Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #649: Leander Schaerlaeckens on the state of the USMNT, its chaotic history & miraculous growth since the 1980s

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Vince is back. He and Belz welcome Leander to discuss the past window, where things stand with Poch’s project, and the chaotic history of the US Men’s National Team, which is the subject of his forthcoming book.We end up covering the major action from the weekend, including Pulisic’s gamewinner in the Derby della Madonnina, McKennie’s continued energetic & intelligent play for Juve, another shiny little cameo for Gio, Tillman’s goal and “assist” for Leverkusen, and another unconvincing performance (even in a 1-0 win!) for Noahkai Banks.Pre-order Leander’s book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/722130/the-long-game-by-leander-schaerlaeckens/ 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 when we talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody, it's Thanksgiving Week. Lots to be thankful for. We just had a very successful international window. A good weekend for the boys in Europe. Vince is back. And we've got Leander Sherlockins

gracing us today. He is, as you all know, a longtime soccer reporter writes for now for The Guardian, among others, and he's got a book about the history of the USMNT, The Long Game, coming out soon. You can pre-order the book, and we'll put that link in the show notes.

We'll talk about some of that shortly. But first, Leander, thanks for being here. How are you? I'm really well, guys. Thanks for having me. I love this podcast. Vince, how are... Thank you.

And Vince, how are you doing? I'm doing great, man. I'm back. Two weeks off. You know, I had to... I got to work about four weeks a year. You know what I'm saying? And, you know, this past two weeks

were two of those four weeks, You know, hard days, hard days. I'm working seven days a week at that time because I'm a perpetual procrastinator, you know, ever since my, but this time I'm doing it, you know, back in my college days, you pop out. Don't do this, okay? Yeah, I used to acquire an Adderall, take that, stay up all night, cram for a test or do my 20-page paper or whatever, get that done. Night of, night of 50 tabs open in the browser. You know how it goes. but now I'm doing a sands aterol.

You know, I'm a responsible adult now. I want to make sure I belabor this point. Do not do what I did, okay? Do not buy stimulants on the black market. I think the Statue of Levitations have passed. So I'm good. But yeah, I'm good, man. I was able to watch the games, not necessarily put my critical eye on it,

But I was able to watch. Maybe you had more fun watching that way than the rest of us with our critical eye. Sure. Yeah. I was going to say, I thought I had it good. My day job at Maris University, I'm a college lecturer. I work 30 weeks a year. So that was a pretty sweet deal.

But I cannot compete with four. Yeah. You love the students who wait until the night before to do all the work, don't you? The night before are the diligent ones. I just had a class this morning. And I asked, show of hands, when did you guys do this reading? And almost all of them said they'd done it while they were having breakfast,

like 20 minutes before class. So night before, I would happily take. Doing the reading, that's no small thing, you know? Yeah. I wouldn't have been raising my hand, bro. I'm cramming all that reading in for whatever test, final. Hopefully you put the lectures up They still use Blackboard

What are they using that day There's a bunch of different ones We use Bright Space right now One's called I Learn I don't put lectures up because Then why would anybody come to class? Yeah Yeah

Gotta get your tuition's worth Come to class That's what the money is for Right And the classroom discussion Ideally is a big part of the learning experience too, right? Yeah.

I mean, it sure is in my class. I ain't lecturing for an hour or 15 minutes. Most of my classes are pretty practical. They're writing classes. They're journalism classes, you know. So there's not really exams, but you got to come and talk about the readings and then you've got to do some writing.

That's all tough to do if you're not showing up. Let's, we should do another podcast on higher education for sure. but let's talk about the wins over Paraguay and Uruguay. Leander, what do you take away from this past window? You know, macro, optimism, positivity. You know, I think there is a lot of good. There's a few things that still concern me. There seems to be an absolute logjam of talent in the midfield now,

as every time that Potch rotates his players and we're not allowed to say regulars anymore. But whenever he tries in a few guys, it seems that in the midfield, the drop-off is negligible. So there's a few different positions that now seem to be three, four players deep where they're going to have some genuinely difficult decisions to make for that final World Cup roster.

At the same time, there's also positions where I think they're still desperately thin. Up front, there seem to be three violins. options between Flo Balagan and Haji Wright and Ricardo Pepi. But, you know, they all are streaky. They've all been prone to long-term injuries. It seems like that's still a position where things are a little bit fickle. Centerback, I'm still concerned about, especially if you're going to play with three of them

and you realistically need five or six on your roster. They still seem to be a bit thin there. the wingback positions, whatever we're calling them. I would really like to see Sergenio Desk play on the left a little bit more for the national team because I think it's entirely plausible that Jedi Robinson isn't fit or isn't fully back to himself in time for the World Cup because this injury has just dragged on and on and on. And are you going to really start Max Arfston against Germany or whoever you might be playing at the World Cup? I'm not so sure.

So I think it's really plausible that Dest would play on the left and that Tim Wea plays in the right in sort of a wingbacky system. And I'd like to see them actually try that and give us a look at what that looks like. Checking on my notes here, every time I rewatch the Paraguay game, I think I've seen it three times now. Geo Raina looks better with every rewatch. At the same time, Ricardo Pepey's miss on that door.

step looks worse with every rewatch. But I thought Gio was just, he broke lines on the ball. He, you know, he got the goal and the quasi-assist, obviously. But at the same time, he, you know, each time I noticed this a little bit more, he tracked back a lot, right? He won the ball a lot. He was doing real work on both sides of the ball. And I kind of came away thinking, if he can't run as hard as he used to, if he's not as fast as he once was, if he's not able to sprint, really full out. If he plays like this, I think I'm okay with that. Not every player has to be the fastest guy on the field. There's players around him who I think can make up for that physicality. And the other note I had for the Paraguay game is that they really did just give up pretty much

one major scoring chance. And that's what they conceded on against Uruguay. On the other hand, which obviously was the much bigger win, they gave away a good amount. That game could have been 5-3-5-4 if a few things had broken differently. They weren't nearly as tidy in the back, which kind of fits into my earlier point about still being a bit concerned about that back line and how you're going to staff that if you're going to play three centerbacks at the World Cup. I'm so glad you said that about Geo because I love talking about Geo Raina, and I had exactly the same experience.

The third time I watched it, the second time I watched the game, I was like, ooh, Gio's even better than I thought. Third time I watched, I was like, just like you, he was really, really good. And it's, I think it's the tracking back is part of it. But it's also like he can make a pass in our half that eliminates a couple of defenders from a situation, from a difficult situation that other players on our team. Most other players on our team can't. I actually think Weston McKinney is like the only, maybe the only guy in that sort of conversation for like trans. translating a difficult sort of nothing situation, as Greg Velasquez would say, into attack.

