Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 145: Emergency Pod! The best USMNT roster ever

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

Thank you Gregg Berhalter. Greg and Belz slap out a quick and dirty reaction broadcast on Election Day 2020.https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2020/11/usmnt-roster-announcement-berhalter-24-players-november-camp-friendlies-wales-panama 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. Greg Burhalter, you beautiful, beautiful, bald, circumspect man. What a roster. What a roster. Emergency pod.

Coming to you from the Upper Midwest. Hello, Greg. How are you? I'm good, Bells. It's going to be nothing but 20 minutes of hootin and hollering. Hootin and hollering. Yeah, well, let's start with what are the big surprises in your opinion? on the roster.

I mean, there are many to choose from, I suppose. The headline of out of a roster full of headlines is for sure, Eunice Musa, right? The 17-year-old English dual national, who is sort of getting starting minutes at Valencia in La Liga.

There had been sort of rumors that Burrhalter was contacting him, but I think the thought was just, it was kind of a pie-in-the-sky attempt, and it turns out, Musa is accepting a call-up. Yeah. No small deal there. Pie in the sky and pie where on the ground, I guess?

That's terrible. Yeah, Musa, have you watched much of Musa? No, I've seen the highlight or the all touches comp that, who put that one out? False fullback, yeah. I'll have to make sure I figure out who it is because they deserve full credit. We don't do enough full crediting of the comp merchants. They really need like a shout out every show. Yeah, that was at Falls Fullback, too.

I think his first account got taken down by the feds. But yeah, he's doing good work. I mean, it wasn't like that comp isn't like, you're not like, wow, he's Cristiano Ronaldo, but he's 17 and he looked awfully dangerous against Catafé, a team that did beat Barcelona a couple of weeks ago. So, you know, you do the math. The math is if you can add a 17-year-old player from La Liga to your pool,

you add that player to your pool. So really well done by Burrhalter, Ernie McBride and company to even to convince him to jump into this camp. Whether he stays or not is to be determined. This game won't cap time even if he plays. He can still go straight over to England, I think, in play for them in their very next window if he wants to. But it doesn't matter. We get him there. We get to sort of show him what our program is.

And like Burrhalter has been saying, we're trying to create an atmosphere that players want to be in, and hopefully we are doing that. Yeah, and it's sort of the camp of dual nationals. It's almost as if Greg Berthelter has seen all of the dual national panic, and he is trying to assuage that. It's not just Musa, you know, as you mentioned, it's very possible he could go back and play for England, but this is great to have him in camp. Musa, Cardoso, I mean, Ledesma is. technically a dual national. I think he's pretty safely in the American camp at this point. But O'N. Odisoie.

Sebastian Soto, there was that much publicized flirtation with Chile. Nico Joaquini. Conrad de la Fuente is a dual national, although, you know, there's never been any indication he's going to play for somebody else. Ullianas, same deal. No indication he's going to play for somebody else, but also a dual national. Good to see him back in the camp. And you get to, all these guys get to come into a camp with Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, West McKenny, Sergenio Dest.

You know, they're sort of like the core of the team going forward. Did you say Gio Raina? Can we throw Gio Rana's name into that? Giovanni Rano, yeah, for sure. Gio Rana, the fifth member of the core. And hopefully, you know, West McKenney will work his magic. He's a charming, charming man. And we'll have Eunice Musa and Nico Jok. Keene will feel like they're part of the, part of the program, and we ride. We ride forward. The movement, the movement continues.

Yeah. It's so exciting. I mean, did you have any indication that we were going to have a roster like this? No, I mean, we did our projection, and the thing is, you know, when Poole Sick was and Adams were both kind of questionable with injuries, and they still probably are. Like, I still am not banking on either of those guys playing in this window. Right. In fact, in fact, I'm like reasonably sure that the whole game will get canceled now that we're so excited for it.

Yeah. But, but even knowing that those two guys wouldn't be there, there was still just so much to be excited about with, you know, with Raina, with Dest, with McKenney and Anthony Robinson getting a tryout. And Sergeant, hopefully being able to sort of put the not so great performances of U.S. men's national team 2019 behind him. And in fact, the entire U.S. men's national team putting the not so great performances of 2019 behind them. So there was plenty to be excited about. What Burhalter's done, it's just been like, oh, you thought you were going to be excited. And, you know, now it's like Destin Rana become like the fourth and fifth best things about this roster. Right, right.

