Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 146: How we line up against Wales and Panama

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

It’s time for some national team soccer! Greg and Belz talk about how Berhalter might line up the boys versus Wales. The Panama lineup will flow, of course, from that. Hard to imagine a non-interesting couple of games here. Talk to you on Thursday. 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. Thanks for downloading this episode of Scuffed. Happy to be with you in a week where the U.S. men's national team plays for the first time in nine months. Greg, how do you do? I'm doing great, Bells.

We have matches. That's exciting. We have maybe one or two other things going on in the world that are worth getting excited about. So, yes, a positive week. so far. Yeah. It is Monday, November 9th. The election was six days ago, if you're keeping track at home. Let's talk about how we're going to line up against Wales at Swansea City on Thursday, Thursday afternoon. Okay, so games coming up Thursday, as far as I can tell Bells, this lineup pretty much writes itself when you factor in Burrhalter's comments after the roster release,

which we recorded prior to that. So a couple of things have changed sort of since we've talked. And really even Burrhaler's comments in the last 10 months, I feel pretty confident about what we're going to see. What do you think? Do you think there's a lot of questions here? Are you kind of think you have an idea? Well, I mean, the personnel questions are sort of hanging in the air,

like how much will Pulisic actually play in this window? He's definitely there. And I would love to find out, you know, what the conversations were between, between Burrhalter and his, you know, his core players on like how to make the, how to make the new guys feel welcome. That's something I'm really curious about. Because I think Pulisic is probably, at a minimum, he's there to sort of help incorporate

a bunch of new faces. And he's a draw, you know. I mean, he's a star for Chelsea. He's one of the best young attackers in the world. So I'm curious about that. But more directly to your question, yeah, Sergeant's not going to be there. So I think that, you know, I actually think that does. does right itself, who the next, who the next man in at Stryker is.

I don't know. You feel good about that one? I feel confident in my own heart. Save it. Don't tell us now. Save it for the moment that we get to the striker, because I want to be surprised. Okay, okay. But Pulisic, like, Pulisic not playing means you're, it's, it's like one of Yanaz-Wea or Conrad at the wing. And I think that's kind of anybody's guess. Yeah, and we're in where that's you and I sort of assuming that Poulosick will not play, right? That hasn't actually been, he hasn't been officially ruled out.

Burrhalter, I think, has said he's day to day as of our recording. Yeah, he said that. But let's be serious, there's no way, right? I mean, is Frank Lambar going to let him play if he's not even playing for Chelsea? I don't know. And Frank Lampard, for everyone, for anyone who wasn't really following England very closely in the, in the mid to late 2000s, Frank Lampart, I feel like, was notorious for missing England friendlies, but playing for Chelsea on either side of the FIFA window.

Right. He'd miss for small injuries. So I feel like I know where Lampard stands on this. Yeah, he loves his country less than he should. I think it's fair to say. No, I'm just kidding. And then other things that maybe don't write themselves are the midfield. I don't think it's 100% clear who will be the partner with McKinney and Adams there.

And then, yeah, the Panama friendly is kind of anybody's guess. Yeah, yeah, the second, the last 20 minutes of the Wales match. And then Panama, I think, is just going to be a poll names out of a hat situation, which would be fun. I'm excited for that, too. Yeah. Well, okay, so you think it mostly writes itself. We need to get further into that, like this certain.

that you enjoy. Well, we've been talking about it since January camp, and I think what we're going to see is that same build-out shape that Berthor has always been using, and I think he'll use the rotations that he used in January. That build-out shape being roughly a 3-25, a 3-in-the-back, holding pretty deep in possession, two center-mids, and then five players filling the sort of five vertical zones that became all the rage in the mid-2000. tens.

And the way we rotated into that in January was the outside backs getting high. That'd be vines and cannon. And the wingers pinching tucking in and playing in the half spaces. And in that game, it was Ullianas and Paul Ariola. And then the striker sort of staying in that central channel. So I'm expecting to see that in the buildout in the possession. And then in defense, I'm expecting us to move away from that buttery soft 4-4-2 that we played for most of 2019.

