Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 130: Return from COVID and a Bundesliga rundown

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

The bulk of this podcast is a discussion of the decisions facing Berhalter with World Cup qualifying thrown into uncertainty, and a run-down of what we’ve learned from the Bundesliga.0:30 DeAndre Yedlin’s stand2:20 Dr. Velasquez on all the opportunities for assessment lost since coronavirus hit, and a discussion of how risk-averse Berhalter will be with his selection as WC qualifying eventually gets underway19:10 Bundesliga rundown50:15 England and elsewhere, plus NWSL kicks off this weekend Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez in Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Welcome to scuffed. Summer is here. A lot of the important soccer has returned and we have run out of excuses for not recording a podcast. Lots to talk about. Greg, how are you? I'm okay. I'm okay, Bells. We are definitely ready to talk about soccer. I don't know that we're ready for soccer to necessarily be back from a public health perspective. But it is back and so we're going to spend some time talking about it. Yep. Yeah. Okay is about how everyone in America is right now. If they're lucky.

Yeah, I mean. Yeah. It's like best case at the moment. It's best case. Yep. Let's start with something serious. DeAndre Yedlin said last week he's considering not representing the U.S. because of the persistence of racism and the oppression of black people in this country, police brutality.

I'm going to read the full quote. It's one of those waiting games to see if a change does happen, he said. But if things go as they stand, it's hard for me as an African-American male to represent a country that does things like this where all people aren't equal. End quote. He was, of course, referring to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And I think the fact that Yellen took the time and the energy to say this publicly deserves our acknowledgement as a podcast. And not that it particularly matters what I think, but the message. that we got to fix our country and fight racism a lot harder certainly resonates.

It does. And Yedlin, you know, suggesting that he might do this, which would be a pretty drastic action within a, you know, supporting context effectively boycotting the U.S. men's national team. Even suggesting you might do this takes real courage. The USSF may have done an about face recently, but their record on players protesting police brutality towards people of color has not been great. Right. but Megan Rapino. The Megan Rapino example is the most prominent one. So we'll put a link to the full Yedlin interview in the show notes because it's worth

watching the whole thing. And we'll move on to the sporting side of things, the soccer. So Greg, you've been tinkering in the lab. I'm going to turn it over to you to frame up the sporting discussion. All right. Well, I assume a lot of soccer folks have spent. a lot of time tinkering in labs because that's essentially all you do without being able to actually get on the field.

So we are going to, we're going to turn our focus to the next two windows. Brian Strauss reported yesterday that we could see an updated FIFA calendar this week, which would give us an idea of what Concaf has to work with ahead of the November 2020, 2020 World Cup. I think we've all seen the two sort of main candidates for the first. modified format. Yeah, three groups of four, the group winners qualify, and then the best runner up goes to a playoff versus Hunger Games winner from Oceania, I believe. Well, the Hunger Games winner from Concaf first, so they'd play all the...

Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Okay, scratch that. The Hunger Games winner from Concaf. And then the other option is an eight-team tournament, which, Greg, you're calling it the Ocho, I believe. Has to be called the Ocho. and I personally think the Ocho kicks all kinds of ass and would love to see it as the main format anyway.

I think it's amazing given the recent rise of some countries, Canada, Curacao, combined with the drop-off for Costa Rica and the United States, I think it would be an incredible free-for-all in the post-Mexico position, so spots two through eight. So it would be just like a single elimination tournament for all eight teams or like two-legged. Or my I think it would be an eight team home and away is my understanding. Okay. Okay. So you'd play 14 games. Is that, do I have that wrong?

I don't, I don't think so. I don't know. So it would be kind of like the Champions League except the, just the final eight of it. No, no, no, no, I don't think. I'll have to reread this, Bells, and we'll definitely need fact checkers because I thought it was going to be a 18 league. So just like the hex, but with eight teams instead of six. The point being the last few spots in the hex were going to be decided by FIFA rankings based on the June rankings.

But now the March and June friend friendlies and concacaf Nations League's games didn't happen. So it essentially denied teams the opportunity to move up or down. And so those teams would essentially get brought into the Ocho. Okay. To be given more of their chance. So it'd be just like the hex except bigger. I thought so, and that way you guarantee that you get Mexico-US again, which you wouldn't get in the three groups of four. You'd lose out on any U.S.-Mexico games.

Yeah. Okay. So we'll have to have to have somebody verify that that's what the Ocho is, but I love the idea of the Ocho. And I think it would be an amazing, you know, long process for Conca Calf. If you read the Strauss piece, though, it's like really, it's really, it's really, complicated. Like, there's a lot of variables and we don't really know what's going to happen at all. No, we don't. Strauss also says that Concaf does want to complete the Nation's League, which would mean, you know, the first window back from this COVID break would be a non-qualifying window.

So, you know, we end up with two windows that would, you know, be important. Yeah. Well, you know, we'll keep an eye on that. Well, regardless of the eventual format and calendar, we have definitely lost out on a lot of time and chances to evaluate players, especially the kids, which is particularly prevalent to this podcast and particularly prevalent to the U.S. men's national team given our missing generation. Yeah, we missed. You're referring to the missing out on the, you know, some international windows, the Nations League stuff, and the most importantly, probably, probably. probably the Olympics.

Yeah, yeah, we missed out on the March window for sure. So even if we end up getting a window for the Nations League, we would have had that in June anyway, but we don't get that March camp back. And then for me, the bigger loss is the U-23s. I think Burrhalter was sort of running a parallel assessment where he was evaluating the U-23s in their camps. Is that what he told you? Yes, we, in our discussions in the lab, done via Zoom, we, We had been talking about how he was going to use those camps to identify players who he might be comfortable bringing in.

No, I think he might have been doing that. It seemed pretty clear that that's what he was doing, yeah. I mean, we know, well, there was an experimentation happening like at January camp and various other ways. It felt like it. So, yeah, so we lose huge chances with the 23s. Tons of data points. We lose the two-week camp that they would have had prior to qualifying in Guards. Guadalajara, and then we lose whatever camp they would have had prior to the Olympics proper,

assuming we'd qualified. A particularly heavy blow for this podcast, I would say. It was a huge blow, and I'll get into that later. But without those chances to evaluate all those players, there are real questions now about Burrhalter's risk tolerance heading into the next two windows. Yeah. No, I think so. I do agree.

