Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #666: Noahkai turning a corner? Wes at the top of his game

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Vince and Belz get back at it post-Valentine's Day. Jedi looked strong in the FA Cup, Tyler's back on the bench for Bournemouth, Wes playing as well as anyone in the world, and Noahkai looking more assured week by week.Details on tailgating at USA-Belgium, 3/28: https://www.patreon.com/posts/five-from-belz-150653874?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_linkTrip to Germany and the Netherlands: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfI4Cp1VpS2eCphsNjf6QHdaRDq86Tf-FeUhJ2tQ0RzkbxQhw/viewform 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 the Monday Review. We are six weeks out from the friendlies in Atlanta against Belgium and Portugal. And just under four months out from USA Paraguay in Los Angeles to kick off our World Cup. Vince, how you doing? I'm doing great, Adam, Bells. You know, you gave those dates four weeks away from Atlanta. What, no?

Six weeks from Atlanta, four months. Four months. Yeah. Understood. But we are two days past Valentine's Day. So let me ask you, Adam Bell's. What was that looking like in the Bell's household? Oh, man.

So it was a Galentine, it was a Galentine's trip for my wife. She went to New York with a couple of her friends. Some friends from Minneapolis, good buddies of hers. And I changed the water heater on Saturday. You know, I mean, that was Valentine's Day. The whole water heater? Yeah. Yeah.

How much that costs about $7,000? No. No, the unit costs $1,600. Oh, okay, I guess that's... Okay, that labor is probably what brings it up to it. Because I'd heard if you get your water heater replaced, you're looking at like $8,000, $6,000. It shouldn't be that much.

I mean, but maybe I'm just buying the discount version or something. But it was tricky because I had to get a I mean nobody cares about this Yeah it was that was my Valentine's Day I went over to some cousins for happy hour My cousin in Highland Park who lives in like the middle of Chattanooga He um he does a happy hour Once a month

Where he makes really good food and then two Excellent and very stiff cocktails And invites all the bellses and it's one of my favorite things go over there get a little bit loose kids all run around yeah it's awesome so I'm not a big

I'm not a huge Valentine's Day guy I did get some flowers for Andrea on Thursday before she left and that's about that's about it I mean she got to go to New York with her buddies so what'd you do do another brisket five brisket in 45 days

it's like Papa John really 30 pieces of 30 days with it but uh no no brisket we uh went out yesterday dinner and a movie you know what i'm saying that okay so i was listening i i keep up with louisville restaurant news essentially by listening to a podcast called louisville business first you know it's the uh business first you familiar with the publication um um uh They have like different, they have like, most in different cities. Yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, so they basically do a podcast where they separate us or their, their news stories or whatever.

So anyway, I heard that this restaurant in Jeff, Jeffersonville, which is across the bridge of Indiana. Okay. That the chef there was up for some ward, a ward. And I was like, well, shoot, I guess we're going to go there. And we went there. Let me tell you, amazing. Really? I got brown butter swordfish.

Mm. Swartfish is on top of. of some fennel and and topped with some uh crisp mushrooms oh my god that first bite i won't forget it brother i won't forget it brown butter what what a strong ingredient yeah isn't brown butter just cooked butter like yeah yeah but it's like it's so nutty and rich and flavor yeah yeah so the the the fennel combined with the swordfish combined with the mushrooms and the brown dude fennel as a um you know like the fennel plant very underrated

A lot of uses Yeah You know it's a big day So happy valentines to you And the family Big shout out to my wife Thank you Yeah

Me too Big day It's a big day here For me Because last night Registrations closed For rec soccer So here in the next

Hour or two probably I'm gonna get the spreadsheet of all the registrations, U-6 to U-12. And we're going to have coaches meetings tonight, Monday. Monday night we're doing U-6-U-8 coaches, Tuesday at U-10, U-12. And we're, you know, we're sort of embarking on a new era here where practices are going to be, it's the Belze.

It's going to be the Belzean era where we're doing. Technical director. Yeah, exactly. Adam Bills. Practices run by me. And so tonight's crucial because I got to get like sort of make sure everybody's on this. Everybody's on board. All these volunteer coaches that are that are signing up.

And then, you know, we're going to get, we'll call it no child left behind, you know. Yep. So no child left behind because that's the, that's the problem. This is the core problem. Kids come sign up for soccer. They catch a, they catch a bad coach. No shade on the coach. It's a volunteer.

They're doing their best, but they catch a coach who doesn't make it fun, doesn't help them improve, and they quit at the end of the year, and they never sign up again. And this is what we're trying to fix. I want these kids signing up next year. And the age group that I have the most influence over right now, U-10s, U-10 girls, we got, we had just enough for two teams last fall. I coached both of them. It was a huge success. I don't mean in the win-loss column. I mean in the getting better and having fun categories.

Of course. It's all that matters. It is all that matters. I know it's my oldest son tells me that's just something adults say, but it's true. It's true, though. He doesn't believe it for a second, though. But now we got 30 plus signed up in that age group, 10s. So we're going to have enough for three teams.

and those are the girls that are going to be the middle school team in three years, you know? And that middle school team is launching here. I mean, this is the most old-fashioned community in America. They refuse to have soccer until now they're launching a middle school team in the spring of 2027. So I'm getting this group of girls ready to just be in. What you been doing, man? You've been boots on the ground. You've been going to city council meetings.

