Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 132: A starting XI on Berhalter’s revised template from January

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

A center forward who drops deep to pick up the ball, wingers tucked into the channels, fullbacks bombing past them wide, two true box-to-box center mids and of course the deep-lying center mid distributor concept. If the Costa Rica friendly is any indication, this is what we’ll see in the next meaningful USMNT match. We make a starting XI and try to sketch out the depth chart. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Scufft podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez in Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Thanks for downloading this episode of Scuffed. Happy to be back in the saddle at global headquarters. Greg, how are you? I'm all right, Bells.

I'm still recovering from the Christian Pulisig Masterclass and the breathless last day of the championship. Yeah, I actually didn't pay much attention to the championship. I saw the word Brentford come across the transom a few times. Oh, yeah. Oddly, I was not invested in that at all, but I was very invested in the sagas at the relegation lines. Oh, yeah, yeah, Wiggin, they're up, right?

They're staying up? No, Wiggin are down. Luton Town stay up. So Cameron Carter Vickers with a miraculous escape that he played a pretty large part in. Wiggin, unfortunately, not able to get out from under their 12-point deduction. Oh, boy. Investigators are, like, trying to break into a room in Macau.

as we speak. So much intrigue. Yeah. But that Pulisic Masterclass, let's talk about that a little bit. Is he good? I don't know. Once they add Werner and have arts,

I feel like it's probably time for him to go. He'll be buried, buried in that death shirt. Oh, man, it's so fun to watch and play right now, isn't it? It's like, I've never experienced this before.

It was amazing. I watched those highlights over and over again. So thank you, too. Who put that comp out? a lot of people. Most of the people we don't know. Waki did the local one. So my favorite thing about the Poolsick highlights is the energy after his assist and his goal,

did you notice like he gets the assist and before the balls even crossed the line? He is just wheeled around and is chugging like hustling right back to midfield. He looks like a U-13 player who just finished a rep in a training exercise. Did the same thing after his goal. Yeah. smashes the ball top bin and just immediately is running back to midfield ready for the next rep uh it's fun man it's fun watching him he was after the goal he was throwing off some salt though he was saying he was saying to the world you can't stop me you can't stop me let's go um

yeah both beautiful both wonderful soccer plays and uh boy it's good to be it's good to be a christian polisic fan these days for sure so uh To what we're going to talk about today is a little more big picture. You had a good tweet, I thought, about Burrhalter's shape in possession in the February friendly against Costa Rica. And we thought we should kind of look at the player pool with that template in mind. So first of all, what did you see in that game that was different from the previous 18 matches under Burrhalter? So for me, the biggest differences in that game were our roles in possession.

Gone were the sort of famous 8-10 hybrid roles for the Central Middholt. The ones that McKenny and Roldon have sort of been stuck in. Pulcic played a little bit of that in the Gold Cup last summer. But I think everyone knows what I'm talking about. That's how prevalent they were in Burhalter's first 17 or 18 games. And that wasn't really that wasn't there at all in the Costa Rica-friendly. Just to be clear on what you're talking about, the hybrid 8-10s would be of the three central midfielders, to be the two most forward ones.

And what would you describe their role as in those games? So they created like along with, so it kind of gets a little complicated, but his shape tended to create an attack, create one striker with four players underneath that striker. Yeah. And so what you usually had was these 2,8, 10 type center mids who would play sort of directly under the striker.

and then you might have one winger like an ariola and one like right the right back would then filter up on the side or you'd have another winger so you might be like ariola and morris would be your two wingers it was ariola and boyd and ariola and morris during the gold cup so you had your two wingers and then you had your two sort of center mids forming that line of four under the striker yeah and it as a result it put west mckenny and christian rolled on in the position of being tens, playmakers. In possession, yeah, like dual tens during possession. Okay.

And then when we lose the ball, one of those tens would actually play as like a forward in a 4-4-2 to defend. And the other one would sag back alongside usually Michael Bradley as a two-man center mid in that 4-4-2. The more we're talking about it, the more I'm like, what the heck were we doing? So, yeah, so he's really simplified it. And it makes me think about how. Man, like way back when in March or April of last year,

when you were like, should we just chuck this whole silly, complicated stuff and run a vanilla 433, the way that Tab Ramos is doing with the U-20s? And it kind of starts to feel like that's what's happening here. So how to explain how it's working? Like, how did it work against Costa Rica? So in that Costa Rica game, what you had was you had,

instead of the 8-10 hybrids, you had more of like a winger 10 hybrid, where both Yule, Yanez, and Paul Areola, Yule on the left, Ariola on the right, would sort of slide central, and they would play underneath Jesus Ferreira as like tens in possession, and Reggie Cannon and Sam Vines,

the right and left backs, would become more traditional modern fullbacks, if that phrase can make sense. Yeah. And they would be in charge of advancing up the wings in providing width an attack, and it was this symmetrical fullback look that we weren't getting too often

in the 2019 Burrhalter days. Right. And that allows, so that allows the two central midfielder's to be, to play a little deeper and actually be more sort of classic box-to-box midfielder's, right? Yeah, that's the knock-on effect for the Sebastian Leggett and Brendan Arrison role. So they essentially work as two center mids. And so they're working behind sort of underneath those wingers who have now pinched in.

And then you have Jackson's. and Ewell in that game who would sit even deeper, often dropping into the line with the centerbacks. Yeah. But you still end up the sort of overall shape isn't that far off from what Burrhalter has done in the past. It's just a huge shift in the rolls. Like you still end up with a line of four attackers underneath the forward. It's just now that it's two fullbacks wide and the two winger central. So you still have that four attacking attacker band underneath.

