Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 102: Projecting the U17 World Cup roster

Episode Date: October 8, 2019

The tournament starts on Oct. 26 in Brazil, the U.S. has a tough group consisting of the Netherlands, Japan and Senegal and the roster will be released any day now. Matt Hartman (@mattshartman on Twitter) joins the pod to talk about who will likely get called up and who will likely be left off. We each give our preferred roster, nodding regularly to what we think we can probably expect from coach Raphael Wicky. We discuss all the names below but you have to listen to figure out who we would like to see in the roster and who we think will actually get the call.0:30 intro, big picture discussion, disclaimers7:40 Goalkeepers (Las, Odunze, Cervantes)9:55 Defenders (Bello, Armour, Tolkin, Kobe, Carrera, Tomkinson, Gray, Anderson, Cuevas, Scally, Alejandre, Judge, Atencio)29:05 Midfielders (Leyva, Saldaña, Busio, Kayo, Fuentes, Dietz, Freeman, Dobbelaere)44:45 Forwards (Pepi, Reyna, Ocampo-Chavez, Yow, Jones, Jasson, Arce, Pynadath, De Vries)1:05:45 We re-state our rosters and answer a handful of Twitter questions. 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 scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez in Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Hello, the U-17 World Cup begins October 26, and the U.S. roster will drop later this week. Matt Hartman is joining me to take a look ahead at it. Matt, how's life? It's better than the alternative, Bells. How are you doing? Yeah, pretty good. Usual mix of joy and dread. Winter is coming in Minnesota. Since Greg and I aren't going to do a preview, of the Cuba match or a direct reaction to Burhalter's roster. You want to give any thoughts on it? Sure.

It's a disappointing roster to me. Not all of that is Burrhalter's fault. It's a disappointing pool, if we're being honest. But there are some things in Burrhalter's control that I'm not a fan of. For example, I'm done with Trump with trap in a U.S. jersey. He's like the eighth best player on the 20th best MLS team. and any system that requires trap as a lone six is not a system, I think, benefits the national team. I don't see how Holmes, Pomacol, and Miles Robinson didn't make the roster.

I think their athletic ability is something that's going to be missed against the team like Canada. And also, I'm one of these crazy people who believe that a competitive game against Cuba is a golden opportunity to introduce U23 players who could have an impact on the cycle to the, the men's national team, even if they aren't playing at their European Super Club yet, and bringing a player like Ledesma, who looks to be on the cusp of breaking into PSV, has the added benefit of cap-tying him. So we're going to sub on Corey Baird for the final 10 minutes of a 3-0 game against Cuba, and my eyes are going to roll into the back of my head. Yeah.

I guess I don't have anything to add to that. I pretty much agree with all of it. Although, you know, big picture, Pomacall and Holmes for me are the big omissions. And like you said, just the player pool is not that great. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Right.

But luckily, you know, even though there's this malaise around the U.S. Men's National Team, we have exciting youth national teams to talk about. It's kind of escapism from the escapism of U.S. men's national team fandom. We face Senegal, Japan, and the Netherlands. in the group stage at the U-17 World Cup. If you remember last time this happened in 2017, our U-17s made it to the quarterfinals, which seems like the ceiling for all of our youth national teams lately.

This is a tough group, tougher than the one we were in last cycle. And I don't think we should be shocked if we don't get out of it. I also wouldn't be shocked if we won the group. I think there's kind of a range, a big range of possibility. But sort of regardless, I want your thoughts on that, but also regardless of competition, how do you think this U-17 cohort measures up to previous ones? I agree that it's a tough group and I'm not sure that we should expect to get out of it. Maybe, you know, if the third place positions fall our way.

But we are facing the winner of the Asian tournament in Japan, the winner of the European tournament and qualifying tournament in the Netherlands, and a Senegal team who got knocked out of African qualifying by a team that later got disqualified. for playing overage players. So they're a question mark, and who knows what kind of team they're bringing to the tournament. They pretty easily could have won that tournament from what I've read online if maybe the other team played with the right. Follow the rules. Yeah, correct.

So in terms of how this cohort measures up against the previous ones, I think that the 2011 and 2015 World Cup sides were a disaster at the back. So this year, this cycle side is clearly better than them, in my opinion. You'll remember the 2013 side didn't even make the tournament, so not even worth talking about here. Things get more interesting when we look at the U-17 squad. It's close. I think the current group has come a long way in the last year, but not quite far enough. I think I'd still pick that 2017 team in a head-to-head game. Just to refresh everyone's memory, that team had Josh Sargent.

at Stryker, Tim Way, one wing. Andrew Carlton, Chris Goslin. Yeah, and Chris Durkin was a holding midfielder, too. One of the better players on that team. They were kind of up and down in the World Cup last year, not last year in 2017, though. They had that really exciting 5-0 win over Paraguay, but other than that, they didn't have any really stand-out performances,

and they kind of snuck into the knockout rounds. So are you sure? Are you sure that that that team is better than this one? Not really. In terms of pure talent, I think the cycle may be better and is definitely deeper. If we extend the pool out past the 22, 21 men roster that makes these tournaments. But the thing is, and we've talked about this for basically the entire cycle, the premier talent on this team is either on the young side or at position.

where they're less likely to have a huge impact on the game. If we go position group by position group, I think the forwards and midfielders on the 2017 team are ahead of where the cycles position groups are right now. And I worry about where the goals come from if a team is able to shut Giorina down, whereas with that 2017 squad, you had to be mindful of Sergeant Wea, Aconola, Carlton,

when you played them and they all didn't necessarily show up in a big way at that tournament, but still something that there are other teams that they keep an eye on. That said, the defense and goalkeepers on this roster are at least as good, if not better. Okay. All right. Well, the standard disclaimer applies to this entire discussion. This is a snapshot in time.

Players develop at different rates. And someone who didn't seem like he'd be good back in 2017 has turned out to be good. You know, and that happens. Players develop at extremely different rates. And I don't think any player who doesn't make this roster or who we don't project as making this roster, that's certainly not the end of anybody's career. And for some players, it's motivation. And I should just want to remind everybody that the 2017 U-17 roster for the World Cup did not include Alex Mendez, Richie Ladezma, UNAZ, UNAZ, Sebastian Soto, Chris Richards, Mark McKenzie, and there are others on the list I'm not mentioning. So a lot of good players will emerge for the U.S. in the next two years, and we don't know who they are yet in a lot of cases.

All those players, you know, even people like me and you didn't necessarily know about all of them two years ago. And it goes the other way as well. There are players that were on that 2017 team that I bet even the most diehard national team followers don't even know who. I think Tyler Shaver was on that roster. Yeah. And he's a good player, but when's the last time you've heard that name brought up? Right. Yeah. And Chris Goslin, you know, he's not even playing right now. It's not really clear what's going on with him. So stuff moves around a lot at this age group. No offense to anybody who's not on the roster, I guess is what I'm saying. Goalkeepers. Let's start with goalkeepers. And I think we can keep this pretty quick. Who you got? I'm going to take Damien Las to Adunze and Aaron Servantes.

