SoccerWise - Weekend Recap

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Gass digs into this weekend's global soccer stories, and tackles the Soccerwise mailbag. He kicks things off with his reaction to the US u23 v New Zealand result and then highlights some big Leagues Cup moments. Once he's in the mailbag, things get a little crazier! We're talking David De Gea, Red Bull transfer targets, the US youth development pipeline, Matt Hedges trade scenarios, and so much more. 2:10 Olympic Reactions 11:50 Leagues Cup Highlights 15:02 David De Gea To MLS Rumors 16:59 Where Is US Youth Development Compared To Ten Or Twenty Years Ago 20:20 Matt Hedges Trade Destinations 23:41 CSO's Views On MLSNP 25:48 Red Bull NY Transfer Reports Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

Hey everybody, welcome back to Soccer Wise. I, of course, am David Goss with you for your mailbag and weekend recap show. If you missed it, myself and Casey White, the legend, former U.S. Women's National Team player, coach, as well as current NWSL broadcaster, we are doing a postgame show for every U.S. Women's Olympic game. We did our show yesterday after the big victory over Germany. So if you missed that and you want all that coverage, go back into the feed, dig into that one, jump on the YouTube page page you can find it there as well an awesome victory for the u.s the front three flowing cruising uh and we had a lot of fun

breaking that one down talking about it talking about the new u.s tactical identity and much much more i'll give you some thoughts from the weekend as we go in as well as some mailbag questions we've got a first we've got an audio mailbag question so if you want to be able to enter into the mailbag if you want to be able to affect this show if you want to be able to interact with myself tom jordan and talk with all of our other community members about all the games that are going on and what you're watching you have to sign up for the Patreon and then you get access to the Discord as well as our depth charts, the salary tables in MLS, NWSL and with the national teams that we've put together and we've planned our second happy hour that we will be doing on Wednesday, myself and Tom. So for all the MVP subscribers, you will get access to that live Zoom for us to hang out and talk a little bit before the League's Cup games on Wednesday.

So that's going to be a lot of fun. And we're really looking forward to that one. The first one was awesome. Everyone was great to chat with. Everyone was great to learn about their soccer backgrounds, talk about all the teams and what we care about and what's going on. And let's dig into the Olympics. Now, I have to be honest. I'm an Olympic super fan.

So while I'm watching all the soccer, it is in tandem with everything else. I'm watching the dominance of South Korean women's archery. I'm watching and learning about saber and foil and fencing. I watched Rafa Nadal play Novak Djokovic the u.s women's rugby team i'm hopefully doing better but doing awesome so far and of course swimming and gymnastics the olympics are the best i just want to say that just straight out the gate i'm building my schedule every day of what i'm watching and then sprinkling leagues cup summer cup and of course i'm watching all of the soccer as well yesterday the women's soccer was absurd, but Saturday was the men's soccer.

Didn't really get a chance to talk about it. 4-1 victory over New Zealand. The bounce back performance you would hope for from this team, and I said it at the end of the review show, the US performance was good enough against France, and the game states were clearly going to shift in a match against France as the host and against New Zealand that I thought Mitrovic could keep the same lineup he chose to it was clearly the right decision in that one they jump out to the early lead off the penalty kick Hariel draws it Mihailovic is able to dispatch it then Zimmerman gets the second one quickly

set piece knock down battle in front of the goal Zimmerman's the second one quickly. Set piece, knockdown, battle in front of the goal. Zimmerman's able to poke it home. Buzio gets the third goal. Paxton Aronson, the fourth goal in the second half. And all around a solid performance for this U.S. team. They'll be frustrated with the goal they conceded. They'll be frustrated with the way they closed. A little bit messy and I think in a tough spot for some of the players to try and earn more minutes after the performance coming on as substitutes but overall a really good day for

the u.s they put themselves back in the driver's seat going up against a guinea team that's yet to win so far in this competition in match day three um for guinea a tight 2-1 loss i believe it was to france or 1-0 loss to France, 2-1 loss to New Zealand. So they are still alive, and they have played well in this competition, even though they do not have points. So it is still a tough one in this final game, but a reminder that some of the best third-place teams get through. So there's a little bit of breathing room if the U.S. even gets a draw. It's probably enough for them to get out of the group stage and in a small competition like this that's all you're asking for get into the next round get yourself into a

