Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 143: USMNT vs El Tri, position by position

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

We watched El Tri so you didn’t have to, and we have some reports. Also, a wishlist of players we would have liked to see in a domestic October camp. 0:30 Mexico vs USMNT first choice XIs26:45 MANSCAPED is sponsoring this episode! Go to manscaped.com, enter the code “scuffed” and get 20% off and free shipping. We are fans of the product. Blessings on you if you act on this.31:30 MLS players who would have been nice to see in a USMNT camp in October, and big news from the last three weeksThanks to all our supporters on Patreon. Big thanks.  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 and Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Thanks for downloading this episode of Scuffed. Mexico, our rival, and the key subject of the first half of this podcast, beat the Netherlands 1-0 and a penalty from Raul Jimenez, and then they drew Algeria 2-2 with goals from Tecateo and Diego Lines yesterday. Greg, let's see how we measure up before we get into some good U.S. men's national team news and a sort of a wish list of MLS players we wish had been in a non-existent October-friendly camp. The old faded October camp. So, yeah, so Burrhalter had mentioned a while back that we were going to go for an October domestic camp and a November European camp.

I was fussy when the October camp was canceled because it seemed obvious that there was no way a domestic camp would work. At this point, though, it probably is better that we didn't play any October camp at all, as we're seeing some of the consequences from some of the European teams and South American teams that were able to get some games into the October window. We'll get into that later, I'm sure. Yeah, the virus is out there. It's out there, you guys.

So I didn't pay as much attention to the Algeria game as I did to the Netherlands game, so my comments are going to be more focused on the Netherlands game, but it was basically a first-choice Mexico squad in that. match against a good Dutch squad, maybe not a first choice one. And let me just give the Mexico lineup, because I think other than Caesar Montez at right centerback and Rodolfo Pizarro at left wing, or right wing, he was kind of switching sides, and the goalkeeper, it was pretty much a first choice Mexico lineup,

and it's what we're likely to see in a World Cup qualifier. Pizarro and Corona, that's Takedito on the wings. Jimenez at Stryker, the Wolf's star. Guardado, Herrera, and Alvarez in the midfield, I think that's their midfield for sure, and it's the engine of the team. Jesus, Gallardo, Hector Moreno, Montez, the forementioned,

who's in a battle with Nestor O'Ralho for that spot at right centerback, and then Chaka Rodriguez at right back. Chaka Rodriguez may not be the right back forever there, but it seems like it's his job right now, and he's steady as she goes and then Talavera at goalkeeper who I thought played well against the netline and so overall Greg

how would you say Mexico looks I thought Mexico looked good they're entertaining to watch and my my main conclusion is that they are going to pretty well steamroll through Kanka Gaff over the next 18 months yeah I was impressed too to have that basic high level of quality

across the board we're talking about that off air a little bit. Why don't you say something about that because you said it well? Yeah. I mean, what really stands out is that there is a pretty clear baseline of competence, technically especially. So everywhere on the field, guys look like they're in total control of the ball in their bodies, which is something that we can't take for granted as fans of the US ones national team. And then along with that, in no small part because of who their current manager is, there's also this pretty clear coherence

within the team. So they are definitely sort of like moving as one unit. That's what makes them so entertaining. They are constantly threatening. Even when they don't have the ball, you see the way they swarm to it. And it does. It just feels like this very modern,

modern-looking team, which you don't always get in the international game. Sometimes the international game doesn't lend itself well to sort of taking on the most have modern tactics, but Mexico, Mexico look at, they look apart. Yeah. Yeah, coherence is a good word. Identity.

I can throw some other buzzwords in there. Style, they do have a good style. Let me let Tata Martino, the MLS champion, explain it himself. Quote, we can have changes in the system, but what we aren't going to negotiate is the team's style and the style is to try to play out from the back, try to attack, and press high. we try to sustain that independent of the system used because they used two different formations in these games. They used a 433 against the Netherlands

and 3 slash 5 at the back against Algeria. Anyway, that quote comes from ESPN's Tom Marshall, an indispensable follow if you want to track El-Tree, and I certainly do. No, it's funny because the way Mexico play, when I'm watching that Netherlands game, is the way that I hope the U.S. is moving towards playing. And I think it would fit our personnel well.

And then the other bit is what struck me is the similarities between that Mexico Netherlands game and the U.S. Mexico-friendly from back in September, even though that outcome wasn't quite as lopsided. And they'd been a gameplay wasn't quite as lopsided. I thought there were a lot of similarities. It could have been quite a bit more lopsided. I mean, Takedito. Well, let's just talk about the position. So the shtick here is we're going to go position by position Who we believe is the first choice Mexican player

versus the first choice American player And who's got the edge? Exactly. So let's start with Tecotito versus Pulisic. I would say the headline of this camp It was, for Mexico fans, was that Tecateo was really good. This is the same guy who famously nutmeged Serginio Dess to set up a Chichorito goal and that friendly.