Jesus Ferre as sort of, I don't think it's really fair to say he's a false nine, but it's not far off. Yeah, yeah. And when you look at the touch map, you see he had very few touches in the box,

whereas Yanes and Areola had a ton of touches sort of even inside a six-yard box. Would you call them wide forwards in that role? Or like, what's the, maybe it doesn't matter what you call them that way. I think I used to see,

I think I used to see like inside winger. And I think, think that was something that a lot of people were throwing around when when even back in like 2018 when we were trying to figure out who was going to be our number 10 and I think a lot of people even then were saying pool sit can function as like an inside winger who could be nominally a winger but slide in to try to collect the balls off as possible and we are seeing a ton of that with him at Chelsea right now that's exactly what he is yeah wouldn't you say that's like pretty much exactly what he's doing I mean he does he does end up getting the ball wide some but

but he ends up getting the ball in that, like, almost in Zone 14 channel a lot. Constantly, constantly. It gets to slide in. In that situation, he's often tracked by an outside back rather than being picked up by a holding mid who would be there to sort of destroy any activity from a number 10. So outside back is sometimes tracking him from the outside. So he's able to collect the ball and then cut in right away. We may have talked about this already on another episode,

but I think that's a huge deal for him and one of the ways that he's really successful is because that pressure is now coming from the outside. He's lethal when he can collect it and in one fluid motion turn into the center of the field and already be moving at speed. Yeah.

I mean, it's so, it is so much his wheelhouse to come in on his right foot and just go at people. So anything else to say about what we saw against Costa Rica? from a technical standpoint? I mean, really just that I think it worked. I think it's a very viable way of setting up a team. I don't think there's anything terribly complicated about it,

and I think it maps really well to the player pool we have. Yeah, I like it a lot, too. It's, I mean, the one position where we, I'm not sure we have a clear front runner is that left back. I know you're probably going to say Anthony Robinson is that guy, but I'm not quite as sold on him as you, but, but desk coming up the right,

or even Desk coming up the left with Cannon on the right, is, and then you have Raina and Pulisicor, both really suited for that inside wing or role. I like it. I like it a lot. It also allows Adams and McKinney to, I think, do a job that they're more comfortable with,

which is further back in the field. Yeah, we, you know, that left back is still sort of, in my mind, the big question mark. We've talked about this a lot. In the last competitive game for Greg Burhalter, Tim Ream was slotted as our left back with Dest on the right. That doesn't seem like it would fit.

I don't think you would be able to function this way with Tim Ream as your left back. But I don't think that that's necessarily what Greg Berhalter would do. I don't think he would stick with that, even though that was his last full-strength competitive lineup. For me, it's something where he had minimal preparation time. And so I think he would,

just going with something that he was safe, that felt safe and comfortable, given that that Canada's second leg was a de facto knockout game. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that was going to be my next question is given he played Tim Riem, a stay-at-home left back in that game in November, how confident can we be that he won't go back to that in the future? I don't think you will. I think given what we saw in that Costa Rica game, I don't think Burrhalter is one to just trot

out a one-off lineup in 2019. the lineup he used in the January camp, even without his key players, was the same lineup that he used in March, the same tactical setup he used in March. And then it seemed like it was going to be the same tactical setup in the Gold Cup until Tyler Adams had to pull that with injury. So I think he's not just doing a one-off here. I think he's setting up for what he wants to do in the next meaningful contests.

Now, I've tried to get in his head before, and I've been wrong quite a bit. But you combine that performance. against Costa Rica with a lot of comments that he has been making in in pretty much every interview he's given recently and it really starts to line up yeah the the what comments in particular are you thinking of so he's talked a lot in a lot of separate interviews about playing central midfielders who will press behind and underneath that high attacking line and it's that's the same job that that letget and erinsen sort of had was They weren't the attacking line.

They were underneath it, and they were just supposed to be working their socks off to, you know, defensively to Harry and chase down whatever long switches Coastry could try to make. But offensively, you know, I think that he's basically saying this will be the role of the center mids. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm excited about it. So, like, what do we – how much credit do we give for Halter for this? for coming to this conclusion. I'm willing to say this is a very good conclusion to come to.

I feel like we could have maybe come to this conclusion in March of 2019. Yeah. And have been calling calling people up and trying to refine this since then. And we can get into a little bit as we talk about which players might fit. But I don't know if we should read it as an admission that his, old setup just wasn't working wasn't a good fit wasn't effective uh or if he's going to surprise us all and and sort of surprise me at least and either blend this with his old way or or have this just be an experiment but really stick with his base that he ran in 2019 i wonder i wonder if this

isn't just an example of the old you know soccer commentary trope he over he overthought it he overcomplicated it you know that's what i feel like that they say that a lot in england at least my criticism has almost always been that he didn't commit to it all the way so like if he wanted to try to run that possession heavy system uh i feel like he didn't call in like i feel like there are players that would in that system that are going to fit way better in our in this new look if this does end up being the new look uh and he just it it would have been fun to see his possession ideas with like true possession personnel but he never really in my mind called up a true possession roster. Yeah.

We don't need to rehash all that. Yeah, we don't need to. Let's not. So let's talk about, well, one more thing. I think you wanted to say something about what Burrhalter's comments about Geo Raina indicate about his plans. So this is how I, yeah, this is how I sort of justify putting Raina in as my sort of projected, if not starter, like maybe he won't start the very next game we have, but I think Burrhalter is hinting that Raina will be in our 11.

And that's by his talk about Raina's development. He's talking about how can the U.S. help Raina? And he starts talking about what the U.S. can do is start putting him in meaningful games, like, right away. Yeah. And for me, that's his way of sort of preparing for people for the fact that a guy who hasn't played for the U.S. at all and hasn't even started a game for Dortmund will end up, being a starter for us. And he's done enough to have sort of warranted that. Yeah. He did. I mean, just before Scott Jorick turns us over the flaming spit,

the Raina did start a couple of games towards the end of the season. Ah, did he? Okay. I mean, after the league was already decided. Okay. So, all right, let's talk about the death chart. Start with defenders. So in this, are we going to do fullbacks first? Yeah, let's start with left back, the most important position. So Burrhalter addressed this position specifically and said that Serginio Desk could do this job. It's not ideal because he'd rather have a left-footed left-back. But he is definitely, he's now on record saying Desk can do the left-back job as a player who advances to attack.

