the coach. So maybe this is how it had to play out, but it does feel like he should have moved on in early 2023, which is, if I remember correctly, what at least some of us wanted at the time. I don't think there was anybody who was like, we have to have Greg Berhalter back. Right.

And again, it seemed absolutely out of the question, not even for the geo stuff, but just the corporate side of things. when U.S. Soccer hired like a search firm. I don't think anyone was like, this search firm is totally going to justify it's a ridiculous fee by saying, keep the man you've already got. Yeah.

Now, these were all events from 2023. Events from 2020, but it is fascinating how that all landed. And it's also, again, it's another study in like how certain moments can sort of evaporate. once you sort of know how it ends. So once you know how it ends and we get grouped at Copa, there are positive things that just disappear from your consciousness a little bit.

And Bells you talked about there were positive things in 2024. And it wasn't just announcing Pocitino on the men's side. There was like, you know, you go back to a couple of weeks before the disaster at Copa. And we had the Columbia disaster, which is a soccer thing, not the other Columbia disaster. And we had, right after that, we have an outstanding, like, exciting, entertaining performance against Brazil. And then we absolutely demolish Bolivia in performance, if not the scoreboard in the Copa. And it seems like things are mostly going fine. And there is sort of emotion and passion.

And then it all just fell off of the Burrhalter cliff. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I'm just, yeah, those things maybe have evaporated from my memory. I suppose. That Brazil game was fun. That's true. It was. And also,

I was just watching like all the goals back from this year. And just thinking about, I think we lost him in the coach and change. But Johnny, Johnny Vio, watching Christian's goal against Brazil and then he's looking for the man.

Where's Johnny? Or maybe that was Bolivia. I don't know. I'm getting them mixed up. The special teams coach, right? Johnny's the special team set piece guy. Yeah. But I do remember in Bolivia thinking of myself.

But because the vibes were low going into Copa America. Even before the disaster, you know, a lot of people were predicting the disaster. I remember, like, observing during the Bolivia match, everyone was feeling quite good. And then, you know, I remember like, you know, tailgate before Panama, everything was feeling. as it should have been, and then, you know, it left. But, but yeah, as Bells has pointed out, Greg shouldn't have been back for his sake. You know, I've pointed this out a few times,

but I do, I just, I'm waiting for, you know, that brooding black and white photo shoot with Greg Burrhalter. He's on a couch, something like that. Where he's, you know, he confesses. he shouldn't have come back. He wasn't in the right mental state. He wasn't in the right mental state for the proceedings, man. I mean, I remember him talking about, I think he gets hired.

And he does that, he does that interview with, I don't know who it was. Vanity Fair. That's what it was. GQ. Vanity Fair when he's like, you know, you're the man talking about mediators, man. You know, we got to get in the mediation, see if we can work this out. Well, what's the path forward and all this different type of stuff?

It's just, man, that level of baggage was just, and this is no shade on Greg Burrhalter. I wouldn't have been able to handle this. Betrayal from your best friends, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's just, it was too much stuff, man. And, you know, understood, you know, he took that approach of like, I'm not going to let them get to me or whatever. You know, I'm going to go through. I'm going to handle this. whatever, whatever, but yeah.

It was a rap. That's the thing. One of the things about getting older is you realize, or at least I have been realizing, that resiliency has its limits, you know? There isn't always a full bounce back. Yeah. Not every friendship can be rescued.

You know? Things break, and they deteriorate. Dude, that stuff was hard on him. And it's like, it is like, maybe you did think that. But then when you see the man, you see Gio every camp, like, man. And it's not like, it's not the same as it was, man. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is like, your family.

Yeah. You can want it to be. Yeah, you can want it to be the same way. But it's not, man. It's not. This is a dude you've known since he was born. And it's like, you can't, you can't just walk up and tussle his hair. Like, the mediator got to be there for that, man.

And at the same time, it doesn't seem like any, any kind of issues between Burrhalter and Gio were present in 2024, or that they really in any way would have contributed to our on-field demise against Panama, which was basically the demise. I mean, that was the hingeing point. We have an award. We have an award about that. But as Bell said, the buoyancy wasn't there. Speaking of buoyancy, you know what I'm saying? The bounce passes evaporated.

You know what I'm saying? It was just like that verve that we had from Greg Browhalter. It was gone. I did see a little bit of evidence of it coming back a little bit in the in one of the goals from this past year. But I'll leave that for later. But let's get to the next award. Okay.

Next award is the most inscrutable player of the year. The 2022 and 2020 winner was Sergenio Dest, future zookeeper wear of strange outfits on momentous occasions. His double yellow at Trinidad will go down, has gone down, will continue to go down as one of the least scruitable events in the history of U.S. soccer. But the man who found himself in the most pungent cloud of red mist in 2024, who did something that still doesn't make any sense and was far more damaging,

If we're honest, then Dest's actions in Trinidad is Tim Wea. His red card for belting Roderick Miller in the back of the head off the ball was the single biggest factor in us getting grouped at the Copa America, and Burhalter losing his job, and the fan base kind of losing some of its will. So you win the award, Timmy, for Most Inscrutable Player of the Year. Congratulations. No one expected that. I don't think anyone expected Tim Way out to take this award home if you had asked people in January.

Of course not. That's what's so funny about it. I mean, Tim Wayhouse seemed entirely scrutable as a player. Just a moment of madness. Like, like, scrutable to the point where it might even hurt himself. You know, always looking to, his willingness to combine with players, you know what I'm saying? and instead of his willingness to just want to play ball. He just wants to have a kick around with his friends.

You know what I'm saying? Like if we do this very cool thing and then somebody else puts the ball in the net and I was just involved as like the third person in that triangle, I don't get a goal or an assist. He's happy. Happy as can be. Yeah. But yeah.

This is what makes it funny, man. It's like nothing close to this. this will ever happen again with Tim Wayne. You know what I'm saying? Like, Serge, Serge gave one dude from Mexico a smack in the face before, right? And before he pointed the ball, you know, that was a harbinger of future actions for Serge. Tim, this came out of nowhere, man.

Matter of fact, he might be on that same shoot with Greg, that same article, same couch. Like he wasn't all the way back from the events that happened to the World Cup either, man. That rooftop barbecue truly scarred him, I guess. I don't know what was going on. But yeah, crazy. Well, he's back. He's back in like his first game back from suspension and injury. He's delivering for us again.

