Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #597: Poch's strange roster for the Gold Cup

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

A bunch of our best players will be missing, and Sean Zawadzki will be there. We talk through the call-ups, the omissions, and what the hell is going on. Watke has some positive interpretations. See you in Nashville! 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, Pachitino met the press on Thursday to talk about his roster for the pre-Gold Cup friendlies. The tone of the questions was a bit tetchier than it had been before the Nation's League debacle, but Potch projects an unwary calm. We've got a year. We're testing people out. It's important to be together, but being physically together is not the only factor, he said. That was some of the gist of it.

Got Chris and Vince with. me. Chris, how you doing? I'm doing fantastic. I'm excited for this really great test of our depth we're about to get at this tournament. Which, we actually want that, you know? I guess we do. These circumstances aren't perfect,

but I think that's the positive I'm taken away. Yeah. I'm going to be, I'm going to be glass half full. Vince, how you doing? Yeah, I'm going to be glass half empty I don't want to see these I don't want to see these dudes Play soccer I ain't going to allow to you

There's a select few Obviously the usual suspects But I mean when we get down to Sean Zawatsky I mean come on I can't sit here And fain Enthusiasm

Like I'm like yeah enthusiasm I just can't see it I act like I'm The happiest To see this roster that we've been served up And then also, right before we got to recording, I made sure to listen to Potch's interview or presser. And it didn't make that much damn sense to me, the things that he were saying, to be honest with you. So whatever.

But ultimately, it just is what it is. I watch this Gold Cup and the two friendlies before it. I will enjoy them all the same, but I would be surprised if we ended up in a different position than we did like the, you know, the last B-Team Gold Cup that we went through. For instance, the one where we lost to Panama in the semifinals. We came out of that tournament really not learning too much more about the player pool, not really. not really getting any consistent contributors to the national team that I can remember. The only thing I can remember by that team is when we did that Canada review and it just kind of devolved to us coming up with slander names for all different types of players.

That's when I debuted John Luca Boudio, et cetera. I don't know if you all remember. I don't know if y'all remember, but somebody hit us up very upset about our little sidebar there. Our attitude. Yeah. Telling us to respect anyone who puts on the shirt, which understood. That's a valid response. We probably got a little too carried away.

Greg was having a great time with me. Bells, I can, you're probably the least guilty. It was really just me and Greg having a ball. But. I wish I was more guilty, honestly, in retrospect. But I, like, I guess that's just my main thing here. Like, are we going to come out of this tournament saying that, once again, Sean Swatsky, which he's going to be, you know, my target, number one, just because of the name. You know, he got a comedically funny name.

And so, therefore, yeah, are we going to come out of here saying the Shad Zawatsky and players of... Max Arsson. Max Arsson. Max Arsson. He was on this roster. Players of that ilk are people that we are. that we can depend on to make an impact about 12 months from now. And I think everyone here would say probably die.

Well, I think we're going to look back on the summer 2025 as a real impact window for us, where we turned all around. Here's why. First, I think, let me just try this on. It was a particularly rough week for the troubadours and the Scali lads. And so we're all carrying kind of that negative emotion. And maybe with that clears in the next two, three days, it'll open up and we'll start to look at it differently. I'm glad Pulisic is resting.

Okay? Mm-hmm. Plus with Wesau, there's an opportunity to shift the personality of the team to really become Chris Richards' team. Mm. Okay. Okay. That's the player I want this. I want the team to have his personality.

and there's a chance it could happen this summer. He's primed for it. He's in the, he just won the FAA Cup. It's his team. It's his team right now. It can become his team. It's not just about,

that's ridiculous with Tyler Adams on the roster. I'm sorry, you know. And also I got a, I got a little thing brewing in my mind that maybe Tyler Adams was behind some of these roster cuts too, but we'll get on to that later.

Well, here, how about this? Tyler, maybe Tyler doesn't need. He get, Tyler gets a lot of his power from his association with Pulisick and Weston, I think. Mm. Mm. Mm. And what those pieces is missing. Okay.

And Richard's just constant effervescence. Mm. And the young group, the young group coming in, there's a lot of young players here. Who are they going to be looking to? Okay. You're cooking. You're cooking. You're cooking.

Not Tim Riem anymore. Okay. Not Tim Rueh anymore. Like Tyler, they're going to come in there. They know who has the personality, the charisma. And then they become Richard's guys. Now, next camp, here come in, you know, our best players, sure. But they're going to arrive at a team that is no longer in the mold of their personality.