And man, those things add up a lot because you get pinned in your half. You can't get out. Then you just kick it long and you lose possession. But with Gio, he can receive it under pressure. He finds a solution and we're off to the races. You get like six or seven of those in a game from one player. that player is really, really valuable. And that's, I think that's the big thing he did.

Obviously, he scored with his head. He got a little bit of a deflection on that pass. That was a quasi-assist, as you put it. But it's that work in the middle third that I think really sets him apart. Anyway, just agree to agree there. That headed goal was kind of funny because afterwards he said something, I think it was to the TNT broadcast where he goes, you know, I'm pretty tall.

So the last few weeks I've been practicing headers. And like, hang on, you're what now? 23, it has only now occurred to you to practice headers because you're tall. And then right away, you score your first header as a professional. I'm sure it's not that simple. And I'm kind of maybe erasing some of the work he's done. But I was like, yes, this is a thing you can do when you're tall. We're very glad that you've discovered this.

It was his first headed goal, I think either for Club or Country. I think both. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what we're going to, what are we going to do about the centerbacks? I don't know, man. That was going to be one of my other questions for you. Are the centerbacks going to be good enough in the World Cup? It helps when there's an extra guy back there.

But at the same time, you know, they become a little bit. It's easier for gaps to form between those guys when if your backs are pushed up, it, you got to get that one right. I mean, that's one of those where Pochitino and his staff are going to have to earn their money in really figuring out how to lock that down because, you know, World Cups to margins are going to be so, so, so very fine. Yeah. And just in general, I mean, we're committing a lot of numbers to the attack anyway. I mean, like, it's usually nothing to see like both players and like that double pivot. I mean, how many times you see like Tadent Testament in the box?

Yeah. For instance, against Paraguay. Christian Rodan getting up there We saw his attacking exploits Last window You know And it's all because You know

He's kind of taking the reins off Whereas Greg never did You know we were sitting there begging Like yo what Why is Weston and McKinney Not involved in the attack whatsoever You know Totally different

To in the potch In the potch rain So it's These defenders are on islands Even more And less protected Yeah you know, way more than the past.

And it's just, yeah, it's, we're flirting with disaster. But, you know, I think I like it this way. It's funny, actually. I don't know if you notice, but against Furentina, McKenny was playing in a very similar role than he had against Australia for the U.S., playing right underneath Flavich. Yeah, next to Kenan Yild is he was playing much further

up to field and much more centrally than he usually does for Yuvay. So I sort of wondered if his coach there, Spoletti kind of liked what Pach had done with McKenny against Australia and played him in that really high role, which is not really a place that I sort of expected him a few months ago. And he was effective there for Yuvé as well.

Yeah. He's playing really well. I mean, I guess let's skip around a little bit and talk a little bit about the weekend action because it's relevant to what we're discussing now. What really struck me about his performance in a game that Uve fans are probably frustrated about, they drop points again in Florence. They're like, what, seven points back of Inter at the top of the table. So things aren't going super great for Uve as a team. But Wes is the way he was moving without the ball, the way he was moving into pockets, the way he was making runs to clear out space for his teammates. Like he just looks so much, he looks as fresh and as, I mean, trim, honestly, as he has looked for years. He looks totally fit. And it's really good to see that.

It's been cooking. He almost was the hero. Yeah. And this match. I found a little bit of space, got a header in the box, probably about right outside the 6-yard box, I want to say. Unfortunately, the Furentina keeper got a hand to it, it tipped it over the bar.

But, yeah, that was like, what, 82nd minute, 3rd minute, something like that? Yeah. Could have broken the dead lock, but, yeah, he's been cooking, man. I mean, we talked about it. What, maybe the last podcast I was on, I don't know. But, yeah. He continues to put them together for, for,

for you. He does. I think it's really encouraging that I think Spoletti is the first UV manager since Andrea Pirolo when McKinney came into the club. If I'm not mistaken, Spoletti is his fifth full-time UV manager, but he's the first one since Perlowe, who has kind of right off the bat, right at the outset, sort of seen something in Weston that he thinks is useful and is a contributor, right? With every coach in between, he's basically started out in the dog house and had to like work his way back inside. So it's just kind of refreshing to finally see a UV manager who's like, I can use this guy.

I can work with him. He can do a few different things and who's trusted him right from the outset. Because I think he's played all but like five minutes of Spilletti's rain so far. Wow. I didn't realize it was that extreme. Yeah. He's so good. He's like to go back to the geo thing.

He's so good in those tight spaces too. I don't think he gets enough credit for that. How, um, how comfortable he is. in traffic finding somebody's feet he has it he has a few giveaways every game i think he only had one in this game but um so he's been pretty clean but let's talk a little quickly about milan because uh big game at the san sain milan wins one zero pulisic scores the game winner and um it's just a moment of sound fundamentals you know it's a it's a three on three attack i think

distance and the goalkeeper pushes it over in Pulisic's direction. He's crash in the back post, tucks it home. But that was the difference in the derby. He also went close to the near post with a good hit from 25 yards toward the end of the first half, which was nice. But interdominated this game. Interdominated this game. Mike Vignan stood on his head. We got a great video. I know you're going to appreciate this Vince. We got a great video from A.C. At the end of the game of Maxi Allegri, as soon as the final whistle blows, it was like slow motion, just grins like a Cheshire cat and trots down the, just heads right down

the tunnel. Doesn't stop to say hi to anybody. Just like grin into himself, heads for the tunnel. And I guess this is fairly customary for him, but it's pretty funny. What an interesting fellow, you know? He doesn't, though he's not shaking anybody's hands. He's not celebrating, just celebrating to do it. himself going down the tunnel.

I thought that was great. I love him. I really do too. Like one of the great characters in the game. That counterattacking style seems to really suit Polisic nicely. You know, just. And, you know, I always think that he looks at his best for Milan when he's not being counted on to kind of make things happen.

And when he's a guy who's cleaning up on the save and sort of, you know, sticking in the rebound or when he's getting to sort of drop behind that back line and make long runs and use his speed and all the rest. And it just kind of again reaffirms that old adage that we've been talking about about how many of these US players are playing for big clubs, but maybe aren't necessarily the central guy and how that suits them, how that suits them better, which again is, I think, an argument for trying to fit someone like Raina in the lineup, if he's fit and if he's playing regularly because that does free up

