Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 158: February USMNT Top 40

Episode Date: February 11, 2021

We finally did it. Sort of. There's a twist. But I think you'll enjoy the full rundown of the player 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. Thank you for downloading this episode of Scuffed. We are ready at long last to rank the U.S. men's player pool like Casey Kasem with a bunch of pop songs. Greg, how are you? All right, Bells. What's the overlap in our demographic of people who are old enough to understand that reference? Is it zero? I don't know. I remember it barely from my child. childhood. Driving to church, listening to Casey Ks and Top 40. All right.

We would never listen to pop songs on the way to church in my family. Yeah, right. We are absolutely ready to do this. It has been a long time. Tell us when the last top 40 was recorded. Oh, brother. September, I believe. Yeah.

It's been a long time. Let's see what has changed. It's gotten to the point where, and I mean, just big picture, and I'll speak for myself, but I can imagine several different. lineups that would work and several different 23s and it's going to be it's no longer a matter not that it ever was but it can definitely now no longer be a matter of like pure power rankings this player is better by club bedigree or minutes or whatever than this player therefore he gets involved in the 23 it's a matter of fitting the pieces together and um and there are i think many

different ways to assemble the puzzle appears to me So lots of right answers when it comes to a full strength 11 or a full strength 23. I wholeheartedly agree. And I think even again with the condensed schedule we're going to be looking at, even talking about a full strength 11 almost like you can't, you won't be able to trot out the same 11 for every game. You probably couldn't even do it in the old, in the olden days. That may have contributed to our downfall in 2018 cycle.

But rotation is forced upon you and it will be even more so through this triple window. cycle that we're going to be dealing with. So, you know, it's not even a matter of, like, 10 starting spots. Like, you know you're going to have to start 15 different guys minimum over the cycle, 16 guys minimum, because you're going to have to swap out several positions. You can't run the same front three for three straight games in a one-week spell. When they're already coming off of a game over the weekend with their club, then flying internationally to join the camp, and then a game two days later, and then a game three days later, game three days later, fly back on an international flight to their club again to play a game.

on that weekend. Like, that's, it's, it's going to be insane in that regard. Yeah. So having the depth that we have at this point with the top end talent that we have at this point is huge. And it's a huge advantage over a lot of the regional competition that we're going to be facing, who maybe their, their version of their top 40 might fall off a little sooner.

Right. Right. And I, you know, and I would add to that our, if you look at what, what rounds out to our top 10, which is not controversial. I don't think. It's not that controversial. Most of them have had, have struggled with injury over the last couple of years. Adams, Brooks, Pulisic, Wea. Dest is injured right now.

Dest is injured right now. So, yeah, we're going to need to, we're going to need all hands on deck. Not all hands, but many hands. And there's going to be a lot of different ways to fit lineups together. A lot of, I mean, maybe even different formations, you know, it's like, Who knows? It's different. It's different. So, should we start to top of the 40? Let's get in. And just as a reminder, we don't include goalkeepers here. So we don't, we're not even waiting into that particular battle today. Yeah, thank goodness. Yeah, no goalkeepers. So number one on the list is Greg?

For the first time ever, it's Weston McKinney. So we had had Adams as number one for a lot of the early versions of this list. He was overtaken by Poolsick once Poolsick started lighting up the Premier League. And I remember a lot of people being like, I don't know how anyone ever thought Poulsick wasn't our best player, which seems, seemed right at the time when Poolecic was dominated at EPL. And now Poolecic is back in sort of like his 2018-19 Dortmund situation where he's like being used off the bench kind of sparingly. Meanwhile, down in Italy, Weston McKinney is a key. player for Juventus. Yeah.

In a role that is not that different from what he is asked to do for the U.S. men's national team, sort of a pressing eight who attacks on the front foot, makes a lot of runs, almost plays like a forward sometimes, but then gets way deep. It's kind of like a, it's a role that's Taylor made for Weston McKinney. Are you, you're shaking your head a little bit? Yes. Yeah, a little. I'm kind of disagreeing because I think.

think for the U.S., he will be charged with more of the ball progression than he's asked to do for Juventus. So, Uventus, he's going to win the ball a lot for you, and then a lot of times he won't be terribly involved again until the ball's up near the box. He kind of drifts forward. And I think for the U.S., he's going to be asked to win the ball a lot, and he's going to be asked to advance the ball, whether that's on the dribble, or whether he's one of the guys hitting those big switches that Burrhalter is fond of. I think he will take on a lot more of that responsibility for us that he does for Eventis, and that's fine when you have a player

like a Weston McKenny who's doing things at Juventus, and then he comes to a Concaf match, it could be expected that he can shoulder more of the burden than he has to do when he's surrounded by players at Juventus. Okay, yeah, fair enough. He's, in any case, he is now the number one player in the player pool

indisputably. That's definitive. Number two, Bells, who's right behind him? Christian Pulisic. Number two, despite his ups and his downs currently in kind of a down, his attacking statistics are elite. Over the last 365 days, he is, you know, he's our best attacking player. Right.

And even when you think about all these different 23s that we can put out there, Pulisic is like the most electric player. And I don't think it's particularly close. Like he is the guy who's going to, who can potentially do it himself as we saw that he had to do during that 2018 cycle a lot of the time. Yeah, as just a young boy, just a young lad. Not a single GQ cover to his name. No, yeah, now he's got a lot of photo shoots in his rear view, tattoos, facial hair.

Number three. John Brooks, who's been in this slot, I think, before, but he's kind of dropped a little bit with all the shiny new toys. He's back in it as Wolfsburg are in. a Champions League spot and John Brooks showed in his what like one game with the US he averages about one game for the US per year and in that one game against Wales

he showed off what he brings and it's it's going to be a big deal it's going to be a big deal having him pick out these excellent attacking players that we have and there's no one else at the moment who can do that that we can say that confidently about not even close so Brooks is coming in at number three

yeah And it's also, yeah, that's the key. That's the key thing about it is there's nobody else like him in the pool right now at this moment. I mean, McKenzie has some of the same tools passing the ball, but, but yeah, not, he's not there. And so when he's when you're our only centerback who's that good, you get to be number three on the list. Number four, Tyler Adams. There we go. I mean, I don't know that there's anything to say that we're,

haven't already said about him. He's the he's the six for the national team. I know he's played out wide almost exclusively for Leipzig this season, but it doesn't really change the fact that he's the he's going to be the number six for the national team. Yeah, Greg Burhalter can't control what a player is doing at his club. He just, he just can't. So those are those are in his words. What was he saying that in reference to? I forget. As he was Ferreira. Oh yeah, and Lucia Gonzalez. So the fact that Adams is doing this, it shows that Adams is an incredibly versatile player. I don't think the U.S. at this point has to rely on that versatility.

You know, Leibzig are crawling with players who can play in that pressing midfield role. They're lousy with them. So for them, it's easy to move Adams to the right back spot and you don't lose anything. Again, you're probably better with the players you have already. The U.S. would not be in that situation. if we move Adams out of that holding midspot. Yeah, it's a big drop-off after Adams. And he may be the, I mean, we've got to figure out some way to keep him rested

in these three-game windows. Number five, Greg? Serginio Dest, has been, probably hasn't played in like a month or played maybe one game. He's basically been injured, I think. He's dealing with a lingering muscle injury. But he's a kid. Kids come back from these kinds of things. It's not like it's a tear and he's going to be doing surgery that we know of.

