Adam Belz

A center forward who drops deep to pick up the ball, wingers tucked into the channels, fullbacks bombing past them wide, two true box-to-box center mids and of course the deep-lying center mid distributor concept. If the Costa Rica friendly is any indication, this is what we’ll see in the next meaningful USMNT match. We make a starting XI and try to sketch out the depth chart.

A discussion of the red-hot American winger at Chelsea and Frank Lampard’s praise of him for his ability to “arrive in the box.” Friend of the podcast John Muller pitches in to help us make sense of the phrase, we curate some other ideas, and we spend talk at some length about off-ball movement, maybe our favorite subject. Then we get into who needs a move and who can stay put as the contract year comes to a close.

The bulk of this podcast is a discussion of the decisions facing Berhalter with World Cup qualifying thrown into uncertainty, and a run-down of what we’ve learned from the Bundesliga.

Ken Richards, the father of Bayern Munich II centerback Chris Richards, joins the podcast to talk about George Floyd's death, being black in America, Chris’s choice to play soccer instead of basketball and the similarities between basketball and soccer, among other things.

Matt Hartman and Belz recorded almost 80 minutes on the (quite talented, imho) U20 player pool. The bad news is we had this conversation in early March. The good news? It’s up to date, since almost no soccer has been played since then!

This is part 1 of the Total Soccer Show-Scuffed collaboration episode. Part one is in the Total Soccer Show feed. (Link below.)

We talk about the men's Olympic qualifying roster, Greg V goes on a rant about how much better the men’s U23 player pool is than at any time in US Soccer history, and we give a consensus XI for the opening match in Guadalajara against Costa Rica.

A US-centric MLS opening weekend recap, plus a look ahead to USL opening weekend and some discussion of the USWNT U20s and the She Believes Cup.

Olympic qualifying kicks off March 20 for the U-23s and the senior USMNT goes to Europe during an international window at the same time for friendlies against the Netherlands and Wales. Lots of moving parts. We try to sort out who might be on each roster.

John Pranjic, the host of the 3four3 podcast, joins for a conversation about the need for promotion/relegation, his problem with most American soccer media, and the best USMNT XI right now. I made detailed shownotes for those who want to skip around.

There’s enough in here for everyone to find a few things to disagree with. Enjoy! (And yes, Gio Reyna made the cut.)

An 18-yr-old got a USMNT goal on his debut, another young attacker played quite well, and the U.S. beat an experienced Costa Rica side 1-0. We’ve been pleased with January Camp. We talk about all of that, plus Olympic qualifying.

Our guest today is Abel Meszaros, a newsletter writer, TV analyst and occasional guest on the Talking Fussball podcast whose specialty is German football. Abel does a weekly show for SportTV, the Hungarian network that carries the Bundesliga, and he breaks down the Bundesliga in DETAIL in his weekly newsletter Bundesliga Bulletin. He helped us make sense of where several Americans (not all of them) stand in Germany.

Tyler Adams dominant return to the RB Leipzig midfield and Gio Reyna's professional debut headline what's been a pretty encouraging run of news for the U.S. Men's National Team. We picked out 10 things.

We run down the big news of the past couple weeks, including Brian McBride’s hiring as USMNT general manager and Josh Sargent’s great weekend, and work through a list of American players who need or could use a move right now.

We discuss the January Camp roster from bottom to top and try to answer several questions from patrons on Patreon. Not a bad episode! Happy New Year and thanks for listening.

We wrap up the year — what went right, what went wrong, what went reasonably ok. Actually a lot of good stuff happened! Mostly with the player pool.

We choose our Scuffed Top 40 for December, the last one of the year. Pretty straightforward episode, we start with our #1 player in the pool and work our way down to a spitballed #30 through #40. In any case it’s a good chance to discuss player selection and take another good look at the player pool.

Who played, who played well, and who has a future with the USMNT? Freed from the constraints of things like “producers” and “brevity” and “Andrew Wiebe,” MLSsoccer.com analyst Matt Doyle joins the pod to go long on the young American player pool in the domestic league. We look back at 2019 and look ahead to 2020.

A "professional" win in the Cayman Islands. Where do we stand now? Are we still trying to disorganize the opponent with the ball? Is that possible with the players Berhalter seems to prefer? Not our best work, but we try to get into these questions and answer them.

The USMNT defeated Canada 4-1 on Friday. The big news is Berhalter dramatically adjusted his defensive tactics. Meanwhile, the boys still can't play out of the back. Dest is cap-tied. Lots to cover and we didn't get to it until a day late.

We do actually think of a couple tweaks Berhalter could make that would inject this game with some hope and joy. Before that we talk about Earnie Stewart’s assessment of Berhalter’s performance in comments to reporters, give a sense of what the Canadian player pool is up to these days, and discuss potential lineups for both teams on Friday. At the end we briefly discuss the U23 Olympic qualifying camp in the Canary Islands.

We talk about who should start for the USMNT against Canada and Cuba, without tailoring our preferences to Berhalter’s tendencies. Then we read and try to answer several listener questions.