You want C-SPAN with going crazy? I've been honestly what I've been doing is just grinding in the background you know lining fields getting practices ready and stuff and the other people are kind of the doing the city council meeting stuff it's it's like it's Game of Thrones out there you know I mean our mayor just got

voted out of office by the city council for some lascivious voicemails he left on somebody's phone It's like there's all kinds of stuff going on in this town and history between people and power brokers that I don't even understand. So I stay out of it. I'm just, I'm just a technical director. Somebody else is the president of the club, you know. But it was kind of like once we, once we know we got a soccer guy here, you know, we can go forward with trying to grow soccer in.

I think there's, I think my passion for it has helped. helped build the foundation a little bit, you know? Anyway, I bring it up because it's like, that's the biggest thing going on for me right now is, is I got to get, we got to get these first two weeks of practice right. And then, you know, hopefully the thing just moves forward of its own volition. You know, you talk about kids left behind.

That reminds me of, because, you know, I had that, I had that experience with my daughter. With soccer. When she joined a basketball league, it just so happened that I was the coach. She was too young to be in the league by like a year and a half or something like that. We decided to put her in anyway, and she was just not ready to play basketball. And so we had some talented dudes on the team, dudes and girls, and I just focused my attention on them. And then she gave up basketball for three years.

She's about to start now. Okay. About to start now in like a month. Getting done with cheerleading, about to go into basketball and softball. Okay. But there's still time. I know the feeling. I know a feeling.

But, you know, sometimes you can't blame the coach, man. It's like, hey, hey. It's true. I got to move on with what I got. Like, you know what I'm saying? Eden wasn't listening to me. I try to put on the court. Like, hey, follow this dude.

Well, one time, I don't know if I told the story. the one time I got her to play defense that she listened to me I was like hey you see that dude right there stay with him it goes out on the court is the middle of a game goes out on the court

stays in the little bit and then I don't know if we were our offensive defense but the possession changes you know team goes down the court her and the other dude

are just sitting at the under the end of the court playing rock purposes yeah I mean in some ways that's that's the best stuff You know.

Good D. But, yeah, so. That's good stuff, though, Bells, man. That's what we need. We need 20,000 more Adam Bells's, and then we can get something sustainable out here. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, the thing is the game does, if you kind of set it up right, the game does exert in sort of inevitable, inevitable pull on a, on a, on a,

child, I think. At least that's my belief. If you set it upright, and I, I'm excited to, I'm especially excited to work with these U-6s, and get them, just get them touching the ball and moving around and having fun. Big, big, big one that they love is the game called Ouch. I know I always got this up my sleeve, because you can just say, hey, you guys got to kick it off of me. You guys, and then you just kind of walk around and you like, and I'm be like, You guys can't get me? You guys can't get me.

You guys aren't going to get me. You wouldn't. You wouldn't get me, would you? And they're all just laughing at that point. And then every time they hit you with the ball, you just scream. Ouch! Yeah. And, yeah, they, they love it.

Anyway, got some announcements to make. Number one, we are going to be tailgating in Atlanta on March 28th. ahead of that Belgium game in the blue lot, which is just north and a little bit west of Mercedes-Benz Stadium. And we're trying to get some pickup soccer set up for earlier that morning. We're still trying to figure out exactly how early we have to do that. But Vince and I will be there all day for all this stuff. And, you know, the tickets to the Belgium game are still somewhat affordable.

So jump in there It's like the only game It's like the only game left on the calendar That you can go to for a reasonable price Is it? I haven't looked into Actually Charlotte might be Yeah

Charlotte and Chicago might be okay Yeah okay I was about to say I haven't looked into Charlotte Chicago I plan on looking into Charlotte and Chicago But haven't got around to it yet But yeah Another announcement

Two slots left, I think, for the Germany-Netherlands trip, which you and I are going on. We're hosting a trip to the Rhine River Valley and then we're going up to Amsterdam. I'm going to see a PSV game, Bayer-Levikuzin, and

Barucham-Muchengglaubach. Still two more slots if anybody wants to call an audible and join us. I'll put the link to that in the show notes. And anything else? Tickets. World Cup tickets. You went and said on Twitter that you can

get World Cup tickets on this Gulf Discord. And then I was looking at my email that morning. And I saw like 20 new $2 subscribers. I was like, oh, Vince has been up to something. I was definitely up to something. Was it nefarious? That's up for the listener to decide. It was not.

But look, man, I consider myself a man of the people. Okay. You are a man of the people, for sure. People in Discord come in say, hey, I got tickets, I need to sell. I got tickets I need to get off of me because I got tickets for one match. I'm trying to go to the other match. You know, multiple people out $1,000 plus dollars for a ticket.

I'm like, bro, you know what? I'm trying to help you get to get it sold. And also, not only are they trying to sell the ticket. They're trying to sell the ticket at face value. You know what I'm saying? So I was like, here is a person, a scuffian, trying to do a good thing. You know what I'm saying? Let me facilitate.

the transaction. Let me get some buyers in here. So first of all, I tried to, people in Discord, I'm like, yo, y'all want these tickets. You know what I'm saying? Let it, let it fester for like two days, two, three days. Nobody bit. So I'm like, all right, let's let the people know. I mean, shoot. Yeah.

