Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #631: Monday Review — Focus on Tillman, Weah, Richards, Tessmann

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Vince and Belz recap the weekend action. Tillman vs Scally & Gio. Tim scores a beauty at Real Madrid but is he thriving on the left wing for Marseille? Richards showing signs of turning into a big player. Tanner enjoying what amounts to a 12-month bar mitzvah at Lyon. And much more.Clips of all of what we talk about available to $5 and higher patrons: https://www.patreon.com/posts/139501128?pr=true&cr=true 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. Vince, how you doing? I'm doing great Adam Bells. Let me see, what's today? August 22nd. September 22nd. See, that tells you, I told you the state that I'm in right now.

You're a busy man. You're a busy man. Busy man, schools back, you know what I'm saying? Kids. Children under feet. underfoot. Yeah, man. So I'm doing all right.

How are you, man? I'm doing pretty good. You got more kids than me famously. Yeah, but yeah. Yeah. They're all off at school. You know, another beautiful day down here in North Georgia, I got to say. It's just been beautiful for like 40 days straight.

Nothing to complain about. Let's lead off with Levo Kuzin and Gladbach. Malik Tillman started in the, Battle of the Ryan River Valley, Scali started and was, I thought, pretty active and effective. GEO came in off the bench. We'll have to talk about that. Ended in a one-one draw, but I thought, man, Tillman was quite good. The coach after the midweek Champions League game where he came off after 51 minutes said, now this is Casper, Heelmund, he said, we have to remember that this is not only Malik, it's also players like Ben Seguer yesterday, other players. We

have a lot of very, very high potential good young players. They just came here. They're playing their first minutes. It takes some time to adapt and it takes some time to get to know each other. But you cannot expect it just to be like that from the beginning. I think what he means is fantastic from the beginning. We have to nurse it. We have to train and see and give feedback. Malik is a great player. He also will adapt and we will try to help him. I will try to help him as much as possible. And, you know, that nurturing, father-fothering relationship that he's talking about there seems to have paid off over the weekend because Malik was named Man of the Match, scored a pretty nice goal, and I thought generated danger and chances when he could throughout the game, operating

in the pocket, doing that most difficult of things. I had a shot blocked by his own teammate, won a free kick in zone 14 with some slick work on the turn, scooped a ball into the cutback zone for his winger, who set up a good chance. He was also energetic in the press, and then that go-ahead goal, a cool half-folly with the instep back against the grain that just did enough to get in.

What are your thoughts on Malik, Vince? I actually thought he was asked for most of the match bells. I can't. Really? I was sitting there listen to you, man. I was like, I mean, Man, I did not think that. This is good when we disagree.

But yeah, I thought he was quite sleepy for most of the match. And, you know, he's playing a little deeper. Playing a little deeper in this match had been secure in the midfield with him, playing in front of him and whoever it was next to him. And, you know, he did pop up and do like some okay things towards like the end of the first half. where he created some of these chances you're talking about what the 1.5 chances okay 1.5 chances in the first half maybe from malik till but there was just a lot of it looked like sleeping malik to me man it looked like sleeping malik for most of this match most of this match and it got me thinking for me I was like okay because this is like a been

an ongoing thing with malik for me like back and forth it's like is he an advantage creator Or is he better pressing the advantage? You know what I'm saying? Is he better receiving the two-line splitting pass and then making something to happen from there? Or is he more like his comrade, the person, the comrade on the national team, person who was on the other side of the arena where, you know what I'm saying, you wanted to be the string puller. And it seemed like they had them in a string puller position and it wasn't enough strings getting pulled for me. Okay. in most of this match.

And this is a lot of backpassing almost to like a hilarious degree. There's a few clips in the clip notes where it's like it's three back passes and one 20 second clip. Like the center back plays it to me, plays it back to the center back. The center back says, no, I'm going to give it back to you. He says, no, I'm going to give it back to you. I saw a couple of those. But it's even like he's scraping over to the, to support.

support whoever it is on the touchline. And they got the ball and they passed it to them. It's almost like, okay, think about it sometimes. You watch Gio Ran to play. We'll talk about him. You look at Tanner Testman. You watch him play, Aidan Morris. And it's almost like they have such a command of the space around them.

They're checking their shoulders. And not only do you see him checking the shoulders, but it's like you see that they recognize the space by how they received the ball. where they take their first touch. They usually take it into the space that is open. And Malik, even on his back passes, bro, it's like he just didn't seem comfortable in the space that he was operating in. I'm like, I'm talking about like, even if you're going to pass a ball back, like sometimes, like I said, he's scraping over to support whoever's on the touchline. He gets the ball there. He has open space over his, I guess, right shoulder.

the shoulder that's away from the touchline to where he can receive the ball, turn that way. And even if you want to pass it back to, like, the third centerback or whatever, who's over there and, like, kind of switch the point of attack. It's like, he's not even doing that, you know, for me, for me. This is just how. Some of the time, some of the time he was.

