Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 99: The September USMNT Top 40

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

It’s actually a Top 45 because we broke goalkeepers into their own category. We do the goalkeepers, lay out some rationale because we think a lot of people will dispute our ranking, and then go 1 through 20, take a little break, go 21 through 40, and then a brief discussion of the Olympics. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Scufft Podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez in Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Welcome to the 99th edition of Scuffed. Today we've got our September top 40, a feature we introduced last month and we're ready to get radical. Sorry to all the first team Minutes truthers out there. We've heard you out. We've seen the national team play. We are ready to shake things up. Greg, how are you? I'm good. Bell's excited to get into this top 40. And I'm good. I'm excited to get into this top 40. I may as well correct ourselves right off the bat. It's actually going to be a top 45. We have split up goalkeepers and outfield players just because I think we both kind of felt like

goalkeepers kind of kill the momentum of the conversation. They're such a sort of separate position that we may as well just talk about them on their own. Yeah, that was your idea, and it's a good one. So why don't we jump in and get the goalkeepers right out of the way? Who's our number one goalkeeper? Zach Stephan, with some reservations. Yeah, I don't, I don't,

I don't think either of us see him as like a clear frontrunner or that he should be a clear. He obviously is the clear frontrunner in Burrhalter's mind. But it doesn't seem like it still to me doesn't seem like he should be, right? Right. Like we had Howard graduate in 2017, I think, correctly into the retirement sphere for the national team. But it doesn't, there's no reason why Stefan, based on his performances in MLS and for the national team seems like he should just be the undisputed number one. But he is, but you're right.

It doesn't quite compute. The other four would be in order. Why don't you give him in order? So in our order came out, came out to, do we need to talk about the process again? Or do we, are we just trusting that everyone understands what we're doing here? I mean, depends on how much you want to talk about the process. Okay, quick, quick discussion of the process.

Basically, Bells and I rate the player separately, 1 to 40 this time around to get a cleaner look at it. And then we average everybody's score between the two of us and take the golf score, and that's our top 40. And that way we try to keep sort of our ideas independent and then sort of the list has come together. Is that fair? That's fair. Yeah.

Okay. Quick methodology, explainer. Jesse Gonzalez. Show your work. Show your work. Jesse Gonzalez actually comes out number two on our list. And I think that's a bit of a surprise, and it might just be because we're both curious. I think that's really what it is.

Curiosity is going to come up a lot in this podcast. Because there's reason to be curious. We need to be curious because the status quo, what's going on right now is not, I don't think, satisfactory. Not satisfactory. And I know that everyone's talking about we have to be patient with this. We have to be patient with it. And I agree that patience is required. But I think what's going to be the running theme of this is once we've established some

player ceilings as not good enough, no amount of patience is going to get us over the edge, over the, around the corner. So, uh, so at that point, patience is actually sort of, uh, again, sort of that death by inertia. Right. And pay, you know, that, that's a concept we talked about on this podcast a lot. And I think there are a lot of listeners who are agree with us on it. I think there are a fair number who don't agree. and we will try to offer more, you know, more rationale in just a moment that will prepare you for the blows you are about to suffer as a listener.

So Stefan and Gonzalez are the first two goalkeepers and then Sean Johnson, NYCFC. He's been in some camps. He's not, he didn't play in the last two friendlies. But, you know, generally speaking, he's thought of as a keeper who's pretty good with his feet and he's been playing well for the best team in the East right now. MLS. Yeah, and I think it's clear that what we're those first three guys have in common is that we think they're good with their feet. We think they can play the ball with their feet. Now, Stefan has sort of given us some reason to doubt that. I'm still willing to give everybody a mulligan against Mexico. Like I know Stefan had some costly decisions and execution against Mexico, but I'm willing to say that he was put in a position where he was forced to hit passes that he shouldn't have tried to hit. And he and anyone's going to look bad. when they're in that position. That doesn't explain his errors in the Jamaica-friendly and the Venezuela-friendly, but certainly in the Mexico game, I'm willing to sort of give him a pass.

Fair enough. I mean, I'm a little harder on him than you are for that performance. I thought he missed passes. He should have hit, but whatever. Four and five, let's just quickly get these out of the way. Okay. Ethan Horvath, who had that really good run in Champions League last year, the knock on him is that he's not so good with his feet,

but some would dispute that. he doesn't need to get playing time for his club and hopefully he gets a move this winter that's what we're hoping yeah he had a great great showing against france obviously in the friendly prior to the world cup right yeah and against england he did well against england too stood on his head yeah and then brad guzan who played against uruguay i don't think he he did anything terrible in that game i don't think he did anything excellent uh he's 34 he's gonna be i think he'll be 38 by the time the next world cup happens yeah uh I wasn't that impressed with Guzon in the Uruguay game.

I don't think he had much to do, and I thought the couple times he was called into action, he maybe could have done better. I thought he could have been a little bit better position on the goal, and then he actually had the really big goalkeeping blunder with his hands that somebody bailed him out for, and I don't remember who bailed him out, but Ream probably. I think Tim Ream, as part of his man of the match performance, saved a goal. Also, our fact checkers have just flagged us that Ethan Horvath did not stand on his head against Fram. because he did not play in that France-friendly.

I believe that was Zach Steffen. That was Stefan. But Horvath, good point. Horvath stood in his head against Italy until they got like an 89th minute goal. There was something. That's the game I was trying to talk about. A game we were absolutely just destroyed in

sort of the swan song of the Serican era. Let's move on. Yes, everyone, we just want to get the keepers out of the way. Let's get to the good stuff. We're not trying to pick Burhalter's top 40 anymore. I think last time our picks were diluted with that to some extent, I guess mine for the most part, and we're done with that whole racket.