So he is back to be inscrutable. Let's hope 2025 is again. Holy Scrutable, Timwaya. Yeah. Okay, I got a new award this year. It's called the King Slayer Award. It's a new honor, and it goes to a player who either has staged or is in the process of staging a coup d'etat. The winner is Ricardo Pepey.

Let me explain. He's an upstart behind a king, but not for long and maybe not anymore at all. Luke DeYoung is a legend in Einhoven, and he's a good. was a legend last season, scored 38 goals in all competitions, while Pepey had to feed on scraps from the bench. But Deong appears to be fading a little bit this season. I mean, he scored over the weekend, but since November 1, Pepe has eight goals and two assists in 450 minutes.

DeYoung has two goals and zero assists in, you know, let's say roughly 510 minutes. When Pepe got a hat trick against his old club Growning in in late November, DeYoung and his queen could only watch from the Royal Box. There are whispers in the courtyard, footsteps in the hall, cloaked messengers, call it the Eindhoven overthrow. I personally take no special pleasure in DeYoung's downfall, but time waits for no man. And I'm just the chronicler. The Kingslayer Award goes to Ricardo Pepey. Well done, bals.

Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Are you working on casting? Like, are you going to perform this in a park in Georgia somewhere? We need costumes. costumes are the most important thing. But it does feel like he's, you know, everybody's been clamoring for DeYoung to be, to step aside.

And when I say everybody, I mean everybody in the U.S. fan base. But it's not limited to that anymore. And I feel like that's what's interesting is it's media in Netherlands and it's fans in the Netherlands. It's not just like the U.S. bias where, you know, that's always been us, you know, like somebody's, blocking, this European, usually like a pretty good player, is unjustly blocking the development of our budding superstars. And this has not been that. Yeah, it's enough of a controversy where the ESPN producer in the Netherlands

was panning to Luke DeYoung's face every time Pepey scored a goal on that Grunningan game. So we got a lot of great content from that. Peter Bosch didn't like that. Complained about it after the game. But, yeah, it's a striker controversy that is also occurring in the Netherlands. So I don't want him actually to, you know, end Luke DeYoung's life. I don't want the award to be taken literally. I don't want that.

But it would be nice if he took over the starting job. Yeah. Which, it feels inevitable. He has enough of a crowd with him, you know. He has enough Americans to wear. he can easily see the seeds of discontent you know what I'm saying get them going amongst a team the team is what matters right um fans media be I mean it is what it is with them but you know him

Serge Richie Malik Ernie you know now that he's actually putting up the stats and whatnot now he can He has, he has, you know, he has some feet to stand on. Yeah, they're enjoying the American reinforcements. This is a far cry from the, from the Brenda Marsh Leeds experience, where it's easy to sort of scapegoat the Americans. Like the Americans in Einhoven are all heroes. They really are, yeah.

We're going to take a break here in a second and get to a bunch more awards, including goal of the year, club goal of the year, player of the year, breakthrough player of the year. But first I want to invite you to take a survey, which I'll put the link to in the show notes, to try to decide the details of a second trip to Italy, probably with George Qureshi. We're going to see Yuvay and A.C. Milan play. Probably not in Turin and Milan. But there's going to be a survey in the show notes where you can sort of, if you have any interesting going, give some indication of what makes the most sense to you for a trip so that we can sort of tailor the trip in a way that gets enough people to sign up that we can actually go.

I got to say that last trip where we went to Turin and Como and Venice was flat out outstanding. If we get this trip to happen and you come on this trip with us, I guarantee you you will have a wonderful time. We had such a blast in Italy last time. The price is right. It's affordable. We're not price gouging here. We do make a little money on it. That's part of why we do it, but a big part of why we do it because it's fun as hell. And it's going to be fun as hell this time. So please go to the link in the show notes, take the survey, express your interest if you have any, if you have any interest in going on this trip. It'll either be, it looks like, I mean, everything's a little but influx, but it looks like it's either going to be April 6th to 13th or May 18th, 25th,

give or take a day. And so there's a whole set of implications, depending on which trip we choose. So take the survey, express your interest if you have any. Thanks. Okay, now to some ads. Okay. Next one I got is a quote of the year, and I'm picking something pretty recent. It's a three-word quote from Potch, enjoy being serious. He said this in the midst of the Home Nations League win over Jamaica. Three words arranged in a surprising combination that say a lot. I'm happy to hear other contenders, but they've got a mountain to climb. That's my quote of the year.

I think it's perfect, Bells. You know, we've joked before about the slogans that, like, you know, high school sports teams will put on their t-shirts, their seasoned shirt. Give us a couple, give a couple typical ones. I want to add. I don't know, like keep chopping or. They're actually usually more embarrassing than that, more, more, more cringing. Vince, you got to have a lot of.

Hey, it's not that the football coach loves more. The main one that comes to mind, I don't know, because we had one for like every year in college, right? I don't know what year this was. Yeah. One, O-N-E, only now. exists. There was one time when, you know, I've had a lot of fun poking at Tyler and calling him a Fed and all these things.

But part of that is just because his behavior kind of reminds me of like my captain in college, he was our center. And this was a drive, you know, like a crunch time drive. You know, I feel like we were probably down like, you know, three or four points, going to try and win the game and you know, we're like on the 45-yard line or something. And like, you know, we're like a no huddle team.

So like, we're at the line, but this is in between plays. He just looks he looks both ways. He's like, guys, one. Only now exists. And I'm just like, ah, man, this guy, get a load of this guy. You know what I'm saying? Like, come on, Doug.

And that's my guy. John Smith, you know, I love you. It's one of my favorite Hupas on the planet, but it's like, man, he did have that, you know, prerequisite captain level of cornyness. And it can be a hard line to walk, right? Because you're trying to get everyone into that mindset of, like, this is important.

But it's so hard to not say something that makes everyone roll their eyes out of their skulls. All of them make sense, right? And they are good lessons to keep with you. You know what I'm saying? When you're competing at a high level, you really do need only now to exist. You know, you can't look forward, can't look backwards, can't let the last play beat you, or anything like that.

But yeah, it's just where like when the establishment is parroting the quote or the saying or whatever, then obviously by just being associated with the establishment, the coaches, or whatever it is, it is by definition not cool. But however, I don't think we have this issue with Mauricio Pachino. That's the thing I want to drive home here. And when he says it, this isn't going to be on the back of the teacher. shirt, right? Enjoy being serious.