But, yeah, there was a lot of back. There was a lot of giving it back to the guy who gave it to you. And then, you know, as I'm thinking about this, I'm just watching this match. And as that breakaway, it happens that he scores on. I'm like, he's scoring a goal here. this is just like this is prime malik this is this is a malik tillman performance that i've come to know and love um where he's just kind of kind of sleepy for me but when i saw the opportunity i'm like bro

he's he's scoring he's scoring and like you know the cup back had to trickle past somebody else who scuffed their shot but um basically a swing and a miss a foul tip into the catchers mitt but you know as cool as you like tucks it and um Boom. A goal can change your life. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but I guess I would say a couple things about the points you make. One, Glaubach was making it, like, as they were talking about on the broadcast, incessantly,

making it pretty difficult to play through the middle. I think that was obviously an emphasis from the new coach. Like, we're not going to give up four goals this time, fellas. Which is, you know, maybe part of the reason why I think. Yeah. I mean, that's totally fair. And the other thing is, so I think it was tough sledding through the middle. And even despite that, he did create some moments.

And he got on the ball a lot, like more than I think you could typically say about Malik. I think 47 of 51 passing. Now, I agree a lot. A lot of that 47 was, let's say 27 of those were seven-yard passes to either sideways or backward. But he was finding the ball. And, you know, I'll, I'm a little more accepting of it. He was in a position where the ball was just going to come to him, though. You know, naturally by how he was positioned in this match.

As opposed to, you know, the Champions League match where. he was doing, he was almost had the same disposition, was doing the same things, but he was a little bit further up. And so it was really like he kind of disappeared out of the match. But, okay. I don't know. Look, it's a good start so far from Malik, goals-wise. I just want a little bit more for him in the performance department.

But, you know, reasonable minds can disagree. Yeah. You want him to bring his lunch. pale to work, you know? I'm not even, yeah. He, he, he brings his lunch pail, man. Like, the work and stuff isn't like an issue anymore. Like, it isn't really a question.

But he's just so good. Like, he can, the things he can do on the, it's like, I almost want him to believe in itself a little bit more. Sometimes. And, like, really, really take it on. And I understand he's in a new team. Like, I understand all that stuff, all the factors going on. he doesn't seem like type of guy that just jumps right in and asserts itself immediately.

You know, you kind of got to fill it out. And I was actually the same way as a basketball player. I wanted everybody else to feel good. I'm not coming in to disturb anything. Everybody feel good in their roles. I'm going to figure out how to work around y'all. You know what I'm saying? And ain't getting my buckets that way.

But, and with his disposition, everything we know about him, it just seems like that's the type of guy he is. So I'm not ringing no alarm bells or nothing. But, yeah, just the, I mean, last week, Bells, you watched that. Not me, baby. I was the Allen-Averson of the planes, you know? You know what I'm saying? Go ahead. Just thinking about last week, bro.

He had this moment where he, like, received the ball. He's kind of, like, he had his shoulders, like, perpendicular to the, to the in-line, basically. You know, he's, he's facing, he's facing the touch. line. Ball comes into him. He receives it with like basically his heel and like dinks it over his shoulder and brings it down the whole time while the person marking him is just on his like inside shoulder and it's just like in hell. They can't get to the ball. Malik is just toying with the ball and receiving it and just dinking it over his shoulder just because he can. You know, it's like he's so good receiving the ball on the turn these different things. Like you got to you kind of got to

press these advantages. And maybe he just doesn't feel um as comfortable with what he's seeing when he's deeper on the pitch and he's more risk averse. So, you know, you don't want a Cardoso to happen. Right. God forbid. That's what he's scared of. He does not want a Cardoso. God, God, I wouldn't wish a Cardoso on anybody.

Yeah. But that's the tension. That's the tension of playing in the middle, you know, is there's opportunity. There's also, there's also risk, risk, risk, risk. So do you have any strong thoughts about Scali? Pumped some good balls across. Moolit as a striker that one time when he made a run in behind. Tried to flash one to the far post with his left foot.

Saved. I mean, drew a good save, but kind of a tame effort. Yeah, it was a shame. I thought he was, I thought he was going to be a hero. I was going to be a hero there for a second, bro. That one in the second half, where he body the dude off the ball got in, then chopped it, got in. Oh, come on.

But, but look, it's what I'll say. People forget, people forget, man. Real Scali lads will remember. Joe Scali came on the scene as a wingback. And when I was, when he hopped on, he was doing his thing for Gladbach, he, he, I didn't start this fan group. You know what I'm saying? Off the back of some, uh, some weak-ass, backpass performances at fullback.

Those came later. Those came later, ladies and gentlemen, you know, for people that are confused. Like, why, why is we? this rap for Joe like it doesn't seem like a Vince kind of player at the beginning he was he came on as a wingback and he was dribbling people he was going up and down

he was he had a little bit more excitement to him and so now getting them back in the wingback spot man hey it might be we might see a Joe Innocence all right I mean I'm here for it hopefully the golf cart incident wasn't too

scarring for for Potch, whatever that was, I don't know. Gio was, I think, disappointingly saved for the last 10 minutes of regulation, probably in part because this was a game where they needed to bring defensive stability to the table. He did have one nice sequence where he worked it out with a teammate on the right side and then clipped a ball into the penalty area for the striker who kind of mishandled it. It was like waist high. Gladbach did get it.

