Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #644: The roster for PAR and URU, and a rough weekend in France

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

Charlie Boehm joins Belz to discuss Tyler's head injury, Tim Tillman's mysterious inclusion, a rough weekend in France for our guys, the MLS playoffs, Dest's return to camp, Big Pat's big goal, and much more. 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. We talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody. Vince is off this week, so it's just Charlie and me. Charlie, how you doing? Very well, thank you. Great to be here with you, Bells. Wonderful. Yes. Thank you for being here. It's just started snowing outside here in North Georgia, and then it stopped. Well, it's stopping right now. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure I'm going to get the call from school that school is canceled for the rest of the day.

It would be possibly more. Yeah, maybe tomorrow. You've gotten it before we have in D.C. That's crazy. So first, some roster changes ahead of the Paraguay and Uruguay matches in the coming days. Tyler Adams and Sean Zawatsky, both on the original roster. Suffered injuries over the weekend. We can get into that now or maybe later and have been withdrawn from the roster. They've been replaced by none other than Timothy Tillman.

Too bad Vince isn't here to celebrate this. He's been a big Tim. He's been a big Tim Tillman fan. What? Why? Why Tillman? What is going on there? Any idea?

I'm curious to hear if we, well, I guess we won't get potch until Friday, I expect. So, yeah, this is a surprise. It is not exactly a like for like, if we're talking about Tyler Adams. No. Replacement. He's sort of been under the radar, but he's playing week and week out for a very, very good LASC team. The Supernova. superstar supernova of Denny Bwanga and Sun Hung men have sort of gobbled up the oxygen around

LAFC, but they've been one of the hottest teams in MLS over the last couple months since Sun arrived. And he just does the business in there. They don't ask for anything too flashy from their center mids. They are under USM&T alum Steve Turundalo. They're pretty conservative and I want to get the ball out to those two stars up front in transition. And he's been doing it. So I'm curious. I see him as more of an eight in the U.S. system, but maybe he's going to try and beeper. Curious to see if he gets minutes.

Yeah. People who, yeah, I don't have, I mean, like you said, he's played basically every game this season. He went 180 plus minutes versus Austin in their, I guess, what do you call it? Round one series. Okay. But that's about all I know. And his brother, who for my money, is a much better soccer player, not in camp, just coming off injury.

He's among a handful of players who probably would be in camp if this were the World Cup, including Christian Pulisic, who was a bench option for Milan over the weekend came on for like the last 20, 25 minutes. And Chris Richards went 90 for Crystal Palace as they put up a clean sheet against Brighton. anybody else I'm not thinking of who's not there i mean uh pat ajemong scored a second goal for derby county pat is looking increasingly comfortable in the english championship he scored a bullet header his second goal of the season for uh derby county the winner and a two-one victory over blackburn rovers this was trademark stuff i would say for the large gent a bullet header at the back post on a well-hit cross he's out to five goal contributions on the season.

2G3A and the Rams are moving up the table. I'm sure that's not a coincidence. They're in 10th place. And we'll see if they can make a promotion push. But those of us who thought this was a good league for him to be in I think are seeing

the proof. Yeah. It's a bullet header off of not like a driven cross. I don't know if I'd call it a floated cross, but it's like a long looping cross. And man, generating that much power off across like that. Not the easiest thing to do.

Just absolutely dunks on a guy who's right in front of him and can't get up as high as he can. So, yeah, it seems like he's doing well. Should he be in camp? I don't, I don't, doesn't matter one way or another to me on that front. So let's just read the roster real quick. Roman Celentano, Matt Freeze, Jonathan Cleansman, and Patrick Schulte are the goalkeepers. Matt Turner not there. You know, he's off for a while, so maybe that has something to do with it.

And then go ahead. Yeah, reportedly training with his old club, Crystal Palace, since the revs did not make the playoffs and are now about to enter a new era under former USU20s coach Marco Mitrovich. Yeah, who did, I think, a really good job with those U-20s at the World Cup. Defenders are Max Arfston, Serginio Dest, very excited to see him come. back into camp. Alex Freeman, Mark McKenzie, Tim Ream, Miles Robinson, Joe Scally, John Tolkien. He gets another call up. And then Austin Trustee, the Celtic centerback.

He's been playing more in the last few weeks. But what? Had an injury at the beginning of the season? Nasty case of planter fasciitis that led him to miss out on six matches. It appears, and I don't want to generalize. excessively here, but the difficulties for Cameron Carter Vickers, injury-wise, have opened the door for us and trustee at Celtic, and now he seems to be playing regularly. They are, have been a club in crisis. Anytime they're not at the top of the table, I guess you can say it's a crisis.