We'll get into his choices later and how perhaps they differ from ours and why. But to start off, this is our top 40, and there are some young names on here, players who don't play first team minutes at the moment and people who are going to think, it's all me who's responsible for that. Old Bells with his rose-colored glasses,

just dreaming in his big leather chair. But I tell you what, Greg's at least as responsible, for this as I am this time, and he has the argument in various venues all the time about it. So I think you're well equipped to defend the rationale here. Why is it okay to put a reserve team player above an MLS starter? Or it doesn't have to be an MLS starter or a championship starter. Anybody who's first team somewhere, right? Because that seems to be the argument.

First team versus reserve or youth team. And I think you've kind of hit the nail on the head right there. is it's such an arbitrary distinction. Because a lot of times the goalpost will shift where it's like, all right, well, they can't just be playing against other 19-year-olds. And then you might point to a Chris Richards and say, well, he's playing against grown men. And then it's like, oh, well, he can't be doing it against a third-tier German.

So it's like, okay, well, so that clearly means you're willing to recognize these degrees, but let's just stop making ad hoc sort of qualifications and just remove all self-imposed artificial restrictions and say, who are the best 23 players? Who are the best 23 players to help us achieve our short and long-term goals? Yeah. Well, let me play devil's advocate a little bit because some smart people that we respect who follow this stuff, at least as closely as we do, would say, well, you underestimate the value of breaking into a first team

and unseating another professional for playing time. Like, this is, I don't know, almost something. mystical about this that is required for a national team player? It's, you know, I don't think they're wrong, and that that is a really important factor. It's a really important variable. It can tell you a lot, but I think we have some real evidence that it's not the entire story, or it can't just be blanket, all-encompassing, no exceptions. And that's what, where I really get to is we have to at least be willing to make exceptions,

especially given where we are in the current player pool. I think the clearest sign for me is still the 2018 performance of Josh Sargent with the U.S. men's national team. So in 2018, Josh Sargent had not even played for Bremen's second team. He wasn't even eligible to play with him yet in the spring of 2018. And he came in for the U.S. team and looked, I'd say, pretty good. I mean, in some games, he actually did kind of blow the doors off. And you can say, well, they're friendlies and the competition might have been weak. But that's who we were playing against.

And he's looked better in that in those games than some of our other stuff. starters have against similar competition. Is that fair? Yeah, the premier example is against Peru, which is a pretty good national team. They had just come off of a decent showing at the World Cup. And I think he had his best game in a national team shirt in that game. You know, he created that big chance for, for Kelan Acosta, that Kellan Acosta took a really poor touch on.

That still haunts my dreams. That was such a nice play by Sergeant. He combined beautifully with Jonathan Amin down the left flank. he scored a goal in that game off a set piece, a corner kick. He did a couple other nice things. So we got these moments. I mean, we've talked about it on this podcast. We got these moments of attacking quality, of attacking creativity of, like you said,

a couple weeks ago, Josh Sargent manipulating the game around him to his own ends that we just, we don't see a lot. We haven't seen a lot from really anybody for the national team for the past 18 months. Yeah. And you could say, well, great, those are friendlies. They're not real competitions. So let's let's just wait and see what happens. And I kind of get that.

But at the same time, I think it's crazy to not take into account U.S. men's national team performances when you're selecting U.S. men's national team players. I don't think to go to the other extreme where it is entirely club-based seems, again, completely artificial to me. So Bell's what I'm going to introduce here. And this is 100% my own creation. It's never been, it's never been thought of before. I'm going to introduce a veil of ignorance. This is definitely a scuffed original. It's not something that's already been invented to sort of discuss adequate distribution

resources within a society. So if we were to if we were just to watch those 2018 games with no knowledge of anybody's club performances or club situations, I don't think anybody in the world would say, all right, this Josh Sargent kid looks pretty good. If he just improves his club situation, whatever it is right now, I think he's worth looking at a little closer. Like, that wouldn't make sense. The same way, I mean, you wouldn't look at, watch like a Paul Aureole play and say,

oh, this guy looks pretty good. Let's just improve his club situation slightly, and then he could really have a go at. You just, you wouldn't say those things. So then after the fact, take that veil off, see that Josh Sargent isn't even playing club soccer and say, oh, well, we can't call him in now. Again, for me, that's the definition of an artificial restriction. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to disagree. The other example we have recently that I think.

works in our favor in what we're about to unveil here is Sergenio Dest. Did he become a totally different player over the past two months? No. That's the position you have to take, though, right? You have to take that position if you don't think Sergenio Dest was in our top 23 in June. Well, it's either you have to take that position or you have to say he's still not good enough, which is I think a position some people would like to take. So are my opinion, I know your opinion too, is,

Sergenio Dest is good enough. He hasn't been perfect. He has been beaten badly twice in the last what 120 minutes he's played. But he clearly fits in. He clearly would have fit in in June when he was playing for young Iax. And I don't know. It's just, I just don't know how you can disagree with that. So there's another example of a player who wasn't getting first team minutes, but, you know, he was ready. He was ready in June to play for the national team and probably was already our best fullback at that time. So yeah, that's our, that's our dead horse beating for this week. It's just we like to find new and imaginative ways to beat the dead horse.

Yeah, because we're swimming upstream on it. There's a lot of people who disagree with us. I'm sure a lot of you listeners disagree too. So that's why I've taken the time to sort of like lay out our rationale. And most importantly, Greg Burhalter sure seems to disagree with us. He does indeed. Let's start, number one player in the player pool. Repeat number one, Tyler Adams.

Yes. absence does in fact make the heart grow fonder the best defensive midfielder in the U.S. pool by a long distance and reportedly less than two weeks from full training at R.B. For the fifth week in a row. It can't come soon enough. It can't come soon enough. No, we can't wait.