Polisic to do more of the running off the ball stuff and where he really seems to shine. Yeah. You could see Wes and Gio really being able to put something together in the buildup and then

find Christian, find Tim Wea you know, running in behind. So at the very beginning of Leander's answer, when you asked him, what did we take away from this past window? He said something about potch and rotation or something,

or the fact that we can't deem the regulars as regulars or whatever. And the one thing that did catch my eye over this past window was his response to the press where he, I mean, you know he kind of got on the press a little bit about the rotation that happened when reporter i forgot who asked the question it was first dug mcintyre asked about it and then uh paul tiniur asked about it in a slightly different way yeah go ahead okay rotation was mentioned um the team was rotated and somehow potch i i just feel like these questions were framed like Potch has been laying the groundwork like hey we need to treat these players like this

there are no regular players etc etc and I feel like both people framed the frame the question by taking Potch's decrees at heed and you know they tried to tiptoe around as much as pop they didn't even say regular players they just said hey you got some that's some rotation from the paraguay match to the Uduigua match and you were still able to put out a good performance and all of a sudden my man pot's gonna blow up on him yeah you know what i'm just the crankiest he has been in 14 months in charge and it comes after battering uruguay 5-1 which is just like the now this is when you're doing this okay yeah i am the u.s coach you know as he yeah as he grabbed the the point he makes is that not the janitor and and which which is maybe sort of philosophizing

easier to to argue when you're in the Argentinian program as he was as a player, which is that whoever is wearing the jersey is the national team, right? And of course, especially with a team like the U.S. that has an A team and a B team and a C team, as we call it, right? There's just so much turnover in the pool. He's called up 71 different players, I think, in his first year. So you are going to get those questions. And you have a program where our third string right back isn't,

playing for Lazio or whoever, right? There is a drop-off just in the pedigree of the clubs these players play for. And so it is natural in defense of my colleagues to sort of assume that, you know, some of these guys are just on a different plane than their rivals for that position, right? But so I think that because he's been preaching culture, you know, borrowing cliches from various CEOs. And because it's all about, you know, the, the team supersedes, the players, and all the rest that I think he just really recoiled against this idea that there is a ranking and that there is a hierarchy when he spent the last year plus sort of smashing up that hierarchy and starting over.

Right, right, right, which I understand that. But it's like the hierarchy wasn't even mentioned. It was just like, you rotated the squad. You know, there were seven changes. I don't even know what the exact number of changes were between the three. two games like we can't even mention that you know what I'm saying I just put me off a little bit put me off a little a little bit and nine nine changes yeah okay from from game to game and it's like I don't know it just it just kind of I watched the video I was just like huh because you know what

after getting to know the press a little bit and and Leander I ran into you in New York just happened to sit next to you um because the press room was very crowded after after South Korea yeah But after spending time with the people getting to know him and, you know, Doug McIntyre just, if you've even been on Twitter, you see he takes a, he takes a shot after shot for coming out so strongly about G.R. Rana. I don't know. But, yeah. My point is. Poor guy.

I mean, what a mess Twitter is. But anyway. My point is, after spending all this time around these people, the press core of the U.S. mess national team. First of all, extremely nice people. Number one. Number two, they're some people that just care about the jobs and they really care about soccer. You know, this isn't just a beat to most of them. You know, they really care about the game and its growth here in the United States.

And when you're around with them, they just want to talk ball the whole time. I mean, they're just bouncing ideas off each other, back and forth, et cetera. And I don't know. I just didn't like it from Potch. I don't like it from Potch. And I understand that whatever, I see people saying, oh, yeah, he's setting the standard. He's coming after our, what do they call him? MLS shills?

Shills, right. He's coming after. It's totally an incoherent thing for anybody to have said. He's roasting these shills, et cetera, et cetera. And maybe there will be a point in time where he should roast the shills or whatever. I'm just using their terminology here. I just didn't think that was the time. I didn't think that was the time.

Sorry, I mean, Paul and Doug are total pros and terrific journalists. But just on the merits of what they were saying, Tyler Adams wasn't there, Chris Richards wasn't there, McKenny wasn't there, Policic wasn't there. This was a diluted roster, and then you make nine changes. It's a perfectly valid question. No matter what you want to say about culture and hierarchy and all the rest, Like most of the regulars weren't there. Of the guys who were on the field starting against Uruguay, really only desks and frees are like plausible World Cup starters, right?

So, you know, you can throw a tantrum about that. Protch would disagree, Leander. You can have a hissy fit, but, you know, I don't know how you can reasonably say that those were bad questions to ask. No, they weren't bad questions. I totally agree with that. But I guess my thinking is, is so he was he looked like he was about to cry at one point when he was you know we remember

when he was like shaking his head and he goes very sad very sad you know like he's he he looked like he was gonna he was sad like like watching you know an unprovoked country declare war on another country it was like a really sad moment um but i feel like it's all just theater you know like did like is he really yeah mad at these guys Maybe in the moment he was, I don't know. But it feels to me like he's so allergic to this idea of there being anything owed to any single player. And this has been his like basically his main battle since March of 2025, erasing this sense that after this win for that to be even like slightly hinted at just sets him off. you know, because he's like, no, we're not talking that way.

Even though I do think, end of the day, the World Cup roster is going to be basically who was there in March 2025, you know. Yep. But, you know, after a long time of me thinking that this endeavor that he was trying to fight towards was pointless, you know, here he is now getting results with whoever, you know, against teams like Paraguay. in Uruguay. You know what I'm saying? So, so he has achieved what he set out to achieve. Yeah. And for a long time, I thought it was, I thought it was not going to happen. It looked like it was not going to happen. But we're here now. And to get to, you know, I came down on Potch a little bit right there. But take a step back. We're cooking, baby. We're back. We're back. Now, where are we back to? I think, Loki, you know, he took the scenic route to get us

back to, you know, I think we're, as a team, as a whole, I think we're about back to where we were around the World Cup. You know, we still got to find some type of cutting edge. Maybe that comes through G. Arena. It probably will come through G. Arena if it does come. We still got to find a way to create, you know, two or three great chances of match consistently. But, you know, I'm. extremely happy with what's going on.

And next window, March, two games in Atlanta. You know what I'm saying? Bells, make sure you got the guest room ready for me. Yep. It's ready, baby. I can't wait.

And so, and I think we're kind of, I can just feel it. I can feel the excitement that's growing. Patreon signups and whatnot. Like, we're getting, we're turning the corner a little bit. And now we got,

what four months to just sit and bask in this glow of the fact that we beat uruguay 5-1 and beat paraguay and uh so well there's really go ahead that's the thing right they're looking really good but the entire puzzle still hasn't been laid yet right even back at the nation's league and the the the catastrophic finals right which sort of prompted the whole reset um poch didn't have dest he didn't have Pap Pepe and he didn't have Balagan. He still hasn't had a window where we can't say regulars, but where he has had all of the players that we think are his best players available all at once, right? And so we keep seeing fragments of what this total picture might look like. Like, it still hasn't been fully assembled. I think that's what the March camp is for. And you just have

to hope that between that and the two friendlies leading up to the World Cup, that that's enough time. but it's like we keep seeing pieces of the puzzles and like little corners of it being assembled without the entire thing being late. So in that sense, it's still really hard to tell where they are as one collective. But it has to make you happy to see him grab Tim Tillman, you know, just off the heap. You know, I need a midfielder. Hold on. Let me just, Tim, Tim, get in here. And then, you know, Tim crunches somebody to lead up to the, you know,

the Alex Freeman goal, you know, and generally play as well. You know, I'm biased. I'm a Tim Tillman fanatic. But, yeah, it's just the fact that we can just chop and change, bring in whoever, when, for whatever the case, for whatever reason, that was not the case in the Gold Cup. It was, it wasn't the case under Burrhalter either, you know? Right, right. It was like either we had everybody, either we had all the regulars or we were hot, steaming ass, you know?

