Futbol Americas: Tyler Adams Suffers Injury

0:00I don't think anybody's touching him. He's one of the few locks that I have under Maris Pochettino. He is the best in his position that this country can offer. We've had discussions about the old guard of players who had trouble cracking in the lineup with Maris Pochettino, staying in the lineup. That really hasn't been the issue with Tyler Adams when he's physically fit. When he's physically fit, he's always been there. He's one of the few players for this team that when he actually addresses the media and talks after games, he makes sense. And if I look at the type of profile player he is, you don't have anybody like him on the U.S.

0:30Men's National Team. He seems to be the one player that takes the position of the spokesperson for the rest of the group. You see somebody that doesn't physically look like he should be physically imposing, and yet he is. In his aggressiveness, in his leadership, in the way he tackles, in the way he runs players down. But he's also just a very smart footballer. The leadership abilities that he has and how serious he is on and off the field, it's a no-brainer for him. The one concern that I would have, and this is a valid concern, I believe, is this level of fitness.

1:09Hello, hello, everyone. Get comfy. Come on into our studios. And welcome to a new edition of Football Americas. I'm Alexis Nunes, alongside my West Indian partner in crime, Shaka Hislop. A lot to talk about on today's show. Toluca, our Kings in Mexico again. We're going to look at that. It was an exciting, thrilling goal fest of a game against Tigres. Plus, a pair of Brazilians managed to cook up some magic for Xabi Alonso just when he needed it most. So we're going to look at that later on. But first, some worrying news as it relates to the U.S. men's national team because Manchester United took on Bournemouth today.

1:50Tyler Adams was in action at least temporarily for about five minutes until he had a bit of a collision, went down, and ended up hobbling off. You can see him colliding here with Man United's Mateus Cunha. He eventually had to be taken off with just five minutes on the clock. Now, this is giving me some alarm bells, but that's why we've got our Shaka Hislop here because we want to find out if this is calm or alarm. Remember, the World Cup is just about six months away now, Shaka. And judging by your face, it does not look too promising or judging by the type of injury as well. But because we talk about Tyler Adams, as we heard from Herc and Ale in the start there, that he was at least one of the few locked starters for Mauricio Pochettino.

2:41I don't know how you replace Tyler Adams in the US Mets national team for what he brings. not just on the park, but certainly in terms of leadership. Without Tyler Adams, you wonder if Pochettino is going to have to kind of tinker with his formation, which nobody wants to be doing now and trying to get right at this point where they work up quickly coming. Tyler Adams is a big miss. To the question about calm or alarm, I'm calm-ish, if that's an option. One, because Tyler Adams leaves the park on his own. Okay. He's limping, yes, and kind of skipped to it, but he's not being carried off, carried off the field.

3:20The alarm comes from Tyler Adams' injury history. Yeah. And the fact that the contact that was made with Cunha, it was, well, ball in between two feet, but it seemed to catch Tyler Adams on the end of his foot. And that twist, you wonder. Now, ordinarily, you would think, oh, it's just an ankle, a twist of the ankle, a hyperextension, however you want to phrase it. But because of Tyler Adams' injury history, you just worry about it being more. But for that, but for Tyler Adams' history, I am calm. I am not at all bothered about it. But here's the but. Here's the but, and it's a big but when you just look at that injury history that Shaka has been mentioning.

4:08And he was just getting back into a groove, especially with Bournemouth. He kind of showed us exactly what he can do if he gets a shot at goal just about two weeks ago with a stunning goal for Bournemouth in the Premier League. But we were talking about Tyler Adams for the U.S. men's national team. Just hearing what Ale said, just hearing what Herc said, that he is the best in that position. But he also offers an extra layer in terms of that leadership, that almost true Captain America vibe, if you will. What's the one thing or many things you think that Tyler Adams gives this U.S. men's national team that you really see nobody else will be able to bring in?

