Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 122: The February USMNT Top 40

Episode Date: February 14, 2020

There’s enough in here for everyone to find a few things to disagree with. Enjoy! (And yes, Gio Reyna made the cut.)We'd prefer that you listen so I won't post the whole list but here are a few rankings to give you a taste.8. Jozy Altidore21. Timmy Chandler32. Mark McKenzie38. Niko Gioacchini  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. Thanks for downloading this episode of Scuff. We're back with our highly controversial list of the top 40 U.S. men's national team players for February 2020. As usual, it's going to be pretty easy to pick the first three or four, and then it gets highly, highly debatable. And we are plagued by recency bias, plagued by our own prejudices and confusion. and then by the end of it, we're going to be tired and even more confused. So here goes. Greg, are you ready? Very ready, bells. I've got this all down to a science. Yes, definitely a science, scientific method coming at you.

So a few more disclaimers before we get started. This is fun. It's really fun for us, and I think it's fun for a lot of people who listen to us. But it's also pretty hard to rank players, wouldn't you say, Greg? It's basically, I mean, it is basically impossible, especially given the state of the program at the moment. The complete like turnover from the last cycle makes it a discussion about 50 unproven players at the international level. Yeah. It's where maybe we're pulling names out of a hat. Maybe we're not.

I think how you put it earlier. Players who get call-ups and are playing and we, you know, who we have seen play in the last month. are naturally going to get more attention and going to get ranked higher. I mean, that's sort of the instinct that we have as human beings. We're going to try to avoid that. We're going to try to not be ruled by Greg Burhalter's call-ups. But it's just impossible not to completely. So, for instance, Jackson Ewell, really a top 20 U.S. men's national team player?

Is he? I guess so. Right? He looks like he's in the 23. He started five of the last six national team games, but I don't know. He may not be, he may not really be a top 20 U.S. player.

A year ago, he definitely was not. Yeah. A year from now, he may well not be again. So we just want you to know that we recognize to some extent that this is a foolish endeavor. And, uh, but we're going to do it anyway. We're going to do it anyway.

All right. Number one. You go, Greg. Number one, reclaiming his number one spot after coming back from injury. Tyler Adams, promptly injured again. Yeah, I was like he's back and healthy for RB Leipzig. I had that in the notes until this morning. Oh, wait, no, he's not.

Pulled his calf this week in training. According to Julian Noglesman, he's played a little more wide right than he has as a central midfielder for R.B. Leipzig lately. But my take is he's our most important player for the U.S. Mazz National Team as a central defensive midfielman. fielder regardless. And for me, at least, it's because he's so good at defending in the middle of the pitch. Yeah, breaking things up, covering an incredible amount of space in the midfield,

essentially doing the work of one and a half players in there. Plus, there's a player named Sergenio Desk who can play right back for us. Yep. He's going to come up here pretty soon. Consensus number one, Tyler Adams. Number two is Christian Pulisic, still hurt, still our best attacking player. I know. Like, I'm so hopeful that all of these guys who are just on the cusp of returning to health

actually make it back in time for March. Otherwise, March is going to be, it'll be such a disappointing March window. If all of the guys on this list who are a little bit hurt, don't make it back. I feel like it's not going to be that disappointing, even if they're not all back. Because it'll be an MLS light roster, right? Just because so many of the MLS guys will be playing with the Olympics or because you think they'll leave the MLS guys home with their clubs? I think both. All right.

Yeah, I could see it. I can see him not wanting to stretch MLS, especially with Concaf Champions League going on. Yeah. And I wouldn't be disappointed because there's a lot of guys, I think, that need to have the tires kicked who are playing over in Europe right now. Yeah. We'll get to a lot of those tire kick candidates in a little bit. We will indeed. So that's also consensus number two.

We're in total agreement here. Number three is Serginio Dest. Why don't you take him? Serginio Dest is back sort of fully in the rotation for IACs. He'd kind of fallen out shortly after he'd announced his U.S. national team commitment. I don't think the two were related, but he'd sort of fall into more of a bench roll. But he's back to starting regularly, if not intermittently, and playing really well. He's had some really impressive performances.

He's being linked to Byron Munich for a pre-transfer, I believe, in the neighborhood of, what, 20 million? Yeah. Reportedly, Iax wanted 30 million for him. That's Euros, I believe. And Byron was reported that they could meet maybe close to the middle at 26 million. And he took a video from the Alianz Arena in... in Munich watching a Byron Munich game, the one over the weekend. Just on holiday in Munich.

Right. It's not that far. It's like traveling from Minneapolis to Des Moines, basically. It's a little further than that. It's a little further than that. Okay. Number three, Sergenio Desk, I don't think there's much argument on that. Number four is who, Greg?

John Brooks, who has actually moved from a regular starter to a regular bench player. So Brooks is on the outs with the manager of Wolfsburg by all appearances, but he's still the first centerback on the United States Men's National Team Team sheet. I believe that's correct. Until somebody else proves that they're better than him. And I don't think anybody has. Centerback, that's my soapbox for the last month. Centerback is a position of some weakness in question marks for the men's national team. It's funny.

it's deep. It's a very deep position in that there's no drop-off. I feel like you could lose Zimmerman. You could lose Ream. You could lose. Who's our fourth? Long. Those are long.

Well, yeah. Yeah, even long. And then, like, you could still be like, okay, well, we'll just plug in Cameron Carter Vickers or all right. Well, you know, we have. Measka. Yeah, Matt Miyazga. We just have so many guys that we can plug in who have, there's just no discernible

difference. So, but none of those guys are particularly. strong. Yeah, they're all, they're like all interchangeable aftermarket auto parts. That's mean. That's not what they are. They're human beings. But you get the drift of the metaphor, I think. Number five is Weston McKenney. So we were unanimous on our first four names. Here's where we start to diverge. He's, when healthy, he plays for Shalka and often starts. I think he's our number eight under Burrhalter for now, right? That's where I really hope so, because I think he's been very ineffective playing as the 10, sort of in Burr-Helder system, that's almost been a right-left distinction.

Like the left central midfielder has been more advanced. And, I mean, sometimes it's like they're almost symmetrical, the two playing above the Michael Bradley-Jackson-U-Will-Trap role. But a lot of the times the one on the right, which has been rolled on at times, McKenney at times. they sit a little deeper. They sort of connect that the lines more and the one playing on the left sits higher. And when McKenney's played on the left, I think he's been mostly ineffective, say, for his three-goal outburst against Cuba at home. Yeah, that 10-minute hat trick, notwithstanding. I agree.

It's harder for him to play with his back-to-goal between the lines right on the top of the box. I don't think he doesn't have the elegance for that sort of the precision that's required. So, yeah, so I'm hopeful that McKenny is the number eight sort of on that right side of the midfield, right side of central midfield. Okay. Who's number six? Number six is going to surprise people, I think. It is one Sebastian Leggett. We've been really high on Leggett since January of last year, where he, that was his return from injury in Burhalter's first camp.

