Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 140: The September USMNT Top 40

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

One through forty. Pure science. From Christian Mate Pulisic to Shaquell Kwame Moore. Sprinkled with discussion of our centerback situation (an embarrassment of riches when it comes to average centerbacks), why it doesn’t make sense to play 3 at the back, Gio Reyna’s role, Jordan Morris’s role, and much, much more.If you support us on Patreon, thank you thank you thank you. If you don't please consider doing so! We are going to need your help in the coming months and years: 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 scuffed 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. People have been asking us to update our top 40. That is the top 40 players in the men's national team pool. They've been asking us for quite a while.

They've been beseeching us. And I am happy to report that the day has arrived. Greg, how you feeling? I'm all right, Bill. So that's what everyone was. spending when we were going eight months without a national team game, everyone just desperately wanted to know how the pool has updated through zero games. Right.

Because I think our last one we did after the January friendly. So there have been zero national team games. This is all going to be on club updates. And though, to be fair, there have been some club updates that might sort of make the picture seem a little more clear. Definitely. There definitely have. I mean, I think West McKinney, West McKinney's club updates.

does something so we we did one in september of last year like a year ago and then another one in december and then one in february and then we took like a long covid break of course and so now we're doing september 2020 so it's not exactly quarterly but it's pretty close i should say one one more thing i got to say i increasingly approach this task with fear and trembling it's difficult it is imperfect yeah there's no our criteria can can change wildly even in terms of like just my own from one place to the next where right where finally like eventually my gut's just going to be like now I'm giving this guy the I'm giving this guy the benefit of the doubt for this one right somebody mentioned that we that we might use algorithms and nothing

could be further from the truth all right number one the number one player in the u.s. men's national team player pool is of course Greg Christian Pulisick new number one I believe. I believe, I think he had been holding on at number two since the inception of this. Maybe, maybe took a couple of cycles at number one when Adams was hurt for so long. But I think at this point, Christian Pulisic is now a top two or three player, or he was last year at a big club, a super club. I know we just saw in Brian Strauss's article the differences between big clubs and big clubs. Yeah, capital B, capital C. Pulisick's doing it at the capital B, capital C level.

That's true. And, you know, the reason Adams, we had Adams ahead of him, the reason I had Adams ahead of him for a few of these was just that we felt we needed Adams's defensive presence in the middle of the national team so badly that it was more of an issue. Like it was more of a problem that needed to be solved than even like Pulisic scoring goals and getting assists. Yeah. And I think there will be kind of a running theme or thread here that I think, I think, think for a lot of these guys, we're going to be expecting them to be showing better, even within Burrhalter's system, in sort of anticipation of these tweaks that we think Burrhalter is making. And so, you know, Pulisic had plenty of games in 2019 for us where he wasn't great.

And I think, you know, in addition to how well he's playing at Chelsea, there's this sense that Burrhalter's going to simplify some things at the national team level that will put him in even better positions to succeed. Yeah. That's certainly the hope. Games where he didn't play well would be like against the friendly against Mexico where we lost 3-0. The time we lost at Canada in Nations League,

he was famously taken off a little early. But that feels like a lifetime ago now. He has definitely, I think, in the eyes of the entire soccer watching globe, risen in estimation significantly. So number two, Tyler Adams. Is this all on, is this all on his quarter final match-winning strike in the Champions League? It's none of it on that. I still don't think he, I still don't think he offers as much on the ball as a lot of the fan base does.

And I know you and I have had sort of a running disagreement about that. But as a defensive force, he is, you know, he's truly invaluable, I think, both for R.B. Leipzig and for the U.S. men's national team. Bless be the day when we get to see it, you know. Can't wait. Wait, no, I'm with you. I think his passing is not necessarily like a significant strength of his. I just think he's not going to hurt us with his passing. He's not a guy who must pass negative to solve problems.

So that's just, I think that's, it's a subtle difference. I don't think he's a playmaker. We'll get to somebody who I think we both agree their playmaking skills may be underrated. Maybe in the very next slot in this list. Let's just talk about them now. Number three is Weston McKinney. he's Cristiano Ronaldo's teammate. Hopefully he benefits from playing for a team that is dominant rather than just above the relegation line.

And we've done this last two weeks already, but we've got to mention again that it's sort of a pinch yourself moment to see him playing in a friendly for Juventus even in preseason. It's really something special. Yeah, it's wonderful that this doesn't no longer have to be a hypothetical where we spent years now, maybe just two years, talking about how it feels, like forever talking about how shalka are so terrible that it's impossible to know whether McKinney's actually not a good possession type player or if it's just the system. We should find that out pretty quickly this year. And like you said, his playmaking ability, I think, is underrated. I think he, you know, he can hit that line-breaking pass. He can hit the surprising pass to put someone in on goal. He's done it. I don't know about consistently, but he has periodically done it.

for Shalka, basically since he broke into the first team, if you go back and really watch the clips. For Shalka, for Shalka, it's a lot of those sort of in-transition moments. It's sort of my read on him where he hits that surprising pass, but he's shown for the U.S. He can do it even when he finds himself up in the box, up in the, you know, in the attacking third against a bus parking defense. Right. We saw that in the Gold Cup, I think, and I think that kind of gets forgotten because we tend to linger on a lot of the things that weren't working in the Gold Cup.

And again, I think McKenny was one of our best passers in that tournament. And I'm hopeful that he gets more chances to show that with Juventus. Yeah. He's an ambitious passer. He's looking to make passes that break the other team open, whether that's in transition or, you know, against a block. Who's number four, Greg? Number four, Serginio Dest.

nice, nice timely highlight from him from the weekend where he did not start. He does appear to be second choice at right back. Luckily for us, he's also second choice at left back, it would appear. Right. As high-ax's starting left back, tagliafiko, did I have that? That's right. Sent off early for, I think, a tactical dog-so tackle. And then Desk comes on at left back and down a man still has no problem.

Just skinned people on the sideline. he was playing like a sideline hugging left back in that particular highlight. Yeah. And again, it just makes the wheels start turning for what he could do for the U.S. and how versatile he is and quite frankly just how saucy he is. Yeah, he's a sauce merchant. And he, yeah, he, the fact that he can play, I mean, he's our best left back and our best right back. He's our best right back and our best left back for the national team.

I think that's pretty clear. so that when you say the wheels start turning, you could imagine Cannon or Yedlin getting to start at right back with Dest at left back, you know, if Anthony Robinson isn't fit or if he's deemed not up to the level to start at left back for the national team. So Dest is super, super important. And we got a tip of the cap to Greg Burrhalter

for helping shepherd him over the line, getting him cap tied. Yep. Burrhalter Ramos, the use. setup. It's just, again, this is another one of those pin yourselves because we're just getting to watch some really high-level American players every weekend. And I guess, I don't know, what's the latest rumors on his potential move to? I'm not doing it, not getting into it, Bells. You're not going to get me to get into it. Yeah. Stay clean. Stay clean, Greg. Number five is Giovanni Raina.

About to take the field right now as we speak. starting for Barusha Dortmund in a polkao match. Yep, with Marco Royce and Julian Brant on the bench. Now that could very well be that Dortmund is just saving them for the weekend or that Royce isn't fully fit yet. But even so, he's 17 years old. If you're good enough to start for BVB, you're good enough to start for the United States of America.

