Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 79: U20 World Cup — USA v Ecuador review with Matt Doyle

Episode Date: June 8, 2019

No spoilers! Doyle, senior writer for MLSsoccer.com, joins me to break down the quarterfinal showdown with the South American U20 champions. Scuffed is on Patreon and we're ramping up the Patron-only content. GIFs are ok there! And it only costs $2 per month to support the podcast at the base level: https://patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez in Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Hey, everybody. The American run at the U20 World Cup has come to an end. The Boys Fell 2-1 to Ecuador. Here to break it down with me is Matt Doyle,

senior writer for MLSS Soccer.com. Matt, thanks for joining me. How you doing? Doing all right. I think it's a bittersweet day. But I think more good than bad. Is that how you feel more good than bad? Yeah, I feel bad because I think, just, oh, let's go ahead and get into it,

just to step back to 2017, watching us get played off the park by Venezuela, and then get bouncing the quarterfinals that way. That was like, yeah, we don't deserve to be moving on in this tournament, even though it was ultimately a close game. This, to me, is different. This feels like, you know, had tabbed on a few things differently with the lineup, had a couple people had better games. We could have won this game comfortably, you know?

And I guess that's, in that sense, I feel bad about it. Yeah, that's the bittersweet part, right? Because we were good enough to event. Now, we weren't good enough on the day. Ecuador was a better team on the day, but had some roster decisions been better and, you know, not just have, but like if sergeant had been there,

I think we're having a very different conversation. So it feels like a missed opportunity, but there's like, I'm just trying to be big picture here and say like, you know, the U.S. getting to the quarterfinals in the World Cup at any age group, still feeling like a missed opportunity,

is like a sign of progress. And I think that that's, you know, after it's all said and dumb, that's what you have to look at with youth World Cups. It's like that these guys look like they could really ball, and they did. A number of these guys look like they're going to translate up to the full international level and the improvements on what we have, and that's the ultimate measure. So it's frustrating as it is not to taste the semifinals. It does feel like the future got a lot brighter over the past month.

Yeah, I think that's, I think I basically share that sentiment. So let's talk about the, let's talk about the lineup today. It was, um, Tad made a switching goal. He, he started David and Choa over Brady Scott, something I've been calling for. And then the back line was the same as it's been for, I don't know, for a while now. Desmackenzie, Keita and Gloucester. Now, why don't you take, Des, that's Richards, Keita.

officer, not McKenzie. You're right, you're right, you're right. Yeah, definitely not McKinsey. I misspoke. So why don't you take the midfield? Because I think that's the part where we'll probably end up discussing a lot, the decisions there. It's Durkin, Mendez, Pomacall. How did you feel about that?

Yeah. How did you feel about that? I mean, we discussed it, you know, for all the listeners out there, Bells and I are part of the U.S. youth soccer dark web, and we have our little group, and we discussed it before the game. And I said something like, we're going to be. down 2-0 at half time. The first goal is going to come off the Ecuador counter after we lose a 50-50 in midfield

because of Durkin and Mendez. And the second goal, we're just going to tune out right before halftime. And now it wasn't 2-0, but we were down to 1 at half-time, and the two goals happened kind of exactly as we all foresaw. Durkin has certain things that he does well. He didn't really get to show them at this tournament other than against Nigeria. But winning 50-50s isn't one of them. And Mendez is one of the worst defensive players I've ever seen for the U.S. youth national teams in any era.

And so having those two guys out there in that midfield, I guess a team as good as Ecuador. And nobody's going to mistake Ecuador for 1970s Brazil, but they have a thing that they do very well. which is defendant central midfield and they hit you with pace, especially down the wings. It was, like, that was the roster mismanagement that we all sort of saw right from the start. We needed a better ball winner in one of those two spots. And if you're going to carry Mendez, who's a luxury player, again, they'll get, he didn't show it in this tournament. I think his skill is off the charts in certain ways. If you're going to carry him, you need to have.

of two descends of studs in central midfield. And Durkin is not that. So it was predictable and it was frustrating. And that's where the game was lost. Yeah. We were all uneasy about it. And I think just a lot of general fans on Twitter were too. They wanted to see Servania.

I wanted to see Servania at 6. I think you did too. Tons of people on Twitter did as well. Because just for that simple reason that Serania covers more. and wins more physical battles. And, you know, Mendez is a special player. Like, he can do things nobody else on this team can do when he's on the ball. But yeah, he's, he needs, definitely needs two defensive studs behind him.

And thankfully, Pomacall was that throughout this tournament. You know, Pax of Pomacol has become like a defensive rock, which is wild to me. Yeah. It's breathtaking, watching him. And it's not just that he covers so much ground. It's when he does it. There was like the 87th minute. It was a potential 3B2 for Ecuador.

And Tom McCall's tracking all the way back to left back and making a play. And, you know, having him out there allows you to do things with the midfield balance. Like, you know, and I think that. have been a little bit braver with Cervania or Cereo, this could have been, we could be having a very, a very different conversation right now, which brings us back to the frustration aspect of it.

