Scuffed | U.S. soccer, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America

Episode 47: The Future Draft — picking teams of un-capped American U21s

Episode Summary

Joey Anthone and Matt Hartman join for a draft of uncapped U-21 Americans with the goal of assembling hypothetical teams for the 2026 World Cup. The three of us each picked a 20-player roster (or 60 total players), and briefly discussed who came out best.

Episode Notes

Joey Anthone (@USAProspects), Matt Hartman (@MattSHartman) join for a draft of uncapped U-21 Americans with assembling hypothetical teams for the 2026 World Cup in mind. The three of us each pick a 20-player roster, and briefly discuss who came out best.

Here were the rules:

• Only U.S.-eligible players born in 1997 or later are allowed.
• Anyone already capped with the senior men’s national team is disqualified. That excludes, for instance, Pulisic, McKennie, Adams, Sargent, Weah, even though they are age-eligible.
• We’re picking specifically with the goal of assembling the best possible team in 2026.
• We each need to come up with a 20-man roster, including two goalkeepers. That's a total of 60 players.
• Dual nationals are allowed, so long as they’ve accepted a youth national team call-up at some point and are not cap-tied by another nation.

We'll roll out info on Twitter (@zlebmada) and a poll to decide the winner over the next few days, but here are the major timestamps:

• 0:30 Rules
• 1:50 Rounds 1-10
• 38:10 Rounds 11-20
• 1:26:35 Brief discussion