Obviously, you're not going to play Sergenio Dest as a stay-at-home left-back. No. So would you say, you know, if you were. if you were managing this team and this was your system, I think we, so we kind of have to talk about left back and right back at the same time here, right? Yeah, let's do it.

Let's pair. Who would be your starting left back? I would, I wouldn't have one right now. I would, I would have a list of, pairings that I would want to explore, and one of those pairings would be desk at left back and either Canon or Yedlin or Timmy Chandler at right back.

not putting Shaqmore in there yet but I'm not I wouldn't be opposed to Shaqmore either okay yeah the other I know it I know it's cheating but the other pairing would be Dest on the right side and Robinson on the left side yep I want to see what Anthony Robinson can do for me he fits this in in the only way that he wouldn't fit it is if his defending is either just completely not up to par though again I don't know that I don't know that death defending is I don't know that he's a lockdown defender we haven't seen him as being a lockdown defender. He's a bogey defender.

We don't really have anybody who I would describe as a lockdown defender to put it left back. Tim Ream is certainly not a locked down guy on the left flank. He's had some good performances, but I don't think in any way to say, all right, we are totally safe. We've got Tim Riem out there. No one's getting through on that side. Right. Yeah.

So that's an argument for like giving Robinson a try. Don't let the, don't let him getting torched by Brazil and Columbia back in the, fall of 2018 affect you too much. Right. And he's played 70 minutes for Greg Burhalter in a, in sort of a, the Gold Cup tune-up game where a bunch of guys got the run out and none of them got put on the final Gold Cup roster. And he didn't look very good, but he was playing in like a three, five, two.

I think Christian Raldon after the game said they'd only worked on it for like two days. He looked completely lost. I will definitely say that. But we also have a decent record of Anthony Robinson from 2018. where he was a very effective attacking left fullback for us. Yeah. So for me, I think that's more than enough to warrant. You know, again, he's put in another full season in the championship

after coming back from his heart irregularity, where he's for sure got to be somebody that we look at as a starting left back for our side. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm totally happy with that, with taking a look at him. And I guess I don't have a strong feeling on whether it should be dust on the right, Robinson on the left or a cannon on the right, dust on the left. I think I'd be kind of happy with either one.

I'd be comfortable with any of those options for the next game, even if the next game were a World Cup qualifier. I think I'd be as comfortable with that as I would be with some of the, what I would call sort of Burrhalter's safe choices, which again, for me, aren't necessarily that safe. I don't need to see Daniel Levitt's his name on their 23 or certainly not in the I don't think Daniel Lovitz will be back in the national team, you know, barring a catastrophe of injuries.

So Robinson, I should mention, Robinson does seem to have improved as a defender as well. Is that your sense from watching the clips? Like he's gotten more solid? I honestly couldn't tell you. No, I'm not sure. I don't see, usually in those comps, I'm not seeing him defend that much. They're usually of him moving forward with the ball. Well, I'll jump into Wy Scout every now and then and do the, like, you know, the all-involvements clips or the, or the duels, which are kind of the ways to check up on somebody's defense.

They're not perfect ways to do that, but the only perfect way is to watch the game. The only perfect way is to be in the stands at the stadium listening to the person talk and watching them play. But, but, yeah, my sense is he is, he is something he's really worked on, and he has gotten better at it, at defending. I'll take your word for it. I think it'd be a good project to try to pick out some video from a year ago when he was deemed not good enough, either defensively or offensively, for the national team. And if he's called up in the next window to see what he's doing differently. Yeah.

I'll leave that to John. I'm not volunteering for the project. Can we get dummy run on it? So there's another name here we haven't mentioned at Leftback. quite a few in the pipeline. But go on. I'm curious who yours is. Sam Vines.

Sam Vines. Yeah, there you go. He's been playing reasonably well for Colorado. He was, like we said earlier, he was the left back for the U.S. against Costa Rica when we saw this template floated by Burrhalter. What's your take on Vines? So my take is if you're talking about players who could conceivably do a job for us at that position, it's not a bad place to say, well, Sam Vinds just, did a job for us at that position. So he immediately becomes someone that you can talk about as trying out again.

Yeah. It sounds like an October window will exist that is not going to be a qualifying window. So that might be a situation where Vines is in the 23. Yeah. If you haven't watched much Vines, he's a good athlete, pace and power, not power really, but pace. and kind of a scrappy defender. He's okay on the ball. He's not like the aspirational version of a left back

that I think a lot of us have in mind yet. But he's okay. He's solid and he can pump across in and he covers a lot of ground. That's my summary of him. So I still have a lot more desire to see it, Anthony Robinson, and it's mostly based on what we've seen him do for Wiggin and what we've seen them do, even in a U.S. shirt, you know, if I think who do I want running beside Christian Pulisic and giving Christian Pulisic options and threatening player defenses so they can't entirely concentrate on Christian Pulcic, it would still be Anthony Robinson for me.

Yeah. Yeah. And Robinson, let's be honest, would be better than Dest on that left side just because of the, you know, the left-sided orientation of the position. Right. And Robinson is actually very good. whipping in a left-footed ball. And Dest, if you were over there on the left, would be tempted to come in on his right foot just the way Pulisic does. Polisik wants to, yeah.