He had a, a banner year at Porto last season with 21 assists in all competitions that's a lot of assists luckily assists are noisy and mean nothing no he well okay and then um he was a Portuguese league's player of the year I don't know if that's just like a beer company thing or whatever but and he was probably a man in the match for Mexico against the Netherlands very fun to watch toyed with the Dutch fullbacks one of whom is an atalanta player and so he was probably a man in the started Nations League matches against Poland and Italy. He was excellent everywhere, except in front of goal.

He missed a few chances. Go ahead, cue Greg, with the, that's noisy comment. His chances are noisy and don't mean it. I'm going to say you still give Pulisic the edge as a winger over Takedito, especially pandemic Pulisic, the one we saw in this late spring, early summer for Chelsea. But it's a lot closer than most fans would like to admit. I think that's probably fair. I also am going to undermine our shtick, like, immediately.

And because in my mind what I'm thinking of is not necessarily Tecotito versus Pulcic, but my mind immediately goes to Tecotito, again, running at Sergino Dest or running at Anthony Robinson, if Robinson ends up being our left back, or any of the other left back candidates. And whoever that left back is defensively against Tecotito offensively, Tecateo has got a pretty clear edge. But yes, as we compare 11s, I think you do still get Pulisic and then an edge. Yeah. I do think Dest will, you know, Dest will not have forgotten that moment and hopefully will come correct if he does end up playing left back. And, you know, elite, Sergenio has an elite mentality. We all know that. Yes. All right. Slight edge for the U.S. against one of Mexico's best

players. That's not bad. That's not a bad start. Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing is, you could put Takedo versus Pulisic or Lozano versus Pulisic. Pulisic gets the edge but let's go to the other wing because no matter who you put there Mexico has the edge whether it's Tecateo or Lozano or we're going to say Lozano I guess

in this case or even Rodolfo Pizarro That one's going to get a little more controversial but let's do Lozano let's say Lozano yeah for sure he wasn't in this camp but he's there he's going to be the starting winger opposite Tecateo

versus either Jordan Morris or Tim Wea. We've got to give it to Lazzano, right? Yeah, I think so. And part of it still goes to the fact, and the reason I think you would want to say Pizarro even might have the edge, I think part of that is sort of shaded by the fact that Mexico are so confident and so coherent so that everyone kind of, it's that rising tide sort of lifting all boats. Rodolfo Pizarro clowned us in the friendly.

He's not some otherworldly talent. He's a really good player. But, you know, when you're playing in that kind of system where everyone's playing well together, you're going to look better too. So that's where, you know, I don't know if we're going to get a bunch of people saying, no, Jordan Morris is playing out of his mind and he's better than Losano. But I think you still give the edge individually to Lozano 1B1, like Lozano versus Morris as players. And then when you kind of know that Mexico are already clicking, I mean, we really should pull up the stats. somebody posted Mexico's stats since Tata's taken over. It's pretty outrageous what they're doing.

They lost like one or two games, that won against Argentina most notably. It's like 17 wins, three draws. So anyway, they're clicking. And so when you have a Lozano type in a system that's playing really well, I think that's the edge right there. Yeah. I mean, Pizarro hasn't been all that impressive for Inter-Miamy, I don't think. I'm not a close follower of them, but.

But yeah, he did go for that David Beckham payday, and maybe that hurts his stock a little bit long term. But he did, like he said, he looked really good against the U.S. the last couple times we played them. Anyway, edge to Mexico at the opposite wing. Let's go to Stryker, Rolouh Jimenez versus Josie, Josh. I never noticed that those were all gifed. You didn't have that yet?

All right, yeah, we select positions by phonemes. Oh, B. Yeah, that's right. Raul didn't have his best game against the Netherlands, but he did draw and score on a somewhat soft penalty call for the game winner, in my opinion, soft. In general, I don't think if there's anyone who would disagree, he's a better number nine than any of the U.S. options.

It's pretty clear. We'd take him in a heartbeat. He also had a nice assist for Diego Lines yesterday. Yes. An assist that one of, you know, I would be very pleased to see from, say, Christian Pulisic or Gio Raina and he's the nine so he does a lot of things well. Central midfield. Yeah.