What's that? He was offside to the striker. Oh, the keeper was? No, the striker. Yeah. I mean, on the broadcast, they're talking about how the subs changed the game for Glabock. I'm not, you know, sort of, I guess, because Globock did get the equalizer off a corner kick. And, yeah, we'll see what Polanski, the sort of Viking-looking coach that they have now, will do with Gio.

I do think, wasn't that one dude a sub, the one who won the corner, the black dude? I can't remember. So maybe, maybe that's what they meant. I don't know. He took a dude on 1v1, won the corner, corner score. Gio did tackle the ball off Malik. Oh, yeah. It was just a couple minutes before the.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, he had just given it away, right? Gio had just given it away. and when he does give it away, he does at least show that he has a strong conscience about such things. And he really worked back. Kind of maybe nicked Malik's heel or something, too. But he got the ball, no foul called.

Good to see that from Gio. He says, I can't remember if we've read this quote already, but he's talked about making the World Cup roster on the record. I believe that I will be there, he said. That was also one of the reasons for my change. I am in open contact with the coach. If I play well at Barusha, I will definitely find my way back to the national team, end quote. That would be news, bro, because Gio would be the only one in open contact with the coach.

I know. Crazy. But we'll see what happens with, man, I was about to say Dortmund, because he just said Baruchia. We'll see what happens with Glabok. They play Frankfurt next match. Okay. So do they keep the same defensive posture? I guess if you did it for Lefocusing, you probably do it for Frankfurt, but we'll see.

Frankfurt's not as good as Levercouzine right now, right? No. No. Tim Wea scored his first goal for Marseilles in his Champions League debut against Real Madrid at Real Madrid. That goal makes him the first U.S. international to score a Champions League goal at the Bernabal. Pulisic actually scored at Rail Madrid in the Champions League semis for Chelsea, but it was during COVID with no crowds. So they were playing at one of the academy grounds.

Anyway, this goal, which I'm sure you've all seen, fantastic stuff from Tim. It's a counterattack on a mistake in the middle. Greenwood nicks it off somebody at Artagula, I think, and carries it directly at goal for 30 yards. And Tim, I just love this so much. Tim starts off to his left, you know, running with him. And he just swoops in behind Greenwood as he's going forward all the way around to the right to find the open space. There's three defenders converging on Greenwood.

Greenwood just pushes the ball over to Tim, smashes it in at the near post. I look this up. I'm not a military historian, but I look this up. This is called a flanking maneuver. You know what, Bells, I've been watching. a little e-sports here lately. I find myself just as I get old older, finding random

mini-quests to go on. I've been getting into e-sports. This is something that Elon Musk and the algorithm at X, they really did their big one with this. Feed me game and content. But anyway, the game Counterstrike, you know, they do this all the time, bro. They flank,

they'll flank you. They'll flank you. That's the whole game. You've got to try to flank and then prevent the flankers from flanking you. Because if you get flanked, over. If they're coming in from your side, you're done. Yeah.

You're done for. Because, you know, they strategically will break it up, you know, where they got you on both sides. That's a wrap. Right. Well, yeah,

I mean, I guess it's not that surprising. It's called a flanking maneuver, but I was like, what, I just wanted to know, what is it when the cavalry goes behind the infantry

to go to the other side? You know, if the infantry, if the infantry is considered Greenwood, the infantry, if the infantry is going straight,

forward, what happens if the cavalry moves around to the right and from the left to right or vice versa? I think you could also call it a swing maneuver. That's what they try to do in the... You ever seen the South Park movie? No. Oh, man. Yeah. Okay, in the South Park movie, the U.S. is going to war with Canada?

You know what? Actually, it's very pertinent nowadays, like most South Park shit is. Because, like, they, the U.S. starts a whole media war, propaganda war against Canada because of a controversial cartoon. And they actually end up going to war. And they're about to do this. They, the military, they're, like, sitting up their plan. And are you familiar with the characters in South Park? I know they're a bunch of little guys with,

big heads. But I don't know. There's one black dude, chef, okay. Okay. By Isaac Hayes, by the military man is in charge of the tactics.

He's talking to chef. He's like, you and your battalion talking about all the black people. He's like, y'all are going to go in first. And then it shows, and then on the screen it shows like everybody getting killed. And then we're just like,

and then we're going to bring everybody else in after that. And then chef looks at the. mad, it says, have you heard of the emancipation proclamation? And the military dude says, I don't listen to hip hop. It's something that plays in my head all the time. What a movie. I'm about to fire that up on Paramount Plus. It's on there. Yeah, it's on there. South Park, bigger, longer, on cut. Bangor, bro. Bangor. Well, the infantry does have to, you know, they have to take the brunt of it. And then you bring in that. But anyway, Tim.

Mason, Greek one. Yeah, Mason Greenwood was the infantry. Which... Continue. It was a brilliant run from the hardscrabble youth from Rosedale. Yeah. We'll get into that a second. He was running like he never thought he would be there, bro.