He was dead-ass serious. Like, hey, guys, you know what I'm saying? We scored three goals in the first half against Jamaica or whatever. Let's not concede. Let's enjoy, let's enjoy beating the team's ass, you know? Like, this is just something that we have not done a lot. And it's the main, I think that's the main barometer we're going to have leading up into the World Cup, because there's not a whole bunch of big time competition coming up.

We're going to have to enjoy being serious and enjoy having professional performances against a competition that we may, us fans, may or may not deem as beneath us. And I think it also sort of points to an idea of craftsmanship, you know, like be, enjoy being a craftsperson. enjoy the job of seriously doing something well. So I've been saying it to my kids four or five times a day for the past week. No, I actually haven't. But I mean, it's a thought that comes to mind with the college students that I come into contact with. I'm like, yo, just enjoy like doing something well and seriously instead of whatever it is you're doing right now.

truly instead of going through the motion instead of just being like if we get if we walk onto the field and stand here and kind of do what we are able to after 90 minutes we'll just win we just win because we're better than Panama you know like no you're not like you have to do

every single thing the right way like as right as you can possibly do it in that moment and and I love it I mean I'm I love calling out corny high school sports stuff, which this is adjacent to, but this is just so perfect.

I love it. I don't think anybody's ever said it before either. That's the other thing. Yeah. Now, we do have to, we do have to take account, like we do have to, did it work, basically?

Did it work when he said enjoy B-SER, because this is the halftime talk. He's trying to get us to, yeah, right. We ended up conceding two goals in that. I don't know. I don't know how serious we were to close that game out, to be completely honest with y'all. But now that gets to be the lesson, right? This is what I was saying.

This is why I said it, because we didn't do it at all. We were a circus there. And you can look at a couple of different people and be like, you specifically were not serious. Oh, also I remembered. So only now exists was not what my center said at the line. This was a different year when I was. when our slogan was actually a pointless one now that I think about it, our slogan was all in. And so, yeah, we're at the line and he just shouts all in.

And that one was just like, ah, come on, man. Speaking of uninspiring team talks, I do have to say that from that same video where we got, enjoy being serious, we got Tim Reams pregame talk, which was very short. But it was, I don't know if anybody here's watched the show and or. the Star Wars show but there's that the Fed who is chasing Cassie in the whole time

he kind of because he's so because he's just like such a rule follower and kind of naive and stuff he gives a talk to a bunch of hardened corporate soldiers in a plane in a spaceship traveling bunch of goons a bunch of like bag men

and it's like the worst pep talk ever given you know they're all just like oh you know he can't he can't And that, Tim Riem honestly reminded me of that a little bit. No. Tim Riem is the boss's son talking to a bunch of. Yeah, he was like, he was like, guys, you know, you know, yeah. That was it.

Bels, I can't believe you felt like during quote of the year that you had to actually be like, here's what definitely doesn't qualify. I'm just trying. From beloved Tim Rine. It felt relevant. Beloved indeed. But maybe not a. maybe not a Winston Churchill. Look, man, I'll tell you this.

There's a reason why there's not a clip of a team talk at halftime or before the game every time it happens. That's because 99% of them are absolutely unremarkable. And so, you know, it's just on everybody to go out there and do what they do. And, you know, I mean, the 1% that does happen. You know, you get, that's what all the movie talks are based off of and all that stuff. You get the Jesse Marsh moment with Salisberg or whatever. But, yeah, I mean, I would even go so far as I say 99.9.9 are unremarkable.

Yeah, because all those coaches are channeling TV coaches, thinking that they're going to pull it off. And I actually am surprised that to this day, high school coach, again, I'm talking to high school tackle football. And the number of coaching staff they have, like so many specialists, I feel like. Maybe I'm wrong. But they haven't added a speechwriter to that list. Like, come on, get a speechwriter. On your staff. Get them on the payroll.

Do you need to have a little bit of a screw loose to give a truly convincing halftime talk? Like, does your sense of proportion need to be off for you to actually create the energy in yourself to be convincing? I wonder. We can leave that for pondering. The Discord is going to for sure have a long back and forth. even about best fictional sports speeches.

And not just speeches, best sports speakers. Because doing one speech is fine. Anyone can write one good speech, you know, any given Sunday or whatever. But you got to have, you got to have like who's a consistently great sports speech coach even in fiction. Interesting. Yeah. Worst injury is our next award. The 2003 winner was Josh Sargent.

I know. Do you guys have a thought here? I do. I don't feel strongly. about it, but... I'm giving mine to surge just because of how lost we are without him. That's a good...

I was going to say Wes, because the shoulder isn't right, but I'm switching to surge. Yeah, we are lost without him. And it's a factor in our cope of failure that I don't think he's talked about that much his absence. But it is...

It's a big factor. Not as big as Tim Wea... punching the guy in the back of the head, but... You got any dissent, Vince? Can we go with Serge? Yeah, Serge sounds good to me. Okay.

So honorable mention to Wes, also honorable mention to Gio, but sort of a grass is green situation at this point. He's just mostly been injured for the past three years. Let's go to the next award, which is Best Leak. In 2023, it was kind of a dead heat between Jesse Marsh's agent, rage tweeting about Burrhalter getting rehired

and then J.T. Patsen telling a bartender in San Diego who listens to scuffed to look out for some balligan news from Orlando. I can't actually remember who won which one of these won. And it really doesn't matter who won.

Any nominations for 2024? Best League has to go to Twitter user Andrew underscore S.O.4 underscore. for being the first one with the Posh News. You know, this was, he has a, he still has a twin on his Twitter, on his Twitter page. August 14th, 2024, per insider sources, Maricio Pachino is confirmed to be the USM&T head coach. The former Chelsea manager is set to be unveiled as a new coach this week and will lead the USMNT at the 2026 World Cup.

now was it that week no but this is a tweet they got the ball rolling man it's a tweet they got the ball rolling um j t uh cindy and um what's my man from southampton what's his name matt crocker crocker they they ran a they ran a mostly tight ship but whoever was leaking to andrew s o four um they did what they had to do and um because you know we had they were just, it seemed to be smoke screens coming from each direction. You know, I don't know if y'all remember, um, it was Dolo. It was going to be Tarundalo. It was locked in.

Tarandolo was locked in. Rafa Benitez had been rumored, which was still to this day might have been, still might be my choice just for the, just for the glasses take off, man. If we get a result against Canada, Rafa taking the glasses off, putting it in the shoe josh, he was a very firm handshake with just, uh, uh, send me to the moon. It would be so nice. It would be so nice.