We're going to go to like the box to box midfield because I think this is like this is the head-to-head position battle where I think we're going to see it the most clearly, you know, two people who play the same position where you're going to see them go mono-imano. And this is Hector Herrera versus Westa McKenney. Herrera's old. I think he's 30 now. He looks he looks older than that. Seems like he's been around for a long.

time. I give the edge to Herrera. Every time I see him play, I'm impressed, man. I don't know why he can't get minutes at, I'd let it go on Madrid. I mean, it's a big club, so, you know, minutes are going to be hard to come by, but he's seen so much. He's such a leader for Eltree, and he played well against Holland. I don't know that I've ever seen him play badly. And he's a true all-action midfielder, good tackler, good passer, smart, physical. It doesn't matter if McKinney plays for Juventus. He has a lot to prove to be better than Herrera. If he does manage to be better than Herrera in a match against Mexico, man, we're in business.

So this is going to be the first one I dissent on Bells. I'm going to say that we are in business. And it's not because McKenny's playing for you, Ventus. This is me taking a little bit of a leap of faith on what I think Burrall is going to be doing here. And I think McKenny is finally going to be put in a situation where he's going to be extremely comfortable and well-use. And so I think it's good. We're going to see McKinney shine for the U.S. I don't know what his event as future holds,

whether he's going to continue to play his way into the rotation or if we're going to see his role drop off a bit. But for the U.S., I think he's in, obviously. And I think that I think Burrhalter is going to get the most out of him using the way I'm expecting him to be used. It's so interesting, our long-term role reversals here from you being a merchant of doom and me being a merchant of hope

to the other way around. You love to see it. Yeah, I don't know. I don't believe in that yet. I mean, I love West McKinney. I'm one of the biggest West McKinney supporters there is. But, yeah, Herrera, I need to see, I need...

McKinney needs to prove something to me before I have confidence in him. He's going to. Okay, so what I've got right now is three to one Mexico so far. I've got deuses. Okay. Let's move on to Andres Guardado versus Giovanni Raina. Why don't you start with this one?

Okay, so Guardado is getting up there, especially for a sort of high energy attacking mid position. 34. Yeah. This isn't like a place. I don't think this is really a place where outside of where, Wayne Rooney doing what he did for DC. You don't see these guys performing at a high level on the world stage up there in years. When you do, it's a pretty significant exception.

Usually you do have to do the Rooney job, which is to sort of drop down a league or two, if you still want to be able to do those things at the highest level or to play at a high level on the field, not necessarily the highest level of competition. So I know you've got Guardado over Raina because I'm reading your notes, I'm, again, I'm putting Raina over Guardado. And part of this is because I bend the rules however I want to and say that qualifying is still a full year away for the first game for the U.S. And it's almost, I think, based on the schedule, like a year and a half away

for the first time the U.S. plays Mexico in qualifying. And my understanding of age curves means that Andres Guardado may not be as influential, may not even be the starter by the time we play Mexico in a World Cup qualifying. Okay, well, just to be clear, I don't have it as a push. I don't have Guardado ahead of Raina, but I do... Sorry, I jumped the gun. No, that's okay. That's okay.

I mean, I was tempted to, but Guardado is fading. I mean, you can see that, I think. And I've seen him wilt in front of goal so many times. Like, he just hits it over the goal a lot. Noisy, I know, noisy, but I think, yeah, a year from now, it could be Raina in a landslide for me. but I think it's a push right now. I have this reputation on Twitter where I'm the guy who doesn't like Gio Raina

and I'm getting like people digging up tweets from 14 years ago about it. I loved it. My favorite thing. But if you weren't familiar with it, Bells got called out for an old Raina take from two years ago when Raina would have been a 15 year old, I think still in New York City's Academy where his major criticism was, let's wait and see. Right. Yeah, I mean, he's done amazing things.

It's still very early. I know this is weird for me to be the guy saying this. It's still very early in his career. And Guardado is, Guadado's very, he's cagey. He's a really important connector for Mexico. If Jonah Dos Santos, whose age I'm trying to look up with my really slow computer right now, if Jonah dos Santos were healthy and fit, I think I would probably give him the edge over, over Reno right now. He's 30, but a lot of people aren't going to agree with me on that.

That's fine. It's a free market of ideas, you know. So let's say push. I'm going to say push. You're going to give the edge to rain up. I'm giving the edge to raining. Yep. So I've got it at three to one still.

You've got it at three to two U.S. What a patriot you are. Next position. Edson Alvarez versus Tyler Adams. This would be the. number six for both positions, hopefully, for both teams, hopefully. I thought Alvarez was one of the few mediocre performers versus Holland. Not comfortable enough on the ball.