Yeah, and I'm going to say we're well past the sample size needed to say that he is a, like, key player for Dortmund. He's definitely, like, not just some placeholder, whether he continues to start. I mean, that seems unlikely, but whatever his role is, he's going to have one. And that's, again, that's all it takes. If you're doing that, you are somewhere in the national teams starting 11. And I think, you know, a lot of people think, I think Raina himself thinks of himself as a middle of the field attacking midfielder. And definitely that looks like that's what he's going to be doing for Dortmund today.

I think based on the lineup but he can play he can play on the right wing he could play on the left wing if need be especially in burrhalter system where we think the winger's are going to be tucking in he fits that role really really well so he's pretty versatile and yeah yeah I try to not get caught up in

is he a center mid for us is he this is he that it's going to be where is he collecting the ball where is he taking up his starting position when we're in possession and then how do we use use him in defense to either hide or emphasize what he's good at defending. Also, shout out to Grant Wall for the interview he did with Raina a couple weeks ago. Glad that, you know, it's good to get that, good to hear from the kid. He's, man, his voice is really deep. I noticed that.

Just as a side note. You always focus on the acoustics. You love acoustics. I do. I love acoustics. I love a deep voice. John, number six, John Brooks, 27-year-old 7. centerback for Wolfsburg.

When healthy, he's our best centerback. I think that's pretty clear. I don't know that anyone has ever, like, any U.S. men's national team coverage can, like, print the word John Brooks without following it with, when healthy, he's our best centerback. Yeah, right. That essentially sums up everything that needs to be said.

So I'm just going to skip it right ahead. Okay. Number seven. Number seven. Tim Wea, who is back, like his injury roller coaster seems to be, seems to be, I don't know,

is it going up or is it going down now? How would you describe it? I don't know. I guess I'm not sure on the dynamics of an injury roller coaster. Is it good to go up

or is it good to go down? It's more my hoax roller coaster that's following along Waz injury news. He's appeared for a second game in a row for Lille. Once again, I think coming in,

I would describe it from what I saw. I mean, he got like a nine-minute cameo touched the ball like four times. I want to say he looked like he was playing as a second striker. And I don't mean like a shadow striker.

I mean, it looked like there were two guys up top sort of playing side by side, but it was hard to tell in that short time window. Yeah, he looked. I didn't see the clips from his performance over the weekend, but a week ago, I thought he looked very bright and explosive, which is what you want to see. And all we really care about is that he is playing.

Because not only was no guarantee that he would not hurt himself again, and we're still, like, crossing our fingers, every time and just wanting him to get 10-minute cameos for the next three months for his own preservation. There's no guarantee that he would even get that when a guy's coming back from that long. Like you could be, you know, Joe Jiao, knock on wood, who was playing for Dortmund a few times gets hurt with the national team. And then essentially goes years and never really regains his level.

Right. Not that he's not doing great for Cincinnati. Is he starting for Cincinnati? I don't know. I don't know what's up with Joseph Jiao. FC Cincinnati are not Bersia Dorman. Yeah. At the time of recording.

And Leal, you know, they're turning through players. They're signing players. They're selling players. So just to add to your point about how it wasn't guaranteed that he would come back and get his spot again, he, you know, that matters. They just signed Jonathan David. Jonathan David, the Canadian striker is the one that Wayas seems to be coming on for at the moment. I would not count my chickens before they have. hatch if I were you, Jonathan, David.

I want Jonathan David again to continue starting for the next three months and for Lille to gradually gain one to two minutes per appearance. So you're looking for like 10 minutes a game until Thanksgiving? Through Christmas. Yeah, I wanted to get called into the national team camp in November as an observer. Okay. Sounds good. I mean, that's a big deal that weighs back.

Not going to try to minimize that at all. Number eight, Greg, why don't you tell us who it is? Sebastian Leget, who I feel like we're going to get to another controversial lightning rod player in a little bit. But I feel like Sebastian Leggett is like the most underrated U.S. Men's National Team player, not again that he's a transcendent player. No. Just that he continues to be very, very good for the national team. And like a good complimentary piece, he seems not to have much of an ego. like just wants to make the players around him better in any way he can.

Yeah, I could not agree more with that. He's a spark plug, you know, the old sports cliche. He comes on for the U.S. all year in 2019, and immediately we were better. And yeah, I agree with the thing about him being a good teammate, basically. He's out there, you know, he's out there on Instagram, commenting on younger players' posts. And I don't know, he just seems like a good father figure at the ripe old age of 20. Is he 28? Yeah.

Oh, goodness. And also a jack of all trades. You know, he can play in the middle. He can run down the ball on the channel and get a good cross across. He's remarkably good at getting a cross off, you know? Just get that little bit of window and then he plays it across. With different surfaces, like different surfaces of his feet. So it can kind of take you by surprise, which for me is key with crosses.

Because, again, I don't particularly love the typical, like, knock the ball six yards ahead of you and then run up to it and cross it type of play, but he hits like deceptive crosses. Yep. Anyway, Sebastian Legette, people might think he's a little too high, but I think he's, I think he is, again, criminally underrated. Yeah, and this will, we'll get to the, you know, the flash point of this whole discussion, who is Jordan Morris here shortly.

But I think when people say, well, Jordan Morris is our second best winger, has to start for the U.S. men's national team. as some have said on Twitter.com. Then you say, well, who are you taking off? Are you taking off Sebastian Legette in the middle? Are you taking off Jackson Ewell? Maybe that's fine. Are you taking off Tim Wea?

Are you taking off Geo Raina? You know, there's a scenario where, you know, there's a lot of moving parts there, and it's not just simply, well, we'll talk about Morris in a second. We can get to that. Number nine is Josie Altador, 30-year-old forward for Toronto. F.C. I will say, you know, I still think he's our best striker. That's why he's up here in the top 10.

But the word placeholder is starting to come to mind for me. Very good player. Again, probably our best striker. But it feels like father time and father new competition are both closing in on him a little bit. you know, with players like Sergeant playing well over the weekend, you know, admittedly against pretty, pretty weak competition. Nico Goh Joaquini coming along. There's other, there's jasi's artist is pretty solid, I guess. You know, there's other, there's other options. Yeah, the injury one's the big one for me and just his general availability.

Like it seems like it's, he's playing fewer and fewer minutes. And so, you know, with the national team, you need to just sort of, especially if you're trying to implement a, you know, a pretty sophisticated system, which I'm sure Burrhalters will be, even if it's a change from 2019. You've got to be able to rely on the guy to be there, especially for the forward. That's kind of a key piece of it. I feel like maybe at centerback, you could sort of install guys whenever they're available. But for the striker, I just don't know that you can do that. And so that's going to be the big thing is his availability. And if he's if he's not available, then yeah,

then hopefully the new guys close the gap enough that you take their reliability over whatever advantages Altador might provide. Yeah. I shouldn't try to say like Jaze's artist is going to knock Altador out on his, on the merits of his play on the field. That's a silly thing to say. But, you know, I mean, I think there's a chance players like D.K., Darryl Dicay in Orlando or Joe Keeney or Sergeant, they're coming along.

