Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 94: The roster for the upcoming Mexico and Uruguay friendlies

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

We start up top at striker and work our way back to goalkeeper, giving our preferred rosters. And then we talk about Berhalter's likely roster, which is not entirely the same. Here's that American Soccer Analysis piece we talked about: https://www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2019/8/14/with-or-without-you-wowy-a-plus-minus-alternative-for-soccer 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. Welcome to this week's show. Today we'll be discussing the roster for the next set of friendlies coming up on September 6th and 10th against Mexico and Uruguay. Greg, first of all, are these friendlies meaningless? No, no, they definitely are not meaningless. We have so much ground that we need to cover between now and the qualifiers that every opportunity. do we have to get the group together, some portion of the group together is actually really important. And then again, going all the way back to 2017, we failed to qualify for World Cup. We are in no position to take anything for granted. Like, if you're in this camp, like, you need to show up and you need to, you need to perform if you're a U.S. men's national team player.

Yeah, we have, we have a consensus, a consensus of two on this question. World Cup qualifying begins in exactly 12 months. we have basically 10 matches between now and then plus January camp just some facts to back up your point there now under Greg Burhalter the roster announcements have been moved up quite a bit so we got to get out ahead of this in terms of our podcasting schedule the list could be published any day now without warning which I'm glad about you know it seemed like the roster announcements were coming later than other nations back before Burrhalter was hired and now they're now it seems like they're coming a lot earlier.

They are. And then the only issue is we've already had sort of the roster announcement jinks where they come out two weeks early instead of one week early and then eight guys go down with injury. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's happened. We'll get into a lot of that.

So one more note about my selections here. We're going to pick rosters, each of us. I'm going with a 23 man roster. You may go with more than that. But one simple rule I'm using is I'm, I'm, not going to pick any player who has an MLS game in the international break. And that's a lot of the MLS men's national team players. No idea if Burrhalter will operate on that principle, but that's what I'm, that's what I'm doing. I'll allow it, Bells, but I'm going to, a couple times at least I'm

going to try to pin you down and make you answer if you think a guy should be there if he didn't have an MLS game that that week. I welcome. I welcome your challenges. Okay. Let's switch it up this time and go front to back since we usually go back to front. And that always starts with a whimper since the goalkeeper situation is so static and uninteresting. Strikers. Who are your strikers? Josh Sargent needs to play 75 to 85 minutes against Mexico. Josh Sargent has to be our striker in this camp.

You want my full compliment of strikers? Yeah, sure. All right. So I want Josh Sargent in camp. I am resigned to the fact that Giazzi Zardez is going to be in this camp because he does bring, what, now eight months worth of Greg Burrhalter institutional knowledge with him. So I think Zardez will be there. And then I want a third striker. And I'd like it to be, since we're ruling out the MLS guys with games, give me Sebastian Soto or Bobby Wood.

Okay. So are you thinking you're going to have more than 23 guys in this camp? Yes, probably, but just probably for the striker spot because I think we should bring three strikers to the camp. Wouldn't surprise me if there are a couple other spots with an extra guy, but for Stryker for sure, I think we should have three, mainly because Jazi Zardes will be one of the three. And you just don't want to see him play. Is that the deal? Yeah, I really don't. Or if he does play, I want it to be because he is beaten out a guy who, I know the sort of U.S. community just assumes that Bobby Wood can't possibly be any. good because he hasn't played a club match in forever. Sebastian Soto yet to appear for Hanover.

He's appeared for Hanover. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. He has appeared for Hanover. He's played sparingly in the opening weeks of the two Bundesliga season. But I just don't care. There's a long list of examples of U.S. strikers who have not been succeeding in their

European club, but who have still performed ably for the national team over their MLS replacement counterparts. And I just want to have that sort of side-by-side comparison to see whether or not a Bobby Wood who has a record for the U.S. men's national team are performing well to see if he still does. If he still is a clearly better option than a player who's presumably in better form. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'll say I wouldn't mind if Bobby Wood or Sebastian Soto was brought in.

I'm not I'm not against it but I my my list is short it's just sergeant and Zardis partly for the reasons you mentioned Zardis just seems inescapable at this point so even this is even though this is my roster that I prefer I still can't I still can't keep Zardis out you know he's going to be there and and I think I'm sympathetic to those who say Bobby Wood isn't playing into Bundesliga he's had he's had a really rough stretch over the last three years. I get your point about strikers being able to still perform for the national team even when they're struggling in Europe. I get that. But he isn't playing. Navakovich isn't playing. Altador's got two MLS fixtures over the international break. So Sergeant and Zardis, I agree with you. Sargent should start and play most of the game against Mexico at minimum.

The other, you know, the other wrinkle I have here is Tim Wea, who, spoiler alert, I'm going to list as one of My wingers could also play as a number nine, and it wouldn't be bad for him to get some looks there. I'm definitely one of those who thinks he's a better winger than he is in number nine right now, but even so, I think he can play that position. He's done it at a pretty high level. Yeah, wouldn't hate that either. I wouldn't expect it, though, just because this is sort of the Burrhalter brain talking. I wouldn't expect way out of jump in out of position, even if he rotates Sergeant out for the second game.

over Chiazzi's artists. Right. You're right about that. A few other names we should mention because just because we're going to try to cover the waterfront here, just repeat. Novakovich is not playing for Redding in the championship

and they just signed a new attacker named Pushkus, by the way. I don't know if he's related to the D. Pushkus, but he was... But Novakovich, yeah, Novakovich seems to have fallen on hard times at Redding, left out of their U-23 lineup in midweek. Was he?

Okay. And Jeremy Abobese is a possibility, but he's got a game for Portland over the international break. Brian White for the Red Bulls, he's scoring some goals for them, is kind of a name that's being bandied about on some fringes of the internet. And I just don't see it.

Same with Christian Ramirez and Emmanuel Sabi, who is playing decently for Hobro, IK, and Denmark, I believe. Mason Toy. Mason Toy, new U.S. face to keep track of. I assume Minnesota United have games over the break. They do. They do indeed, yeah. Good shout, though.

