Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 157: The T&T friendly, and a 3G mind-reading exercise

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

We summed up the scoring, Greg ran a victory lap on Ferreira, and we tried to figure out what Gregg Berhalter might be thinking about a few key things. For a full tactical breakdown please visit the Total Soccer Show. 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 Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. It was another lopsided victory for the men's national team and we're here to discuss it. Greg, how are you doing? Good, Bels. I'm ready. I'm really enjoying this. I'm really enjoying being able to say another lopsided victory for the men's national team. Yep, 7-0 against Trinidad and Tobago, following another lopsided victory against El Cells. Salvador and one before that against who, can you remind me? Panama. That's right. Yeah.

So there's lots to talk about across the landscape of American men's soccer. But let's just start with the lineup from the game last night. All right. Getting right into things. A couple of surprises. You're going to do your typical starting in the front and working backwards routine, so I'll let you have at it. Okay. Yeah.

Louis Ferreira, Jonathan Lewis, Jesus Ferreira, and Paul Ariola across the top. I'm calling two surprises right there. Keep going. Yeah, I agree. Definitely. Well, you weren't surprised by Ferreira, right? No, I still was surprised by Ferreira. I'm happy to see Ferreira's name in the lineup,

but I was definitely, I was surprised to see the numbers be released and to see that he got number nine, because I kind of think that Burhalter leans towards the lower numbers being the starters, for the most part. So I was surprised and like a little hopeful at that point, And then when it actually came out with his name on the lineup sheet, I was excited. And it turned out with good reason, which we will get into in a moment. Sebastian Legette and Kellyn Acosta as the number eights.

Another surprise. I'm calling that a surprise. Yeah. And then I'm going to do the fullbacks, Sam Vines and Aaron Herrera at left and right back, Yule as the six, and then Aaron Long and Miles Robinson at centerback, and the inimitable Matt Turner in goal. So I think, yeah, there were some surprises. Some notes on the lineup are no Altador.

Maybe there's a, he wasn't even in the squad. Maybe there's a transfer looming. Maybe he has a slight knock. He then tweeted, don't believe everything you read. The devil is working overtime. Cryptic. What did you make of that? That one really threw me because Altador is a savvy guy, you know?

And so for him to tweet that, like almost immediately following Burrhalter's press conference, where Burrhalter says Josie is dealing with a little bit of a knock, he's got some, you know, the possibility of a transfer, so we don't want to take any risks. For Josie Altador to then respond with that tweet, I don't know what Burrhalter and Josie's relationship is, like what the communication is behind the scenes, but that feels like a very, like, public way to like call BS on things Burrhalter said maybe it's totally unrelated like maybe it's Burrhalter maybe it's Josie tweeting about something with some of his buddies you know whatever like you don't know but it's but Josie is smart enough to know that reasonable reasonable people will make

a lot of inferences about that tweet I wondered if maybe it has more to do with what's going on at Toronto FC than it has to do with what's going on with the national team but as far as I know nobody's really dug into that. Just an interesting one. It's a fun. It's a fun tweet. It's kind of true. It's kind of true no matter what is going on in my mind.

Right. Yeah. It could be related to the new Joe Biden administration. Who knows? Right. It could be related to Donald Trump's super PAC, anything. Another striker, you know, who we've been talking about a lot is Daryl D.K. He did not get the start.

I know that bothered some people because of some of the excitement that he he has generated in recent months. He was on the bench. He did get in the game. He didn't make much of an impact. But then, you know, big news today, he's going to the championship. Yeah. So played for the U.S.

yesterday, apparently on a plane to Barnsley, Barnsley FC, mid-table championship squad. I don't know anything about them, didn't even have time to do the cursory look at, like, their setup or who they already have on their roster, who he's going to be competing against. Any interesting details on the deal itself, Bells? No, I don't know anything about it. What I've seen is that they have a conditional recall. Orlando do.

Orlando have a conditional recall option. And that Barnesley have an option to buy that's priced at 20 million. Good grief. Which kind of feels like those 99-year leases where it's like, okay, we'll put this in just to satisfy that you have an option to buy. But it's going to be, you know, $100 million. So you're definitely not going to buy. and we're definitely going to get him back. We don't want to like accidentally have you steal one of our top strikers

because we accidentally put the buy-in closet too low of a price. Interesting. Yeah, and the big picture thing here, I guess, is that we're seeing a lot of players go on loan because there's this risk of the owners locking them out and maybe the season won't start on time in major league soccer, right? Is that basically the summary? Yeah, we already know it's not going to start until April, so we're already, it's already been pushed enough that the guys who are doing these loans

aren't going to miss a ton of the season, if assuming they do come back and don't get, you know, the trigger on the purchases pulled. But yeah, between that and the potential for a lockout, these loans make a lot of sense. And it sounds like if I'll jump to one of the other guys in the front three, Paul Areola, it's not, this isn't official at least the time of recording. By the time we're done, it could be announced. But Stephen Goff has said that the paperwork is in motion. For him to go to Swansea.

to go to Swanson to join Jordan Morris. Yep. So again, on a short-term loan, and Goff has said that that one also would have a conditional recall. So it might just be like if the season actually does kick off and there is no lockout, they just bring them right back in mid-April. I don't know, but it's more American excitement on a deadline day

than I can remember. Yeah. Yeah, and we haven't even gotten to the big ones. Brian Reynolds was obviously not in the lineup. against Trinidad and Tobago. He's long-rumored, moved to Italy did come true today. It's official. He's a AS-Roma player.

And we saw him coming out of the airport in Rome yesterday morning, just getting mobbed by the paparazzi in Texas. Somebody asked me to pronounce it the Texas way. My idea of the Texas way, I would say it would be paparazzi. Paparazzi. That's what we're saying? they'd say in Texas? I don't know. I don't even know anybody from Texas.

