Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 162: European Camp roster discussion

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

We take a look at who's likely to be called in, and who we'd like to see called in, for a tight two-game window with matches against Jamaica and Northern Ireland. Likely going to be two different teams for the two matches. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Scufft podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Thanks for downloading this episode of Scuffed. Thanks especially to our patrons. This month of plenty continues full speed ahead with the Olympic qualifying opener against Costa Rica on Thursday evening. We're recording on Tuesday. But first, let's talk about the senior camp roster, which should be announced in the coming days. Hey, Greg. How are you, Bells? Pretty good, pretty good. A lot going on in the U.S. men's national team extended universe these days. Why don't you give us a rundown? All right.

So Brian Reynolds, as you probably saw with a momentous, if unpectacular debut for AS Roma. Darryl D.K. linked to a top six EPL team, complete with a rejected eight-figure offer by Orlando City. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Do you really believe that? Yes. You do? You believe a top six EPL team offered money for it?

Yeah, it's not crazy. And $10 million for a striker is at that level is, I guess what you'd almost call like a speculative offer. You know, this is not, this isn't 2010 when $10 million was a ton of money. I mean, this is post-Manchester City's oil boom. So that's kind of nickel and diming for top 16. Right. So then he could, I mean, you could conceivably go into a loan army with that. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you're not, you're not necessary. If you're paying $10 million for a guy, that's not a guy you're like, this player will win us the league. Right. You're not spending win the league money at $10 million. Okay. Well, pardon the interruption. On we go.

On we go. Odd favorite, Jose Gallegos, heading to Bayern Munich for a two-week trial and a move that seems engineered to make us in particular pay attention to him. Yeah. Yeah, he had sort of fallen off a little bit in my estimation, thanks to, you know, the sort of lack of production in the stunted USL season. I know you don't, I know you don't even like, you don't even like that terminology. I see you grimacing over there.

But, you know, we have hype. I have hyped him a lot. Yeah. And we'll just have to see if, you know, it's not like a trial comes with literally any strings attached. So hopefully you just enjoys his time at Munich. Yeah. Yeah.

And maybe, you know, maybe. There's other clubs interested, too. You never know. Yeah, it ends up in Austria. Let's see. What else? What else? What else?

Ah, that's right. Eunice Musa announced his commitment to play his international soccer for the United States of America. Seems like a big deal for the week. Definitely the biggest headline of the week. Glad to see it. Glad to see it. Musa's a instant contributor, obviously. Yeah.

And I'm happy because it eliminates a wrinkle from our projection of this roster going into the March camp. England was going to have U21 Euro qualifiers, I believe, along with a triple World Cup qualifying window. So there were a lot of England games to fill roster spots for. And there was no telling where Musa's name was going to appear going into the world. Yeah. Well, he didn't land on that U21 roster, right? He didn't make it. Well, maybe he didn't make it. Maybe they didn't call him up because he communicated that he was, you know, full-blown.

Full-blown U.S. men's national team pool player. There's a rationale for him not making it on the merits, too, though. I think I've seen that case made, and it seems pretty strong. Which also lends a little bit of support for the decision to choose the United States. Get himself some World Cup minutes in 2020. Yeah, and I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer about it. I'm not complaining. I'm glad.

I am, within me resides unmitigated joy. I think it's just your way of saying England, very good at soccer. Right. Yeah, so very solid news cycle. Do you want to take a second to take a victory lap on fruit baskets? Or no? I personally did not send him any fruit baskets, but it appears that U.S. soccer was working very hard on its fruit selection, its fruit delivery system. Now, there was a really good ESPN article that detailed the process, the recruitment, the courting of Eunice Musa.

And apparently it started back in the summer of 2019 when Valencia alerted the U.S. that he had an American passport, at which point we contacted him. Keep in mind, this is a full year out from his first senior team minutes at the club level. So everyone who's saying, why would we bother contacting guys who haven't even played senior team minutes? This is why you do that. You build relationships. We were apparently in contact with him. Greg Burhalter called him, and then we had an assistant coach. Was it, Nico?

We had an assistant coach then. Romaine? You mean the guy, the guy who used to be or maybe still is? No, one of our assistant coach. I'll have to go back now and get the, because it was a former Valencia coach. Who's now working at USSF. So anyway, he was in contact with him like every couple of weeks up to like, texting him every other day.

And it's just, again, so funny because so much of the, like, party line back then when we were begging for, for this kind of communication was that, like, well, we called him up to the last camp. What else do you want us to do? It's like, I don't know. If only there were some easy way to communicate with people in the 21st century. But very much the case that we were on him for a long time. And again, it's not cynical.

It's not, it doesn't have to be like a high press, high pitch. time share, sales stuff, just build relationships and maintain them. Like, this is very human stuff, help kids through the processes of, you know, the early days of their club careers. And if he chooses another team or if he ends up not being very good, oh, well, we've, we've helped another human being out. Yeah. And I think it's fair to say that the opposite perspective was best articulated by Brian Shoretta, who, you know, didn't, who a one-time guest on this podcast. who didn't think, you know, who didn't think it was important to do any courting. Like people in his view, and I think he's not the only one who has his view, dual nationals

can just, should just be sort of left to choose who they want to choose. And any suggestion that there should be some sort of courting is, I don't know, sort of effeminate nonsense or something, you know. Right. I don't even, it didn't even. Oh, go ahead. Well, I'm just trying to characterize the debate, which. which I am saying you have won at this point.