You know, they're all right around 20 years old, and they're coming along. Number 10. Here we go. Jordan Morris, 25-year-old winger slash forward for the Seattle Sounders. He's been very good for his club and for the U.S. over the past 18 months. So, and I, you know, I got into a big dust up on Twitter yesterday about this. but I think my issue with Morris isn't

that I don't think he should be called up he definitely should I'm happy with him at number 10 on this list but he's not I think we've talked about this before he's not a great fit for what Burrhalter wants his wingers to do we saw this in January

and February the wingers were not like heels on the chalk receiving the ball running at somebody and crossing it or cutting in and scoring they're in the channel receiving the ball and becoming like the fulcrum of the attack. And that is not a job for Jordan Morris. Right.

And so where I'll dissent a little bit from you here is, first off, I really appreciated you throwing that Molotov cocktail into the Jordan Morris discussion yesterday. I'll dissent a little bit in that Jordan Morris wasn't available for the January camp, I believe, because no Seattle players were made available. So what I'm wondering is, would it have looked at? like that if Morris had been there. So is Burrhalter necessarily set on the system? Or is he saying, well, I've got Paul Areola here. So this is going to work better with him to let Cannon go past. Whereas if I have Jordan Morris and Sergenio Dest on that right side, then I'm going to keep Morris wide

and I'm going to let Desk go up and get sort of central. And there are just a lot of, it kind of goes back to that wheel start turning with all the different possibilities because Morris might be good enough for, he might bring enough in attack and be effective enough in attack that you don't want to take him off to bring on an inverted winger. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that has to sort of be the line you take with Jordan Morris is that he is too, if you're going to argue for him, it's that he is too valuable to change his position or to keep him off the field. So that means that you have to change the positions of some other guys in your system to make it work for him.

And that might mean he can pair up effectively with certain players who are able to do these other of things. But I think that has to be the line. I've seen other people saying that he's just going to be good enough to do that or, well, then you move him to the nine and let him play as the nine. And neither of those, I think, are even close to convincing because Morris's huge explosion and productivity has been Seattle shifting him to the left wing. And that's where a lot of his productivity has come for the U.S. either left wing or, you know, again, most of his productivity came in 90 minutes as the right wing against Cuba. Yeah, right. Most of his actual stat line.

The fact that he is most effective on the left wing is also an argument against keeping him in the starting lineup because there's another guy who plays left wing for us. His name is Christian Pulisic. And I appreciate the banter here because this is sports and what else is it as people on U.S. men's national team, Twitter, online, besides arguing about this kind of stuff, the tone of it just got out of control. And especially because it's, again, it's kind of going to be a moot point. in the sense that everyone that people want to look at at wing for the U.S. men's national team are going to get their look at wing for the U.S. men's national team. The next qualifying match is a year away at this point, given the delays.

So you're going to see Jordan Moore's play on the wing. You're going to see Gio Raina probably get looks in that space. You're going to see Tim Wea, I would imagine, get his shot there, and it's going to play itself out on the field. It's not a situation where there's a guy you really want to see who just, never gets a look. Yeah. If Conrad gets some looks for Barcelona, he's going to get a shot on the wing for the U.S. Right.

Yeah, and I guess the thing it's easy to forget about Morris, I think for a lot of people who are really big fans of Jordan Morris and who are angry at those of us who don't appreciate him enough, is that he, I mean, like he scored that goal against San Jose the other day where it was just horrible defending, you know? Like he just dribbled, I know it's the man marking system and all that, but like he, he, we've seen him against, like, good, like against Mexico. He was not good, you know, where he has, where the space is tight and the time is short. It's not his game. Like, and we, that's why, that's why I want Timothy Wea ahead of him in this list because I think Timothy Wea can do that stuff. He can receive the ball in tight space. He can combine. Can you imagine, so even if Morris, Morris was playing on the wing on chalk and then Sergenio Des was playing. right back and coming inside him. Fraising. Go on. And moving inside him on the channel is like moving in the channel just to the inside of Morris.

You know what I mean? Then you've got, can you imagine Morris and Dest playing like quick one-toes with each other? I guess. I guess you can. It's not Morris's strong suit though, which I guess is my point. Yeah. Am I being a dead horse here? I mean, to an extent like, yeah, Morris is going to benefit.

a little bit stats-wise for that San Jose game. I feel like it was San Jose's reserves. But, you know, he's not, he's not just sort of accumulating stats against just the weak teams. I mean, he's, he's now had a solid year and a half of putting up numbers. So, like, he's doing it. How's his G-plus, though? How's his G-plus?

His G-plus is pretty, I mean, it's outrageous this year on a small sample size. It was okay last year. It wasn't anything special. And I've said before He massively overperformed Even his expected goals last year So you'd probably You know expect a little bit of a regression there

We're really getting into the weeds here With Well I really like So I really like Morris The idea of Morris coming on as a late sub To run a tired defense In a game that is sort of like Falling apart or where we like

Where we just really need a goal And maybe we're maybe we're bunkered at the Azteca and it's zero-zero in the 60th minute, bring on Morris, let him go at him. You know, he's a kind of player who, in space, he can make a goal happen. I'll do one more thing on it. My really optimistic hopeful take would be that

in the same way that a lot of guys have been held back, I think, by some of our 2019 tactics, my hope is that Morris was just as hampered and still like managed to come up with some really good moments and that in a improved system and you can take Canada part two as sort of the the blueprint in a more wide open system or more more free flowing especially in transition moment system. Morris will even benefit. So that might this might be like what we get out of Morris is or he might even have more left to give us. And again, I don't have, I don't get invested in the player, like the guy who you kind of got into it. Clearly, like, invested in Jordan Morris.

Like, I want Morris to do really well, even though I don't think he's necessarily tailor-made for what we're going to be doing. I really hope he is unstoppable. Yeah. Same. I mean, and I'm grateful for Morris's service thus far. I expect him to continue to be a very useful player for the national team. He's number 10 on our list. Yo, number 10 in the top 40.

What greater honor is that? Is there than that? Number 11. Number 11. Josh Sergeant, 20-year-old forward. I'm going to say he played well in the DFB Pocall win for Verda Bremen over the weekend. They beat Carl Zeiss, Yenna, 1 to 0. I actually know somebody from that town in a small town in East Germany.

Just sorry yesterday. Anyway, he played well. He missed a big chance. He wasted a big chance in front of goal, tried to square it to Davy Selka. Probably should have shot or at least made a better pass. But then 60 seconds later, go ahead. I'm kind of surprised that players still do that,

and maybe it's just like split-second stuff. But I feel like the way analytics are taken off now, sergeant has to know that if he shoots there, whether he scores or not, he's going to look better in the assessment. the next day. Yeah. Like he needs to rack up that XG right there.

I actually don't hate the impulse to try to square it for a tap in, but I think I'm probably in the minority on that. Anyway, he came back 60 seconds later and scored a goal, and it was the kind of goal that you love to see, as they say, as the kids are saying, because his movement was good. He comes towards the box, he peels off his guy, and then he takes up a position behind a centerback who has to choose between him and another guy. The centerback doesn't choose, and he essentially has a free header at the backpost, and he does well to guide it past the goalkeeper.

