Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 156: January Camp/European Campaign check-in

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

It's been a while so we talked about the latest cuts from January Camp ahead of the T&T friendly on Sunday, and checked in on the ever-expanding European pool.0:30 January Camp19:35 the European Pool�� 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 Scufft podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Thanks for downloading this episode of Scuff. We've got a friendly coming up. It kind of snuck up on us. Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday. How are we doing, Greg? I'm doing good, Bells. I'm kind of thinking of this as our missing generation friendly. Missing generation friendly. To try to like to dredge up a generation from that which was missing. Yeah, it feels like a lot of the senior players who we will very likely see play in this game are the last sort of hangers-on from that generation. Yeah. And how dare you refer to Sebastian Legget as a hangers-on, as a hanger on? Well, when you've seen all of your friends sort of go by the wayside for the past five or six years, I wonder if he's feeling like that.

They're now all just surrounded by children. He has indeed hung on. Yeah, I guess it fits. So, I mean, we're not going to get into too much detail about this friendly, but you've sort of sketched out a lineup. And we can talk about who was, who sort of made the cut, who didn't, which is sort of interesting information. Let's start with that most boring of all positions, the goalkeeper. So a goalkeeper, it looks like it will be Matt Turner by default in this situation. Marsenkowski and Fries joined from the U-23s,

but Sean Johnson has departed camp due to injury. I believe Ochoa, Ochoa and Scott were the other 23s named, who didn't end up in the final list. I think Ochoa got hurt before camp even started. Brady Scott sort of sent home for the match. And then a little bit of news on Bill Hamid, who wasn't named on the senior team roster,

he did have like a medical procedure. So he was doing some off-season recovery. So that sort of adds a question mark about whether he would have been in the pecking order for Burrhalter. He was in the December camp or if he's still sort of just behind some of these other players who Johnson and Turner weren't available for the December camp. So just another another sort of variable in the goalkeeper depth chart. Yeah. I mean, it's probably worth mentioning Brady Scott sent home even though he won't. Did you watch that full video of the practice video?

Of course. Even though he won the shootout against Marsankowski, I guess it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to keep him in the camp. That wasn't the last contest, the do-or-die contest. No. I'm expecting Turner to play 90 minutes in this game. And I think Marston Kowski and Fries will have a nice little symbolic names on the roster.

Yeah. If Burrhalter's been paying any attention. attention to analytics Twitter. He will make the right choice here. Left back, those who made the cut are Sammy Vines and George Bellow. And Chris Gloucester went home, not to the Netherlands, somewhere else, probably. Is that right? I don't know.

I mean, I think the Netherlands are still writing him checks, but I don't know if he's, what his status there is. Do you have a preference between Vines and Bellow? in this match? Not particularly. I guess my curiosity would be with Bello since we've seen Vines in a few national team appearances. And I'm glad to see that he, you know, at least he beat out Gloucester for this spot. But, yeah, I don't, I don't, no, go ahead.

Well, I just, I continue to be curious about Vines, too, to be fair. Because I like, because he does seem like a solid defender. And, you know, now I'm not going to be unhappy either. way. Right. No wrong answers here. I'd be a little bit surprised if Vines doesn't get the start just because of sort of the continuity. But knowing that the only reason this match exists is to sort of get more information on players, it's not like a bellow start is going to blow anyone's mind. Yeah, I mean, maybe some minds will be blown by that. I don't know. Centerbacks, Aaron Long and Walker Zimmerman,

Miles Robinson, and Maricio Pineda made the cut. Who got sent home? So Tristan Blackman left camp with a concussion, unfortunately for him, so hopefully he's doing well. And then for the U23s, it was Kessler, Keta, and Pines who departed. Kessler, a little bit surprising. But again, there's just almost like no real surprises here with any of these U-23s who weren't already established.

When they go home, it's just like, it's just kind of a shrug and like, sure, let's see, let's see where Miles and Panetta stand. Yeah. You know, seeing Acosta come back into this camp and then, you know, be featured in social media posts and so forth does make me, I guess, realize that, you know, you can get sent home from one of these January camps and you might be right back in the mix six months later. Yeah, it's a, it's a volatile situation in a lot of different. places. It really is. Yeah. I mean, even Legette, like, Legette, again, was so, was so sort of seldom used for all of 2019 in Burhalter's first year, and now it feels like he's, he's a

staple and a potential starter in a full strength squad. Yeah. Yeah, for me, for me, he is. So speaking, well, let's get to the right back, right back. Julian, well, before we do that, do you want to say who you think should start at centerback or who you'd like to see start or you don't care i don't really care i think it'll be long in zimmerman i don't i think they're just sort of the you know nailed on domestic centerbacks at this point yeah okay yeah it seems like that they will probably start uh right back julina ralho kyle duncan and aaron herrera made the cut brian reynolds is uh on an airplane that's circling over the middle of the atlantic ocean right now Yeah, so Reynolds at this point sounds like he's doing doing like just the medical still to do to sign for AS Roma is the current third degree rumor.

