Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 119: Ten good things that just happened for the USMNT

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

Tyler Adams dominant return to the RB Leipzig midfield and Gio Reyna's professional debut headline what's been a pretty encouraging run of news for the U.S. Men's National Team. We picked out 10 things. 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 Scufft podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez in Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Hello, everyone, and thanks for downloading another episode of Scuffed. Greg, how are you doing? Bells, I'm great. The Bundesliga is back in full swing, and with it, several Americans in full swing as well.

It's morning in America, as Ronnie Regan once said. So we're going to go out BuzzFeed and do 10 good things that happened since we last recorded. Not all 10 are unmitigated. a good thing. Some of them are just us noting some facts that have happened, but the first eight or so are all really good. And what, in your opinion, is the number one good thing that is happening? So a bit of an upset victory here for number one on the list because I think a lot of people, especially who was in the scuffed, might think we'd go with the big youth news. But for me, it's still the Tyler Adams show for the U.S. men's national team. And Tyler Adams returned to

central midfield for Bundesliga leading Red Bull Lebesig. Champions League favorites, Red Bull Leibzig, with the return of Tyler Adams, looked very Tyler Adams-esque, very clean, very tidy, efficient, and everywhere. Just a pain in the butt to play through. He's so hard to play through. Yeah, I think it's a close. You know, Gio Reina's debut is very close to being the biggest news of the week. weekend, but I'm going to go with Adams, too. He did everything we love about Tyler Adams in his first stint back in the midfield for R.B. Leipzig, alert, decisive, tenacious, athletic, and entirely ball secure, even throwing in a couple penetrating passes in the final third. I've been saying, everyone's been sleeping on his passing. Been saying it for a year. I know, you've been saying it. I'm still not, you know, we don't have to argue about that. I like his, I like the way he passes the ball. As soon as he, but the, you know, the, you know, the, you know,

The big picture thing is you can just see that as soon as he's back in the lineup for the USA, he changes the way our national team can play. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think if he keeps playing like this, I think he's probably in line for a March call-up. Probably. Come on. He's definitely in line. Yeah, we've been saying for a year that he makes the U.S. men's national team better, but this is just a fresh, encouraging, stark reminder of how massive of an upgrade he is at the number of. and it makes me more excited about 2020 for the national team.

I'll quote Jamie Hill from Twitter who said, I think some other players are going to magically put in some better looking performances when Adams is running defensive midfield, end quote. And I think that's the big point here, in my opinion. Is Jamie Hill sub-tweeting Will Trap there? Is he saying that Will Trapp is going to be our midfielder next to Tyler Adams? I don't think so. I think the way I take it is maybe McKinney will look better, maybe even Sebastian Leggett,

and if Christian Pulisic ends up playing in the midfield will look better. Everybody will look better. No, I totally agree. Jamie Hill is spot on. The back line will suddenly look a lot better with that level of protection in front of them, fewer fires for, say, Aaron Long to be trying to put out racing back towards his own goal. It's really, really fun to think about what Tyler Adams will do for us. And this was a big deal because it was his first game back in the midfield for them after, you know, nine months out pretty much.

Right. Eased him back at right back in the game before the big winter break for the Bundesliga. During the winter break sold off their starting central midfielder, which is kind of crazy for the team leading the league to sell off a starter. But your Red Bull, it's just a business to you. So you got some good business to do. you do it. And you have Tyler Adams waiting in the wing, so it makes it a little more easier, it makes it a little easier to sort of pull the trigger on them on a move like that. Yep. Yep. And they have a huge February coming up, I think, in the span of 10 days or so,

they face Byron Munich in Munich, and then the opening leg of their Champions League tie with Tottenham, and then they face Shalka. So keep your eye on R.B. Leipzig. The German Cup also going on. So they're going to have a lot of competitions that they're going to have to figure out what's most important. Or they'll just say Tyler Adams is a machine and he can play in all of those games. Let's hope they don't do that. Give them a little bit of rest here or there. So let's move on to number two, which is a very close number two,

and it's Geo Rana's debut for BVB Dortmund coming on for Thorgon Hazard in the 72nd minute of a wild game. That was 4-3 to Dortmund over Augsburg at the time. of his substitution. From a global perspective, Rana's debut was overshadowed by the Dortmund debut of Erling Holland. Am I saying that right? The Norwegian teenager? The guy who scored 11 goals against Honduras.