Nobody, this is like the most exciting thing will be getting to see Tyler Adams back in a U.S. fans national team uniform. Number two, Christian Pulisic. Did not play for Chelsea over the weekend in a big romp for the Blues. Did not play in their first Champions League match. It doesn't change the fact he's the most dangerous American attacker. He's number two. It doesn't change the fact, right?

We're still all on all aboard Christian Pulisick's train? I mean, I've always been a little bit less aboard the Christian Pulisic train than most people. That doesn't mean I don't think he's the most dangerous American attacker. I still do think that. All right. I'm just going to leave that one there then. Okay. Yeah.

We have a lot of names to get to. Right. Right, number three on the list. Yet another player who hasn't played club soccer in a couple of weeks. John Brooks. Groin injury kept him out of the Mexico game, out of the entire window. And he didn't play for Wolfsburg over the weekend. We'll see if he's back out there for Wolfsburg this weekend.

When Fit, we still assume he's our best centerback? I still assume that. But we haven't seen him. We haven't seen him. So we're calling him number three, but he's kind of, we haven't seen him in Burr-Alter system, but once. Yeah, hopefully we can see him next month. I'm not, you know, I wouldn't put a lot of money on it. I bet we see him against Canada.

I bet he plays once against Canada and that's it. That would make sense. Okay, number four, moving up in the world. Yeah, Sergenio Dest is our number four player in the player pool. He fit like a glove in Burhalter's system as an inverted left back. He can also, of course, play right back. He could play on the wing. I think he'll only get more comfortable in that role, the fullback role,

and he adds a dimension in possession that cannot be underestimated. A few defensive moments he wants back, as we mentioned, like getting roasted by Tecotito and also by Brian Rodriguez from Uruguay. One of those roasting resulted in a goal, a very important goal that Mexico scored. Both of those roastings, I kind of want to point out,

and I don't know if I have yet already, but both of those roostings are significantly worse roostings than usual because the defender literally got on the other side of him. It's not like the defender just create, or the attacker, I should say, didn't just, like, create a little bit of a window or something. Like, he completely got ball and man to the other side of Sergenio desk in the box. So we need to talk about how bad of roastings they were and still say, that's okay, right? Yeah, well, it's not okay, but he does enough on the ball in this system where a lot is asked of his position.

A lot of his asked of it when he's playing it. Right, exactly. And it creates a lot of options for us with the ball. That it's okay to accept the defensive shortcomings at the moment, with the understanding that he's working on it. And of course he's working on it. He started and went 90 in a Champions League group stage game this week, a win for IACS over Leal.

He's the only American to get minutes in that competition so far this year. I think we can work with him on that part. Yeah. And, you know, he did get, he did get completely eliminated in both of those instances, and that's true. But, you know, there were other breakdowns on both of those plays as well. Yep, absolutely. And when people kept sort of responding by saying he's not the finished product yet, almost like hold like pump the brakes a little bit on him, I still see not the finished product yet as like a good thing. It's much, I mean, it's it's more encouraging that he's only 18 and can fix some of these things rather than when our 25 year olds get roasted in similar ways. And you go, oh, well, he is the finished product and this is still happening. So I have desk. I have desk really high. I think he actually belongs at number four. I don't think we're overrating him. And it's because our left back pool is so empty that the only other option is a 31-year-old centerback who we stick out there who can, who is very limited in what we can ask him to do. Right, right. And as you, as you can see, we're going to, we're going to spend a lot more time defending what we perceive as our controversial choices than we are going to be talking about the ones that kind of everyone sort of agrees should go and go where they go. Let's go right.

Yeah, next one's a safe choice. Josie Altador. Lots to like about Josh Sargent. We'll get into that. But Altador remains the top striker in the pool when healthy. It's not quite a John Brooks situation, but he, you know, he has, he's had health concerns too. Yeah, we bubble wrap him until we need him, right? That's right.

Okay. Yeah, I don't think anyone's going to be up in arms about that. Number six, Weston McKinney. Struggled against Mexico, but again, the entire team struggled against Mexico. not going to punish him too much for that. What we're going to watch is to see how he bounces back in a hopefully more, uh,

uh, sort of a more comfortable setting that we'll have in the nation's league games, tactical and sort of competition-wise. Yeah. We play Cuba in, at Audi Field in D.C. on the 11th. And that, I mean, if that's not a comfortable game.

I know. I'm almost just always talking about Canada here because with as much respect to as we can give them from a soccer competitive standpoint, those games shouldn't be competitive. Right. Number seven, Timothy Wea, very bad hamstring terror suffered in late August, no timetable on his return that I've seen. But when he's healthy and informed, he'd like to think he's the perfect counterpart to Pulisic on the other wing.

Yeah, this is another speculative one, but I think we're willing to speculate because we don't love any of our other options in that position. and Wea has shown that he can play a very clean game for the U.S. men's national team. And this was before he was starting to get more interest from European side, before a $10 million move to Lille. Yeah, $10 million move for a teenage American attacker is pretty unusual, guys. Pretty unusual. Number eight.

All right, Matt Miazga, second centerback in the list. Last month, I think there were four centerbacks in the top 10. Matt Miazga is the second one coming at number eight. Back to full training. Centerback bills, I feel like. is one of those plateau positions for the U.S. where we have a lot of reliable players at about the same level.

So if Miazga's gone, we don't lose a lot when we go to the next man. But I don't think the plateau is as high as we sort of talk about it. Yeah, I agree. Miasga benefits from his inactivity. Yes. Because of the poor showings by Aaron Long

and Walker Zimmerman, under duress against Mexico. I think Miasga would be better than them at possessing out of the back, but would I stake my life on it? No. All right. So, Miazga right now, again, the beneficiary of slightly rough outings for the other

first competitors coming in at number eight. Number nine, Dwayne Holmes. He was... Similar theme. Yeah. Well, he was back in the 11 for Darby County, went 81 minutes as an attacking midfielder in a one-one draw over the weekend, and created the chance for Darby's early goal. It was good to see that highlight, though, because I think our case for Dwayne Holmes is that

He is a very sort of, it's kind of a cliche to call somebody this, but he's like an all-action midfielder. And that set up for Darby County was very much just an all-action type of play. Yeah, several ricochets, but a lot of quickness and technique. Decisiveness. Yep. Desiciveness is the right word. All right.

