Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 154: A January Camp Battle Royale

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

Twelve senior team call-ups and a bunch of U23s angling to join them by the end of the month. Call it a Battle Royale. 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. January camp kicks off on Saturday in Bradenton, Florida, that theater of dreams in American soccer. There will be a match at the end of the month, rumored to be against Serbia.

A Serbian domestic team. Oh, yeah. Which I'll have to do some looking as we get closer to the game to see just how low on their sort of depth chart we're talking about with their domestic pool. Yeah. I have to, yeah, that's a good point. I have to admit I've been sort of mesmerized lately by the increasing instability of our

Republic and haven't paid as close attention to this January camp as I should. But you have, Greg. I see your Slack messages. You've been paying close attention. And I think I can be of some service as a sidekick here. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a bit of a roller coaster, especially for you, given your new digs in Georgia. Yeah, lots to...

quickly becoming the best state and union. And then just a lot has happened. There's been a lot of 2021 and 2021 so far. Yeah, it's been crazy, man. But we won't, you know, you can hear about that basically everywhere else in the world right now. So before we get into the January camp roster, let's talk quickly about Mark McKenzie's move to Gink, former club of one Kevin DeBreona. Transfer Market says it was a $6 million fee, although that's not official.

It's probably in the ballpark. And this fits the grand narrative. of MLS becoming a selling league and the ascendancy of American soccer. I like it. Will he play? Will he play for Gank, Greg? I'm weighing in right away with a firm yes. Mark McGenzie's going to play for Gank.

Where do you stand on it? I know only what I learned from you. I think you said this was the third highest transfer in their history as a club. Yeah, somebody else had posted that. I believe it was overrun and midfield. on Twitter. Anyway, he posted the transfer market list. So third largest fee paid for a player, I think, in Gang's history, all of them coming

in the last couple of years. And more importantly, just what their depth chart looks like right now, gang play like a 3-4-3, so they're using three centerbacks every game, but they only have at this point three centerbacks on their roster who have played in any game. So they're using the same three centerbacks for every minute of every game. and they're about to enter into an incredibly congested run of matches. So they're going to be playing a game every three days for the next month. They just spent $6 million on a centerback.

They only have the exact number of centerback so far that they play. So I think even if McKenzie's not an immediate upgrade on one of them, it's very likely that he could be. He's still going to get, I think, thrown right into a rotation where he's going to be playing. 90 minutes a week. I'm predicting at least 90 minutes a week here for the next month. That's awesome. I mean, that's great news.

And again, great news that a franchise like Philadelphia is developing and then selling players for good money, money that you can use. And it's awesome. So let's go to the – Yeah, I'm excited to see it. Let's go to the rosters. There are two of them, of course, the what you're calling the grown-up roster and then the U-23 roster.

Well, because we've had these young camps now for. for all of 2020, January, 2020, and then November in Europe and then December in Florida. But they were all mixed. It was all mingling. So you had skewing really young. I mean, it's incredible young how, it's incredible how young these rosters have skewed in 2020. I think the average age of the outfield players called in was like 22 for all three of those camps. It's outrageous.

But yeah, so in this case, we've had a full differentiation now of the youth players here. Every youth player, every U23 player is in one group. and then all the non-use eligible players start out together. I'm sorry, I just can't resist this. When you see the young rosters, all you have to do is just a little bit of research. And then you'll see that Greg Burrhalter is going to be the coach in 2026. This is why it's all happening.

It's all happening. It's all coming together. We just have to wait for cue to give us the cue. And we run at soccer house in 2024. it's all coming together. No, I mean, it is, it is cool. It is cool that there's been so many young rosters. And it does kind of make, I mean, in all seriousness,

it does kind of make you think, you know, Burralter is coaching for the long haul here, you know? Yeah, I mean, I don't even think you have to interpret it that way. I think coaching for the near term, coaching for, I mean, I've said this a lot, even coaching for 2022, these are the guys you should be thinking about and knowing that they're going to jump the fringe elements of the missing generation.

That's true. That's true. Are we calling them fringe elements? Can we use fringe elements? Yeah, we can. We can. We can. All right.

So you want me to read off the roster here? Yeah, so we got the growing up roster. Let's go by position, and I'm going to jump in with omissions for each position group, too. Okay. I'll give the people who are there. You give the omission. How about that? Goalkeeper, Matt Turner, and Sean Johnson.