So there'd be some stepping on each other's toes there. All right, those are the fullbacks. Do you want to talk about sort of who else is in the view of a left-back spot? Yeah, I think Chris Gloucester is, you know, is a guy we've talked about on this podcast and even interviewed, and I think he's a very steady defender

and a clean and clean in possession. So, you know, he's one to keep an eye on. And I think for like the aspirational version of a left back, you know, the sort of left-sided, Destian model, it's, there's two possibilities, two young guys who are way out from this. Kobe Hernandez Foster,

who apparently just signed with Wolfsburg, and is going to play with their U-19s. Just an incredibly sweet left foot and really, really, really good in possession. It remains to be seen whether he can defend, you know, Bundesliga attackers. It remains to be seen by a long shot. So, but I think, you know,

if we want somebody on that left side who can really compliment Pulisic and is an elegant attacking left fullback, Kobe Hernandez-Foster is kind of a possibility. Another one is And he came up Through the LA Galaxy system Another one is Jonathan Gomez

Who came up through the FC Dallas system But signed with Louisville City FC In USL earlier this year He made his he made like a 10 minute cameo Last week Hopefully he'll get to He'll get to play this weekend We'll get to see some real footage of him

But he's similar to Hernandez Foster In that he's very good in possession He can score goals He has a sweet left foot and those are two players I'm really going to be paying attention to over the next couple years because they they fill a need they fill a sort of a profile that we need at that position so if they can if they can keep checking quite a few boxes their profile stands out of something that can really help us at left back right they have I mean I've learned that to like

we don't know like susa had said this on Twitter today we don't know anything about youth prospects I've been wrong so much that I don't even, like, I don't even want to say anything. I'm just saying they have the profile that would, I think, work well in this system. All right. And in the case of Kobe, like, that could happen very quickly in the sense that, you know, he's at Wolfsburg's U19s, which is where ULianas just spent a season, and Yannes came in and looked like one of the better players for U.S. squad, one of the better players on the field.

in our U.S. friendly against Costa Rican grown men. So, you know, it's possible Kobe could be already at a pretty good level. We don't know. We have to see him against either next side by side with some of our guys already. So in an Olympic camp or something where you could look at him next to a Sam Binds and a Chris Gloucester or if he somehow breaks through quickly at Wolfsburg. Yeah. And the last thing I'll say about is,

him is the last soccer, competitive soccer he played was the 2019 U-17 World Cup. So he's still very young, right? It's the 2002. And he was playing centerback for Rafael Vicki's team in that tournament, which was, you know, not a successful tournament for any of those players. But he was playing centerback for that team. He's like 5-5-6. He's not a tall guy.

So it didn't make any much sense for, it doesn't make much sense for him to play centerback in the future. He's a left-back. That's where he projects. but we haven't really gotten to see him play left back since his you know since like the GA the GAAC Cup with the Galaxy U-17s or something like that right because then he just sat in limbo waiting to turn 18 so we could sign in Germany yeah a lot of like you said a lot of boxes to be checked pages of boxes to be checked but my favorite thing though is that he's sitting right next to

one of those boxes to check because he's at Wolfsburg so it's at least possible that you know he could check I feel like with with Jonathan Gomez he's going to have he's not even close to a box to check at the moment because I just don't think no matter how well he plays for Louisville City that there exists a Louisville City box that he could check. How's that? You're saying he needs a move from Louisville City to a better club to before he's like actually a national team possibility. Yeah, to a club with more boxes that he needs to check.

Wow, I'm really lost on this box checking. Center backs, center back. Yeah, centerbacks, centerbacks. Can we pair these together too? I mean, we can split them in the... No, pair them together. Go for it. So we're looking at probably carrying four centerbacks,

and the centerback role in this system of Burralter was running was very traditional. And we have John Brooks, who is nailed on as our left centerback, assuming he's healthy. And then we have any number of other guys who could fill in at right centerback or be John Brooks's backup at left centerback.

It seems at the moment, like Tim Riem is sort of the first. favorite for Brooks's backup because Ream is also left-footed and is a good pass for the ball like John Brooks is. Yep. And has played, you know, fairly well for the U.S. over the last 12 months, right? Yeah, I mean, I kind of need to lower the bar. Is that how you'd phrase it for a lot of the guys that we talk about playing really well?

Like, he's been unremarkable for me, which doesn't mean he's been bad, but I feel like we our last year was was sort of so tepid that and I actually kind of include Reggie Cannon this too that just simply not doing really poorly has kind of like elevated your status a lot yeah and I think that's the case with Timree I don't think it would take a ton for somebody to necessarily leapfrog him yeah so the other so the other centerbacks would be Aaron Long this list of sort of whoever who could who could be the the next you know, the right centerback would be long, Aaron Long, Matt Miaska,

Miles Robinson. Cameron Carter Vickers just kept a team up in the championship, and I'm sure he'll be picked up by another championship team in a couple of weeks to try to do it again. Whoever just got promoted from League One. Walker Zimmerman, you know, played that right centerback role in the friendly against Costa Rica. You've got Eric Palmer Brown coming off a solid,

another 2,000 minute season in the Austrian Bundesliga. And then you've got sort of the MLS, some of the MLS guys, Justin Glad, Mark McKenzie, maybe James Sands. And then you've got, you know, first team Bayern Munich player, Chris Richards. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just a big mix of like somebody got to step up, you know, somebody's got to separate themselves. Because I think at this moment, long is the starter, for Burrhalter at least, right?

for Burrhalter he is and it's it's definitely a case of like in my mind the status he's gotten for the national team has sort of upped everyone's opinion of him because he hasn't he hasn't been outstanding he didn't have an outstanding year in MLS last year no uh he had an excellent 2018 but again Miles Robinson was an MLS all 11 defender last year and I think that means he now has the same number of MLS all 11 seasons as Matt as Aaron Long things change so maybe it's so maybe miles uh overcomes long i mean miles is playing for that dumpster fire known as uh atlanta united so that doesn't help

but neither neither neither players team is doing well in the ls's back tournament but uh yeah i mean is there anything there's not really that much change in what is asked from these guys as no so so you can still just sort of throw darts at your non john brucs centerbacks for now. There's a chance Chris Richards could be moving to a team

that would have a lot of different boxes that he could check. Yeah. And so that's going to be one that everyone's going to be paying

pretty close attention to. What's the latest on his transfer situation? I literally never talk about transfer rumor targets or names. It's like talking

on the NCAA Brackett. Excuse me. His latest transfer rumors are every team in the Bundesliga and several in the

primarily yeah i thought there was a union berlin rumor that was sort of bubbling up but whatever let's move on to midfielders let's move on to midfielders yeah this is where it gets kind of fun for me i feel like i feel like this is where we're we're going to get a lot of good stuff well yeah so when your wingers are tucking in and encroaching on zone 14 from either side that means your midfielders are more of the box-to-box variety like we talked about earlier uh and then of course there's the number six. So at the number six, who do we got? So I don't, I don't necessarily love this, but it seems like what Burrhalter is going with, and it's going to be his sort of deep lying, ball spraying, distributing number six. And for that role for Greg Burhalter, it wouldn't surprise me if Jackson

