Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 125: MLS is back! A domestic rundown

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

A US-centric MLS opening weekend recap, plus a look ahead to USL opening weekend and some discussion of the USWNT U20s and the She Believes Cup.0:30 intro and dolphins4:10 Dallas — Ferreira, Pomykal, Tessmann, Cannon and Gonzalez15:00 Philly — McKenzie and Aaronson18:05 Seattle-Chicago — Leyva, Morris, Roldan, Mihailovic, Pineda22:55 RBNY-Cincinnati — Kyle Duncan and Frankie Amaya25:45 MLS short corners — Josef’s injury. Is MLS sabotaging El Tri? Bryce Duke. No Araujo or Ochoa. MNUFC wins at Portland.30:10 USL kicks off this weekend!30:45 San Antonio FC is one to watch — Jose Gallegos, Leo Torres, Fabrizio Bernal, Josh Ramsey33:45 Louisville City about to make a big YNT signing35:45 Real Monarchs — David Ochoa and Chris Garcia36:25 Tacoma Defiance brief shout38:00 DFB Pokal — McKennie and Schalke out, Dusseldorf out, Bremen v Dusseldorf40:10 Miazga back, Tyler Adams close, Novakovich hot41:55 US women’s U20s looking to qualify for U20 World Cup43:05 She Believes Cup starts Thursday 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 Scuff 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. Today we're going to give our domestic league slash leagues. They're due as American soccer kicks into gear across this fruited plane. Greg, how are you?

I'm good, Bells. You're not technically on the fruited plane at the moment, are you? No, I'm married into an annual vacation in the Caribbean. And I got to tell a little story. from it. I got to tell a little story from it. Today we were snorkeling. My wife and I, she's pregnant with our third child, so she's not been doing a lot of snorkeling, but today we went out together into this bay in the Caribbean Sea. And, you know, there's like a hierarchy of things that you like to see when you go snorkeling. I don't know if you, have you been snorkeling before?

I haven't, but I'm very curious about this hierarchy. Well, so like an octopus is this, is this like a terror hierarchy or a like, uh, uh, thrill hierarchy. Not terror, thrill, thrill, thrill. Appreciation of nature hierarchy. So an octopus is, at least in our family and the extended friends, an octopus is kind of like the top of the, the top of the food chain. If you see an octopus, you had a great day because they're like,

because they're so cool, you know? Okay. They're like change of color and they're shy. And if you see an octopus, you're like, wow, that's amazing. A sting ray is pretty cool But an eagle ray is way better An eagle ray is like Of course

It looks like an eagle under the water It's like flapping around Very majestic Let me see Like a squid is pretty cool A drumfish Which is like a little black and white fish It's very, very cool

Everybody who's listening right now Is doing like hundreds of Google image searches I know it's so ridiculous that I'm talking about But I'll get to the good part. So we're out, we see some squid. That's pretty cool. And we're out in like, I don't know, 20, 30 foot deep water, which is unusual for snorkeling because mostly you're over like 10 foot deep water.

And because we're going from like one reef to another. And we're both looking down. And I just like having to look up and right in front of me two dolphins. They weren't even listed on the hierarchy because they're just understood. They're way out of the heart. They're like way above the hierarchy. Nobody has ever seen a dolphin in our like in our extended network. Two dolphins right in front of us.

And I'm telling you it was kind of terrifying because it's the biggest animal I've ever seen in the water. And they're like five feet from me. And my wife like jumps behind me. We're both kind of like, oh no, oh no, what's going? You don't know. Dolphins aren't obligated to be friendly. That's right. Think of them as friendly.

Yeah. Just because there's a bunch of movies about friendly dolphins. I don't know about it. know if they're friendly so we we start like trying to get other people to come over nobody can hear us because we're too far away from everybody and we we just we get back underwater we see um kind of go 30 feet away they're moving pretty fast because they're you know incredible seaborne predators and uh and then um they they breached to get some air and then they're gone but that was my that was my exciting story from the day to see some dolphins like right up close couldn't believe it

Guff is now a marine biology lab. Yeah. So thanks for bearing with me, Greg. Thanks for bearing with me, everybody else. Saw some dolphins today. And let's get into it. Let's get into Major League Soccer. Well, first of all, how are things in Iowa?

The weather's pretty good there too, I hear. Yeah, we're in the 50s. We're not quite tropical, but we're treating it like it is. So we can get out and knock a ball around if we choose. Do it. Go get those kids knocked the ball around. So I guess for me Dallas, Philly is the headliner, obviously. Dallas is going to always be the headliner, right?