Yeah, he never thought he was... He grew up on the streets. He also nearly hit a vintage Tim Wea banger, cutting in on Carver Hall earlier in the game. just got like it got kind of dumped in the corner and he outrun outran Carvajal quite easily

and then cuts in on him and just rips one it goes just over the bar Courtois just waving at air otherwise I thought he was okay Marseille ultimately lost 2-1 which isn't so surprising in his post-game quotes he was really talking up his coach

deserby you seem like like a little much on that front. And then he said, I grew up in Rosdale, playing on a small turf pitch. So coming to the Burnabow was a dream come true. What are your thoughts on this?

You can't have dreams in Rosdale? Adam, Beth. You can't have. I mean, sure. You're not allowed to dream, man. You're the son of a famous person. Your dreams are canceled.

That's crazy to me. That's crazy. I mean, it is. No, not that your dreams are canceled. It's like your father was a Ball and Door winner. It's like if anybody's going to make it. I mean, sure, sure. He might have never thought this was going to happen.

You know, some people that are very accomplished athletically or otherwise, you know, they like to keep their kids away from that. You know, some people don't even realize until later in the, when they retire or whatever, and they're doing their whole little ring of honor celebration. I was like, oh, my mom was a very important person. Who knew? Who knew? Yeah, you're making some good points. And, you know, Jack McGlynn's dad was on this podcast like six months ago, and he said that Tim's parents, you coached Timway as a kid, said Tim's parents were as down to earth as anybody could be. So you're probably right.

What a get from you. Because who knows if you can get Jack McGlynn's dad now? You know what I'm saying? Father of a national team player. You know, it's a master's stroke. He got called up like two weeks later. Right. Yeah, I thought that was, I really enjoyed that one.

Well, okay, fair enough. George Waya also scored while playing at the Burnabow in the UAF Cup. Cup Winners Cup, which is what Champions League used to be called, while playing for PSG in 1999. And, I mean, just to get into the brass tacks here, how do you feel like he's playing as a left winger? So all the stuff we've been talking goes out the window if, you know, you can just play on the break

you know this positional stuff we're talking about is like when we're in possession and trying to like break somebody down Tim way on the break hey hey can make stuff happen just like he just like he just did

so that's fine but you know I have seen I saw some signs when they who they played last week was it Auger? Yeah maybe where like you know he did a couple

dudes on the touchline. I was like, okay. You know, let's give it some time. Let's give it some time. It seems like as of right now, he's holding it down. On the spot down and they play today. Marseille plays today, I think. I want to say. They were going to play PSG, but I guess it got postponed or something. Postponed due to rain and flood,

which is kind of unusual. And the orange velodrome. Yeah. Le Classique, man. That's why. It's like the biggest rivalry in France And it's at the Yeah At the Orange Velodrome

Oh yeah I'm tuned in bitch I'm tuned in 2 p.m. Eastern Center time My only thought was He got Carvajal in space Again later In the first half

You know it was already 1-0 I think Or maybe it was 1-1 at this point And It wasn't like The first time he gets Carvajal deep He gets on the ball deep So he can cut onto that right foot

And you know He knows he can get on that get the he's going to have that shot window if he can get him going the wrong way but when he was this was also on the break more or less yeah at least it was carval was the only person between him and the goal and he was maybe 40 yards from goal on the touchline and he did a couple touches like he was maybe going to go out of him and then he just stepped on the ball turn around and passed it backwards carval is 33 years old sure he's a good player but i just don't understand why he doesn't press that advantage.

Speaking of pressing an advantage there, you know, there's many ways he could go after him and get past him. He's naked out there. Yeah. Naked, shivering. He was. That'd be feeling good at that point, too. You would think, you know.

Right. I don't know. Maybe he had just spent a lot of energy in the last 30 seconds or something. I don't know, but I'd like to see, if he's going to play on a left wing, I'd like to see him do that guy right there, or at least try to. But mostly things going well for Tim, it seems like. A.C. Milan beat Udanesi 3 to 0 over the weekend. Christian Pulisic celebrated his 27th birthday on the 18th,

and then two days later scores a brace and gets an assist in Milan's 3-0 win. The first goal was off in a Stupignon goal ball across that got deflected on frame by a defender and then palmed desperately down into the area and Pulisic just thrashes it into the empty net on the bounce. I mean, a fairly easy goal, but he seems to be there for a lot of these kind of goals. Yeah. Something to something to that. Yeah, passed it to Stupian. That's right.

He kind of won it in the midfield, like in the, at the edge of the attacking third with his chest going forward and that was all good all good stuff his assist was a hustle play where he was fighting fighting for the ball in the press and then slid from behind on somebody to nick it off a guy no it didn't slide from behind just ducked in behind him nicked it off a guy got hacked down in the penalty area probably would have been a penalty against udenei if if fauna hadn't picked it up and taken a touch and tucked it in at the near post and then his second goal, the one that made a 3-0, was a kind of diagonal run towards the near post,

gets the ball slipped into him with a defender on his back, swivels, fires it through the defender's legs, maybe caught a deflection on the way, and then just caught the goalkeeper by surprise. Couldn't get down fast enough to keep it out. So great, great game from Pulisic. Allegri, who was suspended for the game and watched from a box.

said after. You know, hold on. He got suspended because he got a red card while winning, which once again, I mean, maybe Waki's greatest contribution to the football and world, to the greater football and world is just an observation that Allegory is very gracious. He's very gracious in defeat when he's winning. He's losing his mind, bro. It was because he took his jacket.

off, right? Wasn't that what he was a funny dude? He said, I think people call him the LeBron James of soccer. He's leveled up now. He's Michael Jordan. That's what Allegory said. Obviously tongue and cheek. Unless he really doesn't understand American basketball. Santi continues to kind of struggle. I know you're tracking that. Yeah. Yep. leading the league and big chances missed. Yeah. I mean, there's really not much more to say.

