Hey folks, Joe Lowry here. In case you didn't already notice, this is a special episode in the TSS feed.

It's an episode of the new podcast that myself and the folks at backheeled.com have started called

The Backheeled Show. On the Backheeled show, we're putting out daily fun coverage of the USM&T and American Soccer.

You'll be seeing a few of these episodes pop up in the TSS and Soccer 101 feeds.

This episode is a look at Greg Beralthor's tactical approach, or lack thereof.

If you enjoy it, you can follow the back-heeled show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

All right, that's enough preamble for me.

Let's get to the episode.

It's everywhere. You read what people write about it. You watch people illustrating it on YouTube.

You listen to people like me talk about it on podcasts. We have a fascination with U.S.

Men's National Team Manager Greg Berlter and his system, his tactical approach, his philosophy, his style of play, whatever you want to call it. Today, I want to ask, what is Greg Berlter system? Does it even exist? And how will the U.S. play in the World Cup? I'm Joe Lowry and welcome to the Back Heald Show, where we bring you unique conversations and coverage of the U.S. men's national team ahead of and during the World Cup. And we do it all in 10 minutes or less. So hang out with us while you drink your morning coffee or take your afternoon walk or while you contemplate how those U.S. jerseys actually made it to stores because they're just that bad. Here at Back Heald, we believe that just because soccer games are 90 minutes long

doesn't mean that soccer podcasts have to be. So I'm not going to hold us up any longer. Let's talk

soccer. To help me try to make sense of the USM&T's tactical setup, I called up Greg Velasquez from the Scuff podcast.

Now, I've taken a lot of U.S. soccer coverage, almost certainly too much.

And I can't say that Greg's analysis is some of the absolute best out there.

He's watched more, thought more, and drawn more convincing conclusions about the United States men's national team than probably anyone I know. So let's pick his brain. I'm now joined by Greg Velasquez from the scuffed podcast. Greg, thanks for being here. Hey, Joe, happy to be here, man. What a journey we've been on this cycle. It has been a journey. And before we get into that journey in more detail and we get into Greg Barthor and his system,

I want to ask you sort of a tactics terminology question.

Those words get everybody excited, believe me.

Tactics terminology.

When folks talk about a system, because we do talk about it a lot, what are they talking about?

I think that term gets thrown around and is used to mean different things and maybe it doesn't

actually mean. What is, Greg, what is a system in a soccer context? So, I mean, you're talking about

...