Basically the same person at the moment, Sebastian Leggett at number 10. And I think it's for the same reason. He's looked good in every national. And Legette, I think is another. a good example for my idea that national team performances should actually start to be weighed more than club team performances. He's looked good in every national team performance he's had in Burhalter's time for my money, even in games where other people have looked bad. So while we're giving everybody these reprieves against Mexico,

Legette came in and actually looked pretty good against Mexico, which I think should count double. Yeah. He produced big moments of XA in both games, you know? even though he didn't have the sharpest game against Uruguay he you know he hit that he hit that left footed ball across to roll on that's the kind of thing we love to see we want to see more of that and so while his club situation has sort of been up and down with Galaxy this year I think is that is that fair to say like I basically think we should ignore it like as long as he continues to look good for the national team I don't care what happens with him at Galaxy I don't care if Galaxy crash out of the playoffs and he can't even make the bench or if he can't make the 11 like you He looks good for the U.S. Keep playing him for the U.S. Yeah. Agree to agree.

Number 11, Josh Sargent. Played pretty well against Uruguay, as we suspected he would if given a chance. Clearly, the second best striker in the pool came on for the last half hour against Union Berlin over the weekend. It looked fine in a 2-1 win. There are more injuries at Verde Bremen, which indicate he may get more time on the field.

So that's good news. Not holding my breath on him getting more time for, Bremen. I feel like there was already, there were already a couple of guys out ahead of him and his time was still limited. So I don't think this is going to make him a nailed on starter despite his goal and the opportunity he did get. Yeah, nailed on starter, no, but he did start the last game before the international break and now another guy is injured. And he came in for the last half hour after playing, you know, four days earlier with the U.S. men's national team on Saturday. So I think he's going to keep playing.

Yeah, I'm hoping. I'm hoping he keeps some kind of a role in the first club. But I wanted to talk about a little bit his Uruguay performance because, you know, I think we even said it too. But a lot of people were saying stock up for Josh Sargent. And it seemed like his performance against Uruguay was basically what we would have expected, right, based on his other performances for the U.S. national team. Yeah, there was nothing, there was nothing outrageously special about it. Right. So, again, that just goes back.

If his stock went up for doing things he's already been doing for the national team, it continued. continues to imply that he should have just been a national teamer for the entire run. His stock should have been already higher than it was. That's essentially what I'm saying. All right. Number 12, Tim Rine. Kind of a surprise? I don't remember where Tim Rine was last month, but I'm sure it wasn't 12.

Well, he was a big winner of the Uruguay match appears to be a more or less like-for-like replacement for the oft-injured Brooks because he can pass the ball. and we need that from at least one of our centerbacks. Yeah, that's the big one for me. The reason I'd keep him this high is because having Tim Riemann there will make everybody else better. So even if he's 30, and I guess if he's going to be playing centerback, he could keep playing for the next few years. But even if not, even if he's a placeholder, he's a placeholder that's going to help everyone else be better,

and that's exactly what we want out of placeholders. Yeah. Yep. Number 13, why don't you take it? Reggie Cannon. Did well in the Gold Cup, like worked his way from being an injury alternate to a Gold Cup final starter. And then I don't think did too much to hurt himself in this last friendly window. I don't think he did anything great, but we're not stacked with elite right-back talent.

So it seems like he's got a, at the moment, a foothold on that right-back spot. Yeah. No more need be said. Aaron Long is number 14. I would say he probably saw his stock fall further than anyone in the last two friendlies, never looked comfortable with the ball at his feet, and then he got beaten on New York-Y's goal 1v-1, which is supposed to be his forte.

That's what he's bringing to the table is lockdown defending and mobility. There you have it. All right. Number 15, and I think you're underrating him, which is why he's coming at 15, is Baxter Pomacall. We didn't get to see very much of him, and I think maybe that's sort of why even just sort of generally his stock maybe is just falling just from not having the chance to show what he has.

Came on as a very late substitute against Uruguay. But I think he belongs in the same sort of tier right now as Leggett and Holmes. The one caution I have on him is he's playing out on the wide midfield for Dallas. I watched the game last night and he was only okay. It's hard for him to make a big impact out there, I guess. And if he's going to continue to play on the wing for Dallas, it doesn't feed Cole to the hype. All right, well, tell us this. Was he basically strictly a winger for Dallas?

Because I feel like that is going to be a much different situation than if he's sort of playing a center mid for the U.S. where he can now swap places with Poulsick. He can swap places with Dest coming forward because Pommackle seems like a really smart player and would thrive in that kind of a situation. He was in and out of the midfield for Dallas, but most of the time when he picked up the ball,

he was on the sideline. Yeah, so I feel like we'd be able to put him in a position where he can sort of drive the action. And for Pomacol, Legiton, Holmes, that I think in my mind is what their strength will be, is that they're going to be the guys who drive us forward, which is something we were sorely lacking and have been lacking for most of the Burrhalter era

and for most of the last six to seven years since the glory days of mixed discerude. Okay. Yeah. All right. Number 16, Nick Lima. Let's do 16 to 17 together. Okay. They're closely tied together.