I'm not really going to keep talking about this man every week, but I think us on the scuff podcast have always held the view that, you know, but even before the goal in the gold cup final, that they're all him and as he's the one. Yeah, he's a good player. You know,

I mean, Santee. He could only hope to get to that point. Raul was so damn nice. Yeah. Roll was good at everything, too. Yes. Talk about a well-rounded striker.

Yes. Chris Richards, he came off the bench at left center. Busy week for him in a good week. He came off the bench at left centerback for Crystal Palace in the 61st minute of what at the time was a scoreless draw against Millwall in the Carabal Cup. He scored. Off a corner.

Scrappy goal, good alertness, and he's just a little quicker than everybody else, pokes at home in the scramble after Mateta, trying to, I don't know, tries to backheal it. Just try to add to the chaos by backhealing it into a crowd of bodies, and it works. And then Richards is off to the corner flag, soaring like an eagle,

a Crystal Palace eagle. Let me down a little bit in the celebration department. I do want to say that. After the Dion shuffle, I mean, I'm going to ask a little bit more from Chris Richards. I just, that's what I want to say. Fair enough, fair enough. He then also, well, Crystal Pallas gave up a goal, which on a corner kick, a near-post corner kick,

which they also gave up a similar goal against West Ham over the weekend. Neither time was it Richard's fault. So the game's tied at full-time, goes to penalties. And Richards is the second guy to step up. First, I believe it was Mateta first with his shirt neatly tucked in as always. And then Richards steps to the spot and just buries an outstanding penalty. Like low, hard, down to the left. Didn't even seem like he broke a sweat up there.

And Crystal Palace advances. That's a good data to have. Absolutely. Yeah. Totally. And then he played well. thinking the 2-1 win over West Ham at West Ham on Saturday. Back at Wright, centerback.

Yeah, go ahead. I'm doing a lot of talking. Oh, well, he was going up with, people may remember him from Leeds days, Cresensio, Cresensio Somerville, which once again, I just, MCB from the Discord, so that's the name of a, that's the name of a March Madness point guard that's leading this team on an un improbable run

throughout the tournament. You know, maybe they get the Sweet 16, a lead eight. Yeah. Bells, I think you chimed in and said he's a, he's a,

he's a so-so shooter. Did I say that? He gets hot. He got the name of something. It sounds a little problematic. He's a so-so shooter that, you know, might get hot on you or something. That's a,

Sencil Somerville for you. Okay. St. John's. Summerville's no picnic to face. And Pulisic, I mean, Pulisic, I mean, Pulisic, Richards faced him and did well against him. And I, there was one moment in particular, I want to play the clip from the broadcast, the audio, because the commentator was so appreciative of it. But Somerville's coming at him.

He's got him 1 v.1, running full speed at him in the box. just to the left of the post that's to the keeper's right coming into the box and Richard just handles it so well expertly shepherds him Shepard Somerville to his left sticks an arm out into him at just the right moment to kind of push him further away towards the end line and then crowds him out and it ends up winning a goal kick near the corner flag and just listen to the way the broadcast appreciated

the east end i should say hoping to register another win here today summerville going forward for west hand Richards goes across great defending oh wow i can't tell you how difficult that is to defend against the winger running directly at you like somerville did there but richards who's not a fallback he's a right-sided centerback out of the free there that's superb defending look he's got a runner in nearly one-on-one shows him the right way he defends right to the deaf and then then when he's a right to the death and then when he's a right He's got the chance as a little nibble at the ball from the wrong side. Commodore helped him out, but great defending. You can hear the way the crowd kind of gets excited there for a moment because they're like Somerville's in space,

and then Richard just says, nope. This is going to be a really boring moment for you, fans. That reminded me of the references clip on this pod before, but the old man who's crying on the way he wins, the way he wins that ball back. Yeah, it was a little bit, like he was moved by it. Because it is true when you got like a, when you have a dangerous winger running at you full speed like that. I mean, you are just, you're, you're naked, you're alone.

You know, I mean, Kamada did come in later and, and help crowd him out. But it was, it was just Richards versus Somerville. And, man, he handled it just perfectly. Also quite good in the air. good at jumping forward to win a ball before it becomes a problem, which is something he's talked about loving being able to do in a three-man centerback formation as opposed to a two-man, you know, like to really step and deal with stuff.

Also notice that his vibe as a member of the team seems large when he's celebrating Tyreek Mitchell's volley winner with him at the end. He just seems like he's a big personality on that team. Not as big as Mateta. Who can be. But he's an excellent. He's getting up there. Excellent co-celebrator.