Because, yeah, we all, we all thought it's coming to one degree or another. And, God, it was a missed opportunity. I forget what minute it was, but it sort of manifested itself in breathtaking clarity on the first Ecuador goal. Durkin loses a 50-50 challenge, I don't know, somewhere around the attacking third line in Ecuador's half. Yep. So Mendez finds himself one-on-one with Sharcopa, I guess is his name. Jose Adoni, Kifuentes, Karsopa, Sharcopa.

And he, I mean, Mendez is defending there. is so half-hearted. And I think his defenders, Mendez's defenders would say, well, he shouldn't have to do that job, right? That's what they would say. He should be, he shouldn't be having to run 80 yards to cover.

Yeah. And okay, maybe, but, you know, sometimes you got you put in a situation where you have to do the job. He just didn't even, he didn't even look like he was acting like he was trying to do the job. And it's a wide open shot.

Could David Ochoa have done better on that, do you think? I think so. You know, it looked like his reaction was a little slow and maybe he was a little bit too deep. But I'm not, if you give a guy a run up like that and let him have a rip, even from 23 yards, you know, when he goes up for 90, I'm not going to fault the keeper too much. That was a goal that happened in and because of the midfield. And it's disappointing. and we're going to get to it later in the show,

but we're going to have to talk about, like, projecting out, what does this mean for guys like Mendez and Durkin? Because the whole, again, the ultimate goal of these tournaments is to figure out who's going to lead the full national team program into, you know, this next, hopefully better era. And it's a hard truth that the game is getting faster and more physical and more athletic, especially in the spots and luxury players are real luxuries.

And it was too much of a luxury to have Mendez today. It just was. Yeah. Well, it certainly was on that play. And another big problem we were having in the first half, which – so I guess just to continue on the Mendez tip, my thought is he – even when he's on the ball, he needs his team. mates to be playing well to a certain extent for him to,

for him to be getting on the ball and, and maximizing what he's able to do. And when we have, when we have one of our centerbacks, just passing the ball to the other team repeatedly, uh, it's, it's a,

it's a, a, a game state that doesn't suit Alex Mendez. Um, and, and, and, kata was a disaster today. I,

I feel, I feel for the kid. I feel for the kid. I feel for the kid. He's filled in admirably, but, he was really bad. Yeah, he had a, he had a tough one today.

You know, and it's, I don't want to say it came out of nowhere because we all saw his first 70 minutes or 65 minutes against France, but his last 25 minutes in that game, he was so good.

And I thought and hoped, thought and hoped that it would go, you know, he would build off of that and end up having a strong performance, but he didn't. And we weren't able to, to build out of the back and get any rhythm.

He struggled, and I thought Blaster struggled big time in the first half as well. And so that left side ended up getting overruns and pulling the game out of joint. And we were never able to settle into any sort of tempo. Like even against France, we had tempo. And against Equator, they just didn't let us do it. Kada definitely has some of the responsibility for that. Gloucester, Durkin, you know, you go on down the line. And it was, it was just a really, a couple of guys being overwhelmed

and against a really, really good team for the age group, who knows exactly what they're all about. There's a, look, Ecuador, champions of South America. There's a reason why they're wearing that tag for sure. Yeah. But this, but the, so again, a frustrating thing, though, Here we are facing South American champions, clearly a good team. But when we sort of put it together, we were creating chances.

Like, I don't know how many clear-cut chances Sebastian Soto had, but one in particular in the first half sticks out to me when right after Wayas scores his goal, which is, of course, I'll just describe it, comes on a set piece. Chris Richards challenges for a header, and it pops up in the air, and then Tim Wea just takes it on the volley and smashes it past the keeper. And it's 1-1, and I'm thinking, all right, game on, we're going to get back into this. And then, I don't know, two minutes later, three minutes later, there's a point where Waye is on the left side and he plays an outside of the boot ball

across the six. Do you remember the play I'm talking about? And it just slides under Soto. Soto can't quite get to it. He may have been offside anyway. But it just seemed like Soto was, Soto was just like this much, this much distance away from scoring three or four times today, you know? And he just didn't quite have the quality.

I don't disagree with that. Yeah. That's a, that chance in particular, because I think he was on side. If he looked at it, he appeared to be even with the ball. But like, that's, it just slid right under his foot. didn't look like he couldn't reach it, didn't look like he wasn't there. He just didn't, he just wasn't sharp enough. And that's, that's, I mean, to me, that's a function of a lot of minutes,

relatively speaking, um, in a very short amount of time and maybe the moment being a little bit too big. And this is the next step for, hopefully for the, for the program is in 2021, it'll be, you know, Ricardo Pepe, hopefully is, as the number nine. he'll have probably 6,000 professional minutes by that point. That's significant, and that's what the larger picture path upgrade has been over this decade. Yeah, Soto had that chance. It's not a surprise that it came from Waya, who was, I thought, very good today, sloppy at times,

but somebody's got to take chances out there, and he was the one to do it. he had the confidence and you often have the skill to make stuff happen. And, you know, like you said, this is a good Ecuador team, and we put them under pressure when we were able to get on the ball and get some rhythm. We were just, we were trying to make up for so much lost ground in central midfield that those moments felt really few and far between and kind of snatched at instead of imposed upon them. And the U.S. just didn't have enough talent.