Like, terrible. Burrhalter actually talked about this from my book. When we talked about Copa America, he said that he should have rotated his players more and that he came to be too reliant on his regulars and didn't sort of freshen it up and mix it up enough. Huh. Yeah, I mean, it checks out. I think we should, speaking of your book, I think we should get into it. But let's take a little break and then we'll talk about that.

The book is called The Long Game. U.S. men's soccer and its savage four-decade journey to the top or thereabouts. Some fascinating stuff to discuss from the early history of soccer in America in there, among other things, and we're going to get into it. If you want to skip the ads and help scuff turn the corner, help ensure its viability as a source of accountability and celebration of the U.S. men's national team, join the Patreon. I ask you to seriously consider this.

$5 a month is what we ask, and at that level you get clip notes, videos of a lot of the footage we discuss on the show, both after games and on Mondays, we will be back shortly. Okay, we're back. Leander, first of all, the structure of this book, just so people know,

is, it's like a chapter on the history of soccer slash the U.S. men's team in America, and then a chapter, I don't know if you call it a chapter, but like a vignette on a current player. And so I had two-part question.

first, why did you structure it that way, you know, just as a matter of craft? And then two, which of those six players? And I think it was, let me see, it's Tyler Adams, Matt Turner, Ricardo Pepe, Christian Pulisic, Jedi, and Westa McKenney. So, yes, six. Which of those was, which of those gave you the most material that hit the cutting room floor? Oh, interesting. Well, in terms of the structure, there's really two stories I wanted to tell, right? One was the history of this national team kind of up to this point, and the other was how this team came together ahead of the World Cup, right?

And I thought the best way to tell that was to profile players who are all really interesting in their own right, but who also say something about the larger kind of American soccer landscape, right? Tyler Adams and the lack of pipelines into high-quality youth academies having to commute, you know, an hour and a half every day, each way just to get himself to the Red Bowl Academy. And consequently, now starting a minor league team, the Hudson Valley Hammers, to help kind of develop more pipelines and to create one in his backyard so that now talent coming up doesn't have to go through the ordeal. that he and his family had to, which is what, you know, freezes a lot of people out of the pipeline. Ricardo Pepe has a fabulous backstory as sort of a, I won't say a long shot prospect in El Paso in the terms of talent because he was obviously very talented. He scored just a ton of goals his whole life. But at the same time, just being from sort of that corner of the country, even though

it's suffused in soccer, it wasn't so evident that he would get seen by an academy like FC Dallas and would eventually get, uh, become a sort of resident there and make his way into the pros. And that speaks to a bigger story of again, pipelines, but also of how we, um, include communities like the, the Hispanic American community that, you know, have been frozen out of the youth system a lot. Um, you know, Matt Turner is really about, uh, a story, an incredible underdog story, but also somebody who maybe should have been ID'd a lot sooner, right? And what does it say about the way that we kind of advertise soccer, I guess, to kids, that somebody who clearly had the talent to become a World Cup goalkeeper

and who had these other worldly reflexes didn't even really focus on soccer until he was 16 and wasn't a prospect, even in college, and had to sort of scrap his way into professional soccer through the back door. Like what does that say about us and the way that we identify and develop soccer players? So I kind of wanted to tell stories that weren't just good stories in and of themselves, but that also really just spoke to the sport writ large in our country. And what got left in the cutting room floor. I will say that Tyler Adams, who lives 10 minutes from my house here in the Hudson Valley,

took me the longest to nail down and to actually have my interview with. He has a lovely family and they're very helpful. But he's someone who's in high demand and who prioritizes his time according to whatever's going to help him the most on the field, which I totally respect. It was sort of funny that the guy who ostensibly, I should have been able to bike to his house was the longest journey towards actually nailing down that interview and getting him. I love the, I love, I don't want to give too much of your book away, but I love the anecdote about the garden, the garden games and how, how mad he got playing garden games with his, like, I don't know if it was croquet or what it was, but playing games in the garden with his family, everybody had to be like, Tyler, chill out, bro. Like, let's get you out of here because he can't, like, turn off the, um, the high intensity competitive instinct, which I, I understand. That's how. that's how it works, but that was a telling anecdote. It's the elite athlete superpower, right? And it's something that's underappreciated.

And it's also something that when they're not on the field and or when they retire, a lot of athletes have a really hard time kind of managing that competitiveness, right? Because they spend all their careers weaponizing it and harnessing it. And then, and then, you know, sport is over. And it's like, what do you do with it? Yeah. What do you do? Gamble.

Right. There's all manner of vices available to you to try to channel this competitiveness unproductively. So my specific question, though, Leander, was which of those profiles was the hardest to boil down? I didn't want to ask you which was the hardest to stretch into a full-length profile, but I do want to ask, which of those gave you so much material you had to like, man, this is hard. I got a lot. It's going to hit the cutting room floor. In a weird way, it was Christian Polisic, who, you know, I've spoken to in mixed zones and press conferences, all the rest, is one of the few players I didn't have a sit-down interview with because he had a contractual thing with his own book deal or there was some kind of conflict, according to his agent. And so what I really wrote about, because I think Polisic is more interesting in sort of the,

fact of American men's soccer yearning for a superstar for decades and decades. And then one comes along and he has no interest in that stardom whatsoever. And he sort of tries in every possible way to be anonymous away from the field. And I think that's part of why he did the docu series on Paramount Plus is to kind of, you know, answer that demand in a sense and be like, okay, you know what, I'll let you in. Here's me. And now can we please be done with it? And can you leave me alone, right?

I get that energy from his docu-series. So what I wrote about, as much as I did about him, was about the search for an American star, right? And it goes back to Kyle Rote Jr. in the 70s, who's the son of a famous quarterback, leads through Freddie Adieu, who I spoke to at length, even though he doesn't give interviews very much anymore, who is fascinating.

And Landon, Donovan, and his kind of disqualify, interest in being the kind of careerist that you sort of have to be to get everything out of your talent because Lennon wasn't wired that way and he was he just wanted to live in California and be in California and if that meant playing an MLS then he was going to play in MLS right and then Clint Dempsey who had the talent and who had to drive but who was by his own admission a little rough around the edges and who kind of didn't want to polish himself in the ways that would make him sort of that you know late night TV talk show guest.

