Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #613: Monday Review — Eintracht Frankfurt in Louisville, pro-rel realizations, full preseason update

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

Vince and Belz recap the news from the weekend. That includes Eintracht Frankfurt's friendly in Louisville, where Vince watched Pax and interrogated Dino Topmuller, plus the upcoming USL League Two final, Sargent's decision to spurn Wolfsburg, Parma's ongoing negotiation for Gio, and much more.And Clip Notes are back: https://www.patreon.com/posts/clip-notes-july-135172956 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. It's just going to be Vince and me today. Vince, how are you? I'm doing great, Adam Bell's summer. It's coming to a close, not the actual season of summer. Of course, I don't want y'all nerds coming from me. But, you know, around here, like my wife is back at work today.

The school starts in a week or two. I had a great weekend at the beach this past week, Adam Bell. And so to top off everything I was feeling good about last week, you know, and then I get to go on the beach and chill for a little bit, float in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm doing great. How are you? How are you, Bells?

I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. School starts August 7th here. And that's when, you know, it's go time in my life. Get all those kids, get all the kids off to school at 8 in the morning. And, man, you have to just like a runway in front of you of, time to get stuff done. So I'm looking forward to that.

It's been, summer's been great, but all good things must come to an end. Yeah. Let's start with some boots on the ground in Louisville. Because you took in an Intraq Frankfurt friendly and had a chat with their coach, Dino. Topmula. I'm going to try to get my German pronunciation right today.

First of all, how did Paxton play? First of all, family vacations are exhausting, particularly this one at the beach for whatever reason because it just made my two-year-old very Henri just being in the sun. But anyway, so I didn't know I was going to feel. I was like, I don't even know if I'm going to go to this match because Frankfurt is playing two matches in Louisville. They play Louisville City tomorrow as well.

But this was Antrach Frankfurt versus Aston Villa on Saturday. Premier League Club, Bundesliga Club in Louisville, Kentucky. Something that is just unbelievable to, like, wrap your head around. Around Friday night, I hit my boy up at the works for Lou City. I was like, how I go back getting a credential? He's like, hey, email this dude. I'm like, all right. So shout out to Turner, by the way.

The whole reason I know Turner is because he was a listener to it. He's a listening to this podcast. And then we've- Shout out Turner. Yeah. Hit the dude up. Jonathan Liddner. Couldn't have been nicer. Got me the credential.

I'm in there. And this is all before I know that Paxon Harrison is going to start this match. You know, it's very much up in the air what Paxon's position is with, with Frankfurt, right? There's been good signs coming out. Like, their sporting director has always been kind of like, I don't want to say effusive, but you know, it praised something like, yeah, we fully believe that this preseason that he can compete for a spot on squad.

So anyway, here we are in this preseason. And Paxon Aronson is getting a start against the strong Aston Villa lineup, Yuri Tilements, Tyrone Mings, Maddie Cash, Ali Watkins, all on the pitch. And Frankfurt, the guys around Paxon Aronson It seems like they put out there pretty close to an A squad.

You know, they got their new striker sign at Eliy out there. Rasmus Christensen. I don't know if everybody remembers them from Leeds. Yeah. Captains aside now. It is a little hard to keep all the Rasmuses straight because it seems like there's a few of them. So strong Frankfurt lineup, strong Villa lineup with Paxson and Aronson in it. It can only be good signs.

So anyway, the game kicks off. He's basically like occupying the right half space. Frankfurt in possession usually employed like a 3-25. And so he was like that right half-space player with, you know, their right wingback was bombing forward, which there was no Nathaniel Brown. So they inverted, like Nathaniel Brown, the left back, U.S. eligible left back would be bombing down the left-hand side. But he was not in the squad at all for this match. So they inverted it, had their right fullback bombing up and down. Pax had the freedom to like pop up in multiple places

and be available when the ball, I mean, I mean, available to get the ball. And I think in possession, he was iffy. And mostly iffy because I just don't think he knew how to uncover himself and find space to receive the ball, at least not as quickly as like it needed to happen. To find space within Aston Villa's like 442 shape. to be in the spot at the time when the Frankfurt player with the ball needed him to be there. It was like multiple times where it's just like he's just a beat behind, like a full second behind.

Like, hey, bro, the space is here. You needed to be there a full second to go. Bro, is he's, the man has, the man who should be passing the ball, has had the ball, has had his internal clock go off. And you're not there to receive a pass. So, you know, that pass going backward. but and it wasn't just him like on track as a whole in possession look very discombobulated and but i do think this is like a trend though because you know you remember those you remember those games that paxton played with frankford in that in that little half season before he went

on that load to vatese right where he was just kind of floating around out there aimlessly yeah yeah not making not making too much impact on it on on on the match or whatever it It was kind of like that. That's the main thing that we need to see improve, but... The point is it could improve quickly, as could everything else, if he manages to carve out a place for himself with Frankfurt. Yeah, and get more playing time, right? I assume this is just like a familiarity thing.

He needs, you know, my football coaches used to say, like, you know, live action. And for live action, their little euphemism will be when the bullets are flying. You know, things are different when the bullets are flying, huh? Yeah. Yeah, and so I think Pax needs more bullets flying, reps.

And hopefully it'll turn around. This is not to say that he was like completely ass. I think he was okay. He made some big plays defensively, picked off some passes. He big brother Yuri Tealiman's one time. came away with the ball, let an attack down the pitch. He got the ball in advanced positions in transition situations a few times, made the right decision maybe once out of four, something like that.

But yeah, so that's what I thought watching the match. And then I get to go down on the pitch. Talk to Dino Tabmula. sat around, listened to him talking German for about five minutes. And then I get to ask my question. So I'm like, yo, Paxson played a little bit defensively for Utrecht last season. Playing an attacking role tonight. He was like, I was basically like, how do you see him?

