Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #590: Monday Review — Luna’s “the guy” at RSL, Vancouver flying, BJ boat-races Gregg

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

We start off with MLS because it feels more interesting right now. But also Pulisic makes scoring look easy vs Venezia, Malik’s teammate says “one man’s death is another man’s bread” after he’s late to something and has to sit, Tyler gets away with an orange-ish challenge, and much 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've got Vince and Waki here. Waki, how are you doing? I'm doing very well, Adam. Good. How are you? Good, beautiful day in the Chattanooga metropolitan area. Vince, how are you doing?

I'm doing great, Adam Bells, and I think I just want to get right into it real quick. Skip kind of Plastic Peasant Street's a little bit. based on recent events I don't know if y'all been paying attention to the NFL draft but there's a son of a football coach who is in the news for prank calling potential draftees okay and if you had to prank call a hopeful USMintier who would it be I'd want to get Kevin Sullivan's dad on the front

as a strong candidate for sure as a strong candidate I don't know if any I don't know for anybody who's watching or listening to this episode and hasn't watched the MLS documentary Kevin. Really the Kavana episode is, you can really just tune into that one on its own. But Brendan Sullivan, a real, a real treat, a real treat. He's our best soccer dad prospect we've had in probably ever. Probably ever.

Because remember, you know, Airborne was not a heralded prospect at all and just came out of nowhere. But Brendan, he has all the makings, all the fixings of somebody that we're going to want in our lives for a while. I'm just trying to think, like, who's the closest thing we have to is Chador Sanders in the USMNT pool? It might be kind of. And it's, well, if it's not, it's probably geo, right? So if I was going to, if I was, I wouldn't do it because I'm, because I, I don't, I don't go for that sort of thing. But I, if I was going to prank somebody, it would be geo, you know, call him and say, you know, put on an accent, say this is Fiorentina Perez. And we want you to come join Jude.

I actually think Adam Bell's prank call spinoff could work. Because he would hate it so much. No, the problem is you're too honest. I guess. You would confess to it was a prank call within the first 50s. Yeah. Yeah, this isn't a real call, but. Yeah, he would tell them.

Yeah, and in my head, as far as a prank, USMNT call up, it would have to be my miasga for me. Another great reason to watch the MOS show, by the way. Yes. Yes. those are really the two stars of the show what's miazga's what's miasga's starring role in the show

we just get a look at how he got a really got into a really dumb argument with a ref and has not really come to terms with it a year later bills he basically he burst into a room after a game and started yelling at them oh yeah he went in the ref room

in the dressing room bro and like Still to this day, he thinks what he was doing was like, he thinks what he intended to do is like something that is above board and something that people should be able to. He's like, oh, I just wanted to go in there and tell him that he got the call wrong. And apparently that's not what I'm supposed to do.

I have the exact quote somewhere, but, you know, that was the gist. The gist of it was he just wanted to go in there and have a few words. And he doesn't understand why it became, a whole big he burst to the room by force and had to be then removed by security he and the QAnon shaman have a lot in common then I guess don't they this was kind of the January 6th soccer I don't see what the big deal is we were just going in to let our voices be known and this is the perfect type of dude that would not know that this is a prank call I mean you know I got the shabbiest of

Argentinian accents, you know, as I'm calling Matt Mioska, pretending that I'm Potsch or whatever. And you can bet your ass, Matt Mioska would be in St. Louis or whatever, wherever camp would be. Yeah, the risk with prank calling Miaska, though, is he could be following up with you on his own for the next year. Yep, yep. Right. Whatever you try to get him on. Yeah, it just seems a lot of the prospects for a prank call, it seems like it'd just be cruel to do it to them. We know you wouldn't like it.

and that's part of what the charm of the show. But Miaska's, you know, it wouldn't feel like that. That's what. Not because of his, not because of anything. Maybe it's just, maybe it's just prank calling measka. That could be the whole show. Just over and over, just over and over again. He wouldn't catch on, I'm telling you.

That's a different type of dude, man. Yeah, I think that might be episode two, episode two and three of the MLS show. really you can you can truly skip one skip one is not important whatsoever it's about messy in the galaxy well it's kind of about messy messy didn't agree to be on any to be filmed really so they're in Miami and his bodyguard is basically tackling the camera way all that the sudden yeah um great listeners I don't know if y'all remember that that one week where we didn't have a Monday show and our Monday show got scrapped and lost but But it was me, Waki, and a special guest breaking down.

