Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #709: World Cup postmortem with Vince & Sanjay

Episode Date: July 11, 2026

How much is Belgium flat-out superior to us, and how much did we wilt? How much is this World Cup gonna grow the game in America? Did the overturned Balo suspension actually hurt us? How are we gonna develop players who can win a men's World Cup some day? Pulisic's legacy blah blah blah Poch's future, etc. Sanjay's piece for the Guardian on development:https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/may/23/usmnt-player-development-youth Colin Cowherd on the growth of soccer: https://x.com/TheHerd/status/2075639696852496842?s=20 Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus 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: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedCheck out our store, where you can get Scuffed hats and sweatshirts and other stuff: scuffedpodcast.com/storeAlso, 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.scuffedpodcast.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, we are here a few hours after Spain bounced Belgium from the World Cup to talk once again about the U.S. Men's National Team. Got Sanjay and Vince here. Sanjay, how are you? I'm all right. Wish I'd been in L.A. today, obviously. But it's great to be with y'all. It's been a heck of six weeks or so.

unforgettable experience. Let's just have a round of applause for Sanjay. He's been out there grinding. Grinding. Traveling. Two years? A lot on his own dime. You know?

Like, come on. Yeah. Like, for real. For real. Like, this is for the love of the game. That's right. You know, you talk about ball is life. Live an example right here, Mr. Sanjay, Sujanta Kumar.

Appreciate that. Yeah, it's, uh, It's been like that since, you know, the previous cycle, the beginning of the previous cycle, when I was just, you know, getting no people in this space and putting work out there. So it's cool to get it to this point. It's definitely still a hustle, but it's a lot easier to do it because of the people that support this podcast and back heel too. So I want to thank all of our patrons, first and foremost, for making this possible, for all of us, really. you know, getting to go to games and do things at camps.

Yeah, it's been surreal. And it's awesome. It was awesome to see so many of our patrons of our scuff family in Seattle especially. But really through the group phase, this was tremendous. And the bag was awesome too, right? And then we know what happened after that. We'll get into that. but it was a really special experience meeting people from all over the country that I hadn't met yet,

seeing some familiar faces. So thank you all. I do want to say also, on the other hand, you know, before anybody erects a shrine to Sanjay, he did just get to go to a bunch of World Cup games and talk about him on a podcast. Anyway, for a key question here, how much for both of you, how much were they superior to us, they being Belgium. And how much did we just wilt?

I think they are superior to us. You know, let's say 10 matches, let's say we win three. Or maybe even get a result in three. That's what I'm feeling right now.

I mean, you know, we saw the March match. I mean, once again, we go back to my friendly theory that I posited first in the Turkey recap. You know, over here on the scuff podcast, party line might be that, you know, friendlies don't matter much. Pots was experimenting, whatever. The other teams are experimenting, et cetera.

And that is the case to explain away bad results. You know, we can always fall back on that crutch. But also, I think there is something too, the fact when, as somebody in Discord laid out my very, very, by very poignant statement, when you play a soccer game, a soccer team against soccer team. And especially in that Belgium match in March, we played them, we had battle on the field, Christian Polisic on the field, Weston McKinney on the field,

there's some others, but I'm forgetting. But I think, I think it's just borne out over March, over this last match, that Belgium are better than us, Not only that is just they can test us. All these pot one teams, all these teams better than us, can just, especially playing the way that we want to play, can test us in specific ways that show our vulnerabilities, I think. Those vulnerabilities being, especially, okay,

number one would be the fact that Belgium can match our athleticism. flat out whether they play Onana or not, you know, they can put a team out there that matches our athleticism. That's like advantage number one for this U.S. Miss National team, especially under Mauricio Paschino, taken away. Number two, they can negate the athleticism that we bring by just being superior ballplay. I mean, I remember watching going to Frankfurt, which at this point seems like a fool's errand. going to the Frankfurt match in Louisville when they played Astavilla to check out Paxton Aronson to see what he was doing

and just watching Yuri Telemans because Paxton was kind of in the front of their 4-42 and he was kind of you know when the ball goes over to the side opposite him he's kind of marking Tealemans how you shift over in the 4-42 how that basic thing happens

and just just a supreme ball player yeah man you know you can see why he survived in the Premier League for so long why he's been, why he just racks up the minutes in the way that he does. And

in that quality extends throughout the Belgian team. I don't care who they play for. I don't care if you got a midfielder for Rangers. Every time I watch the man, he's holding his own. Today against Spain, he's holding his own. Yeah, he did fine. He did fine against Spain.

Raskin. Yeah. Against Spain, he's on his own against the two matches. I guess Belgium against us. I mean, looks like he belongs, you know, whatever. I think it's just the case that... Yeah, if you got to... Well, go ahead.

Well, if you've got to split the three teams, Spain, Belgium, and the USA into two categories, then Belgium and Spain are in the same category, and the USA's in the other one, right? Yeah, yeah, we're kind of over there. So, like, yeah, if you can match our athleticism and then kind of negate our press, which they went over time. but they also did like not a lot but like two or three times they just kind of it just kind of showed like hey you know we can do this if you if we really wanted to type of thing but then also on the other side and I think we're going to get into this later you know Greg Velazquez talks about adults and we have we have our limited amount of adults that we have but do we have any possession adults you know especially particularly playing the way that we want to play. When you're seeing Tyler Adams getting blown up in the pocket,

when you're seeing Western McKinney unable to receive a ball for, you know, the entirety of the time he's out there or whatever, which is something that can't happen to the man, you know. And when something is just completely not going your way and the tide's totally shifted against you, you need that possession adult. You need somebody that can get on the ball, slow things down, have everybody take a breather.

So it seems like you're, so we have like adults, but then we also have possession adults. And I do buy that. But what about this idea that, hey, Wes plays for Juventus. Christian Pulcic plays for A.C. Milan. These guys are playing in Champions League. Sergenio Dess has played big games in Champions League. He's performed well in Champions League. Not always, but some of the times he does.

Why did we wilt so completely in that first half? I mean, just a point in the favor of the wilt side of things is like they, maybe we're not as good as Belgium in the aggregate, but West McKinney can play better than that. So can Christiane Poulosick. So can Sergenio Dest. Malik Tillman can play better than that. You know, they all can play better than they played.

Why didn't they? Why didn't they gird up their loins and face the music? Yeah, I think they were just due for a bad day. And it was just a worst-case scenario. Like, it all happened for pretty much all of them in the worst possible way. Like, being there in person, you could kind of sense you could feel the technical and tactical advantage that Belgium had individually compared to players on, you know, the previous opponents.

But I watched it again today, the first, until the third goal. And after watching it, I thought that, like, I put more weight into us just not showing up. Us kind of wilting. But yeah, I mean, you guys covered it on the recap. I agree with most of what Vince just said. Yeah, it's, you know, there was a, Ryan Tomic interviewed Jesus a while ago, and I'm paraphrasing the quote. but, you know, he talked about making sure that the floor, when you're not having a good day,

the floor of that bad day for the players that they bring is only so bad. Right. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, and what we saw was a floor on a bad day that was worse than we could imagine for pretty much all the key players, pretty much everyone in the lineup, right? But is it worse than we can imagine, I guess, would be my question for, I mean, we've seen these performances individually before from every single one of these players that exhibited it.

This isn't uncharacteristic. I would say, now, maybe it's a rare occasion. And maybe when you put all those rare occasions together, do the permutations or whatever, there's like a one in a hundred thousand chance that this all happens at the exact same time. but I think these performances are within these players and I think the opponent played a part in getting these performances out of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they go hand in hand.

They definitely do. But I think, yeah, it should be noted the U.S. being, you know, rattled in possession and sloppy and too slow, whatever. it was, I think that maybe can be separated from the defensive mistakes that were just, that is as bad as you could ever imagine. Like, that was, that was God-awful. Yeah, yeah, I'm almost throwing those out when I'm talking about this stuff, kind of.

I'm talking about the other general things that, like, like you said, Bells and Greg pointed out, like, the fact that a lot of times they hear footsteps, and like, you're looking at, looking at the match, they're receiving a ball. Now, it might be a full turn. situation might be a half-turn situation, but still, it's like they did not do the scanning beforehand because they are just so flustered by what's going on out there. And they know it's going bad, so they're like, well, hold on, let me not try and do too much. Let me just pass this ball back. Right. I think it's both. I think it's both things.

I don't know what percentage to give them each, but I do, I also want to go back to the overturning of Balligan's red card suspension, because. because I think it hurt us. The more I think about it, the more I think it hurt us. Not because it was Trump who pulled the string, which we don't know for sure is true anyway. No, it's just poorly handled and opened up room for all sorts of speculation. Obviously fired up Belgium.