Is that the position you see him in and how you think he played? And he said, Paxon, the midfielder needs to be in the center of the pitch. Whether it's the six, eight of the ten, it doesn't matter too much. That's where he needs to be. And then he said defensively in today's match, he has some good ball wins. And offensively, he needs, it's almost like he was talking about Brendan. He was like, he's just, he needs to be a little bit calmer with the ball. Yeah.

But to cap it off, he said all in all, he was pretty pleased with his effort in the match. So, and then, oh, last question, I followed it up. I was like, okay, so do you, is he someone that you see in the squad? for this upcoming season? Or do you need more time to assess that? And then he kind of like, he kind of ducked the question, right? He said, everybody out here's in the squad. Right.

He said if, which is, which could not be farther from the truth. I don't, I don't think. Yeah, he kind of avoided that one. And just sitting there looking at them, I think there's work for Pax to do. It was work for Pax to do. Just reading his facial expression in the video. Yeah. That's what, that's the read I had too.

Yeah. I do kind of wish I would have asked him, like, you know, him getting the start. What does that mean? Like, how did he get the start? You know, does that, can we look into that as in like, hey, he's been performing so well in training, blah, blah, or is this just, it's preseason? I didn't have this dude around me last year. And in this America trip, we're playing Aston Villa, Louisville, City, and Philadelphia Union.

and so, you know, Astonville is very different from Philadelphia Union and Louisville City. So let me see what I got here. So you can take it either way. I don't know. He might have said, if you asked him, why did Paxson get to start? He said, what do you want us to do? We want to be able to leave the country when this is over. Yeah.

But Nathaniel Brown, not in the squad, but he is there, right? So you're going to give him the bum's rush on Tuesday? Yeah, I've, you know, I'm a person that likes to scope out the situation before I assert myself. You got to understand, ladies and gentlemen, I walk through this world as a large black man. You got to kind of have some cooth about yourself because you risk alarming people. and look it's just a reality of situation because like he's not even on the squad right

so I don't even know if he's going to be like on the bench if he is you know up in the box or somebody like watching like hanging with the analyst whatever and so I don't know what's going on so I walk onto the field I do see him he's hanging out with uh I don't know another teammate

has a phone and it has a camera and it has a camera in it GoPro camera I think kind of like recording the situation out on the field after the match. And yeah, so if he's in that same position on Tuesday, or even a slightly different position, but on the field at least, I'm rushing up to him, I'm asking him, what he's thinking about, what he's thinking about his international future,

right, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, I scoped it all properly. Tuesday is showtime, baby. Hopefully you can get a scoop from him. Because I don't know, has anybody talked to him? Maybe, I bet Brian Shoretta has at some point. He's talked to everybody, but maybe not. Yeah, that would be the number one candidate, huh?

But I'm hoping to get that on Tuesday. And then just, let me shout out Frankfurt one time. Apparently, they really love it here. I asked Turner, as a matter of fact, if he had any insight to how these things come about. and number one, apparently, Bundesliga is looking to really increase our popularity in the United States. Yeah. And they saw Louisville as a market without a top division soccer team in the United States. So we're ripe for the plucking, I guess, to where we have a soccer population.

It was into it, but we need, they can, they see us as. potential Bundesliga, on track frame for fans, or whatever. And then also, once they got here, they saw that, hey, we actually have really nice facilities as far as, like, training pitches, our training center, and all that stuff. They were, like, they were really taken aback by it and impressed by it to the point to where, allegedly, apparently, they've told, like, everyone they can in Europe about what we got going on in Louisville. I know we talked about this before.

Louisville has been designated as like a home base for a World Cup team. So somebody from one World Cup team is going to be staying and training in Louisville. My boy thinks it might just be the Germans. And then also allegedly, work got around to PSG and PSG was going to train here for the Club World Cup, but they got drawn into a West Coast group. Well, once again, incredible, mind-blowing. that, you know, through, you know, I got a small part to play in it. Through supportive soccer in this city, like we get these types of opportunities.

Like, once again, a primary league club, an abundance league club, playing a friendly in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a great turnout, almost 12,000 people, which, you know. The stadium holds, what, like 15? Yeah, 15. And, like, if it's getting 15, then there's, like, a significant standard room only thing. Let me just say, you know, it just reminded me that I learned from somebody in Nashville that Auckland FC was doing their training camp at Baylor, which is a prep school in Chattanooga. Famous, somewhat famous, I think.

They have a big rivalry with a school called McCauley. And apparently Baylor's facilities are so nice that one of the Club World Cup teams, albeit a team that, you know, got boat raced from start to finish, put their, put their training camp there. And my son spent the weekend in Iowa with his grandma and then they brought him back and she was texting me on the plane

from Charlotte to Chattanooga saying Charlotte, we're on a plane with Charlotte FC. We're on playing with Charlotte FC. I was like, I looked it up oh, Crown Legacy was going to play Chattanooga FC on Friday night. So this was last week. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay.

That's sir, next pro. Yeah, that's right. So I was in the baggage claim. surrounded by Crown Legacy players and I looked up their last game looked like I noticed that Burkimos got a you know, Nympha, Burkimos

I mean somewhat I think people have cooled on him. You should have went to the match man. Yeah, well he got a red card in the last game so I went up to the nearest person I was like, is Nympha here? And they're like, he's like, no. I said, oh, he got a red card in the last game. And he's like, yeah, that's right.