Shockingly enough, the old firm have been dislodged from the top spot in the Scottish Premier League by, by hearts. And they're both struggling in Europe. And there was this really dysfunctional end to Brennan Rogers' managerial tenure at Celtic. So they brought in manager emeritus, I guess we could say, Mr. Celtic, Martin O'Neill to try and steady the ship. And it worked. I believe they've won three out of four. Trustees back on the pitch.

They beat Rangers in a Scottish League Cup match last week, and then they won four-nil over Kilmarnock at home. And trustee seems to be he scored. He scored was involved in a controversial play that Rangers folks were upset about a yellow card that they thought I think should have been more. But he's on the pitch and he seems to have momentum at the right time as he returns to the USM and T-Fold. Yeah. Do you think he'll play?

Do you think, I mean, I'm thinking like Miles, Tim and Mark are the three centerbacks, but it feels like kind of an experimental camp now all of a sudden. Like we thought we were going back to, you know, only the best players. Right. reps for the best players out of the World Cup. Now we're calling up Tim Tillman, we're calling up Austin Trustee, Sebastian Burhalter's back in the mix,

which maybe was always written to be so. Yeah, it's interesting too because the, and Pach was, I think, Potch got sort of, he didn't admit this explicitly, but I think his remarks more or less showed that he's reached the point that every USM and team manager

gets to sooner or later, where you have to conclude or admit that your desire for a perfect balance, fairness, and consistency in your selections is impossible, right? So he had this kind of maybe his last chance to get a look at Gio Raina, even though Raina's not playing a ton, so he does it. He said something to the effect in the press conference last week or the media availability that there's players, we have to admit that there's players who may not playing at their clubs, but they can still help us. You know, I guess it's just a wheel that has to be reinvented every, every time around. So, so, okay.

Yeah, and then, and then the combination of injuries and interesting choices here has led to some, some interesting, interesting choice. I think we're going to have to see is, is the, is the three, four, two, one, the, now truly the default. And so you're going to be picking three centerbacks to start with. does he see you know we talked i think a few weeks ago about how he seems to like miles robinson on the elbow in the elbow role uh as a pacey a pacey uh option next to tim rim does tim ream undropable not so sure he didn't look great in charlotte's um relatively

brief playoffs run uh especially in their the decider game a few days ago when they lost to new york city at home so yeah that goal where he this is a moment that goal where he got caught up field and just kind of whiffed on i mean i don't know whiff isn't quite the right right word but he challenged and missed and then the same guy he missed on just dribbles down and scores a goal i mean still took a really nice finish from him and he he lost a duel that he just can't lose there yeah so yeah i think that's that's that's fair and and that's a tough spot now we know he's a glue guy. He's a he's a leadership guy. So, you know, respect for all that. But, uh, and McKenzie did not have a super great last match. Um, uh, shout out to Paul Kennedy over

at soccer America who, who, uh, who reads Le Keepe and pays a subscription fees. And I think, uh, votes in their Belondeur, uh, process every year, uh, as an American. He, he does all that so we don't have to. He was noting that he got a four out of 10 in the one-one draw, two leases one-one draw with Laureate. So yeah, he was working his way into more minutes than the last camp, the U.S. camp, but I'm curious as to whether there's an open competition there or maybe a couple ex-filly union guys have a little bit of chemistry that they can call on in the national team environment. Yeah. Four for Mark, two for Tanner. And, and, and, and, and, no rating for flow who got yeah sent off so uh not a great weekend in france no not not the best not

the best of uh of outing should we talk about testament yeah let me read the midfield and then let's get oh yeah the midfield and the attackers so the midfield is sebastian burhalter like i mentioned aiden morris chio reina as charley mentioned christian rolled on tanner testman and then tim tilman and the forwards are Brendan Aronson, Fuller & Balligan, Diego Luna, Ricardo Pepey, and Haji Wright. And I, you know, I just want to say, if we're not going to do the three, four, three, or whatever you call it, I don't know who would be out there on the wings

or on, or even in the midfield. It's like, it's not that great of a group of midfielders. There's nobody you would leave off and be like upset about it, at least for me. Same with the wing attackers. So I do kind of hope we stick with the 343 just because it seems like it kind of works. Also, it kind of, it shoehorns Giorina into the lineup,

which, you know, is important to me. So there was another interesting moment from the press conference where Potra's asked why he described, why they listed Diego Luna as a forward when he's generally thought of as an attacking midfielder. And he sort of said, in essence, well, he's an attacking type player. The things, the movements, the stuff he does in the ball, I consider him an attacker.