I mean, is that about right? I think so, yeah. Until all their kids go off to the Olympic camp and for a few weeks, we're going to be looking at other teams for a while while all of Dallas is in Guadalajara. Yeah, no. I mean, Dallas, like you mentioned we should give Dallas their own segment, right? every week just have the US Youth FCD

segment yeah no man I mean there's so much to talk about with Dallas and I feel like that's going to be the case every week

so blessings upon you luci Gonzalez and Dan Hunt even if you don't really understand how to sell players and follow you've made this point follow at third degree

net at third degree net on Twitter because he is Buzz is on it. He knows what's going on in Dallas, and it's such an important franchise to follow. Right. I'm sure Dallas didn't sit in a meeting room and say,

how could we gear our entire club philosophy at Adam Bells and Greg Velasquez at Scuff? But they may as well have. Right. So they beat Philly two to one on Saturday. It wasn't a great game of soccer, but I'm sure you watch the game. What would you take away?

from it, Greg. Well, two to zero, I believe. Oh, I'm sorry, two zero. Don't be,

don't be trying to take Gonzalez's clean sheet away from it. I get Presbylco and Androsic mixed up. My bad. It wasn't, it wasn't like a super clean

performance. So we were coming off sort of the Jesus Ferreira high of the Costa Rica game, if we want to call that. He was very confident against Costa Rica for the U.S.

men's national team in his senior team debut. he wasn't as clean and as tidy and as polished. He wasn't playing in the same position even against Philadelphia. Yeah, he was playing as a 10 pretty much, right? Right. And it's not like he looked. I don't know, for all I know, that is his best position.

What's your take on his sort of floating utility at Dallas? I don't know. I kind of like him more as a nine, but I don't know if that's just my bias as a U.S. fan who wants to see more nines in the pipeline and feels like we have enough attacking midfielders in the pipeline. But yeah, he didn't look great. He didn't look terrible or anything.

Right, right. He's not going to have the game of his life every game. Right. Not terrible, but not great. And ultimately, he was subbed off for Pax and Pomacol, who did look great, who did look great when he came on for, what, 10, 15 minutes? Yeah, he came in 10 minutes.

They were up 1-0. And honestly, probably the ideal circumstances for Pomacol to come in because he what he'd just been cleared for training like four days earlier for full speed I mean we don't know all of the all of the sort of milestones that he hit leading up to that he looked fit he looked fit like he looked yeah he looked fit and it was great because he didn't have to go in there and play a bunch of like clean soccer it was like all right we're up one zero 10 minutes left Paxton go in there and be an absolute dickhead and like that's what he did he just got to sort of

Blitz through people defensively, which he excels at, but he didn't even have to turn it into anything offensive. No, he just like slammed it 40 yards out of bounds. Right. Of course, then the one time he does find some space to run into, he does make a great run forward with the ball at his feet. Knocks it on to fellow youth national team eventually player. Yeah, not so far. Not yet. We'll get into him, I'm sure, in a second.

plays it into Tander Testman's feet, Tesman with a bit of a clumsy or turn ball into Pomacall's continued run, and Pomacall with just, I mean, you can just describe it as energy, right? He's just this ball of energy. Energy's his way beyond the recovering Philadelphia defender, just enough to get a shot off and scores. Yeah, pretty nice finish too, you know, puts it far post,

just inside the post, beats Andre Blake. I should mention, the move starts with, I think it was Hollingshead winning a header to Tessman in the center circle. Tessman makes, which what I think was the most important play of, well, not the most important. Most important play was the goal itself. But he. The most important part of the sequence was Pomacall's mustache. Right.

Which fits with him being a dickhead. But Tessman makes a little one touch pass to Possible. Paul McCall to spring him on that run, which I think may go unnoticed by a lot of people, but I thought that was really nice and indicative of Testman's ability to make, not just be a good defensive presence, but make a quick one-touch pass out of pressure to spring a teammate throughout the game. And then, you know, as you said, Palmacall and Testament did the rest. So let's talk about Testament, 18 years old, no longer going to play for Clemson as a kicker, apparently.

Tackle football. No longer part of his, no longer part of his plan. That's a good way to do it. Football and tackle football, you know. Yeah, to tackle football. Yeah, it is. It's not too hand touch. So, yeah, so that was a welcome development, I think, for a lot of us just because it was

a curiosity thing. Like, oh, this north, he was north Texas for a minute, right? Or was he just in the academy? He played for North Texas, but not a ton. I think he had like six or seven appearances, something like that. So, yeah, it all just happened very fast that he turned down Clems and signs his homegrown deal with FC Dallas, and then it's starting a week later. And what I'm really curious about with Testman, before I let you tell us, like, how he played overall, is whether he'll even be able to keep playing. Because I think there's going to be a lot of competition for that central midfield space with Servania coming back from.

injury. Is Serio out injured as well? I actually don't know if Serio is injured or if he's just heading for North Texas. All right. He wasn't in the 18 at all. So I kind of assumed he was injured, but maybe he's not. Maybe he's just falling down a little bit. But Acosta is going to be coming back as well from injury or illness. And then even Pomacol like could probably have a say in who's starting in central midfield. So Tessman for an 18 year old who just sort of arrived on the scene, gets a start and looks competent. I'm not getting super excited that he'll continue to be, that he'll be a mainstay in the 11, but he definitely did plenty with the opportunity that he had.