And he didn't start in either game, but he looked very good in his cameos. And when I say very good, I mean, he came in and looked like he was playing at a completely different level. And the entire game changed. And that's sort of been his M.O. for the national team since then. Every time he plays, he does really well. He has like 100% success rate with the national team. And I feel like that, I kind of feel like he's being overlooked or undersold in the whole like national team momentum narrative storylines. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely some skeptics on Twitter that.

that will argue with you about Legette for a long time. I don't know. He's getting his appearances and he's performing. I'm happy with him at number six. I had him a little higher than I did. I think the next one is where we kind of differed. I had Dwayne Holmes as the next midfielder up in my list. You had Leget.

I think it's very close between these two, at least in my mind. And this, oh, go on. Go ahead, go ahead. Well, this is where we get into sort of that confidence interval where, like, all those people who are saying legit at six for real, you guys, like, they have probably legitimate arguments. But legit could be anywhere from number six to number 25. We just, the whole player pool right now is such a cloud that we have to, we have to get a lot

more data on a lot of these guys. we did so little investigating in 2019 that this is just how it remains. Maybe Jordan Morris is the sixth best player on the national team. Maybe he's 24th. It's just really hard to pinpoint it. So there is plenty of room for debate. Yeah. Yeah.

And we haven't seen, we haven't really seen Dwayne Holmes do a full runout with the national team. He's number seven. And he's red hot, as Brian Shoretta says. You want to get into that? his hot streak that he's having. Yeah, we got to get ahead of this. To try to paint it as anything besides, like, to try to paint the picture that Holmes is now deserving of a call-up

but wasn't deserving before, it's pretty ridiculous. Duane Holmes is definitely not, should not be locked in as a starter for the September World Cup qualifiers, but he absolutely should have been getting runouts in October and November of last year. So we're definitely going to be late adding Duane Holmes. he is making a great case to be included. He should have been included several months ago. Yeah.

It's the whole like goals rule the narrative thing where like he's got a couple, he's got a few goals. He's got a couple assists in the last few weeks. And so all of a sudden people say, well, he's, you know, now he deserves a call up. No, he's playing the same way he's been playing all season. He's been playing really well all season. Sometimes you're just not the guy who gets the goal or the assist, but you still might have a really good game. not only that but he actually is i mean there's some relevant developments at at derby county over the last month and a half uh namely wayne runy arriving and inserting himself directly into the lineup we

kind of joked about it i think on our last pod that uh hopefully that would lead to more statistical output for homes which would then get him recognized and called up uh but yeah he's i mean he's actually shifted from playing primarily as a holding mid uh to now playing primarily as an attacking mid with Wayne Rooney sitting behind pulling strings and not so shockingly, Holmes is getting more opportunities to score by playing in a more advanced position. Right, right. Okay, number eight, you take it. Number eight, Josie Altador, who you had way up with the sort of top tier guys in that one through five range. I had him a lot lower and the reason I have them a lot lower is just because I feel like we have to start holding injuries and dings against him.

Hmm. Okay. In a way that like even when he's healthy, it seems like it's almost a bad idea to call him in because you don't want to push it. You know, like, all right, let's just let's just leave him alone for this window. Let him stay with Toronto. He's healthy. There's no reason to like take him out of his club and hurt him. So now he's got to sit out another month and a half. So I don't know.

I just feel like I don't even know if we can count on Josie being available. That's really fair. That's really fair. I had him at number five, most because I think our striker position is so unsettled. I was happy with the way Jesus Ferreira played in that Costa Rica friendly, but I don't know that like he's the guy now, you know, at Stryker. And Josh Sargent has not been playing well lately. He had an okay runout over the weekend, but it wasn't, you know,

he hasn't like changed the narrative of him struggling yet. And Altador, you know, when Altador is healthy, he's, I think, pretty clearly our best striker at this very moment. And I just sort of a safety blanket for me, I guess. Yeah, yep. I don't disagree with that. It's just, it's really hard to have that safety blanket when you can't actually rely on it being there. When it just, like spontaneously combusts. Right.

You're reaching for that safety blanket. It's actually creating the fire. All right. Number nine, I think I'll take this. one is Giovanni Raina. Big winner, big winner of this month's top 40. He moved up 33 spots from number 42 in December to number nine in February. This is us writing the grievous wrongs of our past.

Raina was famously omitted from the last top 40. He only has a few professional minutes under his belt now, but I would argue he 100% looks apart of an attacking player for an elite European club. He starts for the U.S. men's national team now in my book. Yeah, we're first team trothing it, as it were. But I can't really help that. I had and still do have some misgivings about Raina. He was not great at the U-17 World Cup.

And the last time we did this, we'd never seen him play against adults. Now he's been entrusted with playing time ahead of players like Mario Goetza. And I think, you know, we talked about this on our very first podcast we ever recorded many, many years ago. But that's kind of all the vetting you need to call a player up to the national team? Yes, that's the instant call-up, right? Where if you, and really it just means that you were probably a little bit slow to the party. And that's what we were last top 40.

We just didn't rate him highly enough last time. He didn't suddenly become, he didn't suddenly make this jump. He's been very good and we were just sleeping a little bit. Yeah. Cap him against him. Netherlands. I don't think Dorman's going to release him for Olympic qualifying. And I think, you know, just a little bit more on him. He doesn't release the ball as quickly as he should. I think that's a criticism that you'll hear if you listen to Matt Doyle much. And you've

heard it from us as well, for me at least. But he, in combination with, you know, all the class on that Dorman side, they respect him. He's clean on the ball. He's hard to knock off the ball. he can sort of bend a moment to his own will and beat a guy. And then, of course, he had that goal in the DFB Pakal, where he did a couple guys and then curled into the far right corners, maybe the nicest goal we've seen in 12 months from a men's national team player. It's a good goal. Yeah.

I'll give him that it's a good goal. Yeah, he's a, I mean, it's totally realistic to think, too, that some of those sort of concerns that you've had with him are concerns born of playing with U-17 players. And I mean that, like, having an ego isn't a bad thing for an elite athlete. So if Rain is playing with 17-year-olds and he's a little bit reluctant to give up the ball, even though maybe it's sort of technically the correct play. Yeah.

Okay, if he's playing with Dortmund and he's releasing the ball's right time to the players that Dortmund have, then all that U-17 stuff kind of just fades away. And you're like, okay, he obviously sees the game well, understands the content. and can execute. So, you know, I don't know that the, I'm just going to throw out the word ball hog. I don't think that the ball hog concerns are going to be any kind of an issue for him going forward. Yeah, probably not.

There might be legitimate concerns of like he's not the like totally incisive passer that you want in a number 10 that we might have other players who sort of fit that bill more often. But I don't think it's going to be a case of like he literally just won't give the ball up. Yeah, to be clear, I want him on the wing. I want him on the wing. And I think some people would say, well, Jordan Morris was our best player or one of our best players in 2019 for the national team. So why would you put Giovanni Raina after less than two hours as a professional ahead of him?

And to that, I just say, I'm doing it. I'm putting one ahead of Morris. My sort of guiding philosophy for this particular top 40 was like who do I want to see with four, friendlies before World Cup qualifying. So I know sometimes I think we go with if there was a qualifier tomorrow, this one is like, we do have four friendlies before qualifying because I'm counting Nations League's friendlies because they mean absolutely nothing results wise. And so we need to do this investigating.

