March Roster Talk and Belgium Friendly Preview | Sunset SC Ep.12

All right. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome in to episode 12 of the Sunset Soccer Club. I am Tyler
Kern. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the show. I think I said on the last
episode with Daniel Robertson that that was episode 12. That was erroneous. This is episode 12.
That was episode 11 regardless. Thank you for being here. Thank you for tuning in.
Checking out everything going on in the soccer world. We have a US men's national team roster
for the upcoming friendlies against Portugal and Belgium. So we need to talk about that. We need to
talk about who's on it, who's not on it, all of the different things that come along with that.
What we expect to see and how we think maybe that that Belgium game plays out a little bit. And so
we need to talk about that on today's episode of the show. But first we have a little housekeeping
to do a little news and notes item. First of all, we have the Eric Nadal birthday benefit concert
coming up. It's the 14th edition featuring two of Eric's favorite bands. Brooklyn based Sammy Ray
and the friends and Bay Area favorite check profit and the Cumbia shoes. It is coming up Thursday,
May 14th at the Longhorn Ballroom. Doors are going to open at 630. Showtime is at 730. The benefit
supports the work of the Grant Halliburton Foundation, a local nonprofit that provides mental
health education training and support to teens and families to learn more and to purchase tickets.
Visit grants Halliburton.org slash Eric Nadal sponsored tables and sweets are also available.
And you'll be able to see the your dark companion team on the purple carpet. So it's Eric Nadal's
birthday benefit presented by Haynes Boone in KXT 91.7 FM featuring Sammy Ray and the friends
with special guests. Chuck profit again. Go to grant Halliburton.org forward slash Eric Nadal or
go and go to our new website stolenwatermedia.com forward slash our community. And speaking of our new
website, we need to talk about that because we are making a move after two years. It's time to
change things up. Keep up with the growth that the podcast network is experiencing. So you can
continue to view all eight of our podcasts on our Patreon pages. But now you can get all of the
episodes at stolenwatermedia.com. Everything from your dark companion, just wondering with Norm
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This is a work in progress, but you can begin consuming all of the content there right now. Continue
to find the shows wherever you prefer, but just know that that is a new option where you can consume
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Okay, let's dive in. It's time to talk about these these upcoming friendlies and the roster.
And that's really where we're going to focus a lot of our time is on this roster that Marisa Pachitino
has called up. It's 27 players right now. And we're going to go through it just straight through it.
And then I'll kind of go through some talking points here in just a moment. But the Belgian match is
coming up Saturday, 2.30 pm central time. So it is coming up this weekend. I know it kind of
in the middle of the day on Saturday can easily get lost. But make sure that you're tuned in
and kind of ready to go for this because these are big important matches as we've talked about
multiple times on the show leading up to this point. This is the last time really to make a really
strong case if you were a player that is on the fringe that you should be included in this roster
come World Cup time in June. But also it's really the last opportunity against this caliber of opposition
with this level of this amount of time before the World Cup for players to stake their case
for they should be on the roster. Yes. But how is this team going to set up? What is it going to
look like once it's actually on the field and how do you attack some of the better teams in the
world? Obviously Belgium and Portugal have a lot of star power. They are countries that neither of
them have won the World Cup before. But they're pretty high up on the list of best countries and
countries producing incredible players that have not won a World Cup yet. And so I think that this
is an incredible opportunity for the U.S. men's national team to really test itself against
countries that I think you want to be measuring up against as you enter into a tournament like this.
So let's go through the roster as the U.S. soccer website laid it out. First we'll start with
goalkeepers. We have Chris Brady from the Chicago Fire, Matt Freese from NYCFC who kind of figures
to be the starting goalkeeper in this group. Patrick Schulte from Columbus Crew and a Matt Turner
who was your goalkeeper in the last World Cup and really a guy who was the number one for the U.S.
for a while. But due to just fluctuating club circumstances and making some maybe puzzling
choices when it comes to where he's going to be professionally on the club scene has kind of
fallen out of that number one slot. Matt Freese has really picked up the mantle and run with it.