Yeah, I agree. Tell us what he did. Tell us what he did with his opportunity. Well, he won every physical battle he got into just about, I think, 11 out of 12 or something like that. And the one that he didn't win was he did win the ball from an attacker, but his team didn't pick up the loose ball. So I thought he was,

I thought it was outstanding defensively as a six. He was responsible. He tracked back and helped snuff out at least one dangerous counterattack by, by intercepting a, you know, a ball across from, I think it was, and I don't remember who it was from Philly. So he, I thought he did all that,

he did all the defensive stuff really well. And he was, and he was, like I said earlier, they're pretty good at finding solutions and possession. Didn't, you know, didn't try a ton of, like, long diagonal balls and so forth. But when he did, it was, it looked good. I was, I was really pleased. I mean, for an 18-year-old to play defensive midfield that well in his professional, or not his professional, but his MLS debut, I think it was, like I said on Twitter,

it was the revelation of the weekend. It was the, and when I say revelation, I say, I mean, the new thing that we learned. Right, right. And not to get like your hopes super high. He's not going to be fast-tracked into the Olympic qualifying squad most likely. I don't know. I don't know either. So it's going to be Jackson Ewell at the six, right? Which is a different kind of six. It's more of a Burr-Haltry and six. But if we're looking for like a traditional six, somebody who plays defense and is a physical bulwark, testaments fits that profile more, I think. So you wouldn't hate him.

You wouldn't hate to see his name suddenly in the mix for Olympic qualifying? I would not, no. I think we need defensive bite in that midfield, especially with Cervanya hurt. I don't know. I think I wouldn't hate it. We're hearing third hand from Buzz from at third degree net that maybe he's not going to be released, even if they won him, even if U.S. soccer wants him, right? Something like that. Right. And that goes back to just how many players FC Dallas could be parting with for that window combined with like a kind of a mini, what you think would be like a little bit of a mini injury crisis for them.

Yeah. Good thing they have so much depth. Let's talk about, we already talked about Ferreira. Let's talk about Reggie Cannon. I mean, it looked like maybe he heard his hamstring. Right. And I haven't heard any follow up on that. So I'm, unless they're just really trying to keep it. quiet for competitive purposes to not to not tip their hand ahead of the weekend. I kind of am assuming that he's good to go. Okay. All right. Is that naive?

Would they keep it very quiet if he couldn't go? I mean, he was awfully demonstrative with his pain, especially late in the game. But that's not, yeah. Who knows? Who knows? I'll say this. If he's a question mark injury-wise at this point, I wouldn't want us to use a spot for him on the Olympic qualifying roster

because I just think it's too brutal of a stretch of games the roster's already small if you lose a guy I mean it's kind of like the Mark McKenzie in the U-20 World Cup situation where we brought him I mean he's a great leader he was the captain of the team

but he could never really go out and play and we're you're just too short-handed in a tournament like this to use on a guy who's not fully fit yeah I agree I agree so do you have anything you have anything to say about Jesse Gonzalez and his performance? No, I don't have a ton.

Okay. You just wanted to be known that he had a clean sheet. I didn't want him to take his clean sheet away from him, though. Yeah, that would have been unjust. Speaking of Mark McKenzie, I thought, you know, centerback for Philadelphia, one of the sort of top prospects to be a national team centerback in the future. I thought he played really well. I thought he played.

He wasn't at fault really for either goal. And he, you know, a lot of times there would be a ball played deep to Ferreira or Androsic. And McKenzie would win that battle and end up with the ball at his feet. I don't know. You have anything to add to that or subtract from it? No, you've got this one. Yeah, I thought he was. I'm not as high on McKenzie generally as you are, though.

So I'm high. No, I should be clear. I'm not high on McKenzie like now. I'm high on him like what he could be, you know? No, I got you. I mean, that's sort of what we all are. Right. Because he's comfortable with the ball at his feet.

And he didn't do it on Saturday, but he is capable of the line breaking pass. So that means he's different from a lot of the centerbacks that we have right now. Right. All of our interchangeable parts. Yep. No, I got you. All right. How about Aronson?