Yeah, it seems pretty straightforward. Loss is the first choice keeper and Odunzei. and Cervantes are top prospects as well. Got anything more to say? Sure. I'd say that the gap between Loss and Oduenze is perhaps a little tighter than almost six months ago, given Oduenze is playing well for the Lester City U-18s and had a great performance against the Netherlands in the last camp. I think he's a more exciting prospect than most youth national team fans give him credit for.

It's huge, right? I mean, O'Donza is a really big. big kid. I forget if he's six, seven or six eight, but it's in that range. And he used to be really, really lanky. He's added a little bit of muscle and, you know, just another year or however much since we've last talked about him of growth. You know, he has more control over his body. He seems to be a real good prospect. Loss is too, of course, he moved to full limit where he's been floating between the U-18s and backing up the U-23s. The problem is that Fulham has one of, if not the best, U-18 Premier League team.

And he might not get too much work this season if he's playing mostly with them. But we know what we're getting with loss. He isn't mistake-prone. His distribution is above average, and he has the leadership qualities you want in the keeper, so I'd expect him to start. Just to bring up Cervantes real quick, we've seen a good amount of him, because he's in USL and he was a starter for Orange County for a little while there. He actually lost his starting spot when he left for that last U-17 camp and the backup has played

well in his absence. So that sucks, but he isn't out of place as a starting keeper. He doesn't look out of place as a starting keeper in USL and that's more than good enough to be the backup plan to the backup plan at this tournament. Yeah. He has 11 starts, I believe, in USL this year. And that's pretty good for a 16-17-year-old. keeper. Let's move on to the defense. I think I agree with everything you said. I'm going to take

across my back six, I'm going to take seven defenders, I believe, John Tolkien at left back, Adam R. Moore at left back, Kobe Hernandez Foster, Nico Carrera, Tavon Gray, and Jonathan Tompkinson at centerback, and then Maricio Cuevas at right back. We're going to I think we're going to have a vigorous debate on this. Yeah. So we have a couple of players that are different there. One big name you left off that noticed you didn't say is George Bello. Yeah, well, we have a bunch of questions from people on Twitter.

And I'll just go with the first, the one that's kind of applicable here. Matt Doyle challenged us to not be cowards and explain why we shouldn't take Bellow. and you know bello i think was clearly top prospect in the age group nine months ago or not clearly the top but one of the top two or three i think he's he's suffered in my eyes a little bit in the last nine months partly through injury and inactivity but probably because his uh his defensive commitment slash responsibility seems to be an issue even though he's been getting a lot of minutes in the last what three months since he came back from injury in you USL for Atlanta United too.

He doesn't look amazingly dangerous in the attacking third, and he seems like he kind of switches off in the defensive third. And in John Tolkien and Adam Armore, we have more, I think, more reliable options defensively. And in Tolkien, you have, I think, a more polished player in possession. Bello is prone to give the ball away a little bit. Tolkien's not. And also Tolkien hits a really good ball across. I think that his ball across is better than bellows.

And so, you know, probably for the sake of argument, probably to make this more interesting, I'm going to say Tolkien and Armour over Bellow. Why don't you tell me why I'm wrong? I just think it's so hard to argue with leaving Bellow off. It's hard to not take Bellow is what I mean to say. I think he's looked decent in U.S.L since going back from injury, and he's been one of the very best performers in the group over the course of the cycle whenever he has gotten with the national team.

One thing worth noting, as you said, is that he's basically playing midfielder, if not wing, for Atlanta United, too. He doesn't do anywhere near as much defending on that team as he's going to be axed to do from Wiki. And when he has defended, had to defend for Atlanta United, too, it hasn't looked great. So it's concerning. There is a part of me that considered not taking him. it's just such a hard thing to leave him off mostly because

it looks like based on the foreign agent tournament that he played in he's going to be the starter for this team left back given the games that he played there yeah I think that's so if we're talking about what wicky's going to do it's going to be bellow and Armour at left back

and I think that's what you are saying as well right right that's what I'm going to do armor is a steady presence he's not going to do anything special on the ball and for the most part he won't try to. I watched his DA game over the weekend and he looked absolutely competent, what I'll say. He wasn't involved in the goals at either end and that's probably the way it's going to be with the U-17s. If it were up to me, I'd probably be bringing Tolkien instead,

but armor hasn't put a foot wrong defensively in a national team jersey. So it's hard to get too mad about his inclusion, although it's a huge bummer that I can't. I don't get to take John Tolkien because he's one of my favorite players in this group. Tolkien's your boy, man. Yeah. I love that. I love the Bradley-esque Jersey attitude he brings to teams. Yeah.

Well, let me say something about Armour. Armour, he has grown on me in the last year. I thought he had a much better Concaf qualifying tournament than I expected. Not just that sort of not putting a foot wrong defensive work from him, but he was, you know, some of those clips of the U-7 17's tiki-tok-eyeing up the field, he was, he featured in those. He can clearly do some work in possession and is able to combine. The issue is he doesn't get forward. You know, he doesn't project into the attacking third from left back the way Bello or Tolkien does on the left, or maybe even Scali or Cuevas does on the right. So that's the, that's the trade-off there.

But I think he's such a mainstay in this roster over the years that he's going to be, that he's going to be there. Let's do centerback. We are in complete agreement on this with Kobe Hernandez, Nico Carrera, and Jonathan Tompkinson. We're also taking, we're also both taking Kavana Gray, correct? That's right, yeah, who can play centerback and right back. Who probably won't play centerback for this team. I'd imagine that he's going to be primarily a right back. But if we want to give a team a different. look I could see him playing, you know, as a right-sided centerback and three at the back, though it doesn't necessarily have to be a three at the back. If we look at the way that we played against the Netherlands in the four nations tournament, it resembled a five-of-the-back formation, but Nico Carrero is kind of given free reign to move around and disrupt, which worked pretty well. And we, of course, we play the Dutch in this tournament as well. So wouldn't be surprised if we see that again. Just to talk about each player individually, Kobe Hernandez is a player, you know, you've always been super high on and I'm super high on as well.

It's a bummer that we couldn't get him to his natural position over the course of the cycle, if not just because he's better there, because his height might be a problem at this tournament against some of the bigger teams because there's always a team or two at this tournament that brings a team at like this six foot tall all over the field. for some somehow. But yeah, he's a lock-in starter. He's probably the best left foot in the entire pool. Yeah, I would say so. It's also a little bit disappointing

that he won't get to play left back and showcase himself at this tournament in a way that might attract attention from clubs in Europe. Right. But I'm not too worried about him getting caught out or getting physically dominant.

He's such a smart player and so solid in possession. You know, we can really build through him from centerback. Not ideal that he's playing centerback, but he's going to be the starting left centerback. I think there's no doubt about it. Nico Carrera, I know you're a big fan of his way back in 2018, way back in 2018 when we discussed the U-17 player pool.