So first up, we missed that March camp, a senior team camp, and that was going to be our opportunity to get Giorina into the camp, which Burrhalter confirmed was going to happen, unsurprisingly. But the rumors of who was going to be in that camp were pretty juicy, too. There was talk of Nico Giochini. Tell me I'm saying, right around? Geokini, I think. All right, the French second division forward.

Burrhalter mentioned by name Johnny Cardoso, player in the Brazilian first division. Yeah, that's wild that he was talking about him. But go on. Give everyone our favorite rumor, Bells. Kobe Hernandez Foster. Where did that rumor come from? I don't know for a Liberty to say.

But there was word that Kobe Hernandez Foster was going to be in this camp. He's unattached at the moment, so it would have been maybe a Brian Keo situation where he's in Europe. Yeah. Rumored to be with Wolfsburg once he turns 18, I think in the next week or two. So he's not doing anything. So he was going to be involved in the March camp.

And then maybe Timmy Chandler, maybe Chris Richards. Yeah, I hadn't heard anything about those two, but that would have been the time to, if we're going to take a look at Timmy Chandler, who had at the time been starting every game for, on track Frankfurt for the last 12 games they'd played, that probably would have been the time to do it. And then I had Chris Richards as a maybe.

It came out in another piece, I think a Tenorio athletic piece, that Richards had been invited to January camp and had not been released by Bayern Munich. And he was also not released for the Olympic qualifying tournament either. Right. Yep. So I was thinking it would make sense then that they might have brought him into this senior team camp because they're obviously casting a wide net here. Totally would have made sense.

Would have been a travesty had he not been invited. A travesty. So anyway, you have all these guys that we were going to take a look at, introduced to Burrhalter, and now that doesn't happen. And so there are going to be questions about whether or not we'll be able to use them in what will be a very not meaningless two windows when we get back. You've also got Dwayne Holmes, Antine Robinson, Miles Robinson, who at the time of the March camp would have been injured.

But they've each been in one or two camps over the past year, Is Burrhalter comfortable bringing them back? Does he even rate them? And if he does rate them, is it something where he thinks he can take the risk of calling them back for meaningful games right away? And if not, when would you be able to work them in? There's very little wiggle room now. Right.

He hasn't. I mean, Brian Scheratik keeps talking about how Holmes is we should look out for homes to be included in the next roster. So I don't know what that means, but Shreda was a noted Holmes skeptic for a while. Right, yeah. Maybe he has some inside info there. Right. And there's a bit of covering going on with the fact that Burhalter left him off for October and November camps by saying if Holmes plays as well, he's been playing since November. Yeah.

So he's a completely different player. So yeah, so you have those guys who are in the mix, who could potentially be in the mix. Yeah. And then I don't know if this is like, I mean, this is kind of an advantage for these guys that things have been shut down

for as long as they have. But players like Tim Wea, Paul, Ariola, and even Michael Bradley will be, you know, presumably returning from long injury layoffs before, perhaps even before the next World Cup qualifier. So. Right.

Right, right. So, you know, Burhalter knows what he's, he's comfortable with Ariel and Bradley. The question will be how fit are they? How many games do they get to play? But then Tim Wea has never been in a Greg Burhalter camp. Is that right? I didn't realize. Yeah, he was left off the March camp in Burhalter's first year, and then he was with the U-20s during the Gold Cup. Oh, yeah. And then injured before the September friendlies. So then,

Let's talk a little bit more about the U-23s. So U-23s have a lot of guys who I think would have been candidates who were fighting for a place in hour 23. And I know you and I have been saying this for a while, but I honestly think in Burrhalter's mind, some of these guys were fighting for places in the full senior team 23. And that'd be guys like Hesus Ferreira. I think Ullianas probably jumped up to being close to that based on his January camp and performance. performance in the January friendly. You got Paxton Pomacall, who was called into a senior camp last year, but then spent most of the end of the year being hurt, playing hurt, and now, and then recovering from a surgery.

Yep. And then Eric Palmer Brown, who was, who Jason Christ was really excited to bring in for the Olympic qualifiers. Chris Gloucester, who's toiling away at young PSV before the shutdown. Sam Vines, who was not released by Colorado. for the U-23s. But had a good showing in the January camp. That's right.

With the senior team. I mean, if you're calling it, the senior team, the blended team. And then Mark McKenzie and Brendan Aronson, both, you know, solid January camp performers and Bovo Sosato, who's been scoring goals from the left wing in League of Mekis. Yeah, and as a side note to this, I was so looking forward to the U-23 qualifying to sort of help settle that raging first team minutes debate because we would have gotten a camp for these guys to prove themselves.

And it would have been things like you, I'm sorry, Richie Ledesma versus Brendan Herenson, Chris Gloucester versus Sam Vines, Ullianez versus sort of the field of other wingers. And it would have, it would have been really interesting because we saw in that January camp that Ulianas did beat out, noted grown men and players who played against grown men, despite the fact that Yanez has not been doing that. Right. And you get like four or five games to look at everybody. It's a lot of information, a lot of data to process, you know. And things shake out over the course of a tournament like that, like who is, I mean, I would say at the U20 World Cup in 2019, we saw Sergenio Dest really sort of separate himself, you know, as a fullback. And we saw some other, Chris Richards had a really good tournament. You see a few games.

play out like that and you start to see like who's got it and who doesn't or who is who has some work to be done yeah just who's ahead of who and if you already think i feel like a lot of people already think erinson might be in line for some experimental senior team call-ups and so if you see guys who are playing better than him uh who maybe you weren't considering for that you you might have to adjust your uh sort of adjust your depth charts we're not grinding an axe here anything no no not at all all right but overall overall overall How do you think Burrhalter's going to handle this? Like, how many new guys do you think he's going to call in?