There's been a progression. So that's my positive case for this. Yeah, because, you know, you look at, you look at like, you look at like a Malik Tillman. Who does he want to associate himself with more? Tyler Adams or Chris Richards. Yeah. it's going to be Richards, right? I mean, I mean, yes.

Malik doesn't have time for narcs, you know? He's out there living fast and loose, you know? For sure, Tequila Tillman. Yeah. But, yeah, okay, I didn't see the mechanism for how this could work, but I think, Waki, you laid it out, you laid it out absolutely perfectly. Because remember, I think after the Nations League or something, I did talk about.

Our lack of leadership within the team and the fact that, I mean, even that Pulisic West, you know, the 98, what is that, 97, 96th, 99s, whatever, they, even they don't respond to Tyler Adams in the way that you would think, you know, especially with him being hailed up as El Capitan, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. It seems like the message has gotten a bit stale. And I did, I did bandy about Chris Richards as a potential leader for everything that you laid out, just as far. as far as the charisma, the effervescence, the, he's a type of guy you can get behind. And he's funny. He's our only funny player. Yeah. As far as like truly funny, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe one of the quieter ones is funny, but we just don't, we don't, we don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And then another thing that I think is positive, we're not a positive, but yes, we're missing all these exciting players. Mm-hmm. But I think on just the pure excitement level,

desk being back, wipes all that out, it's even. Because they're not really that exciting. Well, Pulcic has not been exciting. Right. Pulisic has not been exciting for the national team for a minute. Wes hasn't even been trying out there.

Yeah. Traveled all this way to see some duds. I mean, damn. Yeah. Wes hasn't been exciting. Like I said last week, I think Tillman's the most exciting player week to week in the pool. He obviously hasn't gotten it done for the national team, but this is the time. It's obviously the time now.

That's, you know, in addition to becoming Chris Richards team, I think Tillman scoring goals, getting assists and making his mark is a half, a glass. have full way to look at it. And I personally guarantee this is going to be his breakout tournament. Has to be. Reputation on the line. If he's not, if he's not, bro. It's on the line, bro. It's on the line.

He's going to be, he's the man of the tournament. Guaranteed. I hope so. Guaranteed. I truly do hope so. That's if Burhalter doesn't come in and really put on a show. Yeah. Sebastian Burrhalter is the only thing standing in his way.

That is something I'm another thing I'm feeling positive about is Now the Copa debacle and Burhalter getting fired turns out to have been a good thing because it opened up a next Burhalter up scenario He couldn't have called up Sebastian No, there was no way No avenue whatsoever No I'm still thinking about the Bartholta K by the way Gotta see what number he gets assigned

Yeah Oh you're thinking about getting that one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just look at like what the 11 could be

and it could be a pretty exciting 11, you know? I mean, like you said, Waki, you got desk out there. I don't care who the goalkeeper is. Richards. I don't really know who the other fullback is. I got a bone to pick with potch on that. His fullback selections are ridiculous. What is happening?

What is happening right now? No Tolkien. He is kind of nasty. No Ledzma. People on USM and T Twitter are, You know, it seems like they're as mad at Potch as they were at Burrhalter now. DeSateau doesn't care about his job. Yeah, it's been building up.

Yeah. It's been building up. Bels, I mean, the La Desma, like you sitting here fretting over the non-inclusion of Richard Ledesma. I don't know if I can get behind that necessarily at this point in time. But, well, well, you. I'll say this. You can't say Pasha and do his homework. He went seeing the man in person and said,

uh, not my cup of tea. I'll have some, I'll have some of what Max Arstyn is cooking out. Yeah, that's what he said. That's what he said. So it is what it is.

Juan Jones, Alex Freeman. You can't put the, you know, does he even know who Richelette does him is. You can't put that excuse out there. Unfortunately. Not for this one.

But, yeah, no Tolkien. No, no Caleb Wiley. Yeah, it's It's an MLS quota paloosa out there right now I don't necessarily know what's going on, man

Alex Freeman. Shout out to Alex Freeman. He'd be a nice, exciting, young, full-back prospect. Yeah. I haven't watched enough of him to be anything but extremely excited about him. I mean, I can't not wait. I hope he plays.

Because it's not common lately to be really interested in seeing a player who's going to be there. That's true. And there are a number that I'm interested in. Now, there's a World Cup in a year that we're hosting, sure. So it's better if we were a better soccer team. Yeah. Right. But that's okay. We're not.

