February 24, 2026 • 59 mins
Tab Ramos and Matt Doyle examine the impact of Josh Sargent’s move to Major League Soccer and where he fits in the USMNT No. 9 depth chart behind Folarin Balogun and Ricardo Pepi. They also raise concerns about Tyler Adams’ return to the Premier League and discuss potential World Cup replacements if needed.
The duo ranks their Top 5 MLS players who must impress Mauricio Pochettino to earn a look in the March friendlies, and Tab shares the story of when U.S. Soccer made the leap from likable underdog to true professionals. Plus, they break down the next step the United States must take to become a genuine global soccer power.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think although ninety four was great, I think it
was the culmination of the beginning of soccer being back
on the map.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
It was eighty nine through ninety four and it was
great and it was exciting.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And now now we need.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
To play with the big boys.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Greetings, folks, and welcome to Inside American Soccer with Tab
Ramos and Tom Boger. Of course, I'm not Tom Boger.
I'm Matt Doyle filling in for Tom for the next
couple of weeks. He's on baby duty for a little
while longer with his new son Theo, who I'm told
is already holding a hockey stick. Tab We might have
lost one to hockey already. Man, Like I thought, he's
(00:40):
gonna be a future soccer player. Tab of course, is
one of the great soccer players in US history, three
time World Cup veteran original member of the Metro Stars.
And are you planning to recruit young Theo Boger back
to the fold, get him onto the pitch instead of
at the rink?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, I think I think there's time. I think grabbing
the hockey. I mean, who didn't grab a hockey stick
this weekend?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Really?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
You know, obviously we're rooting for the USA got a
big win, first one in however many decades, right since
was it since Saint Miracle?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
So, yeah, so we're all happy about that. We're all rooting,
and I think it's really nice that he grabbed the
hockey stick and then you know, let's just go him
a week and about a week from now, it's time
to put the hockey stick down and get back to
the soccer ball already for THEA.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, hopefully there'll be some grafts to play on, though
it's all buried under two feet of snow in New
Jersey and all the parts in the Northeast where we
both are. I thought it was great in that hockey
game that the US won by bunker encountering, Like it
gave me some flashbacks if you watched that the two
(01:51):
minutes that was the entirety of overtime. It was three
v three and it was just like one break after
another by the Canadians until the US stop and just
countered in the other direction. Like it felt like watching
some of you guys in the nineteen nineties, because there
were so many games that where you guys had to
just absorb and then hit.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
That's right, I think they went with long ball, which
I had not seen in hockey, so.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
It was very effective. They went route one.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I think the Americans have one of the older English coaches,
I believe. I don't know much about hockey, but it
was effective and at the end of the day, you know,
as always, what matters in sports is to score one
more than the other team, and that's what it's about,
and that's what they did, so.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
That is the best important data. Yeah, forg rest to them.
It is of course awesome to watch international competition in
basically any sport. I'm a sucker for the Olympics. Were
both suckers for the World Cup, which you know is
coming this summer. And the whole point of this show
is try to tease apart what's happening with the US
(03:00):
and who has the inside traffic spots, and what we'll
see from Mauricio Pochettino's tactics, and what the chances are
for the US to have a moment in soccer like
the US just had in hockey. It feels like a
long shot, but crazy things have happened in this world
of ours, and on the Show of Ours, we'll be
discussing the latest news around the national team, including Josh
(03:24):
Sargent with a big move flow. Baaligan, who we talked
about last week was in a bit of a goal
scoring slump. He heard us Tab. He has had a
very good week over in France. Ricardo Pappy back on
the field score and a beauty of a goal. Tyler
Adams back as well. We're also going to have a
new segment where we rank all things US men's national team,
and this week, with the start of the MLS season,
(03:47):
we'll rank the top five MLS players who need to
impress Muricio Potchettino. And it's actually harder than it sounds like,
because pac has been very open to bring in MLS guys,
using them in crucial spots, including over some European based counterparts,
and so it's a long list, like I could go
(04:08):
ten deep on the MLS guys who need to impress
Punch for various reasons. And of course we will go
inside the locker room with Tab and talk about the
ninety five team. Everybody focuses on ninety four and how
that changed American soccer, but don't forget about what happened
in the aftermath when he took all the glory and
all the accomplishments of ninety four and spun it into
(04:31):
something really professional. I'm looking forward to hearing those stories
from TAB and I think it's one that is important
for our listenership because I don't think everybody knows about them.
But first, let's start with the US national team news.
Let's start with Josh Sargent TAB. He signed with Toronto
FC this week. Tom reported, Of course, congrats on Tom
(04:53):
for another big scoop twenty two million dollar move with
the incentives that could bring it up to about twenty
six or twenty seven million. I think he has been
in season though he has not been playing for a while.
He has been training. Toronto FC badly need the help.
Like how fast do we think this gets done for
(05:15):
him to get over here and get Like if you
were coaching Orld, you just put him in the eleven
next week if he's good to go.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, well, you know, first of all, obviously always Tom
is always reporting first, so I can see. I'm trying
to picture Tom at home with a baby in one hand,
on one arm, in.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
The phone on the other right.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
This is I would imagine that's what Tom looks like
every day. But yeah, you know, the the Josh situation
is obviously took a while. It's been a month over
a month now since Josh has played. Because he's been out,
he's sort of you know, left a side by the
coach there, with which obviously the coach has is right.
(05:55):
You know, if a player is not happy, he doesn't
want to have a unhappy player on the field or
sometimes even in training, right, you want to have positivity there,
as in particular in the situation that Norwich has been in,
which is you know, battle week to week to avoid
that relegation. Right. So now Josh finds himself in in Toronto.
(06:18):
You know, I think it's obviously a good move for
him because that's what he wanted. So you know, you
we would assume he's going to be happy there and
that he's happy to be back back in MLS.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
In terms of the coaching side, and do you put
him in, I mean, I think Josh, you know, played
most of the season at Norwich.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Uh, he has been training.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
You know, let's not forget MLS has just played one
game so far. So I can't imagine that where there
would be a way where Josh is further behind than
really MLS players at this point. So if I were
to coach, if I were to be coaching Josh at
this point, I would I would put him in. He's
number nine, he's ready to go, he knows his job
(06:58):
and uh, you know, with a week of train he
should be ready to go. So I expect him to
see him right away.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I think his biggest strength as a number nine is
his ability to combine with the rest of the attackers,
and that's something that we saw throughout his career. I mean,
I remember watching him with the twenties when you were
the head coach, and his ability to bring the other
attackers into the play and then create something out of
that as a group, and that's something that Toronto desperately need.
(07:26):
They did score two goals this week, and both of
them were just very direct off of turnover as a
bad rebound on one of them from the Dallas goalkeeper.
It wasn't stuff that they were sort of creating as
a unit. Josh Startin's ability to help teams create as
a unit is his greatest strength as a center forward,
(07:48):
and it's something that kind of ties a team together
and we saw that with him with the twenties back
in twenty nineteen when he was such a big part
of that team as playing up an age level, right,
he was seventeen, and you still brought him to that tournament.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, he actually played.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
He played the Under twenty World Cup before he played
the Under seventeen World Cup, so he went he went
backwards on that one, just to get you know, John
Hackworth and I had a number of conversations about that,
but it was the right thing, and I think you
framed it. You framed it correctly. You know, I would
simplify that by just saying Josh is a soccer player.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
He really is.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Like he's a number nine, but he's not just your
box nine. He is a soccer player, so he can
he makes.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The team better.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
That's why I had no I had no issues at
all in moving him up two or three age groups
right away because I felt like he really understands the
game well and and for me, one of my favorite,
one of my favorite forwards that I had through my
you know, eight or ten years on the youth national teams.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yeah, he really has that gift of, like you said,
being a soccer player and not just a box nine,
like being able to make something more functional on a
collective level. It hasn't translated for the US national team.
It like that is not the version of Josh that
we've seen. I think people have focused it rightly on
(09:15):
the fact that he hasn't been a goal scorer for
the national team. He hasn't scored since twenty nineteen. Why
do you have any like having watched all of it,
do you like, can you pinpoint anything in particular, so
why it hasn't worked worked for this kid who is
obviously so talented.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Well, you know, obviously, you know, we can say all
the way back to you know, twenty nineteen, but it's
really not that many games that he played in the process, right,
and not that many times or he was actually a
starter and got you know, got the full game. Havn't
said that I did, you know, we did watch Josh
miss miss a couple of important chances with the national team,
(09:56):
and that you know, with a forward sometimes you get
very limited opportunity. And let's not forget that the number
nine position has been one which has been very competitive
for the last you know, five or six years too,
So we've been looking for that nine that kind of
takes over and if you can recall It was only
about six months ago when we all started to say, okay,
well we think Baligan is the guy. Right, So it's
(10:19):
been it's been five or six years of not actually
having the guy, and because of that, any time forward
would make a mistake, it would sort of set him
back to be in on the being third now and
now you've got to build yourself up again to get
another chance. What I can tell you is this, Josh
is a good player. Josh could help the national team
today if he had an opportunity. But of course, you know,
(10:43):
he hasn't been played now for a little while. You know,
I think if he can get some consistency in Toronto,
I think it's you know, he could be back in
the fold and why not now?
Speaker 3 (10:54):
And Toronto need him to live up to that. They
need him to be great in MLS. He can't just
be very good. He needs to be great, one of
the best center for US in the league. That's what
he's being paid. Like twenty two million dollars is a
very very big number for an MLS team, for any
team really for a transfer. But he's in the prime
(11:16):
of his career. Family reasons one of the big reasons
he wanted to come back to North America. I was
almost about to say the United States, but no, Toronto's Canada.
But wanted to come back to North America. And here
he is, and he's got it all in front of
him and a lot to prove. He's been really, really
good for Norwich. He had Bundesliga interest. He's obviously a
(11:37):
really talented guy. But the hope is that his best
years are ahead of him because the guys in front
of him on the depth chart for the number nine
for the US. We saw what Floebaalagan did this week,
three goals, two of them against PSG. He has laid
down a marker for club and for country. It's gonna
(11:58):
be a hard man to catch. The number one guy
at Demid. I think on everybody's depth chart for the
US national team is Tyler Adams. That always comes with
an asterisk, It always comes with a caveat if healthy.
Tyler Adams, if healthy, is the clear choice to be
(12:18):
the starting defensive midfielder. It is just a massive load
bearing if and the good news to have. This week
Tyler Adams returned to action for Bournemouth. Were you concerned
about his recovery and do you feel better now, and like,
what's your confidence level going forward in his ability physically
(12:39):
to stay where he needs to stay well.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
First, it's a little bit alarming when players continue to
get hurt, right at the same time, I think this
latest injury was more unlucky than anything else. To be fair,
It's not like it's your normal player, you know. I
remember it. Towards the end of my career, I kept
getting muscular injuries, right, So once you start to get hurt,
(13:04):
and you get muscular injuries, it's almost like, man, there's
just no turning back. There's just there's always something. I
think in this case, it's not one of those. I
think it was unfortunate this time that he got hurt.
And I think we mentioned it on this show that
they said, well it's going to be you know, two
to three months, likely March, and we said, if anything, okay,
if they said March, Tyler Adams will probably be back
(13:25):
in February, which is exactly what happened. Right. He's a
hard worker, you know, he will beat the expectations in
terms of work required and then getting onto the field,
and he did that and by the way, jumping into
the EPL cannot be easy. He played I think sixty
or seventy minutes and he did well. He looked like
(13:47):
he belonged and he was ready for that level, which
is not easy. So so yeah, am I concerned about
the World Cup? You know, I'm always a little bit
concerned with Tyler because of the history of the last
few years, but not necessarily because of this injury. I
think he'll put it behind him.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
One of the big concerns for me with Tyler is
if he does get injured, it changes the way the
US have to play, because nobody in the pool, a
few players in the world man match what he brings
as a front foot defender. He reads those moments so quickly,
and you know, we think about it as defensively being
(14:26):
you know, lines of banks of four and you know,
put pressure on this pass, force that wide get, you know,
cause a turnover over here. But what Tyler is best
at is those transition like those red bull moments, right,
those energies drink soccer moments where he reads the incipient
turnover or chance to cause a turnover before anybody else
and he blows up one counter attack after another after another.