We talked about the need for some centerbacks to emerge, and Carrera certainly has. I mean, the FC Dallas player has come in and established himself pretty much as a lock call up for the World Cup. I think he pretty much made it official on social media this past week. Right. And this happened just after he got citizenship. He got citizenship in June, went to a Mexican camp, a Mexican U-17 camp,

and then immediately came back and went to a U.S. U-S. and he's chosen the U.S. for now. And he's big, physical, intelligent, technical, reasonably technical, aggressive, and vocal, kind of exactly what you want from a centerback. So I'm excited about him. Yeah, totally. I'd almost take issue with the fact that you said that he's emerged because the only thing that's really emerged is his U.S. citizenship. He's been so good for Dallas for a number of years now. And, you know, there are things that you can pick about his game.

you know, maybe he could be better in the air, maybe, you know, his, he's a little bit limited in terms of top end speed. But you talk about how smart Kobe is, and I think Carrera equals that on, as the right-sided centerback where he just sees the passes before they happen. And, you know, that that's the thing that even allows him to be played a little further up the fields that he's so good at putting strikers off their game. and knowing when the ball is coming to them and getting to those passes before they do. He lets the opposing striker know that he is there regularly. He's putting a hand on your back if you're the striker going up against him

every like 15 seconds. Just a little physical. Like, even though I'm not all the time, I'm always right on your back. You love to see it. You love to see it. All right. Next centerback would be Tavon Gray.

I mean, I know he's not strictly speaking a centerback and may not even play there that much this tournament, but he played that position in Concaf qualifying quite well, in my opinion. Versatile, athletic, dependable player, pretty good with a ball at his feet for a centerback, you know, less high on the continuum if he's playing fullback or central midfield in that respect. But his versatility is a great selling point

on a 21-man roster. I think he could fill in both sides of the, both positions on the right side of the defense and in midfield if need be. Yeah, and that's the main selling point, really. If you're going to bring four centerbacks to this tournament, you need one of them to be able to fill in another places. And gray is, I think, the player that's going to get moved around as needed, especially since I'm only bringing one true right back to this tournament,

gray is going to be the back up there. And you could see him coming onto the field. in a defensive midfield position to do chase the ball down job and towards the end of a game. Who's the other centerback? Why don't you tell us about Jonathan Tomkinson? Because we both think he should be there. Yeah, so Tompkinson is an interesting little player. He pushed his way into the pool over the last few months with great showings in the DA, which got him his move to Norwich.

He has great size and flashes outstanding passing ability. the pass accuracy and the defending aren't super consistent yet and you don't want him to get isolated with a quicker attacker but he's kind of like a little John Brooks and how he wants to play the game and Wiki brought him to the Four Nations camp and has given him a good amount of minutes so I think we get to see him in Brazil yeah it's a good story because also the fact that he's at Norwich and they're a team in the Premier League,

you know, one of the smaller clubs in the Premier League that really tries to play. You know, they try to build out of the back. They beat Man City that way. And there's like some great videos of the Norwich First team passing through the back and their crowd going crazy, you know, when there's a, you know, with a nice little combination of passes.

So that's a nice place for a centerback, an American centerback to be developing. So I think we should all be excited about Tompkinson in that respect. I haven't seen a lot of him, but like you said, Wiki's brought him, brought him in and given him plenty of chances. There seems to be an opening at centerback, and he fits it. Let's talk about right back. Who's your one right back you're bringing if Gray is the backup?

Yeah, so I'm going to bring Anderson, Sebastian Anderson of the Colorado Rapids. and what I'm really looking for in the right back is just somebody who has that experience. The other options at this position are necessarily playing at a super high level at the moment, or in the case of Joe Scallier coming off a long injury, a long amount of time where he missed time to injury. And that's the sell on a player like Anderson really is that he could do. defend on a relatively high level. And we get to see that on a fairly regular basis in Major League Soccer. We had a conversation a few months ago about what it means to be called up

to a youth national team. Like, does it mean you are one of the 20 best players in your age bracket at that point in time? Or is there a marriage of presentability and potential that goes into these choices. And I think youth World Cups are the time when youth coaches are most likely to pull out of the best players regardless of potential bucket. And I think that a player like Cuevas or even a player like Scali or some of the other options that we could have here have looked better to me against competition at their age level, but Anderson isn't going to have any adjustment, you know, to a slightly higher level of

play going to the World Cup. And that's why I'm bringing him. Yeah, because I think, I think Kuevas is, you know, Kuevas is more of a high-end talent than Anderson. And that's why I'm so, you know, that's why I really want to bring him and why I would bring him if I was a coach. I think he's, I think he's a, I think he's a solid enough defender and he's better in possession than Anderson. But it's hard to prove that when you know quavas only has like 250 usl minutes on the season and Anderson's played more than that in MLS. Yeah and he's in 03 coaches tend to to shade older on rosters like this so I think this this both left back and well into the entire defense there's no obvious right answer I think in in some of these things. And I could see Wiki bringing Quavas and Anderson in some way, or I could see him

bringing Bello, I mean, definitely see him bringing Bello and probably are more and probably not Tolkien. I think Tomkinson, I'm not sure Tomkinson is going to be there. I think Carrera and Hernandez Foster and Gray are for sure. So I guess we'll see. Should we talk about the guys that are left off here. Yeah, sure. And the big name that we haven't talked about at length thus far would be Joe Scali, who, you know, he was hurt most of the summer and just come back to fitness. It wouldn't surprise me if he makes the team because coaches always seem to like the kid.

And even though it's been a rough summer, Wiki entrusted in him in qualifying. And Wiki said on this very podcast that he doesn't want to change the roster up too much from that. tournament. But it's been a rough summer for the kid. His return to DA play last weekend wasn't reassuring. He had a couple, he had a couple little moments where he had trouble containing Jake La Cava and the Red Bull attack. And things calm down once Gray replaced him on the right. Yeah. Well, you got to give him a little bit of runway to get back in the swing of things. But I just think Cuevas, Anderson, probably ahead of him in my depth chart right now. still a big, big prospect, but I think he misses the cut.

Tolkien, we already talked about a little bit, but he's a smart, technically sound fullback, even more than Quaivas, he's likely to miss out because Armour and Bello are so entrenched. And to be fair, to be fair to him, he deserves to go to this tournament based on his performances in USL. I'd even wager to say he's probably been the best of you 17. player in USL just based on performance. It's just one of those things. Who would have thought left back is the position that a U.S. player wouldn't be able to make the cut at because there were better players in

front of him. Yeah, it's a bummer for him. He seems like he has a bright future, but it's kind of encouraging, I think, for us, a player with 650 USL minutes who has started seven games since the beginning of July, so almost every game for one of the best teams in USL is not going to make the U7. team roster. And he's a left back. That seems like progress for the pool as a whole.