We're keeping in mind that at this point, the core didn't really change at the end of last year. He didn't, the only new player he called in for the October and November windows was Brendan Aronson, who didn't play. So he didn't introduce a single new player to the group in October or November, which is kind of wild to me. Yeah. Well, it does seem like Giovanni Raina, even though his minutes have been limited for Dortmund, He has played in almost every game since January, and it has played in Champions League games. He's going to, you know, he's a lock inclusion, I think, in the national team roster at this point because of that. The rest of these guys?

Rainer, the only question for me is if he's starting and where. It's, rain is for sure in the 23 at this point, even if it's a qualifying window first round up. Yeah, I don't think, I don't think Burrhalter is going to be. be particularly experimental unless the, unless qualifying gets pushed back, what, three windows or something? Right. Right. So.

Because there's just not going to be time to mess around. So like, so like if we want to see Richie Ledesma with the full national team and we have qualifiers in, in September or even, let's say, October, he's going to have to be playing a significant role for the PSV-first team for at least a couple weeks before that, before he gets called in, don't you think? Just to take one example. Yeah, I think so. I think, I think really, I would expect Burhalter to not be very adventurous, and I can't really blame him for not being very adventurous now. I still think we can blame him a little bit for not having been adventurous over the past year. Again, I think the fact that we didn't introduce a single new player

onto the field in October, November, despite having, you know, games against, two games against Cuba. Yeah. I think that's now coming back to bite him a little bit. Obviously, he couldn't foresee that we lose out on that March window. And again, it appears that he would have been casting a pretty crazy net in March. But we're still, we are where we are. And no, I wouldn't expect or really even think that he should go too far out on a limb with his call-ups if we're going straight into important games. The ones for me are the positions of weakness.

So I don't think we're going to see, even though Chris Richards has made his by, Byron debut now. I don't know that Chris Richards gets called up because I think Berhalter will feel very comfortable with his center backs that he has. For example, but you get into a position like left back where it's been Tim Riem out of position or Daniel Lovitz. And suddenly I feel like maybe Burrhalter will take that risk or consider the risk

worthwhile to introduce a new player, whether that's Sam Vines who's been in camp with him or whether he pulls Anthony Robinson back from from being out of thought, out of mind with the national team and recovering from his heart irregularity with his club. Yeah. Well, we'll talk more about Robinson in a little bit, but, but yeah, I'm with you. And it is frustrating that it is frustrating that there wasn't more roster experimentation in the fall because it's true.

We had these basically training warmups with Cuba that, you know, where we saw just the same, basically the same lineups that we were seeing in every other game. It's too bad. It's too bad. Should we move on to a rundown of the Bundesliga? Yeah, let's run down. Who's back? Who's playing?

Who's playing well? Because there's a lot to go over here. The Bundesliga was the first major sports league to come back, I think, in the world. Is that right? It seems like it to me. I mean, yes, let's call it the first major sports league. Okay. And let's not count.

Was it Belarus that never stopped? Okay, yeah. Major doesn't even have to do that much work in that phrase. Let's start with, I kind of want to do this by, I've organized it by how newsworthy the developments are, in my opinion. And I would love it if you disagreed with me to some extent. But I think the biggest development in the Bundesliga from an American perspective has been the improvement of West and McKenney. over the last month and a half. I think he's taking a step forward.

When it comes to consistency, now he's been an automatic starter and scored twice in the past five matches. But the important thing is that despite Shaka being pretty bad, like really bad. Terrible. Yeah.

Yeah, they haven't won in, what, 15 matches or something? It's about that. I think the last time they won, they were probably in, like, third place in the league. Yeah. And that would have been in, like, October. They were doing very well. They secured not being relegated back in November and then just and then just fold it.

Now they're just coasting. Yeah. So he's he's the important thing that he's done is he's been a little cleaner on the ball and a little more alert defensively, just incremental improvements in both of those areas. While, you know, maintaining his ability for that surprising plus moment, whether that's just being like a wrecking ball defensively and winning the ball back. or playing a surprising pass. And he's going to have, because of that improvement in his cleanliness, his cleanliness isn't the right word, and his cleanness on the ball,

he's going to have his best passing percentage of his career by a significant margin somewhere around 85%, depending on what source you cite. And it's going to be a statistically significant jump from the years before. And seeing him play these well these past few weeks makes me more excited to see him in a U.S. shirt in a midfield with Adams, who has also been playing pretty well, and some combination of attackers that includes Christian Polisic and Giovanni Rana. And Serginio Dest, who I always list as a U.S. attacker now because it's going to be a pretty

cool attacker to have on the field with some of these guys. Yeah, totally, yeah. So I don't know. I don't know if you think I'm overstating McKinney's improvement over the last month and a half? I don't think so, and it might be where a lot of the other pieces around Shalkar playing so poorly that McKinney does stand out even more. It's like, oh, he's actually competent. He's just done something exciting and dangerous for his team because those moments are so few and far between for Shulka.

But no, it feels like you're watching a guy who's playing for a transfer sometimes. Like you're watching a guy who's like, I'm better than this team. And so I'm going to play this well and someone's going to come after me. And I know I think he said in an interview that they're getting a lot of their players back from injury next year. so that good team might just be Shalka with players returning. But it doesn't seem crazy for, if you were to hear, that McKenny would be linked to some teams that are playing much, much better than Shalka is at the moment. Yeah.

Yeah, so I guess that leads us into the next question. Like, does he need to move? Do you care if he moves or not? I don't particularly care at all. He's playing every game, which is huge for me. And the spot he's playing is one where I, say he doesn't require the kind of support to play consistently that, say, a striker might. So Josh Sargent can't play well if he's on a team that is just totally dysfunctional.

McKenny can still play pretty well, even if the player he gives the ball to does nothing with it. Yeah. So that's where I'm at with McKinney. And I do think Shulka are going to get some pieces back that will make them a better team anyway. So they'll be more fun to watch for us U.S. men's national team fans who suffer through Shulka. but for McKinney's development, as long as he's playing every game at a sort of a defined center mid role and not just being sort of jerked around everywhere, I'm good with him staying at Shalka. Yeah, me too. Where are you at with him? No, I'm exactly the same.