(14:51):
Without him in there, it's a cascade effect, because nobody
else in the pool is anywhere close to as good
as Tyler Adams about those moments that not only stop
an opposing potential counter attack but also have a way
of creating chances for the US if you're forcing a
high turnover like that.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Well, let me.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Put tactics aside a little bit on this one, because
the player I'm gonna say that's the closest to Tyler
Adams when it comes to that type of playing is
Weston McKinney. He if I had to pick one player
who's always front foot, trying to win the ball, going
for every tackle that he's gonna win and the ones
(15:31):
he's likely not going to win, I think Weston is
the closest thing. But Weston has not really played that
defensive midfield of a role, right. He's been wide for Uventus,
he's been the ten for events, he's been a withdrawn nine,
He's been and everything in between there, but not that role.
So that's why I said, let me leave tactics at side.
I was just thinking, you know, if I think only
(15:52):
about the mentality of the player, the closest to have
the mentality that Tyler has is Weston to me, that's
the closest. Now, let's say let's say, you know, Tyler
goes down, I don't think Poschettino necessarily goes to someone
who hasn't been playing there in that position. So now
that opens the door to guys like Johnny Cardozo, who's
(16:12):
maybe a little bit closer to just being a stay
home although at Athletico Madrid he steps forward a little
bit more. He can't do that role. And the reason
I'm saying that is because although he's another player player
who has not done well with the national team, he
did it a Raal Betty's last year, the whole year,
and he did it really well, that holding in front
of the in front of the back four, winning the
(16:34):
ball and playing it and not losing it and doing
it in that which is not easy. And that's the
reason why Athletico Madrid bought him. Now, from the average
American fan, we haven't you know, we haven't seen that,
But I think that would likely be the closest thing
to someone.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Holding that position.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
But from a mentality standpoint, I think Weston is really
the only one that comes comes close to Tyler Addams.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So let's turn back to the center forwards. We mentioned
it at the top flow. Balligan had three goals this
week across two games and two different competitions, and Ricardo
Pepi returned and scored a gorgeous goal for PSV. That
was good to see because that return was a little
bit ahead of schedule. I think he wasn't supposed to
(17:20):
be back until March as well. I think it's time
to just say, all right, what's your current number nine
depth chart? What does it look like for you?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Tab It hasn't changed for me because even last week,
I think when we saw Augimunt score and we saw
Hajji Wright score, I think it was three to one game, right,
we're all thinking, okay, you're going to be battling. But
we did say on this show, you know, Balligan is
playing against the best defenders in the world and the toughest,
you know, competition in the world, which is the Champions League.
(17:50):
You know, his club is very competitive and and you
know at the top of league in France, so you
have to take into consider the competition. And then Baligan
goes out and scores two goals in the Champions League
and adds another one on the weekend in the league.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So I think I.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Think At this point, I think it's pretty clear who
we have as a number nine, and that's that's Bawigan
and everybody else is really fighting for two and three.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah, and I'll say everybody else for me right now
is still pad Agimon number two. And I think there's
not just goal scoring reasons for that, but there's tactical
reasons in the way that teams press now. Teams have
over the past three years gone back to almost strictly
men oriented pressing. So there's been an uptick in playing
(18:37):
long especially in the Indian international game. There's plenty of
data to show it, and so you need to have
sometimes a center forward who can just man handle opposing
center backs and win that first ball. There's nobody in
the pool who is better at that than pat Ogimon.
The rest of his game needs plenty of work. He's
not I don't think there's any chance to of him
(19:01):
usurping Flowballigan as number one. But I think just because
he brings an elite trait that is so salient in
the modern game, I think he's the clear number two.
And then for number three for me, it's still Hodgi
right Peppy. I was really happy to see him back
I think he's a more natural goal scorer, really a
more natural number nine than Hadgi. Right, I need to
(19:24):
see him do it against better competition. I need to
see him do it against I X, I need to
see him do it against Fayenord. I need to see
him do it more consistently in the Champions League and
international competition. And he's had some moments like that a
couple of years ago, but it hasn't been consistent. And
the other thing is I need to see him go ninety.
This guy's only gone ninety a dozen times in the
(19:46):
past three years. So the talent is there, the opportunity
is there, hopefully the health will be there, and then
if the goals start coming on top of that, he
can climb those charts. But for me still, Ricardo Peppi
is number four on the center forward death chart. Everybody else,
including Josh Sargent, behind those guys trying to catch up,
(20:08):
and for us, it's time for a break. We'll be
right back with our first Inside Rankings segment this week.
It's top five MLS players who need to impress Pochettino
right now. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Inside American
Soccer with Tom Boger tab Ramos wherever you get your podcast,
(20:38):
Welcome back to Inside American Soccer. Tab had a great
idea for a new segment called Inside Rankings, where we
rank our top five for all things US men's national
team related. So this week, in honor of first Kick
the start of the MLS season, we've got the top
five MLS players who need to impress Mauricio Pochettino right now,
(21:00):
and Tab, I'm going to grab the ball. I am,
I'm going to kick us off for me. Believe it
or not. It's Matt Freeze, and it's for a different
reason than I think most people would consider for these
top five lists. Matt Freeze, I think if he plays
well over the next month and into March camp, he
can shut the door. It's his job. If he continues
(21:23):
to play like he did the second half of last
year when he won the job for the national team
and when he was excellent for NYCFC, there's no more
discussion about who's starting in goal this summer for the
US national team.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I mean that's a good call.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I would I would disagree that. You know, if this
is someone who needs to impress, you know, you know,
looking to impress. I would say that if Matt Freeze
goes on cruise control between now and the World Cup
and has sort of average games, I think the position
is really his to lose. I don't think Matt, you know,
(22:00):
with with as well as he's played for the national
team and the consistency that he's had over the last
you know, ten twelve games in which he started, I
don't think he's going to lose that position unless he
makes some big, big mistakes. So I I like that
you choose him as your number five, But I think
(22:22):
he's got his position pretty well, pretty well locked.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, I think so too. I'd like to see him
shut the door. I'd like to see I would like
to just feel really really good about what's happening in
goal and we're getting there. I don't think we're quite
there yet. We're not there on the back line. And
that brings us to your number five pick. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
So my number five is one that you can certainly
argue with. And the reason I will say that is
because a little bit like Matt Freeze is this is
someone who needs to be on cruise control between now
and the in the end the year, and this is
Tim reim for me, the first day of you know,
(23:05):
the MLS has only had one game so far, and
I didn't think it was a great one for Tim,
to be fair, and I wish I could tell you
it was a one off, but this is what I
saw at the end of the year last year too
in MLS.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
For Tim Reim. I think Tim Reim.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Although I believe sort of like maybe like roll down
and to a certain extent, you know a player I'll
name later, I think Posatino is going to pick them anyway.
But I do think that at some point we have
to think about his position at Charlotte, because what happens
(23:46):
if Tim Reim all of a sudden doesn't start at Charlotte.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
What does that do?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Right? But because this is and by the way, I
love Tim Reim. He's a great guy. He's been an
old time national team player that represents there so well,
all of those things, right, But I'm looking purely at
the soccer part. I mean, there could be a possibility
that at some point, if Tim Reim doesn't really going
on a solid cruise control where he's playing well, I
(24:14):
think he could lose his spot in Charlotte. And if
he does, what happens next.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, what we saw this weekend and down the stretch
and specifically then in the playoff series against NYCFC and
Charlotte were eliminated. He father time has got up to
him in terms of his speed. He is just not
able to stay with most attackers in the open field.
(24:42):
And Simon Betcher this past weekend looks like Gillian and
Boppe at times. Man just sort of blowing by Tim Reim.
And to me, Reim is still the best ball playing
center back in the pool by a mile. Just got
the classiest left but he reads the game well, but
physically it's a question of whether or not he can
(25:03):
keep up. And I think, like you, I think he'll
be there anyway. I will be scared if Tim Reen
is a starter for the national team this summer. I'm
gonna say I would not be scared if Christian Roldan
was starting for the US national team this summer. That's
my number four pick. When we were talking about Tyler
(25:24):
Adams before, Rodan is the guy I was thinking of
who was closest to Tyler Adams in terms of defending
on the front foot, creating those turnovers. And then he's
also so good at tilting the field right. He reads
the game really quickly and is able to dump balls
into channels or hit those third line passes to feet
into the half spaces. He's the only field player to
(25:46):
have played in all six games during that great stretch
last autumn for the US national team. And look, you
could just tell how much Mauricio Pachettino loves him, and
you could tell how much the players around him, for
both club and country, love him. I think Christian Rodan
over the next month has a chance to claim for
his own that backup spot to Tyler Adams. Given Tyler's
(26:10):
health issues, man, that might as well be a starting spot.
So Christian Roldan very high on my list of guys
who need to continue to impress Mauricio Pochettino.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
This is a good call, and I think he probably
doesn't need to do a lot to impress Pugettino because
of all of those things that you just mentioned, and
above everything else, the value that he has to the
group in general. He's very well like, he brings guys together,
he allows the team to be better, He makes the
(26:42):
team better on and off the field, and he has
huge value. And besides that, you know you can always
count somehow on us soccra on giving things away, Right,
they don't send them to the.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Super Bowl to do all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
If they're not picking them this summer, that's just not happening, right,
So you can always count on who's done on commercial
to see who's gonna make the team, because this is
actually how things work.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I mean, obviously you're not gonna pick.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Roll don to go to the super Bowl and then
leave him home this summer.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
That's just not gonna happen. So you can count.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
And that's one pick the other twenty five guys you want.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Right, and that's one.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
But but anyway, no, I agree with you that he
has all of all of those qualities, and I think
that's that's that's a good pick. But but you know,
having said all that stuff, let's not forget you play.
The games have to be played, and he has to
continue to play well like he's done for the last
how many years, thirty years. I don't even know he's
going to Seattle forever, so but he has to continue
(27:39):
to do what he's doing and it's gonna be He's
gonna be in good shape.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Tod, bring us to your number four guys. I so
you have listed two guys at number four.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
I have a category, and this category will be the
category of these guys are in, but be careful, right
and and one is Diego Luna and the next one
is Miles Robinson. Okay, these are two guys that I
think if we had a big twenty six today, I'm
pretty comfortable in saying that both of those guys are going.
Now we need to play, and now we need the
(28:09):
three months of impressing Maurico Bochettino so that no one
that's playing in Europe will take their spot, right, That's
that's really what it is. Let's not forget that there's
a young there's a young Banks playing in Europe right now,
No Kai Banks, who's doing really well and who likely
will take a spot, and let that not be Miles
Robinson spot. I think Miles is in a good spot.
(28:32):
I think if he continues to play well for Cincinnati,
he will be there.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
But I think he needs.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
To impress, no question with his ninety minute games. And
by the way, for a team that's I think highly
competitive and that will be at the top of at
the top.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Of the East, competing for everything on.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Luna's side obviously didn't play the first game, but I
think he needs to continue to do what he does,
and that's make plays in the final third. If he
continues to do that, that is a position where in particular,
now that we haven't seen Giorna and I don't know
how long again, I think that that becomes a position
(29:09):
that's a little bit more up for grabs, and I
think Diego Lunad needs to continue to do his job
and make things happen in the final third.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Yeah, I want to see him be a little bit
sharper in those moments. Miles Robinson was actually my third
guy on the list, so I'm going to expand upon
the point you made really strong ninety minute performance for
him this weekend for FC Cincinnati and not just doing
the stuff that Miles Robinson we all know is good at.