I do want to, I don't know if I've done this on the podcast since the interview or not, but I do want to invoke the words of John Polis, the former press secretary that we interviewed a couple weeks ago. And he was just, he just said, do not, you cannot fret about a World Cup that's 12 months away. It is a single moment. It's a moment. It's a collection of players and like a finite thing that you can't really, you can't really prepare for it. It's just it either happens or it doesn't.

And that made a lot of sense to me when he said that. And it's kind of cold comfort, but it's somewhat comforting to me now. This is why parts of that oppressor are so confusing because Potch basically said the same thing too. It was like, well, one of the first questions was like, okay, a lot of dudes aren't here. Are you worried about this? And all of a sudden, Mauricio Pachino, Mr. Tucci, Mr. Tucci, I got to touch, I got to feel the player, I got to see him, I got to lay eyes on him,

I got to, you know, bless him with my Pachitino-ness. All of a sudden, he's like, ah, it don't matter. Yeah, he's all over the place. His words mean nothing. He's like, oh, they could be here, they could not. All that matters is what you do in the time that you're with them,

etc, etc., etc. I don't know. Look, man, impotry trust. Like you said, Bells, And to your point, too, Waki, you know, we got, we got enough excitement and a potential 11 to where we'll be fine. We'll be totally fine. Should be fine in this tournament. So, it just is what it is.

There's a lot of strikers for none of them to be Josh Sargent. Yeah. Josh Sargent got slapped upside the head. by Potch here. I mean, he got, he just got annihilated. When you think about the players that he kind of,

he kind of avoided saying it was a sporting decision, like we really did not get a solid answer on like Tanna Testament, even though he was asked like three times. He didn't like address it directly. Josh Sargent, he was like, no, no. Cut it a gym. He failed. We need a different striker.

Which, me thinking about it, I guess it kind of makes sense because once again, me and Bells went through, took a fine tooth comb to that Panama match and what was going on in it. And as I noted, I want to say at the end of the first half, I can't say necessarily that it was true going through the whole match. through the end of the first half, Josh Sargent hadn't checked to the ball once. Okay? We're talking about Josh Sargent here. Unable to use one of his greatest attributes on a soccer pitch. So, I mean, I guess that does lend to the fact that, hey,

Pocitino does, he is looking for a different type of strike. Because if your striker's not going to, he's not going to check to the ball in a match where you have, you know, 75, 80% possession or whatever. then it's just not going to happen. So, see you later. The idea was that it was probably, his instructions were not to check to the ball,

were to not check to the ball, but I don't know, yeah. You know, he was asked, Potch was asked, is there some kind of like collective philosophy behind the calling up of all these MLS players and the leaving home of all these European players? and he gave a long rambling answer.

I'm not going to play the whole thing. But he did say one thing towards the end of the answer that I think has gotten a lot of traction and I'm going to play it right now. If you arrive to the camp and you want to spend nice time, play golf, go for a dinner, visit my family, visit my friend, that is the culture that we want to create.

No, no, no, no, no. See? And when I heard, heard this quote, that's what tip me off to Tyler Adams being behind some of the, some of the exclusions here. Because how's he getting all this information? Yeah. Who plays, who likes to plague off and see his family more than Christian Pulisic?

You know? It's a shot across the Pulisic clique there. They love socializing. I actually don't know that. That does seem to be a tantal. They probably like seeing their families, though. Yeah, don't we all? Don't we all?

Does that mean there's a rule against all those things now? I mean, because he also mentioned at some point, we need players that are going to come in and follow, you know, bring the intensity, perform, and follow the rules. I think there may be a new rules regime coming in. Yeah.

I don't know, man. If the wrong people get a hold of this quote, they're going to start saying these races against white people, man. Because, I mean, we talk about, when you throw golf, family faith into, come on family family's a white thing i wish he had said yeah faith too it just golf it's just it's kind of one of those things where it's like you take where you where you can throw one thing into the pot and then all of a sudden it turns the pot a different color when you you take you take

family whatever else pot just talking about then you throw golf on top of it then you realize we're really talking about a specific few fair skin folks which I think we can throw I think we can throw ten of testament testament in there he seems like a he seems like a person that would really be he's awesome at golf actually he is maybe the best swing on the team okay okay you can see that just from the just from looking at him right and then also he seems like somebody that would be obnoxiously just with his family he seems very much like a homebody

um yeah yeah Potch doesn't want anything to do with Davoswini he does not want Davoswini around probably Josh Sargent right he's a big he a golfer I think they're all golfers I think they all

another family man all of the whites yeah I think we all know something man and who was on that who was on that golf course with uh Brendan Aronson in the in the golf cart

barking at the beginning of that one behind the crest who wasn't it? No, it was Tyler Adams

it was Tyler Adams and Brendan Anderson Oh, that's right In that cart barking Only melanin they could be seen for many miles And so you wonder

Who has the tips on who's golfing who's me with the family and all circling back around and I think it's pretty obvious what's going on here What's not? It's not.

