Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 131: Christian Pulisic is good at soccer

Episode Date: July 1, 2020

A discussion of the red-hot American winger at Chelsea and Frank Lampard’s praise of him for his ability to “arrive in the box.” Friend of the podcast John Muller pitches in to help us make sense of the phrase, we curate some other ideas, and we spend talk at some length about off-ball movement, maybe our favorite subject. Then we get into who needs a move and who can stay put as the contract year comes to a close.0:30 Greg blasts Belz for his bad private takes in the past4:45 Pulisic and arriving in the box7:43 John Muller (@johnspacemuller) cameo, and then a note or two from @_Susaeta and @finalthrd, and then a lengthy discussion of box arrival.24:20 Transfer talk. Below are the categories and the players:Ready to upgrade?DestAntoneeSargent?Kelman?Cannon/PomykalSuboptimalYedlinSteffen?RichardsNetherlands trio?Contract endingMiazgaEPBCCVSaiefSabbifabianUntenable situationsHorvathWoodSoto 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. Today we're going to start by discussing Christian Pulisic. We'll get to some transfer speculation slash fantasizing, but we got to start with CP22, who has put together a scintillating run-in form for Chelsea Football Club since the restart. Greg, what's up? Bells, I'm glad that you're referring to him as CP22 because I would like to bring everyone's attention to the fact that Bells has a terrible secret regarding Christian Pulisic and the year 2022. Bells, do you want to tell the people or do you want me to tell the people? No, I can't even remember. I don't remember what I said.

In one of our many soccer discussion groups, this would have probably been, to be fair to Bells, this would have been in like September of 2018 Bells put it out to the group an over under, we'll call it, on when Pulisic would get pushed out of the U.S. men's national team starting 11. And I think...

Still don't remember. I'm sure you don't. I'm sure you've buried this deep, especially over the last eight months. I believe Bells actually went with the volcanic take that Pulisic would be pushed out of the starting 11 by 2022. This violation of, of the privacy of the Slack channel will not go unchecked.

No, I'm just kidding. I mean, to be fair to me, I, because I always want to be fair to myself. I say that kind of stuff in the Slack channel, never publicly, because I can't stand behind it, right? Right. I'll say it among friends just to get a rise. But I guess the, do you want me to explain what I was thinking with that? Well, again, I'll give the context. If you remember in September of 2018, Pulisic had basically lost his starting position at Dortmund to a combination of Jaden Sancho and Jacob Larson Brun.

Jacob. Jacob, Brun Larson. Do I have the, what order of those three names? Brun Larson. Brun Larson is the correct order. And there was a, there was sort of a collective hand-wringing on the future of Christian Pulisic. So I think a lot has changed in sort of the Christian Pulisic universe since then. Yeah, a lot has changed. Some hasn't changed. But I guess my, you know, my frustration with him was, you know, like everybody else, I would watch every Dortmund match and was waiting for like the next step from him,

for him to like start to really put it together. And there were always flashes, especially in the open field. But he wasn't, you know, he didn't seem to be progressing. And, yeah, I guess I'll just leave it at that. I didn't believe it enough to say it publicly, but I did have some, you know, frustration. Also, there was this idea like Pulisic as Savior, Pulisic as Captain America, Pulisic can do no wrong. He's the only good player on the national team.

And I don't know, I felt the contrarian in me started to chafe at that sort of narrative. But my my position of the time even even like in the most pessimistic stance was that if we had two two wingers who were able to outperform Christian Pulcic that Christian Pulcic would then go into our lineup somewhere else as a strike as like a false nine or as a number 10 but there was just no way that we would have four attackers better than Christian Pulcic no matter no matter whether he got any better or not from September 2018 Right, right. Well, and then as we all know, he and as we've discussed on this podcast, my view was that 10 or so game run of form in the fall of 2019 for Chelsea was sort of like a watershed moment.

Like for me at least, I'm like, man, he's really put it together in the Premier League at the top level of the game. And my opinion of him changed then. You know what I mean? And I was I- He's already really good to This is the best player the U.S. has ever had Yeah, I mean more or less And like and you know Maybe has a chance to be

You know, a truly elite player On the global stage Which you know, you could argue he already is People are making that argument So So I guess I want to get into a little bit of the detail Of what he's doing differently Than he did 12 months ago

When you know When he was just off, I guess he was in the gold cup with the U.S. at this time last year. His goal against Man City, the one that, you know, everybody's seen where he capitalized on a mistake by Benjamin Mendi and then dribbles half the length of the field and finishes very, very nicely is something that he's always been good at, in my opinion. That is, being explosive in open space. And, of course, he also finished the chance, which has always not always been his strong suit.

