Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #588: Monday Review — Red cards, Paredes is back, big win for Utrecht

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Vince, Watke and Belz work their way through the news of the weekend. Red cards for Chris, Mark and Diego. Big win for Utrecht and a goal for Paxten. Leeds wins promotion. Lots more.Send us a voicemail: www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody, it's the Monday Review. We got a hat trick of sending off this weekend, Easter weekend, Kevin Paredes is back, and Utrecht got a big victory over IAX with the younger Aronson scoring. Vince Waki, how goes it? I'm going to just hop in real quick. You didn't direct it to anybody, Adam Bells. But I got this question.

Is Easter washed? Is Easter washed? No, no, no. It's not washed. Okay. Had to be asked, though. Absolutely not. I tell you what? I didn't get a call or text from me.

You know what I'm saying? It just, just see like another day to me, man. If I wouldn't have called my, my grandmas and my mom and told everybody happy Easter, I mean, that's what thought it was another Sunday. Now, you know,

I'm living a very secular life over here. You know, I was actually telling Kristen about this. Easter was one of my favorite days of the year growing up just because, I mean, everybody as absolutely fly as you could ever want to be. Like, you see, you see people's, like, ideal image of themselves, maybe, I think, on Easter. I mean, church, everybody's pulling up, you know, Easter color suits, blues, you get your yellows, yeah. your purples etc not in not in the church not in the church that I grew up that's a shame and and and with that um type of carrying on putting on you know what I'm saying you just get

everyone's just acting different on the on Easter and just be able to observe everybody and uh see how I went from there man it was always always just a a great time a great time growing up but but yeah I feel like I don't know I feel like it's washed now maybe I just need to to get back to church and see my grandma and one of them huge hats again. It's been a while. Yeah. It's not washed at my church.

They do one service over at the local elementary school because they can't fit everybody in from the two services on a usual Sunday. And it was pretty banging, I would say. Everyone's anti-social. Now, you know how they do a trunk a treat. They do a trunk of treat at Halloween. You know, instead of trick-or-treating.

Like, you know, there's no, there's no Easter egg hunts to take the kids to anymore. Not as much as they used to be. I don't know. I'm just, I'm just. I haven't had a child knock on my door for Halloween during my adult life. Craziness. 15 years. Man.

I get candy every year. And then I end up eating a bag of candy. I would see, I think we're talking off air about how cooked Western civilization is. Listener, before every episode, that's pretty much what we do. And I think it's in a certain way, we're going back to like the ancient times. Going from a literate to an oral culture, we're going from feeling like we understand everything to feeling like everything is confusing. Yeah. Adam is the one who brings it up.

up every time and it did does it impact does it bring down the mood a little bit sure sure but you've got to hear your host out you got to you got to talk these things straight with them thanks guys anyway uh kevin paredes is back right that's right he is risen he joined the bench for three matches after coming back from a foot injury and didn't play but then came back started Versus Mines in a 2-2 draw, got an assist on a maxi Arnold Bombazzo. Also generated four shots from open play, so very perky, bright, as you might imagine. Got some flops in, got some real nice flops and two good flops, rolling on the ground, multiple rolls. Good to see him back.

He's the only guy who does that. You forget how much you missed it until you get to see him do it again. Yeah, it just gets a little, an innocent clip on the outside of the foot. Oh, he's down. He's rolling 10 yards. But the thing that allows it, the reason why he's really good at it is because he'll show off some strength beforehand. You know, he'll be like holding up the ball, holding it for a little bit. And then once he does get fouled, it's like, oh, well, this strong young man, if he got sent to the ground like that, he must have been fouled.

And so that's the, that's the yin and yang there. whereas Brendan Aronson, he just throws itself to the ground without showing off the strength first. I'm sorry to bring up Brendan. Perthus hasn't always hasn't always. It's just muscle memory. It's just muscle memory at this point. What did you say, Chris? Perthis hasn't always read as strong.

No. And honestly, except for the improvement, I would not necessarily have called him out as being one of our stronger guys. but it's been moving in the right direction I think it was maybe like a MLS to Bundesliga thing you know once he started going on Bundesliga fields he was like I need I need to get in that dang weight room and he's been he's been sidelined long time multiple times at this point and yeah what else can you do

when your when your ankles messed up or whatever get that core work in buddy with maybe him and Maybe Jay Brooks showed him the way when he got the, when he got the Woolsburg initially. I don't know. I don't know. But I do want to ask you all with regards to Kevin Prater's. I've been thinking about this for a while now. Is the Olympics worth having a lost season?

I'll let you all discuss. No. Yeah, I think no as well. Honestly, it wasn't that much of a discussion question. Well, I mean, what kind of makes it a discussion? question is he was really good in the Olympics. Like he was maybe the bright spot of the team in that tournament. So that was nice to see.

It wasn't enough, though, was it for us to be actually good in that tournament? No, unfortunately not. Unfortunately not. But it does make you wonder. Because, man, man, left the Olympics and we haven't seen them until about right now. You know what I'd like to ask a player, maybe Kevin himself, about, is like, what are the implications of a long layoff like this? Do you feel like you have to study the game more?

Does the break from the weekend, week out action give you the mental space to sort of zoom out and see how things are working a little more? You'd think it would, but I don't know if that's just me making something up. Man, I bet nowadays, like these dudes, like the full internationals, that are playing in the big all the biggest competitions and all that but i bet they low key low key in the back of their mind i was like man this is a nice break yeah i'm out three months i'm chilling i bet they come back body feeling great everything now kevin hasn't had that

amount of mileage on him i guess he got his first test of it um this summer into fall and and failed it unfortunately but well Vince, this might kind of speak to your confidence, because I was just thinking through, if that happened to me, I'd be paranoid about people coming in doing my job. I think maybe when I come back, I'm not going to be good anymore. Well, that's what happened to flow in it. So there's two sides to the coin. But, yeah, I don't know. This is what popped up in my head.