That's the game winner. I thought if you look at his all touches put together by, I think Mr. Cranks, it was, he did a lot of good stuff in that game. And he needs to. That's a fourth division side, and he needs to look the part there. Yeah, and he did. And I still have a lot of hope that he, he can turn the corner and be a legitimate Bundesliga striker.

Before we go to number 12, Wells, do you think Brayman looked good? Did you feel like they've turned a corner and they're attacking and their fluidity and all right, they've solved what ailed them? No. Did you? No. No. I'm like, again, not putting Josh Sargent and Brayman at the top of my list to watch for European games on the weekends.

Yeah. Unfortunately. To the extent that I get to watch games live, I'll still try to watch them. Number 12. Reggie Cannon, 22-year-old right back for Boa Vista in Portugal. Thoughts, Greg? This is just going to be another fun little experiment, and I think you see that Boa Vista are splurgeon a little bit of cash.

I think they just made another big signing from MLS. Albert Elise from Houston. So in my mind, two things. One, that's going to be fun to watch. Two, like the big picture kind of message might be that these little selling clubs might be figuring out that there's an untapped, like somewhat untapped market here for MLS or market inefficiency. Yep. Where they pick these guys up cheap and then move them on because they're good enough to move on, even if it's for mid-tier prices later and turn a tidy profit off. them. Yeah. I mean, despite all our problems, and there are many, we are the largest economy in the

world. And I think that does, that does play a part, you know, with Juventus signing West McKinney. There's this idea that there's a market opportunity there. It's not as simple as like selling shirts. It's like a little bit more than that. Biles, I am totally talking about competitive market inefficiency and them just knowing that they're players. I know. I know you are. All right. I didn't know if you thought I was going the selling TV share. Look, if you could buy a $2 million player from the Czech Republic or a $2 million player from the U.S.

who have like exactly the same in your mind potential for a bigger salon fee. Okay. I get you. I get you. You're going to buy the American player. Come on. Because they know there's going to be podcasts talking about the American $2 million player. Yeah, because they know that in minute 37 of the scuff podcast,

It'll be brought up. Should we go to number 13? Let's do it. I mean, Cannon did score a goal in a friendly over the weekend, I believe. And number 13, Anthony Robinson, 23-year-old left back at Fulham, not in the 18 over the weekend. I don't know if that even matters at this point. No, you got to give things a month or so to shakeout with any of these moves. Okay.

If he's not in the 18, a month from now, then we got problems. The issue, I mean, the reason Robinson's so high here is because he's the only true left back kind of in this top tier right now. After Robinson, you're looking at players like Chase Gaspur or Sam Vines or Tim Ream, who's not even a left back, or Sergenio Dest who is more a right back than a left back. So yeah, so Anthony Robinson is going to be the key to whether or not Desk can stay a right back or whether we have to move him to left back. One of the keys. Yeah. There are some other irons in that fire. But as he said, none of those other irons look like they're going to move to the

Premier League eminently. No. And then there's like, you know, there's some irons like very in the distant future fire. But this is a near term discussion. Number 14 is Dwayne Octavius Holmes. That's my guy. 25 years old. Kind of a left wing slash right wing slash attack.

attacking mid slash number eight can play kind of all over the field. Yep, versatile and another one of those spark plug types. Yep. Injured a lot lately, but what ifs? Yeah, misses the championship opener. He's one of our only guys left in the championship, strangely, at the moment. So hopefully he's back on his feet, and it was just the final stages of his recovery. And he'll be back.

When he's back, he plays for Derby, pretty much unquestioned player. So, Dwayne Holmes. number 15, I feel like, is of the same mold. It just has a little bit more of a hype train at the moment. It's back to Pomacall. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe his hype train has been derailed surgically. Yeah, it's, you know, absence does not make the heart grow fonder when it comes to

hyping players. So if you, if you're not playing, then it's hard for people to stay excited about you. And he's not playing. He's out for a long time, right? The rest of this season, maybe back in the spring. and it turns out we haven't really seen him play as a healthy player for a year. Since the France game? Yeah.

It feels like. Yeah. He was so good at that in that game at what he's good at, which is disrupting what the other team does, being secure in possession, finding somebody's feet, occasionally playing an incisive pass. So, I mean, he's, I'm still high on him, but, you know, we'll see. but I would say he's in that same sort of group as the Legit Dwayne Holmes and even a little bit like I guess you'd almost say like that's the Weston McKinney group so you're trying to be you're trying to be that Weston McKinney level player Pomacall's probably a better disruptor than McKinney you know a little a little tougher to dribble past but yeah that's that's a nice that's a nice categorization of Legget Holmes and Pomacall kind of a similar type because there none of them is like a really a true 10 in the No, uh-uh.

In ganche mold, but they're all. But they all seem to be able to make things happen. Yep. All right. 16. DeAndre Yedlin. Okay.

27-year-old right back. He's our legacy right back. Yeah. I mean, he kind of, there isn't that much to say about him. He wasn't in Newcastle's game day squad. Most likely means he's on the move,

hopefully means he's on the move, because it actually seems very unlikely that he plays his way back into their starting 11. He's definitely trended from the 11 to the bench and now out of the squad entirely. So, yes, we're definitely, I'm hoping that we see him in another team's uniform shortly. Yep. Okay, who's number 17? 17, Ulyanas. And some of this is probably coming off the anticipation of his,

all but confirmed move it feels like at this point do heron vain uh... Aaron Vane again we've mentioned this a little bit in our preview last last week do not really have a incumbent left winger they sold off their best attacking player who's their left winger from last season have a kid in there who started this last game who had like no goals no assist last year had an assist in the first game I'm just talking sort of about who you would be competing with right I checked out his game he's not super

impressive. There's nothing he does that looks great. It's a situation where the spot would be there for the taking. So it would be definitely be on Yonnas to do that. But as soon as he's playing games, I think, in racking up a little bit of data, my hope is that that data is good enough that he's right away in the picture as a death option.

I think I'd been saying, like, after that January camp, I would have been comfortable being like, yeah, Yanaz could be our fifth winger. And this will be a chance to sort of see if that can confirm sort of my very quick analysis of it. We were. Yeah. For anyone who's a new listener, we were pretty high on his performance against Costa Rica and that friendly.

He obviously scored the goal on a penalty, but he also did a lot of other good things. He's a technical player, and he's strong, and he's quick, and he has a nose for goal, and he can hit an incisive pass as well. So good with both feet. that excitement is basically just to get him, and he's probably,

he might be rated a little bit too high here, but all that sort of excitement that came with that January camp is like, oh, this would be another good guy to play if some of our other top four attackers get hurt. Right. Top four wingers are hurt or unavailable. And sometimes they will be. Mm-hmm.

Cool, sick, not in uniform today. Right. For Chelsea. Chelsea's number 10. All right. Number 18. And here we're going to throw in. a little bit of a scuffed wrinkle,

a little bit of a plot twist. There's a nine-way tie at number 18. Nine-way tie, and they all happen to be, wild coincidence here, they all happen to be non-John-Brook centerbacks. Yeah. Because, go ahead, go ahead, Greg. No, just, no, you take this.