But yeah, so Mendi ends up embarrassed twice there once with the giveaway and then Poulosik personally manages to embarrass him pretty badly. But I think Poulsick would embarrass a lot of players in 80 yards of open space. Yeah, that's his forte. It's been his forte, you know, for the last four or five years. But a lot of his goals for Chelsea this season have come from timing his runs well and arriving in the six yard box to put chances away. And this is not something he never did in previous seasons, but it is kind of a new point of emphasis, I'd say. So, well, let's talk about it. You cool with that?

Yeah, I love, I love over, like, totally over-analizing one very specific detail about soccer. Yeah, this is, this is Greg's strong suit. Yeah. So I'm going to quote Frank Lampard from his comments after the win over Aston Villa in which Pulisic scored from the backpost on a lovely ball from Aspa Lekweta. Here's the quote. the ability, imagine Frank Lampart saying this, the ability that he has got to arrive in the box is a big thing that I have spoken to him about all season.

It is the difference between being a very good player off the side as an attacking player or the players at the real top level of the game that arrive and score in the six-yard box and hit big numbers yearly. I really think Christian can do that so I was pleased with the impact he made when he came on. Burrhalter also uses the phrase,

arrive in the box, mostly with regard to West McKinney, And I think this idea of arriving in the box deserves a little exploration. So some questions, do Burrhalter and Lampard mean the same thing? Is it just jargon? Is this an entire field of study that we need to, you know, create an interdisciplinary program around? Maybe. I mean, I think it's a skill.

I think we're described, I think when they're talking about it, they're describing as a skill. They certainly don't just mean, you know, the act of taking. a step from outside of the box into the box. Right, right, right. I mean, although there is the very simple matter of commitment to getting there, right? Yeah, and I'll talk about that for sure. But first of all, let's turn it over for a moment to John Mueller, formerly known as the dummy run, now at John Space Mueller on Twitter.

He graciously sent us a little clip. Arriving in the box means pretty much what it sounds like, showing up in the box at the right time to help score goals. It's a necessary skill for a winger in a 433 like Chelsea's or the USMNT's, because your lone striker is surrounded by two centerbacks and the goalkeeper. Wingers provide width, but when your attack has the ball out on one wing and you're looking to deliver it into the box, the weak side winger needs to get in there and save the striker from being hopelessly outnumbered. Kristen Polisick does this job a few different ways. The most direct is a far post run.

As soon as the fullback who's marking him starts drifting toward goal, Polisic will, turn on the jets and beat him to the far post for a tap pin. That's how he scored against Aston Villa, which made Frank Lampert compliment his box arriving skills. But the far post runs only work because Policic mixes them up with another type of run. This one starts off like a far post run, but the instant the fullback turns his head, Polisic cuts hard toward the penalty spot to show for a cutback. The defender is in an impossible position. He has to keep an eye on the ball carrier and any threats in front of goal, but when he's watching them, he can't know which way Polisic is cutting behind him. The key here isn't really the box

arrivers' roots, which are pretty simple. It's the timing. It's adjusting which way you go based on little changes in the defender's attention and movement, and it's that last burst of speed to reach a shooting position before the defender finds you again. Those are the two most common ways for a winger to arrive in the box, but there are others. Polisic's dangerous out on the left, but he loves to come inside, and once he's in the middle, he tends to stay there. That allows him to surprise the defense with the runs to the near post, or even straight up a central channel to lead the line, like he did on Chelsea's second against Villeau. The risk here is that if you're too focused on arriving in the

box, you'll be out of position a lot and can get caught out in transition. That's especially dangerous for the USMNT, because Weston McKinney loves to crash the box from midfield. Now that in itself isn't a bad thing. Burhalter publicly praised him for it after he scored like 19 goals against Cuba in October, and McKinney and Policitt can be dangerous. working off each other's arriving runs. But if they're both sprinting into the six, the guys behind them are going to have to do a lot of work to mop up counters if the cross doesn't connect.

Maybe we should start talking more about departing the box, too. Many thanks to John for that. I really like the idea of crowdsourcing definitions on this, by the way, because it is sort of something that you hear people say quite a bit, but maybe haven't ever heard full descriptions of. Another friend of the pod, Susaeta, didn't record. the audio clip, but he managed to break down the box movement into three categories. He talked about the basics, which would just be kind of knowing when to go near, when to go far.

