Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 139: Big weekend ahead for Yanks abroad

Episode Date: September 11, 2020

Competitions kick off in England, Germany and Holland. France's Ligue 1 already underway. Italy next week. Did you know McKennie plays for Juventus now? Plus cargo shorts and a Dutch-Calvinist theologian.2:30 Heath and Mewis to Manchester United6:30 cargo shorts and England18:00 Germany35:05 Austria, Poland, Turkey36:40 Netherlands40:05 everywhere elsego to patreon.com/scuffed if you would like to support the podcast -- every pledge is much appreciated 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. Just 17 days after the UEFA Champions League final, the new European season jumps into Hyperdrive this weekend. Greg, you track the Americans playing over there pretty meticulously.

What are we looking forward to? In a word, bells, we're looking forward to chaos. We thought it was hard keeping up last year with the crew overseas. It's basically impossible this year. I just want to give a giant, massive shout out to the people who are working tirelessly to keep the American comps coming. Because as much as there's more soccer available to watch these days, it's also, again, just literally like humanly impossible to actually watch all of our guys playing over there. So the accounts like USMNT videos and Watkey, who am I missing? Cranks, Mr. Cranks.

Mr. Cranks. Doing the Lord's work within hours of the finish of the games, putting all touches, comps up. It's just huge. Honestly, it's like we're spoiled and people might take that for granted. But we used to look for any highlight we could get of Clinton Dempsey. And now just immediately we can watch everything, every performance. We can see what Tim Wayad did.

Yeah. Someday books will be written about Watki and Sanjave and Cranks. There's others who do a little bit like Jordan and Jonathan. I think you'll play a prominent part in that book, Bell. You might be, you might be, you're going to be more than just the prologue. I may just be the prologue. I mean, there's a book called The Boys on the Bus about the Press Corps covering one of the elections in like the 60s. What would it be like the boys?

It is boys, let's be honest. the boys in their bedrooms, I guess is what it is. In their dorm rooms. They're usually kids doing this. Yeah, right. It is a lot of work. And I think Sanji even, Waki, have, you know, they've sort of made a science out of it. They do it really, really fast.

So, yeah, agree to agree on that. Thanks, guys. So should we do like a little travelogue of the globe here and see where those guys are going to be focusing their energy this year? Travelogs are our strong suit. Let's do that. All right. I'm going to start us then in the United Kingdom. Because there's actually a big, there was a big announcement, and I'm not talking about Christian

Pulisix's jersey number. Tobin Heath and Kristen Press recently announced as Manchester United signings. And this is after Roselvel and Sam Mewis had already been announced at Manchester City. So the WSL in England, in Manchester, in particular, having a very American bent to it this year. Yeah. Is that, so Manchester United's in, I mean, Man City is like good, and Manchester United like just joined the Women's Super League?

Is that what they called? Yeah, United basically just created their team. I think last year was their first year in the league. And then last year's league was abbreviated because of the pandemic and wasn't resumed. So it just ended after 15 or 16 games. So, yeah, so United is making big moves. early, which they should be. They should have had a team a long time ago, but now that they have one.

That's a, that's a bold, bold move to make. Are they paying more money than the NWSL over there? I don't know the answer to that. We need, we need some, uh, some Tenorio scoops. Yeah. Uh, on the WSL side to find out what they're getting. I, I am also not sure how it affects because all four of the players in Manchester, uh, would be on, I believe would be on USSF.

contracts with the women's national team. They're not on NWSL contracts. So I don't know if they sort of forego a certain amount of that income to get paid by their clubs in England. But it's exciting. It's really cool to see. And again, I think as far as I know, these are short-term deals and that they'll plan on coming back to the NWSL, but you just sort of never know.

Okay. So is it bad for women's soccer in America? like Tobin Heath's going to go inspire a generation of Mancunians? I don't know. I don't think so. I think anything that drives the game forward anywhere is a good thing. And women's soccer is, I mean, there's a lot of room for the game to be driven forward, certainly in sort of the financial sector.

So if these women going over there drive the hype of the game in England and make it bigger there and more money flows into it, only a good thing okay well one more thing tobin heath where is she in the uh american sauce power rankings for you still number one i think so i think she i still have her number one uh and i think probably probably lavelle number two and i guess with lavelle's world cup heroics uh one one b yeah one a because how do you do because i'm saying like men and women she's still like Heath is the most try something soccer player of American descent. Right.

And just like, her expression never changes while she's just completely rinsing someone. Yeah. She's, she's a sociopath. She's fun. She's fun to watch. Okay.

So who else is playing in England? Can you think of anybody? There's quite a few on the men's side we can get into. Well, I think, like the first name we have on the list here, obviously is Christian Pulisic. And we got the news yesterday, I believe it was, that he will be wearing the number 10. And I want to ask you, you know, when we first met each other back in the early tens, I would see you on the weekends, like, you know, all day on the weekend.

You'd be, like, reaching in your back pocket and pulling out what was, I guess, the forerunner of the playbill, you know? And I wonder if you ever thought back then We're gonna have a player who's wearing the number 10 For one of the biggest clubs in the world No, I'd say in 2010 when I was when I was in my cargo shorts Pulling out a printed off Excel sheet of who was playing which games what time No, didn't think that anyone is gonna be playing in the Premier League wearing the number 10 jersey I was hopeful that that maybe Clinton

Dempsey would make a big move and be a role player with Liverpool. Yeah. But it never dawned on me that we would have the best player on a top four team, arguably. And we'll have to see that now because obviously there's a lot going on at Chelsea Football Club. Good grief there is. Kai Havert's, Timel Warner. They've got, so they've got, well, I was going to go through. They've got Tiago to shore up their back line.

They've got Chillwell. So yeah, it's going to be Zyak. Oh, yeah, that's right. Just another guy. Just one of the best players that I ax. Yeah. And it's funny that they were like, Chelsea was in this situation where they weren't supposed to be able to spend any money or something. So that's why they got Poulosick in under the bar.