It's not at all obvious. Let me, Chris is going to cringe through the whole of this, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to read the roster that was released. It's Matt Freeze, Patrick Schulte, Zach Stephan and Matt Turner, and goal. The defenders are Max Arfston of the Columbus crew.

Sergenio Dest, Alex Freeman, aforementioned, Dewan Jones, Mark McKenzie, Tim Ream, Chris Richards, and Miles Robinson. The midfielders are Brins. Brendan Aronson, Tyler Adams, Sebastian Burrhalter, Johnny Cardoso, Luca Deloere, Diego Luna, Jack McGlynn, Quinn, Quinn, Quinn, Malik Tillman, and Sean Zawatsky. One cap for him already. And then the forwards are Patrick Ajamong. Two goals this weekend.

Fuller and Balligan, Damian Downs, Brian White, and Haji Wright. Who? Oh. Is Haji our winger? Yes. for me for sure I know for Vince too that's the good news it was trying to figure out I was trying to figure out today if um Hajie ever plays right wing he doesn't does he basically only plays striker and left wing yeah like currently I'm trying to think if if he did it if he's done it yeah recently I can't remember seeing him on the right wing

In the past two seasons, how's your head's got to let us know? So we need a right wing who can tuck in and a right back who gets forward. So it's got to be Dest at right back, I think. And then maybe Diego Luna at right wing. I mean, we don't have any wingers on the whole freaking roster. I mean, once again, man.

Hey, you know what I'm thinking? 4-4-2. The purest in me, screaming it. That's how we kind of listed this roster out, you know? Especially with Quinn Sullivan being a midfielder. Mm-hmm. Et cetera.

Quinn scored a really nice goal this weekend, too. Yeah, that right foot, man. I mean, MLS, Don Garber must be just toasting somebody right now. What a great weekend for him. Yeah. It is I mean You know

First of all Let me shout out Luca Delatori For being back Okay Um Shouts out to him He holds a

I feel like he holds a A particular spot In the Monday review Lower I mean that was like That was like the first pet project Of this At this show was

Was Luca Deletori At Heracles Heracles, man. Getting to it. And then obviously, Sultivigo, now he finds itself back at home in San Diego doing this thing, which they're playing some beautiful, beautiful ball. Mikey got him coached up.

Did you all see the fans fighting in the stands this weekend? No. San Diego FC and Galaxy. Huge fights. Huge fights in the stands. Awesome. Nobody got hurt too bad, did they? I said awesome, and then immediately I was like, wait a second.

No, I think it was good to cover our bases there. I agree. It's all I love any fight that happens. Yeah. Yeah. But we just need to cover ourselves just as a case someone did, and then we need to be kind of somber about it. The fights were large enough and uncontrolled enough that I really can't put anything past it.

I mean, them things were going on. Like the year like it was they were really they were really scrapping up there and I'm saying like you know what I'm saying there was no there was no security to be seen as far as I could tell anybody getting in between the two factions to try and break this thing up now they was it was going at it so I would assume that there was some you know some facial fractures or whatnot was it kind of like a Dodgers Padres kind of situation a little bit um Yeah. Okay. So let's go through the omissions because just to sort of cover our bases here, obviously Christian Pulisic, he's going to rest. Chris, you're happy about that. I'm in favor of it.

It's true, they play a lot of games. Yeah. So if they need to rest, go ahead. And more importantly, so he can get his personality out of the way. I've been getting angry and anger about how boring he is and how much of a drag that is, on the community, particularly the content community. Right, particularly us. Unbelievable.

Yeah. Well, Carlisle reports he's been dealing with, you know, not only a chronic boringness problem, but a chronic hip flexor issue since March. On Football America's, Herk said he asked Milan to rest him, and they obviously didn't. Anyway, he's not going to be there. Now there's talk of injections. Right. But they threw that in later after the boot.

So, I mean, I believe it. I mean, he started the game over the weekend. People upset about that. Which Milan 1-20, I believe. Jedi also not going to be there. Same situation. He's just going to rest. He's been dealing with some issues.

He did also start over the weekend. We got hit with rumors of surgery with him. Okay. Wes and Tim both playing in the Club World Cup. Eunice is not going to join the camp. He has personal reasons. Potch said it's not his place to talk about that. It's for the player to explain if he wants to.