He talked about sort of the intermediate or the timing and angle of your runs. Players who can do that are sort of in that intermediate stage. And then the elite players who are able to watch defender's eyes and know exactly when to go to lose a defender and beat them to that spot at that crucial moment. right i like that i like that breakdown and then another friend of the pod tie at final third lichens an off-the-ball winger to a wide receiver he thinks odell beckel beckham would be an elite premier league winger if our best athletes played soccer no no no he didn't he didn't say that just kidding just kidding just kidding he said and i think this is really good too it's about creating separation from a defender through

deception athleticism or timing or maybe maybe all three and he pointed out something which I think is really true. The margin between giving yourself a huge chance and going too early or too late is really thin. That sort of turns a screw on this being an art, you know? Right, right. And the skill, and that's how Lampart, I think, describes it to in the way that, you know, if you don't have, if you're not really refined in this skill, you'll still end up getting

chances throughout the over the course of a season, but you're not going to get as many of those big chances that Ty alludes to. that's going to put you at the top of the goal scoring list for the lead. Right. So there's a lot going on here with, quote, arrive in the box, end quote, without even getting into the potential for humor that's not safe for work. What do you think makes a player good at arriving in the penalty area, Greg? Well, I think the crowdsourcing has done a really good job of kind of breaking down that coach speak when they're using that language. and there's a really good example of Poolecic doing all of these things at a level that maybe we haven't seen before.

And it was in that city game. There's a mini counterattack in like the 32nd minute. It's slow developing city or attacking. They're dispossessed at the top of the Chelsea box. And the ball kind of just comes out to Poulsick in the right half space. Poolec had recovered back to help defend. He plays a simple ball to Ross Barkley, I believe, who kind of stumbles on it. Again, it's slow developing.

It's almost casual. but numbers wise it's like a 5E5 break in like 80 85 yards of space do you remember which one I'm talking about I actually don't remember this one was this the one where he played it where Pulsick switched it switch fields kind of no so sloppily this one comes a little earlier than that where it's Barclay who kind of switches it sloppily he pits a ball out to William on the left it's a little bit behind him willian actually stung william william kind of stumbles onto it too But again, the city are really casual about recovering, and William still has 40 yards of space to kind of drive into.

Barkley catches up to him and makes a nice run into the seam in the left half space. William slips him through into that seam, and Barclay is suddenly, like, in that Man City assist zone. And while all this was happening, Pulisic was staying right on the shoulder of Man City's weak side defender as they were transitioning upfield. And again, this is after Poolsoc started the whole thing, 85 yards away. but as Barclay is kind of freeing himself up to serve it into the box Pool Sick makes this like incredibly athletic run hard to the near post across the face of his marker but behind the back of the other weak side defender and Berkeley fizzes a low ball in that Pulisick just doesn't quite get his steps right for to to put on goal if it's a couple inches

If the ball's a couple inches in front of him, it's a tap-in. I know what you're talking about now. I remember it. If our attorney say we can do it, we'll post this primarily clip, I think. Making a note, contact the attorney. I'll reply to your post of the pod with it. But it's just something where it really puts all of those descriptions that we just got from the crowd on what arriving in the box means. It puts all of them into one clip, I think.

Yeah. It's the one where he kind of, I forget who the defender is, but he kind of, he goes out a little bit to sort of turn him around and then comes in real hard, right? Yeah, and it's that deception of, you know, we can't see it from the, we don't have quite good enough high definition to see this, but it's stuff as subtle as like watching the defender's eyes. And when the defender takes that little look over to Barclay on the ball, that's when you go. And by the time that it could be a fraction of a second, by the time the defender real. realizes you're going and tries to stay with you, they just can't make up that half a step, and that's all you need to put yourself in that position to score. Yeah.

That run was really encouraging. I think I even highlighted it on Twitter before Waki's video got taken down. All the comps get taken down these days. It's a hard out here for these comp makers. But that's, you know, when you're watching the game, especially with Lampard's comments and mind, those are the things that really start to stick out. One thing that I want to talk about too that you mentioned earlier is just the fact that you have to be willing to put the work in. You have to commit to those kinds of runs to arrive in the box of the right time because a lot of times you have to commit long before you're sure there's going to be any kind of a chance to pan out.

