Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 105: A 5-step (at least) plan for Berhalter to rescue his tenure as USMNT coach

Episode Date: October 22, 2019

We lay out some loosely-numbered ideas for Gregg Berhalter to get this thing turned around, and then conclude that it's very unlikely and implausible. We also briefly discuss the U17s ahead of the World Cup, which kicks for them on Sunday.2:30, questions for Earnie Stewart5:00, anywhere from 5 to 27 steps Berhalter should take to get the USMNT back on track27:15, the US U17s head into the World Cup with some concerns but also some reasons for optimism  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. What do you think this loss and this performance says about the overall state of the program? I wouldn't make a statement about the program based on this game. And, you know, the reason why is these games are difficult. And, you know, it was never going to be easy to come in here and win the game.

There was no way. I mean, when you look at their quality, when you look at their team, when you look at where they are right now, it wasn't going to be an easy game. And, you know, we have to accept that. I think all of us have to accept that. You know, we wanted to win the game, and hopefully we're going to keep improving and hopefully we're going to start winning games in the road. But tonight wasn't the night to do it. Welcome to the scuffed podcast. That was Greg Burhalter giving us the 30,000-foot view from his perch after the 2-0 lost to Canada.

Basically, it was tough. We lost. Accept it. Six one, half dozen the other. Hopefully we keep improving. Don't want to overreact to a sound bite, but the coach did not communicate a profound sense of urgency there, and that certainly was reflected by the performance on the field.

So, Mr. Velasquez, how are you? Salty as ever bells. You're just going to have to accept that. Okay. No, I don't. It's interesting, all these post-lost press conferences from Burrhalta, where he always sort of seems to dodge the actual performance on the field. He'll give the bit about it's difficult or we're internally we think we're making progress.

But he doesn't point to a lot of the actual progress within the performance that he's seen. Right. And that progress is very difficult to see, vanishingly difficult to see. And we're going to pontificate on that and try to set out somewhere between a five-step and a 12-step plan for fixing that. But we got a couple things to take care of. First, I want to mention that we will be discussing the U-17s a little bit ahead of their group stage match at the World Cup this Sunday against Senegal, so I hope you're ready to indulge that, Greg. Bell's, that is entirely your domain. Yeah.

I will absolutely indulge it. I learn about as much listening to you about the U-17s as the rest of our audience. Fair enough. Okay, so also I want to note that we emailed U.S. soccer on Thursday and asked for five to ten minutes on the phone with Ernie Stewart. We hadn't seen that he's spoken to the press since the Canada game and wanted to ask him some questions. We even, and this is typically not standard journalistic practice, emailed a list of questions because we recognize that we are a niche podcast with a relatively small audience. Grant Wall at Sports Illustrated, we are not.

Predictably, our interview request fell by the wayside. So I'll just read the questions. Questions we wish we could get an answer to from Stewart to let you know that we made an effort. Well, before you do that, you said that he hasn't responded, he hasn't spoken to the press since the Canada game. When was the last time Ernie Stewart spoke to the press? That's a good question. I think it was when he told them that the coaching hiring process required an English

language first speaker. I think his last press availability was when he announced his promotion. Oh, that's true. Yeah, that's right. He and Kate Mark Graff got on a call with a bunch of reports. That's true. So he's batten a thousand on announcements in the press. They've all been about his successes.

Well, that's kind of how, you know, that's press relations 101 kind of. So why don't we read the questions? You read the first one. I'll read the second one, kind of back and forth, just to spice it up a little bit. All right. Mr. Stewart. What was your reaction to the two zero lost to Canada last week? Your analysis, your message to fans of the U.S. men's national team.

Your message to Greg Burhalter. Number two, what benchmarks are you using to assess Burrhalter's performance as national team coach and have the team's performances met those benchmarks? Number three, how much does he need to fall short of those benchmarks before you choose to replace him? It's never ideal to change coaches at this point in a qualifying cycle, but what would put that on the table? Number four, do you regret the delay in hiring Burrhalter in 2018? You mentioned back then that you were having conversations about the future of U.S. soccer. sorts of fruit are those conversations bearing not just with the U.S. men's national team but across the men's and women's sides of USSF.