enough match winners in those key spots to win the game in a situation where they're kind of chasing it from the first minute. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you, could you, would you mind describing the second Ecuador goal happened in the 43rd minute? Yeah, came off a freaking throw-in. Yeah, and this is something that has kind of plagued Tabs teams over the last four cycles

is they're weirdly static and back foot. defending throw-ins in particular. They haven't ever been great defending set pieces, but, oh, man, off a throw-ins, they were just standing there, and they let Ecuador receive the ball very easily in the attacking third. And then instead of really working to get pressure to the ball, they just sort of scrambled and held their shape. And it ended up on the foot of Ecuador's, I think it was their number 20,

who just rang a shot. screamer off the bar and they were faster to the rebound there was some hint of offside when i thought it was clear right from the bell the eventual goal score um was behind the ball when the little cross into the six was played in um but you know Richards kata and durkin the three guys who you can't have be a step slow in a play like that were all a step slow and that's the kind of goal that that not see out of tournaments

and this one it did and have it happened in the last two, three minutes of the first half with their kids and they played like it and the Ecuador players all have a little bit more professional experience and they're all a little bit older. That's one thing to

remember from this team. I think the U.S. were literally the youngest team in the tournament. And you know, in this particular competition, that extra 12 months, it matters. And it definitely showed for the U.S. today. Yeah.

12 months is a really long time when you're 19, 18 or 19. It's like 5% of your life. 119th of your life. Yeah. 12 months goes by in a flash now, kids. Yeah, it does. Yes, it does. So let's talk about halftime changes.

I guess there was just one tab brought on Ullianas for Conrad Delafonte. How did you feel about that choice? I thought it was the right choice. It's what I wanted to see. You know, Uli had been a difference maker coming in his previous couple of times, more in the middle of the second half. But it was clear that De Lafonte had whatever spark he had shown earlier in the tournament, it, he had kind of lost it by this game.

And he just, you know, he puts his head down and he just, and he just goes. And he ends up going down every blind alley. And he ends up taking too many touches, most times. And he has no left foot. And when you've been scouted for a few games, teams figure that out. And I thought Ecuador was just a very nice and professional job of shepherding him away. from goal every single time. So there was no combination play.

And the worst thing was that when he was pushed up that high, usually best is right there as well because the idea is to have that combination play on the right side. And I think the goal against Ukraine is the best example of it. And that was the one time it really came off in this tournament. But like that's the ideal. But in this one, it wasn't coming off. And then that was compounded by Delaflente losing the ball. And even 100 yards from goal, if you lose the ball against this Ecuador team, it's a counterattacking chance.

And I'm pretty sure that the 50-50 that Durkan lost that led to the opening goal came from failed combination play via Delafonte and everyone else on that right side. the U.S. out of balance and then just not able to slow it down. So I thought bringing Yanaz on was the right call. And for the first 20 minutes of the second half, Yanos was a difference maker. So if those best chance in the second half came from Yanis doing a little bit of clever interplay at the top of the box, he was able to get around the Ecuadorian right back a number of times. But like Delaflente, he's a kid. And he, you know, Yannes was hurt, I think, for the,

a good portion of the year, and he didn't, you know, he didn't play real games. And that lack of match sharpness showed, I think, more in his decision-making than anything else. Because anytime he got into the final third, he was going to take, not just one extra touch, he was going to try to take three or four. And anytime he had the Ecuador's back line beat, because of those extra touches, he allowed them back into the play. And when you do that against a good team, they usually make the play defensively. And that's what, you know, that's what Ecuador did. We needed a little more cutting edge.

We needed a little more savvy, and the kids just didn't quite have it. No. Yeah. He had that, he had that pass for Soto where Soto took a touch that took him a little wide, and then his shot went off the outside of the net, the outside side net. Yeah, you were kinder to Soto on that than I was. What was your take on that? I just think that's a tough.

I think it was a pass that was hit with a lot of pace and a little bit behind Soto. So it had been really difficult for him to get his body, his hips around and strike it first time. Either with his right foot and then for him to strike it with his left foot, he would have had to like take a jump backwards and let it a fast pass right across his body and then hit it with his left foot. So he elected it to do neither. And he took a touch with his right foot that took him a little wide. and, you know, he might have been able to poke it past the keeper outside the keeper's outstretched hands, but probably not.

And, of course, he was not able to. So I don't completely absolve him of blame. I just think that's a really tough, it's a really tough chance to finish. What was your take? I think if he had a left foot, he would have finished it. That's one that sergeant puts away. you know that's that's one that if you're going to be a bundis league a goal scorer you use your left foot and you you know you create enough separation to put that one away

it wasn't a tapping right it wasn't a sitter um it's a tough goal but uh you know if you're going to be a guy who's maybe moving to barusha dartman um if you want to play you have to score that goal it was it was right there for him um And again, just maybe a little bit of lack of game sharpness and a little bit of savvy was missing. And that was that. Yeah, I mean, we can agree to disagree on the degree of culpability. But I agree that Soto, you know, if you add up all of the chances that Soto had in this game or all the touches he had in the box, should have probably put one away.

I noticed, but back to Yannis for a second. The other sort of really dangerous moment he produced was the shot he took that went just wide, you know, just stepped by a guy in the left channel and then had a rip. Yeah. And he had the keeper beat, man. If it had just been two feet, two feet to the left, that game is two-two. So that was a bummer that it didn't, that it wasn't on frame. Yeah, he actually had two of those.