But they couldn't make any moves the summer after, because they got Poulosick in January. Yeah, that's right. And then just loaned him. So they got him back. technically in the summer. And then they couldn't make any moves for that summer or I believe the winter. So Poolick's first year, they were locked into what they had,

which was a lot of kids. And the kids did well enough to get into the Champions League. The kids plus Drew and Willian. Yeah. And now they are, now they just threw caution to the wind and bought. Yeah, they spent money. And it's exciting. I'm really excited to see Pool Sick on

like a sort of a mini Galacticos English side. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, I mean, we've said a lot of what you can say about Pulisic at this point, but we're just excited to see him play. Looks like he's healthy. He might even play this weekend. Pulisic's game Monday, yep, on I believe, Peacock, not on NBCSN.

So we, as much as far as we've come on available TV, if you don't want to pay the Peacock fee, you might actually be going back and doing the old stream search. Yeah. Okay. DeAndre Yedlin, second name on the list. Yeah. Yetlin not sure what his status is going to be at Newcastle.

He's currently still there. He'd kind of fallen out of favor towards the end of the year. Even before the COVID break, didn't really get a ton of run out after the resumption of play. He's been linked to like Besheeked us and moves away. I think there was even talk of him possibly being an MLS target. So MLS might think they've got a shot at him. I don't see that happening this year. but so as of now still with Newcastle we'll see if he's sort of in their plans on game day

whether he's on the bench whether he's in the lineup or whether he's sort of totally on the outs fullum sometimes known as full america is is living up to that name a little bit now yeah tim ream and anthony robinson the tim ream one's kind of interesting to me because uh it could be like a bittersweet outcome for him where he did really he had such a great year with fullum and Fulham did really well to earn their way into the Premier League, I have a little bit of a worry that that success could see Tim Reams actually roll in the team diminish. They might, I don't know that they've made this any moves yet, but just from sort of following along with some of the Fulham fan boards, it seems like they might not view Ream as the guy

who's going to keep them in the Premier League. So they might feel like it's necessary to sort of replace him and just have him be more of a locker room figure. Leadership. Leadership. Yeah, it'd be really kind of unlucky because for a guy like Tim Rame, if he loses out on minutes like that, that could really, I mean, at his age, you know, in his advanced age, that could really affect his prospects with the national team. But there is a chance that we'll see a left side of that defense that's completely American. It does seem like Robinson's going to play, right?

That I have no clue. No idea. I don't want to even guess. They have a solid left back. The guy who scored the goal, who scored the goal that put him in the... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That goal that everybody was mad at the goalkeeper about. Yeah. Yeah, he scored two goals in that game, didn't he?

I don't know, but he's a hero. Either way, he's an immediate hero. Bell's interjecting from the future. That left back is 26-year-old Joe Bryant. He did score two goals in the championship playoff final, and he started 30, matches for Fulham last season. So that's competition for him. It doesn't mean that he's going to, he'll always be a hero, whether he loses a starting

spot or not. But it certainly isn't like a Robin. I don't think anyway that it's a lock for Robinson to be the game one starter and locked on starter going forward. Yeah. Okay. Well, it'll be super fun to see Craven Cottage back in the, back in the Premier League, one of the great venues in the world.

And Robinson will get a chance to play. a lot there's going to be a F.A. Cup and all that nonsense. Zach Steffen is not likely to play very much, right? I don't, it's, that's another one where it's really hard to tell. We should find out real quick because City don't play this weekend. I think they get a week off because of their Champions League participation, so they get a little extra break. But next week, they play a league game Monday, I think against Aston Villa,

and then play an FAA Cup game Tuesday. So I'm sure they're not thrilled about that. I don't know how if that will, if they'll change that, but that's what their schedule says as of now. So it seems likely that you'd see like full squad rotation. So if Stefan is going to be their backup keeper, we probably will know by Tuesday of next week. I blame Boris Johnson for that schedule mess up. How ridiculous is that? So I think Liverpool ran into the same thing last year with like their Super Cup game and then another game literally the next day.

or their club world cup was going on. So they had all this nonsense to deal with. That's what happens when you're really good. You get a lot of games. Yep, yep. We're just going down the list here, guys. CCV, Odissui, and Vasselov. You have them grouped in some way.

Well, you could probably guess. There's no way to know for sure if they're going to play for their teams. CCV at Spurs has been playing through the preseason with the first team, has gotten some start. that doesn't necessarily mean that he's in the plans. Yeah, we've seen that movie before.

Yeah, they could be trying to put him in the shop window, so to speak. He's been linked with, I think, Bournemouth, who just got relegated, so they're in the championship. So in the early stages, I know there's some speculation. I think Daniel Smith has done the work on their congestion early in the season. They've got a ton of games early. They might keep him around for that because they have until October 4th to move him. The way the transfer window stretches deep into the... Right.

So we might see him in the 18 for a few games, and then potentially they could find a better home for him if they realize he's not going to play. But for now, it'd be cool. I mean, he hasn't gotten, I don't know if he's played a single Spurs first team in it. Not in a competitive match, I don't think. Then Otisoe and Vasilyev's still U-20 eligible guys.

Otisoi not really getting, I don't think, even preseason runout with wolves. And Vasilev, I know, just played with the U-23s for Aston Villa. So it doesn't seem like those guys are going to be key guys for their first team, hoping for Otisoui to get like alone somewhere. Yeah. I mean, there's a double-edged sword there where he, if he gets alone and becomes a first-team regular city in the championship, then he's probably not going to be available for the

U-20 World Cup. I don't even know if we're having a U-20 World Cup this year. next year. I don't think there's been any sort of announcement about Conca Calf qualifying. I emailed U.S. soccer, got the old Ernie Stewart treatment. That's a whole thing now. The Ernie Stewart treatment is a thing that people can just use that RLAND. Guys, I'm just joking around. It's fine. It's not that big of a deal. But I did send an email I never heard back. So I don't know. They probably don't know what the plan for Concaf World Cup

qualifying is. U-20. Well, I'm just going to like not even entertain your idea that that's a double-edged sword. We want Otisoui play in the championship rather than sort of stuck in the U-23 Premier League. If he can get a championship loan and he has to miss the U-20 qualifying in World Cup, I'm going to go ahead and take that every day. Yeah, you're right. But I do have sort of an unhealthy interest in the U-20 World Cup. So it would be cool to see him there.

