Episode 134: Return of the Future Draft, where we pick XIs of un-capped U23s

American heroes Sanjiv (@usmntvideos) and Chris (@watke_) join the pod for a draft of starting XIs from the ranks of un-capped male American soccer players. Sanjiv: https://twitter.com/usmntvideos Watke: https://twitter.com/watke_ Here are the rules: Only U.S.-eligible players born in 1997 or later are allowed. We go youngest to oldest in the draft order, so Sanjiv first, then Watke, then Belz, and then the draft order snakes for the rest of the picks. Anyone already capped with the senior men’s national team is disqualified. That excludes, for instance, Pulisic, McKennie, Adams, Sargent, Weah and now Mark McKenzie, Uly Llanez, Sam Vines, Jesus Ferreira, Paxon Pomykal and Brenden Aaronson. We’re picking specifically with the goal of assembling the best possible team in 2026. This makes it fun and pretty much releases from any responsibility to be correct in our choices. Everything will change by 2026 in ways none of us foresee. We each need to come up with a starting XI, a total of 33 players. Dual nationals are fine as long as they're not cap-tied with another nation. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Also, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.com And check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.