4:42Well, first of all, it gives this team a focus. And listen, when people talk about who the impact players will be for the U.S. men's national team, Christian Pulisic rises to the top of the list. You could throw in a G arena, that type of player. Chris Richards as well, he's quite vocal. There are a number of players, but I think Tyler Adams is the unspoken leader of this team. And let's be honest, if the U.S. are to go anywhere as deep as they either expect to or expected to, they're going to have to be gritty at times. They're going to have to win games a little bit ugly. They're going to have moments, regardless, throughout this tournament where things get ugly and you're looking for someone just to be that calm in influence, just to be the leader in those moments.

5:28Now, for all the talents of Arena and Pulisic, nobody brings that calm. Nobody brings that sense of grit. Nobody brings leadership like Tyler Adams. That is a really, really big miss. If you're Mauricio Pochettino and just saying, I mean, we're not hoping for the worst by any means. But if you're Mauricio Pochettino and you're seeing this, what do you start thinking of? Do you start thinking, because Poch always says that he makes it adamant that he's not building this team around any one player. that nobody is a guaranteed starter, not even the likes of a Christian Pulisic. So you feel like he's not building a team around one set player.

6:05But as you said, this is Tyler Adams. You're not just losing one of the best in that position, but you're also losing a personality that this young team will need at a home World Cup. So what do you start thinking? Do you change your system or do you just focus on that area of the pitch? Well, and that's the thing. Right now, I'm thinking a change of system might probably suit the U.S. best. a Western McKinney alongside a Eunice Moussa might make the most sense because there is no like-for-like replacement for Tyler Adams, right? So let's just accept that. So now how do we get that passing range, that coverage, that reading of the game?

6:42And as far as I can tell, you go, Western McKinney and Eunice Moussa might embody all those things. The U.S. count. They were 12 men, I don't think. I don't think so. If I were to go with one, I think Weston McKinney is probably the closest in terms of being gritty, being a leader. So if you're determined not to change your formation, not to change how you line up, I stick Weston McKinney in that hole. And then if you're Tyler Adams as well, let's hope this isn't the worst again. Of course, we're waiting for full confirmation. Don't want to speculate any at all. But if you're him, what's going to be tougher now on that road to recovery, especially when you feel like there's a time crunch knowing that the World Cup and knowing that a roster is going to have to come up probably in the next couple of months.

7:35Is it finding that rhythm again on how you feel after a big injury setback, Shaka? Or is it just the confidence as well in yourself? I would like to think it's more the rhythm. Get back to playing. Get back to playing regularly. Playing 90 minutes regularly. Not having any after effects. Listen, we all know with these injuries, as much as you may come back, it's then how much pain are you in after? And maybe it's a manageable pain, but you don't want to have that on your mind. If you can get into the rhythm of playing 90 minutes of football regularly, once, on occasion, twice a week, without any after effects, the confidence comes as a result of that.

8:17So I think the primary ask here is the rhythm, getting back into playing those games every single Saturday, getting 90 minutes out of every single Saturday. There's no major effects on your joints, on your pain to put you off in terms of your training schedule during the course of the week, which is also a part of finding a rhythm. Yeah, well, we definitely wish Tyler all the best in recovery. We hope this is definitely not a long-term injury because, as Shaq and all the boys have said, there's just nobody quite like him on the U.S. squad. Look, the economy is a lot right now. And if you're a small business owner, you probably feel it.

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10:56Save$45 with my promo code SMALLS at urgentcarekit.com slash SMALLS. That's promo code SMALLS at urgentcarekit.com slash SMALLS. Prescription required. Always consult your doctor to determine if this product is right for you. But there is some good news, especially if we're talking about people with injury histories. Look at that. Anthony Robinson. Good news as he's suiting back up for Fulham. He played a full 90 for them at Fulham Road against Burnley. and it was, well, it wasn't exactly at, it was at Turf Moor, but it was their first win that they managed to get there in 1951 was the last one.