I give Adams a slight edge here over the IX defensive midfielder. Although, I think on his day, Alvarez could outplay Adams, and it wouldn't be that big of a surprise. So it's pretty close to a push for me. Right. It feels like they have different strengths here where Alvarez is, I don't know if I want to say, more well-rounded, but it kind of goes back to that technical competence. And I feel like Alvarez would be able to dictate the game a little bit better than Tyler Adams would

from a deeper role, whereas Adams, I think his strength is going to be more about what he denies. And then he is still, he is certainly adequate on the ball to not be a liability, but he's not going to, I don't think, like, dictate the game the way that Alvarez does. So you're giving the edge to I'm waffling on this one So this one is probably my push Okay No it's not

I'm getting that I'm getting the edge I'm still think Adams The strengths that Adams has Are going to outweigh You know what Edson Alvarez is doing for Mexico Okay 3-2 to the to Mexico in my eyes

And it's now four to U.S. are cruising Okay Let's move over to left back This is a little confusing because we have no idea who the left back is going to be for the U.S. Who do you think it should be in this very artificial construct we are constructing? Anthony Robinson. Okay.

That's how I have it. Jesus Guayardo versus Anthony Robinson. I like Gallardo's game a lot. He's a good player. He loves to get forward. Defends pretty well. I give him the edge, even though he's a league of Mekke's left back. and Robinson is, you know, at least in name, a Premier League left back.

If it's Desk versus Gallardo, I give the Edge to Desk, but if it's Guyardo versus Robinson, I give the Edge to Mexico. Yeah, I basically still think of Robinson as a championship level player, the same way that I think Tim Ream is a championship level player in that I don't think Tim Rame has ever completed a Premier League season without being relegated, and something tells me that that's not going to change this year, which is, you know, there's no, it's not a major criticism to be a change. championship level player.

He's still better at soccer than me. So, I mean, because people tend to just want to, like, go heavy on the league and just say, how can you possibly say he's better when Anthony Robinson plays in the Premier League? But, you know, I think what we're going to see is Robinson is a fairly one-dimensional player. I mean, it's a good dimension and it's valuable to be able to burst forward the way he does. I still call him like a cheat code as far as gaining ground with the soccer ball.

and I think we're going to benefit from that. I still do have questions about how effectively he'll be able to defend against elite players. Not that we have other guys in the wings who would be able to stop elite players, but if we're talking about Robinson, I think that's going to be a liability for us. Yeah, okay. So now we're talking, you're going to have to keep track of your tally, because minus 4-2 to Mexico. I've got 4-3 to the U.S.

Okay. You have a push. That's what's going to confuse us. Yeah, just fewer games, I guess. Hector Moreno versus John Brooks at left centerback. This is such an interesting comparison because they do kind of play the same role. They're both left-footed. Moreno is a good distributor, just like Brooks is.

I think Moreno is a little bit of a better defender than Brooks is right now. And I know Mexico fans are kind of anchored. about him because he's getting old. I think he's 32, but I still give Moreno a slight edge over Brooks. I'm also giving Moreno the edge, and it's mostly because I feel like you can only, you can only, like, partially give Brooks credit

because you know he's going, or you assume he's going to miss several games with injuries, so it's almost like I'm blending Brooks's score with whoever would take his place, and so I'm giving Moreno an edge. I'm giving Mexico an edge at that centerback spot. Okay. So now you're at a tie 4-4?

Yeah. And I'm at 5-2. Everyone was hanging on and edge their seat stuff to see who comes out of Mexico or the U.S. Yeah, yours is the one with the suspense to it. Now, at right centerback, it's going to be either Montez or Araujo versus, who knows? Aaron Long, Matt Miazga, Chris Richards. I was going to say push here, but I'm going to give the edge to Mexico again.

I thought Montez was rock solid next to Moreno for that Dutch-friendly. Chris Richards might come in and blow this all up. We just don't know. But this lack of knowledge while comforting in this moment gives us a Mexico edge from my perspective. Yeah, same here. And it's mostly because of how unclear we are at the, at the right centerback with information. We just don't have a lot.

We know Aaron Long provides sort of the floor that we're trying to clear, but we aren't even really sure how high that floor is. So I'm going to do the same here and give Mexico the edge with either of their candidates for right centerback. They only have two at least. At least they've narrowed it down to two. Yeah. Right back is Shaka Rodriguez versus Sergenio Dest.

Shaka is steady, like I said, at the top of the show, reliable on the ball, not too exciting getting forward. He does himself no shame out there. Dest is a different level of talent, and I think you've got to give the US the edge here, even though Desk does lack some reliability defensively, I'll take the Barcelona fullback.

No argument here. It's Dest, so I'm now at 5'5 with goalkeeper left. Ooh, and sets it up for what a moment this is. Greg For all you knew listeners Greg is a goalkeeper Was a goalkeeper In several different sports

Broomeball, soccer Basketball Yes So Who do you have Who are you taking at goalkeeper? It's memo It's got to be memo

Right So Memo's got quite the pedigree himself I know I know everyone's very excited about Zach Stephan And his Manchester cityness but I still think, you know, again, for as much stick as we probably take for saying for hyping, if we want to call it, guys who are unproven, like it seems like it's gone.