knockout game it feels like this team can go toe-to-toe with anyone in this tournament they won't be favorites in all or a ton of the games maybe in the knockouts but that's fine um this is a team i think that's looking for an opportunity to get on the field, scrap and sort of put themselves in some different situations. Coming out of that game, shout out to Nathan Haradon. I've been a fan since I saw him in the academy. I've always been a big fan of his game. He is not a game changer from the fullback position consistently, but he never loses you games he battles he wins his individual battles he works hard defensively he is elite in the air both as a set piece threat and as a man who can win aerial 50 50s defensively when his touch is clean you could play through him we saw it in some

big moments against france you saw it in this game as well um it's interesting when you look at this team he is basically the opposite of caleb wiley wiley elite going forward question marks defensively falls asleep at times loses 1v1 battles harryl never does any of those things but is a question mark going forward at times i have said it for years this is the type of player you should produce out of your academy he is a lockdown starter in Major League Soccer. He's shown a little flexibility in being able to swap into a wide center back role over the course of the last year, year and a half under Philadelphia as they've dealt with some injuries and had to tweak some stuff in some matches. He can be a Philadelphia Union player for the next 12 years if you want to, and he will be good.

He can play on the left as well if you need to, and so it gives you flexibility to go out and sign the best player you can going forward. Obviously, Kai Wagner there for now, but what does it look like in three, four, five years? I love Hariel's game. I've loved watching him play and develop and grow, and I do think that there's another step that he can still get when you look at his game and when you look at what he's good at. That's one of the things we forget about players who come through academy setups, still only 23 years old. And so this is a player who can still get better, can still read the game better, can still get more comfortable, and yet has over 75 appearances in the first division with Philadelphia and now is getting the opportunity

on the Olympic stage Gianluca Busio injured in that first half forced to come off sounds like it's the same injury he's been dealing with over the course of the year so worrying signs there going forward into the final game against Guinea my assumption is Josh Atensio gets brought into the team off the alternate roster. If you have not followed the women's tournament, where we've seen this already happen a bunch, you have four alternates in the Olympics. Unlike past years, it is very flexible,

your ability to bring those players in and then take them back out of the competition. So for example, you can take Busio off your matchday roster. You can add Atencio. And then if Busio is healthy, you can bring him back. All of this is pending IOC and FIFA clearance for each of those players. But we've seen the U.S. do it with Jaden Shaw already on the women's side. The expectation is it will be similar on the men's side. So you can bring Josh Atencio into the team.

And with Tanner Tessman sitting on a yellow card, two yellow cards in the group stage, is the suspension. I would actually start Atencio in this game one is I think he can play at this level I've seen him play at a high level with the Seattle Sounders I think he can do a job for this team and the other is to protect Tessman for the knockout games if you were due to do that like for like you would still have to replace Busuccio in the starting lineup. What I would do is I would move Paxton Aronson central, slide Mihailovic a little bit deeper, and bring Griffin Yao into this team. And this takes us to our mailbag comment.

Hi, guys. I know it is only two games, but I was wondering which players on the men's Olympic squad have seen their stock rise and whose has fallen. And if you think a tournament like this with odd teams and younger players really carries much weight for clubs performing evaluations, I will hang up and listen. It has been a dream of mine to get it. I will hang up and listen and take your answer offline. Didn't get a first time long time, but shout out to Ronald Gringo for

being our first and reminder if you subscribe to patreon you can go into the discord you can leave your voice memos in the mailbag thread and we will use them here on these monday shows for stock up i have to say nathan harrell i already sang his praises i'd also say griffin yao i think griffin yao was really good in the lead up to this tournament for the u.s we saw it in the game against France. The friendly before the Olympics even started earlier in the year and him coming off the bench and helping lead that comeback. And I think we've seen it more here. For stock down, I would say Paxton Aronson.