I'm really excited to see that striker trio of Joe Keeney Soto and Sergeant. I guess you could throw away in there as another striker. Interesting that Raina is listed as a forward. Yeah, that's consistent sort of what we're thinking Burhalter might run with. Yeah, and let's see, what else? Chitiro Oduinze, we've got to mention him, the young goalkeeper at Leicester City. What were you going to say? What were you going to say?

Oh, I was going to say, do we now just go through the roster? we've gone through the big sort of surprises. Yeah, let's do that. Usually these roster announcements are like a race to say, no surprises here. Nobody is saying that about this roster. Let's start at the back of the field. At the back of the field, like God intended it, you know.

All right. So we have three goalkeepers who are basically not playing first team football. And that's Zach Stephan, Ethan, Ethan Horvath. And say his name for me again. Chituru Oduenze. All right. So we have Chitou. Turu Udunzee, who's at, is he?

Leicester City. Leicester City's, I think, playing in the PL2. And then we have Zach Stepern-O-Ref, who are Champions League clubs, but not necessarily at Champions League players, with Corvass one game accepted. Yeah, a good game. And a very, you know, I don't know that we've mentioned this on the pod, but their club Bruges put out a video of his emotional reaction after the game.

You saw that, I'm sure, right? Yeah, yeah. I don't know, that really hit me hard because that, that dude's been through a lot. He, not just Simo and Minnulae getting picked up and taking all the minutes, you know, from here on forward. But, but like he, you know, there was some issues with, like, corruption at the club and, I don't know, some stings that happened. And he was kind of caught up in that, I think, obviously through no fault of his own. So, man, to see him. Yeah, I think caught up in that in the sense that the starting goalkeeper.

may have been like not starting based on merit, but starting based on some, some business ties. Yeah, some Ponzi scheme. Yeah, I, and just to see him, you know, I mean, he was basically in tears

and his teammates coming up and saying, calling him American boy and rubbing him on the head. And then the coach, you know, the coach saying he was proud of him. I know, a little human moment that, that kind of affected me.

Next, Let's do defenders. Defenders. All right. So we brought seven, and I think this is fairly consistent with Anthony Robinson getting a tryout at left back. We've got just three fullbacks, Robinson, Sergenio Dest, and Reggie Cannon. Of course, Dest could play on the left if Anthony isn't going to play all 180 minutes, or Tim Riem, who's, you know, nominally a centerback could fill in at left back as well.

So I'm really excited. The centerbacks we've got here are Brooks, Ream, Richards, and Nyazga. and again, just some cool chances to give Chris Richards a try out, give Anthony Robinson a try out, and see what we have sort of waiting in the wings in our backline. Yeah. I imagine we'll see a quite different lineup, I mean, assuming these games are played, and just for reference, they are the 12th and the 16th. That is next Thursday and then a week from this coming Monday.

So today's November 3rd, in case you were willing. wondering it is the day of the United States election. So the 12th and the 16th, camp starts on the 8th, which is what, Sunday? Yeah. Yeah, they'll probably finish their games and then hop on a train to Wales.

Yeah. Trains go everywhere in Europe, I believe. I think you can get to whales by train. You can, yeah, you go under the in the chunnel. I don't know if they still call it that. We're always helping you out with geography on this podcast. All right. Let me

since we're going position groups here, first snub, if you want to call it that, and no one cares about the snubs really because there's so much excitement elsewhere in the roster. But as they are, Eric Palmer Brown, not on the roster. I kind of would have liked to have seen him even if he was the fifth centerback, but I'm not heartbroken. It's just it's a matter of making sure at least one guy gets a new look. And for me, Chris Richards is going to be good use of the camp. DeAndre Edlin, also not in camp. Yeah, that's a little bit interesting, a little bit surprised. to me is that he's just because he's just not playing and and burrhalter's saying well you you got to focus on getting some minutes or we're going to allow you to get focus on getting some minutes be interesting to know what the equation is there yeah but i mean he's not going to like i don't think yetland's playing his way back into the rock he's not even on the rosters anymore the the player that beat him out last year for all the minutes at the end of the season is now the backup so uh is that yet Yedlin's looking at basically no playing time until maybe he'll get some cup minutes I think they're still on the EFL cup but he's basically looking at no minutes until at least January so this just could have been used as a chance to give Yedlin minutes I'm not I'm not you know too worried about it but but it was kind of a surprise yeah I mean he's to me Yedlin is somewhere south of number three in the depth chart for right back for the U.S.

so we don't need to dwell on that. Midfielders. Should we move to midfield? Yeah, let's do the midfielers. Six listed. Tyler Adams, Wes and McKinney, no surprise with either of those, Johnny Cardoso, Eunice Musa. It's a little interesting. He's a midfielder and not a winger on this list.

