Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 138: McKennie to Juve, Weah returns, and an MLS youth bonanza

Episode Date: September 3, 2020

A quick run through McKennie's incredible transfer news, Weah's return from injury, and the ongoing MLS youth bonanza, plus we covered some patron questions. We recorded the afternoon before Wednesday's MLS matches so didn't get to talk about those games.Please consider supporting this podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed 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. Thank you for downloading this episode of Scuffed. We're going to do a bunch of patron questions later in the show, but there's been a lot of good news lately, so let's churn through some of it right away.

Top story of the past 10 days for you, Velazquez. Go. Well, I've actually been offline for the past few days, but I've heard that McKinney finally made his move. Where do you land, Everton, or Southampton? Twas Juventus Just

kind of a complete mind-blowing development So I'm going to go ahead And say Weston McKinney Any American to Juventus

is going to be the biggest story Of the past 10 days slash year I know Nick Tadegway dressed and played in a friendly for Shulka

But I think I'm going to give the edge to McKinney signing for Juventus Yeah there's no doubt It's still hard to believe It's kind of hard to believe

and gives me... We're seeing the pictures coming out of their camp, and it just, it is, it just blows your mind. It also gives me just a little bit of pleasure every time I think about it. A lot. It's a lot of, I mean, it's preseason, so we're still in those days where, you know,

everything's possible. McKenney could be starting on day one, which is where that sort of rush comes from, but then you also know it could turn into the opposite of that. And it could all come crashing down. Even if he doesn't start day one, I mean, that won't bring me down too much. Will it you? No.

The opposite of starting day one for me is McKenny gets 100 minutes over the course of the next four months. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so we haven't done a lot of like my own research on this, but I did listen to Total Soccer Show with David Amoyal, the Calcio Land podcast guy. And, you know, his basic take, and he's a guy who knows what he's talking about, was McKinney will get, it's fair to think that he'll get 60% of the minutes. He'll play like 60% of the minutes for Juventus. He'll be second choice. I saw, there's another guy on YouTube, a Juventus fan account.

That's really, like a really charming little show, a guy named Giuseppe. I put it on the Patreon page. Who thinks McKinney's likely to play as a six behind Bentonker? And Amaya didn't think that. He thought he'd be more of like maybe a dual eight to put it in Burrhalter Parliance. But yeah, I don't know. It seems like he's going to play. And it's a deal worth $21 million, $21 million, something like that.

Yeah. And for all intents and purposes, it is a purchase. because the roller coaster ride was like Juventus getting them on loan for a year with an option to buy and the original report was that that trigger there would be an automatic trigger for the option if McKinney played in 60%

of Juventus's games which if you're skeptical of McKinney's ability to do that which a lot of people I think are then it feels like a bad you know a bad situation for McKinney and Juvent is just sort of having a free tryout for a guy Well, it turns out that the automatic trigger is Juventus qualifying for the Champions League, which is like, I don't know, I don't know what the actual percentages are, but Juventus qualifies for Champions League. So barring like a complete disaster for Juventus, it's effectively a purchase.

They bought him for $21 million, right? Yeah, right. Well said. Well, well explained. And so if a team has bought somebody for $21 million, they're not buying him because they don't believe in them. They're not taking a flyer here. Not that $21 million players haven't busted. I mean, you're going to, you have plenty of those as well.

But this isn't like somebody just trying to cash in because there's a free opportunity on a guy. They're putting some skin in the game on McKinney. Yeah. I think one thing we know about McKinney is that he's coachable and that he is, he does well to ingratiate himself. That's not the right word. to endear himself to his coach. He's done that with multiple coaches at Shalka, lots of turmoil at that club,

but he was playing every game at the end of the Bundesliga season here, and he seems to just continually rise to the top, or at least near the top. So, Yvint is a different ballgame. It's a different ballgame, of course. Right. Rises to the top of Shalki. Shalky.

Shalky. I mean, I don't, I don't think anyone in their wildest dreams are thinking that McKenny is going to do what Pulisic did at Chelsea, where he's going to suddenly become the most influential player on the team, arguably. That wasn't even in my wildest dreams that Pulisic was going to do that. So, yeah, so McKenny, given who Juventus already have on their roster, I don't think anyone's really holding out hope for that.

I think it's very much, can he at least find a way to be a key contributor? It's kind of in the way Tyler Adams is for Leipzig. I'd say is what a lot of people are like hoping for. Yeah. If we got that, I would be thrilled. Yeah, totally. Rotational starter, guy comes off the bench pretty regularly. Give me that in a heartbeat.

Yep. And it seems to be the general consensus that he will be that. He's going to be one of six midfielders likely, rotating in a three-man midfield of four-three-three. He's going to get time. Juventus has the, you know, they have the domestic cup to contend with. And they, like you said, they will be in Champions League. and they will likely qualify for Champions League for the following season,

which will trigger the purchase clause. And he's a Juventus legend, West McKinney. So, yeah, so West McKinney to Juventus for $21 million, that's the lead. That's the lead story. It's such a big deal. I mean, it really is. And obviously we're talking about it 10 days late or whatever. Everybody else has already weighed in on it.