And into a 433 high press, Burralter has explicitly said that he'd like to do this and really use our athleticism and get high up the field and defense. We did that against Costa Rica and that friendly back in February. So again, same kind of thing there with a very high front three,

a high, narrow front three, and three center mids, who two of them in particular are doing just a whole bunch of ground covering and work. Right. And then who's been talking about this high press? Joe Lowry's had some stuff about this, right? Yeah, Lowry, right after that Coast Rookie game, had a great breakdown of it.

Well, I'm sure I'm going to convince you to put that link in the show notes. I wrote for the athletic on our evolution. Burhalter's evolution, and it was primarily on how we defend it. And yeah, I think that our personnel match up really well with what I think we would do in this game as well. So that's what I'm expecting to see, and I'm really excited to see if we can pull it off. Did we do a, would you say we did a 4-3 high press against Canada? in the second leg of that of that not Champions League, Nations League,

tie? Yeah, I could get there, and it was, again, it was not the same, though, because we talked about it right after that game. Against Canada, we, instead of having Morris and Ariola, who were the wingers in that game, sit sort of deep in a 4-4-2, they essentially ran past Jiazzi Zardez ahead of him,

and that would work the same way in the 4th. three three but in this one because Canada had that box midfield uh Zardez and McKinney um was it McKinney were basically like flat together defending it wasn't McKinney it would have been legit it would have been like Zardaz and legit were like high up um side by side defending Canada's two holding mids Morris and ariola sort of bond past him so we create we essentially replicated there four two two while we were defending okay with our wingers jumping past it so I mean a little variation but yes we did press higher we did not just

we very much did not sit back in a soft 4-4-2. And I think that's the theme. The theme is that we're not just going to sit back and concede possession anymore. We are going to make you earn your possession. We're going to make you beat us with your ability to, like, slice us open if we over-commit and cover poorly. And so I'm glad. I think that plays to our strengths. Even against good teams, I think that plays to our strengths.

I know we're kind of getting into this defensive setup in here. I'm very much just sort of speculating. But people are saying, well, we won't be able to do that against good teams. And I don't see why not. Playing aggressively defensively doesn't mean you can't do it. If that's what your good players are good at, then I think that's what you should do. Even if they might not be good enough to win games, I still think that's better than asking your good players to do what they're not good at and just sit back and not be aggressive and then just lose a different way more convincingly. Right, right.

Well, okay. Let's start. Let's start, I think you're right. I think it's going to be that 3, 2, 5 buildout, that 4. 433 high press. Of course I think you're right. I almost always do. And so let's start from the back of the field. Goalkeeper is going to be Zach Stephan. Am I wrong? Am I right?

No, no. It's definitely going to be Stefan for the Wales game. I could see him switching between whales and Panama and giving Horvath a, I'm not going to say a pity start. Horvath is a good goalkeeper. But like a confident start, like a, hey, someone somewhere values you. Ethan Horvath. Horvath versus Panama makes all the sense in the world. And then, okay, so our back four slash back three in... No, yeah.

Sorry, Bells. I'm going to confuse everyone. I'm doing this in the 3-25. So we're talking about how we would look in possession. With the ball, right, is our build-up when Stefan has it at his feet. So, yeah, so we're not playing a back three. Tyler Adams is not going to be a centerback. But when we're building out of the back,

we're going to have two centerbacks and Tyler Adams sort of creating that back three. One of those centerbacks will be John Brooks on the left side. I don't know who will partner with him. I don't think it will be Tim Ream. I think that would be pretty ludicrous to put two left-footed, not necessarily quick centerbacks on the field together.

So one of Matt Mioska or Chris Richards. I don't really care. What's your preference? or do you think that will for sure see one of the other? I don't know. I think I suspect it'll be Miaska, but I would rather it be Richards. Just to see, just to see what, you know, what he looks like at this level. He has played a little bit with Byron Munich.