Yeah. That's, I mean, that sort of speaks to the sort of broad definition of this because you do, that's sort of the baseline thing. You got to put that work in to just show up, you know, as Woody Allen said. Do we can't, is it okay to quote William anymore? No, we're not going to add any Woody Allen quotes to anything that we talk about. Well, somebody said once 90% of success is showing up, and that certainly is true about arriving in the box. Yeah, and it might sound silly, but again, there's no timeouts in soccer. You know, there's a finite amount of oxygen that you can convert into energy.

over the course of 90 minutes. Right. So you have to choose. You have to choose when you're going to go and when you're not. The sequence we just talked about, again, it's a 90-yard run from Christian Pulisic to end up at the doorstep for a cross that he didn't know was ever going to get there. There's another sequence in that same game against City, and this one's just before halftime, which means Pool-Sick's been running for 40 minutes, including that lung-busting

100-yard run on the actual goal that he scored. Yeah, 100 plus the 40 yards to the sideline to slide. to slide. But yeah. But yeah, so it's just, again, it's kind of silly how much energy we're talking about here. But Pulcic has looked a lot more powerful, in my opinion, since coming back from this long pause. Yeah, talk about this other sequence where he shows his commitment. So this is probably like the 40th minute, 42nd minute.

Chelsea just building from the back kind of deliberately. Pool Sick ends up with the ball out on the left sideline facing upfield, 15 yards deep in his own half, shakes his guy really easily because he's Christian Pulisick, so he cuts it inside to his right foot. He shakes people so easily. Oh, man. Hits like an adequate right-footed switch over to William on the left side. I'm sorry, on the right side of the field. William, at that point, playing right winger.

And from the moment the ball leaves his foot, Pulisic absolutely like bursts forward and beats every single Man City midfielder into the attacking box. So this is like a, it's like a 60-yard run, but it's all burst. So Christian Pulcic has a 60-yard burst, and that's that like athleticism that final third mentions, where with that level of athleticism, you are kind of like a cheat code as far as arriving into the box. If you can do the other things right, your athleticism is what's going to make you stand out. Yeah.

And the really encouraging thing is that Pulisic is doing the other things right. And is it fair to say that he's doing them right in a way that he wasn't a year ago? I'm honestly not sure. I think it would take going back through some Dortmund video, which I'm more than willing to do. It feels like he is. It feels like he is. Maybe it's because there's more chances to get into the box with Chelsea. I think that's a part of it.

And I think I think that's part of what's looked better is I think Chelsea have looked better. I think Chelsea have looked more coherent. whether it's Barkley and Mount or whether it's William, I think they've looked a little bit cleaner or their decision making has looked a little bit better and everything's sort of working together

a little bit better. And I'm sure Pulsoc has a lot to do with that too. I'm sure he's making decisions that maybe he wasn't making. I actually don't want to say that. I think Pulcic has been making pretty good decisions since the start of the season. Yeah.

But you remember how frustrating some... There were moments in the early games of Chelsea's season where it felt like guys were just missing runners. And it wasn't necessarily always Pulisic getting missed. It just felt like this sort of every man for himself attack at times. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't feel as much that way anymore.

I guess, you know, we got to make some kind of wrap-up comment about Pulisic here. But I do think a lot of this discussion makes me think about Josh Sargent as well, you know. Because when we talk about arriving in the bar, You know, Lampart's talking about a winger, Christian Pulisic, and Berthor, when he talks about, he's talking about a central midfielder at box-to-box number eight in McKenny, who is, I think, by the way, becoming a lot better at becoming a lot more goal dangerous over the last few weeks. He seems like he's ready to hit a ball from 20 yards much more willingly than he did a year ago. But it's also, a lot of this also applies to strikers, too, right?

I mean, it all does, doesn't it? Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. And I think it's been pointed out before that that particular skill is something that I think one of our better strikers in the national team pool is actually Jazi's artists. Yeah, because he's so good at that. Yeah. Just always. You've been so consistent on this front. I'm not being facetious here.

I think he's very good at arriving at the box the right time. I think one of his big weaknesses is that he hurts your ability to. to build into those situations to begin with. So it's a bit of a catch-22 where he's very good at the final touch. He doesn't always help you get to that final touch. Right, right. Well, it'll be interesting to see, you know, Josh Sargent progress in his career,

not only in the intelligence of his runs, to see him make a run like the one Pulisic did that you've mentioned from the 32nd minute, but also, you know, when he plays for a team that actually is generating chances in the box, Like, will he look different than he does now? Will that, will we see the same, what appears to be progression, but it's just a change in circumstances, you know?

Not saying definitely that's what's going on with Pulisic. I think there is progression there, but there is also a change in circumstances. Very much. And my wrap-up comment for Pulisic is that I think what we're going to see is that these, the numbers he's putting up now, I don't think he's going to score once a game. But I think his underlying numbers are going to be consistent. and they're consistently showing that he is one of the top attackers in the Premier League. Top seven, right?

Top six or seven? Right. And I think that will bear out over the rest of the season. I think he will continue to put up, will continue to produce at this clip. I think this is sustainable for him. Yeah. And I, you know, I apologize for all the things I said privately. I apologize America.

