Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 126: The Olympic qualifying roster — this time (the player pool) is different

Episode Date: March 10, 2020

We talk about the men's Olympic qualifying roster, Greg V goes on a rant about how much better the men’s U23 player pool is than at any time in US Soccer history, and we give a consensus XI for the opening match in Guadalajara against Costa Rica.1:15 goalkeepers2:10 centerbacks5:55 fullbacks10:30 Greg’s bit on how much better the men’s U23 player pool is than at any time in US soccer history16:35 midfielders24:30 wings26:50 forwards28:34 our XI for the match against Costa Rica 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 scuffed. We are here to talk about the Olympic qualifying roster, which was released on Sunday night in the midst of a barn burner of a 3-3 draw between L.AFC and the Philadelphia Union.

Greg, how goes it? Good bell's here to talk about sports while there are still sports to talk about. I know, man. So, wait, common ball, World Cup? qualifiers got canceled earlier today? Yeah, it feels like that's going to be the trend. And I mean, I'm half, I'm not really joking. Like, tell your parents to stay inside, please.

Watch their hands. Use a lot of hand sanitizer. All that stuff. Yeah, coronavirus is a serious thing. Just for the history books, for the archives, we mentioned it. It was a big deal. Let's run through the 20-man roster. Hi, man.

It's a solid roster. Why don't you start with goalkeepers? Okay, I'll do goalkeepers. Matt Freeze from the Philadelphia Union, J.T. Markinkowski from San Jose Earthquakes and David Ochoa from Real Salt Lake. Ochoa is the youngest of those. He was sort of obliquely spotlighted by Jason Christ in the conference call yesterday, which delayed the recording of this podcast. He said he's the one with the most. I think experience.

And I think he was referring to that title run last year. But he said it's going to be a tough decision on who starts. Should we be talking about these guys as we go? Or do you want to just more list it first? I think we can talk about some, but I don't really have much to say about the goalkeepers. Okay. That's all I have to say about the goalkeepers. He said it's going to be a tough decision and maybe the toughest decision they have in the lineup.

All right. If they get through without a howler, I feel like we qualify. I feel like that the goalkeeper howler is what will keep us out of the own fix. Keep the howlers to zero. That's good. Centerbacks, why don't you take centerbacks? All right, we got centerbacks. We've got Mark McKenzie, Eric Palmer Brown, and Justin Glad.

Eric Palmer Brown, for me, the most surprising, just because I didn't expect him to get released. I'd seen somewhere that Austria has a, like, a little mini break in their season. I don't think that's the case. At least according to their schedule on Google, Eric Palmer Brown will miss two matches and potentially the third if he doesn't get back in time for their games following the qualifying. tournament.

Yeah, interesting. I wish I knew more about that situation because aren't they close to some kind of line in their table in the Austrian table? Yeah, so there is like a second portion of the season where the top six teams and the bottom six teams split up and essentially play in mini leagues to the top teams against top teams, bottom teams against the bottom teams. And I believe Austria v. Right now sit in seventh.

And they're a ways off from six, but they're not like. They could get to six if they went on a tear. Okay. I feel like the further east you go, the more complicated, the league tables get. They're all going to end up merging. Austria is going to merge with Poland, and they're going to have their own league. That'd be kind of cool. That'd be kind of cool.

All right. I'll take – well, do you want to say anything about McKenzie or any of these guys? I don't think so. I mean, they're all very capable, racked up plenty of professional minutes. None of these guys I think are going to be overwhelmed by. the by the game. They should be serviceable at a minimum. And I thought McKenzie's been playing,

I think McKenzie's been playing pretty well in Major League Soccer. He allowed Diego Rossi onto his right foot for the second goal in that game on Sunday night. Maybe he should have done better there. But he otherwise played really well dispossessed Vela a couple times, which is no small feat. And I feel like it should be EPB and McKenzie as a starters. Yeah, I'm kind of banking on that because I, I think you don't bring Eric Palmer Brown out of his club season to have him back up Justin Glad.