Did he? I think the first one, yeah, I think the first one was a little close. than the second one. But, I mean, there's no doubt he's a talent. You see his ability to beat guys off the dribble, to create separations, and at times to really use it. It was impressive. And the other thing that was impressive about him was his will.

And this is maybe a stupid way of putting it, but he didn't shrink from the moment. he was he got out there and he wanted to get the ball and he wanted to change the game and you know all these all these things that you have to have technically tactically physically physically um to to make it as a top flight professional like that's all it's all necessary but so is the mentality and the you know the sort of fire in the eyes he's a britishism type of cliche um You need to have that. Yeah. And to my eye, Yannas has that. Now, obviously, they need to polish him up. He needs to take fewer touches.

He needs to make his decisions quicker. One of the, I think the play that led to the corner that the U.S. scored off of, came off of like a really clever early ball, early cross from Gloucester. And that was like, I sat up and I took notice at that. And that is like, that does not ever occur to Yanas to get the ball off his foot. early to make the professional play. But that's, you know, he's just turned 18. So hopefully they're able to take him and turn him into a guy who makes those types of

plays in addition to the like the slick, saucy 1V1 stuff that he has. And from the outside looking in, I don't know the kid at all, but just from watching him play, he seems to have that sort of mentality where he wants to make those plays and he wants to do what it takes to win. He passes the eye test on that level for me, and that's important. And, you know, when you put it in stark contrast to someone like Mendez

who just doesn't. Well, I will say about Janice, he did play, like, his second touch against Qatar was a delightful early ball similar to that one. But I do think he's similar to the one Gloucester hit, today but I do think he's like he sort of came into this tournament and this is just me speculating but I'm thinking he's he he's out there beating people 1 v1 over and over again and he's like wait a second I can do this and he maybe got a little carried away towards the like the

last half hour of the game today you know yeah I we like I got to do something I can do it and then you know he has like three or four instances of taking an extra touch or two but I agree with you. It was a little hero ball. Yeah, it was a little hero ball. But I forget, I forgive him because he, because he made stuff happen. I mean, he was definitely an upgrade over Conrad Delafonte in every game. For sure. For sure. Well, the rest of the second half, we didn't, you know, La Desma came on pretty late for Mendez. I would have liked to see that earlier, that sub earlier, to give Ledesma. more of a chance to have an impact on the game.

I think you share that opinion, right? Yeah, for sure. He came on about the 75th, and I would have had him on the 50th. I would have had him on the 50th. And I know there were fitness concerns, and if you look back to the game against France, he was basically out of gas by the 30, 35th minute. But, I mean, Mendez was out of gas.

Yeah. Yeah. So, like, I really want to see that, especially because at that point in the second half, Ecuador hadn't totally gone into a shell yet. They were allowing you to play. And if you do that against Janice, he can beat a guy off the dribble and bring more players to him, which would have broken Ecuador's shape a little bit. And they were there for the taking.

I think I'd made a tweet of that around the 60th, 65th minute. Like, Ecuador was absolutely there for the taking. But we weren't aggressive enough with our subs. I think, honestly, I think Janus 10, 15 minutes earlier would have made a big difference. You mean Ledema, right? For the U.S. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, Le Desma, 15, 20 minutes earlier would have made a big difference because we would have just been a little bit more activity in central midfield.

And they would have had to compress a little bit more. And that could open things up for us. Yeah. Yeah. and a lot of people on Twitter were saying the same thing. Maybe we're just in a total echo chamber where we all sort of agree with each other on some basic things. Let's see. Should we just – I mean, Ecuador just kind of saw the game out at that point.

Once Ledesma came on, they were kind of in their shell. Did you see anything else in the second half that you thought was remarkable? Not really. You know, it was, I thought Durkan had a better second half, but still not good. You know, Richards is a stud. I thought Dest had a mostly a very good game. He was certainly a lot better in the group stages than, or the knockout rounds than he was in the, in the group stages. But everybody, by the final 10 minutes or so, everybody kind of looked out of guess.

And we never, even though we were throwing numbers. forward, it never felt like, oh, the equalizers inevitable. We just didn't, we didn't have that against the team that was this good. Yeah, there was nothing, there was no point where I was on the edge of my seat screaming at the TV because it felt like it was coming. It just never got there. No. I would say the last time it felt close was the Soto Miss that we described in excruciating detail.

And then after that, it sort of, it got less, it felt less and less likely that we would equalize, to be honest. All right. So big picture. Everybody's talking about this stuff. Who's, who's your favorite, who's your most likely USMNT regular from this roster?

Would put Waya right there right now if I could. Like if I could transport Waya to the Gold Cup team, I would do that in a second. And I imagine just about everybody who's watched the U.S. would do the same. And I think I would do the same with Tomicol. He's, you know, he's not a magician number 10, but he's the type of guy where if you put him in that spot, you end up with more, you end up with more chances just as a unit, as a team, because he's making so many defensive plays from that spot that are unexpected, that are transition opportunities. I mean, I would take him over, hold on, I would take him over probably Dwayne Holmes,

so I guess I need to see more of him, your favorite player. I would take him, you know, his ability to make those plays not just tracking back, but in the attacking third puts him there. And then my real hope is over the next, you know, eight months or 10 months or a year, Ledesma, Gloucester, and Richards all become like fully blooded professional players. And it's with Ledesna and Richard, just sheer upside. I think Richard, if you did it in a vacuum and he asked scouts him around the world, who's the best prospect on the U.S. U.S. U.U.20 national team,

95% would say Richard. Yeah, he's been outstanding. He's been so effing good. Yeah. But the question is, like, he's playing in the third level of Germany probably next year. Is that going to help him? I don't think so. So I do worry about that.