So that's what he put him forward. And yet, Giorina is listed as a midfielder. You would think of those guys as relatively similar profiles. So are they going to, where does Giorina fit into this three, four, two, one. You would think he'd be one of the line of two there, right? But and who knows, this is where we also may have to just conclude that Pottches is, is just filling out the paperwork. and letting us normies fuss over details that don't really matter. Yeah, I think that's where I land on it.

I just don't believe anything he's saying right now. When he's asked about the contradiction about Gio, yeah, I guess, you know, he's like, there's no contradiction. Well, of course there's a contradiction. But, like, you know, it's okay if there's a contradiction, I suppose. Yeah, Potsch, you don't have to say you're contradicting yourself, but we will. Right. Or you could just say like, hey, I have the prerogative of contradicting myself, you know, I can tame multitudes.

Right. And also the part about how, what was it? He was asked about the complaints from Glastner and the Milan front office about the handling of those players of Richards and Pulisic in the last camp. And he was very, very, you know, zealous to defend his right. to call people up and like you know talked about the hypocrisy of these coaches in complaining and yet Pulisic and Richards both left off of the roster so yeah you know take that for what it's worth I don't know yeah same thing with with Wes right we will never truly unless you can get the players and maybe even the definitely the players and maybe the clubs the comment you're never

getting the full story because I'm super curious in West's case for example specifically is is poch making that decision is uventus asking him to stay home is west saying uh let me sit this one out so i can so i can win you know continue winning over spoletti or is potch saying this is what you need to do west like there's so much room for nuance in there and it it it really does matter but we're on the outside yeah i mean the west one doesn't doesn't make as much sense to me because he seems to have one over Spoletti, or at least he's in the process of winning him over, and he's not hurt.

Shouldn't we have him in camp? But he hasn't been in camp all that much. Just the last one. So then we're a year in now, and he's passed on him multiple times. So I, last month it seemed like everything was getting sorted out in the normal service of McKinney at the heart

of everything USM and T was being resumed. Now we have to wonder again. Yeah. I still think he'll, you know, he'll be there when it counts, but you do have to question whether he should be here when it doesn't count as much, when it were two windows away from it counting. And Adam's getting hurt, you would think, would open a door to go back to you, and say, hey, like, sorry.

Yeah, especially with, I just think he's such a good, this formation suits him. You'd want to see more. Right. We need him. Ever heard of the World Cup? It's coming up really soon. Coming up quick. Yeah.

You won't have to, we'll leave you alone for the next four months. Yeah. Right. So, yeah, let's do talk about Testaments. So Leon Luz a heartbreaker at home to PSG. And, you know, the winner comes in the fifth. minute of stoppage time on a corner kick. The part about Tanner Testament that everybody's going to focus on, and I think rightly so,

is him giving it away with his back, with his, you know, facing his own goal just outside the box. And then Carggevelli slotting at home, it was just, you know, slow speed of thought, slow action by him. He kind of, he wanted a foul, so did all his teammates, because he kind of crumpled to the ground as the ball was poked away from him. But on the replay, you can see it was a clean poke right through his legs, right to the carous belly. Clean enough. Yeah, clean enough. Yeah.

And that was, what, made it 2-1, I think, or 2-0 at the time? No, it was 2-1. And what did L'Ekeep say about his? Yeah, rather harsh. This is from L'Keeb. The American has been a catastrophe for weeks, but he still plays because there's no competition. The ball he lost to Vatina, as you just referred to, was in. have re-hensible and offered on a platter the second PSG goal. His teammates later feared giving him the ball under pressure. That's a little speculative, I think. He conceded the corner on PSG's winner, which was in the fifth minute of stoppage time. And again, this was a three-two PSG victory. So tough, tough reviews. It's also just that this is the, this is everybody's biggest game in League

on, right? When PSG are at the place they are, they're miles ahead of everyone else, generally speaking. And I think that's a challenge beyond just the obvious of them being jam-packed with elite players, being the European champions. That moment on the giveaway for Testament looked like to me, like maybe something you'd get away with against a lot of league on teams. But you're seeing world-class opposition, pretty much every spot when you play them. So you cannot check out for even a moment. I think he just wasn't quite sure where he was going, going to try to maybe play a little. a slick little quick pass to a teammate in the vicinity and and um and he got punished so so that's that's harsh but this is also the stages that we we want us players in and this is a very good