Aronson scored against New Zealand. He was active. It just feels to me like a lot of the decisions in the final third have been wrong whether it's holding too long whether it's where the pass is played or who the pass is played to or the decision between shot and pass and I said it coming out of the first game he is not athletic enough to make mistakes he has to be perfect in his decision making and his technique to be able to hang on the field I haven't seen that so far in this one. I don't say Duncan McGuire because I think he scored too many pro goals

for you to really say that stock comes down. And that goes to Chris's question about how much are teams putting into this? Teams are desperate for data points. And the thing about the Olympics is you're talking about U23 players. You're talking about young players that you just don't have a lot of examples of.

So I think for a lot of clubs around the world, if you see these players on a field against players that play in your league or for your team, that's a data point that you're going to use and say, how do they scale against them? I think for a lot of people as well, you're going to look at what do these players do when they're fish out of waters in a different environment, in a different style, in a different setup against different opposition.

How do they handle themselves? And so I think teams will take a decent amount from this i would be shocked to see all of a sudden hundreds of millions of pounds dollars euros being spent based off performances at the olympics but i think teams will take something from this now in saying that duncan mcguire has scored a ton of goals in professional soccer those don't go away. But what is worrying is having just played with Orlando at the pro level, you are looking at a player who is struggling in a different setup. He is not getting the ball as high up the field. He's being asked to connect and drop a little deeper, and he has not looked good in this competition. And I think that's worrying for teams that look at things and say, well, we don't play

the same way Orlando does. So how will he fit into our team the reality of it is though he has scored goals goals cost money people will come and get duncan mcguire if he wants to leave still when this as the summer window now has opened let's do a couple other quick weekend thoughts dc atlanta if you have not watched this, go watch the highlights. Just an insane game. 3-3 in regulation. Went to the shootout in the League's Cup. The first weekend of League's Cup action. I think DC's talent is still trying to catch up with the system.

I thought this was a system performance for DC. Where they got a couple big goals because of the way they're set up. Especially off the long punt up to Jared Stroud who scored his second. But it was overall a strong day for DC United. Sabalov Sinitsa, really good for Atlanta United. He has looked good since coming back from Euros and missing that big opportunity to get the win in the second group stage game in the European Championships for Georgia. And that's big for this Atlanta team team because whether it is this Russian playmaker

from Atalanta or someone else it is going to take time for someone to fit in and having a dangerous Saba who can at least dominate his part of the field if not come off that wing and play all over the field that will make life a lot easier for whatever playmaker and potentially whatever number nine comes into this team if If you haven't seen it, Dean Smith making some comments after the Charlotte game at Philadelphia about the quality of the field in Philadelphia and complaints. DC United is moving their game there this week because the quality of field at Audi field is garbage right now.

So we are potentially going to have to have a grass expert on to our show tomorrow, live 2 p.m. Eastern time with tom now that show by the way at two o'clock is going to be starting around halftime of the u.s guinea game in the final game of the olympics so it's basically going to be a watch along where we talk mls we talk transfers we talk leagues cup we talk all those things and we'll have the game on in the background as well. And then we will do the postgame show right there.

So it's going to be a lot of fun. Make sure to tune in on Twitch, on YouTube, SoccerWiseHQ. And search SoccerWiseHQ on any of your social handles across Twitter and Instagram. So you can find all of our stuff there. And maybe, maybe, I'll find some grass experts somewhere to come on and talk about what's going on i just thought this was funny in the discord someone said is kate cowell a sleeper agent for san jose uh he missed his penalty for chivas in their shootout against um the quakes in league's cup the quakes able to take the shootout victory they tried to hang on to a one zero lead chivas

was all over them chances left right left right and san jose held on in a 1-0 lead. Chivas was all over them. Chances left, right, left, right. And San Jose held on in a way they haven't in MLS play. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Daniel returned for them. He was the best goalkeeper in the league last year or second best behind Berkey statistically off the charts and had been out hurt for most of this year. This was only his fourth appearance in all competitions for San Jose. So a huge moment for the Quakes. Some bright spots in that game, but that the biggest one for them. And the League's Cup weekend ended up, of course, with a Zach McGraw brace against Leon in a game that saw a 37-year-old Andres Guardado battle against a 38-year-old Diego Chara.