He's devastating in the open field, running down opposing attackers
(29:41):
and maybe our best center back in the box just aerially,
and that's really important. Like we all know that this
past two years, set pieces have had There's been a
kind of a revolution in coaching set pieces and more
and more goals coming off of set pieces. So we
need guys who are good in the air on that
back line, and Miles Robinson is really good at both
(30:03):
those things. What we didn't see from him and from
Cincinnati last year was real pitch control, using the ball
and using your spacing to dictate terms. And we actually
saw some of that this weekend. Granted it was against
Atlanta's a bad team, so you don't want to read
too much into it. But if Robinson can sort of
(30:24):
take some of the chaos out of the game and
replace it with control, which I think he did in
Week one, that will go a long way, especially obviously
if it translates to the US national team. And to
me to have just intrinsically a pairing of Robinson and
Chris Richards makes a whole hell of a lot of
(30:45):
sense for the US if they're both sort of firing
on cylinders like those guys seem like natural partners to me.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yet I agree with that.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
You know, there was one particular play, you know this
this week in MLS where a ball was sent to
al Maron. I think you'll remember the ball they sent
out Moron, a little bit of a longer ball and
you see al Moron running full speed and here comes
to Miles Robinson at three quarter speed and stick his
arms out and is a lot faster than that. Sort
(31:16):
of I think that is the situation that we'll see
in the World Cup, in particular in the first round,
where the field is going to be opened up and
in an open field. You know, Miles Robinson is hard
to beat. You know, Miles has has good speed, uses
his body well and I think that was sort of
the perfect play. And you know, it kind of took
me into the summer into saying, hey, you know, this
(31:37):
could happen against Paraguay against the same player, right, or
it could happen against others. But for the most part,
in the first round, it's likely that we'll have the
ball on the opposing side of the field and our
in our our field will be wide open, and I
think that's where i'd like to see a player like
Mike Miles Robinson.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
All Right, I started this list with Matt Freeze, the
guy who we both think will beware of the number
one kit. You got a whole list of guys who
are desperate to catch him. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I had to pick as almost a category because I
do feel like Matt Freeze will be a lock and
I do feel like if Turner does well in the spring,
I think he will be a lock also, and mostly
because I think we just can't throw his experience away.
He's coming from playing the the last World Cup and
(32:25):
I think that'll be important to the team.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Now when it.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Comes to the number three, I put a list of
you know, Patrick Salty, you know Brady Celentano, and I
think all those guys, and I mean, you could potentially
throw Stephan in there if you wanted to, but but
I just think we are looking for a number three.
Don't forget Clinchman has been doing really well in Syria,
b in Italy playing for Chase and I and I
(32:52):
and I and I think he's a He's a legitimate
contender for the number three spot. So I think all
three of these guys, Salty, Braiding, Selling Tano are they
have to show and if there is there is any
position what we need to impress this is the position.
And those guys have to be fighting at this point
for me for the third spot on the roster as
a goalkeeper. But they definitely have to show this spring.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Are you disappointed that Gaga Slannina isn't in this discussion,
given how good he was a few years ago at
such a young age for Chicago, and then he makes
that big move to Chelsea and he's he's kind of
dropped off the face of the earth.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, you know, those moves to Chelsea, they're not always great.
You know, we have a lot of history with that.
Me Aska, There's a bunch of guys who made that
move and it didn't necessarily pan out. I am surprised.
I'm surprised because you know, five, six, seven years ago
we thought of him as the next great right and uh,
(33:49):
he had that potential, not saying that he couldn't be.
You know, goalkeeping is one of those positions where you
can get you get better as you get older, and
you can potentially potentially play into your late thirties and
play really well into your late thirties. So I do
think there's still a chance. I just don't think he
put himself in position right now to battle, and that
(34:11):
is a disappointment for me.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah. Two guys who did put themselves in position to battle,
one who I think is very clearly in the pool
and one who's a reach. Jack McGlenn for the Houston Dynamo,
who has been part of Murcio Pochettino's camp has one
of the best, like the best left foot in the world. Man,
(34:33):
Like he's in that discussion, you know, non Leo Messi category. Anyway,
just absolutely devastating set piece delivery. Played one of the
best passes you'll ever see this weekend for Houston's opener.
Was playing deeper as number eight. Has also played as
a number ten. Incredible vision hits, those disguised passes across
(34:55):
his hips through ball artist. And then there's like a
Jack McGlenn clone in San Jose playing for Bruce Arena
named Niko Chakiris, who was a product of the Quakes academy,
who was arguably the best player on the USU twenty
team this past year. He's wearing the number ten for
the Quakes. Had an assist this weekend, was involved in
(35:16):
all three of their goals. He's a true number ten.
McGlenn is in the picture. I understand shakirass a reach,
but we have seen this from Mauricio Pochettino. Before young
player gets his opportunity. Young player impresses, young player gets
called into camp. Do either of these guys have a
chance for you?
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Tab I'll start by saying no, that they don't, but
I'll follow I'll follow that by saying that I love both.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Of these guys there. These are good players.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
You know, Jack McGlenn, I think he's played in a
better position for himself. Now if you recall, you know
he did it. It seemed like for a bunch of
years in Philadelphia playing that sort of with drawn number eight,
but on the left side, right serving balls. You know,
Jack is just such a great player. He's fun to watch.
He does everything well. If there was anything that Jack
(36:13):
lacks is getting into the box a little bit more.
He's not a guy that gets into the box. He
always ends up about twenty yards out. I'd like to
see him do that more. But I certainly feel like
I know I started by saying no, they don't have
a chance, but I do feel like if they, If
he in particular got picked for the national team, it
(36:34):
would not necessarily surprise me because he deserves to be there.
He's a good player. So Jack being on the field
in the World Cup this summer, number one would not
scare him, and number two he belongs. So I'll have
to say no only because of the numbers we have
in front of them. But not because he doesn't belong
in terms of securities. I agree with you that this
(36:57):
summer or last summer in the World Cup, he and
Brooklyn Reigns were the best two players that we had
who were consistent pretty much every game. I think Nico's
a little bit more of an attacking player than Jack is.
He's a little bit more of a creator. He's a
little bit more technical in terms of getting out of,
(37:19):
you know, tight things and being more of a true ten.
I think he's he's a creator. I think it's a
little bit late for him to get on this. But again,
I will say that you know you have a twenty
six man roster.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Out of the twenty.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Six players, it's likely that you will play your whole
World Cup with eighteen or seventeen or nineteen, right, So
maybe you want to add a couple of younger guys
in the end to give him that experience. I know
I would, and I would not be against you know,
Securia as being one of those, because I think he
has the talent for that, and he's one of the
guys in the next generation coming along. So I agree
(37:58):
with both these players on you that with you that
they need to impress, and they will impress because they're
good players. I just think that they're they're they're a
long shot.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Yeah, I think so too, but I felt the need
to mention them because they are two of my favorite
players to watch in MLS. It's nice to see MLS
academies producing really classy, sort of almost South American coded
attacking players. It reminds me of the Tabromos days a
(38:30):
little bit. For the longest time, tab US soccer fans
gonna say, why is tab the only one we've ever
produced who plays like this? And now is a bit
by bit there seems to be more from your lineage,
like this is your legacy as a US soccer Great
to see players like this coming out of our academies.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Well, I mean, obviously can't take credit for any of that,
but it's nice to hear those things sometimes. I am
happy that that we do have a bunch of creative
players coming along who can who can make plays out
of nothing, you know, and and that's that's encouraging. And
certainly the two players you just mentioned are are are
(39:08):
this way.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Let's move a little bit deeper into midfield for your
next pick.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, so my last two picks, and I'll start with
the number two would be for me, it would be
Sebastian Burrholter because I think, you know, with the way
the central part of midfield is is laying out, he's
becoming a little bit of a long shot and he
has a shot at this right but but it goes
(39:37):
you know, part of him having a shot is exactly
what this list is about, which is impressing Marisa Putchettino
over the next three or four.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Months in MLS.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And I think he needs to do that, and he
needs to do that game in and game out. And
by the way, I've never seen the kid take a
day off, so it's not like he's not going to.
I expect him to do exactly what he's doing and
continue to do that.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
He is a good player.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
There's a lot of ways in which he can help
this national team. And I hope he just has that
consistency through the spring that he has always had. But
he's certainly won the NISSA impress.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
All right, and why don't you give us our number
one and then I'll bring us out with my number
one pick.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Okay, so I'll go right to the number one. The
number one is one that I think is a long shot.
But if there's someone who needs to impress, that would
be Josh Sargent. I think as we mentioned, and you
started the show by saying, hey, if you're a forward
and you score goals, you always have a chance.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
He's a forward and he scores goals, and he will
score goals, and I think that he is the number
one guy that needs to impress this spring to get
into that picture of being one of likely four forwards
that Mauricio Pochettino is going to pick.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
I think he has a shot at it.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
I think it's a long shot, but if there's someone
out there that needs to impress, it certainly is Josh Sargent.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Yeah, I feel bad for him because it almost feels
like the door was closed on his opportunity last year
when he did get into camp and he didn't impress
and agimn did and like it almost feels like it's
too late. But as you said, as you know, over
the past month i've been hosting this show, I've got
(41:22):
to talk with folks like Marcello Balboa, Clint Mathis, who
knows a thing or two about scoring goals for the
national team. If you get hot at the right time
in the two months leading up to the World Cup,
in the six months leading up to the World Cup,
whatever it is, you are a consistent goal scorer as
a number nine. Everybody pays attention to that because that
(41:43):
is the job. It's what I was talking about with
the crowded Peppi before. It's what we're talking about with
Josh Sargent. That's what I'm going to talk about with
my number one pick, seventeen year old Julian Hall. MLS
Player of the Week from match Day one. He had
a brace for the Red Bulls down in Orlando. They
were the only road team to win this weekend. He
(42:04):
was awesome in combo play and he was I thought,
really polished and patient and smart in front of goal
to find those tappens that the Red Bulls patterns of
play was creating. The number one skill for a center
forward is to find easy chances. If you can do
that consistently, then you will keep scoring. We've seen that
(42:26):
again and again and again. It translates up. Julian Hall
is just seventeen, probably not there physically, but if he
plays like one of the best center forwards in MLS,
is there any reason for Mauricio Pachettino to ignore him.
Is there any reason for him to say, oh, this
(42:48):
kid said, well, he's gonna turn eighteen next month. Oh,
this eighteen year old kid, he's too young. He's not.
If he's doing the job, you have to pay attention.
Isn't that the rule?
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Wow? I really like this pick actually because as you know,
I'm not a I'm not a stats guy, but I
believe he's averaging two goals a game in his professional
career and first visit. So that's pretty good, right. That
will put him up with anyone. Right, So, no, I
I agree with all those things, Matt.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
I have to say. His movement is great.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
When you talk about you know what what makes up
a great forward, and that is someone who gets in
front of in front of goal at the right time.
He does that, he combines, he has good feet and
uh so he has all the tools to be you know,
if we were going to put him into I would
take him back into that that that U securies category
(43:45):
where you say, okay, maybe the back of your roster
you have some guys for the future.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Obviously, what we have to think about.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
With with him at this point is that it's only
been one game, right, so we have to wait and
see what the consistency looks like. But he certainly as
an opportunity to impress. Uh And and you know, I
think he was named the player of the week this week,
so so because of that, the eyes are going to
be on him. So he's not going to be a
surprise any longer. Teams get the scouted scout him a
(44:14):
little bit more. So, let's see how he reacts to,
you know, people sort of playing his strengths a little
bit more, right, because that obviously happens by other teams.