But, man, what a cool thing for him. And good job by his agents, the Wasserman. group because to go from being rumored to go to Southampton and then the rumor was well Southampton didn't quite see him as a good fit and then all of a sudden blam he's like landing and Turin looking smart yeah yep all right so I think another another issue or another piece of news that I would think is close to your heart is Timmy Wayas return for Leal in League of Un. That was, that was for me the biggest thing that happened over the weekend.

I think the McKinney News had already come out. But it was a big weekend for U.S. players, for American talent. A lot of it went on in MLS on that Saturday, which we'll get into. And then Sunday morning, bright and early, Timie Wea makes his return after multiple hamstring issues that have basically kept him out for a full year. He got hurt second or third game after the second game of the French season last year. Right. Came back in like February to play one game for them and did his hamstring again in 10 minutes.

And six months later, he's back on the field, got 12 minutes, actually pretty involved for a 12-minute cameo. Yeah. And like for me, you know, I'm not jumping to a ton of conclusions off of a 12-minute cameo, but he looked like what you remember Timmy way out looking like. And for me, that's a very tidy, really clean player. And so I was just so, so, so happy to see him back. Yeah, bright, I think bright little cameo, almost scored twice in a 1-0 win. A game that it appears, little controlled.

Yeah, he looked. I couldn't tell you, I flipped it on one way out game on. That's when I found the stream. I watched the clips, and I saw the stats. The stats were as a big, the outshot don't. come at me for this, but Roms, Rams. Sure. I looked it up on YouTube, I still can't pronounce it.

It's the capital of the Champagne region in France. As we all know. So they outshot him 10 to 4. And they looked like they were, they were barren down in those last 15 minutes when Way was on the field. Like you said, looked explosive, didn't look any worse for the wear after his injuries. Let's kind of. It should be pointed out came in as a full.

out number nine. Yeah. That is a very cool thing to see happen. Onsale, recent. Interesting. Yeah. Probably we'll get into that question later.

Okay. Anything else on Wea? I mean, that's also really big news. On a normal week, that would be the big news of the week. Yeah, just because for me, Timi Wea is the one sort of what I'd say, still speculative U.S. men's national team player

that I am kind of all in on. I know we are people like people think that scuffed is always hyping like the youth guys and like overhyping them to an extent. And I'm not particularly like all in on any of these youth guys. We talk about them a lot, but I'm definitely not all in on a single one of them. I think overall the pool is strong enough at that young ages that there enough of them are going to come good, but I'm not like Ullian is for sure going to be a key player in this World Cup qualifying cycle. But Tim Wea is like the unproven guy that I do feel like we've seen enough of Tim Wea that I'm like, yes, Tim Wea will be, if not a starter, like our best player on the bench for World Cup

Qualifying through the 2022 cycle. I don't know if I 100% agree, but yeah, I hear you. You are heard. You don't agree that I'm all in on Tim Wea. You're disputing that I'm all in? No, I'm not disputing that. I'm just not sure, like, is he definitely going to be? a key player off the bench in the World Cup qualifying?

Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably. If he's not, it's because he's starting in World Cup qualifying. Yeah, okay. I would say, just to get a little self-referential here, I'm the one who's guilty of hyping young prospects, but I'm trying to change my ways. I am walking that back and not doing it as much.

I hype that they should play, that they should get called and should play. We should test them. I don't think for a second that they're all going to pan out and lead us to World Cup glory. I think that a lot of them have very realistic chances of already being top 35 to 40 caliber players, which is the pool you need for a 23-man roster. Yeah, the pool, man.

The pool is in a really, is in a resurgent phase. It's, it feels. But before we get to that, Reggie Cannon, he's apparently heading to Boa Vista. It's not official, right? But that's, he's moving. Like, for sure he's, he's moving. He's sort of done playing FC Dallas. But it hasn't been announced where he's, where he's signing.

It's strongly rumored that it's Boa Vista in the Portuguese first, first division. Same owners as Leal. Same owners as Leal. But I don't, I'm very curious if we hear sort of Leal mentioned in the, in the announcement, whether it's some kind of like an arrangement. between Lille and Boa Vista, or if it's just, I wouldn't say a coincidence,

but just like, I don't know, how would you put it? Just an interesting factoid about Boa Vista is that they're also owned by Leo. I don't know, is there a pipeline from Boa Vista to Lille

where players spent a couple seasons in Portugal and then make it to Lille? I actually don't know the answer to that. I don't either. I really want to find out, but I believe this guy is just sort of quickly becoming the owners of these teams. He doesn't have like a, this isn't like Red Bull where they've been doing this for almost 10 years now.

I think he's, I think he's literally like just bought Boa Vista in the last week, last two weeks. Or it might not even be done. Really? Is that recent? I'm pretty sure. And this is based on me, like, as we heard rumors of Boa Vista, like Wikipedia-in-boa-vista and finding out who their owners are. And yeah, I think it's a very recent thing that's sort of going on. I think the upshot for me is it's good, it's good for Canon to get over to the other side of the ocean.

Like even if it's a mid-table Portuguese side. Right. A platform at the very least to hire European football. And also the test of is he is even good enough for the Portuguese first league? We don't know. I think he is. I think he'll, I think he'll slot in. And again, sometimes these things don't happen immediately or coming to the team late.

they've already been in training for preseason. I think their league starts on the 20th of September. So don't panic if he's not starting the first week or the first two weeks. If we get into November, December and he hasn't played yet, then you could start to wonder if maybe this isn't the right fit or if we've maybe overvalued Reggie Cannon. Okay. Let's talk about MLS.