Well, I don't know if I've won it. It feels like U.S. soccer did not sort of take the view that that kind of communication is wasted or pointless. And I think my read on Shoretta's angle was not necessarily that we shouldn't do it. It was that it won't make a difference. It's that this decision is so deeply seated in people that a couple of phone calls or text messages can't possibly influence their decision. And again, it's just about the relationship. How strong of a connection they feel to your program is affected by how your program behaves to the player. So it's not some kind of independent.

There's just an abstract relationship with a country. Like our Federation, for all intents and purposes, is a big part of that relationship that people feel to a country. So I'm very glad that U.S. soccer seems to be doing an excellent job of taking these relationships. seriously and maintaining them. And for all I know, it's happening with all players, not just dual nationals, which would also be a very good step. Yeah. Yeah. When you talk about that abstract relationship to a country, it's like what else? If you're not looking at the relationships with the players and the coaches in the program, what are you thinking about, you know, tax policy? What's your deforestation stance? Right. What are your cultural moors around water restoration?

Unis Musa is just watching C-SPAN nonstop. You know, they make some good points. I'm sold. Yeah, not a big Mitch McConnell fan, I hear, but, you know, he does appreciate the workings of the Senate. All right, so there we go. We've got Eunice Musa on board. Still not technically official. Right.

I mean, he has to, he still has to be cap-tied, but, um, you know, It's pretty official. Seems it. Let's go to the roster, shall we? Yeah, we're hoping to hear the roster, maybe even Wednesday, as early as Wednesday. I think I saw something that at the earliest, it would be Wednesday. Can I just sort of say right away that the top half of the roster more or less picks itself, assuming everyone is available?

Yeah, you want to, you want me to read that off real quick? So let's just run through it, and I don't think we'll get too much pushback on the names listed here. Yeah, goalkeeper, Zach Steffen, a back line of Anthony Robinson, John Brooks, Chris Richards, and Sergenio Dest. In the midfield, Adams, McKenny, and Musa. And then you've got winger's Puliswick, Raina, and Wea, and Sergeant at Stryker. Yeah, and I don't think we're saying necessarily this will be the starting 11, because obviously there's 12 people with the three wingers listed. Yeah. But I think, I think every, I think we can be very confident that these players are, are on.

the roster. And yes, I'm including Chris Richards on that list at this point. Yeah, I mean, I think Richards should be the number two centerback at this point. Fingers crossed. But the backups, the backups is where things get interesting because these games that we're playing are just three days apart. Remember, the Northern Ireland game was scheduled right in the middle of the window because Northern Ireland has a World Cup qualifier on either side of our game against them. So we had to get that. game in the middle, which means that one of our games is going to, I mean, so that means that we had to go either before it or after it, and regardless, it was going to be a really tight turnaround.

And I would say the turnaround is tight enough for a couple of friendlies that really I'm expecting a 10-man switch from game one to game two. I'd be surprised if anyone other than Stefan and maybe a centerback doubles up, but I wouldn't even want him to. I wouldn't want Chris Richards to start two games. though I really want Chris Richards to get a lot of U.S. men's national team minutes as quickly as he can. Yeah. How about you?

Do you think it'd be an issue? Like, I'm just talking biology here. Yeah, not my strong suit. We're in this really, yeah, I know you're much better at maritime law, but we've got this, we've got this crunch of games already for an entire season. I feel like the last thing we want to do is push the envelope in a couple of friendlies. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess I could see somebody coming off in around the hour. mark and then starting the next game but by and large and yeah it makes it makes a lot of sense to

do a complete line change it'll be a little disappointing because i think maybe maybe this is the the point in the podcast where i make this point i the sort of the overarching question for me is not like who gets picked i i mean we'll get into some of the debatable picks and what we'd like to see it's not that's not so crucial to me at this point as it is as as is the need for gregg burhalter to bring this team together in like on the field in a way that shows that they're they're ready to they're ready to do battle as a unit and um i mean it's kind of we're talking about the same thing with the olympic qualifying roster last week but even more so for this group it's uh we're what two years into the burrhalter experiment and yeah that's

I don't think we've changed. And COVID's a big caveat, so that's really thrown a wrench in things, no doubt. But I don't think outside of that first 15 minutes against Jamaica at the Gold Cup and maybe the second game against Canada and Nations League, you know, and you could argue that those were good performances. But even those, we haven't seen sort of a comprehensive U.S. men's national team game. And we've seen a lot of confusion. We have seen that there are ideas or we've heard that there are ideas and there are big ideas,

but it's just hard to see that translating on the field so far. And that's what I really, really want to see in this window. And if we do a complete line change from game to game, that does limit the chances of that sort of developing. Maybe, maybe. I'm going to say, I think you might be disappointed if you're wanting to see that. I don't know that we're going to see that comprehensive,

like front to back, all thing, everything clicking. And I'm not necessarily holding that up as the measure of success. I'm hoping that we see, you know, incremental improvement. And I'm going from like the Wales game is the last real game against the real team. So, you know, we had a good deal of control of the game and the game flow, not that we were imposing ourselves on whales. I mean, whales kind of just allowed us to have that control of the tempo. So I think the next step incrementally would be can we, you know, essentially can we create

chances out of that? And can we get a couple of glimpses of that sort of our ideas and our, in our execution in the last 25 to 30 yards of the field? That's really what I'm going to be looking for. And also, how do we deal with a little bit more dangerous of an, attacking line when I'm talking about Jamaica specifically. Jamaica is going to have better attackers than Wales did. We were playing Wales reserves.