Axel Alejandre is another centerback who probably isn't going to make it. He performed, I thought, admirably in Concaf qualifying. He's from FC United in Chicago. Is he still at that club? Do you know? I don't think so. I think he's been trialing in Europe recently. I forget if he's signed anywhere, but I know he was trialing at some lower division,

I think German teams. Interesting. Well, there's just no room in the end, especially with the emergence of Carrera and Tomkinson. And then another centerback who has been a mainstay in this group is Mason Judge, who is at Eintrach Frankfurt. He played up an age group last year, and he's still with the U19s. He's a great athlete, a really tough tackler, one of the top centerbacks in the age group a year ago, like I said. but he's just a little bit too messy, and I think we saw that both with the U-17s,

and you can see that if you look up some of his Intrach-Frankfort footage. He's got a lot of potential, but I think he's not going to make this roster. Right. In my mind, both him and Alihondre are still good prospects, but they've had their chances to impress with the U-17s and weren't super convincing. If I had to call up another centerback,

I'd be more interested in a player like Jopold. who has been a little all over the field for the defiance but has been growing on me as of late and may have just as high ceiling as at them at that position yeah attencio that's the one i hadn't thought of but yeah i watched him a couple nights ago he was really good for tocoma defiance in a game he played in the midfield uh in a game where they beat fresno fc which is the second best team in the western conference of u sl easily the best win of the season for tacoma and And Atensio was solid. And he's playing with a little bit of bite.

So it's a bummer for him that he's probably not going to make the roster. This is more just by virtue of the fact that he hasn't been part of the team. And I don't see Wiki shaking things up that dramatically at this point. Shall we move to the midfield? Sure. So I'll take the list first. I'm going to have Danny Leva, Adam Saldania. and Brian Keo as the six slash-eighths and Gilbert Fuentes and Jean-Lucabousio as the tens.

Yeah, I'm basically the same here, and I think we should just go through the players one by one. I'll start with Lava, starting center mid for this team, probably the best player in the team at playing on the half-turn and converting possession into attack with his distribution. He's also a smart defender, not an elite athlete, but covers a lot of ground, works his butt off, and I think he starts the first game at Central Midfield for the USU 17th at the World Cup. Yeah, I agree with everything you said, in my opinion. He's one of those lock-in starters for this team,

as you said Kobe was on the back line and has losses in goal. There's been some discussion about Lavo being an awkward athlete, and I think it's true to a degree. He doesn't have a gate that's going to win you a Kentucky Derby. But I think the thing is... He's not a whole thing. horse. He's definitely not a horse. I think to remember is that he's still really young.

Five months younger than Ricardo Pepe, who's, you know, a fellow O3, and he got tall, fast and isn't done growing. So I don't see that as a major reason to doubt him as a prospect long term, even if the lack of mobility might be a problem in this tournament. You know, he has the same shoulder hunch that Hector Herrera does for the, for L tree. Yeah, I never really thought about it, but you're right. he totally does he's not as big as herrera yet though um and i think it should be said that lava lava really solved a problem for the u-seveteens at concaf qualifying if you watch them at the night in the nike friendlies last fall last december they were they were awful to watch they even though they had

a lot of the same players that didn't have any ability to like build sustained possession and uh and put passes together into the attack lava joined the team in concaf qualifying and i think it's almost single-handedly solve that problem because he's so good at the stuff I mentioned converting possession into attack, playing on the half turn. So you've got to give him a lot of credit, in my opinion. Right, absolutely. The team at the Nike-friendlys a couple years ago

had no idea how to connect the attack and the defense, and he's the player that has come in and really solved that. And still, I think it's a problem if he's not on the field. Kio is the only other player. in this midfield that really has that ability to go both ways. All right, let's talk about Lava's likely partner in the midfield. Adam Saldania, the most capped player in this age group, a smart defender and generally reliable,

though not all that ambitious on the ball. Kind of a classic holding midfielder, small but tough, and he pairs well with Lava, so I imagine he'll be starting that first game as well. He's also started three straight games for Los Dos in USL, so it seems to be on a pretty good run of form. No, actually, he started three straight games.

He sat in the most recent one. Right. Yeah, him pairing really well with Danny Leva is the key thing. If you want to take full advantage of Leva on the ball, you need a Tyler Adams style player next to him that can limit the space on the field. Leva needs to cover, and that's exactly what Sal Danya is, a Tyler Adams impersonator, and hopefully a good one.

Yeah. Yeah, I think Saldania is kind of, he kind of stays under the radar, and somebody asked us, what player will be the low-key best player on the team for the U.S.? That's from Charlie Kennan. And I would say it's Saldania. Does a ton of important work in the middle of the field. He's kind of the definition of low-key. And he goes largely unnoticed, but I've come to appreciate his game more and more.

We'll get to a bunch of more questions at the end, but I'd hit that one while it was relevant. Next up, why don't you go with the next midfielder? So John Luca Bousseo, we've had problems with the way that Buccio plays in the past. He's not a player who had qualifying lived up to his stat line, let's say. That's a good way. The stat line was really nice and you watch him play and it's kind of like, all right, backpass, back past turnover. But a couple times a game, he just makes things happen and you really can't undersell how important that is. I was going to be a lot more negative about Bouscio a couple weeks ago,

but the last couple of weeks I've been really encouraging. You know, I started watching that Kansas City, Minnesota game, fully intending to spam our group chat with backpass Bousio jokes, and he won me over real quick. And the game after that, I forgot who they played. Portland, Portland, yeah. He was passing and moving and being positive, on the ball and it's a really encouraging thing because he was productive despite his flaws.

So if he's beginning to iron them out, he might be in line for a star turn at the World Cup. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is one of the most encouraging things about the whole roster is Buccio's recent form in MLS. I didn't watch the game against Dallas last night where they got curb stomped. Did he play well in that game? It was a complete wash. It was nothing that you can take away from that game for, from a can. Kansas City perspective.

They never got into first gear, whatever you want to call it. He was probably the best player on the team, but what does that mean in the 6th, no loss? Yeah. Well, I watched very closely in the Portland game, and, you know, he hit the woodwork twice. He flashed that ability to really strike a ball from distance. And like you said, he was passing and moving. You know, he's no Ritchie Ledesma, but he definitely seems to have.

have turned over a new leaf. And that's great. That's great news. And I think he was probably going to start anyway. He's starting. Oh, yeah, absolutely. He capped in the team whenever he was on the field in the most recent camps. Next one is Brian Keo, just signed by Orange County SC away from DC United.

You should check out our interview with Oliver Wiss, the general manager of Orange County, on that. Hopefully, C.O. can get on the field the last few weeks of the season. but in any case he's a lock for Wiki. I think he's athletic, technical, definitely a two-way midfielder who adds a lot of spark when he's on the field. He can create chances and he can cover ground defensively. He may even start some games at the World Cup.

Right. And he offers a different look than any other player on this roster does, though I wouldn't expect him to play against teams where we don't expect to have most of the ball. Yeah. But he's the only player in this team that is capable. of winning the ball and carrying it into the final third and there are tons of circumstances in which you could see him getting on the field whether it's from the start or or to finish off a tired midfield yeah or to or to push for a goal in the second half i mean it seems like he was kind of used in that way a couple times in concord calf qualifying he's he's a little bit like he's a little bit like west of mckenny and sort of his all-actionness but he's a better athlete than mckenny and I think is a little more technical than McKinney,

probably not as dominant in the air as McKinney. Yeah, definitely not as dominant in the air. More technical, but it probably doesn't have the eye for a pass that McKinney does. No, that's true. But yeah, as a generalization, the comp is a pretty good one, especially to how McKinney played when he was this young. All right. So the last midfielder that we both think is going to be there is who?