Yeah. So he plays right centerback first club. And I know Glad, I believe, plays right centerback slash right back for Salt Lake. That's right. And McKenzie's been playing left centerback, although he can definitely play right centerback. So that's kind of how I've split it up in my mind. A couple names that we were, if not surprised to see Left Off. It's just they're definitely worth noting.

and that would be Chris Richards, who I believe you had a family member confirmed that he was not released by Byron Munich, I think, implying that he would have been invited. Right. Yeah, his aunt, who is a reliable source in my experience. Miles Robinson injured at the moment for Atlanta, but Atlanta had made clear that they aren't going to be releasing players for non-F FIFA windows anyway, which a portion of this tournament is taking place in. So, I mean, right there, Miles and Richards would be potentially one or both of them probably in a discussion for starting for this team. Robinson for sure, I would say Robinson for sure, a starter and Richard's a good shot, yeah. You know, and I might as well bring up the other guy to Cameron Carter Vickers, because I don't know that he wouldn't be a starter for a full strength U23 team. Yeah?

I don't know. He's got a ton of experience. he was in the 2015 qualifying tournament for the Olympics. That was two decades ago. He emerged at Luton Town on transfer as a staple in their lineup as they're trying to escape the relegation zone and remain in the championship for another year. So again, we just have all a lot of, I'd say at this point, seasoned centerbacks in the U-23 picture. Yep.

Let's move on to fullback. The three selections were Reggie Cannon, Chris Glouster, and, Aaron Herrera. You know, we got signals all through the beginning of the year that Cannon was going to be a mainstay on this team and one of the leaders of it. So that was no big surprise. And he's obviously the starter at right back. And then Chris Gloucester is probably going to be the starter at left back.

He's a natural left back and Aaron Herrera is more of a natural right back. But Herrera can cover both positions. I think that's sort of the argument for him in that spot. Yeah, it'd be pretty solid. Yeah, good tournament player. Good guy to have in a tournament setting. this. Yeah. I'm excited for Glasser because I really think that he did well in the U-20 World Cup. He did. And I still think that he has been impressive in sort of a low-key way in the Young

PSV video that we get to watch every now and again because he just seems very stable, very reliable, very clean. You're not seeing him at fault for a bunch of goals. No. So I really like him. I'm excited to see what he can do in this tournament. I'm hoping that this is sort of his chance to stake a claim for the Tokyo tournament. Yeah, he doesn't get beat a lot. I mean, he does get beat sometimes, but he's a pretty steady defender, just like he was in the U-20 book. You want to get into the omissions?

Yeah, we got, we've got Anthony Robinson at Wigan, who is not been in the game to 18 since his A.C. Milan transfer fell through. It feels like this is not a disgruntle. situation more of a maybe he's been injured coronavirus oh man oh yeah he was oh no oh dear no uh sorry he's he's young he's he's 20 yeah but he yeah he hasn't he hasn't been in the lineup for wigan since uh so hopefully hopefully yeah hopefully he's still healthy um sam vines i think is a is one we're all expecting to be on this team and i have to assume that he wasn't released because uh based on the game he had for the senior team against Costa Rica, you'd have expected him to have played his way

into this roster. Yeah, by the way, the Colorado, somebody, one of the Colorado Rapids reporters tweeted that he was not released. Okay. And that makes a lot of sense. He started for the Rapids. Yeah. So they need him.

It totally makes sense. Yep, they were close to the playoffs last year. So every point matters for that squad. So, so Vines left off. I'm kind of, I'm kind of, kind of hoping he gets called up. to the senior team for their friendlies in Wales and Holland, if those friendlies take place. Big if.

We also had Duncan for New York Red Bulls, right back, who has been on a strong start to the season for New York Red Bull. I'd kind of been hoping to see him, but once again, probably, do you think he was left off or do you think he just wasn't picked? I'm going to, I don't know, but I shade toward wasn't released. Okay. Which again would make sense. And to be honest, even if they just chose Herrera over Duncan, that also makes sense because Herrera, because he can double duty at right and left back, frees you up to take.