For us, it would kind of help, you know, bring him into the fold. but you're right speaking of the championship we got Dwayne Holmes Matt Miazga and Matt Ola Sunday Ola Sunday from promoted Rotherham Yeah Rotherham's up

And Ola Sunday was a pretty key player for them Key is in played a ton of minutes Yeah Dwayne Holmes still at Darby County And then Matt Miazga is a question mark because I haven't heard What's going on with him He was at Reading last year

Two years in a row now on loan from Chelsea One and a half years we'll say, after his fiasco in France. Yeah. But no, I haven't heard anything about Matt Miasco. I haven't seen his name anywhere. Neither have I. I mean, his season ended kind of ignominiously.

His red card, right? Yeah, a red card and I think a two or three game suspension. Yeah, he's a rambling man. He'll be back. He's resilient. Some championship team will find a use for him for sure. Cameron Harper, have you watched much of him? No, I don't know how anyone has been.

Has anyone have you? No. The only people who've been able to see him, surely, are the people who are watching. He was a DA guy, right? Was he? I don't know. I thought he was like a dual national and grew up in Scotland, but I could be wrong. Correction.

Once again, I was wrong. Harper is a dual national. His parents are both from Scotland, and he is eligible play for Scotland, but he grew up in Southern California and spent at least three seasons at Paddi Adoras, the club in Southern California that Frankie Amaya came. from. So there you go. As far as I know, he hasn't played a professional minute. So his only play would have been in the youth ranks.

Okay, but he's at just so you all know, he's at Celtic. Okay. He's a winger. And he impressed Anthony Hudson quite a bit, I guess, in one of the 20 camps. Yeah, U20 eligible. He's been on Celtics bench for, I think, pretty much every game this year so far. Champions League qualifying, which they lost to a Hungarian team. in one of the early qualifying rounds,

and then also in the SPL league. So he's been there, but he has not gotten on the field yet. And again, there's no video of him anywhere that I can find for a professional team. Okay. Yeah, all right. Let's move to Germany. The Pocall begins this weekend.

So not the league. The Bundesliga doesn't start until next weekend, but the cup, the domestic cup starts, and basically everybody's going to be in action. Yep. Everyone's in action, and it's not a, it's not like a heavy week of games because they play this weekend and then have a full week before their Bundesliga game. So there's not necessarily a big need to rotate.

So we could see a lot of the first team guys. Everyone knows Raina and Adams situations. They're coming off Champions League runs into the knockout rounds. Rain has been having a very good preseason. I haven't heard anything about Adams preseason of you? I haven't, no. Do they play preseason games? Do they just play all the other Red Bull teams?

Yeah, it would be, it would be just like them to, not do it to have run some equations and decided it's not worth it or something. Development at Leibzig is that they're missing. Who just got hurt? Latimer or Campbell? One of their two center mids just got hurt. Oh, really? Being out indefinitely.

Conrad Lymer, out with an ankle injury. Which means that Adams, who was already sort of first man off the bench, first man in the lineup, even if it was like an outside back who would get hurt because of how versatile that team is, could mean that he's, he's sort of the starter. Could be, he's the 11th starter. It's one of those classic condolences, but hey. I hope it's nothing serious, but I hope, I hope it takes a month and a half to get back. Right.

Let's just be safe. Let's be cautious. Right. Brooks and Sergeant can be kind of the mid-table guys, we're assuming. Yeah, hopefully for Sergeant. Hopefully, Sergeant. Hopefully, Brooks, hopefully Wolfsburg is doing better than that. but they seem like they're going to be pretty much in the first team.

Yeah. And Sargent has also had a good preseason from what we can tell, right? Scored some nice goals, played reasonably well. Are you skeptical of that? I'm not. Preseason, you know how I feel about it. It's bad if you're in the, like, Ullianas situation where you literally just don't play at all. I think that tells you all you kind of need to know about your standing with the team.

but there's almost no amount of goals you can score that means you're definitely going to have a good start to the year. Right. You can't be in form coming off preseason. He's just been lighting it up in preseason. So, for example, Gio Raina has been scoring goals for fun in preseason. Doesn't mean that he's for sure starter. Doesn't mean that he's on his way to double-digit goals in the Bundesliga.

Right. He puts on clean performances. He talking Raina? Rayna, yeah, yeah. I do think, just as a side note, I do think people are maybe a little ahead of themselves with him. I know you might disagree with me on that because he is playing for this great club at a very young age.

And we saw throughout the spring, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, him getting significant minutes in games that mattered, like Champions League legs against PSG, which they narrowly lost. PSG, if you didn't know, was in the final of the Champions League, lost to Byron in a closely contested game.

So there's that. That's really good. But I don't know. Does he do something on the field that shows you like he's pool-a-sick level of dangerous? No, not pool-sick level of dangerous. But I don't think that's ever what he's going to be. It's pool-sick-level dangerous. I think he's going to be more of someone who can increase some of the parts around him.

That's how I see him. And it's because of what he can do on the ball where the way he can receive it and shrug a guy off or the way he receives it and gains a step on his first touch that he is outstanding. He is outstanding at that. And it's almost getting back to the Greg Burholter mantra of, I think you'll be very good at unbalancing defenses, disorganizing a defense, even if it's just by beating that first guy.

And then that forces, you know, the rest of the defense to compensate. And if you have to compensate and even, you know, give Jaden Sancho a little bit of extra room more than you'd want to off the ball. that's it. You can't come back from it. And you've got Erling Holland, you know, who needs just the tiniest of defensive poor positioning to capitalize. And that's, that's what Rain, I think, will bring is he'll help those situations. Okay. And he can do it at that high of a level. And that's, that's massive. That is massive, no doubt. Just to go back to getting ahead, everyone kind of getting ahead of it, I do think people get ahead of it in the sense that, like, I always operate on the two scales. There's a U.S. men's national team scale. And then there is that sort of global standard, you know, and, you know, and, and Raina on the U.S. men's national team scale, you don't, it's impossible to get too far. He's, he's there. He's, he's a Dortmund player.