Those were big conversations, if I remember right? Weren't they described as big conversations? Yep, quote unquote big. Number five, how much confidence do you have in the U.S. men's national team program with World Cup qualifying set to begin in about 10 months and what gives you confidence? And finally, number six, we would love to hear you articulate your vision for the U.S. M&T program and talk about what the strategy is for reaching. that vision and how that strategy is being executed right now. So, yeah, some pretty meaty questions.

Preguntas Grandes. Bells, Bells, English only on this podcast, please. Okay. Not surprising that we couldn't get Stewart on the Horn. We may have the best podcast in the universe devoted exclusively to the U.S. Men's National Team. That's fact, not opinion, but we're still small potatoes in the soccer media landscape. Luckily for Ernie Stewart, we formulated this 11 step four to 11 step plan for Greg Burrhalter to turn the ship around. Ernie, if you're listening, feel free to jot this down, take it with you to the office tomorrow. Okay, so what's step number one, Greg? Step one, as always, admit you have a problem.

I feel like Burrhalter has sort of refused to admit that he has a problem with the players he selected. You pointed out when we saw their roster for the October friendlies that 14 of the players on the list were still holdovers from January camp. it sure seems like Burrhalter picked those players and believes that he can mold them into an elite possession-based side. Yes, I think he probably still believes that, right? I guess we're going to find out, but I believe our step one is you cannot do that, Greg Burhalter, and you need to overhaul your group. And when we talk about an overhaul, we got to be specific because we're not talking about throwing out all 25. players who were called up in the last window. Of course, we're not talking about that. Who are we talking

about, Greg? Well, we're talking probably about a third of the group, but it's not necessarily just guys on the fringes. Again, people have always sort of dismissed these questionable call-ups as like, oh, well, you're talking about backups to backups, but we're not. We're talking about guys who play meaningful minutes, guys who start, guys who are coming in off the bench to try to chase results. Those players matter, and they're going to matter all through qualifying. They're going to matter. Come, Qatar, 2022 if we get that far. So who are we talking about? I guess I can give my thoughts.

I would like to see Rodon, Lovitz, trap, Baird, and Zardis stricken from the national team call-up list. Nothing against them personally. Just I think we've seen that. We've seen that out, you know. And then replace them with a bunch of guys. But definitely Dwayne Holmes at midfield. definitely Anthony Robinson should get a look at left back.

Definitely Fabian Johnson should be getting a look at left back or maybe on the wing even, I don't know. And then I wouldn't mind seeing Richie Ledesma, Julian Green, Brandon Servania. You say Chris Gloucester. You want to see Chris Gloucester? For me, yes. Because at that point when we're talking about backups, yes, if Anthony Robinson is sort of who you're looking at.

Obviously we've got Sergenio Dest potentially in the picture. But if you're looking at a guy like Anthony Robinson, you also have a veteran like Tim Ream, who you can use it left back. Then suddenly with Gloucester, you are talking about sort of a backup. And I do think you should be taking some speculative chances with those positions. I feel like what we're doing is not speculating at all with these backup positions, which is the exact wrong way in my mind to be using those slots. Given that we're turning over 20 of the 23 spots from the 2018 cycle. Okay. Well, and then two other names, Markey Delgado and...

Keaton Parks. Delgado, Delgado used to be a big favorite of this podcast. He totally fell off the radar. But at this point, any shakeup is a good shakeup, I think. I threw Delgado on the list because I feel like what happens here is we get guys who fall off the radar, but they're falling off the radar mostly because they aren't getting call-ups. So it's sort of this circular problem of, all right, well, since he's not getting call-ups, that must mean he's not actually that good, when in fact, Burr-Halter's call-ups are exactly what sort of in question here. So, you know, there's, there's, I feel like in a team that's trying to possess and move the ball around fluidly, uh, that's a situation where Marky, a guy like Markey Delgado is worth

another look. I wouldn't hate it. I wouldn't hate it. I don't think you are either. I'm not, uh, demanding a Markey Delgado call up, but. No, basically, I think what we're almost demanding is some level of like exploration. And, and I feel like that just has never taken place, uh, out of the names we just listed for guys we'd like to see called in. Wouldn't surprise me if only two or three of them actually were able to stick around. But it's like that's okay. It's okay to explore, find the guys who can hack it, and then hold on to those and sort of discard the rest.