So Bill Hamid, the obvious omission. He was just in December camp. Now, Turner and Johnson weren't nice. of them were available for that camp. But I think this sort of cements the fact that Hamid is very much a placeholder amongst placeholders. Okay. At centerback, Aaron Long, Walker Zimmerman, and I guess Tristan Blackman, he plays some right back

for L.A.FC. Yeah, I put him with the centerback. I'm not really sure where he's going to end up or whether he'll play at all in this camp. But then the guys, the defender's missing. Chase Gasper, who had a really nice year with Minnesota and was someone I expected to get a look. would be the opportunity to do it, left off. And then Greg Burrhalter, veterans, Daniel Levitts, and Nick Lima. Yeah, that's interesting that they're not going to be there.

I mean, Gaspers may be the most interesting, like he said. Why do you think Blackman's there? I mean, this is his first call up, right? Yeah, I honestly have no clue. It's not like we're searching for more right backs. I mean, we'll always take talent where it's there, but it's not as old Blackman has somehow emerged as it's. a real possibility for right back.

So again, really not sure whether it's just sort of a nice pat on the back, but it's a bit of a mystery, this one. Placeholder among placeholders. And I guess that's all the defenders. That's all the defenders in the camp. There's three, Longs, Zimmerman and Blackman. We don't even have a left back in the grown-up camp. And then midfielders, we've got Sebastian Leggett.

Christian Ruled-on makes his reappearance on the national team, and then Kel and Acosta. Yeah, the guys left out here are Michael Bradley and Will Trap. And we'll get into it in a little bit, but that's a bit of a big deal. I know they weren't in any of the 2020 camps. We had the January camp and the December camp, which were both domestic players. But it's still meaningful here, especially when we're talking about a camp that has 12 players on the list. Yeah. Do you want to not, you don't want to get into it now?

You want to wait and get into it later? No, we're going to run through all of them at one. We'll do the big picture after. Okay. And then wingers, I guess, would be Jordan Morris, Paul Ariola, and Chris Mueller. So the guy I listed as sort of the omission here, it would have been a reach, but would have been Tyler Boyd, very much not doing things in Turkey at the moment. Now, I know there were reports that he would be eligible to be sort of re-registered with the team in January, but to nothing I've heard suggests that happens. hasn't been with Besheeked us in either of their two matches that they've played so far in

2021. So I was curious if we'd maybe see like Burrhalter throw him a lifeline for this camp. Didn't happen or it wasn't possible. I'm at the point where I sort of starting to feel bad for Tyler Boyd because he could have, you know, he could have been a star for New Zealand. And it doesn't look like he's going to get that many more caps for the U.S. And he's cap-tied. Yeah, hold that thought.

Let's get to the strikers. Okay, Josie Altador is the only striker in this camp. Good to see him back. And who are the omissions? So it came out that Giazzi Zardetz is recovering from a minor injury, which is why he was left off. And I think it was expressly said that he would have been in camp had that not been the case. And then in the similar vein as Tyler Boyd, I've listed Aaron Johansson

because he is no longer a part of Homerby's side. the Swedish season is over and they've you know they made it very clear that he is not or he made it clear that he's not returning so I thought maybe again a chance for a for a life line bring him to camp see what he's got but same thing with Boyd not happening not possible one of the two I don't know why was he was he like released by Homerby his contract is up or so I think his contract was up and I believe he was essentially not interested in resigning with them and he was going to explore probably probably like trying to trying to step up in competition. He's got himself back healthy playing in Sweden. He's scoring goals for fun in Sweden. And so I think the plan would be to see if that translates up. Yeah. Okay.