Everybody kind of agrees to that now. And I think the key thing is we went from feeling aggrieved that Ballow couldn't play because it was kind of a red card that some people did. And you thought it you've used the word bullshit on this podcast several times, Sanjay, to describe that red card. So a lot of people didn't think it was a fair red card. People on the people on the team could go like, look, we got a tough task ahead of us, but we got, you know, we're going to do it. It's us against the world, sort of. And then all of a sudden, Sunday morning comes, news comes down that who knows why Balligan was reinstated.

It's never really been explained. And then all of a sudden you feel like you're on the, you're on the beneficiary end of a shady backroom deal. And I don't think that's a good feeling. I felt it. I know, I know Vince, you're just going to say,

well, that's because you're ashamed to be American or something. It's not because I'm ashamed to be American or ashamed of American soccer. It's just like, it just felt like a backroom deal that wasn't on the up and up. It felt weird. It felt weird, like I said before the game. And, yeah, it's just a total 180 psychologically for the team and for everything around the team.

I don't know. I have my views. I feel like. And it galvanized Belgium. Last but not least. I mean, I guess. I don't know. I don't deal with these things.

When you're competing at a high level, the whole thing is about competition. You can't get too high. too low, which is why I always make the point that, you know, those locker room speeches that are dramatized, dramatized or whatever in movies, they don't happen. A lot of times it's just, hey, guys, go out there. You hear Tim Reed, but those in those huddles on the behind the crest, like, hey, go out there. We're going to do a job, all right? We're going to go out there, first tackle, all right? You know, I mean, that's it. That's it. You go out there, you do your thing. Rudy Garcia asked after the match, right? He said our motivation was to get to the

quarterfinal. You kind of can't. deal in those things. Maybe the players can do it themselves, but as far as just being a whole program galvanizer, I don't know. I'm not, I'm not rolling. On the other hand, on the other hand, though, are y'all familiar with NBA player Malik Beasley? Former NBA player Malik Beasley. They just got indicted in a gambling scandal. Okay. Apparently wasted all his money, was in debt to multiple different people, and got caught up in a gambling ring fixing, fixing player props, his own player props for profit. Okay, he's gotten caught. He is, he's about to go to jail. While he was doing this whole thing, do you know what, you know what happened? Malie Beasley had a career year and a

contract year. Career year, three-point percentage through the roof. So what I'm here to tell you is, And what I'm here to tell you is, let's say everything you said is right, Adam Bells. Let's say everything you said is right also, Sanjay, that the vibe changed within the group, whatever, they're starting to feel the pressure from the outside walls are caving in. There's no more of a walls caving in situation than I got loan sharks on my back. They're going to come to my house tonight and take a couple teeth out if I don't get this rebound right here with three seconds left in the game. Are you trying to tell me what Malik Beasley, doesn't have a few screws loose somewhere up in there.

Bro, and it might be the point. It might be, it might be full circle. Might come back to pay to play, whatever. These boys, they don't got, they might not have enough screws. Like, if they let that mess with their performance in this match, frankly, I think it's ridiculous. And then also, I feel like nobody's even considering the fact that this whole thing could be a galvanizing situation for a team as well.

Us against the world, back against the wall. Back against the wall, we just got a free striker back after a record. The best player back. The world hates us, you know what I'm saying? But we're American, we don't care about the world. You know what I'm saying? I mean, they could have, they could have done it. You know what I'm saying?

Put me in that locker room, brother. Put me in that locker room. I would have fired them boys up. All right. It was, the whole thing felt weird. Like, we talked about it before the game, but we have a quote from, I'm Andrew Giuliani. He was asked about this.

And if it could have distracted the team. And he said this is according to Daily Mail, quote, potentially, Giuliani said, I'm not a sports psychiatrist, so it's tough for me to assess that. But I'm proud of this team, even in their lowest moments, to be able to show the great character that they had. And that's really where my focus has been. Like, it definitely changed things. Who knows?

Maybe players will talk about it differently down the road. and Maricio and his staff one day. For now, they're saying, you know, we blocked out the noise. It didn't matter. Belgium was better anyway, so. It's going to take five years before anybody's honest about that. Opening up, yeah. If the truth is that it was like a distraction.

Last thing I'll say about Belgium before we move on to, you know, the bigger picture post-mortem stuff. Just be, like, like, even if our team was, was, was, sharp and everyone was in the best of form having a good day that like we still don't know what what would have happened yeah we've still very well could have lost yeah to your point earlier Vince yeah like they are like just having that level of quality or close to it is the prerequisite right to really have a chance that does not mean your your team is going to click and match up well so um even on our our best day um yeah far from a guaranteed

when it always was so yeah and i and i like i've said on like three different recordings now i'm kind of chuckle at myself for forgetting how you know how difficult the game was going to be any man you got immediate run up to it yeah i get hype man thank you you know maricio pastino he's telling you anything's possible whatever um you know you get caught up in it it's the world cup yep put your hands up in the air Put up. Come on.

All right. Real quick, before we move on, my last on this situation is I wanted some good, good action. And, you know, if we go play this match, lose without Balo, the back of my mind, I'm always like, man, what a Balog gonna have been out there? I got my answer.

I can sleep well at night. Yeah, good, good, good. All right. So is this World Cup still growing the game in America? And how much did the USMNT actually contribute to that? I mean, the answer is without a doubt. I think the question we're all wrestling with now is how much more could it have grown if they survived at least one more game or two, right?

The opportunity cost is enormous. Just give us a moral victory, bro. And don't give us just jump off the screen, bad plays that any soccer casual can just be like, bro, these dozee serious. Yeah. You know. People can tell. What'd your mom say about it, Vince? You know, she's texting me.

Mom texting me in the middle of the match and said, this is David versus Goliath. You know, I mean, that's how bad it was going, you know? Yeah. It didn't register our first shot until Malik's free kick. Didn't register our first open play shot until the 45th minute or something like that. And then came out in the second half and didn't have a shot until after Freeze gave up that third goal. But whatever. And then after that, when the game was over, she just texted it.

It said, Goliath won. And that's it. All right. Yeah. Yeah, I want to bring a couple anecdotes into this, too. First off, just in terms of the growth of the game. So I had two childhood buddies growing up, two neighbors. They both played football together.

I played basketball with one of them. And their parents are very much American sports people. So one of them earlier on had texted me. He lives kind of halfway between here and Philly. And his wife is from a more – she was in some rural area. They had to go somewhere. And he dropped her off and he stopped at a bar. and he said, you know, he texted me.

He was like, I'm in, this is, you know, Maggot Country. Everyone's wearing red hats, like big belly, his long beards, and everyone's talking about the World Cup. Like, just thought you should know that. So I was really cool to hear from him. And then he was texting me throughout the tournament about the U.S. He's like, you know, this game is crazy. His dad, he usually just texts me about the NFL in college football.

He texted me right before the game the other day. So that's, you know, little stuff like that, it's cool. And then there's the stuff that, you know, the building up with the national team only to see what happened the other day. Like my, the other buddy, he texted me, he said the Bosnia game was the first one he really locked in for. And he said he was pumped. He was on board.

And then midway through the first half the other day, I just got a text from him that said, this is hard to watch. And that, you know, that's like, it's great to see people get into it and get glued to the TV for this. But that spoke to me personally, you know, that's a glimpse into,

Well, a lot of us felt, I think, right? Talking to people we knew about what the other night was like. But the other night will be the last and taste in the mouth for a lot of people. I mean, there were so many more people that watched this game than even, like, watched the Bosnia match, the Pedigua match, whatever. But I got a lot of response from people just from the fact that, first of all, the way we, the fact that the fact that we started, the, the fact that we started, the, the, the fact that we started, the, the, the, the fact that we started. World Cup with the Paraguay match. I mean, a lot of people in my sphere who I had ready to go from the first kick in that match, you know, I mean, they were, they were blown away.

Yeah. They were blown away. And at that point, they're locked in for the rest of the tournament. And also, I think just with it being here and everything, summer, first of all, summer, I'd, you know, I don't. Nothing like a summer World Cup. Nothing like Summer World Cup. Summer soccer in general, I don't want to get on.

this old MLS thing, but whatever. It's good people on both sides. But the, I think we, we did catch, we did catch the greater public in a, in a grand way, you know, even if we didn't, like, set this incredible, right? I mean, what's that?