And look, none of these guys are world beaters. We don't have a Tim Howard. We don't have a Brad
Freedo. We don't have a Casey Keller on this particular roster air in the U.S. men's national team
pool right now, which is kind of a strange thing to say because the U.S. has always been able to
hang a tat on having that incredible goalkeeper. We don't have that this time around. The last
time the U.S. played Belgium in 2014 in the World Cup. Tim Howard set a record for the most
saves in a World Cup match because he was on fire that day and an absolutely incredible goalkeeper.
We don't have that guy in this player pool right now. And that's an interesting thing about
international soccer when you don't have something you have to plan around it because you can't just
go out and get it. You can't go splash a lot of money to bring in a better goalkeeper. This is
what we have right now. And so Matt Freese has kind of established himself as the number one in
that group. I expect that we see him quite a bit over these next two matches. On the defenders side,
we have Max Arvston from Columbus Crew, Alex Freeman from Villarreal made that move over the winter
transfer window from Orlando City over to Villarreal in Spain. Mark McKenzie in place for Toulouse in
France, Tim Reem of Charlotte FC, Chris Richards of Crystal Palace, Anthony Robinson from Fulham,
Miles Robinson from FC Cincinnati, Joe Scally from Perussi and Munchen Gladbach, and Austin
Trustee from Celtic along the backline. We'll talk a little bit more about the backline here in
just a little bit because the center back situation is concerning to me in the midfield. Sebastian
Burr Halter from Vancouver White Caps gets called in Johnny Cardoso from Athletico Madrid,
Weston McKenny from UVA, Aiden Morris from Middlesboro, Giorena from Perussi and Munchen Gladbach.
We'll talk about that. Of course, Christian Roldon from Seattle Sounders, Tanner Tessmann from Leon
and Malik Tillman from Bayer, Leverkusen in Germany. And then along the forward line,
you've got Brendan Aronson from Leeds United, Patrick Aguimong from Derby County there in the
championship. Florian Baligan from Monaco in France, Ricardo Pepe from PSV, Einthoven in the Netherlands
and Christian Policic from AC Milan, and finally Tim Wea from Marseille in France. So that rounds
out your roster. So I think the first and foremost thing that we can talk about about this roster is,
you always want to talk about, okay, who are the guys that are there? What is it going to look like
once they're actually on the field? But I think you have to start with the guys that aren't there.
And there are some notable names not on this roster. First and foremost is Tyler Adams.
Not on this roster has a quad injury for Bournemouth in the Premier League and misses out on this camp.
Now, in the last episode, Daniel Robertson and I talked about how we were excited about having
Tyler Adams in that spot. So then you can compare and slot in different players next to him to see
how that looked and what that looked like. Because you kind of figure that as long as he's healthy,
Tyler Adams is going to be the guy as your primary defensive midfielder on the field.
With him not there now, you don't have that luxury of saying, okay, this is what Tanner
Tessman looks like playing next to Tyler Adams. This is what Sebastian Burrhalter looks like,
Johnny Cardoso. Any of the other guys who you might end up playing as kind of more of a number eight
type midfielder or a guy that's at least going to slot in next to Tyler Adams in this way that
that Pochettino wants to play, which is a swinging gate kind of back line, but three primary
centerbacks along the back line, two wing backs, and then two center midfielder's there in the
middle of the field. We went over this when I during a previous episode when I kind of walked
through how I thought the US was going to set up and where people were going to fit it positionally.
So not having Tyler Adams means that you're missing part of what you hope will be your final puzzle.
Now what this does is elevates another position battle because who's going to be the number two
behind Tyler Adams? Tyler Adams has historically had injury issues. So in addition to needing to
figure out, okay, who's the guy that plays next to him in the midfield? You also now have the
opportunity to look and say, okay, well, who's going to be his primary backup? Who's going to be the
guy that if Tyler Adams can't go for whatever reason is going to be your starting defensive midfielder?