Give us your Aronson. Why don't you? You give me your Aronson take. So I feel like it's a lot of, I'm also not very high on Aronson, relative to some of the other MLS, CERNMids, and CenterMids sort of the young kids in Europe, even the ones playing on the reserve teams. Because it just doesn't seem like he can do the heavy lifting necessary in the attack.

And I don't think he's quite as adept as a pommacall at fluidly connection. connecting everything together from defense to attack. And I don't think he's anywhere near Pomacall in terms of what he can do defensively. So for me, it's just really hard to see Aronson's way into like a 23 player or even like the 40-man pool for the national team. And I think that was kind of what we saw over the weekend. I think he did have one pretty, pretty slick ball that he played into the box. But it's not, it's not going to be something.

I don't think we're going to see him. doing that consistently enough. Yeah. I mean, we'll keep watching. Maybe. Right. Maybe he will. Definitely not writing.

I'm not writing off Arenton, not writing off McKenzie. But at the moment, it seems like he's a guy who has a ton of ground to make up. And there are already sort of more exciting, interesting options coming up behind him. Yep. G. Right. Totally. Nobody has written off in this podcast, not even Andrew Carlton.

We see you, Andrew. We see you at. the Indy 11, and we're going to be, you know, our eyes will be open for what you do this weekend. Anyway, Ricardo Pepe also made an appearance, although it was very much a stoppage time, time wasting substitution to end the game. Not much to say about that. So let's move on to, unless you got anything else on this game. No, that was our FC Dallas segment.

Okay. FC Dallas, we'll see you next week. Seattle, Chicago was a surprisingly interesting match on Sunday. Danny Laver got to start The 16-year-old central midfielder He was pretty bad, I thought And Was yanked at halftime for Jordan Morris

Who was very good Jordan Morris was very good He scored two goals He had another He had an assist pulled back For offside rightly But the offside didn't really You know

The offside wasn't why he got the assist I thought Morris was electric And it helped change a game that Chicago was winning, not only on the scoreboard, but just in the run of play. I thought Georgie Mahalovich was actually pretty good, which surprised me. Maricio Paneda, a scuffed debutante in terms of being mentioned on this podcast, was pretty solid at six for Chicago. So that's a name to just be aware of.

And Christian Roll-on. Roll-on, dropped a couple of assists from the right wing. Yeah. Do you have two assists? So, yeah, Lave have two assists and then he was the one who scored the goal on Morris's would-be-assist that was chalked off from Morris being outside. That's right. So I thought the game, this is the game I actually ended up watching more closely than most of the other games the weekend. Just worked out that way.

It was, I thought it was a pretty rough first half. And it was mostly, it kind of reminded me of a lot of like what a Shalka look like, which is pretty competent from the defensive. side of the game to the midfield side of the game and then once the team's got into the final third it was just always a little too sloppy until jordan morris came on the field and jordan morris sort of changed all of that yeah yeah i mean that's that's a good way to put it i would say all pretty much all the major league soccer games i watched this weekend and i watched several of them uh were that were like that just sloppy you know well yeah first game of the season caveat yeah right for these teams that weren't in CCL.

That's not a hashtag pro rel for USA statement. I just thought it was, they were, a lot of the soccer was pretty rough. Should we talk about Morris a little bit? Can I talk about him a little bit? Please do, please do. He just looks, he looks borderline, like, unplayable when he's in that space out wide

where he can really stretch a defense, both vertically and horizontally. So when he's sort of just hanging out by that sideline, you have to keep track of him because it doesn't even he doesn't have to get played in behind to be dangerous. I don't know if that was sort of the rub on him in the past that he had to be sort of found essentially on that breakaway like a youth soccer player. But now you can you can give him the ball faced up against the defender and just like his assist against he can he can shake a guy enough that he can then deliver a really good ball into the middle. And we've seen him do that with the national team. He did it against Uruguay.

He's done it against Canada. So that can really be an important piece for the U.S. I think back to what, like, Corey Baird's job was in the first few U.S. friendlies as like that right winger who stayed on the, who stayed wide. But then who could never actually do anything once the ball got to his feet. Morris really looks like a guy who could, who could serve a real purpose for the national theme. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I don't want him really coming into the middle, which is kind of where it gets interesting because we've, tended to run a system where that player, like a Morris winger, is coming into the middle so

that Cannon can get around him. Right. Yeah, I mean, something for Greg Burrhalter to think about because he is definitely, he's dangerous. Like he can, like you said, he can shake a guy, get to the end line with his left foot. And with his left foot, I mean, he's done this repeatedly over the past eight months, put in a really dangerous ball. It's what he did for that chalked off goal for rolled up. and yeah, I agree with everything he said.