chance of these things happening when you're playing at that level yeah i think so and i think that's a good point about PSG being a level above everybody else because he looked sluggish even before the giveaway he had like a he had kind of a meander in his own right corner where he was trying to He was trying to sort of like big dog the players around him and just kind of play slow and keep it and then find a solution. And he kept getting the ball taken away from him and he would kind of scrap it back and then give it away and then ended up with like a cut back into the danger zone. And, you know, he's got to play faster and be better than that. I do think both the quote catastrophe for weeks and the mention of the corner, the conceding the corner are a little unfair from Lakeib. but um but you know when you lose three two and one of the goals is such a cinematic mistake

you got to kind of take the you got to take the heat uh gladbach got their second straight league win they went from last in the table to 12th in the table in the blink of an eye and scally started and went 90 he was steady and tough and not very excited and not very excited kind of as usual. And Gio got another 15-minute cameo. I'll say I think he looked marginally fresher and brighter than even in the performance that preceded that. It feels to me like there's a progression here. You may and others may think I'm just fantasizing over here.

It just seemed like he had a little pop in his step, maybe because he knows he's about to get a nice dose of Pachismo, you know? I'm in hands, right? Right. The diamond hands will serve you well in the end, I think, with your geo stock. Right. Yeah, nothing too exciting to report there from him. But he is, it seems to like get his 15 minutes every week, which is not something you could say last season. And I'm excited to see him hopefully in that 3, 4, 2, 1 in that band of 2, playing maybe on desk side and cooking over there

with him against Paraguay on Saturday. Got him. Go ahead. 15 minutes at a time and his injury history, I think, should temper expectations of a start. But maybe these games give you, these are one factor I want to point out here, this is a little unusual. There's a longer week. And we should have asked Pach about this, but scheduling this first match against Paraguay on a Saturday, rather than a Friday or even sometimes you see them on Thursdays.

That gives a little bit more of a buildup to, you know, a clean, clean five days to build up to the match, which I'm sure Potch likes because he has lamented repeatedly, including just before the roster dropped in an interview with BBC, how much he misses the Premier League, you know, and the daily time with players and the,

that immersive environment for, for his style of management and leadership. So, so he should get. get a little bit more time with everyone. You'd think maybe five days of buildup could get Gio to the point of playing a half or something. But at this point, I could see the, if he does well in this camp, you know, and I could say something similar about Agamong, maybe, that Pottch has got to be thinking ahead to who are game changers, who can you, how can you change a game off the bench in a tournament scenario? and that's, I don't want to say best case scenario,

but that is one positive scenario you can see unfolding on the arena front. And maybe they need to have a chat about that. Potch needs to have a chat with him and say, like, look, if we bring you in, this is going to be your role. Are you going to be able to be a good teammate through that and really make the expectations clear? I'd be happy with that if that was Gio's role. How could he possibly be?

disgruntled about that. Well, you know, I think it's possible. Big talents have big personalities sometimes. So that's no, not complaining over here. Christopher Lund, another player, not in camp, who is, you know, has played for the U.S. in the past, conceded two penalties on the day for Colm. One of them was not converted. One of them was. didn't not a great day for him either so yeah yeah

calmer mid table though nine ninth they're ninth so good good for him I'm hoping that they they survive we have no reason to believe he's remotely in in the picture although potch has talked about how many hundreds of players they're they're chasing as he as he called it they're tracking on a week to week basis but yeah let's let's see let's see if if god put a is putting a period or a comma on lund's usm and t career we shall see yeah i mean god never puts a period right it's always a comma

um let's see let's take a break come back in a minute if you'd like to skip the ads get the clip notes most weeks i'm going to try to get that out today we'll see how it goes uh get the clip notes most weeks, which are videos of a lot of the action from the weekend or the games that just happen, the national team games. And you want to support the podcast, which depends almost entirely on listener support. We're just like National Public Radio. Please join the Patreon. The link is in the show notes. And we'll be back in a minute. All right, we're back. Let's start with Tyler Adams because he, man, it's kind of sad. He's not going to be in camp and he had a bit of a scary moment over the weekend.

Tyler Adams clashed heads, frighteningly, with his teammate, Adam Smith, in the opening minutes of Warren Miss trip to Aston Villa. Smith came off the worst here. The Cherry's captain had blood gushing out of his head, came off the pitch. But Adams was allowed to continue. It was, I think they were, they fell behind, ended up losing four. nil they were just they definitely deserved to lose by safe margin maybe you could say it was harsh at the end because they uh they had a penalty saved um by martinez and and were it was two no

into well into the second half but but they were clearly second best and uh understandably especially given that he's now been dropped from the us m&T roster there are questions swirling about whether adam should have been allowed to continue and uh takes us back to a lot of uh old topics about the concussion awareness or lack thereof in, I would say Europe and generally maybe, but I think England has a bit of a track record here. Taylor Twelman in particular, who's, most listeners will know, is a survivor and an advocate on this topic. He tweeted out, having just seen the head clash with Tyler Adams and Adam Smith, can the Premier League explain to me how Adams is allowed to continue four question marks?