It's like, Timor, I don't know what the numbers were before, for Bosnia and stuff, but like, you know, 50 mil. Most non, most watch non-N NFL games. of the 21st century. Yeah. And so, like I said, there's probably, like, I don't know, 10 people, 10 million people or something that tuned in for that? And most NFL games are like 20, 25 million, too, right? Most watched non-super Bowl game?

It's up there. It's like, you know. It's like an NFC championship. Yeah, it's like NFC, AFC championships in Super Bowls. I think that top is. Yeah, NFL numbers are stupid. But, but to put it, to put it plainly, the answer. yes. I think we caught a lot of people. I think we caught a lot of people. I mean, you saw Brad Pitt

lonely up in his box with a USA shirt. He thought we was coming back, man. Dude, he was wearing a USA shirt today at Spain. Yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, he thought we were coming back. He thought we were coming back. He's probably disappointed that we're not back. But yeah, I think, I think we caught a lot of, I mean, we were just in the spotlight in just a way that we haven't been before. I haven't been before, yeah. And we delivered, mostly. within the tournament. With wins. And that definitely.

And I think the way the U.S. played in those, especially, like you said, the Paraguay match, huge benefit to growing the game in America. But I think I'm continued to be struck by how much people around me are

into the World Cup in general. Yeah. Like, group chats are blown up every day. Yeah. I mean, Erling Holland, the effect he's got. The way he's in the,

effect he's having on the females of America right now, I feel like... The men, too, brother. Males, too, yeah. Men too, yeah. My boy, the play college football with me, hit me up. Talking about Erland Holla, man. They just, I mean... He's magnetic, yeah.

Our country loves star power, right? And we'll get to talk about our superstar later, or the superstar we hoped. But wildly successful. By the way, I mean, just the random thought I had, I want to get your... your take on this. Do you think the, because there was talk about us hosting again as soon as 2038, right, or 2042, do you think the, the balligan thing left a bad taste in people's mouths politically, you know, some of our European friends or whoever? I mean, what they're going to do about it? Yeah. I know. Money is money, right?

If you left a bad taste in your mouth, brush your teeth. I mean, a slide a couple more bags on the table. I mean, what's going? What's going? What's going on, man. I mean, you know, Trump ain't giving his presidency. Yeah, I just wanted us to like unilaterally get it at the end of this tournament, right? It's like, oh, that was amazing. Here you go. Here's the next one. But,

might take a little longer now. Yeah, it might. But, I mean, one more ain't a dog. I mean, my son of my grandma was July 4th. July 4th. And she was,

she was like, she was like, Vince. Like, I can't, I got to stop with all this soccer. Your grandpa just, He will turn it on every day. Every day he's like that turn the soccer on. He's like, I've had enough of the soccer.

If you don't got Pinell Gradygo, locked in to the world. I mean, part of it is supporting me, of course. But the game's caught the man. The game's caught the, and it's just, I mean, the same thing that happened to me. Back in 2018, USA wasn't even in it.

That's how you know. I'm really about it. But, you know, it's, first of all, it kind of disrupts the American myopia. You're introduced to a whole different world, a whole different terminology. All that stuff was just, like, enticing to me. When I mean, when I first started watching World Cups back in like 06. A whole different cast of characters. A whole different cast of characters.

A whole different, like, like I said, sports terminology, all the different stuff that you didn't, you had no clue as to what was going on. on who are these people what's going on what what's this crazy stuff going on well why the Brazilian people talking about Protestants versus Catholics like all the different like it's like it's a whole different just insane thing and another thing is my mom was talking about just like the political stuff behind it you know I think I've told the story on the podcast before but my like really inciting incident to where I was like I cannot let another opportunity to get in the soccer passed by me in 2018. I've been

locked in the World Cups as 06, but 2018, I was out of school, then with football, whatever. The Granajaka and Shakiri situation, throwing the Albanian double eagle up against Serbia and then talking to my body, because

I had never talked to my Bosian friends about why they were actually in Louisville. They just said a war because, you know, we met when like 10, you know, it's a war. Like, oh, okay. But, you know, you're trying to whatever. And then, like, to actually get the background or whatever and then understand why soccer is this kind of why it can be just this place for like the ultimate expression emotionally, physically,

whatever, how politics intertwine, all the different types of stuff. It's just, it can be an intoxicating thing. Yeah, the energy of it is overwhelming, right? it overwhelms anything we have in American sports. It's Instagram friendly. It's social friendly. You know, it's like all this stuff's happening in America. You see the, the, excuse me, the Dutch people.

That's why I was like, I went through my mom. I was like, Holland, Netherlands. But the Dutch people do, yeah, right, I was about to say Holland. You know, Dutch people doing their marches or whatever. You see the Norwegians rowing. all a different time. It's just made for vertical video.

It's made for it's everything. All at the same time. It's sports. It's glamorous. It's international. It's a cosmopolitan. Like, all this stuff wrapped in one.

Yeah. Yeah. And we're getting the big, like the big stars delivering largely. Right. I mean, um,

You know, the top goal scores are Mboppa, Messi, and Holland, which is just perfect for the, you know, the American public. And Laminia Moll, you know, even though he hasn't scored, he's like if you turn on a Spain game, it's so, you know, he's so electric. Anyway, I think the, I think the game is growing plenty right now. And thanks to this World Cup, I think it's also partly thanks to the U.S. The U.S.A. Man. Let's drop that coward clip.

in the notes for this. I really enjoyed that. Him just saying soccer is cool whether or not you like it older people in the media. Like this is what the kids are about and there's so many things going for it. So you can't stop it. No, it's a really good clip. Yeah. He says he has 14 to 24 year olds decide what is cool.

I do not decide what is cool. And he's right about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my kids are into the World Cup. They're not. They've never really enjoyed watching soccer.

you know so there's something about it and something about the clarity of it when you see Norway versus England you know it's just boom and then the story is behind it Jude Bellingham Erling Holland yeah it's special obviously uh see Norway versus England then you get a whole bunch of people asking why uh why don't know English people out there I heard what about Harry King well of course what about the best athletes youth soccer discourse what are you feeling what are you feeling about that fired back up

it's clockwork brother I mean it feels like to your point about this World Cup feeling extra big the the ferocity of this this debate is feels unprecedented here right I mean you got everyone chiming in a lot of people lobbying

you know multi-top cocktails at Lexi Laws or whoever it is. Like, it's intense, man. And it's good that we're having this conversation because I feel like we're getting more at the heart of the matter, one way or another. Somewhere in there, there's people that are making the right points

about, you know, ways to subsidize the sport. And obviously, ball mastery is big, bells. I know you want to, you're always ready to preach about that. Everybody's got a piece of the elephant. But, like, the biggest part of the elephant is just that soccer starts at home. and with kids in kindergarten, they have to develop a love affair with the soccer ball

at that age to become World Cup winning soccer players as adults. It's just the truth. It's not going to happen in five years. It's not going to happen in 10 years. It's nothing we can tweak from the top down. And yes, I'd love to have more elite American athletes playing soccer from that age. Obviously, that's what we need.

But it starts at five. It starts at four, five. Look at a player like Gonzalo Montiel from Argentina go back and watch Messies Equalizer versus Egypt

see what this relatively unknown fullback from River Plate did to set that up it's like the ball is volleyed hard I mean first of all Taram Martinez

volleys a diagonal ball back across the six just to keep the play alive Montiel I didn't even know about this player before this World Cup he reaches out with his foot

on a ball that's behind him, juggles it over his head, back away from the goal, and then lays it down for Messi, like perfectly lays it down for him on a platter so that Messi can do that half-folly that everybody worships him for. Like, I mean, come on. These guys on the best teams are nasty,

even when they don't play at big clubs because they grew up with a soccer ball at their feet. It's not because they're crazy athletes. So, yeah, we need more parents. teaching their kids to love the ball in America and more coaches coaching that way. But it really has to start with the parents if we ever want to win a men's World Cup. Possibly. Yeah.

I mean, I look, I think we've done a good job. Everyone has the last 48 hours. And on this podcast, Bells, you've done a great job getting into like the granular stuff with some of people we've interviewed about. this um like the the reasons we all know what why we're not a soccer superpower i guess it depends how much weight you put into what whichever category of reason i like like i like to look at the structural stuff more because i think the incentives have to be there at all levels like the incentives have to be there for parents to want to get their kids to fall in in love with the game, right?