So there's the grown-up roster, only 12 names, like he said. 12 names, a lot of guys left off. And if you take all those guys, a lot of these are Burholter veterans. And if you take those guys and threw them into this group, you'd be approaching something close to a full roster in like a functional camp. but that's that's definitely not what we've done yeah it's it's it's it when you put it like that it's a turning of the page is it not it feels like it right uh I mean we could or we could have done that or we could have taken some of the sort of key or already identified U23

players uh and started them in the senior in the senior pool um and then done the same thing and brought up some U23s as they went but didn't do that either so why didn't we do that Maybe we should ask that question with regard to one specific player, Jackson Ewell. Like, why is he not on this grown-up roster? Why is he, we'll talk about him later, but he's with the U-23s. What's going on there? So I feel like there's two different reads on it. And I'm sure there'd be more, but the two I kind of settled on was either Burrhalter

is very much just wanting to let Jason Christ establish like a U-23 squad to take to qualifying and you want to keep that group together and figure out how they're going to play and you know yule's if maybe you already know yule is sort of like your centerpiece midfielder there and so that's the priority or and what i'm hoping it is is more of like a situation where it's just going to be a full on u23 battle royale uh down in florida and the survivors advanced to the advanced to the senior team for the last week of training leading up to serbia yeah baby i love that. I mean, could it also be, could a third reading be that, or like an addendum to one of those readings would be, would be that, you know, Burrhalter has shifted from, at least to some extent,

shifted to having a midfield that is like higher energy and, you know, Tyler Adams can start at the six. We don't need this sort of deep-lying distributor. And therefore, Yule has dropped in the pecking order and is, you know, has to join in this. Battle Royale, whereas like six months ago, maybe he would be automatically in with the grownups. Yeah, I think very much so. And I think a lot of that can go into, even if Berhalter still really likes Ewell, and again, he started in the December camp, even if he really likes Eul still, it still, I think, would serve the purpose of sort of putting everyone on that level playing field in that

battle royal to start with. So sure, maybe Ewell, I mean, Vines was been in the last two domestic camps. He jumps in with the U-23s. everyone now starting in the same place to really fight for those spots side by side sort of I believe the phrase going around is trial by combat like you're gonna you're really going to earn your way in and if and and that kind of goes into why it's only a 12 man camp for the for the grownups because if you had all those sort of fringe players the lovitz's and the traps if you had those guys there there would be nowhere for these u23s to then slide in you're not going to bring

lovitz and trap into camp for three weeks and be like okay thanks for your time, fellas. Now you can go home. We're giving your spots away to these kids. You know, Burrhalter's a big culture guy, and I think that would be detrimental to the culture. So instead, you just leave the spots open. That's the big prize.

Everyone, it's as visible as can be. We're bringing 12 more players in. Like, we know we're doing that. It's your job to earn it. And by keeping all the 23s together, you have them all on this level playing field. Again, I know Ewell and Vines and Arajo, who's been in a couple of camps,

will come in with a little bit of sort of built-in, you know, data that Burrhalter has on them. Ferreira the same. He was in the last January camp. But it really does feel like it can be anyone's spot to take. Do you – let me ask a couple more questions about the grown-up roster. Are you bothered by Roldan's presence? Is the meritocracy threatened by him? No, I'm not. And I think Raldon, you know, again, I've pointed this out before.

As much as he seems like a nothing kind of a player, that sounds really harsh. But in the international sense for the men's national team, I feel like no one thinks about him. Like you just don't think about him being a key piece of the team. But he still had more center midfield minutes than any other player except Weston McKinney last year, I think is how it went. In 2019, I should say. So, you know, he was a big piece of. Greg Burrhalter's first year. And I actually kind of think rolled on very similarly to how I think of Nick Lima,

in that I think that he is very much a placeholder, a stand-in. And whereas in Nick Lima's case, we had the emergence of Serginio Dest. We had Reggie Cannon progressing, I guess, people would say. And he's essentially no longer needed. We don't need someone to stand in on that role. We have the players now. And I think we're just, I think Berhalter is probably just waiting until he's comfortable with the guys who are going to take over Roaldon's role,

I don't think Roaldon is going to be a central piece of the qualifying roster. I mean, maybe if we're rotating a lot of guys, he could see some call-ups, but I think he's probably going to be phased out, the same way Lima has apparently been phased out. He's, by all accounts, coachable, and a good locker room presence and knows Burhalter at this point pretty well. So probably all those things help when you're putting a camp together. What about Josie's health?