Isn't really playing for them right now. But, you know, he's widely thought of as the highest potential centerback in the pool. So let's see what he looks like. And I'd be excited to see that as well. my cynical side says that it's just not a priority for Burrhalter in this camp or in this window there are bigger fish to fry

namely the integration of Gio Raina the integration of Anthony Robinson Eunice Musa so we have all these other things that we really really need to concentrate on and he may not want to use that time to give Richards the full assessment and we know Matt Miazga again

we described him as sort of a plug and play player where he can just move into a he just seems to be a good professional, and he's played plenty for Burrhalter already, so it would make sense to just see him. I don't have the stats in front of me, but has he played plenty for Burrhalter already? I don't know that he has played that much for Berhalter. Yeah, he played all through the Gold Cup. He played in the March Friendlies in 2019. He started against Mexico in the friendly right after the Gold Cup. He got dropped, I think, maybe just for the Canada

round two camp but he's yeah he's he's a he's a pretty season vet for Walter and he's played a bunch of minutes too not just camp involvement so it makes sense and I'll kind of make the same case as we move

farther ahead in the formation for another guy who might be a question mark yeah I guess it doesn't really it doesn't matter to me who starts between the two of them that much I mean Richards offers more I think more athleticism more quickness than Miyazga, and you do need a little bit of that when you have Brooks as the other centerback

because he is, if he gets caught in transition, it could be trouble. It could be trouble. Yeah. No, it wouldn't surprise, I think it'd be a really good sign for Richards if he starts. I think it wouldn't just be like throw him out there. I think it would mean that Burrhalter has seen something that he thinks Richards will offer. So I'd really be excited to see that, but I won't be disappointed if I don't. Okay. So then we got Adams in the middle. I think there's no, there's no doubt in your mind now that Adams is going to be the six instead of one of the dual eights? No, not anymore.

And it's because for as many disagreements as I might have with Greg Berthelter, he is very precise in how he speaks. And going into Tyler Adams, you know, I feel like it was all the way back in January ahead of that friendly camp. People were still grilling him about Adams' role once he got back to health because he was still injured at that point mostly. And Burrhalter had said, okay, we see Tyler Adams as a center mid, and there was this big sigh of relief across the fan base.

And then in the like an ensuing press conference, somebody, and I'm not sure who it was, I forget, I'll have to look about it, but one of the good USMNT Twitter folks asked him specifically like, okay, so now that you said Tyler Adams is a six, and Burrhalter like stopped him right there, not disrespectfully, but just again, just to make sure everything was accurate and said, I never said he was a six. I see him as a center midfielder.

And so that was where it was still, okay, he's going to be one of those eights. Burrholder is very clear that it's not a six situation necessarily. But then in this most recent press conference after the November roster, Burrhalter actually went and said, I think, for the first time ever, we are like seeing Tyler Adams as the six. Okay. When was it that he corrected the reporter and said he's, I don't see, like roughly, when was it? I think it was January.

I think it was back in January of this year. Yeah. I should have done the legwork and figure out. I just think it's impressive that you're parsing his words like this. And it is, it does seem appropriate. Yeah, it is, he is careful with his words, so it's worth paying attention to them. So I see Adams the Six, and I want to keep going on this, on this sort of pedantic angle here in that, you know, people have sort of been saying,

but Bradley hasn't used, or, yeah, I'm sorry, Burrhaler hasn't used his Sixes this way in the Tyler Adams mold. It's always been Bradley or Trap or Ewell. And I just want to say like Bradley and Trap have actually not played this role for Burrhalter for the U.S. Men's National team where they actually drop between the centerbacks and played this deep six. Bradley and Trap for the entire run of 2019 played as one of the two play as the two band in that three, two five shape, whether it was with an inverted right back in January and March or whether it was just with Weston McKinney sitting there through the Gold Cup. they always just sat next to another center mid and didn't drop deep.

So that was one of the, I think, bad misuses of those guys because it's a position that needs to cover a lot of ground if you're going to play any kind of aggressive defense. And we were playing either Bradley or Trap who could not offer that in that spot. So this is a real shift in how we play a six. And it's one where I don't know for sure that Adams is the ideal fit for it, to be honest. I've always thought Adams would have been better than Bradley or Trap in the role that Burhalter was using them in in that band of two players. But this will be really interesting to see whether he, how Berhalter uses Adams in this role, what he asks him to do, and then whether or not Adams can do it.