But yeah, there's definitely two sides to it. To, you know, nod back to Easter again, what matters the most is how you redeem the time. that you're off. You know, if you get sucked in by the siren song of TikTok for the whole three months you're laid off, then it's not going to help you at all. But if you can buckle down and learn, it could be good.

No, that is a fairly tenuous connection to Easter. I just used the word redeem. Okay. My question was, is Easter about redemption? I guess, is that what the redemption is? the resurrection. Yeah, yeah, the redemption of humanity.

Yeah. That's why we celebrate. We got three red cards this weekend. Three big ones. Our players kind of towing that line between good and evil. Learning about the contours. Sending out there on the football pitch, man. Sin in, repenting.

First one is Chris Richards, who, I mean, I, Actually, I don't think Mark's probably the most guilty of the three. So is Richards, McKenzie, and Diego Luna all got sent off over the weekend. I think Richards and Luna perhaps falsely accused here. But Richards, he, first one, so he gets two yellows. The first one is he's out on an island against Waitara, the dangerous Bournemouth attacker. He touches it around him. He cooks him.

I think that's pretty clear. Chris puts a forearm out and Waitara goes down. I'm curious what you thought, what you guys thought of this, because it seemed to me like, I don't know, borderline it was even a foul, but he definitely got a yellow. You put the forearm out. And if they run into the forearm, like, you know, one of those parking garage, I don't even know what you call those things, but you, y'all know what I'm talking about.

But yeah, if you run into that, you can't complain. Okay, okay. So then he gets his second one right before the half. He tugs on Klaver's arm as he strides across midfield, just the slightest of tugs. I mean, 10th of a second. And Klaver goes down. That's two yellows.

Richards is off. Pallas gets a zero-zero draw against Bormouth anyway. This was a proper. English football match. Lots of whacking it around, back and forth, head tennis. I mean, some intensity, I guess, but not super easy on the eyes. You tend to get those from time to time in England. But, yeah, Bell's the second yellow.

I don't know. That one was tough. That one was tough. He was trying to get back in the play. I think he was jumping over a dude. As he's trying to run back. You know. You thought Claverett's arm was nailed to the cross or something.

What do you call those things at that parking garage? Bro. That was traffic arm? The letter outer. Oh, I'll look into it. Well, I thought, you know, it's an unfortunate way to get son off. But anyway, Richard's, I'm going to take it as a positive. He's getting familiar with that line between morality and immorality.

Okay. He's learning the He's learning the He's learning the shape of it And you know how to navigate that in real in real time Mackenzie also exploring this line Against This is the toughest one of

All of Ligon It's the most difficult Rance Yeah there you go He gets sent off for a dog So gets handsy with an attacker Who had a step on him Going into the box

I mean he got all He his hands were all over him maybe even around the neck a little bit. But I don't know, centerbacks do get away with this sort of thing. And he didn't. Sent off just straight red. Toulouse isn't a little bit of trouble. They've lost five straight, and they're getting perilously close to the relegation line.

Yeah, I was about to say. The guy who, what's that? Well, I was just about to say they haven't been good at all. I mean, the defense is holding it down for a long part of the season. but I mean they've been giving up like three goals four goals quite consistently multiple goals looking like that North City defense out there the public has not turned on McKenzie

but they've in the forums they're saying this this stretch has been bad and if lost all confidence in our our center back pool you know what It has been bad, and it's our fault for believing in us. That's all I'm going to say. It was just too soon.

We still believe. We just, we peaked too soon on our belief coming fully above the surface. Let's submerge it. Strong start to the season, but at Mark McKenzie was always in there somewhere. It was always in there. But, and I'm not saying he's fully reverted back to, you know, when I used to get on here and laugh at him. to get on here and laugh at them every week. But, yeah, a tough little stretch.

Tough little stretch. I'll just leave it to that. Hmm. I do want to say I like those Toulouse jerseys a lot. I like that purple. Yeah. It's real nice. They almost hit that lavender a la la, uh, a la race in Louisville.

Yeah. Other, like the Lakers, you know, on a once in a blue moon, we'll wear their purple. And, uh, or, I mean, I don't know. even know if they do it anymore. Maybe they don't. And Real Madrid has had a great purple jersey for a while there. Diego Luna. There's a few things to say about him, but first is that he got a red card, and this was a terrible call. I don't care what you guys say. Terrible call. Got tangled up with a guy who pulled him down in the box, and then he just kind of, you know,

he had to jerk his leg to free himself. I didn't see a kickout or anything. I don't understand one bit, but he did take it like a man, just kind of looking up at the scoreboard expressionless. The rough even got to look at it again. I know. That was Papa Bastrone's main complaint in the postgame. You know, obviously, obviously, if you were being called over to the board, a professional somewhere that said, hey man, we think you got this wrong, and then he accused the reverie of pridefulness.

Huh. I mean, I struggle to find another explanation for why he didn't reverse the call. What did Luna do? He didn't do anything. I was going to make a joke, but never mind. Pridefulness comes for the best of us, though. Yeah. Yeah, you have to learn about injustice a little bit sometimes, I guess. But you also need to remember that it comes before the fall. That's right. And so, I'll... I was, I don't know anything about, really, I don't know anything about Chris's or Diego Luna's spirituality, but Mark McKenzie, you know, and I talked to him in the, in the mixed zone leaving, that Panama match, the Panama match in Austin.

You know, he had his Bible in tow, in tow. And so I'm just hoping it didn't, it didn't ruin his Easter weekend. That's all I'm saying. Diego Looks like he probably could be spiritual I don't know if it's You know What type of higher power are we talking about But He's not religious

But he's spiritual Right Is what I would say with him Really It seems like he would go to a megachurch to me But I could see it I could see it

But Once again I'm trying to get away I'm trying to get everyone away from Diego Luna Typecastin please okay okay it happens a lot it's a tough it's a tough thing to fight because it's all positive when people do it so it's hard to tell people hey stop doing that positive yeah speaking of type casting he met

canarian uh diego luna on a red carpet somewhere recently um that's the guy who plays and or in the show and or which i don't think you're into right vince It's a Star Wars thing I haven't seen a single Star Wars movie Have you seen any of Andor, Chris? I haven't. Oh man, it's so great. You haven't seen a single Star Wars movie?