Is that something he can do something about? Or is it just like I guess my question is, is there a sense in which you could say, hey, Burrhalter could get to Josie and say, hey, Josie, we really need you in the next two years. Can you, you know, do something differently in your health regime to like keep your hamstrings intact? Or is it just like this is who, this is what, this is Josie's cross to bear at this point? It's got to be the second piece. And, you know, I think that when Josie's healthy, I still think he's going to be a useful player for the way we're trying to play

in both the press and in our possession buildup game. The concern I have is definitely the health. And what I think happens is, like, what will be important, not necessarily over the next year, but as we get closer to 2022, if he's trying to fight for a spot on the World Cup roster is, you know, it's easy to bring. to gozy also to a qualifier weekend or week because if he gets hurt you just call a new guy up

I don't know how it's going to go for josie as we actually get to the world cup if he still has those ambitions and he's still playing at a high enough level because that becomes a pretty big risk if you take a player as injury prone as he is to a tournament where you can't replace him when he gets hurt so that's that's sort of my big picture josie thing is that for for individual like one-off qualifier games windows if he's healthy and he's still doing really well you bring I mean, you don't have to ask any questions about his health because whatever, he's either there. He's not, as we get closer to the tournament a year and a half from now, two years from now almost, if he's still sort of in that picture, then the question becomes more relevant.

Yeah. And we had that happen in 2014, right? We brought him, he got hurt in the early stages of the first game, wasn't it? Yeah, very first game. 20 minutes in, devastating. Yeah. We would have won that World Cup. If we could have planned a little better for that too,

because he's gone down in gold cups, at least a gold cup, I guess I should say. But yeah, it's just in a six-week, four-week tournament where you're hoping to play seven games. Yeah, there is that sort of roster construction risk. Yeah, could have planned better. I guess Yergan was just sort of trying to bend reality to his own will there, something a lot of us are guilty of these days.

Okay. So should we get right into the U23 roster? Yeah, let's do it. I should mention, you know, if you want like a really deep dive on this roster and every player involved and Joe Lowry saying the words he has a lot of qualities that other players don't have, hear him saying that a lot, you should listen to the Total Soccer Show recap. You should listen to that anyway. It's just great value. It is. It's a good podcast.

I'm just teasing you, Joe. by the way. So the U-23 roster. Goalkeepers are J.T. Marsenkowski, Markinkowski, Markinkowski, who knows? David Ochoa and Brady Scott. Yeah.

Basically the sum total of our available U-23 goalkeepers, with the exception, I think, of Klinsman, who's just going to stay on vacation. And I don't expect any of the 3D necessarily even get called up to the Serbia roster. Yeah. I'm a big fan of Chola. Finner and Johnson.

Yeah. Leftback, Sammy Vines, George Bellow. That's cool to see him get his first call-up, rewarded for, I think, a fairly strong year for Atlanta United, despite their struggles as a club. Chris Gloucester, who has lately been out of the, mostly out of the lineup for young PSV. So we're not talking about, like,

is he going to make a first team appearance at PSV? We're talking about, is he going to play for the, for the reserve team. So go ahead. Now, PSV have essentially released him. He was listed as one of eight players who they are basically saying you are free to leave. Like, I don't even think that anyone would have to come in and buy him. He is, he is done, they have no plans for him.

So Gloucester's hope here in this camp is to essentially do what Yanez did in the 2020 January camp, which is to beat out a couple of players who are getting first team pro minutes for, for a spot on the team and maybe even a start. And I have no idea how likely that is because I, like everyone else, has not seen Chris Gloucester play soccer in about eight months. Yeah. It's too bad that it didn't work out for him at PSV. I mean, it's a cutthroat business.

But maybe he comes back in place for Red Bulls in New York. I assume they would have his discovery rights or, you know, whatever the Byzantine legal terminology is. Right backs are Julian Arahu. Brian Reynolds and Aaron Herrera. So there weren't really any, there weren't really even any youth snubs on the left back side. If you want to talk about the U23 snubs,

Kyle Duncan, who was in the December camp and, I guess we could say Marco Farfan, since he played in the December camp as well at Leftback. Farfond and Duncan, not called into this camp. I'm not really losing much sleep about any of the U23 omissions because their spots went to other U23s. Three players. Speak for yourself.

I haven't slept in weeks over Duncan's omission. Oh, in days. Yeah, Arajo should be mentioned. Arajo was the starting right back in the December game. Thought he, you know, to the extent that anybody played well, I thought he played well. I know you kind of disagreed with me on that. You thought he had a lot of rough moments. He did.

