Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 113: Cuba 0, USA 4, and a wrapup of the int’l window

Episode Date: November 21, 2019

A "professional" win in the Cayman Islands. Where do we stand now? Are we still trying to disorganize the opponent with the ball? Is that possible with the players Berhalter seems to prefer? Not our best work, but we try to get into these questions and answer them. Tom Marshall's piece on Fortuna FC, the south Florida club for Cuban defectors: https://www.espn.com/soccer/cuba-cub/story/3989260/amateur-club-fortuna-sc-gives-exiled-cuban-players-a-shot-at-glorysense-of-community 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. The U.S. beat Cuba 4-0 and the Cayman Islands on Tuesday night to qualify for the Conquer Calf Nation's League semifinals and close out an international window that results-wise was a success and erased any possibility that Greg Burhalter will be relieved of his duties before I would assume World Cup qualifying starts next fall. Greg Velasquez. How are you? I'm good, Bells. I very much enjoyed watching the Daniel Lovett's testimonial. You say that, but is it true? I don't know about that. No, he has several testimonials to go. So we often struggle to build out of the back against pressure. Let's be honest, I didn't terribly enjoy watching whatever that game was.

Yeah, it wasn't great. It wasn't great. I mean, you know, it's good that we took care of business, and that's kind of like the byword of the day. but by the standard of building out of the back, disorganizing the opponent with the ball, it certainly was not a master class. The pressure that Cuba applied when they did apply pressure pretty much undid us in terms of our commitment to playing out of the back.

The only thing that's notable for me, tactics-wise, is I think we employed basically the same defensive shape as we saw against Canada. Did you see it that way? I thought it was even more pronounced that, I'm sorry that sergeant was sort of the lead defender on his own and Raldon and McKenny. Both were sitting farther behind him. It didn't look like we were as aggressive pushing up to defend Cuba, which I'm going to sort of defend that decision because I think it makes sense.

Given the quality of the surface and the quality of the opponent, if you step up to press them, you're actually asking them to play it over the top of you, which is actually what would benefit Cuba the most in that situation. in given those conditions. Right. So I actually think it was, it was basically, I mean, we almost met Cuba basically never had the ball long enough for us to adopt any kind of a deep block. That was my sense of it too. You know what I mean? So you didn't have to.

Like you knew that within four seconds of Cuba having the ball, whether you applied a ton of pressure or not, you were going to get the ball back. And I didn't mean to sound like overly negative when I said I didn't particularly enjoy watching it. I mean, it was like we were watching sort of a bad training session and that's almost, almost. all you could really get out of that game? Yeah. And I do want to make a note here. Anyone who is tempted to should not sneer at Cuba. Their situation is difficult.

And I think, you know, Tom Marshall, the Mexico City reporter for ESPN, he did a great piece on a club in Florida that brings in Cuban defectors and helps them get on their way to permanent residency in the U.S. and then eventually a professional soccer career. They've had 29 players defect from various age groups over the last couple of years. I feel for those players, I mean, in a way, I feel for the entire nation. That's something we should note, I think, here. Right, right.

That definitely goes into the quality of the product that they can put on the field for their national team in these contests. Right. They're kicking the ball out of bounds when they didn't need to and giving it back to us when they didn't need to. I hope, Bells, I hope that's not the sign of a team that can't play soccer because let me tell you what I saw from us. Yeah, no, I mean, no doubt about it. So let's go to the lineups and then we'll do a scoring summary and then we'll kind of try to assess, you know, Burrhalter's first year. Just a wrap-up.

Yeah. Annual summary, annual review. Yeah. Cuba came out with Sandy Sanchez and goal, a back line of from right to left, Daniel Morajon, Dario Ramos, Eric Rizzo and Jose Armello-Bez. and then the midfield was Jean Rodriguez, Arachille, I'm sorry, Arachiel, Hernandez, Correll Espino and Rolando Abreu, and then Luis Padadella and Michael Reyes up front.