Duncan can play right and left back, too. I mean, he's done it at least at the professional level, but I don't know. Herrera's been a part of the group. Well, Duncan was a part of the group, wasn't he back in the fall? I don't remember he played in that November game, November series. Yeah, it's kind of half a dozen one sticks the other. All right. And then you've got...

And then you've got a Julian Arajo, who was in the senior team camp in January, leading up to Costa Rica, didn't play in that game. And the word we've gotten from... Was it a Telemundo reporter? TUDN. Actually, don't know what that stands for. Univision. Univision family. Okay.

So basically said that Galaxy negotiated with the U.S. and said that if they wanted Arajo for the U-20 qualified, flying tournament in June, that Galaxy would keep him through this tournament in March, which again, this all makes sense. Arajo wouldn't be the starter. You got to assume Canon is locked in as the starting right back. So you don't have to be super disruptive for players who are going to be in backup roles. Not that you're not going to need everybody to play in a five game tournament. Right.

Yeah, it all kind of, the fullback stuff all kind of makes sense to me. But can I do a little extended bit here now that we're talking about. talking about like the Duncan and Noraho situations. So it's just wild to sort of put this group of players in historical context with the last few Olympic cycles. And we can actually even go all the way back to 2008 where we did have a solid Olympic team. I know 2012, 2016 were a bit of a shambles where we didn't qualify. But even 2008 where we qualified, Like the team that we brought to qualifying in 2008 was basically the Olympic team. I mean, it was our best group of age eligible players with the exception of Michael Bradley and Benny Failhobber.

Michael Bradley at the time was in the midst of a 15-goal season in the Aere-Devisier. And Benny Failhobber was coming off like an average season in the Bundesliga. And then he had moved to Darby County in the EPL where he had like 10 appearances for a historically bad. Darby County side. So those were the only two guys who you'd say, like, weren't available for selection for qualifying in 2008. And then you move on a cycle to 2012. The guys who weren't available for qualifying because they were essentially too good would have been Josie Altador, who, by the way, played in 2008 in the qualifying tournament. Josie was with in Holland at the time, racking up like 20 goals.

Timmy Chandler. The glory days, right? Yes. Timmy Chandler, who at that point was in every game starter in the Bundesliga for Nuremberg. And you never know if he would have accepted the call up anyway. He was kind of wishy-washy about coming to play. I think he might have been committed to the U.S., but he just wasn't always coming to our games. Alfredo Morales, who we kind of like just started to figure out was dual eligible, I think.

He had 1,500 minutes in the Bundesliga that season. And then Danny Williams, also another 1,500-minute guy in the Bundesliga for Hoffenheim. So that was it. Those were the guys who didn't play in 2012. Otherwise, I think I see where you're going with this. Otherwise, the qualifying team would have been the Olympic team. And then in 2016, in that cycle, it was John Brooks, who wouldn't have been available. He was just kind of getting in the mix with Hereto Berlin, had 1,800 minutes that season. D'Andre Yedlin would have been age eligible, didn't play in the qualifying tournament, moved from Spurs to Sunderland on loan, racked up 1,800 minutes in the Premier League.

And then you're getting into like Julian Green who had after that World Cup Spectacular goal had a very unspectacular loan spell with Hamburg where he had like five appearances and then came back to Bayern Munich played in the fourth division for their reserve so There's a pretty clear difference here if I went on that whole spiel just to show that yeah like this is a different story I mean people always been saying but this time it's different and And I just have to continue to say this time it very much is different. And even if this side that we're bringing to Guadalajara fails to qualify, like even if we lose in the semifinal and the one and done game,

like that can happen. It's a 90-minute soccer game. Someone, we need Burger Meister to check the rules here. I don't even know if they play extra time if it goes straight to penalties in the event of a draw. But upsets like that can happen in a 90-minute game. The key difference here is this is not in any way, shape, or form our best U-2311. or 20. I mean, this is our second and times third string. And in the cases of guys like Duncan and Arajo, our third and fourth string rightbacks are still deemed two valuable to their clubs