It's Gilbert Fuentes and, you know, he's a question mark for both of us. I remain unconvinced about him in general. We've been talking about a lot of players that have grown in the last several months and Fuentes kind of feels stuck in place. I think there's a number of roster configurations where he finds himself on the outside looking in, but we haven't really seen another player used as Bousseo's backup. up and it's hard to challenge his skill because he's so good when he does find time and space on the ball. He has that change of pace.

One of the better players on the ball, but at a tournament like this, you could see him just completely disappearing between more physical players. Yeah. I like him a lot because he's refined. He's, he plays quickly, he plays intelligently with the ball. but boy he's also stuck in low gear off the ball and on defense and just for his future you know he needs to find that next level of urgency i think if he's going to you know seize a game by the scruff of the neck and really be like a top top midfielder he's not there yet but hopefully matthiaz almeida stays in san jose and and gets a hold of foentes and indoctrinates him with the samurai sensibility.

I think, like you said, there are several ways that he doesn't end up on the roster. I think the most likely is that he will be there, and I'm willing to continue to hope that he finds that next gear. I guess that's how I look at it. Who is probably left off here? I think Maximilian Dietz, a solid player getting minutes for the Freiburg U-19, will not make this roster. I think he's

pretty good, but he's not good enough to displace Leva or Saldania. And I don't think he offers something different. I mean, I don't think he offers what say,

K.O. or Busio or Fuentes offers positionally. Right. And did not have a good camp from all reports in the Netherlands? Yeah, I mean, he had some high-profile mistakes.

He had an own goal. He gave up a penalty against Denmark. So that Denmark scoreline was 4 to 1. That's the one game we lost at that little tournament. The score line is much worse than what actually happened. We didn't get dominated. We just made a lot of mistakes.

And Dietz was part of two of those mistakes. So on the other hand, he's physical and he can play on the half turn. I don't think it wouldn't be a travesty if he ended up making the roster somehow. I don't think it'll happen, though. Right. It would need to be because Wiki plans on playing two defensive midfielders, basically the whole tournament. So in that case, it would make sense to bring a third player that's comfortable in that position. But even at that point, I think that the combination of Carrera and Gray might be better at the six. Yeah, I agree.

And then Tyler Freeman is another midfielder who's, I don't think, going to make it. He got his chances. Sporting KC player, actually more of a Swope Park Rangers player to be. be honest. Got his chances in Concaf qualifying and mostly didn't impress. And I thought his performance in the final was actually pretty bad. Yeah, it was definitely bad. He came on when the rest of the team was exhausted and repeatedly gave the ball away, forcing people to run like 60 yards in extra time. If he had been brought on to sabotage the team, it might not have looked that different than what he did. Right. That's really harsh. That's really harsh. That's really harsh.

But, but, so let me say some good things about him. You know, he's a tricky player. He's, he's clearly talented. He has more than 600 minutes in USL this year. But the midfield spots are accounted for, and he didn't seize his chance in May. I think it's fair to say. Right. He's been playing on the wing for Sewer Park.

A lot of the, you know, the DA people think that, that, you know, or the seven people that follow the DA closely think that his best position might be further up the field, maybe as a as he gets older. A 2003, so again, he's young. His best moments on the field for the U.S. have been being, you know, tricky, being able to hold up the play by, you know, doing a couple of pirouettes or whatever you want to call him. We can call him pirouettes. We'll call him pirouettes.

Sure. That's fine. You know, good player on the ball. I think that it's just a situation where you push him down the line to, the U-20 player pool in a couple of years, and maybe he, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he develops into a national team player by them. Yeah.

Good luck to you, Tyler. And then another midfielder slash winger, who I think may end up being on the outside, is Ethan Dobelair, who's in the Tacoma Defiance roster regularly, and he's gotten some minutes over the last couple months. Intelligent, hardworking player, but for me just misses the cut. The way he gets on is maybe

if Wiki doesn't bring as many strikers as I think he's going to bring. And you know, or Dabalair? Yeah, it's, double air is an interesting case because like, a year ago we'd probably say he was like the eighth best

U-7, like, New 19 player in Seattle. And he's had a pretty meteoric rise to the point where now you're potentially looking at him as a homegrown player. He's really smooth on the ball, like really smooth carrying. It looks a little bit like Keaton Parks when he's on the ball, who is a player that has always looked, you know, great on the ball. And has kind of been as like a 10ish player and has been moved backwards just because of his size. And Double-Air doesn't have that restriction, even used on the wing occasionally.

which I don't think is his position long term, but he's good enough there to get it done in the DA and in USL. Come on the scene super recently, I think it'd probably be pretty harsh to Gilbert Fuentes or Ocampo Chavez to leave them off the team for a player like him. Though he has impressed by all reports in the U.S. shirt, It's just, I think, a little too late in the process for him. Yeah, I think he's not, he is smooth on the ball.

He's not quite as refined as Fuentes, if that's my opinion. And on the other hand, I think he's more of an asset in a knife fight than Fuentes is. I could see him being brought instead of Fuentes. I could see that. But I think the smart money is on Fuentes again. Like he said, all right, let's talk about forwards. sure my forewords are Ricardo Pepe

Giovanni Arena Alfonso Campo Chavez Griffin Yao Noah Jones and Andres Jason Is that how you say it Jason Yeah it is I actually axed him over the weekend Okay Nobody seemed to be sure

What how exactly it was pronounced That's good to know It's not Jason Yeah Okay that's interesting I think I pretty much agree Except for With the

Jason part. I was, I'm going to, I'm going to take Sahir Arce, the attacker for Monarchus Moralia in League of Emekis. But let's start, let's start, before we get to that, let's start with Pepey. Hopefully the next high-end number nine, this country produces pretty much full-time with FC Dallas now, though he doesn't play much. He's a high work rate physical striker with technique and he's a lock for this roster and probably starts the first game. Right. How do you feel about how the last few months have gone for him? Are you referring to the fact that he doesn't play much or what? One that he doesn't play much and his last few appearances with North Texas weren't super great.

I sort of just chalk it up to teenage ups and downs. It gives me a little bit of pause, but not really. I'd like to see him. I think the big thing for him is having a good World Cup and then coming into camp next spring and challenging for a starting striker job for Dallas. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's something that he's capable of, if not partly because Dallas has been a disaster at striker over the last few years.

But going back to the comparison to the 2017 team, I think Pepe might be every bit as good a prospect as a player like Sargent is, but Sargent came into the U-17 World Cup on a slightly better, in slightly better form. And, you know, that's one of the reasons. Yeah, but based on what? Like, Sergeant, I mean, Sergeant was on better form because he had a good U-20 World Cup a few months earlier,

but he wasn't playing with anybody at the time. Right. Yeah, that's true. But he had better performances with the U-17s. Like, Pepe, for all his talent, has never looked great. Was that fair to say with the U-7? U-17s?

