Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 80: U20 stock report, and the USMNT stumbles into the Gold Cup

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

Velasquez and Belz go through the U20 World Cup roster in detail and assess each player’s performance, their likelihood of breaking into the USMNT and the likely timing of that breakthrough, when applicable. Then we talk about the 3-0 loss to Venezuela rumors (later confirmed) of Tyler Adams’ absence, and the general crappiness that prevails at the senior level ahead of Tuesday’s Gold Cup opener vs Guyana. Scuffed is on Patreon and we're trying to ramp up the patron-only content to make patronage even more worthwhile. 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. Greetings from the Upper Midwest. Got a packed show today. We're going to check in with the U.S. men's national team as it trudges into the 2019 Gold Cup. But first, let's wrap up the U20 World Cup on our own terms with a U20 stock report. There have been a lot of takes on those games, including on this podcast. I want to give my carefully considered opinion on each player and then watch as Greg shoots all my opinions out of the sky. You ready for that, Greg? Yeah, I'll allow this, but yes, I absolutely reserve the right to extinguish any takes that I deem too hot. Okay, okay, sounds good.

That's the, that's the yin and the yang of this podcast from time immemorial. There are different ways to do this. My initial thought was a stock up, stock holds, stock down format, but I'll just say right off the top, that gets dicey because we all have different. starting points and mine would be a lot of holds and only one or two down. For instance, Alex Mendez is a hold in my opinion. I knew he was devastating and elegant on the ball and not a great defender and that came through in the tournament as did his lack of 90 minute fitness. Overall, my opinion is unchanged. He's an extremely high potential player with a lot of quality

and special ability, blah, blah, blah. He needs to get stronger and better defensively. Greg's suggestion was to tear out the roster, and I agreed to that. So, Greg, why don't you give us the tears since I've done a lot of talking? Sure, sure. Well, since I sort of see everything through the prism of the senior team, I thought we'd kind of give everyone sort of a context of where they might stand relative to the senior team and its current state. Yeah.

So, tier one, I think we're going to call Gold Cup upgrades, and that's players who would improve our 23-man roster, which, given our recent friendly performances, kind of a low bar. Pretty low bar. We'll see if anyone makes that tier. Tier two, we're calling C-U in November, where I don't think any of these guys are going to necessarily be immediately brought into the fold post-go-go. Old Cup, but maybe after a couple months of club season, you know, they have a legitimate chance of breaking through, and we might see a surprise call-up or two. Third tier is see you in 2020. Let them kind of cook for another half of a season, maybe a full season, and somewhere along the line leading up to qualifying, we get them, we get them

into a senior camp. And then we've got guys who are sort of on the bubble, tier four, tier five, I would be sort of doubtful guys who may have played their way out of contention, or at least aren't ready yet. And then we've got basically not applicable. Yeah, tier six. And I would say for tier four on the bubble, it's on the bubble about whether they'll ever play for the national team, kind of, you know?

Sure. Yeah, right. Not even sure about that. And definitely not projecting into 2020. So we'll start with tier one. I hate to be old regular American soccer fan here, but it's striking to me that the two players who look the most ready to join the senior national team

and displace someone in the current pool are the two physically fittest players for the U.S. in this tournament. And those are Tim Wea and Pax and Palmacall. I don't disagree with you. Those guys definitely seem like, given what we've seen over the last two friendlies, those guys seem like we would have been fortunate

to have had them available. Yeah. Let's start with Wea. What I liked is that he delivered in big moments for the U-20s, the assist against Ukraine, the goal against Qatar, the assist against France, the goal against Ecuador. He's not a creative force with the ball at his feet, but he's polished, he's a polished, reliable professional,

and he creates danger, a lot of danger, really, with his runs, and occasionally with his passing, as in the case of the two of us. I think he's better than Paul Areola right now. And I'd be curious to see how he looks side by side with Tyler Boyd. I'm a little surprised Burrhalter isn't more curious about that. Maybe he is. Maybe he's secretly very curious. Well, and maybe he already rates him.

You know, maybe it really was just a matter of they were accommodating Tim Wea because the report was Tim Wea very much wanted to participate in the U20 tournament, which I think is actually kind of cool. I'm willing to totally give ground on that. Yeah. for an 18-year-old kid to have that experience. I think we already had plenty of data suggesting way I was ahead of Ariola, and it's not just based on this sort of interpretation of his U-20 performances

versus Aureola's friendly performances. They were both in camps in the Serican era, and way in those camps looked far more polished than Arial. Aureola is a very busy player, but I feel like his what we're seeing, and we'll get into it later, but I'm sure his tidiness on the ball, I don't think is near where Wayas is. I think Waya could be a really good complementary piece on the senior team roster. Yeah, and I'm not necessarily picking on Areola right now.

I'll probably pick on him a little bit later, but the reason I bring him up is he's, I think he's widely viewed as either the one or two winger on the depth chart. right? I mean, it's either him or Tyler Boyd. I'm expecting him to start. Yeah, I fully expect him to be starting games, and I think Waya would be a better player, a better option. The warts on Waya are he's not a 1V1 merchant. That's not really his game. He was a little bit predictable, cutting in on his right foot.

What's next for him is he probably goes on loan again, I would imagine. Hopefully land somewhere where he can get, you know, 2,500 first two minutes this year. rather than be a sort of occasional player like he was for Celtic towards the end of the spring. And obviously that's all going to kind of come down to where he lands. I kind of want to go a little bit against the 1V1 piece. I think you're right. I mean, in the sense of he's not a Christian pool sick, 1v1 type, or Ullianas, where he's going to try to skin people down the sideline and beat him.

But I think he is a very effective player, 1v1, at creating little gaps in windows for himself to play. And that could be creating a passing lane in the buildup phase. But I think we also saw very much that it could be creating shooting windows inside the box. He obviously had the goal where he nutmeg a cutter defender and then it's slot at home. He also, remind me which game it was, where I think Mendez found him with one of Mendez's trademark balls. and he had a little like keepy-uppy in the box and lifted it over a defender and then blasted a volley over frame. But those kinds of moments and techniques, I think, translate to a senior team.

Just that ability to create that ball-sized window to pass through or to shoot through. Yeah, no, that's a really good point. The volley he blasted over was actually a pommacall pass. I made that mistake once. Okay, my apologies. No, that's okay. I just want to give So frequently that honestly

I started to attribute every great diagonal Paul to Mendez. Right. I just want to give Pomacal his due and I think I said in one of our last podcast that that was Mendez and I was wrong. So yeah, that was a great moment from where

obviously the nutmeg was a great moment. And his run, you know, his runs on the two, the two balls from Mendez. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that,

I don't know that Ariola creates that kind of chance. And definitely Ariel doesn't, take the first touch that Waya did on on the one against Qatar where Mendez played him played him over the top another gorgeous ball and a gorgeous first touch now way it didn't finish the chance but um I don't think a lot of other players on our pool even get to the point where they have the ball at their feet one v one with the keeper there no and while we're on it again I don't want to get in too far to the

senior team but uh I think miazga actually found ariola over the top so ariel made the run in this last friendly against Venezuela, but it was almost like Aureola wasn't confident enough in his first touch to actually try to go for it. And he ended up pulling off of the run, and the goalkeeper just collected it unimpeded. So it was, again, it just kind of shows, I feel like Waya deftly rounds the goalkeeper with his first touch and puts it in the empty net. I'm confident that that would have happened. I'm confident that Ware would have taken a nice first touch.

I don't know that he would have necessarily scored, but Aureola had a chance to take a touch. You could see it in his face afterwards. He had his head in his hands and thinking, why, oh, why did I not take that touch? Okay. Second guy in the tier two, I mean, sorry, Tier 1 is Paxon Pomacall. What I liked about him is how tough and reliable he was. He won the ball. He found the ball and he kept the ball.

He was the engine of the engine room. And I think his quality is higher than your run of the mill. Christian rolled on or even Sebastian Leggett. Crazy to me that a year ago, Pomacall was seen as kind of a youth luxury player. He was soft and he was seen as a creative player who didn't have a role. He couldn't be a winger. He didn't have the bite to play in the center of the midfield.

But now he's got bite. Eight months later, he's got bite for days. And I'd say he's the closest thing we have to Tyler Adams, who is not Tyler Adams at this point. Okay, I like, I have a hard time literally comparing anybody to Tyler Adams. But I would say, I like Pomacall as a Weston McKinney comparison. I feel like both of those guys have that bite. They're both sort of all-action players.

Cover a ton of ground. Definitely not afraid to go in hard to a challenge. And both like very much willing and able to sort of win their challenge to a teammate. So it's not just like, all right, they're just chaos agents. will they will actually then connect the next piece and initiate the next phase of the play. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to, I'm not making a direct comparison to Adams. I'm just saying, like, in terms of mobility and toughness in the tackle, it's kind of like

Adams and then there's a very long drop off and who's next. Sure. No, I'm with you. So Pamikal would think would help this Gold Cup 23. I'm pretty confident saying that. I am too, yeah. Now, the warts are he's not really a creator of danger. To me, he looks like an excellent box-to-box midfielder,

the sort of disruptor we were just talking about, who can deliver a transition opportunity. And what's next for him? Well, it goes back to FC Dallas, hopefully crushes it for the rest of the season and gets sold to a mid-table Bundesliga club. It's like soon, right? Like, what would your time frame be? I feel like this is a FC Dallas now with the new MLS sort of rules.