So maybe by the time we're done recording that saga will have been completed. Yeah. Hopefully no counterproductive last minute interventions from family members in this one. The holding midfield would be. Oh, you got to tell me who you think starting. it right back. I guess Araujo. I mean, come to us for really strong opinions

about the lineup against Trindade and Tobago. Just because the same Sam Vine story, right? Just continuity. He seems to be ahead of Duncan. He started the last game ahead of Duncan. Herrera wasn't even in the last camp. So we're just going to kind of assume Arajo maintains the status quo

here. Checks out. Yep. Holding midfield is Perea, who American Soccer now has a nice little analysis of him out this morning or yesterday, I think. Still kind of a mystery to me. And then Jackson Ewell. Looks like Perea is going to start based on the video from the practice video.

Yeah, of course. Of course, like I'm like freeze framing it and trying to figure out who every player is in the video at each point. So in that, it looked like Perea was playing the six in that particular repetition. So I'm hopeful that that's an indication that he's placed because I just, just want to see him. I think it'd be interesting to see. Yep. Yep. And then the two midfielders to my eye in that freeze frame that you shared with us on the Slack channel were Legette and Acosta, which means Roldons, Roldi fell down the pecking order. It's written in stone. So I think Legette's name is written in stone because I think he's a fantastic player. I have no idea who

start. It was Acosta in the video. Again, that could have just been a one-off rep. I wouldn't be surprised to see Acosta rolled on. I'd be a little bit surprised with Testman, but I wouldn't be unhappy. But then interestingly, Benji Michelle was listed as a midfielder in the final roster release rather than as a forward. Is that interesting? Is that interestingly? I mean, you know, interesting, broadly defined. It's interesting. Yeah. I think it's even more interesting that Eric Williamson got sent home. He had sort of a strong year in MLS, and I would have expected him to be sticking around for this. Right.

It might just be that, and it seems like he would fit in very well with sort of this new high, high energy system that Burholt was running defensively. It might just mean that Testman has really impressed in combination with, Burrhalter not wanting to send home one of the, one of the senior players. So I don't think it was ever going to be a possibility that like Roldon or Acosta would get sent home, even if one of the U23s maybe marginally outplayed them. I think that would be bad for the culture. You were always kind of a skeptic about stuff like for the culture and, you know, preferring seniority when it's a toss up. No, I still am for the most part. I just think, you know, in this one-off camp, once they're in camp, I think that would essentially be too.

too harsh or too severe. I think it's like you ease your way out of it now. You know, obviously there are a lot of guys who racked up a lot of minutes for Burrhalter in his first year who aren't here at all. And I think that's sort of the message that they might be sort of out of the running. But I think it might be a little bit too abrupt to bring them in and then say, by the way, you're cut today. So I think the culture here is that, you know, if, and this is still if, for all we know,

you know, Roldon is just still a class above any of these U23s trying out. But if it's close, I think, for the culture, you don't just kick Roldon to the curb on location. Yeah, that makes sense. So it's Williamson, Keo, and Dotson who were left off. Keo is totally unsurprising. He's but a baby. And then Dodson, you know, he's sort of been a fringe, very much. a fringe member of the national team for the past 12, 18 months or so.

Yeah. All right, wingers. We've got, we've got Ariola, Mueller, and Jonathan Lewis, who are on the final list. Jordan Morris has departed for non-coach decisions. He's off to Swansea, as we're all very excited about. Georgie Mahalovich and Cade Cowell dropped. Georgie, or I should say Lewis over Georgie is a bit of a surprise for me. I wonder if this is in part because with the personnel we have here,

if we're less likely to see sort of the very tucked-in wingers, and if we're more likely to see the winger sort of occupying the wide channels, in which case Lewis would be a better option than Georgie. If you were building this camp with Morris in mind, Morrison Mueller, then you might be doing more of the wide spaces for those wingers. So that's a wrinkle that I wonder about for this game. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

And then we saw Areola playing right back a little bit in that picture. I couldn't tell. Some other folks thought maybe that was Blackman playing right back at the time because that that video was from a while ago. Yeah, it came out maybe from early in the camp. So that could have been Blackman and then Ariola and Morris could have been sort of the part of the front three. So there was still a lot of Zepruder work that needed to be done on that freeze frame. But I will say I'm kind of expecting this to look more like a 4141, kind of like the El Salvador December friendly, where the wingers are more of the wide option.