You know, I had some words for how he celebrated his main goal. But, you know, as far as jumping on somebody's wave, you know, as they're feeling good and Chris goes, they're right with him. You know, Chris, somebody you see when they come into the party, everybody, hey, you know, everybody is happy to see Chris Richards. You know what I'm saying? He's going to enhance your good time. So, man long continue. Yeah. He's thriving.

Also, I do want to, we've had Jack Pierce on the pot a few times. I started listening to Five Year Plan, the podcast. It's good. I know some people like to hop on and listen to the podcast, like some of the teams that our boys are on or whatever. But yeah, listen to Five Year Plan, and they're good. And also they, you know, they travel around and go to these games. And also they're having this like once in a lifetime experience,

even though they got bummed down to the Conference League of being in Europe. Europe. And they're going to all these games and they're kind of documenting the travels and whatnot. They just went to wherever Crystal Palace played, Frederick Stade in Norway. Yeah. I went to Norway that I chronicled their trip there, talked about the fans and everything. You know, even if it's not Europa League, you're still in Europe. You get to travel around. You get to go to different places, all this different types of stuff. So yeah, I'm putting the stamp on it. has been a good friend to us. Go check him out.

Yeah. Definitely. Should we talk about Tanner? Because... Absolutely. I feel like... Yeah. I feel like the boy has become a man in Tanner Testament's case.

The way he carries himself out there, the way he... It's like... It's both his physical... Like, the way he throws his physique around, which is... He's a big kid. But also... the way he's just locked in mentally, like to the moments of transition and the defensive responsibilities of his job.

It just seems like that, I've said it before, but that year as Namanya Matich is not even a year, right? Was it like three months? It was a year. Okay. Okay. A year as Matich's understudy just couldn't have gone to a better situation. And he's, he's getting better.

And it's not just because he scored this goal on front. Friday. I think it was a good, a good performance all around. And what do you think? It used to be, you talk about the boy becoming a man. Like last year, there were a few moments where like, where it would be like defending or something. They would be defending. The ball goes out for a corner. Everyone like everyone turns, looks at Tanner and starts yelling at him, you know. Or if he misses a chance, like he missed a few chances kind of like the one he scored last year where he probably could have like three goals last season or something. He would miss a chance and everybody would just kind of look at him.

Like you would see the glances like on the on the film or whatever. But yeah, but now it's like he misplaced a pass to Toliso in this match. And he just held his hand up like, you know, like the big dog like, hey, you know, I messed up, bro. Yeah. But I'm going to stay over here and you stay over there. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Yeah, don't worry about it.

And Taliso, he didn't have to worry about it. You know, his body language didn't change. He was just like, you know what? Tanner's going to get me next time, bro, because that's what he's doing right now. He's playing extremely well. And also, before I had listened to the pod that you and Marcus did, I was thinking about what, what's, what's my man's name? The coach. Marco Mitrovich.

Marco. Okay, I was going to say Maco. But yeah, the Marco said about finding the lowest level to play. I mean, find the highest level or whatever that you can play at and play. Tanner's done that for sure. Marcus was talking about there's limited spots. And there is limited spots. But Tanner went to Siri B.

You know, there is limited spots at the big five clubs and Belgium and the Netherlands. If that's all you're looking at. you know but tanner got most of this stuff happened especially the on the ball stuff got better in ciri b i wasn't watching every syri b match but i remember like after he had spent a little bit of time down there i tuned in and i was like oh you could you could just tell that he had become because like a lot of his stuff that he was messing up on were just like random like technique errors getting the ball trapped under trapped under his feet you know inviting pressure to herself by not being clean on the ball when he receives a different

different type of stuff like that. So then when I checked in on him and it's like bro, he basically played like 3,000 minutes a season and like both the seasons he was in Serie B and it's got him to where he is now. So, you know.

And there was still some growth to be done. Yeah, there was still some growth to be done on the on the defensive side. But what got him to Leon and what, but got him on the pitch to even get better at the defensive stuff was all ironed out in Siri B,

a level that a lot of people would say isn't worth going to for a lot of our young players. You know what I'm saying? So he's just the poster boy for what Marco was talking about. Yeah. Yeah, interesting. I hadn't even thought about that. And he was also the guy, or one of the guys for Venetia.

Yeah. I wish I'd been able to see a game there Some of the people on our trip that year got to But not me He oh yeah he scored the game winner Like we talked about This was against Angare on Friday They're a middle

Mid table club It was a scrappy goal But I would say don't sleep on the difficulty level of this Because It's headed down on a corner Gokeeper palms it in Tessman's direction. He's kind of lurking at the back post.

He comes at, he runs at it, and he hits it with his left foot, but he has to hit it and lift it at the same time over the goalkeeper. And I think over a sliding defender, I'd have to go back and watch the clip one more time. There's like, there's, he's got to lift it over at least the goalkeeper

to get into that far post and also hit it fast and get his foot back out of there fast. I think because he doesn't want get hurt. Right. And he does all that. And nestles it in at the far post.

It's basically a perfect strike. I mean, you want him to score there, but it's not like, this isn't like a sitter. So. No, not a sitter. Good. Good on him. Yeah. And they win, one zero.