Who did you think was going to knock him out? September of 2018. Were you that high on Gio Raina? I don't remember. I was thinking it was going to be like Yanez on one wing and Jonathan Aman. We would have been all on the Jonathan Aman train at that point. I still think Amon and Yannes are probably, probably have a little better vision as passers, but you know, let's not get into that. Yeah, so moving on. Anything else on that? No, I don't think so. They play again tomorrow, right?

Oh, yeah. Well, this podcast will come out late Tuesday night, I believe. Okay. So, yeah, Wednesday, Chelsea again. Here's something that's nice on the Pulisic, on the Pulisang angle. I think at this point we're probably done with the hand-wringing. And I mean that, like, as a U.S. soccer culture as a collective, even that first game back from the break where they're playing Aston Villa and Pulisic was on the bench, we all knew they had city like four days later, but there was still.

this like accelerated we went through all of the stages of hand-wringing that we've gone through every time pool sick makes a move all in like 50 minutes and then he scored four minutes on onto his arrival right no I don't think I don't think we're past the hand-wringing the hand-wringing the hand-ringing is going to be going on forever I would you know unless there are like 10 other pool of six which I don't think we're going to have anytime soon I just mean the Christian pool of six specific hand-wringing I think people are probably done wringing their hands about they're not as soon as as as Werner and Ziac arrive, like their hand-wringing is going to return.

But Pulisic has shown, I mean, to your point, Pulisic has shown repeatedly that he is up for the competition. He's a resilient, professional, resilient individual. He don't bet against him. Okay. The contract year ended today, right? Yeah, June 30 is. A lot of these contracts are up.

So, you know, I'm not like super excited for this conversation. For this conversation. I can tell. I'm not super excited for this conversation, but let's do it. Let's do it anyway. Which U.S. players need a move? Greg. All right.

Well, let's start with the guys who are kind of ready for an upgrade. And I think the top of everyone's list is Sergenio Dest. Yeah. Is he, does he need an upgrade, though? I don't think so And I don't I don't want to like count all these Byron Munich chickens before they've hatched A lot of talk about Bayern Munich. He was also linked with Barcelona

But just I just want to caution everyone that people get linked with tons of teams during this during the Transfer rumor season and You could very well be setting yourself up for disappointment if you're if you're already You know shopping for your Sergenio des, Bayern Munich, Jersey. Yeah.

Or Barcelona. I don't know. What's the latest on that rumor? I think it's still basically Bayern Munich is where everyone's kind of putting him. Okay. But he could totally just end up at like a top six Spanish side who ends up

making a move on. You know, I mean, there's no, there's nothing final until it's all final. Right. I don't mind him staying at Iax another year. He's only,

what is he, only 20, 21 at most? And it's not like he was a perfect player for Iax. He was very good. But he had a couple of mistakes on the season, as everyone does. Yeah, I just have a hard time working up energy to like will him to Byron Munich when he's at the best. You know, Iax is such a good club. Right.

If he's at Iax, he's playing in the Champions League group stage next year. Yeah. Next month. Are they starting that back up in September? It's so hard to keep track of all that stuff. I mean, they're doing the knockout round next year, next month. Last year's Champions League is coming up next month. That's right.

And they're not in that because they lost to Chelsea. Okay. Anthony Robinson, playing for near bottom of the table, Wigan Athletic, almost made a move to A.C. Milan, which was derailed by a heart irregularity, very unfortunate for Robinson. He probably does need an upgrade, doesn't he? I'm kind of indifferent on Robinson as well. I think he's in a home right now that's very good for his style of play.

Fast pace, get up the field, go, go, go, like, whip a ball in, get back and defend. I mean, I don't think he needs to go to a short passing possession-oriented team. I think he wants to be a player who can just get out and break. and Wiggin right now are very much that team. Do you, are you like, no, he needs to be in the Premier League tomorrow? No, I don't. I mean, I think it'd be cool if he made the move to like Everton or, I mean, he's not going to Everton. He came from Everton originally.

But, you know, if he made a move like that and succeeded, it'd be great. But, yeah, maybe a better championship side. I don't know. Well, he's linked to West Ham and West Brom. My thought about those places is, and maybe this would be good for him, they're going to spend, I mean, they're two of the worst teams, and there'll be two of the sort of bottom teams in the Premier League. And that's going to mean he's going to spend most of his time defending and less of his time bombing forward. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

I really don't. I'm not super enthusiastic about these. I just think it's good to keep in mind who's all, like, to help keep track of who's all going to be going where. Yeah. this July through October. Is that what we saw the transfer window is going to be? Right, yeah. No, it is worth keeping track of.