Hernandez was a dangerous, at least on one occasion, the number 10 for them. But mostly, mostly this was a different Cuba than we saw in the first leg of the Nations League because they didn't come out and try to, to play a wide open game. They very much sat deep, deep, deep in a 4-4-2 line of confrontation, like below the center circle and ask the U.S. to try to cut them open, again, on a bad surface.

So I think the right tactical plan from Cuba, undone a little bit, they'll almost feel unfortunate in that the opening goal was so sloppy, but that just takes all the wind out of the sails and everything from then is going to be a problem. pretty uphill climb. Yeah, and it's kind of interesting. Mexico ended up winning over Bermuda later last night, two to one on a stoppage time winner from Aureal and Tuna. And Bermuda's ranking is similar to Cuba's, but I watched a portion of that game,

and Bermuda was much more disciplined and structured and, you know, sort of had their stuff together in a better way than Cuba did. Just a side note there. Yeah, no, Cuba definitely reliant. on the field as that extra defender. And, you know, in the U.S. were happy to sort of, I don't want to say happy to oblige them, but you could tell that the field was taking its toll on whatever sort of fluid possession we were trying to attempt to play.

Yeah. It is a little bit of a mulligan. I mean, the ball was bouncing all over the place. The U.S. came out with Guzan and goal, the same fullback duo that lost to Canada in Toronto in Yedlin and Lovitz and then Riemann Long at centerback. Ewell at the six for the second straight game. McKennyn rolled on as the eights and a front line of left to right,

Morris, Sergeant, and Ariola. To the scoring summary, which I will, at Greg's insistence, I will try to make as brief as possible. Because this is just this training session. There's very little to try to glean from what we threw at their goal. 30 seconds in, as you noted, we had a restart on the right side.

Yelan throws it into Ariola. Ariola beats his guy around the corner and hits a cross across the face of goal, a low ball, and it just kind of takes a deflection, and Sergeant and the goalkeeper meet over it, and it rolls over the line. Some dispute about whether that was a Sergeant goal or an own goal, but it was credited to Joshua Sargent, so he got his first goal of the game. And then I would say probably the best, it's a low bar, but the best portion of play from the U.S. was that first 10 minutes after that.

Sargent had another similar chance a few minutes later. Morris whipped one in that nobody got to. Sergeant pull one back to the penalty marker, but nobody was there. McKinney got a left footed volley that was headed off the line, mostly coming up the right side of the field through the first 10 minutes. And I guess my question to you is, did you see anything in there that was earned? Like, was that the Burrhalter system working even against a very, very poor opponent? So it didn't look like it to me.

It looked like, again, Cuba just sitting really deep and the U.S. just sort of ad-libbing a little bit down that right. side. And again, I don't want to make that sound like we didn't earn the chances we got. It just means that, you know, we talked, the biggest example of this was in the U-20 qualifying last year through the Concord Calf tournament. Like, you basically can't help but end up with really dangerous chances when the, when the gap in talent is as vast as it was in this game. So we're going to default into, you know, scrambles in the box and open looks because there's just that big of a difference in talent. Yeah.

But the bad thing is there were big portions of the game where we weren't dangerous in this. Right. And that's where you can start to see. If there is going to be a takeaway, that's what it's going to be. You almost can't have a positive takeaway from this game, but it is possible to have negative takeaways. And I think for certain players, that kind of came through again, and it's sort of the usual suspects.

Yeah. Well, there's a chance for Cuba in the 19th minute, basically throw in, you'll heads it toward the top of the box. There's nobody there. and a strike from about 22 yards that ricochets off of Morris and draws a comfortable save from Brad Guzan. I'll stand up for Guzan here and say that on a surface like that there is no comfortable, I mean, he made it look comfortable, but there is no comfortable save because when it bounces

between before it gets to you on that surface, like they could go any direction. Fair enough, fair enough. Immediately after that, another chance for the USA coming down the field. Nice move up to left wing. Lovett Springs Morris and cuts it back for Sergeant on the ensuing corner kick. McKenny Long and Ariola all got a good crack at it. And the first two shots are blocked and Aureola went just wide. 26 minute goal USA.