And with Ledesma, he didn't really get to show it because he basically hasn't played in a year and been injured. But that goal he made against France, good God. You know, that was special. And we, you know, his upside and the knee is. that we have for a player who can make that kind of magic as a number 10. Now, he's not going to bring the same type of

defensive presence that Pomacal does. No. He's a better creator. You're more pure attacking player, and you could put him in there and then potentially have Pomacol or Adams or Kenny,

some combination of those guys around him as well. That's like, that is what I'm focused. for the years to come and then Goster at left back. Like that's, I don't think he's upside is as high as guys like Richards or Ladesma or Pomacol.

But he just looks really good and solid and smart. And we can use that. Yeah. We can really, really use that at left back. So those are the, I think those are the thighs that I have the highest hopes for both in the short and long term.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, on your point about the, it'd be nice to just have some smartness and steadiness at left back. You feel like Gloucester could play the, you know, this current, the left back in this current system that Burrhalter has, where it's kind of a centerback, left centerback, left back, hybrid deal? Yeah, you know, the funny thing coming into this tournament was the knock on Gloucester was that he didn't, he didn't really present much on the overlap. Um, that he was, he was kind of too much of a throwback, too much of an old-fashioned left back who was just there to kind of defend first and

foremost and not get forward. And then, you know, we saw him get forward pretty spectacularly at times, including against Nigeria. And now it's like, okay, well, what do we have? Is he actually a modern two-way left back, which is my way of saying that, yeah, I think, you know, projecting out, he does seem to have the makeup of a guy who can do the job in the way that Burrhalter seems to want to done at this point in time. But as with Ledezma, as with Richard, he's got to win a job. He's got to be a professional soccer player. And there's talk of him, just like with Soto, there's talk of him leaving on over. Don't leave Hanover guys.

Don't leave Hanover. Stay there. Right? Like I want them both to get paid because you. You can step off a curb wrong and your career ends and they only have a finite amount of time to make as much money as possible. I want that for them. But for the U.S. national team, I want Gloucester and Soto to get like 2,000 minutes in the two Bundesliga next year because I think they're good enough and I think it would help them immediately. And right now, as much as I like them both, neither is good enough to be a regular starting player in the full Bundesliga.

They're just not there yet. So please, spend a year of the two Bundesliga then move. Yeah. I mean, you know, you could imagine Gloucester breaking in and getting some minutes for a mid-table Bundesliga side. I'm not saying it's likely, but it seems within the realm of possibility. I don't see Soto playing striker for Dortmund probably ever, but maybe, but definitely not next year. So I hope those rumors are just agent hype. Yeah.

I hope so as well. But let me ask you, because you know, you have opinions on these guys as well. The five guys I mentioned, I think you're probably in on. Who else do you see as someone for the immediate or long-term future? I'm a little more cautious on Wea and Pomacall than you. I think, yes, Waya was a game changer for this team, but he was not good for big stretches of the tournament. I get pilloried on all the chat boards for saying that.

But I'm going to stand by. They were big stretches of this tournament where he wasn't good. He wasn't decisive enough. He wasn't clean enough. He was cutting in on his right foot. And teams had scouted that. And they knew they could basically write off the whole left side, the whole right side of their defense because they knew he wasn't going to go left

and try to pull it back from the end line. So I think, you know, he's still, I think there's still some question marks with way up. But obviously he roast the occasion in several big moments, got us back into this game with a moment of individual class. And I do think he's better. I think he's probably better than all of our wing options, except Christian Pulisic, who's not playing on the wing. And maybe Tyler Boyd is better.

I don't know. I think way it's better than Paul Ariola. I mean, he's more talented. He's not as, and it goes to what you were saying. Like he had a, he had a, I thought, a pretty bad group stage. But I don't think it's because he is bad. I think it's because he was, he was something with just like too much arrogance. Too much, you know, right?

Like, it was a little bit like, I'm, I'm the best player at this level. And you want to have some of that. You want every guy out there to think that they're, you know, the best player. But you have to do it within a team scheme. And he, he didn't for the first three games. And I thought for these last two, he absolutely did. And we've all seen Tim Wea a ton, what was the full national team, the 17s. And over the course of this year, I think he got 700 minutes or something like that.

So we've all seen him. And I think that's who way is. I don't think he's inherently a selfish player. I thought he was just the biggest name on the team for the group stage. And maybe it went to his head for 270 minutes. But these last 180, I would take that Tim Wea, even with. a little, you know, a couple of unnecessary turnovers and a couple of bad touches.

I would take that Tim Leia any day of the week for the U.S. Okay, yeah, yeah. I agree. I agree. And then on Pomacall, strangely enough, his defensive work is his, like, top selling point for me right now.