We talked about this for a long time. That's why we're so... MLS documentary episodes 1 through 3. We might get back to it at some point, but we'll see. Well, two... So speaking of Messi, and then two players that I would never prank call, not even hypothetically, who are Brian White and Sebastian Burrhalter. The three of these players met in Conccafax.

Champions Cup in the middle of the last week. I think this is a great story. Vancouver's like top of the table, league-wide table. They got more points than anybody else than MLS. Brian White and Sebastian Burrhalter both score and a win over Inter-Miamy. And, you know, this is Champions League. This is Concaf Champions League. I don't know why they changed the name of it to Champions Cup.

It was kind of dumb. But anyway, Champions League, they beat him in the first leg of the semifinal, 2 to 0. both really nice goals. Burrhalter the Younger also got the second assist on the white goal. Massive home win for the caps. Now they have to hold on in Fort Lauderdale or Boca Raton or wherever into Miami plays. And then Burrhalter, I mean, I don't know if you guys have any thoughts about that, but then Burrhalter scored a really, like a really nice goal over the weekend as Vancouver beats Minnesota.

Like a curler from 20 yards out. Top bins. Yeah. I saw some people saying on social media, like that's, you know, when they quote tweeting this highlight saying like, this is why I don't like watching MLS. It's just horrible. I think it was Dom, right? And I watched the clip. I'm like, what's wrong with this clip?

Everything is nice. Everything everybody does is nice. But anyway. I mean, it's got to be frustrating watching, first of all, MLS in general. And then it's a Burrhalter. You know what? No, thank you. I have to say, when I saw this clip, I was like, man, I might have to cop a, I might have to cop a jersey.

Burrhalter. Get a Burrhalter white caps might go crazy, bro. I might need that because, I mean, you can't get a, I mean, I guess you could get a Burrhalter Chicago fire, but like, like, what does that really mean? You know, he's wearing the, right. It doesn't mean the same thing. You got to get a Burrhalter coat bus. If you want to go Burrhalter, senior jersey, I think that's the one to get. Which one?

Coach bus. Oh, okay. The club in Germany. Yeah. And I think that's the best one to get because it seemed like from the plan that he was going to transfer somewhere cool like Greece where it's really warm. But then he had to tell his family no, we're going to Eastern Germany. Pretty soon. Like two years after the wall fell.

Well, not two years. We can say it was two years. It was still rough. It's still worse. It's still rough. Like to this day. It was like, there's like no money over there. Still.

Yeah. I hear Leipzig is lovely, but we are, my, my family is going to go to the Leipzig area in the fall to visit some friends who, really good friends from Minneapolis who moved there. And I occasionally, I was, I think we maybe talked about this on the podcast, but remember when the far right, um, politicians did really well in the German election. I don't know, a couple months ago, three months ago. I looked at the map, you know, like the heat map of where the far right did really well. And it was like they just dominated in East Germany outside of Berlin and probably Leipzig too. They'll go for pretty much any type of authoritarianism in East Germany. Well, it was interesting.

It's interesting because, yeah, they both, it was both like disproportionately for the far right and for the far left. in East Germany. They don't want to mess with this Mealy Mouth middle, you know, the Christian Democrats. Give me a break. Yeah, I'm a... I know a couple people

that moved to Germany, or I'm aware of them, I met him once, but they moved to Germany, like in light of the election in recent events or whatever. And, yeah, I don't know. I mean, you know, they have their ascending

they got their own issues coming down the pipe. You know, I was wondering about that decision in particular. But, you know, hey, it's not my life. I messaged the WhatsApp group that we have with this couple, me and my wife and this, are good friends, asking them about the election. Crickets, they still haven't responded to this day. Just moved on to a different topic. I don't think so.

I don't think so. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Anyway, anything else on the ascendancy of the Whitecaps? The lead topic for the Monday review today? Do they have an interesting coach, Waki? Okay. He's not American, is he?

I know. I don't watch. He's not American. Okay. So, yeah, so we can move on. I'm a xenophobic. So got to be American. me to watch for me to even really care at all, frankly.