Let's let the people know, man. Hey, there's some people in here. Because it's another thing, interesting thing. One of the people that were selling the ticket said, I tried to post them on the FIFA resale site. and I tried to post them for face value on the FIFA resale site and the price was too low they wouldn't even show up on the platform because you're not trying to gouge, right?

So with all that going on, I'm like, well, first of all, FIFA's a disgrace, you know, all this different type of stuff. And us here at scuffed, we pride ourselves on being virtuous people, people who are you know, we're not... I don't really. I don't really, but yeah. We're in it for the right things, you know what I'm saying?

Not for money. We're trying to spread the love of the game, right? We're trying to spread the love of the game. That's true. So if I can prevent somebody from being price gauged that wants to go to these games that has struck out on a ticket and you can get one at face value, why would I not share the wealth?

And so I put out a tweet. I was like, yo, there's people selling tickets in the scuff discord. People signed up. People came. But the thing that I didn't, I don't know why I didn't fully realize this, because we talk about this on the pod.

We've talked about it, I feel like every week. But like, bro, these tickets are expensive. Yeah. Face value doesn't mean they're cheap. Bro, because like initially when they say face value before they say like the price of the ticket, like, you know, when some serious inquiries came in that are like, oh, you know, boom.

The price of this ticket is $1,300 a piece, whatever. And, yeah, man. So it's like, there's a lot of people paying $2 to get in. But I'm thinking, they're probably thinking, like, how I was thinking, like face value might be like $600 or something. Nah, bro. No, no, it is not. No, you're paying four figures.

There's not a single ticket available on the scuff Discord for less than four figures. So if you're hearing this and you thought about signing up right before I said that, Listen to what I just said. Not a single ticket available under four figures. And this is for face value, man. It's just. I don't know. Have any transactions?

No, no transactions yet, I don't think. Okay. I don't think. So we got like, there's like six tickets up for sale. There's like,

I don't even want to buy a ticket for, I mean, bro. You know, the other day you were like, do you want a ticket to the Seattle game? Yeah, yeah.

I was like, I was trying to whore him out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I had a, I have a, we had a listener.

message me and say he's got two tickets, speaking of face value, two tickets at face value for the USA Paraguay game, face value $2,800 a piece. That's a $2,800 a piece price. Yeah, man, that's where they get you. You hear $2,800. I mean, you hear face value. And that's where it was. I got excited. I was like, I didn't do any interrogation to the price of these tickets. I'm like face value because that's a thing. The ticket that I alluded that I talked about last week that I got, it's not four figures. That I was able to secure sight unseen, by the way. Maybe I would have had to renege on that offer if they came back and be like, yeah, the price is $2,800.

Yeah. Like, okay, I am not going. I am not going to the game. But it's not, it's not four figures. And so I thought, I don't know. I don't know. I had some weird type of cognitive dissonance, cognitive. dissonance because of the fact that I've given no effort into getting tickets.

I have not looked at a FIFA platform once. I have not entered any draw or anything like that. I haven't been putting in that type of legwork. So when I saw face value, I'm like, okay, these are people. We are doing the best thing, the Robin Hood thing. Not necessarily Robin Hood, but, well, I guess FIFA is. Yeah, yeah, FIFA is Prince John. But, yeah, we are going to get people into these stadiums.

for less than a band. No, sir. Yeah, it's not happening. At least not for now. At least not for now. So I want to, I think Nate on the Discord said, like at this point, you know what I'm saying? You need you.

If you enter for tickets, go and put your W2 statement in there too. And you know what? I agree, bro. Go ahead and drop at W2. Matter of fact, we need, it's like a home loan. You know, we need your last three months, bake statements, checks, check stubs, all that, bro. I mean, what a racket, brother.

Yeah. What a racket. And let me tell you something. You spending this on the tickets and you're not going to roam for 10 days to see Christian Policic playing the Copa Italia final. You know what I'm saying? I mean, respectfully, respectfully. You know, I'm just comparing the value for money, okay, over these two separate

experiences. Yes, seeing the U.S. at home. in a World Cup is a momentous occasion, but damn. Damn. Is it that momentous? Yeah. Jesus. You know, they make,

they make TV screens at HD. Why? Right. You know what I'm saying? Well. Anyway. Yeah. So, that's the ticket situation.

And, you know, if you want to, if you have a lot of money and you want to, and you want to help somebody out. and help yourself out. You can come join the Patreon. Jump on the Discord. So let's get to the action. So McKinney, West McKinney, and Juventus lost 3-2 at Inter.

Quite a game this was. Big game, big game environment, big game atmosphere. Wes got two assists in the loss, both fine assists. He was involved in a lot of other dangerous possession to, arguably the victim of a penalty. Fowl. I mean, certainly... That was a pan brother.

Yeah, certainly the fans, the Juventus fans are saying that. He blazed a free header right at the keeper in the first half. Kind of wasted a chance to score by dinking it across in David's direction when it was just like popped up right in front of him. I mean, he could have just... He could have just leaned back and wallop that right into the net. Yeah, this is a shot that the keeper has parried. that's coming from the left side of the goal and Wes is on the back post,

essentially the weak side. Yeah. You know, there's not a lot of defenders over there. It's basically just him, maybe one defender, and the keeper. The ball's coming down to him. He could take it off the volley, and instead he just tries to dink it three feet to his left

to Jonathan David, which was kind of crazy. Yeah. Take that thing off the volley, man, and be a hero. But a little too unselfish. He did get another, he got a bite at the apple a little bit later in the sequence because it fell back to him at the top of the box and he did like a little half volley with his left foot. Not a bad hit. Just kind of right at the keeper.