So in that situation, like Jonathan Lewis probably makes more sense than Georgie Mahalovich. Or it could just be that Georgie didn't look great and Lewis looked better. I mean, that's always a possibility. Yeah. Georgie who was the darling of the men's national team press about a year ago was it a year ago two years ago because we had the one year that just vanished from existence in 2020 yeah so it was the January camp in 2019 you know he was like the best player at the camp according to paul tennario not that that wasn't true it was probably true he started out a legit letgett couldn't make the

starting lineup in either of those games two years ago. Yeah, funny. Cowell is a very raw young player, not at all surprising that he's been left off of here, though he does have a bright future. At Striker, we have three guys who made the cut, one who didn't. Josie Altador, D'Raldiq, and Hazes Ferreira

are still in camp and will be, you know, available for selection on Sunday. Jeremy and Bobesei sent home. Doyle and Shambles. Meanwhile, Jesus Ferreira season lives on. I think it's well known at this point that I'm a big fan of Jesus Ferreira and what he can add,

the kind of job he can do. So I'm excited to see him. Not that I wouldn't have been excited to see, but we say get a runout like at Stryker, but it just seems like maybe Burhalter doesn't rate him there. Yeah. Yeah, he's, it's got to be frustrating for him. You know, he produces for Portland.

despite being played out of position a lot of the time. He scored a lot of big goals last year. And he comes to the national team, and he just can't catch a break. I don't know. Yeah, and the competition is going to be thick because there are probably 12 U-23 eligible striker. So, you know, I'm thinking, well,

maybe he can still get the March call-up for qualifying, even though he might not be in this group. But then it's like that is... You mean Olympic qualifying? Yeah, for the Olympic qualifiers in March. And even that is going to be a tough, a tough sort of roster to crack. Yeah, because of Hoppy and Sergeant and who else. Even the qualifying roster could be D.K. Jesus, Ferreira and Iowaac andola.

So there's just no easy roster to make it onto at this point. Any reports on A.O.'s happiness in the Canadian camp? So I don't think he's there. I think he was denied for, they said personal reasons, and that came like a day after a report of there being a positive COVID test at the Canada camp. So it might mean that he tested positive, might mean that he was exposed to the person who tested positive, or it might mean that he literally just chose not to attend the camp for personal reasons.

I see. But I don't think he's had a real Canada camp experience yet. Okay, I had missed that whole sequence of events. So thanks for the update. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the Trinidad Squad. I don't think we're going to learn anything particularly meaningful in this game. I think it'll look similar to the Panama friendly, the El Salvador friendly,

and that we more or less control it completely. It should be, and I'm hoping that it's entertaining, but, you know, it's a January friendly of a last-ditch opponent that we scrambled together after Serbia had to back out. Right. Boy, am I ready for some more meaningful, more competitive soccer games for the national team. I don't know. I'm just not that excited about another game like that one against El Salvador.

I'm still excited. I'm sorry. I'm going to be the super enthusiastic guy here, but we went a long time without any game. So even though there is no lineup that we could trot out in this game, that would be disappointing to me. I feel like the all-troll 11 that Burr-alter could play, I'd still be like, all right, I'm here for this.

I'm here to watch Christian Raldon and Jackson-Ewell run the show against Trinidad and Tobago. Yeah, I mean, I guess when you put it that way, I agree. I'd even be happy to see Lewis just to collect more information about how bad he is. Oh, no. No, they're all turning corners, Bells. This is a year of turning corners. Okay.

No, I mean, he's a useful soccer player for sure in some ways. Should we, any other thoughts on this friendly? We're going to record a recap on Monday. I know we've been a little, I have been a little slack. lately and I'm sorry for that. We're going to pick it up big time in the next few weeks and, you know, put this dark chapter behind us. You're saving up the energy for what's going to be a wild calendar year.

Yeah, there's a lot coming up. Anything else on the game? No, that's the preview for the game. We have nothing about Trinidad and Tobago. So if you're expecting a deep dive, I don't even know for sure their roster has been announced yet. If it has been announced, it is not in the usual places. Yeah, you know, I mean, let me go back and say, I think I would like to see George Bello play in this game.

You know, if we're going to play, if it's going to be a game that we control and, you know, maybe end up scoring five goals that aren't that impressive as goals, like, let's put a young left back out there, see how he does. As opposed to the other young left back that would you want to draw. drop then. The less young left back, who we have seen, what, three times, four times? Yeah, I'd be excited to see Bello. I'm super excited to get a glimpse of Tanner Testman. I'm really excited to see what D.K. can do in a national team jersey. But again, it just goes back to, I'm also curious what Josie's going to look like.

He hasn't played for the national team in 18 months. I'm curious to see if Kellyn Acosta starts, I'd be very interested to see how much of a stamp he can put on a game against a weaker opponent or if we can at all. I mean, I don't know for sure that we're just going to cruise through him. I should say, actually, I don't think it will be as casual, as easy as the opening 30 minutes against El Salvador. Like, I think that there will be some level of competence displayed by Trinidad where it's not just six goals in the first 30 minutes and this game over.

I think we'll at least have to, you know, break them down a little bit more intentionally than we had to do against El Salvador. I hope you're right. That's good. That would be good if we had to do that. If Josie does in fact start, I predict he finds Mueller twice for assists. Two goals, two assists for Josie if he starts. He'll score a penalty and he'll bag another goal. All right. Let's go to the, we have, we need to. to sort of check in on the European contingent, ever-growing. Yeah, we were adding to it by the day.

You have created some categories here, which I think are helpful. Why don't you tell us what the first one is? All right. First category we're talking about, which I think is probably the most exciting at the moment, are our shiny, newish toys over in Europe. And leading that list is Mr. Jordan Morris. Yes. available for selection on Wednesday.