I think he's improving and he's got a, he's beloved to some extent, and Gail's in Kirkin. Let's be honest, Weston McKinney's going to be beloved wherever he goes. Yeah, he's a lovable guy. So yeah, I don't think, I don't see any reason for him to leave. And, you know, there's all, anytime you go to a new club, there's always some risk wrapped up in that. So if the right thing comes along and he ends up at like a midtable Premier League side or something like that, not going to complain. But I don't see, I don't see this, I see on social media this like grounds well. Like he has to move, he has to leave Shalka.

He has to go. Well, I don't see that at all. I think some of the context around that is that Shulka have to sell. They're in financial sort of dire straits. We're going to have to get the accountants on that. I don't know what to make of that whole thing. Like, are they so, is the situation so dire that they have to sell players? I don't know.

I don't either. I'm not in their, I'm not in their books. But I think that has played into that those rumors that are like, he's definitely on his way out. I think it combines with the fact that everyone hates watching him play. We feel obligated to watch Shalka play and we'd just much rather watch him on a better team. Yeah, and I understand that. I think, but seeing the way he's improved over the last month and a half, despite how bad that team is, I think makes me even more comfortable saying, like, hey, it's totally fine if he stays at Shalka. Let's do it. Let's move on to the next one.

I think the second most newsworthy development in from a U.S. men's national team perspective in the Bundesliga is the growth of Giovanni Raina. What do you think? I think you're wrong in that that's the first most important development from a U.S. men's national team perspective, but I'm glad we're going to be talking about it. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'll just jump right into the assist he had on Saturday. I've been critical of his passing vision and his unselfishness, especially

at the U-17 level. And to see him, like, first time cleverly just sort of nudge the ball over to Erling Holland on a pretty sharply hit low-driven ball from the right wing. It just brought joy to my heart. That pass right there cements his place in our starting lineup, right? He's not just in the 23. He's our starting something. Yeah.

It was so good. It was so good and it was so unexpected, you know. I didn't think he had that in him. So, I mean, I honestly hadn't seen that either. And people have been talking about his vision a lot. And I'm always like, where are you seeing this from? I'm not saying he doesn't have it. But there was very few things on video that I thought in his minutes with Dortmund,

where you're like, oh, man, look at the vision on that ball. No, yeah, never. I didn't see anything like that. And it's not that he's been out of place. It's just for me his obvious, very obvious strength was his presence on the ball, his ability to get into a good space to receive the ball. And then once he has it, you can't take it from him. I think the player I compared him to the most was like all the good parts of Darlington Nagby. But, you know, Raina is 17 and doing it for Bruchy Adortman, which is something pretty special.

So I'd seen a ton of that ball security and the ability to receive the ball in a good place, which is going to be a huge for like the kind of style Greg Bertholder wants to. play but I hadn't seen that pass yet his assist in the champions league was like a he knocked the ball eight yards forward to earling holland who was all who's wide open there was no there's no real vision necessary for his his big assist you know it was the right pass with the right weight to it but it wasn't yeah but but then you see this pass you're like okay there's some there's some vision in play there there's a lot of anticipation and sort of four-dimensional uh algebra going on there so yeah uh so that's that that was a really good sign yeah up until then i didn't know where people were getting it from.

Yeah. Well, they didn't know where they were getting it from either. They were just saying it, I think. But that said, that was a really, really encouraging moment. And like you said, his ball security, his ability to keep the ball and not have it taken away from him by much more experienced quality players in the Bundesliga and in the Champions League is striking for a 17-year-old. So if he can start to consistently unlock.

moments of brilliance like that. Hoo-hoo. And that ball security isn't even just like shielding and holding it up and going backwards. Like he's really good. Again, in a nag-b-esque way, it reminds me a nagby a lot. And as he's receiving it, leveraging his body shape and the opponent's body shape to sometimes gain an edge on them. And he might not run away from you once he does that, but he's got you on his hip.

And he's going to force another defender to react and kind of cheat over because, you know, he's got that half step and it's just things we don't have a lot of players with that skill set no yeah he's he's he's he's he's he's kind of you watch him and you can't really figure out what he's doing that at least i can't that makes him so different like so good at dribbling by people but but he does it he's able to do it and it's fun to watch third most so you're going to say reina is big the big the biggest development yes ran is the biggest development mckenny's already been there and I'm not saying who cares about Wesson McKinney. I just mean McKenney has been a fixture. Raina is a development. Yeah. Okay. And then I'm going to say

Chris Richards' debut for Byron Munich is number three. I thought he looked fine. As we know, it was a, you know, Byron's already won the league. So it's not like he was thrown into a meaningful competition. But still, he's made his debut. Did make a, um, did make a, bad decision on an aerial challenge, which laid open his side for a counterattack, but whatever. He also had a good tackle and move the ball a little bit. I don't know. What are you thinking about Richards these days? I guess what I would say is don't let Richards debut for Byron Munich change your opinion

of what Chris Richards is as a player at the moment. If you thought he was good, you can keep thinking that, but if you didn't think he was anything special, like the fact that he's played in this game doesn't really mean anything. it, apart from it being, again, an incredible moment for Chris Richards. It means more than that, doesn't it? I mean, they... I would say it means exactly as much as an appearance in the preseason games that are in the United States. I genuinely think that's how much it means.

Okay. Bummer. I mean, it's a dead rubber. They're just going to... They're just going to throw some people in the... field. They've got games to run out the clock on and they're going to put bodies out there. And that's how I sort of see it. It doesn't mean that he's not in their plans. But if you didn't think, if you were kind of sitting around like, I don't think he's in their plans,

this probably shouldn't change your opinion that much. Yeah, you're right. You're right. And do you think he's in their plans long term? I don't really. I think, I don't think he's in their first team plans, at least, I mean, maybe long term, but not probably for next year. I mean, that that's a big jump from the, you know, the way Richards has been playing in the three-lega to Javier Martinez, David Alaba, and Jerome Boatang. I mean, obviously. Right, exactly. And that's what, it's still a jump, even though he's now made his debut and has played in the same games in the same uniform as those guys, it's still a, the jump is just as big. This hasn't made the jump any smaller. Right. Well, we, we're both on record now saying we don't protect.

particularly care if McKinney gets a move or not. And obviously, Raina needs to stay at Dortmund and keep doing what he's doing. I'd say Richards is one of the few players in the player pool that I do really think needs a move of some kind. He needs ideally a loan or a move to a two Bundesliga or a low-level Bundesliga club for next season. I think I agree with that. Unless Munich basically already has like their integration plan for him, the way that it seems like Dortmund had with Raina where it's like, okay, he'll play the spring or the fall in the three league.