Some people who give us that stick go completely overboard the other way with like, Zach City is clearly the best player because he's a Man City number two. And he's played like three games from Man City. And I have no idea what to make of a Super Club's backup goalkeeper, to be quite honest. So, yeah, I think Memo is in this case very much the more proven option, and I really enjoy Memo Ochoa. I think he's still the best non-Kailer-Nava schoolkeeper in Conccaf. Yeah, I'll defer to you on that. I do hope that we start calling Zach Steff and Zach City, though.

That's kind of a cool name, cool nickname, Zach City. So that's, so I've got it at 8-2 and you've got it at 6-5, right? It's eight two, bells. But what you take the numbers out of it, I think a way to summarize all this is that there are, at least in my opinion, there are two positions left wing and right back where it's sort of indisputable that the U.S. is better. Right? The rest at best are highly debatable. All right. I think that's fair.

I'll give you that. I mean, attacking mid-Rena versus Guardado, JDS is, there's going to be plenty of people, including Hercules Gomez, who takes Rayna, you know. Yeah, I mean, I'm on that same train for Raina. I just don't think it's indisputable, though, right? No. Yeah.

But a lot of them, for a lot of them, again, the lack of disputability is probably tied to just how incredibly inexperienced we are. like we might not need to find out anything new about Weston McKinney. We might just need to sort of solidify what we already know. That makes sense and the same for Giorina. So if he doesn't have to do anything new for Dortmund, if he just keeps doing what he's doing, I think that solidifies the Hercules Gomez stance.

Yeah. The Greg Velasquez stance. But we just, we basically can't say that for sure that he will keep doing that because the sample size is so low. Yeah. Yeah. I feel fairly confident he'll keep doing what he's doing. It is, and a lot of it goes back to that,

what you were talking about, that rising tide that lifts all boats, the fact that they're playing, everybody's singing from the same page in the songbook, as they say, and playing with energy and purpose. And that has not been the story with the U.S. men's national team outside of some scattered moments, you know, over the past 18 months. And we don't even, none of those moments have even included any of the guys

we basically talked about because they've never played together. Yeah. So I feel like that's what it is. It's just this level of uncertainty that continues to surround the U.S. and may well continue to surround it as we can never play a soccer game. Right. We'll get to that in a moment. But first, let's acknowledge and thank today's sponsor.

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Our We're going to talk about Just if you need a little table of contents here We're going to talk about MLSers we wish we'd seen in an October camp And then Sort of the good news of the last two, three weeks ranked, if you will.

Since you already know all the news, we're just going to put our stamp on it by ranking how important we think it is. So anyway, our long journey in the wilderness continues as U.S. fans. First, it was injuries. We never got to see Adams, McKenny, and Polisick on the field together.

I don't think we still haven't, right? All three of them at the same time? No, I believe they played like eight minutes together against like Bolivia. Okay. Isn't that right? Yeah. of the mythical Trinity game.

Yeah, that's probably right. And then there were other injuries, so we never really got to see a full-strength roster. And then it was Burrhalter calling up Christian Roldon for a thousand minutes and insisting that Aaron Long and Walker Zimmerman could build out of the back with Jazi's artist as the focal point of our possession attack. The wilderness just kept rolling on and on in the distance. And now it's a pandemic.

It looks like the November friendlies still not announced by anyone other than Sergenio are somewhat threatened. And of course, these October friendlies never happened. So let's talk about who we would have liked to see in that October camp, which would have been necessarily an all-MLS selection. All right. Greg. Can I get my first one?

Yeah. You can go all the way through and I'll just punch in here and there. All right. The guy I really wanted to see play who has not been capped yet is the like, the most controversial player of the last week and a half, which would be Matt Turner goalkeeper New England. I mean, for those who aren't like just obsessively scrolling through Twitter all day, why is he, why is this controversial?

I think John Mueller, dummy run, space, space, space, all his A.A.s, put out a video after Zach Seffen started his first game for Manchester City in a cup competition, gave up a goal, I think, on the only shot he faced, saying that Zach Steffen isn't that great of a shot stopper and that we have a shot stopper sitting in New England and Matt Turner, who's actually elite at stopping shots. And he gave his pitch for it. And then maybe a few days later, Sett sort of started it.

And I know it's impossible in U.S. men's national team sort of online to really like stand up for one player, without essentially, you know, tearing another player down. And so that's kind of what happened is that there was this whole factional battle between the, and it was mostly, it was, I think Stefan was overwhelmingly defended.