That's tomorrow for Swansea. Left, like we said earlier, left the U.S. camp in Florida and could make his debut, like I said, tomorrow. If this goes well, if this loan goes well, people can stop making jokes about his dog. They should already stop that. They're terrible. They're never good.

They're not that good of jokes. Whatever's in your draft folder about Jordan Morris's dog, you should just delete it now. I don't have anything in my folder about his dog. I think you could, I'm sure somebody will, you could go back through my Twitter history. I've never made a joke about his dog. But for real, this is going to be an interesting experiment, I think.

You know, how good can he be for a promotion chasing championship side? What are you, what's your feeling on it? What's your prediction? I don't, I don't have one. And it's because this is totally not like a like-for-like situation. We know Paul Areola is also kind of rumored to be going. getting really late in the game if that's going to happen. But if Ariola went, like, that would be a really easy, like, one-for-one wingback.

Swansea play like a 3-5-2 or a 3-4-3 with wingbacks, and Ariel would fit really well in that. Jordan Morris does not have a one-for-one, like, analog between what he's doing at Seattle and what he will play for Swansea City. It sounds like he'll play in the front two is kind of what the chatter is. And again, it's just not going to be anything like his sideline-hugging role. Seattle. So that's where he's been excellent for two straight years now. And his best moments with the U.S. have been in a sideline hugging role.

Yeah. It's going to be really interesting to see what he does with this new sort of positional. I don't know if it's a challenge, but it's definitely going to be a new role that he'll be playing. Yeah. Yeah, it'll show, you know, it'll test his ability to adjust and, um, I don't respond to different types of situations. wish him the best, of course. Yeah, I'm excited for it.

I'm also sort of giving him the out where if it doesn't work, that doesn't necessarily mean that he can't play at that level. It might just mean that he needs to be more in that sort of wide attacking role rather than a more of a forward, a central forward role. Yeah. Well, he's not a hold-up guy. So if they're doing two strikers, maybe he can be the guy running off the shoulder of the other guy. I mean, that role does seem to fit him pretty well.

Yeah, I'm hoping. I'm hoping he does really well. Second shiny new toy in Europe, at least, is Mark McKenzie. He made his first debut, I'm sorry, he made his debut and first start for Gank in Belgium over the weekend. I watched his involvements. It wasn't transcendent or anything, but he looked fine for a player coming off a two-month layoff, playing on the left side of a three-man back line.

Yeah, and it's... again, I think he'll keep getting a lot of minutes. We talked about those four. Gank only have the three centerbacks sort of on the roster, and they play three centerbacks. Interestingly, again, we're going to test the boundaries of what's interesting. One of their centerbacks has now been red carded in two consecutive games because Belgium has some kind of crazy red card interpretations

where that doesn't necessarily mean you're suspended for the next match. So he was sent off in a game, started the next game, was sent off again, and then started this last game with McKenzie. I don't know if, like, they stack those suspensions up or if he'll just never serve them, but it feels like he might have some suspensions coming. Yeah, right. So maybe you can just get your lawyer to filibuster

until the season's over. Apparently, so. But no, it's good that McKenzie started. Again, Gank has a ton of games lined up one after the other. So I think he's going to keep getting plenty of minutes on a weekly basis. Good. Good, good. Yeah, let's just keep an eye on him. He's, you know, he's kind of trying to earn his spot, earn his, earn his role there. Matthew Hoppe, what in the heck is going on? This is wild, right? So I'd had Hoppe sort of in my mind. He's been on our radar. We've had him, he's been on and off sort of our weekly preview list off of it, even though he was starting for Shalki because it was Shalka, and they very much seemed like two Boondis.

League aside in disguise, not even really in disguise. I mean, they were almost advertising themselves as a two Bundes League aside. And then Hoppe comes along and scores a boatload of goals in a three games stretch. And they, did they get a draw over the weekend? No, they got destroyed by Byron Munich. Oh, yeah, of course. But it was Byron Munich, so that's a, that's a, you get a reprieve. The last time he scored it was they got a draw, right? So they're like a win and two draws since he started finding the back of the net. goals. Yeah, yeah, I'd like categorized him with like Charlie Kelman and who's the other, who's the other sort of forward that's flying under the radar. But Indiana Vasileve, who like got

in for Aston Villa a couple of times last year, but it was never really a serious Premier League player. He's now on loan in League one and not really making any noise there. Like I kind of had Hoppy in that same category, U20 eligible, but we'll have to now see if he belongs way closer to the top of our forwards list. Yeah, I mean, I made a video about this for Patreon, But the three goals he scored in that hat trick were delightful goals. I mean, they were all really nice. Like, what, he chipped the keeper with his left foot at full tilt. And then he made this like bending scimitar run in behind a centerback and rounded the keeper.

And they made another really nice run around the center back. And what did he do? He chipped the keeper with the outside of his right boot. I mean, like those are those are goals any striker would have been happy with. And what a way to announce yourself. So yeah, so we're hoping that, you know, outside of the Bayern Munich game, we're hoping that he just keeps scoring in every game he plays. Yep.