He's certainly become a name worth tracking over the last month. But yeah, that mostly sounds like a January roster is what you just kind of listed off there. Yeah, really all the strikers except Sargent and Altador at this point sound like a January roster. Okay, that's our striker list. We're praying for Josh Sergeant, and then we are resigned to Giazzi's artist. Yeah, rumblings out of Verde Bremen are that he's going to be in the camp. I can just say that. All right.

Wingers, you go first again. Okay, I'm going to preface this with sort of another sort of reminder that in Burr-Halter's system, the wingers are not symmetrical. So the left winger tends to hug the sideline. more often he'll rotate with the sort of center mid, but his starting position is basically on the left sideline. The right winger, the guy we call the right winger, starting position is not on the right sideline. That's occupied by the right back bombing forward.

So the right winger comes in and plays almost like another 10 underneath the forward. So just sort of prefacing with that, my wingers here are going to be Pulisicic on the left and Ariola as his backup. And then on the right side, I really want Tim Wea Because as you know, I really like him pinching in as sort of a 10 playing underneath the forward So I really want him to start as that right winger slash 10 With probably probably Tyler Boydus his backup

Yeah, I agree on all counts I think the and I think it's actually fairly likely that Burrhalter will agree to The one wild card I'll throw in there for for Wea's backup would be like a Dwayne Holmes Because it's because it ends up in possession being a central mid, I wouldn't hate if, like, Holmes became that player as McKinney drops down into the line with the holding mid when we get into the center mid. Yeah, that makes sense. It makes a lot of sense to me.

I've begun to daydream about a future in which Richelodesma plays that spot. Don't tell anyone. All right. I'm sure no one suspected that you were thinking about Richelodesma for the senior team. So just to sort of run through the rationale here. I agree with that completely. I would say the five who may be in contention who are out. Here are Joe Jiao.

I mean, I don't think we need to dwell too much on that. Jonathan Amon, not healthy, hasn't been healthy for an extended period for a long time in Denmark. Corey Baird seems to have had it, you know, sort of had his time with the national team early in 2019. And then Jordan Morris and Jonathan Lewis. and Morris has a game, I don't necessarily think that'll keep him out of the roster. Morris has a game with Seattle, that is. So do you think if Morris did not have an MLS game during this week,

he's one I want to pin you down on, would you want him in your 23? No, I don't want, I think it should be the four that you mentioned, period. And I think Morris was ineffective enough. I would say he was profoundly ineffective against Mexico in the Gold Cup final. And I just don't rate him as a player. I'm sure he's a great guy. Same caveats always apply, but I'll even go to bat form a little bit.

I don't think he should be on here either. But part of it is because I think he's being schemed out of it. He's definitely not a playmaker. There's no way that his best position is to play underneath the forward. So to have his designed role be to come off of the sideline, and play as a number 10 just seems like a really poor use of whatever skill set he does possess. And again, you're setting yourself up for an inability to control the ball, which is exactly what we saw in that final against Mexico.

Yeah. He's also not as clean coming back to the ball and receiving it and clever as Sergeant is playing from that number nine position. So it's true. I'm not sure where he would fit in to this scheme. Can I throw one name at you for winger slag. Maybe a number nine. He didn't make the cutoff for our strikers either, but Roman Gall just dropped a goal and a couple of assists.

And as Al-Svinsky over the weekend, does he enter the conversation? He got a call up in 2018. Yeah, I have to admit, I didn't see the highlights of those goals and assists, did you? I saw the header. I didn't see, the header for a goal I didn't see his assists. Okay.

No all touches video for Roman Gall that I saw. Yeah, I mean, I guess Gall could, kind of work in that pinched in role as well. Because it doesn't seem like an ideal job for Tyler Boyd either. Boyd seems much more like a hug the sidelines winger than an inside, like than an inside winger. Yeah, I mean, Boyd's not looking to pass the ball either. He's the Giovanni Raina of the national scene. Yeah, it's a good point.

I agree with you, actually. Holmes or Gall would probably work better in that scheme in that role than Boyd or certainly Morris. Well, Gall really needs to show something for the next couple weeks, too. He's basically been averaging like 10 minutes a week for Mo. And so it's not like he's just turned Sweden into his playground. I think it's probably still too early to call up Roman Gall based on his one game's worth of output. You love referring to Sweden as a playground. I know that Swedes love to camp, so there's some truth to that.

They're all on holiday right now, I believe. I think this is their, I think this is like their nationwide holiday. Yeah, before they go, before they go into the long winter. Okay, I like that four. I like the Gaul shout. I think it's unlikely we'll see Gaugall. But who knows? Who knows?

Let's go to the midfield. I think this is the hardest position to make choices about, Adam's absence is felt. Yeah, it's really difficult to picture what we, I mean, we've been having to do it forever just to, is to complete this midfield and imagine what it would look like with Tyler Adams in it. Can I just list off sort of every center mid who's in the discussion at this point? And then you can pick your six. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's worth listing them all off.

All right, because it's hard to separate some of them. But we've got our Gold Cup starters of McKinney and Bradley. We have sort of crowd favorites now in Paxton, Paul McCall and Dwayne Holmes. We've got the human enigma Darlington Nagby. We have, and then we kind of have sort of the, they're basically the leftovers, Will Trapp, Christian Rodon, Georgie Mihailovich, Sebastian Leggett, who missed out on the Gold Cup for injury. Jackson Yule, who missed out on the provisional Gold Cup roster, but then was deemed worthy of a call-up for the pre-Gold Cup friendlies. We've got Emerson Heinemann, who's returned to the states from his Scottish adventure. Yeah, his United Kingdom exile.

We've got Brandon Sarvanya, who's been in and out of S.E. Dallas's starting lineup. And then over in Germany, we've got Julian Green, who's making some noise early in this two Bundesliga season and Alfredo Morales, long overlooked. has a very passionate following on the online community. Is it finally his day? Yeah, Morales is like he's a prophet wandering in the wilderness with a small but loyal following. Okay, I'll just give my list of six and then I'll try to justify it and you can sort of pepper me with questions if you want.