And so that interview, I had a ton of material just talking to all those people who had been anointed as that first star. Sports Illustrated at one point called Tony Miola, the first great international superstar that was going to come from the United States. So I had a lot of fun with that one, sort of in the absence of the character himself being as compelling, shall we say. That's fascinating, yeah. So going back to the beginning of things, I was fascinated with the sections on the American Soccer League,

which I think a lot of people will not have ever heard of or know anything about. But it started in 1921. Can you give us just a sense of, what was the context for this league being founded and give us a sense of the rise and fall of it and why it fell? Because I think I guess what's most surprising to me is that it was actually pretty popular. Yeah. Yeah.

So go ahead. So the ASL has existed in several incarnations. I mean, what's always funny and what drives like the hardcore American soccer historians nuts is when you ask about when will soccer arrive in, in America, right? It already did a hundred years ago, right? It already had a golden age. It's, you know, obviously trying to have another one. But the ASL, if memory serves, it was a while since I wrote it, but was the only the second sort of organized National League. And at one time, because in the UK, they had all these rules about it. They basically had like a hard salary cap that was super super low like there were there were all these rules about how their players could only

make it was like six pounds a week and then it was eight pounds a week but it would be like cut during the off season meanwhile in the ASL you had sort of these well-heeled owners who would pay players a couple thousand dollars a year right and so for a time before the great depression the ASL was the world's best paying league and they were poaching all of these players from the UK from these big clubs from the Scottish League, which was one of the best in the world at the time from Manchester United because they would just pay way more money. And so there's an argument to be made that in the 20s, early 30s, some of the best league soccer in the world was played in the United States in the ASL.

All these guys were just coming over. And that was obviously a benefit to the U.S. when they entered into the First World Cup in 1930 because all of their players had been playing with these guys, right? And they were playing in a well-funded domestic league with like international elite talent. And that really helped them. And there was an argument. There was sort of a accusation at the time that the U.S. only did well in 1930 at the first World Cup where they came third because they naturalized all these guys, but that's not true. All of the players on that 1930 team, except for one, only became pros in the U.S.

Some of them had moved over and had migrated from the UK, but they hadn't been pros except for one player at the time. They really developed and came up after they got to the U.S. Unfortunately, what you saw with that league, which has been the recurring pattern of just professional men's soccer ever since, is that it was chaotic and that there was infighting and that there were sort of self-interested administrators and that they would get into these competitions with rival leagues

and that that sort of made everybody worse and weaker. And then the Great Depression really came along and killed off the ASL and sort of that first heyday of American men's soccer was over them. Yeah, it's just such a sad thing. And it took like 45 years to recover from that basically, right? But we're talking like, I forget what the number, 46,000 people came to one of the ASL games. I mean, they were like, the attendance was really strong. Yeah.

There were teams basically all over the eastern half of the United States. I had no idea about any of this. So it's pretty cool. Some teams drew tens of thousands. Some drew a couple hundred. I mean, there are so many of these weird, quirky little stories in American, club soccer history. At the turn of the century, there were two efforts by baseball owners of it wasn't

called Major League Baseball yet, but by owners of baseball teams who basically said, hey, we should have our teams play soccer as well so that we have some programming for our stadiums over the winter, right? And so twice these baseball owners tried to start a soccer league, which they then, because they were cheap, they would have their baseball manager also, coach the soccer team, right? And sometimes players would play two sports, but, you know, it's, it never took off. Some of these teams only drew a couple hundred fans. Some of these, uh, teams basically folded as soon as spring training started because they, they, the, like,

organization wanted to focus on the real business. And there are just so many these quirky, weird little things, uh, in our American soccer history that, that we really don't appreciate. So I tried to really highlight those in the book. Yeah, I mean, I learned a lot just from like the first three chapters. I haven't gotten all the way through the book, but I've read like, I read the first, you know, quarter of it. Joe Gachens, I didn't realize this. Joe Gajuns, the guy who scored the goal in 1950, right, to beat England. He was actually Haitian, like born and raised in Haiti.

And maybe I'll let you tell it. How did he die? So Haitians, or Haitians, Gajuns played for Haiti before and after he played for the U.S. at the 1950 World Cup. He scores that famous goal that fells England. He gets carried away. And so after that World Cup, he goes to play in France a little bit. He's injured a lot. He's a little bit unfocused away from the field, shall we say.

So eventually he makes his way back to Haiti. He'd come from this well-off family. they had like a biggest state in Port-au-Prince. There was in the movie, I think it's called Game of Our Lives or whatever it's called, that they made about that 1950 team. They made it seem like he was this voodoo-practicing sort of street kid who had somehow sort of made good. That's not true.

He was a Catholic from a prominent family that was politically well-connected. And so what happened is Papa Doc Duvalier, the Haitian dictator, in one of his purges, he was coming after the Gachens family because they were aligned with a rival political faction. And so Joe Gachens didn't think he had anything to fear because he wasn't politically involved. And he thought of himself as a soccer player. And he had like a few small businesses after he retired. I think he ran a dry cleaners if memory serves. And so he didn't think he had anything to worry about because he was famous from soccer.

surely Duvalier wouldn't come after him. But all of his family members who were politically involved had fled the country. I think most of them went over to the Dominican side of the island. And so what does Duvalier's secret service do or his sort of secret police is they arrest Joe Gajuns instead, presumably as a kind of message to the rest of the family. He disappears into this notorious prison in Port-au-Prince. and he's never seen again where he was almost certainly executed pretty shortly after he got there. We'll probably never know exactly.

One of the great ironies is that he was eligible for playing for the U.S. at that 1950 World Cup, along with a few other guys. Joe Maka had played for the Belgian national team, I believe, because at the time, FIFA led every federation set its own standards for who is eligible to play for their national. team. And at the time, U.S. soccer, which wasn't called U.S. soccer yet, had basically made it the rule that if you had signed your first papers, which was like this document that you had signed to signal your intention to become a naturalized American citizen, that that was good enough. So Gajun signs his first papers and that gets him onto the national team, but he never actually follows through and becomes a U.S. citizen, which is the, what makes one of the many things that makes this story so sad is that it, is that it. If he had become a U.S. citizen, it's doubtful that Papa Doc would have executed him because that would have meant killing an American citizen. And that would have obviously politically been a lot more charged and fraught and would have invited scrutiny from the U.S. government in a way that this didn't. So he may have saved his life if he'd actually gotten his U.S. passport, but he never did. chilling

chilling stuff really um okay so that's that's that's Gachin's being disappeared by Papa Doc um which I didn't know until I read your book uh alcatus Panagulius

he's uh I mean I'm sorry Alcus Panagulius yeah uh he's the he's the coach of something called Team America in the 1980s can you tell us what team America was and then I got a more specific question about Panagulius but we'll get to that in a moment so after the ASL collapses um american club soccer becomes just highly regionalized like basically every

city every region is doing its own thing Cleveland at one point had a two tier professional league just within the city which had promotion and relegation although we don't have to get into that um and so sport becomes highly highly regional and And, you know, the national team just goes, is in the wilderness at this point, right? They had an 11-year streak where they didn't win a game at all. You know, by the late 70s, early 80s, they are playing one game a year, if that, right? Because the federation is broke. The whole thing is a mess.