But, yeah, I got to give it to Andrew, man. Andrew got this whole thing rolling. And really, from that point forward, you know, nobody really came out and denied it, I don't think. There were some people that came out and said, you know, it's a long way to go. But Potch was the guy and Potch ended up being the guy. So that's the one. Yeah, the players were all sort of hinting that that it was settled. You know, like, oh, when there is going to be a new.

new coach. Like, uh, and that, that was the window that Varis was coaching. So it was like, everyone knew Vars wasn't going to be the guy. Uh,

and that it was going to be Potsch instead. But, but yeah, like, that was amazing. I mean, just an amazing, uh,

leap for us mentally as fans because, you know, we're, we're having episodes where we're, like, debating the merits between Viera and Eri. Right, right.

And, and Trundolo. And it's just like, those, those other guys were, such, you know, the Pachitinos are so out of our league. Ancelotti was in the U.S., right? And people got a picture of him in Montana, and it's like, imagine.

But that's all you could do is just imagine. Because those were, I mean, that was the powerball. When you're talking about those guys, you're spending powerball money that you're never really going to have. You're building your dream house and you're making it awesome. But that's such a figment of your imagination. Really, what we need to be doing is spending time thinking about how Patrick Vieira is going to line up the midfield.

and to have to be Pachino. Even though he probably was lining up roughly the same midfield that any other coach will line up, it's different when Pachitino's doing it. What a blessing. And we owe it all to that league. That's right. I mean, yeah, a lot of people were saying this guy

doesn't know what he's talking about, or like who are you, and man, he was right. And I feel like he was right about something else, too. This is a pretty small Twitter account, you know, like less than a thousand followers. Oh, yeah, it's like 2.3. How the hell did he know?

How the hell did he know? So, yeah, the important thing is to always, like, believe. Everything you mean. Any leak, any leak that really is good news for you. If it's good news for you, if it strengthens the belief you already have, like, go all in on that, on that tweet. I think everybody's already following that advice, Greg. Let's move to the next award, the Stepdad Award. In 2023, it was BJ Callahan.

I don't think he had much competition. He was still, I think, the most. popular USMNT coach in the past 15 years. Without a doubt. Without a doubt he is. And the legacy that he leaves is one that is great, that is grand. I actually just saw that he, did y'all see that he hired Michael Essian to his staff in Nashville? He's keeping the tradition alive of having two brothers with him on the sidelines.

And for that, I respect you, BJ. but stepdad award for this year we are not giving it to Mikey Vars we appreciate you for your service Mikey but you lost to Jesse Marsh so you just can't get it off that technicality I'm gonna go ahead and give the stepdad of the

award of the year award to USM&T assistant coach Hazus Paris now you might be wondering why I'm giving it to Jesus Perez. And that is because he was in England, what, last weekend?

Yes, last weekend. Scouting, right? Was he scouting? Scouting. Three Premier League games, right? Liverpool, Fulham, for Jedi. Brighton Crystal Palace, for Chris Richards and Matt Turner, and West Ham and Bournemouth. For Tyler Adams.

As we know, we got a surprise that weekend and Chris Richards was out of the lineup completely, not even on the, bench and seems to have welcomed a baby girl into the world. And I just like to, in my head, believe that Jesus Perez was like on call or something. Like maybe even have been in the hospital for Chris, you know, supporting him throughout this trying time. You know, Chris don't got, there's not a lot of family over there in London for him.

And his partner, presumably, presumably they're out there on their own. who does Chris know who's there that could probably be some support for him Jesus Perez you know maybe gave him a call like hey coach I'm not in the lineup I'm not going to be there at all we're having a baby in my mind Jesus packed up everything I mean this is we know what Pach is about right we know is it the values that he holds and the staff holds family seems to be a very big thing to him and so I just imagine that Jesus you know was doing anything and and everything for Chris and his family at that moment.

Dropped every, because obviously Matt Turner's not playing. You don't need to see Matt Turner warm up and sit on the bench. So, yeah, that's just... You need to go in there and help deliver the baby, is what you're saying, basically. Exactly. Stepdad of the award, but he's a potential godfather of the year award, whatever. But, uh, Jesus, he was, he was there.

I love, Vince, I love the family, family values aspect of it, of that theory. And I bet he was. I bet he was doing that. I also always assume when they announced that our coaches are flying over to Europe to scout some very well-established players, some of whom definitely will not even play in the game. I actually always assume there's recruiting going on. Because you're not going to say, we're going over there to beg this centerback from Germany to come play for us. You just don't want to publicize that.

So you say you create some other pretense that you're going over there for, But really the main purpose is we're going to try to, you know, we're going to take this guy to dinner and we're going to see what his interest level is. We got some guys in England who would fit that bill. We got some guys in Germany who would sort of fit that bill. So I'm also hoping that Perez was doing a little bit of that while he was putting on the gloves and delivering a business. Yeah, some stepdadding, some espionage. Yeah. Real cloak and dagger stuff.

Okay. Jesus Perez, the winner of the stepdad. award for 2024. Domestic player of the year. So this would be an MLS player. In 2023, it was four-time MLS Cup winner Darlington Nagby. Who got in 2024? 2024 has to be none other than Ricky Pooge for number one, resurrecting the

galaxy, the L.A. Galaxy. The second biggest club on the continent. And this is what some people have told me. Don't comfort me. Don't come from me. I think somebody put it in the Discord. It's America than the Galaxy. I don't know.

Oh, come on. Galaxy is bigger than Chivas? Chivas? Look, I'm putting my hands out. Leave me alone. Okay, all right. At least the biggest club, you know, within the United States, of course. But I think that's right.

Resurrection the Galaxy and also in the MLS playoffs, he delivered an assist and played like half an hour half an hour on a torn ACL which once again is just tremendous yeah tremendous not to just be out there but to be decisive assist the game winner on your very unstable knee way to go Ricky yeah

and we can count him as domestic because there is a world where he becomes US eligible prior to the World Cup, right? Right. I think some... Somebody has a countdown. I don't know what the dates are, but it's possible. I mean, he's not going to play for Spain, right?

Maybe it's prior to the 2030 World Cup. I don't remember. Somebody needs to fact-check this one like crazy, but eventually he could play for the U.S. And, you know, I mean, one of us can check the bylaws later, but I don't think there's any rule that the domestic player of the year has to be U.S. eligible either. You know, we'll get the lawyers on it, though. Okay, good.