So, yeah, he should be in line to start in March given Pulisick injured, and then obviously Ariaola and Wea injured as well. It seems like if he gets called up and isn't left at home to keep playing with Seattle, it'd be, surely he'll be starting against hopefully both games. Is that kind of where you're at? Yeah, I guess. I mean, I think Raina's probably more comfortable on the left too, so they're both more comfortable on the left side.

And I don't know, I don't know. We'll see. We'll have to figure that out in a few weeks. Gotcha. I'm not going to be mad if he starts. I'll say that, you know. I'm not going to criticize it. Red Bull, New York versus Cincinnati.

A couple of surprising ones for the U.S. Youth Brigade here. Yeah. I mean, we don't need to go into incredible detail here, but Kyle Duncan got a goal and an assist from right back. He should have scored another goal. And he started the move for another goal in a three-two win. So he's involved in all three goals and scored one of them, assisted the other.

So he's, especially if canon is hurt or is dubious, like you talked about earlier, Kyle Duncan's a perfectly good option at right back for the Olympic qualifying team. He's on the provisional roster. So is Julian Rao. it's not a position of weakness for this age group, I don't think. I mean, Canon would be the best if he's healthy.

I'd take Dest over Canon if it came to it, but sure. But Dest is out of the question because he's... Right, all right. Yeah. I didn't know you were ruling out the European players yet. Yeah, I'm not saying Canon is better than Dest. But yeah, so after Dest and Canon, I'd say Duncan and Arara are okay at that position. The other sort of thing we learned in this game is that Frankie Amaya is really a destroyer in midfield.

Check out Matt Doyle's hipster guide to MLS Week 1 for a video of this, but Amaya broke up like multiple plays. He was doing the work of two defenders. It's not really what we thought of him as when he was with the U-20s a couple years ago, but he was doing it. And, yeah, so that's good. That's good to see. Right.

And the things we always have to be careful of here after week one of the MLS season is, again, one, teams are all sort of, could all be out of sorts, given it as their first game. And two, like Kyle Duncan has a great game against FC Cincinnati. It could just be that FC Cincinnati are pretty bad. When Amaya has a good game against Red Bull, New York, it could be that Red Bull, New York are actually pretty bad. That's true. But, I mean, we did see that Amaya was defensive. So he's technical enough. And we know that already.

And we did see that he was a defensive asset for Cincinnati even last year. Obviously, Cincinnati was very poor as a team. But that's not Amaya's fault. And Duncan, I would say, just to push back on that too, I thought Duncan, I've always liked the way Duncan plays. He's comfortable on the ball. He can get forward. He can combine. I'm not sure he's like a first-class defender, but I think he's decent at it.

So anyway, yeah, caveats, sure, but also we know something about these players before yesterday. Right, right. Just keeping everything measured, as I like to do. Yeah. All right, MLS short corners. We got a few just quick things to note here. Joseph Martinez. Just a terrible blow for humanity in soccer especially.

Just, yeah, one of the best characters in the American soccer scene despite not being American. Yeah, Venezuelan, Venezuelan king. He tore his ACL, if you didn't know, and he'll be out for many, many months. That's horrible for Atlanta United because he is the heartbeat of that whole franchise. And like you said, bad for American soccer in general. I felt like Atlanta was really starting to click in the last couple weeks, and that's a big blow to them and their Concaf Champions League chances. Godspeed to Joseph.

No, this is one is a little more lighthearted. The word is that Edson Alvarez is leaving, this is the Mexican Central Defensive midfielder, is leaving IAX this summer, and it makes me wonder, you know, maybe he's coming to L.A., I guess Dennis DeClosa has expressed some interest, vaguely, reportedly. So I wonder is MLS sabotaging L-Tree.

That bit had crossed my mind, too. The USSF is sitting on this massive $100 million surplus or whatever they've got. And so they're using it to buy out the best Mexican players. And ease them into complacency in Major League Soccer. Yeah. Because now we got Chichorito, Vela, Pizarro.

Who else? Pulito. Los Santos. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know. I've always rated Alvarez. I think it's kind of weird

that he hasn't done better at IAX, but he hasn't and he's leaving. I would welcome him to MLS, and I think the MLS TV broadcast rights negotiators would welcome him as well. Yeah. Yeah, he's a stud. He's a stud.

Bryce Duke made another appearance for L-AFC. And their one zero win over Inter Miami on Sunday night and look sharp for a few minutes, in my humble opinion. Obviously, the big stuff from that game was David Beckham's first game as an owner in Major League Soccer. Carlos Vela's delightful chip for the game winning goal. But Bryce Duke was, he was okay, 18-year-old central midfielder. Looked pretty good to me. Is Duke U-20 eligible? I believe he is, yes.