And they looked like the two spriest players on the field Guardado jumping passing lanes winning balls Chara of course covering the back line as he does going sideline to sideline those two are medical marvels we should test them and see what we can learn from them and all of us can hope to be a quarter as healthy as them otherwise it was a pretty standard Portland performance they're shaky defensively playing Kamal Miller at left back to try and help that that hurts the attack a little bit but the front four are fun and Evander was on one again here today ends up I believe with two assists because of McGraw's brace both off corner kick goals for the Portland Timbers let's dig into the mailbag. Let's start with Lucas Redd.

He says, I saw David De Gea had interest from the USA. All of that in quotations. One, is that true? Two, when I see stories like this where big names have interest from MLS, how often is it legit versus maybe versus made up? I do not know how legitimate the David De Gea rumors are. I can say this.

It almost always starts with a foreign agent using Major League Soccer for leverage. That's why you very rarely even see a team connected. Because if you connect the team, now other teams can start looking at salary caps and DP spots and TAM and start saying, oh, that team doesn't have an opening. Or that team doesn't even need X player at this position. De Gea is obviously a very straightforward one because he's a goalkeeper so if you say a team and that team has a goalkeeper well then it's not a realistic possibility and so for the most part agents are using it as leverage against people but i think for most mls teams if they feel like there's an opportunity they will explore it i think you can see it from

the names we've seen on discovery lists in the past of like there's no way x team would ever sign x European star or South American star but they have them on their discovery list because if that player is going to come to MLS they want an opportunity to be in that conversation and I think now it has shifted even with the additions of Gareth Bale and Hugo Lloris with that style of contract where you can say, well, if you really want to move to the U.S. and you really want to play in MLS, we can make this work if you want to. And the team's trying to put a lot of that on the players to take reduced salaries and to take salaries that could fit into the salary cap. So there could be some possibility with some of these names and some of these players, but for the most part, it is the players and the agents trying to use MLS for their own opportunity. Fallow eight,

God said previously, and I'm paraphrasing a bit. I've thought as much about player development and different styles of player development across nations as anyone and love to talk about it. I'm almost infinitely curious about this vis-a-vis the United States, our international player pool and MLS. I also think it's generally poorly understood by our average U.S. Premier League viewer. That's a very direct take. Would love a deep dive on one. Your take on where we are, how it tracks against where we were a decade ago in the current trajectory,

and maybe things to watch or track to stay on top of that trajectory. Two, how does what we do compare to other nations? Are there useful lessons to learn from others that are nuanced? Think more Croatia and Korea than Germany. Three, whatever else you guys think, fill in the blanks on the topic.

I love this question. This is a larger question that I wanna dig into. I do wanna specifically dig into the development styles in other countries because I have talked to people from France and Belgium and Korea and Japan and Ecuador and Argentina about their development systems, about how they build things and what happens. And so I think each of those kind of deserves their own explanation and conversation to figure out how it does fit with what the U.S. and Canada is doing. In general, quick response. The U.S. is doing better than they were a decade ago.

There is more opportunity for more players. There is a clearer pathway and system set up. setup players are more or better equipped to make professional debuts and have their career scale up than they were a decade ago and then they were two decades ago so for the most part players come into the professional ranks more prepared that can come into the professional ranks earlier if they need to or want to and they have more opportunity to make career decisions the ability to be able to play in an mls next pro or a USL as an amateur player before you decide if you want to go to college is absolutely massive. And I think those are the types of things that you're giving players opportunity to find the spot where they fit

and let their career scale. And then you're giving players an opportunity to get professional appearances and figure out where they fit in the grand scheme of things and try and help their careers going forward on top of international or individual development plans that clubs can build to allow players to get better on their own to specify the things they need to grow in their positional profile as well as the things they struggle with and the things they can get better at um and we'll continue to dig into this as we go along claydy troyer says which all-star after spending a few days in Columbus with Nance is most likely to jump ship and join the crew? This is an awesome question.

It's fun. Obviously, with the way we've seen Nance coach, it feels like most players who were able to play under him probably are pretty excited about it. We've seen players sort of try and follow him. We've seen players be very excited about their opportunity and their careers under them. I'm just going to throw two out there from what I saw at the All-Star game. I thought Aaron Herrera and Ricky Puj just looked like they were having a ton of fun.