No, sir. I haven't seen a lot of movies. To be honest with you, so like I was just thinking about this. I wouldn't watch Senators last night. And I was thinking to myself, I was like, wow, that's a pretty good movie. But then also, before,

I tried to get into any type of film criticism bag or anything. I reminded myself, Vince, you have no frame of reference for any. Like, I'm seeing people talk about other vampire movies that it was inspired by. Haven't seen a single one of them. So, yeah, I don't know a thing about Andor, but shout out to the other Diego Luna. It's kind of a dark, dystopian version of Star Wars. It's really, I think, quite good. Anyway, they met there.

But, you know, who knows where it was? It was on a red carpet. We have an eight-second video of it. The metadata is collected by someone, but no one knows where it happened or when. Because time and space. They're gone now. It was probably the film festival. They have a film festival in Utah every year.

A pretty popular one, don't they? Oh, was it at the Sundance Festival? Yeah, it was probably Sundance. Okay. Okay, that makes sense. I thank you. Do you go into the Sundance Festival? Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah, it's like 20 minutes from Salt Lake Park City is. Something like that. The Sundance Film Festival. I apologize. I don't know, you know. It was from January to February 2nd. January 23rd, February 2nd. Okay, so probably not that.

Luna is listed by transfer market as being the 13th most valuable player in MLS at 8 million euros making him the most valuable American in MLS The only other one in the top 25 is Brandon Vosquez At 7.5 million euros Let's take a break And come back in a second We're back

The Chicago Fire lost at home to Cincinnati I just got to say that they got a little bit jobbed. The ref tripped a Chicago fire player in the buildup to Cincinnati's first goal. Oh, man. Launching a counterattack. And they ended with a deflected goal. Game ended 3-2. But, you know, none of it happens if the ref doesn't trip the player at the beginning.

I'm doing a lot of complaining about refs on this episode, aren't I? He didn't do it on purpose, but he should have blown the whistle because it created the whole situation. Well, Greg Burholt is not making any excuses. He's not. He's never seen that happen before, that's what he said. But the rest, he took responsibility for the rest of the game. And he wasn't, he also wasn't using an excuse.

One of his central defenders went injured at the very beginning of the game. As a reporter asked him, I wish I had the audio. I don't. He said, do you think injuries impact? to the game he said no and then he lit a silent sit five seconds that's how you show you're not making excuses he's not saying i'm not making excuses he's saying no and then he's watching letting people watch him not make excuse letting his yes be yes and his no be known you know that's when you got rebutts in the last baby but uh so this uh chicago fire injury situation it just it just

It just won't stop, Chris. Is that what's going on? Yeah. Understood. And then Sam Rogers was subbing in for the injured centerback. You're not going to believe this. He had his warm up on, warming up, puts his jersey over his warmup. His game jersey over his warmup.

Burrhalter has to come over to him and say, don't. We're not doing that. We're not doing that here. You must have been so nervous. Poor Sam. He just wasn't thinking. No, he had kind of a rough outing too. I think it was, he thought, it's a little chilly out here.

Maybe I'd like to have this underlayer. Not considering that, warm-up shirts are for warm-up, and it isn't done to wear that under a game shirt. Thank God for Walter saw it. It's not done. Can we have a little Kentucky out there, man. He struggled out there. He nearly scored a banger of an own goal, too.

Hit the crossbar. Gutier has scored a penalty I want to say too that I think Pyongyang Chicago Fire is kind of letting us down I went in search of inspiration you know after this after

educating myself about this game and then basically the account's just squabbling with people on the timeline now you know that's the thing with you know a meme account it's all fun you're getting a thrill at the beginning

do you have the stuff about you to keep doing it yeah or three months four months a year two years five years and that's when you know someone yeah those are the people that set themselves apart it's very very hard to do it's tough to do man and the thing about it that that's really

throwing me off is okay yeah he's doing doing a lot of squabbling I just assigned a gender to Pyeong-Ging Chicago Fire. It's a guy. It's a guy. Probably. They are doing a lot of squabbling, but the squabbling ain't necessarily the issue. Well, yes, because some of it is just like on, they're basically starting squabbles out of nowhere.

I don't know where for no reason. Just hitting people. Are they squabbling in Korean? Just, yes. Yes. Okay, that's still good then. Yeah, but it's one thing to squabble with tack. That's funny.

Squabble away. Or squabble with, you know, scuffed or whatever. But don't squabble with USMNTX and trade insults back and forth for... Yeah. I'm not sure. I haven't been reading it, so you guys have way more information than me. I think squabbling with USMNTX in Korean is... See, but the thing...

Great. the thing for me is that now where is before that one that put that put the account on the map for me is when he called tactical manager goofia and and uh you know just all different types of the now when i hit translate on the google i mean when i hit translate on the twitter machine right and it translates the korean for me and i can read it it's like the person is not trying to be somebody from North Korea anymore. It's written, it's written too plainly in American English.

And it's like, when it translate, it's just like a, you know, a simple sentence that I can read. There's no real grammatical issues. There's no like, you know how it goes.

From language to language when you translate, it's like, oh, I got to do a little bit of reading between the lines to figure out what's really going to, on here?

Because articles are different and pronouns. Right. I know what you mean. But anyway. Yeah.

So I feel like they're losing their touch there. And that is what's getting me. That is what's getting me. And the thing about the squabbles is

when you're looking for squabbles, you're not necessarily doing stuff creatively anymore. You know, like Chicago Firepian, you got to get back in your bag.