Pomacall, Holmes, McKinney, Nagby, and then Sarvania and Morales. would be my choices. All right. I think Pomacall Holmes and McKinney are, I think mostly everyone will agree that those guys will be in Camp Holmes if he's healthy.

He's just gotten back onto a soccer field earlier this week with the Darby County reserves. To glowing reports as well. I don't know if you said. The Derbyshire newspaper was very high on his performance for 45 minutes.

Okay. Well, that's good news. So we'll see maybe that was on Monday, I believe. So by the weekend, he might at least make the bench for Darby County. That would put him in decent position to, for a call-up. So I think everyone's probably pretty excited about those three. Tell me about your next three. Nagby, Servanya, Morales. Maybe it's easier to talk about why I'm leaving out the other ones because it's, there's really a big, big time process of elimination going on here. So Bradley, Adams is obviously injured.

Bradley has two games for Toronto FC just like Altador in the international break and Toronto is fighting for a playoff spot at this point not home field advantage for an actual spot in the playoffs they're very much a bubble team they need to I think they're going to need every point they can get over the next couple months so I think that's why Bradley's out

Roldon has one game so by my rule he's also out would Roldon would Roldon be in it if he didn't have that game. I'm going to make you actually state your case here. No, I don't, I don't want to see Roldon in any more camps. We've seen what we've seen.

He's a, he's a fine MLS player, you know, who plays on a good MLS team. He's not a national team player. He doesn't help us, he doesn't help us beat Mexico, right? No. Yeah, that's sort of, at this point, for me, that's sort of the line that I need you to be above. If you're not above that line, then we've got to start our dish. auditioning for guys that are. Yep.

Open up the auditions. Mihalovich is, I would say, even lower in the pecking order than rolled on. Even though he doesn't have a game, he's not in here for me. Yule, I would like to see Yule. I would like to see Jackson Yule with the national team. But he has a game for San Jose, and I think it's a chance to, you know, just keep him on the back burner and check out some other guys. Heinemann does not have any conflicts, but again,

It just would feel weird to me to reward somebody for coming back and being a sometime starter in MLS just because they scored a goal in, you know, an open cup game and have looked pretty good. He wasn't even on the radar when he wasn't playing for Bournemouth. I just don't see it. Right. He was on loan at Hibbs at Hibernian in Scotland. And apparently his play there, the same player, his play there wasn't good enough for a call-up. But then if he comes to Atlanta, suddenly he is good enough for a call-up. Yeah, and it's not like he's an automatic starter for Atlanta.

He's a regular, but not a starter every game. Sebastian Leget kind of fits in the same category as Yule. I wouldn't mind seeing him. I even might like to see him again because I thought he looked pretty good in January camp, but he's got a game for the Galaxy. So I'd put him in a different category than Rolled on. Legett and Yul, even though they have a conflict, I would like to see them. I'm excited for Yule and Lijette's auditions as well.

I think those are coming, hopefully, in October when all MLS teams will be on break. Right. And then the last one to mention here is, well, the last two to mention are Will Trapp, who for me is in the same boat as Roldon, and then Julian Green, who for me is in the same boat as Roldon and Trap, honestly. All right. But Trap is available. No games for Columbus during the break.

They're just like Atlanta. They've got the full international break off. and you still think Trapp just doesn't warrant a call-up at this point. Yeah, I think that he doesn't meet that threshold you just talked about of helping us beat Mexico. And we've seen enough. Yeah, you're not going to get any objection for me on Will Trap being left out of this camp. That's, for me, it's clearly the case. If you're good enough to beat the bottom Kanka Kaff teams at home,

like basically anybody we call up that we sit next to Christian Poulsick is going to be good enough to beat the bottom Kankajaf teams. teams at home, you've got to add something else or we've got to keep the search going. Does Green's couple of goals early in the two Bundesliga season move the needle for you? His goals don't necessarily move the needle for me because what's interesting for me about Julian Green is that I believe he's got a new manager and I think he's sort of being moved into a new position where he's being used more as like a box-to-box midfielder. I haven't watched it. I haven't pulled him up on match pass and watched Greith.

It's pronounced his team for me, Phel. you take a stab at it. Groiter Firth. Groiter Firth. I haven't called him. That's good. That's actually pretty good. So I can't even really speak for it.

I just know from his past stints with the national team, he hasn't looked like anything special. If he does get a call up, I wouldn't be super upset. The way I basically would be, I mean, I will be upset if we're looking at another camp of Will Trap and Christian Raldon. I won't be upset if Julian Green gets a call out. So I've got him in a slightly different category, a slightly different tier than Adams, or then I'm sorry, than Trap and rolled on. And a slightly different tier from Adams as well. Yes, yes.

He's very much in a different tier than Adams. So after eliminating all of those names for all those convoluted reasons, that leaves me with Nagby, who's been really good for Atlanta United. And Servania, which is a little bit of a reach, I admit, but. I think we've talked about this before on the podcast, and I think you made the point. He's one of the few players we have who has that sort of ground-covering, defensive bite that we're going to probably need in the midfield, at least when we don't have Adams around.

So why not bring him in? Get a look at him, give him a chance to learn the system a little bit, and see what happens. The games aren't meaningless, but they're not so meaningful that we can't bring in a speculative, call up. That's how I love it. Yeah, absolutely. And again, part of the auditioning process here is we need to find somebody

who can cover for Tyler Adams. And I don't think we got that against Mexico in the Gold Cup final. I thought we were left quite exposed with the Bradley McKinney set up. So I think we need a different kind of player. I'm sure Bells, we could do another

entire episode just on the central midfield and sort of all of these moving pieces. We've done them before. And now it's got even more complicated with Burrhalter's system. But I think one kind of interesting thing is so many of the guys that we're talking about who we think probably are good enough to play

for the national team, or at least warrant an audition. They're almost all good best fits for the Weston McKinney role from the Gold Cup in my mind. Yeah, it's true. Because none of them is a defensive monster and none of them is like an attacking

monster just to carry the monster thing forward. But right, you've got a lot of sort of all-action players, which is definitely, I think, I mean, West McKinney, I think his best fit was the McKinney role. I think Michael Bradley's best, I think Michael, crazy as that sounds, I think Michael Bradley's, well, I mean, at least Burhalter wasn't playing him very out of position. I think, but I actually think Bradley's best role is the McKinney role. I think Pomacall probably fits best there.