And then we'll move him up and integrate him, you know, game by game off the bench, which you don't really do that with centerback. So, right. Yeah, I would agree. Like, I don't want him to just rack up minutes in the three league if he can get a loan or if Munich don't think he's in their plans long term. to just find a buyer. So maybe this is them putting him in the shop window to some extent? Yeah, it could be that. Hopefully, I mean, if these games really don't matter, he should start on Saturday, right?

Yeah, I don't know what goes into those decisions about. Again, what you're trying to do is keep your best players happy. So you're managing your best players. And your reserve team, as much as this violates all kinds of, whatever ethical principle. Your reserve team is a means to that end. So you're going to do whatever needs to be done to keep your best players happy. And if they want a break, then you're like, sure, we can give you the day off and we've got a body here we're going to put in.

Does that make sense? Yep. Yeah. All these other guys are sort of afterthoughts who are available because your season is already complete. Right. I mean, Boatang Martinez and Alaba and, wait, was it Boatang and just Boatang and Martinez started in that game against Freiburg that Richards came on for the last 10 minutes of? So it's like they're still putting in the hours. If I was Jerome Boatine, I'd be like on a beach somewhere by now.

Let's move on to Joshua Sargent. Why don't you start on him? what do you make of him as a player right now? So my thing with Josh Sargent is that it's going to be really difficult to to make any, to draw any conclusions about the way he's playing. So everyone's talking about how he's struggling. And so usually in the context,

we're discussing things that has to do with his U.S. men's national team future where, okay, well, we can't bring him in because he's struggling. But I don't think the struggles are necessarily Josh Sargent dependent. Again, he might struggle on a better team, but we've seen how badly his teammates have struggled. You know, and the underlying numbers support that too. You have very good, presumably very good attackers like Osaka, like Rashid Radhika, who are also putting up horrendous underlying numbers and horrendous actual goals and assists. So to take sergeant's struggles and say that that means that he's like a,

poor player, I think is over, sort of over committing to that. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting you start with that because I would, I would, I'm sort of tempted to, to weave a positive narrative with Sergeant lately. Like, obviously nothing about what's happening with Verde Bremen as a club is positive. They're likely going to be relegated this weekend. And Sergeant hasn't been able to score the goals they've needed to avoid that. but he's beaten out Davy Selka for most of the minutes in a desperate relegation scrap

so he's doing something to earn the confidence of Florian Kofeld. And I don't know, I think he's been a better player in the past month than he has ever been for Verde Bremen more harder working, seems a little more locked in. he's doing some link up in very difficult circumstances. I don't know, am I imagining all of that? For me, it's hard to say because I haven't watched any of his games closely enough to then compare him to his past games, if that makes sense, to talk about the off-the-ball defensive differences he's making,

in part because just like with Shulka, it's just, The games are so brutal to watch. And Sergeant in particular, unlike McKinney, who's at the center of everything, like with Shalka, Sergeant just never has anything to do besides cut off the angle of a centerback for the other team who's on the ball. You know what I mean? Like you're literally watching some of the worst, least exciting U.S. men's national team contributions that there can possibly be. Yeah. No, there have been games where his primary role was competing for goal kicks.

Right. Yeah. So it's just brutal. And I just haven't been putting myself through it. Yeah, fair enough. Self care is important. But I do go through, we do go through some of those underlying metrics. And that's where it sort of plays out that he's not somehow much, much worse than the other players on Shalka.

It's not like he's just the reason Shalka can't do things. I'm sorry, Brayman. Yeah, yeah. It's just, they're just this bad as a squad. One's green, one's blue. Otherwise, what's the difference? The yeah I think I know I I go into like the mystical stuff here and you don't really like it But I do think you know Sergeant had has a bit of the wide-eyed boy about him

And this this relegation scrap that they're in I'm hopeful that it'll be a positive for him because it's it just sort of you know take away It takes the shine off of things and you're like I got to get down to get down to business like like there's a harsh reality to sports our club is going to lose a lot of money if we go down to the two Bundesliga and probably will um i'm i'm hopeful that this will be like a good learning experience for him so so this is where he gets to see what rock bottoms like and then the hope is that in the two bundlesliga next year it goes back to scoring goals for fun sure yeah that would be great uh i just think like i'm i'm a fan of the school of hard knocks to a certain extent you know you uh you go through hard times and it teaches you stuff more than going through easy times i'm the opposite i just want reps in front of goal i want him to go to the top team in holland and score score 30 goals okay so that's what you want you want him to you want them to be

loaned to the eridivizzi or yes uh if if if brayman continues to be this anemic in the two bundesliga and they might not uh you know they they destroyed batterborn in a game that was a preview of what one of their games will be next year when both teams get demoted. But I would much rather have him in those games day and day out as a striker where he is constantly being, has opportunities for link up play in the box and movement in the box to set up goals. Like that's what I want from Sergeant as a striker.

Yeah. I worry a little bit about the, yeah, I worry a bit about a little bit about the two bonus League because it is it can be it can be pretty brutal too like it's not it's not a cake walk and Rishika I imagine Rishika and Osaka are not going to stick around for the drop do you do you think they will I think I think Brayman would would sell them both for because they're just too valuable to keep if you're in the two Bundesliga but I don't know I don't know exactly how what their you know player business model is going to be there so linking up I mean linking up with Mila Rashika,

Rashitsa is one thing. Linking up with Jojo Agostine and Maxi Agostine and whatever other Agostine brothers they can scare up in Bremen is another thing. So I don't know. I'm agnostic at this point. I just, I'll just say that from what we've seen so far,

uh, over the past 18 months of him playing with Brayman, they don't inspire a lot of confidence that they're suddenly going to a free-flowing attacking side. Right. So much, we had so much optimism, at least I did, going into this year. But I do think, I want to leave Sergeant with this thought. I do think he, I do think he's gotten more serious and a little bit better,

much like McKinney, despite the awfulness of his team. All right, well, let's hope he has and let's hope it carries into whatever his situation is five weeks from now when the next season starts up already. Right. It's coming right up, isn't it? By the way, is the Ayrtiviz starting up in the fall? Is that going to happen? I am not sure.