Yeah. Yeah, I've always, I've always just kind of wanted, I recognize all the nuance to the discussion that you generally talk about, but I've always just wanted to see Adams there, whether he's dropping between this, centerbacks or not having him there a lot for those moments of transition that seem to pepper most soccer games with their presence. Yeah, and it's something where whether it optimizes Adams in particular or not, it very well may optimize like our overall personnel to put him there and then get another very good center mid lined up next to Weston McKenney. So the back three in the buildup is going to be Brooks Adams and then, you

there are Richards of Miyazka. I think most people who follow the men's national team with affection will be pleased with that. I won't complain. All right, center mids. So that brings us to those two center mids. Weston McKinney, and I'm projecting here, Eunice Musa starting next to McKinney. I think it'd be a bit foolish to bring him into this camp and then not play him.

He is starting for Valencia. There aren't actually too many other good options unless you're going to use Sebastian Legit in that role who's a late edition. And Burrhalter very specifically said he sees Eunice Musa as a box-to-box McKinney-like player. He actually called him, like used McKinney as a comparison point. So it also makes a lot of sense to use those two guys in a similar role. Even though Musa plays, I learned this from Joe Lowry on the Total Soccer show,

but even though Musa plays sort of as a right-sided midfielder for Valencia, he has played a lot of central midfield for the English youth national teams and that's kind of as more I guess more natural position as he came up I guess I sort of think you might want to start Legette there because you're going to have so many people on the field who have not been in the system before and at least Legit has a few reps in under Burrhalter and maybe he can help bring everybody along he is kind of the dad of the group but the human He's the most handsome and the most senior. Well, maybe not the most senior person in this camp, but pretty close.

But I acknowledge that you're right. Like, why would you bring in Musa for this sort of, like, we're basically auditioning the program for him to try to get him to fully switch. You bring him in and then you don't start him against Wales and then maybe you start him against Panama. I don't know if that's the best pitch. I think Musa will start and I feel like legit. will just be there to help everyone ease into the ease into their roles i don't know i mean it wouldn't surprise me i guess to see legit i think there'd be a lot of meltdowns i wouldn't particularly be upset but uh it would be burhalter would be throwing a lot of hot oil on himself right um as the

as the phrase goes throwing hot oil on yourself uh so so okay mcena and musa as the dual eights essentially perhaps legit if if uh if Burrhalter wants to emulate himself. And like not a lot of other choices in this group to do this job in my mind. Like I don't think Ledezma is a great fit of this. I don't know if that's where he's going to get his minutes. But this is where Dwayne Holmes would have been like a more natural fit or a Brian Keo. So I don't know.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure what other options we have, especially again, once Berhalter specifically said Musa is going to play this role, those are like the only two guys who play it. So either they're starting or legit starting or we are completely wrong about what Burrhalter is going to be doing. Yeah. Okay, well, that's the next, that's going to, whatever happens there,

I'm going to be happy. So so far I'm just going to be happy no matter what happens with the lineup. Let's talk about that front three slash, actually front five, sorry, the front five in attack, which includes counterintuitively, we realize the fullbacks. Right. So if we take the front five from the outside and then we'll start with those fullbacks. And the thing is isn't a particularly, it's not particularly complex.

Like there's nothing terribly complicated about this. Desrigeno Desk and Anthony Robinson are my guess for the starting fullbacks. And they'll just simply get up and down the sidelines. I think Dest would have a lot more freedom to go wherever, especially if he's sort of combining with Raina over there. I imagine Robinson will be a little bit later arriving as he'll kind of, overlap pool sick when the, when the play calls for it. And I imagine he'll stay much, like, much closer to the sideline,

whereas Dest might go wherever. I think Robinson will basically be a traditional modern pullback. Right, traditional modern pullback. Desil be sort of more avant-garde. And I wonder if we'll see, because for Folham and for Wigan last year, Robinson gets up that line, and he whips in a lot across us. Like that's sort of his job is to get up there, beat, get around the edge a little bit and then fire the ball across.