I bet Dwayne Holmes and Darling Team Nagby, if you had to just put them in the lineup first, their best position would be that late arriving or sort of that that holding mid was given a lot more freedom to go forward than his opposite number. Yeah. And, you know, frankly, I think Brandon Servania is also probably most comfortable in that role too, but he has, he's young enough and he has the potential to be, you know, a real number six, you know, if he sets his mind to it, which maybe he has no intention to do, but it's possible. So my last bit for this, and maybe we'll talk about it more once the roster is actually released, is that without Tyler Adams there, I think probably your best solution is to take McKenny out of his role and put him into Tyler Adams job, the holding midfield, and just assign him the defensive responsibility and say you have to stay home and protect. You know, you have a big role to play in possession as well, since everyone has to be able to possess the ball.

but as we build and go forward, you are a key part of the counterpress, and then as we defend in our low block, you're the guy who's going, you have to boss central midfield for us. Yeah, and I think, I think McKinney, you know, the objection to that is, well, McKinney's not a very good defender.

He, you know, he lost his man for the game winner against Mexico in the Gold Cup final, and that is true. And he does, he does turn. off sometimes defensively and he's also fairly easy to dribble around. So all of that is true. But I think we we sort of agree that if he is given that assignment, given that explicit assignment, you stay home, you be the guy shielding the back line. He will likely do a better job of it than he has with this more box-to-box role that he's played. That's my hope. And then the other

the other side of the coin is anyone you replace him with outside of Tyler Adams is just as susceptible to those weaknesses. So you can't disqualify McKinney for that and then stick Michael Bradley in there and be like, oh, no one can dribble around Michael Bradley at this point in his career. So you have to take those negatives. There's no one who solves all those issues outside of one Tyler Adams. Yeah. Well, let me give him my last midfielder. it's going to be Alfredo Morales because basically because why not he's a Bundesliga midfielder he never jumps off the screen for Dusseldorf when I watch him but he is playing at a high level and he started the season opener a 3-1 win over Verde Bremen let's give the Alfredo Morales

truthers something to talk about is what I'm saying I guess I mean he's he's 29 right now he Bells, if we had been recording this four years ago, I would have been all about giving Alfredo Morales plenty of chances. Get him into camp a bunch of times. Let's see if he really can do it. At 29, for me, it just seems like the ship has sailed, unless he's so competent that he frees up all of those other guys. And I guess in that case, yeah, sure, let's give him a runout.

And if he really is just a lock, like somebody you can throw in the lineup and not have to worry about defensively, that's still something because I don't know that any of the other guys sort of give you that. I don't think you can put Jackson Yule in that spot and just be like, all right, we're at least fine with Jackson Yule there. So, so sure, if we bring in Morales and get that look great, do you think that's going to happen? Uh-uh. No. All right.

And, you know, there's all kinds of, there could be all kinds of reasons for that that we don't know about, but I don't suspect that it'll happen. Should we move to defenders? Let's go to the defenders. I feel like we've got some actually interesting possibilities in the defensive line. Yeah. Why don't you start? All right. The player I'm actually most excited about is a centerback.

I'm actually most excited to see Miles Robinson get a call up. I really hope Miles Robinson is called up. Interesting. He's been awesome for Atlanta United, right? Yeah, and that's got to be, I mean, we're all of our other centerbacks other than John Brooks, who've been in camp lately. That's the bar that they've said. They've been very good MLS defenders,

and Miles Robinson belongs in that discussion. Yeah. Plays for the, you know, arguably the hottest team in the league right now. Definitely quite a ways behind LAAFC when it comes to points, but Robinson's been a rock for them defensively, and his distribution has been okay. I saw something on American Soccer analysis. last night, they created this new metric that is kind of like XG chain, but it's called

Wowie with or without you. So it's like the- That's well done. That's very well done. American soccer analysis. Well, it is interesting. You should check it out. I'll put the link in the show notes, but it's very, it's a very densely written dispatch.

But it's basically how much you contribute to XG chain with your team's possess. sessions relative to the other guys on your team. Yeah. And the Miles Robinson piece on that, I think, is particularly interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And it's basically that he, XG chain disproportionately comes from other places on the field than from him, much more through LGP, Leandro Gonzalez Perez, the other centerback.

So just a little data point when it comes to distribution. I will say, I will say, unless you want to jump in on that. No, not right now. I might get into it later on online. Okay. I'm just really interested in some of the other variables that might weigh into that, that might factor into it. Yeah, soccer statistics, man.

So, such a slippery, difficult area of inquiry. But in any case, my view on it is if we have John Brooks, and I'm going to be arguing very strongly for a John Brooks, some other centerback, center pairing with Serenio Dest on the right back. If we have Brooks and Dest, and then, of course, it's going to be Tim Riem on the left back, then we have multiple ways to build out of the back, and we don't need that other set. We don't need the person in the Miles Robinson slash Aaron Long slash Matt Miasga

slash Walker Zimmerman centerback position to be able to distribute as much. Like you just need somebody who can really, really defend because you have other ways of moving the ball forward. That's sort of my counterpoint to the point I just made about Robinson's potential lack of XG chain production from his centerback spot for Atlanta. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. Like his job is you take a lot of the responsibility away from Miles Robinson, pass it off to John Brooks.

You have Sergenio Dest, who I'm sure we are all hoping is in the September camp. You have him who you can do a lot with. If you watched his all touches for IACs over the weekend, he pops up in really unexpected places on the field for a right back to pop up. So you have a lot of versatility with Sergenio does to make these adjustments and build in different ways to try to defeat whatever pressure you're facing. Yeah, very much. I mean, it's essentially the same thing that you're asking.