Morris gets his first. This is a long ball from Ewell. Morris wins the second ball and interchanges with McKinney on the left side. It works back around to Ewell who plays kind of an odd left-footed diagonal from our right channel that skims off of McKinney's. head and falls to Morris who takes a couple touches and slots it in to zero. I don't put that goal in the sort of earned category just because I think Yule's ball wasn't the greatest and it just kind of happened to get flicked on by McKinney. I mean, McKinney did well to flick it on, but there didn't seem to be any real design to that.

Well, and again, the question comes up of like, how is Jordan Morris all by himself at the top of the box and then into the box with no one but the goalkeeper to beat? So it's something where you say, is that. a situation that could even replicate itself in the semifinals in June. No. Seems unlikely unless we're attacking Alfonso Davies at left back again. 39th minute, another goal for the U.S. This is Morris's second, and it's even more of a scramble.

It's off a corner kick, a bit of composure from McKinney to pass to Long on the left side. I'm not going to give McKinney too much credit there, just kind of basic, you know, soccer playing there. and then Long tries to punch it across, and it falls fortunately back to him, and then he tries to lift it over the defender near him. It's deflected, and it goes all the way over the keeper kind of rainbows towards the back post with the help of that deflection. And Morris made sure it went over the goal line. It probably was going in anyway.

3-0. Half-time. Comfortable. We are comfortably accomplishing the objective of the day. Yeah. Nothing really happened for the first 15. minute, I don't say mostly the first 20 minutes of the second half, except Cannon coming on for Yedlin. More from me on that later. Sixty-six minute is when we get our first, I guess, pleasing

to the eye goal. Do you want to describe it? You want me to. You can go ahead and take this one too, Bells, you're on a roll. Okay. Sergeant got his second, and it starts with a cannon throw to McKenney on the right side, McKenny to Areola, to Cannon, to Roll-on, to Roll-on, to. To Roll-on, to Ream, to Ewell to Long, back to Ariel on the right wing, who kind of slowly but does ultimately find Ewell breaking open in the right channel. And then Ewell makes a nice pass to McKenny. McKenny back to Cannon, another pretty nice pass. And then Cannon hits a looping ball at the backposts.

And Tyler Boyd meets it and flicks it back to Sergeant who settled his feet and smashes it low on frame into the goal, 4-0. and the nicest thing I think we saw from the U.S. on the night. Yeah, and that's where that's where, you know, you watch that goal and then you say, why can't we have 10 or 15 or 20 possessions against Cuba? Why can't we have 10 or 15 or 20 possessions that or that look like that? Whether they all end up in the back of the net or not, I'm not asking for 20-0 victories. But we need to be able to generate more of those sequences against Cuba. Well, I have a little bit of a quibble with Areola here where he kind of dallyes over the ball as Ewell breaks free.

And that's the kind of thing that, I don't know, after 12 months in the system, why can't that be a one-touch pass? Bing, bang. Instead, it's kind of slow and lucky for us. Cuba's kind of slow, too. Right. And that's why we again went through all this at the Gold Cup when we weren't super high on the team even when they were winning games. It's because of that sort of speed of play, speed of thought that's evident that doesn't cost us when you're playing. against weak teams where the passing windows are so big and the time to make the pass is so long.

And then there's just this level that you have to reach before it, those kinds of sequences will come off against even mid-tier teams, like a Jamaica or a Canada, mid-tier Conccaf. Yeah. So that's sort of that red flag where you have to be a little bit careful, cautious about celebrating. And not that anyone's like going crazy about a cute. but win. I don't think anybody is, to be fair, but yeah, totally agree. But to see progress,

like, you do need to see those kinds of sequences, and then you need to see them sharper and more efficient and, like, zero wasted touches, zero wasted steps. And I just, we don't, it doesn't feel like we're there that, even with that kind of a goal that we scored, this game didn't necessarily feel like any, any different than other games in the past 10 years of U.S. soccer away to Concaf teams. Yeah. Yeah, we're not there. We just. feel no closer to being there than we did a year ago, in my opinion. Just to finish out the scoring summary, we got a couple chances off set pieces. Cuba got a couple chances off set pieces, essentially, restarts.

