Historic midfield debates & three games to watch this weekend
Plus several worthwhile moments on the Discord.
Welcome to the Scuffed Newsletter, a weekly email guide to the U.S. men's national soccer team. Sign up free to get it in your inbox every Friday. This week we talk about embark on the futile task of comparing different types of midfielders over different eras and tell you which games to watch this weekend.
Weston McKennie v Stu Holden
A poll on Reddit asked recently whether Weston McKennie’s “past few months” are the best run of club form for a USMNT midfielder ever. I said “yes” on Twitter, and ran into mild disagreement on the Internet.
Claudio Reyna’s name emerged. So did Michael Bradley’s. The candidate with the most support is Stu Holden, now a FOX commentator, who had a very good three-quarters of a season in the Premier League for Bolton Wanderers in the fall of 2010 and spring of 2011 before he suffered the brutal knee injury that spelled the beginning of the end of his career. (Holden underwent more knee surgery earlier this week, by the way.)
I watched one of Holden’s matches that season, a 4-2 win over Tottenham, a squad that included Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Peter Crouch. The former Houston Dynamo player was alert and rangy off the ball in defense and in attack, tidy in possession and strong in the tackle. He looked great. He didn’t break the game open aside from one good tackle of Modric in Tottenham’s defensive third that led to a chance. A single match cannot be conclusive, of course, but while quite good, Holden didn’t look to me like the big-time player we increasingly have in McKennie.
The setting matters. McKennie is a key player for Juventus. Granted, it’s a weaker-than-usual Juventus, but it’s still one of the world’s great football clubs, a place where famous players ride the bench. This season, McKennie has not only added Maxi Allegri to the growing list of managers who cannot help but start him, he’s consistently delivered match-shaping moments. Goals, assists, key transition attacking and defending moments.
McKennie has suffered in the eyes of U.S. fans since he broke through at Schalke, because there’s a recklessness to the way he plays. He will try the weak-foot side-winder half-volley switch when a tidier player might settle the ball and find feet 10 yards away. He will take the space and gallop down the channel in a speculative expedition when a more risk-averse player might stop and cycle possession backward. He will make a lung-busting run in behind the centerbacks to find the ball on the endline rather than step back and tap the ball around. To use a metaphor from another sport, he swings for the fences. Sometimes he hits a home run, more often he hits a double into the gap, sometimes he strikes out. And those strikeouts stick in the viewer’s mind. This might be the biggest difference between McKennie and the Holden I saw versus Tottenham. If you want a metronome ticking methodically at the back of the midfield and protecting the defense with Tyler Adams-esque thoroughness, Holden in late 2010 is probably your pick. If you want a midfielder who is putting his stamp on the game, dominating in the air, and constantly asking questions of a defense, you want McKennie.
As a U.S. fan who’s wary of the slow-moving possession competence we got in Nashville against Canada and other times when McKennie was not on the field, my bias is toward the latter.
Now there’s an argument to be made that McKennie playing for a Juventus side that’s sitting fifth in the Serie A table is not as impressive as what Holden did at Bolton. With Holden starting basically every match, Bolton were 7th in the table by mid-March. After Jonny Evans ended his season with a brutal boots-to-the-knee challenge that drew a deserved red card, Bolton wilted. They lost all but two of their remaining matches and ended the season near the bottom of the table. That’s pretty convincing stuff, and I can’t discount it. Guardian readers, over the first half of the season, gave Holden the highest ratings of any player in the Premier League. This proves no more than that Bolton fans appreciated him more than fans of other teams appreciated their players, but it means something.
If you’d like to read a nearly 10,000-word missive on Holden, written in late 2013, that covers a lot of what was so compelling about him in excruciating detail, go here. It’s a fun read. Here’s what it says about the Guardian ratings:
I don't really think Holden was the best player in the Premiership. But the thing that I honestly don't think most MNT fans realize is that he was really fucking awesome. His play in late 2010 through early 2011 was his professional apex to date. And at that peak, he was recognized by non-insane English fans as one of the best midfielders in the entire league and one of the players most responsible for elevating a mediocre club to much-higher-than-expected heights. I dwell on that Guardian piece so much because it really seemed to vindicate the upward trajectory that I had been charting, and marking, and coloring, and counting, and investing actual emotion in for a few years. It sounds somewhat dumb, but that was a key moment of one of My Guys really making it.
I can’t settle this debate (for myself, in a rigorous way) without watching more footage. I will admit, freely, however, that Weston McKennie is one of My Guys. I haven’t watched Reyna’s matches at Rangers or Wolfsburg. I probably won’t go back and watch Bradley at Toronto in 2017 (that year of soccer for that player is painful to consider), and there’s just this one Holden at Bolton game on footballia.
So the answer, as so often it is with me, is I don’t know. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was right. But who cares? An American, the son of a military family who grew up in Texas and slathers his pizza in ranch dressing, is having a magnificent run of form at that massive club in Torino and it’s happening right now, and we can watch all of it. LFG.
-Belz
Weekend Viewing Suggestions
These are only suggestions. A full listing of options appears in the Playbill graphic below, which you are, of course, free to choose from as you like. Ultimately the games you watch are up to you. But I would push back against the school of thought that game selection is purely a matter of personal preference. People make incorrect viewing decisions all the time. It’s a product of the sheer number of Americans playing in Europe now, and it’s only going to get more difficult. This section of the newsletter is meant as a public resource for people who find themselves struggling in this area. These suggestions are directed at a hypothetical person, overwhelmed by their options, who has time to watch exactly three games.