to be released. Yeah. It's really interesting. Like who else are we talking about four omissions just to like lay out the contrast between now and, you know, 8, 12 and 15? Like we've got the omissions we listed already. Antony Robinson, Sam Vines, Kyle Duncan, Julian Arajo, Chris Richard. Miles Robinson, Cameron Carter Vickers. We haven't even gotten to the midfielders yet. The midfielers and forwards. Yeah, we've got like a half a Champions League side with Tyler Adams, Sergenio Dest, Christian Pulisick, Weston McKinney, Tim Weaah, like.

Yeah, we're not even going to mention those guys in this podcast because they're so far. Yeah, they were never even in contention. Yeah, we were never, we were never thinking they were coming. So it's such a different, it's just such a different picture. in this cycle. And it does feel like, it does feel like sort of the, the rank and file who cover soccer in this country have not really picked up on this yet. Yeah, it's, it's massive.

I think, I think part of why that happens and, you know, you kind of, we still get sort of the smug dismissals of like, oh, everyone always overhypes the kids. And these kids, it's not like these kids are going to go beat France or beat Brazil. And they're not. And they're not even, our, our cohort of young players probably is nowhere in, you. France's cohort of young players. But even if they were, even if they were, which again, they're not. But they still wouldn't go out and beat France because France's amazing young talented

players are joining a team with Griesman and Conte and Drew. And our incredible talented young players are joining a team with Lovitz and Zardez and Trap. And that's just like a, I mean, because of the missing generation are, even though we're having this incredible class of players, they're. still not going to be, we're not going to be amazing. We're still going to be a cycle away from where we should be because they're not joining up with elite players. But yeah, but that's, that's what we're looking at here. So to sort of dismiss and be like, oh, well, everyone thinks

these guys are just going to be, we don't think they're going to go beat France. But what we're saying is like, this is a completely, from a U.S. perspective, this is so night and day from anything that we've really seen before. Unprecedented. I mean, people use that word a lot, but it is actually true in this case. Um, should we do the, move on? Yeah, that was my,

that was my extended bit. Let's get into our midfielers. It's a great bit. It's a great bit. Keep hammering away at it too, man. Let's see. Midfielders. Uh,

why don't you just go through them in order of importance? Oh, important. Which is, which is an awkward way of framing it, but. Um, I think I'm going to say you will probably the most important because he's, he's seen as the most important and it's hard for me to say that that's totally wrong seen by that seen that way by the coaches so eul as the six um pomacol as the eight and uh erinson ladesma as the

tens one of those two and maybe one of those two on the wing since uh it's likely ulyan is not going to play in that first game so um yeah that's how i that's my order and then it then comes Dotson then comes Mahalovich. Who you kind of see as almost like strictly cover Yeah, I mean he He seems like he can do these jobs Right like he's he's suited to these roles

You're talking on Georgia or you're talking about Dotson Georgie yeah the job of a 10 or he could play on either wing He plays on a left wing for Chicago Kind of Yeah no that makes sense to me And like you pointed out in the Christ's Teleconference He continued

He said repeatedly that Ledesma and Comacol are comfortable in the wing. Yeah, yeah. So there's a good chance we'll see one of those guys out there, I would think. He even said Ledzma could be a false nine. I know. That's fun to think about. Yeah. Who are you talking for midfield omissions?

Kind of long list. Yeah. Alex Mendez, Keaton Parks. Hey, Alex Mendez, was he released or was he just selected over? it's not 100% clear if he would have been called up but he was definitely not released by iax outside of the FIFA window okay it's it could be that christ didn't want to accommodate that and um it could be that christ wasn't interested at all we don't know okay and christ wasn't you know he declined in the conference call to take any questions about like individual players or individual club policies and the whole like

the whole he just punted on the whole release question right and i love that because he that was the first he did, right? And that's probably what 90% of our questions would have been, just a list of players. What about this player? What about this player? How hard did you ask for this player? Yeah, right. How many visits did you make to the club to get to this player released? Yeah, you could litigate that all the way to the ends of the earth. So Mendez, Keaton Parks, James Sands, Brandon Sorvanya, Christian Cappi, Capis, Chris Durkin, and Shiny New Toy, Tanner, Tassman. We love Tanner Tessman. I actually think he's been really good.

