Summary: In the first Special Edition episode of the Yanks Abroad Podcast, Christopher McCollum gathers together YA writers Brian Sciaretta and John Kretlow and YA stat manager Jamie Hill for a short-notice show to analyze Jurgen Klinsmann’s roster announcement. The roster, which was announced earlier in the day, was an immediate hot topic issue as several key players were left off, and Timmy Chandler announced that he wanted to take a break from international soccer. The guys talk about this issue at length, discussing the possibility of Chandler posturing for a switch to Germany, to merely being uninterested in international play. The talk then moves to European and Mexico-based players who were seemingly inexplicably left off, until taking into consideration that several still have one more game left in their season and, and only two of the players called up played last week. Brian discusses the possibility that Klinsmann wanted to give the other players a few extra days off to recover from the gruelling season. An analysis of the U.S. National Team defense and midfield pool takes place while debating the merits of Alfredo Morales and Jose Torres, which then turns into a theoretical question and answer session about Michael Parkhurst and Michael Orozco. How exactly it got to that point is a mystery, but it made sense once Brian revealed where he was going with it. The show is concluded with a question and answer session with listeners, discussing Eric Lichaj, Gregg Berhalter, Morales, Chandler and other topics.