I would have tons of incentive to move him because they keep everything, right? If they sell him on? Yeah, I don't know if he, is he a $5 million player? Is he a $10 million player? I don't think he's a $10 million player. No, I think he's probably like a $3 million player. And he probably is probably hurt a little bit by still the lack of, proven MLS to big time European League transfers.

Right. I mean, Adams was a big win in the win column there. But I don't know, Dallas seems like Dallas does need him, kind of. They need him to be good. I feel like maybe I'm wrong about that. They've got Jacori Hayes filling in. Who's been filling in for him for all the U-20s have been going on? It's a rotating cast.

I mean, they've had Thomas Roberts in there, the 17-year-old. They've had Jacori Hayes, Carlos Gruazzo, Brian Acosta. But Brian Acosta and Carlos Grasso are both headed to the Gold Cup and Copa America, respectively. So there's going to be plenty of opportunities and plenty of need for Pomacall over the next month or so. All right. Well, don't sell them this season. Sell them in January or sell them next August. Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to complain if they sell them this season.

I'm just trying to get a sense of what's realistic there. Now, for me, the stock is probably slightly up for both of these guys, but not dramatically. They are kind of who we thought they were, more or less, coming into the tournament. Is that fair? Yeah. Let me give Pomacol one more compliment. While you're right, he's not, I don't think anyway that he's going to hit a lot of the sort of the Ledsma type passes that completely. unlock the last attacker to score.

We saw Tim Waya hit Soto with that magnificent little outside of the foot disguised ball. And we've seen We've seen Waya do that with the assist to Bobby Wood against Columbia, too, for the senior team. But there was evidence of Pomacall hitting the past sort of behind the pass, where he would slip somebody in. Even the ball to Wea wouldn't necessarily be thought of as like the assist. Waya did a ton of work to create the shot. But you're putting Wea in a really good.

place to set up a shot for himself or someone else. And Pomacaw had had several of those into wide attackers, I would say. Yeah, I agree. So that's a valuable thing to get from your all-action player. So it's not just about ball waiting. It's not just about a guy who really wants to ball at his feet, who will provide solutions off of the ball to teammates who are in trouble that you can rely on to just sort of get it into him and he'll find the next thing.

he can sort of hit that first pass that starts to create that dangerous situation. Yeah. And if you, I was going back and looking through clips to do some, let me do a plug for the Patreon. I did a bunch of patron-only GIF content last night just to try to get people,

you know, give people some reward for supporting the podcast. And you go back and you look at some of the best plays from the tournament. And it's remarkable how often Pomacol is involved in the buildup. You know, this XG change. statistic. I don't know if we have it for this tournament, but he, for example, the, you know, that really delightful Mendez ball to Wea, the one against Nigeria, the one that everybody's so excited

about. That starts with Sergenio Dest tracking down a ball in the corner and then hitting, you know, what kind of looks from the tight camera angle looks like a, just sort of a blind clearance. It turns out it wasn't. It was a pass to Pomacol who was showing for Dest all the way on the touchline. Pomacol comes back to the ball, takes a nice clean first touch, and then passes it to Conrad Delafonte, Delafonte, to Durkan, and then Durkan

finds Mendez in the middle of the field, and Mendez skips by a couple guys and then plays that slicing ball in behind for Waya. But none of that happens if Pomacol is not sort of alert and active and making himself available as a solution for Dest, who's in kind of a desperate situation. Right.

He's either just going to kick it long or somebody's going to show for him and give him an opportunity to play the past, too. So. Right. So often you see the defender there just sort of hoof it up the sideline sort of into the channel and we can maybe go apply some light pressure and that's the end of the possession.

And that's sort of that underappreciated effort and energy and that willingness to be like no I can solve this I want it like just get it get it near me and I can keep us playing yeah so I'm high even after that even after that little exercise

last night I'm even higher on Pomacall than I was before and I was already pretty high on him so definitely I think he's I think he slides into this 23 man roster for the Gold Cup with ease okay so does that mean we're expecting Waya and Pamacol in the September friendlies? I don't know what we're expecting.

What are we expecting? I am. I'm expecting, I mean, again, not to get too far into the senior team, but after some of the showings we've seen, I'm expecting quite a bit of turnover unless some guys really redeem themselves, because I feel like there are guys playing their way out of, out of sort of our top 23. We'll get into that. Let's get into the second tier of these U20s.

Yeah, this is going to be a four-hour podcast at this rate. So tier two, these are see you in November. And I'll just say hopefully, right? I mean, I don't know that we're going to see them in November. But the Concaf Nations League, we have two fixtures in early October, two fixtures in early November. By the time November rolls around the club season will be, what, you know, two and a half months underway. So if things are moving for some of these players, they hopefully will have started moving by then. Tier 2, first player I got in mind is Sergenio Dest.

What I like is he's an absolute lockdown defender against France and Ecuador after being somewhat culpable for the first goal against Ukraine. And then so he bounced back. He had his early struggle and then he bounced back and he was arguably our best player in the last two games of the the tournament. In the buildup, he's elegant, calm, assured. He combines as well as anybody on the team. So he's just a classy player. I thought that going in, didn't you? Like, Dest is... I for sure did. And for me, it was almost all about the forward motion that he gives us, because he's not just calm and assured. He's sort of, he's almost like explosive coming out of the back. With the ball at his feet immediately after he passes, he is. exploding through we got that taste in the ukraine game with uh with his multiple combinations

that led to him at the top of the box setting up uh tim way out with a little bit of a heavier touch but uh you see that you i mean you you you see something like that you're like who is the last right back we've had to do this would be i mean i guess you'd say maybe a phomiann johnson would give us some of that when he would uh moonlight as a defender yeah um but in any event like it's it's it's such a promising uh display going forward uh that there was a little bit of cold water thrown on it when he was clearly at fault for Ukraine's first goal. Yeah. I was a little shook by that. And then he didn't look at his best against Nigeria going forward, even though he did play a pivotal role in creating the goal against Ukraine. Against Nigeria,

he didn't have like an eye-popping game going forward. So I was, I was a little shook. I'll have to admit it. But then he did definitely come roaring back and was just outstanding against France and Ecuador. I'm going to brag here about how I was very much less shook by his defensive mistake against Ukraine. And even at the moment in our little discussion group, I posted a clip of John Brooks's, one of John Brooks's early caps where he gets beat by a ball in the air. and Edge and Jekko flicks a ball over him and scores. And I just remember so many people being like, maybe John Brooks just isn't ready yet. I'd just be like we're really defenders are going to make,

every goal we give up, you're going to be able to point at a defender and say, he really messed up here. So unless every game is a clean sheet, you can't disqualify your defenders because they have one of those errors. It's got to be like, okay, he is continuously making this error. Teams are literally targeting this guy for this reason.

I mean, kind of like the Anthony Robinson situation where it's like, okay, teams can just target his positioning and off ball shape and just beat him behind again and again and again. That's where you have the cause for concern. If it's sort of just, okay, he got beat here. Is he still getting beat every time in the air? Is this just a never-ending liability? If not, then, you know, weighed accordingly. Yeah, and I would say the answer to that question is, no, it was not a never-ending liability. He was at fault that one time, but he dealt with several lofted balls in later stages of the tournament.

So that would be the wart. Maybe he has a problem with a ball in the air, but it kind of looks more like a one-off than anything at this point. So with that in mind, you have a player who can, who locked down Musa Diabi, who locked down, you know, basically everybody who tried to come at him he shut him down and then casually dispossessed them and tapped it to one of his teammates. It's a beautiful thing to see. And he can combine forward explosively as you put it. So that's it. That's an exciting combination.

What's next for him? He'll get a chance to break into the IAC's first team in preseason. Problem is he's got three right backs ahead of him in the depth chart right now. Two of them are 21 years old. So something's got to give there. It's possible, Nusair Masraoui, one of the stars of the IAC's Champions League run, will move to center midfield

with Frankie Diyang heading on to bigger and brighter things. And then Desh will just have to take his chance and move into the first team rotation. It's not going to be easy. I don't have any inside information on it, but it's possible. And if he can break through at IAX, I would say even in a very limited capacity,

like call him up and start him in the Concafalf Nation's. league fixture. Like, it's game over. He jumps Lima by a thousand miles and, um, let's not mess around here. He is a dual national. Right, right.

Yes. No, uh, but again, it speaks to that issue we have about these players who are fighting for minutes at these sort of top clubs, uh, for some reason, they just blink into existence for the senior team if they,

if they get minutes. Whereas, uh, like I would have no problem if he's still playing well for, uh, young iax working him in in november regardless yeah i mean i i agree with that i just don't see it as realistic from from the current regime and maybe any regime i don't know i'm not i have no experience coaching a national team well again maybe uh maybe lemma will cover himself in glory over the next month and

and will be less there'll be sort of less urgency to either get Tyler Adams a replacement so we don't have to rely on him there or to find his backup. So the system doesn't collapse without him. Yeah. I mean, Dest, I'm not, I'm not a huge fan right at the moment of the inverted fullback system. But Dest can do that. He's got all the tools, right? Yeah.