You love him? You're being sarcastic, I guess. No, I'm not being sarcastic. I don't think we have near enough debt on him to, at least I don't, because I've only seen him in these two FC Dallas games. Yeah, same here. But I've loved what I've seen, and it's just fun to have just a new name burst onto the scene, at least for me again.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who've known plenty about Tanner Tessman, but. Yeah, I actually didn't rate him that highly before the same. season started. That's what I knew about him. I thought, yeah, he's okay. Okay. But I was wrong. Did you watch quite a bit at North Texas? We don't need to let Tanner Tessman. I don't want to put a number on the number of minutes I watched, but I watched some. I think I would say maybe parts of two games. And I was like, yeah, it's kind of, seems kind of slow over short spaces and unremarkable on the ball. But I obviously either am an idiot or didn't get enough data.

Or he had a big jump in the last three months. Yeah, there you go. That's what, let's go with that. We're going to choose that one. You were correct. I've always, I've been right all along. So all the, all the omissions you listed, I don't think there's anyone there, with the exception of Mendez, maybe, that sort of would give us something that we don't

already have in somebody else. Is that fair? I think, I mean, I hate to be this guy, but I do think test. gives us something he gives us that ability to cover ground and play defense and distribute the ball just fine that it's that combination of ruggedness and calmness on the ball for the most part from him that is so intriguing to me because i i don't know if you have that combination in anybody is there anybody else with that pomacall pomacall pomacall wins a lot of those gets into a lot of those challenges yeah uh but

we just mentioned that, let's talk about Pomacall. He hasn't started for FC Dallas yet. He's staying with FC Dallas for the games this weekend, is my understanding. So we'll see if he starts now because Ferreira is gone already. And so I guess I just have questions about whether or not Christ will be confident that Pomacall can start a game. Yeah. And I guess the smart money is he doesn't start, right? He doesn't start that first game.

I guess we'll see what happened. Like he said, we'll see what happens this Sunday. It's not that big of a problem, I don't think, because you can have, because Aronson was awful tough against L-AFC in a sort of like ball-winning midfield role. I mean, he was a 10, but he was winning the ball a lot. And I think you could go, especially against the low block,

you could go with that sort of softer midfield. Did I just say that? Did I just say that? Bell finally admits that the creamy midfield is what he wants. Right. Chewy, is it creamy or chewy? Soft. Yeah, I think it was creamy.

Okay. We should change it, I think. I don't like creamy. Let's go with chewy. Fine with chewy. The soft, chewy midfield. Okay. All right.

Anything else? Any other notes for the midfield in general? Well, so one thought would be, we'll play Ferreira as a 10. He plays as a 10 for Dallas. And I don't think he's looked that good as a 10 for Dallas. So I don't like that idea. I just want to put that out there. I actually hate that idea because that's where we actually have a bunch of players.

It's not like we need to. oh well we got to play for error there because otherwise we'd have to play ledesma or erranton or pomacol or georgie yeah especially with uh some some need for perhaps reinforcements on the wing because so i should clarify that my understanding is uleana's was was granted uh was accommodated by jason christ even though wolfsberg isn't going to release him outside the fiefa window does that make sense yeah and And that's where, so if that gives Christ less wiggle room to accommodate other players. So if Yanos can't be there for Costa Rica and then IAX says, well, we won't let Mendez go until after that date either, then, you know, Christ is going to be like, okay, well, do I just have 15 players for the, you know, I mean, he's got a, he's got to draw a line somewhere and say, okay, well, we can afford it here, but we can't afford it with another player. Yeah, that's a really good point.