The next one is Josh Sargent. Yeah, they're playing a relegation playoff Thursday, a promotional playoff, depending on your point of view. For Haydnheim, it's a promotional playoff. So first leg of that is Thursday. Let's say Brayman sort of, uh, shat it and they go down.

How strongly do you feel about sergeant moving or staying? I think he probably should and probably will stay at Verda Bremen no matter what. Like he's their guy. And, um, he's certainly not above the two Bundesliga at this point. Um, and I don't, and I don't, I don't, I don't, who's going to, who's going to pay for him, you know, who's going to, who's going to try to bring him on? Is there, is there, uh, is there, uh, is there, uh, is there, is there, uh, is there, is there,

evidence that he is like he's a desirable commodity in the striker market in the Bundesliga right now? No, I don't think so. I think he'd still be being bought on potential. And it seems like at that point, Brayman may as well sort of try to capitalize on that potential themselves and then sell him at a higher rate if he hits. I mean, some people say it would be better for him to go to the two Bundesliga and get, you know, get a lot of chances to score goals and maybe score a lot, like score more regularly and build his confidence and his,

You know, his ability to arrive in the box, reference our earlier conversation. Well, what do you say, Bells? I see that. I see that argument. But I also would like him to prove himself at the Bundesliga level, you know. And so I'm definitely rooting for Verde Bremen to stay up to defeat Haydnheim in this cage match. And for him to stay at Verde Bremen and them to be a comfortable mid-table team next year, with him scoring 12 or 13 goals.

There we go. I love that you go straight to like 12 or 13 goals. I'm like, give me 7 and 7. Give me 7 goals and a handful of assists. I don't need to be greedy here. This one's sort of a shot in the dark, but Charlie Kelman, it's Charlie, Charlie Kelman. Yeah, South End United, which is in League League,

British edition. League one, but relegated to League two. actually scored a lot of goals this year. So it seems like he's ready for an upgrade from the very low bar of league one relegation to somewhere. So somebody I'm expecting to come in and move for Charlie Kelman, who is a U20 eligible forward. So it's not like it's nothing that he's playing some professional football in England. Yeah. And scoring goals.

If anybody who hasn't seen him play, he's kind of similar to Indiana Vasselov from what I've seen. not extremely technical, but kind of a hardworking white guy who plays up front. That probably is about the extent of the comparison there. And then the last ones that I have on my ready to upgrade list, Reggie Cannon and Baxter Pomacall. So it's not technically their transfer season. Well, is it, I don't know how MLS's transfer season is going to work following the This is Back semi-colon tournament. Somebody get Paul Tenorio on the line to sort this out. I don't know. The word is canon is like a move is somewhat eminent for Canon. That's the rumor on Twitter.

Freiberg is interested in Stuttgart. I think third degree, third degree net tweeted that. I'm going to downgrade that rumor to a move is possible. Okay. I don't think, I don't think they've made any, many, any suggestion that like the deal is being finalized and it's just a matter of coming to terms. I think it's still very preliminary based on my reading of those tea leaves of like eighth source tea leaves. I think that may be the first time in the history of podcasting that someone was scolded for irresponsibly using the word imminent.

Eminent, Bells. We're just going to read about this tomorrow. Just going to throw that word around. Willy-nilly. But I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that we can see a couple of those guys make that kind of a move. Just because again, I don't know for sure. they would get to jump over to a Bundesliga level team and get minutes right away. But I'm very curious about whether that could happen. Yeah.

Paxton, man, we got to mention the mustache. He looks so good. He went from like a six to an eight just with a mustache. The mustache is amazing. It's pretty terrible, but it's amazing just for the effort. But yeah, well, it's an attractive. active team he's trying to he's trying to sneak into he's got to raise you got to keep that game sharp for fc dallas good looking yes indeed uh let's go over let's go over some guys who are not

necessarily at the end of their contracts but are in kind of suboptimal situations yeah d'andre yedlin tell me why his situation is suboptimal i think he's played one league minute in newcastle's last six or seven games yeah and havier munkio his uh main competition at right back was just extended, I believe. So it sure looks like Yedlin is second choice, and if I'm D'Andre Yedlin, I feel like I'm good enough to start somewhere in the Premier League, so I'd be exploring other options. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, still, how old is Yedlin now? 26, maybe?

26, yeah. So sort of in the prime of his career, he probably does need a move. Would you be sad if he went to a top half of the table champion? side? A little. I don't think he, unless it's a side that really has strong plans to get promoted. I mean, remember, he started with Newcastle when they were in the championship.