And I didn't know any of the other players, you know. Of course not. So that was the end of that. But, you know, speaking of lower divisions, USL League 2, I thought this was kind of fun to see. USL League 2. So what would that be the fourth division of American soccer? Is about to have its final set for this Saturday between Vermont Green FC and Ballard

FC, which is in the Seattle area. And, you know, some people have been tweeting about this. Vermont Green's atmosphere is really something. Like their semifinal game against a team from Dothan, Alabama, was really good. And they won in penalty kicks. And then Ballard had its standing room only for their semifinal, which is at a stadium just north of Seattle, both at college soccer stadiums. And then so Ballard beat the Flint City Buc.

last night, two to one. And the League two format is a big bracket with you got, they got 144 teams in the league. It's crazy. 144. So they have divided into four conferences, Western, Central, Eastern, and Southern. And then each conference is divided into divisions. I was about the same.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Keep going. Apparently all the division winners automatically qualify for the 32 team playoff and then you got a few at large bids for good second place finishers. And just to wrap this all up, the final will be at Virtue Field, way up in Burlington, Vermont, about a mile from the shore of Lake Champlain.

The place I would like to visit. I've never been there. The game is at 7 p.m. Eastern Time Saturday. I think you can watch it on YouTube. You can definitely watch it on the Sport Engine play platform. So something kind of cool that's going on. Soccer didn't look too bad. Shout out lead too, man.

But yeah, I think it was like, I know the Vermont game, it was like 2,000 people, 2,500 people. Is that what it was? Something like that. Yeah, I think that's, it might be all the venue can hold, I want to say. But yeah, it looked rowdy, looked packed. I mean, you know, I think these are two of the better brands in American soccer. Vermont Green has kind of knocked it out the park since they started, you know,

kids and all that type. stuff Ballard F.C. As well. And, you know, when you see these videos matriculating on social media, right, it gets it started. What is it? I'm talking about the pro rail discussion. Of course, baby.

And I have to say, I've had some new thoughts on it. Oh. After thinking about the Frankfurt-Astavilla match a little bit. Because, okay, this match happened, once again, on Saturday. Okay. At the same

time that this match was happening, Louisville City, FC, playing Lexington sporting club at Lexington in the Yeager Meister Cup which is basically U.S.S.L's League Cup,

you know, U.S.L.S. is their own cup now. Oh. Mm-hmm. And so, Louisville City goes up there. When's a dramatic fashion? 2-1.

And I say this to say that I think most, well, not most, but a decent bit of the Louisville City fan base was up in Lexington. They did not make up the usual numbers

that you would expect. Like of the 12,000 people that came to the Aston Villa rank for match, a lot of those were not Louisville City. Just regular Louisville City season ticket holders. Right. And I looked, and from where I was sitting in the, like, outside part of the press box,

you can see all the different kits that were represented, you know, all the different Premier League clubs. We were also close to where the Aston Villa fans were sitting. They were singing the entire match, et cetera, and just, and so I'm sitting there. I'm like, okay, this is a stadium full of people that are not Louisville City fans that are coming to the stadium for the first time. And I started thinking about how fractured soccer is in this country, right? Of course.

Everyone knows this. Soccer has made it in America. Soccer, the sport, has made it. Now, the question for all these front offices around the league from MLS on down is how the So we parlay the popularity of soccer to making sustainable business models for our franchises or whatever, right? All-Star game. I got an idea. All-Star game, baby. How do we get these people that care about soccer in other leagues, whether there's League of MECI's, Premier League, Bundesliga, et cetera, et cetera, to care about soccer in America? I feel like the only answer is an open system.

Hmm. Because there's no reason. You're talking my language, Vince. There's no reason for a USL fan to care about the MLS. I have, like, I tried significantly at first when I, you know, when I, when I jumped in to the deep end in 2018 or whatever. I tried very hard to be an MLS fan. And I'm not here to pour a mouth MLS. but there's no reason for me as a USL fan to care about MLS.

Now, as a scuffed podcast host, obviously there's some prospects. You know, I want MLS to do well to have a better development environment for kids that we raise up and hopefully go on to be playing the top five leagues or whatever. So I root for it from that angle, right? But I don't have to care. and a lot of times, y'all listen to this pod, we don't bring up MLS a lot.

Why? Because we don't care that much. And once again, this is not, people get sensitive about these types of things. But, and there's no reason for an MLS fan to care about what's going on in USL either, on the flip side. There's no reason for or USA. A lot of them don't.

A lot of them don't. Right. No reason for a USL League 1 fan to care about what happens at the USL championship. happens at the USL League too, et cetera, et cetera. How do we connect all these things by opening the system? Do it, Don. Do it, Don, Garber. It really just hit me. And that's the thing.

Another thing about it, you know, obviously the practical side of why this would ever happen is that, you know, these expansion fees are crazy. These very rich people are investing a ton of money to get in the MLS, by building these stadiums. Understood. I'm not sure that getting relegated to, division two or whatever would cause you to lose that much value in your in your asset under an open system if it's truly an open system yeah if it's truly an open system and it's truly

cooking then it you'd probably be fine but i i just think that's the those are too big ifs though i've become i've become red pill man i think that's the way i think that's the way man and of course I'm open to listen to anybody on the other side. I've very much been like a person that doesn't care about this discussion. But once I really sat there and got to turn in the wheels in my head over these last two days, I was, it's funny, I was, I was, I was, my son had his 10th birthday party on Saturday. Shout out Gideon, great kid. But one of the dads of the dads of the kids who came to the party is like, I don't know, if you could draw up a picture

of what a North Georgia white male looks like. He is that picture. He's a great guy. He helps with the Boy Scouts. He does all kinds of stuff. But he's like, he's not a soccer guy. But he brought up, he brought up Rexham. And he said, you know what was really fascinating about that?