Anyone with two eyes can see he was is disoriented. Smith is off and Adams isn't. make that make sense. Yeah, yeah. I feel like, I feel like, you know, I have to take like a hundred, like, I feel like I have to take a concussion training every three months for my various, uh, activities as a dad. And, um, it seems like it's pretty rare that they're handled very well on TV, you know, like at least according to the, the rules. The what you're supposed, yeah, I mean, you probably know this, but what you're supposed

to do with a little kid is, uh, if you have, uh, if you have, even the slightest suspicion of a concussion, they should not be allowed to play until they see a doctor and are cleared to play by a doctor. So it's like pretty intense for youth sports. It doesn't seem like it's that intense for pro sports. I mean... No, and again, I do think there's a wide range from my experiences.

I do think England and Britain and general has made some progress, They appear to me to be well behind the U.S. in terms of the general recognition of the severity of the issue and that it is pervasive, I think you have to say, in this sport. Now, you know, the youth conversation touches into the U.S. soccer's header ban and the youth levels. you know that's pretty controversial right every every week when i watch my kid play uh you 12 rec soccer i'm i'm sort of like it's sort of comical when kids have to figure out how to not head the ball yeah right and when the the ball does spend a fair amount of time in the air at that level um so it's it's a really tricky complicated topic um but you do wonder and i think we're seeing some leagues experiment with uh concussion substitutions i really hope that that grows and and i hope that the

tendency towards traditionalism in Britain can relent a little bit on this because even the possibility of gamesmanship manipulating a rule like that is, I think, is a pales in comparison to the risks that the players are taking on. And again, if Adams is not fit to get on a plane and come over to the U.S. for national team duty, then why is he still on the pitch for, you know, the better part of 90 minutes in that scenario? I think we can reasonably conclude that that, that Burnmouth's technical staff didn't want to have to make two early substitutions in a game in which they were already under it away from home. So, tough spot. Yeah.

I mean, hopefully, hopefully Tyler didn't suffer a concussion. I guess we don't know yet. And, you know, he's taken care of himself and feeling well today. Brendan he's also going to be in camp how did he do over the weekend bagged an assist on leads his opening goal they would go on to lose 3-1

at newly Sean Dychified Nottingham forest but Aronson was good in this one I read some coverage I called him their best player on the goal he drifted centrally in kind of a transition moment and then combined with Lucas Nemetcha laid on a simple but clever angled pass for Nemetia to hit a low finish into the far corner. So looking good, I think he's coming into camp with a significant amount of momentum.

I've been impressed with what I've seen from him in the leads, leads matches that I've watched. He, again, he had to win over the LUSC fandom when he returned after the stint of, alone since elsewhere after relegation seems they've done so on the champo then the same questions were were were raised all over again when they got promoted is a kid too lightweight can he cut it in the in the premier league and he's he's cutting it so far he's he's been a good player he's not necessarily been a 90-minute player he's got uh daniel james i think it has been has been pushing him for minutes but what a great environment for him to be in for for maximizing his his usm-m-and-t prospects But saying all that, I have a bad feeling they are going to be in a relegation scrap.

They've now lost four of their last five and are down in 16th place. They are three, six and two at the moment. And goals have been hard to come by for leads. You hate to see it. Rather have leads in the Premier League. What a great history for a club and what a great home stadium they have. And I think the only thing I'll add about Brenda is that he, everywhere he goes he plays i'm not the first person to say this but every team he plays for every

manager he plays for ends up playing him and it's it's rare that he spends significant uh portion of the season on the bench so that seems to be the case also in the premier league for leads so good for him hope he does well in the in the camp this this weekend and early next week um balligan we mentioned this earlier he earned and converted a penalty then got sent off with his team down to one. It was a borderline penalty, I think, you know, kind of dancing around just inside the box and kind of seeking contact. But he got it and then converted it coolly. It was also a borderline red card. He did stamp on the opponent's boot, but it was like the insta. It wasn't really high. It was pretty low. I don't know. You win some, you lose some. Monaco ended up losing this one

4 to 1 and they're now 7 points back of PSG. Both they and Leon are 7 points back. So that what looked like there might be like a big title race at the beginning of the season, I think that's sort of the wheat is separating from the chaff as we head into November. PSV ran rampant at Azi Akmar. Good good game for Sergenio Dest. I thought he looks, I mean, he looks really sharp right now. in the Air Divisi, as he should.