There was a bonanza of, youth, you know, youth minutes played over the weekend and impact made by these young players basically across the league. It's officially hard to keep track of everybody. It's impossible. And yeah, it's, it was like a whole season's worth of players and impact. I think Shoretta listed it as 47 U.S. youth national team player, eligible players, in action. That includes the U-23s, right?

the Olympic eligible kids, yeah. So any players born, I believe, 1997? Is that Jackson, Ewell? 87 and later. 47 guys playing. So pretty solid little Saturday. That was just Saturday. And to be clear, I don't know that any of these guys is going to be, I mean, Yule's

already kind of a key national team player somewhat controversially. but I don't know that anybody here is like going to be a U.S. men's national team legend a couple of them might but there's nobody here like definitely he's you know he's got that special quality so it's just it's just a broadening and depth deepening of the pool which is it goes back to the whole Greg Velasquez lottery tickets analogy right so you're we're assuming now given the success of our top top tier youth players that we now have like what five six guys with champions league experience who were 21 or younger the the jackpot has gotten much bigger and we're buying a lot more tickets so

yeah i think out of those 47 obviously reggie can not even included in that because he didn't play paxton pomacall didn't play because he's hurt mark mackenzie mark mackenzie didn't play mackenzie was rotated to rest so so three of what we would consider sort of higher end uh prospects didn't even appear. So, yeah, so it was really Ewell, who was sort of the headliner. We had, when I say headliner, I mean from a U.S. men's national team experience.

Being an established player. Miles Robinson, Brendan Aronson, a couple of those other guys with call-ups. But yeah, it's just a huge, the base has gotten so much bigger. And again, it's, we're all hoping that that's an indication that we've at least improved dramatically

our ability to create developed players. who can play at a reasonably high level. Yeah. So we go through some of the highlights of that of that group of 47? Yeah. Can you all 47 of them? Can you a Yaco Warner, 47 players of the world? I can't guarantee comprehensiveness here, but yeah, some highlights.

So 16-year-old Kate Cowell from San Jose, he's a winger, winger slash attacker, just a very physically gifted young man, scored a goal with a 21-yard rope. cutting in on his right foot and enjoying some space gifted him by Rolf Felcher, he who stands between Julian Arahu and starting full-back minutes at L.A. Galaxy. It was a 3-2 win for the Galaxy. Great goal for Cowell in his first league start. He's obviously gifted physically, like I said. We'll see how his game develops over the next three or four years.

There's nothing. I'm not like dropping everything and saying Kate Cowell is a amazing prospect but he's right but he's you know it was a nice goal also in that game uh julian arou demonstrated that he is steadily improving

in my opinion the 19 year old created a little danger in the attacking third you can check out walkie's video walkie's walkie's done videos on basically all of these names an amazing weekend for him too his output was basically unprecedented

yeah for that weekend yeah he's really doing a lot of like Scott Joplin soundtracks these days, too. So Arauj was played out of his natural position as a winger, which has been a source of some frustration, I think. And then around the 62nd minute,

LA's down 2-1 to San Jose, thanks in part to this Cowell goal. And GBS brings Feltcher off, puts Efra Alvarez on at right-wing, and Araho moves into the back line. And he looked even more comfortable there in the final hour and LA came back from two down to one down to win the game. Raho's rangy and physical and a dogged, if occasionally reckless, defender.

And he said he had two assists a week ago and that two zero win over Lafc. Another decent attacking showing over the weekend. I think he's on a good trajectory for a fullback. And he is on Burrhalter's radar. He was in January camp. So I'm some people. will be frustrated by this, but I do want to mention Alvarez, Efra, the 18-year-old Mexican Youth International from Los Angeles,

from the 343 Gary Clybin, Brian Clybin ecosystem. Like I said, came on for Felcher, played the right wing, and he's not going to play for the U.S. one day, most likely, and that's sad, but he is fun as hell to watch. And we know if he keeps playing like he did on Sunday. He had an assist and a fizz-ding cross that drew a handball and was generally bright on the ball. He's going to stay on the field for L.A.

And if he stays on the field, we're going to start seeing, like, highlight real goals because that's how he does. He looks like a clever player. He had the dummy, too, didn't he? Yeah, it didn't quite find the feet of one of his teammates, but it was, that's the kind of thing that makes me very happy to see. So, yeah, I'm excited. I hope he keeps getting a minute. It's not like, certainly the U.S. has not closed the door on him. I know, you know, Burrhalter mentioned him specifically.

way back when one of his earliest camps as a U.S. coach had mentioned that he'd gone and spoken with him. So there is, there at least had been some lines of communication. Again, I don't have like this panic of like, will he chooses, will he, will he go somewhere else? It's always just a matter of like keep the communication open. If it works out great, if it works out and he can contribute. Again, we're talking about a pretty small subset of players. Wonderful. In the means, I'm just enjoying seeing him get some run out for L.A.