Yule is now at the top of the list. Yeah. Well, why wouldn't it surprise you? Just because of how well he played in the fall? Yeah, he did well. I mean, he played the Canada game that we won. in that role, which Michael Bradley played in the Canada game that we lost in a similar role. I know there were a lot of variables. I know there were a lot of variables that changed from leg one to leg two. Just one variable. That and, you know, Paul Ariola was the upgrade over Christian Pulisick in game two. Right.

So I think what will be that what will sort of give Ewell the edge is I think Burralter will feel more comfortable with a high energy midfield ahead of Jackson Ewell. than he would ahead of Michael Bradley. I think Ewell offers more defensive mobility, so he won't be quite as exposed. When Tyler Adams takes off to go press a ball, Ewell will be able to follow a little bit closer behind than I think maybe Michael Bradley would.

Yeah. So it's too soon to say Bradley is out of the running, though, right? I mean, he's probably number two on the team sheet. That'd be my guess, and I definitely am very curious to see how it shakes out. I think Bradley will definitely be called up. And so that'd be my guess is that Bradley's number two in that list. And there aren't really anybody, any other candidates in my mind.

I know Will Trapp has been in every camp Greg Berhalter's run, but his playing time has dropped to almost nothing over the last six or seven games. Yeah. And it just doesn't seem like Burrhalter really plans on actually using him in matches. Yeah. I mean, another possibility is Chris Durkin,

who is, I guess, not, didn't finish out the season in Belgium because nobody did. Christian Kappi's at Kappas is at

now relegated Hobro. We'll see if he moves. I listed Frankie Amaya because he's been sitting in sort of a deeper center midfielder lately. But again,

these are all just really like, a lot of wait and see for how they play. And I don't really have expectations that any of them will be. Sebastian Berhalter. Sebastian Berthold. There you go. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of young players in that system, I mean, in that position because, you know, it turns out we have youth national teams at various age groups who all play a very somewhat similar system.

You know, a couple more speculative names that fit that role are Taylor Booth. Byron U-19 player who made his Byron 2 debut this last spring. And then, you know, people are going to think this is crazy, but I think Alex Mendes fits that job pretty well. If he can check a few more boxes for young Iax and work his way into that first team. It's not just first team minutes. I'm not a first-team-minute's truther, but. But you probably do think he needs to work his way into the young IAC's first team a little bit,

just so we can actually see him play, right? Well, that, I was talking about getting into the Iax first. Right. So, you know, I'm just, this is speculative, but he's a player who can move the ball around and play passes between the lines in a very, very pleasant way. I like that you put him here because I feel like he gets usually talked about as like a number 10 where it might just be because he's a Latino soccer player because he doesn't really, I kind of agree.

I think he's more of like that sort of fine space underneath the, The log jams and spray the ball around. Yeah, like have him put on a few pounds of muscle, add a little defensive mobility, and have him be the one picking the ball up between the centerbacks and finding a pass. Not an idea that I hate that much. But it still seems pretty far off.

It's very far off, yes. Okay, all right. So that's kind of the boring one, right? Yeah, because to make a long story short, it's Eul and Bradley, right? Yeah, and there's still, a very open question about whether either of those players

can do the sort of defensive job that is going to be required come qualifying. Because would you put Adams at the 6th? I probably would, yes. And maybe it would function a little differently, but I would still probably use him there.

You know, I kind of take that back. In this setup that we're talking about, no, I wouldn't because I think he sits a little bit too far back for counterpressing the way Tyler Adams should counterpress. Tyler Adams doesn't drop

between the centerbacks for Red Bull Leipzig. You know what I mean? Like that's not where you're getting the most out of Tyler Adams because when you lose the ball, you don't want him that deep. Yeah.

What if it's, what if you have Pomacall and McKinney counter pressing in front of Adams and Adams is just sort of like directing traffic? I'd probably rather have, I've talked about before. I wish Pomacol would become a number six

so he could back up Or it's that he could like sit deeper and do something. I don't know. I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, oh, no, our number six is now too mobile. We're wasting his, we're wasting how much pressing he can do. But when you have a load of those players in your pool, it's not the worst thing if one of them ends up being in that role. Well, I want to go on the record and say, I think Adam should be the six. I know it doesn't fit perfectly with that or with, you know, with Burrhalter's idea of distribution from that spot.

but Adams would be my six. But we're sort of talking about what we think Burrhalter would want to something. In this shape, yeah, yeah, yeah. And who fits best in what spaces? So who are the two? Let's talk about all the eights altogether here. All right. Adams and McKenny are the two to start.

And I think Burrhalter name check them both as being those players. So that, to me, seems pretty cut and dried that that's what we're going to see. Yeah. And I'm not going to lie. excited to see that even with Ewell behind them. I think it would be really, really fun. Yeah, I'm not complaining either. I imagine that defensively it'll kind of turn into like a

4-5-1 with Adams and Ewell on the line in the center midfield and McKenney kind of ahead of them. So, I mean, just to kind of guess what the defensive shape of rotation might be. So it'd be like a 4-2-3-1 in defense? Yeah, thereabouts. Thereabouts. I mean, yeah. I'm going to keep calling it a 4-5-1 because I'm not entirely sure what it'll be.