Note: I’ve used Central Time. This is only to make them consistent with the full Playbill graphic prepared by Greg Velesquez (see below). Please do not interpret it as my endorsing Central Time. I most certainly do not.
Chelsea at Manchester City. Saturday, 6:30 a.m. CT. Peacock.
Under normal circumstances waking up this early on a weekend is never recommended, but this is an exceptional case. Big games are the only ones where we get relevant information on Christian Pulisic. (There’s also a psycho-social benefit to big games: Many other people will be watching this game, so as you are watching, even if you are watching alone, you will feel a connection to the world). Given the start time, you do not have to watch this game, but it cannot be incorrect to watch, even if you are not a morning person. That’s how big this game is. Also, Pulisic didn’t play in Chelsea’s recent cup game so he is very likely to feature tomorrow.
Udinese at Juventus. Saturday, 1:45 p.m. CT. Paramount+
A player who is always confident anyway is at peak confidence now. Weston McKennie is likely to cover even more ground than normal and will, if my charting is correct, attempt and complete his most ambitious blind one-touch volley through ball to date. His back will be to goal inside his own half, and he’ll play it out of the air, looping it forward at about a 140 degree angle into the path of a teammate in full sprint. It won’t be a world-shaking highlight, but it will be unusually good.
Venezia v Empoli. Sunday, 8 a.m. CT. Paramount+
Five factors: 1) Gianluca Busio has been playing well and figures to be relevant in the upcoming qualifying cycle, 2) Venezia games often turn into open, exciting affairs, 3) there are serious competitive stakes as Venezia is just one point above the relegation zone, 4) Tanner Tessman will sometimes pop-up, and 5) it’s calming to watch games played in the little stadium by the Venetian Lagoon. This game also has a Flex Option built in. PSV plays Groningen at 7:30AM CST. Monitor for if Richy Ledezma subs in, at which point you should switch to that.
-watke
Weekend Playbill
Discord Download/Midweek Minutes
Weston McKennie continued his arguably-best-ever-USMNT form by scoring against Inter Milan in the Italian Super Cup. It was not enough for Juve, who lost 2-1 on an extra time goal from Alexis Sánchez. Check out USMNTvideos’ highlight reel on youtube, plus some good content.
Tanner Tessman put in a decent 90 minute shift for Venezia in a close-until-the-end 2-0 loss to Atalanta. Was it enough to get a look as midfield depth in the upcoming window?
Christian Pulisic was an unused substitute in Chelsea’s mid-week matchup with Tottenham where they secured their place in the EFL cup final. Hopefully this was to keep him fresh for a start at Man City on the weekend.
Josh Sargent was missing from the Norwich squad because his partner had a baby! Congrats Josh, and surely now that he’s a father he’ll turn that corner any minute. Norwich lost 2-0 without him.
Sergiño Dest was left out of the matchday squad in El Clasico. Is this a good sign that he’s transfer-adjacent? Or is this a terrible sign that he’s being Bryan Reynolds’d? Also of note, under no circumstances is this game to be referred to as el ‘assico. Central-time-at-heart Scuffed Global Headquarters has ruled it be left for some college football game.
Greg takes us to an alternate timeline where Tim Weah doesn’t start against Costa Rica and isn’t involved in the last five USMNT goals scored.
Not on the discord yet? Tell me then, where else can you pontificate on goth James Sands? This is just a teaser, the philosophical differences between nihilism and cynicism were also covered.
In case you forgot, we have a potentially disastrous game location coming up quick.
Emoji Review - Say What?
Much like Weston McKennie when a journalist is speaking Italian too quickly after a hard-fought match, sometimes what you’ve just seen or heard on the server is too much to take in. Our midfield monster’s unforgettable :wes_wut: look is a popular emoji around these parts.
We’ve all been there. You and the crew are talking sports and your boy just says something absurd like “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the best Indiana Jones movie” or “there’s no way Josh Sargent will be the next superstar USMNT midfielder.” We thank Tyler Adams today for giving us the proper face to respond to such silliness with :tyler_wut:
Did my Scuffed brother/sister just say what I thought they said? Is Thomas Tuchel seriously playing Christian Pulisic as a deep-lying mid? Is Kellyn Acosta an overrated shithouser? Kellyn makes his Scuffed debut this week with the :acosta_notsureifserious: look.
Oguchi Onyewu had no time for Mexico’s BS in his day. And when faced with similar levels of nonsense, a Scuffian can respond just as Gooch did - hair on point, eyes on fire, ice in veins.
Finally, the most heartbreaking “say what” experience of them all. That awful moment when the worst person you know just made a great point. The insights of bad people stumbling upon great insights can be forever memorialized on Scuffed with the :heartbreakpoint: emoji.
PS: Patrons get access to the Scuffed Discord and with that access you have the ability to add custom emojis to the server. Join the community to, among other things, suffer the soul-crushing disappointment of logging into your company Slack team and realizing you cannot react to something with a :deuceshades: emoji because none of your coworkers will get it.
- Coach Beard, MJM-borne69 (Matt)
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Have a great weekend.