Tim Riem isn't asked to do all that much in possession. You could get similar. you should be able to get similar production from like your other centerback then. Yeah. Yeah. So who are our centerbacks? Get back to our centerbacks. Who do we have then besides, we've got Brooks and we've got Miles Robinson.

Who else are we bringing to this? And then it'll be Long and Miaska. Aaron Long, I think, established himself as a regular call-up at the Gold Cup. He was pretty solid, although he struggled in possession against Mexico, for sure. And then Matt Miaska, who's just a tough competitor. He's a survivor, I think, is the way you put it last week. He was on the team of the week in the championship over the weekend. I watched the first half of that game.

He didn't see anything revelatory. Matt Miazga is Matt Miazga. He's a solid, tough competitor at Central Defense. He's not a transcendent player. But that's where we are right now. I think Miasga probably starts for me ahead of Miles Robinson, but I don't feel strongly about it. So those are my four centerbacks. Brooks Long Miaska, Robinson.

All right. What would happen if Walker Zimmerman did not have an MLS game during the break? I'd still be the same four. I don't rate Zimmerman as highly as I rate Miaska. I've said this before, but I think things just get a little too wild with Zimmerman out there. He's an ambitious passer out of the back, but I don't think his abilities match his ambitions. He's good to have in the pool. That's my...

Okay. But you'd call up in September, you'd call up Miles over Zimmerman if they were both equally free of MLS commitment? Yes. I mean, the equation might be a little different if we were... Had a World Cup qualifier coming up in September. I'd like to see how Robinson looks for the national team before I put him above Zimmerman. But for this camp, for sure, I'd rather see Robinson. No, I think that's, that's plenty of rationale.

Okay, outside backs. Do we want to start with the left or do we want to start with the right? Start with the left. You go. Okay. I'm, I'm perfectly content with, I'm content with Tim Riem being in camp. Define content. Just because, again, it's an asymmetrical setup, so we don't ask our left back to get forward.

I don't think that's specifically designed to accommodate Tim Riem. I think Burrhalter prefers that system, and it's not that wild of a system. We're seeing a lot of teams in the club soccer universe start to sort of employ this asymmetric system where the left back has no real attacking responsibility. I don't want to say no attacking responsibility, but they aren't asked to advance into the attack off the ball like left backs are used to doing. So in that sense, Tim Ream is fine. I don't think he's the answer long term, but until somebody else emerges or until Fabian Johnson starts taking calls from the U.S. soccer house, I think Tim Rieme will be a fine placeholder. Yeah. And Nick Lima has got an MLS commitment.

If Lima didn't have an MLS commitment, I would very much like to see Nick Lima tried out at left back. Okay. And we may see that. Like I said at the top, there's no guarantee birth. Halter's going to hold faithfully to this no MLS commitment conflict thing that we're putting out there. It kind of would make sense for him to hold to it, but who knows? I mean, it could easily be case by case where with Toronto, things are so tight that Toronto could really try to negotiate their way into keeping their sort of star players at home, whereas San Jose might be more willing to lose Nick Lima for one man.

match. Okay, Ream, I'm agree, I'm in agreement there. Who's your second left back, if not Lima? So, since we can't have Lima, man, this gets really, this gets really dicey. Like, I would probably use a centerback. Like, I don't think that it, I don't think the answer is Daniel Lovitz. So I would probably bring in, or I would probably either use Aaron Long there. Since we have a glut of dependable centerbacks, I would probably try out Aaron Long. Okay. And then you'd bring, would you bring, would you bring? an extra center back too like CCV or EPB? Probably or I would just I mean honestly I would just leave it blank.

Okay. I mean you don't you don't have to have covered every position for a couple of friendlies or if you if you do need emergency cover you just call it up in the middle of things. Yeah, CCV would be just fine. You've already had him in camp for the he was in the combined U23 camp I believe over the summer ahead of the gold cup. So yeah, he's familiar with the group. he could easily come in and be a backup player. Okay. I would go with Anthony Robinson.

I know he doesn't fit the role, but I think we rude the fact that we didn't have him to throw on at the end of the Gold Cup final. And surely Burrhalter is trying to scheme out problem-solving possibilities for games where we're down or games where we see a different look. He's a starter for Wigan, athletic in the championship. I think he's playing decently.

He's still a young player and he provides some forward thrust. I'd like to keep him kind of warm with the program. Now, that's a really good shout. And I kind of had overlooked the possibility of changing things up late in a game if you're chasing and using Robinson in that role. I also had been thinking that if we were going to use an attack, if we needed to use an attacking left back, if you're facing that situation,

you switch desk over to left back and have him go up and down and then you bring in whoever your backup right back is. Yeah, Reggie Cannon off the bench and he becomes your attacking right back. Okay, that makes sense too. But yeah, Anthony Robinson would be a, I'd love to see his name on the list.

I think he deserves another look eventually, especially if you do have some role in mind for a fullback who can get up the left side. Okay, yeah. So right back. Yedlin is injured. Maybe coming back pretty soon? I can't remember.

I've got Dest and Cannon. Serginio Dest, hopefully he accepts the call-up, if he's called up. Hopefully he's called up and accepts the call-up. And then Reggie Cannon, who I thought was acquitted himself with a plume in the Gold Cup, certainly deserves another call-up. Yeah, no issues there. I know I've said that I wouldn't hate if Dest stays at Iax and doesn't miss their week of training during the window. And I kind of still stand by that because, I mean, he just started their last game.

so clearly when they do have a glut of games, he's the rotation guy, and I don't want him to lose that role. But obviously, if his name's on the roster, I'm going to be very excited to see him in a U.S. shirt. Yeah, everybody will be. That would be a happy day. Still not out of the woods in terms of locking him down, even if he is called up and plays in both these friendlies. But it would be a positive step for sure. So that's what I got. I got Ream, Robinson, Brooks, Long, Miasga, Miles Robinson, Dest, and Cannon.