On all fronts. Yeah. Next award, lower division of the year. In 2023, this was your idea, Greg, I believe. And it was Siri B because Venetia was playing in it. And we had Tesman and Busio making their mark there in Venice. Plus, we were all watching Christopher Lund, nonstop over in Palermo. Everyone was watching Christopher Lund, nonstop.

nonstop. I'm going to say in 2024 it's going to be the champo. We are seeing a lot of players make a name for themselves there. I mean, Sergeant, Hajie Wright, Brennan Aronson, Aidan Morris. You know, there's a dual nat out there

for Burnley who, you know, maybe we need at some point or maybe we'll want at some point. There's more USMNT relevant action in that league than in the Bundesliga these days, or in Liga, or in La Liga. so um yeah Dwayne Holmes is still kicking it

there you go pressed in north end is Sunderland still up all right a lot of action there Is Sunderland still in the championship Is what Sundelins

They are they are They are Lending Gouche Still there Remember Look DeGleaf No no no Vince This this uh

This may be a surprise Toast Lennon Gouch is over at Stoke Left his boyhood club And he's been hurt for most of the year But he does he did rack up some minutes, I think, but he's kind of falling off. I still check on him every now and again, see if he's ever going to make a playbill. But yeah, he's Stoke City now.

Update your sheets accordingly, everyone. Click, clack. Can I put in one dissenting vote for the Netherlands? Or does it not, can we count that as a lower division? We're talking about a... I wondered if you were going to say that. Go ahead. We've got four of our guys there who are playing in the Champions League.

but I still would call it a lower division and I feel like it's the bottom half of it has sunk even lower than usual. I don't know if it's a post-COVID thing where the money just never went back into the clubs. Daniel Smith's resident, Netherlands expert, so we'll have to get him to kind of explain the whole picture.

But because we got a couple of kids at other clubs too with Paxman and booths occasionally playing minutes. But the production from the the two guys producing for PSV is, I think, lifts the entire league from the U.S. fan standpoint. Yeah, that's a good shot. I think, I mean, you know, it's technically not a lower division, but it is a lower division.

It's lower, it's lower than some of the other divisions, is what I would say. That makes it a lower division. Yeah. Yeah, it's lower than the championship, I think it's fair to say, at least, you know, top to bottom. bottom to bottom definitely lower than the championship. Okay, a little bit of a hung jury on lower division of the year. You know, let us know in the comments. What do you think?

Can we get ruling on Bell saying bottom to bottom on the podcast? Yeah, that's going to be, people are going to love that, I'm sure. Uncapped, let's move into some ones that were actually voted on by listeners. So now we're getting to the real. The Real Juice. Uncapped Player of the Year. In 2023, it was Diego Luna. He did get a January camp cap last year, so he's not eligible to repeat.

I'm going to say the pickings are pretty slim here. What's your guys feeling on that? I don't think there are any gems that we're missing that we're skipping over. I feel like I'm pretty confident that we aren't sitting on any guys who would make a huge difference in our. in our even like reserve. I'm just making sure we're talking about people that have never been kept ever, correct? Okay, understood.

Never once, yeah. The listeners chose, and it was actually a pretty close boat, listeners chose Diego Cochin, the goalkeeper in the Barsa system. He was narrowly ahead of Quinn Sullivan at the Philadelphia Union, who was narrowly ahead of Griffin Yow.

who was narrowly ahead of Matt Freeze, the goalkeeper. I'm skipping all of it. I'm going straight to Kevin Sullivan. Sorry. I mean, coaching wins, officially. But my dissent is, Kevin Sullivan is the uncap player of the year. Just because I think there is a chance that he is somebody

who could move the needle who could change things in the depth chart. He's only 15 years old. It feels like 2025, though, is going to be a big year for him. I sure hope it is. He got one vote. He got one vote in the un-cop play. Was it you? It was me.

It was me? Okay. I was curious. All the sentence say it's Chase. Let's get the centerback starting for shoot guard. Okay. Chase Henry, yeah. Me, technically, technically could.

Nothing stopping him but some paperwork, I think. I think Jordan, I mean, your nomination and your selection is valid. But I think Jordan made it so that it couldn't be someone who is uncapped because they have a provisional cap tie with another country.

So, curse you, Jordan. I know, I always put the rules. But yeah, Chase Anri, who else? Who else? Nathan, Nathaniel Brown, left back at... Yeah, it's Anri Chase.

Those are two big ones. What? There's probably a separate award for them. Breakthrough U.S. Semantee player of the year. In 2023, it was Kevin Perretis. In 2024, several good options. And the

listeners chose Malik Tillman, who has been making magic for PSV in the league and in Champions League all year. The magic hasn't quite translated to the red, white, and blue, but I think it will eventually. I like the

listener's choice. I agree. I'll read a couple of the other contestants. So Johnny Cardoso came in second. Tanner Testament and third Mark McKenzie and fourth Certainly no dissent here Because because you look at the other guys Who have had good seasons

You know and could be in contention for that And none of them nearly as sexy is Malik Tillman No Like they're all doing like Boring stuff That they're doing pretty well But it's pretty boring stuff And then Tillman's just doing like highlight real stuff

Yeah scored another You don't know Yeah you don't know how well it's gonna translate up to national team or even like bigger leagues when he gets his move which he's going to get uh but again to an extent like who cares right now only now exists and he's doing it he's doing some he's doing some really really entertaining stuff and you just got to you just got to save right this is fair um from from you two i don't got too much of a descent but but i don't know

I think maybe on a... You know what, Malik hadn't won it before. Maybe Malik should have won it over Kevin Brayde is in 2023. I think Jordan might have influenced that as well. But, yeah, since Malik hadn't won it, yeah, I think this is fair. But I guess in my mind, he doesn't necessarily qualify as a breakout necessarily. Not as much as somebody like a Tanner Testament, if you will, who, you know, was in the series in Siri B doing this thing and now has like made it to a to a top five league and

it started over the weekend it started over the weekend it is playing not as much as we would like but you know playing off and on backing up to mind your matchage seems to be in leone's plans just in general you know what I'm saying there is no rumors of Tanner being left out of a project or anything like you can you Because, you know, there's two different types of not playing, right? There's Luca Delo Tore not playing, and there's a Tanna Testament not playing. You know, he's still getting, whenever Namani Matya's matches is off the field, Tana Testament is coming on in the field.