There's no organization at national team camps in the 80s. Guys weren't getting paid aside from a $5 a day per die. And some camps, the players were actually. actually asked to forego their per diem so that they could afford an extra day of practice, right? And this was, and this was, and this was at the same time that the NASL or at the, at least in the recent, in the recent past, the NASL had had a great deal of success like Paley and Beckenbauer in the 70s. Yeah. Even as this. This did not benefit the national team directly for the longest time.

And so, you know, players would show up to a national team camp and nobody had thought to bring balls. and somebody would have to run the Kmart and buy a bunch of balls. I mean, this sort of thing happened routinely. It was amateur hour. And so what does the Federation do? They decide that maybe their best shot at rejuvenating the national team is to enter it into the NASL as a club team. And the NESL is on its last legs at this point. They're desperate.

They think that Americanizing the league will and making it less sort of so foreigner driven will make it more appealing. and maybe that saves the league. So in 1983, U.S. soccer enters the national team or what was supposed to be the national team into the NASL as Team America, except most of the star players on that team like Ricky Davis refused to take part and they stay with their club teams because they think they have a better deal there. And Team America comes dead last and folds after one season. The NASL folds the following year.

So the whole thing is just a huge calamity. But this is kind of where I start in the book, the modern history of the national team, because at least it was some ambition, right? At least they were trying to get this thing going again and to in some way make the national team better, which they hadn't bothered to do in decades. Right. Panagulius said in the 80s that he believed there were Pelaes growing up. all over America. Obviously he was wrong about this, even if he did believe it. But why, doing all this research into all these high-level leagues and these big schemes

that didn't work out, it ever occurred to you? Like, everybody's sort of barking up the wrong tree here? It's like you're not going to create a good national team by... like managing the players that already exist in a way that is most optimal. It really does have to start, like, way lower down the food chain, you know. There are a lot of these patterns that just repeat themselves again and again through men's soccer history in the U.S. where, you know, writing the book, but then, you know, reading back through it, sometimes you just think, like, what are you doing? Like, it's not this complicated.

Ricky Davis actually wrote this letter to the editor that the New York Times, printed about why he wasn't going to join team America. And he said, this doesn't solve anything for us. If we're going to draw all of the national team into this one team, only 11 guys can be on the field. So it'll actually wind up, meaning less playing time for the national team players than if you just leave them with their various NASL clubs. And he said, why not just spend that money instead of entering a franchise?

Why not just give us a big, long postseason tour after the NASL season so that we can have a few months together, we can play some games, and that way we'll get the benefit of spending time together and we'll be able to play for our NASL teams, where we have really good teammates who are helping us develop because we're practicing with Carlos Alberto or George Best every day. So he made some really salient points and he was completely ignored, and they did the Team America thing anyway, and it was a catastrophe. But yeah, it's a history of missed opportunities. Panagulius is a fascinating guy with the comb over and smoking cigarettes all the time, even on the sideline.

So I recommend the book. Vince, you got any questions for Leander? He's got to go here shortly. Go ahead. I got one thing and then one question. I'm going to get more information on this. But I was talking to my neighbor who has kids, like my kids and their kids have become friends, whatever. He's a big Barza fan.

he says his father used to play goalkeeper for the cosmos back in the day i think backup backup backup keeper something like that um i'm gonna get more information on this um just letting the people know there's a uh i'm gonna keep digging i'm gonna keep digging but also leander i guess i just wonder like all this understanding of soccer history in america what do you make of the moment we're in now and i mean obviously you know the the question that bill just asked as far as, you know, just trying to wish world-class players into existence without addressing the root cause of the issue. But, like, from a whole holistic point of view, like the clubs, MLS, the national team program, everything, you think we're in the right place? When you take the macro view of this, as I did, when you step back and like, okay, I'm going to write about the last 40 years in American men's soccer and write about that recent history because I start.

the story pretty much with Team America. There's a chapter that you got into Bells about sort of the prehistory, but really the modern era starts with Team America. If you consider the fact that two generations ago, there was a World Cup qualifier, which was long after the U.S. had any chance of even making the World Cup, where they actually pulled a player from the stance, the United States men's national team because they did not have enough players. There were World Cup qualifying campaigns where they didn't have a coach. There were somewhere they had two coaches and nobody was sure who actually was the head coach, right? This program has been so chaotic or was so chaotic for so long. They had these epic droughts where they weren't scoring goals,

where they were losing every game to Mexico, 7-1 or whatever it was. If you consider the place where they came from, you know, having guys who were essentially amateurs, making $5 a day to where we are now, where we're arguing over, you know, these six guys could potentially be playing underneath the striker and they can all do a job at the World Cup. Like that arc, that development that we've seen is a miracle. Like it is a sporting miracle. Like it is incredible how far this program has come. When you take the long view of it, like it is amazing progress to have achieved because

you have to consider those 50, 60 years that the U.S. was in the wilderness after the ASL collapsed, everybody else was playing. Everybody else was developing, right? And so you've got this half century gap in your developments and you have to catch that up. And the fact that the US has done it as quickly as it has, and especially now we're feeling good, of course, after the Uruguay game, after the Paraguay game, we're thinking, okay, round a 16 at the World Cup, maybe the quarterfinals, if a few things break right? Like, that's an amazing thing to get to consider and contemplate when you consider where this program was in the 1980s, in the 1990s for most of that decade, right? And to your other point, what's so funny about kind of the developments and that player pathway is we've actually had the blueprint for how to do this properly for a long time.

In the early 1990s, US soccer had Rhinos Michaels on the payroll, father of the total football system, coach of the great 1974 Dutch national team, Johan Krauss mentor, you know, the really the inventor of total football. And in, by extension, kind of modern soccer and the way he looks now,

he was on the US payroll in the, in the early 1990s. And they basically gave him a pot of money. And they said, take your wife, take three months, go travel through the US. This is all in the book.

And tell us what you come up with. And he comes back. And he says, the issue that you have in this country is that you're not a country, you're a continent, right? The soccer that you play in San Diego is totally different from what you're playing in Portland. And what you're playing in New England is totally different from what you're playing in Florida. So you need to nationalize soccer and you need to find some way of creating a more unified

system that brings together the best talent and that creates incubators and that creates more of a national philosophy. And so from there, we then get Carlos Keros, right? The future Iran coach and the future coach of a million different teams, Portugal, who gets tasked with what would become Project 2010. It's like, okay, make a blueprint. How are we going to get better?

