From Brad Stuver to the essential Van Halen question: It's a Leagues Cup hiatus mailbag

I love questions.

I tell people that my favorite thing about being a journalist is I get to be professionally nosy and ask people questions. But I also love to answer questions, even if I initially grapple for an answer or need to get back to the asker after I've had the chance to do some research.

That's a good enough way as any to introduce this latest mailbag — thanks to those who offered inquiries (mostly through Slack) to keep this content train rolling.

Dallas asks: What would Stuver’s ceiling be if he was performing like he is but 20 years old?

Oh wow! 90 seconds of internet research tells me people can't arrive at a real consensus except to say that goalkeepers peak later than outfield players, but the collective wisdom puts it anywhere between 28 to 35, with some keepers still excelling in their early 40s, though not everyone can be Gianluigi Buffon.

I'd say, if Stuver was just 20, and putting up numbers leading the league like he is now (and like we explored on Sunday), you'd have a true generational talent who would definitely be getting national team callups (and might be off to a random U-23 World Cup). It'd also be impressive if Stuver was doing the amount of community work as a 20-year-old that he is now. (But let's just enjoy him as a 34-year-old who doesn't appear about to fall off anytime soon.)

Logan asks: In 10 years, how do you think we will look back at Messi's time in MLS?  Will he have a David Beckham level impact or more of a Steven Gerrard?  Or somewhere in between like a Zlatan? Any other players that you think will have that Beckham-level lasting impact on the sport in the U.S.?

Aside from being the greatest player in the league to repeatedly snub an All-Star Game (which I want to stick to his reputation more than it probably actually will), I'd argued he's enabled a whole other level of attention on the league coinciding with MLS Season Pass on Apple TV being a literally global platform. As MLS Commissioner Don Garber recently revealed, the average number of people watching an MLS match now is a modest 120,000, and I'm curious what happens when you take Messi's Miami out of the mix.

The Nutmeg News, a soccer parody site that's often incisively on the nose, followed the Garber announcement with a spoof article saying only 28 people are watching CF Montréal games on Apple, and their match-average audience may indeed be closer to that than 120,000.

The book's still being written, though. At the moment, the Inter Miami he's built around them is reminiscent of the 2003-2004 Lakers team that was supposed to be dynastic when it brought Karl Malone into the fold to join Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, and Gary Payton. They got to the finals and lost (to the Detroit Pistons), showing that you can't necessarily win an arms race of talent and translate that to trophies. He's probably more like Zlatan than Beckham at this point, but with a Beckham-level of marketing around him. Given when Beckham arrived and where the league got to, I don't think there's another player out there who could have that level of impact in 2025.

Michael Bartlemay asks: Is the recent run of form both in the win column and the goals scored column just because the schedule got easier, or do you see something structurally different that’s made us better?

Certainly the schedule has helped, but Mytro Uzuni — whether buoyed by Nico Estévez's boundless love or less encumbered as he was when he had to calculate where Brandon Vázquez was on the field — has helped by scoring goals and now being a threat that players have to factor in. And it's slow in coming, but he's gathering a chemistry with Osman Bukari, Owen Wolff, and Dani Pereira that's showing up in goals. (Goals, plural, in a single game!)

Also, even though they're rivals, the next two games are at home against a Houston team that just got knocked out of Leagues Cup (including a satisfying-for-me 4-1 loss to Tigres) and an FC Dallas that is most of the way to sending a disappointing Lucho Acosta to Brazil, where maybe he'll be happier. At the risk of courting the trouble we do when we predict wins, I like our chances here.

Don Hauk asks (via Bluesky): How do you think Vázquez getting hurt impacted Rodo’s decisions on roster build for this transfer decision?

Actually, it probably hasn't impacted what sporting director Rodolfo Borrell is doing too much, other than allowing him to dip into "hey, got a player you want to loan us for half a season" waters. I do think that it's going to make clearer that two of Austin's three designated players look increasingly redundant, making it a little more challenging to get a truly impactful chance creator. That's still the biggest need, and with the Kervin Andrade rumors apparently cooled off, I'm increasingly pessimistic that it's going to happen.

Soccer questions that aren't 100 percent soccer (perhaps my favorite kind)

Ben Stahl asks: Are there any MLS journalists that you think doesn’t get enough love or hate for their work in the league as a whole or singular club.

I'm aghast that The Athletic let go of Pablo Maurer, leading him to tweet things like "One of the only decent things about being unemployed is that Monday no longer matters." If you're wondering what he's about, start with his journey to find the three dudes in hard hats who became the original Columbus Crew logo, or his journey to find the water fountain that Landon Donovan posed with in what his article called "the most famous photo shoot in American soccer history."

Someone hire Pablo please, or lets hope he goes DIY and courts subscribers. Coming up on the two-year anniversary of going solo and bringing coverage directly to fans, I can say that it's hard but worth it. (And, again, thanks to all of you who support the work I'm doing here.)

Scott K asks: You can take three players with you to a back alley bar brawl (I have no idea why you are going to a back alley bar brawl, but you are).... you must pick one defender, one midfielder and one forward from the current FC roster. Who do you choose?