They looked very emboldened to play the non-save style of connecting passes and trying to play into tight spaces and trying to link up consistently. For Ricky Puj,j is not really different. That's just who he is and what he does, but it seems like a clear fit. And Herrera, I thought, down the right wing was very involved, especially with Diego Rossi at times, I believe it was, and a few of the crew players out there. Phil West, shout out to the legend Phil West, covering Austin FC. I think I have an idea about one team, DC,

but with David Martinez going to Miami and Chitozi Awaziem going to FC Cincinnati, what are some potential trading partners for Austin to rehome Matt Hedges to clear a senior roster spot? They can't make another move without doing so. And with Siatok coming in, Hedges seems like the most likely candidate for a trade or conversely any interest out there in a john gallagher danny pereira or owen wolf let me start

with this on austin this was the wildest league's cup game of the weekend they won three two over pumas after going down a man where their new dp star osman bokhari got a red card in the first half and then steph cleveland saved a penalty in stoppage time to hold the 3-2 lead austin was able to score two goals playing down a man for a team that has struggled to score all year jesse zardes getting one of them uh as well so this was a wild electric pure leagues cup game uh huerta coming off the bench for Pumas making a difference, I believe because of the All-Star game, didn't get the start for this Pumas team. So this was everything you'd expect League's Cup to be. In terms of these rumors, for Hedges, it's a struggle. He is a 34-year-old center back where his best days are behind him. I don't know that athletically

he can play for a ton of teams, whether it's because he doesn't fit a pressing system, which is why I wouldn't really put him at DC United, or he can't play really in a two anymore because he can't cover enough ground for a lot of teams. So the teams I put on here that are maybes are RSL just because they've had so many injuries at the center back position. Now I would say with the way they've used Bodie Hidalgo and Philip Quinton, it feels like RSL has told us that they prefer speed at that center back position more than size or height or physicality. So it wouldn't make sense for hedges, but he is a, after this year, he has team options on his contract. So he's sitting on 550,

I believe thousand dollars in1,000 salary. So if you are a team with a little bit of space, you could bring him in for the year and then let him go after this, try and renegotiate or decide you want to re-up him for next season. You can, of course, find those salaries, by the way, on the depth charts, on the tables. Shout out to Charlie F fiction for that one the other teams that i put in there were vancouver because they do play three at the back and they are a team that is not going to go out and spend huge in a lot of positions so do they want to use some resources to bring in a veteran in matt hedges chicago as well because they've moved to three in the back i think they kind of have their three already and they're probably tapped out on salary spots and roster spots as well. And then the last one is Seattle.

Seattle is a team that likes to bring in MLS veterans. They like to fill spots with known quantities. While Matt Hedges can struggle at times this year, he is a known quantity. Seattle plays enough in possession that it might make it worth it because you know you can play through him a little bit and you're able to protect him a bit because you're playing less transitional games you're hoping and opening things up plus you've got cover in a yai mar so this would be as another option they gave up ariaga already this year maybe they want to fill that spot in again whiskey and modello says this

may be less of a mailbag question and more something that requires an article and some research. But I'd be curious to get some MLS team CSO perspectives on next pro and how they wish it was utilized by independent teams. Are there certain profiles of players that they would wish the two current independent teams focused on? I.e. future U22 players like Charlotte bringing one in a year early to acclimate at crown. Or do they view them purely as competition to help their second team players develop and prepare for the first team? This is an awesome question. I've literally never spoken to anyone about this because I've never thought

about it myself. So I'm going to text a couple of people and I'm going to get you a better answer coming up. But I would guess first and foremost, most of them would say we want really strong teams to challenge our players. We want to be able to walk out and say carlos rivas you know a former dp 30 year old colombian center forward at chattanooga yes we know that stewart hawkins can defend him 1v1 and that makes us feel like confident in this player to step up to the next level as well as helps this player prove themselves