What we're seeing is there's just none of that's happening. Roldons played 800 minutes for the national team. Zardas has played 800 minutes. Lovitz and Trapp each have over 550 minutes. The best case, I think, is actually a guy like Georgie Mihailovich. Georgie came in in January, a young kid, a potentially decent player who, you know, could maybe grow into something for the cycle. We gave him a look.

He wasn't great. He started out okay. He sort of fell off in some other games. And he faded into the background. And honestly, I think that's actually exactly the process that we should be having in this early stage of the cycle. Is it possible to do it at this point since all these other guys know the system? and the guys we're suggesting get called up in their place don't know the system.

I think it actually is even more of a reason to because, as Kim McCauley pointed out really well in a SB Nation article, the guys who know the system and still aren't performing, it's almost like that's become a checkmark against them. Like if Christian Raldon knows the system so well because he's been in every single camp of the Burr-Halt era and he still looks this off, then it's even, more reason to unload him. And again, it's just like Burrhalter's gone the exact opposite approach. He's been incredibly stubborn. It's almost like he's taking the piss and charges with youth bias all you want. Sticking to the guys who in their prime couldn't break into the last disaster of a cycle,

like that's gone exactly as you'd expect. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I'm not as much of a hardliner as you are. I think we can be somewhat reasonably criticized for making a lot out of marginal roster decisions. But the Dwayne Holmes omission for me is not marginal at this point. The rest of them are a little more marginal. Lovitz is obviously not international quality, but there aren't a ton of great options that left back. So let me just, I'm just going to throw a bone to those who criticize us in that way.

That said, I agree with everything you said. I agree with everything you said. And that's like steps one through 12 of our 35 step process. is yeah just open up the auditions you got to open up the audition process and as we've as we've sort of been very open about uh in our opinion that audition process should include guys who have not necessarily broken through for their first team but we're asking burhalter to change course on this front and start calling up names new names it doesn't i got to say it doesn't seem likely i honestly don't know what to think man like i don't know what burholt what burrhalter's thinking right now

I don't know if he feels like his experiment hasn't worked because, you know, he talked like he had an open mind going into certain camps. I don't remember it was March or January saying, well, I just want to try this, but I'm not married to it. If it doesn't work,

I think you were specifically talking about maybe Tyler Adams right back. Yeah. But, I mean, he made the point. Like, if it doesn't work, we want to try it. If it doesn't work, we'll throw it out.

Or we'll try something new. Maybe, so I don't know. I don't know what kind of... He didn't sound He didn't sound like a guy who was rethinking his whole way of thinking in that clip I played at the top of the show. Did he? No. He didn't sound like it in any of that press conferences.

That's not like a non-representative clip. He sounded like we need to play with a little more desire and we're going to learn from this. This is a way game in front of 12,000 Canadians. This was really tough. I mean... The least polite fan base on the planet. Uh, it, point is he didn't sound, he didn't sound like a man who is about to change course. No, he didn't. And, and so it just comes down to whether or not that's, uh, his responses in the

immediacy of a loss and he's, he's trying to sort of protect himself and his team or, and, you know, or what he's going to do once he gets back into the coach's office, gets his staff around him and, and says like, hey, can we fix this or do we've got, do we have to change? And I don't know. I don't know, I don't know what he's going to say. Can we get Iguine to file a one-time switch and represent the United States men's nationality? Right. Iguine retiring, just as a side note, retiring from MLS and, you know, big player for the Columbus crew. And you could argue as a playmaking midfielder who sort of ran the show for them,

maybe he's the man most responsible, more even than Ernie Stewart for Greg Burhalter's hiring as U.S. men's national team coach. because he really made that whole thing tick. Yep, and the discussion since then, since Berlter was announced was who's going to be his iguan, and obviously that question remains unanswered. Not in my mind. He's playing for young PSV right now. Just kidding, just kidding.