But we didn't really threaten for the last half hour, I would say. Give Morales a little more credit than that, Bells. Morales, I thought he knew, he was unlucky not to have two goals. You're saying the one, the one where Sergeant headed the set piece down and Morales smashed it and the keeper could say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was in the 70th minute. That's, that's good, but that's, you know, it's a set piece. And then I think the other one you're referring to is Morales, Amarles header on a Loavitz cross, the one where he clashed his heads.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And goalkeeper really made a good-looking save. I love those save spells. Tell me about it. Why was it a good-looking save? I'm just because it's sort of a it's not a bullet header Like Roldon had a bullet header in the first half that was that was really well taken really well saved Yeah

Where you just kind of react to it This was one it was a little bit more looping and so that trajectory it's basically just the perfect trajectory For a goalkeeper to read it Take his like power step off and really propel himself up to get to it So it just looks very fluid and it's just aesthetically Just a very sort of a beautiful motion of the human body through the air to make a safe. Wow, poetry. I get, I get, I get, uh, I get really caught up in those plays. They don't have, they're so, they're so rare.

They're so rarely present themselves. Well, okay. Yeah, like I said, Cuba had a couple chances, other than these two Morales chances, which, uh, I'm glad we mentioned. I'm glad we clocked them. Uh, the U.S. wasn't so threatening, which, which is understandable, I guess, if you want to, you know, just avoid injury and kind of see the game out. I get that. But I do wish there was a little bit more of a, I'm playing for my job vibe from some of these guys. Yeah, I guess I'll leave it at that. Let's get to the takeaways. Takeaways from this game, takeaways from the year of U.S. men's soccer.

Well, do we want to hear what Burhalter's takeaways are? Yeah, let's do that. Here's what he said after the game in his one-on-one with Nico Contor from TUDN, apparently the only reporter at the press conference after the game. You know, when I look back at 2019, I think the group has really come together nicely. I think it's a great group of guys. I know it's a great group of guys who are very enthusiastic and work extremely hard. We had a number of challenges in this year that the group needed to respond to.

And I think we responded well. When I look at our overall goals of the year, you know, it was to win the Gold Cup and to qualify for the semifinals in the Nation's League. and we came up short in the first one, but we achieved the second one, and overall, I think it was a really good year of development for this group. As we move forward to 2020, it's an exciting year. We're going to have some friendlies in Europe against high-level opponents,

which is going to be a great test for this group. We move into Nations League semifinals and hopefully finals, and then we start World Cup qualifying. So this group is really going to get tested in 2020, and we're looking forward to the challenge. I think that kind of To sort of connect it to what you were just talking about There isn't a vibe of I'm playing for my job

And it doesn't feel like anyone is playing for their job I mean I mean he keeps referring to the group and what the group's going to do And he's shown very little inclination to To change up who the group consists of So I mean there is it almost seems like there is a bit of a I don't know if I want to call it a safety net But you know you can kind of project pretty easily out and a lot of the guys who were in this game, whether they've been performing well or not, you can assume we're going to be in the

January camp, especially if the U23s are holding a separate camp and aren't competing with them directly. So, you know, it's easy to see, well, you don't like Lovets, you don't like trap, you don't necessarily love Roldon. It's almost unthinkable that they would miss out on the January camp, and so that's going to put them even farther ahead in sort of Burhalter's valuation system. And, you know, this is it. like these are the guys.

Yeah. Until somebody, you know, until somebody breaks into a big five league, which I think it's clear that that Burrhalter does respect that. You know, he's given McKenney, despite some uneven performances, McKenny is basically an automatic starter for Burrhalter. So, yeah, we need players like Richie Ledesma, Chris Richards to get legit first team minutes for clubs that it's very hard to get first team minutes at before they can break in here.

because that's a box that Burrhalter seems to require. Yeah. And I just feel, I'll say it again, it feels like we're no closer to being a possession dominant team than we were under Saracan 12 months ago. Was Serrikin still the coached 12 months ago? I think technically, yes, I believe. He definitely coached the friendlies in November 12 months ago.