You know, all that stuff. There seems to be a clear plan with what's going on here. And everything's going well. So I think my vote would probably be Tant Testament. I think just because it's like, you know, you got that question. is it going to translate all those different types of things as far as like a Siri B production and all that and so far so good

so yeah I think and he looked good for the national team against Jamaica so I mean that's something Jamaica's not very good but we got to see some good things from Tasman that I think probably puts him into a March camp yeah Jamaica's not very good

but at least half of our players don't look good against them on a regular basis so for him to look good is a meaningful thing. I think Cardoso also is a very, very reasonable shout. I think it feels like it's been a really long time, but he moved to Real Batiste at the beginning of last year. So at the beginning of 2024. Right.

So his whole glow-up has been, yeah. His whole glow-up has happened in this last calendar year. That is crazy. It didn't seem guaranteed when he made the move from Brazil to Spain last winter that it would be successful, but it has been. I mean. Or at least as suddenly, like as suddenly, seamlessly successful. Right.

Right. Yeah, you know what? I'd put my vote on, Johnny. He basically did the testament thing, but a bigger leap, right? Right, right. Just, I mean, more important to his team, you know what I'm saying, better performances, you know, I mean, that athletic performance, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and make a category up right now.

Performance of the year. and I think we did maybe give that out to Taylor Booth that one time when him and Georgie went head to head and Taylor Booth just I mean way crazy we're waiting for 2025 Aquarius season I think Taylor will get right back to where he needs to be

but yeah let me go ahead and give that to Johnny Cardoso versus Athlete that was crazy performance but yeah Tanner Testman as he had to reach Johnny Cardoso's level so far within his team and as far as like performances within the league. Okay.

Well, for our award within an award for performance of the year, I'm already, I'm already dissenting. Let's do it. I'm going, Malik versus Shakhtar. So Malik's doing a double here for me. Okay. But I like that Malik and Johnny are both breaking out because, again, going back to the post-world Cup, Malik and Johnny did seem like the players who could jump onto the senior team and sort of we wouldn't we shouldn't feel like we have to wait a long time for them to deliver for us.

So we kind of still are waiting a little bit. We are. We are. We are. We hope after after these breakthroughs and performances of the year that March is going to be a really good window for Johnny and Malik for the national team. All right. Let's do it. Let's do it, fellas.

All right. Transfer of the year. In 2023, it was Pulisic to A.C. Milan in a landslide. I don't think anybody could disagree with that. that to go from being a kind of a unloved, underutilized at Chelsea to having the year he had at AC Milan. What a great transfer that was. This year, I'm going to go with Mark McKenzie. He moved in the summer from the Belgian League, where he was a somewhat mistake-prone defender at Gank for the past two and a half seasons, moved to a mid-table club in Ligand.

Again, I have to admit, I wasn't sure it was going to be successful. But so far, it really has. After not starting the season's first game, he started 13 out of 13 games for which he was healthy in the league. He's gone the full 90 and 12 straight. Since the beginning of October, Toulouse is 5, 3, and 1. They've conceded only 8 goals, so less than 1 goal per game. And three of those goals came against PSG. And he's also emerged as arguably, it's very much arguable. It's like an arguable thing, but arguably CB1 for the USMS.

he's also like I said very arguably not CB1 it's too early to tell but he's in that he's in that conversation and I think the transfer has been a huge success so transfer of the year for me goes to Mark McKenzie I am very interested in dissent though

I'm on board with it I feel like Mark McKenzie is one who given his time in Belgium compared to his time in France is definitely enjoying being serious because I think that was definitely the charge against him was un seriousness too many bouts of uns seriousness and that doesn't seem to have followed him

across the border for sure I don't know maybe if it's just you know the change of scenery just you know knowing that you know when a transfer happens right you got to prove yourself

you know if he really needed to focus up or whatever but like the the bouts of Mark McKenzie mistakes that I had I used to tune in to Mark McKinsey games just to see what he was going to do this week. Like, it was crazy. It was like a comedy of errors, bro. Just different things every week.

But yeah, Toulouse, like, literally not one such issue. Not one such issue so far that I've seen. And I've watched, I mean, I guess like 90% of these 13 matches that he's played at least. So, and it's not like, you know, they play a back three at Toulouse. It's not like he wasn't playing in a back three at Gink, you know. Right. You know, it's not like he was a part of a bad back four centerback pairing or something like that. Like, no, he's still playing in a back three.

And yeah, he's just handling business. He's handling business. So it goes to Mark McKenzie. Once again, honorable mention of Tanna Testman. But Mark McKenzie has to win because, like you said, he's played 1290s. To lose have, just for anyone to keep track of unsuriness as a team, Talus have the lowest expected goals allowed in the league through 15 games. Yeah.

I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah, Mark seems like he's taking a step forward, it seems like. All right. Club goal of the year. This is a fun one. In 2023, it was Pepe's header game winner versus. Sevilla in the Champions League at the death to send them through.

So I think there was plenty of competition last year, but that was the one that won. In 2024, there is also plenty of competition. And the listeners chose this goal. Let me play the audio of it. The closure of Daniel, perfect. Then with the external, die this. And again, Danilo, tempest, also in this case. McKenny, al-the-the-test.

Veda Wea. The ballone is bellissim. So that's the gregnard the porto Go ahead. Go ahead. Palone Corny McKenny! This is mechanic!

So that's the gorgeous scissor kick goal assisted by a deft, casual, curled ball from the right side from Tim Wea against Man City. To beat Pep Guardiola's side

to seal a win in Champions League at home in Turen. What a goal. That's the winner from the listeners. I think it's going to hold up pretty well over time. I mean, I mean, it's not, some goals, some goals are important because of the stage, you know, but this is one of those goals where like he had, he had something similar against Barsa in the Champions League that was as aesthetically pleasing, but it was like a dead rubber game, you know? Yeah. So that does,

that takes away a little bit, but it's still like, oh my God, that was against Barsen. This was against Man City in the Champions League, aesthetically crazy, coming from a U.S. teammate for the assist. And it's meaningful. Like, the way the Champions League is set up this year, that could literally be like the difference between getting out into the next round

and not getting to the next round of the Champions League. Yeah. It's amazing. Amazing. Context, the execution, the aesthetics. There's not going to be too many deb rubbers in this new format for the most part, unless he just truly handle business

and win like seven out of seven or something. But first of all, the ball from West has started off. Okay, to Tim. Perfect. Just drop that thing in. From the center circle out to the right channel. Yeah.