All right. Testman also, Dessman for FC Dallas, also U-20 eligible. So you can start to see how those teams sort of materialize, even if you didn't already know ahead of time who was going to be in that picture. Because that qualifying tournament is this June as well. Yeah. And we should mention that. Brendan Ayrton came on last year for Philadelphia,

but did not make it on the U20 roster. So, you know, at least under Tal Bramos, success with the Major League Soccer franchise did not guarantee you a spot. on a on a on a you 20 roster that may be the case for these guys too right it might just be too late coach isn't comfortable taking that kind of a risk with players he's not sure of uh but it's it just sort of shows how the professional depth uh continues to increase even at the younger ages yep yep quickly we should note uh no julian arajo for the for the la galaxy and their one-one draw with houston uh so congratulations to tab for picking up points

on his first game as a coach in Major League Soccer, and then no David Ochoa for Rayall Salt Lake, which I think was widely considered the worst game played this weekend. Real Salt Lake visited Orlando City, and it was a zero-zero-zero draw. And I think most people already considered that game, the worst game before it was played. Arajoa and O'OO and Ochoa also both U-20 eligible.

Yeah, good point. And then I just want to say, I live in Minnesota. Minnesota United won at Portland and Kevin Molino in his first full season back from his horrible ACL injury a couple years ago, scored twice. So the Trinidadian is back

and I'm happy to see Minnesota United win at Portland. The cities were a buzz. That's right. I would imagine not, but perhaps. United Soccer League. Should we get into that a little bit? All right. Yeah, there are other domestic league

kicking off this weekend. There are a lot of teams you could watch to try to see the next U.S. Youth National Team Star and maybe even the next U.S. Menz National Team contributor. But I'm going to focus on three. Greg, any thoughts here before I feel like I've been talking a lot? Let me just start with San Antonio because I'm not as deep into this as you are. And even I know, like, San Antonio is like our FC Dallas Light.

Jose Gallegos, you've called, He told him the best U-20 attacking player in this country. He's sort of had a couple of eye-popping performances in Friendlies or for San Antonio. He's definitely a guy that you're going to want to watch or at least make sure you're tracking bells or anyone else who's putting together highlights of him. But you give us a rundown on the rest of their youth. Yeah, I just thought, you know, Gallegos made the FC Dallas defense. which was their first choice defense looked silly in preseason. And he looked really good last year, too.

San Antonio was not that great. I think they just missed the playoffs in USL. They were not that great of a team, but Gallegos was good for them last year, even though he only had one goal, one assist. The other players to watch there are Leo Torres, only 16, but he's a Carlos Vela type. I'm not saying he is as good as Carlos Vela.

He's a Carlos Vela type left-footed attacker. and I love his game, his comfort with the ball. Yeah, tell us what you mean by Carlos Vela type. Well, for one thing, he's left-footed. He's really, really comfortable on the ball. He's not like a speedster, but he can beat people on the dribble, and his left foot is really sweet.

That's what I mean by Carlos Vela type. We'll see if Torres can stay healthy and get minutes. The word is he will get minutes this year, and the first opportunity for that will be this weekend. And then the third youngster there to watch is Fabrizio Bernal, who was just signed on an academy deal by the club. I hear very good things about him. I haven't seen him play, but people I trust say he's really good. And he had a great preseason scored a couple goals, I believe.

And we'll see what happens. Another thing worth mentioning with them is they signed Josh Ramsey on an academy deal. Ramsey is from Solar SC, which has won the DA championship either both of the last two years or one of the last two years. They had another one of the centerbacks from that club. Jonathan Tomkinson ended up at Norwich City in England. So Ramsey and Tomkinson were both considered, like, you know, top players from that team. It's interesting to see that San Antonio has signed Ramsey on this academy deal. the way I understand he can still play a little bit with solar.

I'm just going to play some with San Antonio. Just kind of an interesting development in the sort of USL development pathway. Right. Just everything San Antonio is doing here to see if their model is going to work or if they're going to be able to turn it around and sell these players to MLS or to teams in Europe. Exactly. And we're hearing, I mean, we can't really say anything about it,

but we're hearing that. Louisville City is going to sign a really highly touted U.S. youth national team player that many of you will have heard of. That news apparently is going to come out tomorrow. Depending on when you listen to this. Right. Today is Wednesday. Tomorrow is Thursday. So people are starting to see USL as something of a development pathway and a way to become a professional and get to a higher level.