Don't they still have some of the, are any of their teams still alive in European competition? Maybe they're not. No, I don't think they are. I don't think they are. Maybe Alkma is. Or Finord, one of the, not, Iax and PSV are definitely not. So let's move on to Tyler Adams. He's played every match since the resumption of play for R.B. Leipzig and has been, I think,

interestingly has been a central midfielder in the last five games. So those are positives. Has anything changed in your assessment of him since the resumption of play? A little bit. You know, last season I thought he was excellent in the second half of the Bundesliga for Leipzig until he got injured and missed the last month. And then went on to miss basically a full year of soccer. I don't know whether it's that the options in front of him are better or if he's just still a little bit off. But he hasn't, to me, looked sort of as assertive as he did last year. Usually with the ball. He's always been a safe player, but I thought last year he was able to sort of combine his safeness on the ball with some more assertive passing.

And I think some of that is sort of evaporated a little bit this year. Yeah. Interesting. I hadn't noticed that. I do notice that he, you know, like how dominant he can be defensively. And I just, that's enough for me, man. He should be the sixth for the men's national team. I don't care what, I don't care how safe he is with the ball.

It's not always a bad thing either. I just, for me, it's going to be a, it's going to be better if he can, you know, of course complete safe passes that also break lines right so do you want to do you want to go down this rabbit hole of uh of burhalter and how he how he wants to do the midfield let's let's save that one i think we save that one and that that that's going to be a a full bit okay we're just getting started we're just getting started back up bells we are we got to we got we got to paste ourselves here all right john brooks still good not perfect but our top centerback.

Is there anything else to say about him? It's been fun watching Wolfsburg play. I know there's some Ulyana's watch, which we'll get into in a second, but it is good to just be like, oh, man, what a polished player we have sitting there in John Brooks. Yeah. So what you said, basically. Yeah. And then Uli.

What do you got on Ulianas? Hasn't played yet in the Bundesliga? I think mostly we just need to kind of relax. I know on this podcast we are we're very pro ollie pro ollie pro pro trying guys out even if they aren't you know first team or guys playing with playing with un19s whatever else and you know Glasner made that comment that kind of that kind of set off a not a firestorm but just got everyone talking a little bit back in when we were about to kick off again about how ooli you know there's a difference between playing un19 and playing against grown men and and I think you know I got a little bit of like kickback from people who like to give us the business about that. But again, what Glasner's talking about is grown men who play in the Bundesliga. And what we are talking about is grown men who play for Honduras or Costa Rica. And there's usually a difference between those two populations.

Right. Yeah. Or grown men who play for FC Dallas, which I love. I love FC Dallas, but FCDeglasses or FC Cincinnati or something. Yeah, so I just, you know, the fact that he isn't ready to play against growing men in the Bundesliga, I don't have any problem with Glasner deciding that. I know there's also a lot of anger in the U.S. men's national team sort of base about Glasner holding him back. But I also don't feel that.

I'm perfectly content to say, yeah, he's fine that he's sixth choice at Wolfsburg. And Glasner has no intention of playing in the season. And I think he's probably in the top five or six of the U.S. men's national team that chart. and when there are injuries, he should probably be in the picture for us. And for all we know, he will be, you know. I mean, Burrhalter has a good idea of the kind of player O'Le is at this point. That's the hope, yeah. That's really what I'm, I'm hoping that Burrhalter sort of making those choices.

And again, he was going to make some call-ups in March, presumably that would have strengthened that suspicion. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything you say he's only 19. He's kind of in the first team orbit, I guess you could say. I'm not panicking. Hopefully, you know, hopefully he works hard this summer and really gets a chance to make an impact with the first team in the fall. Chandler. Oh, Chandler.

That's right. You were, you have a, you have some, you have some Chandler thoughts burning a hole in your pocket, right? Not really. It's just we have a player who at this point was a regular, almost full-time starter with a team in the Bundesliga. He was also scoring goals for his team in the Bundesliga, so he's clearly a competent player. And it just seems wild to me that everyone is so ready to just dismiss him offhand. And it's always like, oh, but he was terrible. Why do we need to see him again? he was terrible in this eight-month stretch for the U.S. before. And I feel like, one, we're maybe overstating how bad he was.

He was, everyone looked pretty rough in a lot of games for the U.S. during that stretch. Yeah. Tell what stretch you're talking about. Is that like a 2010 stretch or something? It'd be, no, it was like 2015 to 2016 when Clemsman got fired. I think Chandler's last game was the Costa Rica game that Clemsman got fired after. Okay. Notably, John Brooks, by far the worst.

player in that game. And only, and can't, his, his issues in that game couldn't really be blamed on Cleansman setting the team up poorly either. At least with Chandler, he can be like, hey, the right back had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, whether he should be upfield, holding back, like who's covering for him, when, like all of those things you can talk about team shape. Brooks just had a nightmare individual performance. Yeah.

But no one's saying, let's never let Brooks back into the side. And, and no one says about any of the guys who were struggling in previous camps. Jazzy's Ardaz is currently our 1B striker. Like no one's saying that his past poor performances should rule him out of being in the picture again. Yeah, I guess I know I'm going to get like some people tweeting mad stuff at me about this, but I just don't really care about Chandler. It's like he's a wingback. We don't really have, he's a wingback who's not like great at combining in the attack.

he's good at getting on the end of stuff and he's kind of a scrappy you know scrappy intelligent veteran Bundesliga player but it just doesn't seem like a perfect fit and so I don't think he's a perfect fit either and I don't I don't think that because he's done this

it's like oh he's a guaranteed starter I don't even know if he would like for sure improve our 23 because of the styles and the fits but it just seems strange to just be like we aren't even going to call him in. And people used to be saying the same thing about Alfredo Morales.