I don't, you know, I've watched some, and I don't see him, like, doing a lot of the other stuff that you want a striker to do. Like, hold up and combination play doesn't seem to be like a, strong suit right now. Maybe that's impossible to show with Shalka right now. Right, right. But he is benefiting from, uh, I mean Harit's, you know, sort of flashes of brilliance. He's always, he's always been a good player once in a while. And, you know, when he, he got, I think he got all three assists on that, in that hat trick. Uh, so, yeah, hoppy, hoppy surprised us. Surprise me at least. Next up, Brendan Aronson. Look sharp in a brief day

for R. B. Salzberg over the weekend. Got a guy sent off. Played a guy down in the corner and, you know, just looks ready. Looks ready for the challenge, the Austrian challenge. Yeah, and the big question for him will be how he does more against Euro competition. I think the competition within the Austrian League is not going to give us a ton of answers about what he'll bring to the national team or if he's, He's going to be a key player for the national team, but he'll get his chances when the Europa League starts up again.

Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully gets lots of minutes in that competition. So I think you said earlier, Brian Reynolds is we're waiting on a medical at Roma? Yeah, that was what third degree was saying. I mean, third degree came out and almost in like a throwaway post said he's signed, he has essentially signed the paperwork. work with Roma. So, but it feels like even he's sort of hedging now because of all the, uh, the sort of twists that this story has taken. So, uh, but it, it sure feels like the Roma deal is, is coming to pass. Uh, and that is going to be really, really exciting. I'm not sure what

kind of a role he'll play, uh, right away or if at all this, this spring. Um, but seems pretty cool. I think the, I think the figure that was listed, and I think from Romano's been talking about it too. So I think the dollar amount listed as like eight and a half million U.S. 7 million euro, something like that. Yeah, incredibly good piece of business for Dallas. All right. Owen Ode Soe at Wolves. What do you got, Greg? So yeah, Otisoui is still on here. He hasn't really broken through. I think he might have been dealing with a little bit of an injury, but it's still been spot minutes here and there. So it's more just like, is he actually on the verge of a breakthrough or was he being tried out and maybe.

not breaking through after all. So it's just another one to keep an eye on. Joe Scali, or do you have anything for Otisoe? No, no, no. Joe Scali was on the social media today for Gladbach. He has participated in his first, first team training. He'd been there for a while. I don't know if he was going through protocols

or if there was paperwork holdup. There had been, like, pictures of him watching practice from afar by himself. But now he is fully, into training. So again, same thing. I have no idea what his role

will be this season or if he'll have any real first team role. But he's there. He's in the group. Strange, man. It's a strange thing that they bought him

a year ago. I mean, Much in Glabok's a good club. They're always in, like, the top seven. And they believe in Joe Scali. It's crazy. Not crazy.

It's just like, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen what they've seen. I do want to go back to Otis Owey real quick. Somebody was talking on Twitter yesterday about should he be a centerback or a midfielder? And I mean, he's a midfielder right now for wolves. That's where he plays. But I think he could be a centerback in the future.

You know, he's got the frame to play centerback. And, you know, like his ability on the ball is sort of a plus for him at centerback. I don't know how good of a midfielder he'll be. I mean, I guess you pointed out some of his shortcomings in positioning and opening yourself up off the ball as a midfielder back in the fall. And I, you know, I was persuaded by that line of thinking. I've got no sense of where he'll play. I don't think he's really looked super comfortable or sort of natural in any of those spots he's been sort of trotted out at for Woolso far. But that could just be, that could just be because it's his first couple of games in the first team.

But, you know, there are sometimes players come in and immediately look comfortable. I didn't see that with Otisoi. I also didn't see that when Chris Richards first got on for Byron. He didn't look super comfortable. Like, he kind of looked out of place next to how easy Bayern Munich players tend to look when they play soccer. So that's what stuck out to me for Otisoe too, is he just didn't look easy playing. Yeah. Yeah, and I think, I guess I just think, how do I say this in the most cautious way possible?

He, his chances of being an elite player seem higher at centerback than at midfield for me. I have no sense of it. So I'll go with yours on that, but I have no sense of where he's going to fit in. It seems like he wants to play center mid. Right. Is that the, okay. Yeah, that's the, that's what's been reported. Now, we got, you got, you got,

five names in one line here. Tim Wea, Dwayne Holmes, Sebastian Soto, Cameron Carter Vickers, and D'Andre Yedlin. Why are they all in the same baskets? So these guys are in our newish toy line because Waya maybe is a stretch, but he doesn't really seem to fit in anywhere in any of these groups. They're either in new situations or they're sort of just breaking through. So Wea had kind of a slow fall where he was very gradually eased into minutes. And I don't know if that was coming back from injury or if it was just that's what his his performances and training and in other games sort of uh was warranting but he now seems to be a regular player getting 15 or 20 minutes occasional starts for the second place team in france so no small feet they're level on

points with psg like this is this seems to be a pretty good team by at least according to the table so um just another one where it feels like a new player coming in we we didn't know what his role would be with the team. It looks like it's pretty fun. And then Holmes has just transferred to Huddersfield. Sebastian Soto was recalled from Telstar to Norwich. Not sure what he's going to do with Norwich, what his role will be there. Cameron Carter Vickers finally got back from injury with Bournemouth and has started a couple of games. DeAndre Yedlin, that roller coaster continues to run with him now missing out for a couple of games for Newcastle after like a seven game stretch of starts because of a visa work issue.