Couldn't even tell you his name or her name. It might be a woman. I don't know. No, it's not a woman. It's a man. It's a man. He's handsome. I noticed that, but I don't know anything else about him.

So producer Liz, who, you know, we don't give enough credit to. Credit to Liz, she helps us so much with these episodes. Thank you, Liz. We appreciate you. She wrote, Bell's his favorite MLS player of all. all time, Shaq Moore scored against Inter-Miamis. It's a rough week for Inter-Miamy, because they lost it. They lost to Dallas.

It's true that Moore scored, both for his team and for the other team. It is not true that he is my favorite MLS player of all time. My favorite player of MLS player of all time is Kevin Sullivan. And I want to move quickly on from the Dallas-Inter-Miamy result to Kavin. And he got his first real cameo of the season. This is important, I think. 28 minutes off the bench in a 30 win over DC United. It was a steady professional performance.

I think this is what we want to see from him right now. Go out there, set a floor, build yourself a platform to do the cool stuff. But you need the platform first. And I think two things. One, his work ethic is not a question. Very industrious kid. his strength and duels he's only 15 i think he doesn't turn 16 until later this year his strength and duels is it's a question he's pretty soft i'd like to see him start coming away with the ball a little

bit more often he got ragged all one time bro like oh more than once yeah he sticks that foot in and it's just the leverage is all off he's not getting anywhere near it you know these grown man he's up against erin harrera dude has like 30,000 minutes at right back in MLS over the last five, six years. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but it's played a lot. And he just, you know, it's no contest. But progress, progress towards that 1,000 minutes that we were promised by one David Goss.

We're going to have to come collect on that or what's the plan? I don't know. I mean, there needs to be an injury crisis in Philadelphia for us to get to that, you know. Seems like. older brother Quinn has one goal and five assists so far this this season is clearly superior to his little brother right now and i'm you know to rys's point in the in the weby episode we did last week rice called in left a voicemail we appreciate that too he's he's earned himself a january camp call up i'm just going to go way out on a limb and say that he should be called up in january camp next year we've are i think

we've now declared two players. This is about as far ahead as we ever get on January camp. So I'm glad we're being proactive this time around. We want Quinn and obviously, Seb for Hulter's, I think, a lock at this point. Sebby B. Yes, yeah. Sebby B. And maybe we should just do a whole January camp roster episode like next week.

You guys think of that. Yeah. I mean, we could do that probably maybe not monthly. But every other month. Every other month. January camp projections. Somebody who's not soft in duels is I'm just waiting for officer Vince, the narrative police to rain on the parade over here. But somebody who's not soft on duels is Diego Luna.

The man scored twice as RSL visited high flying expansion side, San Diego, beat him 3-1. First, a real nice solo effort. Nick the ball drove into the box, curled it through two defenders past the unsighted goalkeeper. Real clever and technical. Then he just rolled a penalty in as the keeper guessed wrong. I got a quote from Pablo Mastroani, who I gather doesn't suffer weaklings very gladly.

He said this. I don't think we can talk about Diego developing anymore. He's the guy. He's the guy that plays with the chip on his shoulder. He's one of our best defenders. He's obviously the guy that's putting the ball in the back of the net. He's doing it all for our group. I want to sense from you, Waki, of how often does Pablo say things like this?

He's always got something in that tone. That's pretty much how he talks. And it sounded really cool when he said it. Not that you didn't sound cool, but he was adding a little bit. There was a little bit some different contours to that that really heightened both his seriousness as a coach. and just what a dog Diego is. Now, did it sound more masculine when Pablo said it than when I said it? He sounds more masculine than anyone I've ever heard.

So it's not a shout at you. Yes, it sounded more masculine. Okay. All right. I'll take it. No, no. Why do I got to be the villain in this? You know what I'm saying?

Just because you, you chose, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, You chose to do this. I didn't choose to do anything. All I was saying, every time we bring up Diego Luna, you got to be like, you got to be like, let me check the census to see if the, if he comes from a low income. Bro. It's key. It's key. Because, look, man, you know the point I'm making.

You know that, you know that, you know that. I do. Okay. It's got nothing to do with Diego Luna and everything to do of you, the listener. Okay. Check your biases at the door. That's all I'm saying. Now,

I watch this match. Diego was balling. I agree a lot with Pablo. I mean, that the man was cooking, bro. First of all, he's everywhere. He's truly everywhere. Like, showing for the ball,

defensive third. You know, he's coming back for it. Like, there's no point in the match where you're like, where's Diego Luna, basically. You know, he's everywhere. affecting everything. Like there's a shot that he ends up with in the second half that I think he didn't catch that well, just kind of went to the keeper.