But man, he is, he is, there's things to be discouraged about with the player pool, maybe a little bit. But not Wes. I mean, we're four months from the World Cup and he is, I mean, he's playing. I think he's just playing as well as anyone in the world right now. You can really put him up there, bro. Yeah.

And it's not, I mean, we've said enough about Wes over his past month, but, you know, it's the time to talk about West McKinney, so damn, we're going to talk about West McKinney, particularly with it being

a black guy's about 2026. But anyway, you know, I feel like a lot of times there was a point where you would look at Weston's ability to do things in an attack in half. And you would just say he's like a chaos merchant.

You know, he's able to, I mean, which really all attacking football is is creating chaos, right? Disrupting your opponent's defensive structure or whatever. But when you see it now, like there's clearly intelligent design behind whatever Wes is doing. You know, he's a smooth operator out here. He's not a bull in a China shop. Just wrecking things. No, he's making things happen. with skill and ideas know how and yet ideas that's right so i mean that's that's all i really need

to say about west but once again i mean he's cooking and you know uve gets a red card what in the first half the end of the first half of this match yeah kalulu kind of went crazy and most of yvay's attacking moves in the second half including the equalizer that they score a man down come through west and mckenny you know uh there's really not much more to be said man man. And you know what, actually, I got one more thing to say. I went through the, I was going through the Australia clip notes. Okay. Um, from that match because they were arguing on the discord about Miles Robinson. And I remember Miles being, being kind of, kind of shaky in that match. So I went back and watched the whole thing. There was like three or four plays that West

makes from deep. That's just like, man, what a, what a player. It was like, it was, it was, Like nobody's going to look at that Australia match and been like, and that's the person you think of, you know, when you think about that Australia match, that's just not going to be the case. It's going to be Haji. It's going to be Christian Rodan. Yeah, I mean, I feel like novels have been written about Christian Rodon's performance in that game. Bro. Wes was bawling, bro. It's just like he did like three or four things in that match, including the past to Christian Rodon that helped that, you know, the Christian then made the very nice pass.

I'm not putting it all on West at all. Yeah. Christian Rodan had a lot to do when he received that ball to get it to Hajie. But he's just a baller. Yeah. And, you know, yeah. I'll stop it there. I'll stop it there.

I'm not going to compliment of Donovan and Tim Howard today. It's true that he's a baller and he brings a sort of a swagger and a confidence to the team. I think that just absolutely necessary for our national team. he did get worked once at the end by that Ansham Boney the young guy on a 2-1 It was already 3-2 I mean the game was basically already over but he was a 2-on-1 against Wes And he kind of got on an island there

Nothing really he could do Malik Tillman You got any new insights on him Um New insights He hasn't So he didn't start this game against St. Pauli.

Came on at the half to kind of toy with them. Leverkusen was already up to zero. Yeah. I don't really got anything. That's fine. That's fine. I guess my thought is he is plenty of competence from him, but didn't really break the game open.

Didn't need to. Leverkusen 1-4-0. Yeah. But I do think in general he's been playing well. Since he kind of got started into the Ruck Runda, what, like last weekend. Yeah. I think he kind of got off the Schneide or whatever. But, yeah, I think he's playing well, bro.

And seeing him operate in that, you know, attacking mid, half space, I think he's looking very good, very slick, very slick on the turn. You know, I mean, not breaking the game open necessarily, but I like what I'm seeing. Prying away at it, prying away at the game to break. You know, he's a prior. Yeah, he is. He also is going back pretty deep and getting the ball from the centerbacks. Fair amount.

There's been some debate about how deep his position and possession has been. He has been higher in the Ruck Runda. Okay. For sure. Like consistently over these past, like five, six matches, like, you know, he is in the, in the attack and half spaces a lot more. Okay.

You know, just watch them operate, find space to receive the ball and stuff. Like, yeah. Yeah. I'm still pretty confident on what he's got going on. Yeah. He's a technician. He's a scientist out there.

No Kai. 16 straight starts for him. solid enough, I think, in a one-zero win for Augsburg. Made some key sliding challenges pretty clean with the ball. I mean, I'm going to throw this ward at him. He still has this tendency on a ball flighted into the box to just knot it down into the grass at the penalty marker, which is just the absolute worst thing you can do.

Yeah. So he's doing that still. but Augsburg now 8 points clear relegation I noticed their coach didn't even look

when they got the penalty late that won it he had his eyes closed looked like he was whispering some Hail Marys or something staring into the dugout

but they got it a little lucky a little lucky honestly Augsburg was to win this game I think Haydnheim was the stronger team but uh no kai's no kai's still still playing i don't i didn't see any glaring errors from him

no um i think he actually played pretty well in this match um one of his this is one of it i think this match was one of his better games that he's started for augsburg i want to say he was tested quite a bit down uh down the right side i don't know i don't know the name of the attacker for hiding home that was going up against them but they had they had a nice back and forth and no guy was coming out on top multiple times like I mean he had a couple

nice last ditch effort tackles you know what I'm saying like I've he was forced into action a lot more in this match than he is sometimes otherwise and I think he handled himself well and you know this this week kind of when I was watching

games or whatever I kind of focused on defenders for the most part. Just kind of trying to, because I hadn't watched Mark McKenzie in a long time. You know, Jedi. We haven't talked about it, but did we talk about it last week? I don't know. We didn't really talk about them last week. We do need to get into them today, though.