So it's just about getting the right recovery and rest and then coming back and doing all the fun Serginio Descings that we love to watch him do. Yeah. A little bit out of sight, out of mind lately, just because he hasn't been playing. But you know what? He's a right back for Barcelona. It's fun to say those words out loud. Number six, who do we got, Bells? Giovanni Raina.

My personal favorite player. Yeah, I mean, he's he's had his struggles. His struggles have more to do with not with injury, but just with, you know, getting minutes, getting. I mean, he's getting plenty of minutes, but like on field production. And Dortmund, of course, is struggling. But, you know, he's still an elite attacking talent on the global stage. I mean, I think he's regarded that way. And, yeah, when we're ranking right now, we're not ranking him on his potential. We're ranking him because he possesses already. So many attacks. tools that he's I'm very fine putting him as in our in our top six players yeah I'm a little bit ambivalent about it but but we'll go with it so do you think there's maybe like a little gap between the top five and then and then rena at six yeah I do okay I do right yeah number seven is uh in our list is Eunice Musa and I think this is a good chance to try out a question from a patron, if you don't mind, Greg. Have at it.

From Matthew Doyle, no, not that Matthew Doyle. There's actually another one who's been a very faithful friend of the podcast. Is Musa better as a winger or an eight? And which one do you think Greg will play him at? So I don't have a great answer for what is he better at. He is, what, 18 years old now, 17 still? And so, you know, a lot of people say, well, he played center mid as a center mid through all of his youth development.

That doesn't necessarily matter to me. I think there are a lot of players who will be in a position through most of their development and then shift. So it's not as though that locks him in as a center mid. What I would say is he has not been a terribly good wide attacking player for Valencia. Right. And so I'm not like, oh, he's got to stay there because that's what he's playing for his club. He has a background at center mid.

Burr-alter feels like he's a center mid. I think that's where we're going to expect to see him. indefinitely. So I'm, I'm totally fine leaving him as a central midfield in sort of our, in our fun depth charts. Yeah, that's how I see it too. He's an eight for me for the national team. Like you said, not a very good attacking player at all right now. Admittedly, what are you basing that on? What are we basing that on, the football, the football ref data, reference data on non-penalty XGXA, et cetera, et cetera. He's, he's in the bottom five percentile for attacking mid slash winger in La Liga.

However, however, he is as a presser, as a tackler, as a defender, he's elite. You know, so. Yep, so when you're building player profiles, all of his strengths lend themselves towards this center midfield role that we're playing. His strengths don't necessarily translate out into that winger role that we're we use. Yeah, at least not at this stage of his very young life. Number eight. Number eight is scuffed pod favorite Sebastian Leggett, who I think has been like in the top 10 for almost the entire existence of our top 40. And and I think the perception outside of scuffed, he's kind of been on a roller coaster. But I think people are starting to come around to Leggett. Burrhalter has come around to Ledgett.

Yeah, he sure. Yeah, a lot of people will cry foul at this high ranking, but here's my explanation. This is how I look at it. He's a great fit. So going back to this whole puzzle pieces analogy, he fits with a lot of different players in a lot of different ways because he brings a little bit of everything. He's a good attacker. He's a good defender.

He's good at controlling possession. He seems like he's a good teammate. He could be a calming influence next to McKinney. and yet he's not toothless, you know, in the attack. You know, he pushes the game forward. He tries to score goals. He tries to get assists. No, he's not as talented as Giovanni Raina in a vacuum.

I don't think. But guess what? We don't play the game in a vacuum. The team has to be good. And I would still, you know, I think right now I'd start Legit over Raina. And I think, I know I'm not the first person to say this because I think Matt Doyle put that in his column today, right? that Legette would be his starting center mid next to McKinney. Yeah, so he's basically saying Legit over Mousa is what he would say.

Oh yeah, then he has rain on the wing. And I'll say right now, well, I think he has rain on the bench and Morris and Pulisick on the wings. I don't think Legit over Mousa is a wild call either. You know, most of our Moussa takeaways are coming from two matches. You know, the same way that we were excited about the impact Lijit had in a short time with the U.S. it's kind of the same thing with Musa and that that's exciting. You know, and he is playing in a top five league, Musa is.

But we still have an incredibly limited sample size on Musa for the national team. So it's not necessarily cut and dried that Musa would be first choice next to McKinney. Right. So you're saying, where would you put Legette over Musa? Because, uh, well, a bit of a, I mean, that'd be a bit of a, a, I think a branch to go out on? I think I would. I would worry. I mean, Musa brings so much, so much athleticism and sort of engine room activity to that midfield. It's more than even Legit, you know? Yeah, I'd give you that too. So I, so I would worry a little bit about that

if I were to replace Legit with, replace Musa with legit, but, uh, I don't know. I think it'd be okay with it. Yeah. And that's fine. Like the other part, going back to our initial discussion, We don't have to necessarily get bogged down in these kinds of things because they are both going to play a lot. Right. Between the exhibitions, and I count CNL, the Nations League and the Gold Cup at this point is essentially preparation exhibitions

because it's all about World Cup qualifying. Assuming Musa accepts call-ups from us, they're both going to play a lot, and that should all get sorted out for our actual, actual Best 11 by the time we get to Mexico in, is it November that we play Mexico in a World Cup qualifier?

I can't remember, but yeah, it sounds right. Yeah. So, yes, so I don't think we need to get terror. I know it's sort of the online's favorite game is to get bogged down in those exact, like, distinctions. But we really don't need to. They're going to both get their looks, and we should have a good sense of who works best in the puzzle when we actually need our true, true best 11. Yeah, I mean, Burrhalter is going to have to put together three different puzzles every break. And, yeah.

So. All right. So there's Legit at number nine. Can I talk about my favorite person at number, I'm sorry, legit at number eight now. Can I talk about my favorite person at number nine? Yes, please do. Number nine is Tim Wea.

Tim Wea has appeared. I probably had them higher. I think your score dragged him down. Is that right? Not too much, but scandalous. Timway has appeared in the last 15 matches for first place in League one, Leal OSC. He's averaging about 40 minutes.

per appearance. He's got a few starts sprinkled in there. And he just has all the skills that I think have been apparent since like the early days of Tim Waya playing for us in the Dave Serrican era. Again, remember, he has 500 minutes for the senior national team as well. He's all through 2018. He played a lot. So we don't, we're not just operating on zero information about way out the senior level. I'm excited to see what he does. I have no idea where Burrhalter sees him. He's been playing a lot of striker for Lille, but he is so versatile. You might remember from those days, those Halcyon days of 2018, I wanted way out to get a look

at our number 10 when we were expecting to try out like a 14. I very much do remember that, yes. He just has so much control and presence about him on the ball and his decision-making is excellent, and he's like a nice tempo player. And I just think we're, I think we're starting to accumulate a lot of those types of players and he's going to look good playing with him. He's going to make them look better. Yeah. He gets into good spots. Even what was it yesterday or the day before, he didn't score in a cup match against Dijon. But he, I mean, he ended up in like three one-on-ones with the goalie, something like that.