That's, he's, he's like one of our top players already. Yeah. Even though, even though people can say, but he hasn't proven, it's like, okay, well, you should be able to make certain inferences here that you couldn't make about, like, our U20s from the U20 World Cup. Right. Dortmund, the level of play at Dortmund, you can make some of those inferences. but on the sort of global scale, on the global standard, you know, there's a lot of guys who do that who don't turn into Namor.

Don't turn into the superstar. That's right. So he's already good enough now to be like you can put him in your 11 for the U.S. men's national team. It doesn't mean he's going a year or two years from now. He's going to be starring for Bayern Munich or holding up the Champions League trophy. I can't wait to see him on the field for the national team. I do.

I'm sort of, I guess, smarting a little bit from, I tweeted earlier this. week that Legette, it was going to be hard to keep Legit off the field. If we had a game tomorrow and everybody's like, you, what are you out of your mind? He's like, Raina should play over him, which, yeah, you could put Raina, you could put Raina at right wing or something and, you know, Raina was, Raina was actually hurt last week. But Raina's hurt, Poulsox hurt. There's, there's, uh, Pama calls out like, uh, Legit and Raina can be on the field at the same time for sure.

Yeah. The question is going to be, the question is always going to be. The question is always going to. come back to is should Jackson, you will be on the field if Sebastian and Legette's on the bench, or if Tim Webb's on the bench, or if Jordan Morris is on the bench, Gio Raina on the bench.

That's really going to become the, where the U.S. men's national team fan base tears itself apart. Yeah, there's going to be some gnashing of teeth on that. I think the answer is increasingly clear. Legette and way or way I should not be on the bench so that Jackson, Ewell, can be on the field. You don't want to get into that right now, probably. We'll save that for the next round of call-ups.

We might not have to decide that until March. Right. We're still in Germany. We've got all these guys playing in Germany. We've got Chris Richards, who it appears is still with Bayern Munich at the moment. And I think they've just suffered another injury at the centerback position. So, again, hard to know. Yeah.

Ulliana is, though, it's going to be an interesting one. Should we just jump right in on him? Yeah, let's, let's. Because like you said earlier, he hasn't gotten that much run out in preseason almost. none. And, you know, I saw a tweet from his dad a couple weeks ago saying you got to like, sometimes you got to be patient, sometimes you get too much too soon. It's not good for you. It's better to have to wait. Seems like a wise sentiment. So that hasn't gone the way we all hoped for Uli, but there are news out today from here in Vien, which is up in the sort of north part of the

Netherlands, so not too far from Wolfsburg, that they might take them on loan. And that seems like a good idea. That seems, I mean, for us, for Yannes, for me, it seems like a good idea. It's huge. It's huge. And we don't do the transfer of speculation much here. But at least we can say that that kind of a loan would be, I think, fantastic. I would say, like, obviously it be better if he just were evaluated to be one of the top two or three winger at wolfsburg i think you would actually even to an extent like disagree with that but uh if he's not if he's not going to be a top four winger at wolfsberg um then your next choice if he stays at wolseberg is to play with their u23s in the fourth tier of germany so the the

gap between whether you see him at the first team or that you know he's not good enough for the first team but it's probably the case that he's better than the fourth tier of germany so this is just me a nice, that nice sort of middle ground to see what he can do in the Ayrdivisi. So super, if this happens, super exciting. Do we want to share some of our hair and vein homework or do you want to go into why you don't even want to see him play with Wolfsberg if he can get this hair and vein opportunity? Well, it sounds like they only have four wingers, if including Yannes, you know, speculatively.

And none of them has been a standout from what we can tell. They just sold, they just sold, in this window, they just sold their left, winger who was their best attacker, like nine goals, four assists for like 12 million to a, to a side in Moscow. So very much like looking to replace that offense. And the only other winger they brought in is a Byron Munich reserve player. So off Byron 2. Otherwise they have like a returning winger who scored no goals, no assists last year.

So it's not like they have somebody waiting in the wings to replace all that offense. So yeah, it would seem like they're bringing a guy. to do it. And if it's Uliana, that would be pretty spectacular. Yeah, it would. And it just seems like a good level for him right now. And Wolfsburg, you know, Wolfsburg's wingers didn't, to my eyes, didn't shine a ton last year. I don't know why exactly that is. It just looks like it's a struggle out there for their attack all the time. And maybe that's just the nature of the Bundesliga in the middle of the pack. It's just a battle of wills week after week.

It's just who can strangle and counterpress and yeah. And yeah, and that might not suit Ullianus. I don't know for sure. Like, I don't know what is defensive chops are or is pressing chops, but it seems like it'll be the stereotype would be that it'd be much more flowing and open in the Netherlands. Yep. So bring that on. If that goes down, that would be, I would love to see that happen.

Speaking of hearing Vee, you got to indulge me on a little side note here. I learned there's this Dutch theologian. from herein bean. Yes, which we all know. Gerhard is Voss, who was at Princeton. And he pioneered. Was it Princeton? Was it Princeton when?

Give us a, what era are we talking? Ooh, I got to Google that. We're talking black and white headshot era. Okay. Well, these days you can get an Instagram filter that will do that for you. Yeah, I think I'm going to say early 1900s. So, yeah, early 20th century. Calvinist who pioneered the concept of already not yet,

which is a really good concept, I think, for the U.S. Men's National Team player pool. It's the idea that, like, we're already, you know, sort of in the kingdom of God, but the kingdom of God has not yet arrived. A little counterintuitive,

but it made me think of this because, you know, we were talking, somebody on Twitter was talking about how many Champions League players we're going to have this year. And you can see, like, we're definitely going to see an improvement in the number of minutes that we play in the Champions League, unless catastrophe strikes. Right, right. Unless everyone goes down with hamstrings and adductors.