But like in order to even get in the play, like the ball is probably in like the middle third progressing to the final third. I got this in clip notes. And Diego is... Is it the one that goes up the left side? He goes up the left side. And Diego is like back like beyond the. the halfway line.

And, like, you know, he sprints. It gives a good 50 yards to where he can play in combination with whoever Salt Lakes number 10 is. I don't know who that is. But where he can receive a pass from him and get the ball in the box, take a shot. But that's just, he's just industrious out there, man. He's doing work. And, I mean, looking extremely felt.

Man, he's looking good out there, man. He's looking good. Like, I can't tell, I can't tell just off the, just off the shape of the body immediately who Diego Luna is. He fits in a lot more as a soccer player. And, and since, you know what I'm saying, you have painted me in such a negative light with regards to Mr. Diego Luna. I just want to say, there is audio proof that I've been, that I've been a believer. You can go back to those at Conca Calf Championship Day. way back in whenever it was.

I did a podcast with Young Joey. We recap that match on the scuff feed if you want to go find it. And I've always been a believer in particularly Diego's ability to, you know, play soccer, right? Because there was a question, right? When he gets a grown man balls, he's going to be able to cover the ground and whatever, whatever. I believed. I believed. Because even when he was a little bit heavier,

he was able to do it. You know, he was chugging a little bit, but you could see the, you could see the expulsiveness. You know, he just wasn't like, he's never been a plotter, I don't think. You know, he, it would be some of that, rumbling, bumbling, stumblingness to him.

But he was still rumbling and bumbling, though. You know, he was getting to it when he needed to. And now that he's like, lost a little bit of that barrel chestedness or whatever, man I mean the motor just don't stop and

this is I would say this match is probably like as impressed as I've been with Diego Luna in MLS and yeah

I just want to yeah just to echo everything Pablo said like he's the guy he's out there playing ball and

yeah no pray calls for Diego you know what I'm saying he's earned He's turned on utmost respect. He's getting the real call, buddy. He has a spot, I think. Yeah, it seems like it.

That high capacity point, his ability to get everywhere on the field is huge for him. Because the more he's on the ball, the more he's doing stuff, the better, you know. And that could be an interesting show as well, just really sincere calls from Adam Bells. You just dial up Diego and just tell them basically everything Vince just said and all we've been talking about. I mean, I already know what I would say. I would say, Diego, I appreciate you so much for when we recorded our interview, I forgot to hit the record button. And we had to start over seven minutes in. Appreciate your patience with that.

I guess in a way we already are making that show, aren't you? Because you have interviewed. You have had us since your conversation with Diego Luna. Yeah. That was such a shame. because it was like so good when we did it the first time. It was really cooking. I'm not exaggerating to you guys.

And then I had to tell him that I didn't hit record on his file. And he was not well pleased with that revelation, even though he's a very nice person, as he shouldn't have been. This is a big waste of his time. So then we kind of rushed through that first seven minutes again, and it was, the vibe was not the same. I've probably said that on the podcast already. Let's get to some hilarity here.

B.J. Calhans, Nashville, SC beat Greg Burhalter, Chicago Fire. Seven to two. It was five zero at halftime. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, I noticed that Brian Gutierrez got absolutely manhand. handled trying to mark somebody on a corner kick for the second goal, a pretty sad display from a player I tend to like. But I think the bigger story here is the apprentice becomes the master kind of storyline, right? Tactical manager had a field day with this, of course.

Pyongyang, Chicago Fire, did his best, but, you know, this is what he said in Korean. Failure is better. We have to do better. We demand more from our soldiers and leaders. We believe that they will rise from the ashes. We trust Greg. It's hard. It's hard out there, you know.

And I wish I had some analysis for the listeners about this game. I saw it was 5-0 on my phone app, and I thought, you know, I'm not going to watch this one. Let's put this in the rearview mirror. Let's just not even, let's not think about it. once. Wow. I'm happy for BJ, but, you know,

winners, you know, what's next? They move on. Anyone who's suffering today, just they have that mentality. There was somebody hit me up on Twitter. I said BJ put up a touchdown and an extra point on Greg, which I do got to mention it.