Yep. And if you're evaluating a player, as far as I'm concerned, that is a much better game. You're going to come out with a much higher opinion of Wea being able to play the number nine there than you would. For example, if you watch Josh Sargent, even in that game, Sergeant scored his. his absolute scorcher in. Like you watch that and you're like, okay, that was a wonderful shot. I'm not going to expect him to convert that one in 50 shot too often. So if that's the only look he's getting over the course of a game, I would actually

say the better performance is Tim Wea, who, you know, the narrative might say he was wasteful, but the fact that he got himself into those spots. And some of those weren't just like he just happened to be in the right place. Like it was either his touch bringing a ball down. You know, it's, he's doing a lot a lot of that chance creation.

He has a great instinct for moving off the ball. I mean, there's just, there's nobody else like that in the pool, I don't think. Do we need to do the whole discussion about whether he's a nine or a winger, or is that just something where we will let those chips sort themselves out? I'm willing to let the chips sort themselves out, but it sounds like you got an opinion burning a hole in your pocket. No, I really don't. I just, again, it's going to be so nice because I know he's going to play.

He's not going to get buried on the U.S. bench. I don't know where he'll, I don't know where he is right now in the depth chart, whether it's a nine or a winger, whether it's one or two it or three at any of those spots. But I know he's going to play. I'm very confident that that will happen. I don't expect him to be left off of rosters at this point. So again, it's just like there's so much enthusiasm of excitement about so many of these players. Well, if you remember in that Wales game, one of the problems we had was we didn't have people stretching the back line from wide, right? the wide attackers were not making the appropriate runs.

And so we couldn't generate anything really attacking-wise. That way of fit that position perfectly. Yeah. So whether he's a nine or, yeah. If I had a criticism of Wea, it's that he might like want to go too often and try to get him behind. But I don't think that's a criticism based on the comments from the players in January camp. That doesn't seem like a problem in Burrhalter's mind because everything, Everything was about like running behind, running behind.

Jonathan Lewis said that his scorecard wasn't about his goals or assist. It was about how many times he ran in behind. Like Tim Wayhouse going to have a perfect score in a game like that. Yeah. Hey, speaking of running in behind, I noticed on our number 10 player here, who is Jordan Morris. I noticed in his game against Man City this week, he was running in behind pretty well as well. You know, we got to see what, we got to see his ability to stretch a defense. Obviously in a game where his side was, was not controlling the ball.

But he got out into that space and he caused some problems for, he caused some problems for Manchester City. Yeah, he, he, he did his best. He was a game chaser. He was, he was chasing things. He was a game chaser. There was a one time where he, a couple times where he got down the left side, one time he pulled the ball back across. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why that striker didn't stick his foot out and control it. I think he sort of, he sort of meant to dummy it for the guy behind him.

I don't know. As though they're going to have a bunch of guys arriving in the box against Manchester City. And then he, yeah, he got in a, I mean, look, I'm not, I'm not trying to overstate it. But he also seems to be developing an instinct to run in behind. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. And he should get more looks to do it. His limits have been minted.

His, did I say what I just said again? His minutes have been limited. You know, he's been coming on his late sub and Swansea have been winning in the games he's come on on on so they're not sending a bunch of players forward. So we're not seeing him attack in sort of the true neutral Swansea attack. Obviously in the starting in Taman City, there was never going to be any attacking to speak of in like that team sense where they're going to bring the whole team forward, which is what they usually do.

They usually end up in what kind of resembles like our full like three, two, five where they've got a whole line of attackers with the wingback's getting really high. But we're not going to, we're not going to see that. We haven't seen that yet with Morris on the field. So I'm hoping that over the next couple of weeks he gets at least one or two chances in a neutral state game where we can see how he plays with like the full, you know, Swansea operational capacity going, fully operational Swansea. Yeah, I assume he'll get a start here or there.

Maybe was the thought that this was just a game they had no chance of winning, so they just give them a chance? Yeah, it was probably almost like a rest situation where they're going to rest their other guy, their other two forwards have started almost every single match of the championship. So this was give this guy. I think they made like six changes. And Swansea don't usually make changes. Their right wingback, especially Connor Roberts, has started every single match of the championship.

Like these guys are getting run into the dirt. So any chance they have. have to give him a break they're going to look to do now. And if Morris can provide that and he's good enough where it's not a big drop off, that would be really good for his situation. Yeah. I did notice that he came off in the 67th minute was 3-0. So I thought, you know, part of me thought, well, that's a pretty early sub-off. Maybe they're resting him for the weekend. Fingers crossed. Even if they're just resting him so he can go another 25 or go 30 over the weekend. I'll take it. I'll take 30 minutes per per game for Morris the rest of the way. Yep. He's competent. He's a competent

player in possession and he has that just blistering athleticism out in space. So there's our top ten. Please direct all complaints to, let's see, who should we send complaints to?

Final third. Final third. Getting all of our complaints. Should we move on to number 11? Number 11 is a giant plot twist. Because for a while now Bells, I have it, and Bells has humored here. I haven't been super comfortable even doing these top 40s because I feel like it's, it's

bordering on like meaningless to try to take a bunch of guys who have super big uncertainty clouds about them and then trying to like definitively say, oh, sure, you know, Anthony Robinson is ahead of is ahead of Paul Arieola. Like it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And so Bells has agreed to essentially do like clouds of players. Yeah, I mean, bordering on meaningless is charitable to what it was. I think it was a full-on invasion of the territory of meaninglessness. And, you know, if you go back and look at the top 40s from the past, you'll see, like, by the time we get down to like 30, I mean, it doesn't even, we don't have to get that deep. But when you're down in 30, it's 30 to 40.

It's pretty ridiculous what we've said in the past. And it was recreational. It was recreational discourse. And even before, I mean, before some of these guys, like some of these guys have really broken through before. Raina before Musa. I mean, when we were having like a Paxton Pamacall or Dwayne Holmes in the top 10 like it sounds

silly, but I don't want to even say it's like silly for the, for the exercise because there was so much uncertainty after the top 10, after those clear like eight guys who we all knew, the McKennies and Brooks and Pulisix and Adams that once you got past those guys, it really was just like pulling

names out of a hat and it's like, well this guy could be. We've seen we've seen glimpses where it would put him here, but if he if he never really plays at that level consistently, then he drops out of the top 40 altogether. Right. And it's just because of the nature of the pool at the moment and being in such a transition state.

But I think we are now at least in a position where we can kind of comfortably say, who is in this group, this sort of next tier down from the top 10, who exists in that group that needs to be sorted out? And the way you've defined the group, I think, is helpful. Why don't you say that? So the top 10 that we just went through

or the group of guys that we would say that they are quite, quite good, is how I'm saying it. This next group of guys we're going to talk about and we'll go through position by position. So we've totally changed the format of the top 40 and we were thankful that you're staying with it. The next group of guys... Assuming you are.

I can just imagine people getting angry. I was promised to top 40. I want to know who number 12 is. These are guys who I am totally fine. We are totally fine if he's on a tough World Cup qualifying roster. He can even start for all I care. And that is because we obviously have World Cup qualifiers that are going to be more and less difficult, I think is fair to say. Right.

As we've seen with our Concaf opponents over the last few months, there will be games in World Cup qualifying that we should be able to comfortably win with a B minus team. You know, famous last words. So should we go through, should we go through start? Let's start position by position. Let's start with left back, Bells. Okay. In this cloud of totally fine if he's on a tough World Cup qualifying roster, he can start for all I care, end quote.