Yeah, it's good to see a young player, even one committed to Mexico, get minutes at the Galaxy, along with Aarjo. So 17-year-old Ricardo Pepe got an assist, put in a decent shift on the wing for FC Dallas and a 3-1 win over Minnesota. Pepe is also sort of, Pepey's leaving his options open on who he's going to play for in the long term. Could represent Mexico, could represent the U.S. He's been in the U.S. system. he's been playing he played on the wing for dallas not his natural position but played pretty well i thought

um um fulio yeah give us the boozeo's scoop yeah so i i watched quite a bit of his performance over the weekend he's now a deep-lying regista for sporting kansas city and it wasn't it wasn't my idea i never had the idea but i do like the idea i'm i'm going to say right now that Peter Vermeys heard you talking about playing Alex Mendez as a deep-lying midfielder, and he was like, we could do that with Bousio.

Certainly. That's probably what happened. That's, prove me wrong. I never thought of it with Bousio, but it seems to be working. And it does make sense. He was always a bit of an attacker without a clear role. He was not a winger. He's obviously not a nine.

It doesn't have the frame for that. As a 10, I thought he was generally uninspiring for club and for country as a a youth international. I'll say I am surprised by how effective he's been in this role because sort of the knock on him was that he is not a very incisive passer. He was like that was sort of

the bit was that he's going to pass it sideways or backwards. He doesn't complete forward passes. Now I know when you put him a layer up, you know, another level back in the formation. Bingo. There are more options to play forward. But I certainly wasn't like, that's all he needs is he just needs to be farther back

so that he can hit all these great passes that he sees. Like, that hadn't been what I would have expected. It's one of those things he'd been linked to big clubs all throughout MLS's back at high dollar amounts. There were reports last year that Kansas City had turned down like a $4 million bid for him, which sort of everyone just found ridiculous that such a bid would have been offered and that one would have been turned down. Yeah, still find it ridiculous. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. So he has looked better, he still doesn't look like someone necessarily right now who should be getting like four million dollar bids. But I mean, if he can do this job and really start to take games over

and be a guy who could control the game from that deep, then I guess we start talking. Yeah. Yeah, he, at least you can see a plausible trajectory for him to be like a meaningful professional soccer player. And I'm not sure I could see that six months ago. And an interesting thing about this role for him is he's arriving in zone 14 and shooting the ball. Like I think he took five shots over the weekend, including he scored a goal. He can hit it, man. He can hit like a dipping, swerving 20, 20, 25 yard shot. And so he's getting he's getting a little more joy in that way from this role too. The only thing is he's got a, he's still too easy to draw. past like for a six or really for any position on the field in this in this day and age

you got to be you got to make it harder to get around to you so if he can if he can develop into a average or plus defender I think he has a good future as a deep lying midfielder it seems we've we've seen that happen too even with a guy like paxton pomacall where there there can be that jump from 18 to 19 19 to 20 where that sort of added in into your game and let's hope that Buzio does that so he can be a sort of a complete player and not I know we throw this around a little bit but like a luxury player where he has to be so good and you know a will trap type player where he's so good at spreading the field and breaking those lines that you can afford that defensive liability you're never gonna you're

never going to let that go are yeah the will trap era I don't even know if the will trap era has ended yeah I guess we don't So Boussio stock gone up since mid-August, I would say. Three games in the Andrea Pierlo role, and sky's the limit. Who else? Who else? 19-year-old Cole Bassett roofed one from close range for Colorado in that game. Almost missed it, but put it in.

That game ended 1-1. Jalen Lindsay, the 19-year-old fullback, who was hurt all last year with a knee injury, he's been playing regularly for sporting Casey at left back. Probably see him tonight. There's a whole, there's a whole slate of games tonight, yeah. DC United. Yeah, look, the DC kids.

Tell us what the DC kids were doing. Neither scored or assisted, but 17-year-old Kevin Peratus was positive at what appeared to be left-wingback. He's been playing mostly winger in his career. I say he was mostly positive. did lose 4-0 or 4-1 to Philadelphia. And these kids were very much forced into the game, right?

Through DC going through like a pretty significant injury crisis. That could be, I haven't followed it super close. I mean, Paredes has gotten minutes. He was getting minutes even in MLS's back. Yeah, Paredes has been sort of starting regularly. But, Nyman had not been. Yeah. And that's the other one, 16-year-old Moses Nyman, a player, I think has quite a lot of potential.

came on the field and looked pretty good for the last 15 minutes or so. And that was his MLS debut. I was going to say, let's see if he can keep getting chances and show his stuff. And then we find out Felipe did his ACL. Found that news out this morning. So one would assume, Nyman will continue to get chances. Who picked Nyman up in your futures draft?

Who's got him? I got him in the most recent futures draft. I mean, I don't. Let's not bring up that sore subject. All right, let's talk about more of the kids. You got like a quick rundown, like a... Yeah, so I'm not going to... ...I'm not going to give a paragraph on everybody now.

It's just 19-year-old, Jesus Ferreira, scored a goal for FC Dallas that was assisted by Pepe. 19-year-old Brennan Aronson scored for Philly a couple days earlier. 20-year-old striker Darrell D-D-K-E at Orlando City, got an MLS assist on a lovely sequence. and he's been drawing some attention with his performances because he's like 6-4-220. He's huge.