So there's layers to incentives and where they come from, whether it's from the bottom up or the top down. You don't have the PA classics, getting those residual payments or whatever. Solidarity, training comp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's all different kinds of things that go into it. Henry just had a good article about pay to play. I wrote something for the Guardian right before the World Cup at a high level

about why we don't have any world-class players talking to, you know, kind of former coaches, technical directors, and we can drop that in the notes. But yeah, it's good that this conversation's happening the way it is. And until some of these things, you know, meaningfully change, we're just going to be hoping against hope that we're kind of a blip, right? As a top 15 team, maybe top 10 team that can sneak into the top eight or a semi-final one day. Yeah, I mean, we're a round of 16 team.

until we can develop like until we can play Mexico in the round of 16 right right right yeah I mean it's just like we need we need we need 25 30 50 100 150 players who can manage a situation like the one we faced against Belgium in a high stretcher

and you cannot get to that point if you don't just have a intimate relationship with the soccer ball. I don't you guys think I'm just a crazy man yelling at clouds. No, no, no, you're right. You're right. But the way to get the, like, it's so daunting, right? That's what I got from writing that piece. Like the culture part, obviously you can't turn back the clock.

Like they have such a head start in terms of, you know, tangible and intangible things. But also, one thing that's never going to change here, like, we're not going to have the, it's going to take a long time to get the to get soccer going in areas that are dense enough with talent right like there's that piece in the athletic i think you referenced it last time about the amount of players produced in the Paris area like to get the sport in the fabric of those those athlete hotbeds those talent hotbeds in our country i say athlete not you know i'm not talking about next lebron or the next quarterback i'm talking about people who are hungry for the game it's a socioeconomic thing It's a really daunting thing that's going to take a really long time. So, yes, parents do everything you can.

It starts at home, but we've got to be honest with ourselves about this challenge. This is the tough part going from the upper middle class to, you know, the very top. To Boardwalk Avenue, yeah. Public, private sector, all got to come together. You know, got to have the Kyle Martino making the pitches under the basketball goals. got to have, you know, got to have state governments subsidizing school soccer in the same ways they do football, basketball.

All the stuff has got to come together, but, you know, will it happen? Yeah, it's a lot. And I don't want to gloss over the structural stuff. Like, I do think pro-Roe would grow the game in a more local and passionate way. We are for pro rel on this podcast, let the record show. I don't know, Vince, are you signing on to that? I mean.

In some form, yeah. It's just not going to happen, brother. But you know what? I do have a roadmap. I do have a, I think. We endorse it. I think promotion and relegation is an easier path than having soccer start at home for all the kids of America. Because all we have to do is blackmail like 32 people.

That's all we got to do. So it is actually easier. You're right. We need. Let's start now. Sleeper cells posted up with the hunts. Robert Crabb. It shouldn't be that hard to blackmail them, right?

Well, I shouldn't say that. It shouldn't. We're going to need, we're going to need, we're going to need probably some beautiful women, maybe some beautiful males as well. Okay. We're going to need massage parlors. We're going to need that cooperation. We're going to throw the kitchen sink at this.

We need spy gear. We need bugs on everybody, et cetera. But I do think if we came up, I mean, all this one, two, all this stuff we talk about, if y'all really want promotion and relegation, you know who the, um, who holds the keys. Who holds the keys, man? We know who holds the keys. Okay. When you put blackmail in the notes.

Bob Iger. I had no idea what you meant, but I should have known. Yeah, I mean, it is, it's, it's, it's basically at that level of plausibility right now. But no, but I do think, but I do think, I do think though, like, let me just say this, an open pyramid across this fruited plane would be, I think, a global hot, would become a global hotbed of soccer. And people would invest. I get the feeling we'd have dozens of rexums. In all seriousness, I don't, I don't think it would take what you just.

just said, I think it's going to happen sooner or later because you're going to need it at a certain point to get to the media rights deal that you want, whether you're MLS, USL, whoever, or a merger of some form, whatever it is, when you are up against the other media property, the sporting media properties in this country, in addition to those from abroad that come and raid this market, you have to take that step sooner or later. I actually think it's going to happen. I actually think it's going to happen. I can't tell you when. I've no clue when. But wouldn't be surprised. And yeah, it's not just for player

development. I don't think it's a silver. It's the magic bullet for player development overnight, but obviously would. Yeah, a lot of things need to fall into place, but it would help. And I think we're going to get there. I think that's the next North Star, in my opinion.

We can't just be all about events. We've got to be about sustainable growth here. Yeah. We'll get there one day. I yeah okay I also think youth soccer is fundamentally flawed which everybody everybody does but you know we got my specific thing is we have 10 year olds who don't love having the ball at their feet yet playing 9 v9 soccer with goalies where they might touch the ball 10 times in a game it's totally ridiculous and it's everywhere everywhere and it's part of youth clubs prioritizing I don't know signups and registration fees over development and that's everywhere. If we need more local cheap, small-sided soccer for kids, rec soccer is already there. I think we should make a massive investment in rec soccer.

But we need a plan and we need U.S. soccer to really care about rec soccer, which I don't think it does. So that's also kind of a pipe dream. I do want to read what- I mean, look, go ahead. If we want to move our coordinated blackmail campaign down to the east, ECNL or whatever, what have you. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? We can do it. Add another 300 names to the list. That's the thing. Matt, so his Mike Crocker still don't know all the names. You know what I'm saying? By the time he got out, he was like, man, I got learned a hundred more names. I'm out.

Send me to Saudi. I'm going to Saudi Arabia. Tav Ramos was interviewed by Mike Waitala, just two real ones, in my opinion. A couple days about the round, a couple days ago. about the round of 16 exit. Let me read a couple of the questions and answers because I think I mean, Tab just cuts right to it. This is Waitala.

There have been the usual stories about post-USA World Cup exit blaming the American youth system. He goes on to give his take, which is that it's, offers an impressive development environment. American youth soccer does. And pathways for our elite young players. Access to these may not reach every neighborhood of our nation, but certainly enough to supply sufficient talent for a national team aiming to join the world's elite.

Your thoughts? And Ramos replies, he does not take the bait on it being an impressive development environment or anything like that. He says, great players usually come from a soccer culture at home. They start their relationship with the ball almost as soon as they can walk. Tom Byer will be happy to hear this and I'm a big supporter. And then he talks about some problems with the youth game, which are real. Hold on, Ricku. You mentioned Tom Barrow.

I just want to know what... Bell, tell me what happened to Japan in this World Cup. Shut the dog up! They lost to Brazil and a heartbreaker, right? What round? 32. Round 30. Oh, okay.

I know you don't really think about things like that, though. You're too much of a scientist, bro. It's a lot of mitigating factors, but the results are results. It's shameless how I got to it, but I got to it. And then as the kicker, I mean, take Tom Byer out of it, you know? Like, forget about Tom Beyer. He obviously is the big proponent of all this. But that doesn't make it, if he's wrong about some stuff, doesn't make him wrong about that.

And then, what Tallah said, if you, to Ramos, if you had a magic wand, how would you use it on American soccer to put the USMNT in a position to genuinely contend for the World Cup trophy? And this is, I think, almost poetry. Ramos says, I. I would have soccer embedded into American culture as the NFL and college football is. And you know what? I got good news, Adam Bells. Because I feel like I've kind of, like, we've kind of been jumping around it a little bit. And we've kind of been talking it through with, you know, different guests and, like, on this show amongst ourselves or whatever.

I think it might be here, bro. Like, when our kids are our age, I think it'll be here. I'm almost positive at this point. Like the level of saturation I'm seeing. And I think the fact, I think it's helped a lot that like club ball is now accessible, easily accessible by the American, might be behind a paywall, but still accessible. And like I said, I mean, I talked about the fact that my daughter came to me and asked me specifically by name, when is LaMina Maugh playing?

I want to watch LaMille Maugh. You know, when's, when's Ronaldo playing? What's Messi playing? You know, and I did not put her on to these players. Like, this is not my work. This came strictly from her friends. Right. So, and the scenario that would literally be unfathomable when I was her age.

You know, I mean, just not happening, brother. Not even close. Yeah, who would have been when, it would have been like Sedan and Ronaldo. You know. Year 2000? Yeah. Damn, man, you missed out. I guess I did.

I mean, I did see the... Yeah, I did see the Zadon Headbutt live. But, but yeah, man, I think... Like, I think it's here, bro. I think it's here. We just got to wait a little bit longer. I think the permiance has been reached. So you're saying, like, 20 years?

I think so, yeah. But you still need, we still need our kids to teach our kids, to teach their kids how to play soccer. Right. In a really, almost obsessively passionate way. But it's like, you know, when, yes, yes. But when you talk about culture, like, I ask what you do at recess? Oh, we play soccer. You know what I'm saying?

She says all the boys every single day play soccer. She gets a special exception. to be led into the boy's soccer game for whatever reason. But that's the game that they play at recess. That's that family charisma, man, you know? I guess, man. I don't know. I don't know what's going on there.