I think the greatest number we ever had was 1,500 minutes. And that was, like, thanks in large part to mix Disceroot, you know. Like the Clustian Discerood groups, like, they play. They played every minute. of the group stage for a team that lost all its games in the group stage, you know. So we're definitely improving. I think if we don't get to 1,500 minutes this year in the Champions League, it's going to be really bad, really sad.

I think we should get that. But the not yet part of this is like we're so far behind the big power, the big powers in this metric. You know, like the Brazilian players log 23. thousand minutes in a Champions League last year. Yes. Yeah. It's it's the scales, right? It's our domestic, it's the scale we've had historically that we're all sort of used to. And then it, and that makes us so excited for our seven Champions League players. Like, it's, we're celebrating that. And then, and then you look one column over in Brazil has 60. Yeah, exactly. And France,

and Spain are right there with Brazil. And even, even countries like Uruguay and Columbia have like 3,500 or 4,000 minutes. And it's harder, you know, as people have pointed out on Twitter, it's harder for them to get these minutes than it is, say, for Russia because they have, they're going to have a couple teams. Guaranteed spots, yeah, with primarily domestic rosters. Yeah. Right.

But that 3,500 to 4,000, it's, I think you could be mistaken in believing that that's like a easy jump to make from 1,500 to 4,000. It's not. It's a little bit, I think it's a little bit tougher than it looks because you got to, you know, you got to keep winning games. You got to actually play. You got to actually not get hurt. So, you know, every thousand minutes we add is going to be hard won.

And even though things are improving, we're not there. We're not there yet. I mean, everybody who's listening to this podcast knows that. It's not like newsflash. I thought it was a really cool experiment that you all collaborated to put together that, that fun when those little observations sort of take off like that football ref man fb ref is really surprisingly useful i don't know why it's surprising it's just useful yeah we're not we're not even we're not even out of germany yet can i can i finish germany off quick please please all right we so

we still have timmy chandler uh it'll be interesting to see what role he plays for his team because after that run of starts uh towards the end of the calendar year last year and then into the COVID pandemic, once they came back, his minute sort of dropped as well. So it'll be interested to see whether he sort of remains in that rotation role, whether he gets back into the starting lineup regularly, or whether he fades even farther out. I mean, again, we're all getting older, Bells.

And then... Don't I know it. And then the other really interesting one is Olympic eligible, Nick Tadegui, who was one of the most highly rated within USSF's youth ranks, one of the most highly rated kids we've had. Tab Ramos. Tab Ramos was a huge, huge proponent of Tadigui.

And he's just been just completely put under by injury for years now. But he is, by all accounts, fit. He's played in a couple preseason games. As far as we know, will be included in the first team plan. So that'll be a fun one to watch. Again, that might say as much about where Sholka is headed as where Tadigui is headed. but definitely, you know, an interesting one to keep an eye on. Yeah, totally.

I mean, where Shaka's headed is they're not spending any money on players right now. Right. So Tadigui is going to earn it by, in part, because Shalka aren't interested in actually bringing in new players. We got a bunch of, we got a bunch of U-19s that are, that, you know, could potentially break through at Wolfsburg. We got Kobe Hernandez-Foster, Brian K. And then there's that Michael Edwards, centerback, too. I don't know. He's not a U-19 anymore.

He's more of a U-23. We've got Taylor Booth at Byron Munich, playing for their U-23s with Byron 2. In the three-lega, we'll see if he keeps getting runouts. In the two Bundesliga, we've got Morales, who looked decent in his men's national team caps. Bobby Wood is playing a little bit in Hamburg's preseason, which means he's not completely persona non-grata,

under the new regime. Julian Green is scoring a lot of goals in the preseason, again, for whatever you think that's worth. And then tell me about this U-20 guy we got playing at St. Pauly. Leon Flack, as far as I know, can play defensive midfield, can play fullback, and also impressed Anthony Hudson in the U-20 camp. Was it in January?

I think it was. So we'll see if he gets a Pocall run out because they play against. I don't think they're playing. playing any of the big boys. I don't remember St. Paul you're playing, but it's mostly, it's a lot of the lower, I mean, there are so many lower division teams that most, most likely you're playing a lower division team. Yeah. I was going to say Armenia, Biela field, but they're actually in the Bundesliga. They got promoted, yeah.

All right, travelogue continues. We're leaving Germany. We're going to hit some of the neighboring countries. We've got Austria, Poland, and then I know Turkey isn't technically a neighboring country, but one guy in each of those countries that were kind of keeping an eye on, Eric Palmer Brown back on loan from Man City to Austria, Vienna, and then in Poland. I don't remember if this is a loan extension or if they sold him outright, but Kenny Seff, my guy, your favorite player, yeah, is back at Lakeit, Lechia, Gadansk, Gadans, he's playing for Gadens. And then my not favorite winger, but somebody who's sort of bounced back at Bashikas,

Tyler Boyd. Okay. Yeah, bounce back, huh? Well, because he was dropped early last year when Pashikas were doing terrible. Like, they, I mean, they're a Turkish perennial power, but they were awful to start the year. And then new coach there, and he got back into the 11, and the club turned things around. I think they finished like fourth. They were pretty good.

The thing is, Boyd himself offers like next to nothing offensively. I think he had one goal, one assist in like a thousand minutes. So I don't know. He's got to be doing something because he's still in the lineup every week. But it's not showing up in the goal or assist column. So I don't know. That's a tough one. Well, I can tell you I'm not going to be making any Tyler Boyd comps this year.

I think he's hurt. I think he's out for a bit too. So you won't have a chance to yet. Let's move to the Netherlands. You know, everyone knows Sergenio Dest. he's at Iax. May have lost his spot. There was some hand-wringing about that.

Like maybe he had a bad attitude. Who knows if that's true? I feel a little bad even repeating it with how unsourced it was. But, you know, he looked really good in his last preseason outing, I thought. I mean, it's not like he's getting passed by the guy who's younger than him. He's getting passed by the guy who was already ahead of him at the start of last year, right? Yeah, the guy who took IACs to within a game of the Champions League. final.