Will it be Aiden Morris who's tearing it up in the championship for Middelsboro or is it going to
be a Johnny Cardoso who despite the fact that he plays for at let it go Madrid has never been
able to put it together at the international level for the US men's national team. He is one of
the players who out of everybody in the position pool or in the in the player pool, who I just
consistently in bamboozled by because I don't get a chance to watch him enough at the club level,
but he keeps going up and up and up and up in terms of the stature of the club he's playing for. He
went from Riabatis, which is a great club in Spain, but to Athletico Madrid, which is one of the 10
biggest clubs in the world at this position. And yet for whatever reason, every time he plays for
the US men's national team, just I don't see it. I don't get it. So is he going to be able to kind of
stamp his authority as, hey, I'm going to be the primary backup or a guy that at the very least
should expect to get on the field maybe in late game circumstances if the US is playing with a
lead in this world cup. Will it be him? Will it be Aiden Morris? Will it be Christian Roldon?
In that Doyle's newsletter, which is excellent that he sent out today, today being Wednesday,
I recommend you go read it, subscribe, all of those sorts of things. He believes that Christian
Roldon is going to be that the backup to Tyler Adams, the second in line for that number six role.
And look, I think that there's a lot of room for a guy that isn't going to make mistakes,
is going to be really tidy in possession, not get out of position all that often and just kind
of generally be a glue guy on the field. I think that there's room for that in this roster. I use
that term a couple of different times in our last episode with Daniel Robertson that I think that
there is room for glue guys on this team that pull things together that keep things in line and
where they should be. They're not going to blow anybody away. They're not going to have these
counting statistics of, oh, he had 10 tackles and broke up, you know, a number of different
attacks and that sort of thing, just going to be solid, consistent, steady because there are enough
extraordinary players on this team that can go do big, amazing things and put up, you know, numbers
or highlight real type plays. There are enough of those guys on this team that not everybody can
be that, right? This isn't a dream team type scenario. So you need some guys that are just going
to go out there and do a workman like job for you. And I think Christian Roldon is that guy. But
Aiden Morris, Johnny Cardo, so these are probably, this is probably your last opportunity to show
that you should be in somewhere in that pecking order of Tyler Adams back up and be on this roster.
I think those are the primary guys kind of battling for that number six defensive midfield style
role. I think Seb Berhalter is in line to kind of try to figure out it. Can he be on the roster
as a number eight, along with Tanner Tessman. It's Tessman going to be the deepest line midfielder.
I think that there are a lot of questions to work out there in the midfield and with Tyler Adams,
not there anymore. I think those questions get even louder. They get even bigger. And it adds
to the complication of what we need to learn from this particular camp with these matches against
Belgium and Portugal. Other guys not on the roster for this particular camp. Haji Wright suffered a
little injury for a Coventry in the championship. He's been the best striker, I think, in the
championship in England this season. Just scoring goals left and right. He is not in this roster.
That is primarily due to that knock that he picked up as well as Diego Luna, not fully healthy yet
for real Salt Lake. Another guy that would factor in, I think, in that conversation for more
of an advanced role, more of an attacking role. I bet he would have been listed alongside the
forwards. I think he's kind of battling out with guys like Brendan Ehrenson, Giorreno,
Willie B on this roster, Willie Knight. Here's the thing. This roster includes 27 players.
26 can go to the World Cup. So if Tyler Adams comes in, who gets bumped out? You're probably
only bringing three goalkeepers and there's four on this roster. So if we say we whittle that down
to three, then if Tyler Adams comes in, who gets bumped out? If Diego Luna comes in, who's getting
bumped out? Haji Wright, if he's in, then who's coming out? Who on this roster is not making it?