He's got a great frame for a classic number nine. He's got an absolute canon of a shot. Yeah. And he hammers a soccer ball. Yeah. I actually didn't know that. Oh, yeah. That had been like his, any highlight you saw of him from Wake Forest,

is that where he was playing? Yeah. He just, he just. Virginia. Virginia. Virginia. just like rips the ball through human beings. And he had another one of those in his last MLS game where he didn't score on it,

but he just smashed. He might have scored the rebound. He just smashed it. And you can just tell the goalkeeper's hands have melted off of this. So he's been fun to watch. And I think, you know, I mean, we know some people who are really, really excited about him. I think he is definitely worth paying attention to from a national team perspective because the number nine situation remains somewhat unresolved.

And we've got this whole year delay in the Olympics where some of these guys, I don't know if you even want to call him late bloomers. He's 20. He's a striker. There aren't a ton of 20-year-old strikers dominating at the highest levels. He gets another year to see if he can be an Olympic qualifying guy. Olympic, maybe he could go to Tokyo. Yeah.

Yeah, great. Umier Fernandez at New York Red Bulls, 21-year-old attacker, scored a lovely goal and played quite well. Yeah, had a great game. In a 1-1 draw with New England. He's kind of like, he kind of reminds me a little bit of Gallegos at San Antonio, but with more polish, you know, a little more polish, a little more playing against obviously a higher level of competition.

Maricio Paneda, centerback slash defensive midfielder for Chicago, scored Hassani Dodson hit a banger from minnesota Brooks Lennon scored on a header in a losing effort for Atlanta Keenan Park scored Jeremy Obvesay got an assist so there's more to get into but you know you just have to do your own research people seriously check out Shreda's list of 47 people like you pull it's it's it's an impressive it's an impressive development yeah is this is this sort of like

you see this as the consummation of the everything we've been talking about at the SCuff podcast Saturday? I think so. Like, it surely is, right? Like, we've been saying, like, this is going to be the way in for clubs, especially in MLS because of some of the mechanisms of salary caps. You get these guys that you develop yourself, and you're paying them like peanuts. Like, you know, these guys are on.

Yeah, and even as they get higher, it doesn't hit your cap the same way it would if you were to bring in a player from the outside. So you're going to find teams that realize that this is a competitive advantage, whether it's overall or certainly within this MLS league structure. So you're definitely seeing it play out that way. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, none of these guys, like I said earlier, is likely to be an Alfonso-Davies style transfer to a mega club. Some people are going to say that you're wrong, and Brendan Harrison will be a Alfonso-Davis style best player in Europe.

Who's saying that? I don't know. There are some people really, really high on Aronson in particular. Yeah, that's true. You know, he's a nice player, but I'm not, I'm not there with them on that. I think he's, yeah, we'll see. All right. And the other thing, it wasn't just the kids either.

Like, Sebastian Legit was delivering, like, Jordan Morris, obviously, has kept up his ridiculous form in the league. Two goals. And then even, even like, like, Mueller and Baird, like the two guys who are, we always, kind of, I don't want to say use them as punch lines or punching bags, but when we're talking about how weak our depth is on the wings or how weak it had been, and we sort of start to bring those guys up as examples of how weak we are there when they're very much in the picture, they're starting to say, hey, like maybe, maybe we're not so bad to have in the picture.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, Baird had that really lovely slaloming run through the 18. and then he passed it off to, I forget the name of that striker. Is it Sam something? Sam Johnson. Yeah, that sounds right. Okay.

Let's get to some patron questions. Thank you to everyone who supports the podcast on Patreon. This is really helpful to us, to me in particular. If you don't and listen regularly to the podcast, please consider doing so. For real, Bells does so much, so much heavy lifting that I don't think you'd be able to do it without getting a little bit of support like this. Yeah, thanks, Greg. Well, yeah, I'll have more news on that front on my personal life eventually,

but for now, let's do some questions. Steve Copera, I hope I pronounced that correctly, says, if the best U.S. U20 players had an internal scrimmage, who would a neutral observer say is the best player, ignoring club affiliation and hype? You go and you want me to go? I want you to go. It's Gio Raina.

It's going to be Gio Raina. I'll hear you about bells, but Gio Raina, go. Yeah, I mean, just to be interesting, I'll say Jose Gallegos, but I don't think, I wasn't even thinking of Rana as a USU20 player. He is, though. He is. He totally is. So I just, I just missed that. Yeah, I think probably Raina's going to look the best.

It's like, would Raina look the best if he was surrounded by, players like Dorenso and Solianak, the attackers that Gallegos surrounds himself with in San Antonio? Or does it help him a little bit to have Jaden Sanchez on one side? No, I saw you put Gallegos and I thought maybe it was just going to be because, you know, Rain is, I think, pretty clearly the better player right now. But if you're playing against other U-20s, that that might be where Gallegos, because of how, like, because of his aesthetic, Like the way he does people up It's just so like eye-catching

Whereas Gio Raina is very just like sturdy Collect it here Like you know shift your body so this guy can't get it And then and then do the next thing It's not as as like it doesn't pop the same way Yeah Even though obviously he can do it and continue to do it Even as he's playing Bundesliga