I'm curious if we'll see him do that here because we aren't, we haven't really been much of a crossing team under Burhalter. And I don't know that we're going to be very good at getting on the end of these crosses. Well, I know one guy who would be good at getting on the end of these crosses by name Nicholas Joaquini. We're not there yet. I can't believe you ruined the surprise.

All right. So do you think that's what we're going or do you think we're going to see some kind of a surprise there with either a cannon or ream? starting in one of those positions. I think it'll be Dest and Robinson and the land will rejoice, you know, the people of the land. You know, if it turns out to be canon and Dest, fine by me. I think it would be sort of silly to start Ream in this spot. And I've been thinking about Ream a little bit this morning, this morning and this afternoon.

It does seem like probably he's going to be playing left center back in the Panama game. For a while, I thought, well, maybe he plays, maybe he's the stay-at-home guy for a little while. But maybe he's a stay-at-home left-back against Panama or something, but I don't think that makes that much sense because then you have, then you put Brooks in both games as the left centerback, and we know he's not probably going to survive that physically. Right, right. So Reams there in case Brooks gets held out on the very last day by Wolfsburg, to start versus Panthers.

Yeah, and then I think maybe Robinson starts both games at left back. Really give him the full tryout. Okay. Go ahead. Sorry. I'd do it. He's used to a championship level schedule so he can play forever. Okay, so we got those two guys wide, Robinson and Dest, although it's possible.

It could be Canon and Dest. So let's shift. Let's then shift centrally by one zone on each side, and we've got Poulsick and Raina occupying the half spaces. Again, very similar to what they do for their clubs. I know a lot of people are balking about Raina as the nominal right winger, but that's not crazy, and it's not even really a departure for what he does for Dortmund. At this point, he's been starting a lot of games for Dortmund with Marco Royce in the lineup, and Royce is the nominal 10, and Raina has shifted the outside of him slightly.

And so Raina even as sort of the right-sided player for Dorman, still is constantly occupying central positions, and he's going to be doing the same thing for the U.S. is my expectation. It's a perfect role for him, I think. He presumably doesn't have to chase as much as he would if he were one of the dual eights, which is not really a strong suit.

And like you said, that's the space he occupies a lot of the time for Dortmund anyway. So we're going to end up calling him a winger, but he won't really be a winger. We've covered this ground before. No. Yep, he's in the front three. I think Raina in particular will have a ton of,

of freedom and he'll just drift and drop wherever to get to like find the ball get in the game. I think pool sick will be a little bit more predictable as far as just sort of coming off the left wing into the central half space to receive. And that's the time when Robinson will, you know, have to time his movement a little bit to go around him. But still a couple of very strong players in that, in those half spaces. Pretty excited. And should we get into the pool. I mean, we're talking about pool sick, even though he just said he's probably not going to play.

It seems unlikely. It seems unlikely that he will play. Yeah, so I guess I would like to see Yanez the most in that position. And speaking of confidence building, he probably needs a little confidence building. But if it's Wea, that's just fine with me. I mean, it could even be Ledesma. Ledesma would fit that role pretty well, I think. Sebastian Legit coming in hot.

Yeah, it could be legit too. It wouldn't surprise me It all with Yanez I kind of would expect Yonaz to take it And for the same reason that I kind of expect Miazga to start It right centerback Yannes had a full camp in January

Learning basically these exact rotations For Burrhalter He then played pretty well in his game So you have between those two Pieces information Berhulter is working with A lot easier to plug him in And to use any time during this camp And he, Berhalter talked to

the guys at Fox Sports about this. He said it's basically they're going to have two days of training. They're going to train Tuesday and they're going to train Wednesday and they're going to play a game. There's no way you can integrate all the new pieces plus get like a real assessment of Conrad and all these guys. So for me, it's just going to be an easier decision logistically to throw Yanez in there if Pousick.