We have two left backs, Anthony Robinson and Sammy Vines. And I know this is another one of those points in contention within the supporters, U.S. men's national team supporters, because Robinson obviously is playing in the Premier League, so how could it even be close? And it is. It's just another one of those situations where I think we're all just waiting on Robinson to have one good game with the U.S.

He's only played for Burrhalter twice. So the second he has one good game, then I think that EPL pedigree probably cements him in to the top spot. But Vines has had a ton of exposure to Burrholl. Walter over the past year and multiple extended camps. And that will matter a lot for a coach, for a coach to be comfortable in one of those tough World Cup qualifiers to sort of feel comfortable with what his floor is.

You know, he'll be like, okay, well, Vines won't be any worse than, you know, such and such level. And that can go a really long way towards a coach trusting a guy in a game. And Vines has been fine in these, in those games. Yeah. He has been fine. Fine to slightly above fine. You know, he's played some nice passes.

And he's never looked out of his depth against generally pretty weak competition. So there's that. Let me ask a question of you. Does it feel to you like the whole desk maybe should play left back thing is over now? Because Robinson and Vines have emerged as viable options in this second tier? So I don't think that's necessarily the reason why. I think Robinson has always been even all through 2019. when he wasn't getting called up at all.

I think he's always been a capable option. I think he remained a capable option through 2020. I honestly think what has maybe tilted things in his favor is that Canon has been more or less unremarkable at Boa Vista, quite honestly. So I think that has made people less convinced that you've got to have Canon out there. Even though Canada has been fine, once again, Canon has been fine in games where it would be very difficult to not be fine. Like you'd have to have a really bad go to look bad in some of these in some of those games he's played in.

And sometimes he hasn't been fine. Like he had a really kind of a dumb penalty over the weekend. I'm talking about for the U.S. For the U.S. He's been fine in all of his appearances. He's never had a bad appearance for the U.S. But I think that I think it is. He probably is losing a little bit of that momentum that he had in the fan base.

Yeah. He's not looking like a big money transfer to League of Un. which may have something to do with not just him but Liga-uh as well being in some serious financial trouble. But yeah, he's not been fantastic. I don't think for Boa Vista. I won't pretend to have watched all of those games or all of those clips, but I have watched some. And he looks like a player who's not 100% confident in himself right now. That's science.

Me saying that is science. and yeah, so, and also Boavista, as we've talked about, as everybody knows, is absolute bottom table in the Portuguese league. So, yeah, so we're hoping if they do go down, hopefully he has been good enough to get a lifeline, but, you know, that's definitely going to play into people's sort of perceptions of how urgent it is to have him on the field in our starting 11, I think. Yeah, it becomes.

And that plays into Robinson and Vines' role on the other side. Right. All right. Center backs who we'd be totally fine starting in a game. Well, let me just throw in a patron question about that. Sort of post facto ask the question. If this is from Nick B, if when Fulam are relegated and if when Anthony moves to another Premier League side

or Syria side for a decent fee, will that change your rating of him? And he's referring to me being like sort of critical of Robinson in the past. I was going to say my rating of him didn't change when he was at Wiggin. Right. I was I was going to say that. To be fair, scuffed as a house divided or has been a house divided on Anthony. I've been the critic.

At first I was the hype man back in like 2017. Yes, yeah. Then I became the critic. Greg's been the defender of Anthony. But at this point, I'm good with Anthony being in the 11, as we sort of just discussed. I don't think he's a, I think he has limitations. Please forgive me, everyone. I still think he has limitations, but it'll be plenty fine for the national team at left back.

And vines can compete with him. So anyway, let's move to centerback. All right, centerback. So the only centerback in our top ten was John Brooks, right? That's right. And may I ask another question to sort of kick this discussion off? Matt Mitchell asks, I'm with others who would love your take on how the two, number two through number nine centerback cluster has tiered out since the last top 40 pod. and I have every confidence that no one will be satisfied by your assessment thereof.

Do you think it's changed much? Is it still everybody in the same, it's still Brooks and then all the other centerbacks are pretty much at the same level? For me, yes, almost entirely. And I think the only thing separating a couple of them from a couple others is, again, kind of the same thing with Vines, is that familiarity with the national team already. So if they've already been in for, I mean, a lot of those guys who are in that sort of second cluster

have played a lot of minutes for Greg Burholter, Ben and do extended camps because they're MLS guys. I think those guys, for a real game, for a World Cup qualifier, I'm just going to be more comfortable with that because we've seen what they're, again,

sort of what their floor is versus some of the other guys who I think could very well be in that range, but we've never actually seen them play in the last two years for the national team. I think Richards has risen to like, to sort of like another. another level, not Brooks's level, but just that one performance for Hoffenheim, I thought he was really good, don't you think? And you don't think that puts him ahead of an Aaron Long or a Walker Zimmerman?

It's a sample size question. So I already, you know, I already kind of had them all lumped together, and now Richards has had one very competent game for Hoffenheim. And should we just go through the list of these guys who are in this year that we're talking about so we're all clear yeah sorry we haven't really answered your question matt but we'll get there because i think that's a good one um so we've got i've got on this list i've got richardson mark mackenzie erin long matt miasca tim ream still is a is a backup and then uh walker zimmerman okay and i know you've got you know some some question you have a you have a point where you disagree the only one i disagree with and it's only a minor disagreement is zimmerman i put him I put him more in the next category,

which is one where you're not totally fine if he's on a tough World Cup qualifier roster. All right. So just getting back to that Richards bit, I feel like quite honestly, Richards will jump up to the, up into like our top tier with like two more performances that are exactly the same performance

that he just gave over the weekend. Okay. Like I don't think he needs to do anything better. I just, we just need to see it like two more times. And it's like, okay, yeah, that's it. Because I don't think he really did anything. wrong. We had talked in the last spot about Richards and about how he had kind of looked

uncomfortable with Bayern Munich. I actually went back and looked at his US performance against Panama back in November. And like he looked just as shaky in that game. In fact, like there was a ball that came to him at the top of our own box, an easy ball to deal with. And he like really kind of turned it into a circus act where he got like tackled off of the ball by the pressuring defender, which basically never happened. You know what I mean? You should be able to go a season where you never let that happen. And so then against Hoffenheim, I don't really think there were any of those kinds of jitters. Like he looked totally composed.