In terms of the physicality, which you mentioned. You know,
this always happens with young players until young players are
really good and then at that point physicality.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Doesn't matter anymore.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Right, I mean, you know, you got to give you
a perfect example Pedria Barcelona. Right, He's the little guy
that if you see him at the at the bakery tomorrow,
you would never think this guy is like a world superstar,
the best player, yeah, the best player, potentially the best player.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
In the world. Right, and he looks like he.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Should be working in the bakery actually instead of going
to bike bread. But so so the physicality that's something
that I think great player payers overcome because you know,
let's not forget defenders are not faster than the ball,
So if you and the ball are gone by the
time defenders get there, it really doesn't matter how.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Small you are.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
And I think, you know, young players eventually the good
ones get to that level.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
But I do like, I do like this call.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
You know, Hall was great the first week, and I
think he I don't see a reason why he's not
going to continue to be great. But let's get with
him through his ups and downs, which I think he
will inevitably have.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Yeah, I guess we'll start a Julian Hall monitor for
the rest of the show, for the next couple of months,
to see if he has any chance of cracking Mauricio
Pochettino's twenty twenty six US World Cup roster. It would
be quite a story. I think he is pretty clearly
the best center hord prospect the US has produced since
(45:54):
Ricardo Peppi, maybe even longer than that. It's exciting to
see a seventeen year old play as well as he
did this week. One of multiple kids on that Red
Bull team, by the way, who played excellent ball this
week and Adrian Metti, the sixteen year old defensive midfielder
arguably even better than Julie All in this one. And
by the way, he's a dual national. Morocco are all
(46:17):
over him, so we have a real dual national Panic
for the first time in a couple of years. If
you are a US men's national team, Sicco, the Red
Bulls are probably your team of choice to start watching
this MLS season. And we'll be all over on this
show in the coming weeks. And for now, though, it's
time for one more break and we're gonna hear from
tab on a pivotal moment in the US national team
(46:39):
back in nineteen ninety five. Thank you all for listening
to Inside American Soccer. Please rate review, can't subscribe. Welcome
back to Inside American Soccer, where we're gonna take you
(46:59):
inside the locker room a little over thirty years ago. Actually, now,
we talk a lot about the nineteen ninety four World
Cup on this show. I think everybody talks about that
because it was such a seminal moment for soccer in
North America, and I think we all see this coming
summer through that. Lens hope that twenty twenty six can
(47:20):
do for the US in Canada what nineteen ninety four did,
at least in part. But there also needs to be
some thought about what comes next. And the guy I'm
with right now, Tamravos, was a huge part of what
comes next. And really, tab you were talking and it
was sort of the professionalization of the game here starting
(47:43):
really in nineteen ninety five, after all the confetti and
all the you know, going on a letterman in Leno
and whatever else happened for you guys, stickers commercials. It
was a different era starting in nineteen ninety five. So
take us back to that time and what you guys
were doing and what it meant.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Yeah, you know, I always, I always have fun going
back to these stories, although I feel like i'm you know,
I'm telling everyone the bedtime story and I don't know
how many people want to hear it, but uh, but
you know, there are Here's the important part about this.
I really I've had the you know, I've been fortunate
enough to have seen sort of the development of the
(48:26):
sport of the last three thirty forty years. You know,
that's that's probably the only advantage to being old, because
I can't think of anything else. But I but I,
but I can tell you that there are certain moments
that I think were I could see the evolution of
soccer in this country coming along right. And and one
of those moments, obviously, is late nineteen eighty nine when
(48:47):
the team qualifies of the World Cup for the first
time in forty years, and then the next five years
become hey, you know, we host the World Cup and
now we're competitive, and now we beat England and we
be you know what are Italy and or Brazil or
you know. You get all these friendly, great results that
you're happy about, and then work up ninety four comes
(49:07):
and all the lights are on and everybody's paying attention,
and like you said, everyone's going out all the morning
shows and everything else that has to do with the
publicity of great moments. And then and then that goes away,
and now we find ourselves with the reality of okay, well,
now we got to keep moving the ball forward.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
How do we do that?
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Right?
Speaker 1 (49:28):
And so I look back in nineteen ninety five as
a pivotal moment because I think although ninety four was great,
I think it was the culmination of the beginning of
soccer being back on the map, right it was eighty
nine through ninety four, and it was great and it
was exciting. And now now we need to play with
the big boys. And now we need to play with
(49:48):
the big boys for real. Now it's not just showing
up and being the underdog and you know, and and
and showing everybody that you know, us play soccer, and
now it needs Now we need to become competitive. And
I think nineteen ninety five was the year where that
started to happen. We and that's US Soccer selected to
(50:09):
go to Cope America, which they they don't always participate in.
We've only been to you know what four or five
in the history, right, we don't go every time. That
was only I think the second time that US had
participated in the Cope America.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
So it wasn't happening.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
And and we go the Cope Americas in Uruguay nineteen
ninety five, and we go there and the first thing
that happened when we got there is we had a
player's strike. We decided that we had been hearing about, Hey,
you know, there's hundreds of millions that this World Cup left,
and you know, and you know, like like player unions,
(50:47):
players unions usually do is they try to say, well,
you know, what's in the in for the players, because
at the end of the day, we're the ones on
the field, right and we sort of need to get
compensated for that as well.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
So we went into the first game.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
We started the Cope America that year by playing Chile
the first game, but we didn't practice before that game
because we were on strike, so we're in Cope America,
didn't go to practice and actually play the game and
beat Chile in the first game, but it.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
Was the first time. But we had negotiations with.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
The federation where we just basically said, if if we
don't get X, Y, and Z, then we're not playing.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
And at that point, you know, there comes to negotiations.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Of course, agents are always involved because they're always involved
in this stuff. I would say to make this, to
make things worse, but let's just keep that between us,
and it became a negotiation. Obviously, we all agreed to
move forward and we played in that Cope America, and
not only did we play in it, but then we
(51:50):
showed that we really could compete. Because if nineteen ninety
four can always be chalked up to, yeah, you played
some good teams and you knocked out, you know, Columbia,
which was a great opponent, but at the end of
the day, it was the underdog, you know, getting the
big result. I think cope America now became hey, we
(52:11):
have our feet on the ground and we know we
can play, and we have a full professional squad with
players playing everywhere, and now we need to compete toe
to toe with big countries in South America. And we
went down there, beat Chile the first game, lost to
Bolivia second game, but then beat Argentina the third game
in one of the great victories of US soccer three
(52:33):
zero took first place in the group and ended up
in fourth place. We lost to Brazil later on in
the tournament, ended up in fourth place. But also so
that was the beginning of us being okay here we
are really competitive. But there was another side to it
that I think was it was the birth of the
truly good young players coming along.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
It was the first time we got to see like
a Clodia Arena and his skill set and what he.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
Had to offer.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
And for all of us having been on the national team,
let's not forget there's a little generation of players of
you know, myself and Eric Ranalo marself about Boa and maybe, well,
I think Tony wasn't on the team by then already,
but those guys we had been together since like nineteen
eighty eight, so I had been seven eight years of
being on the national team, so that's sort of a
long time. And now we started to see these young
(53:22):
players like Claudia, who's we were really impressed by because
they had all the tools. We saw Yovann Korovski all
of a sudden signed at Manchester United and he was
on their youth team and he was coming along. So
I think that I think nineteen ninety five, If nineteen
ninety four became the birth of let's say, soccer fans
(53:44):
following the team, nineteen ninety five became the birth of
what we now know, all of our players starting to
go overseas and seeing that's when we started to see
players like, you know, obviously Claudia, I mentioned Yovann Korowski,
who was great, Brad Friedel who came along to the
national team and then became you know, think about it,
(54:04):
who can match Brad Friedel's career. I don't think anyone
can ken in US soccer yet with what he did
in the EPL, So I think in a bunch of
different ways it became a sort of a professional national
team for the first time.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
So let's let's make an analogy then, right, So if
the twenty twenty sixth version of what you guys did
in nineteen ninety four, now you guys made it out
of the group nineteen ninety four, people didn't expect you
to played really well against Brazil in that round of sixteen.
(54:43):
Brazil obviously went on to win, but it was it
was a brave and gutty performance from you guys won
a lot of respect. The twenty twenty sixth version of
that for the US men's national team would be what
making it all the way back to the quarterfinals, going
up a against the Brazil or an Argentina, maybe even
making it to the semi finals, and laying down a
(55:05):
marker and saying, Okay, this is where we are now,
this is what we can do when the stars align
and everything is clicking. This is who we are as
a national team. Then the twenty twenty seven version of that,
the step forward professionally for the national team that you
guys experienced and really drove in nineteen ninety five. What
(55:25):
would that be for the US in twenty twenty six
or twenty twenty seven, in twenty twenty eight and beyond, Like,
what from your perspective, needs to happen for the US
to make that next professional jump.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
Well, I mean, I think now we're at a point
where you know, we have a great team.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
We're no longer the underdog.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
At the World Cup, which is already a big, big
task to go there as favorites to win our group
and to advance let's say at the very least around
the sixteen is It's sort of that's assumed by everyone
at this point, right, because if we were not to
do that, that means that we likely lost the teams
that we were not supposed to lose to. So it's
(56:12):
a more difficult situation to be in. But now to
answer your question, you know, I've picked some moments of
evolution of the game. So what would be the next
moment of evolution? And I think now for US, I
think we can put ourselves in this World Cup by
potentially participating in a quarterfinal or in a semifinal, where
(56:33):
we can cement sort of the competitiveness of our program
number one worldwide because I think we already have a
lot of respect worldwide from other countries. I don't think
there's a country out there right now that can say, hey,
we play the US. This is going to be an
easy game. There isn't a single one. And you can
pick France, you can pick England, you can pick Brazil.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Or Argentine or anyone.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
They know that they're in for a battle that they
have to give their best, can they when Yeah, of
course there's a good chance that those teams will beat us,
but they will only beat us at their best. It's
unlikely that they will beat us with anything else. So
that's a good place to be. But I think Matt,
if I were to say the evolution and our next battle,
I think the next battle is more at home. Our
(57:17):
next battle is how do we become a bigger sport
in our home? And that's I think that's the toughest
obstacle at this point, because as you continue to see
the numbers, and you continue to see MLS grow, and
you continue to see our players doing better and our
players being more competitive overseas, how are we making sort
(57:39):
of that? How are we making that shortcut? And I
do see the numbers that obviously you read as well,
But it's hard for me to believe now when I
look at the NFL and I look at, you know,
Major League Baseball, and I look at the NBA, and
then I look, are we more popular than golf?
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Are we?
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Really?
Speaker 2 (57:57):
I don't think we are.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
Are we more popular than college football? College basketball? I mean,
you can name seven or eight sports that you can
legitimately go to a bar and say those sports are
a lot more popular than soccer. Those sports are what
people talk about. So I think our next evolution has
to be how do we get to become one of those?
Speaker 3 (58:20):
Yeah, And if you have the answer to that, you
might be the next MLS commissioner, because I think the
guys in charge they've been looking for that as for
the long time. Obviously a ton of progress with the
league a long way to go. I think the keyword
is culture. Culture wins on every level in every sport.
(58:42):
If your country has a good colt Tavas, Uruguay, and
and in terms of culture, everybody asks how doesguy punch
above their weight so consistently for such a small country.
It's because of the culture of soccer there gave us
one of our greatest players of all time. It gives
us one of the favorites watch in the World Cup
every four years, and he gave us a great talk
(59:05):
today on this show. So thank you all for joining
me and tab on this episode of Inside American Soccer.