So, no, I'd agree with that. I think like the actual only big differences between Serican and Burrhalter are that Burrhalter's defense is much more organized, as much as it's not necessarily a sexy defense. The 4-4-2 that he had been trotting out for the first 16 of his 18 games was sort of, I almost want to say it was like airtight. It was really difficult for teams to actually create scoring chances on it. It also did a very terrible job of creating scoring chances for the U.S. by turning teams over in the middle and attacking thirds.

but that was a huge difference because with Saracan, we were a complete mess on the defensive side as well as the office side. So that's really like the progress that I've seen. I don't think there has been much in the way of attacking progress, turning our program into this possession-based team. Well, before we get back to the possession part, how much credit do you give Burrhalter for switching up his defensive shape, which he has done in the last two games?

So he gets his decision So he gets all of the credit for it But he also gets all of sort of the blame for the fact that it took 16 games to do it It was I don't think it was I don't think it was sort of I don't think there are any other coaches who would have stuck with that low pressure Low pressure passive defense for as long as Burrhalter stuck with it for again no discernible reason So so two marks in the positive column and 16 strikes 16 strikes two positives yes It does help that the positive marks are the most recent ones.

I mean, at least there's some positive there that we've made a shift. Right. It seems like we have. It's, again, it feels like just a lot of lost opportunities for the first 10 months of the year of the Greg Berthelter era. But if this is the direction we're moving, this is a positive direction to move. As for the possession part, I don't know. I mean, does this process take time? Maybe.

Is Burrhalter not calling up the right players to do it? No, he's not. Whose fault is that? Burrhalters? I mean, I'm answering my own questions, getting awfully rhetorical over here. But Rodan and Lovitz have played more than 1,600 minutes respectively this year. Trap hasn't played since the Mexico friendly, but he's still logged 550 minutes for the national team. Aurella, who in my opinion is a level up from those other three just as a contributor,

still isn't the kind of player who is going to make this system hum. I think that's, it's got to be clear. Is that clear to you? Yeah, I thought Ariel was one of our worst possession players in Canada-friendly. And he's logged more than 1,000 minutes for Berhalter this year. So I don't know, if the players aren't good enough to do what Berhalter is trying to do, he needs to call up different players, but he's not going to do that. So here we are.

Yeah. Right, the repeated references to the group in that clip. just played are, seem like pretty clear evidence that things are kind of stuck the way they are player pool wise. Yeah, I'm expecting, I'm expecting a very similar January camp, uh, or a lot of these names that we're seeing now to be in the January camp without too many new faces, especially because the new faces are going to get called off to the U23s, presumably. So, uh, it's, it's hard to see where we're going to, where, where those changes are going to happen unless Burrhalter can actually sort of flip that switch and get this exact group of players to play

an extremely tidy, well-oiled style of soccer. We are just so far, we're so poorly oiled at the moment. Yeah, we need barrels of WD-40. It doesn't seem like the switch is going to flip. It doesn't seem like we're going to be well-oiled with this group of players. But that doesn't mean we won't be able to get results. And that doesn't mean we won't be able to beat Mexico even. If we're, you know, if we play a resolute defensively organized game the way we did against Canada,

we can weather the Mexican storm and if we have Tyler Adams and Christian Pulisic in the lineup we can score goals. And Jordan Morris. Yeah, and Jordan Morris. If we can get Jordan Morris into space it creates some turnovers in the middle third,

attacking third, Jordan Morris has proven to be an effective player in those situations. So it's not, so I guess what I'm saying is it's not all doom and gloom. I think if we're going to be, if we're going to be not the thing that Burrhalter says he wanted us to be

and just be like a, a team that forces moments of transition and scores goals that way, that could, that could be fine. Heading into World Cup qualifying, even with this group, it could be fine. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I feel like, but what it seems like is there's definitely no clear path to, to playing the style that Burrhalter sort of was championing, championing, at his sort of unveiling. So, I mean, especially given that these next camps are going to be so disjointed because of all the Olympic obligations that we've got. I mean, we've got January where we don't have any of the Euros.