Only a miracle from Tottenham kept them out, and Masrawe was, like, fantastic in that run. So he's a great player. There's no shame in being behind him. Right. We don't even know if Desd definitely is behind him. Right. So, yeah, and we also don't know if Desk will stay at IACS through this whole window. Again, there's going to be a lot of guys who we talk about here who end up in different

areas of Europe by the end of September, early October. Yeah. Now, you know, there's, we got the whole Ledesma Mendez-Gloster Soto crew. It's funny, like our whole U-20 attack has moved into the Airstad Divisi. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what else to say. What do you think about Ledesma's situation right now?

So I'm not, I'm not super excited about his prospects to get first team minutes. I think it'll kind of depend on if, a bunch of PSV first teamers get sold off, I think, in the next few weeks. So if that happens, awesome. Ladezma probably, they probably bump Ladezma up rather than go shopping. But I think, I think it's going to basically be he'll train with the first team. He'll probably be on some of the first team benches for games. But I think primarily his minutes are coming from Yonge PSV.

We'll see right away because there's a Yonge PSV game this Friday, then the first team plays Sunday, then there's another Yonge PSV game on Monday already. We'll have a nice three-game sample size of data to see where the Dezma fits in. Yeah, just going to have to be patient there. I'm not going to put myself through the emotional trauma of getting excited and then being disappointed. Soto is at Telstar, Gloucesters at PSV. I think he's probably even further from the first team than Ledesma. Yeah, and it sounds like he might have, he might be, his place might be sort of falling at,

young PSV where he might not be a starter for young PSV. Yeah, that's too bad. And then Alex Mendez is just sort of in a similar situation as Ledesma and Gloucester at Young Iax. So, you know, they're still young. They all got a chance to, plenty of time to develop into the Champions League players we want them to be. The fun one's Luca de la Torre.

I say fun one. It's just like such a wild card moved from Folham to Heracles in the Era de Visi. So he's in the first, he's in the first division. Okay. We'll get to see if he, if he's like in their plans or not, no idea. He's playing a couple of the preseason games. So he's in Allen, though. And then we'll see if Uli makes that move.

Yeah. Hopefully he does. I really, that would be great. Now, Italy. Just taking a peek, just taking a peek over to see that Weston's down there training with Andrea Pierlo. Yeah. They don't play. They don't play this weekend.

their next week. Still doesn't feel quite real. But, man, am I glad it's happening? Apparently Pierlo really wanted him. That's the report, right? That this was, he was a Pierlo target. It's awesome. All right, we're in France now.

Beautiful here. Yeah. Over on the English Channel at Lille. It is beautiful. It's beautiful because Tim Wea is a healthy playing, soccer player. Yeah. That is beautiful.

He is beautiful. He's a very good looking man. It really is. He's got a, he's got a, uh, he's very photographable. What's the word? Photogenic. Photogenic. Although photogenic always seems like a backhanded compliment a little bit, like slight tinge of

backhand. So photo, let's go with photographable. Photographable. Uh, so Timwaya. All right, Timwaya, uh, again, biggest, biggest sort of point of interest here is one, will we keep playing? He came back for 12 minutes in their second game in season. They're playing again this Sunday.

Will he keep playing? Will he keep playing at the nine? Will that be where his minutes come? Because that would be quite the development on the U.S. men's national team side as well. Totally. Speaking of nine's, Nico Joaquini, still at Khan, can. And they're in the second division of France.

Hopefully he gets, I mean, you know, he got plenty of minutes last year. He kind of fell off towards the end of the season, a little bit, but interesting player. I saw, and then Jordan Sibichu, there's no way I'm pronouncing that correctly. I saw Daniel Smith point out that he was, he's not even in the squad for this weekend.

No, and he hasn't been playing in the preseason. He's, he's surely on his way out. And he's also not expressed consistent interest in playing for the U.S. He's definitely more a Frenchman than an American. But I mean, we'd take him. He's both. We'd take him.

We'd take him. No. just saying he probably would rather play for France. Well, I think that might resolve itself. I don't know that he's going to have those choices. Let's go to Spain. Let's go across the border. Yeah, I mean, tell me what you want to say about Shack Moore,

because I know you're sort of an aficionado. Well, I just think it's good to have him on the radar. Yeah. I don't know that Shack Moore is like a worse player than Reggie Cannon. Like, I don't know that that's the case. We don't really see him side by side. more has been playing more of an advanced role where he's been he's been sort of in the highlight when you see the guys make the cops of him he's been whipping in crosses and getting assists

I don't love crosses but he's good at executing the ones that he hits but he would he could very easily fit in with with with how we play with our right backs these days so just again just keep an eye on him it it wouldn't surprise me at all over the next couple of years if he sort of shakes out ahead of like Reggie Cannon. Not saying that's for sure what's going to happen. I don't necessarily rate him that high, but I don't know that you have enough any information to suggest that they aren't sort of neck and neck.

Yeah. I mean, I guess you have the transfer to Boa Vista, which is worth for Canon, which is worth probably more than $3 million. What is it? Was it $2 million plus a 50% salon clause, which Boa Vista can buy out 25% of for, for 1.5 million.

We need Tootle back here. Get Tootle back on the... I mean, but that makes sense, right? Yeah. I thought Toodle was the one who explained it to me on Twitter, personally to me on his timeline. So that seems like a good deal. Just as a side-known, it seems like a good deal and a good way for MLS to structure. It's transfers, at least until the day comes when European clubs will pay...

Straight up, just this guy's worth this. He'll make our team better. we know he's MLS is a proper vetting league and right let's do the market hasn't been tuned in that way just yet um okay oh yeah and of course Conrad de la Fuente big deal he's apparently like a like a real first team player for Barcelona right now right now yeah it's still one of those things where we're just in this gray area of uh maybe they're maybe they are shopping but at the moment they this is what they need for their training so he is still with the first team.

I think from what I've read, quite a few of the other Barcelona B players have been sort of sent back to Barcelona B. So again, you just have no idea if it's just like a positional needs-based thing where they got to keep them around or if they're like Conrad de la Fuente is in our plans for the season. Yeah. All right. Cannon, Portugal, Boe Vista. 12th in the Super League of last year.

