SDH 12/20: Premier League schedule, USMNT with Bart Keeler, and more

[Music] the base has dropped on a new edition of soccer down here to monday we got a weekend to recap for you lots of different things to jump into from all over the world we've got champions in central america we had a u.s men's national team friendly that we'll talk about with bart keeler coming up at 9 30. we've got the premier league with games being cancelled with games not being cancelled with referees maybe who should be cancelled we'll get into all of that as we go let's start with where things stand in england right now uh john was it six games that were canceled over the weekend in the premier league it's not even getting into the lower divisions where there were lots of games there were more games canceled in england than anywhere else in the world by far the premier league's supposed to be meeting today about what their next steps are going to be and what has been leaked is not a true circuit breaker of let's stop playing while this is spreading it's let's stop the middle round of games during the festive fixtures and play the others okay is there any logic behind this in your mind none whatsoever just none like no no logic none i mean unless you're well then why are they doing it tell me why they're doing that then because i mean there's a reason yeah i think what they're trying to do is with that middle grouping of games i think what it is is you play the first group of festive fixtures you reassess you figure out where you are you try to get some kind of solid footing and then you prepare for that third round i don't maybe i mean that would if i hope that's not their thinking if it is man they got issues because it's two days away yeah like what's gonna change in two days you're not even out of a quarantine period what they're doing it's it's really clear what they're doing they're trying to get as many games in as possible they don't want to have these games rescheduled they don't want to have to deal with the schedule issues and they think that this is the way to deal with what people like thomas tuchel are saying where hey you guys are talking about player safety and you're not actually doing anything about player safety what they're going to come back and say is well rosters are depleted right now so we're not going to make teams do something that we shouldn't make them do anyway which is play three games in like six days yeah we're going to take the middle games out that's what they're they're they're trying to do it's still asinine by the way it's still stupid like it's just there is actually some thought behind what they're trying to do but i mean jared you're getting you got six games canceled this round you're gonna get more games canceled in the next round you got league cup games coming up you've got the games on boxing day which is what they don't want to lose i'm it feels like they're trying to bet on getting the boxing day games in at least and then crossing their fingers and sticking their heads in the sand it kind of does um and maybe it's i know people as much as they love their festa fixtures maybe it's a bit of a blessing in disguise for some players to not have to uh play three games in a week oh it is not yeah but that would always be part of it but it does kind of feel like that um you know where you're nodding you're you're encountering that what i feel like might be something similar in the nba right now that you had a lot of games canceled yesterday and i wonder if it's a similar vein of you know boxing day is a huge thing for the epl christmas day is a huge thing preserve your christmas day games for the nba big preserve your biggest uh what what is probably going to be one of your biggest television days of the year and where you're going to do a lot of ticket sales a lot of marketing preserved that um and then it's just a matter of you know do the leagues look at it and say okay let's just get to that and then until while we're waiting for that let's readdress how we're gonna deal with this after christmas because theoretically you could use this time to say we need to address how we're going to deal with all of these things going forward do we change our protocols do we change the way we're testing do we change the way we're we're treating you know uh putting people in protocols do we do that that's use your time for that because if you just hold everything off until christmas or until boxing day and then keep doing the same thing you're gonna be the same situation in i don't know a couple days couple weeks the most nothing's gonna change you're just you're just strategically positioning things to get your big marketing day in i don't think anything changes for that i i i'm not buying it maybe that is their plan i don't know i'm not buying it works let me put it that way because the premier league talking about it and look this was something that was floated out there maybe it was a little bit of a test balloon we'll see with the summit meeting that they're having today the idea that you don't do anything in terms of canceling rounds of games until the round after boxing day i mean just following logic you had six games canceled here that had nothing to do with anything what how many games you can have canceled on boxing day because canceling the round after boxing day does nothing to get the boxing day games in zero doesn't affect it so i mean i understand in four card you know it must go on it's tradition i i i totally get that but proposing cancelling the round after boxing day does nothing to get the boxing day games in canceling games now in the nba maybe they feel like that will break the spread but you're also then going to have to go further than that in in terms of what these leagues are doing and you're going to have to have teams go into bubble situations or lock down scenarios and all that because you can cancel it all you want the spread's happening in training sessions the spreads happen and as thomas tuchel said you know in travel the spreads happen in things that are not related to these games that's what i keep just banging my head against the wall with with some of these leagues and they haven't learned anything about how to handle this stuff um i i mean thomas tookle chelsea asked for their game to be postponed it was denied and tukel was very clear he said it's just it's not safe we talk about protecting players in a safe environment but it's not safe i would not be surprised or i would be not surprised if the next test shows up and we have more positives how should it stop if we sit in the bus and have dinners and just stay together like nothing happened because they had a number of positives they requested a a postponement the premier league postponed other games they didn't postpone this one yeah it does also affect where they had the positives they had they didn't have really any attackers they had four players on the bench four outfield players on the bench um it affected the result i mean they didn't look good they didn't have any options off the bench they didn't have any much of an attack they draw nil nil with wolves this stuff's affecting the the league now it's affecting the competition but what i'm waiting to see and this honestly didn't get as much play as i thought it would over the weekend the nfl made a very significant change to what they're doing um they basically made a large separation between unvaccinated and vaccinated players in terms of what you have to do testing procedures the unvaccinated players have to test every day in the nfl still the vaccinated players don't the vaccinated players only start to test when they have symptoms that is a massive change to the way that the nfl is operating going forward i am very curious to see if the nba here in this country and if other leagues start to adopt that because we've heard the coaches say different things about you know i had this uh jim curtin i mean jim curtin said you know i had guys who were healthy with the sniffles at home and couldn't play in the eastern conference final yeah because of the protocols right now um they couldn't should that change i i again i don't know i don't have the answers to this and there's debates about this at a at the scientist level and at the doctor level of you know should you allow that at this point a lot of jobs do i mean to be frank you know a lot of jobs you're not testing every day to go to work and unless you're having symptoms and feeling sick you're going into work and you might have tested a positive if you test it i don't know if it's the right way or not i'm kind of blown away that we still don't know if it's the right way or not this far into this and we don't have better answers but i mean john i go back to my biggest issue with the way the premier league is handling this and i'm just so irate about their lack of any kind of plan you've got games getting canceled you've got games not getting canceled you've got games getting cancelled a day before you've got games getting canceled hours before you got teams traveling and then games getting canceled like there's no plan and it doesn't sound like they're really about to come up with much of a plan to deal with the immediate aspect of it their plan is to try to handle the pr side of it and their plan is to try to you know get the boxing day games in it sounds like so taking the schedule here into account here here's what it looks like so you have 18 of the 20 teams playing on boxing day you have nine matches on the 26th teams 19 and 20 play on the 27th so that's that round yeah first off hold on before before you continue i'm sorry i i i have to say it again i say it every year we get to this the festive fixture schedule in the premier league is stupid beyond stupid yeah the premier league should never say anything about player safety and overworking players and not having them play too many games because of that schedule it's absurd and there's no good reason to do it there's no good reason to do it you could put that game later in the year where it's better weather and still have a huge crowd and i don't think people are paying a premium for a game that day like come on stop there's no good reason for doing it it's it's a waste it's not safe you get a ton of injuries it's not worth it so i hope that maybe they'll realize that and not do it every year but it doesn't sound like it it sounds like they're trying to protect it it's a horrible schedule and to your point 12 teams play on the 28th yeah you've got eight you've got 18 teams playing on the 26th the other two playing on the 27th 12 teams play in the 28th four play on the 29th four more play on the 30th and then you've got arsenal and manchester city starting the third round on new year's day so literally you get a day off on from the 26th and 12 teams are back at it on the 28th and then the rounds go four and four in the 29th and 30th and the gummy bear cup on top of that that that is also a part of this and you know frankly and i know that we'll you know might get into this a little later but the fact that tottenham has been given a forfeit against wren in in the conference league i'd be like okay fine that's what they were that's of course i'm not surprised if tottenham didn't antonio conte started looking again at the rules and he's like hey hey uh uefa hey guys um we're not going to be able to play this game forfeit us all right what what why it's a europa conference you need to forfeit us we're we're really bad people forfeit us for us we're we're bad we should one english coach who knows what the current what the tournament is that's progress well he's italian but yeah that's why he knows it well coach in the english league he gets it there he also uh if he is lobbying for this which i i would be um tottenham has now become the first english club to be knocked out of each of the europa conference league the old glorious inter-toto cup the europa league the uefa cup the cup winners cup the champions league and the old european cup every uefa competition they've ever had tottenham has been knocked out of it good job spurs lucky seven yeah but hey i i'm kante realized the schedule and he realized what's going on with the state of affairs and i'm like nah allegedly somebody didn't taught them because they're they're they're not playing that game there's no way they're going to play it but now remember go back to last week where they were going to play that game on a day they wanted to at least uefa wanted them to but tottenham had a league match on the thursday if i remember right maybe the wednesday they were going to play the game against ren the day before but they couldn't rearrange the league game but then the league game got cancelled after tottenham had traveled the day before so if the league game had been cancelled you know 24 hours 48 hours ahead of time or whatever then tottenham might have been able to play the game against wren and rescheduled it but they didn't and this is where you get and everybody is just it's so stupid um okay speaking of stupid i guess we have to talk about the refereeing from the liverpool tottenham match since we're there um jurgen klopp wasn't a fan uh tottenham wasn't a fan of different points either it was bad all the way around harry kane should have been sent off i'm sorry the explanation for why he wasn't why the the player jumped in the air it does nothing to do with the player jumping in the air harry kane's going in with extreme force straight legs studs up that's a red card and harry kane kane's getting a reputation for starting to do this kind of stuff on a regular basis um the whole argument that i keep hearing about it and i've i've talked about harry kane for years i am not trying to pile on harry kane i felt like he's one of the best strikers in the world and has been underrated worldwide complete player incredible player he's starting to take some liberties with some of this stuff and it's not just on undercutting people he's done that too there's plenty of footage out there it's stuff like this and the idea that you can keep saying well he's not that kind of a player i'm not buying that anymore this was a horrendous challenge he should have been sent off um robertson's tackle later was more borderline i can buy the red card there okay whatever i'm not gonna get too worked up about it but if the other one was not a red then this one's not a red both of them should have been reds i think in the second one the robertson one is a little more questionable you had the penalty situation i mean you had a bunch of different things you had earlier in the day the newcastle shout for a penalty against manchester city alan shearer described it as disgusting that it wasn't given uh var i i don't know if they're watching um i don't know if they're watching the simpsons i don't know if they're they're watching i have no idea they're not paying attention to the game because they're not supporting the referees and and helping them or then they're just all in complete you know wrong side of understanding what should be a red i mean jared you know we've talked about harry kane with these situations before that one felt like a very easy red card when you see it in real time you don't have to slow it down you don't have to to do a bunch of tricks to see the red there it's about as red as it gets with a challenge it is and it's um i think that was what what got me was you have this situation where it's that's not a red but you if you set that standard and tell me that's not a red did you you can't send off andy robertson yeah yeah you cannot right that's uh the rest of liverpool have every reason to be upset with the officiating that day because it's it's it's a one-on-one game and granted i think john mentioned you know the first 30 minutes of that game todd probably should have put the game away that being said it ends 1-1 liverpool's playing down a man at the end uh and yeah i mean it's probably a red uh by the book you've already said you've already set the line of confrontation in this game at unreasonably high and that didn't even come close to the one you let's go let's slide and it's just it's embarrassing and it's embarrassing for player safety and it's it's uh you know the last person i'm going to feel sorry for here is harry kane but hey harry kane man i hope you enjoy all the publicity and the replays of that one because guess what's going to get replayed a lot when we talk about this it's the one that wasn't called that you committed great job everybody um we talk about referees in this country playing we can talk about them all over the world because my god that's just that that's there's a difference there are different levels of getting calls wrong that is a level of getting calls wrong where you're putting player safety in serious jeopardy and that's very much not okay i feel like that shouldn't have to be said but jesus i feel like we have to it felt like an easy one i mean that that's that's where i'm maybe the most shocked by it is you see this should be an easy procedure you see that tackle live and you're like oh all right maybe you want another look at it if you're the referee it's a huge decision big red card decision at that point in the match i get it you don't want to show the red straight away okay that's why you have a video assistant referee that's why they're there that's why they can send it down to you it's why they can give you the second look but you have to see that and be like oh that's not a good challenge and then you get it confirmed and then it's red like it's easy like i'm i'm fine with the way the game gets managed adapting to the new var world i'm i'm fine with him not running over and showing the red immediately he wants to be sure i'm i'm fine with that but that's where the video assistant referee has to do their job and just literally replay the thing again you don't have to do any fancy tricks you don't need any slowdowns to see where the foul happened how did it happen this way just show the thing again show another angle if you want it should be about a 60-second decision involving the var you take the look the referee says hey i need to i need to know on that one give me give me more info on that one okay you want to go look at it cool but the var should look at it and say it's a straight red do you need to look and the referee should and i'd have to go back and look to see where he was to see how far away if he's far away yeah i want to go look go look at it should be an easy decision if you're close enough and you just weren't sure or you just wanted that confirmation to show the red then get it from the var and show the red it's got to be a red and jerry you're dead on like if you don't show red there then you bring the question up with the other challenge that was a red for robertson if you're not going to show red the first time you can't really show red the second if you show red the first time i'm fine with the second being a red but it was so inconsistent there were so many calls wrong and now newcastle's uh reportedly going to issue a formal complaint about various referee decisions um it's bad and and it's it's not bad everywhere but it's bad in england it's very bad in england and it's got to get better here too we talked about it a lot this season i actually saw a very good quick usage of video assistant refereeing in columbia last night and it was good to see they didn't just go by the letter of the law there was contact to the face but it was a really awkward situation with a player who had slipped and was starting to get up and he's kind of stumbling into a player who is turning and doesn't know the players there because he had slipped and did catch him with an elbow he didn't throw the elbow but he's turning his arm is turning with his body and he caught him the player tried to make a meal of it and they said no it's a yellow got it dead on and it didn't take forever so there's hope there is hope in the world that this can get better but john your beloved prim uh oh boy yeah no and uh and and alex i i will have to steadfastly disagree with you i did not think that the ederson call uh with uh ryan frazier was a penalty why is it not a penalty i thought that frazier saw ederson down and was already starting to fall and he falls over ederson i didn't think that that was a penalty i thought that frazier was trying to get a call more than anything else uh ederson's out of control with his challenge and takes him out what's frazier supposed to do get his leg broken no but that's no that's exactly what you're saying he's supposed to take the hit then hop over him isn't that what he was no he's literally he was he was falling no no okay but no hold on hold on hold on hold on we always have this conversation about attackers and penalties no i don't want him to if he if he can draw a penalty draw a penalty exactly but then europe okay john you're absolving the goalkeeper from committing a reckless challenge because the player tried to make sure he got hit he didn't make the goalkeeper come out recklessly on him no and i think he is like i i don't know i i don't know if he could get out of the way how's he supposed to get out of the way is he supposed to be able to jump what three feet in the air that quickly and avoid the goalkeeper who's out of control i think it should have been a penalty um anderson made the decision to make that challenge it's just like this and this is why i don't like that argument and a lot of people make that argument this is why i don't like it and we're going to get to to bart keeler here in just a second he'll continue with the referee conversation um the harry kane challenge he goes in studs up straight leg that should be a red card no matter what if he makes contact or not so the goalkeeper comes out recklessly and you're putting it on the attacking player to get out of the way for a decision that he didn't make because he shouldn't try to get the penalty that is being handed to him by the goalkeeper coming out recklessly like that's what i i thoroughly disagree with well and and i'm looking at it and i watched i watched the match and the angle that i specifically that specifically locked this in for me was the one from behind from behind the net where edderson is down is and he's trying to he's already made his commitment to the ball to try to make the save frazier there's a couple and and i know that i'm probably looking at this in not full you know not real time and that probably is influencing my thought pattern here but ederson is down and he's working his way over to make the save and he's already committed to his act i see ryan frazier still with some opportunity to avoid ederson as he is making contact with the ball and then he ends up coming over the top so it's his obligation to avoid it it's not no it's it's his oblique i mean if you're ryan frazier you're trying to draw a call i just still thought that there was room for ryan frazier to avoid contact but it's his obligation to avoid the contact because of the challenge i i disagree with that idea i think it's more of the defender put himself in that position and he's got to deal with the consequences uh bart you're a referee tell us where we're wrong well uh that exact same challenge that harry kane made was a red card in the usa bosnia friendly and that was a friendly problem that's true and i would personally just not allow harry kane to play ever i'd give him a red card every time but i'm an arsenal supporter so okay let's take the referee shirt off there for a second on that one yeah no he's getting a reputation for this kind of stuff at least he should be i think that's what does it for me right like um having refereed a number of players who you know you see him once or twice you know you know and uh to just kind of give them a pass was a bit weird so the the other challenge the uh the potential penalty in the newcastle game with ederson um which is a trickier call for sure it's to me that harry kane one is like textbook this is the challenge we're trying to eliminate in the game it's a red card you don't need 50 angles it's a red card the ederson one with the goalkeeper coming out and i think it was conselo who took the ball away and came away with the ball and turns where do you stand on those sorts of things about trying to draw contact john thinks it shouldn't be a penalty because he feels like the attacker was looking for the contact i felt like the goalkeeper was reckless and creating the contact it's a tougher call for sure yeah look i think i'm the way i look at a lot of these potential uh clashes in a box like that is who's doing their due diligence to still play the ball in a fair manner and i think and i'll say this as a member of the goalkeeper union but we oftentimes aren't being very fair in our attempt to win the ball um i i just think that in a case like that it's hard to judge whether or not someone was actually trying to win the ball or they were trying to find you know fall down easily or if the goalkeeper was actually coming out just hard or if he was coming out recklessly but i think in general referees are hesitant to give a penalty for challenges when the keeper comes out like you know comes out for a challenge yeah and they are i think that's where i think that's really what it is and sometimes it's just we give goalkeepers a little too much leeway yeah you have it tough being in the the goalkeepers union and the referee union so uh do you fight yourself i'm actually the worst goal uh referee for goalkeepers who have because i'm like i guess i'm like super critical of their of their movement so they'll do stuff uh i call keepers out of the box all the time they're like they're 14 i'm like he's still at like a full yard out of the box like this is still illegal oh you're one of those guys okay i am i give them a warning at least first okay coach like tell your keeper to stay inside the box because sometimes they just don't know but yeah at some point you're like all right this is bad fair enough fair enough okay we could continue down refereeing down here but uh we got a u.s men's national team game to talk about uh refereeing was part of it and you were right the uh the challenge in the first half was horrendous and had to be a red and it was it i mean there's just no argument about it and it was very funny to watch the arguments about it because i mean that's a nasty challenge anywhere in the world yeah it was it it was unfortunate for the us because i think that really threw a wrench into whatever the plan for the friendly was 100 uh not that we were executing that plan 100 before then but um yeah that it was one of those challenges where in a friendly obviously you're not trying to give a red card for a lot of reasons um that was one that you couldn't even allow to let go at that point in time that was such a dangerous and foul foul i mean that was very hard and very late and very high i like what i when i first saw it live i was like ooh i read i was like that was a little harsh and then i saw the replay and i saw where the referee looked at his angle and i was like oh he saw that literally going to his calf uh so yeah that's a red card and and i know that you know greg burhalter after the match was like well you know i think that the the tenor of the match and i'm paraphrasing ten of the match changed after the red card and so they bunker and it's difficult for us to do what we wanted to do in this and looking at first-time players and all this kind of stuff so legitimately after the red card and looking at it a couple days later how much can we take away from this because this match was changed i think so much because of that red oh i still think you can take a lot from it um and this is that the two players who were given all 90 minutes to play uh in the midfield still between the two of them created zero chances um and i still think that that is the most disappointing i also think that this is a great time for self-reflection of usa fans because i think we expected a lot from greg burhalter in this match you know getting us exciting new players uh showing us that maybe there is some more promising talent on the rise and instead we got 90 minutes of calendar costing christian rolled on so i think we need to take a step back and and um reflect inwardly on why we expect greg halter to do things that we want him to do yeah i mean he talked about coming into this and it's a weird one because it's not a normal fifa date you've got guys who are going into an off season and he talked about wanting to keep them sharp in some way which was a little odd because they're still going to have time off i don't know you're going to keep your sharpening and send you home for another month yeah like there were things about it that were weird and you know it's just kind of a weird game but let's take those two who i know are not well one of them i think is not a favorite but not one of your uh guys that you always batter on one of them is in christian rolled on um who would you have wanted to see instead of those two in this game who could have played in place of those two so i actually think cole bassett should have come on for one of the eight positions um that's where he plays for colorado um i think we all wanted to see kate and clark from new york red bulls um taylor booth was given a lot of praise at his training at that eight position and it's not so much that like i wanted them to start and play i mean obviously i did because i i think we're all just hungry to see new younger talent that's kind of the way we always tend to uh air but the fact that they got 90 minutes is i think where most u.s fans are like this was a waste i mean um it it they could have come out in the 80th minute and said hey cool thanks for giving this 80 minutes you know i thought jordan morris as much as i think he's a great us men's action team player giving him 70 some minutes was way too much especially for a guy who's coming off an acl injury and i know he played for seattle at the end of the season but there's no way his match fitness is even up to like 70 minutes after taking a you know a few weeks off i'll give that one different just because it is an injury ramp up and it got kind of stalled out because of seattle going out early at least that one you can have a conversation about the why i think it's you can debate how much or where it should have fallen but i at least get it giving him a a good sweat and all that i'm with you just tell that he got to a point where it was like okay i think he's a little bit spent right now so at that point i would have said all right let's change it up not that i again 60 70 minutes fine but i just think that and this was the unfortunate part of it is we had so much exciting young promise on the bench that really didn't we didn't get a look at until the very end and they produced a goal for us so that was nice yeah i i'm with you in this because you know at this stage who kel and acosta and chris general dawn are and and people can debate and not debate and i know they've got an mls you know tagged next to their name so for some that's just instantly the scarlet letter but you know that if you need them in january they're gonna be what they are they're they're consistent for the most part in that you know what you're gonna get you need them on the road and concacaf you know what you're gonna get you didn't learn anything here that you didn't already know you could have had them play the secondary role start the kid to see what you can find out and have them come on and finish it up at the end if you want to do that yeah i think it was also starting both of them right and playing both of them 90 minutes right if you had started rolled on next to kaden clark or cole bassett okay cool i get the the point of that right radon is a guy who knows the system because apparently that's the most important thing to greg boerholster is that you know the system and if you get called into every camp imaginable you're going to know the system more but he could have helped in theory facilitate for a younger player to kind of understand their positioning and their the passes they need to make um you could see that with walker zimmerman talking to brooks lennon and henry kessler on the back line good point um i i am most upset that we played kellen acosta 90 minutes in an eight position where i don't really think he's as effective especially on the u.s men's national team and i think what bothered me the most with acosta specifically is there were so many times that he did the things that we need eights to do and then failed at them so he would take a ball forward very hesitantly he was not very uh excited it looked like to have to dribble into space and then he would try to release the ball to give a ball to most of the time was jordan morris on his right side and completely missed the pass so it was things like that where it's like we're not even executing the system that you need executed you know because you played a guy yes you should understand that eight position but he that's not where he's at his best right and you played a guy at a position for so long just for match fitness that seems like just such a short-sighted goal for greg burhalter 100 when you had a chance to get guys who have real promise bright futures ahead cole bassett and jonathan gomez is already going to europe cole bassett could have left for europe during the summer um you have guys like taylor booth already in europe uh kaden clark is obviously going to uh salzburg as well over the uh winner viper leipzig sorry he maybe should go to salzburg yeah yeah because he's not going to play it live but he's going to he's going to the big boy red bull club right wherever that he goes after that so you have players who you're not going to get to see in january right like you're not going to get to see jonathan gomez or kaden clark or taylor booth in january um you might get to see brian reynolds again in january i don't think jose mourinho will learn his name by then no but that is the the the miss for greg burholter in this camp you're gonna get acosta enrolled on for the entire month of january basically to get them in training camp uh before the training camp and the training camp for world cup qualifying um you're probably gonna get jordan morris for that you know actually hold on you might not um remember those teams are both seattle and colorado preparing for concacaf champions league like you'll get them for the qualifiers but maybe you don't get them for the extended because of that um well then i'm not worried about them not getting training time yeah exactly that's the thing you know what they are the cool point of this is right it's like i'm not like if you're worried that they're gonna be somehow losing match fitness yeah they're gonna they'll go home you know sunday night and they're gonna take three weeks off of soccer well this match playing 90 minutes didn't really it's not going to make them fresher come january 28th you know especially and especially for a guy enrolled on who questions why he didn't have a clear role on this team and i would question why he has a role in the team but it's not like these are vital figures to the us men's national team uh maybe kellen acosta is a little bit more vital than christian don i think walker zimmerman has proven to be more vital than the two of them as well but it just was so weird the allocation of minutes but that this is nothing new this is greg berhalter this is who he is yeah you could you could have split them and play them each 45 and i like your idea of playing them with one of the younger guys to kind of help solidify things and all that i mean we know what these two guys are they're versatile they can play a bunch of roles it's good to have one of them on the bench in situations when you're on the road or at home and you might need a jack of all trades i i think there's a place i get it you didn't need it here let's talk about the two atlanta united guys who started it outside back bellow on the left linen on the right according to soccer america brooks lennon was the highest rated player in the match along with cole bassett and walker zimmerman they got sevens would you agree that lennon had a good debut yeah actually i thought he he was pretty good he was exactly the brooks london we've seen in atlanta i don't know if i would give him quite as high of rating as walker um cole bassett gets a high rating because he scored yeah um i thought he was pretty good outside of that but you know that's why he gets that um but i thought he was i thought he was pretty exactly what we thought he would be um i thought he and jordan morris were producing all sorts of great chances on that right wing um that ball he played to ricardo pepe and i tweeted this during the game is i'm sorry jason i'm going to make people mad and i apologize that's what you do it's okay i know um that is what we miss from of everything that we miss from julian gressel that's the only thing we've missed in my opinion is that like slotted through ball that cross across the ground those types of zippy crosses to joseph martinez brooks has had a tendency to kind of float stuff to him um i know he's been successful at connecting on those crosses but they're not as dangerous especially for a guy like joseph martinez that is what we need to see here in atlanta as that ball fizzed across the ground right to the striker's feet um somehow ricardo pepe managed to not even turn that into a shot um that was really good for brooks and i thought he had other good combination play with jordan morris i thought he was really effective going down right wing uh defensively a little bit of some struggles at time but always and always working hard always able to recover even when he is somewhat out of position and that's what we've come to expect from him as we've watched him in atlanta i thought he was freddie brooks linen i thought there were some differences with him sorry john real quick i thought there were some differences in that you started to see a few of the things especially early that i'm assuming we're worked on in camp and we're very different than the first half of atlanta united season and you know we talked about it a lot over the last couple weeks with lennon was given a pretty rigid specific set of directions from gabrielle heinze wide wide wide stay wide always going to try to work the ball to you but you have to stay wide and i thought in this you started to see more of the under lapping runs that i love the underlapping runs same same and and if you're on the same page with the winger and the winger stays wide you can come inside you can go to goal i think linen is pretty good in the air on crosses from the left when he sneaks in on the back side he can get into the top of the 18 and make some things happen it was just like he couldn't break the three four i don't know five months of repetition with hindsight and this camp you know getting away for a little bit and coming into camp and working on this specifically and probably really having it drilled into you i think it can help him going forward and i hope we see some differences from him going forward i think i think that's what i took from this as well when i say he was pretty brooks london everything he did was what we right you know i know brooks linen he executed it though in different facets and i agree that i think this is a great i again that ball that cross that he played to pepe i was like oh my goodness maybe this unlocked that for him in atlanta because he hasn't really had uh the instruction probably to do something like that here in atlanta um or the instructions he was given from what he's on his fourth coach i think since he joined any united yes um it hopefully i mean obviously pineda is hopefully going to be here a lot longer and will probably appreciate balls like that so i'm hoping that he just unlocked a few new things that he hasn't that have been kind of stored away since he came here because it's just been such an up and down turbulent time for him since coming to the five stripes and then what about the flip side with bella what did you would you uh garner from his performance um i'll be honest this thing was disappointing because i expect a lot from george bellow um i don't think it was bad that's not what i'm trying to say here i just i want more from george bellow i think we saw the high of george bellow when we saw him play in the final against mexico the gold cup final and he hasn't really reached that since then he's had two world cup qualifying starts both very bad to be blunt um this was not as good of a performance from him but you know i don't think anyone was bad i don't think anyone was particularly good in this game anyway so um again i will say bellow same as i feel about lenin about uh rodon and acosta i don't think he needed to go 84 minutes he could have taken him out at 70 some given jonathan gomez more than some pity minutes yeah and allowed him to play a little bit more nothing against bellow's performance in that game it was just okay george bellows being george bellow yeah it was an average bellow performance like it wasn't it wasn't bad it wasn't good george bellow performance it was no it was average i mean it was it was fine i i think sometimes bellow and and we see him all the time so you know we probably have the atlanta conversation about george bellow is very different than the national one i think and and it's skewed both ways honestly i mean you know last year i had constant conversations with people saying he couldn't defend he wasn't good enough he wasn't that good and i didn't see that and then at times it gets overblown because he's the local guy and he's a very good teenage left back who is getting national team minutes and playing on a top team in a domestic league and he's ahead of a lot of players his age like that's a good thing he's got things he has to work on and get better i think you want more of those good george bellow performances he's getting to where his average which is a good thing for a young player by the way he's getting to where that that five is better than a lot of people's fives you know he's not having his average game is not a bad game his average game is a solid game he's not going to hurt you he's not going to go forward and help you whereas you take somebody like lennon who his average game is a little more up and down where lennon might have that that average brooks linen game where he still creates two or three chances now he might get beat defensively once or twice too but he'll create things that can win a game for you bellow's a little smoother to me in that he might not create two or three chances in an average game for him but he's not going to get beat too often either he's a he's a good solid defender so you just want that high for him to be even higher and you want his average to get up a little bit higher where he is consistently creating a couple chances a game yeah i mean he's he has a lot of growing to do um in his game physically mentally defending is a especially playing fullback in today's game is very hard because you are expected to do everything but have the responsibility of defending and that's a lot to have to think about while also trying to think about playing in a very progressive possession system yeah i think for for somebody like bello and and this will be the thing for him as he continues to progress and i think it's one of those things to make his average game be even better he can get caught out of position at times and defensively but so often he's able to correct that because he's quick because he's fast his recovery is great but he creates some chaos that he doesn't need to now a lot of times it doesn't end up in giving up a chance because he recovers but you play better players consistently they're going to exploit you there so he's got to continue to improve that and and for me even bigger is i think he has it in him to be more impactful in the final third and i want to see that um abby i think going back to linden really quick abby says maybe pineda seeing this game he can utilize linen in a new way no i don't think it's anything like that i mean it's not like pineda saw something that he's never seen before like he he knows the game and he knows the way that greg perhalter wants his teams to play and all that i think it was morpher brooks because yes you're in a different system and brooks showed that he could go into this training camp first time to play for the national team he'd been in camp before but he goes into camp he absorbs a different idea because it showed on the field and he executed it pretty well like did he make some mistakes in his game yes but you could see what burr halter asked him to do and he did it and it was different i don't think pineda saw something like oh i've never thought of that i think it's that pineda didn't really have time to break the half season habits that hindsight had instilled in him because we would see lennon a lot of times late in the season with atlanta united stay out wide and stay out on that touch line when everybody else was playing in a more free way and it's just like he couldn't break that out of his his habits and you get into this camp he did and he showed that he could i think it's more that lennon shows you that he can he can adapt to what a coach is asking him to do really well and you'll ask him to do some different things next season and i think that's actually i don't think that he necessarily broke into like the depth chart at right back for the us men's national team necessarily because i think that's a pretty yeah uh full depth chart right now what would you how would you put it at right back see junior dust yep um i think right now you've seen deandre edlin as preferred yeah um at the two i think probably after that it will be reggie cannon um although he needs to figure out his yeah club situation but i think regardless that's probably who's third and then honestly after that it doesn't matter but you have shaq moore um i think everyone is going to want joe scally to be in there and i think that i would love to see joe scally being part of that conversation he has to actually play for greg bergholster um and then maybe you're talking guys like brooks linen um but as we've seen time and time again with world cup qualifying you don't always have your full squad so if he can be the guy that you call in because you don't have a full selection of right backs i think that maybe is where he possibly has put himself in this conversation um i just think that he plays a position that americans have never really had a problem producing right bellow on the other hand is at a position where we could never find him so i you know he has the curse of being an american playing left back and you're like okay it's always just pretty good i think you're dead on that tough chart i think yedlin will hold on to the two probably through the world cup um i think three down is wide open scally could get to the the two and scally is the guy who's at that three or two i think scally is probably helped by the fact that he can play left back and right back so he could be a fifth fullback on a world cup roster um where you know grant and dusk could play both as well but i think scally is better at defending on both sides of the field um but yeah i think scally could move up to two but i think he's the guy that you bring in as the swing fullback lennon's the one that if he can continue to get time and and play well he can be in the cannon reynolds yedlin even although yedlin's got experience on him he can be in that group and be at the head of that group i think that group is more on who's playing well who's in form okay cool we're gonna take that guy because he's in a good good place right now yeah i think again i think he has at least introduced himself well to gregor halter and that's the positive for him if you were in charge of the system capital t capital s for the next month trademark trademark sorry capital t capital s the system trademark for the next month to try to prepare for the next round of of activity who would you who would your first phone calls be to to sit there and say hey i need you to be as ready as humanly possible because i'm going to grab you by the caller and make sure that you're an integral part of what's going to be in 2022. who who would you who would your first phone calls be to so right now i think that it's maybe not someone who's going to be integral to playing every game but i think you need to have a conversation with joe scalli about i see what you're doing and you're going to be a part of these camps so that he's understanding of where he sits because he got called in uh in november and didn't see the field um you know i don't necessarily think that that means he should have i get it but i think you need to make sure that he's aware that he's part of the plan um then i go to the other side and i think you absolutely have to make sure that christian pulisic knows that he's the guy that needs to be as healthy as possible um and he needs to be working on the things that greg borhalter needs them to execute in a game and not playing a false sign like thomas tuchel has him playing although i'm coming around to the idea that maybe that's not the worst possible scenario for the u.s of playing christmas to get a false night um and i i think you're also on the phone with um john brooks to see where he's at mentally and where he feels his game is because he's had a rough fall um he has fallen out of favor maybe not necessarily playing-wise but just seems like he's out of favor with just about everyone at wolfsburg and he has not performed well for the us men's national team uh in world cup qualifying and i think you need to figure out where he is because there's a lot of center of acts right now and there have been a lot of center backs who have played a lot better than john brooks in world cup qualifying um and but he i think is still the best one that you could possibly have out there if he's playing at his best and we haven't seen that um so it's a weird conversation of you know who do you call and say hey you're a part of this because i think everyone knows pretty much everyone knows if they're going to be a part of it but at the same time though it's for different reasons exactly these communications should be just as important for one reason as they are for something else it's it's like you have to and you have to treat it like it's a universal thing it's like okay i need to talk to this guy about this thing i need to talk to this guy but it's not the same topic each and every phone call and for what we know of greg berhofter he's actually pretty good at that he's pretty good at communicating with players after games and saying i like this like that talk to them about what he's very direct and and straightforward why he picked guys and why he didn't so um i i think that there are a couple of guys like he said on different ends of that spectrum of why i'm calling them to make sure they're ready and they know um i i think that the most important player that we can probably talk to right now also would be sergio dusk because similar to brooks i don't think it's necessarily any fault of his own he's not playing a lot with barsa he needs to still be told like hey we back you you're still our guy uh keep your confidence up because you're very important to what we're if we we saw it in that game against costa rica we've seen it um when he plays right back um the canada game actually thought he was really effective at uh playing right back when he is cooking this team is going to be hard to beat um so we need to make sure he is mentally in his best spot as well greg might need to be making some calls to clubs because dest is apparently going to be in the market here in january because uh he isn't fitting at barcelona and it's it's both i mean his his play hasn't been great at times with barcelona he's also a little bit of a guy that they'll pick on when everybody's not playing well and he takes the blame for some of that too but he's probably going to need a new club and he's the main one i mean i don't haven't heard anything about brooks but volsberg has been a mess this year so nothing would surprise me about what they do going forward looks like um as we talked about the beginning of the year maybe pulisic would be in that conversation he is getting mentioned with things but i don't think he goes anywhere in january i think i think he's always enough mentioned with things yeah but he'll play enough like it's i was more of the if he's not gonna play if he's gonna be a super sub at chelsea or or be a rotation guy he's gonna need to go somewhere to play in 22 to help this team going into the world cup i think you'll be fine destin brooks are really two good shouts that they're gonna need a little bit of the the pat on the back from burr halter and yeah also maybe the hey uh so and so club we really need you to get this guy especially if you're going to play him because the those two if they are at their best can change the potential fortunes of the us in the world cup if you get there you got to qualify first but if you get there and death is at his best brooks is at his best you're talking about a much more dangerous team yeah yeah and i think both i think brooks is maybe not a lock on a first choice starting center back i actually i agree we've kind of seen two or three guys who are pretty darn good center backs that have been more effective in concacaf qualifying um but searching your desk is still we have to have him at right back because deandre edlund is not as effective um going forward he's still a liability defensively at times um we don't really have anyone below that that has proven it for the us men's national team that they can be as effective so i think searching your dust is the most important guy that we have going forward um even a guy like giorena who's incredibly talented and probably our way for you to come back one of our best players um georena is not as important to what we to our success you know as sergini does we need him to be healthy fit mentally fit physically and ready to come ball out reina i'll i'll i'll kind of disagree with you but it's it's a little bit of a different conversation like dest i think makes you complete and gives you your best team that you can be when he's at his best absolutely reyna's almost the the the cherry on top where when he can play because you've got other really good options in that attack somebody like brendan aaronson has put himself into this i don't think there's anybody who is the playmaker that you can get out of reyna and it's a bonus you know to be good you need to be good in the back you need deaths to be able to defend but also go forward and do those things but if you get reina in top form oh then maybe you're you're talking depending on the draw and depending on where things go yep the paradigm shifts a little bit then yeah i think again i think j arena is probably one maybe your second best player you have to play could be could but where he is you have tim waya brendan aarons and you have guys who have proven to be pretty darn good also yeah whereas the drop-off from sergino does to anyone else uh is is stark because they're just not as talented as players they're just not so tina dustin's an immensely talented soccer player you're not as deep in those positions uh we have a request and this is something that maybe maybe you and i can do uh we had another podcast that we wanted to do before we get into the january games and i can't remember what it was off the top of my head um we had a like us soccer thing we wanted to do but we'll remember it at some point um michael ruiz wants us to do a depth chart of the us men's national team as it currently stands uh like right now no no no we would be here for them for two hours uh right now no right now let's let's do it let's do that as a podcast here over the the holiday break if we can and um maybe even do a video with it and do a whiteboard yeah i think that would be fun i think that i personally think it's pretty clear um but i also think that there are some spots where it's a little bit harder to say who your number two is yeah and that's really important and that's what i want to do is i want to do that depth chart let's let's really push ourselves apart we're gonna not just go one and two we're gonna go deeper let's go four or five we could do as let's say we could do three to four or maybe five if we really wanted to yes there's some positions that will probably happen we have a legitimate stock pile of talent right now um and it's it's very possible let's do it we'll we will we'll figure out a time to do that michael and we'll do a separate show of that christian pulisic at every position there you go yes everywhere all right you probably have work things to do bart so i mean it's the week of christmas let's not yeah but you know um there's also a lot of different things happening all over the place right now at all different levels so we got a million things to hop around to an hour number two man thanks for the time thanks for contributing all uh all season long we appreciate it uh get tested get vaccinated y'all um stay safe out there and merry christmas everyone see you soon bye y'all bart keeler make sure you're following him bartimaeusprime19 on social media um we will get into news that is breaking and news that is being talked about and topics and such here in just a second but first john you need to tell everybody about toca football and eliminaze do you have a young soccer player in your family have you ever considered private instruction with a professional instructor to take your favorite players game to the next level toca football has four one two three four indoor soccer training centers in the atlanta area their trainers utilize innovative technology in a fun environment to help improve your favorite players skill and decision making give toca football a try sth is partnering with toca to offer our listeners an opportunity to check out their revolutionary and fun toca soccer training method for no cost whatsoever so go ahead and book your free session now with the promo code dhd a couple letters later hdh go to togofootball.com backslash program backslash toca dash training tokenfootball.com 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with a price affordable for you results in 24 hours or less if you have any questions frequently asked or otherwise go to alumni.com backslash atlanta make sure that you use the backslash atlanta part so they know what part of the world you are asking the questions from e-l-i-m-i-n-i-z-e.com backslash atlanta alumni service for odor free clean fresh air proud sponsors of everything sdh see you he shaved like 30 seconds off well we got we got stuff to talk about oh well to keep we'll always have stuff to talk about then john always have stuff to talk about keep it two minutes let's keep it at two you said 145 is what it should be you're still a two that's good though that's good um lots of stuff we'll start with uh the closest to home thing right now the charleston battery have named connor casey their head coach was wondering what was gonna happen to conor casey after a great interim run with the colorado rapids and kind of disappeared there for a minute but he's going to charleston i think that's a great hire absolutely great hire because he really impressed me with what he did with the colorado rapids taking over from the broken down um wagon of anthony hudson which was really bad really bad to the point he's throwing players under the bus saying he just can't play against good teams well conor casey then started winning a lot of games and set the table up for robin frazier so casey coming to charleston that is a good good hire connor casey former us men's national team striker played under clive charles at the university of portland spent time at borussia dortmund and mainz went to the rapids played for philly played for columbus 19 caps for the u.s men's national team including a couple of very big goals in world cup qualifying so excited for this is a good hire really good work um good job charleston battery so connor casey is your new manager first new manager in charleston since the late 90s when mike anhauser took over i think it'll have a different feel too i think casey will have them more attack-minded consistently than anheuser was especially towards the end of his run um four card and barcelona fans are very excited because mino raiola is saying things about erling holland and look this is the time of year where everybody's saying things about erling holland you've got the ceo at borussia dortmund who has tried to like act like there's no release clause but now i guess he's just giving up on that route because it was a stupid route to begin with oh no there might not be a clause anything can happen he's kind of still playing that but hans joaquin watsky who i wish people would just hammer with questions because this has been a dumb conversation uh according to watsky real madrid are definitely keeping tabs on holland i know you're shocked it's crazy i'm getting to barcelona in a second um vatsky says all i know is that real madrid are very interested in him i could name 25 others now but with real i know for sure okay he said this i think he would fit in better in spain a different kind of football is played in england i am not so skeptical that he will stay with us okay that's the three completely different things um i do agree i think he would fit in very well in spain um i think he'd fit in well in england too i think he'd fit in anywhere but i do think his game might be suited a little more to a continent club as opposed to an english club um vatsky said that he had a conversation with mino raiola holland's agent mina raiola's going to play a big role in this me and raiola had a good talk not so long ago when we arrive at the end of negotiations the conversations are always quite friendly that phone call was quite friendly we will certainly have another conversation in the next few weeks if holland stays with us there may be more euros for him okay hanswaki man stop the the nonsense please just stop um if somehow erlang holland stays with brucia dortmund there will be lots of euros for him because you're gonna have to give him lots more euros to stay another year and yeah you're gonna need all the euros i don't think you have all the euros so we know this release clause to some degree exists mino raiola is going to break your back and get a deal done for his client something's going to happen whether it's a handshake whether it was a verbal agreement whether it's in writing whether it varies between 75 or 90 million euro erlang holland is not going to play for brucia dortmund next year unless you get a loan from a very large bank to give him a lot more money and i don't think that's going to happen because you don't need it too because you're going to make a lot of money when you sell it real madrid's one club that wants it barcelona is another barcelona's broke barcelona just convinced their members to agree to a 1.5 billion dollar loan for infrastructure uh 1.5 billion from goldman sachs who is already agreed to lend 595 million euro to help restructure the club's debt in august so bump that number up you're over 2 billion that goldman sachs is giving barcelona this is a stadium revamp under a 35-year plan for this 1.5 billion dollar loan there's an additional five-year grace period good good on you barcelona you got you somehow you were able to negotiate that because i don't think your credit's very good uh you got 87.8 percent of your members to vote for this or of the people who voted 44 of the people of your members voted total and 87.8 of them voted for it this is this project called espai barsa it's a stadium renovation which badly needs it that would be ready by the end of 25 it would expand the capacity to 105 000 at the camp no uh joe laporte expects the club to generate 200 million euros of additional revenue annually with the new stadium with those renovations sponsorship naming rights ticketing catering vip boxes hospitality meetings and events maybe you can actually do proper catering because you don't have to worry about the fuses blowing because that's what happens right now at the camp no it really does need renovations this also has other stuff like offices the multi-sport venue the palau blau grana which has faced multiple fines for not meeting european competition requirements for basketball games it's not just the soccer team that's got issues of barcelona that part should be completed in 26 the offices the campus a hotel on the facility which is another money revenue generator 27 is what it would look like but 1.5 billion in addition to the 595 that goldman sachs had already agreed to lend plus all the other people that you owe no it's fine but you want erling holland and that's what barcelona says they want they want to get early in holland well mino raiola is uh fanning the flames in barcelona he says could holland wait for barcelona he can wait for anybody we don't have a pre-agreement with any club we'll look for the best option for him and i can't rule out another year at dortmund theoretically that's still possible okay barcelona will always be one of the world's biggest clubs even despite their current situation that is very true in a year or a year or two they'll be back they'll they have the power to find great economic agreements they they'll only need a year or two to get back so raiola is basically saying that well you know if if thotsky over there finds a whole bunch of euros and pays dortmund or pays holland more money he could stay at dortmund for another year while barcelona finds a whole bunch of euros to give to mino raiola and erling holland and probably to dortmund as well um theoretically sure all this is possible theoretically um realistically theoretically i could own peachtree center one day um no that's stretching the word theoretically it doesn't do that much uh doesn't do that much work um in this case yeah you're really stretching it i mean if you're able to convince goldman sachs to give you 1.5 billion after all the other money that you owe to various people including goldman sachs things are probably looking pretty good for you in the long run and they think they're going to get their money back because they're not really in the habit of just losing money yeah so yes they'll be back and they will find money and all of those things one way to do that is to be good on the field are you going to be able to find the money a little bit quicker to get this kind of a deal done well frankly if erling holland wants to go to barcelona mino raiola can probably find a way to make it happen if that's where he wants to go yeah it could happen it absolutely could um you can get really creative with the stuff i don't really know that aspect of it we know real madrid is banking on it we know they want him we know they want him bope we know they want all of it they want everybody okay understood we know psg will spend whatever it takes at whatever point they want to we know that too we know your your english clubs will do the same those things are all known what erling holland wants to do with his next move is really not known and if he wants to go to barsa and be the next messi because hey if if you're a player like erling holland and you see what barcelona did for lionel messi they made him the face of everything and they gave him everything to be that face and it worked out well for both sides for a long long time probably a year or two earlier they should have started to figure out the exit plan but it's hard to be in the midst of it and say that and they got some other things wrong along the way that made that more difficult that that's all understood but the idea and people will make this argument and usually they are real madrid fans or el chirrangito people who are trying to needle the barcelona folks like the idea of making messi that guy at barcelona which is very difficult doesn't happen every time it's pretty rare that you see that happen and they paid him a lot of money to make a lot of money it worked really well for a long time probably about 15 years that's a long time now barcelona blew it on top of that which is a different conversation messi didn't blow up barcelona barcelona blew up barcelona they're bret hart in this scenario messi made them a boatload of money over that time and he also earned a boatload of money erling holland could look at that and say you know what this is a club that if i'm happy and if i'm successful which he's going to bet on himself and barcelona is a pretty nice place to be um if all goes well he could be there for 15 years and he could be the face of everything in the great barcelona comeback and man for some people that is more appealing than short money because he'll get paid insanely well at real madrid at chelsea at manchester city at liverpool at manchester united at psg all the money but if he wants to go there and bet on himself and not just get paid well which he will in the long run but be a legend and a hero well there's one club he could be that one club because he won't be that at real madrid because they're going to pair him with ambape so you're going to split who the face is he won't be a legend at chelsea because he'll probably be gone in three four years he won't be a legend in any of those other clubs he would go down as a legend at barcelona especially if he leads them back to glory that's that's pretty appealing and there's nobody else who can offer that side of it so look mino raiola's talking i still think he's doing it to drive up prices but until erlang holland really makes it clear what he wants you gotta at least have this in the back of your mind other stuff on the board you're getting these meetings in england right now and they are saying they are not gonna take a break even in that round between boxing day and new year's which was already a dumb idea if you're not going to take a break then don't take a break there whatever i guess you just shouldn't maybe schedule it that way in the first place but i digress uh they're also trying to figure out what they do with fa cup and and league cup and all this and talk about big pictures they might make the league cup semifinals one game rather than two duh yes do that um they only have one mid-week for replays in the fa cup how about you just don't do replays how about you actually move into the modern game and not do a replay at the other facility i know and i know and people get anytime you say something like that people get bent out of shape well but it's so much fun and blah blah blah blah this is how it's been for 50 years and yeah you tell that to these players who are playing 500 games in a calendar year you tell them they need to go play a second game because it was a draw play extra time have penalties get out of there don't you play extra time go to penalties get out of there like stop with the nonsense of adding more minutes to games because you play 90 then you play extra time then you go to penalties like yes i understand that if the game was drawn for the the smaller team to host and they scrape out a draw and then they get to go to the bigger team and maybe make more money how about you just distribute more money to begin with like stop this nonsense grow up england come into the modern 21st century please at some point kicking and screaming at this point well they need to because right now they they ha they they do a festive fixture period where they play games in 48 hours well 72 is probably fair two games in 72 hours they'll play on 26th play on the 28th that's insanity then they'll play again on the the first that's insanity they'll play this league cup which is also adding more games which is insanity they'll play two leg things of that it's insanity they'll play replays in the fa cup it's insanity at this point playing too many games flat out stop it now they're also trying to figure out well okay what if all the players on this team either can't play because they are tested with kovid they're sick their hamstrings are blown their quads are blown their calves are blown well if they got 13 players in the keeper they're expected to play because that's good yeah you know that's always good how about you just don't have all the games that would lead you to only have 13 players and yes covet adds to all this but there's still the issue with playing too many games that is that issue was there before and it's going to be there afterwards unless they make changes now's the time to make changes to make the game better now's the time because you've seen it play out please please get this stuff right england but i am not holding my breath because i'd like to keep breathing yes i don't trust it nope you have you have an opportunity here the information and the situation is in front of you where you can fix the game across the board in your country involving all these competitions and all these backlog of games and all these decisions that are being made across the board here's your opportunity to do anything i ain't banking on it but the but the opportunities right there in front of you yeah i hope they fix it i hope they can get it right at some point um they'll probably do better with the money if they get it right in the long run but yes you might lose a little bit in the short run and make these competitions better but you'll be more solid and you'll actually take care of the players the right way which is supposed to be part of it we'll see other rumors on the board right now um i'm talking about another thing that is going to be a bit of a mess the african cup of nations in january not just down to the covet issues although that's a huge part of it obviously the president of the caf the confederation of african football patrice motsepe flew into [Music] yonde in cameroon for talks about this tournament an executive committee meeting on sunday resolved to go ahead with the tournament 24 teams coming to cameroon however cameroon has had a lot of issues and not all coveted related lack of organization domestically getting ready for this thing incomplete building work there is also obviously the threat of coronavirus outbreaks um several members of the executive committee called for the tournament to be postponed majority voted to have the president of the confederation make an emergency trip to engage with the cameroon government okay caf sent their general secretary last week to urge the speedy completion of building work at the olimbe stadium scheduled to host the opening game and the final january 9th it's december 20th the stadium's not ready yet that's not good um executive committee meeting was told there is a major risk of the tournament failing construction work is incomplete contractors were not paid insufficient accommodation and training facilities for the 24 teams several key organizational staff quit cameroon were originally hosted or awarded the 2019 finals tournament was switched to egypt when cameroon was not ready to host that cameroon was then handed the 21 tournament which has been delayed a year and they're not ready to host it uh the caf last week said that they would be importing their own laboratory bypassing local healthcare facilities to take care of the coveted testing throughout the tournament clubs in europe are obviously not pleased with everything going on with this and on top of the covet concerns and the omicron variant concerns and everything with that stadium's not ready you got a million different things wrong i don't know how this tournament gets done in anything resembling a professional manner do they move it to qatar i mean you're running out of time to do that if you'd made the decision you know three two three weeks ago i think it would have been easy you probably can and they can throw a bunch of money at it to get it done but it would have been a lot easier if you'd done this when you should have done it instead of sending this secretary general in to talk and now sending the president of the confederation into talk like they're not ready and obviously those things are not going to help get them ready so uh i don't know i i don't know what the next step is but it doesn't look good it just does not look good for them to get this thing done we will see um we're going to get into questions for the last 20 minutes or so so if you have them throw them in on the twitch pitch um if you're listening elsewhere you want to throw it in on twitter that's cool too and if you're listening later and you want to throw questions and throw them in and we'll get to them tomorrow we can do that this week's going to be a lot of that because there are games not a ton of games this week uh but there are games and there are other things to get into we'll talk about some of the mls moves from the weekend as well but if you have questions now is the time to throw those in and we will try to get to them your mls update beyond the national team game which was mostly mls players the mayor elect of new york city is vowing to reopen talks to help bring nyc its own stadium good um eric adams said my administration will re-engage in discussions to explore the possibility of citing a new soccer stadium to serve as a permanent home for the team good excellent hopefully they can get it done and they've made progress on one site right next to yankee stadium or not exactly right next to it but adjacent and it seems to check all the boxes it's just dealing with red tape and neighborhood groups and all of the different aspects of it maybe the mayor-elect can start to make those things happen player movement if you missed it uh since we were last with you orlando re-signed mauricio pereira they're number 10 that was important for them because i was starting to wonder what their attack was going to look like red bulls signed usu 20 midfielder daniel edelman to a homegrown contract charlotte signed harrison offal and jordi reyna as free agents cincinnati signed albus powell as a free agent austin re-signed jared stroud nashville picked josh bauer formerly of atlanta united in the re-entry draft so they took his option that atlanta had declined and speaking of options that were declined previously atlanta added backup goalkeeper dylan castanera who was here with atlanta united 2 in 2019 this was a trade ahead of the re-entry draft it basically bypassed the re-entry draft so atlanta added castanera they sent the rights to moe adams to miami who picked up his option atlanta picked up castanera's option and that was ahead of the re-entry draft so they didn't risk losing those players uh castanera again was here in 2019 but atlanta didn't have his mls rights it was a really weird situation and it's probably going to continue to be a situation that's unavoidable because of the the split with usl and mls but in this one he was signed to an atlanta united 2 contract he was drafted by fc dallas so fc dallas held his mls rights i was under the impression based on how much he played in 2019 was which was a lot and he was very good that atlanta wanted to sign him to an mls deal well they couldn't get everything done and dallas ended up trading his rights to miami and he signed with miami so atlanta had him in usl the twos are like a separate entity but they didn't have his mls rights just to sign him they had to acquire his rights they weren't able to do that miami did he played for fort lauderdale um did well played league one there he's a good solid backup option he's he's younger than what you've had it previously and alec can he's now with cincinnati uh but he was a guy that they liked before and just couldn't get his rights so you're getting somebody who's familiar with the club this is a we talked about it on friday we went through the list in the re-entry draft somebody's name pops out at you because of his history here alecan doesn't take the deal that had been offered that was kind of agreed to but he gets a better one from cincinnati he leaves you go get a backup goalkeeper and dylan castanera and that's number two it doesn't prevent you or he's the three if somebody else gets added i think he's the two because i think for the three you're probably looking at a rocco rios novo who needs to play in usl needs games or a vicente reyes as a homegrown who that kid keeps growing first off i saw him with the u19s in the upsl georgia final over the weekend kalanji pro profile beat the atlanta united united teams one nil is a really good game down at peachtree city uh driving rain in the second half but reyes i don't know maybe just because i was closer to the field or what but man that kid keeps growing and he's really good with his feet and he's a chilean youth international and you know maybe he's your guy and maybe you don't need to spend millions of dollars to do a transfer with leno's for rocco rios novo and that you know is worth a conversation at the front office level i'm sure they're debating it and you've got justin garcia who's out there too that you could sign to a homegrown deal or he's got one more year at ucla i believe so they've got options but castanera gives you a lot of security to come in and and probably be the two um colonel is asking that as you go back to the twos or competing for the first team backup i mean he is the first team backup right now my guess just from playing 20 plus games in 19 playing significantly in usl the last two years playing at that level like he's not going to grow anymore playing at that level he's not going to develop any more he he is what he is from that level will he get some games to stay sharp yeah probably because we saw alec get some games with the twos to stay sharp but i think and some of this is based off you know kind of the sense i got at the end of 19 going into 20. i think they rate him really highly so i mean he said he can be a number two and as we're just talking about you could go number three very young younger than castanera and go young for somebody who is gonna get those games with the second team more than likely or you could split the difference and it could be rocco and reyes playing for the second team because reyes is still in the academy so reyes his development continues to where maybe he's your homegrown signing as a third goalkeeper and maybe he's the one you grew and having that bridge in a in a dylan castanera who's familiar with atlanta united knows knows the lay of the land having that kind of experience the front office is it can entrust him with whatever role they're looking at whether it's the three or what you and i both think that it's the two in this case but having that level of familiarity when you lose an alec can i think is just as important especially heading into a season with uh you know with the expectations that are here and having someone in a dillon cast an era that can check as many boxes off as we've checked off here i think it's vital to to bring in someone like that once again in a cap league who can fit all of these different things for you i think it was it was a great pickup in smart business for atlanta united yeah i mean it's better than somebody who isn't familiar with the club and somebody that you're not familiar with this is this is a much easier deal to make so you can still go and get a veteran if you feel like you need that i don't know if you do with the young talent coming through and the potential to sign a homegrown for the number three which is very cat friendly and castanera is probably pretty cap friendly so you might end up being in a really good position goalkeeper wise both on the field but also with your cap and having guys who could be the man you know two years down the road which i think is what you're you're probably shooting for a year or two down the road you want to look at is reyes gonna be ready to be a w to choa kind of guy in terms of stepping in and playing as a teenager so you can be ready to do that is rocco going to be able to do that as a 20 year old maybe but now you've got your number two settled and you can make a bigger decision about the long run i like castanera during his time here he's he's what i think you're looking for in terms of an atlanta united goalkeeper he can play with the ball at his feet he's quick he has no problem coming out and and playing outside of his own 18. he's he's that kind of a guy and he's very good with the twos in 2019 very very good so good pickup i think um especially with how the whole alec can thing played out um some one thing i do want to clarify just because it led to some confusion multiple times with different people um the atlanta united united teens they played in the upsl georgia premier division that is not a youth league it's not a youth league so you're playing against adults that was the whole idea of going in to play in this rather than playing united youth for this group which is like all youth teams at a professional level it's not purely 18 year olds you had caleb wiley play in the final on saturday at 16 about to be 17 you had brendan lamb there you had w mejia there good players there good younger players there but the teams that you're playing in that league are not youth teams so yes kalanji pro profile had patrick okonkwo who had the winning goal um they had kevin barajas formerly of atlanta united too and they added very very recently andrew carlton um which was surprising to see i did i didn't know he had left icarl in costa rica but he was playing in this match with uh kalanchi pro profile but it's not a youth club and they do have youth teams let me make that clear they have youth teams that play youth this team in upsl georgia was not a youth team and there's no age requirements in that league so just to be understood because i think some people were a little confused about that the whole idea for the atlanta united united teens is to play these guys and to play adults and to play former pros in this and and guys who maybe are going to be pros again i don't know but it's a good opportunity for your unite teens to learn from and i thought even though in in the loss they were the better team they played well uh nigel prince was really good at center back he's somebody who i don't think it was ever really announced but i think he's going to northwestern um at least according to social media profiles i think he's going to to northwestern prince is somebody who could play for the twos early next season and maybe do a homegrown deal as opposed to that we've talked about wiley a ton of times grant howard really really good player for the the united teams this season i had a chance to see him multiple times he always stood out to me evan schroeder going to georgia state uh matthew taylor came off the bench also going to georgia state he had just signed his pro deal but there's guys in this group that i'm intrigued to see potentially with the twos next season or potentially signing homegrown deals down the road reyes and goal wiley obviously i mean he has already signed a pro deal brendan lam is somebody who spent a lot of time with the first team in preseason last year prince is borderline miguel romero is potentially borderline um cristiano bruletti is another really interesting one to me so a lot of talent with that group uh abby that was uh john reno who was on the call with me with uh atlantic soccer media group andre beaumar organizes that and they do all of the upsl georgia organization and highlights and and games and i've done some games with them especially with the u19 so it's it's fun for me to to work with them because i've known uh i've known andre for a long long time but it's fun to see the united teens and get to share a little bit of the knowledge from the guys that i know and the the potential for them to move up and and get that opportunity so uh fun game it was a really competitive one it was good and uh kalanti pro profile won it so they'll move on into the upsl national tournament in february they play a team in tennessee i think the first weekend in february what are you trying to look at very intently john i was trying to figure out who kalanji pro profile was playing in the next round because i had a rather large national finals upsl graphic and i was trying to squint and stare at it and see who it was i noticed that did you see who it was uh looks like it's uh iturbide fc is that correct i'm not sure the the name i know they're in um i know they're in tennessee and they they won that game there uh in the the expedition division which has mostly tennessee i don't think it's all tennessee but yeah i think uh the the upsl georgia winner has to go there in that game so you do have a national champion out of the psl georgia league atletico atlanta who has lost a lot of those players because they've moved on to other opportunities a lot of them have gone on to brazil and i think a few have gone over to europe to try to chase deals so you know it's it's a semi-pro level kind of league except the difference with with upsl is that they go year-round as opposed to npsl who's explored that um usl league two who go into summer and will bring in those college guys uh yes badger um that is the name of the club i would assume that it was named after the first emperor of mexico but i don't know if that is a definite so don't quote me on that one but uh yes that is the name of it is so now of course i'm trying to figure out if it is in fact named after good luck on trying to figure that out i know with uh teams at this level sometimes finding information can be a little tricky yes just a little bit um questions we had one from sam williamson do you see macho chol getting more game time with the first team next season or be loaned to the twos or another team um i i hope he gets more time consistently somewhere because i think he needs to play i think early on he was in the mix a good bit i think gabrielle hindsight really liked him um but as he wasn't playing consistently i felt like his confidence waned a bit and then when he was getting games he didn't play well he didn't play well when he went down to the twos struggled a little bit with his performances late he had a good substitute performance i think his last one with the first team i hope he gets more consistent time and if that's with atlanta united too that's fine that's fine he's i mean he's well liked by the club as you saw from the the feature with him and marcelino moreno which is the bromance that we didn't know we needed um macho has a lot of potential and he's a really unique kind of player i've always compared him to brexia just because of the height and because of how difficult he can be to defend it's just putting it all together and i i hope that he can he's progressed a lot during his time at wake forest i wasn't sure if he'd have this opportunity when he went to wake forest as a freshman he's a much much more well-rounded player still great in the 1v1s better defender there's still work to do and he it's only going to happen if he plays so if that's with the twos great if that's training with the first team playing with the twos great if that's you know being a regular sub off the bench with the first team great if it means loaning amount elsewhere okay that's fine too but i'd like to see him stay in the fold the question and when you start to project and the u19s is one component of guys who will step up and play for the twos next year out of the academy the u17s will be that as well i think out wide there's not quite as many options so when you're looking at okay do we want to keep him with the twos and give him consistent minutes there is he blocking anybody who's young that you need to take a look at i don't think so yet so i i think that would actually work out pretty well uh there are guys that you know like lamb i think in that central midfield you know robbie mertz is back mejia is signed to a deal a johnny fortune assigned to a deal mejia can play out wide but he can't play as a 10 as well okay lamb can be a rotation piece with that and that's good for his age you can get him minutes that's cool center back you know is washington going to stay with the first team more or is he going to play a lot for the second team do you kind of need to keep a spot open for rotation to give to john a game here and there and keep him fresh prince probably needs some games early on noah cobb will need some games early on um cobb is younger he's not going to school prince if there's potential for him to sign a homegrown deal well you got to play him a lot early to see it's what you did with george campbell in 19 and he earned a pro deal it was the idea for kendall edwards and edwards wasn't able to stay healthy so he went to nc state garrison tubbs was gonna get those games in 20 but then the first half of the season got mostly wiped out so he played a handful of games before he went to wake forest as a freshman and he's played a lot there he's another guy for a potential homegrown signing down the road garrison tubbs is somebody to keep an eye on but he was going to get that opportunity in 20. didn't because of the way the season worked out we saw it with will riley who got a ton of games the first half of last season went on to stanford so i think prince might be that guy i don't know what bruletti's long-term plans are i don't know if he's going to go to college or not [Music] he's somebody i wouldn't mind seeing who's probably at that age i think he is a true u19 so he might be graduating this year he's one that i wouldn't mind seeing howard's another one howard has played his way in he's committed to school but he's somebody that i would not hate to see a good bit for the twos to see if maybe he's ready for that maybe maybe maybe and i mean that's for me this is it's going to be the fun part seeing what it looks like for uh atlanta united too with all of these all of these different players that you've just mentioned here in this very short period of time what it looks like for jack collison coming out of the blocks for atlanta united too this it's going to be a fun year to see the younger players continue to grow and then possibly those new faces like like a prince coming in and seeing how he integrates it should be a fun should be a fun season for the twos yeah abby i didn't even mention caleb wiley because we've talked about him for two years now i mean he will sign a pro deal when the time is right it doesn't matter about the few more years to be a u19 that has nothing to do with it with caleb wiley he's going to sign a pro deal when there's a spot and when they need to sign him and it'll probably be tied to when bello moves on that's my guess when he moves on wiley will get a homegrown deal go into that spot on the roster and you're good to go wiley's a pro prospect he will sign sooner rather than later i don't see him going to college i don't see him needing to go to college i think he'll be playing pro minutes well before that getting paid to do it so wiley's legit i think lamb could be another one of those guys uh he has already signed the pro deal but at the two's level so did johnny fortune i think mejia can absolutely project to a mls level talent i do still got things to work on his game as all young players do but i think he has just got something special about him he's just got that impact about him that he could be that player so let's see what he can do now as a full professional but uh wiley will be one of those two it's just it's just a matter of time for him i mean he'll play to play because he can't play for the first team so he'll he'll play right now with the twos because he should be and beyond that it'll just be a matter of time before he signs his pro deal really no worry there all right we do have soccer over there tonight and we'll get into that um we get into picks of the week which came down to the wire yesterday uh with a open cup game in california deciding it we'll talk about that we'll talk about champions all over the hemisphere uh more trophies for river plate because you have the opportunity to win like 75 different trophies in argentina and marcelo gallardo has won a lot of them he's won 14 over the over his time at river he won another one over the weekend i shared it on twitter if you haven't seen the golosso from the third division in argentina and their championship match good grief guy takes a diagonal like pops it into the air juggles it off his thigh and rips a volley into the far side netting um fell out of my chair watching that um you had the first leg in columbia of the final as well last night which was very entertaining second leg will be on wednesday our old friends erediano won a title last night in costa rica their hundredth year their centenario and they win a title in that very very cool for air diano they're going through a stadium renovation right now um lots of stories we'll get into all those tonight i'm sure we'll have more on what england is going to do or not going to do we're getting into the breaks germany's already in their break now i think spain plays in the midweek and real madrid's got coveted issues uh isco might be out of their action for wednesday now because of covid related issues so they're gonna get to wednesday and then they're back in copa del rey right after the first of the year so it's a short break uh italy nick's not going to want to talk about his beloved milan who lost to napoli yesterday and there was a questionable decision on a goal we'll talk about that more var shenanigans lots of stuff that'll be tonight at seven o'clock also tomorrow uh we will have dylan butler we will have our underrated me maurer goalkeeper of fc dallas who is from the atlanta area played for the atlanta silverbacks played for the new york cosmos gonna check in with jimmy and see everything he's doing getting ready for kind of an interesting year for dallas