Yeah. And so Uli, Uli obviously did so well in that January camp, this is another thing Christ said. he said he basically earned his spot on the roster with his performance in January camp, which is kind of like, yeah, that's what happened. Crazy how the only way you can do that is by being invited to one of the camps. Right. Maybe we shouldn't be so reluctant to invite players to camps. Right.

He loved the way Ouli played in January camp, obviously, and then baited it so much that he gave him this exception and he allows him to miss the first game, which I'm happy with. I think it's cool. I'm extremely happy. We're also extremely thin on the wings, in my opinion. in the available age group players. So if you're going to make an exception, you do it on the wing,

whereas even though I'd like to have Mendez in this group, again, we have a lot of strength in central midfield. Yeah. Okay. So we talk about the wingers. Yeah. Okay. So we've got, we're bringing three.

We're bringing Uli. We're bringing Bofo, Saucato, and we're bringing Jonathan Lewis. And like you said, Uli not available. Another point I wanted to make about Uli and his Costa Rica performance is that he absolutely did not play it like a hug-the-line winger. He pinched way in.

He was picking the ball up often in sort of the half-spaces, but in the same line as an attacking midfielder. So we won't get into the full tactics here, but just to sort of keep that in mind, all three of those guys, Uli, Sosato, and Lewis left wings, right? Yeah, pretty much. By nature. So I know Yana has played on the right wing in the U-20 World Cup,

which I think could come into play. here because everyone's, I feel like everyone's lineup of their listing is the front three of Ferreira, Saucato, and Yanez. And, you know, that means you're putting one of those guys on the right that's, that's a left winger. I mean, Uli's much better equipped to go on the right wing than Saucato is, I think. Okay. That's, I mean, that's my sense of it.

And I, I have such fond memories of his appearance at the U20, woke up when he came in on the right wing. I mean, he was just immediately dangerous and helped us, helped us beat Cutter. Well, once we start getting into lineups, I might revisit this too. The winger omissions for me would have been Gior Raina, who we kind of knew already wasn't going to be there. Brooks Lennon, who had featured a lot in the prior U-23 camps up until Atlanta said, no more youth releases. I don't know about Emmanuel Savi if he would have been on the list. He played for him in November in the U-23 games.

did fairly well. I thought he had pretty good in his one, would he make like one 15 minute appearance or something? Yeah, we're thin on the wings, so he'd be in the discussion. And then we were contractually obligated to mention Jonathan Amon, this podcast. He's a boy, man.

He's a guy. Seems to still be hurt. It has not made an appearance yet this season. Yeah, poor Jonathan. I hope he gets healthy. I do. Yeah, we may as well put Nick Tadaguay in the list as well. All right, and then up top, we've just got Jesus Ferreira and...

Jeremy Ababa Se. Jeremy Ababa Se. So I think, again, good, reliable professionals there. I liked what Ferreira gave us against Costa Rica. I Boba Se has not been playing a lot of forward of late. Plays a lot on the wing for Portland, played on the wing last January camp in 2019 for Burrhalter. But, again, he's playing his first. 23s, he should be able to do this job.

Yeah. And he's an intelligent player, which I'm learning to appreciate more and more about strikers. I think he's, I think his completeness as a player makes him, so the omission is Mason Toy. And I think Bobesai wins a lot on his, on his movement, right?

And his sort of completeness as a player. Not that he's amazing at any one thing. he's just like decent at holdup play moves pretty well in the box toy is like uh is more of a i'm gonna hit you on the counter attack and do something marvelous right when you think toy it's like all right leave him up top well we defend and then if we get one decent chance we want toy to be the guy to have it right so i i like the oboesei choice and ferrera ferrara too yeah the only my only concern with the bobbets was that he is coming off of injury so again short tournament if for some reason it turns out he can't go or we can't use him

then then we're into richie ladesma's false nine territory yeah do you want to just go right into the lineups yeah tell me tell me what you think we're going to see well with the yonnas not being there against cost of rica now this is the game that's on what the it's in 11 days yeah it's on the 20th i'd say ferrera up top le desma on the right Saus Sauta on the left. And so it doesn't want the right in a way that, where he's tucking in, and Cannon is bombing up to the right of him. And then Aronson, Palmacall, and Yule in the midfield, and then Cannon, Palmer Brown, McKenzie, and Gloucester across the backline with Achio and Gull. I'm a big, achoa stand.