Like we need to do it now because if Raina improves us, we need to know that because September is for the real money. I can't imagine he won't be in that camp in Europe in March in a bunch. in about six weeks, right? Yeah, it has to be. Has to be called up. I mean, Berlter went from not, you know, I mean, like, think of the precedent here being Sergenio Dest, getting his minutes with IACs to start this season in August, and instantly

called up, instantly starting for the U.S., so I feel like rain is going to follow a similar trajectory for the national team. Yep, yep. And a lot of the same arguments apply. I think Berlter specifically mentioned the fact that Des was entrusted with minutes in a Champions League qualifier, which is important for that, you know, for that club. Raina's been entrusted with minutes when Julian Brant went down in, you know, in the middle of a title race for Dortmund. Yeah.

And a lot of the same stuff applies. A couple more injuries of Dortmund. So Raina could also be looking at a significant minute increase between now and the March window. Yeah, I mean, based on what we've seen so far, I don't think a start is out of the question. and maybe he'll get dinged for pulling that guy down behind the play. Who knows? Let's move on. Number 10.

Who's that? Number 10, Timmy Wea. Wea is just right on the verge of a return, it sounds like, potentially. I just hold my breath on all these injury returns, but he's been out forever. Since August, I think. Yeah, he played in like the season opener for Lil. and then, I think, not since then, with the hamstring done. So, Wea coming back, I'm very excited about.

Again, I think that Wea adds, like, a real element of, like, clean play that you can build your possession offense around just a sharpness. And I think he is somewhat incisive. So I have him really high. I think I have him a lot higher than you. But I just feel like we are in this territory where Timi Weaa may be in a lot of. upgrade over Jordan Morris. Has he proven it yet at any real level? No, he has not. But from what I've seen him play at, I fully believe that he could do the things that Morris does and add pieces. Yeah, I hope you were right about all that. I had him at number 14 and you had him at number seven,

so here he has that number 10. I hope you're right about all that. You've always rated way a higher than I have. I guess I just hope that you proved me wrong, Greg. I mean, 14's not low. You know, I still, I still really pretty highly. And I want to see that, I want to see him tested in March, provided that he's friendly. It'd be interesting to see, like, some kind of data viz of Wea, McKenney, Adams, and Pulisicic and their injuries over the past 12 months. Like, how often has all four of them been healthy at the same time? Probably never, probably.

I doubt it. Yeah, I doubt it's happened. Okay, number 11. Reggie Cannon. For me, he's a second choice right back and the first choice right back when Dest plays left back, which he probably should for now.

Is Cannon a perfect player? No. Did he get done up a couple times by an 18-year-old from USL in a preseason match last night? Yes. Is he better than Yedlin Lima and Arauj? Also, yes. So that's my...

I think you're going to get some mail about that one. I never get any mail. I just want to chime in a bit on the whole Yedlin comparison. Because everyone, you know, the instant response is Yedlin plays every week for Newcastle. How can you possibly put Canon ahead of him? And I feel like there's still a lack of imagination there where if Canon and Yedlin were the exact same age, then yes, that's totally true. The soccer filter should have would have had time to work its magic and put the better player in sort of the better place. And that means Yedlin's better than Canon.

But they're not. And the soccer filter lags. And Cannon is 21. He's still on his first contract. I think it expires this summer, this December. So then we'll know more. It goes back to that proof thing where everyone's like, but has he proven it? He hasn't proven it.

He hasn't really had the opportunity to prove it. There's no way to know if Newcastle in a vacuum would choose Reggie Cannon or D'Andre Yedlin. Newcastle definitely aren't going to pay $5 million right now to add Reggie Cannon to their roster when there's absolutely no need to do that. So it's you can make your case for Yedlin and say he's obviously proven that he can play at this level, but you can't really say Canon definitely can't play at that level. Yeah.

I mean, So you got to say you got to have you have to go by what you've seen them play. So if you're going to make the case against Canon, like make the case based on what you've seen in video and by watching it. Yeah, nobody really does that. I mean, Cannon's been really good for the national team over the past 12 months. He was, I think, one of the few players who didn't come away with egg on his face after we lost to Mexico in the Gold Cup final, I mean. I thought he played pretty well in that game. And then, you know, this whole argument about Yedlin being in the Premier League, isn't there sort of a dynamic here where he had this, like, exciting World Cup performance in 2014?

there was some shine on him. He gets signed by Tottenham. It doesn't really work out at Tottenham and he goes to Newcastle, but he's a Tottenham player at that point. So there's like this shine that transfers. I mean, I like this soccer filter concept. We should make T-shirts about that. But there's also like just, I don't know,

there's sometimes luck in the way this stuff works out. And Canon hasn't even had a chance to have good luck yet. Right. So anytime we're saying that Cannon's ahead of Yetlin, we're basically saying in our thought experiment, Reggie Cannon is totally capable of starting for a mid-table Premier League team. And I don't think that's a ridiculous thing to say. I don't think it necessarily means that any mid-table Premier League team will instantly pay the $4 or $5 million or whatever FC Dallas would want for him to get him on their books right now. But I guess we'll see come contract time and come December if his contract runs out, whether he is, he's able to sort of make that jump. Yep, let's move on. Let's move on. Number 12 is Aaron Long. I think he's the starting right centerback for the men's national team right now.

Any other, anything else to say about it? No, I don't have any quibbles. He's definitely, I think, still one that just benefits from being sort of implemented. If you watch any of our centerbacks, again, over the last, like, two years, even going back through Saracan, I don't think we've had any clown-shoo centerback performances. I'd be like everyone we have played there has done minimally well. Like everyone's been adequate. You know, going back to who, like, whoever played against France. Now I'm going to have to look it up.

Who did? We had a three-man back line in that game. I think Miazga was involved. I believe Long was involved. I think Carter Vickers started. And even Eric Palmer Brown. Yeah, it was Miasga, Carter Vickers, and Tim Parker. And then Eric Palmer Brown got in that game.

Like, that's what I mean. Even these guys that just are completely. now thought of it was like obscure yeah Eric Palmer Brown was fine against France for his 45 minutes so so yes Aaron Long is is currently the guy in Burrhalter's made him the guy but I don't think that we've seen anything from some of these other guys that makes them really far behind Aaron Long he's Darren Long has been reliable and stable yep that's what he is and if somebody emerges as sort of a cut above that he starts to drop down the rankings until then he's going to He's going to stay in the top 15, I think.

Number 13. Who do we have? Jordan Morris, and you said it. You said he was probably our best player in 2019. I think that's true, and I also think it's a little depressing, and not because I think Jordan Morris is a bad player, and we have it out for Jordan Morris and just wanted to get passed. One, we want everyone to get past.