I think Hoffenheim is an excellent place for him to have this loan because they play out of the back. Like he's always, it looks like he's always expected to find the next pass through the lines or to keep circulating possession. So he's getting all the kinds of reps that he would need to be our starting right back. And if he does it a couple more times, like that's probably. probably it. It'll probably happen within a camp or two. Yeah. I can, I can sign on to that. So I think, so maybe the answer to Matt's question is it, the tiering hasn't really changed, but it's, but it's potentially about to. Yes. Yeah. And I think it'll, it'll probably be the same with like McKenzie. I think there'll be like a passing of, there could easily be a passing of the torch in March where

Ream hands off that backup left back spot to McKenzie. And at that point, Ream pretty much falls off the list. You know, he's pretty, he basically becomes totally surplus. He's not going to take a step forward in his development. He's only going to be kind of regressing from here on out. So, and I think the same could happen where Richards at worst becomes Long's replacement, and it just becomes Richards and Long sort of being, being the guys. I just think Long because Burhalter seems to have Long as the guy. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I will say another, a couple of things that else, other things that stuck out to me about Richards in that game against Frankfurt is he hit a couple of dime. One with one with his left foot to the chest of the striker at the top of the box. It was a really nice pass. And then he had a few line breaking seems like maybe an overstatement,

but passes that unbalanced the defense from deep, you know, sort of like canceling out a couple of lines of the opponent so that all of a sudden somebody receives a ball and they're off to the races. Yeah, and you watch those and you don't think you're going to get those from Aaron Long. You don't think you're going to get him from Walker Zimmerman necessarily. So I don't think Matt Mujaska is hitting a ton of those where that's his reputation. So if you have Richards doing that plus his other defensive traits are good, then he's going to thrive in Burrhalter's setup. He was not, I will say this, I do not think he was as dominant in the air as you might see from a Walker Zimmerman or an Aaron Long.

Not quite as athletic as those two, I don't think. on either side of the ball, right? And that probably matters too. Yeah. For set piece discussions. Right. Because Long and Zimmerman are legitimate set piece threats. Yeah.

And they look like, you know, Long just loves to come in with his mohawk and just hammer the ball with his head. Um, so does that cover the centerbacks? I mean, somebody else has a question. Tim Saviello has a question about Aaron Long, which we should get to real quick while we have the chance. Yeah, let's do it. He wants to know. whether New York Red Bull's consistent refusal to let Aaron Long move abroad might affect his standing in the race to pair with Brooks. He says, I could see it going both ways, a potential negative effect of limiting his ability to improve his play,

or a potential positive effect of him being so pissed at Red RBNY that he's hot to show out for the U.S. men's national team just to keep teams calling for him. I don't think broader cares, really. Nope. Nope. And it's the same. It's the same with those like minor dips or ebbs and flows with form. Like again, last year, if you were looking at form in MLS,

Zimmerman was sort of, I guess, the better defender than Long. But in the U.S. set up what Burhalter's asking them to do, I think he very clearly prefers Long. And I think that's very okay to make, I mean, you know, they go back to their clubs and they're doing slightly different things. It doesn't really matter that much if they don't look as good for their club, because you're asking him to come in and do a very specific job. So that's what you care about for the U.S.

Yeah. And I don't care if he goes to Europe to do it or if he's doing it home. I also, you know, without knowing the details of the offer, it's really hard to even be upset at New York Red Bull. Like I have no idea if they were getting low-balled. Like we know there was an offer, but who knows if it was actually his value? You can't just sort of assume that Red Bulls are stonewalling legitimate offers. Right.

as a national team fan, I don't see any reason to get worked up about Aaron Long moving or not moving to Kilmarnock or Yankly or wherever he's planning to go. Because he's not going to suddenly flourish and become a ball playing centerback par excellence. He's he kind of is who he is and he's useful for the national team. But I don't think it might be marginal improvements in his like nuances of reading the game. But yeah, I'm not losing any sleep over it. And again, it's very possible that he is, he's going to get sort of overtaken here in the next couple, couple weeks regardless. Right.

I do wish you'd go on loan just because the MLS season isn't starting until late April. So it'd be nice if he got an extra eight games in instead of just waiting around. Yeah. Well, speaking of that, should we do a little, a quick little news break? We're playing Northern Ireland in the March window. Oh, yeah, we just skipped over that. Yeah, that's excited. I'm excited for that.

I know there wasn't a lot of excitement surrounding that announcement, but I was good with it. But you went into the lab and figured out that that was basically the strongest opponent we could come up with. It was, but I also don't really, even if it wasn't like, it was like, oh, we could have played them or we could have played Belgium and everyone would love to see us play Belgium. And I would too. But for what we're doing, like Northern Ireland is a just fine test. Remember we just drew with our first team more or less. We just tied Wales and reserves zero zero and didn't get a ton of chances. So, you know, for everyone saying like, oh, Northern Ireland isn't a good enough test, like we need a couple of these tests where if we can't do it against Northern Ireland, then that's where we know we have a problem.

If we play Belgium and can't really do anything, it's like, well, yeah, they're Belgium. You know, it's like what we just saw was Swansea and Man City. Like, of course, we're not at Belgium's level. We have a bunch of 20-year-olds who are in their third game together. But Northern Ireland should be a test. We should have some success against Northern Ireland. And we should be able to use that to gauge what we're capable of and how much progress we've made. Yeah. Agree to agree on that. Should we move to right back?

All right backs. We have here Brian Reynolds, AS Roma, fullback. And this is on a totally fine if he's on a tough World Cup qualifying roster. You can start. Reggie Cannon and D'Andre Yedlin. So a little more depth at right back than left back. Yeah. And I think, so Reynolds is going to be the wild card here, obviously. I think I think Cannon and Yedlin are more or less self-explanatory. Like they're both, you know, fine to throw in there if you need to, if Dest is out for some reason.

I have Reynolds in here despite his total inexperience. I mean, we haven't, he hasn't played any games in a other than for FC Dallas and he's only played a handful of those. No U.S. experience. I don't even think he has like youth national team experience at right back, does he? He may have a little back there in some like U-18 tournament in Czechoslovakia or something. All right. The Czech Republic, not Czechos.

Slovakia. That's so, so 1985. But I put Reynolds on this list because, again, you know, I've said it before, because of how different of a fullback he is. So it's almost like an underdog strategy where it's like, okay, Cannon and Yedlin would give you a like a firmer defender there for sure. Or you could be, I think you could be pretty sure. You're kind of like, would they? Edler loves letting people sneak past him on the back post. But he's got, I mean, he's logged 10,000 Premier League minutes. Like he's got some kind of a baseline, you know.

Yeah. Reynolds, even with no, no like top top flight experience, has still, in those glimpses offers a completely different kind of attacker. So if we're playing like Mexico and we needed a goal and he's on the roster and you know, let's say Dest is out, so Cannon's starting. Because I'm not saying Reynolds should start over Desk, but if Dest is out, I'm not like, oh, no, Reynolds is on the roster instead of Cannon and Yedlin. It's Cannon and Reynolds.

If we're down a goal, like Reynolds going in for Cannon could per is an attacking increase, is a net attacking increase. And that could be the way you like go after a game if you're losing. I see. Yeah. And just for those, you know, those catching up on Reynolds, he was an attacking player as a youth in the Dallas youth system and for the youth. national teams when he did get called in for various camps and converted to right back, what,

18 months ago, something like that? Yeah. And the reason he got, the reason he got sold for $8.5 million is not because he's a locked down defender. It's exactly for his potential as an attacker. An attacker from right back. From right back, right. So that's why I have him on this list where, and it's, it's almost kind of like how Yedlin

made the World Cup roster in 2014, to be honest. I mean, he was good and he had a lot of minutes for Seattle Sounders, but no one was expecting it. And I think it was very much like he's a guy who we could bring in in this situation, even in a World Cup game against in Portugal. And he could do this job better than any of our like, all like well-rounded right-back backups could be, like Jonathan Spector, whoever was playing right back for us at the time.