I think it would be fun to see. And Yonaz, like you said, Yonaz was pretty comfortable in that role. Not sure how well he'll, how good he'll look against Wales, but throw them out there, in my opinion. Okay. Where do you see, where do you see like Conrad and Wea? Like, do you think they've got a shot at starting somewhere in here? I mean, it could just as easily be Wea coming in off the left as it is Yanez.

I think Conrad, I mean, Conrad's been playing that position for Barsabee, some, hasn't he? and he played some on the left for Barcelona. He's definitely not going to play a right outside winger for Barcelona. That position is taken. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't know where everybody's going to fit in. I'm very curious to see. I guess I'll put it that way.

All right. So now we're up to striker, and I feel like you've already tipped your hand here. Who's actually going to be starting for this? I think it's going to be Joe Keeney. He's playing at, I think, a significantly higher level than Soto, and they're the only two pure strikers in the camp. Now, Wea could also end up being the number nine. It's possible.

Has Burrhalter said anything about Wea being forward lately? No information on that at all. Yeah. Nope. If we came out and started Wea up top, that would make my entire week. Would it? I mean... Just because it would be an indication that Burrhalter sees him

being useful there, which I think would mean a lot, and that just that Wayo could be expected to run at least 60 minutes, which I'm also not expecting. Yeah, it would be the first time we see Wayo run for 60 minutes since before the injury. The injuries, basically. Since U-20 World Cup, I believe. No, I think he started a game for Leal in their opener in 2019. Yeah, Joe Keeney scored a goal over the weekend,

a stoppage time game winner for Khan. and it was sort of vintage Nico Joaquini. You know, he latched onto a bouncing long ball, found somebody out wide, and then made a run to the near post, and then first time hit it with his right foot into the goal. Nothing fancy about it. Kind of Zardaz-esque, in my opinion.

So, yeah, I hope to see him. Well, that's an interesting point. Like, one of the reasons that I'm really curious about this forward position, it's less about, I mean, I'm sure I'm excited. to see one of the new faces in there, whether it's Giacini or Soto or Wea. But just as important is sort of how Burrhalter draws the position up, whether he's going to sort of run back the January camp position where it's very much like a drop into midfield, play like a number 10 the way Jesus Ferreira did and did pretty well.

Because if that's the case, it sort of undermines the kind of growing sentiment that Giazzi is the presumptive starter for the national team. in a full strength situation because that's not Jaziz Zarquez's strength. I mean, he doesn't do that. So if that's what we do for the second sort of window in a row, I think that would be pretty telling and it might

suggest that Burrhalter might have other ideas for the striker because the other thing about Burrhalter is he's not winging it. You know, like he's very deliberate with how he uses these windows. And so if he continues to use strikers in ways that don't suit

Zardaz, like you got to imagine that that might mean that he's going yeah that would be interesting and I feel like Joe Keeney can play that sort of pure's artist role but also can can get back can drop deeper and mix it up in a way that's artist maybe isn't capable of have you have you seen him doing that before I haven't I haven't seen a lot of Joe Keeney for whatever reason he doesn't end up high on my list of guys to watch their involvement so yeah he's seen some of that link up stuff I mean he's not doing it the way. He's not doing it.

He's not doing it. Can you hear me all right? Can you hear me all right? He's not doing it the way. He's not doing it the way Ferreira did it in that game and that Costa Rica friendly, but he can do it. I think he's more a little better at it than Zardis. I guess that's as far as I will go at this point. Okay.

All right. All right. That's one of the reasons I get pretty excited. Sorry to shout at you, but like that that's what gets me excited about seeing Tim Waya there is because I really think Waya can do the link up job really. well. Yeah. No, I mean, I'd be happy with that. I would like to see Joe Aquini start this game because I think he's just an interesting player and it's cool to see him in the camp. It's cool to see the photos on social media of him showing up at camp. Speaking of other people showing up at camp,

speaking of people showing up at camp, some others we haven't discussed are Richie La Desma, really, Johnny Cardoso, Ono de Soe. that's right who else Conrad del Fuente Sebastian Soto I think whatever Berthalter does

in this Wales friendly which would you agree it's the more sort of premiere of the two matches I think so for sure and that's been the case

for a lot of these windows is that the first match seems to be like Burrhalter sort of plays his best players or plays sort of more the experiment is really being conducted and then the second one is just a nice runout exercise.