You're looking at a striker depth chart. You're looking at the forwards. You're looking at the
midfielders. Who gets bumped out in those types of circumstances where you have guys that aren't on
this roster right now that you think will probably be on that final roster. So if it is a Haji Wright,
does he come in at the expense of a Patrick Argument who is having a good season right now for Derby
County and really been a revelation in the championship? I know he had US men's national team caps
before he had played in Charlotte. It was, I think it's interesting to see how he's going over
and really playing so well right now in England. So I think he's making his case there as well. And
so you have to start having some of those tough conversations in your mind of, okay, Diego Luna
definitely on the roster. Okay, but at the expense of who will it be Brendan Ehrensum or to be
Tim Wea? Who comes out from this particular roster right now when those guys come in? So
there are going to be some tough conversations to be had and some tough decisions that Mauricio
Pachitino needs to make. And I think these two games will go a long way in helping to make those
decisions. Like I mentioned, Georena is back on the roster we need to talk about that. I have previously
said that I've kind of just done and tired of Georena and yet Mauricio Pachitino puts him back on
another roster despite the fact that he's not getting any playing time whatsoever with Borussia
Munchen glad back right now. I think this is incredibly interesting. I've talked about this in the
past and Daniel and I talked about it on a previous episode that I think Mauricio Pachitino gets
to do whatever he wants because he's not in this job for the long haul. He's in this job for this
World Cup and then when it's over, he's jetting back and I think he's probably going to end up
you know managing Spurs next year or something along those lines. I think he's going back to the
Premier League. So he's not beholden to anybody or any standards and anything that he does,
he's not going to be held accountable for six months from now. He's not going to be held accountable
for those things to say, Oh, well, you treated Georena this way. You're not going to treat another
player the same way. He doesn't care. And so whereas previous managers would say things like
if you're not playing at the club level, you don't get to come in and play for the US men's
national team. If you're not starting playing regular minutes, these are things that previous
US men's national team managers have said pretty frequently, right? Hey, if you're not playing at
the club level, if you're not starting or getting regular minutes for your club team, I cannot
call you into a US men's national team roster. Plenty of US men's national team managers have said
this in the past. And Mauricio Pachitino is not saying that here and he's not making a case that
that should even be the case. And I think part of that is because he he knows that he can bring in
Georena whenever he wants because again, after this World Cup, no one's going to look and say,
okay, well, this person isn't playing for their clubs. How can you can't call them into the US
mess? He's not worried about any of those types of conversations or the political nature that
this position can can have sometimes. He is simply just calling in the players that he thinks are
going to make the biggest difference for the US once it's time for the World Cup. And whether
I like it or not, whether you like it or not, I know a ton of people do because they love Georena's
game. And I get it. I get it. He is, you know, people call him the most talented player that the US
has ever produced. And that includes Christian, that includes Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey,
all of the the greats that Georena is the most talented. He's not fulfilling that talent by any
means at the club level. But when he gets on the field and gets on the ball for the US,
he is able to do absolutely incredible things that nobody else can. And so in those moments,
and Daniel and I talked about this on the last episode, really, you need to go back and listen
in the last episode too, if you haven't already. But when you're in a World Cup situation,
you have to have that guy that can be an X factor. And look, Georena is not going to do a ton of
defending. He's not going to hustle around the field. A ton, he's probably not going to press
all that much. I don't even know how well he can run at this point. But the fact of the matter is
is when the ball is at his foot, he's going to be able to find a pass that only he can play
on this roster. He's going to be able to make that movement unsettled the defense,
just with a subtle movement of the hips or something like that that only Georena does. And so
when you have a guy like that and you are the US, he ends up on this roster. If we were France,
Georena would not be on the roster, but we're not. And so he is. And so we get another opportunity
to see where he fits in and what he does with this US team. Last camp, I was really surprised he
started both matches. I'm interested to see if that is the case here. When the US play Paraguay
and Uruguay, he played in both of those games. Again, very curious to see if that's the case. Or
if these are 20, 30 minute cameos that he makes off the bench, how he is used, I think, will be
very indicative of where Mauricio Pachatino really sees him and what kind of role we can expect
for Georena this coming summer because he's not playing a lick for Borussia Munch and Gladback.