Giorana. I mean, he's his club as a Club World Cup. I don't know if he would have been called up anyway. You know, it doesn't, it seems like maybe not. What's your guys' sense of that? I have no sense. I mean, this would have been the first time to assess how Pajel about him, you know, you got to see him, feel him, touch him, whatever.

And now this would have been the opportunity to see what's going on in Paj's head, but, you know, we didn't have that opportunity. Rumor linking him to a move to Brazil. Yeah. I read today. Lamingo. I'd love to see it. I could see that going terribly, but I would also love to see it.

Yeah. I mean, right there you have with Christian Jedi, West, Tim, Eunice, and Gio, arguably six of our best players, you know, six of our top 11 players. And then Josh Sargent left off for sporting reasons. This was clear. It was a football reason. and we're going with Brian White, Pat Ajamong, and Damien Downs. John Tolkien also left off for sporting reasons, even though we don't really have a left back on the roster.

Richel Ledesma, I don't know that he even bore mentioning from Potch, but you've got to imagine it's sporting reasons. No need for a test when you got Max Arfston, waiting in the wings. And then Ricardo Pepe, he's injured, obviously. injured we we we played a clip from him last last week his his body is injured his spirit is very much ascendant and alive he's doing good um and once again i'm going throw caleb wiley on this list thank you even though even though bells don't rate him yeah no he should be on the list for sure

thank you uh also you know what there's some more people on the throw this list just because of the Inclusion of Sean Zawadsky. Notable omissions also include John Luca Busio, Adam Morris, Tanner Testament. Tanter Testament. I'm going to thought I didn't. You can't convince me. Sean Zawoski is better than any of those three.

John Luca has a muscle strain now anyway. Missed this. Wasn't even on the bench for Venetzius, do or die, against Juventus, which they lost. They have been relegated. Yvese won. They are in the Champions League.

But, yeah. Did Wes and Tim get on the field for them in that game? West did. In like the 70th minute, I want to say. I'm not sure if Tim did or not. All right. Well, he said it's important to create competition. Potch did.

And he did mention something that caught my ear. which is that Matt Crocker keeps a list of 100 players. Of course, with the sporting director, with Matt Crocker, and all the people that is in the Federation that was working and we were assessing more than 100 players to make the list was so difficult, 60 players, and then now to go with 26, I see it was so, so difficult in the moment to make the election, no?

And I think we were so hard putting all the circumstances and the situations to create the best roster. I just think, you know, I wonder what the format is of that list, like how that's organized. You know, we all have our own lists. But something oddly reassuring about Matt Crocker keeping a list of 100 players. Of course it does.

I would be very confused if he was not keeping a list of 100 players. Yeah, I know, but sometimes you wonder, you know. Can we get that list real from a, do a four-year-old? request. Adam Bell's I'm afraid I'm afraid the nonprofit of the U.S.

The U.S. Soccer Federation is not governed by Freedom of Information Act. Should it be? Yeah. I definitely should be. We don't do enough legal work to try to get at

soccer information. We should have lawyers suing the Federation. We should. It'd be really cost effective to do that, I think. Well, there's lawyers listening. They love doing free work.

Pro bono work? Yeah. Yeah. Hey, if you're a lawyer and you want to do some pro bono work, you know, bird dog in the Federation for us. ScuffPod at gmail.com. Just to be clear, the Federation, we are threatening lawsuits. We don't know what they are yet. We got, we're feeling off.

They're coming down the line. Yeah. He also said that we need to, you know, send a signal to fans. But what the signal is wasn't really that clear. They show up that the player's going to show up and fight for the flag. He's had the flag. Normally you say the crest, but it's the same. Yeah.

It's the same thing. It is true. We do want that. Yeah. That would be kind of what we do want to see happen. Yeah, they haven't really, doesn't really feel like they've been doing it that much. We do want it. And then, you know, Greg Burrhalter, he weighed in via Alex Calabresi, a friend of the pod.

Got a quote from him. And it's this. We learned our lesson from Copa America with the training camp potentially being too lax. I know what they're trying to achieve in this gold cup, and it's all business. Pachitino is setting the standards and expectations from the beginning. Oh, you know what? He must have seen the new rules that were sent out. They were emailed to Seb.

Oh, yeah. He says, oh, no golf. I've been trying to get them to stop playing golf. Years. Yeah, no family. No family either. It's good. What Greg is all about that.