I think Ledesma is the closest thing we have in the player pool. Anyhow, let's move on to step. What step are we on now? Step seven out of 14. Okay. Prioritize ball winning and moments of transition in the midfield, whatever that takes. We need a tougher, more athletic, more dynamic midfield, particularly from the six, and the deeper lying 8-10, that's the position that Christian Rold-on plays. And they need to be freed up to do the job of controlling the center of the field and then bursting forward in the attack when they win

possession. Our inability to win the ball in the middle and the slack-jawed nature of our going forward when we have possession is one of the most frustrating things about this team. And it is it's a, those are chronic. Those are chronic issues. They're, they're, they're not one time things. Yeah, there's no coincidence that people are calling our team soft and we also field a midfield that just that cannot in any sense, uh, win those battles. There's, there's just so little, there's so little steel in our, in our spine and there hasn't been for how long has it been since we've, since we've played an actual ball winning midfield? 2014 World Cup

Jermaine Jones and Kyle Beckerman with Michael Bradley sort of as a 10 We had some friendlies Where it was Kalan Acosta Tyler Adams And West McKinney in the midfield Danny Williams I think against Portugal In our November friendly

With Tyler Adams as like as a winger in that Yeah so we just played like seven ball winning midfielders But that That's kind of it Yeah I think that I think that has to be the priority And the thing is, I don't think that that means you have to surrender, like, the ability to play a possession. I think we have ball winning midfielers who can also connect a pass.

It just means that they can connect a pass and then move into a new space. They can win a battle, connect a pass, and then move into a new space. Right. That's all we want. That's literally all we want in the world is to see that midfield and several other steps. Right. Well, that brings us to the next step. I believe it's step 12.

No, I think basically we've done three. This is step three, but it's definitely related to step two. And in a way, related to step one. And this one's kind of my baby. I think it's time to say goodbye to Michael Bradley in the midfield, which means it's time to say goodbye to Michael Bradley and the U.S. men's national team. And it's not because he's not a good player. He was actually one of our competent players against Canada.

Right. It's because the things he's good at doing aren't consistent with what the rest of the team needs to do for us to be successful, which is to win Balls and Field and be able to move into new spaces. And I just feel like at this point, Bradley doesn't offer that. So if we're going to play a system that emphasizes Michael Bradley, it's hurting us everywhere else. Yeah, we've said this before on the show, but it does still kind of seem like the entire system is built around Michael Bradley. Does it not? Slash Will Trap.

Yeah, I feel like Burrhalter is actually biggest, biggest accomplishment in this 10 months is to get the U.S. fan base to debate whether or not we have a bunch of players who can hit a long diagonal path. He's just changed the conversation to address that specific feature of a midfielder and hasn't asked sort of the bigger questions about, does that actually help us win games? I'm going to move on to step four slash 16. Get everyone more comfortable in attack, playing with more freedom and swagger. I thought Bobby Warshaw made a great point in extra time. probably the most interesting thing I heard in the, you know, in the aftermath of that loss last week

about how the system under Burrhalter is very horizontally oriented. Dudes are thinking about sideways movements in possession and out of possession, and that somehow prevents them from acting decisively in any sort of vertical penetrating fashion. Burhalter, if he were sitting here with us, may dispute that, and he might even be persuasive, but he's not sitting here with us. And to me, what Warshaw said rang true. and I'd like to see that adjustment made by Pearl Halter. And that includes sort of calling up players who like to attack.