is the is he watched the he watched the series he said he said the way they explained how you can go from the bottom all the way to the top he was like that was fat that was that was really interesting and i was like hmm interesting that you would be uh fascinated by that you know inside my head i'm like it is they did do a good what i said was they did do a good job of explaining it they had like the graphic with the pyramid yeah right in the first episode sets the sort of stage for the whole thing And I think a lot of people would like, I mean, you know, no people are tired of me talking about it, I think. But I think a lot of people would enjoy that possibility, you know, and it would draw in people who, who, and then I made the point. I just assumed that I was surrounded by Republicans. I just made the point that, that it's funny that America, you know, the land of capitalism and the free market is the world.

is the one country where the sports are not, the sports don't work, don't work that way. And Europe, which we think of as like more socialist or whatever, has, you know, this sort of naked meritocracy in sport.

Yep. And one of the other dads was like, no, that is interesting. That is interesting. So I'm a very successful pro-relle conversation from my point of view. Yeah.

Bro, this quote from Shod Khan always comes up in my head, Shah Khan, owner of Fulham, owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was talking to

Roger Bennett, I want to say I'm in the Blazers or whatever. And he said, you eat what you kill, you know, in European soccer.

It's true, man. It's just like, yeah, eat what you kill, you do your thing. And you're up in the top division. Right. Louisville City could do

his thing endlessly. And, I mean, wouldn't that be fun? Even if they didn't succeed. It would be so fun to have that hope. Yeah, I would be more locked in that I've been over these last two years or so. We need an open system. Yeah. You know, open system. I don't think you're going to lose too much money. Like the idea that in an open system that like your

fans would just go away or whatever the hell. Like that that would be the, I guess you'd get less TV money or whatever the hell. But how much TV money are you actually getting now, MLS? I mean, I guess it. Nobody knows because nobody wants to say. Let's get some transfer Transfer, uh, really it's a lot of transfer non-news. Every transfer we talked about last week didn't happen. So Josh Sargent, he rejected the Wolfsburg deal. The Wolfsburg deal will not be working, will not be working with Goudiola because he doesn't want to move his family back to Germany, reportedly.

He started for Norwich and they're friendly over the weekend. He disappointed that he doesn't, that he wants to stay in, uh, East Anglia, doesn't want to go to the Bundesliga? Bigly. Bigley, brother. I'm a way to the transfer window is over before I fully excoriate this man. It does seem a little soft, doesn't it? But come on, bro.

What are we doing? Do you want to go to the World Cup or not? Do you want to go to the World Cup, man? Do you want to go to the World Cup? And, you know what I'm saying? I have a lot of things I can say right now. I like Josh Sargent. You know what I'm saying?

I don't, I mean, how could you not? Well, you know what? Let me take that back. How could you not like him? That's been proven that plenty of people do not necessarily care. A lot of people don't like him, yeah. But I like him. I understand.

You're listening to two family men right here? Two good family men. Anyway, some people are like alluding to the fact that he just didn't want to be in Germany and probably that particular part of Germany. Volzburg is not actually like a city or anything like that it's just a Volkswagen plant not a lot to do around there

apparently and look if he made the decision on the basis of his family I understand it don't mean I got to accept it though it don't mean I got to accept it I guess if he wants to slum it at the bottom of the Premier League again

then I guess you know be my guess man but damn and he also could have played with Kevin Perretti's Right? Could have played with Kevin just got an assist over the weekend. Got an assist over the weekend against FC Magdeburg. Gets the ball on the right wing,

cuts in a little bit on his left foot, just drops a dime of a cross, as Kevin Predez is one to do every once in a while, right onto the head of a Wolfsburg striker. And, man, that could have been Josh Sergeant. We could have had the KP, Josh Sergeant connection, flourishing this year until

you know one of them got hurt for two months but the good times would have been great though the good times would have been great I'm putting you know I was working on my depth chart my USMNT depth chart this morning a little bit and I think Paredes

if he's if he's not second on the right wing depth chart for me I'm talking about for me personally Who knows what Potch is thinking? He's third. You know? For sure. We don't have a lot of wingers.

And, you know, his competition would be Bredo, Damien Downs, who's really a striker. Yeah, too bad. Too bad Josh doesn't want to make that move. Malik has arrived in Leverkusen. He didn't play over the weekend, but it took a big selfie with a big smile. And we'll start training. Probably started training earlier today since Europe's. a little bit ahead of us.

Time of day-wise. I don't know that there's that much to say. He's there and, you know, wishing him the best. Let's talk about Italy a little bit because Juventus is reportedly... Go ahead. Before we move on, Noah Kaibanks. Oh, yeah. Three assists for Augsburg in the preseason.

They have not played, they've played like some third division German teams. Three assists, like I said, from the centerback spot. We're talking about passes on the ground or like lofted passes? One was a cross. One was actually like a nice little combination, like passed it to a dude. He moved, received it back and then played the goal score in. And he scored. Yeah, I mean, he's doing some nice, nice, nice, nice stuff.

Smooth smooth on the ball, as we all know. But yeah, he's generally looking quite nice. I still don't think from everything I've seen, he's not in line to be one of their three centerbacks to start out the season. Okay. But he's playing. He's playing well.

Their manager seems to rate him. I know they like specific, like, they have a new manager and he specifically like asked him a question or something like that about his young players. There's like, there's no account there's one other youth. member of Augsburg. But anyway, he was like, yeah, they're top top players. I'm excited to work with him, et cetera, et cetera.