That's not really happened yet. So yeah, and it's interesting because there's like you have the Richie Ledesma piece where he he goes from Rail Monarchs to PSV, but part of part of at least part of the the way that that can work is PSV aren't paying a transfer fee for him. They just they just sign the kid and then pay him his wages. Now granted PSV has to pay Ledesma a lot higher wages and say Fryberg has to pay Ullianas. I'm sorry, Wool's has to pay you on us, and Freiberg had to pay Alex Mendez. Right. But the fact that these kids are signing, in some cases, like two or three-year deals with USL is going to sort of really test that, test European teams' interest in really how much they're going to shell out for a player that they're going to kind of be taking a risk on.

There isn't a proven path necessarily. Right. It would help if Richard Ledzma would get his first name debut with PSV-I-Nhoven. It would sort of prove the level of competition. So you wonder, like, if Gallegos does really well, is he going to be sold to MLS? And if he is, how much is MLS going to play ball with USL? In other words, how much are they going to pay? There's a lot of unanswered questions, but these players are good.

I think that's the bottom line. They're good players. And hopefully it does prove to be lucrative for these USL clubs. The other two clubs I was thinking we should watch this weekend are Rayall Monarchs, who happen to be playing San Antonio. Unfortunately, this may be where we see David Ochoa this season again, because it looks like Zach Macbath is the number one goalkeeper at RSL. So that would redeem these matches from a U.S. Youth National Team perspective. And then Chris Garcia, this kamikaze winger that came up through the RSL ranks, just plays a hundred-mile an hour and scored in preseason a couple days ago for them he's uh he's worth watching as well

so rail monarchs there are other and then tacoma defiance we don't know if any of their players are going to be national team players but we do know that seattle is going to play the kids in usel they've done it for the last two seasons um so they're worth watching watch for maricio quavas with galaxy two and johnny perz plays for mexico but maybe could be talked into a us u s career see. Also watch for that Louisville City signing I mentioned, but cannot specify about it. By the time anyone listens to this, it will have already been announced. I suppose so. Other short corners, unless you got more USL stuff to talk about.

No, you've got the USL beat covered pretty well. Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm really excited about this USL season. I think there's going to be tons of rosters to follow and highlights to look for and clips to be clipped. So. And if you don't have the time to do all that yourself because it's overwhelming, trust bells and a few other, few other Twitter accounts to do it for you.

Yeah, I mean, trust Waki even more than me. Right. Chris Russell. He's really doing it. Who else? I mean, uh, Sanjeev, he may, he may come out of his, uh, engineering fog and do some, and do some videos here before too long.

We're trying to get final third to get back on his computer and do some of these things. Yeah, final third. Ask him, oh, I don't know, a thousand times to start watching soccer again. Other short corners, Shalka goes down to Byron and the DFB Pocall. I guess McKinney was pretty good in that game. I watched some of it. Did you watch more of it than I did? No, I didn't have it on.

Yeah, he looked good. He looked good in roughly 30 minutes. that I watched and I heard from other people that he looked really good. It was a one-zero loss for Shalka, so they're out. The Byron, the Byron juggernaut continues. Dusseldorf, knocked out by fourth division, Sarbruchin. Sounds right to me. Your German is impeccable.

In penalties. They went out on penalties, yeah. Morales, I think, was trusted to take the eighth penalty, something like that, the ninth penalty. And he buried it. He scored his. but yes Fort Dusseldorf out they needed Zach Steffen

in for that shootout if anybody ever wants me to take a penalty for them don't don't You weren't a penalty taker I'm horrible at it man I'm sure I've told everyone that I'm a bit of a penalty specialist are you

yeah I mean when you're a goalkeeper growing up in the era before coaches really knew what to do with their goalkeepers at training the goalkeepers just went off to the side and hit penalties at each other. And when you grow up in Iowa, where you don't actually have to be a player on the field to participate in a penalty shootout, you would just see like goalkeepers taking penalties, backup goalkeepers coming out to take penalties all in like the top five shooters. Wow. So that's what you, so you did that a lot in shootouts. Oh yeah. Our shootouts were like three goalkeepers in a row taking

penalties. Greg, I didn't know this about you. I'm impressed. Yeah, I, I don't trust myself. And then Chandler versus Sargent is happening currently. Should we check out, see what the score is at the moment? It's 0-0 in the 40th minute, so 38th minute. So people can probably piece together when exactly this recording is taking place. Yeah, and Sergeant is not on the field at the moment. Sergeant on the bench, Chandler's starting. Yeah.

At right wing again. Yep. Miazka's back. Redding made a big big. deal out of this. So that's cool. Not just back, but he hadn't been, he had been hurt, but even before he got hurt, he hadn't really been playing in any league games.