And then Richie Ledesma and Owen Otis Soey. Otisoe is a shocker to me. I mean, Ledesma, you know, Ledesma got his debut over the weekend as we as we all know and uh i i think it's it's not super surprising that he's involved in this camp given it's an all euro camp oh to so yeah he hasn't even been playing he hasn't been in rosters for wolves right i mean he's i think he's made a couple this season yeah but hasn't but hasn't played any minutes um yeah and ladesma is an interesting one

because i'm sure he was you know if the in if he played on sunday and the invites are coming out today. Surely he was already on the list. It's not like they added him late because he got into the last 10 minutes of a game for PSV. But yeah, he was, he's sort of been on the verge of breaking into that first team. So definitely not surprised. You're right. Ode So he is

way farther back. For me, I think it's just a matter of he's looking for that, and I'm going to refer to it as sort of the Jackson Ewell position, and there just aren't really any players who are in that who are in that mold. So Johnny Cardoso is, and I think Owen Otisoe is people are talking about Cardoso and Otisoui being like Burrhalter exploring backups for Tyler Adams and I'm still very much not sure that

that's what's happening I think that those guys are considered probably a different position than Tyler Adams for Greg Burholter's scheme yeah and I don't know that you know I don't know that I see Otisoi or Cardoso as like a virtuosic regista but yeah don't really care that much. Because I don't even, I'm not even sure I buy that, the whole, the whole idea, but we don't have to get deep into that. But, but I will say that Ledesma and Musa both being listed as, even Ledesma, being listed

as midfielers is interesting because those two, I don't think would really fit in the, from the limited amount I know of Musa, definitely in Ledzma's case. They wouldn't really fit in the sort of a pressing eight role that Adams and McKinney, you know, we're kind of projecting out. So it might be a matter of Berlter running multiple schemes. And in one game, it might look like this. And another game, Ledma, is playing a completely different midfield role than what McKinney played in the game before.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe Ledesma, maybe Ledesma can be the six. You know, he can, as you know, I believe he can hit a very nice diagonal ball. Yes, you do. You do believe that. Maybe. I'm not going to say it's not going to happen, but Bell's absolutely not.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Then let's go to Forward. They are, the forwards are Barso Bees, Conrad de la Fuente, Gio reina. The first team minutes rule, can I just throw that in there? Yeah. This has to be the death knell of the first team minutes rule. Conrad's never appeared for Barcelona's first team.

Here he is in this lineup. Yeah. Greg Berhalter, massive fan of scuffed. Nikola Joaquini, the Khan Center Forward slash Winger, Josh Sargent, Ullianez, Sebastian Soto, Christian Pulisick, and Tim Wea. And I guess Pulisic's hamstring injury is not as bad as everyone thought it was, or who can say? Who can say?

Right, we'll have to see. I hope he's not pushing it. I hope that we're not trying to rush him back to get him in this because we're eager to see. Pulsick, we are, of course, eager to see him, but let's not lose him for a couple of months because we're rushing things back. And I'm sure Chelsea would not allow that to happen. Yeah, I mean, even if he's just there to, like, be part of the group and lend his gravitas to the occasion, that's fine. So there it is. That's the roster.

I think there's nothing to be upset. There's nothing to be sad about it. It's all celebration. It's all celebration, but I am going to, this is my favorite part about if we see this sort of trend continue of calling up a lot of these guys. I get to actually transition back into my preferred role of being like the wet blanket and being the cynic because we're seeing I think a lot of like people's imaginations run wild with the clubs

that some of these guys are playing at. And you know, obviously we've been calling for call-ups for a lot of these guys. But, you know, I'm not focused as much on the ceiling so much as I've always been focused on sort of the floor of the men's national team. So for me it's not that Conrad is like some nailed on eventual Barcelona Star who's going

to lead the U.S. to 2026 World Cup trophies. It's that what I'm most excited about is that the competition is clearly now open for places in the national team. So 2019, the pool was kept so narrow. And the whole time I was just saying we have to open it up. And the players who should be in the conversation are some of these very top players in the non-first team ranks. And it looks like that's the case.