And it sounds like you have long and drop Robinson and then have long and maybe CCV or maybe not a fourth centerback. Yeah, or just deal with camp here. You've got them for three days. It's not like you're getting a lot across to them. Yeah. Okay. Just to sort of cover our bases, like you said, Lima and Zimmerman both have MLS matches to attend to. I feel like we've seen enough of Lovitz to know that he's not a day.

difference maker. The reason I'm leaving CCV off is just because he's not an automatic starter at Stoke yet. I mean, he might turn out to be. They have a lot of matches in the championship. And then EPB hasn't appeared for his club in Austria yet, as far as I remember. He is not. I wonder if something's holding him up there because I don't think he's even made the bench for his club.

Omar Gonzalez is probably in the conversation in some quarters. I don't think he should be getting call-ups anymore. And then the last shout for me is Chris Richards. I really like him. I think he has a chance to be our best centerback. But he just made his three Bundesliga debut. It still seems a ways out from first team football.

So let's just wait a little longer, even though he is an elite prospect. Yeah, if we couldn't give Miles Robinson an audition, if that weren't, possibility, then I would love to see a speculative call-up for Chris Richards, but I'm okay using the sort of first-time centerback call-up on Robinson for this window. Okay. It definitely is too early. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Chris Richards is our answer right now.

It's definitely too early for him to be our answer. I don't think that means it's too early for him to get into a camp. Yeah, I mean, you know me. I'd love to see Richard Ledesma and Alex Mendez in the camp. And Ullianas, just to kind of check them out, you know? There are probably good sort of man management reasons not to do that. I don't know. Goalkeepers.

Goalkeepers. I guess I will take Zach Steffen in this draft. Agreed. Double-digit saves in his Bundesliga debut. This is his Bundesliga debut, right? He never played for Freiburg. I actually can't remember if he did or not. Oh, man.

Well, we're going to have to fact-check that. But I'm calling it his Bundesliga debut. and he had some excellent saves. These weren't just sort of, these weren't all routine stops. Yeah, some newspaper in Germany, I'm sure it was billed,

called him an octopus after the game. Those crazy Germans. He looked good. He looked really good. And I mean, yeah, he, I know his competition is out with injury, but you even have a couple of games like that, and then you have to be.

really bad to lose your spot. Some of those saves are going to stick in the mind. Yeah. Really, really good performance. And he's probably the big winner of the weekend, of the past weekend, for sure. Although, you know, West McKinney, I thought West McKinney played reasonably well. We're not going to go through all the action from the weekend, but it was really busy. And you should check out Greg's Euro Troop review on Twitter.

It's very funny. Well, we've got a lot of opportunities to to poke fun. Yeah. Fun can be poked at a lot of different spots. Absolutely. So speaking, including, including sort of our backup goalkeeper with Ethan Horvath, who's clearly now not in the plans for barring an injury to Simone Meniole, Horvath not in the plans because Club Bruges has played like six games in the last 10 days,

and they haven't rotated yet. So it really looks like minutes are. all of the minutes are going to men, you'll lay. I'm really thinking Horvath should try to move this window still. Yeah, man, that kid has been shafted by a club bruges. Like, he did everything he could last season, it seemed like. And then he went through all the, like, the match fixing stuff with the manager. He did a, he had a great, he had a great run of champions league.

His apartment was rated by Interpol. Is that right? No, I don't think Horvass was, but I wasn't, wasn't there to read on clubbush. headquarters. Yeah, it was craziness. And then he had this great run in Champions League last year, several clean sheets. I think he played pretty well in the league. Come summertime, they signed the backup goalkeeper from Liverpool and he's back on the bench. I can tell you one thing, that Horvath family is not going to be sending Christmas cards to the front office at Club Bruges when this is all over, I don't think.

But Bruce should move him. Bruce should move him. They've got, they've got, I mean, he's got to have value he was he was a great goalkeeper for for the the Belgian league someone someone should be willing to pay uh bruges a decent amount for him and and bruges has no need for him so everyone wins in that scenario yeah but i can't you see the conversation between the two sporting directors there the one the the the the bruges guy says yeah he's he did really well in champions league he's a great goalkeeper then they'll say well why did you buy minulee i i feel like there's like a there's like a pizarro to verter bremen element to minule coming back home like is that the right thing maybe more of like a van percy to where it just sort of falls in your lap and you're not going to turn it down and you just have the opportunity to rise us to get simon minule into the Belgian league like he's clearly too good for the Belgian league so you got to take it I suppose it's probably some truth to that so so you want to call Horvoth in or what's the deal um I I don't really

care if he does, but it's not because he's not playing. It's because I still think that for Greg Burholter's team that wants to go back to the goalkeeper constantly, I don't think Horvath has a great fit. I guess if we're going to play the way we played against Mexico where it doesn't matter because we never have the ball, then Horvath actually does make sense. Just he's a solid shot stopper. In that case, Bill Hamid makes sense, doesn't he? Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, I mean, I guess those would be the three pot, like the three, call-ups and Stefan's the one getting the minutes, in my opinion. Sean Johnson has two games over the break with NYCFC. Tyler Miller, it seems like his name's been sort of on the fringes of the rosters for the last couple months, but not last couple months, the last year or so, but he's never, I don't think he's ever played. Maybe he has.

Jesse Gonzalez makes sense, right? Yeah. Dallas, Dallas have no games. You don't see Brad Guzon getting called up with Atlanta being off? Just a little too old in my opinion. All right. But Jesse Gonzalez is a good shot. I know he's at a really good season.

I like Gonzalez. I feel like he is solid with his feet. He's very composed when the ball goes back to him. I think he could end up being a very good fit for Burrhalter. Okay. All right. You heard it here first. That'd be my, I mean, with Johnson out,

Jesse Gonzalez would probably be my number two for this window. Okay. I like it. I like it. I learned something today. Stefan Gonzalez and then pick your poison. Yeah. Bring Horveth in.

Bring Horveth in. Test him out. I mean, you got to keep giving him a chance to see what he's got with his feet, but it wouldn't surprise me if he just can't sort of be the guy we need to, to be able to safely get the ball back to him and build out through him. Yeah. Yeah, keep him warm.