crazy crazy they can't get the visa work issues sorted out and Soto it's kind of a little bit surprising that Soto got his work permit right Daniel Smith finally relented and issued it to him that's who you appeal to all appeals run through Daniel Smith

okay so that's the shiny newish toys category you said on you told me to say on Twitter I'm just your puppet these days you told me to say on Twitter that you're still a home on the Holmes train. Talk to me about that because I think that train, you know, doesn't have a lot of people on it anymore. No, everyone's jumped off, which is, it's wild to me.

So he has played twice for the U.S. national team looked very good. I've got him in like the legit level of impact on games where I feel like the only new players we've seen do that are legit homes and then Musa. Like Musa was the only other, like all these other young guys that were kind of excited about have not always been terribly influential. in their U.S. men's national team appearances. Holmes was, and then, like, just, that's it. We just didn't call him again. He went back to Derby and played really well for that whole season of 2019, 2020, missed some games for injury right before the COVID pause and then came back.

And then this year seems to have had a falling out with Wayne Rooney as the manager and has been dropped and then moved to Huddersfield. But I feel like people were kind of saying, well, he's not scoring goals anymore, so he's obviously not a good player. That's just not how I operate. So that's why I've got home. I mean, he was good for the U.S. I want to see him keep getting chances with the U.S.

until he's not good for the U.S. Yeah. And it'll be interesting to see if he goes from Darby County, which is like was a relegation zone team up until a week ago, if he goes from not playing for them to sort of maybe even instantly getting minutes for Huddersfield who are comfortably mid-table in the same week. Okay. Okay.

I wonder what went wrong between him and Wayne. I think it was, Wayne was using him out wide, and I think he preferred a role in central midfield. Okay. That's what I've read. I don't know how much validity there is. All right, let's move to the next category.

The un, what you're calling the unprecedenteds. Yeah, it's going to catch on. It's easy to say. Too many syllables. No, these are the guys that everyone's throwing in their, graphics and posting with, you know, the legendary status already. And that's Pulcic, McKinney, Dest, Raina, Adams, Musa. And then I'm throwing in Grandpa Brooks and Uncle Stefan in here, too,

even though they're not 22 and under. Yeah. I mean, Brooks is an unprecedented, you know, as like a regular in the Europa League, unprecedented status as a centerback for the U.S., I think it's fair to say. I want to say a couple things about these guys. Pulsick, you know, there's been ebbs and flows to his career, just like for everyone. There's ebbs and flows even to my day. You know what I mean?

Life is an ebb and a flow. And right now feels like a little bit of an ebb for CP 22. But he has been resilient since he was 16 and he always kind of comes back. That's my point and I'm sticking to it. Yeah, he comes back because he's a really. good soccer player. And I think that's a good point about the ebbing and flowing, because actually, if you look at these unprecedenteds, even though they're all playing for unprecedented caliber clubs for U.S. men's national team fans, all of those clubs coincidentally, hopefully

coincidentally, are kind of ebbing at the moment, where Juventus is barely a top four team, Barcelona well out of the title race in Spain, Chelsea, I think, our ninth in the table. It's just Dorman is seventh, right? Yeah, Dorman are below Frankfurt. So it's definitely not, these clubs aren't at the level that we are accustomed to in sort of the reason that we're so excited about these players playing there. It's definitely a bit of a dip. I'm not worried at all about Chelsea.

I feel like they'll just keep throwing managers at the wall until something sticks. Is Tuchel done? Is Tuchel a done deal? I honestly don't even know. It felt like it was a done deal since even before the firing of Frank was announced. So I actually don't know if I've ever. seen the official, un-official word.

So interesting that Lampard, you know, what's that like to fire Frank Lampart as the manager of Chelsea? I mean, not that he doesn't deserve it, he deserves it. But, you know, club legend, all that. Yeah, okay, so McKinney, you know, there's been a lot of good press about McKinney lately. I argued in my video yesterday

that he is the best player in the pool right now having this huge impact. for Juventus. And then I read this really great article in Italian. I didn't read it in Italian. I used Google Translate. But basically explaining that he's, you know, he's the right guy at the right place at the right time because he is, he sort of moves.

Actually, actually compared him to Thomas Mueller at Bayern Munich as a space hunter. I like that. Where he's just moving people. He moves the defense around with his into out. and out to end runs. And then he, you know, he does a great job of, like, the one-touch pass to release somebody, which has always been the thing that we like about McKinney, you know?

Yeah. And, well, that, and again, that sort of what we talk about is being a late arriving runner, which isn't necessarily how you describe what he's doing at Juventus. He's often almost like, his starting position is almost like up in the box. Yeah. He'll, like, make a run ahead of Ronaldo. Yeah. Yeah.