Anthony Robinson over Daniel Levitts on at left back. Dwayne Holmes over Christian Roldon. Sebastian Lajette over Christian Roldon. Paxton Pommackle over Christian Roldon. Keaton Parks over Christian Rold on. And I know you're dropping Christian Roldon on all those, but honestly, the same thing could be said for Michael Bradley. He's never going to burst from that sort of deep,

lying spot and and sort of add a player into the attack. Not that he's asked to do that right now. Right now that might wreck the system. But that's sort of the point is we need to, there are guys in the pool who we could put in that spot, Tyler Adams, and other guys who aren't just injured, who can make a pass and then who can advance a level because you're right. We have, and Warshaw's exactly right. We have no forward burst. Like all of our interaction, the last five, six games has felt like it's been the wingers and the 10 sort of changing places. That's a lot of like the Pulisic Ariola interaction. We aren't seeing the, when Dwayne Holmes played against Jamaica, we put the comp out there.

He'd make a pass and then he burst forward 30 yards at speed and it puts pressure on teams and it opens lanes and it forces defenders to make decisions about who should track and who should stay. And suddenly a lane opens up to that weak side player instead of just Dwayne Holmes. And yeah, that just doesn't exist. Well, let me actually even get into that one more time because I feel like it also highlights how badly we use Weston McKinney against Canada. Because Weston McKinney is a player who would give us that burst forward. He's one of the few in the lineup who would. But we almost eliminated that possibility because we played him as our attacking mid. Like he can't burst forward.

He can't even make that late attacking run that everyone is now associating with him. Because he's already in an advanced position, he's basically our second runner instead of being the late attacking runner who comes in as the third or even fourth attacker into the box. So we actually eliminated what Weston McKinney is best at in some misguided approach to get him closer to the goal earlier. Good point. I mean, he's against Canada. He was in the two of a 4-4-2 in defensive shape, if I'm not mistaken, right? Yeah, he was. And in possession, he's on the same line as Josh Sargent most of the time.

So he isn't able to add a number into the attack. He's one of our starting players. And so it had to be Roldon or Bradley or Lovitz or Yedlin. And God knows Lovitz and Bradley and Roldon weren't doing it. So it all came down to D'Andre Yedlin. Yeah. And then he didn't have a great game either. So, yeah, McKenney was,

McKinney's been misused. And I'm ashamed at myself for sort of being hypnotized by his 10-minute hat trick against Cuba into thinking like, okay, maybe he should be the 10, you know, and should be arriving in the box in that way. That was, I should have just completely, as you suggested, completely disregarded that entire episode, that game against Cuba. And yeah, he's, he's, we, everybody gave him, but it gave Domenico Tedesco a bunch of crap for playing McKenny as a second striker, but that's essentially what he did against Canada for the U.S. I mean, second strikers maybe not exactly right, but it's not too far off.

Right. I mean, that's the role Sergeant moved into late in the game when we brought Zardez on. And Zardez, we didn't change our actual shape or system very much. It was just Zardez was the target. Sergeant became like the, what McKinney had been doing. Well, step 27 is inject some fire into the squad. And I guess this is related to steps one through four in some ways, make things less cerebral, more ruthless, make it more of a street fight

make us tougher and I think Burrhalter acknowledged that we didn't play with much desire that's on Burhalter he's got to do better on that front I think a lot of that's on the squad you call up and then it's on with the it's on the tasks

that you give them so again with Michael Bradley in the lineup it's going to be tough to play with all of that fire in midfield because if you have guys jumping forward to try to blow things up and really win a fight you have to have to have somebody behind them who can sort of sweep up when you don't win that first fight high up the field.

Right. And I don't know if that's why we play this very passive defensive system. But it's just sort of this duality, this conflicting tasks that you're giving us, giving the players is, all right, how do you play with fire, but also play extremely passively and sit back and sort of just take away angles? So that's a good segue into what I think is kind of the most important question, which is, is there any way Burrhalter can do these things and keep the system that he's been working on for the last nine months?

Does he just have to throw everything out? He almost does, right? I mean, what we're saying here is like change a third of your squad and completely change your tactics. And at that point, if that's what, if say you're Ernie Stewart having a discussion, Greg Burholter about the future of the program, you're almost saying, all right, Greg,

you're still fine, we still believe in you. We just need you to change. every single thing about yourself as a coach. So what would the difference be between doing that and saying, Greg, it's time for you to go in another way and we're going to be beginning a new search for a new head coach? There wouldn't be, there wouldn't be much difference. So I, you know, I'm still not in a place where I'm like fire him.