First goal of the season for him. I really hope he gets called up. And I suspect he will. I suspect he will. I would love to see him. it. You can't tell no more, man. You can't tell with I was going to call him a loco,

but I'm not going to go that far, man. Maricio is a nice man. Touch my shoulder if you remember, listener. But, um, yeah, yeah, call a man up, man. We got to talk about some bad news.

Eunice, uh, played in Atalanta's midweek matchup with PSG, which Adalanta lost. Four zero. He started in the midfield, central midfield even, and played 75 minutes. How did those 75 minutes go? Aside for the fact he didn't see the field over the weekend. Yeah. First 45 were okay. I was, you know, he wasn't bad. He wasn't good. Atalanta decided to go out in this match. And Manmark, Paris Saint-Germann, the European champion.

which went about as you would expect. You know, they were just, I mean, you give PSG a whole bunch of one-v-one matchups all over the pitch, and they're just going to win them, bro. These dudes that they got are so good at soccer, you know what I'm saying? And so the match was just like helter-skelter. Because like PSG knew what was. was coming, knew what was going.

And so they were just making runs. I mean, you know, dudes from midfield just bombing up, making runs and behind, you know, and because of the disorganization that they were causing for Atalanta manmarking, you know, you would see Eunice Musa in the quote-unquote back line at times. You would see him just all over the pitch, bro. And so anyway, first half went okay, despite all the disorganization that Atalanta willingly brought upon themselves. The second half, Eunice was able to get on the ball more, and PSG was manmarking two, by the way.

And the dude that was manmarking Eunice, like Eunice would get the ball, face up, face up the dude, and wouldn't be able to do anything with it. And more times or not, it ended up losing the ball too. They were just taking it from them. And, yeah, so it wasn't good. It wasn't good, man. And then he didn't, and then he didn't get to play over the weekend at all in their 3-0 win over. Torino. So,

we'll see what happens. You think he gets called up? Are you going to just say there's no telling? There's no telling with El Loco, basically? There is no teller, bro. How am I supposed to know? Maybe. Or maybe Pachas, I mean, you know,

he started this week and then didn't start on the, I mean, started midweek, didn't start the weekend. Pach could easily be like, oh, we're going to give us some time at this club I mean he was against like PSG is like yeah like you were saying so good and

I don't know all right PSV I mean I will say their midfield too of Pasolich and Martin Daroon you know those are those are the guys that mostly played last year and that's who started this weekend against

Torino So, I don't know. The fixture congestion, he'll find his way in there. There's plenty of minutes. There's plenty of minutes. What you said about PSG, of course. Yeah. It's early days.

It's early days for Unis. Keep the failure. I do think when it all comes down to it, we still need him. We still need him at the World Cup, even if he has a bad game at PSG. PSV lost 3-1 in Champions League. It wasn't a great week in Champions League for the boys, I wouldn't say. Lost 3-1 to Union Song Gilwas, and this was at, this was in Einhoven. And Peppy had kind of a nightmare of a game.

First, he gives away a PK, just kind of swinging, swinging, not seeing that a defender's coming in behind him, and he just cracks him in the ribs, or maybe it was the leg, I can't remember. obvious penalty, just a little bit of a lack of awareness from RICO. And that makes it 1-0. And then a few minutes later, he gets wrecked in midfield, trying to hold the ball up. And it's, I would say, led much more directly to a goal than the one we pinned on Gio Raina last week. So, like, almost, it was like, what, three more passes and then it's a goal.

Yeah. And so optically. he looks Pepey looks pretty terrible in this game and then he didn't score and then he started but then he started again over the weekend played the full 90

in PSV's 2-2 draw with Iax again in Eindhoven um DES came off I thought Desk played reasonably well and both he did give up a penalty against Iax uh

and he came off in the 69th minute So that's about all I got to say about PSV. I think Dest is a lock for October in the World Cup. Pepe's probably going to be there too. I'd like to see more from Rico, though. Definitely. Definitely.

Yeah. We go again. You know what I'm saying? That's right. We go again. I've talked about this a few times. I hate out everybody's just, you know, great week in the Champions League, bad week in the Champions League. It's all sunshine of roses or the sky's falling and whatever.

Yeah, it just says what it is, man. It's a long campaign. They've got six more matches or something, seven more matches, whatever. Plenty of time for redemption. We should talk about a couple of injuries before we get to James Stans here. So Johnny's dealing with an ankle injury and is expected to not be back until early October. which means probably not back in time for the friendlies. And then Jedi is still recovering from his surgery, it seems.

No real update on when he'll be playing. There's some concern, I think, being expressed in some corners of the internet that the type of knee surgery he had as a teenager at Everton, you're not going to get into that? You don't want to get into that? I'm not hearing it. I'm just saying it'll be honest. Right, I think.

Okay. I mean, it's Brian Shoretta. Brian Shreda saying this on big soccer. Yo, real quick. I just want to say shout out Brian Shoretta. You know what I'm saying? He drove me from New York Red Bulls training ground to the Morristown train depot that I took back to the train back to Manhattan. Yeah.