So, which gives Rinald, the freedom did not have to occupy that high space of Ronaldo wants to go somewhere else. But it seems like something that you can easily work into this current iteration of our tactics of giving McKinney a totally free role because he's not also going to be saddled with protecting a Michael Bradley or Will Trap in defense. It's going to be like, yeah, go nuts, buddy. Like I got this. I got this back here. You can do whatever you want. So it's going to be very exciting to see.

I think McKinney sort of is it unfettered? like just go where you want to go, buddy. Yeah. For the national team. Yeah, that seems to be the role that works for him. And Pierlo is using him exactly that way. And the article also argued that he was moved up the field to sort of limit the damage he can do on the ball deeper in the field. Because he can, you know, he can be a little bit mistake prone.

So it's very interesting. It's a cool-headed sort of take on what is up with McKinney with a lot of praise in it. So great, great, great time to be. be alive if you're Weston McKenny for sure. Serginio Dest, other than Barcelona being bad this year, anything else to say about him? Barcelona might be bad for a long time. I really wish he'd gone to Byron because Barcelona were already a mess before he got there. And who knows what they're going to look like six months from now, three weeks from now.

Yeah, something like $1.3 billion in debt. But, you know, what's debt? Who among us? Yeah. It's a concept. Giorina, after an infection, kept him out of action versus mines on January 16th. He's come off the bench twice and two losses for Dortmund. Seems to be a little bit of an ebb going on there under a new manager.

Whatevs? Agreed. Tyler Adams, solid rotational option for a Champions League club in Europe. That is fine. Yeah, I'm not losing any sleepover. Tyler Adams' number two team in the Bundesliga. Yeah. And then it's Musa, Brooks, and Stefan, like you said.

Got to do anything to say about any of those three? Brooks and Wolfsburg are fourth in the table at the moment in the Bundesliga. So they're trying to sneak into the Champions League, and it's not out of the question. Interesting, yeah. And it is also not out of the question that Rayna will not be playing in Champions League next year. Um, next category is grinding. These, these guys are grinding. Yeah.

And that's, that's sort of a, the young guys who are at maybe bottom, bottom half or bottom, bottom sides. And that's Josh Sargent, uh, Anthony Robinson over at Fulham. Hey, hey, hey, hey, Verne Bremant is solidly mid table. That's true. That's true. So that's still a grind. Yeah. I know that puts, I get that Chelsea's also mid table at the moment.

But Sergeant feels like more of a mid-table player than Christian Poolick. He does indeed. If you're going by your feels. Yeah. I do. I go by my feels all the time. Well, Sergeant did just have an absolute screamer over the weekend. Yeah, I can't.

It was sort of the dictionary definition of a banger. I can't figure out why the keeper didn't get to it. Did you study the angles on that one? No, I'm not here to try to undermine the, the narrative. The goals that are few and far between for our. for our struggling strikers. No, it does, like, it does make me think, like,

for everyone who's saying that's the response he needs, I mean, kind of, but it's one of those where if you're not going to rely on those goals to get you up to 10 goals for a season, you're not going to score 10 of those. It's great that he hit it. It's an awesome goal, and we should appreciate and enjoy it. But you just don't convert that shot into goals a lot of the times. We still need him at the doorstep more often per game.

Stats are stats. guys, that shot's not going in most of the time. There was some into out movement to it, so maybe that explains the keeper's inability to get to it. I mean, it was from like 30 yards out. It was from a long ways. 25 yards, let's not exaggerate. Robinson and Ream at Fulham also grinding.

Robinson got that red card for a foolish tackle against Aspeliqueta at Chelsea. Was it Aspeliquita? Yeah, I think it was. I think he's got one more game that he'll sit out this week, and then I think he's back. Yeah, this has been our most profound disagreement over the last few months is does Robinson's body language indicate, you know, the chaos, does the chaos of his body language indicate an internal chaos, a spiritual chaos? And you say no, and I say yes.

It's an ebb and a flow, Biles, it's an ebb and a flow. Tim Ream actually has been playing, he's been playing their FAA Cup game. he got another 90 minutes in an F.A. Cup loss to, I think, a championship side. And then I'd expect him to probably take up his spot on the bench again for, as the league matches resume. Yeah. And Robinson will be back in the lineup probably once he comes back from his well-deserved suspension. Go ahead. I have Miaska grinding, even though he's like a top four team in Belgium. I don't know. It just feels like he's grinding through his loans.

He starts every game, pretty much. Yeah, every game starter, I don't think they're that close to pushing Gank or Bruges for a Champions League shot with Anderlecht. And who knows if he'll be at Anderlecht next year anyway. But yeah, it just seems like he's grinding in the sense of being that lone army player. Yeah, he has a lot of, every time I see his name, I think that that dude has a lot of life experience now. You know, he's been a lot of places, played for a lot of different coaches, entered a lot of, lot of different locker rooms. Exactly.

Just has to be able to blend into any locker room, right? Yeah. Reggie Cannon I've got on here as Boa Vista. Senator Miyazka. Okay. Senator Miyazca. I've got Reggie Cannon in the grinders list. Boa Vista are not having the season that they wanted to have.