He got hurt in the FA Cup. His first game back was in the championship. So he's back and they put him immediately in in the league. And then he just played again in the FA Cup, probably yesterday, day before. Did he play well? Do you know? No, I haven't been able to watch his minute. Centerback week has been delayed.

Isn't it weird how hard it is to just know how well somebody played? without watching. Yeah, it's crazy. It's impossible. We still have people talking about people's four. Like, I'm trying to actually get around to Novakovich because he's doing things. And I'm trying to see if he's actually playing really well or if this is just, you know, when you play an entire season at Forward for a team that's decent in its league, you're probably

going to stumble onto some goals. He now has three. But he's red hot, as they say. He's red hot. He got a Brian Shoretta interview out of it, you know? Did he? All right. So, yeah, he's going places.

So, no, I'm trying to see if he's actually. actually doing anything differently or if this is just the noise in the in the in the stats yeah well let us know and adams is going to be back right he said he told uh he told the r b leipsic house media team that he's he's ready to play said fit and ready yeah i i don't know that he gets to make that call i'm sure they have physicians on staff uh but hopefully players don't get to decide hopefully he's relaying that information that he's gotten from the physios and he's been declared fit. Otherwise, I'm sure he's probably two weeks away. Okay, two weeks away, as he has been for years. Women's U-20s going on now. Why don't you tell us about it? So the women's U-20 tournament is happening

right now. Top two teams in the ConcaGa-Gaff tournament, in other words, the finalists in the tournament qualify for the U-20 World Cup. And it's kind of a brutal schedule because once you get out of the group, you've got three knockout games you have to win. So it just gets a little nervy. The U.S. are actually right now playing in the quarterfinal. They already won the round of 16 game. And this one was especially nervy because it was against Canada, which is a strange game to see those two teams lined up in a quarterfinal.

But it's because Canada seems to have fallen off quite a bit. The U.S. are currently up for zero in the 68th minute. So that is going to be a pretty comfortable victory for them. And then I believe they're going to be playing surprise, semifinalist, and host Dominican Republic in the semis. So the tournament's happening in the Dominican Republic? Yes, which is pretty cool. I should just jump on a boat and go down there.

Snorkel your way over to the Dominican Republic. I don't go in water that's over 30 feet deep. That's terrifying. That's scary for me. Respect the sea, bells. I do. I try to. And then the She Belief's Cup is coming up.

Yeah, this we do. So this is a cool one because, the U.S. women just qualified for the Olympics by dispatching their Conca Calfe opposition pretty handily. She Belief's Cup is England, Spain, and Japan. So three much tougher teams than what sort of they've been playing recently. So a chance for Vlato to really test out his pool, which is more or less the World Cup pool that Jill Ellis had. But again, some real good competition that's also gearing up for the Olympics. So basically a chance to see who's going to take over for Alex Morgan's striker position going into the Olympics.

And that's because she's about to have a baby? Right. I think any week, I don't know. What kind of sexism is that? That she's not allowed to play whilst pregnant? Just kidding. I think her physician is probably recommended that she not. So back to the U-20s.

Is there anybody, I mean, the women's senior team is so stacked. Is there anybody on this U-20 team who is looking like, oh, yeah, they could break in and be a difference maker for the senior team? My favorite would be Sophia Smith, but I don't know if she's coming back from injury or what, but she's barely played in this tournament. Not that they necessarily need her, but she'd be my player that you could see even, And she's not going to be in the Olympics because there's just barely going to be any turnover from the World Cup to the Olympics. But otherwise, our team is pretty old. Like there's no way Rapino is going to still be on this team in 2023. You know, we're a bit top-heavy age-wise.

So a few of these players are good enough. There are already some very good players a few years older than the U-20s who can't break into the team because of the staying power of Rapino and Carly Lloyd, Tobin Heath. But so to answer your question, I'm not, I'm not sure any of these U-20s are going to be making like an immediate impact the way some of the men's U-20s have the opportunity to do. Okay. There's levels to this stuff. And the women are on a different level.

They really are. All right. Well, anything else we should talk about? I think we're covered. I'm expecting the Olympic. qualifying roster to maybe be announced as early as like this weekend once everyone sort of wrapped up their games for the weekend because I think they're going to be again convening in Guadalajara like next week yeah first game is the 21st is that right 20th okay against Costa Rica that's that's kind of the big one we win that and we're in really good shape yeah so follow all the 23 players instagrams and see if any of them are throwing out wheels up to Mexico photos. Yeah, 20th.

That's, what's today? The fourth. So that's just over two weeks. All right. Thanks, everybody for listening. Thanks, Greg. We'll see you.