How many goals did he score against Honduras in the U-20 World Cup? I don't know, some insane number. And he scored a hat-trick off the bench for Dortmund in his debut. He seems to be the real deal. But Rana is also- Jesse Marsh is a starmaker. Let me just interject right there and say this is all Jesse Marsh. No one had heard of Erling Holland until Jesse Marsh got a hold of him.

Jesse Marsh sure didn't hurt Erling Holland any, you know. And Raina, so Raina was overshadowed by all that, but he did help create the fifth goal, and he generally looked apart, as they say. He looks like he's comfortable with the speed of play in the Bundesliga, which is kind of, you know, the key thing. And he had three or four positive moments. It's a pretty big deal. right? I mean, this is a pretty massive deal. I think this is earlier than a lot of people expected. Even people who are like, hopefully he'll go on the Pulisic track. I mean, of course,

we're hoping that. The Pulisic track being, you know, play for the Unitines in the fall when you move to Dortmund and then break in over the winter break and kind of get some games in in the spring. But that still seemed like the very, very optimistic hope. And to see it sort of playing out is pretty incredible. Yeah, right. I mean, I haven't been the biggest reign of fan because I have a bias toward players who pass the ball well,

and he doesn't seem to do that. And he seemed like a bit of a prima donna with his age group, you know, with the U-17s. So you're kind of just basing this on sort of his national team, his youth national team appearances, right? Yeah, lots of remonstrations against his teammates, you know, physical manifestations of his frustration.

And, you know, I did that when I played sports. as a teenager too so I you know I'm not I'm not throwing stones but um but I but I but you know it's he hasn't been my favorite but I say all that as preface to say even I can acknowledge that his talent and and like you said the context here is is really important I'm I mean Dorman manager luci and Favre is apparently effusive by his standards about reina Lars Pullman who is a German journalist who is not effusive himself was sort of making this point on Saturday. Pullman's been on the show before he's really, really sharp guy. He said, you know, he said, Fav talks about Rana in a way he doesn't

talk about anybody else, how excited he is about him. And that, that means a lot. I know you don't think it means a lot, but I think it does. Well, Pullman, by the way, not an American. He's a, my correct there, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, Dorman fan. So it's not like we're getting the American lenses there. No, I, I think that, I think that does matter a little in this case. But more important is what matters more is far obviously pulling the trigger and putting Raina

on the field in meaningful games. Yeah, in a game that was not decided, right? It was 4-3 at the time with 20 minutes to go. And you have to be very good to get on the field for Dortmund. And Raina has already broken that barrier. And not to mention Dortmunds

in a title race. So, I mean, there's just a lot. There's just a lot here to say that this matters quite a bit. And if he keeps getting minutes and he did nothing on Saturday to indicate he won't keep getting minutes, he's an automatic U.S. Men's National Team call up in March done and dusted. Yeah, hands down. And Dortmund in a similar position as Leipzig, they've got Champions League coming up against PSG. They've got, they're still in the German Cups, so they'll have those minutes to sort of hand out as well.

I'm going to sort of project that that Raina is going to continue being on the field for Dortmund in some capacity. I don't think this is sort of a one-off thing where he goes back on the shelf or sort of just goes back to a training body. Right. And what about us in our first team minutes as the litmus test? Are we going back on our word here? Are we being inconsistent by being so excited about this first team debut? No, I'm always excited for the debut because it's exciting for. for the player.

So I'm always excited when, you know, Oda Soie gets on the field for wolves. Like, that's awesome for the kid. It doesn't, it shouldn't necessarily change your opinion or your assessment of a player. Um, what it can do, though,

is sort of show you that you were really wrong about the player before. So, uh, you know, Gio Raina famously left off of our last top 40 list. Uh, which, which I think was just sort of like complete oversight.