I do got to mention it. It's a very BJ Callahan score line right there. Seven, two defensive strong. I got him a little consolation safety there at the end of the match. A tactical, a tactical safety. Time running out. I had to run out to run out the back of the end zone.

It didn't look like, you know, it wasn't, as is often the case, it didn't look like, it didn't quite look like a 7-2 game if you see the chances going back and forth. But that's why I kind of pinpoint the Gutier. as failing because that makes it to zero inside like 15 minutes or something. And then, you know, I know you don't want to talk about it, Chris, but then things just kind of spiraled from there. I'm happy BJ's doing this thing. It seems like Greg's on his way to doing this thing. So, but yes, I'm happy for both coaches right now.

The league needs a strong BJ Callahan. That's right. On balance, this is good. The country needs a strong PJ Cohen, I should say. Yeah. Yeah, he'll, maybe he's going to play a key role in the, in the Renaissance that's coming. We want him to do well enough over these next, I guess, year that he is in the, we want him listed in the short list, whoever the next manager is. That'd be cool.

I don't think it's time for him, but we just want to have him in a conversation. Maybe he'd be the perfect assistant for, not Jim Curtin, but B.J. Callahan for Potch to bring in, which he's not going to do. I think B.J.'s getting enough of a taste for that top seat. He's not going back to being a factotum. That's a wrap. Even for Potch. He's not handing out the scholarships to Walk Ons no more, man. he's he's ready to be the guy okay it would be cool if he did join podge's staff if he just impressed so much he became a permanent member with micky and all the rest of the crew for potcha's next 15 years he's popping around from tottingham to whatever else comes next but i mean that would be

Yeah For me that would be cooler than going straight to the head coaching job But Max Max Arstyn scored in Columbus 2-1 win over Jose Over Jose over San Jose Yeah why let's talk through why you're mentioning it though What's the talk about? I thought we could maybe have a little fun at Max Maximilian's expense

But I guess we are this point You're right The World Cup posters are out The World Cup posters are out And I love them I got to say I love them We could tell The Miami one

The Miami one Fantastic The LA one I love too And then people are saying Some people are saying well the Mexico ones are better The Mexico ones are all the same All three are the same By the same artist

Same template Get real. The L.A., Seattle, Miami, and Dallas is great. It's a cowboy doing a scissor kick, like fully in the air. So it's something to look, I mean, I guess not look forward to. We can enjoy them now. But it's to get us excited about this. That won't come.

Well, I just listened to the congressman interview like this past week. I guess I'd ask you, Bill's, did his responses to your questions fill you a confidence about how this World Cup is going to go off? Yes or no? Not really. I guess what fills me with confidence

is that it's just something you can't allow to be screwed up. Yeah. It's not any you know, particular assurance from Representative Larson. And he wasn't giving a ton of assurances. He was just sort of saying,

we got to do X, Y, and Z. But he wasn't like, it didn't seem like he was, did he seem confident to you? I mean, I don't know about confidence. Confident enough. I don't know about it.

Yeah. I don't know. I think the idea that like, you know, everyone from the executive office down is aware of how big an event this is and how, you know, got a reputation on the line a little bit on a global scale. Yeah. The world's favorite. Baron Trump's going to handle it.

He'll take care of it. That might be it. So, yeah, out of everything he said, I think the fact that it is, it's, it's a very important. It seemed like everybody's a mascot yet. Have we announced a mascot? It could just be barren. Maybe I thought Volar was on a probationary period. The Gold Cup.

Unless I guess if Volar performs exceptionally well, he should be a candidate for sure. But if not, I think it should be barren. Is it sort of Western chauvinism for me to say anything would be better than the last World Cup's mascot? Scott? Are you talking about the It may be, but certainly Western Chauvinism don't want to be barren as well. So I think you've got cover to to say that if you want.

You know what? I think that little that little sheet in the wind grew on me. I forgot where bro's name was. But, uh, like, yeah, I think I would have been or like that's what it was. But grew on me. Grow me. Let's take a break. Be back in a minute.