We did not compare notes, but I had the exact same lineup. And it's very much because of. Liddette, because of the way we tend to play for the U.S. since Burhalters arrived, which is creating sort of a band of four attackers underneath the forward. And so you can get into that in a lot of different ways, as we've seen. But I kind of feel the same. I feel like it's going to be Gloucester and Cannon getting up high the way Vines and Cannon did against Costa Rica. And then Yannes can pinch way in from the left.

Ledzma will be very comfortable pinching in from the right. And that leaves you Pomacall and Aronson, sort of doing the job that. Legitin Arrinson did around Jackson Yule, which is to just sort of connect the play into those front five with Ferrer leading the line. Yeah. I really like the way it looks. And Aronson, Palmacall, Ull, defensive midfield is short of starting Hassani Dodson somewhere in there, is the strongest midfield we can muster, you know, like the most,

the toothiest, the least chewy. And presumably we'll need to, their job will be to destroy counter-distance. And not let Costa Rica get out on the break if Costa Rica are sitting deep defending. Yeah. And Pomacalls is like he was built for that. Yeah. So I like it, man. And I feel like what I'm curious about is when Yanaz comes back, whether he will, like,

whether we'll drop one of those center mids and move with Desma in or whether Yanez and Saucato will effectively like rotate games. Because I could see, I could see that happening. Yeah. I mean, it is going to be a lot of games, assuming we win on. on next Friday, we're gonna, if we win that game, we're almost certainly through to the group stage. And then it's just like bang, bang, bang, four games in a row,

four games at three day intervals. Right. So you could go, you know, Yanez in the Dominican Republic game, Saucato against Mexico, Yana is in the semifinal, the all-important semifinal. I'm getting kind of nervous just thinking about it. But I like, I really like that lineup that we just put out. That makes me, that's a game I'm excited to watch.

Oh, man, it'd be, I feel like we could really see some slick soccer. I know it could very well feel like a road game. I could see the crowd being fairly hostile. But that front five with either Aronson or Pomacol able to sort of burst into it, burst through and add an extra attacker. Yeah, it's something that I'm very excited to see. I'm excited to see. I'm excited even to see McKenzie and Palmer Brown. You know, Palmer Brown are long lost Austrian son.

See him back in the shirt. I'm excited for that. And I do like the way McKenzie is playing soccer right now. And same with the goalkeeper. We just need those two to be steady, the way Richards and McKenzie were in the U-20 qualifying tournament. Just be steady. Nothing silly.

And let's do this. Yep. Because there's enough talent ahead of them to create danger, to create danger and score goals. Anything else we should talk about here? No, let's just cross our fingers that this tournament can be held safely. Yeah, totally.

It seems to be on course. Again, first match is in 11 days in Guadalajara against Costa Rica, a very important match. The following game, that's a Friday, and then the following game is on Monday, I think, the 23rd, and, you know, so on. We'll be publishing something else later this week, a deep dive on the U-20 roster,

which nobody asked for, but it's coming anyway. They're in camp. Are they in camp right now? They're going to be in camp later this month. And it's a pretty interesting group of players too. Matt Hartman and I got into that and please fire it up once we publish it. Maybe Thursday. I'm excited for that too because it was such a foggy picture even after like the U-17 World Cup.

And I just feel like there have been a lot of developments in the last month and a half. There have. A lot of Tannertes-shaped developments. And Jose Gaiagos, big late entrance into the starting line of. for both of us. I think, I think Gio Raina has had some things happen since the U-17 World Cup.

He also has. He is, he will not be participating with the U-20s. It doesn't appear. All right. Thanks, Greg. Thanks everybody for listening.

We'll see you.