But, yeah, once again, these are just scenes that would not have been seen in Louisville, Kentucky in the year 2000, 2001, 2002 when I was in elementary school. Yeah. Sanjay, you want to talk about the pool of sick bashing? Yeah. know where to start with this. There's been quite a pylon. I don't get it.

I don't agree with it. First of all, we learned the severity of his injury, right? He's got a bone bruise and a right leg microfracture, so he's out several weeks. Feels like he's just being scapegoated. He's been an injury-prone player and a reluctant superstar in terms of his personality. Like, that's not new. and yeah I feel for him it feels like we just people just wanted a savior

and he's not what they had hoped for they're realizing that very suddenly and um yeah I mean what are you guys thinking about this whole it's coming from all corners right it's it's coming from all corners um

you know I feel I feel for it man you know I mean first of all Full stop, real cup, not up to expectations, you know. And I had held off on roast and pulley because similar to Mauritio Pashino is all about the World Cup. You know, coming off a World Cup. I mean, because now, because now it seems like almost that his legacy is like irreparable. I mean, amongst the American public for sure. It seems like it.

Now maybe 2030 he does better. Whatever. It's almost like, I mean, the way people coming for him, it's almost like 2022 did not happen, you know, where he's responsible of every goal we score in the World Cup. Also had his, I mean, maybe it's not as iconic of a moment because he wasn't able to celebrate after he was just kind of crumpled in the goal when he scored the August, Edon.

But delivered in a huge moment for this national team. whatever and like i don't know i think it's fair probably to have expected more from christian polisic i mean for him at least to show up in the toughest like in the game that so far throughout this generation means the most to it to have its talisman um at least show up and be accounted for in that match i'm not giving them a pass for that but And some of this are people that just aren't as tapped in as us, I guess. But it does seem like people are just acting like he's. I mean, I saw somebody say his national team career has been a disappointment.

I can't say that. And this is a person that I know watch a soccer. I cannot say that Christian Polisic has been a disappointment. No, that's crazy. I mean. He's been disappointing in moments. For sure. And like I said, this game, this performance against Belgium for Christian Polisic is not out of the ordinary.

Or is not, it's not something that we haven't seen before. He has bad games all the time. Yeah, he has some stinkers. He had long stretches of bad games, yeah, but there's also been. He's a streaky player, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Strieking player, he's had some stinkers.

I don't think, I think him being thrust. with the responsibility of being the LeBron James of soccer or whatever. He's clearly just not fit for it. It's such a ridiculous thing. Has never been, I guess has never been fit for it. So I don't know. It's just when I see him, when I see him, I get sad. You know, it's like when, at all times.

He's like when you hear him talk, I bring this up all the time. You ever been in the presence of a Christian politic side after he gets asked, question it's like i mean it's like soul sucking like all all the air is taking out the room when he's like he just there's a lot there's a lot put upon him there's a lot expected of him and he didn't deliver in this world cup he deserves yeah yeah i mean he deserves get criticized for he deserves to criticize for it i do think a lot of the stuff is like overboard or whatever but, you know, it just kind of comes with it. His character doesn't need to be assassinated, right?

His toughness being quite, like, look, he's just injury prone. People are questioning his toughness. People are saying, like, I heard Donovan say, you know, he played through, like, a hamstring injury in that World Cup in 2010. Like, I have no doubt that a lot of people have played through injuries. I'm sure Christian himself has played through injuries, right? Like, he's more injury prone than maybe Donovan in Dempsey. Donovan was known for his fitness. Dempsey obviously known for his toughness. And I don't know if

Christian's going to do what they did at a World Cup, right? He's got one more to surpass them on that stage for the U.S. But what he's done in Europe, the heights he's hit there, that alone is obviously a phenomenal legacy. And let's not forget that he was, that we failed him before what should have been his first World Cup. Come on, man. When he was in... Had him on his back. That might have been his...

That could have been his best World Cup. That might have been, you know, the best form of his career. I mean, the way he was going? Pop in his step. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's not pretend that that didn't happen. Again, like nice...

Like, he's a nice guy, quiet guy, keeps himself. I've seen some people also being like, you know, he gets all the attention, he gets all the ads, like, he's got to be able to deal with this. Like, yeah, criticize him for the way he played, sure. but to drag this man for, you know.

They really dragging him, yeah. I want to read what a friend of the pod. Go ahead. Ryan Talmich wrote, I think it sums it up pretty well. He said, one aspect of the Polisic debate that has always remained true is that he does not have a personality that matches his ability. While his presence is loud on the field, it does not off of it. As a person, Polisic is quiet and shy.

He does not seek attention and in truth doesn't like it very much. He loves the competitive aspect of professional soccer and does whatever he can to tolerate the fame aspect that comes with it. When that is your personality type, you don't often get the benefit of the doubt. In bad times, quiet can be seen as aloof after a loss, shyness comes off as apathy. In bad moments, the world wants to see a player show anger and rage, and Policic never really does. Instead, he does what he always does.

He keeps to himself. I think that sums it up. He was spitting. My boy Ryan was spitting right there. That's why he got a scuffed hat. You know what I'm saying? That's why I had to put him on payroll. But, um, yeah, like all that stuff put together, man.

I mean, it, first of all, and everything that Ryan said, plus on top of that, it don't help when people just are obtuse with your words for no reason. You know what I'm saying? When he's with this whole thing about rest. I'll be fine soon. Yeah. If you listen to Christian Polistic Talk, you know what he's saying. You know what he's saying.

And everybody's like, oh, oh, you get to. rest after the world you get to rest after the world cup he's just trying to put it away right he's just trying to quietly put it away and people pick that up and throw it back in his face and it's like guys what are we doing and and so it's like you know you already thought he was he was a piece of wonder bread before i mean you know if you you keep drying him out like yes you don't get stale the wonderberg going to get staler and stella brother and you know it is wonder bread so maybe it takes a little bit longer than than the other natural wheat and chaff to get to get a little stale but but it's like these things cannot help it uh if you

want christian polys that shows a personality whatever if he's already uncomfortable with the situation in the first place it's like what like like like why i got to talk to y'all well well why would i talk to y'all if you know if i throw a little exclaimer at the end saying um i'll be all right i get the rest now um like i'll be able to rest it now which he i guess he should have said to uh to get away from all doubt. You know, it's just ridiculous. And then furthermore, like you said, Sanjay, he almost carried Tim Harrow's bum ass.

Bum at the time, at the time, to a World Cup. You know what I'm saying? And Tim Howard did everything in his power to sabotage Chris and Policic having his moment in the World Cup. You know, it would have been three already. And let's not forget, I mean,

I'm not trying to comfort him necessarily. I haven't even listened to, real quick. I haven't even listened to what they've said because I've heard that maybe Landon's stuff was a little bit more nuanced than what got clipped, of course, or whatever. Yeah.

But let's not forget, Leonard Donovan got grouped from a World Cup and has zero-go-zero-zero assists. You know what I'm saying? So, Landon's my goat, first off, and I think the way, yeah, like he also said people around Christian or part, like, I'll let people listen to that

and make of that what they want to. I think the people that play with Christian or a bit more careful, like Clint, Josie, Tim Howard, but everybody else, like the older people, everyone else feels like

has something to say about him now. I mean, I don't know, Tim Howard's basically on there, like Stephen A. Smith, you don't want to make an enemy out of me. Like, sub-tweetin,

Chris, blah, it all seems to be a little bit much to me from some people. I'm not. I'm not even talking about the other soccer people. I'm talking about everyone teeing off on him.

Like just mainstream U.S. sports people. Bells go ahead. I just, that's the, that's life. And it's too bad that he's going through that. But like, you guys, did anybody, any of us expect the discourse about something to be intelligent, uh, useful, fruitful? It's not. It never is about anything.

So, um, so, yeah, I, I guess that my big thing with Pulisic is, he is the best player we've ever had. His club career is, like, far and away the best. And he has done a lot of great things for the national team, too. Sometimes he's good, sometimes he's bad. Sometimes maybe good. Sometimes maybe. But that's just

who he is. I don't think the future of the game depends on Christian Pulisic. The American public will they'll find new people to get excited about. It's Pulisic will be here for a little while, and then he won't. And

I hope people are kind to him while he's here, but it's fine. You know, I don't care. I don't listen to those podcasts. Well, and just one more thing. You know, he has to be the Christian Polisic that we see on his good days to be to Belgium. Yeah. There's just really no way that we can do it without him. Without him being like Project Restart Christian Polisic, scoring in, scoring,

a brace against Liverpool in an empty stadium. He at least got to be impactful on the game. I mean, like, very impactful on the game. Now, give him a little pass for Netherlands because of whatever was going on with his midsection area or whatever. But this one, you know, pass failed, failed, man. Failed miserably.