16, Nick Lima, 17 is. DeAndre Yedlin. They're both right-backs. We assume that they're both going to be capable. It's strange to have DeAndre Yedlin below, both Lima and Cannon. But we haven't seen Yedlin function too much in Burrhalter system. I think he's played one game at right-back and played some limited minutes as a right-winger. So there are just question marks about how he's going to fit in. And I think there are still reasonable question marks about his overall sort of technical ability. He does have, however, the shiniest pedigree of any of our fullbacks and basically of anybody not named Christian Pulisic at this point for the national team.

Yeah, a month from now, DeAndre Adlin could easily be sort of in the top 10 of our top 40. I want to see it in Burrhalter's sort of scheme. Lima, on the other hand, is not a flashy pick, but he keeps performing well for the national team. He was a bright addition in that Uruguay match and got the assist. Are we calling that an assist? I guess. I don't know what the technical ruling on it is. It was on Jordan Morris's goal. Are we calling that a goal?

It's 100% a goal. Okay. Number 18. Paul Areola. My longstanding goal is to make Paul Areola 23rd best player on our 23. I feel like if we do that, we're in very good shape. He's not there yet. He's right around 11 if we're trying to pick starters. Number 19. Miles Robinson. Some promising moments from him in his. his sort of short cameos over this last window. He's kind of shown that ability to dip a shoulder past a pressing defender, a pressing forward,

and sort of carry the ball past them, which again, I think is going to be a huge part of the U.S.'s success for Greg Burhalter. Defends pretty well. I know he had an own goal over the weekend against, or for Atlanta over against Columbus. But those kinds of fluke things happen. I'm not going to disqualify someone for that. Agreed. Agreed. Number 20, Michael Bradley.

He's still pretty good. But how good is he? And should he be getting reps as he soldiers through his early 30s? So I think he is still pretty good too, but I think he's going to suffer in this discussion because he's not so much better than the players he'd be replacing. And I'm not calling Will Trap the player he'd be replacing. Like if Michael Bradley's starting, that's keeping like a Weston McKinney or a Paxton-Pomacall or Sebastian Legget out of the midfield for me.

and or Dwayne, and I don't think that's worth it for a 32-year-old. We are almost certainly not in agreement with Greg Burrhalter on this. We'll see. We'll see what happens over the next 12 months. Number 21, a like-for-like replacement for Michael Bradley, essentially, is Jackson Ewell. Thought he looked fine against Uruguay at the 6. Seems like he's better at the job than Will Trap. Yes, very much hoping that Ewell has supplanted Will Trap as Brathe.

as Bradley's backup in Burrhalter's mind. 22. Walker Zimmerman. I have my quibbles with Zimmerman, but it's fair to say he's a top six, centerback on the depth chart. Walker Zimmerman. Ladies and gentlemen. 23. Keaton Parks.

There we go. NYCFC has 10 wins, one draw, and two losses in games Parks has started since June 30th. They are the best team in the Eastern Conference, even though they do it, it seems like even though they're in the biggest media market, they're so under the radar. They are under the radar. All I hear about is Atlanta United.

And NYCFC's like six or seven points clear of them atop the conference. So Parks has been a big part of that. And he looks, from what I've seen, looks stronger, more athletic than he did at Benfica B a year ago. With all the style and grace, I thought he brought to the table back then. he's helping run that midfield and he scored a goal over the weekend. There's a nice highlight video put together by USMNT prospects on Twitter. I believe, did Domain come out and basically say that his movement off of the ball has improved

like drastically? Or maybe Parks himself said it. I don't remember. I feel like I saw that. I mean, talking about things that have changed and, you know, I mean, people are going to wonder,

are going to ask him about the fact that he went from sort of struggling to get into the 11th and now being a key part of this run they're on. Yeah, he barely played at the beginning of the season. And since June 30th, he's been pretty much a locked-in starter. Okay, Keaton Parks, it's another one that I'm very curious about seeing because, again, we want to see, I feel like we want to see center midfielder's who will push the game forward a little bit, and he would fit that description.

Yep. 24. Alfredo Morales. Welcome, Alfredo Morales. Tough, tough break to get injured in the game. He finally sort of, after three years in the wilderness, gets called back in. I don't think Morales really pushes the ball forward as well as some of the other players on the list, but he was not a liability.

Is that fair to say? Yeah, I would say he was even more than not a liability. He strengthened our midfield. Yes. Defensively. He did. I'm going to say that's a very low bar to clear, but I think it's one that needs to be cleared, which is why I think Alfredo Burroughs belongs on this list because if Tyler Adams is not around,

all of these other midfields we've talked about, including Michael Bradley, I would say are defensively soft or defensively, basically just defensive liabilities. Yep. Next one I'm going to take. Do it. Richie Ledesma. I said on Twitter a few weeks ago that we need a surge in form from Ledesma, and we got it. He put on a show on Friday against Young AZ, scored twice, assisted once and produced

a dozen other plus moments to solve problems in tight space, create goal scoring chances. Then three days later, and Monday's loss to Young Iax, I've put the All Touches video together. It's on USM&T videos YouTube channel. He was probably Young PSV's best player again. Found the ball sideline to sideline demonstrated that problem solving, that precision and that hunger to move the ball forward for 90 minutes. He's totally fit for the first time in his career.

And he's, I don't know, if he watched the videos, he's looking really, really good. I'll let you get a word in edgewise here. But this brings up the whole desk thing, you know. Young IACs, Young PSV games. are pretty intense. And you can say, oh, it's a youth league. Oh, it's, you know, Dutch second division. Dutch soccer isn't even that strong.

Now you're telling me that a player in the second division playing against a lot of teenagers should play for the men's national team. Look at Sergenio Dest. Look at how his performances in that exact, in that exact same type of game translated to the national team. Quite well, in my opinion. Yeah, don't basically don't try to do transitive property nonsense with leagues. Don't say, oh, well, MLS is a better league, therefore this player is better than this player.