Yeah. Well, there's no easier way to get retweets and likes than to like dog on an MLS player, like, and point out that a European player is better. Sure. Well, this was, so this was dummy run flipping the script on that then.

Yeah. So, I'm saying the other people who, came in and attacked dummy run. They're getting a lot of, you know, it's just like free karma on Twitter to, to like criticize that video. But it should be, let me interrupt you one more time. Go on.

Sorry. It's not a new take. I mean, people have been saying Matt Turner is a better shot stopper than Stefan for, I feel like at least a year. I think at least in Stefan's last year in MLS. I mean, even then it was by the numbers, like Turner. just simply was better at stopping shots, with the caveat that Stefan is

some kind of a penalty-saving savant, which is a pretty big deal when penalties are worth. 0.8 XG, yeah. So you would have liked to see Turner in that camp? Yeah, it would have been nice to see Turner get a game. And that's sort of also presuming that we would have. He hasn't played yet. Guzon's been getting the caps when Stefan doesn't.

Not sure what drives. that. John's shot stopping numbers are pretty bad for all to talk about Berhalter being an analytics guy. Goalkeeper is definitely one where his selections and starting choices have certainly not matched up with the numbers. Maybe he follows the scuffed podcast model and just doesn't talk about goalkeepers very often. So yeah, so we flipped our own script by not talking about keepers very often putting Matt Turner as the number one player we would have liked to have seen. Nice. Number two. Number two and number three, kind of the Philly crew, McKenzie and Brendan Aronson,

still looking for that centerback to, a centerback to step up and take the spot either next to Brooks or as Brooks's backup, because Brooks's backup is going to play a lot. And at the moment, it feels like that's Tim Ream, who's getting on in years. And, again, questions about his role at Fulham as Fulham's owner, essentially after their abysmal start publicly. begging his supporters to be patient as they are searching for a bunch of centerbacks to buy. Yeah. Doesn't vote well for Timery. Right.

Yeah. McKenzie is a player who, I mean, outside of Josh Sargent or one of the young strikers, I don't, there's nobody who I think would benefit the national team more by a like a significant increase in level over the next year. Like if he, if he just became like a 25% better centerback, that would be. huge. So got him, and then I've got Brennan Aronson as sort of that Philly compliment, because

Erringson, for all of those sort of hype surrounding him, and he's making the move, so Salzberg sees something in him as well. It's a Red Bull organization. He played in the January camp friendly and didn't look very good, didn't look great. I mean, he wasn't terrible, but, so he

had that game for the national team, and I know that's one game, one data point. But that's why I was really curious if he'd come in and look like he's a much different player. I really wanted to kind of see that. Yeah, I agree with that. We should also clarify here. The reason we're not bringing up like Jordan Morris, right?

There are some MLS guys we know already what we're getting with him, so it's not like seeing Jordan Morris is going to teach us anything more about Jordan Morris. We know Morris is a pretty effective player for the national team at the moment. Yeah, and we know he'll be there in a camp when he's available. Number four is a little bit of a cheat here by you, Greg, but it's a worthwhile one. A.O. A. Akanola, D.D.K., Jeremy Ababa Se, Hases, Ferreira, and perhaps Chris Mueller.

This is sort of like the striker contingent. Yeah, this is like the striker audition, because we know Jazzi Zardaz is in the mix here, and Zardos is definitely making a bunch of sustained noise with MLS. but we also need to see who the other guys are who are going to push him for that spot and there are a bunch of other guys making noise in MLS this year. The one exception here

being Jesus Ferreira who's making very little noise down in Dallas but this goes back to sort of the reverse of the Aronson deal Ferreira was almost flawless in that friendly against Costa Rica for the U.S. And then is now like not doing anything for his club so I kind of wanted to see if his club situation has any effect on his ability to be effective for the national team. And Ferreira

was name-checked by Berhalter in a recent interview about striker death. So he mentioned that he mentioned this very thing too. He said he's not having much success with his club, but we really liked what we saw in January. And I think that that has to always be the deciding factor. How how effective are they for the job that the national team needs someone to do? And if Ferreira can do that job really well, he stays in the picture of Garvey. or less of what Dallas were doing with him. Yeah. It's a little hard to see Mueller.

I mean, for the same reason, it's a little hard to see Mueller, even becoming part of the picture. But AEO, I mean, I really think, I don't think of Hesus Ferrer as a pure striker, even though I know he did play that role for us in January. But I really think the striker's situation continues to be confusing, which is not necessarily bad.