Get in the lab. Yeah. Shut out all the noise. Like, we need an AI photo of, we need an AI photo of like, I forgot what bro's name is, the North Korea Supreme Leader. We need him in the, we need him on the South Loop, you know, well, with a deep dish pizza at hand or something, bro. That would be great, yeah.

Not even, wouldn't even be that hard to generate. John Tolkien's back on the field after being away for a little bit. with a knock. He's, I guess, started three straight games, and he went to distance in a one-one draw at Leipzig. I would say he's better than Max Arfston at left back. What do you think, Vince? The Arfston line, man.

What's up as Wapach put this, man? He'll be slandered this man for the rest of his career now. But anyway, yes, better than Max Arfston at left back. or left wing back. But yeah, John Tolkien was, I thought he was good in this match. I thought he was decent to good.

Now, if you look at the foot mob, he got the man of the match and had an 8.0 on the, on the match ratings. And so, I'm not a big purveyor of the match ratings, but it's impossible to get away from it on Twitter.

You know, we got these, we got people now who just will copy and paste the foot mob stats onto a tweet and tweet it. Are we sure these are even people doing this? Yeah, yeah, there's definitely some people doing this. There's definitely some real people doing this. But, um, and I would not do it. They would decide not. I said, um, this isn't interesting.

They would know. This has been happening for. long time. I'm just, I'm messing around. I get, I get. A long time. Repend bells. But, uh, when I see an eight though on foot mob, are you, my, I perk up. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, I see a seven, like, I don't know what that, what does that mean? A seven. A seven. An eight. And eight. And so I tuned into this match. And, uh, was it eight worthy? No. I, I, I, I don't think the match was eight worthy. But, um, matter of fact, I, I think he's probably done like top. He's done better stuff. What did he do the given eight? How did he fool the math?

He, uh, I think he won some, some duels, some ground duels where really it wasn't even him like, mono-e-mano with somebody. It was him like coming in knocking the ball off people as like a secondary type dude. And you get tackles for those. and you get a door one. Anyway, we don't need to get into foot mob minutia. But anyway, like I said, the match was about a seven. I think he was good, though.

He was good. I agree. I thought he had a giveaway in the opening minutes, but then it was pretty clean the rest of the game. And he's just nice in combination, good crosser of the ball. I thought pretty clampy on defense. against a team that's in a championship league spot and has everything to play for.

R.B. Leipzig. They've got a one-point lead on Freiburg right now in that fourth spot. Yeah, I just think you know, if Arfston, I mean, he didn't, I don't, I didn't see him get beat once. I don't think he did.

And there was a really, really nice moment, which I would tend to clock with a lot of players where he's the top guy on a corner kick where they're defending their own box Holstein is he he doesn't win the bug it's kind of cleared he doesn't win it but he's right there in front of the box it gets recycled back by Leipzig

and then the centerback has it and he sees that there's a person open on the right side where Tolkien is responsible for being and Tolkien spots that he's going to play that ball to him very early in the sequence and just sprints over, gets there in time to head it away, just as the ball arrives out on the wing. That's good, that's good alertness for a young, fullback, wing back, whatever he is. Anyway, bring him in camp instead of Max Arsden next time, please, Maricio Pachitino.

Are you calling for Paredes to be in camp? Yes, I think we should bring in Paredes, especially, given how thin we are at wing, you know. And I know he, I guess, technically played right wing back for Wolfsburg over the weekend, but he's getting in a lot of wide spots to just cut in an attack from that right side. Maricio is not boxing himself in with his thinking on this type of thing. I definitely not. We never talked last week about how he was riding that bike in his Instagram post, Maricio.

What was that post? I think it was a story. It might have just vanished from the internet. Yeah, I think it was an Instagram story, man. His hips were really moving side to side. Who even sets up that shot? Did he go put that on a tripod and then go? For the people that don't know where we're talking about, I think this...

That includes me, by the way. Okay. I think this was when Potch was in Fayetteville or whatever. visiting the Federation's future grounds or whatnot. So either they have a workout room there or in some type of hotel somewhere. Remember, it's in one of those little compounds, right? One of those urbanist places for rich people. And I guess they have a workout room somewhere.

And Potch is on an elliptical, and he's watching TV. and the phone his camera is set up behind him and yeah we get a nice view of Potch's posterior from this Instagram story

I don't know just a five second shot of him going to work on the elliptical in a very exaggerated way like he like this is his first time on an elliptical kind of I don't know

He's got a weird Instagram. It's... You know what? I'm not saying it's a problem. I have said it. It is a problem. You've been in no incentive terms, you have identified it as a problem. No one wants to talk about it, though.

They want to say, no, we got this great cool coach now. He's not cool. Oh, man. It's not cool at all. Greg Burrhalter was cooler than him. Do you see? Burrhalter looked amazing this past weekend. He had a hoodie and a, he just layers correctly.

He's not Twelman layering. He's not Twelman layering. That's key. And I just think we took that for granted. Dude, Burrhalter would never posted this post. Was Burrhalter on Instagram? Probably not. No.

Seems like a bad place to be if I was him. Really any social media. He can't be on social. That's sad. think about he can't be on social media no it's not sad it's good it's good for him bro sad that the rest of us are on it i was watching his press conference from this weekend or maybe it was the weekend before um and there's commenters who come into that and just say hey just here to say i hate berhalter and uh i don't think he should actually have a job anywhere right now and uh in america that's it

well how did that happen how did that happen Where it got to that point, what is even reality? It happened because people were upset about Kuva and then his brother worked for the fat. Yeah. And they drew it out very dramatically. I mean, there's a lot of things coming together. I was actually thinking about this other day.

It was like when I was a casual, like, we throw around casual a lot, but like, I mean, before I really, really got into soccer, I mean, I was. I was, you know, casual, casual World Cup. And I would read some stuff that comes on the bottom of, like, the ESPN ticker. And I remember. So what was the, how did it go? We went from Bruce to, we went from, okay. Bruce Sariken was in a room.

