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.



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