11:38And let me tell you, Turf Moor is no easy place to go. I've been there as well. Shaka, I have been there. It is no easy place to go. I got coined there. Okay. I got a couple coins thrown at me. I was in the waystand for Manchester United and I got a couple coins thrown. So, do you know what, Jedi? Well done. But looking at Anthony Robinson, this is another key player for Mauricio Pochettino. In terms of he brings something that not many other players bring, Xhaka. So what is that? He brings mobility. He brings an engine like nobody else. He also brings experience in that position, given his role for Fulham and the USMES national team in the past.

12:20Let me be frank here. Before Anthony Robinson's injury, he was in a serious discussion around best left backs in the game today. Bar anyone, right? So never mind just for the U.S. men's national team. That is how good a player Anthony Robinson is. You caught the eye of big clubs as well, like Liverpool. Manchester United, if you still want to talk about them as a big club. Manchester City, we're keeping an eye on him. Love how you have to correct me on the Manchester clubs. If you want to throw them in there, okay, fair enough. I'll give you that. But that is how good a player Anthony Robertson is.

12:55Yeah. And taking that out of any team, whether it's Fulham or the U.S. Men's National Team, has to have a telling effect. Now, having him back, I think, again, elevates his U.S. Men's National Team in a way that it's difficult to describe. Alstair has been Pochettino more. As Pochettino's preferred choice, very good left back. But again, if you're talking the best left backs in the world today, Anthony Robinson at his peak, Ayer El Togo, Shaitanya was in that conversation, brings that back. You cannot underestimate the pace that Anthony Robinson brings to this team, the ground that he covers. Yes.

13:35That is an addition that I'm not sure, again, you are able to replace with one player. He has that grit too, that kind of scrappiness as well, that I think a lot of them say that the U.S. men's national team, and we know Herc and everybody has banged on about it, that that's exactly what is needed. We know that once he's back playing fully fit, as we talked about, he has been coveted by some of the big clubs as well. How high is his ceiling once we get a fully fit Anthony Robinson playing week in, week out, the full 90? Like I say, I stand by Anthony Robinson's potentially in the top three left backs in world football at his best.

14:12He's come back from an injury and that is never an easy thing to do, even with modern science. But, so you take that into consideration, well, I don't think that there's any limit to it. And you look at big clubs and their need. Real Madrid need defenders. You could start looking along the line for so many of the big European clubs. If Anthony Robinson rediscovers his form, it's only a matter of time before he finds himself on the books of one of Europe's giants. Well, we talk about this so many times because Mauricio Pochettino keeps telling us that nobody is a guaranteed starter on his team.

14:53However, we on Football Americas have said that, look, there are a couple of names that we can safely put down, like a Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, of course, if he's fit, maybe a Weston McKinney as well. Is Anthony Robinson one of those? Well, apparently Matt Fries as well. As our producer better reminded us, thank goodness Casey's not here to hear that, but he definitely won't. Casey's still holding up for a call-up himself. Casey's still holding up for the call-up. But would you put an Anthony Robinson at this point as a guaranteed starter, given the fact that he is still coming back from it?

15:26Right, and that's the thing. Listen, injuries are our thing, and we'll have further discussions about injuries and players coming back from injuries. But injuries are things that you still have to manage. You play one game, you feel fine, you play two, but then all of a sudden you start playing five, six, you start playing midweek games, and then it's telling. And more times than not, when you have a long-term injury, such as the one Anthony Robinson coming back from, you pick up little niggling injuries as a result. After four or five games, something that might not seem to be at all related becomes an issue for a week or two.

16:00You have to work your way through. That's just a normal cycle of things. You have to work your way through that cycle, those little niggles. Once you do that, you prove your worth. Now, again, all things considered, even less he goes through those kind of stop-starts moments, but more and more gets consistent with his time, with how often he plays for Fulham. Once we get to April, May time, and he's fully fit and playing consistently, there is nobody that takes Anthony Robinson's place. I feel like he's so underrated in the Premier League. Absolutely is. He's so underrated. Absolutely is. That's why he should come to a big club like Manchester United so that it lifts his stocks, you know?