And Champions League players Certainly the safe bet is that Raina will look better He does in fact play for one of the biggest clubs in the world and appears to be in line for a for a serious role this year Christopher smith asks should USM&T fans start investing in the idea of reina as one of the dual eights you go first this time yes it's not guaranteed to happen but I think I'd go long on that financial position waya Morris sergeant zardis and altador and probably others are

going to be competing for two positions right now given that Pulisicic is going to be at left wing almost certainly and um pomacall's out for the season so there's no competition from him for one of the dual eight roles arson is for me not as convincing what desma has a long road ahead who else is in that mix christian rolled on well i think the question is going to be is he going to be the dual eight or is he going to be a winger uh yeah so so are you saying that you're you're going to sort of bet on him being the dual eight in the long term? Long term, he's the dual eight. Yeah, I, well, you know, I guess we have to factor in Burrhalter's commitment to the

Deep Lying Six, because that's, that would keep, that would probably keep Rain on the wing. But is he so, is Bralter so committed to it? I feel like we're having the same conversation every two months. Is Bralter so committed to that Deep Lying Six that he has to play Jackson Yule or Michael Bradley there, which then has this domino effect of forcing Timmy Waya off the field or Jordan Morris off the field or I don't know. Because you got to assume Adams and McKinney are going to be playing in the midfield if they're both healthy. Right. So if you got Ewell at the sixth and you got Adams and McKinney at the eight, Raina's got to play on the wing. He's probably coming in off the bench for Morris or Wea.

Oh, who knows? No. But no, I would say yes. I think long-term Rayna does move into that dual eight role and we start to abandon that deep-lying six. And sort of the only way I see that not happening is if Timmy Wayab is like tested out up top and just plays all of our other options off the park there. And so he becomes sort of that combining number nine who can also make dangerous runs into the box. Because I think that's sort of what we're missing is we don't have the complete. picture right now. We have Sardaz who can make the good runs in the box, but he can't really

combine in the buildup. We've got Ferreira who does really well combining in the buildup, but we haven't necessarily seen him have that killer instinct in the box. Josie can do most of all of that, but he's never healthy. So if Wea can be that player who can do both of those things at a high level, then it's like, okay, waya goes here. We start Rayna on the wing, and we find a way to rotate Morris and Raina and Pulisic in these. congested qualifying windows. Yeah. Okay.

That's how I say Raina doesn't become a dual eight. Otherwise, I think eventually he does move into more of like, we're calling a dual eight, he'd become probably more of a number 10, more of a dedicated number 10 type. Yeah. How's that? I like it. I mean, I feel like there's no really terrible options here, which is nice. Good question, Christopher Smith.

Thank you. Looking for left backs asks. If Gio Raina is a must-start player after 343 Bundesliga minutes, what happens if Nick Titagwe becomes a consistent starter with Shalka? Shalki. If all of Adams-McKennie, Rana, Taitagwe, Tidegui, Ladesma, and Mendes are healthy in starting this season. How do you see our midfield lining up? Can I just start in and say, yes, Raina's only played 343 minutes for

in the Bundesliga, but they're 343 minutes for Borussia Dortmund, and that is a completely different picture than any number of minutes Taddewe can get for Shalka. Like, no matter how many minutes he plays for Shulka, given where Shalka is right now and what they've literally stated, their ambitions are, it doesn't compare it. Raina doesn't have to change his role at all. He could continue to be first guy off the bench all season.

The top teams in the top five, leagues basically are in a different league. Like they compose their own league. And I mean, there's talk of them actually, you know, breaking away, forming that super league. But essentially that already exists. That distinction already exists, even if it isn't formalized in a separate league. So, no, there's nothing tag we can do that will, like, trump the minutes that that rain

is getting at Dortmund. Just wanted to start. Yeah, no, I think that's true. Shalka and Dortmund are rivals. They have one of the great rivalries in global football. football, but they are not in the same category right now, especially right now. Shalka is really struggling. And you think about who Rain is competing with for minutes.

I mean, people like Dorgan Hazard, Jaden Sancho, who else? Marco Royce has always hurt, so he's not really competing with him. But he was, I mean, he was their first guy off the bench from January on. He was their first guy off in meaningful games. They were still in contention for the league. still in Champions League. And yeah, he was coming in ahead of anybody else. So it wasn't just like, let's get his feet wet.

Like it was like, okay, this is, it might have served dual purposes to develop him. But it was also very much like we are trying to get after this. And Gio Raina is the guy we think we'll do it for us today. So again, he's just right now, they're just in different stratospheres. Yeah. And I would say to the second part of the question, I don't see Ledesma and Mendez starting, consistently for their first teams this fall.

It certainly doesn't look like that's going to happen right now. So I don't know. And then Tidegui would have to be really a revelation for Shalka to sort of break past Adams-McKheny-Rena. So I think it's kind of set for now. And I do think I do rate Ledesma highly in case you're a first-time listener to this podcast. And I love the way men. I love some things about Mendez's game too.

so I'm totally rooting for them. I wouldn't be like, I wouldn't be totally shocked if one of them emerges later this fall. I just don't think it's super likely right now. Next question. John Heath asks, if, big if, he stays healthy. Do you think Aaron Johansson could reenter the national team picture? Greg.