Jamaica, assuming we get their full strength team, they will have players who can really hurt us if we're not taking care of ourselves. Yep. Yeah. Calling for a comprehensive performance was a slip of the tongue. That's not really what I'm asking for. I'm asking for incremental improvement in a sense that the ideas are starting to be clear in the heads of the players and and allow them to act freely on the field.

So, yeah. All right. So we'll take incremental progress this week, this month and then by June, flawless. Yeah. I mean, then the Gold Cup is another chance. You know, Nations League in the Gold Cup are more chances to sort of fine-tune what Baraltar is trying to accomplish. So, yeah, let's talk about the backups on this roster.

We talked about the likely starters in that first game. Stefan Robinson, Brooks, Richards, Dest, Adams McKinney, Musa, Pulisic, one of Raina and Wea, and then Sergeant. I think that's about right, right? Yeah, it's going to be something like that. All right, so let's talk about our backup goalkeeper. Ethan Horvath is about the only other professional goalkeeper out there in like a senior team setting in Europe. And again, we're also working under the association. that this is going to be European-based players.

I don't think we're going to see MLS guys making a trip over. Yeah, well, Germany's requiring a 14-day quarantine for players returning from international duty in most countries, most countries. So I can't even imagine what the, what kind of quarantine they'd impose on a player who came into contact with somebody from the U.S., from U.S., so they'd probably be like, you're done for the season. But I mean, speaking to this, Ethan Horvath is coming back from a positive COVID test. So he just finally made the bench yesterday for the first time in a couple of weeks because he had COVID.

So hopefully he's recovered well. I'm assuming he'll be the backup. And then the last spot will just be one of our youth team bodies. So we've got Adunze here. Does that sound about right? Yeah. Adunzee sort of seems like he's come up a lot in the whole. Eunice Musa story.

They must be in some kind of contact with each other, roughly the same age. Yeah, so I, yeah, I would think Odunze would get in on this camp. But I think Stefan starts both games. He should, I think we're expecting him to play in the weekend leading up to the game in the F.A. Cup. He's been getting F.A. Cup starts for Manchester City. So he'll get a nice, he'll get a nice run out there. And then hopefully he'll just play back-to-back games.

And then he'll resume his spot as Adairson's backup. Yep. How about left back? This is where it's pretty interesting, I think. Yeah, so it gets a bit complicated if we want to call that. So assuming that we do transfer everyone out from one game to the next, we don't have any other left backs to choose from other than Robinson. So if we start Robinson and Dest versus Jamaica,

there's no other left back to play. We'll have to either play a guy out of position, like Cannon or Yedlin at left back in the second game. or if Dest is actually Burrhalter's preferred starting left back, then he could start there against Jamaica and we run whoever Burrhalter's preferred right back is in that game. And then there's no problem. Robinson plays against Northern Ireland. Maybe Robinson's preferred, but Burrhalter chooses to start Dest on the left anyway to avoid this situation. Or we do bring a guy from MLS just to fill out the spot.

But that seems unlikely. So how do you think we're solving this, Bells? I would solve it by starting dust at left back and probably cannon at right back against Jamaica and then start Robinson at left back against Northern Ireland and maybe, you know, you could go with Yedlin or maybe even Brian Reynolds in that game at right back. All right, all right. My hope is that he runs his preferred group out there. So if his preferred group is Robinson at left back, desk at right back, that we go that route

and then just solve it for Northern Ireland. You know, as Klinsman famously said, anybody can play left back. That's, I totally agree with that. I mean, can, could Canon be the left back in that game, I guess?

I mean, it's a, it's a nothing 90 minutes, so the answer is yes, he totally could. He could babysit that position for 90 minutes. Or, you know, I guess we could bring in,

there really isn't anyone else, right? We're talking like a couple, maybe a two boondous league guy, and is it Leon Flack? that's over there in St. Polly. Yeah, I mean, we could call up Kobe Hernandez Foster. So, yeah, that's what I mean? It's, it doesn't seem like there's any other choice.

So that's what we're looking at. And that's why it's interesting. Yeah, I guess I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be unhappy with either one. It just seems like, um, if we want to do, if we want to make a cohesive performance against Northern Ireland, it's better to, better to have Robinson play. left back in that game than to have Cannon play left back in that game. Tim Ream, actually that's it. We just solve it with Tim Ream.

Tim Ream comes in and plays left back. I don't know. That actually did just occur to me. I don't know why. Yeah, I guess that could work and then we do the whole stay-at-home left-back. No, no, no, no, no, bells. We're not compromising there. Tim Ream flying up and down the sideline.

All right. So there's a, I guess one thing I wanted to say about Robinson is he, it's not, He's not been dropped. I mean, I think it's too early to say that from the starting lineup for Fulham, but he did come off the bench in their last two matches against Liverpool and Man City. I don't think he had a bad game in the one zero loss to Tottenham. Did you watch any of that footage from that? No, I haven't checked up on Robinson.