There's some stuff going on. Kind of slid out the starting lineup. Yeah. Where a couple matches came back in this weekend in the F.A. Cup against Stoke City. Played well. Played very well. Look like itself. Did he?

But yeah, yes, very much so. Very much so. He was, it was like a 9 out of 10 Jedi match, I would say. Wow. I thought it was quite good, quite good. But specifically comparing, like, Nochi and Mark McKenzie, I think at this point, I'm pretty settled on Nokey, man. Okay. Overmark.

Overmark. For what reason? Quickness? Not that Nokey's. He's like the quickest guy out there, but I'm just, I'm pretty bored with Mark McKenzie. And I think Mark McKenzie, low floor, low ceiling type of dude. No key. Like we always knew Nokey, right?

He's a young dude, right? So, of course, his floor at this point, going to be kind of low, ceiling high. I think he's raised that floor. I think he's raised that floor to a Mark McKenzie level. And so at this point, I'm going to take the man's with more. upside because I do really think that over these two, three months or whatever, that Noki has really locked in kind of to the responsibilities of his position, understands his positioning.

He understands when danger is coming better than he did when he first started getting the role. Because, you know, we were on him. Oh, yeah. We ran on him a little bit. I think all that like awareness stuff, like the experience stuff that, that, you know, you kind of expected him to be bad at when he started playing. I think all that's improved kind of considerably. And, you know, I mean, there is no difference between, actually, I would probably say Nokey's better on the ball than Mark McKenzie.

Mark McKenzie knows Slouch on the ball. You know, his ability to play any pass essentially with both feet is, yeah. It's a pretty nice skill to have. Noki can do that, plus carry the ball and just has like an extra level of comfort. Like you don't really see, like, Mark McKenzie can do these things, but he'll also kill you with like a back-breaking mistake.

You don't necessarily see Noki hitting you with too many mistakes in possession in the way that Mark can, which kind of contributes to his floor, in my opinion, being a little bit lower than Noki. So with everything put together in that package, I think I'm, damn, I'm going, Noki.

right now, man. Okay. Bigger than Mark, probably a similar speed and quickness, I want to say. But, you know, as Nokey's quickness of thought has improved, he's not getting caught out as bad as he was previously, you know what I'm saying? So, yeah, I'm really liking what I'm seeing, man, over these past two, three weeks. I think he's playing pretty well, and he's actually playing well. you know he's not he's not just getting these starts we've talked about him until we're blue in the face

and it's paying off it's paying off baby well he's coming you know it's time to it's time to start locking in you know it's like we do we do this Monday review week to week um and it's tough to tell what the what the coach not the janitor is going to do um maybe this Atlanta window will will help us really eliminate some people or whatnot. But, you know, it's time to narrow our focus as what we're looking at here. You know, positions are up for grabs. This roster will be released in, I mean, it's four months to Paraguay. So what, three months until the roster, you would think?

So, you know, coming down a stretch in this European season? Yeah, man. I think that should be a big point of focus for us. You know, Mark McKenzie versus, no key. Mark McKenzie versus, I don't know. Austin trustee. So. Sort of treat it like a horse race a little bit.

We should talk about Tanner a little bit. Well, before we get to Tanner and Tim, I should say, Pulitzer came off the bench again from Milan versus Pisa. Go ahead. Well, I just figured we could, let's just wrap up these different. before we go on to something else. Okay. Because I did mostly focus on defenders this week.

Alex Freeman, right? Got his debut for Villa Real. I don't think we talked about. No. debut for Villa Real. And also got his second appearance for Villa Real. I think played like 13 minutes in this last one. And then the first one, I'm not sure.

Hold on. Let me look. Let me look it up. So he got 17 minutes against Espanio and a 4-1 win. And then Saturday, 12 minutes it gets Hattafe and a 2-1 loss. It was already 2-1 when he came on. Yeah. And he's looking all right.

He's looking all right. This is another, I mean, we really got a direct comparison here. You know, now that these, we don't got to do no league adjustments, whatever. You can look at both of these dudes play. ball every week and you decide which one's better. And who am I talking about? Joe Scali, Alex Freeman. Alex Freeman has the benefit.

He's playing basically essentially in the role that he's played for Potch multiple times. He's in the back three of their possession shape. Okay. It seems like I didn't look at it too intensely, but Villarreal, we're using something like a, you know, kind of like a three, two. I don't know what it was past that, but I saw definitely three in the back line and two. holding midfielders or whatever. And Alex Freeman is on that right side, playing balls.