We definitely have to fire Burrhalter. That just seems like quite a thing to say. And I'm not, I'm not quite there. But I don't see the way forward. I don't see the way forward for Burrhalter. Maybe he sees it. Maybe he sees like if we had done a couple of these things differently, if somebody had been a little bit sharper in that game,

then we break things open. And I guess there's a way to maybe see it that way. I don't see it. I don't see it. I don't see the way forward. I don't. Yeah, it would have to be like you gave Christian Roldon the keys to your offense and you'd have to say, all right,

Roldon just wasn't the guy to do it. Kind of like how we gave Georgie Mahalovich sort of the keys to the offense in January. against teams who sat back against us. And then Sebastian Leget came in and instantly we were much better. Maybe Burhalter sees it that way. All right, we get Roll Dawn out. You throw a Tyler Adams in there and the entire puzzle comes together.

It could be. He hasn't spoken about it in that way and probably never will, you know. He's not going to throw Christian Rolls out on the bus. And I'm not even saying it's entirely on Christian Rodon. I just think, you know, I'm looking for ways that you're You could watch a game like that and say we were just a little bit off. We're just one piece off or one step off from everything clicking. I would say unless we come out against Canada and look dramatically better,

then he should be fired after that game. Even if we beat Canada and it's basically the same kind of performance, flaccid, weak, passive, if it's like that again, even if we do manage to win, you know, we get a couple goals. I'll be in the camp where he needs to be fired. But yeah, I mean, and it's almost like, I don't even think it's because he's a bad coach. Like he came in with a pretty ambitious plan. Yeah.

And if his vision, if what he wants to do isn't going to work, it's okay to recognize that and be like, hey, you gave it a good shot. We're going to just have to go with some, you know, pick some ruthless pragmatist or somebody who can pick whose vision more closely aligns with what the players are capable of. Bruce Arena, Bruce Arena, probably. Who can turn a team around in the space of four months? Well, is there a way to wrap up this section that you can think of? Because I'm tapped out. No, let's move on to the future.

Let's move on to the future, bells. All right. We'll be back in a second to talk briefly about the U-17 World Cup. We're back. The U-17 World Cup kicks off for the U.S. on Sunday. two tune-ups in the bag for the team. They lost 4-1 to a very strong Brazil side on Saturday and then beat a Fluminense side 1-0 on Monday.

Or was it Tuesday? I can't remember. Their first group stage game is against Senegal, Sunday at 3 o'clock central time. I just have a few thoughts based on that Brazil-friendly. Well, first off, Bells, do we need to beat Senegal? Is Senegal a must-win game on Sunday? That's a good question. It's, you know, the third-place team,

can go through to the round of 16. And honestly, we would rather be the third place team than the second place team because the second place team from our group plays either Spain or Argentina, most likely in the round of 16. The third place group has a chance of facing Brazil, which we do not want to do, but there are, I don't know, seven or eight other options, which are more desirable than Spain or Argentina.

Bells, people said the same thing about the U-20s. That's true, that's true. Can't beat Spain and the Confederations Cup if you don't get to play Spain in the Confederations Cup. That's true. The U20s beat France, for those of you in Punksitani. And let's see, some issues that are worrisome. George Bello looks shaky at left back. That was something Matt Hartman and I discussed on the podcast. And he's a hugely promising talent, has a lot of potential. But he's not in really sharp form, especially defensively right now.

he was directly culpable for a goal that just kind of was played a ball was played over the top of him and he misjudged it and it was the guy was in and scored a goal in that friendly so that's that's a little bit of an issue wingers other than gio reina who was in germany over the weekend can't create danger andres jason looked out of his depth against brazil but griffin yow wasn't much better i'll say it again six one half dozen the other just not very dangerous from either of those wingers And then depth is a bit of an issue. Maxi Deetz and Brian Keo looked kind of slow of thought when they came into that 4-1 loss. They came on for Lava and Adam Saldania, if I remember correctly.