That was the last one. He's secure enough in his spot on the 23 that I'm not investing enough time on him. Yeah, fair enough. That was the last game he started. I thought some typical sort of agent chaos type stuff at the back. I mean, he, body language, forget about body language. It's not even body language. There's definitely some chaos around him in possession,

but also some chaos going forward, as we've said many times. I mean, he had some vintage rambles up the wing in that game. Really creates some danger. It'll just be interesting to see how Berlter uses him. It'll be interesting to see, like you said, if he is the preferred starting left back, because then he would hopefully start against Jamaica. And even if he's not exactly what Burrhalter wants from that position, he is the kind of player.

Burrhalter has to figure out how to use in some way. Yeah. And I think that's a good way of putting it. And that's going to be one of those. Unless Burrhalter sort of tips his hand in press conferences ahead of time, it'll be one where like when the lineup reveal comes out that Thursday, that'll be like, I think one of the big questions that gets answered. All right back. Yeah. We got Yedlin, Cannon, and Reynolds.

You good with all three of those guys going to backup desk? Yeah, I mean, I'd be good with even more. There's no limit on the number of players we can send to this window, right? Yeah, I don't think so. You want Joe Scali there? Shack Moore, baby. No, I'm just kidding. Reynolds might be the reach, right?

And I don't know. When we're talking about that possible Jamaica rotation where if he starts desk over there, I don't know who we would start between Yedlin and Cannon. I feel like it would be one of those two guys, though. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and then Shaq Moore, you know, Shaq Moore can deputize at Leftback. We've seen him do that.

Both for club and country, I think. And I thought. Yeah, he has some minutes out there. Does he? Yeah. So I thought Reynolds, you mentioned his debut for AS Roma at the top of the show, which is a huge deal. It's really cool.

But he did look lost out there in, and what was a tough situation, down two goals to Parma trying to get, trying to get back into the game for the last half hour. But he didn't do it. I don't think he did anything positive. He didn't do anything terribly negative either. He just didn't look like he was keyed in.

And I say that not to just like pile on and criticize the young guy, but just to say, you know, maybe it's best for him to stay in Roma and sort of sort out his role there and his situation at a time. You know, like as some people said on Twitter, the, the, the wind know, what is it, the margin for error at a club like that is so small. He can't, you know, he can't, he can't mess around. And I don't know that he's, I don't know that he's like a huge need right now in the national team. So let him, let him stay in the city of Seven Hills.

So, kind of like what Chris Richards did at the November camp. Like, I wouldn't mind Reynolds coming into this camp, even if there's no real expectation that he'll play. I know Richards got in for like 10 minutes against Panama. But there were a lot of people upset. Why isn't Chris Richard starting? I think it's good to get a camp like this in where you're just kind of walking through the steps. Even the background stuff, the hotel check-in, team check-in, team meals, like just go through that stuff once.

Job shadow, the guys ahead of you, and then go back home. And then the next time you go in, you're more comfortable and you can focus a little bit more on just playing soccer. So I'm kind of hoping that we do a little bit of a compromise where he comes in for, he goes to Austria for the buildup to the Jamaica game. And then after that, just fly him home. Let him get resettled in with Roma so he can prepare for whatever they're doing in the weekend after. Sounds good to me. Yeah. That's my super specific hope for our right back situation.

Hard to imagine Yedlin not being in the camp. I mean, if it sure seems like he'll get called up. And Canon seems like a lock to me. Yeah, that's what I'd say too. I think Kennell will be there. I'm almost certain Canon will be there, but like it wouldn't surprise me at all if Yedlin, who are not certain will be there, starts ahead of him. Yeah, that's true too. All right.

Centerbacks. This is, I think this is going to be another interesting one because, again, I'm pretty sure that Chris Richards goes and starts, but like maybe, maybe not. Maybe one of these other guys is on that 11 instead. Yeah. There's the argument that Burrholl. there's going to go with experience here over youth in that right centerback spot. So that would be, you know, Matt Mioska, I guess, if you're going to go with experience. Like I said on Twitter the other day, I think Richard's a perfect compliment to Brooks.

He does all the things well that Brooks doesn't do so well. Defends well 1 v.1, really responsible and alert and intelligent defensively. He's even a pretty decent distributor at this point. it looks like for Hoffenheim, but that's not why he compliments Brooks. So I think we, I would love to see that. May not. Yeah. And I think he, I think he could essentially also be Brooks's backup, where if something

happens to Brooks, then Richards actually slides over to the left centerback spot, and Burholter starts his next preferred right centerback. So it could be a situation just like left back, right back, that we just carry Brooks as the nominal left back, and then three more, more. like traditional right centerbacks. And so that's where these callups are going to be interesting. The guy I have on there that I'm actually really hoping gets a call up is CCV. Interesting.

I've been checking him out for Bournemouth after every round of games. He's solid. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes, which is not something that can really be said for McKenzie or Miaska or Tim Rheem, at least back when Tim Rheem was playing. And it was kind of fun, like watching D.K.'s highlights or clips from last. Last weekend, he was up against CCV a lot. And it was very much some grown man soccer. Like these guys were smashing shoulders. And CCV can, I mean, when D.K.