Like, it has to just be case by case. And if you're concerned because we haven't seen Ledesma do it against adults, that's an absolutely, like, legitimate concern. We don't know that he can. You might fail. Luckily, the U.S. has a lot of games, whether it's international friendlies that are absolutely meaningless, or Cuba at home, which is borderline non-competitive, to bring these players in, these extremes, sort of the U20 extremes to test out because we know that the other top players in the U20 cohort do seem to fit in well. Paxton Pomacol is doing it at the MLS level for first team and Sergino Desk now doing it for IAC.

So we know that a lot of the other top performing U20s are capable. So it would stand to reason that we should explore our top five or six U20s to see if they can keep doing it at the national team level. Yeah. Yeah. Even I have to acknowledge, it's possible we would see Ledesma against Cuba. Like all my dreams would come true. Burhalter would call him up.

Burhalter would start him against Cuba. It's possible he would not look up for it. That's totally possible. Or he runs the show against Cuba and then we give him a cameo against Canada and he drowns against Canada. Like that could happen. Yeah. But I think it's basically I think it's worth the roster spot over sort of some of the other, maybe dead weight is too strong of a word, but some of the other very very,

low-ceiling players that we know are not going to be good enough because we're kind of in this unique situation where our Concaf important games, our qualifying games are at these extremes where it's, okay, we know that almost anybody we can put out there is going to beat Cuba and some of these other like Gold Cup group stage teams. And then we also know that Mexico, we're going to need better players than we have. So it's one extreme or the other. We could put Ledesma out there and we know we're going to beat Cuba. And we also know that some of our bottom players who are currently in the pool against Mexico

are going to lose. Yeah, I mean, we could put Christian Rodd on out there against Cuba. He could get a hat trick. Yes. And it wouldn't tell us anything. Right. So we can use that game to get a Ledesma or a Ledesma type acclimated to the senior team because everyone says it takes time in Burrhalter system to perfect it.

Then what better use of a game like that than to start acclimating some of these kids. All that said, he's going to probably be called up to the U23 team, and that's what's going to happen. All right. Same for number 26, Chris Richards? I believe so. All right, Chris Richards, starting consistently for Bayern Munich, too, along with some players who get sea time with the first team, Chris Richards, not one of the guys who's straddling both squads right now. But the three Bundesliga has a lot of, like, historic, big German teams playing in big stadiums against big crowds. And he looks pretty good, right?

He looks like a ball-playing centerback. Yeah, I mean, kind of. He's, this is my line on Richards. He's an elite defender. He's such a good defender. But I think his ball-playing is solid, solid. I wouldn't say he looks, quote, he looks like a ball-playing centerback yet.

Okay, that's fair. Could he be a better ball-playing centerback? and some of other first choice options? Yes, you could. Is it worth exploring that in some senior team camps? Yeah, of course. Of course it is. Oh, well, we'll just have to wait.

We'll just have to wait for him to crack the Bayern Munich first team. Maybe he'll go on loan this winter. Maybe he'll go on loan next summer. We shall see. Number 27. An established first team player. Yeah, Jordan Morris. I'm still not convinced by him,

but he keeps producing an MLS, sort of. And he played a solid game against Uruguay. Burrhalter will certainly continue to call him up. And to be fair, he creates danger sometimes. You know, he's able to get that ball on either foot. Now he can cross with his left foot. He can shoot with both feet. He's got a little danger in him.

Yeah, Morris, for me, is a perfect example of a useful placeholder. And I, again, I know that's probably like condescending, but I feel like he's sort of very close to that Paul Areola situation. I think Areola is tied here with the ball, which allows them to be a better complimentary player where you can complement a pool of sick better which for me is more important and I think that's why Morris is a ways down the ladder

I mean if Morris is the guy we're counting on to create the danger then I think we're going to be in some trouble yep I agree and that's a good point about Ariel I think ariola does play better with the pool of the six of the world than than Morris does Morris kind of is like it's either he's the guy or he's like on the end of a through ball or something

Right. He's a placeholder, like, danger creator, and that's where I think he comes up shorter than Ariola, who's a placeholder complimentary player. Swinging wildly from 27 to 28, we're going to the U19 Bundesliga, Ulyssesianez, which is really testing our philosophy of calling up youth players. But he was a goal machine in the U19 Bundesliga before he got injured and a spark plug at the U20 World Cup. He's been hurt the last few weeks. maybe we'll see him this weekend for the Wolfsburg Unitines. Got to get that train back up and running. People are going to think we're crazy for putting him right next to Jordan Morris on this list.

But if you watch him play, he's quite a player. He does have to prove it against adults, yada, yada, yada. Definitely does. But I think DeMoros contrast is perfect because what we basically be trying to test out is can Ullianas create more danger than Jordan Morris? Is he a better danger? Because that would be his role. I mean, he's going to come in to create danger.

We'd be putting him in to essentially run at people. And we'd have to test if he, we need to test if he can do that and be a little bit more dangerous than a Jordan Morris. Yeah. Because that's basically the barrier he'd have to clear to make it 23. Yeah. And I think he could create danger. There may be some growing pains on the defensive side of the ball.

This is a curiosity pick for me. Things are mediocre enough. That's a word that I, it's a word that I've seen a lot on social media lately, mediocrity. I think things are mediocre enough right now that we should indulge our curiosity. Because if we don't, then we're going to be left with number 29, Tyler Boyd.

I think we did indulge some curiosity with Tyler Boyd, and I think we've watched him, and I think we've said he doesn't create a ton of danger. And that needed to be his job, right? He was in there to create that danger, and to date, he hasn't done it outside of games against Guyana, and you have to be able to do it

against teams that aren't Guyana. Yeah, he struggled, he really struggled in that Mexico game, which was a crippling thing because Berhalter said after the game, the idea was to find the wingers in these inside pockets of space and have them, you know, link up. And repeatedly, Boyd could not do that. He could not link up. And then in addition to that, he didn't really create any danger. So that was a really bad game for him. And then against Uruguay, he had a couple nice moments. He had a good cross, but he also had a lot of not so nice moments. Yeah, his best moment was probably the miss. In my mind, like getting to that spot, getting to the ball, and then unfortunately just bounced it over the crossbar.

Yeah, I mean, the ball he played to Morris, that Morris headed. That's true, yeah. The goalkeeper was also pretty nice. Number 30, going back to the Erestivizzi, Chris Gloucester. Here's the rationale here. Position of need, intelligent in possession. a very steady defender. And again, if Desk taught us anything, it's that a good performer in that league will probably look like he belongs with the U.S. men's national team.

Not in that league in general, but at these sort of elite reserve sides. Right. Or if you're playing for the Kurosau national team. So what I like about Gloucester is he, I think what we're hoping for Gloucester is that he could basically be an improvement on Tim Riem as a left fullback backup. Yeah.

Kind of the same mold. doesn't, but Gloucester could get forward a little bit. I guess what we're really hoping is that Gloucester would be the equivalent of like a Reggie Cannon, but on the left side. Yeah. And I, I don't think he's, I don't think he's that far off from that. I mean, it's an interesting thought experiment, maybe one nobody wants to have to think about what would Reggie Cannon look like in that young, a young PSV, young Iax game?

Would he, would he just be blowing the doors off of everyone? I don't think so, man. Seems like he would just be a steady presence, which is what we're, which is what Gloucester's giving us. Gloucester does look very cool in possession. And again, that's the kind of player that Burr-Alter wants. So it probably is still a little early for Gloucester, certainly since we have desks there right now. But that I think Gloucester could work his way in before he breaks through for PSV. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. He doesn't look like he's 100% 90-minute match fit yet. he just made his first start for young PSV

are the video the video is out there for your consumption number 31 number 31 of Alaska's favorite Bobby Wood yeah give me the story here I mean there isn't one it's just I think the pool is basically run out of players at this point

so I have Bobby Wood on there because we do need what we only have two strikers in the in the top 30 so Bobby Wood at number 31 because he's a hardworking, semi-proficient technically forward that is good enough to be our third best striker. Yeah, it's highly debatable, but he's still not playing for Hamburg in the two Bundesliga, but I don't have any problem with him being at number 31.

Again, it's just the pool is really thin, and I don't know, should Soto be ahead of him? Probably not, but Bobby Wood has shown that he can do it for the national team. 27 years old, I feel like I say this every week. In my mind, that is basically enough until he stops having good performances for the national team to be considered a candidate. Yeah, which he may never have

another performance. Might never get back in. Number 32, then, Christian rolled on. Yeah, he's a Burrhalter favorite. He had several good moments against Uruguay. I think our opinions on Christian are well-documented placeholder is probably the word. And that's that.

33, Brandon Sarvanya. Yeah, I'd say a curiosity pick here, the search for a Tyler Adams type defensive midfield replacement. It kind of starts with Servania. Yeah, if it's not going to be Morales, and Morales, again, wrong side of 30, then I think Servania at the moment would be a guy to test out. It's easy to imagine that someone we've never even heard of before could instantly, like, arrive on the scene and jump a brand of Sarvana. Absolutely.

You know what I mean? Savania probably won't even be on the 40 next month. Right. But at the moment, we are just so thin for any kind of like, rangy defensive midfielder behind Adams that Sarvanya's name is going to be on the list. Yeah. Number 34, Cameron Carter Vickers. He's starting at centerback for Stoke City.

He's somewhere on the fringes of the national team. I think he's on the outside looking in at the moment. But he's U23 eligible. That's right. That's right. He's got Olympic gold in his eyes. Stoke is really bad too. I think they've lost several straight. So there you go. 35. Anthony Robinson, also Olympic eligible, also starting regularly in the championship. Automatic starter for Wiggin once again after his permanent move there in the offseason. I haven't seen a lot of him this season, but I'm just going to assume they're using him the same way where he just bombs forward. he was constantly playing in semi-dangerous to very dangerous across his last season. So, you know, if we're moving towards this attacking left back,

Anthony Robinson should be able to supplant Daniel Lovitz, even if he's never going to be the technical, tidy combination player that Sergenio Dest is. Number 36, speculation ensues. Giovanni Raina, how many wingers do we have with his ability to beat people and produce something from it? I'd say four. Pulisic and Yanez aforementioned and then Jonathan Aiman,

who's just getting back to health in Denmark. So Raina will get his chance to shine at the U-17 World Cup, and then it'll be up to him and Lucien Fav to decide when he gets his first team debut at Dortmund. That may not be for a while, but we'll see. That'll be in the Europa League knockout rounds in March. after they fall out of the Champions League. Yeah. You think that's what's going to happen?

I don't know. It's kind of, I mean, it's a tough group for Dormant. Yeah. Number 37. Speaking of dangerous wingers with potential, Jonathan Amon. He's on here because we put him on the shelf. We were talked about putting him on the shelf last month, but he just made his return to Northland as a sub in their last game.

So my hopes immediately brought back into, high gear. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. We traffic and optimism to a certain extent. I'm just saying Amen, again, I keep going back to like his one opportunity. I thought he looked like a better combination player and more dangerous player than Tyler Boyd did in all of the chances Tyler Boyes had to play.

So if we really like Tyler Boyd, I still don't see why we wouldn't like Jonathan Amon. Fair enough. Fair enough. Number 38. Mason. This is a fun one. Mason Toy. He's a goal scorer.