If you want to get the podcast ad free, join the Patreon. Thanks in the show notes. All right. Let's start with A.C. Milan. Pool six scored early Sunday morning to help secure a two-zero win over Busio and the rest of Venetia. In Venice, the water and the sailboats in the background, game starts like, you know, full daylight. Game starts off kind of choppy.

Venetia hustling into Milan's half a little bit, but then really sort of straight line, precise combination from, Laos and Abraham, Abraham with a back heel, in a very fast sequence up the middle. Leao takes a shot, and it's only just a heroic effort from Jean-Nuccio that slides to stop it, to block the shot. And then a minute, so Milan's like, we're in charge. And then a minute later, Fennetia gives it up in their own half, bang, bang, from Jimenez to Fafana. and he zips it into Pulisic striding into the box. Really clever pass. Perfect first touch kills it.

He's kind of alone in front of the goalkeeper and then rifles it in at the near post. And people say, well, that's an easy goal. So many details in this, I think. Like, well, really two details. He must have sold it with his eyes that he was going to the right, going to the keeper's left,

and maybe with his body shape, but makes the goalkeeper go the wrong way. Makes it look easy. Aisemelon up 1-0, and that's game, basically. Well, so it was basically game. But Benetia had a goal that was called off due to John Luca being offside. He was offside. Ball was played.

I don't even know if it was, like, directly played to him. The camera angle cut. They did like a zoom in of the player that was on the ball. when he made this pass to John Luca. But I feel like he kind of just, like, dented into space, and John Luca came back and got it and laid it off to somebody. And then they played somebody into the Man City Zone cutback goal. But, yeah, it was one one at that point called off.

Dude, John Luca was off. Like I said, he came back into the play. Like, you know, there was no necessary advantage necessarily gained. because he, like I said, he came back to the ball, but he was offside. And really, when you look at the clip, he didn't really need to be offside in that moment. Yeah.

It's shame. He's a very competent soccer player, John Luca is. And, man, he's gotten a lot better at the sort of capacity and defensive parts of the game. But it's just, I don't. think he's going to be a major factor for the national team we'll see yeah we'll see i guess um pulisic has 50 goal contributions in two seasons lots of lots of tweets going on around about that um musa hasn't played in milan's last four games yeah it's a wrap what happened what happened

between what happened between him and concessao it's a shame i i mean it was it was that uh That one giveaway. What was it playing? I think it was Fierantina, I want to say, about a month ago. Came back into the lineup or whatever. Gated ball away, goal. And, yeah. What do you got, Yank?

26 minutes or something. I haven't seen them since. I haven't seen them since, unfortunately. Yeah. So another thing is Pulisic and A.C. Not Musa, of course, due to what we're just talking about. but Pulisic-Nay-Sem-Lan beat Inter-3-0 in the Super Capa, not the Super Capa, in the Coppa Italia semifinal.

They will now play Bologna in the final in Rome. Tyler Adams and Bormouth drew Manchester United. At home, Tyler was, I think, kind of escaped justice a little bit for a studs-up challenge. As he does, man can just do a lot of he does a lot of dastardly stuff without he he knows the line and how to put his foot over it so to speak and not get sent off um anyway it was studs-up challenge on i think it was on garnacho and as v a r assessed the challenge the commentator on peacock

really went and on the on refs in general said uh most of them quote haven't kicked a ball in their life, end quote. I thought that can't be true. That's probably not true and it's a nasty thing to say. Very rude. Very rude thing to say. Even I haven't kicked a ball in my life. Yeah.

I mean, who hasn't kicked a ball in their life? And I imagine most refs are pretty decent at soccer. Is that, is that? Why was the, why was the commentator so upset? I don't know. I don't know. Because he ultimately agreed with the decision. But he was like, he just sort of said it as an aside.

I don't know. I can't really trust these guys. They never kicked a ball in their life. And then they got the call right in his opinion. But did he walk back what he said? Not one iota. They really hate refs over there. Why?

I don't get it. Well, I think everyone, yeah, I mean, it's like anything else. You know, they believe their refs. The PGMOL is generally incompetent. but uh which which there there might be some uh might be some evidence to that you know just as far as like i mean english football culture and lagging behind the rest of europe and everything else i mean surely their refs would be assier than than uh the average spanish ref probably too you know what

i'm saying but uh maybe so yeah we need refs man we need refs real bad all across america for U6 games and U8 games. A little bit on PSV, Malik Tillman is back in the doghouse. He was late to a team meeting, and Luke DeYoung called him out in an interview saying he's letting the team down. They really like to speak frankly at each other in the Netherlands

because what DeYoung said was nothing compared to what Joey Veerman said. He piled on in the same article. He said, one man's desk. one man's death is another man's bread when asked about Baja's decision to leave Tileman out of the starting lap. Oh. I know.