Keep him warm. Those are our rosters. How much of this is likely to come true? Do you think? I think we've got the front six pretty well. Like since we've resigned ourselves to Zardez, I'd be shocked if it wasn't Sergeant and Zardez. With the MLS caveats that Altador's left off

because Altaudors are number one striker. Yeah. But if he's left off, I think Sergeant and Zardes makes the most sense. Yeah. I think there's a good chance we see all six of our, so Areola Pulisicic, Sergeant Zardis, Wea and Boyd. There's a good chance.

But is Poulosick going to be a winger? in this window. I don't think we've ever really said that. He's not, he's not going to be a midfielder. So it's going to be, it's more likely we see Ariola Morris,

Zardis, Sergeant, Wea, and then probably Boyd, but I wouldn't completely count out Jonathan Lewis. He seems to be a Burrhalter favorite. Midfield,

it's going to be, yeah, it's going to be Pulisick, McKinney. It's going to be trap, man. Traps, trap's going to be in this camp.

Is there any doubt? I don't think I don't think I don't think Burrhalter is ruthless enough that after the data he got from the gold cup

to say trap is not the guy even if he leaves Bradley home I don't think trap is next up anymore maybe I'm too optimistic in my in giving Burrhalter sort of that impartiality

but I don't think trap is going to be in the roster it'll be telling or will it I don't know I hope you're right Sit pomacol and mckenny in those two spots Put pomacol in for bradley

Bradley's role and put mcanny in his normal spot And let's let those two run if you're gonna use pool six central Yeah, I like that too I think there's a good chance we'll see One of legette are rolled on in this camp As well They only have one game They only have one MLS game

each both teams are very pretty safely in going to be in the playoffs and then maybe one of homes or nagby out of those two would be homes i know nagby's been very good and i would love to see him but i don't think nagby's done anything where you're like he's changed as a player so if burhalter didn't rate nagby or didn't think he was the right fit for him before i don't know what would have changed other than public sentiment yeah building building behind darlington nagby And I think, you know, even though I would like to see Nagby in this camp, I do think a lot of people forget how bad of a defender he can be sometimes. Like he's just not a, he's just not, he's just not much of a presence in that way.

Am I wrong about that? Do you think? I don't, I don't know. It's just, it's really hard again to compare his defending to, uh, some of the other sort of weaker defenders that are, are options. None of them are excellent defenders. So it just comes back to that question. It's defending good enough relative to the other options.

Well, I think one thing we can agree on is Morales and Servania are not going to get called up for this camp. I don't think it's happening. Defense, what's Burrhalter going to do? I think there's a good chance we're going to see Lovitz again, just because even our possibilities at left back are kind of so-so. You know, there's definitely argument against Anthony Robinson. There's definitely an argument against having a centerback out there. Yeah, yeah, I'm not sold. I'm not, even I'm not sold on the Aaron Long at left back hybrid position.

Fabian, it's Fabian Johnson. Nope, that's not going to happen either. And then Zimmerman, I would guess that Zimmerman is called up. LASC is like 100 points ahead of their nearest competition. They're going to be the number one seat in the West, kind of regardless of what happens the rest of the season. But I wouldn't be surprised if both he and Robinson are there. Yeah, you could definitely see five centerbacks on the list.

And then the last reality check I have is Dest. He may not accept the call-up, even if he is called up. He told IAC's Youth Academy or some TV reporter in the Netherlands that when the time comes, I will quote, think about the Netherlands. which, you know, we can read too much into it or we could read too little. He's definitely not closing the door to the Netherlands. It seems like he's opening it a little bit more every day. Yeah, and just from sort of a calculating sort of approach,

he really shouldn't call. If you're his agent, you're saying don't accept a call-up to U.S. friendly. Don't accept a call-up to get cap-tied to the U.S. right now. There's no urgency to it. sort of play the Tyler Boyd game and just focus on your club. That's a perfectly reasonable response to just say I need to focus on my club career right now and just see what happens. See what the picture looks like six months from now or even a year from now.

Yeah. It's terrifying, but that would make sense. It would be hard to blame a kid for doing that. Yeah, you can't blame him, but I feel like this could have been managed better. We're speculating in every direction. I'm speculating in every direction. We don't even know what's going to happen. But if we were to lose him to the Netherlands,

it's possible you could say, well, there's nothing we could have done. He wanted to play for the Netherlands all along. And that may be true. You know, even when I interviewed him a few months ago, he definitely sounded like he was up for playing for the Netherlands. I don't know if you remember that, but he didn't, he wasn't like, yeah, I'm definitely going to play for the USA. No, no, no.

He wasn't saying that, even then. But if in fact he hasn't been contacted at all by anybody in the senior national team hierarchy over these past six, seven months, that's an example of this could have been managed better. Yes, no. I think for sure we should be doing that, obviously, we've been over that. In this particular case, I feel like, again, with mass speculation caveats, the fact that dust is even representing the U.S., I think sort of shows an element of. calculation and how he approaches things. It's not like, I mean, he wasn't born here growing up through the U.S. system. He was, he was, he's been in a high act since he was a kid.

He's been in the Dutch system. So the fact that he played for the U.S. sort of shows that he's willing to, again, leave some, leave certain doors open. If he really wants to play for Holland or if he, if that's in his head, I think the only way we could have managed it better are one advantage over a country like Holland when it comes to dual nationals is that players are going to be ready, are going to earn call-ups to the U.S. before they would earn call-ups to the Netherlands. Does that make sense? Yes. In his developmental timeline, he's going to hit a point where he is definitely

ready to play for our senior team before he's ready to play for Holland's senior team. And we need to be aware of that fact, and then we need to act on it quickly. As soon as a player like that is ready for our senior team, we should attempt to get them in and cap-tie them. And we had that opportunity in the Gold Cup. You know, a kid who was a month away from starting for IACs and the Air Divisier was available to us to play in the Gold Cup in our biggest competition that we play in outside of the World Cup.