16:46You know, Shaq, you don't agree? But you feel like he at least is destined for a bigger club with all due respect to Fulham. Absolutely. Absolutely. Listen, he's playing for Fulham. And that in itself offers a ceiling. If you aren't competing in Europe regularly, you aren't playing in Champions League. But you feel like he's hit that ceiling at Fulham. Yes, he has. Yes, he has. And now you want, because the other aspect to this, and while I could sit here and say Anthony Robles is one of the best left-backs in the world game today, there are countless examples of players who could maybe make that claim at a smaller club, even a smaller Premier League club, but then all of a sudden find yourself at a Manchester City or a Liverpool or a Barcelona or a Real Madrid and struggle to make that great.

17:36Young Kirk is a perfect example at Liverpool. That you just aren't able to make that jump. Now, there's nothing to suggest that Anthony Robinson can. Let me just say that. Absolutely nothing. I would take that chance. But until he does, until he does pull on one of those shirts, until he is able to play that level consistently, there will always be this what if. For my money, I absolutely would take that gamble. All right. Well, keeping things in terms. Big club, though. It's going to be a big club. Check I said a big club. Yeah, just make a shout out. Manchester United is a big club. We have a little disagreement about that qualifier.

18:1220 times. 20 times. Anthony, you could be, you know, sitting with 20 times, 20 times Man United. All right, well, speaking of big clubs, that's Bayern Munich. Nobody's bigger than them in Germany. And look at this. We'll talk about a sight for sore eyes. We know how long we have been without Fonzie. Alphonso Davies, the Canadian, made his Bundesliga return. He did have a little cameo late in their Champions League game against Sporting midweek. But then he finally got some very valuable minutes for Bayern Munich in what was a draw against Mainz. A bit of a surprising draw, but he still got to catch up with our Archie Runtas.

18:52Let's hear what he had to say. Alphonso, first, great to see you back from injury. Not the return you would have wanted. How did you see the game? Yeah, it's good to be back. You know, it's good to be back on the pitch playing football. Yeah, I mean, overall, the game, you know, obviously didn't go our way. It's not the result that we wanted. But we knew that they were going to come out here and play hard. And, yeah, I mean, the only thing we can do now is keep our head high. We've still got one more game left before the Christmas break. And we'll review this game and see where we made mistakes and move on.

19:28Respect to you for your vulnerability in the documentary that's just come out. talking about how you were crying in the shower with the injury and that. Can't have been easy to have gone through what you've just gone through. Yeah, no, it's tough. Obviously, for me, it was my first big injury. It's my first surgery ever. Yeah, I mean, I think during the whole process until that, before I took a shower, I mean, I was just compressing my emotions and, you know, I couldn't do it anymore. But, yeah, I mean, I've came out of it. I've, you know, moved on and I continue to keep working and building up the muscle in the leg.

20:05And, yeah, I mean, it changed my mindset on many different things in life for sure. Alphonso, thank you. Thank you. All right, Alphonso Davies there. Xhaka was covering that game for us on our Bundesliga coverage on ESPN. And, of course, it wasn't the result or the return that Alphonso Davies would have wanted. However, it was just minutes, Xhaka, minutes once again. And that is something that he needed. But it is still such a delicate situation, not just for him, but for Bayern as well, who are still coming along nicely without him. So how do they handle his workload now? And how much is Canada probably breathing down their backs about how Bayern handled this?

20:46Right now, Canada can't breathe down Bayern's backs, given that he picked up the injury plane for Canada, which Bayern weren't too happy about. So they've got that little issue going on between them. Right now, and similarly as I was speaking about Anthony Robinson, Bayern manage Alphonso Davies slowly, as they have been. Now, in this game against Mainz, there were signs of the old Alphonso Davies, the change of pace, how quickly he gets forward, how effective he is in the attacking third. But similarly, you don't want to overload those minutes. Major injury, long time out. Yes, modern science is fantastic.