Well, because at a certain point, it feels silly to try to say, like, Matt Miazga is better than Miles Robinson or Aaron Long or, you know, I mean, they're all, we don't know. We don't know who the best right centerback is. We don't even know who the second best left centerback is. I think that's probably Tim Ream, but I put this on Twitter the other day. Like who should start next to John Brooks at right centerback? And I don't know.

I got like 100 answers and they were all different. Like there's no consensus on this. somebody's going to be mad no matter who we put as the starting right back. I mean, starting right center back. So I think we should just all acknowledge it's a little bit unknown at this point. Nobody has separated himself. Yeah. And to be honest, though, the one good thing here is, at least for me, is I'm not, I wouldn't

be mad if any of them were on the team sheet. I'm not mad that Aaron Long seems to have the spot sort of in Greg Burrhalter's mind at the moment. I think the floor that Aaron Long sets is just fine until, again, until someone sort of makes it clear that they are ahead of him. Should we run through the nine names here we've got in the nine-way tie? Yeah, well, before we do that,

the reason, I think the argument for Aaron Long, I've never heard Greg Burhalter make this argument, but it makes sense to me, is that he is athletic and strong and fast and just sort of like a cleaner-upper defender. He's not a perfect defender, but he's a pretty good defender. He's really not good with the ball at his feet. But that complements, you know, that set of skills or like lack of ability

sort of compliments Brooks well because Brooks is not as mobile as he could be. And he is a very good passer, really good with the ball at his feet. So you're going to need somebody like Aaron Long next to John Brooks if you're starting John Brooks at left centerback. All right. I'm going to read, I'm going to read, I'm going to rattle off the nine. names quick bells and then I want you to tell me who else is of the Aaron Long mold all right okay all right so we got Aaron Long we got Miles Robinson Matt Miazka

Tim Ream who I think we probably all agree is more the backup left back than a candidate to play alongside John Brooks right that feels like a nightmare right Chris Richards which maybe makes some eyebrows raised Eric Palmer Brown Mark McKenzie Cameron Carter Vickers Walker Zimmerman of those nine guys, who else fits the Aaron Long, nice compliment to John Brooks' description? Okay, the power rankings for the Aaron Long mold go as follow. Are we even sure the Aaron Long tops those power rankings? No, no, we're not. So I won't power rank them.

I'll just say, yeah, Miles Robinson, Chris Richards, Cameron Carter Vickers, and Walker Zimmerman are the ones most clearly in that mold for me. McKenzie is not as good of a, not as natural of a defender as those guys, I don't think, even though he's probably better on the ball than most of them. Eric Palmer Brown, I think he's maybe the closest shout among those I mentioned. That you left out? That I left out, yeah.

Matt Miazga's not fast enough to be in that mold. Tim Rieb, obviously not fast enough. And, I mean, Cameron Carter Vickers is just an absolute bowl. of a bull in a china shop. But, yeah. As long as you just ask him to play the easy passes. Yeah. Like he can accomplish that.

He's not, he doesn't have to hoof the ball upfield. I mean, he can pass as well as Aaron Long, right? I mean, Aaron, it's a super low bar for, like, passing out of the back that Aaron Long sets. I think Zimmerman is very similar to Long in that way. They're both pretty good on set pieces, like, as a threat. but Zimmerman takes kind of like risks that he shouldn't take. Yes, right?

And Long doesn't take those risks. Zimmerman watches what Brooks does and is like, I got this. Yeah, and then it's all of a sudden it's 3-0 Mexico. Okay, no, I think I pretty much agree with that, so we're waiting to see if any of the kids can match the athleticism, provide the athleticism, but then, you know, like outperform in the passing category. to see if we can get that upgrade. I think McKenzie, just as a side note,

I think McKenzie is probably the third left centerback in my depth chart, because that's where he plays for Philadelphia, and he can hit a really good pass with his left foot. So even though he's right-footed, he's ambifurous. I'll, I don't even know if I dissent, but Eric Palmer Brown also gets a lot of left centerback minutes in Austria, and he also does a lot of, like, the passing, the passing.

Forward passing. I mean, he basically has to say he does forward passing. So I think he'll find his way into that discussion maybe after an Olympic camp or two. Yeah, it's just tough, man. And to really differentiate. So here's my question then. The guy that doesn't get mentioned a lot from our conversation just now, but a lot of people would maybe call, would even want to be the starting right centerback, is Matt Miazga. Does Miazga have a way in then if you have to have, is he fast enough to be the,

the John Brooks compliment or is it too, does he leave us too vulnerable? I think it's suboptimal, but not a disaster. Okay. To have his speed next to Brooks's.

All right. Well, there we go. Yeah. I don't, there's not, I don't have much to add we talk about, I feel like we've talked

about the centerback conundrum enough that we should just lampshade it and throw in the nine-way tie. It probably means, it probably means a couple of guys get rated a little bit lower than they might have if it had been a straight boat accumulation.

but not terribly, not terribly low. Another name that people bring up is Ike O'Para, who I saw some folks really liking that tweet that Jason Davis wrote about him being the healthy Iko Paro being the ideal partner for Brooks. I don't know, it seems like the ship has sailed. I don't know, it doesn't seem like a real possibility. I think one other thing I wanted to address with centerbacks

is this idea that we should play three at the back. Oh, sure. That comes up a lot on, the internet that we have so many centerbacks we should play three at the back ones i'm like no we have so many centerbacks because we have no clear very good center back to partner with john brooks we don't it's not that we have so many good ones why would we play three centerbacks just so we can take like one of geo reina or timmy way off the off the field or or sebastian legett or josh sergeant it doesn't it doesn't yeah three at the back doesn't make sense man the only way that that that keeps legs

that that line of thinking would keep its legs is if you think that you're taking Jackson Ewell off and playing a three that way. So you're replacing Jackson Ewell with, and then you've got to find another like distribute. So you'd be trying to replace his distribution with another distributing centerback. Yeah. For me. I don't love it. And I don't think we have anybody like that.

I mean, McKenzie's the closest thing. And he's, you know, he's still very young and he's still, if you watch his games, he still makes, he takes some risks he shouldn't take, make some passes. that go to the wrong team in the wrong area of the field. Right. If you're just making that change solely to try to keep distribution in, I think you, in that situation, I'd go the Burralter route and like keep the luxury spot for more of a, like, real distributor.

Right. Not someone who's good at distributing for a centerback. Right. All right. There's our nine-way tie. We're up to number 27, Bells. Take it. Your favorite.

Timmy Chandler. Timmy Chandler, a 30-year-old right-back slash right-wing for Eintrach Frankfurt. I'm just putting it here so I don't get yelled at. That's it. That's the only reason. I'm still curious. I'm still curious to see what you can do. Yeah, it seems, it'll, I think it'll feel less and less like we even really need to have him get a runout.