So I think that's sort of the same way Reynolds could sneak his way onto a lineup. Yeah, and some kind of X-factor. So there you go. All right. Now, in defensive midfield, uh-oh, there's nobody. There's nobody in this category of those who you would be totally fine with if he's on a tough World Cup qualifying roster. He can start for all I care. Nobody.

Nobody. If Tyler Adams was out, I would not be like, okay, we're playing, we're at Costa Rica. We'll just throw Jackson Ewell in there. Like I wouldn't, I just am not there at all. It'd be like, okay, McKinney's going to be our six and we'll, we'll shot out a legit and Musa ahead of him. Oh, brother, I don't know. I guess I don't have a strong opinion on that, but because neither sounds like a good option.

That's where we are, though, right? I mean. I mean, McKinney, you know, there's that piece in Italian, some Italian publication. I can't remember the name of it about McKinney's role at Juventus. And part of what the guy argued was that Pierlo moved McKinney further away from his own goal to limit the damage of his mistakes. And it was a largely glowing article, you know. It wasn't like some guys just slamming McKinney. But that's what that was the thing is McKinney's can be a little bit sloppy on the ball.

We all know that. And Pierlo chose to move him further away from goal just to limit the effect of that. Like in the buildup, like they're not building up through Weston McKinney. Right. Well, they just, yeah, they just don't want him making a mistake. stake and giving up a goal to Sampdoria in the, you know, and losing them the title race. Yep, and I get that. It's just, you know, that's Seraia, where they have a lot of other options that they can

put in that position, and we simply don't have that. So if, if Pierlo were faced with using Weston McKinney in that spot or Jackson Yule in that spot, I'm not sure which direction Pierlo would go. Yeah. Okay. Well, all the Jackson Yule skeptics will appreciate this segment. So we'll come back to that position in the next tier, I guess. We'll hope that some guys make the next round.

Right. Let's move up to center mid, which is kind of the McKinney-Musa Legette position. We have three. This is like a scuffed special. This is going to be everybody's favorite. You have two names here. I have three. my two names on this spot where they could start in that position other than McKenny Leggett and Musa

are Dwayne Holmes and Paxton Pomacall. Neither have played for the national team since like September of 2019. I think they've both like fallen pretty far out of favor with most of the fans. But the same way I just stuck with Sebastian Leget and what I think he offers to the team. I think I think Holmes and Pomacol would both, I think a lot of people would be back on Pomacall's side if he got healthy and played. I don't know if there's any other real support for Holmes. Yeah.

You're, I mean, you've, you've been faithful towards certain principles and players and been vindicated, for instance, with Timi Wea. So I don't, you know,

I'm not counting Dwayne Holmes out, if only for that reason. Pomacall, yeah, he's just been, he's just not been healthy. And like any player who's not healthy and not playing, they don't,

they get forgotten about pretty quickly. That's what's happened with him. but he could very well come back this year. Is he back to health? Have you heard any news on that? Yeah, he was on a, he did an interview, and I think he was with one goal. And he basically said that he had been,

and this was a month or so ago, that he was cleared to play. He was cleared. And so now it's just, once you get cleared, you're not just fit again. You know, you've got to ramp back up to playing full speed

for long stretches. So that's where it was, even like a month ago. So the delay to the season could benefit him to really get into the same essentially fitness as, everyone else who's coming off an off season. I'm very curious about what the Olympic qualifying situation would be with a player like

Paxton Pomacall. Because again, he's in the sense, he's in the same boat if everyone's been in an offseason. So he's not necessarily at a big disadvantage relative to the players there. Yeah. Okay. Well, best wishes to Paxton Pomacall. You left Brendan Aronson out of this category, and that's where I maybe differ with you a little bit. did you see his

did you see his game against austria vian yeah he looked pretty good man let me let me throw a patron question in here it's from eric milazzo milato was erinsen's performance against austria wean the sauciest the sauciest performance by an american in europe in years

i will say I'll reserve that for pulisig versus liverpool last summer but it was saucy it was scored a heck of a goal special man something that was a comp maker's dream

wasn't it yeah it was it was one of the the rare comps where like the sort of lokey edm actually worked because it was because it was so good several back heels if he's doing that every week then I won't even care that it's in austria

the same way you know we were excited about Ledesmo when he was he had a spell where he was pulling some stuff like that for young for USB flavor like week in, week out, but it was with Yonge PSV in the second division of the Netherlands. If Aronson starts doing that stuff every week, even in Austria, I'll be like, oh, this is going to be fun. If he starts doing anything close to that in, like, Europa League, then we're really cooking. Yeah.

Let me ask another patron question that has to do with Aronson. I've seen a lot of excitement. This is from Steve Copera. I've seen a lot of excitement about Aronson and the Austrian Bundesliga, yet I hardly see anything about EPB. that's Eric Palmer Brown, who's been a regular starter in that league for years, I think for two years. Is this because centerback is not sexy? I would say no. I would say it's very much because Salzburg is not really part of that league.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Salisburg exists outside of the Austrian League. Yeah, Salzberg is a feeder for super clubs. You know, they're selling players to Liverpool and Leipzig and yada, yada, yada. Let me just burn myself here on Arrington, given what he did yesterday, because I was preparing for this portion of the recording. And what I was going to say was, it was going to be a body language bit because we love those now. I was going to say Aronson has like reverse body language credit, whereas it hurts Anthony Robinson for being too frantic. Like I think everyone loves Aronson's little busy feet.

But I'd been watching all of his, I don't know if other people are watching all of Salzberg's games. I've been watching all his minutes with Salzberg, and he does all this little busy feet stuff, and then, like, the defender won't bite on anything. So, so often he just stops, stand straight up, and then hits, like, a square ball. Yeah. And that's what it had been through most of his game so far. Even his assist was like just some square pass that the other guy did all the work. So I was all ready to say that. And then in that game, he does the busy feet in the box and curls the Dennis Burr-Camp finish into the top corner.

And I'm like, all right, busy feet. Yeah. You keep doing that. And I'm going to have to eat the words that I didn't have to share here, but because I have integrity. I got to own it. Yeah, thank you for your honor. It was a gorgeous goal.

It was gorgeous. It was kind of like a Christiana or an Aldo goal, just kind of stand up straight and then curl it in. I'll post the Burkamp version and see if I get a copyright strike. It's from like 15 years. It's probably 20 years ago. You still with IACs. Probably be okay.

TV rights have been. have long changed hands. Yeah, so I don't know why you don't have Aronson in this same group with a player who hasn't played in, you know, four years and won him. It's because Aronson hasn't been that great for the national team. I think that's entirely what it is. And because I still had some questions about him with Philadelphia Union and the role he could play, he's been kind of like a higher up in the attack for Salzburg.

might not really be true, but he's been less of like a central mid, do it all eight, which is what Burhalter's used to Matt. So if that's where we're talking about him playing, then I'm not sold on him being able to control a game in the hellscapes of Central American stadiums. Yeah. I mean, hellscapes is difficult to play, and I don't mean they're actually hellscapes. They're gorgeous. You put the, yeah, you put the words, yeah, stadium on the end of there, just to be sure. Yeah. Difficult to play in. Wonderful, country. countries. Let's see. Let's move to the wing where we have one player in this category of

it's fine if he starts a tough World Cup qualifier. Paul Areola. Yeah, there it is. Yep. And I don't think there'd be too much argument there. Yeah, man, he gets it done. He gets it done for the most part. Not always in front of goal. I don't know that he gets it done all the time. But, but again, And if he's like your, you can't field a team of 11 ariolas or 10 ariolas and Christian Poulos that can hope that you're going to do it as we found out last cycle. But if, if ariola is like your one or two guys who are in there sort of filler, then we can live with that. All right.