It's not clear what he can do against the low block. That's a point that Taylor Twelman has made. But he scored about a goal per 90 for Minnesota United, the third best team in the Western Conference right now in all competitions. And he got a goal for the U23s and a friendly win over Japan earlier this month. So Mason Toy breaks into the top 40. And I totally believe truly that even if we had to win a game tomorrow, I think Mason Toy would be a better option than Giazzi's Ardaez.

Because we know Zardez isn't going to help us in the buildout. And if it comes down to, like, we need to go late. I honestly believe that putting Giazzi Zardaz on is basically a surrender. Whereas putting the Mason Toy on, I would be like, all right, let's roll the dice. A lot of these speculative picks we're putting on are dice rolls. But if we're chasing a result against a team that we, against a Mexico, we know that some of the other guys that are in the pool are not going to hit that seven. Yeah. I mean, the perfect example of what Toy can do was that game against LAFC a few weeks ago, where he scored a brace in a two zero win in Los Angeles.

Now, granted LFC was missing Carlos Vela. You saying Vela would have defended Mason Toy a little bit better there, Bels? I mean, they might have scored some goals. That's what I'm saying. Okay. And they didn't. But apparently LAFC dominated that game in terms of possession. Toy hit twice on the counter, and they were both really nice goals, like really, really nice goals.

his weak left foot. His weak left foot. Who is it? Is it to tool ramen that puts out the leading American goals per 90 players on Twitter every once in a while? Yes, that's him. All right. I think at this point, Mason Toey could go like the next eight games without scoring. I don't even know if there are eight games left in the season.

And he'd still have a better goals per 90 than like five other Americans who would be considered ahead of him in the pool. Certainly than Zardas. He basically could go eight games without scoring and still have a better goals per 90 than Jazi's artist. Yeah, it's basically a two-man race between Altador and Toy, isn't it? There you go. Probably not. I bet the Pong.

I bet the Pong's up there, Wando. Am I wrong? For a while, Altador was above one, but he's not that high anymore. Okay. All right. Number 39. Alex Mendez made his first start for Young IACs on Monday on a 2-0 win over Richie La Desma and Chris Gloucester and young PSV.

Not as good as Ledesma, not as fit and ready for the pace of that game, but that's understandable because it's his first game. He also has some defensive issues, which reared their head in a game on Friday when he came on at halftime, up to zero. His team got a red card. They were forced to defend,

and he was partially culpable. Yeah, I'd say he's culpable for one of the goals, partially culpable for another. So that's not great, but he oozes class on the ball. And he can do all the things Burhalter asks of his central midfielder's in possession. I think better than anyone else. I don't think that's an exaggeration.

Just needs to get better at defending. So there you go. All right, Mendez. I'm glad he cracked the top 40. Number 40, and this is all because of you, Giazzi Zardez is on the list. And I have to believe this is just influenced by his selection so far by Greg Burhalter. I don't believe in a vacuum you would have considered Giazzi Zardez. a viable candidate for the striker pool.

Well, I don't know. He might be in that top four, top three. Who knows, man? Who knows? We don't know. That's the thing because it's just been him over and over again. Yeah. All right.

The point is he makes the cut over Jeremy and Bobesei and Andrea Novakovich. Yes. I got nothing else. We'll see how long he maintains his spot on the team. that's basically the running like experiment right all right 40 players we did it uh quick note nations league matches are october 11 and october 15 and uh something we got wrong in the last podcast we just didn't know yet was that the olympics are important to conca calf so the the nation's league semis and final have been moved from march which is when olympics qualifying was going to be to

June. And so that that frees up the player pool for Olympic qualifying in March. And I guess we'll see how that's all handled, you know, who gets released for it, who ends up playing in it in the qualifying games and, you know, how involved Greg Burrhalter is in coaching those games. Because there's an argument, right, for building goodwill for the U.S. men's national team with a serious effort at doing well at the Olympics. And it's an argument that I'm sympathetic to. There is. I'm I'm like completely indifferent to that argument, to be honest. I'm very much more on the wavelength of like half of our Olympic team would actually be like first team players anyway. So I see the Olympics as just a chance to run a first team camp a month before World Cup qualifying.

Yeah, that would be really cool. So then that would require that Greg Burhalter be the coach for the team. And right now it's Jason Christ, right? Who's got a job lined up in Miami. Yeah, Christ coaches the U.S. 23 sort of leftovers when their U23 camps, because obviously the best U23 players are in with the first team, once we get to the actual full-blown event, assuming that we get releases from players, which is a big assumption, it's not like there would be any consistency for Christ to maintain, you know,

by taking that group because it would be a complete split between Burrhalter's guys and crisis. So I feel like it could be either one of them. And again, I think it'd be a waste not to have Burrhalter take it. what else is he doing bells totally totally it's it'd be a perfect uh pre world cup qualifying camp for all of our favorite players we would love that i don't think we could i can imagine a better event for scuffed than a full strength elizabeth uh age eligible olympic team yeah i mean we're talking like all of our fantasy lineups would just be coming coming true uh provided that burrhalter is the coach.

You know, that's the important thing. And then you could see, you know, maybe Burrhalter gets to coach them all at once, and he's like, wait a second. That's the goal. That's the dream. Richard is really good. Chris Richards, new starting center back. Right.

But if it ends up, if they end up calling Dave Serrikin back in to coach the Olympics while Burhalter works on his spreadsheets, getting ready for the World Cup qualifiers, then that will not be nearly as positive in my view. Burrhalter would be too busy contacting dual. nationals. He can't take his time. Can't take time away from that to coach the Olympics. Yeah.

Let's not get into that. Nope. All right, I think we're done here. Yeah, let's call that a day, Bells. Good top 40. Thanks, everyone for listening. Hey, oh, by the way, rate us and review us on iTunes, please, positively, ideally. Rate us honestly.

Honesty is the best policy. We'll see you.