So unless it's like a team that's eminently returning to the Premier League, I would, I would, I think he's, I think he, some lower level Premier League team, I think would scoop him up before that happened. Okay. Or a team that's being promoted this year. year. Okay. Zach Steffen. Yeah, so Stefan's Fortuna Dusseldorf side relegated on the last day.

Not sure if he would have gone back to them anyways. He was on loan for Man City. Obviously not going to be Man City's number one next year. So there's a bit of a conundrum for Stefan. Yeah, he'll go on loan again, certainly. And I think the same will be said for a lot of the, you know, the lone army guys, Matt Miasga. Eric Palmer Brown, Cameron Carter Vickers.

What about Chris Richards? I guess I would say outside of Anthony Robinson and maybe D'Andre Edlin, even more than those two, he does need a loan. He does need a move of some kind. Yeah, Richards, I think, is a unique case because I think he's obviously ready for an upgrade. The question becomes what are Byron's plans with him? Because, you know, when we're talking about Anthony Robinson, and there's no other side for Wiggin to sort of promote him to.

It's not like they're holding him in reserve to move him up to their top team. Whereas with Richards, that's at least a possibility where they're just, you know, letting it, they're just sort of grooming him until it's like, okay, now you can be our third choice centerback.

I don't think that's very likely. So I think he does need an upgrade and I don't think it's going to come through Byron's first team. So I think I'd probably rather see him move. Yeah. Lower. I don't. Go ahead.

No, I don't care whether it's alone or a, or a full on sale. If you're not in Byron's plans now, I don't think you're going to suddenly play your way into them. They're going to buy the next Wonder Kid. Right. It seems like from Byron's perspective,

alone to the two Bundesliga or, you know, top end would be a lower level Bundesliga club would definitely raise his market value and they might be able to get some money for him. So I'm kind of hoping for that. Yeah. Same. I don't even care. I don't even know if Byron care that much about the financial side of it. They're always just going to steal. They're just going to steal assets from Shulka next year anyway.

Right. So you got this Netherlands trio. Who's that now? So that's Ledesma Mendezze and Gloucester. Hmm. When I see the word suboptimal anywhere near Richie Ledesma, I get triggered. Well, we have to acknowledge that, like, they may, they've evaluated him for over a year now. So they may have decided that he's not going to be their next big, not their next big thing, but any kind of a thing for them. Well, I mean, they did extend his contract in the spring. But sure, sure.

For the sake of argument, yeah. So the hope is, the hope is he breaks in at PSV in the fall. I would say I'm happy to give that another year to to materialize if if I have my druthers but if another year goes by and he still hasn't broken in a PSV he definitely needs a move yeah okay all right so we'll table him for a year does that kind of go then for Gloucester and Mendez as well I think so yeah I think I think I think Mendez is is bacon in the oven he's still got some time to to you know to develop into a player that can

consistently start even for young IACs, you know? And then Gloucester, you know, Gloucester's getting plenty of minutes with young PSV. It could be that Gloucester ends up playing for PSV's first team before Ledesma does, you know? Leftbacks are at a premium, even in the Netherlands. Well, the silver lining, if they do stay on the

young sides, is that they seem to be readily available for our Olympic squad, should we need to call on them. Oh, yeah. I forgot that there was such a thing as the Olympics. All right. Let's scream through these last few. Contract ending. Yeah, so mostly the guys out on loan. You kind of mentioned a Miyazga, Eric Palmer Brown, Cameron Carter Vickers. Do you think any of them make a jump up or do you think this is all going to be lateral move time? I'm going to guess lateral move for Miyazka and CCV, but EPB has a chance for a jump up. I've watched significant. minutes of his clips over the last month or so. He looks good, you know, nothing transcendent,

but he's a good professional centerback. And maybe he'll get a chance in the Netherlands or Germany or something. I'm kind of open for us that he gets to look in the Netherlands. I don't feel like... I mean, he's been in the Netherlands before he played for like the worst. Yeah, they got relegated. So, yeah, so I'm hoping he ends up in like a higher echelon Netherlands side. But I agree with you.

I think Miazga and CCV probably end up in the championship again, which is I think totally fine. I mean, CCV is 22. So you think about where our past defenders were when they were 22. Camer Carter Vickers has 6,000 championship minutes under his belt. Yeah, that's crazy. And he's not even really in the picture right now for the national team. Kenny Seff is still on my list. You've been doing deep research on Kenny Seff lately.