Will be back next week. I'll still be hosting. We
will give you an update on Young Theo Bogert's progress
on the for check if he has started beating Tom
in the head with the hockey stick that he is
(59:26):
trying desperately to master already. So thank you for joining us,
and don't forget to like, rate, subscribe, do all the
things on all the socials TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
And thank you for joining us, folks. We will see
you next week.
I think although ninety four was great, I think it
was the culmination of the beginning of soccer being back
on the map.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
It was eighty nine through ninety four and it was
great and it was exciting.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And now now we need.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
To play with the big boys.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Greetings, folks, and welcome to Inside American Soccer with Tab
Ramos and Tom Boger. Of course, I'm not Tom Boger.
I'm Matt Doyle filling in for Tom for the next
couple of weeks. He's on baby duty for a little
while longer with his new son Theo, who I'm told
is already holding a hockey stick. Tab We might have
lost one to hockey already. Man, Like I thought, he's
(00:40):
gonna be a future soccer player. Tab of course, is
one of the great soccer players in US history, three
time World Cup veteran original member of the Metro Stars.
And are you planning to recruit young Theo Boger back
to the fold, get him onto the pitch instead of
at the rink?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, I think I think there's time. I think grabbing
the hockey. I mean, who didn't grab a hockey stick
this weekend?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Really?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
You know, obviously we're rooting for the USA got a
big win, first one in however many decades, right since
was it since Saint Miracle?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
So, yeah, so we're all happy about that. We're all rooting,
and I think it's really nice that he grabbed the
hockey stick and then you know, let's just go him
a week and about a week from now, it's time
to put the hockey stick down and get back to
the soccer ball already for THEA.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, hopefully there'll be some grafts to play on, though
it's all buried under two feet of snow in New
Jersey and all the parts in the Northeast where we
both are. I thought it was great in that hockey
game that the US won by bunker encountering, Like it
gave me some flashbacks if you watched that the two
(01:51):
minutes that was the entirety of overtime. It was three
v three and it was just like one break after
another by the Canadians until the US stop and just
countered in the other direction. Like it felt like watching
some of you guys in the nineteen nineties, because there
were so many games that where you guys had to
just absorb and then hit.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
That's right, I think they went with long ball, which
I had not seen in hockey, so.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
It was very effective. They went route one.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I think the Americans have one of the older English coaches,
I believe. I don't know much about hockey, but it
was effective and at the end of the day, you know,
as always, what matters in sports is to score one
more than the other team, and that's what it's about,
and that's what they did, so.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
That is the best important data. Yeah, forg rest to them.
It is of course awesome to watch international competition in
basically any sport. I'm a sucker for the Olympics. Were
both suckers for the World Cup, which you know is
coming this summer. And the whole point of this show
is try to tease apart what's happening with the US
(03:00):
and who has the inside traffic spots, and what we'll
see from Mauricio Pochettino's tactics, and what the chances are
for the US to have a moment in soccer like
the US just had in hockey. It feels like a
long shot, but crazy things have happened in this world
of ours, and on the Show of Ours, we'll be
discussing the latest news around the national team, including Josh
(03:24):
Sargent with a big move flow. Baaligan, who we talked
about last week was in a bit of a goal
scoring slump. He heard us Tab. He has had a
very good week over in France. Ricardo Pappy back on
the field score and a beauty of a goal. Tyler
Adams back as well. We're also going to have a
new segment where we rank all things US men's national team,
and this week, with the start of the MLS season,
(03:47):
we'll rank the top five MLS players who need to
impress Muricio Potchettino. And it's actually harder than it sounds like,
because pac has been very open to bring in MLS guys,
using them in crucial spots, including over some European based counterparts,
and so it's a long list, like I could go
(04:08):
ten deep on the MLS guys who need to impress
Punch for various reasons. And of course we will go
inside the locker room with Tab and talk about the
ninety five team. Everybody focuses on ninety four and how
that changed American soccer, but don't forget about what happened
in the aftermath when he took all the glory and
all the accomplishments of ninety four and spun it into
(04:31):
something really professional. I'm looking forward to hearing those stories
from TAB and I think it's one that is important
for our listenership because I don't think everybody knows about them.
But first, let's start with the US national team news.
Let's start with Josh Sargent TAB. He signed with Toronto
FC this week. Tom reported, Of course, congrats on Tom
(04:53):
for another big scoop twenty two million dollar move with
the incentives that could bring it up to about twenty
six or twenty seven million. I think he has been
in season though he has not been playing for a while.
He has been training. Toronto FC badly need the help.
Like how fast do we think this gets done for
(05:15):
him to get over here and get Like if you
were coaching Orld, you just put him in the eleven
next week if he's good to go.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, well, you know, first of all, obviously always Tom
is always reporting first, so I can see. I'm trying
to picture Tom at home with a baby in one hand,
on one arm, in.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
The phone on the other right.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
This is I would imagine that's what Tom looks like
every day. But yeah, you know, the the Josh situation
is obviously took a while. It's been a month over
a month now since Josh has played. Because he's been out,
he's sort of you know, left a side by the
coach there, with which obviously the coach has is right.
(05:55):
You know, if a player is not happy, he doesn't
want to have a unhappy player on the field or
sometimes even in training, right, you want to have positivity there,
as in particular in the situation that Norwich has been in,
which is you know, battle week to week to avoid
that relegation. Right. So now Josh finds himself in in Toronto.
(06:18):
You know, I think it's obviously a good move for
him because that's what he wanted. So you know, you
we would assume he's going to be happy there and
that he's happy to be back back in MLS.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
In terms of the coaching side, and do you put
him in, I mean, I think Josh, you know, played
most of the season at Norwich.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Uh, he has been training.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
You know, let's not forget MLS has just played one
game so far. So I can't imagine that where there
would be a way where Josh is further behind than
really MLS players at this point. So if I were
to coach, if I were to be coaching Josh at
this point, I would I would put him in. He's
number nine, he's ready to go, he knows his job
(06:58):
and uh, you know, with a week of train he
should be ready to go. So I expect him to
see him right away.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I think his biggest strength as a number nine is
his ability to combine with the rest of the attackers,
and that's something that we saw throughout his career. I mean,
I remember watching him with the twenties when you were
the head coach, and his ability to bring the other
attackers into the play and then create something out of
that as a group, and that's something that Toronto desperately need.
(07:26):
They did score two goals this week, and both of
them were just very direct off of turnover as a
bad rebound on one of them from the Dallas goalkeeper.
It wasn't stuff that they were sort of creating as
a unit. Josh Startin's ability to help teams create as
a unit is his greatest strength as a center forward,
(07:48):
and it's something that kind of ties a team together
and we saw that with him with the twenties back
in twenty nineteen when he was such a big part
of that team as playing up an age level, right,
he was seventeen, and you still brought him to that tournament.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, he actually played.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
He played the Under twenty World Cup before he played
the Under seventeen World Cup, so he went he went
backwards on that one, just to get you know, John
Hackworth and I had a number of conversations about that,
but it was the right thing, and I think you
framed it. You framed it correctly. You know, I would
simplify that by just saying Josh is a soccer player.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
He really is.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Like he's a number nine, but he's not just your
box nine. He is a soccer player, so he can
he makes.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The team better.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
That's why I had no I had no issues at
all in moving him up two or three age groups
right away because I felt like he really understands the
game well and and for me, one of my favorite,
one of my favorite forwards that I had through my
you know, eight or ten years on the youth national teams.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yeah, he really has that gift of, like you said,
being a soccer player and not just a box nine,
like being able to make something more functional on a
collective level. It hasn't translated for the US national team.
It like that is not the version of Josh that
we've seen. I think people have focused it rightly on
(09:15):
the fact that he hasn't been a goal scorer for
the national team. He hasn't scored since twenty nineteen. Why
do you have any like having watched all of it,
do you like, can you pinpoint anything in particular, so
why it hasn't worked worked for this kid who is
obviously so talented.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Well, you know, obviously, you know, we can say all
the way back to you know, twenty nineteen, but it's
really not that many games that he played in the process, right,
and not that many times or he was actually a
starter and got you know, got the full game. Havn't
said that I did, you know, we did watch Josh
miss miss a couple of important chances with the national team,
(09:56):
and that you know, with a forward sometimes you get
very limited opportunity. And let's not forget that the number
nine position has been one which has been very competitive
for the last you know, five or six years too,
So we've been looking for that nine that kind of
takes over and if you can recall It was only
about six months ago when we all started to say, okay,
well we think Baligan is the guy. Right, So it's
(10:19):
been it's been five or six years of not actually
having the guy, and because of that, any time forward
would make a mistake, it would sort of set him
back to be in on the being third now and
now you've got to build yourself up again to get
another chance. What I can tell you is this, Josh
is a good player. Josh could help the national team
today if he had an opportunity. But of course, you know,
(10:43):
he hasn't been played now for a little while. You know,
I think if he can get some consistency in Toronto,
I think it's you know, he could be back in
the fold and why not now?
Speaker 3 (10:54):
And Toronto need him to live up to that. They
need him to be great in MLS. He can't just
be very good. He needs to be great, one of
the best center for US in the league. That's what
he's being paid. Like twenty two million dollars is a
very very big number for an MLS team, for any
team really for a transfer. But he's in the prime
(11:16):
of his career. Family reasons one of the big reasons
he wanted to come back to North America. I was
almost about to say the United States, but no, Toronto's Canada.
But wanted to come back to North America. And here
he is, and he's got it all in front of
him and a lot to prove. He's been really, really
good for Norwich. He had Bundesliga interest. He's obviously a
(11:37):
really talented guy. But the hope is that his best
years are ahead of him because the guys in front
of him on the depth chart for the number nine
for the US. We saw what Floebaalagan did this week,
three goals, two of them against PSG. He has laid
down a marker for club and for country. It's gonna
(11:58):
be a hard man to catch. The number one guy
at Demid. I think on everybody's depth chart for the
US national team is Tyler Adams. That always comes with
an asterisk, It always comes with a caveat if healthy.
Tyler Adams, if healthy, is the clear choice to be
(12:18):
the starting defensive midfielder. It is just a massive load
bearing if and the good news to have. This week
Tyler Adams returned to action for Bournemouth. Were you concerned
about his recovery and do you feel better now, and like,
what's your confidence level going forward in his ability physically
(12:39):
to stay where he needs to stay well.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
First, it's a little bit alarming when players continue to
get hurt, right at the same time, I think this
latest injury was more unlucky than anything else. To be fair,
It's not like it's your normal player, you know. I
remember it. Towards the end of my career, I kept
getting muscular injuries, right, So once you start to get hurt,
(13:04):
and you get muscular injuries, it's almost like, man, there's
just no turning back. There's just there's always something. I
think in this case, it's not one of those. I
think it was unfortunate this time that he got hurt.
And I think we mentioned it on this show that
they said, well it's going to be you know, two
to three months, likely March, and we said, if anything, okay,
if they said March, Tyler Adams will probably be back
(13:25):
in February, which is exactly what happened. Right. He's a
hard worker, you know, he will beat the expectations in
terms of work required and then getting onto the field,
and he did that and by the way, jumping into
the EPL cannot be easy. He played I think sixty
or seventy minutes and he did well. He looked like
(13:47):
he belonged and he was ready for that level, which
is not easy. So so yeah, am I concerned about
the World Cup? You know, I'm always a little bit
concerned with Tyler because of the history of the last
few years, but not necessarily because of this injury. I
think he'll put it behind him.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
One of the big concerns for me with Tyler is
if he does get injured, it changes the way the
US have to play, because nobody in the pool, a
few players in the world man match what he brings
as a front foot defender. He reads those moments so quickly,
and you know, we think about it as defensively being
(14:26):
you know, lines of banks of four and you know,
put pressure on this pass, force that wide get, you know,
cause a turnover over here. But what Tyler is best
at is those transition like those red bull moments, right,
those energies drink soccer moments where he reads the incipient
turnover or chance to cause a turnover before anybody else
and he blows up one counter attack after another after another.