And, you know, he's, in these, like, 30 total minutes he's played, he has, like, you know, a solid three or four nice passes. You know? So, and Greg Velasquez says, Greg Velasquez discussed this on the pod before. I think one of his more, one of his more. muted. You know, he's the king of the, he's the king of the sneak disc. He can diss somebody by,

by just saying words and sentences that don't even sound scathing. Then when you think about it, it's like, oh man, he really, he really got that guy. But you remember back in the lead up to the last World Cup,

Reggie Cannon started to play a little bit for Greg. And kind of in the back of like a three, three, two, five or whatever, playing that like reserved right back role. And everybody was getting kind of hype by Reggie Cannon and Greg came on and was like, you know, being a stay at home right back is a very easy position to play. You know, like a fullback's value comes from the ability to be able to go up and down.

So if you're telling me you don't got to go up, you just stay back and face forward and play passes like, you know, a lot of people can do that type of thing. Reggie Cannon is perfect for that job. A lot of people can do that role, right? But you can see levels though, because when you see. see Joe Scali do it and you see Alex Freeman do it, you can tell there's two different people doing it. You know what I'm saying? It's not plug and play. You're saying Alex is showing us more with that than Joe. He's showing more with it than Joe. Yeah, he's showing more

with it than Joe. Yeah, his ability to find passes forward and play them, you know, he can, he can culture them a little bit, you know, whether he needs to just like, I don't know, lift it over somebody or visit in. He just has different deliveries with it. And yeah, I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. And the fact that he's kept straight over, he's getting minutes.

Obviously, that's good. So that's where we're at. Okay. And Joe Scali has lost his starting spot for Gladbach. Yeah, Gladbach's just a disaster right now for us. Yeah. Has it started in like two weeks. So

maybe he's by. Gio ran his sick bed. Maybe he's standing watch. Speaking of which Gio is still dealing with a muscle injury, I think enough said on that front. Pulisic, we should mention Pulcic came on off the bench against Pisa and played pretty well. I think he had an influence in this game.

Madritch scored the game winner late. This was on Friday. and Milan 1-21 but it's just good to see I think you know Pulix's dealing

with some kind of Bersitis or whatever I don't even know what that is I just seen the word and but he's

but he's playing so you know people are starting to freak out a little bit on Twitter um

like when he didn't it was I think this last one was like Max Britos uh you know, when he didn't start this past week, you know, it hopped on. It's like, I think we need to have the conversation.

We need to come to grips with the fact that he's not going to be able to play, start four matches in the World Cup. This is like, hey, man, it is February 16th. I don't know if they played on Saturday or Sunday, but it was February 14th or 15th when you made this tweet. Like, come on, bro. Right. Give this man some time.

He just got some hit birthitis, which is not the death nail. For anyone, as far as I know. So, and like you said, we got four months, brother. We got four months. You know what I'm saying? We are not talking about a, I don't know, MCL spraying or something. Right. I just got a little hiprisitis.

They managed them through it. Speaking of the four months, to go back to one of the defenders, Jedi, some people are saying, like, he doesn't look like himself. He hasn't looked like himself for Fulham. and that's why he's lost his first year league starting job to Ryan Sessonion. And I did not see the matches.

I think the one match in particular was like their match against Manchester United. And I don't think I saw that one. That, you know, he started that match and then the next week he was on the bench for Sessingon. So I don't know what exactly happened in there, but I can tell you against Stoke City, that man looked like Jedi Robbins.

That's very encouraging to hear Because that's a concern You know People are reaching for their brown paper bags And breathing Four months out from the World Cup About whether Jedi is gonna Be all right

Glad to hear he looked like himself In the FAA Cup Leon Beat Nice 2-0 I think What is it? 12 straight wins for them 12 straight wins

For real? Something like that. It's in the league. Fonseca, man. He's a genius. Jesus. Oh, man. They really are cooking.

They won 13 matches in a row. And they're fun to watch. They're really fun. I mean, Ligon's really fun. I mean, the two teams that I watch in league, or the three teams, I guess. Monaco's not as fun to watch as Leone and Marseille. No. Jesus, they're.

They can be a drag. Yeah. But Leon and Marseille are both really fun to watch. And I don't know, Testman looking like he's in command in there. We did play a part in that opening goal for Toliso, quarantine Toliso. It was Tesman working with Endrick, kind of slipped him in around the left corner,

and then Endrick played it across, and it kind of snuck through to Toliso, and he just dispatched it. at the back post. That made it 1-0, and then they got another one later, 2-0. Yeah, good times. Good times in Leone. Yeah, they played, I mean, they've always played nice ball since, like, the time Tanner Tessman arrived or whatever, but, yeah, like aesthetically, just very fun to watch, very

fun to watch. And I'm happy that in this match, because, you know, they've been using them, they'd be using him higher more a little bit here lately. And that's resulted in him touching the ball less. You know, he's, where there's been like a pretty big discrepancy between his amounts of passes and like Tyler Morton's amount of passes that he's playing. And I had my eye on it because I didn't necessarily like that. You know what's going on here?

You getting pushed out. Not pushed out, but, you know, are they just handing the keys over? to Tyler Morton completely, et cetera, because I don't want that. Tyler, I mean, Tanner Testament can play in eight. You know, he made some nice attacking, he's made some nice attacking contributions for the U.S. Minnesota team.