That's sort of the whole point. And two, remember, like, Morris kind of just came on in the last, like, two windows. He was at the Gold Cup And he didn't have like any stellar gold cup Performances He was he was ineffective against Mexico Just like sort of everyone else I think he logged a goal against Jamaica

For a No he logged an assist against Jamaica But really it was just a shot straight at Andre Blake That Blake spilled into Pool Six Path So it's just sort of like He's sort of the default best player The US has had in 2019 I think there are still the same holes that we recognize in his ability to play in a possession style system,

which is worrying since, you know, that's sort of the big picture that Burholt is trying to achieve. He clearly can be successful in sort of more wide open games where he's afforded a little more space either on the break or against really disorganized opponents, which we might run up against in qualifying. but he had the best 2019, I'd say, out of any U.S. attackers. Yeah, I mean, like you said, not extremely high praise. I do think he'll be surpassed pretty quickly by G.O. Raina, provided that's, you know, he continues to play for Dortmund. And eventually, probably by Ullianas as well.

But for now, number 13. Tim Wea. Timway in that picture, too. But Morris has definitely, Morris has definitely earned his chance to. sort of defend that spot. And I think that's, I think that's sort of where I'm at with him is that he shouldn't be written off. He shouldn't just be thought of as like a placeholder. Like he should keep getting his chances to, to succeed because he did enough to sort of warrant that. He seems like a really nice guy too, as does Reggie Cannon. I know. I always think

Reggie Cannon benefits because we just like him so much. Yeah. Well, his grandpa is like a rocket scientists or then you win a Nobel Prize or something rose but he was a he canaan was part of the leadership committee in the January camp as a 21 year old so I think that says something yeah for sure moving on to number 14 uh canon's teammate the also injured paxton pomacall injured adductor injury absence is not improving his stock at least for me how do you feel about how do you feel about pomacal same uh he's he's been he's dropped slightly. I think people will still say 14 is too high for him since he

hasn't proven anything. But yeah, at this point, like we're kind of left wondering if he'll be back for qualifying for the Olympics and if he's not, suddenly like, are we going to is he going to jump straight into the World Cup roster? Should we

qualify? You know, I mean, his window for integration into the team starts getting smaller and smaller. Yeah. I mean, it's almost like, you know, since he missed this this camp, this January camp, which would have been a good chance for him to, you know, seize some real estate. Now he, now I don't know.

I don't know how he fits into the midfield, given the sort of timeline you just laid out because we got Legette and Holmes and McKenney kind of, I think, fighting for those three, those two spots that Pomacall could maybe get involved with. Yeah, we keep saying he needs to transition to a six. Yes, that's really not a bad idea. That's his best case going forward. Number 15 is Josh Sargent. I want like everything for him to come through and become that big time striker.

And he has time to do that. I think he's still only 19 or he just turned 20. But he's not there yet. So when you say he's not there yet, you're talking about he's not there yet in terms of he's not a every game starting Bundes League of striker who's going to bang in a bunch of goals? Yeah, or even he's not a player who influences the game as a number nine. I know he's playing for a team that's really struggling and all that, but, you know, we've watched, I've watched pretty much every minute and I don't see a lot to be really excited about

from the last few weeks. Am I being too harsh? I don't think so. We want them to move, right? or we want Bremen, Verde to end up with a new manager. Do we think it's hard to tell how successful he could be because they are so bad? I don't know.

I don't know. Josie at Sunderland style. Josiet Whole City. Right. Well, I watched so much, I've watched so much Bundesliga over the last couple of years. A lot of Shalka, a lot of Verda Bremen, a lot of RB Leipzig. and those games are they're attritional to steal a phrase from rafa honingstein they they just both teams are canceling each other out with with just high work rates and lots of pressing and

flying into tackles i noticed what i'm totally going on a side note here but i noticed when you know when pulisic went to chelsea it seemed like it seemed like things got easier for him i don't know if it's because of the style of play or just because chelsea is better than you know There's a bigger gap between Chelsea and a lower table in Premier League club than there is between Dortmund and a lower table Bundes League of club. But the games are just more open and free flowing. So what I'm saying is Sergeant needs to go to Tottenham and displace Harry Kane. No, I think we need to almost like completely reframe how we think of Sergeant because we kind of had him in the same tier as McKenny and like the guys who were just moving over there. when maybe we need to start think of him in the same terms of Lidesma and the rest of the U20s who haven't broken through yet and say, all right, well, Sargent at least has broken through.

Like, at least he's, you know, every game sub. He gets into almost every game for Rutter Bremen. So, like, shouldn't we kind of still be happy about where he's at? We want him to be doing better. But if Ladezma breaks in at BSV and start subbing in and is somewhat ineffective, we'll still think of it almost as progress from where he is right now. Yeah, that's not a bad thought. That's the glass.

That's the Sergeant Half Full look at it. Another T-shirt idea, Sergeant Half Full. Number 16. But he still, Sergeant's still 15 on this list, so why is he so high on this list? Because we're so thin. That's part of it. We've seen him play really well for the national team. He always looks decent, at least, for the U.S.

and, you know, how many 19-year-old strikers have we had starting sometimes at a Bundesliga club over the past 300 years since the inception of this nation? Yeah, that's really what, again, that's really what it comes down to is he's worked his way into the rotation for a Bundesliga club that might be bad, but he's not the reason they're bad single-handedly. single-handedly was an important phrase to add. All right, number 16, who is that? Jesus Ferreira. All right. One of the big winners of the January camp, really good initial showing,

allows us to play in the way that I think Burrhalter wants us to play. You know, I have questions on whether Sergeant could have put in a similar performance. I feel like he probably could have against Costa Rica in that game if he'd been asked to do the same thing. but I'm still glad. I mean, it still means a lot that Ferreira was able to do it. So again, thinking about we have four friendlies left, I know he'll probably be at Olympic qualifying in March,

which I think is a good place for him because we can continue to evaluate him there. But I'm hopeful that he comes in and adds another player who can allow us to play the way we want to. Yep, I got nothing to add to that. Number 17 is Ulysses Yanes. showed that a U-19 Bundesliga player can look plenty effective in a national team game, a watershed moment for soccer analysis in America. No, actually it wasn't.

No, it didn't seem to move the needle at all. I understand putting like an asterisk next to Uli's call up and saying, look, he got called up because it was basically the priority was the consideration was given to the U23s ahead of qualifying, and that totally makes sense. Uli probably doesn't get called up if the full team is. available. But I don't think you can really put an asterisk next to his performance other than that it was a friendly. I think you still have to compare his performance in the actual game that he actually played in against grown-up Costa Rican players against other U.S. players and other

friendlies against other grown-up players. So it does seem strange. Maybe I'm not that surprised that people are still digging in. I'm like, nope, now you have to send him back to the youth, the youth teams, uh, when his, his play certainly warrants another look with the senior team. Yeah, which to be clear,

I mean, if he's released for the Olympics, he should be there instead of, definitely one of them there. The men's team. Um, if he's not released, then he should be with the,

the men's team. That's my, that's my take on it. Yep. Get him in. Get him in and, and take another look. It's, uh,

we talk about the scientific method. Like, I'm not a scientist by trade, but I feel like when you, when you run an experiment, and you get unexpected results. Like the next step isn't to bury the experiment, bury the data, pretend none of it ever happened. Like, I think there's a part there where you repeat the experiment and see if it was an error in your instruments or if no, you actually need to adjust your theory and your model because this is actually what happens in the world.