No, no, no, no. Before Yergan, who was coach? It was Bradley. Bradley, then Clemsman for a long time. Right. And then we went. Arena Bruce

Yeah Okay Seriken Burhalter I think that's what it was When we heard Bruce Arena back I remember having a reaction to this As a casual even We brought

Like we got rid of Yergen Cleansman But first of all We talked about this few months ago We brought in Yergan And it's like okay Now this is like Phase 5 of the U.S. soccer program

We're kicking this thing up a notch We're going and Juergen comes through, does whatever, gets let go. And then when I heard, when I heard we were hiring Bruce Arena to be our coach once again, I was like, I was like, what the hell is this, man? These people aren't serious. And now, imagine failing to get to a World Cup

and then drawing this process out very, very long, and then also, once again, people love a scandal. and you got this whole Jay Burrhalter situation and everyone knew that Greg was basically going to be the coach and we just had to and the Jay Burrhalter stuff just festered and festered defestered and I can see it. A lot of this is that in following sports

there's not often not a whole lot to do other than dislike the coach because it's not interesting to talk about how much you like that Greg Burrhalter. Yeah. Well, sometimes it is. You've made it pretty interesting, Chris. I had to really commit, though. Yeah.

You got to, and it hasn't. It's taken a lot out of me. You know? I know. My point was, we got to get rid of Pachitino. It's got to go. That's not. happening.

Bro, I was, I don't know if y'all watched the Copa 90 Argentina World Cup. I told you I was gonna. I still haven't done it though. Okay. Well, the one thing it's done for me is it's taught me

a lot about Argentinians and just the Argentine culture. There was even a quote from this one dude. It's like a old man. He basically said, here in Argentina, if you do things by the book, People think you're an idiot. And I just really put Potch in the frame for me.

And so we just got to deal with a little bit of the eccentricities, you know what I'm saying? He films itself riding an elliptical from the back and posts it. I wonder if it's part of maybe it's xenophobia on my part. Maybe you need to examine myself. That's an interesting quote though. If you do things by the book, people think you're an idiot. That's right. That's what he said.

So I encourage everyone to go check it out. It's great. It's like two hours. They were on location in Argentina as they went through the World Cup and won it, etc. Elie Minge, probably one of the world's great anthropologists. Yeah, the Copa 90 guys. Yeah. When I was in college, I thought people who did stuff by the book were idiots, too.

But then they all started getting good jobs after we graduated from college. Anyway, no one would mistake me for an Argentinian. Paxton Aronson. I mean, I think a lot of people would. If you had a shirt on, anyway. A little better haircut. No, you have a good Argentinian haircut right now, actually. You look just like on some of the Kalistair.

Yeah. That's the true idea. they all look a little older than their age though you know they all look like they've kind of been through a lot well even alexis mccalister okay it's another thing i learned um that's because they purposely put themselves through a lot as far as like they just make sure they feel every emotion like in that there's an episode when they played that uh the france match no that they just that they're that they're not that they're The World Cup match, right? The World Cup final.

Argentina's up. They're cruising, right, for like, what, 75 minutes of that match? And then, and everyone's, like, partying. Okay? They have, like, cameras in different spots. And then once Fran starts coming back, like, the Argentinian people, they immediately basically start getting ready for a riot. You know what I'm saying?

Like, the switch just, like, it's like flips immediately. Like inside the establishment, the people work. in the restaurant. The people are like, hey, we're gonna, we're about to win, we're about to party, like, let's go.

And then like, France won't even take the lead. They just tie the game up. And all of a sudden, they're like, they're in their hands and knees. They're praying. They saw this one dude,

this one dude on the streets at a, at people were just watching the game on the streets, right? And it was, it was a friendly affair at first. But now since the game had been tied in everybody's tents, somebody will pull a gun out on somebody else. Like, it's just they go from zero to 100. And then back to zero again. Yeah, on the drop of a dime.

And this is another thing, like, Argentinians, they expect for you to show your emotions in that manner. Like, that's just part of being in Argentine. Interesting. Let's move on to the rest of the action this week. Paxson Erinsen scored his seventh goal of the season against Iax, a low-driven shot at the near post from just outside the box. He went over and held up four fingers to the home crowd to show them what the score was, which was 4-0.

They beat Iax 4-0. Kind of a big win for Utrecht. It doesn't really save PSV's title hopes because they're still nine points back, even with a game in hand. Pax was a little deeper, and, you know, nice win for Utrecht. Tanner scored a slick little goal in a losing effort for Leone.

This was nice, man. He gets the ball in the, and just inside the box, kind of rolls it with the sole of his left foot, onto his right foot, has a shot. Gets helped by a little deflection up into the near corner, but still a nice goal from him.

He grabs the ball and hustles back to midfield, tries to... get to business on the equalizer, but they couldn't get it done. Lost 2-1 to Sont. It's in. Yeah. It's a big loss for Leon. Monaco and Strasbourg had drawn, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah. And Leo won. And so they had an opportunity to gain points on Monaco, opportunity, keep pace and stay in front of Leo. I think they're in front of them by one point. Anyway, so now Leon sits in a six. in league I want to say and yeah the set ATN match they probably

should have won on paper didn't the midweek tie is bringing the midweek tie may be carried over a little bit now let's talk about that midweek tie real quick I just want to talk about this the tan because Tanner came in off the bench against

Manchester United that's right the tan man in old Trafford first of all beautiful sight to see and he did his thing he did his thing he did pretty well he came in Leon down 2-0 they tied the match up they took the lead was up 4 to 2 Manchester United ended up winning the match 5 to 4

it was none of it was none of the Manchester United goals channeled fault but he came when he came on the pitch he did help Leon gain control of the match and he kind of changed the game a little bit for him that's what I'm going to say

You posted that a nice clip of him progressing the ball all the way up the field Yeah He looked real good in that moment Yeah For sure Which I was watching it back today Grabbing some clips

For clip notes The good thing about it Is that it starts With him winning the ball off of I'm pretty sure that was Garnacho winning the ball off for Garnacho in like a you know, Manchester United tries the wide overload. Somebody overlaps Garnacho.