I don't know about never, but he hasn't he hasn't like put it together where you're like, okay, here we go. Here we go, Ricardo. I mean, I would say his best game was at the Nike Friendlies in a, what was it, a 1-1 draw with Portugal? Oh, yeah, he was very good in that game. I completely forgot.

That game happened. That was like his U-17 debut and probably his best overall game. I chalked that up. I also chalked that up. I know I'm just rambling here, but I chalked that up also to the fact that Buccio has been pretty bad for the U-17s. So our attacking midfielder isn't really, hasn't really been able to serve the number nine. Raina's not been a fantastic passer for the U-17s, so then you're not getting much, you're not getting much service from Raina.

I mean, has Raina ever assisted Pepe on a goal? geez going through the games I don't think so and then and then Griffin Yao you know he's a he's a high work rate guy but he's not he's not gonna put something on a platter for peppy very often either so I I would say he's been starved for service as well and I don't I wouldn't say

Ocampo Chavez has looked great at the nine either yeah I'd probably say Ocampo Chavez looked a little better over the course of qualifying but you It's a fair point. I think the main thing there is that Buccio is not a 10 in the traditional sense. That's more of a second striker or something. Right. So, yeah, I mean, that might continue to be a problem.

It's something that will be interesting to see at this tournament. If Buccio's form in Major League Soccer leads to him combining a little bit better with whoever the number nine is in front of him. I don't want to blame it all on Papi's teammates either. I think he would probably, if we asked him, would say, I didn't play my best in that tournament. I need to play better. So it's a combination of things. It's a little bit, a little bit.

It's worth acknowledging. Let's say that. How about Raina? Why don't you talk about him, fellow New Yorker? Do we even need to? What are the chances anybody is listening to this who isn't already intimately familiar with Giovanni Raina? probably not

there might be two or three people he's the best prospect in the country probably under 20 yep he's terrific on the ball great athlete can basically beat any player

that's going to beat at this any defender that's going to be at this tournament one on one um decent finishing ability as well uh he's

going to have to be the main guy for us, I think, at this tournament. If we're going to make a deep run, he's going to need to have a player of the tournament-style World Cup. Yeah. Probably going to start every game on the left wing, I'd imagine. I would think so. Yeah. So hopefully he can find Pepey, you know, a couple times. Yeah, it is something.

it is something you know the knock that that we've had on him in qualifying was that he doesn't pass the ball if he doesn't have to basically and when he does when he does pass the ball I think he's a capable passer it's not like that ability isn't there but he prefers to take people on one v one and it's something that he's working on at Dortmund I think it's you see him passing the ball more often than he did here and who knows if that's by his own a quarter if it's the coaches over there getting in his year but that's a promising sign already on a champions league roster yeah if you had to bet which u.s youth national team player will be playing in champions league first you would have to bet on geo rena all right all right

let's do let's move on i think there's everybody know you're right everybody knows who rena is and what he brings alfonso ocampo shavez uh we both think he he should be on this roster he's got six goals to assist in about 1,100 USL minutes this season for the Tacoma Defiance, including a goal and an assist both quite nice over the weekend. I suspect he'll play on the right wing and at striker sometimes for Wickey's side. Good finisher, comfortable on the ball. It has a little bit of a tendency to just hold onto the ball too long and kind of drift backwards with it, but he's generally clinical in the box.

And not a bad passer either. Yeah, he'll be the attacking utility man, I think. Wherever he needs to go, he'll go in order to find those minutes. He's been a little inconsistent, both, you know, for club and country. When he's on, he's just pulling defenders out of position by just running around a lot. When he gets on the ball, he is capable of beating somebody to the end line, delivering a cross. and like you said, he's fairly clinical in the box as well. He's an interesting player.

I think he has a ton of talent. It's the type of thing where you're just waiting for him to put everything together and do it consistently, I think. Yeah. How about Griffin Yao? Can you talk about him? Hardworking quick winger. He's probably going to start on the right wing.

A homegrown player, right, for DC United. That's a due. Yeah. anything as of the last couple months. I like his game. He's not the type of player that's going to, you're going to be worried about if you're a defender in the one v.1. But the exciting thing about him is his athletic ability and work rate.

You know, if you wanted to compare him to a player, I think the easiest comp would be Paul Ariola, his teammate at DC United. He probably has a little more going. for him athletically and better in front of net as well, perhaps.

It's hard not to be better than Paul Ariel. Yeah, he's a little better than Ariel in front of net. I think, you know, adjusted for H. Right. Yeah,

so that's exciting. The one thing is that, you know, you have a listed here on our little sheet that I haven't even thought of is that he hasn't played in a couple weeks, huh? Yeah, I haven't seen him.

I don't know if he's, I don't know if he's heard or what. I haven't heard anything. I'm not sure. Okay. So Yao's inactivity, something to kind of keep an eye on, but I haven't heard that there's an injury, so I'm going to assume that he's healthy. The sixth forward, no, this would be the fifth forward, I think for both of us, is Noah Jones,

a little bit of a wild card, but he's an occasional RB Leipzig, U-19. And mostly, I just want to bring him based on his performance in limited minutes against Denmark last month. did some nice stuff and scored a very nice goal. He's also a good like-for-like replacement for peppy, runs a lot, fits as a nine. That said, he's the one guy in the front six I feel least confident about, and I'm curious how you feel about him. Yeah, so I'm bringing him as well, and it's basically because of his performance in those minutes and the fact that he was called into the most recent camp.

I think that he's an interesting little player, very soon. similar to record of Pepe. He had that very good goal that is the type of thing you probably see from Pepe as well. And if you're just from like a roster building standpoint, you're just going to want a player that can replace the number nine that you're starting with in the event that the nine goes down for whatever reason just because, you know, the other players in the pool we're going to talk about here are that could potentially fill this spot. thinking specifically of Sigour Arsei isn't a like for like for peppy so and isn't a like for AOC either so yeah crucially AOC is not a like for like for peppy right I mean he can do it but

he probably gets he probably gets beaten up by an elite centerback pairing yeah so if you bring if you bring Arse who I think definitely deserves to be on the roster over Jones just based on where he is in his career, you have to prepare the rest of the team for three different strikers, like three completely different of styles of play. It's just, he's only an occasional starter for Leipzig Z19s.

And we have another striker that in Sigur, say, who I don't want to say a regular 18 player for a league MX side, but he has been over the last month, right? And he went 90 in Copa, Mekis. Yeah, I think this one is just like a little bit like the defense. There's no clear and obvious right answer. I guess the question I have is why is Jason your guy?