So anyway, um, no-kai, I still have some no-kai 2026 stock. Um, I stopped, I stopped, I stopped talking about it in the spring when he stopped playing,

but you know what's crazy? Um, I've been thinking about this quite a bit. If he was in MLS, he would have, he would have went to the goal cup. Yeah. Yep.

I don't know, he probably wouldn't have played over it, Tim or Chris. All right, so Juventus is reportedly looking to swap Wes to Roma. You're one of your favorite clubs for Christante. And, you know, who knows if any of this is true or if it'll come, even if it's somewhat true, will it come to fruition? Who knows? But it looks like Wes is, once again, somewhat out of the project at Juventus. and Roma wants him. Yeah.

Maybe. Hilarious. He's out of the project. I think I did the numbers. I could be off by like one or two games. But Igor Tudor, Juventus's manager, right? Has managed Yuve for 14 matches across the Club World Cup

and the end of the Serie A season. West started 12 of those 14 matches. And somehow yet still, yet still he finds itself on the outside looking in reportedly you know swap deals

with with scuff's brand of journalistic integrity usually would not even make it to the show but Juventus has has Juventus executed a swap like four days ago with Porto for like I think they went right back for right back

I want to say so you know when it's UV I can't you can't eliminate the possibility But apparently there's been reporting that, like, YuVa does not want Christante. So it is what it is. But, man, I'm telling you what, if, if, if we get a McKinney and Aroma and Aroma kit, bro, that's my club for life. I'm dropping Arsenal like a, find myself a Roma kind of guy. A little more a cosmopolitan.

That's right. That's right. That's right. still some distance between Dortman and Parma on the transfer fee for Geo, but not that much distance. I guess Parma's kind of inching their way up. They're up to like 7 or 8 million euros. Dortmund still wants 10.

I mean, I don't know. But maybe the more interesting or the more consequential thing is Jacob Andraka, the Swedish attacker who came to Parma in the winter. and scored five goals in the spring. He went off to field with a serious injury and a Saturday friendly with Verda Bremen. That's a guy who plays attacking midfield and left wing.

I think he can play some right wing too. Maybe that motivates Parma to pay the extra $2 million euros to get GEO. Also, in personal news... I really want this Parma deal to work out because, I mean, for a lot of reasons. reasons, but Gio got married over the weekend to his fiancé, Chloe Ortolano, according to some social media posts and pro soccer wire.

I mean, there are photos of them. That's a New Jersey name for sure. Yeah, right. There are photos of them with her in a wedding dress, so it seems to have happened. And surely, you know, surely she wouldn't mind going to Parma. I see, I did a little real estate search. You can get a nice, you get a nice villa. with a pool for about a million euros, 10 minutes,

seven minutes actually from the stadium. So it seems like a good life awaits. Fingers crossed. The fingers are crossed, Adam Bells. But once again, to this point that I was making last episode, Adam, if you was trying to sell the house that you're in right now, right? And you wanted a certain price for it. And you were hoping to get that, like,

You were hoping to get a price. Maybe it's a little bit of an ambitious price. What would you want to see in the market in order for you to feel comfortable that you're going to get that price? I mean, houses selling quickly, houses roughly in the price range of my house selling quickly, I'd want to see a lot of buyers. Is that what you're going with this? That's exactly right. I want to see a lot of interest. Well, then, so then the question is, why not just sell them for $8 million?

If there's nobody else interested, what's preventing Dortmund from just saying, all right, we're not going to, nobody's knocking down the door. Let's just, let's just offload this player that we're not going to play anyway. Only they know. Only they know. There's certainly not a lot of smoke around this player at this time. Yeah. And that's what it's coming down to.

for G. For G. Rana right now, it is a, it's a buyer's market. It's not a seller's market. It's a buyer's market. Parma sitting here.

And yeah, I mean, if you're in Parma's position, I feel like you can sit, you can sit until, what, the first week of September or whatever when the window closes. Like, oh, man. Right. I do see some people saying that maybe they're waiting out for, uh,

MLS to come in to pay the fee. I don't know how all true for that is, but I guess it would make some sense. I don't know. All I know is we got one rumor and we got a stalemate between these two clubs where they seem to be looking at each other.

And for, I think what... Before all this went down, I think geo proponents would call this like a cut rate price. You know what I'm saying? I mean, he was worth 40 million, according to the transfer market back in the back when he was teamed up with jude bellingham you know he getting liquidated everything must go you know what i'm saying and 75% off

ain't nobody ain't nobody came in with the and and raised their little uh auction auction thing and said hey 10 million sold sold to unyong berlin that's how i just picked the club so so maybe the takeaway from all this is that parma's just going to wait them out And they're going to get him for seven million euros. I think, yeah. I mean, and I do think, I think Gio got a little bit of leverage just in the fact that, you know, he has to agree to where he goes, I think. Yeah. And reportedly he has agreed on terms with Parma.

Right. So maybe that's part of the reason why the market is what has been. He hasn't agreed to go anywhere else. So, you know, it could be that too. But, well, actually, you know what? I don't think he does have that much leverage because at the end of the day, if somebody wanted to pay the price and he didn't want to go, they could just be like, well, you're just going to sit here and play in the.

Once again, if he doesn't want to go, the question to him is like, do you want to play in the World Cup? And I hope he does. I hope he wants to. But also, congrats on getting married. Congrats. Congrats on getting married, for sure. Yeah. they've been locked in for a while

important things yeah that should help him lock in I would think but Tim Wea this transfer is still not over the line his agent is uh is on UVA apparently the agent said that whoever this man is somebody in UVA's front office agreed to the price that they sold

oh so he was going to go to 9 and 4th right Tim didn't want to go to 9thum for 15 mil Marseille came in and was like, we'll give you 15 mil. Tim was like, all right, I bet. And now you've been saying they won 20 mil. Ah, okay. And so

Timway his agent's coming out. He said, he said, Tim's been nothing for professional. You ruined his club World Cup. And y'all doing them dirty, essentially. He's like, we're not standing for this no more. I'm not a dude that's used to speaking out, but this is an injustice,

and you owe my player hostage. That's essentially what he didn't say hostage. And maybe he's also thinking, don't you know that Ligon is broke. So why are you trying to charge them more? Come on, baby. I work from you a little bit, man. Pulsick and Eunice both starting for Milan and preseason?