(14:51):
Without him in there, it's a cascade effect, because nobody
else in the pool is anywhere close to as good
as Tyler Adams about those moments that not only stop
an opposing potential counter attack but also have a way
of creating chances for the US if you're forcing a
high turnover like that.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Well, let me.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Put tactics aside a little bit on this one, because
the player I'm gonna say that's the closest to Tyler
Adams when it comes to that type of playing is
Weston McKinney. He if I had to pick one player
who's always front foot, trying to win the ball, going
for every tackle that he's gonna win and the ones
(15:31):
he's likely not going to win, I think Weston is
the closest thing. But Weston has not really played that
defensive midfield of a role, right. He's been wide for Uventus,
he's been the ten for events, he's been a withdrawn nine,
He's been and everything in between there, but not that role.
So that's why I said, let me leave tactics at side.
I was just thinking, you know, if I think only
(15:52):
about the mentality of the player, the closest to have
the mentality that Tyler has is Weston to me, that's
the closest. Now, let's say let's say, you know, Tyler
goes down, I don't think Poschettino necessarily goes to someone
who hasn't been playing there in that position. So now
that opens the door to guys like Johnny Cardozo, who's
(16:12):
maybe a little bit closer to just being a stay
home although at Athletico Madrid he steps forward a little
bit more. He can't do that role. And the reason
I'm saying that is because although he's another player player
who has not done well with the national team, he
did it a Raal Betty's last year, the whole year,
and he did it really well, that holding in front
of the in front of the back four, winning the
(16:34):
ball and playing it and not losing it and doing
it in that which is not easy. And that's the
reason why Athletico Madrid bought him. Now, from the average
American fan, we haven't you know, we haven't seen that,
But I think that would likely be the closest thing
to someone.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Holding that position.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
But from a mentality standpoint, I think Weston is really
the only one that comes comes close to Tyler Addams.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So let's turn back to the center forwards. We mentioned
it at the top flow. Balligan had three goals this
week across two games and two different competitions, and Ricardo
Pepi returned and scored a gorgeous goal for PSV. That
was good to see because that return was a little
bit ahead of schedule. I think he wasn't supposed to
(17:20):
be back until March as well. I think it's time
to just say, all right, what's your current number nine
depth chart? What does it look like for you?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Tab It hasn't changed for me because even last week,
I think when we saw Augimunt score and we saw
Hajji Wright score, I think it was three to one game, right,
we're all thinking, okay, you're going to be battling. But
we did say on this show, you know, Balligan is
playing against the best defenders in the world and the toughest,
you know, competition in the world, which is the Champions League.
(17:50):
You know, his club is very competitive and and you
know at the top of league in France, so you
have to take into consider the competition. And then Baligan
goes out and scores two goals in the Champions League
and adds another one on the weekend in the league.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So I think I.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Think At this point, I think it's pretty clear who
we have as a number nine, and that's that's Bawigan
and everybody else is really fighting for two and three.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah, and I'll say everybody else for me right now
is still pad Agimon number two. And I think there's
not just goal scoring reasons for that, but there's tactical
reasons in the way that teams press now. Teams have
over the past three years gone back to almost strictly
men oriented pressing. So there's been an uptick in playing
(18:37):
long especially in the Indian international game. There's plenty of
data to show it, and so you need to have
sometimes a center forward who can just man handle opposing
center backs and win that first ball. There's nobody in
the pool who is better at that than pat Ogimon.
The rest of his game needs plenty of work. He's
not I don't think there's any chance to of him
(19:01):
usurping Flowballigan as number one. But I think just because
he brings an elite trait that is so salient in
the modern game, I think he's the clear number two.
And then for number three for me, it's still Hodgi
right Peppy. I was really happy to see him back
I think he's a more natural goal scorer, really a
more natural number nine than Hadgi. Right, I need to
(19:24):
see him do it against better competition. I need to
see him do it against I X, I need to
see him do it against Fayenord. I need to see
him do it more consistently in the Champions League and
international competition. And he's had some moments like that a
couple of years ago, but it hasn't been consistent. And
the other thing is I need to see him go ninety.
This guy's only gone ninety a dozen times in the
(19:46):
past three years. So the talent is there, the opportunity
is there, hopefully the health will be there, and then
if the goals start coming on top of that, he
can climb those charts. But for me still, Ricardo Peppi
is number four on the center forward death chart. Everybody else,
including Josh Sargent, behind those guys trying to catch up,
(20:08):
and for us, it's time for a break. We'll be
right back with our first Inside Rankings segment this week.
It's top five MLS players who need to impress Pochettino
right now. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Inside American
Soccer with Tom Boger tab Ramos wherever you get your podcast,
(20:38):
Welcome back to Inside American Soccer. Tab had a great
idea for a new segment called Inside Rankings, where we
rank our top five for all things US men's national
team related. So this week, in honor of first Kick
the start of the MLS season, we've got the top
five MLS players who need to impress Mauricio Pochettino right now,
(21:00):
and Tab, I'm going to grab the ball. I am,
I'm going to kick us off for me. Believe it
or not. It's Matt Freeze, and it's for a different
reason than I think most people would consider for these
top five lists. Matt Freeze, I think if he plays
well over the next month and into March camp, he
can shut the door. It's his job. If he continues
(21:23):
to play like he did the second half of last
year when he won the job for the national team
and when he was excellent for NYCFC, there's no more
discussion about who's starting in goal this summer for the
US national team.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I mean that's a good call.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I would I would disagree that. You know, if this
is someone who needs to impress, you know, you know,
looking to impress. I would say that if Matt Freeze
goes on cruise control between now and the World Cup
and has sort of average games, I think the position
is really his to lose. I don't think Matt, you know,
(22:00):
with with as well as he's played for the national
team and the consistency that he's had over the last
you know, ten twelve games in which he started, I
don't think he's going to lose that position unless he
makes some big, big mistakes. So I I like that
you choose him as your number five, But I think
(22:22):
he's got his position pretty well, pretty well locked.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, I think so too. I'd like to see him
shut the door. I'd like to see I would like
to just feel really really good about what's happening in
goal and we're getting there. I don't think we're quite
there yet. We're not there on the back line. And
that brings us to your number five pick. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
So my number five is one that you can certainly
argue with. And the reason I will say that is
because a little bit like Matt Freeze is this is
someone who needs to be on cruise control between now
and the in the end the year, and this is
Tim reim for me, the first day of you know,
(23:05):
the MLS has only had one game so far, and
I didn't think it was a great one for Tim,
to be fair, and I wish I could tell you
it was a one off, but this is what I
saw at the end of the year last year too
in MLS.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
For Tim Reim. I think Tim Reim.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Although I believe sort of like maybe like roll down
and to a certain extent, you know a player I'll
name later, I think Posatino is going to pick them anyway.
But I do think that at some point we have
to think about his position at Charlotte, because what happens
(23:46):
if Tim Reim all of a sudden doesn't start at Charlotte.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
What does that do?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Right? But because this is and by the way, I
love Tim Reim. He's a great guy. He's been an
old time national team player that represents there so well,
all of those things, right, But I'm looking purely at
the soccer part. I mean, there could be a possibility
that at some point, if Tim Reim doesn't really going
on a solid cruise control where he's playing well, I
(24:14):
think he could lose his spot in Charlotte. And if
he does, what happens next.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, what we saw this weekend and down the stretch
and specifically then in the playoff series against NYCFC and
Charlotte were eliminated. He father time has got up to
him in terms of his speed. He is just not
able to stay with most attackers in the open field.
(24:42):
And Simon Betcher this past weekend looks like Gillian and
Boppe at times. Man just sort of blowing by Tim Reim.
And to me, Reim is still the best ball playing
center back in the pool by a mile. Just got
the classiest left but he reads the game well, but
physically it's a question of whether or not he can
(25:03):
keep up. And I think, like you, I think he'll
be there anyway. I will be scared if Tim Reen
is a starter for the national team this summer. I'm
gonna say I would not be scared if Christian Roldan
was starting for the US national team this summer. That's
my number four pick. When we were talking about Tyler
(25:24):
Adams before, Rodan is the guy I was thinking of
who was closest to Tyler Adams in terms of defending
on the front foot, creating those turnovers. And then he's
also so good at tilting the field right. He reads
the game really quickly and is able to dump balls
into channels or hit those third line passes to feet
into the half spaces. He's the only field player to
(25:46):
have played in all six games during that great stretch
last autumn for the US national team. And look, you
could just tell how much Mauricio Pachettino loves him, and
you could tell how much the players around him, for
both club and country, love him. I think Christian Rodan
over the next month has a chance to claim for
his own that backup spot to Tyler Adams. Given Tyler's
(26:10):
health issues, man, that might as well be a starting spot.
So Christian Roldan very high on my list of guys
who need to continue to impress Mauricio Pochettino.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
This is a good call, and I think he probably
doesn't need to do a lot to impress Pugettino because
of all of those things that you just mentioned, and
above everything else, the value that he has to the
group in general. He's very well like, he brings guys together,
he allows the team to be better, He makes the
(26:42):
team better on and off the field, and he has
huge value. And besides that, you know you can always
count somehow on us soccra on giving things away, Right,
they don't send them to the.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Super Bowl to do all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
If they're not picking them this summer, that's just not happening, right,
So you can always count on who's done on commercial
to see who's gonna make the team, because this is
actually how things work.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I mean, obviously you're not gonna pick.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Roll don to go to the super Bowl and then
leave him home this summer.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
That's just not gonna happen. So you can count.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
And that's one pick the other twenty five guys you want.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Right, and that's one.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
But but anyway, no, I agree with you that he
has all of all of those qualities, and I think
that's that's that's a good pick. But but you know,
having said all that stuff, let's not forget you play.
The games have to be played, and he has to
continue to play well like he's done for the last
how many years, thirty years. I don't even know he's
going to Seattle forever, so but he has to continue
(27:39):
to do what he's doing and it's gonna be He's
gonna be in good shape.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Tod, bring us to your number four guys. I so
you have listed two guys at number four.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
I have a category, and this category will be the
category of these guys are in, but be careful, right
and and one is Diego Luna and the next one
is Miles Robinson. Okay, these are two guys that I
think if we had a big twenty six today, I'm
pretty comfortable in saying that both of those guys are going.
Now we need to play, and now we need the
(28:09):
three months of impressing Maurico Bochettino so that no one
that's playing in Europe will take their spot, right, That's
that's really what it is. Let's not forget that there's
a young there's a young Banks playing in Europe right now,
No Kai Banks, who's doing really well and who likely
will take a spot, and let that not be Miles
Robinson spot. I think Miles is in a good spot.
(28:32):
I think if he continues to play well for Cincinnati,
he will be there.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
But I think he needs.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
To impress, no question with his ninety minute games. And
by the way, for a team that's I think highly
competitive and that will be at the top of at
the top.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Of the East, competing for everything on.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Luna's side obviously didn't play the first game, but I
think he needs to continue to do what he does,
and that's make plays in the final third. If he
continues to do that, that is a position where in particular,
now that we haven't seen Giorna and I don't know
how long again, I think that that becomes a position
(29:09):
that's a little bit more up for grabs, and I
think Diego Lunad needs to continue to do his job
and make things happen in the final third.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Yeah, I want to see him be a little bit
sharper in those moments. Miles Robinson was actually my third
guy on the list, so I'm going to expand upon
the point you made really strong ninety minute performance for
him this weekend for FC Cincinnati and not just doing
the stuff that Miles Robinson we all know is good at.