or learn some things if they struggle so my guess would be the number one thing that those CSOs want is a good environment that those teams play in to challenge their players on the road and to challenge their players against the highest quality. But I do understand what you mean in terms of bringing players into the US potentially and bringing players into the ecosystem that can then be moved and transferred and whatnot going forward is really interesting Carolina core have gone with more of the players who have washed out or not find their spot in systems but are still really young and I think that's a really useful spot for teams to be able to say oh like we thought we liked Kai Thomas now he's playing well with the Carolina core

here's a second opportunity for a team that likes him or he fits their system to bring them in. And I think there's a decent amount of players like that. And I think a lot of CSOs will be happy to be able to scout them another year and in another setup and being challenged at a higher level. But I don't think anyone will complain about the concept of good young players being brought into the ecosystem and then being able to be transferred in going forward. Let's close out with Owl on the pitch for at Tommy Scoops.

Doyle mentioned on Extra Time that Red Bulls are looking at Rocco Simic at Stryker. French media says they're pursuing former Mines and Everton midfielder J.P. Gubamin. Anything to these reports? Are they just rumors? Help us, poor Red Rebel New York fans. Tommy Scoops, you're literally our only hope. Tommy does deliver. He says that Red Bulls are finalizing the deal with Gubamin.

He is a 28-year-old Ivory Coast International Central midfielder. He didn't play in AFCON for Ivory Coast because he wasn't really playing with a club. His story is bizarre he uh terminated his contract in his last year with everton he gave up five million euros in salary and the year just to get out of everton because he had felt like it was the most miserable experience of his life and he wanted to be happy again and he wanted to play soccer he got brought in right before covid he had a ton of. I think he made eight appearances across three years with Everton, went on loan with Seska Moscow. I don't know when that was associated to the war. I would assume it was before, as well as in Turkey. got released from his contract so late on in the window that teams didn't really have salary space left to bring in a player at his level so he dropped down to league do where he played really

well uh as a free agent and now looking for that next option and i think this looks like a really good move for red bulls he is the frankie and myer replacement we've been talking about which is he is the player who will force the game and he will play north to south he is more of a dribbler than a passer he likes to beat players 1v1 in transition moments he is tall for his position so he is going to be a threat making runs into the box late on as well as on set pieces and able to win first balls and battle for second balls for this team and very clean in possession in the moments where he's able to win first balls and battle for second balls for this team and very clean in possession in the moments where he's able to recover so I think this is a really good ad for

the Red Bulls it seems like potentially they're going to get him on a decent deal because of the timing and where he sits and everything like that and so I think Red Bull fans have to be pretty excited about this move and hopeful that Emil Forsberg can get back on the field and get healthy going forward. They fell in the shootout to Toronto FC at home on the weekend in League's Cup play to a John Herdman-led Toronto FC team, which is going to be a hot topic going forward, coming out of the drone scandal and all of the spying stuff going on with Canada. A lot of stories now directed at teams that John Herdman was coaching, whether it was on the men's or women's side in Canada about belief that it was already happening.

U.S. soccer telling stories about it happening multiple times and the idea that John Herdman and his staff complained about other teams doing it a lot, which the feeling was Doth protest a little bit too much. So we're going to talk about that tomorrow on the live show as well, 2 p.m. Eastern time with Tommy Scoops. Wednesday we won't do our normal time show because the U.S. women play at, I believe, 1 p.m. So we will come on live after that game with Casey White as we've been doing. The U.S. has already

clinched their spot on the women's side into the next round so we will talk about their final group stage game that one going against Australia who came back in an absurd match against Zambia one of the craziest soccer games I've ever seen trailing 5-2 winning 6-5 in that one and then we will help preview whoever's coming up for the U.S. in the knockout rounds. And hopefully at that point, we will know that the U.S. men are playing in the knockout rounds as well of the Olympics. It went from the dog days of summer

to Leagues Cup, Summer Cup, In Your Face, Olympic soccer, and all of the Olympics going on at the same time. I'm having a great time with it. I hope you're all enjoying it. Thank you for listening. Thank you for joining along. If you haven't joined the Patreon yet, do so.

You can jump onto the Wednesday happy hour then, and you can send me mailback questions for next Monday in the Discord, and you can chat with all of us in the Discord as well. Thank you all for listening once again, and we'll talk to you again very, very soon.