How's Eunice? I mean, I guess CP got an assist against Liverpool. How's Eunice looking? That's maybe the more important question. Hey, first of all, it's great to see Maximilian. Is it Maxi Allegory? Yeah, I think it's Maximilian. Maxi, okay.

You know what, the whole name, whatever. It's nice to see Max Allegory once again. How's the special place in my heart. I haven't seen him since he stormed out of... In that, Pia. It hit the curb all hard. Haven't seen them since then. It's great to see him again on the sidelines.

And you know what? I think he's going to work another miracle for me. Actually, I really don't think so. But as far as... Okay, so Eunice, Musa started. There are two friendlies that they've played. Liverpool, Arsenal, both in Asia. The Arsenal one was in Singapore, Liverpool, and Hong Kong.

and Eunice started against Arsenal. I think he played okay to good, played as an eight alongside Samuel Reefie, who is a midfielder that they bought from Torino. And he's a six. And Ruben loft his cheek. He did some good things. He did some bad things.

One thing I did notice that I'll call out, and I'm producing a clip, this week, everybody. Clip notes are back. Early in the 25th minute, Ritchie was trying to, was kind of, they're building up from the back. Centerback has the ball. Ritchie's kind of covered, and so Eunice drops back

to receive it. He takes a touch, and his touch pops up on him. Pops up, it comes back down, so he still has it under his control, but at that point he's kind of closed down. He tries to slip a pass to somebody in front of him, but it's like the person who closed them down, like gets a foot to it.

And this is something that like, I don't know why. Sometimes when you watch players over and over again, it's just like certain plays that just pop and it's just like, man. Like, oh, so this one, he's having this touch pop up on it too many times. And it's been like a recurrent thing. When it doesn't pop up on him,

he's able to do good things with the ball. He's able to be the units, that we know that we know and love. But too often when receiving the ball, he's getting it and it's popping up and it's killing his, I mean, it's not killing his internal clock. The internal clock's still going on, but it's like at that point, when the ball's not under your control in that second that you should be collecting the ball and making a pass, then you are now susceptible to like some of the giveaways and stuff that we've seen from

Eunice that kind of killed his momentum that he was building under Conce Sal last season. And so those little technical things, he got to clean up if he's going to actually play for, if he's actually going to play for Milan and Allegory this season. Now, the good news, he was in the midfield, okay? Maxie Allegory, let me tell you something, that that's a man, he doesn't see color. okay i can i can confidently say that about yes he's played he played west a little bit of fullback but also put that man in the midfield too uh he made sure he got that man on the pitch you know we we know we all know the love affair that he had for west mckey but but anyway

so eunis musa in the midfield has to clean up his touch a little bit but showed some good things um defense i also showed a little bit more defensive bite uh uh uh In the midfield, I guess Arsenal won the ball, started a little counter, like early in the match. You'll see it on the clip notes, ladies and gentlemen. $5, $5 to the Patreon,

and you can get all the clips notes. Every time. Clip notes, every weekend that I upload them. Also, we haven't talked about. Eunice Musup was gone this summer. Obviously, he opted out of the Gold Cup. It seems like he made his pilgrimage to Mecca.

Yeah. So, you know, a big life event, alongside with Gio getting married, we got all our boys doing big things. So shout out to him for that. But, yeah, okay, so Arsenal match, he plays that. He did not start in the Liverpool match. Liverpool match, they had a midfoot of Ricci,

Fofana, and Ruben Loft his cheek. I think Eunice came on like the 78th minute or something like that, I want to say. And so right now, I can't say that Allegri has performed a miracle yet. We have to wait for Ruben Loss's cheek to get hurt, which we know, we know. Will happen. Will happen. Go ahead and put that mortgage on it, baby. It's going to happen.

So that's the Eunice report. Christian Pulisic had a very nice assist. Did you see that, sis? I didn't see it, actually, no. Oh, okay. It's Liverpool. Liverpool attack breaks down. Christian gets the ball in, you know, in A.C. Milan's defensive half, receives it, turns,

faces up a dude, plays it with his right foot to his left, and then just plays like a, and then just releases Leal with a left-footed ball. down the left channel. Leal collects it. Virgil Van Dyke comes over. Like, you know, Leyal collects it, he carries into the box. Roger Van Dyke comes over to play some D on Leyal,

and Leal roofs it with his left foot. Boom, into the net. It was a nice ball from Pulley. Also, it wasn't just the assist. He had four shots in the half that he played in Hong Kong. and it was looking very dangerous. He looks ready to go. Okay.

He looks ready to go for sure. Maybe Potch will forgive him for skipping the gold cup. Bro. Potch was in Español, I think, in Barcelona, right? Yeah, Espionosalosal. Just watching his old club, I mean, maybe he had Damien Downs in mind. I would guess probably not, but Damien Downs was there with Southampton. He scored a goal?

He scored a nice goal, yeah. Played down the right channel, beat the keeper far post with a very well hit, well-struck shot. For anyone that didn't see the pictures of like Español, you know, Españo was happy to see him in Southampton, right? Happy to see him. He's a club legend for Españo and a... Yeah. Club legend for Southampton.

a lot of ways too. Exactly. And so the pictures, like, I don't know. It's always funny to see someone when they're like really feeling themselves.