Okay, should we move on to the rest of Tier 2? Yeah. Should we have listed everyone in the tier first to give everyone a taste of what, of what, of what this group is or do you want to just go one by one? I'm changing it mid-stream here. Okay, well, let's go tier one with Tim Wea and Paxson-Pomacall. That is Gold Cup upgrades immediately. Tier two, see you in November.

And that's Sergenio Dest, who we just mentioned, Chris Gloucester, Richie Ledesma, and Julian Araujo. So let's move on to Gloucester. Okay. So is Gloucester for you a little bit of, I mean, a lot of need, based is like an at the moment situation. Yes, absolutely. Because Tim Riemes are starting left back in 2019.

Yeah. I think, so I'll start with the wart on Gloucester. The only wart I can think of is maybe he doesn't have an unbelievably high ceiling, you know. But he's steady as all get out. He's very strong defending 1B1. He's not as explosive going forward as death, but he can get forward. He's composed. He can create some danger on occasion.

It's sort of selective when he does it. But he did have obviously the assist on Sebastian Soto's second goal against Nigeria, and that was a thing of beauty. There's a need at left back, so that that sort of ties into what's next for a Gloucester. Despite the rumblings that he doesn't want to resign with Hanover, I hope he does, and I hope he starts for them into Bundesliga this fall. because with 600 minutes under his belt by November at a big club, granted it would be a second-tier German club,

but still a big club. He fills a need at left back for the U.S. men's national team at least would deserve a look, given how shoddy we have been in that position. Right. And obviously Tim Riem is no longer going to be classified as a Premier League left back. So being in the second division can't really be a deal breaker here. Oh, I'm sure someone will find a way to make it a deal breaker.

I don't know. I mean, we have, no, I like it. I like Gloucester. I like, I would love to see, I would love to see him in that position where he's just playing against grown men for a couple months. And if he is, and he seems to be doing okay. Again, that, that particular barrel is very empty. Another barrel that's empty is not empty, but. maybe empty is the creative number 10 position and and that's why I'm putting richel dezma in tier

two because it's absolutely an empty barrel we're literally moving our best winger into that barrel just to try to make any like anything out of it okay so I understated the case um here's here's what i like about richel dezma and I I will admit that this is the most speculative guy in the in tier two. But he's just got a huge upside. We saw it in his cameo against Qatar and his start against France. His first touch is aggressive. He can glide by people.

He showed in that France game that he can glide by people at a much higher level than we've ever seen him do it before. These are the guys he's up against our, generally speaking, first teamers in big five leagues, right? In that France friendly, you're saying? Yeah. No, in the France, not friendly. Yeah, I'm sorry, the France, 220, not friendly.

Yeah, yeah, correct. And he's reliable in possession and he's an intelligent attacker. We saw that with that, the overlap he did against Qatar. You know, he takes a pass from Soto in the middle of the field. He takes an aggressive first touch, kind of pulls it back on his right foot, plays a pass to Yanez on the right wing, and then he makes us like a long looping run around Yannes to create an overload, receives a ball from Yanez, and then plays across into the box.

Nothing came of it, but I just love the inventiveness and intelligence there. he's not he's not fit so if we're talking about warts homie needs to get fit he was but that's that's somewhat understandable right i mean he'd been hurt until all the way through march like he just got back to his club fitness like three what three weeks before uh the team left for poland am i close there is that yeah absolutely right yeah so it's not as though this is just like a dude who you know can't hang for night we don't know that he he won't be able to get his fitness back can be a 90-minute player. Yeah, I'm not prosecuting him for not being fit.

I'm just saying like it sounded a bit accusatory. Okay, okay. Sorry, Richie. I'm not accusing you of lack of character there. I'm just saying like it's terrible VO2 max. Would say that again? He has terrible VO2 max. That's not what they used to measure your oxygen intake and ability to translate it into energy output.

I don't know, Bells. I'm not a sports scientist. I think you are a sports scientist. I'm just saying like it's crucial that he, you know, he gets stronger and fitter this summer if he's going to break into PSV, which is kind of, you know, which is kind of what he needs to do if we're going to see him with the national team in November, which is the name of this tier, see you in November. Sure. I'm still, I'm still more speculative than you. And I'm like, if he's just doing things, doing crazy things at Young PSV, get him in. And the reason for that is we have looked.

looked really rough with our non-Christian pool of sick players in that role. Georgie's looked real rough. Christian Rodon just doesn't look like he's the type of player to do that. He might, Roldon might be valuable in plenty of other roles, but in that particular role, and I'm talking very much about Ledesma in that Christian Pulisic position, right? Yeah. Of the number 10. It minimizes the amount of defensive work Ledma would have to do.

It kind of is like a dream scenario if you were to take all of Ledesma's strengths. it amplifies them. And if you were to look at his weaknesses, it minimizes them. Yeah. Well, from your lips to Greg Burhalter's ears, Greg. It's like the one reason I don't want to abandon his system yet, because I want to have at least one friendly with Ledzma in that spot. Yeah.

Or one Conca Cap Nation's League game because we're not going to have much many friendlies. I'm still going to call those friendlies. There's no chance I'm going to call those competitive games. Yeah, but they're at the cap. people. So that's crucial. There's a lot. There's a lot to, at least from my perspective, a lot to like about it. There's something at stake. It's not that much, but I think it may evolve into being something serious at stake. And these are cap-tying appearances. Okay. So let's get Ledesma into it. Yeah. And then, you know, if Burrhalter is operating on the assumption that we need

him to get first team minutes before he comes into the national. don't seem, maybe he is. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me too much. There's no inside information for me, but the one sort of shred of hope that that will happen sooner rather than later is that PSV has invested in Ledesma. He's a non-EU passport holder on their books, which means they have to pay him something like $230,000 euros a year. That's a lot to pay for a youth player.

And that rule is set to like double, right, in the next. 12 months or so. So he really has to make it make his value known because I think that rule is going to change where it'll actually be like 450,000. If you're over 20, yeah, if you're over 20, which he's not going to be until, you know, September 20, 21. He's still, he's still only 18. But yeah, your point remains. They're putting money into them. This isn't just throwing everything at the wall and they'll take whichever kid hits. They put money into this kid. Yep, that's right. And so that's a, that's reason for optimism. But, hopefully he can just have an uproarious summer training camp.

All right, my homework before the season kicks off will be to see how PSV structures their rosters for like the Dutch Cup games. Because if he can even get into a Dutch Cup game for the first team, I feel like that will satisfy the first team requirement for everyone who's a stickler about it. And then we're allowed to call them in finally. Yeah, yeah. Well, keep us posted. Keep us post.

I will. I will. All right. Last guy in tier two, which I think is kind of a surprise. It's a surprise that he's in and maybe a surprise that a couple other guys aren't. But give us your last name. Julian Arajo.

He didn't play in this tournament. But he's as pro-ready a player on this roster as anyone, partly because he has shown that he's pro-ready. He's looked excellent in two of his three starts at right back for the LA Galaxy. The wart is simply that he wasn't rated by Tabray. Ramos enough to get minutes in this tournament, which I can understand the equation there. I'm not going to, I'm not going to dogg on tab too much for that. So what's next for Arauj?

He's back in L.A. If he can win the starting right back job this summer, which sources say is not too far-fetched, he could end up being the breakout MLS Youngster of the Year, even ahead of Palmacall and Aronson. And then it's just a matter of whether Burrhalter wants to call him up for the Concaf Nation's League fixtures in October. I think Who's he trying to beat out for that right back spot for the galaxy? Rolf Felcher One of the best looking men in Major League soccer

Oh man I don't know if that like I feel like that weighs on managers They don't like to take those guys out of the lineup Yeah they're good for ratings Good for ratings All right so he's got to beat out Ralph Yeah And you're actually hearing that that's possible

Or are you just kind of like Based on what you've seen You're like now he could ease got this Other wild speculators have speculated that he has a good chance. All right. I'll take it. You know, he sort of shared the job with Felcher over the last couple months. So it's not crazy to think of it that way.

He's an elite athlete. He's a really tough competitor. He's really strong in the tackle. And he's reasonably comfortable on the ball and can find a meaningful pass. Okay. Because at this point, you know, we kind of do have to compare him to the guys that you're expecting him to beat out, which let's assume Dest never really gets any first team looks. And young Iax isn't enough to get him a call up. But if Arajo is doing it for the first team, is he still, does that leap over a Reggie Cannon who's doing it for the first team at Dallas?

Does it bump him over Nick Lima who's doing it for first team in San Jose? Yeah, maybe not. And obviously we have Deontre Yedlin, who we just haven't really talked about yet. Yeah. It is going to be hard for Arajo to break into 23. He would have to be, you know, amazing this summer, right? Right, right.

Yeah, so for me, like, this is one where I'm going to push back on you. And I'm not going to have Arajo in my second tier, just because I feel like he would just sort of be, more of a Reggie Cannon, whereas Sergenio Dest is going to be a very different type of player than a Canon or a Yedlin. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. I could be talked.

I could be talked down to Tier 3. I mean, there's a lot of people who were really high on Arajo. There was much rejoicing when he was added to the roster, albeit with the sympathy for Iowa Canola. Right. Yeah. I feel like that. probably fair to move him down to tier three, which is not a knock on his long-term potential.