And then Kobe, Kobe Hernandez Foster, who I think is one of the most promising players on the roster, he's a short player for a centerback, but he's been played at centerback by the U-17s, basically the entire cycle. And that reared its head as a problem a little bit in that Brazil friendly when he just got out jumped by a taller Brazilian attacker and gave up a goal that way. Bells, do you have a sense of where Brazil, I mean, it's Brazil, but do you have a sense of where they sit on the U-17 continuum? Like, are we measuring ourselves against the highest bar in this friendly? Well, so I don't know. I've read some stuff about how this is a really, really strong Brazil side.

And on the eye test, they were outstanding. I mean, all the way across the field, more athletic, more technical than us. And it was a good team, no doubt. So I'm going to get to the positive stuff here in just a second. Because I don't think losing 401 to Brazil really changes anything for me. You look at our group, which is Senegal, the Netherlands, and Japan. When that group came out, I think most people who are paying attention thought, well, there's a chance we don't get out of that group. It's a really strong group.

And that's still the case. I don't think that this changes it one way or another. But the positives are that Gio Raina is rejoined in the side. Like I said, he was in Germany for the Schalka Dortmund U-19 Derby, Darby. Best attacking player on the squad. Yeah, he's a baker's dozen to the half-dozen on offer from the other wingers. And hopefully he can create space. There's a lot of math on this podcast.

And then even Da Boehler, the strawberry blonde newcomer from Seattle was bright in his cameo on Saturday, created more than Jason or Yao from the wing, seemed undaunted, seemed fearless. Yeah, he was unhumbled against the likes of Brazil. That's a decent cameo going into the tournament. He's got some chutzpah. And then Ricardo Pepe has two goals in the two tune-up matches, both that he's kind of created for himself. so he seems to be feeling it after his USL League 1 semifinal brace. And Saldana and Lava are players that I like quite a bit. They're just a solid problem-solving midfield who play good defense,

kind of like we would like to see from our national team midfield. And I think they're going to be good. And also Nico Carrera seems to be fitting in well at centerback. And if Wiki wants to, he could move Kobe to left back and play a Nico Carrera, Tavon Gray, centerback parent. I don't think that's impossible at this point. It'd be a big jump, though, right? Because as he said, Kobe wasn't just playing centerback to accommodate Bello.

He's been playing centerback even when Bellow's been out injured. That's true, yeah. But perhaps with the World Cup in mind, knowing that Bello would be back. And yeah, we'll see. We'll see. But Kobe's distribution has been wonderful from centerback. He's a very intelligent defender. It's just that occasional moment when he's going to have to, you know, jump for the ball.

That might be a problem. All right. Well, Bella's going to end up going full Sergenio Dest in this World Cup and we'll have nothing to worry about. Yeah, let's hope so. Let's hope so. And I think that's all we got. Oh, I should say, like I said, I feel pretty good about the team, like or at least no worse than I did before these tuneups. And we do know that Wiki's team got better. Rafael Wiki's team got better as the tournament progressed in Conca Calf qualifying. So I assume the same will happen here. And we will. will have a late Sunday night recap podcast. Waki, Twitter follow that you should look up. We'll join me to talk about the game late Sunday night after it's over. All right, Bells is all going to blow up on you when Burhalter's fired and Vicki's promoted the head coach of the national team. He's just going to fly him back from Brazil. Yeah. Send Tab down to do the coaching of the U-17s. Insult to injury for Tab Ramos.

No, there's no insult in coaching a national team. That's true. That's true, I guess. I think Tab might see it differently. Anything else we should mention? No, I think we're good. English only. English only.

Our next top 40 episode, I think, is going to have a very different bent. I feel like I'm just, I was thinking about that earlier. I feel like any Greg Berthelter system influence over our next top 40 is going to be gone. Yeah. Yeah, I know you're, so we're weaning ourselves off of Burrhalter's selection bias, I guess. It's one way to look at it. All right. Thanks, everyone for listening.

We'll see you.