Yes. And also another factor with that Barcelona goal, it was during COVID. There were no crowds. He, he says it kicked that goal in. And I think that's when he debuted. debuted the Harry Potter celebration was after that Cesar Kick goal.

So for all my West heads out there, a crucial part of West Lord. The trademark celebration came then. But yeah, so doing it, being able to do it at home in front of the UVA crowd, to have a crowd there, everyone go crazy,

and to have it delivered from Timwaya. I mean, match made it heaven for me. It's just I mean It's almost surreal Man It's almost surreal that this could happen

On this stage against that opponent Even though you know Man City seems like they kind of They might be entering a banter era For the first time in Ten years or whatever But Some lean years

Maybe Yeah It doesn't matter It doesn't matter The funeral food tastes so good. You'd be forgetting who died, man. It don't matter who died. I just know that we ate.

Yeah, the helmet matters for sure in this case. To add, just to add to the lore of this goal. Again, this is going to hold up. This is Dempsey against Juventus. Another Juventus relevant national team goal. So the second, the one with the second most votes, and it was not particularly close, but the one with the second most votes was Pulisig-Sig versus.

versus inter. And that's my, I think for me, that's the goal of the year because the, I mean, I acknowledge everything you guys are saying, but just the pure adrenaline of this solo, like, slaloming run through the heart of the inter defense. He nicks the ball from McCutarian, his old Dortmund midfielder, I mean, his old Dortmund teammate, and then just goes like a bat out of hell right through that defense, beats everybody, sort of very very very, very vintage Pulisic explosiveness, and then towpokes at home past the helpless keeper. And then the fact that it was, it means so much to the Milan fans because they haven't, because they haven't beaten Inter for so long.

It's been like six games straight that they've lost to enter Milan. You know, they famously share a stadium, very much a bitter rivalry. And in terms of individual brilliance and the moment and the significance, I think that's the winner. But I'm a Democrat. You know, I'll allow the democratic process to play out. I'm not a Democrat. I didn't mean to say that. I'm a fan of democracy.

I believe in representative democracy. I leave all of that in. Again, it speaks to where we are that we can have both of these goals available to us for the vote. And still have the Tim Tillman double. I'm sorry, Tim Tillman. There we go. January's coming, Tim Tillman. The Malik Tillman double versus Shocktar in the Champions League, where they come back from

two zero down and win, again, what will end up being crucial points for PSV if they get out of this into the Champions League knockouts. And the goals were also incredible. They're not garbage goals. They weren't bundled over the line, kind of. The second one was amazing. The first one was amazing for its audaciousness, and it's not the kind of sloppy.

I know it goes off the post, off the keeper, and in. Yeah. But the audacious attempt on the free kick to go to the near post around the wall is just brilliant, and so much time for it. All right. Goal of the year for the USMNT, so a goal scored in the shirt.

The 2023 winner was Pulisic versus Germany when he had that cut in and top, top Ben's banger in a losing effort against Germany. I think there's no even contest here in 2024. It's Tyler Adams Bangor versus Mexico at the Nation's League final in Dallas. It's the hit of Tyler's life, a frozen rope out of nowhere, the joy on his face, the race over to the sideline to jump into, Hulter's arms, the win over Mexico and a final. It doesn't feel like a repeatable thing for Tyler Adams, really, but that almost makes it more special.

And this one in a landslide with the voters, and it wins with me as well. Yeah, it helps that we had the perfect camera angle of it from behind Tyler for the replay. Slow motion watching at Tenelevarez helpless to stop it from racing past him, despite his best efforts. Yep. and you know Tyler scores his goal comes out at half and then we don't see him until

October which may or may not be a whole other thing if Sergino does can win worst injury or whatever we got to throw Tyler in there 2024 for me is the year of Tyler appreciation

you know way to too soft, way too chewy of a, of a midfield without Tyler in there. Against good teams at least. And we've seen what he's done for Bormom since he's come back.

But yeah, man. Shout Tyler. I do want to, I do make sure I throw it. My honorable mentions. Number one, Balo versus Panama. What a goal. Yeah. What a hit that was. And just what a moment that was

just in the stadium. You know, like I was, I was losing my mind, man. Because the red card happens. You're all tense. You're like, man, what's going on? This is just, and we don't look good as soon as the red card happens, right? We immediately start looking quite bad.

And Panama is just on us, and we're like, man, are we going to be feeding off scraps for this match? Maybe we can get a little something and pull out a win. And here comes Balo. smacking that ball off the post into the net. And for those, I don't know, was it 10 minutes, five minutes, whatever was going on. Maybe 15, I don't know. But for that amount of time that we were up 1-0, all was right in the world. Yeah, definitely the team and outcome of that game, let's follow down,

because that should have been a great goal to remember. and instead it's such a footnote in the total disaster of COVA mare. Yeah. So if you remember, like, it was a left-footed strike from way on the left side of the box, tinged in off the post, totally unstoppable. And then... Great goal. Even the way Bells is describing it is shaped by that.

And then eventually we lost. And then we lost. Got Jeddash freaking a little unintentional, intentional layoff. It just killed out. thing for ballot is to hit it. But also my other honorable mention, Gio, I guess Mexico, just for the, I mean,

the nasty pulley chop over the sliding defender that, you know, he then gets on and plays a ball across that pops up and then the chain of events leads to Gio striking that thing from

almost the same spot where Ballo scored the goal that we just talked about. But yeah, that one too, just nice all around from everybody. You know, we talked last week about Gio's goal and how I think that's a repeatable action, the goal that he scored against Hoffenheim. And you see it here, how he's just able to catch that thing and put it on frame so sweetly. It's just Gio doing with Gio. does and the chop of the pulley just takes it over the top that thing that's so nasty the way the way he dinks it over the dude and the ball is just killed like it lands on the on the grass and it's just

sitting there waiting for christian to run onto it that was just silly yeah yeah extra humiliating for mexico you get a taste again of that geo effortlessness of every action he you like takes part in just such an ease about him him and way of both i feel like just have that sort of It's so aesthetically pleasing to watch them hit a soccer ball at the goal. Hopefully people are listening to this and getting pretty excited for at least March. If not January, like I'll grant you maybe not getting back on the bus for January, but you're getting back on it in March. Yeah, the bus is big.