But that'll kind of depend on what other right-back options do. If for some reason, Reggie Cannon isn't breaking through at Boa Vista and Yedlin finds himself without a squad and Timmy Chandler's still getting minutes as a wide player in in Frankfurt then I think you'd really have to look in the mirror. Well, let's take a hard look in the mirror and say, is it time? Is it time for you to come around? Okay. I promise to look in the mirror if that happens.

Number 28, Nico Joaquini. I think this is mostly because of my vote. I think you really like this guy. There's quite a delta between Greg and I on a few of these. Pax and Pomacol was another one. Greg rated him a lot more highly than I did for what it's worth. Joe Aquini scored over the weekend in League of 2, Liga D. I just want to point out that means that I had Pomacol as a better player in the top 40.

Right. The higher and lower gets confusing here. Yeah, I had him, yeah, I had him like in the like around 30 or something and you had him like what, around 12. Yeah, I like him. Joe Keeney was the opposite. I rated him closer to the top, and you rated him closer to the bottom. To me, he's similar to Zardis, Zardis, and his movement,

and that is a compliment. I think Jazi's artist moves very, very well for a striker, and he's probably a little more assured in the holdup and as a result of the buildup. Just want to keep an eye on him. He's only 20. He plays for Khan in France's second division. and he's had a really good couple of years here,

and hopefully he can take the next step. Right. I don't have anything against him. I basically grouped him with a bunch of other young, somewhat promising Josie Altador replacements. Yep. 29. Who you got? It's the everyone's favorite wildcard Jackson Ewell,

who is, I guess, I guess it's a nice compromise because he'll end up being like 11th, if he is able to perform in the way that it seems like Greg Burhalter is wanting him to perform because he'll be our starting player. And if he can't do that, then he basically drops out of the pool altogether. Yeah, he fits a very specific mold that we all know about, but hasn't had a great season. And, of course, the problem with starting him is you have to, that would keep one of Raina, Morris. Yeah, legit. off the field.

Am I call if he gets healthy? Right. So that's what I mean. The bar that Ewell is going to have to clear with his passing is, I think, going to have to be really high. Or again, he's not a clear backup to anyone. The other thing I'll say for him is he could be a roster guy because you don't always want, we probably talk about us, you don't always want to bring like for

like replacements for tournaments. Like you want a guy who's like, okay, well, in this situation, we want to do this. You don't just want to bring someone who's slightly worse at the things you already have. You want to be able to, you know, it's not always injury replacements. It's scenarios too. So if we're up against this kind of team that plays this style, we need this kind of player, not just a slightly worse version of Tyler Adams. Right.

Okay. I never thought of it that way, but makes sense. I don't think we have talked about that, Greg. You just broke some news here. Number 30 is Julian Araujo, the 19-year-old right back at the LA Galaxy. I'd say he's steadily improving. He's finally getting minutes at right back for the galaxy

with Efra Alvarez at right wing. Very physical and conscientious defender. I think it's kind of fun to watch him defend because he seems to really relish it. Yeah, he's chippy, isn't he? He's going to like, he's looking for that contact. Yeah, he got into it with Chez Salinas last night. So as long as he can rain in any afters

and rain himself in once he's sort of on a yellow card. And I don't know if we've seen any evidence that he can't. Maybe we have. Maybe there's some games where he should have been. Then it makes you more comfortable going into those Conca Calf away games where people are trying to bait you. And, you know, it's really intense. So I think I have him really high.

This might be one where I have him higher, but it's, no, we were probably close. I like this one because with Cannon gone now and potentially in October camp, we'll have to see if that happens. That's allegedly going to be MLS guys. And then the January camp that's going to be MLS guys, Arajo becomes sort of like at or near the top of that call-up list for me. I would say, yeah, the caution on him is he's not super technical,

like, especially, like, so he can, he has done some good stuff in the attack. I think he has two or three assists over the last month. but he's not you know how desk can like receive the brawl in stride and he's not we can't compare guys to desk you have to compare i mean like quite honestly you have to compare him to canon or yedlin i think canon is even more technical than arahou i don't know if yedlin is okay it's close i like that arraho and i think canon's really similar here wants to do the combination stuff which i think can go a long way with with what we're trying to do how we're trying to play like he's looking for it he's looking for those uh

you know, movements in harmony with Efra or with legit when they all end up on that right side. And so that's promising. That's good to see. Yeah. He doesn't just want to stay out there, collect the ball with time, and whip a ball into the box. Right. He's a likable. He's a likable player.

He, uh, top top mentality, as they say. 31. Jaze's artist. Jaze's artist. Another big delta between us. I think I rated him, uh, more, I gave him a better rating than you did. I probably underrated him here.

And well, I'll defend it this way. I don't even know if he was in my top boy. I had him at my like 45. And it still goes back to with how we're trying to play, like I just don't think he fits. And so the only way he stays on is if it's that sort of UL situation where it's like, okay, but we need a guy in case we have to play this way, and Zardez is the only guy who can do that.

And I just don't think Zardez is the only guy who can, play in like the non-possession way. So if we're going to abandon possession, I don't think Zardez is the only guy who can do that. Certainly not in a way that would justify using an entire roster spot on that kind of play. And so then it just comes down to if he's basically like an actual zero in the possession game, then he doesn't have a spot. It's like Anthony Robinson when we were running in 2019 with a stay-at-home left back.

You don't call up Anthony Robinson and start him in a game. if you're going to play a stay-at-home left-back, that's how baffling it was to me to have Giazzi Zardaz constantly called up, constantly starting, in a system that requires intricate forward possession play. Yeah. I feel like it was that extreme of a misfit. Yeah.

Yeah, I think, so who else do you bring on if you're going to abandon possession and just like try to score on the counterattack besides Zardis? I mean, Waya could do it. Jordan Morris. Like at that point, that is Jordan Morris. You know, we could run way out there. You could run.

I don't know that Josh Sargent has to be part of a, I don't know that he could do that as well as Zardas. But again, we're talking about a full roster spot in a tournament. I don't know if you bring up, if you have that spot for a chaser. Okay. 32. Another 29-year-old forward. Christian Ramirez. Greg, you're responsible for this one largely.

So I think I lumped Ramirez in with a bunch of forwards who I do think can play possession. Like Ramirez wants to make that pass. We had a highlight a couple, maybe a week ago. I don't know. I'm else the games are happening so fast it's impossible to keep track of when they've happened. But he's the guy who you can like fireball into his feet. And on his first touch with a defender on his back, like slip a weighted pass in behind for a winger running past him. And he loves to do that.

Yeah. and and like he can get into the box and make those runs that we don't always feel like we get from Jesus Ferreira or or even I mean to an extent Josh Sargent we feel like isn't ruthless enough in the box like Ramirez is that guy he does like know where to arrive in the box and win so that's one of those things where I feel like as an all-round player for what we're trying to run even as sort of a mediocre overall type forward in the global sense like Ramirez is mediocre with his strengths in ways. that fit better than Zardes, who's mediocre, who's got some elite MLS strengths, but they're not the right fits for what we're trying to do. That's my Ramirez. I like Ramirez. Number 33 is Darrell Dike, a new entrant to the list.

I think this is the first one who make his debut on the top 40. Scratch that, I have no idea. DK's huge. He's like 6.3-220 or something like that. Big frame, good in the hold-up, gives the ball firm corporal punishment whenever he gets a chance. And I think we just got to add him to a confusing striker pool.