And for all to talk about, well, this is a, you know, an asterisk camp because it's November base, it's Euro-based only. If Conrad de Alphonte gets a chance on the field and looks exceptional, I don't know that he will. It won't matter that he's playing with Bars and he's going to get called up again because Greg Berhalter, I think, is going to call up the players that play the best soccer regardless of their club status. And it looks like, you know, that's sort of what happened with Ullianas, as we've mentioned before, as you've said before. He looked very good for the U.S. in January camp and in that Costa Rica friendly earlier this year. Was that this year? Boy. February.

Yeah. It was a lifetime ago in February. It was pre-COVID. And, you know, he's struggled. Janus has definitely struggled in the intervening months. But he played well that time. It's good to see that that is honored and he gets another call up. Right. If he starts to really struggle for the U.S., if any of these guys, bar the super clubs, you know, regulars are struggling, it's fine.

Then to say, all right, competition continues and maybe Tim Way isn't the guy if he's struggling. You know, like that's also what the process should be. I'm just glad to see that the competition is open. You know, going back to your threat to returning to be a wet blanket, I feel like you've been saying, that a lot lately and I don't know. I don't know if it's, I don't know if I believe you. Because I can tell by looking at you that you're tingling right now. I am, but it's just, it's just that the door being open. I'm happy to slam the door on guys very quickly.

Okay. All right. Greg Velasquez standing at the door. Tyler Boy, I feel like I've closed the door on Tyler. No, I haven't. No doors ever get closed. We didn't, I didn't slam the door on Soto and he didn't play for a year in the two Bundesliga, not closing it on anybody.

bring Aaron Johansson in in March. Yeah, I don't know. We said we weren't going to get into lineups. Do you want to stick to that? Yeah, let's stick to that. Let's do lineups next week. Do you want to talk about any other guys that you think kind of fall in the snub category? Dwayne Holmes, maybe?

Sorry, let me turn that off. It's a big day for a journalist working in the election. Yeah, I mean, I don't, right, right. By the way, I'm in, Norwood Young America, Minnesota. That is actually the name of a town, Norwood, Young America. I was interviewing voters outside of the polls this morning. No, I have no insight.

I have no clarity to offer you America on that front. But, yeah, Holmes, I'm not, I don't feel that strongly about Holmes anymore. I did feel strongly for a while, as close listeners of the podcast will know. But I do think he kind of fell off a little bit in his performance. and how can you, I mean, I'm not going to say, like, let's send home Johnny Cardoso so we can bring Duane Holmes. I mean, Holmes will be around, and I think his chance may come someday. EPB, who you mentioned, Eric Palmer Brown, I think that's probably the clearest snub if you want to, if you want to go that route. And then, you know, we talked about Aaron Johansson last week,

maybe deserving a call-up, but again, I don't feel strongly, I don't feel strongly about it. Do you? No, what I think matters most is that Dwayne Holmes isn't being ignored in favor of guys that we've already assessed, in my opinion, sort of found one thing. So, so again, if it were Christian rolled down on this list and Dwayne Holmes off, that would be a bigger problem for me. But since it's all guys who were going to be, again, auditioning, then the order. the auditions for me don't matter that much. If a couple of these guys really look off the pace, then maybe they aren't on the next call list and a Duane Holmes is to give him his look. It really helps. In that sense, this roster is really helped by the fact that it's European-based-only,

because a lot of the guys who have gotten a serious look and have been found wanting are obviously in major league soccer and are not going to be part of this camp. Right. That's 2019. It really felt like an extended January camp with some of the very best players mixed in intermittently. The no-brainer call-ups, essentially. Yeah. Well, so the first game, November 12th is against Wales in Cardiff. And then we play Panama on the 16th in Austria. I believe the team will be taking an airplane from Wales to Austria, not a train.

That's my guess. steamer they're taking a steamer take a steamer up the danube um anything else we should talk about with regard to this time let's let's hope that we're still celebrating uh tonight and tomorrow yeah that's an election reference referring to the election yeah america will survive america's big problems today will be its big problems tomorrow in my humble opinion. Greg's looking at me like I'm a crazy person. All right.

Thanks everybody for listening. This has been a sloppy emergency pod, but that's what you do when you're in Norwood, Young America. You make sloppy emergency pods. All right. See you, everybody.