It's just sort of the position is a little more full. I'm just not ready to be all in on Nick Lima. I know a lot of people are singing his praises right now. And Reggie Cannon, I think, has shown that he's not international caliber. He's developing. He's still a relatively young player. But the last time we saw him, I think, was the Italy game. or the England game.

And I know you want to discount everything that happens in those games. And I am sympathetic to that. But just like straight up 1 v1 defending and comfort on the ball wasn't there from Reggie Cannon. Okay. Or at least is there to be overtaken? Yeah. Okay.

All right. Fair enough. So Araro could at least jump over a Reggie Cannon on the depth chart. Yeah. All right. Tier three. And I feel like this is where they're going to be like. the names on here, surprising that they weren't higher.

Yeah, well, the first one is Chris Richards. And I think his stock rose for me more than anyone in this tournament, perhaps, you know, with Chris Gloucester in a close second. He was just, richard was just incredibly reliable, decisive, impressive. His speed of recognition, as Darrell Grove puts it, has his understanding of angles and how to use his body, his calm on the ball, and the athleticism to exit. execute his almost always very good decisions, make him just an excellent centerback. And I was very proud to be an American when I watched him play.

Yeah, a lot of those traits are things that I think you sort of identified even from his like, preseason last summer tour with Bayern Munich. And granted, that level of competition is also kind of inconsistent. But those pieces were there. Like you could see some of those pieces. His comfort on the ball is the weight of his passes. But mostly recognizing when something was about to get dangerous and snuffing it out ahead of time,

which was fully on display in this tournament. Yeah, another thing, another thing he did really well, which I didn't mention in my little soliloquy, was he imposed himself physically on the other team's attackers right from kickoff. It seemed like every game we played, he would come in and crush somebody, or just like let them know he was there and either get whistled for a foul or win a tackle at midfield.

And it was just the message was sent immediately like you're not going to, we're not going to be bullied back here, you know? And I really love that. Maybe a bit of a subtle thing, but also doing it in a time where it's not going to be like an obvious yellow card situation. Like he's not silly enough to put himself in the book in the first 30 seconds, but he just knows exactly when the opportunity is. there for a harmless, tactically harmless sort of foul to blow somebody up and sort of send that message. Yeah. It's almost like he's a natural in the way that we talk about attackers being natural, you know,

having an understanding of like the passing vision. Alex Mendez's passing vision and, you know, his ability to execute these like inventive ideas. it's almost like the defensive equivalent of that, you know, where I don't know how you teach somebody to have exactly the right timing every time or to understand how to foul at the right weight, you know, the right weight of foul. It's it's to maximize the damage you inflict without incurring a more significant penalty. Right, exactly. I mean, that's hard to do. I play defense in my men's league.

And I've, I'm not, I can't even come close to getting the weight right of my fouls. it's either like it's either a yellow card or like my ass is on the ground and they scored a goal you know well i want like i want some kind of an analytic radar on that kind of a defensive stat yeah we'll see we'll see how they do at stats bomb okay so so richards is super impressive so why are we not looking at him as a gold cup upgrade or a guy we want to see in november because he's gonna probably be playing for byron two this year i mean that's the the latest word i mean it's possible he goes on loan, but it's not likely at all that he will break into the first team at one of the world's mega clubs. And so he won't get a chance, you know, playing in the third division of Germany, he won't get a chance to prove that he can do these things at a high level unless he goes on loan.

And maybe that happens. And then he becomes a tier one, a tier one centerback. So a loan to a two Bundesliga side could easily see him. if he exhibits the same quality, that puts him in the roster in November, potentially. But in the three Bundesliga, we're just not ready to make that jump. I don't know.

I mean, are you? I mean, I wouldn't hate it, but the other problem I feel like he's up against is we have at least, what I considered up until last week, we have some really competent centerbacks who are not like placeholders. They're not 35-year-old.

you know, they're not on their last legs. Our centerback core is actually in their prime. Yeah, Zimmerman Long was atrocious on Sunday. We'll get into that. But John Brooks still, you know, I mean, it's sort of the, what I would still say is the default number one. And then you have plenty of candidates who have shown that they are competent for his partner, whether it's Zimmerman, whether it's Miazga, Aaron Long went, when fit.

So you have all these guys who are mid-20s, early 20s. We're sitting on Miles Robinson for Atlanta United doing it as well as anybody in MLS, and he's 21, 22. So it's a lot more. There's almost no urgency to get Chris Richards into the group. Yeah, which is why him playing for Byron 2 and for this whole season, I would think he doesn't get a call up. If he goes to, I don't know, Dino Mo Dresden.

or something. I don't know if Dino Mo Dresden is even still in the two Bundesliga, but some two Bundesliga club and then just studs out in the fall and looks like, and looks just as amazing there as he did at the U20 World Cup. Then I think

you're, then I think if you're Greg Berthelter you're like, okay, this is an elite 19 year old centerback we have on our hands. We're bringing him in. He may think that anyway, but it's hard. I was going to say, what if what if, because I assume Byron going to go on their normal, like, preseason tour of the U.S. to make a ton of money,

and they're savvy enough that they're not going to leave their American off of the field. What if he balls out in the preseason tour? Does that get him anywhere? I don't know. I feel like we've had to learn over the last few years that these preseason tours mean very little, right? Well, I don't mean it gets them anywhere with Byron, but way I looked really good in it, and then way I looked really good for the U.S. So that's sort of what I'm wondering.

Does Chris Richards looking great against Manchester United in a meaningless game in August translate to, let's give him a shout in October with the senior team? Maybe, maybe. Even if he's going to head back to the little stadium on the Byron campus where they play the Division III games, maybe. I wouldn't hate it because I figure like that frees up Miles Robinson and Aaron. and long to play in their MLS playoff games. Yeah, okay.

And presumably we'll have... Blanker's government will be playing in the playoffs. I'm sorry, go on, go on. And then presumably we should be able to beat Cuba and who else are we playing Cuba in Canada, is it? I think it is. I have not looked at the League of Nations friendlies.

That was called Concahap League of Nations. That's it. It's not the Woodrow Wilson name for it. Concagap Nations League. Not League of Nations. That failed international enterprise. No, it wasn't failed. It became the UN, right?

Let's go on. I also failed to read off the names in this tier, and I'll do that. That's right, because Chris Richards, I feel like kind of deserves his own as the, what I would still say is the standout player for the U.S. I think a lot of people are calling him out of that tournament the best prospect, even though he might not have the fastest route into the first team, into the senior team. Yeah, so if we were doing a classic stock up, stock report, he would be stock way, way up. He was dominant and was outstanding.

I don't think anybody disagrees about that. But this category is called C-U in 2020 because it's, it just doesn't seem super likely that they'll break in to the senior national team before the end of the year. And the names are Chris Richards, Alex Mendez, Ullianez, and David Achoa. and I imagine we may have some disagreement here. But let's talk about Alex Mendez. Are you good with Chris Richards? Yes, very good with Chris Richards. Okay, so Mendez has come under some criticism,

including on this podcast for his defending and not finding the ball enough. And so I just want to say, like, I still have plenty of Alex Mendez stock. He's 18 years old, and he is a special, special player. He is passing vision, his technique, his shot from distance, his set pieces, his ability to make quick decisions and hit passes in stride and create rhythm for the whole team

and then create danger. He both creates rhythm and he creates surprise. I don't know, half the times he touches the ball. I think his rate of doing something interesting with the ball is very high, and I know that's not a real stat, but I think that makes him fun to watch. Go ahead. No, I'm going to again put it in the context of the senior team. After the displays we've just seen where everything was safe to the point of actually like hurting us, that matters.

Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, you put him with a Tyler Adams Weston McKenney midfield or even a Tyler Adams, packs and pomacall midfield and he'll he's protected and he um some of his weaknesses are are masked somewhat so i think well same same as la desma like he he could play in that uh sort of that georgie role i think i've called it the georgie role and the pool of sick role now now it's going to start being the ledesma role uh and his defensive uh issues are essentially non-existent because you're just sort of playing as the second forward just trotting left and right as the ball shifts Yeah, yeah.

I don't think it's going to happen probably this year. And I mean, we'll see, you know, his club situation is sort of up in the air as far as I know. I don't know where he's going to end up, but I don't know that it's guaranteed he'll be with Freiburg this fall. I got to say also, I don't appreciate the side of the argument that says, well, Mendez is a flawless player. he has no weaknesses and we shouldn't you know anybody who criticizes his ball winning or his defense is just some troglodyte who doesn't understand soccer that's i think that's bullshit too um in 2019 especially right yeah it's where where the game is moving very much towards uh 11 players like with extremely coordinated defensive motions yeah yeah and and even if even if

Mendes plays on a team that has 75% of possession every game, which is, let's face it, not going to be the U.S. in the next four years, right? Even if you played on a team like that, you have to cover on counterattacks. You have to win the ball. The goal that, the goal that Ecuador scored was not a giveaway at the back. It was a cross from Sergenio Dest that was headed out and we needed somebody to we needed somebody to track it down and slow down the counter attack or win the ball and neither mendez nor durkin could do it um and they scored a goal coming the other way so like so so even if we're even if we have all of the ball we still need you still need a little bite from him so i think he's only 18 i think he can get stronger i think

he can get more fit i thought he was like about 45 minutes fit for this tournament did did you yeah do you agree? Well, I mean, he clearly would fade in the second half of games and whether that's 45-minute fitness or whether it's just not three games or four games and two and a half weeks fitness. I don't know. I mean, did you think he faded against Ukraine in the opener? It's kind of hard to remember. Maybe not as much, no. So, yeah, so like the congestion of games also sort of took its toll, I'm sure. and some of the rotation decisions they can just whisper that.