Spending money, though, right? Yeah. Seems. This is the biggest transfer in their history. So it's weird to think that, like, I would never have guessed that the biggest transfer in the history of any club in Portugal, Portugal would be a $2 million transfer fee. For Reggie Cannon.

Right. I'm not trying to shade on Reggie Cannon at all. Just like, it's not going to be a big name, I don't think. Yeah. They're not buying them to sell shirts. No, and they're going to, you know, it does appear. that he's going to play. I mean, if he's the biggest transfer

in the club history, hopefully he plays. Belgium. Have you been watching Chris Durkin lately? No, I still haven't thrown up any of the St. Truden clips. I watched a little bit, a couple weeks ago.

He looks good, man. He's, I mean, if you, like, set him up side by side with Jackson Ewell. Eh? I don't know. That's the line, right? You have to meet the Jackson Ewell threshold.

Yeah. He's more active. He's more like he makes more runs. I mean, you were pointing this out, right? Yeah, that's by their team's nature. That's their team design. So he ends up in the channels, like running after through balls and stuff. So he's not just sitting there and fulcruming.

All right. I'm going to go to Denmark. We've got Because I'm excited to this one Are you getting impatient? No, I didn't think we needed to continue on the Chris Durkin Horvath, Horvath.

Oh yeah, we've got Horvath who again Seems locked behind Miniole Meanioly seems happy to hoover up all the minutes Like he's not asking for breaks So he's going to get champion Because they're in Champions League Or Champions League qualifying I think they're already in the group stage

Someone will correct us But if they do, if they are in the group stage eventually I don't think Horvath is going to like give up his league minutes to he's taking everything he's probably got an appearance bonus that he's he's capitalizing on I thought Horvath was going to make a move I'm sorry not Horvath

Meaniella is going to hoover up everything yeah yeah yeah but I but my question still stand my question still stands like I thought he was going to move I thought Horvath was going to move well we thought that for a few windows now I mean hope he does and it's it still seems like it makes the most sense

like it's you've got Bruges are sitting on the guy who has good Champions League experience, which means that surely there's a value to him that you could sell him and get a cheaper backup goalkeeper and put the rest of that money in your squad somewhere. But, I mean, I don't know. I haven't heard any concrete anything.

And, you know, I don't like to speculate. So as of now, as of now, he's stuck in Belgium. There are worst places to be stuck. Denmark, you're excited to talk about Denmark. Jonathan Eamon, back in training. Oh, is that so? That's what I'd heard, I think. Awesome.

I think from one of our, from one of the other people who provides incredibly like inside information on the U.S. Men's National Team that just didn't exist last cycle. I mean, the ecosystem is proliferating itself. So, Aymann back in training. That's a big deal for me. I have no idea where he'll be after missing essentially two full years. I mean, he's barely played in two seasons. But it'll be fun.

He's an explosive player. I just really like watching him play with his all right footedness out on that left wing. And I think maybe it's, I don't know if it's this week or next week, but he and Sabi, who just moved to Odent's Bold Club, are going to be playing each other. So those are two guys in Denmark. To keep an eye on. Yeah.

Christian Capis, if you're wondering, you've probably followed some of his saga where his work permit was not, the paperwork for it was not completed. by his club on time. And so it's like revoked and they have taken it, it confiscated his passport. And from what I understand, the appeal was denied and he now has to like leave the country by a certain date.

Yikes. So we'll see if we'll see what his next move is. Yeah. Pobro were relegated anyway. So he would have been playing second division in Denmark if he stayed there. So a move, a move needed to happen either way. Okay.

All right. I have Sweden on here, Bells. Do you want to talk about Sweden? Not particularly, but go off. Aaron Johansson, who just scored again, he is making Sweden his playground. That's what he said he had to do if he was ever going to be back in contention for the national team. He's playing against mixed Discrood this weekend. And Discruid has been playing centerback, so we could have like real Aaron Johansson versus Mixed Discrood highlights, which I think is just fun.

I think that's neat. Yeah. I'll grant you that. I did notice that when he got, he came off with like some kind of knock a couple weeks ago. And then Brian Shoretta, great friend of the pod, said something kind of about how he, like, he has the worst luck. And then Aaron responded to him. Said, hey, it's just a little knock. I'll be fine.

And he is fine. He's back playing. He continues to score goals. And then finally Brazil. Yeah, we're jumping all the way over. Johnny Cardoso started a couple of games in a row. I think some of their center mids, he's like a holding center mid. You've probably heard him.

He's kind of got a little bit of buzz going about him. When I say you, I'm talking about people listening, Bells. I'm pretty sure you have heard of him. I have. Yeah, he's got a bit of buzz and he started a couple games. I think the word was that international, international's other center mids were being quarantined for COVID, I think is what I'd heard. But he's got a couple starts. hasn't made any big mistakes.

And the Brazil schedule is nuts. He's going to have seven games in the next 19 days. So even if his teammates do start to come back, it seems like he'll probably get some chances to play. And then basically playing two games a week until November. So another one, we're going to get a lot more video on him. It had been hard to find video. Now we've got a little bit of a sample size.

Yeah. What do you think of him as a player? Is he good? It's hard to say. I don't know. He's capable starting in the Brazilian first division, and he's, again, he's not making a ton of mistakes. He plays really safe.

Yeah, that's what I notice. And most of the comps I'm seeing are him in possession, so I don't know if his team is just, they're in first place at the moment. I don't know if they're just a team that dominates possession because you don't see a ton of him having to do a lot of defending. whether that's in the low, mid-block or in the counterpress. But, you know, he's capable of not screwing up so far is what I've seen.

Yeah. Again, he just has to, he has to cross the Jackson Ewell threshold. And he's a U-20, so, I mean, he's obviously a dual national, so we'll have to see whether he's interested, I mean, if he remains interested in representing the U.S., but again, just another fun one that we're going to, I think they play today. They're probably, pick a day. They're probably playing a game.