What in Malik? Is this, this sounds pretty serious or is that just a Dutch frankness? I should not want to. Hey man, they fed up with it. It's, it's, yeah,

it's, I don't know if it's like, if he's still thinking about Easter or what, but, um, Yeah, it's a weird saying. It's a weird saying that I guess it's common, and it must be common in the Netherlands,

but it's, and then he goes, the coach is simply right, and then if you are late on a match day, you should not play. But, I mean, one man's death is another man's predest. There was another Dutch quote I saw a couple weeks ago when they were talking about Malik's future transfer, and actually it was Rick L. Frank who said it.

He said something like, as my mother used to say to me, woe the bones of the boy who will one day leave me. Woe upon the bones, maybe. And then there were other people in their replies saying, my mom said that to me too. Lots of, yeah, I think we should do a whole episode on Dutch colloquialisms. I mean, look, I'm. I'll say this.

The one thing that I do appreciate is that PSV, they develop in these boys right. They're not playing no games, man. Malik. Yeah. Get the stuff on time, baby. You know? Yeah, he really needs to be on time. And it's like, you know, you don't hear about these things happening in other places.

A lot of times, mostly because, you know, they tend to overlook things and whatnot. And especially due to Malik's. stature at PSV right now. You know, you could easily look the other way or whatever. Like, I remember when this happened, we got some extra producers in the house. My kids are in the background here. The only other thing from PSV, I agree, Malik needs to, they're training them right

there. The only other thing from PSV is, Bosch said in a press conference that Sergenio no longer necessarily has to play left back. He always thought that that was his best position. Is that true? Did he always think that? But he has now changed his mind. He can also do very well at right back.

He discovered this by watching YouTube videos of himself. Man, that's just... You can learn a lot on YouTube, you know? What a guy, man. That's, uh, yeah. Yep. I mean, they must do film reviews. all the time with the team.

But has he played... I know. That's the thing. It's like he has to watch YouTube to see himself play. He watched all of his games before? Has he played right back for PSV though? At least not a ton. At least a little bit.

Yeah. And maybe the time he's played it while he's there, he's like, I'm not feeling it. Even though, you know... He played right back at a World Cup. World Cup, baby. It's funny. It's funny.

Like, I don't know. A lot of the surge, uh, idiosyncrasies, I'm like, I, uh, like, some of the stuff,

I'm just like, I mean, okay. Um, but, but this one, it tastes a cake, man.

You can't, you can't be surge. It's truly a different type of fellow. I think all, all reports, all science, point to that for sure. So Gio got 10 minutes off the bench versus

Hoffenheim. I want to mention it because I watched it. Took a few corner kicks. They were good. Had a couple headers to settle possession. Hoffenheim scored an equalizer in stoppage time to make it 2-2. That was not Gio's fault.

But then he wouldn't stick his foot out to collect a good pass from Emory Chan into the box. And Emery Chan did not understand why he didn't stick his foot out. maybe he thought somebody else was darting in behind him. Maybe he didn't want to extend his hamstring. I don't know. But then Dortmund did score the winner at the death.

Gio's role was to trot along while behind the play as all the action occurred. So nothing new there. I guess, long story short, nothing new on the Gio front. Yeah. We should have gave him the same shrift that we would have given A, at the end of this podcast or something. I mean, Bells, you wrote it. You wrote a lot of shit.

Anyway, let's continue. Okay. Only other things are Kevin Perettis started his second straight game and then came off injured in the 62nd minute in a 1-0 loss to Freiburg. Quote from Hassan-Hoodle, his coach, it's quote, it's probably a serious muscle injury. Yikes, based on what he reported. It's not surprising. the boy was injured for almost a year,

had a good game against minds, but you can see he's still missing a lot, end quote. Hopefully it's not as serious as the coach thinks it is, and we could see him at the Gold Cup, but you never know with these European coaches. There's stricter rules on giving specifics, and I think that conditions them to, say, probably a major injury.