Like they they sort of might have worked against him as well but but no I agree he's not like a he wasn't he wasn't dominating the game for 90 minutes at a time. Yeah I mean he definitely faded against Nigeria

and Qatar well Qatar he actually had a pretty good second half to be honest but against Nigeria and then against Ecuador he he faded in the second half so I don't appreciate this idea that like anybody who criticizes anything about his game is an idiot who doesn't understand soccer.

I don't like that. But I do think he is, he's special in a way that nobody else in the pool is. I mean, I feel very confident saying that. And if he can get, you know, a little bit better at defending, a little better at finding the game, even when everybody around him isn't world class, you know, still being able to find the game, he has a, he has potentially a very bright international future. and I'm hopeful about it. How about this?

Even if he doesn't improve his defending, and I'm not saying, I'm not going to do the whole, is he worth building the whole team around? But is there, like, can you mask it even just with who you surround him with, like with one or two decisions? Does that make sense? Do you kind of get what I'm saying? You know, we saw in the world in the U-20s,

he was played next to Durkan, and the two of them in the same midfield, maybe didn't offer enough protection for the back line. So the sacrifice to get Mendez's elegance is extreme vulnerability on the break. So if you just substitute one player at Durkin v. Sivrania, does that give Mendez the protection that he needs to do his worldly ball-winning stuff or ball-plung stuff? Yeah, I think it would have helped a lot. And I think that solidity would have given him more freedom.

I mean, I think as people have pointed out, Kada's rough game distributing out of the back didn't help Mendez in that game either. The conditions need to be right for Mendez. I mean, I guess that's the thing. And if he can limit the extent to which the conditions need to be right by, you know, imposing himself on a game rather than having the conditions imposed on him, then the extent to which you can do that is going to be helpful. Does that make sense what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're just talking about to what degree is he, I don't know, I don't even want to use the cliche luxury player, but like to what degree is, can he contribute to both phases of play or the four phases of play? Yeah. I mean, we shouldn't go on too long about him, but I mean, he did create Tim Weas,

goal-scoring chance against Qatar by poking the ball away from somebody. He did win the ball from somebody in that game and then play that beautiful ball over the top for Wea. Like he's not he's not willing to get stuck in. He just needs to get fitter and stronger and a little more locked in and aware of danger. And I think then that makes it a lot easier to put him in a lineup because he's so special. I mean, he's so, so good. His passing vision, his strikes from distance, like his quality are, there's nobody like him. There's nobody like him on this U-20 roster.

There's nobody like him at the senior level either. I'm tired of hear myself talk about it. Do you have anything else to say? All right. No, no, no. I think he's right where he belongs in that tier because of sort of those question marks, but also because of the undeniable quality that he does. have.

Okay. Last two names here, Ullianez. I thought he was a difference maker off the bench. Still looks a little raw. Maybe took a few too many touches,

not just in the Ecuador game, but even in the Qatar game. But man, he came on the field and he immediately created danger and changed that game against Qatar,

helped change the game against France. Change the game. against Ecuador, not in a way that that got us a result, but did definitely change the flow of that game when he came on at halftime. He's got a strong right and left foot. He can get to the end line. He can cut inside. He draws fouls. He can play a beautiful ball across. I'm really excited to see what happens with him at Wolfsburg. I don't think he's, you know, he's one of the younger players on the roster. I don't think he's going to, my money's not

him immediately breaking into the first team at Wolfsburg. It's one of the better clubs in the Bundesliga right now. He's 18 right now, right? He just turned 18, yeah. So he's... Okay. So, yeah, yeah, he doesn't need to be doing all those things yet. I mean, he'd be awesome if he does,

but we shouldn't really... That shouldn't need a bar. But just the 1V-1 ability, where I feel like the only other guy we have doing that right now Christian Pulisic, that for me is why, is why Yana is sort of is in this tier, because if that, if he transits that to the senior level against grownups, then it's going to be, then he offers something that even like Tim Weaat doesn't offer. And that's, that's exactly what we've been missing for going on a decade now.

Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's going to probably play, I would imagine he'll start. this fall with the, with the Wolfsburg U-19s, who were one of the best U-19 sides in the, in Germany. And then, you know, we'll just have to keep track and see what happens. Final. But yeah, that's something that's something where even at 19, Yannis could be like, I mean, he could essentially inherit the, or take over in Burrhaler's mind, like the Jonathan Lewis role, where, all right, well, this guy we throw on for the last 15 minutes, and he just skins people left and right

and ends up with an assist every game. Right. Right. I mean, a 15-minute sub for the national

team, I think we could do a lot worse than Ullianez. We certainly could. The last name in this tier is goalkeeper David Ochoa.

He got two starts in the World Cup. He's from Real Salt Lake. I thought, you know, you're the goalkeeping expert here.

Did you, do you blame him at all for the first Ecuador goal? No, not on any of the angles I've seen. It's hard to tell if, I mean, it's a, it's an amazing strike, and it's hard to tell if he was either unsighted by either Durkan or, he had a centerback in the picture in the frame too, right? He had, he had, Durkine, like, did some weird over-commit thing where he, like, jogged past the, he finally caught up to the play, and then, like, overran it, so that he and Richards were effectively taking away the same. portion of the goal, which is poor.

Like you want to be maximizing the amount of goal you're taking away with all of your available pieces. So I don't know if Ochoa was also behind so that all three of them were obstructing the one spot. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.

You just have a really inefficiently constructed wall. So if that's the case, he might have been able to reposition himself, but he shouldn't he should have not of like, Durkan misplated so badly. Ochoa shouldn't have assumed that Durkin was going to go from one side of the ball to the other and not be taken like Durkan easily could have been taking away a portion of the far post

but he overran it to the point where he was taking away the near post instead if that if that sort of makes sense yeah yeah that makes sense so no I I don't have a lot of blame to give to Ochoa on that goal yeah I don't I thought he I thought he played well in both of his his outings he looks like he looks like he's going to be the starting goal Keeper for Ray Alsault Lake next year when after Nick Romando retires. And if that happens, you know, he's he's going to be, he's going to be in the picture. He's a, he's a confident kid. He had a huge save against Qatar.

He seems to, you know, he had some shaky moments here and there, but nothing that really punished us. And he seems to have a pretty good alertness in command of the box. So, I don't know. I think it says a lot that that Tab went to him for the Equipod game. I wasn't necessarily expecting that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he was a big decision from Tavis.

He was more confidence-inspiring than Scott, wouldn't you say? Yes, for sure. But even then, you know, it's, I get sort of Tab sticking with guys that he, that he was more familiar with. It's not like, I don't know. I mean, when the stakes are that high, like, it's really easy to default to the guy who has I mean, it's not like Brady Scott had a ton of, like howlers, I wouldn't say. I mean, he wasn't great. But Tab's hand wasn't forced. I'll say that.

Yeah, that's true. He went with his gut. So it says a lot about, yeah, it says a lot about Ochoa and Tab's confidence in Ochoa to pick him in that game. Yeah. All right. So he's also in Tier 3, which is, you know, see you in 2020, hopefully. The rest tiers four, five, and six are on the bubble, and that's Edwin Serrio, Sebastian Soto, and Mark McKenzie. I think we got to kind of move on to the Gold Cup here because we're over an hour already.

All right, let's do it. Let me just say, we didn't get to see any of Serio, so it's hard to really say anything about him. Sebastian Soto had four big goals, but there was enough uncleanness. in his holdup play. And we didn't see anything really special from him as a striker, 1V1 or, you know, technically or like the killer instinct, except that the timing of his runs was really good. I love the timing of his runs in behind.

But other than that, I didn't see anything that says, like, hey, this is for sure going to be a national team striker. Do you disagree? I think that's the one where people might disagree. And as everyone knows, I'm a Soto fan. it but right uh it's it's tough man like uh he did he did some things really well like when he was sprung uh he sort of used his time expertly like uh he used all the time he had to either wait for the goalkeeper to show show his hand or i mean like he essentially was always

taking the shot at the last moment uh which i think i think sort of shows that he makes good calculations uh but i honestly have hard time saying man like I don't know if he's going to, if he's going to be able to do it at the senior level. I mean, he's been racking up goals for, for Hanover's reserve team. I think, honestly,

I think you probably have him a little bit too low. And that also goes into how weak our striker pool is right now. Okay. So maybe, maybe see you in 2020. I mean, if he can, if he can get first team minutes in the two Bundesliga,

just like Gloucester, then I will eat my on the bubble world. I don't think you would necessarily have to go that far. He could still very much be not. I mean, two Bootonous League of minutes aren't going to be. Andrew Wooten didn't get called up after 17 goals. Yeah, that's true. So on the bubble is just me kind of punting, actually.