He did. He did. And then Reynolds, we should mention, you know, rumored to be headed to Roma. We even did a podcast kind of about that. and then rumored to go to Juventus and go on loan, and none of that has happened, and we don't really know what's going on. No, but it seems like the fact, yeah,

the fact that he's here would suggest that they're, I mean, I guess they could always just, you know, whisk him away from the Florida camp, but the fact that he's here for a scheduled three-week camp would at least suggest that there isn't a move imminent. He's not like he doesn't have his plane ticket bought for February 2nd to go join the team that he's already signed for, I would imagine.

Yeah. That's kind of a bummer, but maybe he'll really impress in this camp and get a chance to play against Serbia, Serbia's C team. And then centerbacks, Kessler, what's Kessler's first name? I'm just going to say Henry, but that's not correct. You're thinking of Henry Kissinger. Kessler, Miles Robinson. Henry Kessler. Eat it, bells.

You got it. Maricio Paneda and then Abuukar, Keta. I'm excited to see Keta there, just on a personal level. Remember how rough it was for him against the French U-20 national team in the World Cup? And I remember, I sent him a direct message. I said, don't. This is back when I actually communicated with players. I said, don't, you know, don't get down.

I thought you've been playing pretty well. And he, like, he was, you know, he really appreciated that message. And I've been rooting for him ever since, you know. Yeah. And that's amazing because I think, I think a lot of people just kind of, I don't want to say dismissed, but were essentially so indifferent to him as a pro. Like, it was just like, okay, well, now, now we're going to focus on Richards and McKenzie's returned to health.

And Cato will probably slide back into sort of USL obscurity. But he's, he's making, he's making a bit of a run for it. with Columbus. He's got a trophy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's exciting. I think, you know, and he's left-footed, which is kind of rare in our pool, although

Mark McKenzie has a great left foot for a centerback. Castler, I believe Castler left-footed as well. Okay. And then Ceda is also, you know, he's a good athlete. We'll see. I have, I have hopes for him. Who are the omissions at centerback? So Justin Glad is just another one who was in January camp last year, in the December

camp. just doesn't seem, and then left off this one, seems like he's just sort of not impressed with the time he's had so far with Burrhalter. Yeah, I think that's fair to say. Because he's vastly more experienced than Keta at this point, and most of these guys, to be honest. I mean, he has a lifetime of minutes at centerback for RSL.

At midfield, sort of the deeper lying midfield position, we have Jackson Ewell aforementioned, and then Anders Perea. So I kind of put these guys as the deeper midfielers, but again, there could be a lot of wiggle room with all the center mids and where they'd play. The guys that I feel like were left out here would be James Sands, who I know was injured at the end of MLS season, but I'd heard that he was working his way back even potentially to get in for the CCL match

back in December. That didn't happen. So it could be injury related or he might just not be rated or New York City might not have released him. And then Frankie Amaya, who again was called up to the December camp, unfortunately contracted COVID and missed that and then not called into this camp. Yeah. And then, I mean, Sands is, especially if we have shifted to a midfield where we don't require our six to ping balls into the corner with regularity. Sands is someone I would like to get more of a look at. Yeah, I'm really hopeful that we get to see Sands at some point, soon, relatively soon.

Yeah. And then the sort of presumably more advanced midfielder's would be Tanner Testman, Eric Williamson, Brian K.O. and Hassani Dotson. Yeah, and the, I guess, omissions you'd call him here, Paxton Pomacall, who is injured, still for F.C. Dallas. Keaton Parks, another New York City guy, who I can do. to be really interested in seeing with the national team. But again, hasn't really been called into any camp.

So either New York City doesn't play ball or, again, just not rated. It's most likely the second thing. I know New York City celebrates Sean Johnson's inclusion in these camps. So it's probably just Keaton not being on the high enough on the depth chart. I put John Luca Busio on here because I think he is a good pressing midfielder and he'd fit in well with what we're trying to do. I'm hopeful to see him, you know, down the line.

And then I threw Aiden Morris and Brandon Sorvanya on here, too, just because they also exist. Yeah. I mean, and there seemed to be in opposite trajectories. Savania didn't have that great of a year for Dallas. I don't think he played that much. And then Aidan Morris, you know, started and went the full 90 and played well in the MLS Cup final, which. I guess you could say those are different trajectories. Which Columbus, as you all know, won emphatically over the Seattle Sounders.