He's played that well for Orlando. Yeah, he's played really well. And he's kind of who I'd lump in with Giackeen and a couple other guys where it's like, he makes you perk up a little bit and figure out if, again, we do have this Alta door replacement. If someone's going to come along and actually be at that high of a level, and with DK, the sample size is way too small to say that,

but the sample isn't too small to get a runout in a all-MLS international camp. Right. And those camps already have massive asterisks by them. So let's not, let's not like stand on circumstance and say, we got to only pick guys who've proven it for years. like let's take a look. Let's see what we got. 34.

James Sands, 20-year-old defensive midfielder slash centerback. I just think he's a very, very effective defensive midfielder, probably second only to Adams at that specific role in the pool. He is not much of a passer, not much of a forward passer, I guess, you should say, less so than Adams even. but you know the argument against him is like he totally doesn't fit burrhalter's system but we don't know how wedded burrhalter is to that system hopefully not that wedded because as we discussed earlier it's it's a system that sort of is predicated on the presence

of jackson yule in the starting 11 well i hope he's wedded to it as much as long as it's doing really well. I hope if it's worth looking good, we're like, yes, this is working. Let's, let's have this at least as one of our options. But if it's, yeah, if it's struggling, I think he'll, I think he'll be quick to pull the plug on at least that particular part of his system. So Sands doesn't fit now, but, but yeah, if the plug is pulled to any extent, he could be a very useful national team player. 35. Johnny Cardoso. Now he does fit the mold, right? Southern atmosphere. Yes, he is,

he is more or less exactly the mold. 18-year-old midfielder at Internacional, big, big club in Brazil. That doesn't play a lot of 18-year-olds typically, right? Right, and we'll have to, again, we'll have to see how much 18-year-old minutes he gets, I think his minutes so far

in the league have been a bit COVID-influenced, but there are minutes nonetheless. It's nice to actually have some videotape of him playing the center mid-roll. He can hit the, diagonal pass, right? Sort of. Yeah, but he still doesn't.

So we might even be jumping the gun here saying that he fits this role because he doesn't do it very often. He's still mostly knocking it from not basically knocking it to his centerback. So he drops in deep with them in possession and then he hits it to a centerback. That's still the lion's share of what he's doing. Yeah. It's not a lot. It's not a lot of fun to put those comps together.

I've been for a walk. So he's got, I think he's got a lot of buzz, but I think people need to at least like appreciate that he's not. doing a lot of exciting passing. Like he's not Javi Alonzo back there, knocking these 70-yard diagonals. Yeah. Okay. Number 36.

And before we say, go to number 36, I just want to say, like, the unproven youngster is sort of becoming a dying breed in the top 40. There aren't as many of those. There are a few, I will admit. As Oolian has tracks the top 20. Right. Oli is a big exception. There are a couple others that we're going to get to.

here momentarily. But yeah, I think that's a good sign. Maybe it's just a sign that I'm becoming more realistic about things. But it's also just a sign that there are more players proving themselves at the professional level, even than there were 12 months ago. And that's, that's partly why there are going to be fewer of these youngsters showing up in the top 40. Well, one of the big ones just went from an unproven youngster to a proven youngster in short order in the Geo Raina top six mode. Has he scored yet today? I don't know. Should we check?

Should we do a live update for people who are, there's no audience that would serve after thinking about it for two seconds? Yeah. So there's fewer, just fewer of those. Yeah, Rana went from unproven to proven. I think a lot of people still think of Wea as unproven. and I guess you can make that argument, but... Way on Richards, I think, would be the other guys. Yeah.

But Richards, again, he's playing professionals. He's playing at a... I know it's the three-lega, but he has professional minutes. A lot of guys still unproven for the international level, as we say, and as we will be saying through this entire cycle, up until we've got eight hex games under our belts. I forgot to mention about Richards that, like, so people will say, you're crazy.

Somebody like Final Third, Ty, will say, say you're crazy for even like putting him in this conversation. Snavely was on that, on that angle too. Oh yeah, both those guys. And I think it's, I think it's a reasonable thing to say.

It is, but like, do we really think he's not as good as Aaron Long? Like, how do we know? How do you know that? I think Snavely made the really good point that, uh,

we basically know who Aaron Long is. So we don't know that Chris Long isn't better than Aaron Long. It's Snavely didn't say. He just said we know who Aaron Long is. No one has any idea. who Chris Richards will be in a U.S. World Cup qualifier tomorrow. And I think that's very fair. We don't necessarily know that Richards isn't better than Aaron Long,

but we know what Long's floor is, and Richard's floor in a game like that could be below Aaron Long's. Are you saying that no, there's just simply no way that Chris Richards would, you know, have a- Like have a holler. Yeah, just have a shocker. I think we have enough tape on Richard's, to know that he's not going to have like a big shocker.

I mean. Any more so than what we saw Omar Gonzalez, Jeff Cameron, or Tim Rame have through the last cycle. You know what I mean? We had shockers even with those, even with those vets. We can argue about the level of the three legal, three league like where does it fit in the whole? I won't have that argument. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I'm just saying that argument can be had, but like we've seen him play. We've seen him play a little bit for Byron, a little tiny bit. I think he's, I don't think we're going to get some big horrible surprise if he played for the national team. I don't think that. That's mostly where I'm at which is why I had no problem throwing him in in the nine-way tie with guys with, you know, I think C-CV at this point is like 7,000 championship minutes. Right. Well, okay. Did you find anything out about Raina?

Dorman or cruising, but from what I can tell, Raina doesn't have any assists. So he's probably going to be benched. All right. Number 36. We got five more to do here. Number 36 is Efraín Alvarez, the 18-year-old center midfielder slash right-wing for the galaxy. Now, obviously, there's a big asterisk here. He plays for the Mexican youth setup.

But he's a native of Los Angeles. He's an American young man. And he could still play for the U.S. if we made a play for him, which I think we should do. He's still young. He still can't defend very well. but boy oh boy when he gets the ball at his feet in the final third like stuff happens good stuff happens he can he can score he can hit like assist alazos i mean he plays these passes like he played a pass last night that was just like disgusting and and he also is really good at

hitting that uh that sort of a killer pass that sets up the killer pass yeah where he draws people in and then slips people in and i think he he put felcher in position to get an assist a couple of games back where he draws people to him enough but keeps his angle exactly where he wants it to to play that guy in on the run into that man city assist zone and i just i think it's again people will say we're rushing here he's only got so however many starts now but i think this season he might have more starts than jonathan lewis so it's you know again we're just the we're in this speculative area we're in this speculative uh transition period where there's just nothing wrong with throwing a call up to an effort alvarez with again all these camps that already have asteris built in like let's bring him in he's he's one of the few left-footed guys we could throw on that right wing and play that inverted role until until kenny seff becomes available and we have a November European camp that's a thing really really fussy that you your vote kept Kenny seff out of the top 40 by the way you're pretty you're pretty fussy about that I was going to make sure that I spoke about him one way or the other

Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing is Alvarez is such a perfect fit for a tucked in right winger because he has this amazing left foot. And I don't know that we have anybody even in the pipeline close to him. The other thing, I got a long ways to go as a player. Yeah, of course. Of course.