So whatever he does for this more important match, the runout exercise, I hope we get to see everybody else. I would love to see Ledesma start against Panama. I would love to see, because I do not think he'll start against Wales. We'd love to see whoever between Musa and Legette doesn't start against Wales, start against Panama. Love to see Cardoso and Otisoe in that Panama match. And then I guess after that we don't know because we don't know because it could be any of these wingers could be playing on the left wing and way it could be playing strikers.

So whoever it doesn't play, play them against Panama. And we'll get tons of data from that game, even though it's just a run out, you know. Right, right. Yeah, I'm going to be honest. I'm expecting that Panama game to be up. Really? Yes. A glorified, like a glorious mess.

A glorified training session, really. Yeah, I mean, let's just drain. Drink it in this week. Yeah. No, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I'm going to enjoy the hell out of all of these minutes. It's going to be fun.

Even if Pulisic doesn't play, even, you know, even without Josh Sergeant there. We got Adams McKinney, Wead, Dest, Musa, Robinson, Otisoe, Yanez Ledesma, and several others. Conrad Delafonte, all encamped together. What a pleasure. What a pleasure it'll be. Right. Right. Even Musa scores a gold, takes off his jersey, and reveals an English shirt underd

underneath, like, I will still be enjoying it. That would be hilarious. Anything else on this game? Get any secret intel on Wales? No, I was going to, like, talk to you about that before recording. Like, we should at least recommend someone's podcast who is doing a whales preview because I know nothing about how whales play. Yeah, I did see that Ryan Giggs is kind of out of the picture.

Oh, dear. some domestic abuse or something. So he's been relieved of his duties at least temporarily. At least this camp, I'm sure, while they investigate. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I was just to say, so he's been removed from this camp at least until they investigate. I think I heard that Aaron Ramsey is no longer going to be at this camp.

He's not. I believe I saw that. I don't know if it's been. Okay. So it's just going to be Gareth Bale. Yeah, Gareth Bale, Shalka Legend, Rabbi Matando. Okay. That's what I was.

waiting for us waiting for the next headliner that they had David Brooks the much maligned New York Times columnist will be playing midfield no it's a different David Brooks um oh of course Harry Wilson he's been he's been a kind of an exciting player lately I think left-footed Ben Davis a lot of guys who just kind of you know bounce back and forth between the championship and the Premier League I think all right so some rank and file top league players, which is no small thing. We are going to be thrilled when all of our players are ranking by the top league. It's not going to be an easy game for sure.

Well, it doesn't appear that it will be an easy game. Let's talk about a couple of other things before we get off the phone here. I want to congratulate the Philadelphia Union. I'd like to congratulate the Philadelphia Union on their supporter shield. Quite a year for them. They did a lot of playing American. young Americans. So they get a lot of attention from me for that reason.

And then they sold one to Salzburg, Brendan Aronson, for probably the best price for the value of the player that MLS has ever gotten for a young American. I mean, you could argue Josie Altador to Villarreal was a bigger deal back then. But this is a big one. And then they won the Supporter Shield. So kudos to you, Philadelphia.

Yeah. On to MLS Cup. Yeah, this is what we talked about with Red Bulls way back going in with FC Dallas, so that we want to see teams trot the kids out and then win something and then sell them. And that's exactly what you need have done. To be exactly their plan. Anything else we should talk about? No, let's get off the phone and let's like pour over the internet for more Greg Burholter comments.

Yeah, he's doing a call later this afternoon, which you will be listening to, if I'm not mistaken, right? That's right. I won't be live tweeting it. I'm going to be on the phone with Caden Clark's dad. That's why I'm not going to be there. I've moved from interviewing young players to interviewing their dads or moms. We'll be fine, too. Okay.

Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.