Yeah. Because he was on the, the first top 40 list despite not playing it all for Dortmund. So we miss that. And I think like the next weekend he was on Dortmund's bench. Like two days later. Two days later. So, you know, when something like that happens, I think what the correct sort of analysis is to say, all right, I was probably wrong before.

I was probably wrong before and I underestimated his level before this. It's not like we now say, oh, he's made a huge jump into his ability. No, we just, we were just, we didn't realize how far he already was, I think is what it is. Yeah. So again, if you're going to do that, then that should inform future decisions even on other players and say, is it possible that we should be giving more looks to players who are on the verge of a breakthrough? Rather than just waiting for that magic box to get checked. And that means, you know, okay, now, now we know. Well, I'm satisfied.

I feel 100% consistent. And I'm sure everyone will agree with me. So that's huge positive news. I mean, that's a big, big deal. And now we have potentially a, another Dortmund winger in the national team. And Tyler Adams coming up, coming into the team, clicking on all cylinders at the six. I'm excited. I'm excited just on the strength of those two pieces of information.

But wait, there's more. There's more. It's not quite as big of a deal. It's not even close to as big of a deal But Richel dezma got a brace for young PSV on Friday Then came off the field with an ankle injury So that eliminated any possibility that he would have been in the PSV first team roster On Sunday, which we don't know if that would have happened anyway

The goals were outstanding One was a curler, Golazzo from 22 yards out The other was a basketball-style interception and fast break capped by a chip of the keeper at full tilt So good stuff, the ankle injuries, not great, but I don't think it's going to keep him off the field for too long. Any thoughts there? So just like we don't think that first team appearances should be your litmus test, also like goals, these kinds of goals and bunches shouldn't necessarily like sway your opinion all that much. You know, I think you went back and watched his entire game.

And how would you say his actual full performance was? It was okay. It was not his, you know, he's had, like I said, in the Slack, he's had five or six better games than the one he had on Friday. Those better games, he didn't score a goal or get an assist. But, you know, in this one, I thought he was less precise in the middle of the field. And then, you know, he managed to get these two goals. So, yeah, you're right. It's hard to put too much stock in any one thing.

So same as always. You should be excited because it's cool when an American. is doing these kinds of things. Little context on Ledesma's game, in this case, they were down to 10 men fairly early on. So he's going to look a little less composed in the center of the field because he's going to have fewer options to play when he's on the ball. But yeah, I mean, we're high on Ledema. We're excited for the multi-goal game.

We're still high on Ledema. That's kind of how it goes. Yeah. I would say my one caution with Ledzma, and it's, I'm going to sound like I'm talking about Mendez a little bit, but I do worry about his defending, like his 1V1 wrestling match, ability to win a wrestling match for the ball. And I know people are going to call me a Philistine for even bringing this up. But it's, you know, it matters. It matters at this level of soccer. And I do think, you know, he could use a little more muscle. If he's going to, if he's going to break into

that first team, he does need to, he needs to win physical battles or at least, you know, hold his known. And I think that's a little bit of a weakness in his game, not to the same extent that it is for Alex Mendez, but a little bit of a weakness. And it may be what's holding him back from being in the PSV first team. Because a kid, you know, another kid from the young PSV, actually a kid who's been mostly playing with the PSVU19s, Noni Maduechi, a British kid. He's 17 and he got his PSV debut on Sunday. And I would say the main difference between him and Ledesma

is athleticism and strength. Maduecki is stronger and faster. But they're both really good soccer players. So just a word on that. The British kid plays on the wing, is that right? Yeah. Which Ledesma

does when he plays with the first team too. He plays on the left wing. Madiwake he plays on the right wing. Let me press you a little bit on the wrestling matches. you're talking about here. Do you think Ledesma has a tendency to get bumped off of the ball once he's on it? Are you just talking about in scraps when things get loose from other players and the balls between Ledesma and another guy?