How about Gio, though? How about Gio? Gio was pretty good in this game. All right, all right. I'm not rolling. I'm not rolling, man. He was all right. He came on and like I said,

still didn't have a shot. Like, I don't know. No, he didn't have a shot to have a shot after that freeze. He brought some composure, but he didn't do that much. Go ahead, Sanjay. I mostly brought it up as a gag, but go ahead. No, I feel like the,

there's so much geo-injury discourse that it kind of papers over. Like, Christian's a very injury-prone player, and it is definitely limited his ceiling. He still hit amazing heights in Europe, but it's taking a toll on his career at this point. Obviously, nothing like Gio's, you know, shell of what he could have been, and I don't know what he'll be after this.

You guys know I'm a believer in him, but that being said, now, he was good in this game. It's just nice to have someone be able to come in, receive the ball, turn, keep the ball, you know, against any, no matter who they're playing. We're not asking for much. Truly. Like, I mean, really, like, YMCA, old man, ball, because, like, there are situations where OGO would have got, like, kind of aggressive off the carry, man.

And it's like, you see him slow it down, turn around. Look, but I'm like, man, damn. Like, it's good to, it was nice that he might be our possession adult if he can find out, if he can find working legs. How to be a physical adult, like, how to actually. be a physical adult. Vince, when you said that, YMC, I thought of Adam Sandler playing basketball, but go on. Kind of similar to that, man. I mean, you know, you got that old man game that just never goes away, but, yeah.

It just says what, and you know what? Another thing I was thinking about is just if we did have, you know, it's a lot of ifs and butts, man. but it's like if we had the geo we thought we were going to have added balo who who has proved balo has proved to be a christian politic level attacker which i've kind of always said we've added another attacker of that level he's that Christian politic firing and then geo i don't want to think about it wherever you want to put him on that on that right wing like Greg had him in 2021. No,

if you would have put him in 10, whatever. Like an 8, 10. Yeah, yeah. It hurts me to think. When my friends used to ask me how good could we be, I'd always say we need to be pretty healthy, and Gio Raina needs to be him. And unfortunately, it didn't work out that way.

No, he's not him. Do you think about hot him dribbling six guys at the Azteca? If we had that, Gio. If we had that Gio, we could have probably played Belgium to a draw in regulation. Let's talk about a poch. Let's talk about Potch. But we'll get back into Gio and Christian and maybe others coming back to MLS.

I think that's one of the things that's hovering over this next cycle is the question of if and when guys are going to come back. Man, Gio, go ahead and do it, man. I mean, they might as well all do it. Like, why not? Gio, you married? You know what I'm saying? I would assume that she would rather be over here than I assume I assume they live in a Ducidore.

She wants to be where the money's spinning, baby, you know? Come on, man. Come on, back. NYCFC, let's have a grando reunion. Wow. Yeah, new stadium. Yeah, for the opening. Yeah, come on, man.

Him and Christian, yeah. All right, yeah. That'll be interesting, but let's talk, let's talk Potch. Let's do it. What are we thinking? Me first? Yeah. I like Pots.

I think Potch, you know, good relationship with Potch. I like Potch. I think. You want to pay roll. He did. He's a lovely guy. I want to miss that guy if he moves on. But I don't think it, I'm not sure it makes sense.

I don't think it makes sense for either party to keep going. Maybe it will for a little while, but. you know if he's there's always going to be that temptation of a big European job and we're trying to build towards 2030 and have someone who has the full cycle um look like the the cultural reset that that happened with him was very important um making sure you know guys like this is the most important thing they want to be here there's no special rules for anyone um that can't be slept on but yeah

I mean obviously didn't meet expectations at this tournament and does it make sense to make this massive investment in him if you can't be sure

he's going to be here for four years and that's a good problem to have right like when you get someone like this that's always going to be the risk but I don't think it makes sense then we can talk about successors but what do you guys think.

Go ahead, Vince. I've caught him between two minds. One being that he didn't get a full cycle. And that I'm thinking he didn't get a full cycle. And if he wanted to come back, since he finally reached, you know, something that really, really made sense and really got us playing well in the World Cup,

you know, it took a while. There was a lot of weird stuff going on. Eunice Musa, wide right, Timway up, wide left, etc, etc. But when it was time for the rubber to meet the road, he got us playing, and he got us playing some good ball. We saw the vision, right? We saw the vision. At the same time, I'm looking at it.

We are not the current holders of the Conquercapped Nations League. we're not the current holders of the Concord Calf Gold Cup Championship and in this World Cup we did what expectations were we got to the round of 16 and really did not give a minute more

you know as far as like as soon as that Belgian match kicked off you know it was over you know we didn't even get a it would have been nice to get a moral victory like Mexico did or something. Or, I mean, people seem inclined to give Canada one out of, I don't want to say it.

But anyway, so I seem to be, I don't know, I'm caught in between, I'm caught in between two minds. I think I'd be fine seeing him go. If he stayed, I wouldn't, I wouldn't trip too much. Because I do think there's more that he could get out of this group. What, let me throw a scenario out of you. he stays until a 2028 and then we reevaluate. But then, you know, you're just given the next guy a short realm way like he had, right? So it's, because look, if he wants to stay and sign up for sure for four years with a giant buyout, like a prohibitive buyout, that'd be great.

Like, I just, I don't know if that's going to happen. That's what I'm saying. It might make sense to. Yeah. It's just a difficult job. I mean, I mean, it's just a tricky job. And I don't, I don't think it, I'm sort of coming around to the idea that I don't think it matters that much who the manager is. Like, yes, Potch, I think Potch did get us, I saw the vision, he got us playing well.

He did the cultural reset, which I think was really important. But, um, that was massive. I'm going to punt. Yeah, I agree it was massive. The cultural reset part was massive. But once you get to the World Cup and you've got everybody watching you play soccer, like either you figure it out or you don't. You know?

And I don't know. I don't know how much the manager matters, of course. Keep him, get rid of him. The only problem with keeping him is it's $6 million a year. That's a lot of money. They got a lot of money. I do wonder, well, yeah, do. I do wonder what the precedent is going to be for the next manager.

If we hire like BJ Callahan, we're going to have to pay him like $4.5 million or something. I want to say something about that. Look, I like Greg too. I think he did a good job that first cycle. And his assistants, like BJ's great guy, you know, obviously fan favorite linebackers coach. everyone love BJ substitute teacher and Nations League

that was great the other people and Greg staff too like Mikey Barros whoever Bucci like I don't think after the cultural

reset it makes sense to bring back someone who worked with these players under Greg and before and have to deal with transitioning them

like I don't get that at all no disrespect to BJ he's doing a great job anomalous I know a lot of people are throwing his name in the hat that doesn't make sense to me at all. Yeah, I, I wasn't, I agree with you. And I, only reason I brought,

I just brought BJ Callahan, because I thought it'd be funny to imagine him making $4.5 million a year to coach the team. Yeah. But no, but I'm glad people are talking about him, right, as the American candidate. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, I don't really want it to be Steve Tarundalo, who's like, I guess just got hired as the Olympics coach. Yep. Search led by Dan health rich in the absence of a sporting director uh steve strondolo on board and and by the way with that if potch is like if you if podge's coming back surely part of the pitch has to be you have complete control over everything including youth national teams like you are really it's your vision for everything um i'm curious if you know he there was any uh input from him on this in the past

if this was lined up or if this was just U.S. soccer, you know, doing their thing. Like Steve Schroen, in a vacuum, it's a great hire, right? For a U-23 job, someone like him, like very, very well-respected, former player. Right, I'm fine with him being the U-23 coach. I just worry that he's being hired to be the... Lined up. Yeah. I mean, look, we...

I'll say this. We can't afford to just BS around for two years before that, whether it's BS around. and around having a lame duck coach or like, you know, doing that reevaluating in 2020, whatever. You know what we need to do? You know what we need to be doing all these four years? Build a damn team.

Building a damn team. And furthermore, while building that damn team, getting results. Because, you know what? I'm not trying to go back to the slums, Adam Bells. I'm trying to be pot one for the rest of, the rest of my life. Essentially.