The key here, Tantestman, sees a danger. Not even really the danger. It's just he's now getting himself in the correct defensive positions to make plays, right? Okay. We got a fullback overlapping Garnacho. There's just one fullback. out there for Leon. Tanner makes his way over. The fullback at him navigate the overlap situation. Well, fullback takes the overlaper. Granacho cuts inside. Tanner takes it right off of him and then he's gone.

Carries it a little bit, a little faint like he's going to pass it a little bit earlier than he did, keeps it going, passes it out wide, gets it back, turn out to Turkey. Turkey gets foul. Be beautiful stuff from me. from damn testament. Shout out to Diabo. We all proud of Tanner, man, for what's going on right now. I'm loving what I'm seeing. With that being said,

he wasn't that good against San Antian. I thought he had to... He was... Yeah, well, for sure. One of his refer matches, I would say, but the goal was very nice. Okay. All right, so we took a little abuse

last week from Dan Vaughn. for talking about Josh Sargent so much? How do you feel about that, Vince? Look, Dan was just Dan just had to blow up some steam and he gave the disclaimer

before he got started and like he said, he was like, I'm here now, damn it, so I'm just going to do it and he let it rip. Now, do I have some I'm not going to say issues but do I have some rebuttals to some of the things

he said of course of course but hey he got his issue off man he needed that Dan needed that he probably slept like a baby after that pond man he's like man

ain't nobody heard by damn Rico peppy it's like what like what else would you do for somebody from your hometown you know what I'm saying. Except accuse the entire fan base of being racist.

No, I'm just kidding. I'm just messing around. He had a shot. He took it, baby. Yep. Sergeant did score a kind of pedestrian goal in Norwich's 5-3 lost to Portsmouth. They lost 3-1 earlier today

against who I can't remember, but they're pretty much out of this promotion hunt now and that's all I got to say about Josh um norwich has left their yo-yo phase they're just a mid-table championship team now yeah looks like it yeah and we needed that we needed them to be a yo-yo team to keep the hope and be okay with Josh playing the championship right it's not enough anymore it's and it you wonder if they you know if he scores 15 goals for them or whatever it is and they end up being a mid-table championship side, does that attract Premier League interest?

I don't think so, does it? What, you're talking about it for Josh? Yeah. Oh, yeah, he'll be fine. I think so. I think it'll be good. While we're in the championship, I think Leeds secure promotion today.

Did they? I think so. I mean, there was a whole slate of games today. The games are over. Leeds won. 44 matches out of 46 played, and they are eight points above third place shelfhood United.

So yeah, promotion. Brendo back. That's right, baby. Here we go. Promotion has been won. Leeds beat Stoke City 6-0. Yeah, I saw Piro had like a first half-hat trick or something. Rendo not on the score.

I guess we probably talked better enough. There's a lot of people defending his stats. You get down to that internet. A lot of chance creation. Although I think Bob Morocco came in and said it wasn't that good. I wait to see what Bob Morocco says. Look, I don't know. I just feel like you got to watch leads and watch them play

and how they basically play around Brendan's presence. And that's basically all you need to see. he's just in there he's like a like I said before he's like a second striker he's just in there in the box a lot running around pressing the stuff and you know

leads is a good side the people that they are passing to that are not Brendan get it done and the ball ends up falling to Brendan they scores a goal that's cool but I do have to say that's just not what I was expecting

from Brendan this season and it's unfortunate for me I was hoping for something bigger and better than this. And the numbers are there, whatever, whatever. I understood, but that's not what I wanted to see. He's, well, yeah. He must be the type of player that Potch's going to bring in

to get a little more, you know, fighting fire. Oh, well, feistyness. Oh, no, man. He may not be right. Oh, you don't know that he'll do it or you doubt that it's a good idea. I doubt that he'll do it just because it seems like it seems like wingerers off the table

for Brendan based on the players that Potch mentioned when asked by you know of course Jonathan Tannawald why Brenda wasn't there he named Diego Luna Westin McKinney Gio Raina etc now Gio may be out

we'll see we'll see I'll say this if Gio's out I bet Brenda I bet Brenda's in Well, we'll have to see if Geo goes with Dorman to the Club World Cup. Hopefully not. Right.

But speaking of which, I mean, there's a little bit of a transfer rumor here. I'll read it. MLS transfers on Twitter is reporting LafC and Rangers are interested in Geo. That'd be Rangers as in Scottish League. He has interest from other Bundesliga clubs but wants to leave Germany. How would you guys feel about him coming back? I think he's correct to want to leave Germany, first of all. Yeah.

I saw Charlie Davis say he should go to Iax, something we've said on this podcast before. Iax makes sense. Well, go ahead. Well, because even though they have, even though it seems like that's a place where he could play, they have high standards. It's not guaranteed he would play, especially if he continues to play it. Now, 35%

Rangers is kind of sitting right with me. Really? I wouldn't be mad at it. I mean, yeah, the truth is we just want him to go somewhere

where he actually plays. Now, this is another thing that Charlie Davies said. I'm going to be clear. Charlie Davies said this. Okay, I'm just relaying the information.

But Charlie Davies said that he talked to some of the players on the national team and that GEO has been, you know, The consummate professional been great in camps ever since the issue or whatever, but that he's lost his edge. He's gotten married too, right?

He's married now. I don't think he's gotten married. He may be engaged. He might be just like an extended engagement. But to be clear, you were saying the marriage caused his losing his head. I think it can happen. That is what you said, bro. So Charlie was playing a player, his national team players are saying he's lost his edge.