I just don't know. And the same with Mark McKenzie. Right. You know, he didn't have a very, he didn't have a very auspicious tournament because he wasn't fit. and you know that YTAB brought him when he wasn't fit and brought another centerback who probably wasn't ready for the level is a question for another podcast another time but we didn't get too much new information about McKenzie because he just wasn't healthy. Right. And then doubtful, you know, Chris Durkin's the one who goes, this is Tier 5, Chris Durkan's the one whose stock went down a little bit in my eyes. not because he's a bad player, just because he's not athletic enough to be a ball-winning number six.

And I think we need to start to prioritize that. Move in that direction. Yeah. Yes. Yes. That definitely seems to do better. Even in the U-12, I feel like that was sort of the lesson. That was sort of hammered home.

Yeah. So his counterpart, Brandon Servant, Sarvanya, is a ball-winning number six. I don't – it's hard to see him. you know, breaking into a team that has Tyler Adams and Weston McKinney and Pax and Palmicle on it over the next

10 years. He's, I don't think he's quite on their level. So I'm putting him in the doubtful category. Yeah, and these guys, like, again, there's 20,

we're talking about 21 U20 players. If you're not like completely dominating even in your age group, you know, it seems really unlikely that you're, you're not going to get jumped by either the, next cohort or that you're just going to suddenly surpass the existing options ahead of you.

Right. So that's where Dirk and Servania, like, yeah, it seems really unlikely that it'll happen. Cervani is already behind Serrillo at his club. So while there are games of leapfrog at times, like the percentages start to get pretty low. Yeah, that's right. And I'm really happy for the work that Serva, Serva, did in this tournament. He was excellent against France. and he was probably the right man for the Ecuador game,

but long-term harder to see him breaking through. Conrad della Fuente, I'm putting in the doubtful category, which is a little harsh because he's only 17, but he came across as a pretty one-dimensional winger as the tournament went by, and I think some people on big soccer and R.U.S. soccer subreddit will feel a little bamboozled by the Barcelona brand on this one. Well, and he might have benefited from Yanis not being fully fit.

Yes. Where Tab just felt more confident getting like a more consistent performance out of a Conrad, even if he thought, even, and this is complete speculation. But, you know, I don't think you can argue that per minute, Janice was far more dangerous. You can't argue that he wasn't more dangerous? That Yanez was far more dangerous on a per minute basis than Conrad was. Yeah, I would say. there's no contest there.

Yannes was more dangerous. So yes. So then it just comes down to, there may have been some worry about Yannis' ability to be a solid contributor for the full, for the full 90 minutes or even to get to 60 minutes. So Conrad maybe benefited from that. Yeah. Conrad was more fit. I think there's no doubt about that. He was also a little bit more responsible, both in possession and defensively, than Yonaz.

as Yanhas looked a little wild out there sometimes. But that might have been his job. His job might have been on there. I mean, take risks because we only need a couple of them to pay off. Sure, yeah, totally. Goalkeeper Brady Scott, I thought, I didn't think he was overly impressive in this tournament, even though he got the majority of the starts. And then Justin Renix did a yeoman's job coming off the bench against France,

especially and scored the game winner. I think he has a chance to be a very effective major league soccer player and maybe something more than that. But I don't know. Let me just change it. I'm going to put him in the on the bubble because we didn't get to see a ton of him. He did some nice things. We'll see. Yeah, tiny sample size there.

Yeah. And then the not applicable would be Matt Raoul, C.J. Dos Santos, and Abu Bakar, Kata. Ray Allen and Dos Santos we barely got to see and I don't think we expected to see much of them in this tournament and then Keita it's just not applicable because he's so he's so raw he didn't look

in two of the five games he did not look up to the level just in terms of comfort on the ball and everything he filled in admirably in a tight spot for the team I thought in a couple of the games but he's a kid with less than 200

USL League 1 minutes. I don't know how you could expect him to be good enough in a U-20 World Cup. Right, good enough in the U-20 World Cup and then to move on to the context of the senior team, you probably don't need to have him yet

on your depth chart for the centerbacks. Yeah. He's still young, so he could end up back at the Columbus crew next year and become a quality centerback. I mean, he has the physical tools. He just needs to get a lot better at passing out of the back, I think.

Should we move on? Should we move on to the Gold Cup? This has been a very long segment. Well, I feel like it's subconsciously because we don't want to move on to the Cold Cup. Right. Well, when we come back, we'll talk about that 3-0 loss to Venezuela and look ahead to Guyana on Tuesday. Okay.

Venezuela got three first half goals against the U.S. at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati. This was the last tune-up friendly before the Gold Cup in. It did not instill a ton of confidence. Did it, Greg? It did not. It was bleak. It was.

I had to watch it on delay with the full weight of the Twitter meltdown on my mind. So I didn't think it was quite as bad as everybody thought. I feel like I was going to say. That's probably, that's probably, probably almost good to watch it that way because I think you will be like, I don't know, we're doing some things or these guys look calm at least. It wasn't like a, it literally wasn't like a complete like meltdown of sorts. It would be up.

But the fact is we lost 3-0, so that's what everybody's going to remember. And let's get, the lineup was Zach Stephan, Nick Lima, Matt Miaska, Aaron Long, Tim Ream, Will Trap, Wes McKenney, and Christian Roldon, ahead of Trap, Tyler Boyd on the right wing, Paul Areola on the left wing and Giazzi Zardis at Center Forward. You got any early thoughts on the game? So it was exciting to see what Boyd would have to offer. I was glad to see that Westman McKinney was there playing. But otherwise, no.

Like that was it, right? Like those two guys in the lineup. I mean, I'm glad Aaron Long's, at least that can fit because it sure seems like our Gold Cup roster has a bunch of. fitness question marks. Yeah. Not that long necessarily answered that question, but, but no,

just to have McKinney and Boyd out there to offer something sort of new from what we've been watching rather than just having it be an extended January camp was hopeful. The hope didn't last too long. No, it's just hard to not feel like it's January camp when you keep seeing Roldon and Ariel and trap in the lineup. Anne's artists. Yes, yes.

I mean, those four. So that's really what it comes. down to for me is out of that attacking group. Even McKinney isn't like an out and out like attacker in my mind. So from that group, the only real like attacking player you have is Tyler Boyd and he, we knew nothing about him. That's that's what is the most frustrated in me is, I feel like Burrhalter chose a bunch of these sort of very safe players and and then is expecting them to, or the system.

then to just sort of carry them into really dangerous moments or to carry them through those dangerous moments. And so far, I don't think we've really seen any evidence that that will happen. No, no, we haven't. And my main worry then is that Christian Pulisic is going to be the answer or is expected to be the answer, but we don't really have a ton of evidence to suggest that Christian Pulcic planning a 10 is going to start to unlock defenses either. Yeah. I have real reservations about that. Yeah, maybe in transition. and maybe against a totally a defense in total disarray,

like the one that Honduras and Panama gave us in World Cup qualifying. Well, early in the game, I thought we looked okay for the first 15 minutes. We definitely had the better of the play. And then there was a header on a corner kick from West McKinney that drew a pretty good save from the Venezuela keeper. And then in the 16th minute, everything went to pot. a horrible mistake from Stefan passing out of the back, and it's a giveaway at the top of the box, and one pass, or maybe it was two passes, and then a finish from Solomon Rendon. And it's one zero Venezuela.

Probably one of my favorite moments of soccer in 2019. Just for the visual of a striker playing back to goal with the goalkeeper on his back, I think it's, you've never seen that in your life. but no their forward is posted up on our goalkeeper and they play an entry ball into his feet yeah yeah incredible incredible scene and it just kind of trickled in right it was sort of like slapped into the net by ron yes um so yeah a bit of a shocker there uh do we want to like actually dissect it a little or do we do we just sort of uh is all we can do we can do we laugh like is that all we can do at this point after the second such giveaway in two games i don't know what yeah you're i want you to

dissect it i don't really want to dissect it but i want to hear what you got to say uh so the guys were getting their correct the the defenders miasga plays a ball back miyazga maybe needed a little more urgency to start getting wide uh but aaron long did his job and was offering an open uh wide option for stephen um i don't even i don't even think it's a bad play for me i don't go back to stephen there the press wasn't so set up that he was playing stephen into a dead end. Stefan had an easy switch to long, and if an attacker fully commits to try to take long away, it would invariably open up one of the central passing lanes. That didn't really happen, so the central passing lane wasn't super on, and because neither McKinney,

like McKinney didn't work hard to give him a split into the middle, so McKinney wasn't on, and Will Trapp, I don't think, had the athleticism to create any separation to get away from his man, because Trap was sort of moving into that same passing lane that Stefan tried to find. The only option was Aaron Long or to go big. And I don't think he needed to go big there. I think Aaron Long was perfectly good. You give it to Aaron Long there, and you're still not in a dead end yet. So that's the play.

You go to Long. I think the system would ask McKinney and Trap to do more to be available, but it wasn't required to get out of that situation. Yeah, Stefan was really mad at McKinney, or he was yelling at McKinney to move more to get open for him there. And it did look like McKinney was a little flat foot, which is kind of, you know, McKinney can be that way sometimes. Yep, yep, we saw it on the second goal too. So let's move on to the second goal. Throw in in the U.S. half to Rondon.