You know what I'm saying? Like Pach, he knew he was the man. In that match, you know, it's a preseason friendly and nobody too worried about what's going on on the pitch. And the pictures,

you know, Españo released one like, hey, Maricio Paschino, he's pointing at the camera, smile just as big as could be. You can just tell about the type of smile he got on. He's like, bro, I'm the man here right now.

At this training pitch or whatever, like, I am him. In his t-shirt that he has on, he has two pairs of glasses hanging from the t-shirt, Adam Bells. Yeah, I saw that two. What's going on there? He has some reading glasses, sunglasses. You know, usually, you know, you talk about mullets, whatever. Business in the front, party in the back.

He had business in the front, party in the front as well. you know what I'm saying if you want to put on the shades and stoned on somebody he could if he wanted to read over if Damien Downs came up to him and said hey Potch can you help me read the language on this this new contract

South Hap that just gave me yeah he could pull it he'd be ready to do it yeah if somebody said you want to take a boat out out on the Mediterranean Sea you'd be ready to do that too come on baby he didn't know where the night would take him that's what those two glasses told me

about yeah Two glasses told me about the situation. And the smile and the picture, everything. When you add it all together, it's like, yeah, my boy's having a good time, good time. Whether he should be having a good time right now, that's a separate question. But I can't get mad at somebody enjoying themselves out here in this world. Life's too short.

Fair enough, yeah. I just can't. I mean, it was a nice goal by downs. I just can't get over. Do you remember that one time? I forget which game it was. but that one time when he got played by Malik towards the top of the box

when he took forever he didn't get the shot off yeah just like he just looked so that was Guatemala I want to say was it yeah he just looks so no no no actually it was the match it was Costa Rica it was Costa Rica because that was the match when he scored the game winning pin

oh that's right yeah I remember this so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on him but just seeing seeing him seeing him just tear like try to to navigate that situation at the top of the box and take like, I don't know, two beats too long to try to get the ball off his foot. The reason

why I remember is Costa Rica is because JJ Devani, for anyone listen to Caught Offside podcast, y'all know what I'm talking about. Shout out to JJ Devaney, shout out to Caught Offside podcast. I'm going to do that real quick just because when I was coming up, when I was coming up,

you know, it was scuffed and caught offside that, that's what, and TSS too. Enties, I'll, Total Soccero too. But yeah, those are my three. And so, shout out, JJ. We didn't get them on the show. I feel like that. Yeah, we do.

I've always enjoyed those guys. Like from the beginning. Entertainment. Entertaining, fella. But, like, I, like, posted something as like, like a meme after the match. I was like, Damien Downs looked at Kayla Navas and said, you know, you know what I mean? The future is now, old man. And then JJ, in traditional, JJ kind of curmudgeon fashion.

Yeah. It was like, did he say that in the 90th of me? minute when you had me that killed I was dead the right so I was like I was like ah come on bro come on but uh but yeah that's why that's not wrong though

yeah okay all right desk played the full 90 and PSVs friendly um I didn't I didn't see any footage of it I don't know if there even was footage of it um I couldn't find on a wiseco all right let's get through the rest of this real quick

so Freeman versus Arvston are two probably starting fullbacks at the the World Cup next summer. If it started today. Ended in a 3-1 win for Orlando. That's Freeman's team. Yeah.

Vince, you watched this. What did you see? I saw some Yanke on Yank Crown. Ladies and gentlemen, I think this might be the first MLS rendition of Yank on Yank on Yank Crime, which we get it, you know, every week in the MLS, but none highlighted by me because for all the reasons we alluded to earlier when we're talking about MLS. Um, right. Another point about MLS, by the way,

is that I feel like they're putting a lot of eggs in their basket on raising the level of play, and that's going to get people to pay attention. And I just want to say the strength of your league is going to forever be strongly tied to your domestic player pool. And until we improve that significantly, MLS isn't going to get significantly better. Anyway, so Alex Freeman and Max Arfston. Max Arfston. winged back, Alex Freeman

right back for Orlando, I think he is. I think so, yeah. He was getting up. He was getting up a little bit. But yeah, they were going at each other. I'll say this.

I was actually just, I was watching Alex Freeman, but Max Arston popped quite a bit because there was a lot of 1V1 take-ons against Alex Freeman. And the fact that there were a lot of 1V1 take-ons against Alex Freeman made me happy to see.

for Max Arstim because, you know, how many times do we talk about Adam Bell's about Max kind of turtling up when he had the ball in attacking positions? There wasn't a lot of turtling up in this match. He was maybe because he feels comfortable against Alex, maybe because that matchup happened, you know, umpteen times in training or whatever over these past two months. But yeah, he was a, I mean, shoot, he almost got an assist. He was kind of, he was kind of giving.

it to Alex a little bit, just, you know, because he does have some nice ball mastery, the ability to, you know, he got to the inline once, put a little left foot across. That was almost the assist, cut inside on his right foot, and had a hit that went just past the far post, similar to that, you know, that Mexico shot. Remember that one? Yep. Alex Freeman I do say I do want to say it's they give the ball to him similar to how we kind of did in, yeah,

no, that's not similar to. They give the ball to him in a lot of different positions on the pitch and he handles itself admirably in most of the positions.

Once again, this might have been because he had Max Arfston kind of pressing him and on him like I mean one time he receives it on the touchline kind of like back to go holding max arston off does it with ease he'll get it in like the regular fullback spot from like his his right center back just passing into him and he can

he can drift inside and find somebody's feet a little forward pass and Orlando's off and he got Alex got an assist too right very nice assist very nice assist that he got from receiving it on the touchline and carrying it I think he picked off a pass. He driveled past like two guys. Picked off a pass. Jibble past a couple dudes and played a...