Like, why him? Right. So I think he's the most complete winger in the whole U17 pool. He doesn't have crazy dribbling ability like Gio does or the straight line speed of Yao. But he does everything at a high level. he was the best U-17 attacking player at this year's DA playoffs in my opinion and he picked up a goal and an assist in the Holland match last month for the U-17s. The thing that I think could keep him off the roster is that he isn't positionally flexible

and that's not great since you'd expect Arena will play nearly every minute at the World Cup but I think he needs to be there as a security policy just in case Raina misses a game for whatever reason he could fill in in that spot admirably even if he even if he doesn't have the same you know high high end potential that reina has yeah yeah he plays he's definitely a left-sided winger definitely a left-sided winger you could maybe talk about squeezing him into attacking midfield since he does play a little he likes to roam inside off of the left wing so i I've never seen him play specifically at the 10, but there's an argument that could be made that he can play there. I think he's,

if he comes, he's going to basically be bringing his backup here, though. Okay. Well, I'll make the case first to hear Arce, then he went 90 in Copa Ambeck. He's in a 1-0 win over Puebla just earlier this month, early in October.

He's reliable on the ball. I'm talking about at, this is like, Liga-M-M-E's level. He's reliable on the ball. He wins physical. battles. He won a ton of duels in that game against men. And this makes him different from basically everyone on the roster in that he's actually played against, not everyone, but against a lot of players

on the roster, and that he's gone up against men and looked not just like he can hack it on the field, but actually he can win in certain moments. And I would say Bousio has not generally looked that way against men. And Leva has, I think Leva is probably the nearest competition to Arcei in that respect. I'm not sure it'll happen, but he's now got it being him making this roster, but there's been some reports in the ESPN Spanish language website that he's being wooed by the US right now. And he's now got Aliga Amekis and Copa Amacki's debut under his belt. plenty of MLS debuts on this roster, but League Amacki's is a better league. It means more.

And he also shoots from distance. He took four shots in that Copa Amacki's game. None of them was on target. But I like the impulse to uncork one from distance. And he can shoot with both feet. Yeah. He's left footed, but he can use both feet pretty well. Right.

And that's something you see from him. if you've managed to find his 240P Mexican Academy footage, is that there are times when he won't necessarily be super involved in the game, but he'll find himself with the ball at the edge of the box, and he could just unload one and put it in the back of the net, which, you know, you don't want to understate how important that is for a player to be able to have a bad game, and still be able to get on the score sheet.

I'm not bringing him purely because I don't think he's in Wiki's plans. You know, again, Wickey said he doesn't want to make too many changes from the qualifying roster. Arsei hasn't been with the U-17 since Wiki's first camp. He's the most talented forward that I don't have on the roster, and I think the player that we might regret not provisionally cap-tying if we don't bring him. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Well, I hope he's there, and even if that means leaving Jason home or I think I would even prefer him over Yao, but I don't know.

It's probably not going to happen. We'll see. He can't play on the wings, I don't think. He can. He can. He played on the wing for Moralia in that Copa-Macki's game. I mean, he's like on the wing coming inside. I mean, I don't think he's all that different from AOC.

Gotcha. Yeah, I didn't see that game, so I'm not sure what he did there. But in the academy, from what I've seen, he's been basically a pure number nine or second striker. Yeah, no, I think that is his most comfortable position. But I also noticed in that Copa Amacki's game that he was responsible defensively on the wing. You know, he tracked back, intercepted a long ball over the top, and then, you know, turned his guy and circulated possession. That's the kind of thing, you know, that we would praise Yao for,

or Jason defensively and he was doing it. I do think there's a little bit of a discount because when you're playing with the first team for the first time at whatever competition, I feel like these kids are way more locked into like doing their job than maybe they necessarily are when they're with a bunch of kids their own age. Yeah, the adrenaline gets going and you just want to run around,

do whatever you can. Yeah, get your next, earn your next chance. Two-winger. that two other players who are going to be left off at least my roster are Joshua Pinnadath and I think there's there's definitely there are definitely some Pinnadath truthers out there. He's a snazzy winger on the ball who's now made two appearances for young Iax and can definitely dribble but he's just not good at anything off the ball and that's a lot of the game and I imagine watching him at the U-17 World Cup and getting very very frustrated with

him just kind of like not paying attention to where the ball is headed and not moving off the ball. Do you have a different opinion of him? Are we crazy for not bringing him on this roster? Some people certainly think we're crazy for not bringing him on this roster, but I agree with you, you know, the dribbling is very high level, but it's not even that he just doesn't offer anything off the ball. I think that, you know, basically the rest of his game outside of that dribbling ability

is very raw. The passing ability isn't where you'd want it to be. be from a winger, especially crossing the ball and he doesn't have a great shot on him. You know, there are a lot of Penn of death highlight reels out there that cut as soon as he beats his man type

thing. Whenever we've seen him with a play for the IACs, U-17s and U-18s or whatever it is, it seems like he he's waiting to get the ball. It's just, you know, waiting for the ball to find him.

He'll beat a man or, you know, sometimes not, but mostly he'll be able to beat his man, but nothing comes of it. It's not a situation like Raina, where Raina is going to beat a man and probably not pass, but still be goal dangerous. Pinnadeth is going to do that and probably also not be gold dangerous. Also, incomparable in terms of athletic ability to a player like Raina. Yeah. It is, it is interesting that Pinnadeth is getting these chances with,

young iax does say something about his development that he gets to he gets to play for them along with alex mendes he got on the field before mendes in the last game that's something but oh yeah for sure i can't i can't quite reconcile it i don't think there was i put a clip on twitter where he were pinned at where mendes actually combined down the left channel ended up with the ball and just in the box on the left side of the box and then played a ball across the top of the six i would say it was about seven yards out when it went right in front of the goal mount and pinnadath is just standing there watching the ball go across the top of the box not moving and then it's the ball trickles all the way across the goal and then it's like he springs into action like oh wait maybe i should have gone for that

and yeah and he does that constantly it's something where if he's not within like 10 yards of a ball there's zero chance he's doing anything that's helping his team but you know like you said the imperances that young iax do mean something and if there's a team that I'm willing to trust over my own I-test, it's I-X, right? Right, yeah, same. And then the last player, I don't think we need to talk too much about him, is Jack DeVries. He's been in the mix for this roster, but he's not been in the mix for the Philly Union or Bethlehem Steel since April, I think. Yeah, that sounds right.

He's been playing in the DA, I believe, to start the day season. So he's kind of, he's just kind of playing with his academy side, and I don't think there's much of a chance. he's on this roster, even though he showed some promise in Conca Calfe qualifying before he got hurt. So just to just to recap, why don't you, why don't you say your defense, your midfield, and your forwards again? Sure. So my defense is going to be George Bellow, Adam Armour at Luftback, Kobe Hernandez, Nico Carrera, Jonathan Thompson at centerback with Sabak. Anderson and Tavon Gray at right back my midfield is going to be Danny Leva Adam Saldana and Keo as the six-eighths and Fuentes and Bousio as the tens and then my

forward line is going to be Raina and Jason as the left-wingers Yao on the right with Pepe and Jones up top and aOC filling in where needed okay and I'll I'll just say that my defense is the same as yours except replace George Bella with John Tolkien and replace Sebastian Anderson with Mauricio Cuevas. The midfield is exactly the same. And then up top, I've got Raina and Arcea on the left instead of Raina and Jason. And then otherwise it's the same. Pepe Jones, Yao, and AOC.

