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

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



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