I think you're right. I think that's a good West Texas accent. There you go. So I just thought that was, something about that really got to me. It really struck me that like this kid who's played like 10 games for FC Dallas, he's probably, you know,

they probably see like one or two reporters, maybe a few more at FC Dallas games. He goes to Rome. He gets off the airplane. He comes out of the airplane. airport and he's mobbed by photographers. It's like what a, what a new world to step into, you know? Yeah, and we'll see how well he actually gets to step into the,

into the soccer world of it fairly quickly. I think they play Juventus this weekend. I don't know, I don't know what like his time line is or what their time is. Surely he won't play in that game, but. But Reynolds, yeah, Reynolds' watch has now shifted from Transfer Saga to playing time saga. Yep, yep. What a big deal. I mean, it's like $6 million with some add-ons was the final reported figure, something like that. I thought I saw eight and a half the U.S. dollars. I don't know. We got to get our currencies straight, but. Okay, high single digits in any case. Of millions. Yeah. What else? Also, no Chris Richards in the lineup, because obviously he's in Europe and is now a loony at Hoffenheim, which I think is something we've all kind of been really.

for him to be loaned away from Byron has not been in the plans of late. And Hoffenheim apparently needs some help at centerback. Hopefully he gets lots of minutes there. That's a good, that's historically in recent history, a good Bundesliga team. They're not having their best season right now, but they're not in the relegation zone either. Right. And again, just to have that window open up, I know Bayern are linked to centerbacks in the market. And when again, when Byron get linked to a centerback, they're usually linked to one of the better

centerbacks in the world. They aren't necessarily looking for bargains. No. So, again, that's a reminder of that to Chris Richards competition is at Bayern Munich, is not even just the guys ahead of him on the defending Champions League winners team. It's also everyone else in the market in the world. So he's up against that. There's a lot of space for Richards to play around in, like from Bayern Munich contributor

to, you know, washed out professional soccer player. Yeah, I mean, he could improve a lot and still not be, like, you know, a realistic possibility for a starting centerback in a meaningful game for Bayern Munich. Is that kind of what you're saying? Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. Let's see, what else about the lineup? None of this is about the lineup, but we're going to keep pretending that it is.

Two more transfers going on right now. DeAndre Yedlin announced to Galatasarai and Tyler Boyd moving from Besikas to Savaspor. Am I saying that right? You are asking the wrong person. So, yeah, so we've got a little bit going on in the Super League in Turkey as well, which will be interesting to see how that plays out. Both those guys, I think, are definitely in the picture for Burrhalter and in and out of the consciousness of U.S. men's national team supporters minds. You think they're definitely both in the picture for Burrhalter?

You know, I don't know. You know, they definitely were at the end of, up until the end of 2019. And then you had sort of the Phantom 2020 international season where, you know, everything was up in the air. And there was only one chance for that those guys could have been called in. And that would have been in the November camp. Both of them left off, but both of them also in, like, real club purgatory situations where it kind of maybe made sense to leave them out. But, you know, I keep going back to Yedlin. And Yedlin started in, you know, in that 2019, it seems like an attorney to go.

Yedlin was still, in my mind, Burrhalter's number two at worst right back. In the Canada loss, he's the guy who started. Cannon was available. Yedlin started. And then in the Canada win. Our fullback play was so bad in that game. But in the Canada win, it was Deaths who took over. So it's not like Canon.

ever like jumped Yedlin on the on the on the on the on the in Burrhalter's like right back depth chart through 2019 so I'm just curious I have no idea where they rate now but there's nothing like to suggest that it's that canons locked in as yet as Burrhalter's number two right back yeah well I mean there are definitely at least a thousand people who have not logged into Twitter for a couple of years who are going to log in the next time Yedlin's available and isn't in the starting lineup and be like where's Yedlin? He played in the Premier League. He's got like 8,000 Premier League minutes.

And he had just gotten back. He'd just gotten back into the lineup. And now he's going to a Champions League team. Yeah, interesting. I mean, Turkey, maybe this is just ignorance on my part. But when I hear that somebody's going to Turkey, I think, hmm, that's not ideal, you know? They're like, they feel like a retirement league. And when you look at Bashikas' lineup, it looks like a lot of players who, like,

you vaguely remember from from playing fantasy primary league soccer 10 years ago so uh i don't know and um again just something to keep track of for sure yeah mezzitozo just went to turkey after a um you know long sabbatical in north london yeah perfect example right there all right let's go let's say let's get back i took us away from trinidad because i was all about these this crazy transfer day uh Let's get straight into Trinidad. We've got a lot of attacking. It was basically a televised attacking session. So I'm guessing you have a lot on the Bell's chronology.

Yeah, that's a good way to think of it, a televised attacking session. Let's start right in the second minute about the 140 mark. We get a goal from Lewis. It's a pretty nice team goal, really. Sam Vines intercepts some errant deep distribution from T&T centerback, Leland Douglas Archer. Who, I believe, if I can just say this, I believe had zero caps entering the day. Is that true?

It's true. The combined total of caps for Trinidad's back line going into the game yesterday was one cap between the four defenders. Was Josiah Trimmingham the one who had the cap? No, it was, it was Jamal Jack, who was their starting left back, had one cap. At least that was according to transfer market. They maybe have missed some caps in the lead up, but it was, I think, fair to say, an inexperienced Trinidad side. Yeah, and I don't want to fall into the trap of, like, making fun of them or mocking them

because, you know, what good does that do? And they've been, I think Brian Strauss explained in his Sports Illustrated recap just how how much the pandemic has hurt them, like more even than the U.S. They haven't played in like 12 months or something like that. They just, you know, it's a small island nation. They don't have the resources that the U.S. has. So, I mean, but Trimingham plays for, I think, Forward Madison. Yep.