21:25But inevitably, there will still be little niggles that you pick up from time to time. As you go along, that's part of the process. And you've got to work your way through that. The big danger is trying to force Alphonso Davies to play through those little niggling injuries in whatever way that may be. Now, I say that Bayern Munich, although they dropped two points against Mainz unexpectedly over the weekend, that's four points dropped all season. They still have not lost in the Bundesliga. Yes, they lost in the Champions League against Arsenal, but that's the only blip on their year so far, their season so far.

22:05So they have been able to cope, is my point, without Alphonso Davies. So they could afford just to keep things going, slowly but surely, and ease Alphonso Davies back better than most would be able to, given the fact that they are just running like a well-oiled machine at the moment. And I mean, I don't just say this because I'm in a Canadian tuxedo today with a double denim, but I heard it takes a lot to get Canadians really angry. But I know they were definitely going to be angry if we do see any of those niggles come up for Alphonso Davies. And I was just thinking back at these injuries that we've been talking about, whether it's the Jedi, whether it's the Tyler Adams, when Tyler Adams went down today and you could just see his reaction.

22:44You could see the pain, of course, that he was in. But you almost just wonder if it's him going, geez, please, not again, not again, because there's trauma. There's trauma involved in that. And then looking at Alphonso Davies and him speaking about the emotions of just coming back again that he was experiencing, you know, you feel like they themselves have to ease themselves into it. So not saying that they're going to be holding back in these performances knowing that a World Cup is nearby. But if you're looking at Alphonso Davies and how he's playing, what are you looking for to say, OK, he's back?

23:15He's back to being the Fonzie that Canada will need for a strong team. I'll be honest, you saw, as I mentioned, you saw shades of it against Mainz. How quickly he got forward, how quickly he got back, the change of pace, the acceleration. And now all you want is the consistency and you want to be able to do it for 90 minutes. And while playing at left back for Bayern Munich is one ask, playing for Canada, and certainly Alphonso Davies' role with Canada is totally different, in that while he may be their captain and their standout player, when they're defending, he's their left back and there isn't much more you could ask of Alphonso Davies sitting in that position.

23:53But when they need a goal, when they need to play on the front foot a bit more, Alphonso Davies also steps in to play as a left wing for the Canadian national team. So he offers a whole lot of versatility to Canada in terms of the way they approach games. So this, again, similarly with Tyler Adams, Alphonso Davies' fitness, dare I say, is pivotal to Canada and any successes they are to recognize in this upcoming World Cup. That was literally going to be kind of my next question, because I know that when we had our World Cup draw special, I mean, you guys were singing doom and gloom for Canada.

24:30And it's no doubt that they do have a bit of a tough group, or they do have a tough group or a tougher run, say, than Mexico or the United States in terms of getting to once they get to the knockout. But a fully fit and functioning and well-oiled machine of Alphonso Davies Say we get that come June and July for Canada. How much does this change their ceiling or their expectations as opposed to say a Canada with just a 50 percent him or without him? Yeah, listen, I still think this is going to be a tough worker for Canada with or without Alphonso Davies. Having your best player, having your leader, having the player with the most high level experience available to you changes that.

25:10It makes things exponentially better in how you manage difficult periods in games, how you manage difficult results, how you start, how you transition into playing on the front foot during games and recognizing when you're having the better of the ball. Those kinds of things don't come easily. They come with experience, high-level experience, which Alphonso Davies is the only one that Canada national team has, certainly to that level. So it changes a lot for Canada in having Alphonso Davies available to them. But again, I just think that this is going to be a very difficult tournament regardless for the Canadian national team.

25:51Should we just cover everybody in bubble wrap? Might as well. I think we should just freeze everybody. We'll let Tyler Adams heal a little bit, freeze everybody, and just start the World Cup because, oof, we cannot deal with any more injuries. But guess what? It's time for us to run it back, everyone, because there have been some U.S. men's national team players in action over in Europe. Ricardo Pepe, he scored in his third straight league match for PSV, a 4-3 win over Heracles. Penalty well taken by Ricardo Pepe. Keeper goes right, but it's too firmly struck. Confidence. It is, and it's good to see Ricardo Pepe in continued good goal scoring form.