It wasn't a very straightforward ball at all. He had to kind of play it across the grain to the attacker that's running in. Like, you know, he's coming from the right side of the goal. This attacker is running. Yeah, I don't know who it was, but it was... Fill in the left lane, like left channel, gets it to him, and he's able to tuck it home. But, yeah, it was just good. some good on good play here you know max arson got Alex a couple times alice got max a couple

times it was a it was good it was a good give and take and I you know what I liked what I saw from both the dudes okay I said there's probably the starting fullbacks for the national team I was joking about that I don't think I don't think they will be um at all but uh we will be in trouble brother yeah we're in big trouble if they are. Here's some guys who probably won't figure for us next summer, but we're still tracking. Kevin Sullivan scored his first goal for the Manchester City U-21s. It was a tidy little finish at the near post off a short corner. He's got his hair bleached again. He allowed it to go to the natural brown for a while. Now it's back to bleached again. Yeah, I mean, what else is

there to say? I think he still has a lot to prove in Philadelphia, has a lot to prove as a major soccer player. So, yep. Cade Cowell scored for Chivas and Ritchie Ledesma kind of scored. It was an own goal, but it was like a really powerful diving header, drew a desperate save, and then it ricocheted off the goalkeeper sent it back into the field of play, and then it hit the defender who was marking Ledesma as he backwards somersaulted towards his own goal and he just like he just like he'll he'll struck it right into his own net rich he celebrated

like he had like he had done it all by himself which i appreciate um and uh i think he played okay for chivas i think kade played okay he scored on a short corner that got knotted back across the gold mouth i just think it's good to see both these fellows getting paid you know Chivas sort of famously overpays players and doing their thing between the hedges in Guadalajara. Is this the Mexican Nationalist Club? Jivas? Yes. Right.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then speaking to doing their thing, man, Mako, Malko Milgevich scored a 65th minute winner from distance to give Udakan a win at home over Boka Juniors. It was a curling strike from the top of the box. the fans at the Tomas

Odolfo Duco Stadium went wild and he just like jumped up on the barrier and stretched his arms out and buried his prominent two front teeth and it just made me look up on a map

it's crazy what was happening how Buenos Aires is set up you know I mean it's like a 15 minute walk from the Oudacans stadium to the Boko Junior Stadium, the Bombonera. And then it's another, if you go in the other direction from the Oda Khan Stadium, it's like a 20-minute walk to the, well, I don't mean 20-minute drive, I don't know, something,

not that far, to the San Lorenzo Stadium. I mean, like half the league is right there, you know, in that one city, which is, you talk about clusters of excellence. Yeah. That's what that is. I had no clue that Huda Khan was in Buenos Aires. Yeah, it's right there. Right there south and downtown.

So, you know, Mako, I don't know. He's not going to probably play for us in the World Cup. But you never know. One last bit of news with regards to Matt Turner. Yeah. So it came out that Leon is trying to cancel the deal with Matt Turner. Yes. Due to financial reasons.

I don't know. And there was like a article from the Keep that, like the Keep first reported this and then in the article, I don't know if it was directly sourced from Leon or whatever, but the idea is that, look, we don't bought Matt Turner for like $8 million. This was kind of a texter deal, John Textor. And he's not good enough. to beat out Perry and we can't pay $8 million for a backup. Now, Leon has...

Because they thought they were going to sell the starter, right? And then they couldn't... Well, they have now. Okay. That's what's changed from when this article came out. They have sold Perry to leads. And so now they do need a starting keeper. So I wonder if they stopped trying to cancel the deal.

Regardless, my feeling still stand on Mad Turner plan. for Leone. He's not going to learn how to play with his feet in his late 20s. I don't want to see it. It's going to cause all of us great pain when we see him make a ridiculous mistake. And multiple mistakes, by the way. Like, it's not, you know. But anyway, but if we do see it, good luck.

One last thing we got to mention is there is a rumor that A.C. Milan is thinking about bringing in Tyler Adams. Okay. I kind of hope that doesn't happen. That seems like too much, too many Americans on one club. But, and he also has a good situation in Bournemouth, so I don't know. You know what? But that rumor's out there.

I did notice that Allegory had you of a kind of pressing. Yeah, it gets Liverpool. Yeah, in the Liverpool match. I'm pressing high a little bit. So maybe Tyler would fit in there, but anything other than that, which I don't think they're going to be super aggressive high-pressing team. I don't want to see Tyler Adams go to that type of team. We don't need that.

Wormiff played and met life against Everton over the weekend, and Tyler wasn't in the squad, by the way. But he's just, I'm kind of getting his... Yeah, I don't think it's a hard break. Yeah, yeah. So a little programming news from us, the youth soccer series, it's going to be three parts. It's, we're going to publish the first episode.

That'll be with Tom Beyer. Thursday for the public feed, and then I'm going to just drop. My plan is, if I can get it all done, drop all three episodes on Thursday, starting with, like, ball mastery at home, and sort of like the bridge to sort of more organized play with a PE teacher and the guy who started the high school champions league named Jim Hart. That's a nice bridge to the third episode, which is just going to be practical tips for rec soccer coaches, coaching little kids with a coach named Mike Idland, who's based outside of Buffalo, New York.

And it's great. And so I think it all fits together real nice and looking forward to driving them. All three episodes will be available to patrons on Thursday. And then for the public feed, they'll come out each of the next three Thursdays. So look for that. Thank you, Vince. Thanks everybody for listening.

We'll see you.