In USL 2, USL League 1, not the championship. So, you know, he's just not an international centerback. And he was getting, he looked kind of silly out there. I say that in love. I say that in love. Anyway, he plays a bad, Archer plays a bad pass straight to Vines. Vines intercepts it. He hits it straight to Lewis.

Lewis taps it to Lajette. Lajette pushes it wide to an overlapping Vines, and Vines hits a bending ball first time on the ground, mildly reminiscent of the one from Beasley to Dempsey versus Ghana in 06 to Ferreira. Ferreira just beats the keeper to it and settles himself and finds Lewis for a pretty straightforward finish, although it was an assured finish. So, can I jump in on this one? I'm not going to have a lot to say about the

particulars. I just enjoyed, again, the attacking, but I do want to kind of point out one thing between this game and some of the El Salvador highlights. In that I thought, I thought, like, the highlights in this game tended to just be, like, cleaner, like the touches more efficient, like everything sort of, again, the competition was bad. The competition was bad against El Salvador, too. So what you're looking for is those little detail pieces. You know, so obviously Vine's hits this great ball to Jesus Ferreira, who's running in behind. And Trinidad's line is, you know, their back line is pretty terrible.

Like, it's not a level line. So Jesus has the ability to get behind the near side centerback pretty easily. But then what you're looking at is like that touch that Jesus has to beat the onrushing keeper is like exactly what Jesus Ferrer was trying to do. You know, like he gets under it and just pops it almost straight up in like totally. control. So now he's taking the goalkeeper out of the play intentionally. And then he like manipulates it so that the keeper and the defenders are coming to him. And he reads the situation well, realizes that he has a worse shooting chance than the arriving Jonathan Lewis. So he hits a perfect like finesse pass for Lewis to just run straight through, doesn't have to settle it,

doesn't have to let, you know, it's not going to take a bad hop or anything. And, you know, Lewis pings it in, almost unopposed. And so those little, those little, those little details are what I am trying to take out of each of those sequences. It's never just going to be about, okay, well, yeah, this many goals, this many assists. It's how, like, clean, how flawless was it? Because that's what you want to start trying to measure as you're trying to take, you know, whatever you can from beating a USL side. Yeah.

Yeah. And there were a lot of clean moments, particularly from Ferreira, I thought, in this game, which bore itself out in the score sheet. the next moment I want to talk about is his goal, his first goal in the ninth minute, Herrera, Aaron Herrera, who was pretty active on the right back, just as Vines was at left back, pumped in across from the right, and it kind of pinged around before falling to a trim begonian player. I learned that term from Brian Strauss. Acosta counterpressed and poked it away.

Ewell to Lajette to Lewis across the top of the box. then Vine's overlapping over Lewis's left shoulder, and he stuck a knee-high ball right at Ferreira, who hit it with the inside of his foot and flashed it past the keeper at the near post. Pretty deft finish, I think, in kind of an awkward height, awkward velocity, all that stuff, and he put it away. 2-0. It's a nice body control.

I don't think with Ferreira, like his technique never really seems to be in question. Well, he did sort of make a meal out of that bouncing cross from Aureola a few minutes later. Never in question. Okay. Yeah, I mean, we had tons of chances after this goal, but not any goals until the 22nd minute. I mean, everybody was getting in on the action. Acosta and Legette were involved in chances. Ariola was creating a lot of danger.

His crosses just couldn't quite connect, including a couple to Ferrera that got intervened on by a sliding T&T defender. In the 22nd minute, we got that first goal from Areola. Acosta wins the ball in the air at the center circle to Ariola, who turns his guy way too easily and then slips Ferreira in behind. Ferreira draws the keeper and the defender again, stops and taps it back to Ariola for a finish, not unlike Lewis's a few moments earlier. 3-0.

Yeah, Ferreira just has that like, again, he's just a great setup man. And you see sort of, you've saw it, you've seen it in both of his appearances now for the U.S. that he just has that knack for putting the ball on a teammate's path, wherever he happens to be on the field. Yep. Good, like really good at dropping deep, as everyone on Twitter is talking about, really good at dropping deep and connecting. In addition to the stuff he did in the nearer to the goal. in the 41st minute another ariola goal

a miles Robinson diagonal pretty speculative from right to left was headed away by the back line of t and t but it fell to ferrera and he noggins it forward to ariola who takes a touch one touch and then hits one with his left foot

keeper got a paw to it but not enough and it caromed in off the post so it's four zero and that's three assists and a goal for hases ferrera at that point So yeah, solid first half for Ferreira and Jonathan Lewis on the stat sheet, which you might be tempted to say that those, that that vindicates Burrhalter's choices. Because I feel like those two were two of the guys that people weren't thrilled about seeing in the lineup. You know, everyone was excited about the possibility of D.K. And then Chris Mueller getting another shot.

But I just, I kind of want to just chime in and say that while that is great for them, there's essentially no way to not vindicate coaches selections in these kinds of games. everybody's going to do well. It's one of those things where you can't mess this up. So you can get things wrong, you know, whether that's on the macro level where maybe your tactics are just rubbish. It doesn't matter. You're still going to score a lot of goals and win. Or even on the micro level with like decisions. You can make the wrong decision or execute slightly poorly.

And it still doesn't matter because just your overall talent advantage is going to make up for it. And it will still work in that moment. So we don't want to get too carried away. I'm a big fan of Frera, but I don't want to get too carried away saying, like, you know, he's proving why he's in the game. Like, it's tough to really make that positive case. You just want to avoid making a negative case. In other words, there is no vindication here. There will be no vindication.