And I've said this before, but watching him last summer with FC Dallas when he would get a 10-minute cameo and just kind of flop around on the on the ground for, you know, seven of those 10 minutes. It's amazing how he's changed as a player, that he's now, he's now, he now looks more like Tyler Adams in the midfield than anybody else in the pool, the way he,

the way he tracks down the ball and wins the ball. It's a crazy transformation. I don't, so I love that, and I think, I think that puts him, at least in my mind, right in the top four midfielers for the U.S. men's national team, probably behind well top four who knows

in my mind it would be Adams McKinney and then Palm a call because I'm sort of a radical in that I'm tired of the Bradley trap thing

but so I put him right up there in any case I don't think he's I don't think he's so he takes too many touches sometimes and I don't think his passing

like you alluded to his passing is rarely surprising or, you know, defense opening, at least it hasn't been in this tournament. And so I'm not just totally carried away by Paxton Pomacall, but his defensive work and his just general reliability and possession seems like he'd be perfect to be Wes McKinney's backup at the eight. And maybe even slot in as one of the eights next to McKinney right now, you know, all

things being equal. Yeah. And I think that's the, like, that's the argument. You and I look at it similarly where we would rather have a midfield where there's a six and eight and a ten. And we're both hoping that it's Ledesma because I think there are other very good young number 10 prospects in the U.S. pipeline. But I think Ledesma is a level above the rest of them. I agree. So I like that balance.

But someone like Bobby Warshaw would say, no, you don't need to have a level. 10. What you need to do is win the ball and transition quickly. You don't need that individual creativity. You need team structure that allows you to compress the field where you want to, and then you need well-drilled players in that front six to win and play the next pass. And I mean, he's right to an extent. There are great teams in the world who do not use anything close to a traditional number 10 or have, you know, a midfield balance where the, you know, they say a 4-33, like the 6 is the 6, but the two guys in front of them do the exact same thing.

There's not one who is more attacking than the other. And if that's what the next phase is for the U.S., I mean, for now I'm fine with that because let's be miserable to play against through central midfield. Let's, you know, let's win the ball and just get it as quickly as possible. to holistic on one wing and way on the other, and whether it's Josie or Sergeant up top, you know, that sounds fantastic to me

because I'm tired of seeing us look slow and soft through Central Midd. Boy, do I agree with that, man. Having watched that friendly on Thursday, or was it Wednesday against Jamaica, and just get overrun by some of them, some of the opponents were USL players and we're just getting absolutely outclassed athletically,

I'm just tired of that bullshit. Like, give me an athletic, ball-winning, challenging midfield, and then we can sort of go from there. I'm really sympathetic with Bobby on that right now. Maybe once we get a little more solidity and sort things out a little bit, I'll be more, I'll be back in the sort of give me a creative 10 in one of those spots. And I think it comes, you know, If our midfield is Adams as the 6th and then either McKinney or Pomacall as the 8,

then you could end up carrying a 10 like Ledesma, who is not a great defensive player, but I think he's going to end up being a pretty good defensive player from that position. And then you not only have defensive balance and you not only have hopefully structure, but you also have that little touch of brilliance and creativity. in that role that pomacal doesn't necessarily bring. Oh, and by the way, you push Polytic out wide into his more natural position, and that seems you can do some damage.

Absolutely. But we are projecting out a couple of years right now, aren't we? Yeah, we are. Well, the midfield you're describing is a little bit like a Servania-Macall-Mendez midfield, where you have Servania in the Adams role. Yep. which to come back to that is probably the biggest mistake that Tab made in this game playing Durkin over Sarvania.

I think so. Yeah. You know, and go ahead. Well, you know, you go ahead and then I'll talk about a couple more players that I'm excited about. But you go ahead on this. I understand why Tab did it because in theory, Durkin is a guy who brings that rhythm and that tempo and that calmness to possession. And this is a team that, I mean,

if you have Mendez out there, then you're kind of married to the idea that you're only going to create chances out of possession. And so it was about trying to take something that we were going to have to do and doing it as well as possible. But Durkin's not there yet. And so Savania is just a little bit more robust physically.

He's better at winning the ball. He showed it against France. I'm not going to say that it lost us the game, but it didn't put us in as good a position as we needed to be to win the game against the team as good. Yeah. Yeah, we may have lost anyway. And speaking of Servania, I don't see him as necessarily a guy who's ever going to play

for the nationals game. He just happened to be the right guy for this moment in my mind, you know? Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. I actually, you know, this is something that has been discussed, that nauseam on Twitter and other social media. It was a surprise to see Servania end up as the second choice defensive midfielder for this team over Serio when Serio's locked down that job for FC Dallas

and by outplaying Servenia at the MLS level, it looked really good doing it. But these are, you know, these are the things. that happened with different coaches, with young players, with different systems. We weren't there for practice or for the Uruguay scrimmage, so I'm not about to kill Tab for that one. But it would have been nice. Yeah.