Well, he's so good at, he's so quick and elegant and he can unbalance a player. So he doesn't get bumped off the ball much because he's just moving fast and thinking fast, which is what I love about him as a player. it's more that when he when he squares up with a guy he's he's pretty easy to eliminate you know he doesn't he's not able to get his shoulder in there and uh and take the ball away from somebody the way even like uh i know i'm doing some deep cuts here but even like nazi univar the 17 year old for iax a really highly touted playmaker for them he he he does it you know he gets in there and he takes a ball from people and he's a you know he's a what you might consider like a luxury attacker uh and he

He does it, you know. So that's what I'm talking about. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So when he's on the defensive side, squaring a guy, the attacker has him squared up. He's not really a threat to dislodge or dispossess. Yeah, I'm not going to say he's no threat, but he's, there are enough times over the course of this season where he's been, where you say, oh, man, that was a little too easy for the other guy. All right.

All right. I don't, I'll have to, I'll have to watch that a little closer. I'm going to, I'm going to speculate that it might be the, uh, the, the, the, the, the, sort of scuffed magnifying glass where when you watch one guy super closely, those things really stand out, whereas anyone else who does it, it's just sort of background, white noise. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. But I criticize because I love, as you know.

But I do want to keep track that. I want to monitor it on him because I'm usually looking at his on-the-ball actions. Right, right. Well, let's move to number four. Indiana Vasselive made his debut for Aston. Villa. This would not have been a prediction anybody would have made at the beginning of the year. No, I don't even think it was a prediction I would have made four weeks ago. Right. He's been helped along by a lot of injuries at Aston Villa, but the coach is saying

good things about him said he's ready to start in the Premier League, which is quite a thing to say. He seems to be well-liked because he works hard. And even if he doesn't get in another minute, an 18-year-old American attacker getting a Premier League debut is something we should mention and make note of. Yeah, definitely something to celebrate and then just continue to sort of keep him on the radar, track him with the U-20s. I'm assuming he'll play a big role for the U-20s this cycle. Yeah, I hope so.

He's not a player. It's hard to see footage of him over the course of this season. From what I have seen, he's often, you know, he's just battling for, you know a Hail Mary ball up top so it haven't gotten a lot of chance to see him in combination with other players or making you know making incisive runs in the box because asinville is not is not in that situation very often so we'll see we'll see but for now he's basically the 18 year old bobby wood that's what he looks like yeah yeah i think he's left footed i think he's left footed too. Number five, just another ho-hum weekend in the Bundesliga.

Why don't you take this one? It's wild that we can just have sort of all these players sort of in the background. Timmy Chandler starts, goes 90 minutes on the right wing for Frankfurt. Scores the match winner, pretty actually involved in the first goal for Frankfurt, where in midfield he dispossesses a guy with a sliding tackle. Frankfurt go straight down the field and score on the counter. Again, four start scores the goal. Just a quick bit on Chandler, though,

if you're expecting a lot of goals from him because of this, don't get your hopes up. So in those last four starts where he's gone 90 in each start, he's down taking two shots, and one of those was the goal with his head. But again, coming out of the break and still being a starter for Frankfurt is a pretty big deal. and if he stays a starter.

I know he's not really on a lot of people's national team depth charts. I just don't see how you don't start to at least ask questions about whether he help the squad, help the U.S. men's national team. I know some people on whose radars he is. Some people. I'm trying to diagram the sentence. Some of your good, right, that my seventh grade English teacher would be appalled. But there's some people you interact with on Twitter who are big Chandler fans.

and you've interacted. Yeah, they came after me because I'd always left him off of the weekend previews because he went all of last season without playing, and last season was one when we started doing those previews because he was injured. And then this season kicks off, and he was basically just seeing occasional substitute appearances, a lot of did not unused substitute summary. So I wasn't including him, and after his third start,

people were starting to get on me about it. I still don't know what role he's going to play for the U.S. if he ever will. But, you know, I was worried that after the injury, he had sort of lost a bit of his ability. But he's now, again, started four straight games. He's 29, I think. And he can play on the wing. He can play it right back, potentially a left back. But mostly, though, he's don't think of him as a goal score.