He's followed by Miazga. Rondome flicks it on for Savorino, who's all of a sudden way in behind with a lot of space. 1V1 with Long. Long doesn't close. Savarino takes a shot with his left foot. It goes off the post, and the rebound comes back across the goal behind Stefan, and Savorino is the first one to get there before the aforementioned Weston McKinney, who was once again a little flat-footed. I think, I don't know if I really blame McKinney on that one so much.

much do you? Oh yeah. No, I totally do. McKenney and Timmering both. Ream's been let off the hook here too, but we're inexplicably stretched on this throw-in where there's no reason that there should be such big spaces between our defenders. There's definitely no reason for Miyazka to come chasing a man out of the out of the back to like end up between the lines. And then there's no reason for meazga to leap at the ball that he's not going to win. Again, it kind of goes back to that criticism of Dest. Like this is for me like as bad of a,

uh, an attempt in the air as Dest was against Ukraine. For me, I was going to sort of go for a hopeless ball by jumping. He's taking himself out of any play for the second ball. Will Trapp could have been offering more help in front of the players that we don't, they don't just have an easy path into his head. So a lot of these like weird things happening. But then all,

none of those matter once the read is our centerback is coming up to attack the ball. Like as soon as that's the read, Ream and McKinney and Trapp should all essentially be urgently moving to provide cover behind. Ream instantly, McKinney should be doing it once that first header is won and starts moving back towards our goal. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like McKinney can kind of hang out for a while to see, to try to get on the end of a second ball if it gets, if it gets knotted into his area. But once it goes back behind us, that's like, that's like panic mode. And this is where I get frustrated with Tim Reem because he doesn't have this urgency that a veteran should be giving us.

McKinney, that's been an issue for McKinney, a lot of video clips you shared with me over the last 18 months as the center mid. And again, it's in stark contrast to the Tyler Adams' early urgency that is better than anyone that we have. But, no, it's very much McKinney and Ream ball watching in a situation where your only job is to help provide numbers between the ball and the goal as quickly as possible. Yeah. It worries me. So I've never been a, I've never been a holder of much ream stock, but it worries me a little bit about McKinney because, you know, he's not, we know he's not outstanding in the attacking third,

although he did have a really nice hit that we'll talk about in a second. And we know he's not, and if he's not alert to danger defensively, I don't know, it's kind of hard. Where do you put him on the field? Where does he end up on the field, and what role does he play? either for club or country. Right. And is he sort of hurt by the definition of the role in Burr-Halter system where it's also

neither of those things. He's not like just a peer attacker, but he's also not a six. You know what I mean? So he's like, he always sort of has an out where he doesn't, I don't have to defend now. Like this is, now is not the time for me to defend like traps deep. So I'm, I'm in my hybrid role and like he's making hybrid decisions. Yeah.

Well, you think, you would think Paxon Pommel. or Sergenio Desd would have gotten a done a little better to get in front of Savarino on that rebound just on the evidence of what we've seen over the last few days. I don't know. I don't know. It's a concern. I actually end up most fussed about Ream.

Out of that whole sequence, like, I'm most fussed about Tim Ream, because if we're going to tolerate those kinds of mistakes, why aren't we tolerating them from one of the 22-year-olds or the 25-year-olds? Like, why are we bringing in a 31-year-old who's going to make those kinds of mistakes? Because he does the same thing on the third goal. Like when we get into it, you see his acceleration and his body language shift once the ball rebounds, which tells you that he, or not once the ball rebounds, but once long actually gets goal side of the guy.

Can I just get into the third goal bells? Because I kind of am. Yeah, go for it. Yeah. All right. So it's just sort of an easy ball over the top to a guy who is probably offside, which means. means it's really harsh to criticize Aaron Long for letting him get behind when letting him get behind is like the correct play because you, the AR should be doing the defending for you then. I don't know.

He was offside. If he was offside, it was by a hair. Yeah, but that's the game nowadays, man. Like those lines are so tight that you let the guy even dip his shoulder past you. You don't chase him and you trust your line. And for me, that's what I might take away watching high level stocker. So if you if you if you if you if you start chasing that every time like there your lines would be in disarray So you you trust in the AR to get it right the AR doesn't get it right there

Um long continues to chase and manages to salvage himself and get goal side no one else is coming back for him So long forces the guy to control the ball he doesn't over commit he control the ball He forces the attacker to control the ball and actually like cut it back and then still has time to do like a step over and no one else has arrived to help him. Like there's nothing a defender is going to be able to do to prevent a shot 1 v1 in the entire box when the attacker has the entire box to play in with no help on asking. I didn't notice that. So Reem didn't even get back to help out.

He starts trotting back. He puts his hand up at first, and I get that. I don't even know if he put his hand up first, but he starts trotting back and he doesn't even go immediately back towards the goal. He takes this weird angle slightly towards the corner of the box as though he's going to get wide for us to play a possession. Rather than sprinting back to get goal side of Aaron Long to provide a second option for if Aaron Long can force the guy to cut in, which Aaron Long did. Ream out. And Ream ends up half a step or one step late when he was just sort of jogging, which the same thing happened on the rebound off the post.

He's half a step late when he was just standing upright. defending the top of the box while all that was happening. Yikes. So, yeah, that sort of thing is frustrating if we're going to use a 31-year-old who's doing that stuff because you could be working in a 22-year-old at that point. Right. Yeah, no, you'll get no disagreement for me on that. I feel like I should mention the McKinney Chance because it was a nice bit of combination

in between the second and third Venezuela goals. excellent driven cross from Tyler Boyd Falls McHenny at the top of the box and he hits it well first time with his left foot and draws another good save from the Venezuelan keeper that was about the only bright moment from the first half though I think

we just can't we can't couldn't create anything and would you say that was it's mostly because our personnel aren't good enough they're the wrong personnel yeah I mean I don't think I don't think those we don't have create we didn't have creators in the on the field We whipped in a lot of crosses.

Tyler Boy's whipped in a lot of crosses. I don't love crosses anyway in 2019 as your primary attacking mode. I guess if you think West McKinney's going to get on the end of them, that's a decent target to hit them at, so that could change the math a little bit. But generally, I felt like our attack was sort of just this time-wasting exercise of passing until nothing would open up and our centerbacks would loft a ball diagonally or to try to hit a 10 running in behind.

Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty shitty, wasn't it? It was rough. I mean, it was real bad. And it's just, and again, it's these guys. Burrhalter keeps, he said, I think, on the last two games now, we need to be more aggressive going forward. And I don't think he means, like,

Ulliana's style, just drive at somebody. I think it's just the decisions of when to progress the ball with the past, when to, but we're not, we don't have those players. No one's willing to hit a ball through even a tight window. if it means getting it to the next level up, uh, it's, it's just a really conservative group of personnel.

And again, I just don't think that Christian Pulisic is necessarily just going to solve that. Dwayne Holmes might help solve it, to be honest. Uh, he's a guy who was sort of just pushing things forward at the very least. But I don't know that Tyler Boyd is the answer. And I'm not sure that Christian Pulisick is going to be enough.

It'll be enough against Gianna. Like, uh, you know, we're, we're going to be fine against. Gianna, that doesn't mean we're fine. Right. Yeah.

And I feel like that'll, we might get three wins in the group and then people will, people will feel a lot better. There'll be a lot, a lot less yelling and nothing will have been sort of actually solved. Even without Tyler Adams, you know, we'll have Christian Pulisick on the field. We'll have Josie Altador from the start. And he was, Altador came on at halftime, and he was an improvement over his artist, no doubt about it. McKinney and Boyd came off for Holmes and Morris in the 60th minute,

and I think partly because Altador was able to, you know, he was dropping in, and he was essentially orchestrating the attack. He was making passes that actually were penetrating. It was really, like, noticeable to have somebody in the attack who could improve your attacking situation. That's, that's exactly, like, that's what was missing. Like, all of the other attackers failed to improve our, attacking position. The ball came to them. We would, we would surrender tactical advantages with

every decision. And Altador is the opposite of that. Yeah. Yeah. And Holmes was bright too, I thought. I didn't think, you know, McKinney clearly didn't cover himself in glory on either of the first two goals, but I thought he had a pretty okay game. At least he was, he was progressing possession somewhat, which can't be said for most of the players on the field. Holmes was even brighter. He was an improvement on McKinney. I thought just his ability to step by a guy

to win the, to get to a ball quickly and then push the game. There were moments where he was mad at teammates for not receiving his passes cleanly. Like this just has to be better Christian. This just has to be better, Josie.

Right. Right. And I thought that was all great. Like he just brings a speed of play that is very noticeable in these games. Yeah, everyone else was underwater. So Altadour and Holmes were breath of fresh air. I'll say McKenny tries to push things too. There were some noticeable times where the ball would get fed to him in midfield.

He would feed it out to a 10. And like you talk about rhythm so much, he like sort of burst forward in the motion with his past. Like he feeds it out to Ariola and starts to burst past Ariola. And Ariola doesn't even have the semblance to look up. He's just one-touched it back to Tim Riem already. And we're recirculating through Will Trapp and going back to the centerbacks. So it's one where it's really difficult here.