This was a 5-1 win. A little bit of bad news for Pepey because the makeshift striker who plays in front of him right now, Goose Teel got a hat trick, and one of them was a really nice goal. So it seems like Teal has kind of settled in as the starting striker for PSV. We mentioned this last week as well,

but that seems to have been solidified even more with a hat trick over the weekend. And Peppy came on in the 71st, had a shot blocked. He's obviously hungry to score. He got that nice goal at Olympiacos last week. He's definitely like doing okay. But it doesn't seem like he's going to be starting league games anytime soon.

Yeah. I want to point out, too, I think from what I saw in the Olympiacos match, the Sergenio experience is still the Sergenio experience. He'll cough up the ball in his own attack, a defensive third. A little cavalier at times, but surge is surge. So let's see what that looks like against two pretty good teams this month. Yeah, and I think part of the surge experience is it always looks better against the domestic clubs than it does against the bigger clubs in Champions League. Usually it does anyway.

You know, we'll see. And I wanted to mention since John Tolkien's going to be back in camp, you know, he keeps starting for Holstein-Keel. They are a mid-table two Bundesliga side. So they got relegated after last season, and now they're just, it doesn't look like they're in the promotion hunt right now. And he, you know, his hair looks great, but I don't know that he looks too exciting as a player.

I mean, he's fine, but nothing that is going to get me to wax lyrical on the podcast here. at the top of the two Bundes League of table, this is kind of a curiosity, but it's worth mentioning, at the top of the two Bundes League of table, is Paterborn, and there's an American anchoring their midfield. It's Santiago Castaneda,

who is a Tampa native, an alumnus of the High School Champions League, which we've talked about on this podcast a few times, with Jim Hart coming on to talk about it. He's been hitting me up about Santiago a lot, you know, high school Champions League alum, playing in the two Bundesliga. And he starts every game for them.

I checked in on him a little bit. Watch some of his actions from two games. He looks fine. He's 6'3, kind of a lanky kid. A lot of the possession is running through him. I didn't see anything that was like totally eye-popping, but he did get called into a U-21 camp with a bunch of the guys who just played in the U-20 World Cup.

So, you know, that's a big win for Jim and everybody down in Tampa. Got to shout that out. And, you know, keep an eye on Santiago Castaneda. Yeah, I'm wondering, I'm hoping that another fun American story, Male Corbos, who is French-American, played college ball here, had a cup of coffee with the New York Red Bulls. I think he was in their academy.

But he bounced around a little bit and wound up at Armenia Bielefeld, who made it to the, DFP Cup final last year, had a great cup run, and then they've gotten promoted now to the Svi Bundesliga. And I hope there was talk that they were going to maybe even push for the double promotion. So obviously it's a long year, tough process. But that's a club that's kind of in that level there, a yo-yo club in the Bundesliga for a while. It would be really fun if we had a couple of Yanks involved in the promotion pitch, a push in Germany. Yeah, yeah.

Paterbourne, I think Paderborn and Bielefeld, both kind of in the Dortmund area. I know Paterborn is just east of there. Let's talk a little bit, Joey. I'm not going to say anything about, I'm not going to say anything about German geography, because I know someone's going to call us out. Are they? We're going to, we're going to, there's too many, there's been too many yanks abroad over there for too long. Someone is listening right now ready to, ready to bust us from geo fails here.

Yeah, you know, let me just double-check my Bielefeld comment. No, it is. Bielafeld and Paderborn, both, you know, just east of Dortmund. Wow. Dodged a bullet there. Let's talk about the MLS playoffs a little bit. It's down to the quarterfinals, which will happen after the international break. So there's a big break in the playoffs now.

Vancouver versus L.AFC and San Diego versus Minnesota in the Western Conference semifinals and then into Miami, I mean, Cincinnati versus Inter Miami and Philadelphia versus NYCFC in the Eastern Conference semifinals. These are all single elimination games now, right? Yes, yes. The contentious, controversial, much debated MLS postseason format, which is now rounds of best of three series have just completed and now everything is one and done, which A lot of people think is better in pure competitive terms, but there's everything from broadcasting considerations to narrative building to squeezing things in between the end of the regular season and the international break and the coming of legit winter for most of North America.