I'm trying to think of that, I mean, Keo's interesting. I guess he's got time away from Wolfsburg, too, this month. Yeah, and they released him last year, too, for the January camp. I think they seem to be fairly cooperative. They released Yanaz and Keo last year. That's right. So, yeah, so this will be another fun one to see. whether or not he's like progressing or how close he is.

It's going to be tough to get into that senior squad, I think, given that Legette is probably a locked on starter. And Burrhalter definitely values rolled on. Remember when we used to refer to the Tanner Testament games? The MLS's back semi-colding tournament was officially renamed the Tanner Testament games and then officially unnamed that as FC Dallas could no longer compete in the competition. That's right. That's my dark horse here still.

I hope Testament starts opposite Legette in the Brendan Aronson role. Okay. And I hope that he controls the game more than Brendan Aronson has. Not a high bar. Not a high bar. And then Williamson, we should mention, you know, he had a good year for Portland, the Portland Timbers. He also contributed some top-line stats in this season.

I don't know exactly, but he had a few goals and a few assists on the year. So that's kind of interesting. He didn't look like, you know, watching him at the U-20 World Cup in 2017. He didn't look like somebody who was ever going to, like, sniff the goal. But here we are. He's a solid contributor in MLS. Now, okay. There's no reason he couldn't beat out a Kalan Acosta for a roster spot.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. And then wingerers, we have Georgi Mihailovich. Cade Cowell Jonathan Lewis And who's this fourth name you got here? Benji Michelle, am I saying that right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay

I don't watch a lot of Orlando Yeah, neither do I And then the omissions are who? So the omissions here would be Afra Alvarez Who was in December camp Ineligible to play at the moment would need to file a switch So it wasn't on the roster for the El Scyon A Caden Clark, New York City Red Bull.

Is that what they called themselves? The New York City Red Bull. Phenom. Cole Bassett from the Colorado Rapids, who I still lump in in this sort of a front line player. I mean, no, he's not technically a winger. But the way we play, I could see him fitting in here. And then I threw Jose Gaiosos. I love it.

Because life is short. Right. hopefully Gallegos I don't know has a better year in USL and gets a move or even better gets a move before the season starts

San Antonio just moved a guy right didn't they just maybe I don't even think sold is the right word I think a player just went from San Antonio to a team in Portugal oh was it that other 10 that other 10 of theirs

I forget his name Christian something well we'll definitely not fact-check that, but it will be fact-checked somewhere out in the ether. Yeah. Thank you for listening to this past 20 seconds where we provided zero information. And then finally, Stryker, Hazis Ferreira, Daryl Dike, and Jeremy Ababa Se. So the guys left out, if you want to call that, Iowa Aconola, is with Canada training through their January camp.

He would need to file a one-time switch to appear for Canada since he is provisionally captied by way of the U-20 Concaf Championship. I believe. And then I threw Ricardo Pepe on here because I was actually hoping that he would be in this camp. He was not called him to this camp and has subsequently joined five other FC Dallas players to go train with Bayern Munich for a few weeks. That's cool. That works just as well. A big breakout year from Ricardo Pepe this year would be very good. Ferreira, like Ferreira did not have a good year.

Is that fair to say? It is. And I actually really appreciate that he's on this roster. because of that because as you know I'm someone who very much values performance with the national team ahead of performance with the club if there's a if if Burrhaler thinks that you can perform for the national team it feels like he's willing to sort of look past struggles with the club Sebastian Leggett is a guy who has been hit or miss with his club for a lot of

his career and he has always been good for the national team so he seems to sort of be that that sort of player who creates that genre of pool player. And I'm hoping that Ferreira will be similar, where we just can step in, do the job that Burrhalter wants, and then whatever. If SC Dallas are using him poorly, that's their problem. Nobody loves America more than first and second generation immigrants. That's why Legette performs so well. Let me also, while we're at it, throw Dwayne Holmes into that list because he is falling out

of Darby County's lineups. Yeah, man. What a sad trajectory there. And then D.K., you know, D.K. is, I know he's not an analytics success story, but in terms of, like, highlights and the eye test, he looked really good this year for Orlando City. And then I think Obosei had his best year of production ever.