Because, again, you could get pretty flexible with McKinney charging out of that midfield to press someone or Adams. If the ball switches quickly, Adams can charge out of there to press someone. And they're both so, so capable of doing that. So who would be the first guys off the bench behind Adams and McKinney? Because there's no chance that both of them are going to be healthy at the same time. Well, this is where it gets back to, I don't have, I don't think it's even possible to have a strong conclusion about who that should be, because like the first three guys on my list as backups have very little national team minutes under Greg Berlter. And that'd be, for me, it's Legette Holmes and Pomacall right now that fit that mold really well. I mean, Leggett has plenty of minutes for the national team, right?

I mean, he should have a lot more. He's racked up some, but he's been, he was used. sparsely by Burrhalter, even when he got called into all these camps, he just wasn't the guy that was used. And I think that goes back in a big way to how we were sort of incorrectly using our pool, even when we had the right guys in camp. Maybe Legerette is just too good looking for Burrhalter. It's intimidating. It's intimidating.

It's balding and can't handle it. I can't stand him. Yeah, but I mean, I guess I remember Leggette being so good in that 401 win. Canada and that being a big part of why we won that game. I can't remember. Did he play in the loss against Canada? No, he did not. He did not come off the bench.

Roldon started with McKinney and Ariola came in for Pulisic. Like that game for me cemented how sort of poorly we were using our resources because Legette has done so well in every game he's played. And he was very good in the Costa Rica friendly. Like he was super involved when you look at his touch map versus is Aronsons. It feels like maybe the reason we went so much, so hard down the left side was because of Legette's work and ability to get on the ball versus Aronson not being quite as up to it on the right side. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I do agree with you that Legette,

Holmes, and Pomacall are the first three names off the bench there. But we're full of these guys, right? We have so many, so many players who fit this mold. And we've been, we've been hammering on this forever. This is why we need to be using our center midfielders like this. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's very gratifying. Why did it take so long to get here? Well, I mean, we're pretending like it's already here. We don't know for sure. We don't know. Yeah. But yeah, the way we were doing it before was forcing these guys to be tens in possession. and then, you know, having a six who was not defensive, not primarily a defensive player in, like, in the selection.

It's very strange. The whole thing is very strange in retrospect. Yeah, we put them in their, like, very uncomfortable positions offensively, and then we didn't get anything out of them defensively because we sat in such a low passive 4-4-2. Yikes. Okay.

So let's keep naming the other guys who can, because now when we have injuries, it won't be great, but it won't be such a, it won't, I don't think the drop off will be quite so bad because we have a lot of guys who can plug into this style and play. Yeah. I mean, it's Alfredo Morales, you know, who acquitted himself with respectably in that loss to Mexico. You got Tanner Tessman here, I guess? I think, I mean, that's just a fun one for, for like, if he's this type of player. I have no idea if he's going to be able to play at the level that we would need.

But he's one who we're kind of having fun with because he showed up in two games for FC Dallas and looked good. Was it three games before everything got shut down? Two or three, yeah. All right. Brendan Aronson is this kind of player. And again, no idea if he's going to be good enough to play at the national team level. But all of our prospects are sort of also of this mold is kind of what we're getting at. Yeah.

Kellen Acosta, he's still out there, huh? So I put him in here because I want to really also hammer home that we have completely shifted our midfield roles so much that I think you have to start, you have to kind of ask like, well, are there guys who didn't fit the 2019 version of what Burrhal wanted who should come back into the picture? Because it would make sense for new guys to be considered if what you're asking is so drastically different than what you're asking. asking in 2019. Yeah. So what about Markey Delgado? Same thing. I feel like he, I mean, I don't, I don't know if he's going to, again, we have a lot of

names on here already that I would rather see. But it's just, you know, Acosta Delgado, Julian Green. Like, are these guys who, honestly, Julian Green probably would have fit better in that 810 hybrid than he would in this one. Maybe the whole system was built for him. But I just, I just feel like it opened. the door for a lot of guys who might warrant like new consideration. Yeah.

You know, one player that I like to talk about who doesn't really fit this role that well is Richie Ledesma. Like he, in the previous setup where you have to set up as a 10 in zone 14 in this position, it doesn't make sense, but he doesn't make sense as much as like a high energy counterpressing box to box eight. No, not at all. He basically, I mean, a lot in the early stages of buildup, you're just playing directly in front of the centerbacks.

And I don't think that's Ledesma's bread and butter, if I can be honest. Yeah. Wait, what's not his bread and butter? Playing like, he's playing directly in front of his own centerbacks. So, like, you got John Brooks and then 15 yards ahead of him, you have Richie Ledema. Like, I don't think that really makes sense for, as a way to use Richelodesma. Yeah. I mean, I could see him taking the ball, playing on the half turn and breaking open a defense.

way, but, but yeah, more or less agree. So should we, should we move to the forwards? Yeah, sort of the front three. Yeah. Now, uh, I think there won't be much debate. Our left wing, our starting left wing is going to be Christian Pulisik. I'm very excited to see this. I feel like we managed to sort of neutralize Christian Pulisick on our own, uh, for much of last year. Yeah. And I'm, I'm hopeful that this kind of sort of setup would sort of really let him loose. Yeah. Yeah, we can dream. We can dream about it.

Their first game won't be until what November? Is the October window off now? Or is the October window still on? I think Mexico's announced a friendly for October. So I think there's going to be games in October. We might not be able to host them in the United States. But feels like there might be a game or two. Yeah. Okay, October. That's coming right up, actually. So also on the left wing, so who's your first name off the bench at left wing?