There's a lot of irons in the fire hearing reports, too, that this may all get shifted dramatically. It could be very soon. there's there's reports that the season calendar change could get brought up in the next board of directors meeting which i think is this week in palm beach so we'll see if then they would go to like the school year calendar basically the yeah they go to the euro style calendar i i think next year would be too soon but if if they get the votes at the bOD level i think you'd be looking at i don't know for sure that nothing is public yet but um or official at all but i i i

think it would be 2027 is when you, the earliest, you could see a shift like that. But the, the momentum, there's so many different irons in that fire with the different cities and different climates across a massive continent with two countries. And as the Japanese example has shown us that Japan is in the midst of a similar process, they're moving forward, but they're, they're basically pooling money to give the clubs in colder climates to help them winterize. So that there's so many different permutations to all this, but it's starting to feel like a when, not if situation. So that'll be a fascinating thing. I think the, the, the, the, what end up being the, the final straw is the steadily growing international market and European market for

for domestic talent. And being able to be synchronized with Europe would make it much easier to part with your players and not have to give up top talents in midseason when it, when, when, the summer window for for europe so having said all that well no before we get into the playoffs actually though what's the what's the galaxy brain sort of media opinion on is it is it better to have the playoffs in november or say may like would you would it would you get more attention in may that's the idea and this is the similar topic has been brooch in the the college soccer reform discussion, right, to go to a two semester season. When you get into November and December, you're fighting with the big dogs on the sports media

landscape. So college and NFL football dominate the weekends and are getting into their business. And then basketball started, hockey. There's so much to compete with over the next couple of months. Whereas if you look at May and into June, like there's just a lot less going on. And most of the continent has better weather happening. So you have more consistency in the product on the field and on the television. Okay.

Yeah, I guess you get the NBA playoffs and the first quarter of the baseball season, which I don't know, does anybody pay attention to that anyway? I know they do. Just less. Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do, but it doesn't have the same intensity, right? Okay. So what do you look at the first?

We shall see, but I think from a USM&T standpoint, the big note, notes here are Seattle blew multiple leads, lost two penalty shootouts in their series against Minnesota United, who are playing incredibly, they have taken the whole concept of direct play, parking the bus transitions and long throwins to its illogical extent. They have by far the lowest possession numbers. They want to play the least amount of soccer. They have the best goalkeeper in the league. And it somehow keeps working more often than not. It's not an upset because Minnesota was the higher seed. This was four versus five in the West. Seattle had this series in their hands. Brian Schmetser called it the hardest loss of his career with the sounders, which is saying

something. And this means that Christian rolled on is going to be having to look for opportunities to play. I don't know what he's going to do, but it's bad for him, I guess, in terms of fitness and the longer off season. So, and just a brutal, a brutal series for the Sounders. It's a very good team that managed to lose to a very, almost like I don't want to, I don't mean this in a disparaging way, but Minnesota are kind of almost a meme team in the extent to which they, they do their thing. But off they go.

Their coach is named Eric Ramsey, right? He's an Englishman from the town of Shrewsbury. So if that tells you anything. thing. That's what's going on there. Okay. And then Vancouver versus L.AFC, we got, well, San Diego. San Diego is exciting, right?

We've got to keep... San Diego has a lot of USM&T angles because you've got a former U.S. soccer coach in Mikey Varas, Tyler Heaps, a data-oriented wonderkin who is with the Federation for a while. And they are both two of the youngest in the business in MLS and what they're they do. And they have built the anti-M Minnesota in a lot of ways, which is what's going to make their semifinal against Minnesota so interesting. San Diego and year one have had the best season in MLS expansion history in terms of points and victories. They finished first in the

Western Conference. They're getting sellout crowds at Snapdragon Stadium. They play, many would say, the most progressive, structured, aesthetically pleasing soccer in the league, right up their neck and neck with Wilford-Nancy's Columbus crew, and they disassembled Portland Timbers in their two home games. They're totally. Yeah. They're totally going to lose to the barbarian Englishmen, aren't they? 90 minutes, man.

And this one and done, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's very, very, very possible. They split the series. They won in Minnesota and lost at home to Minnesota a few months ago. So yeah, if you want a stylistic contrast, that's it. And then the other side of the West bracket is going to be fun. We mentioned Sebastian Burrhalter and the Whitecaps.

Thomas Mueller's got them flying high. They're going to have a sellout crowd of more than 50,000 at BC Place. Vancouver Whitecaps, who are somewhat of an MLS afterthought, not that long ago and are still are now up for sale and looking for a new stadium that can call their own in the area. They have just charmed their city and are playing great ball. Another team that wants the ball and wants to beat you with it and have a lot of different ways to do it. So fun games afoot in the semifinals. Who do they share BC Place with? Is it like a CFL?

EC Lions, CFL. And then there's myriad other activities. A year or two ago, the Wicap's Conccaf Champions Cup series, actually they have had multiple Concaf Champions Cup series get relegated to the CPS. venue out on, I think it's Victoria Island. Basically, there was a garden convention, a garden expo at BC Place scheduled long and advanced. So they got, they got the boot from their own house. So they had it is a provincially owned facility and that imposes limitation. In fact, Don Garber was just up there doing a media tour, banging the drum for their efforts to get, one, a better lease and two, eventually a stadium of their own. Okay. How about the Eastern Conference?