I mean, obviously he's lost his edge with this isn't a, the secret. He's definitely lost his edge. I mean, it's true. I mean, the question is why? I don't know if I would have been on the fact that like he's definitely been on the side of that he's definitely lost his edge. But like, I can see why y'all upset it. Well, why y'all are saying it. but, you know,

Gio's Edge was just such a defining characteristic of his game, of his personality and all this, and that's pretty crazy. Another thing to consider is that Charlie Davies' way of talking, he could have just had a conversation

with whoever and be like, he'd be like, Geo hasn't been, he wasn't that great, and they could have just like, yeah, he hasn't been quite, and then he turned into who he lost. this is why I made sure to specify who said it okay made sure specify who said it don't come from me don't come from me but but yeah um

that would be sad to see and it just goes back to I don't know what we were talking about last week about just um the scenarios for geo going forward and his mental state and also just if if what Charlie said is true almost it almost makes me wonder if you know he was playing ball for Claudio, not itself.

You know, you know, you know, all this things go. And we've seen it before with parents that act the exact same way that Claudio has been acting, that, you know, they live vicariously through their sons. And once they're older, they might make different decisions. Yeah, I don't know. Really at this point, I'm tired of psychoanalyzing geo. I just hope that man can show up at a different club and play some ball. And I don't got to worry about all this. On the Discord this week, somebody was like, Kelly.

Let me shout out Kelly on the Discord. I was saying that we should do attitude checks for all USM&T players. And my response was when you're not doing the tangibles, we've got to dig into the intangibles, especially when you're a talented somebody. And, yeah, Gio, get back to doing something tangible, so we don't got to talk about this shit. Yeah, agreed. I want to say, we should talk about Busio real quick

and then we should start heading for the exit. But a drama pack day for him, he got, he slipped, fell on the sideline in the buildup to the police first goal. That was a really nice. goal the way it got bent in into out or out to in and then the guy caught it on the volley like I mean look it up if you get a chance to your listener because the way the guy catches that volley as it's traveling towards the goal and then helping it along in the direction of the goal just a real clean strike I mean borderline impossible technique to do that and then um so that's a little

bit on Bousseo, but then he got the go-ahead goal in the 85th minute, pouncing on a loose ball in a counterattack. A little bit like Landonovan versus Algeria. It kind of gets there first. You love to see that fast twitch explosion to get there first, and then he hurtles over the goalkeeper who's prostrate before him. And you think, oh, man, Venetia is going to get a win here, but then they concede again late.

Man. A pretty nice goal, actually, from Impley. So there you go. He also had a really nice half turn and threw ball in the buildup to a shot that drew good save early in the game. Slide rule stuff. And then he, yeah, that's it. He had a couple other nice moments. But mostly, you know, he's just out there doing, putting in a shift.

Yep. And it's a shame. I mean, this is as much of a six-pointer. as it could get, you know. Empoli and Venetia, both fighting to get out of the relegation zone. There can only be one. Eh, yeah, they can be two. They can be two.

But Impley, Venetia, tied-down points going into this match, both on 24. Leche, right above them, outside of the relegation zone, two points in front of them with 26 points. And, yeah, whoever won this, or if there was a winner, you're safe, you're safe, at least for a week. But, yeah, it didn't happen. And now Venetia has Milan, Torino, Furentina, Calioree, and YuVe for the final five games of the season. So I don't know. It's looking pretty tight for Vinci.

If they couldn't get this win here, unfortunately, it seems like the, the dais cast. Yeah. Get ready to have a cappuccino with Christopher Lund, Jean-Lucah. So whereas Impalee has, they still got Parma to play and Monza. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Impley. might make it. Manza is dead last in Seriaa

with 15 points. So, I mean, they're far and away the worst team. And Parma has 28 points currently. After the draw, both teams are on 25. Lecette's still with 26. They lost his weekend. Parma 28. And so, Impley actually has a pretty

favorable schedule. Venetia. Absolutely does not. I noticed Como is way up in the middle of the table now, too. So good for them. They've been a respectable team. man. Every time I watch them, like whether it's YuVe playing them, Milan playing them, whatever, they're pretty good.

They get out there, they go hard, extremely hard. They scrap. They got good athletes out there. It's a tough team. I guess Cess got his coach's license because now he's the real coach. All right. So a few other little notes.

Damien downscored in FC Cohn's win. Brandon Vasquez's got a game. winner for Austin just a poacher's goal. Steve Turundolo is leaving MLS to return to Germany at the end of the season. That's right. It's kind of interesting. That's right. Quinn Sullivan had a goal and assist versus Atlanta. Nice, the assist was a nice cross. The goal was a nice, take it down off the chest and volley it in. Ben Ha Kromoski had a diving header for the only game, the game's only goal in a 1-0 win at Columbus for Inter-Miamy. Patrick O'Don. Jamong scored a penalty.

Jesse Marsh is suspended for Canada's first two games of the Gold Cup. Jesse. Jesse, he going, he'll, he going to come out and tell us that, you know, he received 50 text messages. I'm sure he did. When it was announced, he got suspended. You know, you know how he does.

But, um, despicable behavior from him. Uh, anyway, if you, if you want to go check that out, by the way, I got it. It's on demand. If you pay for the Patreon, clip notes, $5 till. tier or above, we have the entire tape of Jesse Marsh getting thrown out of

that third place match. Man getting thrown out of... This is how you know he was too ready for this damn... First of all, he got Alfonso Davies to play. Did we talk about this? No. The Alfonso Davies camp is like... We did. I think we did.

Yeah, we might have. But anyway... Oh, I wasn't here. I was... Yeah, it was when Chris was in San Antonio. yeah. Jesse, Jesse's so damn amped up. He then got Alfonso out there. He's playing with Alfonza's career to beat the U.S.

in the third place game and got tossed out of the match. So. And Concaf said, you know, we're going to give you a two-match ban and make sure you don't let it happen again because the consequences are going to be worse the next time. You can't help it, man. You can't help it. But by the way, you know, one other thing.

I have a little bit of a take here, which maybe is controversial. So Potch was in England watching Caleb Wiley at Watford. I love Caleb Wiley like I love every young American player. And I feel like almost a special affinity for him because, you know, I know his dad has a pizza place down in Atlanta. I'm not buying like Caleb Wiley hype lately. Like even watching the, even watching the clips notes. The clip notes. This dude is a replacement level fullback right now in the championship.