So I would actually put Ullianas on here, and I get that everyone mocks us for including a guy who doesn't play against grown men. But he's very, he showed against Costa Rica that he's very good at doing this role. So I think he's a guy that you can, you could test out as seeing if he could do it again. If you can repeat that performance from Costa Rica in another game, and you basically just keep riding that until you're like, nope, he definitely can't hack it at this level, or until somebody else sort of demands that they belong here instead, like Corey Baird, for example. Yeah. But I don't see that happening.

I don't want to see that happen. You know, John, long-term, does Jonathan Amon still fit this role? Probably not. I think so. Well. You think so? He's pretty good at cutting inside. He's pretty good at cutting,

cutting inside and, you know, hitting a curler or finding a pass. So I want to make the distinction here because it's not necessarily like receiving the ball on the sideline and then cutting in with the ball. Like a lot of times they are setting up. Ullianas was setting up centrally. Good point.

Good point. And receiving it in that space. So I don't know. I haven't seen a lot of aim and clips where he is like set up to receive the ball in the space of a 10. You're right. He receives it a lot.

lot and does cut in from the left wing because he's very right-footed. But I haven't seen a lot of him, you know, collecting it with somebody on his back centrally. I issue a full retraction. Amen does not fit this system. But we have seen that. We've seen it from like a Beaufort Osceado. And I know like getting, again, getting a guy who's definitely box adjacent is Conrad

de la Fuente. When you're at Barcelona, you're box adjacent all the time. Like you're always one coaching decision away from instantly being in the U.S. men's national team picture. And he's played central midfield for Bars a lot on the wing. So he's a guy you can keep track of. I think he's starting right now in their promotional playoff semifinal. Yeah. And if Twitter is to be trusted, having a pretty good game.

All right. I haven't been following it. But he had two goals in their last promotional playoff victory. So it shouldn't be that surprising. Yep. And then speculative possibility here is Richie Ledesma, this job actually fits him quite well. He's really good of receiving the ball in that pocket of space. And I think he's going to be a lot better coming in from the left channel than he is coming from the right channel because he is awfully right-footed.

Yep. And this hybrid role could also work out well for like a Paxton-Maw-Macall. Or again, Brendan Aronson, I know they both played on the wing for their clubs. Pomacall played on the wing for his national team debut, it would be easy to see them sort of doing that, making that adjustment. We have a lot of versatile players. Yeah, Aronson on the left, most likely,

and Pomacall on the right. Right? Because you want the stronger foot on the inside. Should we talk about the right wing then? Yes, yes. Who's your starting right wing? I mean, I guess I agree with you. It should be Pulisicic and Yanaz, you know.

Okay. There aren't a lot of other left-wing names that jump out at you in my mind. Yeah, there really aren't. I mean, Bofo is, I think Bofo is like the next one and then it's a big drop-off. I guess we didn't, Jonathan Lewis's name hasn't come up yet. He's scoring goals. Yeah, no thanks. Okay. What about, what about, um, Ariola? Where does Ariola fit? He's got to be on the right side. I think he'd be on the right side here. I guess, I guess, not necessarily. I think he could probably do either job. I just happened to have him listed on the right. He played on the left wing a lot in the Gold Cup,

where he and Poulosik were interchanging. He played on the right side in the Costa Rica-friendly. I think he really is just a stopgap. Not meant in a disrespectful way. I just think it's like, oh, we can always plug Ariola there. He's competent. What about Morris? I mean, Morris plays on the left wing for Seattle some.

He played on the left wing in the Canada victory, with Ariola on the right side. Why can't why can he not be on the left wing? So my main reason that he can't be on the left wing is because Christian Pulisic is on the left wing. Morris might, maybe Morris would be Pulisic's backup, but I feel like people are going to want Morris to be just talked about as a starter. And so, and so I put him on the right side as like a possible starter over Giovanni Raina. Yeah. is I think how it just shook out.

The thing is about Morris is even though he's in incredibly good form and he's, it's hard to criticize his game right now, he does not fit this system very well, right? I don't think so. Same thing we just talked about with Amon. I don't think Morris wants to, in like a buildup situation, come central and like receive the ball in traffic with somebody on his back. No, it's not his game. turn either direction. I think he wants to receive the ball with like his,

his butt facing the sideline and his whole body open to the field where he can see everybody and use like his explosive speed to, you know, bulldoze past people. Yeah. So I think he'll get a look. I think he'll get plenty of looks. He might even, again, if we play a game in October and U.S. players can get to the game, wouldn't surprise me at all to see Jordan Morris get the start and sort of have it be

based on what he has done recently for the national team and what he's continuously been doing for Seattle. And then it wouldn't surprise me if when G.O. Raina comes in, he just looks like a better fit if those other jobs they're trying to do. Right. So, yeah, that sounds good. Sounds good to me. Rain is the starter at the right wing in your opinion, right?

I think he will be a better fit and be more effective in that role than Jordan Morris would be. Yeah. I mean, that's the role he kind of plays. plays for Dortmund, too, right? He, I mean, he may be even deeper in the field. Further back in the field is where he is for Dortmund, but he's very comfortable in the middle of the field,

receiving the ball and, you know, navigating that space with the ball. Oh, yeah, I think he'll stand out as our most comfortable player receiving the ball since Darlington Nagby doesn't appear to be coming back. We forgot to mention Nagby in the midfield discussion. If he did come back by some miracle, real quick, would he be do you think he could be one of the eights or more of a six I think he'd have to be one of the eights just because again I don't think he would drop back between the centerbacks I don't think that's what we would want him to do we want

him to be one of the guys receiving it in traffic yeah no I I I don't think it's a it would be a perfect fit for him but I think one of the eights would be Nagmi's job okay back to right wing because there's more exciting there's more exciting names to talk about here. He'd just come back from another hamstring injury. Jordan Duneathen on Twitter put out a comp of him

in his performance against Ecuador. I'm talking about Tim Wea. And I'd forgotten how good he was in that game. And maybe I've been severely underrating Tim Wea. Everyone's underrating Tim Rea. I think so. I just think of

when I was doing a lot of player comps in 2018 from national team games, like no matter who I was doing the comp of, if Tim Whale was included in the video, like he was doing the most impressive thing. He was just, he was just always so smooth on the ball. I've seen people like say he's unproven at the national team level, which is true, for the most part. But so is almost everyone else in the national team pool. But I've also seen people saying that he's too raw. And for me, like, that's the, like, Tim Whale looks about as polished as any national team player outside of like pool sick and maybe