He looks good. He's playing. He's on loan with Gadsk in the Polish League, Polish top tier. But he looks good, man. He looks really tidy. He's really quick. He's fast. I think he has a good understanding of the game. I feel like he really sees the game well. And I think he would be a good fit for Burrhalter. So the hope is that he gets a favorable loan somewhere, a division that's maybe a little higher than the Polish first. Okay. Does he have a good understanding of Gdansk as a contested port city over the centuries. What? What? Bells? Where is your

Polish knowledge coming from? Isn't that the city that I don't know, everybody's been fighting over for a really long time? I don't know. Scott George is going to totally totally answer all these questions. Yeah, it's like there was like this little zone. The free city of Danzig is what it was after World War I. Okay. Well, nobody came to us for that little nugget of information. Somebody did. Somewhere, somewhere there is one person who was like, I do love European history, post-World War II European history. Fabian Johnson. Okay. What about Manuel Sabi? I thought he's on the list,

but I think it's kind of old news. He's going to slightly higher in the table in Denmark. Oh, yeah, Denmark. Okay. And then Fabian Johnson, where's he going? No idea. He's leaving, so he's not going to be back at glad back. So then again, the question just becomes, do we lure him to the MLS's back semi-colon tournament, or does he go somewhere else in Europe where surely he can kind of retire closer to home?

Gracefully. He's so gracefully. He's such a graceful human being. Yeah, he really is. He really is. All right. Then we've got the untenable situations. The gentleman who I believe are still going to be under contract who need. Oh, that's not entirely true.

But Ethan Horvath needs to go. Can't stay. Can't stay behind Miniola. Unless Miniola is leaving. If Minnuale is done, then Horvath, I'm sure, could stay and take over the number one again. But he needs to be a number one somewhere. Set your Google alerts for Simon Miniolay transfer news. Or Horvath needs to be the number two at a much better club.

How about that? The number one somewhere. He needs minutes, man. He needs to play. Yeah, I think so too. Bobby Wood, who we love dearly here at this, at least half of this podcast, loves dearly. His contract does not end this year. He's got another year with Hamburg.

Obviously, like, it's not even just untenable. It's a hostile situation for Bobby Wood. They send him to train with the U-19s. He's not even allowed in with the first team because he's making incredible money to not play. Yeah. If you need any more detail on that, check out Daniel Smith's Twitter feed. He has been following it scrupulously. The one thing that makes me a little bit optimistic that Wood could actually leave is that there's a chance like his negotiating position was fact that Hamburg were in line for promotion.

And if they had been promoted back to the Bundesliga, Wood would have seen like a 50% increase in his salary. So he'd be making like $3.5 million for them to despise him. and he wasn't going to leave that potential raise on the table to go somewhere else. Hamburg did not get promoted. They fell out on the last day. And so now Wood has $1.5 million less incentive to stay with Hamburg. It might be a little bit easier to buy him out. Okay.

Yeah, FC Cincinnati. Are you listening? DC United. Okay, there you go. slightly more telegenic soccer team than FC Cincinnati. And then finally Sebastian Soto, headed to Norwich City, Norwich City. Norwich City, his contract has run out,

so he's finally done with that Hanover disaster. They had a little graduation ceremony for it. It was really sweet and touching. Yeah. It's probably not ever as hostile as we think it is. Well, maybe in Woods case it is. But with Soto, he's going to Norwich. But he's not going to play for Norwich City because he can't get a UK work permit.

So that means he's going there just to be loaned somewhere else. And so then that's the question is where is he going to be loaned? Yeah. Where is he going to be loaned, Bels? We shall keep you posted. Knock bretta. I hope he does end up in Holland for a year. I think that'd be a fun place to watch him.

It seems like the natural choice, you know. All right. I think we covered it. That's everything. Domestic Soccer is back. NWSL playing today, if you're listening today, and there actually is a late game, so depending on when Bells gets this up,

you might actually be able to watch the 9 p.m. Central kickoff. Right. I saw a beautiful goal from the Houston Dash on Twitter earlier today. And then, yeah, like you mentioned, sergeant's got these promotion relegation playoffs on the second, which is Thursday and then five days later, I believe. Yep, Thursday and Monday for those. playoffs. And the

Major League Soccer starts next week. Wild. Wild times. MLS is back, semicolon tournament. Why is it a semicolon? Why do you always say semicolon? That doesn't seem grammatically correct. No, I checked the MLA style book, and it is a, it's a semicolon.

Good grief. It's bad branding to use a semicolon, but that's what they went with. It is. It is very bad branding. All right, hey guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks, Greg. We'll see you. All right, man, I'll talk to you. Okay, see ya. Yeah.