Well, I never really like slam the door closed on anybody, especially in an area of, if not we, at least like unprovenness. And if a guy like Jaze's Ardaz, God bless him, is still sort of very much in the picture as being your number one striker, then I think it's, I can comfortably say that striker is an area of some weakness. But realistically, no, I don't think Johansson's going to get back in the picture. He's scoring goals, but like I think, you know, he's their penalty taker, so he's going to have inflated stats in that sense. the league is not a great league so he's really going to need to

he'd really have to show it in a camp he'd need to get into a camp and like when we're short-handed like in November when we can only call the Euros he is though I've been watching him he still is a really tidy player just really good decisions really clean as the ball comes into him

it's hard to know how much he benefits from Sweden being the Swedish league and in those windows being easy to play into play through, how easy it is to create separation for himself to get into those positions. But if we were looking for sort of that Jesus Ferreira mold of a player, Jesus Ferreira versus Costa Rica, that's what Johansson would be. He'd definitely be like that really clean forward who could play it into his feet, and he can very much put it into his teammates' path in rhythm on his first touch.

Yeah. I remember, you know, he had that like three-game window for Verde Bremen a couple winters ago. I don't know, it feels like 100 years ago now where he scored or assisted like three or four games in a row. He just, something about the game comes easily to him. Yes, yep, he really has a sense of the moving pieces. And he has the technical chops to pull some of that stuff off.

I still don't see a spot for him at his age with his injury history. He's about to turn 30. No, I know he's not, that doesn't make him grandpa, but he's getting up in years. his injury history is well documented. Scott Jorick, great friend of the pod, he who fact checks us and will probably fact check this.

When facing a Tata, this is his question, when facing a Tata, that'd be Tata Martino, the coach of the Mexican national team, I feel like there's a better chance for Burrhalter to be outcoached than make adjustments that give the team an advantage. When do we focus on this being the limiting factor? I'll start. I think this is a real issue.

And Berlter has to prove himself. He's going to, he is still on a campaign to sort of like an apologize, not apologize, but apologism. Nope, leaving it in. Go. Yeah. He's, he's been trying to justify what happened in that 3-0 loss to Mexico and a friendly, by saying, well, we were basically just doing a training ground exercise and playing out of the back. And I think there's, that still kind of rubs me the wrong way that he talks about it that way when it comes up.

Because we got like, we got absolutely smoked. And I didn't like that. I'll chime in and say, it rubs me the wrong way too. And it's not because I hate that it shifts the conversation to like, should the U.S. ever try to, should you use games to do that? Or should you always try to win? and I've said before that's a total smoke screen because even if you're willing to concede that we can use these games as experiments

like it's very much open to he should be very much open to criticism for how he conducts the experiments and what he's trying to do in them then I think there's a lot of room to criticize those decisions as well so even if it's okay to experiment like it was just a terribly set up and run experiment yeah yeah

so yeah I think the short answer is it is an issue. He will have a better team every month than the month before. It does appear unless we have some catastrophic injuries. There's so much American talent in the pipeline. But he's got to prove that he can coach at this level. Yeah, his best defense at the moment would be the tactical differences between Canada, part one and Canada, part two from last fall. which for me, I'm not going to give him a big gold star just yet because that was an in-between

game tactical shift, not an in-game tactical shift. And I think we need to be able to see him do those things in-game before I really say, yes, he's capable of this at this level with the restrictions that the national team comes with. And then the other part is the bar was set so low. He set the bar so low in Canada. to part one. I mean, there were justifiable in my mind,

justifiable calls for his job. You know, I know Ernie specifically said going into part two that he wasn't coaching for his job, but I think he absolutely should have been, that it would have been, it would have been like insane

or it would have been really shocking if there hadn't been pretty substantial improvement between games one and game two. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see, of course, it'll be interesting to see

how he handles these friendlies coming up, and whatever happens in the spring. It'd be nice to see the national team back on the field again. Michael Jordan. I'm assuming this is not Wilmington native, Michael Jordan. Brooklyn native. What is needed more?

Wea at Stryker or Gio as the 10. Feels like either could play on the wing, but our depth at right wing, Yanez, Conrad, Morris, Ariola could be strong enough to shift either or both of them. them. What is needed more? Like those guys to hit, I assume, like to hit big. Yeah, or the, I'll just, yeah, go ahead.

I'll just focus on that right wing depth, how it could be strong enough. Like, that's a huge could be for me. Like, you know, again, I've said this before. As high as I am on the general direction of our, of our youth and what they can bring, uh, Yana's, Conrad, Yonnas and Conrad both could, could essentially end up offering sort of nothing at the international level. And Ariola is, I would say, capable, but he's already, in my mind,

a very low, you know, threshold to clear. And even Morris, I'm going to, I continue to say Morris is still unproven, despite the fact that he's tearing it up for Seattle, and despite the fact that he, you know, knocked in a bunch of goals in a, in a 2019 where we played a pretty weak opposition schedule. So I don't, we don't know for sure

that our right wing is going. going to just be set for the for the future without you know without using waya or geo there yeah yeah i i i guess i don't i think i think way at striker would probably if way a hits as a striker that's a bigger benefit to the national team than geo at the 10 i think geo could play in several different positions we do need a good striker we're still not there so i guess that's my answer to that question. Sorry, I was looking at my phone. Some stuff's going on. Curtis, I'll just jump into way at the 10th. If way I can, I'm sorry, if way I could play striker again at that level we talked about, that would just be massive

regardless of where anyone else hits because, uh, yeah, I for what I think way I can offer. If he brings that level of what I'm expecting to the striker position, uh, that will be very much reason to celebrate. Yeah. And I guess it does depend on how good of a season. and sergeant has my my hope springs eternal for me that he will have a breakout he's still still not an old man he's very young so if he can become sort of a ruthless sufficient number nine then that changes a conversation kirk sebastian soto sebastian soto debut coming up this weekend yeah it's an international break for almost everyone else but tell star that's the plan okay all right mark your calendars. You'll have the playbill out, I assume, this week. No, I won't because I just gave it. It's