Yeah. 51st minute. So after the half, Miles Robinson got in on the scoring, just some brilliant Matt turn. distribution to Aaron Herrera. Now, you rolled it out to Aaron Herrera and Herrera combined with Ariola up the right flank and won a foul in the corner. Acosta's free kick was long and looping to Aaron Long at the back post who headed it back across and Miles thrashed it in from close range.

Let me throw one more thing in your chronology here, and that is Perea's debut. So I just, I always like that. It's a big moment. He made his one-time switch comes on at halftime. Just really fun to see. Yep, definitely. I'm a big softy. Yeah, it's good to see that.

And he seemed happy about it. And I didn't think he looked that great. Did you? I didn't. It's one of those games where his strengths aren't really going to be on display in a game like this. You know, his ground covering, pressing and all that. because, you know, Trinidad are mostly just going to give us the ball right away. So there's no need, there's not going to be as much need.

It's the same way that, you know, Jackson Ewell's weaknesses can be minimized in this sense in these games because he's never going to be asked to do the things that he's not quite as good at, just like in this situation. Prey is not going to be asked to do the things that he is much better at than maybe some of the other candidates in that deep-lying midfielder pool. Right. Yeah, a lot of players, I think, are. going to come out of this game with like no new information about them.

I guess I just sort of expected Perea to be a little bit more exciting than he was. That's probably on me. 55th minute goal Jonathan Lewis. And I will say also I didn't think Lewis was all that great outside of the goal in the first half. But then he scored this really nice goal. Acosta receives an entry pass in the middle third from Robinson. the center back. He turned somewhat awkwardly, sort of collided with a defender, but then he, you know, he came away with the ball, took a dribble, and then pinged a really nice diagonal

over the back line for Lewis in the corner. Lewis took a few touches, five, to be precise. And one of the last one was to the inside and he wrapped it into the far corner. Very nice strike. Like I said, Bell's perfect efficiency, uh, flawless attacking highlights. Yeah. I mean, I mean, it was a good hit, right? I mean, it's a good goal. Great hit. And he, you know, he had those touches to take because he was in so much space.

It didn't seem like he was, like, awkward with the ball at his feet in that situation. No, he didn't. He didn't. But I think, you know, that Lewis is a pretty, is pretty good at striking the ball on goal when he gets a chance to do it. It's like, and I don't think I've ever questioned that it's just all the other stuff in soccer that he's not that good at. and I don't think that equation really changed. Do you? No, I mean, I don't think my Lewis, I'll save it for later.

I'll jump in on Lewis a little bit later. All right, yeah. And then 62nd minute, so at that point it's 60, zero, if my numbers are correct. In 62nd minute, we get our seventh goal. It's a little bit of pressure from Jonathan Lewis forces a pass that falls to Ewell, a Trinidad pass that falls to Ewell. And Ewell floats a ball diagonally to Ariola who takes a touch and then plays it to Ferreira in the box through the legs of the defender. Ferreira takes a good left-footed touch and then snaps a right-footed shot into the bottom corner. Nice goal, nice night for Ferreira sort of capped off there.

Two goals and three assists. Very tidy. Very tidy. I don't know what was going on. with Trinidad and Tobago on that sequence that it was like so that areola was so unmarked and then I don't know it was seemed things seemed especially messy on the back line in that in that goal for that is that is their one cap of experience shining through yeah again I don't I don't mean to say this in like a dismissive way of them I honestly if I'm if I'm Trinidad's coach I really enjoy that

I got this game to happen I know there was sort of some talk about some other players maybe saying you know this wasn't a great idea to play this game uh But if you're trying to instill a system or whatever, having one game like this isn't the worst thing in the world. If you go out and get pummeled all year, it's going to be pretty demoralizing. But getting this game on film with all those inexperienced players, like you can learn a lot from being badly exploited.

You know, like you can go through your review and see a lot of things to correct in these situations. All right. Can I talk a little bit about what Trinidad did? that was a little bit different than and then what we've seen in the other pummelings that we've... I would love for you.

I would love for you to talk about that. All right. I'm not getting too deep into this because I'm going to send everyone to Total Soccer Show and listen to Joe and Taylor because they did a lot of the tactics piece already. I heard theirs. And most of the stuff was in my notes

and then, you know, they got even farther. And I don't think there's any need to get too deep into the 7-0 thrashing of Trinidad when they've already done it. So go listen to Total Soccer show. Great review of, of the game from them. Yeah. But I do want to just point out that Trinidad's press was a lot more energetic than what we saw

against either Panama or El Salvador in our last two thrashing. So I thought that was actually a really good thing, and I thought it was good for us to play against that. El Salvador played like a really high line and put no pressure on the ball back in December, and that's just like too easy. Like it's too easy. We can just be like almost lazy and beat their, you know, know, super light pressure of one player kind of working on his own and then just pick out

whatever pass we wanted to beat behind their back line. We had to orchestrate things a little bit more in this game against Trinidad. Like they were pressing with three guys up high and the midfielder's pretty tight behind them. So it really did require like some composure and again, just some like coordination and like choreography for us to be thinking a couple of passes ahead with our movement. in our decisions. So even though we did it very comfortably,

I think that's actually a good sign to see how comfortably we did it. So, you know, we don't think of Aaron Long and Miles Robinson maybe as our best possession centerbacks or our best passing centerbacks. Took the words right out of my mouth. And Matt Turner even has a reputation at least

of maybe or questions about his ability to play out of the back. So it was good to see just how comfortable I thought we were playing. playing the ball around within, you know, 10 yards of our own goal line. I was really, I was actually really most excited about that other than, other than our Ferreira masterclass. Yeah. It's interesting because I thought I picked up on a lack of easiness for long and miles in

possession. Even though, yeah, they didn't have any big mess ups. It just didn't look, it didn't look super fluid. You're talking about their body language here, Bels? I guess, yeah, I guess. I mean, long, it seemed like a lot of the distribution was going through long as early in the game in particular. And, you know, he just doesn't, he doesn't look like he knows quite what. He doesn't know how to take space quickly with the ball at his feet.