He's like, yeah. I don't got time to go see Seb anyway, man. Yeah. I mean, Burles are housed them all the family. weren't the family really close to the players at the World Cup? I guess there was some stuff that did have a family. I think there was a lot of family. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, family. I'm not talking about his capacity as a national team coach. I'm talking about him right now as Chicago Fire coach. I see, yeah. He's busy. I like this quote a lot, and it does kind of raise the point again that Berlter's a real, been a real gentleman,

after all, after his firing, it feels like. And he just wants the U.S. M&D to succeed, you know? That's why he's my goat. He's handled it well, the whole thing. I mean, ever since the conference in New York City, mistakes were made. He handled that well, too, bro. I mean, the mistake wasn't his mistake.

He was under the assumption. I mean, we don't got to go back to risk again. We don't got to go back to it. Yeah. He thought it was Chatham House rules. And it was Chattermouse rules. You took a big risk, though, there. I think we won't go back into it right now,

but that was his mistake saying that, even though, yes, of course we all know Chattinghouse rules. Everybody knows Chattermouse rules. Downside is too high there. He didn't even say, there takes one person not knowing what the rules are. He didn't even say a man's name. I know, but.

The people hopped on it can and confirmed this was G. R. It was the biggest sporting event in the world. Man. People watched that. They're familiar with the... What a time. What a time.

Still haven't recovered. Still have not recovered from that scandal. Yeah. Yeah, it was a... It felt... It was really fun at the time. But if we had known that it would result in this extended malaise... I don't know.

I don't know. Maybe the Malays was coming anyway. Could have been. Yeah, I was about to say, I don't think. And I think maybe we are healed. We are coming out of it now with Seb now coming into the team and becoming, if not a starter, then a Locke. That's my prediction this summer. Really? Yeah.

I'm not going to guarantee it like I have with Malik, having the man of the tournament. But. Yeah. I'm really ready to take these couple months he's played in an MOS and project them as far as need be. If you want to make sure we don't get out of this, that haven't said become a lock on the roster and potentially being on the same roster as G. Arena in September or whatever. Well, that'll be a very interesting storyline. Apparently, they don't talk anymore.

Exactly. See, this is our best story, though, for audience interest perspective, historically. So we need that to happen. We need him and Gio. We need Gio to go to Brazil, play great, get into the next camp, and have kind of an awkward, tense relationship with Sebastian in the public eye. One of those two-man press conference. Yeah.

In the midweek. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Match day minus one. I'm never felt better about this national team than I do right now. There's stuff coming. down the line here. Yeah. We should be excited.

Shazawazki. You know, that's one thing I've learned as an adult is that sometimes things just, relationships just break. I don't know, maybe if you talked to me like 10 years ago, I would say you can always say you're sorry and come back, you know, and say and heal the relationship and it can go back to normal. I would have thought that like 10 years ago. Not anymore.

Sometimes it doesn't Sometimes there's just no way to go forward This is why you didn't go to sanctuary A second night, huh? That's not why I didn't go to sanctuary It was just broken for you Understood No, I was hurting man

I was crying back at the apartment Wishing I could be there Well I think this is a case where the The relationship can be unbroken But there's going to be attention to it It's going to be very difficult And that's going to make it exciting for the viewer.

You would hope so. I don't know, man. Especially, it's going to be different than like, you know, Greg having the mediation man stick very close to him in case he ever had to say a word to Gio during camp. You know, I mean, we got, in this situation, we got Seb, Gio, same position group, you know. I mean, you would hope they'd be able to get through something like that.

Maybe Tyler Adams can mediate for him. Or maybe there just wasn't a reason for them to talk. Like, why would you, you know, reach out to, you know, maybe they just need some time. There is a reason for them to talk. We're going to find out. Yeah. What's there to say? What's there for Sebastian to say?

I mean, if I were Gio, I would say, I'm sorry about the way my mom behaved, but, you know. Yeah, it really ain't another person to say. Maybe that's part of it. He hasn't, and maybe if Gio had reached out, maybe we can, obviously, we're not, we don't have contact with any of these people, but maybe we can, from a, far mediated. Maybe if Gio hasn't apologized and he just needs to do that. Dan, why do you do this? Well, I want to correct myself. It's not, I made it seem like it's all Daniel Rayan's fault. No, Claudia was just as complicit.

Geo could say, I'm sorry with the way my parents acted. It's not just his mom. Um, I mean, you could also, all the report. You know, we don't, we don't, Geo can make a call on exactly what he's something like that though. I think that would be great. Yeah. Let's talk about 11s and then get out of here, I think. I think

we'll get plenty of Luna and Tillman and Balagan in the attack. I know there's some Dutch bros skeptics around here who don't believe in Diego Diego. But I think Greg is one too.