And, you know, being rooted along, cheered along vigorously by Matt Doyle. Doyle loves his set piece potential, which isn't nothing. No, it's not. So, yeah, we have a great group of players to supplement the grown-ups with. And again, it's really hard to think of 10 selections from this group that you'd be like, ah, this sucks. Yeah, I'd be happy with everybody, basically, anybody.

even Ferreira because I feel like I'm sort of the last the last person still on the Ferreira train that's a good point not Ferreira I'd rather be DK and and Gebo all right well I'm I'm hoping Ferreira starts whoever it is can only go 30 minutes whoever it is of those three there's you know statistically a high percentage chance that they start the game because Josie will probably be hurt no I want Ferreira for the false nine meltdown that will ensue okay um A lot of these names, I guess to sum up for me, a lot of these names are pretty far down the depth charts. So I'm just sort of in, let's see what happens mode.

I'm not, I don't feel passionately about much of it. It's nice to be here, right? Where there isn't a ton of urgency to, like, we have to identify players this month because we have no one. Yeah, I agree. I think we're essentially, I feel like a lot of these guys are auditioning to replace the fringe that had established itself from 2019. The fringe elements? Yeah, the fringe elements. All those guys who had been mainstays through all of 2019 that we talked about,

the Lovitz and the traps, like they could easily be just sort of out of the picture now and we're identifying the best 23s out of the domestic pool to take over for them and be the new fringe elements. Yeah. But now we're excited about them. Right. Yeah, no, it's a different place to be. I mean, I guess the urgency.

for me is watching Verde Bremen on Saturday mornings to see if Josh Sargent turns the corner, you know? Like, honestly, that's where, like, that's like the most urgent thing in the pool for me at this point. I'm, I'm super optimistic that our strikers are going to feast this year, whether it's Josh Sargent or anyone else. So I, tell me why. Tell me why.

It's the press. It's the high press. We are going, even like, I don't mean to say even Giazzi Zarquez, but like, as much as I went on about Zardas being a. terrible fit for the way we played in 2019 where everything was a like half court offense very methodical and deliberate and he's just the wrong guy to be the one of the big important pieces of that as we move and shift into this new style where we generate a lot of chances from a press jazzi's artist is going to love that he's going to he's going to be always be in the right

spots and he's going to poach a half dozen goals you know every every window so uh i think we've already seen how successful our strikers can be in, you know, in between the friendlies over the winter, I think they're going to score goals for fun against these weaker teams. Yeah, I can see these artists doing. I'm still not sure Sergeant will be in the right spots. But that's why we watch on Saturday morning. That's why we watch at the Westerstadion. Well, it's going to be Ferreira. It's going to be Ferreira scoring these goals. Yeah. You mean the whole year? Is that what you're talking?

All year. All of 2020. Good grief. That's not true. Anything else? I'm not being sarcastic. I'm excited for the possibility of Hesus Ferreira, U.S. Men's National Team Forward. Well. No, that's it.

That's it. That's my optimism. Okay. I know I promised our patrons that we were going to do the top 40 episode soon. And my apologies for breaking that promise. We just couldn't get it done. Y'all can blame me for that. I've actually been like, Wells, we have to push it so after the January camp, I don't want to do it.

And then get all this new ranking information and new video right before we rank everyone. So I want to rank everyone after we get this camp in. Yeah. So we'll get to it after this supposed Serbia friendly. And we'll have other. I won't be doing a Serbia deep dive the way I did for El Salvador. So you're probably going to have to. get that from Total Soccer Show or any of the other outlets that do deep Serbia dives.

Why? This is news to me. You're not going to be doing a deep dive? I mean, I will say that I will know enough to say which of their top players are not even available, but I will not know where their domestic talent plays or what position they play. Oh, I see. Like a scouting report of Serbia. Yeah, there won't be a serbia.

It's not in the offing. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll get something together for next week. Thanks everybody for listening. What else? If you're on Patreon and you don't often check it, go check out the top five moments of you of 2020 that I put together. Nice little video.

And yeah. McKenny's getting his name in for 2021 with his goal against D.C. Milan. So it was just this like, if you're on Twitter, it's just this mad rush of video of like a siege of our nation's capital. Like he scored the third goal in the 3-1 win over A.C. Milan at the San Cero. So cool, cool Weston McKinney stuff. So yeah, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.