Sounds like Serio didn't play super well in that Uruguay friendly. Can't prove it, though. I would say another player who we didn't get to see it all, just like Serio in this tournament, who has a good chance, I think, of being a national team player, hopefully for the U.S., but maybe for Mexico, is Julian Araujo. I almost would have liked to see him at centerback

in one of these games. I get why Tav didn't want to mess with his centerback pairing, especially this late in the tournament. But I can't imagine Arajo would have been any worse than Keda and probably would have been more. more comfortable on the ball. I mean, you just look at the basics of their careers. Kada has, I think, under 200 minutes in U.S.L. League one, which is Division III, third

division of American soccer. And Julian Araujo has been a starter for the L.A. Galaxy on three occasions, granted at right back or right wingback, but he can play centerback. And I think he's a very, very big prospect. And too bad we didn't get to see him in this tournament. somewhat understandable. Death was immense in the last two games in my opinion. But I'll be watching his career.

Yeah, Arajo is an A-plus prospect. He is, from what I understand, someone that we're going to have to work hard to keep because Mexico are there and scouting him. And Mexico certainly showed that they could use a talent infusion in this age cohort. And he would help. them a lot. We're remembering

he's the youngest player on his team. He's just 17, doesn't turn 18 until I believe in May to August. So he can be back for the next one if we're able to keep him. Achoa can be back. Delafonte can be back.

And Ulyanis can be back as well. Hopefully those guys, I mean, that's a nice core right there for the next group. And then you add a bunch of those 17s and maybe a kid like Thomas Roberts, who's about to start right now for FC Dollars today. There's a lot, there's a lot to

look forward to with this group. Let me ask you about guests because I, you know, I saw him play maybe four times this spring between the U-19 streams that you mostly found. I think it was and

Daniel Smith, probably Daniel Smith. Yeah, probably Daniel. Yeah. and between the U-19s and in the Dutch second tier of Aris de Vizier, he struggles any time he has to defend against direct play. And we saw that in the group stage. And like it just, it wasn't just getting, you know, a smaller kid getting physically overpowered.

It was his footwork is wrong. He doesn't seem to understand angles and how to attack the ball. It was really bad against Ukraine and it was bad again against Nigeria. He did bounce back in these two games. Did you think that was a product of him just being better in the knockout rounds? Or was it he didn't have to face the same type of attacks from France and Ecuador both kept the ball on the ground? They weren't playing long balls, long diagonal and anything like that. Was it a combination of the two things, do you think?

Yeah, probably. I mean, the thing that he struggled with is, dealing with a ball in the air. That's what you mean by a direct play, essentially? Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

So when he's squaring somebody up 1 v1, he was, I thought, magnificent in both these last two games and defending that. I suppose it's a combination of the two. He possibly came into the tournament feeling a little bit overconfident or something. And then we all got, we all got punched in the mouth by Ukraine, who has already punched their tickets to the... To the semifinals. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think his defending in the young Iax has been so bad.

I think he had like a couple bad games, but has had a lot of good games too. I'll have to. That's a very long way to say I don't know the answer to the question. Yeah. It's one of those things where he might be the type of player where if he's in the system where you're going to have 60% of the ball, he might be amazing. he might be, you know, the best player on the team going forward. But if he's going to be defending a lot, and that makes it tough that he's at Ayat.

I almost wish he was at a lesser Dutch club. Yeah. Well, not knock. They were terrible. Somebody, you know. Just throw him right into the fire. Yeah. All right.

But like somebody who's not going to have 65% possession. And I guess the bigger picture is, is he an I-X player? Is this a kid, and he's 18, 19 years old now, and we know that at IAC, this is the age at which they start matriculating you to the first team, if they think you're good enough. Do you think we will see him play for IACs in the coming season? Yeah, I don't, I mean, IACs is a team that could have easily won the Champions League this year. and it's hard to see it's hard to see

they sell they sold they're going to sell half their team this summer so it's going to be minutes to go around are they are they going to sell I mean I know they're selling a lot of guys but are they selling any of their right backs I haven't checked lately I thought the right I know Tiley Afica on the left back isn't going to be sold but I thought the right back was I could be wrong about that yeah I mean I know there were rumors is Masrawe is his name was going to be

old, but I haven't been keeping track. And then they had a guy who was the captain the year before whose name escapes me, who was injured most of the season, who's now healthy again, who plays right back.

I'd be surprised if he's getting first two minutes next year, but what do I know? I'm just a guy in the Midwest. Like, let's So I guess, you know, you say this a lot. So maybe this is a good point to close on.

Like, the big question for all these guys, just as it is with Dest, is what's going to happen with their clubs over the next few months? Are you anything in particular you're looking for or looking at heading into the fall? I mean, the big ones are Gloucester and Ledesma to me because they're good players at positions of need for us. And I, you know, I hope against hope that both of those guys end up in situations where they can play. It's going to be tough for Ledesna. You know, playing for PSV, which is one of the great clubs in Europe and less the world.

But they already took – like, they took the plunge with him. And Dutch teams can't sign foreigners on the cheap. It's not like, you know, Yanez or Mendez making $12,000 a $1,000. year in Germany. They're paying Mende, or Ledesna rather, $225,000 a year. And then if they matriculate them up to the first team, it ends up being, I think, $450. Yeah, it just went up. It just went up. Yeah. And so, like, and they have to decide within the year. I think it is. By this time next year, if he hasn't made it, then they have to move him on. So the fact that they've taken that leap with him tells me that they think pretty highly of him already.