Yeah, maybe. You notice that they say the boy a lot in Europe, too? Which we don't. We don't say that over here. Why is that Adam Bowles? Well, you know that's where it is. I don't say it. You can say the boy.

You can say the boy. Right? Even that. I mean, I just cheer clear of it completely, but. You definitely can't say the boy in the intonation that you just said it. walking, no, that's not happening. Okay. I'll have to re-listen to that and make sure I don't do that again.

You can say, yeah, boy, the boy, you know. Not the, not the, the boy. You got to, you got to say it, that boy, yeah, boy. You know what I'm saying? You say it in a way that, uh, that, that lets people know that you are, um, you know. What if I said, mocking any, any, that guy is the absolute. boy. The man.

The man. You got it. You got to say the man. It wouldn't even make any sense in American slang, you know? That guy is the absolute boy. That's not working. That's not working. And it's not offensive. It just sounds dumb. That's my take on it, but I defer to Vince. I guess I'll do any other things.

I want to say it at all. Tolkien got hurt with a head injury, but he's not expected to miss any time. It was him versus Joe Scali, and Holstein-Keele got the 4-3 win. Tolkien got an assist on a corner kick. It was a nice corner kick. But Scali, I'm going to give him short shrift on this one.

And then you got something quick on Pax, Vince? Okay. So there's been some stuff coming out about Pax's future. I think Ron Yans said that they're working to keep Pax at Utrecht for another year, working with Frankfurt. I think Pax also responded to this and said it would be a good option to stay at Utrecht for another year. Now, it is a good option, but this kind of, I guess, begs the question. on if Pax is ready to fight for minutes in Frankfurt. And the question with that is kind of like the same question with his national team inclusion,

where like Frankfurt, I've noticed this from watching Nathaniel Brown the few times that I have, you know, they run in like a three, two, five possession shape. Where does Pax fit in there? You know, does he fit in in the two? does he fit in as one of those five in the front line? These are all questions that have not necessarily been answered by his time in Utrecht. You know, he is playing in a two, right? But he's playing in a two on a team in the Netherlands that doesn't want the ball.

And so, you know, he has all the defensive capabilities and all that. But there's still questions there that need to be answered. I don't even know if they get answered by saying another year at Utrecht. Now that I'm thinking about it. But he's played a lot of 10 here recently. He's been deeper the last two weeks. And there's a couple passes from this past week that packs in a show that maybe, you know, he has it in the bag. He has the ability to be a member of that on-track Frankfurt.

double pivot. That'd be amazing. It would be amazing. That'd be amazing. And they're coming back to Louisville this year. I don't know if y'all, I don't know if y'all knew that. They came here last year. Didn't know that.

They're coming back once again this year as part of their U.S. tour. Hopefully Pax is there when I go watch training again. And now that I know who Nathaniel Brown is, I can watch him as well. But anyway, it's tough to tell. at this point saying that Pax will for sure hit it will hit at Frankfurt next year it's a it's it's it's up in the air and so even though you know this loan has been very successful all that etc etc it's it's just tough to it's tough to call it right now and remember Tom Bogart this is a while back now did swear to us he would be see at Frankfurt next year and I didn't forget and he's going to be held accountable he's not there we got both members of soccer wise

hung up we might we might got to pay him a visit jersey style uh mr bogus should be familiar with that you know what I'm saying we'll see how it plays out with packs but that needs to be on the table it does need to be on table man I want to shout out my

our friend Bill Middleton who is on the scuff discord because he's always talking about how in America we don't we don't train players to receive the ball in difficult situations and solve problems and I feel like this this tweener situation this tweener problem

is maybe in some ways a manifestation of that because Pax isn't he's not really a final third guy I mean he's good in the final third don't get me wrong He's not like a high volume chance creator necessarily. Not necessarily six, which you've been saying for months and months, Vince.

And we need more of, we need more purity in the way we develop players for one of those two roles. Because how many water carriers, how many number eight water carriers can one national team have, you know? A lot, I guess. Yeah. But, uh, sure. I don't know. I think this is just type of... I don't really know either.

But I think there is a connection. It was a rhetorical question, I think. But I think we forgot there after you said it. We got to get out of here. Thanks everybody for listening. We appreciate it. We'll see it.