We'll put those on Twitter at some point. Maybe not right away. I've got to edit this podcast. Let's do, before we go, let's quickly do some questions. Ethan G. asks, player with the most potential on this roster. Yeah, the answer's Gio Raina. He's going to be with the first team in Dortmund sooner rather than later, which means he has the opportunity to impact the senior national team this cycle.

Lots of good prospects on this U17 team, but nobody has the combination of talent and club situation that Raina has. Yeah. I think that's fair. I think Kobe Hernandez is probably the closest competition for Raina in that respect, but his club situation is unresolved and probably will be until next summer. Patrick Keeler asks, will the team depend on a single defensive midfielder as all recent USA men's teams seem to want to do?

I would say no. I think it'll generally be a double pivot type deal with Lava dropping deep to circulate possession in Saldania, occupying the space next to him. It's not a cut and try double pivot, but it functions that way a lot of the time. Yeah, I completely agree. The only lineup configuration that would work out with Lava looking anything close to a Loen 6 is Lava, K.O. and Pousio. Any other field is going to be a double pivot. I think that would be like sort of our attacking second half.

We need a goal sort of look. MP Till asks, how far will we go? Who should we fear the most? You kind of talked about this earlier, but why don't you take it again? Sure. Well, in terms of who we should fear the most, I think a full strength Dutch side is probably the best team at the tournament on paper, and they're in our group. So definitely fear them. Fear them.

Yeah. They have players we've become familiar with through watching Benadeth and Mendez at Young Iax, like Ryan, Gavin Birch and Kenny Taylor, who are downright scary. who knows if they get called in because they might be in ix plans sooner rather than later but yeah they're definitely the team to watch out for um i do think we getting out of the group would be a victory and anything more than that probably is exceeding expectations hmm yeah i mean it'll be viewed as a as a defeat if we you know get out of the group and then lose in the first knockout round, but I think we're more realistic probably than the sort of casual fan who says, well, we made the quarterfinals last time.

Right. Brooke Tunstall asks, how many of the U.S. youth national team players, I assume, who make on this, who make this World Cup roster, will not have signed pro deals when the tournament starts. It's probably easier to talk about who has signed a pro deal. Yeah. Right. So off the top of my head, the players that have would be Griffin Yao, Ricardo Pepi, Ocampo Chavez, Seb, Sebastian Anderson, John Luca Bousio, Gilbert Fuentes, and Saldania. I think Saldane is with Los Dostov. Yeah. So like these these types of questions get a little more complicated when you're talking about, you know, like European and Mexican-based players because the contracts have a bit more mobility to them. you know, like there are academy contracts where you can play pro games and stuff like that.

Essentially, it's like there's like incentives built into the contract where if you do a certain number of appearances with the pro team, then you become a professional. Right. So, but basically everybody besides those players, I think, right? There would be waiting, still waiting to sign a pro deal or purposely not signing a pro deal at this point. Yeah, and that would be like Kobe. Who else? I don't know.

I'm sure the Red Bulls would love to lock up John Tolkien. But though we don't have him on, I don't have him on my roster. There's, well, K.O. left D.C. already, so. Yeah. He did sign a pro deal essentially with Orange County. He did sign a pro deal with Orange County, but, you know, D.C. would have loved to have kept him. And there's a reason why he went. to Orange County.

Steve Reckman asks, excluding Ephra Alvarez, who are the best most talented players that for whatever reason won't make the final roster? Should Jonathan Gomez be on this roster? I don't know if he should be, but he certainly could be.

He's very technically gifted, as a bright as bright a future as any of the left backs we talked about earlier. I would agree. I would agree. He's probably better long-term prospect than even Tolkien and Bello at this point. But just a little young, just a little young.

Right. That's the main thing. Just a little young, a little inconsistent defensively. Some other names to bring up in terms of players that could have been in the conversation are Peter Stroud and Moses Nyman. Stroud was a mainstay of this roster earlier in the cycle. The reason why he wasn't in some of the more recent camps is because it sounded like West Ham didn't release him and he's been injured for like the last month or so.

I'm not sure exactly what the injury is there, but that takes him out of the running where he could have potentially had been that third, you know, that player that would have forced Wiki to bring another defensive midfielder, just not in the picture. And Moses Nyman, the citizenship just didn't get over the line And it kind of feels like that may be a little further away than we had anticipated a couple months ago.

Yeah. Nyman, I think Nyman is probably the most exciting young American. Well, he's not an American yet, I guess. But the most exciting young potential American in USL this year, he's played really, really well for Loudoun United. He's looked like a guy who can totally. handle physical battles with professional players and is really smart on the ball. But yeah, citizenship's not there. And I don't even know if the citizenship were there if Wiki would call him up.

He's just really high potential. Yeah, high potential. Even if he had the citizenship at this point, just wait in the cycle, there are some potential issues that Nyman has had. So I agree that he's looked really good in USL. And, well, I mean, you're looking at him as being a player that's eligible for the next cycle. So he should be a mainstay of that team. Yeah.

If he doesn't jump straight to the U20s, which is entirely possible. Wait, he's not eligible for the next cycle, though. Not the next U.S. Oh, no, you're right. You're right. Sorry. Yeah, he's in 03. He'd be, he's eligible for two more U20 cycles.

Yeah. He's kind of just in a little bit of a bad spot there because he's going to be a lot younger than all the other U-20s cycle. I thought you were going to say he's in a bad spot there because he signed a homegrown contract with D.C. Well, that may put him in a bad spot too, but we'll see. That'll be a nice case study, K.O. versus Nyman, two guys in a relatively similar position, taking two different routes, two rows diverging in yellow wood, as Robert Frost would say. Brad Niehaus and Tilt 47 both asked a variation of the question, who will get a move to Europe based on this tournament? And I would say it's going to be Kobe, Kobe Hernandez-Foster.

He probably has a move in the works already, but this will get him on more people's radars. And just like Chris Gloucester made a move as a result of the U-17 World Cup, I think Kobe's going to be sought after left-back prospect. Yeah, absolutely. The other, the other obvious name would be, uh, K.O. Just because, you know, it looks like he's, he's positioning himself for a European move at some point. So if he has, if he has a good World Cup, he probably goes on some trials over this offseason.

Yeah. That's true. And I, I mean, the understanding is he's like, he maybe already even has a deal with Wolfsburg. K.O. Right. We don't, we're not totally privy to that. All right. I think we're done.

Yeah, I agree. You're going to help me, you're going to help me recap one of the games. Okay. Yes. I think, yeah, I think we have that. I think we signed a contract on that. It's a homegrown contract. Yeah, I haven't had my lawyer go over the contract too closely yet, but it sounds right.

Okay. All right. Well, have your lawyer get back to me. Thanks a lot, Matt. Appreciate your time. No problem. Thanks, everyone for. listening. We'll see you.