It just looks tentative and a little concerned. But I would agree. I mean, I was also glad to see that we didn't, you know, have any major mess ups. back there. Right. No major mess-ups. And what I would say is just a total commitment to working our way through it. So we did, whether the body language was right or not, I don't think, I don't think Long and Miles did a lot of like, you know, breaking the lines the way you see John Brooks do. So it's not like anything like that. They just kept, kept the ball moving in the back under pressure until it did get to a guy who was capable of sort of

of either hitting that pass or usually it would be like we'd break the initial wave with a few passes and then it would just be like whoever got the ball in midfield could just carry it 50 yards while they waited for sand vines to overlap them on the left side you know like it was we'd break it and then just have tons of space to just drive into uh it didn't require a lot of like line breaking passes yeah okay agree to agree uh uh lou we talked to i already made my point about i didn't think lewis was that effective in the run of play but he was effective around the goal you did you have something you wanted to say about that? About Jonathan Lewis?

Yeah. No, I didn't. I still think that his, if he's going to, he's, he's a kid. He mean, what is he, 22 years old? So I'm not saying the book is written on Jonathan Lewis. It seems like he would be a guy who you would probably, for a full strength team, is working to be like a dynamic off the bench sub. So having that strength of being able to take a good shot, hit a good ball, be a good

finisher. not the worst thing to have, not the worst sort of strength to play to. No. Did you think that our fullbacks were doing anything different in this game compared to, I know you don't want to get too much into tactics, but was it basically the same story as the previous games with our fullbacks or anything different?

I thought they were setting up higher than they did against El Salvador. And what I'm curious about is, and I haven't done the home. homework for this is if it's just like a not necessarily like a dictated assignment like ahead of the game like hey you guys are going to set up higher or if it's a reaction to how the team is pressing against us so if if if it's like okay when the other team does this then we then we respond this way rather than it being like for this game this is how we're going to play does that make sense so i thought they were they were their setup was higher and that might also be because um you know chris mueller played in alaska so it could be a personnel thing where they didn't want to like crowd Mueller's width and give him more of the width than the game against El Salvador. So, no, I don't know if there was too much that they were doing differently other than setting up a little higher. Okay. Ferreira, you want to take a victory lap on that of a nice long leisure leave? Can we play a little, can we play a little game here?

Yes. Can we play like a Reed Greg Buralter's mind game? I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask questions and then and then you have to read Greg Burhalter's mind and answer them. Okay. You ready to go? I'm ready. All right. Since you were bringing up Ferreira, I'm going to ask you, is Jesus Ferreira Burhalter's number one striker at this point?

I'm going to say no, Jazi's artist remains the number one striker. Do you think anybody listening would say that Greg Berhalter thinks Jesus Ferrer is our number one striker? No, I don't know. think anybody listening would think that. Do you? Now we're trying to read the minds of people trying to read Burrhalter's mind. I think it should be an open question. I'd really do. There's some, there's some things working in his favor here. Like, um, first off, first off, like the fact that Jesus Ferrer was called up and then started for me is a great sign that Burrhalter does not really

care about form, the way that everyone talks about form, who's in form. Aaron Johansson is in great form scoring every game, like that kind of thing. I always think that that's kind of just like smoke and mirrors for the most part. So I love that Jesus Ferrer started after what, like a one goal, one assist season in MLS last year. Yeah, in 20 appearances. So totally out of form by that definition gets the call up that, you know, most people would say his form did not earn him and then gets a start. So that's my, that's my favorite takeaway. but since we're going with this, Ferreira started last January over Giazzi Zardes who was in camp.

So, you know, maybe that was because, you know, Burrhalter just wanted to get a look at him, like it was the U23 angle. At that point, we thought Olympics were coming up. I think Ferreira had just gotten his eligibility to play for the U.S. Though, again, maybe not. Perea didn't start this game, even though he had just gotten his switch. So it's not like that's like a set-in-stone rule. rule. And then we talked about this after the November window in Europe.

Like, I think Greg Burrhalter's ideal striker much more closely resembles Sebastian Legit's false nine performance than Nico G. Elkini's game against Panama, where everyone was so happy that we finally got the real nine in the game. Like, I think Berthelter prefers more of that player coming into the midfield. And I've thought that's sort of been the case since Burrhalter's very first game in charge of the U.S., where it was Zardas doing the job that I thought was very clearly designed for a much more possession-oriented strikers.

Like a Josie Altador more than a Jazzy Zardis. Yeah, and so Ferreira's Ferreira was basically flawless in the Costa Rica game last year that he started, certainly on the ball, damn near flawless. A year later now, the first camp that Ferreira has been eligible for, or available for, since that January camp, he starts again. So, like, I don't know, if Josie had been healthy, would Ferreira still have started over him?

Like, did D.K.'s move, impending move, like, factor into it? Like, I'm not entirely sure. And I remember saying last year after Ferreira's game, like, if we had a game, like, who would you take between Ferreira and Sergeant? And I don't know that that, again, I don't know that that question has been settled.

Yeah. I mean, those are all very good points. I guess, like, why can't he do what he's doing as one of the, the wingers, the tucked-in wingers. Why does it have to be the nine? I don't have a good answer, because he kind of plays in that same space for Dallas, right?

But to far, far less effect? Yeah. So, yeah, there's a few angles that we could take here. I mean, one is the budding feud between Lucha Gonzalez and Greg Burhalter. I saw Berhalter was quoted as saying, we can't control what is happening at every player's club. We just can't. And you could just see him, you know, read between the lines.