Yeah, you get that notebook out. You take some notes. You do it again. All right. Number 18. Tim Ream. I had Ream higher than you because I think he's both our second choice left centerback and our second choice left back. And I think he can pass the ball in a way that none of our other centerbacks can except for John Brooks, who we didn't really mention this when we talked.

Well, we did sort of. But we don't know that John Brooks is going to be healthy. It's a little bit of the Josie situation. Well, I'm hopeful that him being out of Wolfsburg lineup actually keeps him healthy for long stretches. Yeah, maybe. Is that how it works, or does it mean you're, like, even more susceptible to injury when you come and play a World Cup qualifier in San Pedro Sula? I don't know. Yeah, I had Rima.

I had Rima a little bit lower, but it's funny because I actually agree with you. I have him lower because he's our second choice left centerback. And I feel like that's about number 20-ish on the – I mean, we were close. I still have been to 23. I don't know that I want him as our second choice left centerback anymore. He might even be, to be honest, he might be first choice less centerback bells. It might be Dest on the right and Ream on the left as Burrhalter's current sort of favored lineup. That's true. That's true.

Even that's what he trotted out against Canada. I wouldn't mind that too much. Let's move on. I mean, I like Cannon, but I don't like him so much that he, that we need to put Dest on the left, you know. Right. I guess that's how I look at it. Number 19, who's that? Jackson Ewell.

Yeah. It's still, go ahead. Yeah, he had his very good game against Canada. Is it a stretch to say a very good game? No, I think it was a very good game, yeah. It feels like a very good game because of the data point that came right before in Toronto, where everything was terrible. So, Ewell at least help turn things around so that everything was adequate. Yeah.

So same thing. We just need to repeat more experiments with Ewell in there and see how he does. I don't know that I feel like he should be starting in our full first choice 11. But there might be games where it makes sense to put his skill set in the lineup. Yeah. I think it should be Adams at the 6. I've said this before. We've talked about it before.

Adams at the 6. McKinney at the 8. And either Holmes are legit at the 10 for now. But I think there's a decent chance. Greg Burhalter disagrees. And we'll put Ewell at the 6 and then maybe like McKinney and Adams as the. or as the 10 and the 8? Yeah, that honestly is what, like, worries me.

I'd be interested in seeing it, but I'm not super optimistic that it's going to work out. Unless we're moving into more of, like, create turnovers to create offense. Right. I mean, unless we're doing that, the only player whose skill set that suits is Jackson Ewell. Right. Continuing in the tradition of building the team around white-holding midfielders from Major League Soccer. Number 20, Matt Miazga.

Yeah, Miazga's journey continues. He's at Redding. Is he healthy now? I can't remember. No, he's hurt. He's out for a while still, as far as I know. And he's out for a while. I still think that he's not a big drop-off from Aaron Long or Tim Ream or Walker Zimmerman,

if Berthor thinks Zimmerman's ahead of him. And we'll just have to hope that his next lone spell is a good one as well. Right. He's just on a, he's just on a loan spell Odyssey. Championship Carousel. Yeah. Number 21. Hey. Hello.

Timmy? Timmy Chandler. That you? I want to get ahead of this right now. This is not about, for me at least, this is not about the goals. His goals have been great. They've been, but he's, I'm going to put this lightly. He is massively overperforming his expected goals.

I don't know if people have been seeing his goals, but that header on the corner kick is not something he's likely to repeat often. Or ever, or ever. But it is, even in that game, though, he did have another header that was actually a much better scoring chance that drew a pretty good save. So I think he is showing that he can reliably get on the end of crosses, which is a good skill to have. but no for me it's more about just the fact that he is he is clearly a he's clearly back he's clearly back to being a boondis league irregular and this isn't first team true thing this is he missed an entire year with injury he got back and was available for selection healthy and just wasn't worked back into the lineup all the way up until December so I think it was sort of reasonable

to think that like maybe he just wasn't the same player anymore yeah but but he's playing now and And as far as like the, whether he's motivated or not to play for the U.S., I don't know, but I don't really care. Like, I'm not going to, I don't want to, like, base our call-ups on, like, high school gossip nonsense from three years ago. Like, if you call him and he says that he will play for you, then you should call him up and see how he plays for you. Yeah, I suppose. Are you, I just listening to that? Are you reluctant to bring him in? I'm not reluctant to bring him.

I guess I'd have a call with him. him and be like, yo, Timmy, do you really want to play for the national team? And if you do, can we trust you to like, you know, really take it seriously? I mean, I assume they have that call with any veteran that they're calling in. Right. That's what I'm saying. You know, we'll never know the content of that conversation if it occurs. So it's kind of just, we're just kind of in the dark on this stuff.

But I will say one thing I noticed, I watched his touches from that game where he scored two goals. I know this sounds crazy, but I'll just. Outside of the two goals, he did not look very good. Like, he completed about a fourth of his passes. I know he did have that one chance you mentioned where he headed it and drew a really nice save, wasn't it? Or was it off the post? Really good save. But yeah, we should definitely talk about how he actually plays.

I don't really know how he plays. I don't really get it, you know? I've been watching all of his footage since he started getting those starts in December. And they aren't impressive. and it's because Frankfurt don't play anything resembling like a fluid possession style of soccer. So whatever, what Chandler's doing right now is not what he would be doing if we call him into the national team, especially if he would be used as a winger,

which I don't think that we would use him as a winger. Maybe, maybe we would, but Frankfurt like sit way, sit pretty deep in like a 4-4-1 and Chandler's playing essentially like a right fullback, occupying the space of a midfielder. So he sits back and defends, like most of his clips, when you watch a clip of all of his involvements in the game, are actually him sitting in that shell

and then racing out to press a player as the ball is moving to that attacking player and then dropping back after they pass it. And he's not easy to get past. But that's mostly what they do. And then once Frankfurt win the ball, they move at pace into the attack. And Chandler is a very eager and willing transition runner.

So that's how he's been getting on the end of crosses. You'll also see him hit a ton of crosses in. That's all he wants to do when he gets the ball out wide is create enough room to whip a ball across and he whips a really good ball across. But yes, you're not going to see a single clip of intricate combination play from Timmy Chandler through all of his minutes so far

in these last like seven starts that he's gotten. Yeah, and I don't, I just don't see how that fits. Like, I mean, I know I know Canon's not, you're not going to see a ton of intricate combination play from canon but you sure do from desk and i think you see a little i think you see a little bit of that play from canon yeah i'm just saying not a ton yeah i i think if you bring chandler in you're almost you're basically going to test him out at left back right i mean because he's not going to you're not going to bring him in and be like all right desk or you're moving death to the left

and chanler is good enough to that it's worth moving him to the left like i think those are about it uh if you're playing him on the wing i feel like that's it's a really he's a really conservative player to put on as a winger. I think it says you're going to play a really conservative style of soccer. Yeah. Which maybe we need to do that in some game. He's not the ideal guy for a like the sort of tuck in and combine and, you know, hit the overlapping guy.

Right. Right. I don't know. I guess I'm, I'm, my Chandler position has moved from, I've never really opposed a call up, but at this point I'm, I'm just kind of ambivalent about it. Well, again, he, they're, since, we started this podcast, he's, I think he'd only play like, literally like 200 minutes. So from 2018 until now, up until December when he got, when he has been starting every

game since. Yeah. Okay. Let's move on. We've got to go faster. We're taking a long time. Okay. All right.