He's not, he doesn't take a lot of shots. He doesn't score goals. But he is a diligent, high. pressure type defender. He will really get into people's faces, and he whips in a really good ball with his right foot. I don't love whipping in crosses too much as a tactic, but he has a very good cross, and he's, again, he's going to be a rugged defender. That's why they call you the Pep Guardiola of Westmore. Yeah, that makes sense. I would cut, are you going to just cut your losses and start putting him in the playbill? It was in it. I had him in it last go-round before.

Or his goal. So it was timely. It was a timely insertion. All right. Well done. Which I suddenly don't like to hear that said out loud. Other three sort of ho-hum things in the Bundes League of Josh Sargent started went 90. Yeah, I think he went 90.

In a 1-0 win for Verde Bremen. John Brooks started. Relegation Sixer. That was, I believe, against Alfredo Morales and Dusseldorf, right? Right. And Morales was on the other side of that team sheet. I I don't the only comments I have are on sergeant because he's you know he's so important to the player pool if if he I want you got to watch I got to watch every one of his performances because if he gets to be as good as we think he can be that changes the national team a lot we didn't see that sort of coming out party over the weekend but I and he had a couple poor touches which you can see on Watkeys Wachie's all touches video he put together or at least the highlight video.

The thing I want to mention is Sergeant, you know, Sergeant is going to have to scrap for opportunities for this Verde Bremen team. It appears that way. And that's going to be good for him, you know, where he's going to have to be really smart and incisive when he gets a chance because he's not going to get,

he's not going to get the ball at his feet five times in the box in a game. It's not going to happen like that. I mean, I guess, like I get that line of thought, but I don't, I'm not sure. I'm persuaded by it. I mean, we're sounding pretty similar to what we were just talking about with Vasilev and Aston Villa and Bobby Wood when he was in the Bundesliga and Josie Altador when he was with

Sunderland or Josie Altador when he was with Whole City. And I just don't, I don't know if that's the case. Is that better for the forward to just be in that situation? Or is it better for Josie Altador when he was at, uh, in Hollins banging in 30 goals a year? I don't remember what kind of play, you know, the subtleties. of the kind of player Altador was back then. But what I do know about Sargent is he, if there's a critique, it's a lack of hunger and, you know, hunger slash anger in his movement.

All right. He just can be a little, he can be a little sleepy headed out there. And, you know, if he has to, if he knows that he has, you know, this is his chance. He has to, he has to be decisive and make this move and try to score a goal. if he doesn't necessarily score the goal. If he makes the movement, and if he learns to do that with a little more urgency, that's what I'm thinking.

Maybe it's better for him. Altador, maybe Altador was the same kind of player, and it didn't benefit him at all. It's possible. All right. That's my rationale. Again, it's wild that we just have Sergeant Morales, Brooks as sort of,

I don't know if Sargent's going to be a regular Bundes League of starter, but I think there is no real injury crisis, right? At Bremen, he was just selected. Yeah, I mean, the injury crisis happened a few months ago when the guy ahead of him, whose name escapes me at the moment, got an ACL injury. But I don't think at this point, it's sergeant's the guy, unless they bring somebody in, or no, no, you, you, Osaka is also in the picture, and he came off the bench in this game. So that's what I mean. Sargent was picked ahead of him, and part of that might mean because Bramman was in a bit of free fall at the end of, when Sargent was hurt, they lost four straight game.

So it might be where they're sort of like, we just got to try something new. Let's see what Josh Sargent can do for us. And they got the dub. I don't think you can really lay that at Sargent's feet, but they did win the game. So we'll see what happens for him this coming weekend. Number six, the back half of our 10 things that went well. Alex Mendez went 90 for the second straight game for Young Iax and scored. a goal from the penalty marker.

His first goal as a young IACs player. So good stuff. Good stuff. Did you see? I think the Croatian posted the buildup to the penalty. Mendez was very involved in the buildup to the pen with some nice little touches and really tight spaces. Cool combination play. Then pick the through ball to the guy who got sort of clipped from behind to earn the penalty.