Yeah, a couple other fun matchups. Pott's actually asked about the Hell is Real series. It just finished up with Cincinnati edging the crew in fairly dramatic fashion. Three great games in that one. But there's, I think, with Miles Robinson, Salentano, Schulte, unfortunately, Zawadsky's not going to be able to take part. But a bunch of USM. Arfton. He was actually asked during the press conference about those guys beating each other's brains out with their clubs

and then joining the national team, and he gave a fairly predictable answer about how they're all Americans, and the national team's first, and they're all teammates when they check in. But fun series, now we get SINC against Inter-Miamy in SINC, which is one, again, as we talked about in the previous episode, one of the better stadium environments in MLS.

So Messi against SINC will be a fun one. And then Philly, NYCFC is another one that's either end of, of New Jersey duking it out. And they've had a bunch of really fun, tense, interesting playoff meetings over the last few years. This is their third or fourth time meeting in the last few years in the playoffs. And it will be, I think it'll be a fun one to watch. And we'll see if Philly can keep doing their monster truck soccer and keep advancing. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, that all comes up after the international break, so stay tuned for that.

Only other thing I wanted to mention is the U-17s beat Tajikistan on Saturday morning, 2-1, so this was the game they really needed to win to get through the group, and they did it, 2-1. They gave up a very early goal,

thanks to some poor work from their centerbacks, I think, mostly Hamuda and Cups, and then they clawed back into it. I don't think you know, Chechia beat Tajikistan, I think 6-0. So we'll see what happens when we play them tomorrow morning. But Burchamah scored on a header off a Kavan Sullivan corner.

Philadelphia not missing Kavana very much. It doesn't seem. And then Kavanaugh draws a penalty, and Sullivan finishes it with Panenka for the game winner. Who knows if the kid is going to be, you know, as great as everybody hopes him to be, but he sure does have balls to like, I mean, he does. So like to go with the Panenka when you're tied one-one at the U-Sept.

Lawless to executed. Yeah. Yeah. I will say too, he, you know, it was at this end of last season that he made his debut and the first team broke Freddie Adieu's record, which was, I think the club wanted that for the, to underline sort of how specialist kid is and what a coup it was to be able to get him to sign domestically, even though there's the next step, the progression of Man City is built into the deal. But he has been looked a little overmatched at times in the brief cameos he's gotten with the

first team at MLS level. Yeah. And you know what? It's okay because when you see him drop in with these, I think he reported late, right, because of Philly's schedule. But he looked pretty good. I think he had one of his best outings off the bench. I want to say on the last day of the regular season, maybe it was or maybe it was their first

playoff game, looked bright. And then when he joins kids his age, you can just see the benefit he's getting from playing with grown man. And he's just now, I think, shifting through the gears. And I'm hoping we get a, we get a, we get a, we get a, we get a, we get a, we get a, we get a a, we get a tournament his own. And you would, you would like to think he's on trajectory, maybe to possibly do that. Yeah. And I will say, I think a lot of people already know this, but Matisse Albert is the one who's going to beat you one of one and blow by you from the wing. Kavin Sullivan is not so much that he's going to have to do make his impact on the ball

more in the more in like the middle of the field and the half spaces because he's not the raw you know athletic superhero that can like that can just burn a guy. So you know that don't look for him to come out and just like square a guy up and go past him. He's going to have to he's going to have to do it with his intelligence. and his ability, like his soccer skill, his skill with the ball. His brain. Yeah. These are the kids that the scouts catch the scouts attention, right?

That was famously, I guess, to some of us at least, that was what drew attention to Pulisic from the ball knowers that he was not the biggest or strongest and had to solve problems in this age phase. Chase Adams, I should say, got some headed chances in there that drew some decent saves for the U-17s. So he played striker, which Marcus and I talked about a little bit last week. I think that's it. Anything else, Charlie?

Hopefully we've given everyone something to chew on on their Monday. Yeah, nice little roundup. And we'll be recapping. It looks like we'll be recapping the Paraguay match together on Sunday. So that game's at 5 o'clock Eastern on Saturday. And then Greg and I will recap the Oudeguai game the day after that, which is, I think, the 19th. And then before all that, it looks like I'm going to get Matt Hartman on after the Chechia game for the U-17s and go a little deeper on them. So we got stuff coming up.

Thanks to everybody for listening. we'll see you