Sebastian Spoduck. Okay. Everyone else is all for the break. Oh, okay. I should listen better when I'm looking at you in the eyes. Curtis Fowers, who are the upcoming dual nationals that have a reasonable shot at representing the U.S. men's national team? Anyone to get super excited about? Anthony Robinson? Yeah. I mean, so many dual nationals, but I guess, like, people that I'm excited about Jonathan Gomez at Louisville City and Kobe Hernandez Foster. They just sort of fit that left back profile we're looking for. They probably a ways out, a ways out from any involvement with the national team.

I still, I still think, uh, who's the, English kid playing for Arsenal? Oh, yeah, Fuller and Bolligan.

Yeah. Those two are some that if for some reason they were to decide to jump like you could see, Malagan's still playing, you know, Arsenal U-23s, I think. But again, sort of like adjacent to being able to step in very quickly into our senior team if they get a look. Yeah. So three more questions. Let's do them really quickly.

Got it. Blisios asks, the more I watch James Sands, the more I feel like 3G has to figure out a way to use him. What is his best position in how we currently play? To me, scrapping the deep six playmaker and just bully teams. off the field with an Adams-McKennie Sands midfield makes a lot of sense. It would create a ton of transition goals. I'll say I've had the same thought about Sands.

Not that we have to do it. I just like plan with it in my mind. I don't think Burrhalter's going to do that though. I don't think, and I think Sands doesn't offer enough on the ball yet to be one of those dual eights. And if you said it's a six, so this is where I get into like

a lot of guys can sound like they should play if you're holding him up against Jackson Yule as the bar to get in. But if you're getting rid of that deep-lying playmaker role and you're not asking for your deep center mid to be a distributor, then I feel like suddenly you're not competing against Jackson. I mean, you're competing against Tyler Adams because that's the guy who would probably naturally filter into there. And so you essentially bring in a bunch more competition for James Sands if he's not just competing against Jackson Yule.

Right. Yeah, good point. So it's a tough road for him unless he becomes that, you know, Regista, which doesn't appear like that's going to be what he is as a soccer player. Austin asks what, I do, I will say I do love that idea of the buzzsaw midfield in a, in the abstract. Oh, I do too. I just think it could easily end up being Pomacall as a third midfielder or Dwayne Holmes or even like Sebastian legit as the, most attacking of the three. Yeah, or Gio right now.

I saw midfielers. There you go. Austin asks, what U.S. men's national team or U.S. youth national team players do you think will end up moving this window? He lists McKenzie, Aronson, Dest, Richards on loan. I'd say McKenzie seems like the most likely to move. Richards probably needs a loan the most, but you put a squirt gun to my head. I'm going to say none of them will move this window.

All right. I think, yeah, that wouldn't surprise me at all. Like, I know Dest has been linked with every power club on the continent, but, yeah, I'm not going to be shocked if they all end up staying home for another window. Mark Helmer asks, why is having a low box cross percent good? That is always one of Pulisic's best stats and his stats bomb radars. Well, I had to need some help on this one, but I think I do have an answer thanks to Matt Hart. It sounds like box cross percent is the percentage of passes into the box that are crosses.

So a pass defeat is better. Therefore, a low box cross percent is better than a high box cross percent. There you go. Got that? I'm glad that exists because I hate crosses. So I'm very glad that people are valuing the ability to hit passes into the box that are not crosses. Yeah. Cross has always felt like a surrender to me.

Don't surrender the ball. Yeah. It might soccer your way through it with another pass. It seems like a useful stat. Now, something I didn't know at 8 o'clock this morning. It's why Pouselig went for 70 million. Chelsea looked at his box cross percent, said that's pretty low. $70 million.

Classic box cross percent situation. Okay. Wait, there was one more question, which somehow I didn't get in the document, which was like why do we have so much talent now? And I think we sort of talked about it. He was just asking me and you, why you and I have the amount of talent. Greg, why do you have so much talent? We have.

Now, we as in the U.S. men's national thing, why is there so, why we have this, a bunch of these players hitting. And I think it goes back to the DA, right? It's a bunch of, a bunch of situations where players can have a professional, professional training environment. Yeah, exactly. You get a professional upbringing, and miraculously, we've developed a lot more professional players. Time will still tell just how high these ceilings are, whether or not the mega hits are already going to hit.

That would be Pulisick and Raina, McKinney and Adams, or if we can sort of churn out two or three of those guys per U20 cycle. Okay. Sounds good. Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks, Greg. See ya.