So I have high hopes for that. I have high hopes for Gloucester. You know, like I said, I would much rather see him get 2,000 minutes in the two Bundesliga than see him, you know, get 200 minutes in the actual Bundesliga. Yeah. Those are the two big ones because of where we are as a player. pool. And then I think even bigger than that is the guy who wasn't here, Josh Sargent. Josh Sargent played 200 minutes this year. He signed with Verna Bremann over Bayern Munich,

specifically because Bremen had a plan to get him into the first team ASAP and to give him real minutes, and that plan didn't really come through. And now he's had kind of a wasted year in a wasted summer that hopefully he'll use to get as fit if he possibly can and get to that team next month. I think their preseason starts on July 7th. Get to that team in a month and just kick ass. Because we need a young forward,

we need a young 10, and we need a young left back. If you tossed out every other player from this group, but you gave me those three guys, I would take it. I'd really like to have another right back, too, like assuming Burrhalter doesn't stick with this system for the rest of his tenure as coach, which maybe he will,

but if things start to change up a little bit, it sure would be nice to have, it sure would be nice to have Sergenio Dest and or Juliana Raoho emerge as an every week starter in some professional league and push their way into the national team because I don't think DeAndre Edlin's that good.

I don't think Nick Lehm is that good either. And we need something better over there. For what it's worth, I think Arajo has a real chance to be that guy for the galaxy. It would not surprise me if he came back from this tournament and was a full-time starter for the LA Galaxy. I think that McKenzie has a chance,

you know, as he gets his fitness up to win his job back for Philadelphia, that he's going to have to compete for it, especially because that team's been really good this year. And Tom McCall will walk right back in the starting lineup for FC Dallas. The interesting thing is going to be Sur Rio and Sarvania

to see if, okay, they end up going ahead ahead now because they're coming back to a Dallas team that's without Brian Acosta, who's at the Gold Cup, and without Carlos Grazo, who's at Copa America. Yeah. So there's a chance for,

them to, you know, either form a partnership or renew their, you know, their sort of preseason competition, that's a real one. So that, you know, that has a chance to be really fun as well. And I think this is like, this is the bigger, better long-term picture that we've all been kind of waiting for. This is the first group that's really post-Bradington. This is the one where there were no college kids where pretty much everyone came through either you know iX or Barcelona or like a USSADA top clubs or an MO the vast majority of them in MLS Academy

professional academy and even compared to two years ago especially compared to four years ago I thought the level of play was higher I thought that the level of individual technical skill was higher. And I thought for the guys who were already pros, Tom McCall especially, the level of on-field problem-solving and savvy was much higher than in the past. And I think that that speaks to what the future is for the U.S. program. We've gone from in 2013, we were taking, you know, any kid we could find in a Mexican academy. and a couple of best, you know, college players.

In 2015, it was a better mix of, you know, a Miazzo or Carter Vickers and, you know, Kellen Acosta, guys who were, you know, a few of them were produced by actual academies. And that got scaled up in 2017 until this year, this felt like the team that was a product of an integrated and intentioned. developmental system as opposed to a team that was just a collection of mismatched parts that had been tried to they had tried to sort of knit it together mostly via Bradenton and the younger levels. It is good for us as a soccer country, as a soccer culture, to have moved beyond that.

I think that you could say that in a lot of ways, the players that we've had developed in the past, developed in spite of our developmental program here. And it felt like this is a group that developed and made it to the quarterfinals of the U-20 World Cup because of what we've put in place here. And that more than anything else, more than being France, more than, you know, balling out versus Nigeria, more than anything else. that's what has me confident, not just hopeful, but actually confident for the groups to come. And now we just need it to translate. Now we just need it to translate at the club level

because for every one of these kids, it doesn't matter how good you were at the Youth World Cup. If you're not getting professional minutes, you're not going to make a difference for the U.S. national team. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we could play with anybody in this tournament. I mean, we didn't, we're not going to dominate France, but we're, but we, we can play soccer with anybody with this collection of players. I do think it'll be the next, the next step, maybe the next near-term step is maybe for Raphael Wickey to take over the U-20s and for the sort of the system to be truly integrated from top to bottom, which is something it kind of hasn't been lately.

That would be, that'll be a welcome. change just from a structural perspective. Not that I'm not making any comment on Wiki versus Tabramos, just structurally to have it all be one thing. I think that'll be great. And it'll feed players into the senior team who are already ready, are already familiar with the system, hopefully, and can just be slotted in,

which I think creates a lot of efficiency, needless to say. Yeah. I do think that would be a big step. And I really liked what I saw with those U-7 teams because they were abysmal in that first game of the tournament. And by the end of the tournament, they were playing some of the best soccer at that level that I think I've ever seen the U.S. play. And so hopefully we get to see him take over the U-20s because, you know, Tab Ramos has had a good seven-year run at this point. And, you know, he's going to step aside and see what the future holds for him.

Vicki does seem like the sort of natural successor. All right, U-17 World Cup in October, I believe, and lots of MLS action up until then. If you don't already, you should read what Matt Doyle writes. He writes a lot of good stuff about the national team. He writes a great weekly recap of all the MLS action. Thanks, Matt, for joining me. Appreciate it. Under these sad circumstances, bittersweet, as you said.

Bittersweet. Bittersweet. Bittersweet circumstances. It's nice to make the quarterfinals of the Youth World Cup again. Good to chat with you, Bell. Yeah, thanks, man. All right, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.