The Straight Red Card

It was not a good week for Yanks abroad. Jesse Marsch and Leeds poo'ed the bed, Josh Sargent didn't stand a chance, and Christian Pulisic suffered an illness that prevented him from playing. Derek and Brett follow up with how Yanks did abroad. Who do you think suffered the most?

Derek and Brett review Que Golazo's recent USMNT Hour where they talk about the March window and Gregg's starting XI. Given all of the injuries, who do you think Gregg will call in and start in Mexico?

Leeds, battling to stay afloat and avoid relegation, took on a Leicester City team combatting a very lack luster season. Leeds, needing the points, missed chance after chance and ended up dropping points. Norwich is at the bottom of the table and if they wish to stay in the Premier League next season they will need to pick up points somewhere. However, fellow bottom table Brentford proved to be to...

World Cup qualifying is coming to an end and the final window is arguably the most important window yet. Currently sitting tied for second in the Octagonal, Gregg is dealing with a series of injuries that make this roster even more questionable. Weston McKennie, Giovanni Reyna, Zack Steffen, Matt Turner, just to name a few would be starters will not be available. Who does Gregg then call in? Derek...

New Leeds United manager, Jesse Marsch took center stage at a pre-match presser. The chat were leery at first, but the more questions slung at Marsch the more they were willing to give him a chance. It wasn't until the Ted Lasso comment and agreeing there is some substance to the anti-America stigma in European soccer that the chat starting liking him. Derek and Brett will talk about some of the k...

Ricardo Pepi hasn't scored at the club level in 150+ games, but is it time to push the panic button? Herc and Seb sure think so, at the club level. Derek and Brett cover this topic and whether they feel we should be worried. Pepi may be near half a year without scoring a club goal, but one must remember he went 3 months without a club match. Hoppe also found some playing time, seemingly out of now...

FIFA and UEFA have released a joint statement displaying unity in removing all Russian teams from all competitions. UEFA also removed the Champions League away from Russia. Sweden, Czech Republic, and Poland all reached out to UEFA in stating they would not travel to Russia for the away matches in Russia. Do you think FIFA and UEFA made the right decision? Is this fair to the players?

Jesse Marsch is the new Leeds United manager. For better or worse, this was not a well kept secret. After a failed stint at Leipzig, Jesse will be aiming to rebound at Leeds. Do you think he'll do well? Do you think he'll keep Leeds from being relegated? Will he keep the job if they are?

Derek and Brett are joined with Max Bretos to discuss the final window of World Cup Qualifying for the USMNT. We also delve into the topic of whether there is a black list of journalists and content creators, whether the USMNT mainstream media are too soft and timid, and whether we'd get an actual answer from Gregg Berhalter if we did.

Josh Sargent is starting a new path in his career. While not being proficient in scoring at this point, Josh has found himself playing out wide or even in the middle for Norwich. Given his work ethic, skills, and technical knowledge to know where to be, Josh may in fact succeed. If relegated will Norwich continue to utilize him out wide or do we see him back up top. USMNT will likely see him up to...

Derek and Brett discuss recent quotes from Luca De La Torre, Eryk Williamson, and others. Talks about how the system is complicated and tough to learn for new players on their first couple windows. The system is successful at a club level when you have all the time in the world to go over things, but Gregg has 6-8 days at most with 3 of them consumed by games.

McKennie is injured and will not be present for the final and vital World Cup Qualifying window. Derek and Brett talk about that and many other of our stars who played in Europa and Champions League.

Derek and Brett are joined by Sam from YanksReport to discuss Bobby Warsaws interview with Gregg Berhalter, where to play Reyna when/if he is healthy, Pulisic's interview about trying too much, and more.

European leagues are often tempting for any professional soccer player, but are all leagues created equal? Derek and Brett talk about the influx of MLS based players transferring to lower level European leagues. These might be lateral or slightly higher moves, but are they worth it?

Toxic fandoms are all the rage today, and USMNT fandom is no different. Seriously though, the topic continues to show up. "USMNT Twitter is toxic" is displayed in my feed daily it seems, but is there any merit to the statement? Derek and Brett review a video from our friend Sam at YanksReport where he asked these questions to Former World Cup defender and friend of the show, Jimmy Conrad. What sid...

Does the USMNT player pool doubt Gregg's system? Derek and Brett look at the body language, lack of callups, interviews, and more to draw a conclusion. No player has out right said anything of the sort, but what isn't said is sometimes more convincing than what is.

Who is filling in USMNT depth chart currently? Derek and Brett look at each position and cover the top 5 options. In our list a player can only appear once so when you think that someone like Scally could be in LB and RB depth, note that he'll only show up in one list.

Bill Archer joined us on Tuesday to discuss a variety of topics. Most important to Bill is FIFA and their confederations' corruption. Bill has been a proponent on calling FIFA out for a very long time. This is the full podcast and is broken up into smaller segments on YouTube.

After two lack luster performances this window, the US are set to finish it against Honduras in Minneapolis. Honduras is sitting at the bottom of the table with just 3 points and their World Cup Qualifying hopes all but squashed. They have to play for the win, which could play to USMNT's benefit as the game will be open. Derek and Brett try to predict the lineup and makes some suggestions to what...

After discussing what went wrong in the match, Derek and Brett give their grades to the players on the field. What a confusing episode...

USMNT lost to Canada 2-1. Canada has shown CONCACAF that they are the better team this World Cup Qualifying cycle and they are doing that as a team. USMNT have players playing on significantly better teams in better leagues, but they are currently disjointed and not playing well together. Derek and Brett talk about what are the root causes and potential fixes as we enter the final game of the wind...

Derek and Brett take a listener's depth chart posted on Twitter and discuss what we think is right, wrong, or debatable about it. How close was he to getting what we think? How close to yours?

Bold predictions leading into the 2022 World Cup? Will Brooks make the World Cup roster? How well will Serbia, Portugal and/or Italy perform in the World Cup?

Things have happened this week with our yanks abroad. Soto not panning out at Porto II, where does that leave him? Tessmann and Venezia struggling in their cup match. Sargent may have missed the weekend match, but it turns out he was at the hospital for the birth of his child. Congrats, and welcome back to Norwich where he scored a goal!!! Ok, he caused an own goal with a great shot!!! Ok, it was...

It turns out that Miles Robinson enjoys his spot at Atlanta and may not necessarily be eager to test the waters out in Europe. Was he just being politically correct? Has Atlanta informed him they have zero intention of selling him? Or perhaps he is comfortable where he is in MLS and loves the city of Atlanta?