We've got March where I'm not sure what our plan is going to be breaking the squad up. Then in June we'll have the semifinals and finals of Nations League, but we'll also be preparing for the actual Olympics, assuming we qualify. So there's just so many of these sort of variables that could be further obstacles towards developing that that real style that we already aren't sure we're going to be able to play. Yeah. I'm curious if Burrhalter is going to coach the Olympic team, assuming they, well, maybe even in qualifying. I don't know.

But it seems like he should coach them if they go to the Olympics, just my opinion. And bring an actual, like, full, full strength team? Yeah, regardless. Yeah, you try to bring the best players regardless. But I think a lot of our best players are U23s. why not have Burrhalter take over that squad and coach them the way he wants them to be coached? It makes a ton of sense. Yeah, it makes sense to me to do that because that would be, I believe those games would be the Olympics are going to be after the June contest.

So I still see the Olympics as a what could be used as a pre-World Cup qualifying camp. Yeah. With a ton of players who should be, you know, playing a role in qualifying. It does, it completely makes sense to me to have Burrhalter be running the show there. But at this point, what I thought would make a lot of sense and what sort of Burrhalter thinks makes sense have veered off in completely separate directions. So I'm not, I'm no longer sort of giving myself any real, any real credit for thinking that's going to happen. Right, right. Do we need to cover anything else about the Burrhalter era?

it's just it just feels like it's been a lot of smoke and mirror which is it's disappointing because I it did come in sort of saying all the right things and and even differently than Clemsman because Clemsman would say like the first sentence of what you wanted to hear and then he would just sort of throw out a bunch of like absolute nonsense that didn't mean anything Berthelter was actually like getting the whiteboard out and like drawing things and saying here's what we here's what we see working and here

and so you there felt like there was that sort of underlying piece and and on the field at least there's just had there hasn't been anything to sort of back that up yeah and and I'll even grant that you know we've had we've had some people who will post like well here's a here's a clear pattern that they're trying to run uh in the canada front the Canada game for example we win for one and and it doesn't look great but then someone will post a couple of examples and say well here's a pattern they're looking for they brought these players over. Canada's pressured this way. So now John Brooks is looking for this pass. To target winger Jordan Morris. Right. And so that's what you're saying. Inevitably,

like there are a few, there might be three or four, six examples of that from the game, and we hold on to the ball one time. I don't know that you can really call that progress. I don't think we're basically at the base, the very zero position of the pattern. I mean, we're talking about one pass from the goalkeeper to Brooks and then Brooks hitting the next pass. if that's as far as we are, and then we turn it over on the next sequence, if that's as far as we are, like I don't,

I'm not holding that up as like, it just takes time. Like if that's, if it takes us that long to get the first two passes down, then, then we're not going to get there. I, you know,

I don't know that smoke and mirrors is necessarily fair, that, you know, that indicates that there has been like some deliberate deception on the part of, that's true. It's like, it may just be that he,

he had some ideals, he thought he could execute. And, and he hasn't been able to do it. The question is, does he still think he can? Or has he changed, has he changed the way he's thought about that? And he has not spoken to that. And to be fair to him, he's not really been asked about that

because, yeah, the press corps after the Canada game didn't really ask that question. And there was basically no press corps after the Cuba game. So I would like to hear from him, though, on that. Like, how has his thinking about the way we can play evolved? and, you know, does he still think we can do what he said we can do at the beginning of his tenure? So I'll just go back to even the smoke and mirrors a little bit. And he does say things that I think it's too far to say they're disingenuous. But, you know, when he's talking about the Mexico friendly where we try to play a certain way and commit to it fully and basically completely failed to play that way.

And he starts talking about, well, we are. very happy with the progress we made in that game. Like, I can get committing to play that way. But to say that, like, there's actually progress being made just seems like such a leap. So if there had been, like, then it would have presented itself against Canada or, you know, in the home leg against Canada, we would have been able to successfully navigate our way through more than just like saying, well, here's the very early stages of one or two patterns. So that's where, that's where I get into. I don't think he's, I think in his head, he's, he thinks we're getting there. so I don't know so smoking mirrors is still too much but I don't think he's ready to sort of

change or evolve I think he he thinks we've got it or we're getting we're going to get there yeah well I mean I hope he's right I hope he's right about that well he's going to have an extra six weeks with the with most of the group in January and so this is where everyone says there's extra value in that so at some point we'll have to see if that value can translate the on-field performance. Hopefully we'll get to see a few new faces in January camp, but the faces we really want to see are in Europe and we won't see them in January. Let's do, I have a few player assessments from this game.