Lucci doesn't know what he's doing. Use him correctly. I mean, it's always going to be relative to the personnel you have, too, right? So at our international level, our very best players are clearly, you know, Poulosick and Raina. And if you want to throw Morris in there as like one of our best attackers. And so we're looking for a guy who can compliment them rather than just throwing in another piece who might be marginally better. who might be overall like a marginally better striker than Hayes-Ferera, or maybe a lot better striker,

but doesn't complement the real sort of star power that we have in the right ways. Whereas, you know, FC Dallas has, like, Ricardo Pepe is a decent striker. I don't know if Jesus-Ferrera will, if they'll build things around Jesus-Ferrera as a false nine next year. I really don't think they will do that. No, it doesn't appear that. But yeah, it's, you know, I've always been,

been a fan of glue players and it's interesting to have a nine who is a glue player you know he really he really does get people involved around him and he uh he plays nice combinations and he last night he made good decisions in the box and finished off plays so uh it looked like there was like a deliberate attempt for him to be more involved in like the the traditional nine way like when the ball would get wide, he would like be booking it to get into the box to the point where a lot of times he was just running vertically directly off side. And I was like, ah, you got to, you're like, let's get this run curved a little bit, whatever, but it did look like there was maybe some emphasis on that in particular. I'm mostly just funning, but honestly not funning all that much. Like if there

was, if, if, if there are a lot of wild cards with Olympic qualifying coming up. The next window, you know, Ferreira will probably end up going to Olympic qualifying. So it would will remain unanswered because maybe he'd be with the full strength team if there weren't Olympic qualifying, but we won't see that because he's going to be in Guadalajara. Is that where it is? Yes. Yep. But would you hate, would you hate, like if I told you, if Greg Berlter said right now,

like, Jesus Ferre will probably be our starting striker for our first World Cup qualifier in September, would you be like, no way, like we got to have, it needs to be Josie Altador, it needs to be Matthew Hoppe. Are you saying that about any striker in the pool? No, no, no, no, no, I'm not. I wouldn't be mad about it. And I do, I think that that point you make about him complimenting the other attackers we have is,

it's really important, you know, because if Sergeant comes in and he just kind of plays like, plays like a bird brain like he is prone to do and just doesn't make any of the right runs and, you know, he's just running around getting red-faced, that's not going to do us any good, even if he can, even if he is more of a, like, traditional striker. And, you know, D.K. didn't certainly didn't make an argument that, Burrhalter made the wrong choice by starting Ferreira last night when he came on. And there's just, I don't think there's any way that D.K. is going to play the way, in the same style that Ferreira played. So if D.K. is going to do it, he's going to do it in

Burhalter's set as much. He's going to play. Well, we'd have our forward play differently if Dekay's the guy when he was talking during the camp. And the same is obviously going to go for Zardez. Like, Zardez is in red-hot form after the last two years of MLS play with his goal-scored, is goal scoring record. But none of that form looks like in the is of the style that we see Ferreira playing

or that we saw Legette playing in Wales. So yeah, so it just kind of open, I think that I'm considering it an open question and I don't think that Ferreira is necessarily ruled out as like the senior team first choice at the moment.

Yeah, I think that's fair. It's certainly as likely as anything else. at this point. All right. Okay. Thanks for spending a lot of time on Jesus Ferreira. But I'm not done.

We got to keep reading. We've got to keep reading Berhalter's mind. So here's what I'm going to ask you next. How did Chris Mueller get benched between El Salvador and Trinidad? Hmm. Boy, I don't know. I can't read Greg's mind on Greg Berhalter's mind on that. Because, you know, he was sort of the, he was sort of the mainstream media star of the game.

against El Salvador and thought he played pretty well. I don't know. I don't know why Jonathan Lewis gets to go ahead of him. They seem pretty similar players to me, but what do I know? I'd kind of agree in that they both seem like they'd be more in the like Jordan Morris hugged the sideline, left wing roll. On this one, I'm curious about, so with Ferreira starting over D-K, like you know it's not like a U-23 situation. where they want to test out for error for U-23s. I say that and then I immediately am like,

but wait, D-K won't be available for qualifying for U-23s. So this might be... Burrhalter probably knew he was going to Barnsley before we did. So that might have been... So that's another, again, just throwing another wrinkle in where it might be like, well, we've got to test out the guys who are going to see, who are going to be available in March for qualifying. That could be why Lewis gets the run out over Chris Mueller.

Not sure on that. I don't have a good answer either. It could be that Lewis straight beat him out in camp and, you know, Mueller had a good game against El Salvador, but again, just scoring goals and getting assists doesn't necessarily mean all that much when you're playing in these games. Yeah. I guess that's a good thing. If nothing else, it's a good reminder of that, you know, that Mueller had got on the score sheet a bunch against El Salvador, but that didn't guarantee him a starting spot in the next friendly against a similar opponent. I think Lewis and Mueller and, you know, a few other names we could mention are just kind of like all roughly in the same category. And I don't really care which one of them starts.

Yeah. No, I'm pretty much the same spot. And again, this could, for all we know, Mueller will be in the full strength March camp and, and who knows? What's your next question? I was just curious if you had like a real strong stance on Mueller not starting. No, I didn't, I don't feel anything about it. I feel zero. All right.

So here's another one. Has Cal and Acosta vaulted up the depth chart? Greg Burrhalter? I think he has, yes. And I'm trying to read Greg Berhalter's mind. I'm trying to read the tea leaves. I saw that he was moved to right back towards the end of the game when some substitutions happen.