We got people going. We probably be people doing too much in the Discord server talking about how he's like putting on some kind of special level of performance. The bars of green bells, did you hear? Come on, man. The bars are green, man? Oh. I mean, he may have an instinct for combination, but the instinct is not matching. He's got the instinct, but it's not clean.

Old bells would have loved instinct for combination. Offball, an offball movement? Come on, man. You let the Argentinian side come out. He, um, he got beat. He got left for dead in the corner down there by that, um, I don't know, that white jersey team they played against. Burnley. You're talking about this week?

Last week. Oh, no, I don't know. They played last week. Yeah. I didn't catch his minutes this week, so maybe it was something totally different. But, I mean, watching him at Strasbourg and, from what I've seen at Watford, he's a solid professional fullback. Who, Potch has now seen play, so he will be in camp. Right.

Right. I'll probably go a little bit. I don't know. I feel like he'd be a little too harsh on my boy. and you know, Caleb Wiley got a special place of my heart for number one, being the first USMNT here. I've interviewed. And number two, he was just an absolute mensch in the setup to that interview. I mean, we had to get the lobby quiet at this hotel.

He sat with us for 15 minutes. Okay, I take it all back. He's the best left back in the pool. He sat with us. I mean, we're just chilling. We were like, like, Caleb, we're really sorry. But, you know, he was just like, ah, no, it's no problem. and gave us a great interview after that.

Anyway, if I will criticize, I always say the handshake was a little bit limp. Handshake was a little limp. You know, I tried dabbing up, but anyway, love you, Caleb.

I took Ballot's a little underwhelming as well. Ballow's an underwhelming? That's a shame. I shouldn't throw them onto the bus like that, but, yeah. Yeah. We need to work.

Yeah. Web to web, boys. You know, Great handshake. Greg Burrhalter. I was about to say, I almost he knocks you over. It's too much.

He wouldn't let you know he was there, baby. I'm here. It's an attack. Don't you release no video while you're sitting here watching the first 15 minutes of training. I'm coming back to you. Oh, so this match against Burnley. Caleb Wiley was at the scene for both Burnley goals. He was at the scene of the crime.

the first one was a striker running in between the space between the left centerback and the left back. A perfect cross basically came into him. He headed it home. Caleb realized when the cross was coming in, basically, that the centerback that's really supposed to be marking him had kind of lost track of where he is. Caleb tried to come over, but he would have had to get all the way over across the striker's body to get to the ball first, you know? And he made a value in effort, but unfortunately, Paul went in the back of the net. And then the second one, I forgot what happened. But that's okay.

Listener, you can pull up the clip notes. It'll all be there. Scott's patron. $5 tier higher. Also, just real quick, before we leave, I'm happy you brought up Caleb because I was going to bring him up regardless. If you try to get us out of here or not, Bells, I was going to bring the man up. But Ballo played. He got some minutes in Monaco's match against Strasbourg that I talked about briefly earlier.

Ended in a draw, but he had a very good chance. Well, not a very good. It was probably lower on XG, but a nice-headed chance that he got on frame, and Georgi Petrovich tipped it over the bar. Okay. Hey, that reminds me of one other thing, which is P-Fox scored in that game between... For wrong.

Ponce versus Toulouse. And it was just a great header, like a cross from way far out wide left. Pivok is like 10 yards from goal, and he just sort of nods it looping into the far corner. Man can score with his head. Yeah. And I think Potsch, he might sniff around.

He's shown he's not afraid of a, he's not afraid of a, I don't know, what somebody would call a one-dimensional striker. or whatever. Because at this point, it's almost like a lot of strikers really have not as many

dimensions as people be acting like. Yeah. You know? Even the ones that, I think Josh Sargent is a little bit better on the ball the most, but a lot of a lot of the ones that people say are like great at hold up play is like, eh.

Even Sargent is like he's better than the other options at holdup play. Maybe aside from Balligan, but he's not like amazing at it. what is pot i mean we gotta just imagine potcha's just in an onboarding period still you know he's just he's still he's still filling out forms in hr as far as i'm concerned otherwise what are we doing you know i mean i i don't think i thought that it was going to be this way initially but uh but yeah the the quote from the old argentinian man just summed it up for me you know

Like the book that was the book that Greg Burrhalter left behind, Podge was never going to do things by that book. And so we're sitting here waiting for him to write his own chapter in it. And it just says what it is. But it was nice seeing him flow back playing soccer. It's nice seeing him. He's running it behind doing all type of baller and stuff. I grabbed a nice little clip from last weekend of him doing. of like a back heel in his own defensive third to get out of trouble.

It's real nice. So yeah, he's coming. He's coming. All right. Hey, we're going to be in Nashville, all three of us and Sanjay. We're, you know, we got, we got some details to work out on that front. Are we doing a tailgate? There'll be a tailgate?

Yeah, maybe some kind of muted. Well, yeah. Muted. No, no. It's got to be. We're turning up. Gotta be. That's right, baby.

On a Tuesday. Let's go. We just need to bring that. We bring that. Turned up energy. No, it'll be it. Whatever it is, it'll be fantastic. And, um.

Look, look, y'all, bells is down planning it. Get yourself to Nashville, June 10th. Um, probably about 4 p.m. local time, all right? If you want to meet the Monday. I think we go, I need to go harder than 4 p.m. We need, you know, 12 p.m. local time. Let's, let's, um, I went, I wouldn't, I wouldn't know us and not make it into the game. I do not want that.

Maybe we, if we're going to interview, if we're going to try to interview Poulosick that week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be a total rager starting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. That's right. Nashville. At that empty parking lot, just across the street from the park that's right next to the field. Be there, be square.

Be there, be square. That's right, baby. That's right, baby. Come on, man. Thank you for your patronage. Have a great week. We'll see you.