I know there's not a lot to take from it, but I think there's a little bit to take. And I wonder if you want to go first. Do you have any ideas? Sebastian Leget did not play coach's decision. Yeah. I don't know if Lajette's been sort of my like your axe to grind. Yeah, because it seemed like he's such a clear upgrade for the type of player we need to push things forward. And when he plays, he proves that time and again and then he just doesn't play again.

Now he's been injury prone in his career. So this might be a Brooke situation where given the service, given the quality of the opponent, we decide to bubble wrap him. In which case, fair enough. Otherwise, it's a missed opportunity to at least just. get him on the field with McKinney and Ewell. You know, they did well enough against Canada. Giving them another few reps together seems like it could have been helpful. Instead, we moved McKinney back into the more attacking midfield role and put Roldon back on the field.

Seems like a waste of minutes to me at this point, but clearly another spot where Burhalter and I disagree. Yeah, that's maybe one of the biggest disagreements between you and Burholt. Yeah, I wish we had seen Legette. On the plus side, I thought Yule was pretty good. And Berthelter made him the man of the match, or, you know, at least in his opinion. He hung in there in tough conditions. He put out several fires defensively. He put in consistent performances at that position for two straight games.

And I think given his mobility and, you know, the fact that you don't lose a ton in distribution, I take him over Bradley at this point going forward. He'd be like my number two, six. Behind Adams? Yeah. I think you have to, for me, you have to put him ahead of Bradley if they're even close, given that Bradley is 38 years old and Jackson Ewell is 24 years old. What's he will, 22?

I can't remember. Maybe 202. He's Olympic eligible, so he's definitely not 23. And Bradley's not 38, if anyone's fact-checking this. 32, or 31 or 32, one of the two. But he's very clearly on the decline. So again, talking about, you know, using minutes judiciously, use them on the 22-year-old when you're still three years away from the World Cup.

Yeah, totally. And it's not like Yule has been transcendent. I think I said that in the last podcast. He's just pretty good. He's pretty good. And I think he's an upgrade on Bradley because of his mobility and his work rate defensively. Morris, Jordan Morris beat up on another poor opponent. And he is our best winger in Burrhalter's pool other than Poulsick.

But I think he's benefiting from serious, great inflation. I think the praise is kind of getting out of hand. Still, to me, a very limited player. And I hope, you know, Tim Wea gets back from injury quickly and pushes him. Hopefully Ullianez and Giovanni Raina develop and break into their first teams so that they can get a look and seriously push him. I just don't think we're going to be able to disorganize opponents with the ball running through Morris's feet. Right, right. It's that sort of double-edged sword where the things he's very good at are very useful, but they're also going to hold us back.

The things he's not great at are going to hold us back a lot in our quest to be this fluid. possession team. Yeah. McKinney, like you said, got stuck in the more advanced attacking midfield role, which is not his forte. But even with that sort of caveat, he continues to be an enigma. He was involved in three goals last night. Like we said, most of those goals weren't really that nice.

But he had his usual high profile moments of messiness, like that left-footed, well, he sent a left-footed volley to Mars. from inside the right at the edge of the six. But he also... Oh, we skipped that in the run-up. That was, that was a lot. We could actually post that whole sequence because that was one of our better sequences

in like the 46 minute of the game. Oh, the one where he kicked it over? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That build-up was actually pretty solid. That's another one where I want to see a dozen of those in the game against Cuba. And we had, what, three, three or four? Yeah, I think, I mean, I was watching it this morning.

I couldn't watch you yesterday because I was, Megan Rapino's in town, not to see me specifically, but she was in town doing like a Q&A at Drake University. So I was there watching that and only caught the men's game this morning. But I was sending you the timestamps, like, oh, that's a good attack. And then 30 minutes later, I'd send you another one. So when we're going 30 minutes between those kinds of attacks, that's disheartening. So I don't know.