And it just reminded me that Acosta has, you know, he has a lot of experience. He has a lot of versatility. And I think he's not a world-class central midfielder by any stretch of the imagination. But he did some good stuff. You know, he made some nice, he combined nicely a few times with Areola or Legette or Ferrara. And, you know, he won the ball back a couple of times to spring goal,

like goal-scoring moves. I think he's, I think he's, he's definitely preferable to roll Don for me at this point. And yeah, I think he's probably nipping around the heels of that first choice 23. That's kind of where I land too. There's no Olympic considerations here. So Acosta over Roll Dawn, you know, maybe it was just like a one-off for this camp. But I don't, you know, it seems like there's no, there's no urgency to get Acosta a look

ahead of rolled on because we've got Tyler Adams and West McKinney and, you know, Eunice Musa and Sebastian, like we're pretty, we're pretty deep already in that sort of dual eight role. So I thought this was another really interesting one. And it makes sort of as a nice reminder that even in like 2018 for the Serican era, Calan Acosta was like one of our better players for that calendar year. And it was basically assumed that it wasn't just based on his potential because he was a young player.

It was like he was performing pretty well for the national team. I don't think he's any necessarily like a new player that he's had like a resurgent. in his own play for Colorado Rapids. I think it's more about that we have shifted how we're trying to play as a team. And because of that shift, you know, maybe Roldon's strengths aren't quite as valuable, if that's how Burhalter felt about them prior to the shift. And Acosta strengths are sort of more in demand.

Yeah. It reminds me of that friendly against Portugal back in like the first game of the Sarah Canera, back when Jonathan Gonzalez was filing for divorce. And we had McKinney, Acosta, and Adams in that game. Adams was playing right outside mid, but he ended up being sort of in the middle of the field a lot. Yep.

Danny Williams was a holding mid in that game. And Ethan Horvath had that horrible howler. Otherwise, we would have won the game one to zero on a West McKinney goal. And it's like, you know, basically the entire next three years. of the U.S. men's national team was foretold in one friendly. Not far off, right? Acosta would be a perfectly good plug-and-play player for this central midfield that we seem to be sort of building.

They looked really good in that game. McKenny and Adams and Acosta just sort of like running around and closing people down and springing into the attack. And then we went, you know, as we all know, we went, we hired Burrho. alter and went into this sort of like low block situation that has now been discarded but I don't know maybe saracan was a genius well in any event I do feel like now it caught like I'm guessing for our next top 40 even though we say that we we don't have burralter's uh ratings in mind I'm guessing we actually do and that Acosta will be you know knocking on that door it's hard not to have his ratings in mind when we

make our own. It's just difficult. It's difficult to separate them out. I got one more, I got one more Burrhalter question. Then we'll be done with our game. How honest, how honest is Greg Burrhalter in his press conferences? And I'm mostly just talking about Josie Altador here. I'm going to say pretty honest because, and here's, here's my rationale. Well, for one thing, he just seems like a fairly honest dude, the way he, the way he answers questions and stuff. But also, imagine, okay, imagine he's lying. to save Josie face, right? That would be the argument.

There actually is no transfer looming for Josie Altador. There actually was no knock. He's just being left off because he's not very good anymore. And then Burrhalter is lying about it by saying that these other things are the reason he's not in the squat. If you're Josie Altador and you know that he's lying about that, would you go out there and tell everybody that he's lying to save face for you? Like what? But why would you do that?

This asshole is trying to make me not, this asshole is trying to make me look better than I would if he told the truth. I'm going to call him a liar on Twitter. I don't know. It just doesn't make that much sense to me. But. Yeah, I think he's very deliberate. I think he's honest too, but I think Burrhalter is very deliberate.

Like, I'm not convinced, though, that Josie would have started this game if he were healthy. Like there is still a little bit of like, okay, well, he's a little bit, if he's got, you know, even something minor. Because they said he was in full training the day of the announcement. Which is a weird thing to say, in full training, but he suffered some kind of knock. That's right. So it's easier to take that precaution to not play him if he wasn't going to start the game anyway. And you had other priorities for playing time. You know what I mean?

Like that's suddenly an easier way to, it could be a totally true statement. Like we're going to be, we're going to take this precaution. but it could be, if you were starting, you wouldn't have taken that production. But that's an example of the devil working overtime? I mean, the devil's got bigger fish to fry than, you know, protecting Josie Altador from looking bad. The devil knows how to fry multiple fish. It can synchronize its fish fry. I don't know.

It was just, it was a really interesting one. It also actually makes me think of Michael Bradley because at some point we're moving on from these guys. and with Michael Bradley it seems like it might already be happening. With Josie, it could be sooner than later. It wouldn't have surprised me if Josie started that game looked amazing and, you know, solidified his spot as Burrhulter's number one choice. But it's also totally within the realm of possibility that he was just simply outplayed. I mean, he's 31, 30, and he's dealing with all these injuries,

and maybe like he just didn't have, it wasn't anywhere near. Hesu's Frere. I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure. I can't say for sure that Joe. he was super effective in training and just were taking these precautions. Yeah. So, but with the Bradley thing, you know, when they announced this roster and Bradley wasn't on it,

I think they specifically said we had conversations with Toronto's, you know, director. And, you know, without a coach there, we thought it would be best to have Michael Bradley stay in Toronto. Which, again, is just vague enough that it can be true. It's very true. We think it'd be better here. But it could also just be kicking the can because you wouldn't have called him in anyway. but you're now just sort of like everyone's got a nice little cover and where everything's fine and then we'll just see what the picture looks like three months from now.