Puts his shoulder into somebody, there aren't too many guys that can stay on their feet. And CZV just kind of like absorbs it like it was any other forward bumping into him. So it was cool to see. I know the highlight that kind of was getting a lot of play was the D.K. sliding challenge that one of them a throw in and everyone was making a big deal about that. But, I mean, they were all kind of nothing situations, but CCV held his own in a big way. Yeah, that one clip made it look like DK was just manhandling CCV the whole time. Or that was the takeaway I took from it.

So this is not true. It's not true. It was CCV very much holding his own against DK. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He didn't really get the best of him. I mean, again, that's one where he just, DK actually kind of cleverly slid in and want to throw in. But most of the time, they were upright, like, and it was a bit of a stalemate.

and again, just something where if CCV can hold his own against DK, he's going to hold his own against a lot of powerful forwards. Yeah, cool. Yeah, I mean, and there's no reason CCV can't be that right centerback the way Aaron Long is, you know, is he, is CCV a magnificent distributor from the back? No, but neither is Aaron Long or any of the other options that right center back, really. Right. And again, the fact that he doesn't make a lot of mistakes, he doesn't get like little brother,

which is my A license coaching turn that I'm going to start throwing around all the time. For me, that stuff does matter, especially when, again, we aren't swimming in defenders who can both hold their own defensively and, you know, ping a line breaking pass. So I'm really hoping to see CCV get a look, and I would actually love it if it goes Richard starts game one. CCV starts against Northern Ireland. Yeah. And then you could get McKenzie in as the sort of the John Brooks replacement. or, you know, if you're a super boring person, Tim Ream. But yeah.

McKenzie's having to work through some stuff over in Belgium. Yeah, he's hit a bit of a rough patch. And, yeah, I don't know. Has he been on the bench the last two games? Is that right? The last four games, Bell's four straight, I think. And he's gotten off the bench. He got off the bench like for stoppage time at the start.

of this run of games of not starting. And then he just got off the bench over the weekend. But it's because their starting centerback got sent off. So they brought him in or dropped somebody else off the field. It's strange. Gank went to a four-man back line. They'd been running three centerbacks. They switched to a four-back system.

And McKenzie seems to be the odd man out. But it's kind of interesting because one of their centerbacks is just now slotting in as a right-back. So they're still playing all three of their nominal centerbacks every game. game. So my hope was that McKenzie would still rotate in with those other two, but they haven't been doing that. They've just, they've just been running on, running on their Colombian trio of centerbacks.

Well, you should check out, regardless, you should check out McKenzie's podcast, Orange Slices. They get all the interviews with players, these marks buddies with all of them. It's awesome. I just found out it existed after the Tim Way I interview because I basically have a Google alert for any time Timway his name shows up in print. And it was fantastic. And so then I went back and listened to the other episodes, and it's great.

Yeah, it's good. It's McKenzie and Heath Pierce, right? Yeah, some good production value, much better than this podcast, by far. And, yeah, it just seems like good conversations. The interviews, the interview lineup is kind of remarkable. I think they just had Eddie Pope. They're just, they're going through the, a lot of famous people. It's Stefan.

Yeah, if you can only listen to one podcast, a week, you should definitely listen to Orange Slices. Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, sneak us in there. Easy, easy, easy, easy. Okay, and then and then Ream not playing for Fulham continues.

And Miazga, should we say anything about Miazga? He's had a rough patch, too. He had a pretty atrocious own goal over the weekend. In that game against Gank, yeah, so that lost them the semi-final. And he has mistakes like not necessarily that drastic but he makes the last time they played gink he probably

had a worse mistake that led to a breakaway that gang scored on um anderlake came back and won the game but yeah he he he's not somebody who's like a a lock he doesn't come off to me as like a lockdown defender that you just don't need to worry about when you put him in the game and his distribution isn't excellent you know you go through his clips and you're not going to find uh more than a handful line breaking passes if that yeah he's a fighter you know you got to give that to him and good in the air. So is CCV. We'll see.

We'll see. Let's go to the center mids, should we? Well, let's actually come back to that one. I'm skipping center mids. I'm pulling a page out of your book, and we're going to go willy-nilly through the formation here. Who's going to be the manager? I want to go to wingers first.

I want to do the wingers first if you'll allow it. All right, because for me, two guys who might show up in the center mid-discussion, actually fit best in our system as wingers, and that's going to be my guy, Dwayne Holmes, and your guy, Brendan Aronson. My guy. Your guy, Brendan Aronson. So, Aronson only played center mid for us so far in that sort of dual eight role.

But at Salzburg, he basically plays as a left-sided midfielder who's constantly flowing into the middle of the field, but he's in a much, he's in a higher attacking line than he would play for us. And their lines basically match up with what we do, Salzbergs and Burrhalters. where Salzberg have two sort of tempo dictating center mids. And by the way, their tempo is just like full speed ahead. It's fun to watch. But Anderson is not one of those guys for them.