And now let's get to probably the most interesting of the, of the totally fine if he's on a tough World Cup qualifying roster. He can start for all I care category. Stryker. This is where all the strikers are There's no striker in the top 10 We didn't have a striker where it's like Oh yeah for sure this guy

It's Jesus Ferreira Josh Sargent Josie Altador And Jazi's artists And if you know if you want to keep track That's 15, 18, 21, 23 We're up to 29 players Okay All right I'm glad you kept track

Because that is a good reference to have So we've got 29 outfield players that we would be comfortable with. I mean, 28 for me, but 29 that we'd be comfortable. I guess you only have 28 too because you don't have Zimmerman. That's right. So 28. That's not a bad place to be at the beginning of qualifying because there are going to be a lot of guys who earn their way in through their performances in games that make us nervous going into it. Yeah, we hope.

We hope. Ferreira, of course, played quite well in the January camp friendly. Sort of was the star of that game created almost everything. thing two goals three assists is that right two goals three assists yeah that's correct and then um i don't know how you feel about josh sergeant these days i feel like he would be fine in that role i think he's again he's sort of got enough of all the tools that uh that if he's starting he can do the he can do the link up work he's not like a liability um scoring goals if he gets chances created and so he might not be as good at the linkup as Ferreira

and he might not be as good at sort of that fox in the box stuff as a Giazzi Zardez. But he's again, he's competent enough in both of them that he can do the job for us if we had to have him. Is there a limitation on the number of players that Burrhalter can bring on a camp for a World Cup qualifier camp? He could bring presumably bring 50 guys

And okay. As far as I know, he can call it. Well, I actually don't know. You might be limited because, again, the clubs have to release guys for these windows. So they might put a cap on it so you can't, you know, be bringing 40 guys out of their clubs when you can only play. But I bet it's a decent cap, a decent number. And I wouldn't be surprised if we call in larger numbers because of the rotation that's going to be required for three games. Yeah.

So it wouldn't surprise me if he's bringing 30 guys to the. and then rotating between games. So we could see three different strikers. I mean, very, very easily could see three different strikers. Josie, you know, we talked a little bit about his way, the devil is working overtime. Don't believe everything you read, tweet last week. Still don't really know what that means exactly. Well, he didn't move to any leagues that have transfer windows that closed on February 1.

so he's sticking around Doyle asked I think rhetorically in his depth chart whether anyone would expect anyone other than Zardez to start if we had a tough game tomorrow and while I'd be fine

with all four of these guys starting I think I probably would expect if we had a game tomorrow for me I would expect either Zardez or Ferreira I don't think that if those two guys are available like I don't think Sergeant would necessarily start I think it would go by

if he were going to go for more emphasis on the link-up play, it's obviously Ferreira. And if the super-heavy emphasis wasn't on link-up play, I think he would pick Zardis. Sergeant just needs to get in the tape room and watch video of Leal legend Tim Wea moving off the ball. Yeah, I guess Wea could potentially be that guy. We should learn a lot in March when Sergeant hopefully will be allowed to join the squad this time.

Okay, so that's our strikers. And that's our whole, that's our whole tier of guys that were totally comfortable starting World Cup qualifiers. I don't think we should go blow by blow through all the players in, in the next tier, but you should, you should name the tier and then list off the centerbacks. All right. So the next tier is, if you tell me he's on a roster for a tough World Cup qualifier, I'm a lot nervous, not going to learn.

Yeah. And I agree with everything here, except I'd add, well, why don't you? read the centerbacks you have. So my centerbacks are Miles Robinson, Eric Palmer Brown, CCV, and I have I have Keek Peary listed here. Dutch legend, dual national. Who has signaled that he may be willing to play for the U.S. lately. Signal that and not terribly included in Netherlands.

Yeah, no reason he would be. I don't think he was, I think he was even struggling for minutes at young Iax recently, which is weird because he was like a, he was a starter for here in Vien when Iyx bought The only difference between us on centerbacks in these two tiers, the previous one and the current one, is that I have Zimmerman in this, I'd be nervous, not going to lie. And maybe that's harsh. You know, he's been good for, I think he was good for Nashville down the stretch. And he seems to have earned some of Burrhalter's trust. He just a little bit, can be a little bit of a hot mess.

That's my, that's my take on him. No, I think it's totally fair. My, something we should have mentioned in the, in the tier before this is that the, literally, I think the only guys with, uh, hex experience in that, in that, like, uh, even in the guys that we were fine starting were Riem, Yedlin and Josie, Ariola. So it's not, it's not like, uh, it's not like we just have all these guys that we can comfortably throw in because we know there's a baseline. Like, there's just no real World Cup qualifying baseline for so many of them.

Yeah. So, you know, you could easily be very nervous about a lot of the guys that were going to be for sure starting in World Cup qualifiers. Oh yeah. In the global sense, I'm going to be nervous. So we don't have any, in this category, we don't have any left backs or right backs. The next left backs and right backs in the depth chart fall into lower categories. Like, will they be the next Brian Reynolds?

Or do we even include these guys I'm leaning? No. So let's move straight to the defensive midfield because this is, this is as if you'll remember, from, you know, several hours ago. Our previous category had nothing. Had, yeah, had none of, nobody in it. So here's the list. Andres Perea, Johnny Cardoso, James Sands,

Gianluca Busio, and Jackson Yule. And I would throw Frankie Amaya from Cincinnati in there in this same category. He's been a competent professional midfielder for big splash, big splash spending. Cincinnati. So yeah, so this is where somebody needs to emerge and like fully prove themselves with the national team because I still don't think Ewell has really done it.

I think Ewell is a fine player to start in any of sort of the cakewalk qualifiers and there will be some. The home games against the weaker teams might not be like what the friendlies have looked like, but they're going to be, I think they're going to be easily controlled and will be in a position where we won't really get punished, you know, for, for mistakes. So we have a lot of wiggle room. And, uh, like a Yule has done enough where if you starts on one of those games, fine, do it. Uh, but if he's starting at Costa Rica or even Costa Rica coming to our house, like that is not, I'm not particularly confident about that. Yeah. Yeah, I'd worry about it

too. And I mean, I, I, I, I think James Sands is a far better defender than Jackson Yule, for instance, but, you know, he doesn't have that sort of action on the half turn that Yule will get some credit for. I think that may be a little overstated with Yule, but... I would say the same. I don't think he's great on the half turn. I actually think that it's almost easy to take him out of games if you really choose to do that.

For the national team, I feel like when he receives the ball with someone around him, he will very quickly just sort of shield it, so not turn it all upfield and protect it and then knock it back to the centerbacks to start again. I don't think he does a lot of, like, receive it, give a little shake to turn a guy or spin a guy, and then play forward. I think that is actually not something he offers. And it's one of the reasons I think Perea could, like, edge him. I think Perea does that a little bit more.