Uh-uh. I think it's fair to say they'd come in with like new ownership, talking about a cool project and spending a ton of money. 18th out of 18. Yeah, that money has not translated to points in the table. So it's really difficult to say because everyone's talking like Boa Vista or Reggie Cannon moving from Boa Vista to Lille or they name a lot of other big clubs like Porto or whatever. It's like going to happen. And I just have no idea if that's going to happen or if Reggie Cannon's going to be playing in the Portuguese 2nd Division next year.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. He got pulled off in the 61st minute of a 3-1 lost to Tandela, the last game he played. and I watched some of the some of his moments in that game. Didn't look great. Didn't look fantastic. There was a like one of, he gifted them one goal.

Well, not a goal. He gifted them possession, Tondella possession, with an errant pass that was like immediately turned into an attack that resulted in one of the centerbacks pulling down, getting a dog sale, red card.

Okay. So he was. I think it was a few minutes later. Yeah. Okay. But it was probably the Yankees a few minutes later. might be probably tactical rather than punitive. Well, Alfredo Morales grind ended out in the two-boondous league,

and not sure what role he'll have for the national team. It seems like he could still fit with our three center mids chasing everywhere system, but he is another year older, and we have some other young kids coming around who are going to challenge him. Then we've got sort of the real grinding going on with Yanez, Nico, Soto, Chris Richards. And then Ledesma, I know, was battling back from injury. But sort of the second division or reserve division guys,

um, toiling away and, you know, the bowels. Yeah, Ledesma is like posting pictures on social media of him doing knee rehab, which is, looks really rough,

man. And, uh, yeah. And then Richards, I saw a photo of him like holding a Bayern Munich FC Dallas. scarf scarf yeah but looking really unhappy to be there because he was I mean he was in the Champions League a month ago two months ago yeah and now he's posing for pictures with Thomas Roberts trialists yeah yeah

which doesn't mean that he's you know his race is run it's just it's just not where the bright lights aren't aren't on him at the moment I think I just named Soto even though he's already in another group so scratch him from this list and then let's let's run through the true sort of, do you have anything else on sort of those guys that are just kind of No, just that I hope. Invisible. I hope Richards, I mean, I've been a fan of Joe Aquini. I like the way he plays and I think, you know, he'll, he's a little bit more, I don't know.

He's a little bit of a shining. Do you think, do you think any first division top five team is coming for Nico Joaquini? Probably not. I'm not saying that that means he's out of the U.S. picture. I don't know exactly what his trajectory is going to be at the club level. Yeah, he's the, you know, he's young still. He's younger than sergeant. So he, you know, give him another year in League of D.

Just keep grinding. Yep. All right. Wait, one more thing about Richards. I hope he goes on loan. Did I say that already? Oh, no, I'm hoping for the same thing. I hope he finds a spot because he does need to get some reps at a higher level.

Yeah, it feels like Byron's measured him and decided that he's not going to be, Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're still just developing him, but it feels like maybe, because I feel like if they were developing him, there have been opportunities where they would have developed him in games, whether it's poe-call matches or whatever else. When they're up 6-1 against Shalka. Right. So it feels like maybe they've decided that he won't be part of their future plans. And that's, I mean, the truth is what you said earlier. When you see him for Byron, he doesn't look like a Byron player.

just not not quite as polished as their first team players are which you know that's the highest standard you can be at essentially right all right toiling away in obscurity over in Europe we've got Horvath

my guy Kenny Seth Eric Palmer Brown I put Tyler Boyd in here because he hasn't resumed playing for Bashikdas even though I believe he's now able to be reinstated if they choose to some of these guys season 7 haven't even

resumed from the winter break. Emmanuel Sabi, Shaq Moore, Ola Sundays in the championship bottom three, I think, at the moment. Julian Green's doing well for for raised or first in the second division of Germany. Haji Wright

suspended, but their season will resume soon. Chris Durkin, anything? You can stop me on any of these guys, but I feel like we're just kind of... No, let's just go through the list. I don't have anything to say about any of them. I was doing to crack a joke about Tyler Boyd heading further into the Middle East but Chris

Kirkkins sort of being played all over the field for Strunden in Belgium Novakovich still a regular in the second division of Italy Sibichu is still at young boys I think on loan I don't remember if that's a permanent deal or not but he's in and out of the lineup and then Timmy Chandler for seventh place Frank Frankfurt 6th place Frankfurt but he's

he's not he's still not really playing very much he gets onto the field occasionally. Yeah. If he starts getting starts, I think he would be hard to ignore for qualifiers coming up, but at the moment it doesn't seem like he's probably doing enough that Berhalter's going to give him a run out. There you have it, guys. That's what's happening in Europe, everyone. We're going to do a recap of the T&T friendly, probably on Monday morning, you know.

And then we will get to this top 40, this long promised top 40, maybe the week after that. Greg? That works for me. That works for me. I'll have some definitive rankings by then. Yeah. Spend a lot of time on 37 and 38, please. Hey, thanks everybody for listening.

We'll see you.