Welcome to USMNCII

Welcome to USMNC Weekly, our regular foray into all things the US men's national team on today's show.

We're spotlighting recent US player performances.

We're building our World Cup 11s, and we're offering some potential ways to bolster the centreback pool.

Or are we?

My name's Ryan Bailey.

Joining me today. It's the Taylor Rockwell. Hello, Taylor. Hello, Ryan Bailey. Hello, the Ryan Bailey. Ryan, is it safe to say you've talked more about USM&T starting 11s than you have England 11s in your entire life? At this point, one or two more shows, and we've crossed the, across the Rubicon. Definitely, Taylor, yes, yes. How do you feel about that? I love talking about it. Yeah, it's your favorite. Pramilies. Oh, yeah. Ousing sincerity and enthusiasm, Ryan Bailey, which is a good thing to ooze. If you got to ooze something, sincerity and enthusiasm, that's the way to go. Indeed, indeed, but Taylor, but to be clear, I love soccer. We're not down the coal mines.

This is a fun thing to do to chat with my buddies about the USMNT, so let's get to it. And we'll introduce Mr. Joe Lowry's. Oh, hello, Joe. A lot of oozing chat in the first minute or so of this show almost infinitely more. Some are saying than what was expected coming in. The over under was far lower. I still would have smashed the under.

That would have been my bet.

I'll take that over-aaking chat, frankly, though, Joe.

Yeah, that would have been a smart. They don't even offer that line anymore, Ryan, because it's just so easy. Oozing is the new aching, I think. Gross. Great welcome. Hello. Hello, Ryan Bailey. I've definitely talked more about the USM&T than I have the Scotland national team in my life, which frankly, I'm okay with that, given the way things are going for Scotland, both now and historically, in my lifetime. This was okay with me. Very good. Yes, yes, indeed. We have got plenty of USM&T chat to come on this episode. Before we get there, patreon.com slash total soccer show. Hey, did you hear that's the best way to support this here endeavor? Yeah, it's true, Joe. It's true. Don't look so surprised. I'm shocked. I'm oozing with shock. Oh, my. You ever want to do that? You can get bonus episodes on there, bonus video content, and access to our Discord server where most of the, no, all of

the cool kids are hanging out. Patreon.com slash total soccer show. Goodness me. What a start to this

episode. Let's get straight into it, shall we? Hey, Taylor. Yeah. Let's start off the conversation around

players who have stood out to us, US players who stood up to us over the weekend, over the most recent round.

Can we even squeeze in a nomination for US players who performed well in, let's say, Tuesday's Champions League evening?

Let's say in PSV's win over Napoli, for example.

That's a player that might want some spotlighting.

Are you trying to leave me to Ricardo Pepe?

Because my friend, my answer is not Ricardo Pepe. Would you like to talk Ricardo Pepe, Ryan? He just done a go in the Champions League, I thought, is worth talking about. Not as many as Scott McTominee, though, as he did for the team that lost six to. Well, Heath was more useful. He was a winner. Yeah. I did not have a credit,

largely because I haven't watched much of the Champions League thus far. I look forward to doing that this evening in frantic fashion to be ready for our Champions League review show later in the week. For now, what I will say is that this weekend was kind of a little bit of a bummer. It was a little bit of a down weekend at the very least because we had Pulisic out with injury.

Tseilman, Jedi Robertson also out with injury. So not like some of the names that you would reliably expect to be in the conversation. But Eunice Musa, I think an unused substitute, Gior Raina and Joe Scali having a rough time with Glogbach. So it's a slightly tougher one. And so we could go negative with the standout. I'm going to try to stay positive. And I'm going to point to Nochi Banks started his second straight Bundesliga match this past weekend. He played in the 3-to-1 win over Wolfsburg prior to the international break. And then this weekend, it was a one-to-one draw with Kohlm. I missed, honestly, that he scored a goal against Wolfsburg in his first start

of the season. He got his first professional goal. And then this past weekend was just a very

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