Like there's no need. He's an average player, this and that. And again, just like with what I think could have with Chandler, Alfredo Morales isn't some like lock and dominant player when he comes to play with the U.S., but it sure seems like he could make our team a little bit better in certain situations. And so I kind of just feel the same with Timmy Chandler to just dismiss him and pretend that he just doesn't exist and like wave your hand away, which you. has soccer is very much doing at the moment.

Every week they now publish a, they post a graphic with all of the Bundesliga players who are going to have games on TV and they don't include Timmy Chandler in the graphic. It's just telling. They very much are just kind of waving their hand and saying Timmy Chandler exists on a separate plane. I wonder what their metric is for that. Like why do they include the people they do and why do they not include the other people they don't? Does Greg Burrhalter sign off on it? Who knows?

I do know that they stole the idea from you. It's easy content. They should be hitting that low-hanging fruit. They should be celebrating the boys. Yeah. The weekend playbill is still quite a bit better, I will say. Much love to you, U.S. soccer. England.

Let's talk about England. Christian Poulos is playing soccer again. Off the bench. Came off the bench. Scored an equalizer for Chelsea. Chelsea went on to score again a few minutes later and defeated. Who did they defeat? Astin Villa.

Mighty Aston Villa. Man, it's good to see him come back. And I saw a video of all his goals for Chelsea so far. And there's a lot of him arriving in the box at the right moment in those goals. As that wide player, right? as the far, as the sort of player on the farthest post attacking in, which is, which is fun to see that piece because it hadn't usually been his.

Yeah, you do love to see it. But that hadn't really been his role, I don't think, before the break. And it might not be his role overall, but Lampard commented on it specifically that they've been working on the timing of that run and movement. Yeah. Good. Good for Frank.

Good for Christian. It's great to see our, you know, most valuable player back on the field and scoring a goal right out the gate. Maybe he'll get to start. I think Chelsea plays on Thursday against Man City. Maybe he'll get to start that game. Anthony Robinson. Wigan 1-2-0.

I thought Robinson looked okay, a little rusty, which is understandable. But, you know, did you, do you have any thoughts on him or how he looked? I don't, but I'm excited to see how, again, the, narrative is driven by like the U.S. soccer narrative is driven a lot by call-ups and I feel like we're going to hear a lot about how Anthony Robinson has really stepped up his game in the build-up to his eventual call-up from Berhalter. Yeah. He would remember Anthony Robinson was available for the Gold Cup available for September,

October, November camps. We chose not to bring him in. He was cut from the Gold Cup roster after playing in the, uh, the tune-up game against Jamaica, I believe. And we haven't heard from him since in the U.S. shirt. that's not true he was in a u23 camp he's been in a couple of u23 camp so that's right might be overstating things but i'm assuming we're going to hear a lot about how he's really stepped his game up if he were if he's going to get a senior team call up soon i like him i you know

i was i was i'm not bragging but i was talking about him before anybody else was and making videos of his of his games of his performances but um you know he still looks it still looks a little raw to me. I mean, maybe it's just the rust of the of the break. But even his defending, it's not like he gets there, but he gets there and it's kind of messy, you know? Maybe he gets beat and then he recovers. I didn't think his performance was outstanding or anything over the weekend.

Just a thought. Nope, no strong conclusions here. I'm giving everyone a big pass on their first games back from this long break. Anthony in particular had been out since late January with his heart condition. Important to me is that he got the start in the very first opportunity to be back. Okay. And Wiggin looked like they're going to survive the drop so they'll stay in the championship, which I think is a big deal too.

Yeah, well, it might not matter to Anthony if he gets picked up by A.C. Milan over the summer. Is that still possible? We should ask our sources on that. I don't know if that was possible. I know he's also rumored to be linked up with a couple of Premier League teams for next season. So it looks like teams are interested in him. And again, there aren't a ton of left backs.

There aren't a ton of left backs who get forward the way he does in the world. So there's value attached to that. For sure, for sure. Okay. Dwayne Holmes. Dwayne Holmes, very similar situation. to Anthony Robinson. He was injured or he was out for some reason.

And then came back and started the first game for Derby County, right? Yep, started the game. Derby gets a win. So they are, I mean, they're safe. They're not playing for much. But Holmes needs to be playing to make sure he's fit for whatever camps the U.S. is going to have coming up. Let's move to the outskirts of the U.S.

Men's National Team universe. Manuel Sabi and Christian Capus. I think Hobro is close to safe from relegation now. So no, they've got a really convoluted system where there are two separate, they break up into two separate relegation groups of four teams each. The bottom teams of each of those groups are automatically relegated. The third place team in each group faces off with the other third place team in a two-game series and the loser of that series is also relegated.

And Ho-Row, with the win, have put themselves in very essentially safe position to be in third. They're going to have a tough time getting to second in safety. They probably aren't going to drop to fourth in automatic relegation. So they're setting themselves up now for a playoff with the other third place team. It's all very simple. Danish soccer is never going to make it in America. You just read the bylaws. Yeah, send me a little.

link to the PDF, please. Also in Denmark. So, you know, Kappas and Sabi are both, we've got to keep an eye on them. We're getting good updates from Kappas' dad, J. Kappas on Twitter. If you don't follow him, you probably should. So there you go. Sabi's moving. Sabi's moving regardless after the season.

He's moving up several places in the table to a different Danish club. Okay. Another Danish club player is Jonathan Aiman. Apparently remains injured. injured out for the season, so he won't be back this year. Don't know. I mean, again, that might only be a four-week injury at this point. You know, of all these guys, we got three more, Eric Palmer Brown,

Tyler Boyd, and Kenny Saif to discuss briefly. But of those three, and actually of all six of these, I think Palmer Brown is the most interesting because he's played really, I've watched the clips from his games for Austria, Wien, over the last couple months. and he looks good. He looks solid. He's not like, he's not as polished as John Brooks, but that's a good club in the Austrian

League. I think they're, what are they second or third in the table? No, they are, so they have a convoluted system too. They are, I think it's, they are in the bottom six, but just like these other places, the top six and the bottom six split up towards the tail end of the season. So they are, I think, first or second out of the bottom six. So they're the best bottom half team. But what it also means is they're only playing other bottom half teams.