He's devastating in the open field, running down opposing attackers
(29:41):
and maybe our best center back in the box just aerially,
and that's really important. Like we all know that this
past two years, set pieces have had There's been a
kind of a revolution in coaching set pieces and more
and more goals coming off of set pieces. So we
need guys who are good in the air on that
back line, and Miles Robinson is really good at both
(30:03):
those things. What we didn't see from him and from
Cincinnati last year was real pitch control, using the ball
and using your spacing to dictate terms. And we actually
saw some of that this weekend. Granted it was against
Atlanta's a bad team, so you don't want to read
too much into it. But if Robinson can sort of
(30:24):
take some of the chaos out of the game and
replace it with control, which I think he did in
Week one, that will go a long way, especially obviously
if it translates to the US national team. And to
me to have just intrinsically a pairing of Robinson and
Chris Richards makes a whole hell of a lot of
(30:45):
sense for the US if they're both sort of firing
on cylinders like those guys seem like natural partners to me.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yet I agree with that.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
You know, there was one particular play, you know this
this week in MLS where a ball was sent to
al Maron. I think you'll remember the ball they sent
out Moron, a little bit of a longer ball and
you see al Moron running full speed and here comes
to Miles Robinson at three quarter speed and stick his
arms out and is a lot faster than that. Sort
(31:16):
of I think that is the situation that we'll see
in the World Cup, in particular in the first round,
where the field is going to be opened up and
in an open field. You know, Miles Robinson is hard
to beat. You know, Miles has has good speed, uses
his body well and I think that was sort of
the perfect play. And you know, it kind of took
me into the summer into saying, hey, you know, this
(31:37):
could happen against Paraguay against the same player, right, or
it could happen against others. But for the most part,
in the first round, it's likely that we'll have the
ball on the opposing side of the field and our
in our our field will be wide open, and I
think that's where i'd like to see a player like
Mike Miles Robinson.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
All Right, I started this list with Matt Freeze, the
guy who we both think will beware of the number
one kit. You got a whole list of guys who
are desperate to catch him. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I had to pick as almost a category because I
do feel like Matt Freeze will be a lock and
I do feel like if Turner does well in the spring,
I think he will be a lock also, and mostly
because I think we just can't throw his experience away.
He's coming from playing the the last World Cup and
(32:25):
I think that'll be important to the team.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Now when it.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Comes to the number three, I put a list of
you know, Patrick Salty, you know Brady Celentano, and I
think all those guys, and I mean, you could potentially
throw Stephan in there if you wanted to, but but
I just think we are looking for a number three.
Don't forget Clinchman has been doing really well in Syria,
b in Italy playing for Chase and I and I
(32:52):
and I and I think he's a He's a legitimate
contender for the number three spot. So I think all
three of these guys, Salty, Braiding, Selling Tano are they
have to show and if there is there is any
position what we need to impress this is the position.
And those guys have to be fighting at this point
for me for the third spot on the roster as
a goalkeeper. But they definitely have to show this spring.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Are you disappointed that Gaga Slannina isn't in this discussion,
given how good he was a few years ago at
such a young age for Chicago, and then he makes
that big move to Chelsea and he's he's kind of
dropped off the face of the earth.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, you know, those moves to Chelsea, they're not always great.
You know, we have a lot of history with that.
Me Aska, There's a bunch of guys who made that
move and it didn't necessarily pan out. I am surprised.
I'm surprised because you know, five, six, seven years ago
we thought of him as the next great right and uh,
(33:49):
he had that potential, not saying that he couldn't be.
You know, goalkeeping is one of those positions where you
can get you get better as you get older, and
you can potentially potentially play into your late thirties and
play really well into your late thirties. So I do
think there's still a chance. I just don't think he
put himself in position right now to battle, and that
(34:11):
is a disappointment for me.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah. Two guys who did put themselves in position to battle,
one who I think is very clearly in the pool
and one who's a reach. Jack McGlenn for the Houston Dynamo,
who has been part of Murcio Pochettino's camp has one
of the best, like the best left foot in the world. Man,
(34:33):
Like he's in that discussion, you know, non Leo Messi category. Anyway,
just absolutely devastating set piece delivery. Played one of the
best passes you'll ever see this weekend for Houston's opener.
Was playing deeper as number eight. Has also played as
a number ten. Incredible vision hits, those disguised passes across
(34:55):
his hips through ball artist. And then there's like a
Jack McGlenn clone in San Jose playing for Bruce Arena
named Niko Chakiris, who was a product of the Quakes academy,
who was arguably the best player on the USU twenty
team this past year. He's wearing the number ten for
the Quakes. Had an assist this weekend, was involved in
(35:16):
all three of their goals. He's a true number ten.
McGlenn is in the picture. I understand shakirass a reach,
but we have seen this from Mauricio Pochettino. Before young
player gets his opportunity. Young player impresses, young player gets
called into camp. Do either of these guys have a
chance for you?
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Tab I'll start by saying no, that they don't, but
I'll follow I'll follow that by saying that I love both.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Of these guys there. These are good players.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
You know, Jack McGlenn, I think he's played in a
better position for himself. Now if you recall, you know
he did it. It seemed like for a bunch of
years in Philadelphia playing that sort of with drawn number eight,
but on the left side, right serving balls. You know,
Jack is just such a great player. He's fun to watch.
He does everything well. If there was anything that Jack
(36:13):
lacks is getting into the box a little bit more.
He's not a guy that gets into the box. He
always ends up about twenty yards out. I'd like to
see him do that more. But I certainly feel like
I know I started by saying no, they don't have
a chance, but I do feel like if they, If
he in particular got picked for the national team, it
(36:34):
would not necessarily surprise me because he deserves to be there.
He's a good player. So Jack being on the field
in the World Cup this summer, number one would not
scare him, and number two he belongs. So I'll have
to say no only because of the numbers we have
in front of them. But not because he doesn't belong
in terms of securities. I agree with you that this
(36:57):
summer or last summer in the World Cup, he and
Brooklyn Reigns were the best two players that we had
who were consistent pretty much every game. I think Nico's
a little bit more of an attacking player than Jack is.
He's a little bit more of a creator. He's a
little bit more technical in terms of getting out of,
(37:19):
you know, tight things and being more of a true ten.
I think he's he's a creator. I think it's a
little bit late for him to get on this. But again,
I will say that you know you have a twenty
six man roster.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Out of the twenty.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Six players, it's likely that you will play your whole
World Cup with eighteen or seventeen or nineteen, right, So
maybe you want to add a couple of younger guys
in the end to give him that experience. I know
I would, and I would not be against you know,
Securia as being one of those, because I think he
has the talent for that, and he's one of the
guys in the next generation coming along. So I agree
(37:58):
with both these players on you that with you that
they need to impress, and they will impress because they're
good players. I just think that they're they're they're a
long shot.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Yeah, I think so too, but I felt the need
to mention them because they are two of my favorite
players to watch in MLS. It's nice to see MLS
academies producing really classy, sort of almost South American coded
attacking players. It reminds me of the Tabromos days a
(38:30):
little bit. For the longest time, tab US soccer fans
gonna say, why is tab the only one we've ever
produced who plays like this? And now is a bit
by bit there seems to be more from your lineage,
like this is your legacy as a US soccer Great
to see players like this coming out of our academies.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Well, I mean, obviously can't take credit for any of that,
but it's nice to hear those things sometimes. I am
happy that that we do have a bunch of creative
players coming along who can who can make plays out
of nothing, you know, and and that's that's encouraging. And
certainly the two players you just mentioned are are are
(39:08):
this way.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Let's move a little bit deeper into midfield for your
next pick.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, so my last two picks, and I'll start with
the number two would be for me, it would be
Sebastian Burrholter because I think, you know, with the way
the central part of midfield is is laying out, he's
becoming a little bit of a long shot and he
has a shot at this right but but it goes
(39:37):
you know, part of him having a shot is exactly
what this list is about, which is impressing Marisa Putchettino
over the next three or four.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Months in MLS.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And I think he needs to do that, and he
needs to do that game in and game out. And
by the way, I've never seen the kid take a
day off, so it's not like he's not going to.
I expect him to do exactly what he's doing and
continue to do that.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
He is a good player.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
There's a lot of ways in which he can help
this national team. And I hope he just has that
consistency through the spring that he has always had. But
he's certainly won the NISSA impress.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
All right, and why don't you give us our number
one and then I'll bring us out with my number
one pick.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Okay, so I'll go right to the number one. The
number one is one that I think is a long shot.
But if there's someone who needs to impress, that would
be Josh Sargent. I think as we mentioned, and you
started the show by saying, hey, if you're a forward
and you score goals, you always have a chance.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
He's a forward and he scores goals, and he will
score goals, and I think that he is the number
one guy that needs to impress this spring to get
into that picture of being one of likely four forwards
that Mauricio Pochettino is going to pick.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
I think he has a shot at it.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
I think it's a long shot, but if there's someone
out there that needs to impress, it certainly is Josh Sargent.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Yeah, I feel bad for him because it almost feels
like the door was closed on his opportunity last year
when he did get into camp and he didn't impress
and agimn did and like it almost feels like it's
too late. But as you said, as you know, over
the past month i've been hosting this show, I've got
(41:22):
to talk with folks like Marcello Balboa, Clint Mathis, who
knows a thing or two about scoring goals for the
national team. If you get hot at the right time
in the two months leading up to the World Cup,
in the six months leading up to the World Cup,
whatever it is, you are a consistent goal scorer as
a number nine. Everybody pays attention to that because that
(41:43):
is the job. It's what I was talking about with
the crowded Peppi before. It's what we're talking about with
Josh Sargent. That's what I'm going to talk about with
my number one pick, seventeen year old Julian Hall. MLS
Player of the Week from match Day one. He had
a brace for the Red Bulls down in Orlando. They
were the only road team to win this weekend. He
(42:04):
was awesome in combo play and he was I thought,
really polished and patient and smart in front of goal
to find those tappens that the Red Bulls patterns of
play was creating. The number one skill for a center
forward is to find easy chances. If you can do
that consistently, then you will keep scoring. We've seen that
(42:26):
again and again and again. It translates up. Julian Hall
is just seventeen, probably not there physically, but if he
plays like one of the best center forwards in MLS,
is there any reason for Mauricio Pachettino to ignore him.
Is there any reason for him to say, oh, this
(42:48):
kid said, well, he's gonna turn eighteen next month. Oh,
this eighteen year old kid, he's too young. He's not.
If he's doing the job, you have to pay attention.
Isn't that the rule?
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Wow? I really like this pick actually because as you know,
I'm not a I'm not a stats guy, but I
believe he's averaging two goals a game in his professional
career and first visit. So that's pretty good, right. That
will put him up with anyone. Right, So, no, I
I agree with all those things, Matt.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
I have to say. His movement is great.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
When you talk about you know what what makes up
a great forward, and that is someone who gets in
front of in front of goal at the right time.
He does that, he combines, he has good feet and
uh so he has all the tools to be you know,
if we were going to put him into I would
take him back into that that that U securies category
(43:45):
where you say, okay, maybe the back of your roster
you have some guys for the future.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Obviously, what we have to think about.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
With with him at this point is that it's only
been one game, right, so we have to wait and
see what the consistency looks like. But he certainly as
an opportunity to impress. Uh And and you know, I
think he was named the player of the week this week,
so so because of that, the eyes are going to
be on him. So he's not going to be a
surprise any longer. Teams get the scouted scout him a
(44:14):
little bit more. So, let's see how he reacts to,
you know, people sort of playing his strengths a little
bit more, right, because that obviously happens by other teams.