The US U17s’ trip to Brazil was cut short on Saturday night with a 4-0 loss to the Netherlands. That’s it. We’re out, after a 4-1 loss to Senegal and a 0-0 draw with Japan. Scuffed regular Matt Hartman joins me to recap Saturday’s game and try to take something away from the tournament.

Joe Lowery (aka @joeInCleats) joins the pod to talk about the US U17s’ second group stage match, this one against Asian champion Japan.

Mike Woitalla, the executive editor of Soccer America, who broke the story about the Youth Soccer Diversity Task Force that includes almost zero people of Latino descent, joins the podcast. He discusses the “mind-boggling” omission on the diversity task force (still not rectified as far as we know), the purge that’s occurred in the men’s youth national team coaching ranks (including Tab Ramos’s exit to take the Dynamo job), and the lack of grassroots American soccer expertise at Soccer House.

Chris Russell, aka @watke_ on Twitter, joins to recap the USA's first group stage match at the U17 World Cup.

We lay out some loosely-numbered ideas for Gregg Berhalter to get this thing turned around, and then conclude that it's very unlikely and implausible. We also briefly discuss the U17s ahead of the World Cup, which kicks for them on Sunday.

Horrible night in Toronto. Failure, embarrassment. Once again the citizens of the United States of America are encouraged to forget about the U.S. men's national team entirely, and comprehensive irrelevance looms. Time to rant and rave (but also to be fair), and to discuss the possibility of firing Gregg Berhalter.

The first Nations League game ever for the USMNT was in D.C. against Cuba. No spoilers, this is our quick review of the match.

The U17 World Cup starts on Oct. 26 in Brazil, the U.S. has a tough group consisting of the Netherlands, Japan and Senegal and the roster should be released any day now. Scuffed regular Matt Hartman joins the pod to talk about who will likely get called up and who will likely be left off. We each give our preferred roster, nodding regularly to what we think we can probably expect from coach Raphael Wicky.

Quick rundown of Gregg Berhalter's likely roster choices for the upcoming Nations League fixtures against Cuba and Canada, and then an interview with Oliver Wyss, the general manager of Orange County SC, the USL club that has given 11 starts to a 17-year-old youth national team keeper and recently signed promising young Americans Bryang Kayo and Diego Lopez.

Todd Saldaña joins for a wide-ranging discussion on the early success of the Los Angeles Football Club academy, how they're developing players, what kind of outreach they've received from the Mexican and U.S. Soccer federations, and many other things.

It’s actually a Top 45 because we broke goalkeepers into their own category. We do the goalkeepers, lay out some rationale because we think a lot of people will dispute our ranking, and then go 1 through 20, take a little break, go 21 through 40, and then a brief discussion of the Olympics.

It was a hot, sleepy night in St. Louis, but by golly we learned stuff. Different challenge, different lineup. We break down the big moments of the game and assess individual performances.

Woe is us. Greg V lays this one at the feet of Gregg Berhalter, and this dogmatic commitment to play through a recklessly high press.

We’re going to talk about what Mexico will probably look like, and then talk about how Berhalter could line up the U.S., with special emphasis how we might attack, how we could set up the midfield, and how we should deploy Sergiño Dest.

Dest, Pomykal, Sargent! World Cup qualifying is now officially 12 months away and it's time to buckle down. Full breakdown of the roster, some preferred lineup discussion, and a dose of what lineups Berhalter is likely to choose.

We start up top at striker and work our way back to goalkeeper, giving our preferred rosters. And then we talk about Berhalter's likely roster, which is not entirely the same.

Earnie Stewart has a new job, Kate Markgraf has a new job, and we've got clips from the conference call with them and Carlos Cordeiro as they discussed their new roles. Greg and Belz get into that and what it means, and then we talk about Weah, Dest, Sargent and Pomykal, and a few other notable performances from the weekend.

The Scuffed Top 40 makes its August debut, as we run through a (highly debatable) list of the top 40 players in the USMNT pool if we were to start a World Cup qualifying campaign tomorrow. Then we take listener questions ranging from "what does Earnie Stewart do all day?" to "who is the most overrated player in the pool?" and "what is the point of the U18 men's national team?"

The U17 World Cup starts in three months! Wicky kicks off a camp in California this week as he and the boys prepare for the tournament in Brazil. He discussed how the team improved at the Concacaf Championship, his impressions of the DA playoffs, his thoughts on where on the field Kobe Hernandez-Foster will likely play at the World Cup and outlined some of the roster decisions he faces in the next three months.

Our guest today is Julian Araujo, the young, pacey, aggressive right back for the Los Angeles Galaxy, the U.S. U20s, the U.S. U23s and hopefully, soon, the USMNT. He’s a top right back prospect who’s attracted attention from El Tri and youth call-ups from the USA. He assisted Zlatan Ibrahimovic's first goal in the Galaxy's El Trafico on Friday. We talked about that, his upbringing, his decision to play for the Barca Academy, where he wants to improve his game and his national team future.

First, Greg gives his 5 biggest needs for the USMNT roster, and Belz lists his preferred changes ahead of the fall international calendar. Then we hustle through the European player pool, talk about each guy's club status, and look briefly toward the season ahead.

Easily the most pleasing to the eye performance from the USMNT in the Berhalter era. We break it down and look ahead to Mexico on Sunday.