And we elected not to go that route. So that's sort of where we missed our opportunity. And now that the Netherlands door might sort of be propped open even slightly, now it's sort of more in death's interest to play coil. little bit. I agree with all that. We'll see what happens. I mean, people, people will call that predatory cap tying, but I think the argument that's, you know, for us to call him up for the goal cup, the argument against that is he was, it was justified. So it wasn't predatory, right? That's what you would say. Right. Right. In my mind, he clearly makes our, our starting, our star 23

better by replacing Daniel Levitz with Sergenio Dest. Okay. All right, quick, quick rundown, very, very quick rundown of a couple of the rising, sort of the rising players. Alex Mendez made his debut for Young IACs, which is, you know, the team that Sergenio Desk was playing for last season on Monday, 15 minutes in a 3-3 draw. I thought he looked okay, thought he was promising opening gambit for him. Ledzma played for Young PSV, 30 minutes in a 2-3 loss on Friday. Gloucester did not dress for that game. I didn't see any of it, so I don't even know how Ledesma played.

Did you see? No, I wasn't able to pull up either of those streams. No television options for those games, and I couldn't find anything that was working to watch them. Okay. And then Chris Richards got 90 minutes, his first, his debut in three-lega for the Byron 2 team, which is a stacked reserve team. They won 2-1 over Hollisher, but that team has had Alphonse. So Davies in the starting lineup.

It had Joshua Zerxes, a centerback named Mai, who's quite good. And then a couple other, Sarpreet Singh, a new signing from New Zealand, who was kind of a star at the U20 World Cup. So that's a really good team. And he got his first professional minutes of the year. Good sign that he's healthy and back on the pitch. I heard reports that he wasn't playing centerback in that game. Do you know if that's the case?

I don't know for sure. And Google had him as a right back. but okay to be honest google's usually right about that stuff so i i think he probably did play right back but i haven't 100% confirmed that all right we'll have to just keep an eye on it for his next few games see if it switches yeah and then um georena played 90 in a zero two loss to the colune u 19s and ullianez got two more goals that's four and two matches and a four to win for the Wolfsburg U19s over the Verde Bremen U19s. One of them was a penalty, right?

So we'll have to start distinguishing Yanez's penalty goals from his non-penalty goals. That's right. One of them was a penalty. He, if you're listening to this podcast, you've probably already seen his highlights from the St. Pauli U-19 game a week earlier. He was electrifying. He's looking real good against that level of competition. What are, what's his competition to get into the Wolfsburg?

first team. So yeah, it's a good question. I watched that Wolfsburg game over the weekend, partly to check in on John Brooks, who I thought was excellent, and partly to take a look at their wingers. They play a three-four-three where the two wide forwards do end up tucking in a little bit, and then the wing backs provide the width. But their attack was pretty miserable. Even though they, even though they won the game, they weren't really putting much together. And while Wegg-Horse, their gigantic center striker. He had some Zardis-type touches coming back to the ball.

As a team, they didn't look very cohesive in the attack. I thought Joao Victor, the Brazilian from Austria, on the left side, most of the game, looked steady and competent, but not super dangerous.

And then Felix Klaus, the right-sided forward, was he's just a workman-like sort of journeyman, German player. He's not going to create a lot of chances. he's going to work his butt off and that's what he did. So seems like there's some possibilities there.

You know, as the season progresses, they brought in a winger off the bench, Joseph Brecolo from, I think he's from the Czech Republic. They don't call it the Czech Republic anymore, just from Czech. All right. And he was a little more exciting than the other two, but, you know, didn't get a lot of traction

in his 10-minute can. all that to say it doesn't seem like the door is 100% closed there with the first team and if and if uli can keep putting up numbers keep producing at the un19 level i don't see why he wouldn't sort of gradually make his way up to the first team all right man force yeah force their hand right like uh give him give him goal counts that you can't ignore uh matthew hoppy tell us about matthew hot is it matthew hoppy is that how i'm pronouncing yes hoppy is the correct got his first goal for the Shalk of U-19s. I don't really, he's not a player I'm super familiar with.

He's big, he looks big in the clips. He's kind of a slalomed through the defense that he was up against over the weekend and then hit a shot that I think from the angle. I saw it from most good goalkeepers would stop, but it got through. Just if you haven't seen yet, he basically dribbled into, I mean, there was a he was drilling against a retreating back three in a giant amount of space i'm not taking anything away from that's just what the situation was um and he sort of just opened up at the top of the 18 and curled it around the defender who was pressuring him uh into away from the goalkeeper

to the far post yeah and it looked like the goalkeeper got a hand on it but not enough of one did it look that way to you yeah it was one i i assume that it was a a smart finish from hoppy or it ends up being a smart finish, whether he had this in mind or not, because the goalkeeper is probably cheating a little bit away from that side, thinking that the defender has it taken away, but because Hoppy curls it around the defender, the goalkeeper's not in as good a position to react to it. Always shoot around defenders, if you can, strikers out there. Okay.

Yeah, because the goalkeeper doesn't see the ball until it's halfway to him, basically. Yeah. Yeah, he's cheating away from that space, and his view is obstructed. usually. Okay. So a smart finish. We'll just have to keep an eye on him. It seems like there are opportunities in the attack for Shalka, too,

who were pretty abysmal up front in their zero-zero-zero draw at Bruce and Munson, much in Gladbach. And we know they'll pull the trigger. Haji Wright got in last year, scored a couple of goals for Shulka in the Bundesliga. They were throwing the kitchen sink at that front line last year. They got some guys on the bench and some guys coming back. from injury who I think will improve them even before Hoppe even is considered.

But anyway, something to watch. What's Hoppe? Hoppe's, what, 18, 19? He must be 18. Okay. Yeah. Because he just made the move from the U.S. to Germany. Came up in the Barsa Academy.

Out in Arizona? Yeah, right. Okay. Just kind of a magnet school at this point. They bring in people from around the, around the, region. Anything else we should talk about? No, I think that sets us up for the week, bells. All right. We'll be back next week. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.