In terms of the physicality, which you mentioned. You know,
this always happens with young players until young players are
really good and then at that point physicality.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Doesn't matter anymore.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Right, I mean, you know, you got to give you
a perfect example Pedria Barcelona. Right, He's the little guy
that if you see him at the at the bakery tomorrow,
you would never think this guy is like a world superstar,
the best player, yeah, the best player, potentially the best player.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
In the world. Right, and he looks like he.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Should be working in the bakery actually instead of going
to bike bread. But so so the physicality that's something
that I think great player payers overcome because you know,
let's not forget defenders are not faster than the ball,
So if you and the ball are gone by the
time defenders get there, it really doesn't matter how.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Small you are.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
And I think, you know, young players eventually the good
ones get to that level.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
But I do like, I do like this call.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
You know, Hall was great the first week, and I
think he I don't see a reason why he's not
going to continue to be great. But let's get with
him through his ups and downs, which I think he
will inevitably have.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Yeah, I guess we'll start a Julian Hall monitor for
the rest of the show, for the next couple of months,
to see if he has any chance of cracking Mauricio
Pochettino's twenty twenty six US World Cup roster. It would
be quite a story. I think he is pretty clearly
the best center hord prospect the US has produced since
(45:54):
Ricardo Peppi, maybe even longer than that. It's exciting to
see a seventeen year old play as well as he
did this week. One of multiple kids on that Red
Bull team, by the way, who played excellent ball this
week and Adrian Metti, the sixteen year old defensive midfielder
arguably even better than Julie All in this one. And
by the way, he's a dual national. Morocco are all
(46:17):
over him, so we have a real dual national Panic
for the first time in a couple of years. If
you are a US men's national team, Sicco, the Red
Bulls are probably your team of choice to start watching
this MLS season. And we'll be all over on this
show in the coming weeks. And for now, though, it's
time for one more break and we're gonna hear from
tab on a pivotal moment in the US national team
(46:39):
back in nineteen ninety five. Thank you all for listening
to Inside American Soccer. Please rate review, can't subscribe. Welcome
back to Inside American Soccer, where we're gonna take you
(46:59):
inside the locker room a little over thirty years ago. Actually, now,
we talk a lot about the nineteen ninety four World
Cup on this show. I think everybody talks about that
because it was such a seminal moment for soccer in
North America, and I think we all see this coming
summer through that. Lens hope that twenty twenty six can
(47:20):
do for the US in Canada what nineteen ninety four did,
at least in part. But there also needs to be
some thought about what comes next. And the guy I'm
with right now, Tamravos, was a huge part of what
comes next. And really, tab you were talking and it
was sort of the professionalization of the game here starting
(47:43):
really in nineteen ninety five, after all the confetti and
all the you know, going on a letterman in Leno
and whatever else happened for you guys, stickers commercials. It
was a different era starting in nineteen ninety five. So
take us back to that time and what you guys
were doing and what it meant.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Yeah, you know, I always, I always have fun going
back to these stories, although I feel like i'm you know,
I'm telling everyone the bedtime story and I don't know
how many people want to hear it, but uh, but
you know, there are Here's the important part about this.
I really I've had the you know, I've been fortunate
enough to have seen sort of the development of the
(48:26):
sport of the last three thirty forty years. You know,
that's that's probably the only advantage to being old, because
I can't think of anything else. But I but I,
but I can tell you that there are certain moments
that I think were I could see the evolution of
soccer in this country coming along right. And and one
of those moments, obviously, is late nineteen eighty nine when
(48:47):
the team qualifies of the World Cup for the first
time in forty years, and then the next five years
become hey, you know, we host the World Cup and
now we're competitive, and now we beat England and we
be you know what are Italy and or Brazil or
you know. You get all these friendly, great results that
you're happy about, and then work up ninety four comes
(49:07):
and all the lights are on and everybody's paying attention,
and like you said, everyone's going out all the morning
shows and everything else that has to do with the
publicity of great moments. And then and then that goes away,
and now we find ourselves with the reality of okay, well,
now we got to keep moving the ball forward.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
How do we do that?
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Right?
Speaker 1 (49:28):
And so I look back in nineteen ninety five as
a pivotal moment because I think although ninety four was great,
I think it was the culmination of the beginning of
soccer being back on the map, right it was eighty
nine through ninety four, and it was great and it
was exciting. And now now we need to play with
the big boys. And now we need to play with
(49:48):
the big boys for real. Now it's not just showing
up and being the underdog and you know, and and
and showing everybody that you know, us play soccer, and
now it needs Now we need to become competitive. And
I think nineteen ninety five was the year where that
started to happen. We and that's US Soccer selected to
(50:09):
go to Cope America, which they they don't always participate in.
We've only been to you know what four or five
in the history, right, we don't go every time. That
was only I think the second time that US had
participated in the Cope America.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
So it wasn't happening.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
And and we go the Cope Americas in Uruguay nineteen
ninety five, and we go there and the first thing
that happened when we got there is we had a
player's strike. We decided that we had been hearing about, Hey,
you know, there's hundreds of millions that this World Cup left,
and you know, and you know, like like player unions,
(50:47):
players unions usually do is they try to say, well,
you know, what's in the in for the players, because
at the end of the day, we're the ones on
the field, right and we sort of need to get
compensated for that as well.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
So we went into the first game.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
We started the Cope America that year by playing Chile
the first game, but we didn't practice before that game
because we were on strike, so we're in Cope America,
didn't go to practice and actually play the game and
beat Chile in the first game, but it.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
Was the first time. But we had negotiations with.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
The federation where we just basically said, if if we
don't get X, Y, and Z, then we're not playing.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
And at that point, you know, there comes to negotiations.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Of course, agents are always involved because they're always involved
in this stuff. I would say to make this, to
make things worse, but let's just keep that between us,
and it became a negotiation. Obviously, we all agreed to
move forward and we played in that Cope America, and
not only did we play in it, but then we
(51:50):
showed that we really could compete. Because if nineteen ninety
four can always be chalked up to, yeah, you played
some good teams and you knocked out, you know, Columbia,
which was a great opponent, but at the end of
the day, it was the underdog, you know, getting the
big result. I think cope America now became hey, we
(52:11):
have our feet on the ground and we know we
can play, and we have a full professional squad with
players playing everywhere, and now we need to compete toe
to toe with big countries in South America. And we
went down there, beat Chile the first game, lost to
Bolivia second game, but then beat Argentina the third game
in one of the great victories of US soccer three
(52:33):
zero took first place in the group and ended up
in fourth place. We lost to Brazil later on in
the tournament, ended up in fourth place. But also so
that was the beginning of us being okay here we
are really competitive. But there was another side to it
that I think was it was the birth of the
truly good young players coming along.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
It was the first time we got to see like
a Clodia Arena and his skill set and what he.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
Had to offer.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
And for all of us having been on the national team,
let's not forget there's a little generation of players of
you know, myself and Eric Ranalo marself about Boa and maybe, well,
I think Tony wasn't on the team by then already,
but those guys we had been together since like nineteen
eighty eight, so I had been seven eight years of
being on the national team, so that's sort of a
long time. And now we started to see these young
(53:22):
players like Claudia, who's we were really impressed by because
they had all the tools. We saw Yovann Korovski all
of a sudden signed at Manchester United and he was
on their youth team and he was coming along. So
I think that I think nineteen ninety five, If nineteen
ninety four became the birth of let's say, soccer fans
(53:44):
following the team, nineteen ninety five became the birth of
what we now know, all of our players starting to
go overseas and seeing that's when we started to see
players like, you know, obviously Claudia, I mentioned Yovann Korowski,
who was great, Brad Friedel who came along to the
national team and then became you know, think about it,
(54:04):
who can match Brad Friedel's career. I don't think anyone
can ken in US soccer yet with what he did
in the EPL, So I think in a bunch of
different ways it became a sort of a professional national
team for the first time.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
So let's let's make an analogy then, right, So if
the twenty twenty sixth version of what you guys did
in nineteen ninety four, now you guys made it out
of the group nineteen ninety four, people didn't expect you
to played really well against Brazil in that round of sixteen.
(54:43):
Brazil obviously went on to win, but it was it
was a brave and gutty performance from you guys won
a lot of respect. The twenty twenty sixth version of
that for the US men's national team would be what
making it all the way back to the quarterfinals, going
up a against the Brazil or an Argentina, maybe even
making it to the semi finals, and laying down a
(55:05):
marker and saying, Okay, this is where we are now,
this is what we can do when the stars align
and everything is clicking. This is who we are as
a national team. Then the twenty twenty seven version of that,
the step forward professionally for the national team that you
guys experienced and really drove in nineteen ninety five. What
(55:25):
would that be for the US in twenty twenty six
or twenty twenty seven, in twenty twenty eight and beyond, Like,
what from your perspective, needs to happen for the US
to make that next professional jump.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
Well, I mean, I think now we're at a point
where you know, we have a great team.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
We're no longer the underdog.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
At the World Cup, which is already a big, big
task to go there as favorites to win our group
and to advance let's say at the very least around
the sixteen is It's sort of that's assumed by everyone
at this point, right, because if we were not to
do that, that means that we likely lost the teams
that we were not supposed to lose to. So it's
(56:12):
a more difficult situation to be in. But now to
answer your question, you know, I've picked some moments of
evolution of the game. So what would be the next
moment of evolution? And I think now for US, I
think we can put ourselves in this World Cup by
potentially participating in a quarterfinal or in a semifinal, where
(56:33):
we can cement sort of the competitiveness of our program
number one worldwide because I think we already have a
lot of respect worldwide from other countries. I don't think
there's a country out there right now that can say, hey,
we play the US. This is going to be an
easy game. There isn't a single one. And you can
pick France, you can pick England, you can pick Brazil.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Or Argentine or anyone.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
They know that they're in for a battle that they
have to give their best, can they when Yeah, of
course there's a good chance that those teams will beat us,
but they will only beat us at their best. It's
unlikely that they will beat us with anything else. So
that's a good place to be. But I think Matt,
if I were to say the evolution and our next battle,
I think the next battle is more at home. Our
(57:17):
next battle is how do we become a bigger sport
in our home? And that's I think that's the toughest
obstacle at this point, because as you continue to see
the numbers, and you continue to see MLS grow, and
you continue to see our players doing better and our
players being more competitive overseas, how are we making sort
(57:39):
of that? How are we making that shortcut? And I
do see the numbers that obviously you read as well,
But it's hard for me to believe now when I
look at the NFL and I look at, you know,
Major League Baseball, and I look at the NBA, and
then I look, are we more popular than golf?
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Are we?
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Really?
Speaker 2 (57:57):
I don't think we are.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
Are we more popular than college football? College basketball? I mean,
you can name seven or eight sports that you can
legitimately go to a bar and say those sports are
a lot more popular than soccer. Those sports are what
people talk about. So I think our next evolution has
to be how do we get to become one of those?
Speaker 3 (58:20):
Yeah, And if you have the answer to that, you
might be the next MLS commissioner, because I think the
guys in charge they've been looking for that as for
the long time. Obviously a ton of progress with the
league a long way to go. I think the keyword
is culture. Culture wins on every level in every sport.
(58:42):
If your country has a good colt Tavas, Uruguay, and
and in terms of culture, everybody asks how doesguy punch
above their weight so consistently for such a small country.
It's because of the culture of soccer there gave us
one of our greatest players of all time. It gives
us one of the favorites watch in the World Cup
every four years, and he gave us a great talk
(59:05):
today on this show. So thank you all for joining
me and tab on this episode of Inside American Soccer.
Will be back next week. I'll still be hosting. We
will give you an update on Young Theo Bogert's progress
on the for check if he has started beating Tom
in the head with the hockey stick that he is
(59:26):
trying desperately to master already. So thank you for joining us,
and don't forget to like, rate, subscribe, do all the
things on all the socials TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
And thank you for joining us, folks. We will see
you next week.
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