Like I feel like the Sergeant versus Sardez criticism is easy to make. And I feel like it's pretty airtight. What gets more difficult is a player like a Jonathan Aman, where Aman's omitted for like are ariola or a Jordan Morris and it's really hard to conclusively say it's impossible to conclusively say Amen is going to be aiming would have been better than ariola but it's like We don't we don't know what Burrhalter's prioritizing It's like I feel like I we've seen some things from Jonathan Amon that show that he is a very dangerous explosive

winger but Burrhalter apparently maybe that's not his priority And areola is a more complete player but then we have to sit and complain. Burrhalter included about the guys not being aggressive enough and not trying to push the game forward enough. Yeah. That's a good point. That's where you go,

yeah, I know. Maybe we should have called in one of the dangerous attacking players. Right. Maybe Burrhalter in reality prioritizes obedience and conformity. And then when he watches the games, he prioritizes, danger, which he didn't prioritize in his selections. You know, I don't know.

I'm just talking out of my butt. Let's see. Next up. Let's talk about Tyler Adams. Let's talk about Tyler Adams. Yeah. So should we skip the rest of this, skip the rest of this game? Honestly, yes.

Like, we created a ton of chances in the second half, which were missed comically, like, on every occasion. And like, I think we had two sitters that were missed by two people on each sitter, which is another like just visual encapsulation. That's the deflected Lima Cross that Holmes whiffs on and then Areola biffs on. Skies over from a yard and a half. Yeah. And then the Morris rolled on calamity. Yeah. Which you know me.

Like, I don't actually hold those misses against them too much. Like, it's a ridiculous situation to have two guys wide open at the back post. So, of course, they both are going to go for it. And then when Roldon, the last second, tries to get out of the way and clears Morris out. Is that the order that happened in? I can't remember. You just chuckling, and that is kind of, that is kind of like, all right, well, we had a wide open. We created this look.

And Ariel had his chance saved. We had all these chances. Game State matters here. Ecuador is also just kind of watching us and laughing at that point with her 3-0 lead. Venezuela, Venezuela, not Ecuador. I'm sorry, Venezuela. So, you know, it's hard to put to say, oh, well, we completely turn things around. We never gave Venezuela anything to really worry about.

Yeah. I just love the phrase, the Morris Rolls-on calamity. Okay, Tyler Adams. Is he going to play? Is he healthy? Is he going to play? Because the whole system's built around him. Are we going to, is he going to be able to play in the Gold Cup?

Seen anything on the transit? Well, what we do know is Reggie Cannon has officially been announced as being added to the roster. So that means somebody has to go? Somebody's got to go and it's got to be an injury. And we haven't, they haven't officially said who that's going to be. There's some speculation that it could be Adams. And he's still, I mean, he was what he played, he was out for a month at the end of the, he's basically been out since the March friendlies, right?

Well, he played in the DFPPokal final, right? Right. So from the March friendly until the last week of May for the DFB Pocale, he was out for his club, and he hasn't reported to camp yet. So there's some speculation that he's just not going to be in camp, and we're going to have this Gold Cup system that was entirely built around Tyler Adams, not have Tyler Adams in it. Oh man, this skull cup just keeps getting worse and worse.

That's to be determined. What I kind of find ironic about all of these calls now, I mean, a lot of people who were pretty okay with this experiment, even are starting to sort of jump ship. We've only seen the Tyler Adams system once with Tyler Adams in it, and it was like a complete domination of sorts, and that was the friendly against Ecuador. Was it complete domination? I guess. It was a complete domination. I mean, if you look at Tyler Adams' touch map, Tyler Adams sure looked like a center midfielder in that game.

And that's the design, right? It's to control the game so much that he is basically a center mid, where all of his meaningful involvement is coming from that freedom to get into the middle and then go where the game sort of takes him. So it's kind of strange to be like, all right, well, we've got to get rid of this because it isn't working without Tyler Adams when he's very clearly the fulcrum of the whole piece. That's true.

So there's a little bit of hastiness there from probably me and others. That's just that portion of the system. There's a lot of other pieces in that system that I'm very ready to get rid of. Like having a ball playing soft number six midfielder? Yes. Who in my mind still hasn't shown that his ball playing is anywhere near good enough to be to be given that spot. Like it's a, you're sort of...

Are you speaking of the American Pierlo, Will Trap? Yeah. So, I don't know, man, like the narrative takes over. It does the same with Zardaz, where it's like, oh, but he's just such a good fit for the system. And that becomes the defense for using him, even though I have yet to see any real example of Zardaz benefiting from the system or adding to what the system gives us.

it's kind of the same with Will Trap. Will Trap does have a couple really nice diagonal balls in his minutes with the U.S. since Burrhalter was appointed. But he doesn't, I don't think, play quickly enough or against sort of, or there are too many games where he offers essentially nothing on the passing front. And I don't think you can be that player and rely on four or five highlights over seven or eight games. Like, you have to, you have to be hitting a lot of highlight passes per game. if we're going to carve out a role just for your passing.

Yeah. Yeah, totally agree. I feel like so much of what needs to be said about this game and this upcoming Gold Cup has been said, I thought the Total Soccer Show did a really good review of the game and extra time had a good review of the Venezuela game where Matt Doyle pointed out, we just need to win the ball in the midfield

and, like, get down, back to basics, win the ball in midfield, and dictate the game that way, because if we keep losing battles, losing battles for the ball in the midfield, we're going to keep losing games. And I think that it kind of comes down to that. Yeah, not being able to apply any pressure to opponents in the center of the field. Like anyone can play against you then. That's how you get sort of bossed around by a USL Jamaica team.

That's how you get, it's how you lose in Kuva. Right. It's how you look like a vastly inferior team to Honduras in San Pedro Sula. Yeah, I don't know. Is it even worth talking about how we should line up? Because we know what's going to happen. It's going to be Bradley and, you know, assuming Adams is not available, which doesn't sound far-fetched. It's going to be Bradley in Lima as the number six and the inverted right back.

and then what? It's going to be rolled on in McKinney as the dual eights. No, it's going to be McKinney and Pulisic. Okay, McKinney and Pulisic and then

Arieola and Boyd, right? On the wings and then Altador up top. And that's probably, that's probably good enough to win our group and, and, you know, keep moving on and then lose 17 to zero

to Mexico in the final, if we made the final. The one like gripe I have, even with the attacking front then, even though I think those are pretty much good players. And again, Ariola being like your fifth best attacker starts to become not terrible. I would really very much rather see Christian Pulisick out wide and Dwayne Holmes and McKinney starting as a dual tens. Holmes pushes the ball more. He really wants to force the issue. And Christian Pulisic is the most dangerous one we want to attacker in a wide area that we have probably ever had.

in U.S. men's soccer history, now that Holmes has emerged as a viable candidate for that spot, it just seems like such a waste to play pool's got a position just to put on like a conservative attacking wide player. Yeah, I agree. That's my gripe ahead of the experiment. Hopefully I'm proved wrong in Pulisick. Pull strings and scores goals from the number 10 spot,

but I'm not optimistic. I mean, I guess we should count our blessings and be glad that Dwayne Holmes was included in this roster, you know. Do you think you would have been if Leggett hadn't been hurt? Maybe not. You have to speculate on this? This is the weird thing. Yeah, maybe not.

But he has looked the best of the central midfielders in his 60 minutes of friendly action. So maybe, you know, maybe we're going to be at the game. We're going to be at the game against Kiana if, if Greg doesn't decide to bail last minute because he's so discouraged. I told you, man. I'm not leaving until I see the lineup released. Yeah, but it's a three hour. It's three and a half hour drive, so you can't do that.

You have to be within an hour when the lineup is released. Bells, I said what I said. Okay. Well, I'll be at the game next Tuesday here in St. Paul, and hopefully we'll get to see home start. We won't, though. We won't see that. We won't.

It's the lineup that you said. That's the lineup. Did we even say who the defenders were? We're just throwing taking defenders names that I've had, the centerbacks. Imagine it'll be Miasga and Zimmerman and because Long didn't look fit on Sunday. Yeah, Ream at left back.

Rima left back and Lima at that right back. And then I guess it'll be Stefan again in goal who has, speaking of stock, whose stock has come down a little bit, I think, in the last couple weeks. Yeah, strange too, that Stefan has just inherited Even before this, like, the fact that everyone was so comfortable being like, well, he's going to start every game because he needs his work permit, that's a really strange reason to just pick your new number one after 10 years of Tim Howard.

Yeah. Strange times. We need some victories to sort of regenerate excitement about this program. They've been boot off the field the last two times they've played. They're not in the national. conversation as much as, you know, even though like, even though high level premiere podcasts like scuffed are talking about them. Well, right now they're competing with the, like the excitement of the women's world cup and the, uh, altogether, more competent, uh, national team on the women's side.

That's true. Yeah. So there's a good reason for the, for the gold cup to be taking second, second, uh, or third billing. No doubt. But even, you would imagine even if the women weren't playing the World Cup right now, it would still not be something that impinges on the consciousness of the average American at a noticeable level. No, no, the average American is not making their plans around Omar Gonzalez's next start. All right, is there anything else to say about it?

We could do it. We could actually do a rigorous preview of the Giana game, but I think we will not. No, no, I will not have any part of that. Okay, well, thanks everybody for listening. Thanks, Greg. We'll see you.