And I don't think he's great at that position for us either. I think he would be much better suited for that left-sided winger who tucks into the left half-half space in possession and presses as part of a front three. So we sit, Pulisic because he's not getting very many first team minutes. We, yep, I mean, his form, his form's just terrible right now, and Aronson's scoring goals, so you can't really argue with form. No, we sit pool sick against Northern Ireland, so it works perfectly,

unless Aronson loses out to Dwayne Holmes at that left-sided winger position, which is also where I'd like to see him run out. Do you think it has to be, for Aronson, it has to be on the left side, like he's not as good on the right side as a right-sided tucked-in winger? My sense is essentially, yes, he's much, he's going to be much better tucked in on the left side than on the right side. Okay. How about you?

Do you have a, are you? No, I don't have a strong feeling about his effectiveness in that role. I just like conceptually like the idea of him on the right side combining with desks. Ah. Because. Yeah, you mentioned that. So go ahead. Well, no.

Yeah, you mentioned it and you shot me down. I mentioned it and you shot me down. But what I like about that is that, is, I mean, Aronson, whatever you think of him as a player, he loves to combine. He loves to combine. And that's what he wants. And he loves to move off the ball. And he likes to do it with some panache. So it just seems like a nice pairing.

He on the right side and then desk overlapping and combining with him up that wing. It seems like it would work pretty well. They would both enjoy themselves and do some stuff that's easy on the eyes. I don't disagree at all. I think he does love to combine. He does move really well off the ball. I think these are also traits that Duane Hall. Holmes shares with him, so I'm just kind of folding him back into the discussion.

I think where Aronson's value, and it'll be the same with Holmes, I think where they're going to be super valuable is their ability to combine with that next layer, next level, that next line of players, the center mids, the dual eights, and then pinging balls into Aronson and then running off of him. The same way I'm expecting people to do off of a sergeant and whoever we play it, like the false nine. I know it's not technically a false nine, but it's shorthand. All these names of positions are shorthand. So you know what I'm talking about. But he's so good at that with Salzberg. And Salzberg do it so well. They're so committed to hitting a ball into a guy like a target with his back to goal, whichever line, and just having players,

you know, race past him. And I think we saw shades of that in the Wales friendly with McKenny, Musa, and Adams all being willing to race past a ball that got hit into a target's feet. And I think Aronson is really well suited for that. So I, you're talking about a combining with Desk, I think Dest will essentially already be on his line, not that he can't combine with him, but I'm really excited to see that combination taking place with our central midfield tree. Okay. And Holmes does such a good job with the two.

I think a big difference for me between those two is Aronson actually does get little brothered quite a bit. He's a bit wispy, you know, a little bit of like a forearm shove, like just sends him three steps in the direction you want him to go. Holmes is like the opposite. Holmes is like Johnny Leverage. So he's just got such a good body control. We have a few guys like that.

Again, I've said Tyler Boyd's actually another one kind of like that. But it's so hard to move him off of where he wants to go and he can actually really exploit other players who've used their leverage poorly to weasel past him or to essentially sucker them into things where they've compromised their leverage and then play a pass and then burst past them. So, yes, that's just my way of fitting the Dwayne Holmes analysis in with the Brendan Aronson. Very good. Very good. So I guess you're thinking both of these guys have a chance to play against Northern Ireland, but not against Jamaica? I mean, they could come off the bench against Jamaica. I don't see either one of them. I don't see either one of them starting against Jamaica, barring a lot of like unexpected injuries or COVID protocols.

Yeah. So you think either of these is starting? No, probably not. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me terribly if Dwayne Holmes isn't called up. I'd be sad, but I wouldn't be shocked. Yeah. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he's not called up. I guess the question is then who does start? Maybe we can get to that at the end of the show.

Who does start against Jamaica? Oh, yeah, because I guess we're talking about wingers. We listed three in the for sure getting called up, but I don't know which of the Wea-Rena duo starts against Jamaica. I'm not sure. And I don't really, I don't really care. Yeah, I care.

I think it should be way out. And I think, you know, if you put a gun to my head and nobody is, but I can imagine that it's happening. I would say I'd rather see Erinsen start

than Raina. Like, I just don't see Raina. I just don't see Raina, like combining in that tucked in role very well at all. I don't know. I mean,

there are people who think he can do that stuff. know what they're basing that on. He doesn't seem to do like the lightning quick combination stuff. Is that kind of, is that kind of what you're talking about? Yeah. Okay. The ping, pink, pink, ping stuff. Right.

I mean, never. He's deliberate. He's very deliberate. He glides and he leases. All right. All right. Well, we'll have to see if he uses that deliberateness effectively in whichever game he plays in.

I'm fully expecting him to get, you know, at least 75, 80 minutes between the two games. Yeah. But otherwise, you know, we've now talked. about five wingers if Holmes and Erinson, you know, are considered wingers, and there's no guarantee that they will be. Ariola, Paul Ariola at Swansea, injured for the past few games. And I saw a report that he's expected to be injured for another couple of weeks, which puts his inclusion in jeopardy.

Yeah, I'd be doubt. Yeah, so after Pulisick, Raina and Wea, if Arieola's out and Aronson and Holmes aren't thought of as wingers, then we're talking like Conrad maybe, or. Tyler Boyd. I guess. I mean, isn't this where you talk about Kenny Seif? Isn't this where you talk about Kenny? Fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed. I mean, if we're looking for somebody to fill in that right wing spot, Kenny Seth's the guy. Yeah. I mean, it'll be a... I'll give up on him after the Gold Cup if he hasn't played. Okay. I mean, I feel like I've said this already four times,

but it'll just be interesting to see, you know, what Burrhalter has in mind here. I kind of doubt we're going to see Conrad. Definitely not going to see Efra. Boyd and Sayef. I mean, I guess just because I spend some time with you, I would rather be Saif. Sef.