So what you're going to see now is they're going to have a lot more of the ball, which I still think is useful because that's a situation we could be in in some of our qualifying games, hopefully, for the U.S. But what's cool about Austria-Vienn is that when they're playing these worst teams, they want to keep the ball at all time. So Eric Palmer Brown never just drives a ball to get rid of a ball. When the balls of his feet, he's picking out a pass and he's trying to play vertically to split lines. It's not just like knock it around the back until you hoof it up field. Right. So we're getting a lot of video of him playing passes through windows to guys' feet.

And it's, I think for me, it's just a waiting game. You know, as you've said many times on this podcast, there are, there's John Brooks and then there are seven or eight centerbacks who are kind of all the same or like roughly. the same level in the U.S. pool. And so we just need somebody, maybe it's Chris Richards, maybe it's Eric Palmer Brown, maybe it's Aaron Long even, you know, taking a step forward at this point in his career to sort of rise above that fray. And I think there's a, you know, Palmer Brown's still very young, just sort of getting settled in in Austria on loan, that he's like one of the guys who could do that.

Yeah. And that's where that's where the missed Olympic chances maybe really. really set him back with with his chances to prove that to the U.S. coaching staff. But definitely, I mean, this season is going to end in a couple of weeks, and then it's going to be all eyes on Palmer Brown and a couple other guys in the lone army to see where they set themselves up for the next season. Yeah. Okay.

I mean, do you want to say anything about Boyd or Saif? Boyd, I was just putting Boyd back in there because he's, as far as we know, seems to be in the 23 or just around it for Burrhalter, and they've been back in action for a while. And he is still playing regularly. He was playing regularly before the break, still starting or in off the bench in most games. Kenny Seif is the new one,

and he's on loan to a Polish club, Gadanksk. Can you say it out loud for me? I cannot say it out loud. Gadensk. Gadanksk sounds right to me. But I really like Seth's game, and I know I was critical of him

after he appeared for the U.S. senior team in 2018 with Saracan against Colombia. But it was just as like ridiculous defensive discipline and work in that game. And I remember even at the end of my criticism, I was like, this is something you fix with one video session. I've been watching him play. I've been watching his clips. And he actually looks like a very willing, disciplined defender.

Like he really works hard. And then the other side of his game is he's very technical. He's very versatile in the sense that he can be on the wing. He can hug the wing. He can come inside and play off of a striker, almost like a 10. And so he's a good fit skill set-wise for the way Burrhalter likes to play. The last game he played for Goodenksd, he was on the right side. He's a left-footed player.

He played on the right side. It came centrally a lot and combines to good effect. Okay. I like him. I'm basically saying get ready because I think, you know, we'll have to see that he's on a lone tune right now. When this loan ends, we'll see where he lands. He's still, I believe, under contract with Anderlecht and. Belgium, who I don't think have any plans for him.

But if he can find any team to be playing on, I feel like he could put himself back in the picture because he's such a good fit for how Burrhalter likes to play. All right. What a nice note to end on. Greg Velazquez back on the Kenny Syaf train. Depth guy. He's going to be a depth piece.

We have Pulisic and we have Raina. Anyway, I just, I think he could be a good fill-in for some of these guys. Let's talk a little bit about the NWSL, the women's league, set to be the first American Sports League to resume with the tournament in Utah. So, yeah, so they're coming back. Their first games are scheduled for Saturday. I don't know how many of our U.S. men's national team fans are big followers of the NWSL. But there's nine teams in the league. They're going to have this 19 tournament all in Utah.

Eight teams are going to advance from the group stage. Well, in the last 24 hours, one of the teams Orlando Pride had to pull out of the tournament because of an outbreak of COVID in the team and staff. So we're now down to an 18 tournament. What I think we all kind of want to watch us to see how this plays out because every sports league in the U.S. is going to in some way take their cues from how the NWSL are able to pull this off if they are able to. Yeah. Yeah. And then I guess there's a possibility distant, though it may be that MLS might have an outbreak. Well, not distant that they would have an outbreak, but distant that they would then decide not to hold the MLSs back. Semicolon tournament.

So clumsy. Like when you can hear a semicolon in the name of the tournament, I don't know if they're going to be that clumsy. Why not just throw the dates into the title of tournament, too? Yeah. I don't want to just call it the MLS tournament. tournament. I don't know. Like anything is better than MLS's back tournament. Whatever. Who cares? It doesn't really matter. No, we want to see Tanner Testament on the field. That's all the matters.

You call it the Tanner Testament games. These are the Tanner Testament games. Yeah, I mean, the NWSL thing. So they were going to have a nine-team tournament with a group stage that eight teams advanced from? Yeah, three teams of three, three groups of three. It's kind of wild structure, but it's just, you just have to. to do whatever you can do to, you know, make this work in the times we're living in. So, yeah, so it was already going to be a bit strange to have eight teams advance at a nine. Now, my understanding is there's still going to be, I don't know, I haven't seen the updated groups, but I think there's still going to be a group stage and all eight teams will advance from the group stage.

Makes sense. I mean, again, all it matters is you get to see people on a field playing soccer and you just hope everyone is safe and healthy. Yeah. Okay. I think we've covered it. There's a lot of other stuff we want to cover, you know, over the course of our programming schedule, which is always in flux these days. But, you know, the DA, the decision to end the DA, a lot of other stuff. We do need, we know we do need to discuss. We just thought we wouldn't try to cram it all in today. I'll throw a teaser out there, Bells. I'm going to at some point make the case, my case for Tyler Adams back at right. back. Oh my gosh. Galaxy brain stuff going on. And then look forward to that. Yeah, we'll leave that as a teaser. Okay. Thanks, Greg. Thanks, Greg. Hang in there. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.