I'm trying to be in that pot, man. And you got three. three teams that are going to be you know that are going to automatically be in pot one um with uh Morocco, Spain and Portugal. Who knows how they handle the South American teams or whatever? But, uh, those three for sure are for sure, I think to me,

pot one teams that are going to be taken out of the, of the pool necessarily. So what we got to get to, um, 12 in the FIFA rankings? That's what we need to be focused on. So we can run into another round of 16 buzzsaw in 2030. Pot one would be nice. Sorry, Bell's go ahead. Go ahead, you go ahead. Like, part one would be great.

And you're right, we do need results because when was the last time we beat a legit team? I don't know what Bobby Wood scored against Germany back in, like. Let me tell you. The mid-teens. we'd be soccer starts at home in Columbus, Ohio. Japan? Samaraj Blue? Is that what?

All them kids was waking up with soccer balls in their crib. And somehow, some way, they came to Columbus, Ohio and got smacked. Yeah, so on paper, right? So they started with almost their first choice guys. And then we beat an Uruguay team missing, like, an Uruguay team crashing and burning. No, I know you're being sarcastic, but I'm just. I just want to make it clear that we have not beat anyone. Like even though it was like the Uruguay game, that game, like Mexico games,

like who was the last European, South American team? Whereas like, Dan, that was a good win. No, it's been, I mean, yeah, it's been forever. Going back to friendly theory, brother. Once again, Japan. We made them look like a round of 32 team. Guess what they were? Fair enough.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Made them look like a train where guess what they were. So, yeah, you know, I mean, I think there's some legs to it. Well, yeah, fair enough. But I guess I just think, like, yeah, Pachitino did, he did prior, you know, he did all this weird stuff in the build-up to the World Cup. First game of the World Cup, we are on it.

Like, we come out just a ball of fire. Like, what more do you want from a coach? Like, that's, we came into the first game of the World Cup on. fire. We won our group. I mean, we beat Bosnia. We did, and as Tabaramo said, we won a lot of Americans over with that last 30 minutes against Bosnia,

playing down a man, getting a really nice free kick goal. I mean, like that, that won, that got a lot of people interested. And then we play our first truly difficult team, our first pot one team, and everybody, you know, goes into the fetal position and starts sucking their thumb. So I don't know, I don't know, what's

you're supposed to do? Like, he's obviously had them ready for the tournament. And I just think it's a tricky job to like to like build this team while you're playing these friendlies that don't they matter. They kind of don't matter. I don't know. Yeah, look, he didn't have enough time. He did have enough time. What did you not have enough time for?

Well, yeah, yeah. So that's a good question about it because I'm sitting there thinking it's like, I mean, why do we do all this rigum of a role with all these different people? in these midfield roles that we thought would be the type of profile starting next to Tyler Adams to where he has this like Eureka moment. He's like, you know what? I can put Malik Tillman there. It's like, oh, for real, bro. Like, you know, I mean, there's just a whole like Instagram video on the,

on the scuff podcast. Instagram. Plan against Man City. Yeah. Yeah. In that exact same position. Like, wow. You know.

There is. there was unnecessary experimentation for sure, but overall two years is not that much time in international management. Isn't my point? Like the cultural reset, he had, like, he was the right man at the right time for that because this is the first time we've had players with this pedigree, right? So you don't want, you know, any cultural issues to like fester or like calcify. So for him to come in and put guys in their place when he did while the federations,

you know, also in this transition, that was great. but I hear what you're saying like he didn't have to do all this shopping and changing yeah I just don't I just don't know how to feel about it like do I want him to stay I don't know who do I want to be the next coach I don't know I do want everybody to start drilling the ball when they're four

no what I do know sorry I think it's good um it does I think it speaks you know we need to find you talk about the coach whatever we need to find we need to find damn leader within this group I mean I don't talk about it. Like every time we fail,

every single time we fail, it's like, I look around, I'm like, you can just tell, bro, like, this team this team needs to be rudder. It's a bit rudderless. It's a bit rudderless, bro. When the going gets tough, you can see it. Like, you know,

there is just not that one person that stands up and is like, yo, I'm not going today. I'm not going. The game is going this way. I'm going to make it go that way. And then all, also you all like follow behind me while you find your footing within this match or whatever. Nobody quite has that effect.

The person that's got to step up is Chris. If you just look at what the squad is and who might be there in four years or not be there. Yeah, but I just think like looking into his eyes, looking into Oda Mendi's eyes, I'm like, man, Chris is going to have to murder three men between now and the next World Cup. to get on that level. I mean, he's just too nice of a person, you know? I think he has that edge in him, and I think it'll emerge once he's clearly the guy,

which I think will happen at some point in this cycle. What I also just want to say very, very clearly, we need to build a team looking ahead to this game in 2030 against the team that's better than us and probably the round of 16, when you think about how to build that team and work backwards, if you're going to face a team that's better than you on paper and probably has more chemistry than you, you're cooked,

before the ball even moves. Like before the whistle blows, it's an uphill battle, and that's especially true about the midfield. So, you know, World Cup qualifying doesn't start until November of 2027. we're going to have to wrestle with, you know, now it's about how this core can maintain itself and whether or not to transition them out, you know, kind of anticipating when to let the younger guys step in bigger roles. And the strundal thing is interesting because there's obviously this emphasis on the Olympics, which is great. American people love the Olympics.

There's a lot of exciting young players. It should be a priority to do really well at the Olympics. Olympics. But that should not interfere with like now having competition and setting up a senior team that's ready for the Kobe America and the next World Cup. Like there's going to be some guys that that maybe it makes more sense to go to the Olympics because their clubs will release them, even if they're in Europe already. Like they have a lot more playing time there. But, you know, like when you see who we just subbed into that game and who Belgium brought on, like, we got to get serious about finding the guys with enough quality

to lift the ceiling of this team. Another thing Tab said in that interview in Soccer America, he said... He's going to glaze tab for the hope show. Now, he said, good young players always need an opportunity. You cannot expect them to be better than the current team immediately. But now that we know the limitations of some players, we can take a chance in others who may have a higher ceiling.

There are several guys with that higher ceiling that are waiting that should not be funneled towards the Olympic team that should be getting minutes with the senior team as soon as this fall. We got four games over a two-week stretch coming up, four games that are supposed to be in the U.S. If it was up to me, I'd give most of the veterans a break, maybe not Chris, not Tillman, not Freeman, but I'd like to see a lot of fresh blood because, yeah, it's about building a sustainable midfield. above all else for me. Forward's a little come and go and, you know, we got exciting players there too. We need the next La Minia Mall, man. We need to find, like, midfield, Schmidfield.

We need some ballers. We need, like, we need a whole new. They're there too. Cabin's there. Matisse, like, gozo. Like, yeah, those guys, like, they'll get their look. Julian Hall, they'll definitely be in the senior team, maybe even sooner because that, you know, it's easier to integrate guys there

give him a chance than a centerback or a six or something. But we got to be very forward thinking about how we build this team because I'm tired of going through the same conventional wisdom, same, going through the same motion, same process, because it's not getting us anywhere. Like it's not. We haven't beat a real team like we just said in forever. So we got to rethink how we're doing this. Get the coach in soon and then Bill, like.

Jack Blint. I'm talking about Mimedi. Like that's who I'm thinking of when I'm talking about the midfield. But, you know, in 2009, like, we didn't just beat Spain because we had a good game plan on the day. We beat Spain in that game because Bob Bradley decided a few years before that, that this is going to be my core, because it has to be, kind of had to be, looking at the pool then. And these are the guys are going to have leadership roles and key roles on the field. And everyone's going to know how to play with each other and what to do.

and we're going to be ready to do a job on a given day. Like now the game is different, the pool is different, but there's something to be said for that. And we have to, like, identify early who the players are going to be that are going to help us win this game that just defined everything for the last kind of decade, right? Yeah.

I mean, you know, they'd be spanning 2009, but, you know, that came and went with a whimper, you know. I'm saying. They ain't galvanized nobody. I just want to say that. And I just want to say, they did beating Algeria in 2010. They did.

That's a moment. That galvanized people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it's a moment to get out the group. He was about to get grouped again. Len Donovan with two groups on his resume. The magic of the World Cup.

His groups were tougher and they weren't at home. It's a 32-team World Cup. Those are tougher groups. Okay. We just played a 32-team World Cup. They won a group with England in it. Yeah. I'll say about the Olympics.

We drew England too. They ain't had them to do with what they did against England. Okay, we drew them as well. You know what I'm saying? We drew with them, if you really want to go there. We drew with them after they won their opening game by a bunch of goals. And they basically knew they were in the next round. Okay.