We don't really have anybody who does it that well in the middle of the field. No. But I don't think Ewell has done that in the national team. You remember when we played against Uruguay, where we had that really great opening 25 minutes. And then after the game, the Uruguay coach even said, like, yeah, whoever it was, number or whatever, was just spraying the wall over. So we were like, hey, don't let him do that. And they immediately, like, he vanished from that point on.

Like, he might not have touched the ball again. So he's not great at sort of creating his own windows to play. And if those windows aren't sort of inherent in the formation matchups, I think he's probably pretty easily taken out of the game. So once Josh Sargent turns the corner this weekend, finally turns the corner and becomes the the striker we all believe he can be. And Richards has two more good games for Hoffenheim. Striker and centerback will be settled. Yes. And the new question will be who is the backup defensive midfielder. There we go. And a lot of these guys could Cardoso. Again, some of it's just limited national team time, limited video available on them. Like it's hard to watch Johnny Cardoso.

He doesn't have a lot of... Well, he hasn't played a lot lately either. Yeah, he hasn't played a lot Even when he does, he doesn't do a lot of defensive work in those clips that we're watching, not because he can't, but it just looks like his team tends to be in control most of the time. So it's mostly just him collecting a ball deep with no pressure and then either spraying it around or hitting a pretty simple pass. We don't see a lot of like how does he do when it's like really time to defend at length. So it's just a lot of unprovenness is how I'd say. Okay.

And then center mid, the more advanced center mid. field positions. We have three players here. Kellan Acosta, you have Brendan Aronson here. If you remember, I had him a tier up. And then Julian Green, who's having quite a good season in the two bonus league. Yeah, I think green is basically just a slightly more polished Christian rolled on, so it's not anyone I'm super excited about. I don't know how he would do in this heavier pressing system. Callan Acosta, I think, benefits from, obviously, from this shift. So I think he's a guy who who could give us some depth there and and could potentially be that player who's

asked to fill that role in a qualifier. Yeah, he's done it before. He's been there. He's been there in the Azteca. Yeah, he actually got to draw. Some hex experience. And then on the wing, we have, uh, once you read the names. So these are guys who, yeah, we'll just go through them.

It's Ullianas. It's Chris Mueller, uh, Richie Ledesma. Uh, I've got Sebastian Salcedo in here. Well, we both do. I've got Kenny Seff in here, who I refuse to give up on. And then Alan Senora, who's down in Argentina, playing spot minutes in the Argentina First Division, Pramera. Okay.

And I think it's a very tidy player. You know, if I can just talk a little bit about Senora and Saucato, I think these guys are in a bit of like a limbo where it's going to be really tough for them to break in. They're Olympic eligible. But because they're not MLS guys, their clubs don't let them go to our U23 camps necessarily. I see. So they're never going to get that face time with the coaches,

and they're not really quite good enough to jump into this, where we're going to call them up to the full senior team during these windows. So they basically just get no shot. And then what will happen is, you know, when it comes to crunch time, the coaches are going to go with the guys that they're familiar with. And it's just, it seems like,

although Salcedo has been invited, I'm pretty sure, to some of these U23 camps. And he just, he just can't, get that look. So I think it'll be difficult for these guys to break in. They'd probably need like a full blown like breakthrough at the club level. Yeah. Like big sale, big sale to a big club. Or it'd be like coming back to MLS and being available for all of the different camps that Burrhalter

puts together. Okay. Quick note on Ledesma, I saw a video of him hobbling down the hallway earlier today. Man, must be rough. Like poor kid. Yeah, real quick, I think I meant to have Jonathan Lewis on here. I don't know if you were like fine with that omission. I think I'd had him maybe one level up and I was like, no, no, no, I'm not comfortable with Jonathan Lewis starting World Cup qualifier. So he's going down to the V.

A lot nervous category. Okay, that seems like a fair place for him. And then in Stryker, we have, you know, a lot of exciting players, in my opinion, Awo Achanola, Matthew Hoppey at Shalka, Niko, Jee. Joaquini, Darrell Dike, Sebastian Soto, and Ricardo Pepe. And, you know, that's a list of players, one of whom could definitely emerge in the next few months as a more of a comfortable with him starting or even, you know, he could, one of them could ascend into the top 10. It's totally possible. Yeah, it seems far off now, but again, they, it's not unthinkable. I just,

in the time they've had to far, I wasn't super, super impressed with them. which is fine. Again, it's like sample size of one match for the national team. But we just got to see a little bit more before I'm ready to be like, okay, I guess if we have to start them because the other options aren't available, like they're next man up, let's do it. Yeah. Okay, do you want to go through all the other names?

Because now we're way past 40. Okay, well, then real quick, just because there are some guys, the next Reynolds types, like, will this guy be the next Reynolds where he goes from, barely heralded to extremely heralded. And this is also assuming that Reynolds turns into anything would be, we got a couple guys, and I don't even think we need to break him by position, but we're just talking about like a George Bellow

who progressed really well last year. He's only like 19. He could progress really well again this year. He's a left back, not out of the question that he plays his way into the picture. Julian Arajo is the same thing, another U-20 eligible guy who could make a big leap. I have Herrera on here.

Do you think he kind of goes? I don't know if I would, I guess I would probably put Herrera in the, somewhere between the second and third tiers here. Okay. I wouldn't feel super uncomfortable with him starting a game. He's not, he's never going to start a tough World Cup qualifier right now. There's too many other good right backs, but. But he can play his way ahead of some of them if he, if he, but he wouldn't, he would need

to progress a little bit or he'd need to. I'm just saying I don't think I'd be terrified if he were on the field at Costa Rica or something. You know, he's played a lot of professional minutes and he seems to be a pretty reliable defender. All right. Let me just throw out some names then that I think are a little, I guess a little sexier. And that would be Otisoe, Tesman, Cole Bassett, and then we've got like Conrad de la Fuente with Barcelona minutes to his name. Any of those guys where, I mean, those are the guys who could very much do like a Reynolds type jump, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just so hard to predict who's going to get the Reynolds-type move, you know.

Which is why no one expected Reynolds to do it. But yeah, you could see none of those guys, you would say, are even like in the final stages of their development, not like experience, but just they could very well make a big jump. And they're already at a good place now. So a big jump puts them right into the discussion. Yeah. If Otis Oya would just quit being so stubborn and just admit that he should play centerback. man he hasn't played in a minute for wolves uh like it's been it's been a little over a month maybe and he didn't get in today no he didn't get in today uh i think like his last real appearance was

was like before christmas he had like a three minute cameo and a five minute cameo um but his last real appearance 60 minutes was yeah back before christmas well if you want to know the rest of the names on this list, uh, sent an email to final third. What's the last tier? Do we even include these guys I'm leaning? No. All right. That's where we leaned. Yeah. We're at a, we're at a minute, an hour and 10 minutes, so we better call it quids. Can't, can't name them. Keaton Parks. Yeah, Bobby Wood. All right, all right. Uh, Timmy Chandler, Andrea Novakovich. No, I mean, you know, anything can happen in this sport. These guys are, these guys are solid soccer players.

Yeah, no, I liken it back to the fact that Zardez is now, is now potentially people's number one striker, and that would have been unthinkable in 2017 or 2018, and even going into Burr Alters first camp in 2019. Mm-hmm. Yep. All right, well. There's our top 40, new top 40 format.

March will be upon us before we know it. and thanks everybody for listening. Thank you, Greg, for all your work on this. We'll see you.