I mean, a lot of people are really critical of McKenney. He does good stuff. He does bad stuff. Hopefully he can clean it up. And if he can't, hopefully he gets pushed by younger other midfielders in the next year. So I think competition is probably good for him. It is. But let's make sure that competition is happening at that sort of eight spot rather than the 10 spot.

Because otherwise it's just putting McKinney in a bad position to succeed. Josh Sargent, another one I want to note, got his brace. And I'm happy for that. but he continues to be a little unconvincing. I guess I'm just sort of thinking out loud here, but it seems to me like his strength is combination play, not stretching the lines or making decisive run. So he needs to work on that part of his game.

But his combination play maybe would look better if he was surrounded by better players, like better wingers, more technical wingers, wingers with quicker speed of thought. Just a thought. It would. He's still good at, I think he's still good at, combining with even with the players that, you know, we're playing yesterday.

But but you're right in that he's, he's very much a, he seems very much a complimentary player. He's not going to break things open himself. No. Not yet at least. He's, he's, so he's not dominant in the way of Josie Altador is just able to dominate, dominate two central defenders at once. Yeah. Or Joseph Fernandez can just like shoot the gap between them and just make, right, punish them.

He just does, sergeant just doesn't have that ruthlessness yet. only 19, you know, he's got, he's got time to develop a mean streak. Final thought for me is, does anyone still think DeAndre Yedlin is better than Reggie Cannon? Lots of people do. Do you? I'm basically just calling it a push. Is that, is that a cop out? I think it's a cop out. I think Canon's clearly better. He's more, a canon's more technical, for one thing. I'd probably grant you that. Yeah, I don't, I don't know, I don't know what the argument becomes for Yedlin over Canaan other than Yedlin plays from Newcastle, right? Yeah.

And that means something. It does mean something that he's kept a job in the Premier League for, what, three years running now. Yeah. But, yeah, it sure doesn't seem to have made a difference when he puts on a national team shirt compared to when Kannon puts on the national team shirt. I thought Yelan was pretty bad again last night. I thought he was pretty bad against Canada a month ago. Didn't play, you know, kind of had a not applicable against.

against Canada last week. But, you know, a lot of poor touches, doesn't offer much. I mean, I guess defensively he was okay, but he wasn't tested. So I know, I would like to see, I would like to see Canon move permanently above the Yedlin in the depth chart. And if anybody who's going to say I'm like some MLS Homer about that, talk to all the people who call me a Euro snob, you know, you guys should have dinner together. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if that's reasonable.

or realistic, realistic, I guess, would be the way to say it. I guess Cannon will get the extra five weeks in January camp this year to see if he can make a really good impression. Remember, last January Canon did not appear in the friendlies. Nick Lima took the job with the inverted right back. What would you call it an experiment? So that experiment seems to be done. So the chance for Canon to sort of really take a firmer,

hold of the position is there for this extended camp. In any event, we definitely need to have four right backs on all rosters going forward. And, you know, from a Sergenio Des, John Brooks' perspective, it's kind of a perfect window. We got the win without playing them in the second half of the window that lets them go back to Europe healthy and ready to be involved for their clubs. Hopefully Desk can start getting minutes again. And Brooks apparently is in tip-top shape, going back to Wolfsburg, which is an unusual outcome for him. after an international window. I'll have to keep an eye on that too,

because I feel like Brooks has had a couple of did not plays for Wolfsburg, even though he's back healthy. So it seems unlikely that he'd have lost his spot, but we'll have to monitor that one carefully. I think his did not place came between his injury layoff and his first appearance. All right. He was kind of like he was on the bench a couple times.

I don't know, just to get time to come back. Anything else we need to talk about? I don't have anything else. No, we're good to go. We're ramping up to all the... We're basically just ramping up to a pretty stacked 2020 schedule for the national team. Yeah, preceded by a little bit of a quiet period here. We'll try to come up with some programming for y'all.

Greg, thanks for talking to me. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.