So whether he plays or not between now and then doesn't seem to matter whatsoever. I think how
he gets used in these two matches will be very telling. And I'm just on pins and needles kind of
waiting to see how Mauricio Pachatino uses kind of this wild card of all of the US men's national
team players. It's it's Georena for short. Now I mentioned that we need to talk about center back.
This is something that I think is concerning if you are a US men's national team fan. I think
the team as a whole is incredibly talented. You've got players playing at a high level across the
world in some of the biggest leagues, biggest teams in the world. And I don't know that we've
ever been able to say it to this extent with the US men's national team. That is exciting and
that is wonderful. I think if this team has an Achilles heel, it's going to be the backline.
It's going to be the defense, which is so strange to say. But I think next to Chris Richards,
you just have question marks, right? Alex Riemann has not played a ton since he made his rule,
has moved to Villarreal in January, which is always that that's always just a challenging time to
make a move as a young player in the December win in the January window because you make that move
while players were already, while a team was already in the middle of their season. And so
you have this kind of strange setup where you come into a team that is already fully formed,
that already kind of knows where everybody plays. And then you're trying to kind of work your
way into it. And the manager is trying to bring you into it, but you're not given the benefit
of enough season, right? All of a sudden you're just popping in and trying to kind of being tossed
out on the field or not. And that is your introduction into the team. For a lot of guys,
it's really hard to come back from having a tough introduction into a new team in that January
window. Alex Riemann made that move in January. He'll get a full off season to kind of work with the
team and become more of a regular part of the Villarreal squad, but not before the World Cup. And so
we'll see how much he continues to play. I like him as that right-sided center back, but who's on
the other side of Chris Richards? If we're playing nominally in a back three, and you've got Alex
Riemann on the right, Chris Richards in the middle, who's on that left side? Is it going to be Tim
Riem who's 38 years old and showing some signs of clearly aging for Charlotte FC? Is it, you know,
do you look at Austin Trustee, Mark McKenzie? I think you have to come out of this particular camp
and these games within answer to that question. One of the other developments that came kind of
out of this camp was Noki Banks, who we talked about, and we profiled on one of the early episodes
of this program. Young center back starting gaming, game out for Augsburg in the Bundesliga. He is a
he is a very young center back, very kind of big, strong, statured kid. I can't play weekend,
week out in the top five league in the world. He is a dual national between the US and Germany,
and so he can choose who he wants to represent at the international level, and he said he's just
not ready to make that decision yet and is not going to let the allure of playing in a world cup
kind of influence whether, you know, where he decides to go with that decision. That's a bummer
for your US fan. These sorts of things come along quite a bit. If you are a longstanding US soccer
fan, you know the feeling of the the dual national panic of a guy that could represent the US or
Mexico or the US and Germany, there's a lot of those guys in the landscape and these are
complicated decisions. They are not black and white decisions, no matter how you want to spin it,
no matter where somebody grew up, you don't know kind of what their family heritage is, who they
grew up watching, who they grew up idolizing, who their parents cheered for, grandparents cheered
for, all of those different things kind of factor into this decision as well as a really complicated
conversation about identity as a human being, you know, who do you identify with? What nation do you
identify with when you ask yourself those questions? And, you know, I remember it with Ricardo Peppy
really, really well. Look, this is the guy that grew up, you know, near the US, Mexico border,
all of his family grew up cheering for Mexico and things like that. He just said like, in my heart,
I feel like I'm American and so that's who I'm going to cheer for. So it's a really complicated
conversation that you cannot rush and so no key banks ask for more time to climb to call up to
this camp. If he were in this roster, I would have loved to have seen him start and play 90 minutes in
both games and really get a sense of, okay, can this kid do it at this level? I wish wish wish wish
he would have accepted the call up, totally understand why he didn't, would have been awesome,
but alas, we don't have him on this particular roster. We'll see when that decision ends up being
made. He would be an amazing player to have for the US men's national team, but we've seen this
before where players choose another country or they delay that decision and boy, we have a lot of
panic about it. We have a lot of conversation about it and you just never know where a player's
career is going to end up, right? There's there's some famous situations for the US where players have
chosen to represent other countries. Some famous situations where players have chosen to
represent the US. It's a complicated conversation. I wish he was on this roster, but he is not,
I think it would have made the center back picture maybe a little bit more clear or give it an
opportunity to see somebody who's playing at a high level on this roster, on this team, see how
they fit, see how it all shakes out. Now, those are kind of my big questions for this US men's national
team heading into this camp and into these matches. Coming up against Belgium, this is not the
golden era of Belgium anymore. They had kind of that golden era of players with Aiden Hazard,
Kevin De Bruyne, a Rommel Lulucaku, so many incredible players coming out of Belgium.