Actually, Greg Velasquez. He doesn't really believe Diego. Never said I don't believe in Diego, by the way. Okay. I just want to make that clear. Okay. All right. I didn't mean to, you know, misrepresent what you said.

But anyway, I'm excited. I may have been critical of him. I can't remember. I didn't like that he was working at the coffee shop. You didn't like that? No. Too distracting. Yeah.

Yeah. He was, because he doesn't need to do that. He was doing it to improve his social skills. Not necessary. I think it was I don't maybe that was probably cut out of the podcast because I did about 30 minutes rant on that but I don't remember yeah it's very unhappy but I think he's a good player and I'm looking forward to him he's gonna here's another guy who's going to take that lead creative position sees it lock everyone else out of the team he should cook he should and it feels like Luna and Tillman will enjoy playing together they're both

they're both kind of true soccer players, you know, with ideas and good passes and ball security and good dribblers. Right on the left wing? All I want to say is don't let Malik stick it up one more time in this tournament. Because like Waki said, his legacy's on the line. And Bells, you being very flowery in your pros, he has shown well for PSV. but I'm just cautious

He's been amazing for PSV He's the best player in the Netherlands Which I get it's not That's strong of the league but Yeah but he's been good for PSV The whole time he's been bad for the U.S. That's true much That's right

That's true That's why he needs to follow Captain Chris Captain Richards Let me see his think I get Saudi Arabia I'm gonna turn it up What'd you say about Saudi Arabia? I said, don't let there be a stinker against Saudi Arabia. That's all I'm saying.

And to be clear, I'm rooting for Malik to play well. We need a good Malik, especially considering, you know. We need it real bad. Especially considering the fact that G.O. As we knew him, is no longer with us. Not yet. He's going to be completely healthy in the fall. Understood.

Inexplicably. Yeah. I'm sort of more coming around to the like he's no longer with us point of view. I don't, we don't need to argue about it, but... Are we making 11 right now? Is that what's happening? Yeah, kind of. So I guess I want to see, I don't care who the goalkeeper is.

I think Dest at right back, Jones at left back, Richards and McKenzie at centerback. This is me. Tyler Adams, Johnny Cardoso, and either Luna or Tateau. Tillman as the other midfielder, and then either Luna or Tillman has the right wing. I just don't, I don't care which one it is in which spot. I think I prefer Luna at the right wing, Tillman in the midfield, and then balligan at striker, how'd you right at left wing?

That's a fun roster. That's a fun 11. That could be very good. Problem is we're going to get a Brian White start, and we're going to get, I mean, who knows what's going to happen? It's like we have no, there is no way to predict. what Potch is going to do here. Yeah, I'll tell you this.

If we do start this lineup, they will come out and start saying that Potch is racist against white people, number one. And then... Who cares if they say that? I don't care if anybody says that. Adam, no one's going to say that. Okay. But number two, my serious observation here is the fact that Jedi being out,

allows Potch to not address what he's going to do if he has Jedi and Serge available because I think right now he can just plug him into that left back roll and allow Serge to do surge things whereas whoever he puts in that little right back spot will probably be assuming that you know I mean I guess we can the Joe Scali roll or you know You know, we had Miles Robinson play there in January camp or whatever that right back. I think Matt Doyle caught her an elbow back.

That little player that doesn't get, you know, it's just there for defensive cover. Stay at home. It doesn't do too much. Keeps it simple. So, yeah. So you think Desk is going to play left back? I think so. And if Potch continues with what he's been doing and he's not being forced to really make any changes.

we don't have Jeddah. I'm going to go back and agree with something you said really early in the show, Chris, which is how big of a deal it is to have Desback. It is a big deal. He is just, I mean, almost incalculably important for this team. And so that'll be good to have him back. Goalkeeper. You've avoided naming a goalkeeper.

I mean. Sounded from the press conference, like Turner is still a starter. Mm-hmm. It was possible Potch would decide, no, he's out. You got to pick the widest man possible to offset the rest of the scene. So I think that's- Turner. I think I think it's, actually, I don't even know if Turner's the widest goalkeeper we have.

It might be- Former baseball player, I don't know, man. They're all kind of similar. Shulte got hurt this weekend. I don't know anything about Matt Fries. I can't lie to y'all. Matt Fries can walk white by me right now. I would have no clue.

I know something because Matt Doyle said it to me once, but I actually forgot what it was. Matt, something either that he was good or... Doyle's a big Matt Freeze guy. I can't remember what's good about it. I think he's the best shot stopper. Shotstopper.