And he says, okay, what you need is regional incubators. First, you need a national incubator that then breaks into a bunch of different regional incubators, right? You need more pipelines. That's what all these guys are saying. You need more high-level development environments that can create a wide, big, deep pool of players that you can then draw from. So we've actually known for 30 years, 35 years, what it would take. It's just taking all that time to kind of catch up and actually do it. Okay.

I know you got to go. Thank you, Leander Sherlockins. Look for the book. The long game. I'll put the link for the pre-order in the show notes. Appreciate your time. Well done. Vince and I will be back in a second.

Okay, Vince and I are back, and let's get into some weekend action real quick before we get out of here. We'll start with Weez Bangor for Marseille, who are now two points back of PSG. This was the fourth goal and a 5-1 drubbing of, you know, what's what they call that coast down there,

the Riviera, the Riviera. Riviera rival Nice. I think you've all probably seen the goal. I mean, he just put, his laces through it after getting played in behind by Albam Young. He was okay outside of the goal. Nothing too special. Bit sloppy with his service from the right side.

Set up Obamian with a good rolled ball in behind on the break, which Alba didn't convert. Defensively got beat once on a long diagonal, giving up a good chance, and then he handled the next long diagonal better. All of this is going to be in clip notes, by the way. $5 a month. That's right.

$5. He did playing a cross for, what, I think it was Marseilles' second goal. Moss got deflected out to Greenwood. Greenwood tucked it. It was a bad. It was a poor ball, I would say. Yeah, probably. But you got to put them in there.

Sometimes you get a nice result. Right. But yeah, the goal was dope. The first touch to bring it to bring it with them because it's behind them a little bit. Very. Yeah, to bring it with them. And then it set it up perfectly on the half volley just to smash it. I mean, yeah.

You can't hit a ball sweeter than that. Cannot, cannot. Yeah, that's just, that's the good stuff. That's right. That's the good stuff, man. And I mean, he was playing, starting. it off playing fullback right um and i think by the time he scored the goal he was playing right wing at that point in time so yeah i mean you you you're right he you do so you put him out there you do get

some good results and like there's not many players can can hit a ball like that he's so elegant the way he moves around and everything um just not just not his uh not his cleanest game with the ball I wouldn't say. The setup for Alba that didn't result in a goal. I think Obama Young may have been off sides, but that was a nice. That was a nice play by it, Tim.

Tillman scored? I mean, it was a good weekend. All things to consider, Tillman scored on a breakaway in a 3-1 win for Leverkusen at Wolfsburg. Gets played in behind, kind of sends the keeper the wrong way, almost like he's taking a penalty

and just passes it right past him. he's also you know by some stat services credited with an assist for the first I think it was the first goal but it's a it's generous to give him an assist for this it basically I think he's trying to get to it to shoot and it just maybe grazes the inside of his left foot okay um

I was about to say because I don't remember what you're talking about yeah yeah it wasn't really an assist I think a long way of saying it wasn't really an assist He did a lot of kind of backpassing in this game. I know you've brought him under the prosecutorial microscope for this kind of stuff in the past. And I, you know, you're there in my head as I'm watching this. And yeah, he's just like, he's just like not even playing on the half turn, just right back to the guy who passed it to him. A lot of that in this game.

He did backheel Grimaldo into a 30-yard carry. from Leverkusen's defensive third so that was nice then tried to bend a ball in behind after he gets it back from Grimaldo that gets cut out he also carried and set up his right wing to clip a ball across for an unmarked

Pocou the left winger who's so dangerous for Leverkusen he skyed it so that was a that was a that was real chance generation he did get dunked on on Wolfsburg's only goal with more than a half hour left so he was then subbed off immediately

and that was that 3-1 Leverkusen they're doing great in the league now Scali and Raina both figure as Gladbach gets their third straight win 3-0 at Heidenheim they are no longer relegation fodder they're very much a mid-table team Scali did mega guy

down in his back right corner people were talking about it I found the clip it was nice But, you know, I'm here to talk about Raina mostly. The most important thing is this is five straight league appearances for him, all under a half hour, each one. But combine that, those five straight league appearances with his high-impact U.S. window, I feel like there's a lot of reason for optimism.

I think a lot of people agree with me on that now. Again, doesn't look explosive dribbling at people, but he probably doesn't. never will. I don't think I'm not expecting that to come. He does look strong and healthy. He had, even in the 18 minutes of this game, he was the fulcrum on two moves upfield, one of which eventually led to a goal. So he's doing good stuff out there. I just got our fingers crossed, waiting for that, waiting for that start. Okay. And then Banks, Banks and Augsburg get a one-zero win. And, you know, you go on five, mob you see banks is like it gets a 7.3 man

just yeah fought mob's in the mud man they don't know what they're talking about the less I say about that the better man I mean you know I'm gonna go ahead and say it man you know no I'm not gonna say it I'm not gonna say it I'm not going to say well it's impossible to avoid it because you because you I look at the fat mom score I I do always want know what the score is, you know, if I haven't watched the game yet. I mean, it's a piece of information. It's something. It's not even that. It's something. It's definitely something. But is it, you know, is it a ultra-processed food, you know, or is it a... It's a bag of Cheetos, baby. Or is it some broccoli fresh from the garden. You know what I'm

saying? It's like, is it empty calories? You know what I'm saying? Is it something that you should consider eating? Um, yes, foot mob is something that you should, you should look at. You know it tastes delicious. Mm-hmm. You know it tastes delicious. You know, you know, you know all your, um, taste buds and, you know, your neurons and your synapses are going to be firing. Yeah.

Uh, from the first bite. As soon as you look at that foot mob score and you see that green next to it. Yeah. Endorphins immediately. Dude, he played well today. Yeah. You got to, you got to release yourself from that. And for the accounts that basically do, like, you see that.

a foot mob impersonation and just literally copy and paste foot mob and tweet it out, shame on you as well. I just, yeah, it doesn't tell you anything. All that to say, he didn't have a very good game. He, um, nothing really of note in possession from him. He whiffed trying to help across along to a less dangerous area, um, resulting in a near goal for Hamburg in the 44th minute. Yeah, which with his head, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Marking mix up in the 46th. I mean, he and his right wingback were not on the same page, got him eliminated completely and led to another huge chance in the 46th minute, which Hamburg wasted with a soft finish right at the keeper. Yep. And then he gets beaten in the air in the 84th minute by a much smaller human being. header goes just wide I mean just wide So

It was a strong header man I would have Keep it wouldn't have had a chance Yeah You know that type of thing If you want to An image Think of the Iran header

Against us At the 1998 World Cup It was kind of like that From a long ways away A lot of power on it Yep So He's playing though

He's playing Throwing a shut out Throwing a shut out Yeah. Yeah. Still want to see more on the business handling front. Yes.