I did not see the footage. I did read that that was how the. the penalty emerged. Check it out. You'll like it. It's very reminiscent of his play for the U20 Concaf. Like all his highlights from the U20 Concaf tournament. That's what it reminded me of straight away.

And to be doing that for young Iax is a big deal. Because he hasn't, I don't think he has had a lot of those moments. Yeah. He's had some, but not as penetrating as that, drawing a penalty. So, you know, Alex Mendez is still grinding, and he's got a lot of competition for minutes, but keep your eye on him, talented player. And that win sent Young I-X to the top of the table

in the second division in Holland. So the IX reserves now good enough to essentially be a top division team if they can hold this on until the end of the season. Kind of the mirror opposite of Young PSV. I think they're second bottom on the table. Right. And just another context, young IX cannot be promoted by the rule.

rules of the league. And this year, Young PSV, I believe, will not be relegated because they aren't relegating anybody this year. Yeah. Soccer United Marketing must have gotten a hold of Dutch soccer. Number seven, some youngsters in the lower divisions in England, Lyndon Gouche had a banger with his left foot from about 25 yards, and Charlie Kelman scored a nice goal. I'm actually more interested in Charlie Kelman at Southend United because he is U-20 eligible, and we do need some striker help heading into Cocky-Caf World Cup qualifying, which is in June. Apparently he was called up in January, but was denied. His club denied his release.

So I think Kelman's interesting and worth paying attention to. Kelman coming back from an injury too, right? Yes, I think so. I think he played a couple weeks ago. Okay. So that was cool. Linden Gouch's goal was the winner for Sunderland put them back into the promotional playoffs slot. So I think they're now sixth in league one.

All right. I mean, I'll take your word for it. I don't know. What's the way forward for Lending Gouche? I don't know, man. Like, again, he feels like he's in the same plane as a lot of sort of the mid-20s MLS guys that already have roles with the national team, like you're a role dons,

who we at least think, at scuffed think, are going to get pretty comfortably, easily passed by the upcoming generation. And so when you see Gio Raina starting for Dortmund, then Gouche's chances get even slimmer. I don't see what the path forward is for Gouche and the national team. But, you know, good to see him score.

a really, really nice goal like that. I guess a big victory for him personally would be to get picked up by a championship team because it doesn't look like Sunderland's going to make the jump. They will now on the strength of Lending Gouch's goal scoring. So that'd be the ideal since he's been with Sunderland since he was like 10 for him to lead them back to championship glory and then the very next year get promoted again

and do a reverse Sunderland. All right. Howie the lads. Number eight, Cameron Harper. This name is a bit of a mystery to me, but he's apparently impressing with the U-20s Celtic Reserves player. So the U-20s had a camp essentially concurrent with January camp in the same place, Bradenton, Florida. Harper, I have not seen one minute of footage of him playing, but apparently he played so well

in one of the friendlies with Mexico's U-20s that with Greg Berhalter in attendance that Burhalter brought him to the first team the next day, and he's a winger. So number eight is Cameron Harper, remember the name? I'm sorry we don't have more insight, unless you do, Greg. No, I don't. I actually just think this is a very good sign of the U.S. sort of operations, because this is what should happen. Now, it's a tiny sample size of Burhalter's impressed with him from one game in a U-20-friendly.

I'm not terribly excited about Cameron Harper individually, but I think that's how it should work. Like you see something that you really like. You sort of give him another chance to repeat it or give him a chance to play at a higher level and see what happens. Most likely, like, you know, maybe he caught Cameron Harper on a really good day against Mexico. And, you know, he's probably not going to be able to just jump right into the senior team and do it. But this is just how I think we should function is to not have like, it should be a very permeable program. Yeah, I totally agree.

I love that. I love the synergies. Give me more synergies. Number nine. Number nine, we're delving into the transfer rumor mill. Yeah, the European press says that, or to be more specific, in Italian, some Italian publication says, Anthony Robinson is about to be bought by AC Milan.

I don't know, man. What a mind-blowing development that would be. It doesn't make no sense. We like Anthony Robinson. I think he could contribute already to the U.S. national team in very specific ways. But I don't know. I don't know if it's a sign that Milan are really like really reaching or if we've all actually criminally underrated Anthony Robinson. I'm going to say if it's true, it's the former.