And contribute in the moves. Don't comfort me, you know what I'm saying. Y'all going to be like, oh, he doesn't score. Yeah, yeah. He contributed to moves. Y'all know what I'm talking about. But in this match, you know,

he got off like some like 68 passes or something like that, which is like quite a bit more than what he's been doing. recently. And so that puts me at ease a little bit just from watching the week to week progression of these guys. I was, I kind of have my

antennae raise a little bit at what what Tandot's role was within this team or whatever. But, you know, when they need, when they need to facilitate some build out, and part of it is the fact that they've kind of been steamrolling teams and like really parking in

and attacking, and somebody's attacking, I mean, defending, in the attacking. The hell am I saying? the attack it third. It was combust it. Well, Morton, speaking of

Combusted, Tyler Morton had a little bit of some struggle in this game building out from back because his niece was kind of all over him. And he had like maybe three or four giveaways in his half that.

You love to see it? Yeah. But that's the thing, that Tanner's kind of been struggling with some, with a little bit of the Cardosoitis as well. So, all in all, it's just nice to see him get back on the ball and contribute in the way that he did in this match.

So may it continue, man. I'm just, yeah. Yeah. I'm so pleased. No, Test's progress. We need, I mean, Testament is, speaking of it being like, it's time to start thinking about the World Cup. I mean, Testament is, he's right in that conversation in that midfield. and it depends on how, you know, it depends on how,

depends on how Pach wants to set it up and everything, but... Yeah, yeah, but now we got legitimate options, man. I mean, we've talked about it, whatever. But, yeah, Tender Test Man can start a game. I'm not going to blink an eye. And, you know, within the greater U.S. mids national team, fear, like, outside of scuffed, outside of, like, me and you talking, you know, fans have been kind of slow to come around on Tanner

because he hadn't, you know, hadn't done it in the shirt, understood, understandable. He hadn't done it in the shirt until, like, recently over, like, his past two windows or whatever. But now that he has contributed and contributed well for the U.S. international team, it seems like the fan base also will not blink if they see him starting in a World Cup match. So that's good to know.

I mean, we all know that nobody's blinking if, you know, West, Tyler, start. Yeah, et cetera. So we got Christian Rodon in the mix. You know, Christian Rodan going to the Super Bowl doing interviews. taking pictures of a Garfieri. He took a picture of a guy Fierry at the Super Bowl. And Twitter user Wake Up in Polo tweeted and said, it's so nice to see

Christian Rodan at the Super Bowl with Diego Luna. That killed me, bro. Gafiore. That's good. Oh, man. Yeah, that hurt me. But, yeah, man, they got Christian Rodan out here doing media. We're in the, we're in the,

U.S. jacket, whatever. I guess Tim Riem was busy. Because, I mean, you understand you got to send somebody and has to be a domestic, domestic-based player. I guess Tim Rame was busy parenting his children. Yeah, understood. Understood. That's a noble task.

But, yeah, so that's where we are. That's where we are. And teams, teams come together. Speaking of Tim Riem, I saw Steve Schlanger's name on the Olympic broadcast the other day. Fordham basketball? Was it, Atlantic 10 basketball? No, it was the Olympics. The Olympics.

Oh, okay. He was like, he was doing something at the Olympics. And I was like, oh man, I know who that guy is. Steve Schlanger. Steve Schlinger. And, you know, I've been thinking, just to go back to West for a second, this World Cup has the potential to completely upset the apple cart of like who is a famous American. soccer player. Have you thought of this?

Like, I think about it all time. Christian Pulisic is famous, right? He's not that famous. And if Weston goes into this, you know, goes into one of these knockout round games

and scores a couple goals, do you know who is going to be the most famous American soccer player? It's going to be Wes, you know? So I feel like I hadn't really thought of this until like a week go, but there is this, and just watching West ball out against Inter Milan, helps sort of drive the point home.

But there is a chance that everything could change, you know, this summer. I mean, that's the hope, right? That's the hope that, you know, would you say you had 30, 10-year-old girls this year? Yeah, 30 plus, 35, I think. Yeah, the hope is next year you get 95. of. Right. Because of how this World Cup just went off like crazy.

And the coach, not the janitor, took us to heights that we could only dream of previous. Somebody's going to have to run the models. But I think given his smile, his charisma and his ability to create stuff in the final third, which we discussed earlier in the show, there's a really, decent chance that West could that West could do this at the World Cup. Decent chance for sure. Also a decent chance that

Christian Polisic is involved in every goal we score again. That's true. Yeah. Which it would be fine. I'm not praying on politics downfall. I'm not saying that you are. But yeah, I mean, I always think about, you know, the meme where it's like society if blank happened and it's just like, flying cars and stuff. I always think of it. Weston has scored that goal against England, man.

With Tim Waya put that on his foot. Ooh, yeah. With Wes were having in the box, he's just got it. I mean, because that's a goal of West that can score. Right. Was that half-olly? That was a bounce a little bit, right? He's a little bit of a bounce, yeah.

Yeah. Man, score that goal against England in that moment, red, white, and blue hair. Yeah. Damn. Well, we'll see what happens. Staying with France. Tim Wea has a new coach.

He's going to have a new coach. Roberto de Zerbi is out. The man who lit up a cigarette and then FaceTime Tim to tell him to come to Marseille. He's lost his job. Sad to see him go. Seems like he and Wea had a really good connection. Yeah. Marseille's fun to watch too, man.