Someone immediately answered this on Slack and took two of my three answers. For forwards (less to choose from now, unless you think that Vázquez's crutches would come in handy), it's clearly Uzuni. His hardscrabble upbringing and determination makes him a must-have. Defenderwise, Oleksandr Svatok's the obvious choice. You don't even need to line them up for me; give me the one who looks most like Ivan Drago.

Midfield's tough ... the person who jumped in to answer took Besard Šabović, and I understand the rationale, but I'm going to make an unconventional choice. I want someone who doesn't look at first glance like he'd do much in a fight, but is actually deceptively strong and scrappy and would bring a little bit of impish sauce to the battle and to the Anchorman-style, "Boy, that escalated quickly" conversation after. That's right: I'm bringing Owen Wolff.

But also, can we add Diego Rubio to the mix to escalate tensions and ensure that we have this fight?

Natalie B asks: What do you think was the most impactful moves have been thus far in the secondary transfer window? AKA, will we ever beat LAFC again? 

I feel like you're leading me into saying Son Heung-min, which is a move I'm actually delighted with as an Arsenal fan for the Tottenham tears alone. (I pause here to give a friendly wave to Andrew, Lee, and Bernadette, my favorite fans of one of my least favorite teams.)

But I'm going to say Rodrigo de Paul. From what we've seen in Leagues Cup, he's instantly got a handle on how to play with teammates he's never played with before (save for Messi on the national team), and he adds a dimension they'll need in the playoffs. Suddenly, they're scary again.

Honorable mention goes to Thomas Müller in Vancouver. I don't quite know how that's going to work, especially with Ryan Gauld coming back into the fold (probably), but I'm very excited to see it in action. It's an excellent way for the front office to respond after moving Pedro Vite, and now you can see the logic that defied us all when the move got made.

Dan Lewis asks: Suspending any financial or other reality limitations.What one DP dream player would you bring into the existing Austin FC lineup to fill the remaining games of  the season in BV9’s DP slot?No dream is too big no contract unbreakable, maybe the one restriction being a player not currently in the MLS.

Dan, don't threaten me with a good time! I don't know why Tigres is going to punt on the 2025 Apertura like this, but I'm watching Tigres-LAFC as I type this and believe it would be so incredibly fun to rent Andre-Pierre Gignac for four months. Yes, he's 39, but he's also scored 190 goals in 347 appearances for Tigres over the last decade.

Barring that, and even with a Brazil to Europe and back to Brazil and a doping scandal controversy, I'd love to see Gabigol in MLS and why not four months in Austin for that?

Trevor asks: Who are some of the MOST MLS players in your eyes?

I think we have to start with Dax McCarty: Played his entire career in MLS with six different clubs, captained many of those teams, 558 appearances in all comps (plus two for the Des Moines Menace MLS retirees' pickup team in 2025) ... and 26 goals. That's puro MLS!

Your question cited examples including Tommy Thompson, and that's a good shout, including learning Duolingo to better speak to his coaches and players, which I totally respect.

Trevor also asks: Which owner/sporting director would be most likely to try to spend GAM on their DoorDash order?

I'm going to say the Revolution's Curt Onalfo, who is currently responding to open letters from supporters to fire Caleb Porter, as the Blazing Musket reported. (By the way, we sat next to the Blazing Musket crew at the All-Star Game; they're standup dudes who deserve a better team to cover.)

But will DoorDash go all the way out to Foxborough to deliver?

Now, for some music

Alex M asks me what he asked Moontower: What was the first album you bought with your own money?

Not to step on Moontower's toes, but I can't resist this question. Back in the '70s, several entities marketed what were called record clubs. They sucked you in by getting six albums for a penny, and then you had to buy several albums over the course of a few years at totally inflated costs to fulfill the Faustian bargain.

Having recently bought my first 45 with my own money — "Saturday Night" by the Bay City Rollers, which was the mid-'70s version of New Kids on the Block, but Scottish — I had a couple of their albums as part of my six. I also grabbed a couple of Barry Manilow albums, including his double live album, a John Denver album, and to round it out, a John Williams album featuring mostly Star Wars music.

Yes, to answer the follow-up question, I've always been a nerd.

Nick asks, Van Halen or Van Hagar? Gary Cherone is not an option.

Given that I took a clunky yellow headphone radio set to bed some nights as a middle school student in the early '80s to listen to KISW-FM ("Seattle's Best Rock"), and one of my formative moments was hearing a Van Halen interview dominated (as you would expect) by David Lee Roth, and given that 14-year-old me found him incredibly funny and cool — again, this was the '80s, I grew up in the suburbs, I would change, and pretty horrifically, he would also change.

I was a devoted OG-era Van Halen fan, following the hard rock/metal to punk rock trajectory that defined that whole decade in Seattle and directly led to grunge. But after 1984, and Sammy Hagar's entrance, I was disappointed, but also discovering Metallica.

To drive the point home about David Lee Roth > Sammy Hagar, let's let Parry Gripp (before he became a prolific kids' music artist) tell it:

Might as well "Jump," indeed. Actually, I'd make the case that Fair Warning is the last great Van Halen album, and "Panama" was the last heroic vestige of vintage DLR-era Van Halen before Everything Was Ruined, but that takes us far off the path of soccer.

(But if you're still with me here, you're my favorite brand of Verde All Day reader!)

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