Yeah, it could be true but also slight of hand, you know, like, uh, diplomatic. My, my five-year-old's really into magic these days and he's, he's always like, dad, a magician never reveals his secrets. And I, and I think, you know, that, that slight of hand where you just, where you say something that's true, but like, not really, uh, necessarily relevant. just to sort of like draw everybody's attention over here. Well, meanwhile, what you're doing is you're benching the player or whatever. I mean, that all seems plausible to me, but I still go back to like,

Josie's reaction doesn't seem like a reaction to a coach helping him save face, you know? The devil is working overtime to help you save face. I don't, it just doesn't square up for me, but maybe it's just an emotional time. It would have Joe, we're just, we're straight like God. up rag at this point. It would make sense if Josie was really was like furious about it. Like if Josie was like, no, I'm, I'm perfectly healthy. I want to play. And they're like, no, we're just going to leave you off as a precaution. You know, like we're not

going to do this. And Josie was really like expectfully expecting, you know, to be playing. And I know, you know, in the Gold Cup when his minutes were really limited, somebody got him in the tunnel after the Jamaica game where he came off early. And it was like, hey, how are you doing? Are they managing your minutes? And he was like, no, I'm fine. I'm 100%. So basically suggesting that no, it was just a coach's decision. So I don't know. Like at this point, because there are so few games and our pool is so fractured and so many uncertainties,

like half of the fun now that I'm in love with most of the tactical decisions with our press and whatnot, a lot of the fun now becomes like this mystery aspect of how the team is coming together. Yeah, yeah. Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens with Josie because I think, you know, conventional wisdom a week ago is that he's still our best striker. And I'm sure that'll change a little bit with him not being in this game because that's how stuff works. That's how public opinion works with the men's national team.

But, you know, he could come back and play in March and suddenly be the, you know, the number one striker in everyone's heart again. But he won't because none of those guys will have played. None of these MLS guys will have played anything. So come March, we're taking. We're taking sergeant. Oh, yeah. We're going all Europe, right?

I think Burralter actually said that, right? Like, if this is all put, if MLS gets pushed, then they'll be looking at a all-European roster again. Yeah. Hey, before we, go ahead. What were you going to say? No, I was just like, all right, man. Thanks for, thanks for humoring me on my trip through Greg Burholter's mind. Yeah, I don't know that we are very good at reading his mind, but we gave it a shot.

I want to read a couple of things from Matt Mitchell, a guy who was at the game last night and he's a Patreon subscriber. He sent me a couple thoughts. I thought I'd read him out here. He was really impressed with the finishing in the box. And just there were, nobody was F-U-C-K-I-N-G around in the process of putting the ball in the goal. Very clinical and cold-blooded, which is not always something we see. see we have seen in the Burrhalter era even against weak conca caccaf sides and then he said which i think you probably agree with ferrera's i agree with it in the sense oh sorry to derail it again i agree with it

in the sense that like i think we were ruthless and i think the ruthlessness ruthlessness of our finishing had a lot to do with how well the chances were set up because you know i'm not super big on saying that clinical finishing even really can't exist uh at that sort of the level that our players play at but by by making the chances like as high quality as possible that's where that's where that's where you start to overshoot your your expected goals yeah but i appreciate that clarification i was not accusing you of agreeing with the previous statement okay i'm saying you probably agree with what i'm about to read which is that ferrera is probably the one player who gives berlter the most to think about coming out of this match and i think that's you know

That's kind of the big picture takeaway. It's, Ferreira looked really good. Maybe he's the number one striker. Everything else is kind of a wash. Yeah, and again, it's not because he scored two goals and had three assists. It'd be much more the broad strokes of, would a striker like Ferreira open things up the most for us? And if that's the case, like he becomes the obvious choice.

You don't need to keep looking like he's done it several times for us now. This would be the guy you try out until he can't do it. you try to, at least I try to imagine Josh Sargent or Jazi's artist doing what Ferreira did last night. And it is hard to imagine them doing those things in different ways. But yeah, I don't see, I don't see Sergeant being such a, like, such a well-oiled cog in the attacking machine or his artist. There we go. A lot to think about. Sam Vines.

I mean, we should, a lot of people talking about Sam Vines too. I thought he looked pretty good. I'm not, I don't know. I don't know what to think about Sam Vines. We got to see him against better competition. But, you know, he's definitely in the depth chart. He's somewhere in the top 40. Yeah, I mean, a left back, he's somewhere between one and four, right?

Yeah. No, realistically, where would the lowest he would be on a left back depth chart be? So it's conventional wisdom is Anthony Robinson is number one. Yeah, he's number two. Isn't he? Like at worst, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'd say.

Yeah. He's number two for sure. Anything else we should mention? Uh, the, no, I think, I think we're good on this. I thought Legette had a little bit of an off night. By his, by his, you know, gold standard. And, uh, like, just not quite as influential and not as many, like, uh, oh, yeah, nice, that was very nicely done from Legette.

Like in that moment kind of. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't see a lot of that. And he, you know, he had that one sort of poor giveaway in our half that, of course, resulted in nothing.

But, yeah. Herrera had that, Herrera had one from about 20 yards, which was kind of exciting. Trying to think if there's anything else to say. I mean, I mean,

we didn't talk about Matt Turner. Oh, yeah, we got to mention that. He saved a penalty. This will be our final thing we talk. about. Well, we didn't talk about it because it didn't change his stock for me or you, I don't think, in that he remains our co-starting goalkeeper. Yeah, I don't, I haven't really staked out

a position on the goalkeeper in the goalkeeper debate. I just think it's kind of fun to watch. Well, I said the same thing to Seuss. Like, if you, if you don't care between the two of them, then that actually puts you in Matt Turner's corner because the other side is saying that they can't possibly even be close. So if you think there is even a discussion to have, then you're actually technically a Matt Turner supporter. Okay. Well, fine.

Fine then. I did notice last night that he has that sort of like too bright look in his eye that you kind of like to see, this sort of a little bit crazy look in his eye that I like to see from a competitor, you know? He looks like he's ready to study you. then do something bad to you as an opponent. Let's get out of here.

All right, let's do it. By the time we hit end on record, up, up, up, I'm seeing it right now. Ariola is official. Swansea and DC United. Swansea and DC United have agreed for Paul Ariola. Paperwork being completed. You heard it here first.

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