They're overreaching. But, you know, I mean, he's a good, he's a good player. But, I mean, I think of Italian, you know, historic Italian clubs, defenders for historic Italian and clubs being, like, really good at defense. And this is not a good fit on that front. Anyway, I mean, I hope it's true. I hope he goes to Milan. I hope that would be really awesome.

Right. Wigan about to be relegated. So he's about to be under contract with the League One team. So he's going to be looking for a life. line somewhere, a lifeline to A.C. Milan, not the worst thing. It doesn't make any sense, man. And if he goes, he's going on, like I said on Twitter, he's going on loan to Livorna before you can say Catanaccio. Number 10. This one, this isn't actually good news, but it was interesting to see Greg

Burhalter talk about Ullianez in a little hastily called press conference with essentially Ivis Glarcip. Berhalter knows that Ulianez, is a dual national. Glarzv said, he's also a dual national, and Beralta goes, is he? You know, very sarcastically.

And so that's good that he knows that he's a dual national. He said the right things about it's, we want to create the right environment for these players, an environment that they want to play in and it's up to the dual national to go with their heart.

He also mentioned that Yannes needs to, he didn't say it in so many words, but essentially his point was, I think you probably agree with me, Yannes needs to work to be a two-way player. He needs to get better at being tenacious, defending, and getting after it on that side of the ball. Yeah, Janus, by the way, has returned to Wolfsberg.

I don't remember if that had happened before our last recording, but Yannes is back in Germany no longer with the team, so we're not going to see him capped in this February-friendly. But, you know, high-upside winger, worth mentioning any developments for him with Greg Burhalter. Burrhalter didn't seem like he was

over the moon about Yanez, but he did talk about him a little bit. And just on that two-way player bit, it's not like I disagree. I don't know how Yanez will defend against grown men. We haven't seen that ever. But I do still want to kind of hit that

when we're talking about what we need to do to qualify for the World Cup, I don't think there's any who would say the reason we didn't qualify in 2018 is because we didn't get enough defense from our wingers. You know what I mean? Like I feel like we have to at some point recognize that to beat some of our Conca Calf opposition, at times it's going to be less about making sure we have well-rounded players in there and more about being like who can actually break down stubborn defensive teams that have committed to making it difficult to attack. And that's where I'm not saying Yannes can step in and do that right away. But that kind of player, the kind of player Yanez is if he's able to add a spark where he can just beat people or he can create things, I would heavily weight that over his ability to track back and defend.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So Greg Burhalter is wrong about that, in other words. No, I just want to make sure that we're kind of addressing the weight of, you know, the player traits. It's a really good point. It's a really good point. And it is, I agree with it completely. And I think it's a good ending point for us.

All right. Anything else? No, let's wrap up and let's catch the Premier League games on today. By the way, programming note, we're going to have Abel Mezzarose. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right, but a German journalist on the show next week while Greg is gallivanting around the United States of America to talk about the players in the Bundesliga. in some more detail and with a German perspective. And I guess we're not going to read off all the mistakes I made in the last podcast. The big one, the big one I'll tell you, which I got a lot of messages about, was a pronunciation of C-A-E-N, Nico Guccini's Club.

It's Khan. Khan, right. I think I was trying to get there. And then you immediately were like, no, it's cayenne, like the pepper. Yeah, I was wrong. I was wrong. I apologize. I want a written apology.

I have my sins are piling up there they are heavy on my shoulders hey listeners I'm gallivanting off to Austin next week Austin Texas so tell me where I should go in Austin Texas I want to eat things that are good to eat and I want to go places that are fun to drink you're also going to have two little kids with you right no no no no no this is grown-ups grown-ups only oh my goodness I know are you are you also going to Nashville Nashville a month later Okay. So around that time, I'll be asking for more Nashville directions. You are a big civil, you're a big Civil War buff, right?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Savannah after that. March to the Sea. The March to the Sea. Okay. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.