Saif. All right. So there's our winger situation. So now let's backfill our center mids. Because we have to have three more center mids because we can't start McKinney and Mousa. and Adams in both games. So we need three more to play. Who do we got?

Well, whichever of Holmes and Erinson doesn't play on the wing, I guess, stealing an idea from you. That makes sense to me. Who else? I mean, Julian Green has been out with COVID for several weeks now, and I don't know what his availability will be, or if he's rated. Alfredo Morales, who has been capped by Berthelter, hasn't been playing for Fortuna Dusseldorf. from the two Bundesliga. He's been, he fell out of the lineup, and then he was not in the squad at all in their last match.

And I don't know if there's an injury because it could be hard to get injury information from lower division teams, or if he just isn't rated and he's 30 and they're thinking it's about time to move on, which we could be in the same boat for a game like this. Just give me 20 minutes. Sorry, can you say that last part again?

Yeah, so Morales hasn't been playing. he's been dropped from the squad and I don't know if that's because he's injured injury news can be a little bit hard to come by for lower division teams it could just be that he's 30 and not an incredibly elite player I guess we would say

and they could just be moving on which is a situation we could be in given the sort of stakes of these games these aren't terribly important games who else do we have out there we've got Kio who's been in camps before but this would be more than just calling him in through a camp. This would be calling him in being like,

you're starting in the second game. Otherwise, otherwise we do have a couple other names though who are, I don't want to say obscure. I feel like they're getting, they're getting a little bit of recognition, but like Luca de la Torre is playing every game in the Aere de Vizier and he's playing as a center midfielder. So he would make sense as a body. It'd be a chance to take a look at a guy. He's Olympic eligible. It's just, again, we're talking about we'd be introducing. It'd be some debuts,

some senior team debuts. And then is this is this time to ring? Alex Mendez back into the fold bells. I mean, I'm never going to say no to that. I love the way he plays. I love some things about the way he plays. And he did get an assist recently on a corner kick for a young IACs, so he's back on the field. Chris Durkin, Taylor Booth.

Brandon Sarvanya started over the weekend in Austria. So we just need three bodies, and we have some to pick from unless we're totally opposed to just flying testament over. If we don't bring Morales in or fly testament over, whatever, we don't have anybody who really fits that deep lying midfield role in that second group, you know, without Adam. I mean, Adams is the only guy in this camp that looks like, the only guy in Europe who looks like he's, he fits that role.

He's about the only guy in the pool. But yes, but yes, point taken. You know, I don't know that, I don't know if, I haven't seen a lot of Chris Durkin recently. I don't know if he's like the lynchpin of a pressing team. So you'd be bringing it. It would feel much more like a Jackson-Ewell type than an all-out pressing type. All right, but that's where we're at.

And so, as you've said before, it will be interesting to see what Berlter does. So now let's talk about the really fun one, which is Stryker. All right. So assuming Sergeant is called in and allowed to join. And I think the report I've seen, which is, you know, full Twitter rumor, is that Bremen will allow him to play in the Austria game against Jamaica because it's a direct flight to Jamaica, but he won't be allowed to even go to Belfast for the game against Northern America.

Okay. So he's starting against Jamaica. So, yeah, but then we definitely know he won't be starting game two. So who's it going to be and who else is going to camp? Well, I wanted to be Daryl Dicay who starts. You know, he wasn't, he wasn't so good against, who was it against that last, that time where he had a cameo? Trinidad and Tobago in, well, I guess, yeah, January. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He didn't look too sharp in that game, but he's looked sharp for Barnsley when he gets a chance, including that absolute Galazzo the other day. Have we talked about that on the podcast yet? I don't think we have. What a goal, what a goal that was. Yes, it's a very nice goal. Excited for that goal. And it, it like continues the question of whether or not expected goals has any chance of measuring Daryl D.K. Yeah, it does not.

It does not. It appears. I mean, if you haven't seen it, which everybody listening to the podcast has seen it, I'm sure. But it's, it's from about 22 yards away at a, I don't know what, like a 30-degree angle, very, very poor angle. and he just absolutely, I think the British announcer says he caves it into the top of the net and just destroy the ball and put it in the only spot where it could go. And the goalkeeper didn't even have a chance at it from a ridiculous angle. So that, you know, that got a lot of people's attention, got my attention.

It got the attention of the EPL top six, apparently. Jose Marino got on the horn immediately So yeah I hope it's D-K against Northern Ireland But now we got Jordan Sibichu Is committed to the US now too Playing for young boys in Switzerland

Formerly in the In League of D in France Not with young boys With a completely separate team Young boys didn't jump over Yeah so I think he's probably a Replacement for Nico Joaquini in this camp

if there are limits on the number of players that Beralder can bring in, he may be like, let's just bring everybody, let's bring them both. So since we're talking again about bringing everybody, I just want to also point out this won't be a situation where you bring everybody and let them fight it out in camp. Like I know that's like a myth we like to talk about happening.

