Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America

Foxes & Hounds! Sharks & Minnows! High Fives! Pinecones! We’re getting into the nuts and bolts of helping little kids learn to master the soccer ball with Mike Idland, a college women’s soccer coach in New York state who’s spent a lot of time working with rec soccer and club coaches, and has been a huge help to Belz in his rec soccer efforts. Lots of practical stuff here to cap off this series of interviews on youth soccer.

Here’s M...

Doug, Belz and Vince talk about Poch's summer of (resetting) the vibes, when the wave of enthusiasm about the World Cup will hit (soon), where Johnny Cardoso stands, whether Sebastian Berhalter really has a better chance of making the WC roster than Gio Reyna, Doug's early years as a soccer reporter, what several other players have to do to make the World Cup squad, and much more. Then we run through the weekend news faster than we...

Jim Harte is one of the people really fighting to grow soccer in America and he’s spent most of his life working with kids, working in the trenches of helping them learn to love the game. He's a six-time high school soccer state champion in Florida as a coach, and was simultaneously an elementary physical education teacher and club soccer coach for decades in the Tampa area. He’s also the founder of the high school champions league...

Vince, Belz and Charlie Boehm talk through all the latest transfer news, Dest's winner against Go Ahead Eagles, the upshot of all this Leagues Cup action, a full transfer news rundown, and how bad is it really for a player to be one-footed?

Clip Notes for $5 members and up on the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/135726380?pr=true&cr=true

In case you missed it, Watke and Scuffed have parted ways. It's the end of an era at Scuff...

The best soccer players all have one thing in common. They learned to love the soccer ball at home. Tom Byer, a former pro in Japan whose book “Football Starts at Home,” is probably known to many of you, is a passionate advocate not just for early childhood ball mastery, but also for the critical importance of the parent-child relationship in skill development, and the knock-on benefits for kids of learning to focus on the ball.

In ...

Vince and Belz recap the news from the weekend. That includes Eintracht Frankfurt's friendly in Louisville, where Vince watched Pax and interrogated Dino Topmuller, plus the upcoming USL League Two final, Sargent's decision to spurn Wolfsburg, Parma's ongoing negotiation for Gio, and much more.

And Clip Notes are back: https://www.patreon.com/posts/clip-notes-july-135172956

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all e...

Henry Bushnell, one of the key figures in the USMNT press corps, joins Watke and Belz to talk Poch vs Pulisic, what the coach is actually interested in (culture), and a lot more.

Send us a voicemail: www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we d...

Vince, Belz and Watke get back to the business of the Monday Review, working through a lot of the transfer news, and a few other things that might have slipped through the cracks if we hand't brought them up.

Still working on this series about youth soccer. If you have a question about raising or coaching little kids to be as good at soccer as they can be...

...submit one for Jim Harte, former PE teacher and longtime high school socc...

Watke, Vince and Belz take turns teaching each other what we learned from the tournament.

Send a question for Tom Byer if you'd like! Here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScAuZvwwUJZlf_3l6ADl5NiZafcnsLnfM4G0cFPhdadNQO5BA/viewform?usp=header

You can also send us a voicemail: www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a mo...

The USMNT played in a 4-4-2 block and mostly denied Mexico the big chances despite getting totally dominated, but a key mistake got us on the first one, and then we just couldn't keep it level after that. We also did very little with the ball, and one player in particular comes under the microscope for that.

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month o...

We get a satisfying brace from Diego Luna, and then we turtle up. Greg and Belz talk it through. Greg mostly blames the midfield for not getting control of the game after the opening 15 minutes. Full timeline. On to Mexico in Houston on Sunday.

Clip notes for patrons coming later tonight.

Send us a voicemail: www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus ep...

Greg and Belz talk through the win in penalties last night in Minneapolis. Lots on the new look with both fullbacks high, Tillman, Arfsten, how Richards' protagonism helped create chances, a little cackling about Jesse Marsch's fate at the GC, and much more.

Clip notes coming soon for patrons at $5 and higher level: patreon.com/scuffed

Send us a voicemail: www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon...

Greg and Belz talk through ALL the details on the 2-1 win over Haiti. Malik and Chris continue to be a cut above. Big Pat is a phenomenon, in both negative and positive ways. Everybody else is pretty much failing to distinguish himself.

Clip Notes for $5 patrons: https://www.patreon.com/posts/132197415?pr=true

Send us a voicemail: www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-f...

Vince and Belz react to and recap the 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia basically immediately after the final whistle. Richards comes up big. Tillman keeps building his NT chops. Most everybody else had a forgettable night and the Saudi opponents treated Arfsten like Shaq at the top of the key.

Send us a voicemail: www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus ep...

Charles Boehm helps us once again, joining Belz and Vince to recap the 5-0 win over the Soca Warriors. We do a full timeline and several takeaways, bearing in mind the opponent "wasn't at the races," as Dwight Yorke put it post-match. Malik getting blooded as a goal-scorer and foul-sufferer in Concacaf was big. Poch still has a lot to prove. Freese does himself favors. Etc. etc.

Send us a voicemail www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast

S...

Not great! But Greg is typically even-keeled and there's plenty to talk through.

Send us a voicemail: www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, ...

The USMNT and Nashville SC centerback joins Belz and Sanjay Sujanthakumar to discuss how he practices attacking set pieces, aerial prowess in general, the differences in how centerbacks are instructed to operate under Poch compared to Berhalter, his mindset coming off the bench against Iran in 2022, that goal-line clearance, that penalty against Wales, his Christian faith, and much more.

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreo...

Belz and Vince walk through the timeline and some takeaways from a loss in Hartford, but easily the best loss of the past three, and there are some positive things to take away from it.

Sanjay and I are going to interview Walker Zimmerman tomorrow. I will put a form in the shownotes, at which you can submit a question if you like. We will try to ask as many as we can: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfq64C36Wv0zAUTBSPV_zgjB...

Greg joins Belz to talk about who they're excited to see play over the next month, why Josh Sargent was left off, and respond to several listener questions as the USMNT embarks on the Gold Cup and the final 12 months before World Cup 2026. As usual, Greg zigs while most everyone else zags. He's not panicking.

send us a voicemail we can play and respond to on the show: www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast

Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuff...