Ice Man Freese Delivers for USMNT, Jesse Marsch is in the Hot Seat, and Inter Miami Out of CWC

Speaker 1 There might be three or four owners in the league now who say we have to really be careful with spending still. The other 24, 5, 6 are like, take the guardrails off.
Let us go. These are billionaires.

Speaker 1 My biggest takeaway when you watch the Brazilian teams, the Mexican teams, the difference in the way MLS team rosters are constructed versus them is becoming more and more apparent.

Speaker 1 The way we do it in MLS is absolutely hindering us.

Speaker 2 What does everyone always ask us? You know, where would an MLS team finish in the Premier League? Now we see some of those questions being answered.

Speaker 1 Unfiltered Soccer with Landon and Tim presented by Volkswagen. Volkswagen has long been a supporter of soccer in America and has proudly been a partner of U.S.
soccer for over five years.

Speaker 2 Welcome in to another edition of Unfiltered Soccer with Landon and Tim.

Speaker 2 Landon.

Speaker 2 Big one, huh? You were in the studio.

Speaker 1 In the studio.

Speaker 2 Crushing it,

Speaker 2 as people would say.

Speaker 1 I don't know if I would describe it that way, but

Speaker 2 that's what the interweb's saying.

Speaker 1 Job done.

Speaker 2 That's what the interweb's saying. Yes, it did.

Speaker 1 It did it. It was,

Speaker 1 you know, like, I don't know if you feel this way when you maybe still watch Everton or something, but like when you're working,

Speaker 1 but then you're watching the game and it's the U.S. team and you want them to win.
And so you're like, you're just a fan.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so you're watching and you're screaming and yelling with every pen, whatever. And they're like, all right.
And you're on, we're on in 30, 30 seconds to your mic, Rob.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, oh, shoot, like, settle down, dude. Like, we gotta, so you're trying not to, you still have your job to do, but dude, it was so fun to watch.

Speaker 1 It was so fun because it was this group, Tim,

Speaker 1 and you're just watching the group grow before your eyes. And this, I just want to, yeah, we'll get into it, but it's just, it was so fun to watch.
Where did you watch? Were you home?

Speaker 2 I was, yeah, I was home. I was home watching and

Speaker 2 agonizing.

Speaker 2 You know, in those games, it was so, and obviously you said we'll get into it. It was so tight.
It was back and forth. It was exactly what I was, what you would think like a Costa Rica U.S.

Speaker 2 game in the knockout stage would be. You knew there was a twist in the tail.
You knew there was another turn coming.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was exciting. But again, as you said, you try and watch as a fan, but also as a,

Speaker 2 you know, someone who you think knows the game, right? But the fan, the fandom part is, it always, it always captures you.

Speaker 1 I know. It's like it just gets emotional for a bit there.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, it was fun.

Speaker 1 As always, follow on social media. We, Timmy, and I both send out a reaction video.
We send out lots of bonus content throughout the week at Unfiltered Soccer. Subscribe on YouTube.

Speaker 1 Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Wherever you get your podcasts, you can leave a rating and also email Jordan/slash us at feedback at unfilteredsoccer.com.
All right, straight into it.

Speaker 1 US LNT on USMNT. So

Speaker 1 the big talking point, obviously, Matt Freeze. And I, nobody needs to hear what I have to say.
You tell me me you're in a shootout. Okay.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you're ever in a shootout that early in your career where you're still trying to make a name for yourself.

Speaker 1 Nobody knows, you know, we're on Big Fox yesterday and being on FS1 where like diehard soccer fans will go versus being on Fox where you got a lot of new eyeballs.

Speaker 1 People are just like, oh, USA is playing. I'll watch.
You know, I see Pat McAfee tweeting about the game, right? So people are paying attention. People don't know this guy at all.

Speaker 1 And now they get into a shootout in this crazy moment. And he has a, he has a game of a lifetime.
So have you been in those moments?

Speaker 2 If so, I would love to hear that. Yeah, good description.
I mean, heck of a time to stand up. I think,

Speaker 2 you know, I applaud Matt Freeze. I think we, you and I and everyone else, but certainly on this show have discussed, you know, what's Potch, what's Potch doing?

Speaker 2 You know, like, what, what's his, not like, what's he doing? Is he crazy, but like, what's his thought process? Is he going to play Matt Freeze a bit and then give Matt Turner a game?

Speaker 2 He ended up rolling a dice and saying like, you're my guy to Matt Freeze. Well, for this tournament anyway.

Speaker 2 And I thought it was good because, um, you know, it's not like a, I always say goalkeepers make mistakes, right? And so in the last game against Haiti, you know, he gets a ball back from Tim Ream.

Speaker 2 He tries to play, makes a mistake, gets punished for it. And I was saying, like,

Speaker 2 yeah, I want to see now what he's made of. Can he puff his chest out and say, heck with mistakes? It's me.
I'm the guy. And he did that.
He did that yesterday. I thought in the shootout,

Speaker 2 he was very good.

Speaker 2 It's an element of, it's, it's, it's not the only element of goalkeeping, but it's an element of of the game. And he went, you know, he was his radar was right on.
He

Speaker 1 was on everything, dude.

Speaker 2 He nearly went, you know, even the one in the game in the penalty. So when he says penalties are his thing, I think he's lying.
Penalties are no goalkeeper's thing. They're miserable.

Speaker 2 But what I would say is he has clearly done his homework and technology has helped.

Speaker 2 He's either done his homework. Or if he says he didn't do his homework, then he's the luckiest human being alive.
No, he said he did. He said he was watching Nova playing.

Speaker 2 So that's great. It's brilliant that

Speaker 2 he studied that.

Speaker 2 He went the right way. He made it really difficult.
And the one he, you know, the one is, it's like playing roulette and then betting on green, right? He stood in the middle. That's a hard one.

Speaker 2 It takes a lot of guts. You've got to be really dialed in knowing that the striker's going up the middle.

Speaker 2 And he read it to perfection. And so that's a difficult one.
I've tried that before. You know, you always.

Speaker 1 Then he looks stupid if they just roll it in the corner.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, what what i would say to you is landon in in in a shootout in any like end of game scenario where there's where there's five penalties one more than likely is going to go down the middle or close to it and so it's a gamble of of knowing which one which shooter is going to do that so anyway um he you know he made himself into a star overnight which isn't fair because he's you know he's putting together a decent body of work what i would say is

Speaker 2 with this whole group which which we'll touch on

Speaker 2 he's the one getting the opportunity right right now. So we can discuss all the rest of it.

Speaker 2 He's getting the opportunity and he's doing the business. That's all.

Speaker 2 Forget all the other nonsense. The manager says, you're my guy right now.
You got to take advantage of it. And he currently is taking advantage of it.
And here's the other thing.

Speaker 2 You talked about

Speaker 2 moments, right?

Speaker 2 Don't forget the way the games change, LD. One of your goalkeepers of your three that goes to a World Cup might actually be good at penalties.
We've seen it time and time again.

Speaker 2 You get to the knockout stage, 90th minute, you substitute a goalkeeper on because he's better at penalties than your others.

Speaker 2 That might, it's a long way to go, but that might just get him on the plane to the World Cup. So again,

Speaker 2 more time to come, but

Speaker 2 he's doing it.

Speaker 1 I actually said that yesterday on the broadcast because I'm not sure how many times in the history of the World Cup a third goalkeeper has actually stepped on the field. No.

Speaker 1 I mean, that would be interesting to know. Not often, if at all.

Speaker 1 So if that's your thing, and he said penalties are my thing, then that's good. So what I'm curious now is,

Speaker 1 you know, last night when I got home, I was thinking like, okay, but he's still like the fourth or fifth or sixth choice. But then I was like, you know what?

Speaker 1 Pochatino coming into this tournament, we talked about it. He was like, nobody's shown me anything in Nations League that I can hang my hat on and say, you are the guy.

Speaker 1 And I'm talking about goalkeepers and everyone.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And so now a bunch of guys said, I'm not coming in to this camp, or they're with Club World Cup, or they're injured, or they weren't playing in Matt Turner's case.

Speaker 1 And so he said, okay, here's a guy who's playing. Zach Steffen gets hurt.
Shulti gets hurt. Now he puts him in.
And I want to differentiate.

Speaker 1 It's not like he's been perfect in the game or amazing, but he had big moment, right? Yes. And if you're Pochatino, and let's say he has another good game on Wednesday.

Speaker 1 against Guatemala, and then he plays a great game against Mexico and they win.

Speaker 1 He's starting in the friendlies, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 yeah yeah yeah don't you think even if matt turner's playing zach steffens i mean isn't he the guy starting in the friendlies yeah in september so yes um

Speaker 2 and poachatino's made it clear tim like and even in even in this tournament in his lineups you play you win you play again you play you win you play again he doesn't care he doesn't care where you're from what your name is whatever he doesn't care actually which we'll get into Pachatino, with all the noise that was on the outside and all the players who didn't come into camp and all the rest of it, Pachatino desperately needed a couple of players to step up and to star in this tournament and to win because then

Speaker 2 the power dynamic

Speaker 2 straight back onto his lap. And now he can go.

Speaker 1 He can do whatever he wants now.

Speaker 2 I gave this guy a chance and he produced with three or four or five goals. I gave this guy a chance and he kept clean sheets and penalty saves and all the rest.

Speaker 2 So these are big performances because again, If Pachatino was true to his word, he's saying, nobody show me what I want to see. I think this group of players is.
And there were some good performances.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1 All right. So let's dig into the rest.
Malik Tillman, again, I thought he was excellent. Missed penalty aside.

Speaker 1 Fantastic. Diego Luna was excellent again.

Speaker 1 The combination in the chemistry now between Ajamang, Tillman, and Luna has been really fun to watch. Like they just.

Speaker 1 all the little combinations and how they're playing off each other. It led to Arston's goal.

Speaker 1 It's just been fun to watch. And I'm not saying those three are starters.
I think Malik Tillman now makes big case to say he's starting whenever everyone's back.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure Luna's there yet. I don't think Ajamang long-term will be there, but how can you imagine

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 any of those three would not be on the plane? Well, they don't have to be on a plane. Well, they have to be on a plane somewhere, I guess, but would not be on the roster next summer, right?

Speaker 2 Right. Well, you make, you make the point.

Speaker 2 Tillman starts for me.

Speaker 2 In our best 11, Tillman starts. He is comfy.
He wants the ball in big moments. He's not afraid of it.

Speaker 2 You know, Luna is, Luna's going, Luna's not going to be a starter right away.

Speaker 2 Luna's going to be the first guy when things don't go well that Paul looks on the bench and goes, Diego, let's go because you trust him, right? And then Ajamang, again, you said it.

Speaker 2 Maybe not super long term, but he's another one who is currently getting the opportunity and he's making the most of it. And I'm telling you, he mucks it up.
He makes it nasty.

Speaker 2 he's he's good on the ball i think he makes intelligent runs and again sometimes you have to be vertical and run offside and the rest of it the sec the second goal so arson's goal right the thing about thing about ajamang and you mentioned it tillman and luna it's it's just like triangle they always look for him to bounce the ball off so so the second goal tillman's in space on the half turn when he gets it he wants to play it around a corner to ajamang and he does by the way Ajamang isn't first to that ball, if you remember correctly.

Speaker 2 The Costa Rican defender gets a slight nick on it and he's so big, he just goes bang, nudges him off, and then his next touch is just to facilitate it back to Tillman.

Speaker 2 And he does the rest and slides it perfect one-time pass. But I think for me, those players, I'm looking at him going,

Speaker 2 if we're saying Ajamang isn't the out-and-out striker long-term, then I'd throw the question back to everybody: who is? Who is? I know there's a bunch of names who we think could be world beaters.

Speaker 2 Where are they?

Speaker 2 They're either injured or they're not playing. Like, where are they? So

Speaker 2 Ajaman just needs to keep his head down, keep scoring goals,

Speaker 2 you know, keep being that focal point of the attack. And I think he'll continue to do the business.
And like I said, he'll be there thereabouts.

Speaker 2 And the fact of the matter is, these guys are staking their claim right now, LD. So the people who aren't here, guess what they got to do? They got to come in and they've got to stake their claim.

Speaker 2 So they're already behind. They're already behind.
Way behind. Way behind.

Speaker 1 And like Tim, with having coached, it's all about trusting guys.

Speaker 1 Not just trusting them on the field that they're going to do what you want, but trusting that they will be available to play, that they want to come into camp or that they are not going to be injured and that they can, they're available.

Speaker 1 And these guys have been available, knock on wood, every minute of the games, right?

Speaker 2 And think about, yes, and think about, because sometimes we talk about these things like

Speaker 2 in a phone booth. It's just like pie in the sky.

Speaker 2 For everybody who wants to talk strikers, right? And you know this because you're a goal scorer. Anja Mang has been doing the business five with five goals in 10 games, right?

Speaker 2 He's going to play the next two games, okay?

Speaker 2 When the gold cup is over,

Speaker 2 I don't, what LD is there, what, 13 games before the World Cup? I don't know, something.

Speaker 2 I don't know. I'm not sure it's that many.

Speaker 2 Let's call it 10. Let's call it 10 to make it a nice, easy number.
Ajamang has staken his claim to the extent, is he going to play every game?

Speaker 2 No, but he's earned the right to play five of those games.

Speaker 2 Okay, so now, so now what we're saying is the next striker who potentially could start is only going going to get five opportunities.

Speaker 2 He's earned the right to take some of those opportunities away and give them to himself. Right?

Speaker 2 So it's not like he had a great summer, and now for the next 10 friendlies, they're going to start someone else up top. No, that's not how the football works.
Right.

Speaker 2 He's forced the manager to say, you got to play me at least half the games, at least four or five of the games. So, yeah, time's run out for some guys.

Speaker 1 And the funny thing, Tim, is

Speaker 1 think about the games this group has played. Trinidad, awful.

Speaker 1 Saudi Arabia, okay.

Speaker 2 Haiti, nah.

Speaker 1 Costa Rica, a very weakened Costa Rican team because they had four or five guys missing due to cards.

Speaker 1 It's not like they're playing top teams and destroying top, but they're getting the chance.

Speaker 1 And so Pochetino, like, he can't judge and say, well, this Costa Rica team had a few guys out and now we're playing Guatemala Wednesday. All he's looking at is what he sees.

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 1 And for the other guys who left the Doom, we've said this a million times, do not ever leave the door open, ever, ever, ever.

Speaker 1 And they left the door open, and guys have kicked it down, as you said. And they're like, okay, I'm here.

Speaker 2 But we've been critical, right? Because the door has been allowed to be left open for these guys. You and I talked about this at Nauseum.

Speaker 2 It's been allowed to be left open because who's going to take my spot? That was the whole big thing. Well, now there's some players who are gaining the trust of the manager.

Speaker 2 You know, you look at that game last night, LD.

Speaker 2 There was fight and there was grit and there was was toughness.

Speaker 2 And like, I, I love the smug Costa Rican player that came up to Tillman after he missed because it was a tight shot of Tillman, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 And then sure enough, well, Tyler Adams can start to start a fight in an empty house. So he didn't need an invitation.
So he goes over there.

Speaker 2 Someone else, I don't know if it was maybe Burholter, he goes steaming in there. And I was just thinking, that's it.
That's, that's it right there.

Speaker 2 So you're starting to see this collection of togetherness, brotherhood. And again, it's, it's in a small snapshot because this, we talked about the beginning of the tournament, who wasn't here?

Speaker 2 That's what it was, that's what we all talked about. Then it was like, all right, well, now the whistle is going to blow.
And it's not about who's not here. It's about this group coming together.

Speaker 2 And this group has shown me they can come together. And it's exciting.

Speaker 2 It's exciting to watch that togetherness, that fight, that grit, that hunger to claw back in games, stay in games, big moments, overcome them.

Speaker 2 So yeah, I really, I thought, again, I thought Luna took his goal well, big deflection, but guess what? He's in the box. He's in an area where he's dangerous.
He took that.

Speaker 2 I thought the second goal was, I thought the second goal was really good football. And for Arsene, you know,

Speaker 2 his day didn't start good. You know, it was a really

Speaker 2 bizarre game. It was a really rash penalty.
And I was thinking, oh, no, because that's like,

Speaker 2 that's a clear and obvious, like, you don't need to, you don't need to make that tackle there. Like, you're going to give a penalty away.
And I think you mentioned it.

Speaker 2 The Costa Rican player is so clever. He's like, let me just get myself in between here and then you can kick me and I'll go down.
And then, and then he responded with a goal and assists.

Speaker 2 Like, this is how you get judged by your national team manager, by your teammates. So it was a really good response.

Speaker 1 You know, as I'm just thinking ahead, big picture. So the one guy we haven't talked a lot about because of all of the stuff with Pulisic

Speaker 1 is Eunice Musa. And he's played a lot of different positions, whatever.

Speaker 1 But one of, I think when the national team was at their best over the last few years, it was Tyler, Weston, and Eunice in the midfield. And now with that door being open, Malik Tillman has said,

Speaker 1 you got no chance. Like he decided not to come into camp.
He wanted to rest, whatever. Tillman's like, you got no, this is my spot now.
Right. And that's what happens.
And that's guess what?

Speaker 1 That's what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 Guess what? I'm not saying you and I were right, but you and I were right. Because here's the thing.

Speaker 2 U.S. soccer, soccer in America needed a wake-up call.
It needed to kick up the backside. Right.
So all these people talking about like,

Speaker 2 you're being critical of the players not coming in. This is what happens everywhere.
So guess what? If you're, if you're Musa, for whatever reason, you didn't come in,

Speaker 2 you're now behind it. You're now behind it.
Tillman has skyrocketed to the top of the list.

Speaker 2 And you can, again, we can talk about competition and whether Haiti or Saudi Arabia or Trinidad were good enough. Doesn't matter.
They were presented an opportunity.

Speaker 2 And when you're presented an opportunity, you have to take it.

Speaker 2 And Tillman's taking it.

Speaker 2 How he's not nearly first name on a team sheet, second name on a team sheet,

Speaker 2 I'd be shocked. I'd be shocked.

Speaker 2 He's been productive. He's been there.
You said he's been available. Really, really well done.

Speaker 1 All right, Timmy. Well, that leads us to the unfiltered refresh sponsored by Coors Light.
Choose Chill. Get Coors Light delivered.
Go to Coorslight.com slash USLNT. Who chose Chill this week, Tim?

Speaker 2 Well, you know, I could tell you it's the usual suspects, right, in contention. Diego Luna getting his goal.
Malik Tillman getting his goal, playing a brilliant role.

Speaker 2 But it's Matt Freeze. It's absolutely Matt Freeze.
He's on the tip of everyone's tongue. The name fits.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 I just think he believes right now that he's got things rolling. His manager, Mauricio Pacatino, believes that he currently for this tournament is the guy.

Speaker 2 And big moment, man. Big, huge moment.

Speaker 1 Massive moment.

Speaker 2 You know, when you talk about a penalty shootout, what can your goalkeeper do? You know what your strikers are going to do? They got one job.

Speaker 2 You know, your goalkeeper has to figure out a way to come up with saves. And he did that.
He believes penalties are his thing. As he said,

Speaker 2 it's a big moment for him. He chose Chill in such a moment where most people don't.
And

Speaker 2 my hat's off to him. It's a difficult position to be in to come in and get a run of games the way he has and the way he's conducted himself.

Speaker 2 So he's got probably, hopefully, another two opportunities to push his name further up the goalkeeping list. And here's to you, Matt Freese.

Speaker 1 Well done. Cheers to you, Matt Freeze.

Speaker 2 Crack it open. Beautiful.

Speaker 1 All right. So just a few other talking points from the game.
So, I was, you know, as we were watching, it was about 70 minutes in, and I was thinking, we're looking tired.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 is Pochatino going to make substitutions? And if so, who are the substitutions going to be? And obviously, the game state matters what the score is at the time.

Speaker 1 But the one thing that came to my head, Tim, is that

Speaker 1 he trusts 11, 12, 13 guys here, but the rest have clearly, for him, not made enough of an impression because he just hasn't used them.

Speaker 1 And, you know, the Haiti game was a good example of a time he didn't need to play his same team, but he's like, these are the guys I'm evaluating.

Speaker 1 And if you're one of the other guys, I would be concerned for sure. Doesn't mean you have no chance of next summer, but that was going through my head.

Speaker 2 Brian White, McKenzie, Walker Zimmerman,

Speaker 1 Nathan Harriel, you know, guys like that.

Speaker 1 It's just, those are guys that are, you got to be concerned because

Speaker 1 he's just said, I'm just riding with these guys. Yeah.
And he'll do it again Wednesday. And if they win, he'll do it again on Sunday.

Speaker 2 That's what it felt like to me.

Speaker 1 So like, could we could judge, should he have made them earlier? But in his mind, I think he's just saying, these are the guys I trust.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I, and naturally, some managers use substitutions more than others.
Some managers. use them to prove a point in certain games.
You know,

Speaker 2 I don't know if he makes substitutions earlier to win that game. There was, Costa Rica had some really good chances.
We had some really good chances. It's a feel, it's a feel thing, right?

Speaker 2 He's on the pitch. He, he senses breathing patterns of his guys, running patterns, conversations that he's hearing on the pitch.
You know, he's talking to his staff.

Speaker 2 So it's really, I know it's a really key thing that people like to latch on to on the outside, us and everybody else, like try and figure out why he made a substitution.

Speaker 2 There's so much feel involved in that.

Speaker 2 Oftentimes you second guess yourself.

Speaker 2 There's a a bunch.

Speaker 2 I couldn't be critical of him there. I think, I think ultimately, I mean, he made a couple subs.
You know, McGlenn comes on in the 83rd minute.

Speaker 2 Brian White comes on in the 90th minute. They didn't take a penalty.
I suppose at least one of them was coming on. That was bizarre.

Speaker 2 But again,

Speaker 2 it could be, could be they were coming on and take a penalty. And then you get to those moments, right? And when it's time to make the list of five, and a guy maybe doesn't want it.

Speaker 2 We don't know what happens in those moments.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 i want to talk about well first of all up next is u.s guatemala wednesday it's at seven eastern so four pacific i believe it's on fs1 i'll be doing that game the other quarter or the other semifinals after and that is mexico playing honduras i believe that's at seven eastern i think i'm calling that game um so it'll be interesting to watch obviously both but i want to just dig in real quick tim

Speaker 1 to there was some other news around pochatino and then dig into jesse marsh a little bit with with Canada.

Speaker 1 So there was a report by a guy named David Snade, Snade,

Speaker 1 an Irish reporter, and it came out right before we went on air and it was really bizarre.

Speaker 1 It said that Pochettino had

Speaker 2 interviewed for the Brentford job.

Speaker 1 And that was sort of it. It was like, you know, when Brentford hired, who's their new manager? I forgot the guy's name.

Speaker 1 When they hired their new manager,

Speaker 1 Pochettino and someone else were also in consideration and had been interviewed.

Speaker 1 And we were sitting there like, wait, what? During the gold cup. And of course, Alexi

Speaker 1 went berserk. And if this is true, a guy should resign.

Speaker 1 So can you help fans understand

Speaker 1 these scenarios a little bit? And, you know, I know we both have opinions on this, but it was just the timing of it was weird.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, if this is true, he should not resign. This happens everywhere in the world.
We're so, again, we're so coddled in U.S. soccer that

Speaker 2 we don't know the way the world of soccer works. But the way the world of soccer works is

Speaker 2 agents do a lot of sniffing around. Agents do a lot of, have a lot of conversations.
And

Speaker 2 do I think Pachatino physically sat down and had an interview with Brentford? Maybe, maybe not. I think there

Speaker 2 must have been conversation. with him.

Speaker 2 Brentford would be silly not to have that conversation. And quite frankly, he would be silly not to have

Speaker 2 some sort of conversation. You always listen because the fact of the matter is this U.S.

Speaker 2 soccer thing wasn't trending in a very good direction outside of like last night or two or two weeks ago, right?

Speaker 2 So, so

Speaker 2 if they get knocked out of the gold cup in the group stages and everyone's calling for Pachatino's head, you don't think, you don't think he should have a backup plan? Everybody has a backup plan.

Speaker 2 Everybody, like every person

Speaker 2 who has a a job has a backup plan and they should. And that's just, and unfortunately, in the world of soccer, you're, you,

Speaker 2 you know, there's three months out of the year where you can really have meaningful conversations, right? And so that just happens to fall in the summer. So I'm not surprised by it.

Speaker 2 I'm not put off by it. I think it,

Speaker 2 I think if you know the world of football, it happens all the time. It happens, you know, it happens during the Premier League season where a manager has a really good Premier League job.

Speaker 2 And guess what? A job opening comes and someone's talking to his agent or his agent's talking to them. It's the way it works.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And by the way, to your point, that's every job in the world.

Speaker 2 Like

Speaker 1 you're thinking about, or if someone comes and talks to you, have the interview, talk to people, you never know what's going to happen. And by the way, you know who else has a backup plan?

Speaker 2 I hope. I mean, I'm not actually, I shouldn't say this.

Speaker 1 I was going to say U.S. soccer, but the way they're going to run right now is maybe not.

Speaker 1 But they have, you know, they were probably thinking, if we go three and out in the Gold Cup, we better have someone's had that conversation. Yeah, we have to have conversations with people.

Speaker 1 So I agree. I don't, I don't think it's, it's crazy now.
The timing of it was not great. Sure.
Right. And you hope those things aren't made public if they don't need to be.
But yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and Pott and Pots is clever enough to distance himself from it, you know, in the media. So right, right, right.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, so the Jesse Marsh stuff.

Speaker 2 You're unhappy. You're unhappy.
This is your guy, dude.

Speaker 1 This is your guy.

Speaker 2 i do believe in jesse i i i'm on record i'm on record

Speaker 1 look my thing with jesse is

Speaker 1 i think jesse does a good job at a lot of things like

Speaker 1 there's a lot of nuance here he's good at a lot of things

Speaker 1 i think jesse

Speaker 1 almost exclusively cares about jesse and he and he will

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 he'll mask it in a lot of ways and he'll but the the problem tim is is when you're talking all the time

Speaker 1 you're gonna get tripped up and you're going to trip yourself up. And

Speaker 1 he's got something to say about everything.

Speaker 1 He's got something to say about tariffs. And he thinks the players who went to Mexico were poisoned.
And he's just always got something to say.

Speaker 1 And so before the tournament, he went out of his way after a bunch of the U.S. players didn't come into the tournament.

Speaker 1 and said that they didn't want to be a part of the gold cup. And he said, well, not one guy called me and said, coach, I don't know.
It's been a long year.

Speaker 1 Maybe I don't want to come into the Gold Cup. Not one guy, right? So he goes out of his way to say this.
He says, We didn't have anything close to that conversation.

Speaker 1 So yesterday, Canada lose to Guatemala. And look, I was going back thinking about

Speaker 1 results in Canadian history. This is

Speaker 1 the worst result in Canadian history. And I'll tell you why.

Speaker 2 They've had bad losses.

Speaker 1 They've got blown out. They've, you know, they lost 8-0 or something to Honduras in a qualifier.

Speaker 1 The expectations on this team,

Speaker 1 a lot of because because of the good work Jesse's done,

Speaker 1 but also because of all the crap he's said publicly, we're through the roof.

Speaker 2 They're through the roof.

Speaker 1 So they lose the game to Guatemala. And after the game, he gets asked

Speaker 1 amongst a bunch of questions.

Speaker 1 And I just want to say, again, before the tournament, he said, not one guy called and said they didn't want to be here. So basically he's saying everyone is here.

Speaker 2 Do I want to be here?

Speaker 1 So then after the game, he says, look, if I'm being honest, we were missing half of our group for this tournament.

Speaker 1 And then he went on to say you know that's not an excuse but and i'm like what the hell are you talking about you can't he's talking out of both sides of his mouth and i i

Speaker 1 i also tim is as you do you talk to a lot of people right and i talk to people who are inside the canadian federation as well and they speak to players and they speak to people they are fed up with this bs too and and they're getting to a point now where at first it was fun and it was funny and it was helping canadian soccer and now they're to a point where they're like shut up, dude.

Speaker 1 This is not good. If you're one of the players on this roster and he just said, well, we were missing half our group.

Speaker 2 That's why we lost. How do you feel? If you're a player,

Speaker 2 it's always tough. So, all right.
Well, yes, go ahead. No,

Speaker 1 and I know Jesse's your guy.

Speaker 2 No, no, you're completely entitled to your opinion. I think you're right.

Speaker 2 Jesse does a lot of things good. I think one of the things he does really well is manage football teams.

Speaker 2 And the other thing he does really well is rub people the wrong way, you know, but he's comfortable. He's comfortable doing that.

Speaker 2 And I take your point about it being the worst loss of expectations that were set. And what I would say is, Jesse has gone into Canada soccer and

Speaker 2 had to reset and reshape expectations. And he's done that at quite a few different stops.
And so I think that's a good thing. The loss obviously hurts.

Speaker 2 I do think they were missing a couple of players that are important to them. They're not a tremendously deep side.
So they're big players who are obviously injured or Club World Cup, et cetera.

Speaker 2 That's going to hurt with them missing. So

Speaker 2 I think it's a great reset for

Speaker 2 you know, this next year for, for Canada, U.S., and for Mexico, kind of to see, again, without any World Cup qualifying, to see how they go.

Speaker 2 And they're going to be judged very critically in the World Cup, all three of those teams. So it's definitely, it was definitely not a great result for Canada.

Speaker 2 And I was, I personally was looking forward to a really strong Canadian team versus a strong U.S. team, but it wasn't to happen.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It was,

Speaker 1 I just wonder the players in that locker room when they, because I've been, we've both been around coaches who talk a lot and say a lot. And, you know, they bring the attention.

Speaker 1 Sometimes that's good because it takes attention away from you.

Speaker 1 But now, if I'm sitting in that locker room,

Speaker 1 you're getting to a point where you're like, okay, hold on a sec, dude. You know, hold on a sec.
Let's, let's, let's maybe have an honest conversation here and

Speaker 1 make sure because

Speaker 1 I think channeled the right way.

Speaker 1 I think Jesse's been excellent for Canadian soccer. I do.
I really do. But there comes a point where it's just too much, and people start to turn off.
And it feels like we're at that point.

Speaker 1 And so, hopefully, for his sake, for Canada's sake, for the World Cup's sake, that settles down. Hopefully, he learns from this.
And then, you know, going into next summer, they can

Speaker 1 adjust.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's take a break. When we get back, let's talk about the Club World Cup.
It's crazy. All the stuff going on yesterday, there's also a Club World Cup going on.

Speaker 1 So we'll dig deep into all that right here on Unfiltered Soccer with Lannon and Tim. As always, presented by Volkswagen.

Speaker 2 The Unfiltered Soccer podcast is brought to you by Volkswagen, the presenting partner of U.S. Soccer.

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Speaker 2 Okay, Club World Cup.

Speaker 1 So lots of talking points. I don't want to get into all the games, Tim, because, you know, there's been great games and moments and all that.

Speaker 1 Inner Miami got walloped by PSG. I don't take a ton out of that, to be honest.
No. PSG are so good.

Speaker 1 They're the best teams. They're just so good.

Speaker 2 You can't compare the two.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 It was okay tournament for MLS teams. Probably

Speaker 1 about what we would have expected. Maybe one of them get through, the other two don't.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, Sounders, no wins, three defeats. LAFC, one draw, two defeats, one win, two draws for inter and a defeat.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I wouldn't say it's okay.

Speaker 2 I would say it's what I probably would have expected given, given, given the

Speaker 2 competition. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 My biggest takeaway, and this has been a conversation for a long time with people who are invested in and care about soccer in this country with MLS.

Speaker 1 In the early days of MLS, and we can have a big conversation about this later, there were a lot of rules put in place to essentially protect clubs and owners from themselves.

Speaker 1 A lot of spending rules. So you wouldn't outspend a certain level just so that the league could progress

Speaker 1 healthily.

Speaker 1 And that was necessary. Other leagues had failed in the past, and ASL had failed in the past, and the league wanted to make sure that was the case.
We're at a point now where you talk to owners, Tim.

Speaker 1 I talk to owners. There might be three or four owners in the league now who say we have to really be careful with spending stuff.

Speaker 1 The other 24, 5, 6 are like, take the guardrails off. Let us go.
These are billionaires. Sure.
They can do what they want with their money. They know how to make good decisions.

Speaker 1 They're hiring people who can make good decisions. My biggest takeaway when you watch the Brazilian teams, the Mexican teams, even Esperance

Speaker 1 from Tunisia,

Speaker 1 Sundowns, you watch these other teams. The difference in the way MLS team rosters are constructed versus them is becoming

Speaker 1 more and more apparent. And the way we do it in MLS is absolutely hindering us.
It absolutely is. So Miami's total spend, I don't have the exact number on this.

Speaker 1 Miami's total spend, including Messi, who's, you know, an anomaly, has to be $30 million plus.

Speaker 1 There are a lot of teams in this Club World Cup who don't spend $30 million on their roster.

Speaker 2 It's a really good point. It's a a really good point.

Speaker 1 The problem is, 20 of that goes to Messi, couple to probably Suarez, couple to Busquets, couple to, I don't know, whoever, Jordi Alba, whoever.

Speaker 1 And the rest is guys making two, three, $400,000. And eventually,

Speaker 1 you get what you pay for.

Speaker 1 Those guys are, there's a big drop-off between Suarez, Messi, Busquets, and a lot of guys on their team.

Speaker 2 I mean, what you're saying is it's a very healthy league now where the league's not going anywhere. Profits and valuations are certainly still going up.

Speaker 2 And so it's been proven in other leagues, which what I'm reading from you is you can create a hard cap, you can create a luxury tax, and then you can basically say, go spend the money how you want.

Speaker 2 If you mess it up, okay, well, that's kind of on you. Then you need to hire someone better in that position.

Speaker 2 And we've found that there are really good people in the position of sporting director, technical director, presidents, right? And so the league

Speaker 2 isn't now at a place it once was.

Speaker 2 It's in a a very healthy intelligent place and so yeah some of those guardrails are hindering and and look it i think it shows and sometimes you need this right sometimes you need the club world cup for that because what what does everyone always ask us hey tim what what is an and what you know where would an mls team finish in the premier league dot dot dot or whatever Well, now we see some of those questions being answered, right?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 you need that a little bit in order to, you need those comparisons in order to kind kind of get some of those wake-up calls.

Speaker 1 But, Tim, we've been having this conversation for decades. I remember when we first started playing Champions Cup against,

Speaker 2 well,

Speaker 1 Central American teams, Caribbean teams, but mostly against Mexican teams.

Speaker 1 And it was like, why can't we, you know, I remember Garber being like pissed off. Why can't we beat these Mexican teams? We spend the same as them.
And I'm like, no, we don't. You pay me $4 million.

Speaker 1 You play Robbie Keene $4 million, pay David $6 million. So we've got a $15 million, $17 million cap.
These Mexican teams spend $17 million, but they got 17 guys making a million dollars.

Speaker 1 And it's just way better for your roster. So the simple thing to me, and I'm just making up numbers, but this is something I've thought about for a long time.
So it's not just half-assed.

Speaker 1 You have a minimum spend.

Speaker 1 Call it whatever, $15 million, $20 million that every team has to spend. So the players union and the players are happy.
Then you have a maximum number for your cap, $25 million, $30 million.

Speaker 1 If you spend over it, maybe there's a luxury tax.

Speaker 2 Dollar for dollar luxury tax.

Speaker 1 Or you say it has to be 30, but you can have one or two players above that, like a messy or whatever that don't count.

Speaker 1 That's it.

Speaker 1 That's it. Nothing else.
Right. And you can factor in how do you account for transfer fees and how does that play into it? And that's fine, but that's workable, but it's not that difficult.

Speaker 1 And it is time. It's long past time to just take the guardrails off.

Speaker 2 It really is.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Just a few other interesting comments. Did you see Jürgen Klopp's comments this week?

Speaker 1 This guy, man. I think the Red Bull is getting to his system.

Speaker 2 The Red Bull is not wearing off.

Speaker 1 No, I think it's pumping.

Speaker 1 So on the Club World Cup, he said, I'm going to quote, it's a pointless competition.

Speaker 1 Whoever wins it, it will be the worst winner of all time because they have played all summer and then gone straight back into the league. All right, you like my German accent.
Terrible.

Speaker 1 There are people, it was pretty good to be fair. There are people who have never been involved in the day-to-day business of football and are now coming up with ideas.

Speaker 2 Yeah, fair.

Speaker 1 It's too many games. I fear that next season we will see injuries like this like never before.
If not then, they'll come during or after the Club World Cup.

Speaker 1 There's no real recovery for those involved, neither physically nor mentally.

Speaker 2 All right, go ahead.

Speaker 2 Look, I think there's

Speaker 2 probably overall

Speaker 2 too many games.

Speaker 2 You know, again, we keep going back to Rodri at the Brazilian national team player at Manchester City. And he said, he said those comments and then tore his ACL right after.
And so I don't know.

Speaker 2 I just think

Speaker 2 at a certain point,

Speaker 2 there's probably too many games in the calendar, which then leads itself to having

Speaker 2 players needing to make decisions based on their priorities, which we've seen this summer.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't disagree with him, though, that there's going to be a physical and or mental toll,

Speaker 2 you know, as we go through this next year. And

Speaker 2 that's the sad part because it should be the most important year, given that it's a, you know, we're on a cusp of a World Cup.

Speaker 1 So can I make a suggestion? I literally just came up with this just off the top of my head. What if

Speaker 1 calendar year to calendar year? So 365 days. You could start in January, you could start in June, July, whatever, to the next July or the next January or whatever.

Speaker 1 What if there was a maximum number of minutes a player was allowed to play in real competition?

Speaker 1 I literally, that just came to my head as you were talking.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 that work.

Speaker 2 They'll have to be something like that, right? Because

Speaker 2 guardrails only get put in place on maximum number of games when horrific injuries happen. So we're going to have to, unfortunately, we're going to have to cross that bridge first.

Speaker 2 You know, there's going to have to be injuries,

Speaker 2 which we're already seeing, by the way. We're going to have to

Speaker 2 see a ton of injuries where

Speaker 2 some sort of governing body gets involved and then tries to scale it back. But I don't know if we're close to that, if I'm being honest.
I don't think so.

Speaker 2 But I think the player players have to. Well, look,

Speaker 1 it would be then very interesting to see how the clubs manage that.

Speaker 1 Do you not play them in these third-round Carabao Cup games? Right. Or do you, you know, because I understand Jürgen Club's comments,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 he was guilty of all that too. Like he was playing guys to the bone too.
And I just think it's interesting now that he's not there day to day that it's easy for him to say, well, it's too much now.

Speaker 1 It's too much. It's too much.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I mean, the big, like, the big problem is,

Speaker 2 I don't disagree with that. The big problem is

Speaker 2 this doesn't affect every team. So if you look at England, I could easily say it's disproportionate.
Right. If I could say,

Speaker 2 I have a solution, right, hypothetically, if I said, like, well, get rid of the League Cup in England, right and

Speaker 2 you only fa cup no replays which they've gone to and you say you're playing just premier league games and just fa cup right and then you have your national team and then and then this tournam this tournament in the summer club world cup only affects a couple teams the fact of the matter is if you're a team that's never going to play in the club world cup you're going to be like well don't take away our opportunity at glory and take away the league cup right so so you're going to get people who are like they're going to vote for keeping the league cup involved because that's important to their club.

Speaker 2 The club world cup isn't important to them because they're never going to to be in it so it's a hard

Speaker 1 idea of games would be good or minutes maybe possibly maximum minutes played yeah yeah because then you decide you decide how you're gonna right players are already deciding yeah players are deciding so important let the club decide yeah and the player sure uh okay this one's really funny before we finish up here so enzo mareska i love this enzo mareska chelsea manager went off after his game on the weather and the tournament being held in the U.S.

Speaker 1 With four minutes left to go in the game, they went into a two-hour weather delay. Welcome to America, baby.

Speaker 2 I love this.

Speaker 1 If you haven't sat in the Frisco locker room for two hours, oh god, it's always there.

Speaker 2 I did as well.

Speaker 1 It's not played in this country, but

Speaker 1 uh, when they returned, Chelsea conceded a penalty, which Benfica converted. So, of course, it's the weather's fault.
Had nothing to do with them conceding a penalty, taking the match to extra time.

Speaker 1 So, he said, I think for me personally, I'm not going to do his accent here. I think for me personally, it's not football.
It's already seven, eight, nine games that they have suspended.

Speaker 1 It's actually six. I think it's a joke, to be honest.
It's not football. It's not for us.

Speaker 2 It's not for us.

Speaker 1 You cannot be inside for that long. It's completely something new, but I struggle to understand.
I can understand that for security reasons, you have to suspend the game.

Speaker 1 But if you suspend seven, eight games, that means that this is probably not the right place to do this competition.

Speaker 2 I mean, listen, we hear that.

Speaker 2 it's strange. I will give him this credit.
It's strange because

Speaker 2 we, you know,

Speaker 2 I played in England nearly my entire career. It chucks it down in England and there's never any, there's no lightning, there's no thunder.
Like they don't cancel games.

Speaker 2 There's like not severe tornado watches, right? You just play through the rain. But I get it here in America.
And like, it's weird and it's frustrating.

Speaker 2 I think back my, when I came back to the MLS, we were in Colorado and we were playing Bruce's New England revolution, right?

Speaker 2 And there's a weather delay and Bruce is like, we don't need halftime. Let's just come back out, right? Because, sorry, Bruce, that was a terrible Bruce, but you get the point.

Speaker 2 But basically, we had like a, we're in the 40th minute LD stoppage, right? So we go in for God knows how long, come back out, play the five minutes.

Speaker 2 And then he's like, why are we having halftime? I'm like, well, I'm like, well, Bruce, you actually can't make rules. You think you can?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I think we probably listen to him.

Speaker 2 then we go in at halftime come back out then there's another two-hour delay at which point our brilliant chef nancy whips up some banana bread so i've got like five extra pounds on me trying to go back out and warm up and i'm like this ain't gonna be good i think we lost but yeah i get the point like in a in a game and there's nobody in stands by the way because it's like all right everyone went home after the third third weather break i don't know what are you gonna do does he does does he

Speaker 2 All I would say to Mareska is after this tournament, he's gonna go to Ibiza and he'll have a bonus check that came in. And he's going to be just fine.

Speaker 2 And that got paid because America is the great place to play soccer when there's a lot of money involved. So

Speaker 2 I don't know. Enzo, I like Enzo and Resca.
I get what he's saying. The weather's miserable in the summer at some of these places, but don't see that changing anytime soon.

Speaker 1 I love that people are finally realizing. Like everyone's like, yeah, America sucks.
It's so easy to play there.

Speaker 2 I'm like, yeah, we'll come play and see how you feel.

Speaker 1 Tell me how that weather is.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 All right, last thing here. U.S.
LNT on U.S. WNT, a couple of friendlies for the women's team.
Both were 4-0 wins against Republic of Ireland.

Speaker 1 Biggest takeaways for me were lots of players played, which was great. It was kind of a starting-ish group in the first game and then a bunch of changes for the second group.

Speaker 1 And then the second biggest takeaway for me was Rose Lavelle in the second game. She only played a few minutes, but I just love that Emma Hayes is so aware of those things and alert.

Speaker 1 She put her on for the last few minutes, let her get a little curtain call, and it was fantastic.

Speaker 2 And after seven months away, gets a goal and assist in the first. So

Speaker 2 she's a stud. You talk about women getting opportunities.
Like

Speaker 2 this is, she's making a lot of changes. She's giving players some time to rest and bringing in new ones.
So

Speaker 2 they're in the shop window and two, four, no wins isn't bad.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Ireland weren't great, but still two good wins for them.
All right, let's take a break.

Speaker 1 When we get back, we will get into your questions in the AT ⁇ T fan connection and talk anything but soccer right here on Unfiltered Soccer with with Landon and Tim, presented by Volkswagen.

Speaker 1 Stay right there.

Speaker 1 This episode is brought to you by Airbnb.

Speaker 1 All right, Tim, between your work, your daughter, your son, or maybe just your own enjoyment, how much traveling do you think you've done to see soccer this year?

Speaker 2 Honestly, I've lost track at this point.

Speaker 2 You know, just this summer alone, I I was all over the place.

Speaker 2 But it is, it's a beautiful thing to see how many soccer fans and how soccer has been embraced no matter where we go.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I was just in Austin. I'll be traveling to New York.
Everywhere I go, I meet fans. Whether I'm going to see a game myself or just on vacation, I see people everywhere.
I hear stories.

Speaker 1 I hear stories about their pilgrimage to Everton to go watch a game, to go see the new stadium, to go see their favorite team.

Speaker 1 They get immersed in the chants, the songs, that incredible feeling of seeing the game up close and personal.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, I think that's where the game has changed. These trips have become a big deal for soccer fans.

Speaker 2 And this summer is going to be no different as we'll see the soccer community make their way to 11 host cities here in the U.S. to support their favorite national team.

Speaker 1 It's going to be incredible. I can't wait for it.
And what if those fans could turn their homes into an opportunity while they're away at the game?

Speaker 1 Hosting your home on Airbnb while you travel is an easy way to earn a little bit of extra cash, maybe go towards tickets for your game that you want to go to. We know they're not cheap.

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Speaker 2 Yeah, your home might be worth more than you think. So find out how much at airbnb.com slash host.

Speaker 2 LD for me, the holidays are all about connection to family and to friends. We host a lot.
So we got a lot of people over the house.

Speaker 2 Oftentimes when it starts to get chaotic and the turkey or the ham's getting burnt and the kids are running around playing with their new toys, I go out back. by the fire pit and I choose chill.

Speaker 2 I crack open a core's light.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's my favorite time of year. It gets cold,

Speaker 1 not quite as cold as New York, but it's cold outside.

Speaker 1 It gets dark early kids are playing we turn on the jacuzzi relax in the hot tub with a core's light choose chill relax have family friends good food good memories my favorite time of year when you embrace a chill mindset this holiday it's a good time to choose chill and crack open a core's light choose chill this holiday season and then reach for a coarse light get cores light delivered straight to your door visit cores light.com slash uslnt or you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer celebrate responsibly hoars brewing company golden colorado There's nothing better than feeling like someone has your back and that things are going to get done even without you having to ask.

Speaker 2 Like your crisp new jersey waiting for you in the locker room or a perfectly set up wall for a free kick.

Speaker 1 Yeah, as we on Unfiltered Soccer get ready for next summer, we know that very little in the beautiful game is guaranteed.

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That's the AT ⁇ T guarantee.

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Speaker 2 It's time for the fan connection presented by AT ⁇ T. Every week, we invite you, the listener, to connect with us by submitting your questions.
The best way to grow the game of soccer in the U.S.

Speaker 2 is to keep asking questions and keep talking about the sport we all love. At ATT, connecting changes everything.
And on US LNT, our connections with you will help grow the game.

Speaker 2 Yes, it's that time again. The ATT fan connection, one that we love, you love, and Jordan loves.
Jordan, welcome in. Portland Thorns Ink is out.
It's summertime. Let's go.

Speaker 3 It's so hot.

Speaker 2 It's so hot. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's

Speaker 3 90-something degrees today. So

Speaker 2 that's a dope.

Speaker 1 Hey, can we, you know, that Portland

Speaker 1 Hearts of Palm, Hearts of Pines?

Speaker 2 Not Hearts of Palms. Different, different Portland.

Speaker 1 I love Hearts of Palm, by the way.

Speaker 2 How good are those? How do we digress? So underrated.

Speaker 1 Can we get them to send a shirt?

Speaker 2 The stage is yours.

Speaker 1 Guys, will you send me me a shirt please

Speaker 3 properly not hearts of pot i'll send you a signed copy of my book and tim's book if you send me a jersey i didn't write a book not yet but if the show keeps going you never know oh you could write you could write you will after you're one what do you got for us um i got a i got some questions for you um this one is from tony via email he said first off love the show haven't missed a single episode thank you tony i was watching a report from alexi lawless on the costa rica game and that was your first mistake, Tony.

Speaker 3 He said he didn't like the wing backs in the game. That's what Alexi said, according to Tony.

Speaker 3 I'm a Columbus fan, and I got to show love to my boy, Max Arfston, a goal and an assist in response to a mistake 10 minutes in. Thoughts on what it takes to be good enough in the wing back position?

Speaker 1 He's actually, you're actually answering the question a little bit. Max Arfston is not a left back.

Speaker 1 He's a left wing back. He is, he is like prototypically designed to be a left wing back.
He struggles in really tough moments defensively.

Speaker 1 Like really, I'm not talking about every day, every week with Columbus, but like in these really high pressure.

Speaker 1 There was the play later in the game where they scored, where he they split he and I don't know who it was, Luca de Lator, maybe. He's just like, that's not his strength, but he's really good.

Speaker 1 I mean, he can run and run and run. He's really good actually getting forward.
His service is good. And he can actually run by people.

Speaker 1 You know, like he can make a touch, make a yard and serve the ball.

Speaker 1 So so that's what he's really good at and by the way i said this to moa du yesterday tim it's so rare that a guy who is very left-footed and most people who are left footed are very left-footed to be that good with his right foot man it was a phenomenal finish like people overlook that that's a really hard finish for someone who's right-footed yeah and he just rolled it into the far post it was a great goal so i think that's that's the key is he's a wing back yeah look i'll also i'm going to say something i'm going to see if you agree oftentimes we talk about players who are cerebral i think I think on the pitch, Landon, of the 11 players, the person who has to think the game the most are the outside backs.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's a good question.

Speaker 2 Because forget in today's game. Geez.
So as an outside back in buildup, right? It's all about balance and counter, right?

Speaker 2 So as the ball's building up onto the right side, the left fullback has to decide how far can I go? Do I stay tighter to my center back shoulder?

Speaker 2 Do I go in, pinch into the number six area to try and thicken it up?

Speaker 2 Like, and then by the way as soon as you make that decision and my right winger who i see the pass on he should play the ball into the channel now the pass gets cut cut out now i got to sprint back to get myself into into a position i i was just in so the game just completely ebbs and flows and you've always got to be reading it like you said you've got to be really good at one-on-one defending you got to be able to head the ball

Speaker 1 well you have to be then connected with your center backs right so you're keeping the line the integrity of the line and then when balls get hit like back post and you're backing up trying to head the ball, it's hard, man.

Speaker 2 It's a really difficult. So I think decision making and like,

Speaker 2 again, we can be critical of him giving away the penalty early on, but these are moments very much like goalkeeping.

Speaker 2 You're going to make a lot, a lot more mistakes than you are solid plays, particularly when you're young. And you learn from them and you build off them.
And that's how you create the experience.

Speaker 2 So yeah, I think it's for both fullbacks,

Speaker 2 it's a challenge because they're both young.

Speaker 3 Okay, I have a question for Tim from Matt via email.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 3 Matt is a longtime fan since the Metro Stars days.

Speaker 2 My guy, Matt, love you.

Speaker 3 But he's actually asking you a question about Everton. He said, can you talk us through the goal that you scored while playing for Everton versus Bolton?

Speaker 3 What was your original intention with the ball? Did you mean to hit it on goal or was it just a hard clearance? And then how did you feel afterwards?

Speaker 3 Did you speak with the other goalie after the match?

Speaker 2 No, it's yeah, it's a good question.

Speaker 2 So, first of all, anyone who like like anyone who wants to get on my good side, just say, yo, dog, I remember the Metro star days because those are some tough days.

Speaker 2 Like, if you were in it with me back then, God bless you.

Speaker 2 You know what? It was Sylvon Distin, who's one of my best friends.

Speaker 2 He played me a dodgy backpass, but he had played me so many dodgy backpasses that I was prepared for.

Speaker 2 So I think Chris Eagles was chasing me down. And look, I just, I was waiting for the ball to bounce and just stuck my foot through it.

Speaker 2 It's odd that I connected that way. It's probably like, you know, like a good golf swing, like you have LD.
Like, because it's coming from that direction, and I swung with my right foot,

Speaker 2 it probably should have kind of gone anywhere, but I just got really clean contact. You remember that night you're on the pitch, it was blown a gale.

Speaker 2 Like, I mean, wow, I mean, it just got up there and just kept going and going and going.

Speaker 2 And then Big Dennis up front chased it down, which I think made the goalkeepers like, had Dennis not chased that ball down, the goalkeeper would have just stayed back.

Speaker 2 But, like, no, Dennis started chasing the ball. Strackalozi, I think,

Speaker 2 anyway, I can't remember his last name.

Speaker 2 He chased it, made the goalkeeper kind of hesitate like he needed to come out and then once the ball skipped because it was also wet it was night night but i don't know i never scored never gonna score again like it was a weird feeling like i i think like if i always tell people if i scored now knowing what i know it'd go crazy go crazy yeah you didn't celebrate it but i'm also you celebrated with me johnny heits again div but i'm also like i don't know what this means and

Speaker 2 and like it's i don't know i'm a pessimist that we saw that with the algeria game like get the ball landing he and he and clink go do the rest landing scores at bedlin and i'm kind of like all right well we still got like three minutes left.

Speaker 2 They can score. So I scored.
I scored, and it was in the first half. And I was like, all right, but I mean, if it stays 1-0, this will be awesome.
But we ended up losing 2-1. So, like, whatever.

Speaker 1 Anyway, you know, the thing about that, the only thing I'll add is that night, the wind, it was really weird that night. It was,

Speaker 1 it was like blowing. from literally from midfield it was blowing in opposite directions so like he hit it and it was blowing i'm just pointing to my right on the screen.
It was blowing into him.

Speaker 1 So it was kind of hanging up for a second, but then when it got past midfield, it was just whipped the other way. So it was just up and then it just took off and then with the wet pass

Speaker 1 and it was over. It was so windy that day.

Speaker 2 Like I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 Like, do you even think, do you even think, LD, like, I'm saying no, but like, if you pass me a ball in any way, shape or form on like the best day ever, like quiet, no rain, no wind.

Speaker 2 If you pass me a ball and I stuck my foot through it like one time, I don't know if I could, even with like a roll and a bounce and a more roll, I don't know if I could get it into the other goal.

Speaker 2 That's a long way.

Speaker 1 I think, well, you mean rolling into the other goal?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I think you could get it rolling in on your like strongest days, but not by a lot. No, not by a lot.
Not by a lot. I couldn't.

Speaker 2 No chance I could. No, I wasn't celebrating.

Speaker 2 I wasn't celebrating with Bogdan. He was a red anyway, even though he was playing for Bolton.
So

Speaker 1 it's all good.

Speaker 3 I would definitely go and watch that if you've never seen it, because it is pretty hilarious to watch everybody else on the field get so excited.

Speaker 3 And Tim's just like, we have other things to do, people. Like, let's move it, move it along.

Speaker 2 I'm a man of the people. I've constantly said that I hide in plain sight.
It's easy when you're wearing the camo kit because that camo kit was unbelievable. Legendary.

Speaker 3 I'm still looking for it.

Speaker 2 Still looking for it. It's a tough one.

Speaker 3 It is. It's hard to find.

Speaker 3 How about one from Brian via email? This may be controversial. He said, why not have a shot clock in soccer?

Speaker 3 Start it with established possession in one's offensive half of the fields. A shot clock works in other sports the world has embraced, like baseball, American football, basketball, even tennis.

Speaker 3 The shot clock would create things like new strategies to develop shots quicker, avoid the keepaway approach, et cetera. Goalkeepers, stay on your toes.

Speaker 3 Maybe all the VAR fanboys would still be satisfied so they could get VAR shot clock violations to review.

Speaker 2 Who was that? Who's that? Brian. Brian.
Brian.

Speaker 1 Hats off to you, man.

Speaker 2 Hats off to you. You go then, and then I'll go.
No, I don't think I have anything to say. Well, it's a great suggestion if you want to see all the German and English and Dutch people in the world

Speaker 2 lose all of their hair. Like they, that

Speaker 2 you think VAR is bad.

Speaker 2 The only thing I would say, though, is like the most traditional sport in America, I think, is baseball, right? Like, like, like in terms of like traditionalists.

Speaker 2 And if you'd have probably told us in the mid-90s

Speaker 2 that they're going to be like, you know, there's going to be a clock. Yeah.
They'd be like, sure. Okay, cool.
Terrible idea.

Speaker 2 God,

Speaker 2 anything's possible. I I guess it's weird.
I mean,

Speaker 2 Americans get a bad rap.

Speaker 2 I played in MLS when, did you have, did you play in the long 30 years?

Speaker 2 No. I played in MLS when we had shootouts.
It was comical and terrible. And we looked like a bunch of Muppets, but I don't know.
I mean,

Speaker 2 crazier things have happened, have they? I don't know.

Speaker 2 I can't.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's crazy until it's not. Like, you didn't used to be able to pick.
or you used to be able to pick the ball up when they passed it back to you.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 So like things do change. I mean, I'm just laughing.

Speaker 3 The reason I was laughing so hard is because what you said like can you imagine people in germany and england and italy i haven't started if that law got passed i think they would they would counter sue make a counter law like kick americans out of the game of football anyway so good interesting suggestion i think there are a lot of traditionalists out there but i think one thing i have to give american sports organizations credit for is that they are always trying to find ways to keep things interesting to like entertaining people yeah and so like now you've got all these like crazy home run derbies going on in MLB and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 It makes it more exciting. But yeah, I can't imagine telling the English that we're going to have a shot clock.

Speaker 2 Here's a caveat for you. Like we're on crazy, crazy ideas.
So LD, I played in 1997. I was a senior in high school and I signed a professional contract.

Speaker 2 I swear, I think I got paid 250 bucks a week, right? That's a true story, which is a lot of money for me, right? At 17.

Speaker 2 I played in USISL for the North Jersey Imperials and this is the this is the year LD they introduced kick-ins from 35 yards and in so anytime the ball went out for like a I'm 17 years old right couldn't catch a couldn't catch a cold 35 yards out they put the ball all these plumbers all these plumbers and like like barkeeps would come like because they were like semi-professionals and they would just they put the ball in a box and they would pummel you and I was like this is crazy but like they tried it never stuck but that's so good kick-ins you can watch and maybe not with Tim Howard in gold, but you can watch lots of clips of that on YouTube too.

Speaker 3 And I highly recommend doing that. It's very entertaining.

Speaker 2 I love that, JR. I love that.

Speaker 3 Okay, last one. This one is from Steve via email.
Given the incredible, I feel like I'm not going to get all the way through this question.

Speaker 3 Given the incredible rapport and mutual respect you've always shown for each other, I was wondering if you would ever consider the possibility of co-head coaching the U.S. men's national team.

Speaker 3 Your combined experience, leadership, and deep understanding, so sorry, deep understanding of the game could undoubtedly bring a unique dynamic to the team.

Speaker 3 I often find myself thinking about how well you two work together and the positive impact that could have on the national program.

Speaker 3 It's a fascinating thought to consider whether we might ever see such a formidable coaching partnership.

Speaker 2 Pause. JR, I only realized halfway through that question, you were taking the...

Speaker 2 taking a piss out of me and landing your last spoke so that will come back to haunt come back to haunt you Take it away, LD. You've coached.
So what are your thoughts?

Speaker 1 Man, I have a lot of thoughts about that. My biggest takeaway is I watched, you know, I'm doing the Gold Cup right now.
I've watched Rafa Marquez with Javier Aguirre with Mexico.

Speaker 1 Rafa Marquez, we played against iconic player.

Speaker 1 And then Javier Aguirre is just an old school, traditional coach. I can hear when I'm doing the game, sometimes you hear like what's going on on the sidelines.

Speaker 1 And I speak Spanish, so I can hear Rafa Marquez and how he's impacting and influencing the game.

Speaker 1 And I think it's so crucial. And it is one of my critiques of Pochettino is that having someone like that on his bench, I think, would help him tremendously.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 To the actual question, I don't think Tim or I,

Speaker 1 well, I can only speak for me. The national team job is a hard job.
I think if there was a real,

Speaker 1 I think a role like that could actually suit guys like Tim and me.

Speaker 1 We're not going to be the guys who are moving every two years across the country or across the world to chase club coaching jobs.

Speaker 1 I had that opportunity and turned those down.

Speaker 1 But a national team is different. And a national team would be interesting, in particular, because you don't have to spend so much time trying to ingrain

Speaker 1 so many different soccer ideas. You get some basic ideas, but then it's about managing people and the situations and the staff and sharing your experiences and leading.

Speaker 1 And I think those things we'd be very good at.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, I look, I would happily serve my country

Speaker 2 on the U.S. soccer level above the coaching staff and in a role that served above the coaching staff and higher up in terms of getting the right people in the job.

Speaker 2 But coaching, it's not something that's ever interest, I've had an interest in.

Speaker 2 The only issue with with what he's asking or what you're saying with rafa marquez ld is i might get this wrong but anybody who's going to have substantial influence on this generation

Speaker 2 yourself who coach but you're not you're not you're not all in you have other interests right clint doesn't coach josie doesn't coach gooch doesn't coach carl spokenger doesn't coach steve trendelo does right Stevie Trendelo does.

Speaker 2 Michael Bradley is tailor-made for that in a couple of years. He's, you know, He's just starting

Speaker 2 a couple of years into his coaching career. So absolutely, he's going to be that guy.

Speaker 2 I can see a Jesse Marsh, Michael Bradley coaching staff, and I laugh at that only because I think that we will see that. But

Speaker 2 what other players that, you know, a Rafa Marquez, totally. I mean, he's an icon in Mexico, right? And he can connect those generations.
And he has.

Speaker 1 he kind of has the chops to coach but we do we i'm trying to think who we have like well you just i mean trungola would be phenomenal sure i'm i'm saying guys tim who know what it's like to be in the fire yeah and you don't have like clint in his own way is you know is unique but having him there just an example right eunus musa calls and says i don't i'm not don't feel like going into this camp you imagine if clint picked up the phone and called and said eunus let me talk you through this for me sure before you make a decision let me talk you through this yeah right that's valuable Really, I agree.

Speaker 2 I agree.

Speaker 2 But to be on the coaching staff, here's the other thing. You have to be all in.
You have to show that you're not just like a talking head or you're not a personality, that you're actually a coach.

Speaker 2 They're going to carry bags and put cones down and do the hard work. And none of the guys that I'm mentioning have gone down that path.

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 1 But there are guys.

Speaker 1 There are guys.

Speaker 2 But again, should that not also come from U.S. soccer? Of course.

Speaker 2 You're going to hire a pot, you're going to pay him $6 million. You're going to dictate what staff you can bring.
A, also, it's important to us as a country and as a federation that we have sewn

Speaker 2 back on stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah, okay, for sure.

Speaker 3 Well, when that day comes, I'm sure we'll all be thrilled. Um, I'm going to be doing this podcast by myself, though, so I apologize to everybody.

Speaker 2 You will be thrilled to deal with us.

Speaker 2 You'll be thrilled. Uh, not a lot of people will be thrilled.

Speaker 3 All right, that's all I got this week. Thank you.
Thanks, JR.

Speaker 2 Thanks, JR. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 Tim, what's up?

Speaker 1 Anything but soccer.

Speaker 2 Anything but soccer.

Speaker 1 Controversial food takes this week. Interesting one from Weston and Tim Weya.

Speaker 2 I'll be honest, I'll be honest. When I saw this on a rundown, I thought if I say anything remotely bad about Weston or Tim,

Speaker 2 we could get shunned. We're already shunned.
Weston already says he wouldn't come speak to us because of God knows what. So I'm going to be careful about what I say because, you know, I'm just

Speaker 2 saying that. Just saying that.

Speaker 1 All right. So

Speaker 1 you guys need to go watch the actual clip. It's on the Uve

Speaker 1 Twitter feed or on their podcast. Okay.

Speaker 1 So I'm just, I'm quoting a little bit of it, but Weston says to Tim, you Italians don't have any variety. It's pasta, pizza, fish, steak.
You know what the problem is with Italian food? It's great.

Speaker 1 It's good, specific food that you do very well.

Speaker 1 But in America, if I go to a burger joint or a steakhouse, then I go to another place 10 minutes down the street, I'm still eating a burger, but it's a completely different taste.

Speaker 1 In Italy, I go to this restaurant and I get a pesto pasta. I go 10 minutes down the street and order a pesto pasta.
It's the exact same thing. And Wea Wea said, I prefer American Italian food.

Speaker 2 Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 2 Why are you passing to me?

Speaker 2 I don't want to be in this segment.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 like

Speaker 2 American Italian food too, because the guy in Brooklyn that I get it from isn't from Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 He's from Italy, right? You know he's from? He's from Italy. So, like, I, yeah, I mean, you got to kind of know your surroundings.
I've been to Italy. I've played there.
I've visited there.

Speaker 2 I tend to like their food, but it's in a snippet.

Speaker 2 I don't know what else to say about they prefer burger joints and steakhouses and or something like that. And I don't know.
I think Italian food's good.

Speaker 2 I'm guessing if they get it every day, I get a little less variety. Have you ever been to Liverpool? Because if you've been to Liverpool, I ate that every day.

Speaker 2 English food.

Speaker 2 But I don't know.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of foods you could hammer. Like, English food is shocking.

Speaker 2 It's not great. Shocking.

Speaker 1 But Italian food, I was kind of like, you know, it's funny to me.

Speaker 1 So forget about the food, but like what I thought was really interesting about this is, and we've said this, and this is kind of, you know, we're having fun here, but this is kind of part of the bigger issue with some of these guys is

Speaker 1 who's advising them?

Speaker 2 Right?

Speaker 2 Honestly. All right.

Speaker 1 So look, we can all have our opinion and whatever.

Speaker 1 But I'm guess, Tim, I'm guessing that comment didn't go over real well with Juve fans or Italians. And like, in the end of the day, who cares, right? It's just his opinion on Italy.
Like, who cares?

Speaker 1 But my bigger thing is, it's like, who is advising them? And my other thing was, who from Juve?

Speaker 1 This was not a live interview, I don't think, right?

Speaker 2 Right. Why would you put that out? Because content sells, baby.

Speaker 1 But it's not funny. It's not like it's not helping.

Speaker 2 It's not helping anybody. Different world, man.
It's a different world.

Speaker 1 Okay, but I just, that's the first thing that came to my head. I was like, why would they release this? You could just cut that part out.

Speaker 2 Social media manager had one job. Edit this, edit this interview.

Speaker 2 Okay. Hopefully, hopefully they get some good Italian, American Italian food during the September friendlies.
So that is

Speaker 2 there for them to look forward to.

Speaker 1 If they're there. We appreciate, as always, guys, thanks for being with us today.
Remember to subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere you get your pods. Follow

Speaker 1 all across social media at Unfiltered Soccer for bonus content.

Speaker 2 Yeah, thanks, everyone. Thanks for our presenting sponsor VW, our fan connection sponsor AT ⁇ T, and our Unfiltered Refresh sponsor, Horiz Light.
Have an amazing week. Enjoy your football.

Speaker 2 We'll be back next Tuesday with another edition of Unfiltered Soccer.

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