So in the next couple hours, we'll probably see if he's in their lineup again. Yeah. Okay. Good stuff. I mean, it is going to be chaos, man. Because it's felt like, it's felt chaotic with MLS too. And I guess part of what you have to do is you have to, I have to do is like raise my threshold for interest, you know?

Exactly. It's a good thing. Yeah. That's what it's, I mean, that's what we're hoping for. Like, you think we always talk about your Brazilian counterpart probably isn't sitting around watching reserve leagues because they have 60 players in the Champions League. Right, exactly. They don't need to comp, make comps of the guy in the Bundesliga U-19 league.

And I guess that just falls, that ultimately just falls to the scouts and the, you know, the technical staffs to watch that footage in Brazil because ain't nobody. in the public doing it. But it's not just that you raise your, you know, standard for being interested. It should mean that our pool is in a much better shape. I know we spent a lot of 2019, a lot of people spent a lot of 2019 sort of rationalizing or just saying the reason we're losing to Jamaica and Venezuela and sort of embarrassing ourselves is that the pool just isn't very good.

And I think it's going to be harder and harder to say that. Yeah, Sam Stayskill, Paul Tenorio. those guys and you know they're not necessarily while we had Daniel Lovitz playing left back right some of that I think we

inflicted on ourselves as far as the pool is concerned because some of these guys that were pretty excited about now were they were available they might not they're not not a lot of them aren't finished products basically no one is a finished product

right but there were some of them who were more available than we made them out to be yeah well I think I just look at like James Sands, you know, clearly a good player, like an effective, defensive player. But because it's not that fun to watch, I'm not going to watch him at this point.

I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll let the, I'll let the, you know, if somebody does a comp, I mean, didn't walk he tried to do a comp the other day and he said, I've given up, there's just nothing fun to watch here. Yeah, like 48 minutes in, he's like, this is the most interesting thing that's happened so far. It was like breaking up a counterattack. Right. And, I mean, that is kind of fun to watch, actually. It is fun to watch a good defensive player.

But at this stage of my life. I want to watch Sergenio Death skin someone. Yeah. Or you want to see like, you know, Gio Raina. I kind of, you know, it's a guilty pleasure, but it's kind of fun to watch Andrew Carlton's clips because he just never know what's going to happen, you know. Right.

Let's throw Carlton and Gallego's clips on. Yeah. So yeah. And then we got all this chaos in MLS, 40-odd youth eligible Americans playing regularly. Basically every week now, yeah. And then the vets as well. Yeah, the Sebastian Leggette show. Yeah, quite a goal, quite a goal from him.

And it's not just the goals. You know, he's playing well in other ways too. He has a nice ability to like pass in rhythm. distribute out of the middle one touch boom boom and they're off it's so my legit thing can i go on a legit tangent i would love that we have time for it we it was a long travel log yeah we have time we do all right so my legit tangent is that he's sort of always provided this for the national team like uh he had been off and on for the galaxy and maybe he still will be but for the national team he's basically just always been on and it's what it's always looked like is when he comes into the games

he was a sub for a lot of his appearances for the national team. And he always just looked like a guy who came into a group that was like paralyzed. Like we were always trying to figure out like, okay, and remember what we were supposed to be doing. And legit, like with Burrhalter's system primarily. And then Legert comes in. He's just like, hey, fellas, remember, we're still, all this, we're still trying to actually get to the goal. And he just like makes us, like, move towards the goal. Right.

Like immediately, he's like there's just this immediate forward thrust that everyone's like, oh, that's right. all this has an ultimate purpose, and that's to score goals. So, yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. I'm really hopeful that we, like, continue to see him. It'd blow my mind if you weren't continuing to be called up, even with this sort of resurgence of, not resurgence, this emergence of, you know, champions league caliber players that we're kind of seeing.

I mean, it'd be cool if we could see Legat make a move to Europe, you know. I mean, he's not too old for it now. Maybe he is. I don't know. He probably won't have a lot of resale value, which I think goes into a lot of the moves that people make. Yeah. Good point.

But no, like what I keep thinking about is, you know, because we were talking about the pool and whether the pool is very good or not. And as much, again, as we're sort of tearing ourselves apart in these fan-based forums where we're talking about, is Jordan Morris locked in or does he get benched for Giorrena? Like, who cares? Like, they're all going to be there. and if Lajette's on the bench and he's one of your favorite players, like at this point, I don't think it's going to be Christian Roldon,

keeping him on the bench like it was in 2019. It's going to be Champions League player Gio Raina, and I'll just be okay with that, and I'll say, we are now in a position where someone who I think is really good is available off the bench for the U.S. men's national team. Jordan Morris, if he ends up on the bench and you think he's really good, that's not the worst thing. We've got a really good attacker, really effective attacker.

but we can bring off the bench to change a game. Yeah. I wonder if that's, you know, if there's going to be like increased competition for those spots. I mean, there will be increased competition for spots on the U.S. and international team. But will there be, will that result in people being more urgent about getting to Europe or stuff like that? I don't know. A couple other things.

I wanted to mention that Brendan Aronson really thrashed one the other night, scored from about 23 yards, and it was a nice goal. And it matters because that's something he hasn't shown a lot of, right? Exactly. So we just got to note that. And then should we talk about changes in the qualifying schedule? And let's dedicate some more time to that next week. Is that okay?

That's fine with me, yeah. Because it's complicated, right? and there aren't, it's a little bit uncertain how it'll play out. Yeah, just for anyone listening who hasn't actually heard the big sort of headline is that October windows basically canceled for Conca Gaff qualifying, which we weren't going to play in, but by pushing everything back, June is no longer the start of the Ocho. We'll be looking at some date later than June.

So sucks, man. The subhead is that we won't have to choose, between the Ocho and Gold Cup anymore. Now we'll have to choose between Gold Cup and the Olympics, but it's going to greatly affect, I think, Kenny Seff's chances of getting called up

this summer, which is sort of the sub subhead, as far as I'm concerned. That's a good note to end on. Thanks, thanks, Greg. Thanks, thanks, everybody for listening, and we'll see you.