Plenty of room. Hold on out of those. Because I got two more honorable mentions too. Just real quick. Way of Versed Jamaica and Christian versus Jamaica in St. Louis. First of all, I was rewatching that Tim goal. And just the way he kills the ball with his upper thigh and sets it up for itself to come through with that same leg and strike,

it was just sick. Just absolute sick, just mastery. And also just that dink from West, being able to receive that ball, pick up his head, see Christian streaking and deliver that ball just on the money. that's what gets me up in the morning. Beautiful goals, both. I mean, Tim had like three hours to sort it out over there on the,

but it was a nice touch. But in Tim fashion, does it in the coolest way possible. So scruitable. So player of the year, the 2023 winner was Pulisic with Jedi and Wes in a tight race for second. This year, the voters basically went the same way. Pulisic in first, Jedi and second, except Jedi was much closer, and Wes was a little bit further away. So it's kind of a two-horse race between Pulisic and Jedi this year with Pulisic coming out ahead.

I'm going to diverge from the democratic process here and go with Jedi. Like Pulisic's been a monster for his club. You know, he's setting a new standard for what's possible for an American at a big club in Europe, at least when it comes to goal contributions and stuff. There's no denying that he's our main dude, but for me, it's time to honor Anthony Robinson. He's been indefatigable, utterly reliable, contributes in the attack, locks down his side,

runs up and down the field over and over and over. He never gets hurt. In a year where we didn't get goal contributions from Pulisic in Nations League or in the decisive matches against Panama and Uruguay at the Copa, I'm okay with giving it to Jedi. Jedi Robinson's my player of the year. Pulisic wins the listener's choice.

Okay, fair enough. I was going to say if you weren't comfortable fully Bogarting the people bells to give Jedi the award, Jedi could have the Dad of the Year award because it has been vacated some airborne. Airborne 69, John McKinney, Weston's dad, through just, I guess, stuff's going on in his life. Posting isn't as important as it used to be. Maybe he has some of the fatigue that's possessed some of the fan base as well. And we haven't had another dad to step up.

Anthony Robinson is a father. I think he just had baby two. Or baby two is on the way. Something like that. I could be lying to you. I'm not totally sure. But I'm going to go ahead and give that to Anthony Robinson, too. Yep.

Dad of the year. Okay. So I'll join Vincent and do sort of a cowards compromise too. We can give pool sick player of the year. You know, that's the scuff listeners voted for. But we're going to give Jedi the armband because Tim Rheim's not going to keep wearing it for too much longer, I don't think. Jedi is going to get the armband when Tim, when Tim bows out under Posh.

Okay. to continue on Jedi real quick and maybe talk to people about what we can expect what's going to happen with this team in 2025. It's just like, as soon as Potch got the team, you know, he started doing all types of things with Anthony Robinson. You know what I'm saying? Like Greg said our fullbacks were our superpower or whatever,

and Potch took it and turned it up. You know, those first few matches, You know, we had, we had Jedi on the, you know, on the attacking line, occupying backlines as being an outlet and was able to do that just, just like tremendously. Like I was watching the first goal of the Potch era, the UNIS goal. It's, it's Anthony once again, getting a long ball, just really just discarding the dude that he's like in a cage match with, winning it cleanly. And I think getting it to, I think Brendan Aronson. and everything happens from there. But it's just that first window, him being able to be an outlet,

when those long balls, run channels, all that different type of stuff, and hold down his left side. And then also in the second window, of course, in that in St. Louis, we saw Anthony Invert. Yeah. In the midfield, it become part of a double pivot. And do that probably a little bit, well, definitely a little bit better than you would expect it to go with Anthony in that position.

and that just gets me excited, man. Paj is just going to do all types of different things with this man, and he's up for it, and he's capable to do all these different things, and it just should make you excited for what he's going to do with Serge. When Serge gets back, I mean, we're going to be doing all types of, I mean, we're going to be having a good time. If that second Jamaica game is any type of precursor for what's to come. I mean, we're going to,

should be having a lot of fun in 2025. Yeah, the Jedi inversion was a wonderful moment. I don't know what award it deserves exactly. Tactical Rinkle of the Year or something. But it was lovely. It's just one of those things where, like, he said so much

with just doing this one thing. It's like, now anything's possible. All right, the last award is Tailgator of the Year. Scuff does some tailgating at games. We do it at least a couple times every year. We try to do it up big, pick up soccer, and then we, and then we meet up in the parking lot. You guys know what tailgating is. So Paul Douglas

won the award in 2023 for his tailgating Nouse and commitment in Hartford, Connecticut. He really made that happen driving up for Maryland with all those supplies. And Jackie Choi, who is always going to be in the mix for the award, was an honorable mention last year. She's going to be an honorable mention again this year, along with a lot of other deserving people. Let me give you an idea. So this award gets tougher every year, especially when, like, in Kansas City, we had a lot of, there were a lot of people there. I don't know what the number was, but it's multiple hundreds. Bilal Hussein organized the barbecue purchase and transportation in Kansas City, which is an incredible service to the community.

That's the most stressful part of the whole thing is the food, ordering the, food. So he did that. He handled all that. Major honorable mention for him. Nate from Oregon was very much a servant leader at that tailgate, too, leading the caravan from Costco to the stadium. And I'm doing a lot of other stuff to sort of make things happen smoothly.

Paul from Pittsburgh, Liz from Dallas, Jackie, who I mentioned earlier, ripped from Utah with his tequila spray bottle. all deserve major shouts. But I think we got to give the award this year to Aaron Baker from Brevard, North Carolina, who works for Oscar Blues Brewery. He supplied a truly incredible amount of beer for the Copa tailgates in Atlanta and Kansas City. We're talking more than a thousand cans of beer over the span of a week that we're just totally free for people who came and tailgated with us at those two games. So Baker, thank you.

You are undoubtedly the scuffed tailgater of the year. Yeah, I mean, he's basically producing the currency of tailgates. So big thank you to all those folks. Those tailgates are a blast. And it's even more important in a year where we had some terrible losses or outcomes, including that Uruguay game. Yeah. Because it can actually end up being a positive memory and experience.

despite the on-field outcomes. I mean, so many people at the Atlanta and Kansas City ones in particular. The Kansas City one felt like we had our own little city out there. It's a sea of people. We had to move everybody to take a picture, and it was just like, man. All right, I think that's it, guys. Congrats to all the winners. Thanks for listening to Scuff.

We've got some changes coming. We've got some changes coming next year. I'll explain all that once we get it once we get sort of consensus on what we should do and I'll explain it to patrons but can't wait for 2025 thank you for your support we'll see you