Giorina like he looks he's just always so clean he'd be good in that in that tucked-in role too right don't you think I mean he can he can run him behind that like he's good at that too but he's pretty comfortable receiving the ball in traffic very very much so he uh he's he's played hybrid positions like that in the past when he was with Celtic uh There were a lot of games where he'd come in off the bench as the central attacker in a 4, 2, 3, 1. So, and he just looks right at home. He's, again, he's just so good at reading space, collecting a ball, and then making a good decision with his next action. So I like I like him as the right wing, and I feel like we could get to a situation where, I mean, I don't know.

In this setup, he'd probably, I don't think you could have Pool Sick and Raina and Tim Way out all in at the same time unless you move one of those. them to the striker. Yeah. Which isn't, doesn't seem that crazy of a proposition, to be honest. For Wea, yeah. Yeah, he could play, I feel like Wea could play, he could play a more conventional, very wide winger, like with his, with his feet on the touchline, or he could play this tucked in winger, or he could play as a nine.

I mean, there's been debates about this on, on the internet for months, but. But yeah, if you think of what the job, Jesus Ferreira did in that friendly, like, I don't, I don't, I think Tim Way could easily do the same kind of thing. Yep. Excited to see him back. Who else we got at right wing? So we've got Paul Ariola, obviously, Tyler Boyd, and those are guys. We don't really mean you talk about.

Yeah, because I would call them sort of established in Burrhalter's mind. Like they're sort of where the floor is. You have to be able to beat those guys out. Not necessarily to be in the top four because they might be left behind in the top four discussion. But to be in the picture, I think you've got to beat those guys out. And the guy I'm going to sort of keep just reminding people that he exists is Kenny Seth.

And it's because he's an extremely left-footed winger who would fit really well to throw him on the right to be that sort of inverted winger. And he's extremely clean and he can definitely do a hybrid 10 winger role. Yeah. The job does seem like a good fit for him. Right. If he's going to have success with the national team, this would be the setup for him to have success with. I don't know if he can come back after you undressed him after that defensive performance way back when.

Oh, he'd be good. Berhalter, if there's one thing I trust Burr-Alter to do is to set up a super organized defense. I don't always like the tactical decisions for the setup, but man, have we looked organized? Everyone certainly knows what their job is. Yeah. Okay, let's quick do the nines. then talk about MLS a little bit. All right.

Who you have for your number nine, Pels? I mean, it's going to be Josie Altador as the starter. And then I think Giazzi Zardis probably before Sargent and then Sergeant, you know? And is that just what you think Burrhalter would do? You think that's what Burrhalter's mind is, or is that where you are right now, I'm just mad at Josh Sargent for not moving better off the ball. All right. he's in my doghouse right now.

Okay, well, I'm back to where I would have been in most of 2019, which is to say in this setup, Jazzy Zardez doesn't really have a place. You're talking about a guy who basically plays like a false nine. And unless Zardez's first touch improvement that we've kind of briefly touched on is actually the case. There's just no way he can fill this role the way, the way that Altador or

I'm even going to throw in Jesus Ferreira who again did an effective job of it in the friendly like Zardaz just doesn't have the skill set to play that job yeah that's true that's true I guess I don't know I mean his his first touch

does look like it's gotten a little better and like how crucial is it for him to be able to drop in like that when you have two tucked in wingers or is he just making runs making runs in behind. No, I don't think, I don't, if, again, if Costa Rica is a template, it's definitely not just making runs in behind.

It's a ton of coming like all the way back, sometimes even close to the line of like your two center mids who are now, you know, more traditional center mids and making a triangle with them in allowing the wingers to run in behind. So it's huge. And I still think even with what we've touched on for Zardez has improved first touch, You could you could just as easily throw a couple of clips together that are like Zardez doing his sort of accidental first touch that goes to a teammate.

So no, he's not there yet in a way that in a way that would like facilitate this system. He might be one of Burrhalter's favorites and Burrhalter just trusts him so much that he trots him out there anyway. But in this setup, Zardaz is not going to help us to create chances. He might he might do a great job of finishing chances that we create. but he's not going to help us in the buildup. Okay, fair enough. I agree with you. So Altador, Sergeant Ferreira, I guess.

Because even though Iowa Aquinole has had an exciting MLS's back tournament, he is not that guy either. Ricardo Pepe is the sort of aspirational version of this job. And then again, Tim Wea might be a guy who could find a way into this position. Yeah. I mean, the funny thing about soccer is we're going to, you know, brothers are going to go into it saying we need a striker who can come back and, you know, do the buildup, help with the build up.

And then we're going to go out and work up qualifying and we're going to score all our goals in transition, you know. Everything's coming off set pieces. Yeah, set pieces in transition. Aaron Long's going to lead the team in scoring. It's going to come off of like Tyler Adams winning the ball off of somebody. It finds its way to pull six feet and then he skins somebody and scores a goal. I mean, like, that's, that's exactly what we did.

against Canada to win 4-1. Yeah. I just think that this setup really, like, there are obvious candidates for every position except left back. Obvious, like, talented players everywhere, putting positions to succeed. I'm excited to see this if we go this route. I like it a lot. The system is exciting to me.

I think it does fit the player pool much better than what we were doing a year ago at this time. So, Godspeed. Any other thoughts, Greg? Greg? I'm good with that, man. I'll see you on the other side of some of these weekend soccer games. Yeah, we'll try to talk about MLS is back when we get into the studio next week. Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks, Greg. We'll see you.