We play them in the opening game. I don't want to discredit guitar. That was a great performance. But circumstances matter. we could go back and forth on that for a while but the Olympics the Olympics I don't really care about I think that I think we got to like we got to stop with all that like it's that's what I meant it's an opportunity brother no it's not that much of an opportunity people don't people are too smart for that you know they're it's like where's all the good players oh this is for you 23s

oh I don't think they are let's just be realistic if you look at where they are right now in their career. Mimetti, Hall, Gozo, Kavin, Payton Miller, like projecting where they're going to be

in the summer of 28. Does the Olympics even make sense? So then who are you talking about? I'm not like, it's going to be a great experience for a lot of

young players. But the guys that are on the radar right now that can help the senior team, they should go to Cope America. Brother, I think Julian Hall

will be on an Olympic run. I mean, maybe, maybe. If it makes more sense for him to start there, sure,

but. playing my flag now just as far as you can look into that as what you want listener but uh i'm i'm just going to need to see a lot i mean adrian mamedi i think is probably the closest of that crop a kid's maybe goes oh after him but i'm going to need to see a lot from cabin sullivan before i invest any emotional energy in his uh matisse on his way matisse i mean come on man like yes maybe i mean if he's playing first team football before like real minutes for dormant like yeah he's going in Copa. Cole Campbell.

I just want to see him be good on the field. Let's see that. Not that they shouldn't get called up first, but I just like, what I care about at the moment is, can Kevin Sullivan help us win games at the World Cup? I do not think that he can right now. I care about Mehdi and Tillman and Cardoso and Tessman and whoever getting as many reps together as possible.

And Chris and Banks or whoever it is getting those reps. Okay. With the left back. That's my point. We know who the striker is. We know Freeman's going to be there. We know Freeman's going to be there. We know Timon's going to be there.

The rest of it, we got to fill it in and roll with the coach. Okay. Quick. All right. Hey, let's be done here. I'm going to hold you to that. There's some of my missions in there. Who?

That I'm a circle back in two years. We got to get out of here. No, no, no, no. Give the audience more people who be excited about. Go, go. Drop some names. No, I'm talking about that that lineup that you just put on who's going to be there. I'm saying in the starting

lineup for sure. I'm not saying squad. No, no, no. In the starting lineup, I've written that down. Who? Who else would you say 100% confident? And I've made, look, we just going to hold that. Belas, who else would you have? Say your list again?

Freeman, Chris, Ballow, Tillman. the rest of it to me based on just what I see right now with the pool and I don't know how guys are going to like for me it's all about like with Adams and Christian it's about fitness

I can't guarantee anything no one can yeah I just want to see some of these guys show it which they've only been They've only been around for a short period on this earth,

so it's not entirely fair of me to say that. But I think, I mean, are these guys going to be better? Is Gozo going to be a better player than Sergenio Dest in four years? Look, Dest had a bad game on Monday. There's no getting around it. But is Gozo going to be a better player than Des? As a winger, as a winger, because let me tell you something. I talked about this on the post.

match. I think he had a very overrated World Cup. I think so. Yeah. I do. Fair, but the question remains, goes out going to be a better option than him.

I would bet on the profile over Sergio now. We'll see. We'll see if it actually comes to fruition if he is a better socket. Like, believe me, I am not anointing him right now. But You know.

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not guaranteeing desk, Desk is going to be the guy. To be a, you know,

to, somebody has a little bit more presence over there on a, on a touchline than a Christian Polisic or a certain junior desk might. If he hits a ceiling, I'm not,

once again, I'm not saying this is happening, but just had to have somebody with some height with that, with that speed, you know, that you can't knock off the ball as easily. You've been Luca Baccio-pilled,

haven't you? a little bit, a little bit. Even though he's, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I guess he's not that good. But it looked really good. But, you know, when you, well, you know, if you look at his stats or, you know, whatever. But, I mean, you see him playing Atlanta, you see him play in Seattle, you're like, damn. But, you know what, Serge is trying to get around the corner on that one play?

And he's grabbing duty. Ristled for the foul. That's what I'm hoping, like maybe. that's what I'm hoping for my goals, though. Like in a situation like that, like maybe you can bend that corner. You don't let your defender cut you off from the ball right there. You know what I'm saying?

It's just those types of things where Serge, great fullback as a winger trying to hold it down. You know, there's just some, I mean, and we know Final Third isn't his thing necessarily. That's not a superpower. No, it's not. Giving you goals and assist. So, yeah, I do have some hope for Zavio Gozo that maybe he can just be that kind of cheat code on a touchline for the U.S.

Mississippi. That would be, I mean, just an absolute blessing to have. I could see that, I could see him developing that narrow thing where he can, like, get the corner where Sergenio can't. But, I mean, he's the chances of him being as tidy in combination. in general, as Sergenio Dest is, as resourceful in possession, which are huge, huge, huge benefits. I just don't know if I see it.

But also beating guys 1v1, that's one of the really cool things about the World Cup, is it winnows everything down to, like, the fundamentals. You know? It's like, can this guy beat this guy and create a little bit of an advantage? And it's really hard. There's not that many people that can actually do it.

Yeah, well, I don't mean like earlier in this tournament, in the group stage it wasn't as hard. You get into the knockout games, it gets really hard to beat somebody one-by-one. It's hard, really. And so that's when you see somebody like Laminia Mall beat like two guys earlier today in one sequence, it's like jaw-dropping because it's so hard. So I don't know. Yeah, betting on goes over Albert to be that dynamite for sure. Okay. All right.

Yeah. Yep. We're going to have one of those hit, man. One of those hit. That's what I'm locked in on. But also, just real quick, I do want to make this point. And Bells, we talked about this. And one of our podcasts that we have off air, I think it's called a phone conversation.

But, you know, for whatever reason, over those two years of Potch, we end up in the World Cup with the same situation that we had. of the Gigi where the bench is just not, it's not a factor. It's not a factor in the World Cup. You know, so, yeah, we just got there. And then, you know, you look at Belgium and they are able to make like five changes to their starting lineup before they play around a 16 match. You know, it's just. So right, now we're full circle with scuffs.

We got some kids on the come up, the OG. kids are fully adults now with families and everything and we'll see if they can make to the next one but it's an exciting time in a way right it's bummed the way it ended it's bumming the way it ended but um here we are soccer doesn't stop it doesn't stop we go again it was a great time looking back on everything i mean i fully recovered from the loss that i don't know i i'd have i mean it's still a great time i thought i thought the game today It was incredibly entertaining. We got England, Norway tomorrow.

I'm here. Who's our entertainment playing? Switzerland. Switzerland, yeah. I got, you want to talk about full circle? I got family from England visiting. And these are people that I made watch the U-20 World Cup back in 2019 with that, you know, OG U-20 team that was near and dear to our hearts.

They had to sit through that. So, like, they kind of, if my cousins... What's... We were glazed tabs more I mean No no but it's funny because like they They followed the team closely because of that Since then and yeah they commiserated my

I got I made a note of what my cousin said when I walked in the door the other day Because You know he knew I was bummed and he said it was here too for y'all Sometimes in life you just build things up to be this big life changing thing But life doesn't work like that that would be too neat and then he said, you know, you might just mess around and make the semis next time somehow. And then we're watching the game today.

And he goes, you're lucky you didn't get through. This Spain team would have beat you 9-0. Yeah. But at least we would have delivered in front of 50 million Americans, man. And then, you know, you play a game at 3 p.m. or whatever on a Friday. Who cares? That's a news dump.

Yeah. That's a news dump. You know what I'm saying? And nobody worry about that. We go out with, like, a whimper. Like, you don't even know, like, if you're kind of like loosely, loosely tuned into what's going on, I'm like, oh, the team lost, whatever. That Belgian match was great, though.

So, you know, it is what it is. Once again, we go again. But I do just hope that we come into this cycle with some, with, I don't know, eyes on the prize, I guess. We got a, the prize being pot won. to lock in, find some consistency, consistency of performance within this group that has really, I mean, alluded us up to this point, you know? I mean, we haven't treated the Panama's in the way that we should treat Panama, Jamaica's, Costa Rica, El Salvador.

Let's get back to it, man. We're going back home. We're going back to San Pedro Sula. Yeah, that's going to be fun. Those games are going to be exciting. Would you guys, would you take Roberto Martinez? his manager? No. If Hosh moves on, no? I'm not interested. I'm just curious, seems like natural fit. Before we sign off, I got to shout out one of our patrons, Evan Cassidy. He works with a buddy I told

a story about on a pregame hit, and he asked him during like a work call, I think, or work meeting. Hey, by the way, do you know me from scuffed? Call my friend completely off guard. So shout out Evan and shout out to all our patrons. Great times this summer. Yeah. It's been a blast. Thanks. Thanks for your support.

Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.