Wea and He Who Shall Not Be Named, really working well together up that right side. They'll be cooking, I can. Yeah. Lots of, like, lots of elegant stuff going on between those two, and then the ball moves forward, and chances ensue. And then PSV lost to Volendom, which is, you hate to see it. Disgraceful. But there's still 14 points clear at the top of the tail. It's like nothing even matters for them at this point.

They just keep going. Yeah. RICO, no Rico. You know how it goes. Yeah. And I think, oh, I got to say, shout out to Matt Doyle. Just got laid off by MLS,

which he saw coming. He says he saw it coming for a long time. Seems to be the case. He's got a new substack. But, you know, I just got to say, Matt, you know, a lot of people criticize Matt Doyle for various things. He, when we started scuffed back in 2018, he was the number one source for anything about the national team. He's a good writer, and he was attentive to the player pool and the team in a way that, um, Very few were.

And he's going to keep doing that. He's got a ghost stack called Tactics Free Zone. I'll put the link to that in the show notes if you want to support her. I don't know. What's a ghost? Okay. Oh, it's like a substack, but it's called ghost. Oh.

It's a different website? It's a different thing, yeah. A different host? Same concept, but sort of like the Republican study of the empire. of the empire. Okay, okay. Fair enough. A little bit more equitable.

I mean, that's my very, very vague impression of it. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I've been trying to figure out how I found scuffed because I can't remember. I know it was through, I know it was probably through Twitter and I was probably somebody that retweeted an episode because I can find the first episode I listened to. Really?

way back when if I just scrolled through the I mean it was it was you know early 2019 or 2018 or whatever but I think it was a Matt Doyle retweet that let me to let me discover okay okay but yeah he's he's hooking up with soccer wise um a lot more now David Goss that whole crew all right everybody RIP I mean not RIP but it's it's I mean, it really is a wasteland out here, man. We comes to soccer jobs, you know, I mean, or at least what you would consider to be legacy. I don't know if we're talking about writing. I mean, Bills, your prophecy comes true, you know, day after day. I mean, you know, I thought it was a little harsh when you said we lived in a post-literous society. But let me tell you something. It seems that a lot of people don't believe that we should read anymore.

Or... Well, it makes me think of, like, you know, people love using AI for stuff. Not just writing, but, like, making music. Have you noticed this trend? Yeah. And that's the part, I don't, I'll use AI for all kinds of things, like replacing a water heater or whatever. but not for creativity, not for communicating with other humans, you know? Right.

And I think, I think that that's, maybe it's less that like people don't care about reading than it is that people don't even know what good writing should be like, you know? I mean, what does this have to do with Matt Doyle? I think MLS doesn't care about good writing. companies don't believe that people want to read. You know? They just rather ingest their like 30 second vertical video and keep it moving. Yeah.

Which is just a shame. As a person who is not moved over to, who is not quite hopped on the vertical video revolution. And as a podcast that has not hopped on the vertical video revolution necessarily. I mean, we try and then we fail. and then we try and then we fail, yeah. Yeah, but it's like we also really don't believe in it, do we? You know, it's like, you can't distill this gold that we're giving you in the 30 seconds, man. You got to understand the context.

You got to understand who me and Adam are as people. Right. You know, if I'm just a floating face popping up, yelling about somebody jester maxing, you know what I'm saying? It's like, what the hell we're talking about? Where are we at? What are we doing? You know what I'm saying? And the fact that, and it's not lost on me that, like, I mean, if you want to support people doing good work within soccer, you know what I'm saying?

Like, say, yeah, I mean, you know, everyone dropping a subscription-based blog or podcasts or Patreon or whatever platform. I mean, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it might be more than your cable than you're used to be cable bill. You know, if you want to support everyone, if you want to support, I don't know, Sounder at heart. Yeah. And Matt Doyle and scuffed and- You can't do it. You can't support all. And, you know, total soccer show, et cetera, et cetera.

It's just, yeah, it's sad where we find ourselves at. And as a point, well, at this point where the game is growing, you know, the game is noticeably growing. It's gaining more cultural significance within this country, week after week, day by day. and uh but it's like there's nothing replaced it's like as far as I can tell Matt Doyle's not getting replaced with like a vertical video specialist

or a content creator or maybe they are I don't know I'm not on TikTok so I don't know MLS can be killing it on tech I have no clue but it just uh yeah where's it all going where's all the money going into the pockets of Robert Kraft and Arthur Blank I guess so yeah I mean, Doyle's been, I mean, Doyle's been grinding for, you know, damn near three decades at this point. He is, he was the voice, the written voice of the consistently interested USMNT fan for a long time.

And, yeah, it's an end of an era there. Good luck to him with his new, with his new venture, though. Oh, Johnny Cardoso started. Oh, yeah. this weekend against who they played. Ryo Viacano and lost 3 to 0. Obavargas got in got some minutes. Okay.

Okay. As well. Pride of Anchorage. I mean, we'll see how it goes, but Athlete, I mean, if it keeps going like this up until like May or whatever, I don't know. It might be Cholo out. We'll see.

We'll see. All right. Well, we got lots to do over these next few weeks, a few months. We appreciate you listening. We appreciate your Patreon subscription. If you are one of those, we'll see you.