Next name, number 22, D'Andre Yedlin. I feel like we talked about him quite a bit when we talked about Canon, but he's still in the top 25. think there's any doubt about that. And he should get a couple more looks at right back to see if he can replicate what we get from Canon and become the backup right back to Dest or be good enough that we move Dest over to the left

and Ronnie Edlin Dest combination. Yep. Another fullback, number 23, Anthony Robinson. Anthony Robinson. AC Milan move fell through, hasn't played for Wiggins since then or even been in uniform, so they're,

I don't know exactly what the, the conversation is like with Wigan management. He's being linked to a couple other teams for the summer transfer window, mostly Premier League teams. And again, it's just the soccer filter thing where we've always thought Robinson offers quite a bit in the attack, at least I have, and not terrible defending.

I know he has a lot of high-profile gaffs in a U.S. uniform. him. But, you know, he's not, he's playing every game for his club. And again, it's that soccer filter bit where it is possible that the 21, 22-year-old defender is a really good player, even though he stuck at the worst team in the championship. Like just saying, okay, he plays for the worst team in the championship, so he can't be good, is, again, it's just kind of lazy and a bit of a cop-out.

Yeah, I mean, it was wild that he almost got signed by A.C. Milan. but it does seem to have also improved his transfer stock in general because now he's linked with these other teams. I forget which ones. Was one of the bigger clubs? He's being linked with Chelsea, Aston Villa, and I don't remember who the third team is. But regardless, like, I don't think he's going to be playing League One football next year when Wiggin go down. I think he's better than, I mean, Wiggins are shambles.

And I don't think it's because Anthony Robinson is not good enough to play for a, championship caliber, EPL caliber team. Okay. Number 24, the other Mr. Robinson, Miles. I think this theme is going to come up

a few other times in the top 40, but we just need a good centerback. We need some centerbacks to emerge. Hopefully Robinson will be that. He's hurt now, right? Yeah, he's in Pomacall territory where he might misqualifying. Atlanta are going to be even more reluctant,

I'm sure, to release him. So we'll have to see it. But if he replicates his season, from last year. I feel like he is a, he's worth calling up for the June friendlies, or the June Nations League if, if Atlanta don't release him for the Olympics. Because we got to, we got at least, I think we should at least be checking out. Maybe Burrhalter just feels good with what he's got was Zimmerman and Long and Ream and

Brooks, but I think we got at least test, test Miles Robinson out. Yeah. Okay. Number 25. Who we got? Fabian Johnson. He's a left back. He got a start.

Yeah, he's a left back. He got to start for Gladback a couple weeks ago, and I went through all of his video in that. He looks exactly as smooth and comfortable as he's always looked, and so he stepped right into the third place team in the Bundesliga, fourth place team in the Bundesliga. I know he'd been out for a long time with injury, and he still looks very clean. Good. And that is a position of need.

It does seem very unlikely that he'll get called up, but hey, you never know. This March friendly is perfect for it. That's true, especially if all our young guys are injured. Not that any of them is a left back, but all right. 26. Richie Ledesma, exceptionally clean. Have you heard of Richie Ledesma? Have we talked about him in this podcast yet?

Exceptually clean and bright in possession, week in and week out. for young PSV. I think his passing percentage is like 87% as an attacking midfielder. So that's good. I'm a little concerned that he hasn't been more of a difference maker in the final third. Five goals, one assists on the season, and that I'm also a little concerned that probably in a related matter, he hasn't made his first team debut. All right, but don't start doubting yourself, Bels, because I feel like you're the one

who would point it out that he was the assist behind the assist on like 10 of, PSV's goals through like a pretty long stretch of games. He was. It's just they keep losing and, you know, he's not taking the team on his shoulders, which I think might be expected of a player, you know, to jump up to the first team. I don't know. I don't know what the equation is there. Well, it's weird because what we want is we want him to break into the first team or we want him,

I don't want him to just be stuck on the fringe where they won't release him for Olympic qualifying, but he also isn't going to play at all with the first team. I think he, well, I would guess he'll get released at this point. He also gets pushed around in physical battles, but still, we stand. We stand. What a fluid player. So fun to watch. Anything else?

No, he's still your guy. Number 27, Paul Areola. Yeah, I just know he's, I know he's not top class, but I like him in the squad. I think I had him rated a lot higher than you did. You did. I love Paul ariola too, but I just feel like his time is real limited at this point. With Raina coming through, Waya coming back into health, Jordan Morris playing really, I feel like, again, I think I've said this, I feel like Jordan Morris has basically taken the Paul Ariola spot from the roster.

And I know Ariola does a lot of good work, but I think we're getting to the point where that was worth it because his competition for the spot wouldn't do all that work and offered very little in the attack. you know, when you're up against Corey Baird, like all that incredible work Paul Ariel does is going to be a difference maker. When you're up against somebody who might be, say, starting for Barucia Dortmund, like you're probably going to take the Dortmund, dude. Yeah. Yeah, no, totally. Let's see.

Number 28, Chris Richards, excellent defender, scored a game winner for Byron 2 kind of on like a broken set piece over the weekend. needs to work on his distribution, I think, to have a chance of sniffing Byron Munich minutes. And I think that's probably not in the cards at this point. So we'll see what happens with him this summer. Right. I think that's where we're at, right? That we're going to wait and see where he filters out in June, July.

Maybe alone. Maybe another season with Byron 2. We'll see. They're not going down. It looks like they're comfortably mid-table in the three Bundesliga. Which is cool, because it's, I've said this on the podcast before, too, but it's, don't, don't underrate the quality of that league. I think it's, I think it's better than a lot of people realize. And a little more, there's a real sense of urgency in those games.

29. Jazi Zardez. I think, I think you'd probably push for him to be even higher. I know, I know he's not a scuffed favorite, but give me, give me your rationale for Zardez, being even higher. I'm sure it was my score that dropped him lower. I think it was. Yeah.

So this is scuffed sacrilege, but is Sergeant a more effective striker than Zardis right now for the national team? So I'm going to say no. He's not that we know of. But here's how I'm going to couch this, because I'm kind of torn on Zardaz too. I think there's a lot of recency bias to everyone's sort of higher rating of Zardez because of the Canada game in Orlando. But I actually think that recency bias is a little bit fair because that was sort of the first game that the U.S. had played where they changed a bunch of things tactically.

So I think it's fair to say, all right, well, we kind of have to evaluate him on these new standards because he had not been great in any of his other 800 minutes that he'd played for the U.S. You know what I mean? It's just such a large number of minutes. And I mean in the Burrhalter era. I don't know what his total is. But so I do think that you have to take those into account. But then again, you have to go into how are we trying to play? So if we're trying to play the way we did against Costa Rica for the first 75 minutes,

I don't think Zardez is going to be your guy. Right. Do you need a guy like Zardez to come in every once in while at the end of a game like he did against Costa Rica? I mean, so I watched all those clips in a compilation against Costa Rica. And like half of them were probably him actually back in our own box defending set pieces. and going up for headers. So, like, he could be the forward who comes in to protect the lead and do certain things there. Yeah.