Got the ride in his front seat. Shout out worthy. Yeah. Brian, the mayor of Morristown, New Jersey. that he lives there or something so that's that's where a team hotel was and stuff

yeah so yeah you got to meet Brian Sharetta shout out okay yeah man the supercomputer bro when we were talking

ball in the car you know for the 10 minutes we were in the car he knows a lot of stuff yeah he does know a lot I'm not discounting

Mr. Shoretta to be clear that's why I went down this this lane that I'm talking in right now. But all I'm saying is... Fair enough. Let's hold off on worrying too much about stuff we don't,

medical stuff we don't really understand. Or at least I don't understand. James Sands played the full 90 in Sanpali's midweek loss away at Stuttgart. I think it was over the weekend, actually. Oh, yeah, that was over the weekend. weekend. He starts all their games. Kind of muscle bound.

It looks like Iron Man running around out there. Iron man. Yeah. He just wanted to check in. People have been asking, you know, we haven't been covering James Sands with the alacrity that people come to expect from Euro snobs, such as the scuff podcast. So understood, understood. look, James Sands is still James Sands.

And you know what? I think, I mean, we got a lot of, we got a lot of midfield candidates. And a local can't call them all that. But, I mean, James, he's looking good, man. Once again, it's the same thing. It's just like, if James Sands is in the midfield,

it's tough sledding getting through that midfield. Hmm. You know. And this is also the case for, for my anti-foot mob bias. You look at foot mob. You would see James Sands had a 5.8 in this match.

Did he look like a 5.8 to me? Watching this? No, no. Absolutely not. He's good. He's good. You know, he's a solid player. Keeps it simple on the ball. But he keeps it simple and still can do progressive things with it.

You know, he'll receive it and pass it forward one touch. You know, with his back to goal, You know, it's kind of like the stuff that I saw when he was playing centerback for Rangers, how he's able to make a lot of different passes with different body shapes, you know, shoulders facing to the receiver, shoulders facing all the way away from a receiver, you know, et cetera. He's able to just to get those off very smoothly.

And so he's not doing any lyrical miracles on the ball, but he's effective enough. And yeah, like I said, anybody trying to get through, bro, it's like you got to deal with James. sands bro he's mean he's mean yeah he's not he's not he's he's yeah he's imposing he's uh throwing his body around you know he's a um you know the thing about the bundles leger man they got a lot of jobers they got a lot of jobbers in the bundles league they got a lot of lennar maloney's james sands people that are just there to kick people and be rugged but i think james sans is on the higher end of that spectrum, um, as opposed to like a Leonard Maloney who was, I mean, literally just a, yeah, just a guy. Like literally just a, yeah, I was going to say just a goon, but you're not

supposed to say that anymore, right? I mean, it's taken on a new, um, it's taking on a new meeting in the, in the Gen Z internet, yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Um, um, I think that's, I mean, okay, one last thing is Balagan. Balagan and West both played in the Champions League game in the middle of the week. For Baligan, it was a 4-1 away loss at Brueger. And then he did not play over the weekend while his team won five-two against Mitz. And they played like... How do you look?

They played like four attackers in that over the... I guess like four different like bench attackers against Mets. Okay. Like this 19-year-old striker started next to B-Riff. He got taken out. They put on Ansu Fati, who has resurrected and has found itself in Monaco. He scored that one goal at Brugge and then scored these, he scored, had a brace against Mets, which, you know, this match was 2-2 in like the 80th minute.

And then there's another striker named George. I'll just call him George. I don't know his last name. I don't want to do a disservice to him on this podcast. But he scored as well. I think he scored the fifth goal for Monaco. So we have like, and Beaver scored too. In this match, while Al-Wall Ballo stayed on the bench.

So we'll see. We'll see what's going on here. And I thought he was okay against Brugger. Actually, you know, for the most part, he was receiving the ball doing his low layoffs. And every time he would lay it off to somebody in the midfield, they were just getting mugged, bro. And it was just like, you know, people always say, you know, striker, he wasn't, he wasn't getting service in this match, whatever.

I've amended that from service to, did the striker have the chance to affect the match? You know, you don't always need service. Like, Ballow didn't need service to completely eliminate the centerback from the play that he got the assist on last week. You know, he just put that dude on his back and eliminated him. He didn't need the ball to do that, to cause all that chaos. in the box. But yeah, Monaco was just bad on their, like, approach

play. Like, midfields just giving the ball away. Left, right, center. Brugge, also very, you know, they do this. Every Champions League, I look through last year, they only lost to Aston Villa during the, like they advanced in the Champions League

and lost to Aston Villa at home. And they lost to Dortmund at home last year in the Champions League. But other than that, they beat Atalanta, Drew Yuvay, and beat Aston Villa. Yeah, they beat Aston Villa again at home. Well, they beat, yeah, they beat Aston Villa in the actual group stage.

So, you know, this is, Briggs is a good side. They got a lot of athleticism on that. I was impressed watching them play. But, yeah, so, well, we'll see what about that. I think it'll be all right. Yeah, maybe we need to respect Belgium a little bit more. And then Wes, you know, did not play in the 1-1 draw at Hellas Verona over the weekend, even though he started midweek against Dortmund.

But we've got to get out of here. Thanks everybody for listening. Thank you for your patronage. We will see you.