Now Aiden Hazard has retired, Kevin De Bruyne, still an incredible player playing for Napoli,
Rommel Lulucaku, still a handful of a striker to deal with. These guys are not at the pinnacle
of their powers. However, Belgium is still an incredible team and so it's going to be
a test for the US going up against this particular side. I'm incredibly curious to see how
the US manages these matches and what it looks like for the US. Are they on the front foot?
What's the way? Are you able to impose your will on this Belgium side that has a star player like
Jeremy Doku, a place from Manchester City? There are incredible players up and down the roster
for this Belgium team, even if they are not still in that golden era. Land your trust hard,
plays for Arsenal, leading the Premier League right now. Kevin De Bruyne is still on this
roster. Yuri Telemann's plays for Ashton Villa in the Premier League. Just incredible players
all over the pitch for this side and they're all called up to this roster. So you're going to see
what I would consider a mostly full strength Belgium side on Saturday. And so what you're looking
for if you're the US is are there periods of play where the US gets to be on the front foot?
Do they understand tactically how they want to approach this game and are you imposing your will
on it? If you are content to sit back and absorb some pressure and then try to hit on the counter,
that is absolutely fine. Just what does that look like and how are you able to do that?
I understand like if that is the plan going into the match that that is an okay thing. The
possession might look like 65, 35. I personally would love to see the US possess a little bit more,
dictate the pace of play, utilize their skill and impose a little bit more than what we've seen
the US do in the past when they've come up in these big matches against high quality opposition.
Like you look at the Netherlands in the last World Cup, the US was not able to impose their
will on that match whatsoever. Have we evolved and does the structure of the team allow
for the best US players to get into dangerous spots on the field? Does West and McKinney start as
a deeper line midfielder or disease start as an number 10 kind of up next to Christian
Policic just below a central striker? What does that look like? Are we able to get our best players
in positions to succeed to create dangerous moments against the high quality opposition?
I think that's the biggest question going into a match against Belgium where we need to get a lot
of questions answered before we really know okay this is the group that we're going to the World Cup with.
Some big changes here. A lot of faces that will be different than what we saw back in 2022.
We had a you know we were all really hyped on Eunice Musa and thought that was a guy that was
going to be starting for the US for 10 years after the last World Cup. He's not on this roster.
You know so a lot can change. We still have a lot of questions. We need to leave this camp even if
we don't win either of these two matches which is totally possible that that will be the case.
Even if the US doesn't win either of the matches against Belgium or Portugal. You need to leave
this camp with answers and I think a feeling of confidence about at least how you approach the
match and how you played and carried yourself. We don't want to be in another position against
Belgium where we're asking goalkeeper to make 17 saves. That's not where we want to be once this
matches over on Saturday and so I think we need to see some of those questions be answered and
we will recap them after these two matches next week. I think it's going to be an incredible time.
I hope everyone enjoys the matches and follows along. You can always message us on Instagram.
We'll be posting a lot I think during those games just what we're seeing, what we're learning
and and give you more thoughts there. So thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of
the Sunset Soccer Club. This was episode number 12. We appreciate it very very much. We're going to be
back again recapping these games talking a lot more about what we're seeing for the US men's national
team as we get closer and closer to the World Cup this coming summer. So thank you for joining us.
We will see you next time if he's out.