But if you start Giazzi Zardaz, you're not going to play this. You shouldn't be trying to play the same way that you played in that Costa Rica game. Yeah. I think that's all fair. And, I mean, I will mention he almost had a really beautiful goal against Costa Rica that headed goal to the far post. Yeah, not just the goal. He was actually the player who extended. that play with a really nice piece of work at the end line to keep the ball in balance and

cut it back to the top of the box. Then it got shifted back out to the wing and he was working to get back on side. Got into a really good position because recognized the centerbacks had lost him. And those are all Zardas's strengths, right? Those are all the things that he does really well. That picking out holes and moving into blind spots of defenders, especially in the box. That's all really good. What you lose is all the tidy stuff that Ferreira was doing with the ball coming into his feet. Yeah, it's like off ball, on ball, sort of dynamic. Off ball, he's really intelligent and incisive on the ball.

Not so much. Number 30. Alfredo Morales. I'd say a useful hatchet man with business league a journeyman pedigree, not going to elevate us in possession, but should remain on the radar. Yeah, he is sort of just that, in a way, he's similar to Chandler, not just because he was a dual national who was overlooked last cycle. He is like just going to be just a ballache to play against in the middle of the field.

And he's shown that in his U.S. men's national team Renaissance. And I think his game, so he got in that Canada game in Orlando. And I think that's basically the correct way to use him. He came in with what 20 minutes to go. You put him in the middle of the field and he just chased things around. and tries to wreck people while we have a lead. Yep. Yeah.

So bring on Morales and Zardis to close out games. And throw Chandler in the wing and just rip people to, I mean, yeah, just break people up. Yeah. All right. Number 31 is Walker Zimmerman. I'd say he's the fifth or sixth centerback. Again, I would put Miasga ahead of him, but it's not like a huge difference, probably. He's now in Nashville.

sold by L-AFC for some large amount of magic MLS dollars. Yeah, right? It's just, it's all flip a coin with the centerbacks. And Zimmerman's the older of the two, the oldest of a lot of the guys. Is he older than long or are they about the same age? I think he's younger. I think he's a little younger, yeah. But yeah, it's something where if we were, if we were to start Walker Zimmerman in a World Cup qualifier,

I'd be like, all right, that's fine. Yeah. I guess. I would be a little disappointed, but he's not far off the other guys. Number 32, Mark McKenzie. I'm looking for a big year from him. Got his first cap against Costa Rica, looked fine, didn't do that much. I think mainly I'm excited about him because he holds promise as that ball playing centerback, who can move with the ball at his feet. So really, outside of goalkeeper David Ochoa, I think he's a young player and MLS

that I'm going to be watching most closely. I mean, aside from the entire Dallas roster. All right, no, that's fair. I think McKenzie was really hurt by the fact that he was injured going into U20 World Cup because so many of the guys made a real good case for themselves in that tournament, and he just wasn't able to. I should mention this now because I'll probably forget at the end of the show. We are not doing goalkeepers.

Goalkeepers are not part of the top 40. Do your own goalkeepers if you want to hear about goalkeepers. Number 33. Alex Mendez. You got anything on him? No, not really. I mean, he's still just sort of, I don't want to say treading water at Iax, but kind of treading water, right? Yeah, it's just kind of a bad thing.

It's kind of doing his thing. He's not a terrible place to be. He plays on the right wing some. I swear he'd be higher if he'll be higher once he puts seven more pounds of muscle on. But yeah, just business as usual in Amsterdam playing on the wing quite a bit, being asked to press and tackle. Not entirely comfortable in that role or out wide, and he loses some physical battles. But he does that thing where he can unlock a defense with his passing. He does it even from the wing.

And I'm just going to say the flame still burns. The flame still burns. Right. I mean, we're, I'm going to, we got to keep our fingers crossed for a guy like Mattes. He's starting. I think he's been starting almost every game for Young IACs. So he's getting his minutes. He's getting his development time in.

Yep. All right, let's stick with the Yongs, number 34, Chris Gloucester. Yes. So, again, this is going back to the whole prove it concept where I don't abide by that too terribly much. But it was like watching Sam Vines do really well for the U.S. men's national team against grown-ups for Costa Rica made me think like, I feel like Chris Gloucester could do this. I feel like Chris Gloucester could come in and play a little bit. Yeah, I agree with that. I don't know how close he is to like the first team breakthrough at PSV that everybody's hoping for.

But he's in a good place. He's a good place to develop. And I do agree that if he had come in into that Costa Rica game, I can't imagine him looking much different from Vines. Maybe a little more comfortable on the ball, maybe a little less athletic. 35. All right. Maybe people already think we're reaching. 35.

O. and O. Soie, U-20 eligible centerback prospect, playing for wolves, played for wolves. It hasn't been on too many rosters since his contract was signed. I don't know if that's significant or not. They showed him the world. And they just shut him in the basement. No, I think he's, I really like him. And I know, you know, he played.

He played in a Europa League game, right? He did. Yeah, he did. It was a dead rubber. It was like their last game of the group that they already advanced. But he did. He did get on the field. Clever on the ball.

Quick, tall, and aerially dominant. If we can get him in the fold, it'll be a big win, I think. And this is kind of same vein as Mark McKenzie. He's a high potential centerback. And we need that. And he's played some youth national team soccer for the U.S., so the groundwork is laid. And, yeah, and again, U-20 eligible.

So, I mean, if any of our other U-20s going into the last cycle had been, you know, on the cusp of breaking through with the Premier League, we would have been pretty excited about that player. Yeah. Yep. 36. All right. We talked about him a little bit. Sam Vines came into that game against Costa Rica, started the game against Coast Creek, I should say. And looked certainly as good or better than what we've seen from Daniel Lovitz.

Yep. solid left back depth probably a stalwart in olympic qualifiers all right 37's kind of a kind of a out of nowhere pick but it's keaton parks uh keaton parks uh keaton parks bells i don't know this is the point where we're just totally pulling names out of a hat our number there's some intentionality behind number 40 which we will get to but 37 38 39 i don't know i don't think so i like Keaton Park Spick. I mean, the guy came in and played center mid for New York City for their like turnaround portion of the year where they went on to kind of dominate the Eastern Conference.

So, you know, he's clearly, he's clearly a player. Like he's, there's no reason to think that, think of him in as being so far below, I don't know, like a Christian Roldon, right? Or Brendan Aronson. Yeah, no, I, I would, we did choose to put him on here instead of Roldon and Aronson. and I stand by that. And it's like you said earlier, he could be anywhere from 14 to 40 on here. And I could see the argument.

And I could see it actually becoming much more clear in the next few months. I'm actually kind of curious if there were contract reasons for him not being in January camp. Like he had just sort of settled his move from Benfica to New York City permanently. So I wonder if that played into. why he wasn't involved in that or if he's just not in the Olympic plans. Wasn't he also like nearly every other player on this list injured at the end of the season? Is he crocked? Yeah, maybe he is.