So artists, like you said, he has 10 goals in Major League Soccer leading all Americans. But then we got Iowa Canola and James. Jeremy and Bobesei as tied for number two among American or U.S. eligible players, both with eight goals. And, I mean, Ababa Se had a really nice free kick goal last week against the Galaxy. I mean, we don't have a lot of people who can hit a free kick like that in the national team pool. And then, A-O, man, he just keeps scoring and just bullying centerbacks.

I can't believe it. I did not rate him as a youth national team player. I mean, I knew he was effective at that age group, but I didn't think he was much of a soccer player. And he has, I don't know, maybe even displaced Josie Altador in Toronto. Toronto. I mean, yeah, we'll have to see. I feel like Toronto Altador always is going to offer you something,

but you become way less reliant on him, knowing that one, his fitness is going to be a question mark. And two, yeah, so you just have now somebody who can take those minutes without at least a huge drop-off in production. The production is still there, even if the style of play is completely different. Yeah, he's good at making runs in behind. He wins every physical battle.

His hold-up play is not terrible. Like, it's not great, because his touch isn't great, but he does know how to use his body, so he gets to the ball, he holds onto it, and he can find somebody's feet, and then he makes those devastating runs in behind, and then he finishes, which is noisy, as we know.

And then... Right now, its XG numbers are pretty off the charts too. So the noise there is probably just going to be coming from not a ton of minutes played. It becomes a noisy noise at that point. Not in MLS, so not part of this discussion, but just as an aside, we have Nico Giochini, Joaquini looking sharp in the French second division.

Brian Scheretta agrees with me on this, if you heard him on the Total Soccer Show. And no, he and I do not share notes. So take it from two different sources. And then Sebastian Soto has three goals and three starts in the Dutch second division. Josh Sargent continues to do what he does, which is being okay but not separating himself. Soto also named Jack by Berhalter, notably. But not Joe Aquini.

No, I don't know. And I don't know if that was just some really cheap dual national recruitment to just keep Soto like in that picture. Or if Berhalter still, you know, maybe he hasn't. really changed his assessment of Soto, despite Soto not being able to get any run at Hanover for the last year and a half. Yeah. I feel like those name checks at a certain point, Bertharthar is just sort of like trying to remember everybody in the depth chart. You know, he's a human. He's not sitting in front of his list like we are constantly.

Right. We're just scrolling through lists all day. Aaron Johansson, by the way, since we're talking about all these forwards, not just NLS. Another sort of iron in the fire to muddy the forward picture. I'm going to make an executive decision here to, we're going to scrap the news ranking at the end of the show. Or at least we'll just do it really fast. Let's go through 5 through 10 real quick here. Okay, okay.

I've got Keaton Parks and James Sands is 5 and 6, the other New York City guys. I still am really into three central midfielders that don't include Gio Raina for the national team. And I think you are too for R. 11. So kind of calling Raina a winger, but having him effectively plays. the 10 when we have the ball so that desk can get up the right side line. Anyway, that means you probably need three central mids. And instead of a Jackson, you will type, I would like to see like a Paxton Pomacall or a Keaton Parks who can play in like a triple pivot is what I think the nomenclature is here.

Yeah. I think Bobby Warshaw might have coined that. Anyway, it'd be a matter of parks being able to drop in with the centerbacks or drop just off the centerbacks to collect the ball in the buildout. which he does for New York City. And then he can dribble or advance the ball with line-breaking passes. He's very strong at that. And if he goes with the dribble, then either Adams or McKinney,

whoever naturally would do it in that moment, sort of just sags back to keep our safety with three in the back, and we just play from there. So it gives us another avenue to disorganize opponents. And Parks, I think, is just a lot more mobile, pommicall as well than a Jackson U. or Will Trap or Michael Bradley. I like that idea.

I'd like to see that. What about Sands? He's more of a destroyer for New York, right? He and Parks sort of are the yin and the yang of that midfield, of that double pivot. Yeah, so it'd be kind of the same thing here to see if he could be one of, it allows us to press the way I think we want to press with Sands behind two pressing eights. Because I'll see that in Parks could play in one of those pressing eight roles as well. maybe not as much of a pressing monster as obviously are best pressers,

but he could do a job, I think. So Sands could get a look at one of the other spots. Okay. Number seven, Eric Williamson at Portland. I know Matt Doyle's been really excited about him this season. Right. And so this is just another tire-taking situation where we take a look at a guy who could, now that we're, I think we're moving into this more aggressive style,