Like, oh, we'll just bring them all and whoever looks about it. Like this camp is barely going to actually have any full speed soccer in it leading up to the games. There just isn't time. And again, the restrictions of biology on the human body, these guys coming off of their games on Saturday and Sunday are in like the recovery cycle. And, you know, then you are going to have the lead into Thursdays match,

which is going to be like set pieces and walkthroughs. It's not going to be like, oh, we'll get them in and whoever looks the best. You can't see who looks the best during a recovery cycle. So you're going to have an idea of what you want to do. And then everyone else you're just bringing in for the meet and greet. Yeah. now that's a good reminder so it's going to be it's going to be a lot of chalkboard stuff and um sitting around with bottles of water and stuff like that i suppose i'm sure they'll have a

couple of nice like six v six to goals on like you know a 30 yard pitch where you don't have to cover any ground and we'll get they'll get some good footage to show with everyone but that's not where you're that's not really where you're looking at you know who's ahead who's that you pretty much going knowing who's ahead and barring like somebody who just flat out is obviously better, which is possible. But they'd have to be like way, way ahead of everyone else. And I think that's basically what Musa did in his limited camp time because he was a late arrival to that camp and still managed to show out in a way that they're like,

oh, yeah, this guy can be, this guy can be on the field right away. Yeah, I would be surprised if Sibichu does that in the same way, you know, assuming the reports are correct and he will be in camp. the other striker is Matthew Hoppe who has cooled off a little bit for Shalka but still has a Bundesliga hat trick to his name No small thing

I mean you could go to your grave thinking about that and I would guess Joe Keeney won't be there He's he's struggled a little bit lately Cayenne is in a bit of a tailspin Joe Kini hasn't scored since January 20th And even if you go beyond that, Joe Aquini has not been like a prolific goal score. Never, yeah.

Pretty much at any point in his French second division career. So, I mean, he's another guy who's someone to keep track of and can fill into a spot when we have an odd camp. But it's not like, I don't think he's, he's not bashing the door down by any means. So let me ask you the key question here. Has Josh Sargent turned the corner? I mean, I don't think so. So I guess what I need someone to do is tell me what he is doing differently now that he wasn't doing before. And you can't just say scoring goals because scoring goals are a consequence of doing a lot of things correctly.

You know, I think most of us have been saying sergeant does a lot of things at an okay level. And he just continues to do those. And over a long enough time on a team playing every minute, you're going to score a couple of goals if you're doing them in an okay level. I mean, I guess he, you know, the movement in his goal a couple weekends ago, even though it was a tap-in, was kind of encouraging to me. He kind of, like, he kind of fainted to the inside and then went back post. Yeah. Yeah, which you didn't see a lot of always see that kind of hunger in his movement. And then he was, he was really tidy.

It didn't score, but he helped set up a goal against Bayern Munich. A hopeless affair for Verde Bremen. They did lose the game. But he was really tidy. He coming back to the ball and laying it off, I think he was 24 of 28 passing, which for him is not usually what the stats look like. Started some movements of attack that it would be a stretch to call them flowing, but they were flowing for, you know, another three quarters of a second before somebody gave the ball away.

So he did his part in keeping them flowing. All right. Yeah. All right. All right. Well, then he's got a decent shot at taking the spot from Jesus Ferreira. There you go. All right. Enough about Josh Sargent. Let's let's quickly talk about what we think the lineup should be. What would you do? What did you do against Jamaica? I think we, I would, I would like to see Stefan and Goal. Brooks and Richards paired up at centerbacks. I'd like to see Dest at right back and Robinson at left back because I still think Dest in his best position with Robinson is totally acceptable. I want to see, I want to see Adams McKinney and Moxie. Musa again because I think that's fun.

I want to see Pulisic on the right wing. I want to see Sargent up top. And I really, I'm sorry, Pulisick on the left wing. And I really am not that bothered about who starts on the right wing, whether it's Wea or Raina. I mean, I'm probably going to say Wea because, as you know, I've really thought Wea is a fantastic player for the U.S. since he's basically been playing.

After about two and a half games, I was like, oh, I'm totally in on Tim Wea. So for me, I hope Wea, but not because I dislike Raina. we just have good players now. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't dislike Raina either. I just think way that's better. Okay. I think there's a gap between how good he is and how good everybody thinks he is. That could be the case, but there's, yeah, and that can just be a consequence of a lot of, a lot of, I guess we'll say, you know, we're rightfully excited about an 18-year-old playing it.

Barushia Dortmund, it doesn't mean that he is at the same level of all of the best players who have ever played for Baruchia, Dortmund. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I can agree with that. So, yeah, I would, that would be fine with me. I'd also be fine with Dest at left back and Canon at right back. I wouldn't mind that just because it would be nice to see Cannon once again against like a pretty good team. I feel like we've been missing that for a while.

We've seen him against some of the weaker opposition. So if he had the game against Jamaica starters, like that'd be a good, that'd be a really good test. And I'd be very curious to see how he handles it. All right. And then whatever lineup we see against Jamaica, then you just kind of have to turn the whole thing over against Northern Ireland. There you go. We'll see you guys on Friday. We're going to talk about that World Cup, not World Cup, that Olympic qualifier.

The all-important one. Yeah. Hopefully there's a Friday morning celebration. Yep. Okay. Thanks everybody for listening. Talk to you soon.