I think he got injured right before the playoffs. Okay, number 38. Nico Joaquini. These are fun ones. He's playing at SMCon. I got that right at that time, didn't I? I believe so. in the French second division.

He's a hardworking number nine, not a transcendent player, but on a really good trajectory for his age, which is 19. And he started 10 matches in Liga D-Doux since late October and scored a couple goals. Yeah, and I think for me,

I think I probably have the March window in mind with him, being that we're going to be in Europe and we're going to be Light Ferreira and whoever else is missing for, you know, Eboba, say whoever's missing for Olympic qualifiers. Yep. It just feels like a time to get somebody like him in. He's not U-20 eligible, but get him in. And he actually is Olympic eligible, but I don't see him being released.

Anyway, get him in. Just take a look at him with the grown-ups and be like, all right, you can or can't play. Yeah, agree to agree. Number 39, you take him. Kobe Hernandez Foster. Yeah. So people will laugh at us because he doesn't even have a club at this point. But he is a transcendent talent.

And I think the only question is, can he handle the 1v1 defending wide at the pro level? It's a question that we won't get an answer to for at least several months, maybe even years. But if he can do that, he's going to be a great left back. Right. And Ullianus just showed us that you can go from having no, we shouldn't say he has no experience playing against adults because Uli played U.S.L. soccer with L.A. 2 for whatever, half a season. So he did play against adults technically. But anyway, he showed that you can do it. Like it's not, it's not such a massive leap that there's just no human way to make that jump. So that's how I'm justifying my Kobe Hernandez optimism. Yeah. Yeah, I'm very optimistic. I mean, he can hit that ball.

He can hit a ball with his left foot very sweetly. Wherever he wants to. It's amazing. And he's good in combination. But yeah, that's the kind of thing. I know he's a left back, but we've seen him play a bunch of centerback, and a lot of those clips are from him playing centerback. But that's kind of the differentiator,

because we talk about all those centerbacks who all do the same thing, even like Cameron Carter Vickers, Eric Palmer Brown. Hernandez offers that other piece that those guys just don't bring to the table. Yeah. All right, the number 40 spot. All right, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, Jose Gallegos. We just decided to put him at number 40 last night because, you know, I've been, I've rated him highly for at least a few months.

There are other people who've been touting him longer. than I have, so I can't claim to be the first. But he is a USL player at San Antonio FC, 18 years old, has so far been snubbed by the youth national team system. But he played against FC Dallas in a preseason friendly last night. I don't know, you saw some of the clips, certainly. Did you see? Yeah, yeah, I had it on.

I had it running. Okay. Yeah, I mean, he kind of tuned up the FC Dallas first team for about 75 minutes. Yeah. But, I mean, it's not an exaggeration to say he was the best player on the field, is it? No, I don't think so at all. This is a field that Ferreiro was on, Edwin Serrio, Rito Ziegler. Reggie Cannon.

Reggie. He was up. Twitter, so if you follow me there, then I'm sorry. But yeah, as an attacking mid, go ahead, I keep rambling on, go ahead. You watch him play or you watch him do that against FC Dallas, and you're like, oh, well, surely, like, he'll be picked up by the end of the weekend. Because in my head, I'm like, if, like, PSV were playing a preseason game against an amateur side and some 18-year-old unattached player, like tuned up their first team,

like their first team players, like, he'd be signed before you, like, he'd be signed before you, left the stadium. Yeah. But I don't think, I just don't think it is that simple with MLS because of the various roster mechanisms and salary cap mechanisms. So you actually can't just invest the money. Like PSV could just throw a contract and be like, hey, we'll give you $60,000 or you know, I mean, whatever they decide to pay.

Like, FC Dallas can't do that. Even though he just sort of rocked him a little bit, they can't just take that risk because it ties up a roster spot. Some people are very helpful in explaining all this to me today because I like, Thanks, guys. Yeah, Matt and Travis. Yeah, it's like they have to call the county – FC Dallas would have to call the county supervisor and get a waiver signed by the state legislature.

Who knows? I mean, who knows? Also, there's a couple other stuff. Gallegos is committed to NC State, and he's not on a pro deal with San Antonio. He's on an amateur deal or whatever you call that where you can still go to college. So there's a lot of little wrinkles in that situation. I think it all gets solved pretty quickly if he continues to play like he did last night. And if it doesn't and he ends up going to college, good for him.

Right. Right. Right. Not super great for us and our vicarious hobbies. But that's – I feel like that's the kind of video that if – because, I mean, PSV found Ledezma on a USL video scouting. that's the kind of thing that I feel like could get a guy a contract again within a couple weeks Ledezma had some really nice footage at USL level

he never had a game like like Gallegos had last night where he scored a goal and like just worked the other team and Gallegos is 18 so again literally like I'm not saying this is going to happen but literally as far as I know as far as I understand it PSV could call up his home tomorrow and they could have him right right there'd be no he wouldn't need an agreement he would need an out with any of his with San Antonio.

I think that's true. Hopefully if someone wants to correct us on this, Scott Jorick. And I wish San Antonio all the best in locking him up and getting some kind of compensation for him if he does make a move. Yeah, agreed. All right, that's our 40. That's our 40. I don't think we have time to talk about people we omitted.

Let's just, we can list them and just be like, good with it. Okay. We didn't, like, we didn't forget these guys. Like, we didn't forget Michael Bradley. forget Christian Roldon, Tyler Boyd. Just like, I just don't think that even going back to proving things, like I don't think Roldon and Boyd have proven anything with the chances they've gotten. So if you go back a year with Roldon and say, where's Roldon in January 2019?

Like you'd say maybe on the fringes of the national team, and he's gotten a ton of of opportunity to show that he's more than that and never has. Yeah, I don't, you don't have to, you don't have to argue with me about Christian Roldon. Michael Bradley, I think some people will defend him, but he's getting old. And what else? What's the argument against him? He's getting old. And the way you have to play to make Michael Bradley his best self, I feel like hurts the players

around him. So suddenly everyone else sort of suffers for it. And that might not be fair to Michael Bradley, but I feel like that's where we're at right now. So I don't see the need to try to keep him in the fold. I think he's sort of at this point aged. He's injured too, so he's going to miss March anyway. But it just, it feels like now is the time that he is, he's sort of sent on his way into, into MLS and retirement. Not the same thing.

I'm not saying those two things are the same thing. The one on this list that I think has a real shout for being in the top 40 and is not is Darlington Nagby. I guess this is just me assuming he's not going to, he's not going to get called up or not going to accept the call up. And, you know, after a certain point in time, you just, I guess I just kind of accept that, you know. Right. We've made our piece with it. Plus, plus legit looked good. Adams is back to healthy technically by the window.

So Holmes has been on fire. So the need to try to incorporate Darlington Nagby, I feel like it's, if it were Nagby rolled on, I'd be like, please continue to try to like butter up Darlington Nagby. but I don't think that's really the case anymore and I would be totally fine with a lot of other midfield combinations. Okay. All right. I think we need to end it here. I want to say quickly,

thank you to all our Patreon subscribers. We don't thank you guys enough. We really appreciate it. We didn't have time to get to some questions, but we will. We will. We'll get to questions eventually. And I hope everybody has a good.

weekend.