I got two questions. But again, so do a lot of the guys who we would call in in his place for an MLS on the camp. If we're talking about Jonathan Lewis, if we're talking about, I don't know, Chris Mueller. I mean, my questions here are, would FFRA Alphrez have to file a one-time switch then to play in a friendly for the U.S.? I don't know for sure. I thought if you played in the U-20 in a competitive U-20 fixture, then you would have to file a one-time switch. I'm not sure if the same is true of a U-17 fixture. And so he hasn't played for the U-20s in Mexico yet.

Okay. So I guess we'll crowdsource that one. And then number two, what was my second one, Bells? I had two. Was it, is he likely to switch? Oh, no, no, no. It was going to be this because is he actually, like, not good at defending or is he not able to defend? Because I feel like people, that's sort of the charge against him.

I feel like there's maybe a little bit of like stereotyping, just like, like, thinly veiled racism in that claim. Because, you know, because he's a playmaking. Latino player. Yeah. There may be a little of that. He just looks, he just looks a little like, like he doesn't quite know where he's supposed to press. Okay.

And, you know, he's not, he's not like a one, he's not, you know how I said Julian Araujo is super conscientious and seems to relish the chance to go one, be one with somebody. Think about the, like the other side of the continuum. And there you have, Efra Alvarez. It's like, he's doing it, but does he really want to be doing it? No. I know I've seen, I've seen sort of that criticism of him. I just didn't know if it was actually based on people watching him play and defend,

or if it was just sort of one of those fallbacks where it's like, oh, we got a Latino playmaker, really technical, really skillful, but doesn't defend. So I was just curious. I will say, I appreciated Matt Doyle's shout out in one of his columns last week about us using the phrase in the cage going into the cage. I think Alvarez is actually pretty good in the cage. Like he's ball secure. He's strong on the ball.

If he goes into a 50-50, like there's a good chance he's coming away with it. he just has, you know, he just has that familiarity with the ball and that, that knack for keeping it. So. Okay. So there's a, there's a long spell on Efra and sort of all that he embodies. Let's go to number 37, which is another one of your guys. Richie Ledesma, number 20.

I mean, he's 20, 20 years old, center midfielder for young PSV right now. It's harder for me to keep Richie on the list, but I, I thought about, you know, changing my vote to, like, push him off of the top 40, but he is. But he is playing pretty well, and he's got this sort of unique ability to break a game open. Definitely true of Efra Alvarez, truer of Efra Alvarez than it is of Richie Ledesma, I think. But anyway, that's a valuable and rare ability. We'll see. You know, if he's still not breaking in at PSV by the time we do the next one of these,

it's going to be tough for me to stick to my Richie Ledesma guns. Okay. All right. Well, if he's still, like, producing at Young PSV, which he is, he's got an assist today, scored, I mean, he took a penalty in the last game, so whatever. But I had a nice little assist today. If he's still producing those moments, even for Young PSV, I think it keeps him, I think it still keeps him in the discussion.

Certainly for the Olympic roster, yeah. Yeah. And then it'll just come down to, you know, how many other depth options do we have? Because we'll get to another one of those sort of center mid types here, the second but first number 38 Jeremy Aboubesey 23 year old forward for the Portland timbers not a ton to say about him but he's just a goal scorer who works his butt off without the ball five goals to assist in MLS this season I still think he's really clean technically so again more of the connecting type of forward than then sort of the sort of the opposite of what we're

getting from Zardes so yeah so again if he's if he can do those things which I think he's very tidy at, and he is really good in the box, which all those headed goals, I think, suggests that he is, getting into good places and, you know, creating little spaces for himself to get to a ball. Then that sets him up along with some of those other interesting forwards as a good Josie replacement. Yep. All right, let's get to that center mid who's going to be a sort of indirect competition

with Ledesma types for center mid-depth. 39. Number 39 is Brendan Aronson, 19 years old. mid. I think he's perhaps a little overrated by the fan base, but he is widely considered one of the top young players in MLS and is a constant transfer target, rumor target. He scored a nice goal last week, thrashed one. I don't think he has the, I don't think he has the, I don't think he has the flare that

Ledesma has. I mean, he does actually have flare. I don't think he has the incisiveness that Ledesma has, but he is playing at a higher level, no doubt. And Philadelphia is a pretty good team. So number 39, Brennan-A-Andson. And this is another good one where because of some of the other guys who have emerged like Giorina, we're now in position where we just need Aronson and Ldesma to just

battle it out through like Olympic qualifying camps and just sort of see who emerges where we don't have, you don't have to invest in one or the other. You can just be like, oh, this is good. We'll get a look. Whereas before we were doing this and we had. some clear holes in our senior team 11. It was like, we need these guys now. Pick one now.

We have game tomorrow. You have to have one of these guys show up. And now I feel like we bought ourselves a little time, which is what a healthy national team program has, to let the sort of youth options really kind of emerge on their own sort of more naturally. Right. Last one. And we got to run.

All right. My guy, Shaqmore. Yeah. Not a lot. Not a lot to add. He's their starter for the start of the Segunda. I'm still just enjoying that he, in my mind, should be back in the picture. Yeah.

And I think you made a good point last week. Like, do we really know that he's that much worse than Reggie Cannon? We don't. He's had good games for the national team. Like, every time he's played the national team, he's been fine. So he's got sort of a body of work at the U.S. men's national team friendly level to suggest that he can, he can, hold his own.

All right. Okay. Gallegos didn't make it this time. Yeah. Gallegos is not, he's not doing enough in USL for me to keep him on the list. He made it, he snuck in at the bottom of it last time. Jesus Ferreira. I think we artificially put him in last time just because it was exciting.

Jesus Ferreira. Yeah, I just don't. I don't see it. Okay, because that one's you. I've got him pretty high. I feel like he's right there with all the other guys who could compete for that sort of number nine or false nine roll for us and then got some minutes today for me bobby wood yeah yeah not you're not gonna you're not gonna you're not gonna budge on bobby wood yet i'll have to i'll have to watch

the clips from that game they they will come okay i mean others others who we who didn't get in here were eric williamsson's been playing well for portland in the midfield john lucubusio's made this this transition to the number six uh and so someone someone someone will say hey why why you Richie Ledesma in, but not these guys who are, like, making an impact in first team soccer. I'm saying, well, it's my podcast. Vines and Gasper, and to a lesser extent at this point, Gloucester, has sort of that left back. Next in line, to be next in line. Ricardo Pepe.

Oh, yeah. You had him rated like a hundred and 90th or something. No, I just threw a number on him because our list is so long that I needed to just throw numbers next to guys who were actually being considered. Yeah. I just don't, I think Pepe, Pepe has a shout. but I would like to see some consistent sort of output from him. So I'm sure there are names we have missed.

Address any questions and concerns to at final third minus the eye on Twitter or Matt Doyle. If you have any complaints, take them to those guys. They're ready to service you. And anything else, Greg? No, well done. another top 40 in the books. Okay. Thanks everybody for listening.

We'll see you.