That's what it was. Statistically, which, you know, your mileage may vary there on goalkeeper statistics. And then he also plays for a team that does try to pass out of the back. He's not the best at it, but he's not terrible. And he does play. That's another part of it.

Matt Turner was standing in the wrong part of the goal last time. Man. Yeah. Come on, man. He should not have given that goal up. He should not him giving that goal up. Yeah, you know what? Get Matt out of you.

We just need him to play. You know, keep him, but he has to promise to go somewhere. else next year where he's going to play. These players don't seem to have as much control over that as we sometimes assume they would. Where they go, where they play. Yeah, there's always a money issue and all that. But we really need him to do that. He was huge.

I tall is Matt Freeze, man. Oh, 6-3? Okay, he looks taller in that. Went to Harvard? Okay, very white. Let's get him in the lineup. He went to Harvard? I didn't try that.

Harvard is very white? He's a white man. They went to Harvard. Oh, white people went to Harvard. So that's my, you know, that's my 11. Do you guys have any, any strong feelings? From Wayne. You don't have to each given 11.

Oh, his older brother Jack rode heavyweight crew. So we're talking, you know, cream of wheat. Yeah, yeah. Wasp. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Getting a job at Golden Sacks right out at,

college. I'm sorry. I just had to get to the bottom of this. Okay. You guys have any, any, you know, corrections or suggestions to my 11? Anything you want to see that I didn't lay out? It doesn't have to, just one, just one or two things. It's fine.

Well, I want to see a 4-4-2. Okay. But I don't know enough about the tactics of it to, you know, describe what that would be like. That's Quinn Sullivan's music, balligan and right up top. Yeah. We'd have to get You think Malik would do that

You think Malik would do that role? The second striker one? No, no, no, the wide midfielder. Yeah, yeah. That's tough. That's going to be tough for some folks. I mean, honestly, the team should be built around Malik Tillman for this camp.

Yeah, it should. Diego Luna. Who do you think it should be built? Diego Luna. We got so many midfielers. Maybe he's going to do one of those diamonds. things. Maybe, yeah.

Then you have no real, no wingers, no real um, nothing. We got it. It's just all right. We got dest. Yeah.

Get that diamond in and just have desk dribble. Hey man, Turkey and Switzerland ain't going to know what hit them. I'm looking forward to the games. I mean, if only just to like, kind of have my curiosity satisfied about what we're going to look like.

We will be there. Well, one of these matches? Switzerland? Nashville? All three of us in Nashville for the Switzerland game. We may record something from the parking lot. You get a keg out of those? I'll get a keg, yeah, sure. Why not?

Thank you. Do we want to go through the weekend action? I mean, I don't really want to. No. Richards and Crystal Palace tied Liverpool. 1-1. So, you know, Richard ends the season on a, if not a high note, at least a medium note. And, yeah, Luna got a golden assist over the weekend. Brian White scored two, I believe, in a comeback win at Salt Lake for Vancouver.

Ajumang scored a brace. Sullivan, like I said, scored a nice goal. And Brian Gutierrez got another red card. It's kind of funny. Kind of a weak little elbow to the face. Like, what was that about? That's, he gets weak red cards. Something he does.

It was a stupid, stupid, stupid red card. Like, that didn't, he didn't even hurt the guy. You know? Hurt, hurt him if you're going to do it. Yeah, hurt him, like, do it hard. Do it with your chest. Yeah. He's not there yet.

It's the next part of his development. It's coming. Yeah, yeah. And then the only other thing I want to mention is Tom Boggart reports that Richie has received his Mexican passport. And he's also set to sign with Chivas, which would augur for him to play for the Mexican national team. Especially after this egregious omission. Is Chivas a team? You got a...

You need to be a Mexican? Is that one of course? It used to be, I think it may not be anymore. Right, right, right. I should know that, but I don't know for sure. Team K. He plays for? Unless I've heard that name, K. Kell.

Yeah, wherever it happened to him. Focketto. Yeah, well, happy Memorial Day, everybody. That's right. Make sure you remember the reason for the season. Yeah. They take Memorial Day pretty seriously down here. I bet they do.

Down here in the tail end of Appalachia. Are there fireworks? No fireworks, but a lot of flags. Somba grillo. On roads going in or out of time. Lots of somber grilling. Some well done hamburgers. All right, all right, all right.

Hey, thanks everybody for listening. Do enjoy your week. Have a great summer. We'll talk to you soon. We'll see you.