Williamson seems like he's doing that similar job of Portland. Could he do it for the U.S.? Could he be auditioning for an Olympic role in the Olympic side? Okay. Jean-Lucobusio number eight. This would be if we go with the Jackson-Ewell style player, right? Because that's what Boothio's been a little bit more versatile lately. He's been getting some run out in more advanced roles,

but we definitely were curious about when he switched to that deeper-line distributor role. so it would just be checking him out because again if we're going to go with if Burrholder's going to go with that Jackson Ewell player Jackson Ewell is certainly not safe in that spot like he's not an elite

player at that level no no so even if he's doing a decent job the bar the bar for people to clear to take it from him is not going to be extremely high so he's going to have to really do well for the national team And again, I just feel like that spot will be up for grabs all of the time. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And speaking of tire kicking, the right-back position,

there were three young right-backs that I probably would have been fun to see in this camp. Julian Araujo, Brian Reynolds, and Duncan, what's Duncan's first name? Is it a Kyle? Yeah, Kyle Duncan, exactly. Tim Wayas cousin. Yeah, so Canon Bolded. And now we have this, unless we're bringing Graham Zuzzi back in, we have this sort of chance to look at three young rightbacks.

And for people saying, like, let's just slow down on Reynolds. Like, again, there's no need to slow down. We're not appointing any of these guys as locked in. It's just like, all right, bring a guy in, see what he's got. Reynolds is U-20 eligible. So we give him a taste of what this is going on, what's going on with the program. if he looks like he can hang with the with the grownups and he could be brought into the next camp

if he's below the level then he just funnels back down to the U-20s. Yeah, this happens all the time. I mean, Justin Glad has been to two January camps without even being able to attend the games. I think he was sent home before the games in both cases. Number 10 is another tie between some youngsters. These are definitely like that vein. All three, no, two of the guys, U-20 eligible.

And then, so we're talking about more attacking guys here. So it's Caden Clark. It's quite cool. I'm sure we'll talk about. Who else do we have here? So we have Caden Clark, and these names are going to confuse us for the next five years. Cade Cowell. Who had an exciting MLS.

I feel like has been relatively quiet since that. He's very wrong. U-20 eligible. He's very raw, yeah. Yeah. And then FRA Alvarez, who is a Olympic eligible, currently, I think, would need to file a one-time switch to represent the U.S. Yeah.

I actually don't know the rules on that. We'll have to call our lawyers. But I know if you play in the U-20 World Cup, then you have to file a one-time switch. I don't know if that's the case with the U-17 World Cup. Okay. This is one where we, again, don't have a ton of right-wingers who are super clean on the ball. and Efra feels like he's that kind of player, whether he's ever going to be able to do it

at a U.S. men's national team level. I don't know, but again, these camps are all such like exploratory camps. This is where you just bring a guy in and if it's not working out, you lose nothing. And because we have other players who just weren't available that would end up taking those spots.

Right. Right. So that's what we wish. That's kind of what I wish we would have been able to find out about in October while Mexico was playing Holland and Algeria. And I think they played Costa Rica, too, didn't they? Back in early... Before they. Yeah.

My five-year-old son's on fall break and just came in the room and left. So if you heard a door opening slowly and closing, that's him. Let's do lastly, real quick, you know, it's been a big news month, and we didn't record a podcast last. week so we kind of missed our chance to to strike on that iron while it was hot but just real quick I think the five top stories this is a big this is a landmine here but the five big stories of the of the months so far in my opinion Sergenio dez's debut for barza I think it's like impossible to top that Chris Richards is Bundesliga start caveat it all you want it's still a big big development best club in the world at the moment and

Richards is a player from Hoover, Alabama, who nobody had heard of two and a half years ago. And then, Rayna's assist hat trick for Dortmund. That was a big moment on USM&T, Twitter, of course, and kind of really shows that he is like, he's the real deal at Dormand. Maybe you already was, I don't know.

And then number four, Pula's six return from injury. And then number five, I say this somewhat tongue and cheek. Not at all. Zero tongue and zero cheeks. Jonathan Eamon returns from a long injury layoff, very long, 18 months. He played a scheduled 25 minutes in a competitive, an official competition for the Danish Cup for FC Nordchland. Yep.

I think he looked. They play again this weekend. We'll see if he plays. Right. From the all touches, he looked like someone who had. not played soccer in a long time. Through a penalty. Oh, that's true.

He did, yeah. All right. Anything else, Greg? I feel like we should also mention probably that Weston McKenney is contracting coronavirus. Yeah. We were obviously wishing him the best in recovery and hopefully no complication. I'm hoping that soccer in Europe can continue to be played safely if they're going to

continue playing it. So it could get wild with all these international games that went on. It could be very interesting to see what happened to even buy this weekend. Yeah. I mean, the evidence is that McKinney is going to be fine. Just like it is, you know, this constant movement of the virus. And, you know, whenever you have big gatherings of people, it does feel like, as Michael Osterholm called it, a long winter,

a long winter we are in. On that very cheerful note, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.