Still want to see more in the possession front. Actually, I was watching when I was watching OK, it got me to thinking about number one, just how development isn't linear. But number two, just how

like a example that I would see you know, in like college would be like camp start, right? And there would always be like a couple freshmen just out there like making plays. And you'd be like, oh shit, who is this? You know what I'm saying? Like a week into camp. But then once like everybody really got into the swing of things and then the freshmen would like stop finding success, you know, and then at that point it's like time to like work on your technique and like,

you know, actually try to become a football player and like quit playing off instincts or whatever, whatever and some people would never come back from that you know it would like scramble their brain it's like okay oh i got to think about my hand position i got to think about what my feet are doing before the snap of the play whereas you know that first week they're just playing off instinct boom making plays uh now and and sometimes you know those like i said those things that just never came back some the good players like figured it out and applied it but there would always be like a little hump to get over now how does this apply to no key What I'm thinking is, similar to Eunice, similar to like early Eunice, where the reason why I was kind of worried for a little bit, people know now I am not as worried, even though he's not, I mean, you know, for the people that watch the clip notes and saw my little piece on Eunice Musa, his heat map of him sitting on the bench.

His seat is very warm. He's a very warm seat he got there in Bergamo. this weekend too yeah but the thing about unis that i saw him starting to iron out over these past like season and a half is like the unit stuff that we saw in concaf it wasn't playing up you know like his facing up hez hez hez he get by somebody in the shimmy game and all that it was not playing up they were people were just taking the ball for that man yeah but in the past year like this last season with milan i started to see okay he's starting he's actually starting to be able to be able to do that including a against, you know, enter, you know, I think in the Copa Italia, he had a Roma, etc.

But anyway, so for Nochi, it's like, is he going to be able to be the no key that we see in, or that we saw in US youth national team camps where he's just marauding, dribbling, passing, you know, just looking imperious out there with the ball. We've seen some flashes, but right now, you know, I think he's just in that adjustment period. and, you know, he's gotten a lot of minutes. And so you would hope that it would have come out by now. Because, I mean, every week, you know, in the note, bells, you got nothing of note. It is like, we're watching for it.

We are watching for it intently. We would love to get a little more so like, ah, there's a no key. There's the no key. But it's just not coming out right now. But I think it's just. But it's more about the business handling right now for him. Handle your business defensively. And that instinct, when the opportunity arises for you to do something with the ball, that instinct will arise.

You know, it's there. But take care of head the ball away when it gets crossed in. And, you know, don't lose track of the left winger in conjunction with your right wing back. You know, figure out, figure that stuff out. You know, that's on you. Which it would be, yeah. If he had all that figured out, then, I mean, who cares? I mean, I would care because I would hope that he would be able to do that

and be just like this, you know, Rolls-Royce centerback that we could build our entire defense around. But yeah, if he had the business handle and I, I'd be like, yeah, let's get him in camp immediately. Right. But until then, we continue to sit here and wait. But he continues to play, though. Yep. But he continues to play. Yeah.

And he's got, what, four more months before the March camp to continue to play. I mean, the Bundes League has taken like two weeks off right around New Year's. So there's going to be a lot of games between now and then. Speaking of centerbanks. And one of his centerback partners got a red card. So, you know. Oh, okay. The guy, the left, Schlaugherbeck, the left centerback.

So he's at least got another start coming his way. I mean, and probably many more than that. Love to see it. Love to see it. But like I said, speaking of centerbacks, I don't know what happened in the Leon match that led to this. But Tanna Tesmo was playing centerback for like 40 minutes. Is that right?

I didn't watch the Leone game. 30, 25 minutes. He was actually playing centerback. Yeah. I don't, once again, I don't know what happened. But he was, he was. He was playing CB, bro. He was playing CB.

And he would even, like, get the ball and try to, like, carry it in the midfield a little bit and get somebody to, you know, attract to him and make a pass. And then I think somebody, like, turned the ball over. Either he turned the ball over or somebody else who he passed the ball to turn the ball over. And he was responsible for getting back. So he's just, like, you see him bust in it. And he actually does, like, make the play on the Augier. Uh-uh. I mean, how do you, how do you, how do you say Angers and Auger?

They both sound like the same thing when you say it in France. I mean, it's Ager and is, is, is it, Angers, isn't it, Angear? Auger and Angerre. Okay, understood. Understood. Well, we're talking about Ajaire. But, yeah, he was able to get back and make the play on the attacker, but like, you, you could see it. Clearly, clear as day.

That man was playing centerback. So I don't know what led to the move. I haven't went back and looked at the substitution patterns or what was going on there. But yep, he was doing it. Okay. Also, first of all, he had a, you know, I took a great offense to what LaKeepe said about the Tamman.

Yeah, I did too. The offense that I'm taking has only grown, too, over time. two weeks ago or whatever but hey in that first half he was flirting with a cardoso he was flirting with they they didn't happen like that deep in the but they were bad passes in his own half you know he wasn't passing it back directly to a person who is like in on goal or type of thing but he had a couple of couple bad turnovers you're talking about in the a jare game yeah okay he had a couple bad turnovers that he needs to it needs to cut out there oh and also just cheekily, I do want to say my favorite moment from this window was that Tanner

Testament passed to Christian Rodon in the box that led up to the to the G.O. Goal? Oh, yeah, that was nice. Yeah. Bro, that was, was that not extremely nice? It was nice. It was, yeah. Yeah. Like four dudes around him in this, and it just spook. Yeah. Yeah. Clever little pass. I agree. Yeah, I mean, Tanner

Tanner's going to be back in March And he's probably going to play in the World Cup And I'm happy about it You know I let's see Speaking of it not playing up I feel like we should mention Cabin Sullivan did come on for the last

14, 15 minutes of the Of the Philly Union's loss at home to NYCFC And he did have a good moment at the beginning, like right when he came on, helped set up a chance, a shot got blocked. But then from then on, it was like, he was like putting the bit between his teeth, going at people just like he was playing the Morocco U-17s, and just the people just weren't like impressed, you know.

They weren't even moving. He couldn't get him to move. Oh, okay, okay. He tried to, he tried to meg somebody and didn't meg him. he played a couple of like pretty wasteful passes into the little block. Yeah, right, right, right, right. So freshly turned 16. It's cool that he got the nod in a must-win 15-minute period there from Bradley Carnell,

who hasn't given him anywhere close to the David Goss promised 1,000 minutes this season. But, you know, we just got to wait for next year for the, for Kevin to fully come good. Okay. And then Matt Freeze was, Matt Freeze had a really nice save at the end of that game. I think he had a couple of nice saves in the game. But one in particular in the 80th, somewhere around the 85th minute, a shot that went over to his left and he got his right hand up over to save it. No Musa, as you mentioned, did not play for Atalanta. Jedi is still hurt as Leander sort of referenced.

and then no balligan because he's on red card suspension. And I think that covers it for the week. Welcome back. Good to have you. Thanks, man. Thanks, everybody for listening. We'll see you.