Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #168: Friendly — Northern Ireland v USA

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

An A squad minus McKennie, Weah, Adams, Brooks and a few others went to Belfast to play a Championship-caliber Northern Ireland squad. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Okay. USA versus Northern Ireland in Belfast on Sunday. The U.S. gets a two-one win. How did you feel, Greg? Amazing for about three hours. Yeah. It got worse. The day got worse. But I think there's a lot, there's still a lot to be excited about. A lot of the same stuff that I was excited about for. from watching the Jamaica game. Not as clean of a performance against Northern Ireland. But, you know, we were experimenting with three at the back, so I guess there's a molligan there. Here's the lineup.

Stefan and Goal, Long Miazka and Ream across the back. Destin Robinson as the wingbacks, Acosta and Musa as the central midfielder's, and then Raina, Cebachu, and Pulisic across the front line. I was a little disappointed not to see Richards in the starting lineup and a bit mystified to see Acosta in the 11 after going 90 against Jamaica, especially considering he's totally out of season, presumably not match fit anyway. Yeah, that one worried me.

I feel like I was one of the only ones who was really not eager to see all the guys that I actually wanted to see. So the lineup that I wanted to see didn't include a lot of the U.S. players that I'm excited to watch. I was thinking there would be more enforced changes because, of fitness issues. Again, really tight turnaround, and these guys aren't machines. It's not a video game that you just boot up and pick your lineup however you want to play

them. You know, the energy that it cost to expended on Thursday, there are consequences to that. And so I was not super thrilled to see him in this game. And then I honestly want to sort of defend some of his bigger gaffs by saying that it was obvious that his feet weren't moving quite as quickly as he thought they were going to move. Yeah, I think you've got to give him a huge, you've got to give him a huge mulligan here. And I don't think he was all bad either in this game, which is a little surprising.

The Northern Ireland lineup, I'm just going to give the league they play in because most of these names are not going to be familiar to most of you. So some names will come up as they come up. But for now, the goalkeepers from the Scottish Premiership, they had a backline of a League one player, a League one player and a Championship play. there, and then a band of five across the midfield, Scottish Premiership, Championship, Championship, Championship, Championship, and then two strikers, a Premier League guy and a Irish League guy named Shane Lavery. And so it was Lafferty and Lavery as the two strikers. So that's roughly a championship caliber team with players at a couple top tables, Scottish clubs, one promotion chasing league one club one Irish league club that's Lavery and I thought he was actually

pretty good and then the captain was Lafferty who was at a downtable Premier League club so championship caliber opponent that's fair I think I think not shabby yeah very Walesish yeah and I thought Lavery was a real handful the one who comes from the weakest league so should we jump in the timeline or you got any let's hear it let's hear the bell's chronology. I'm staying out of it this week. Early moments were a little sloppy, but you see we have quality out there,

especially the headliners, Raina Desk, Pulisic, Miyazga, Dominant in the air. These are just some early thoughts without timestamps to him, but also a sloppy giveaway early. Sixth minute. Musa, diagonal to Dest,

he beats his guy and slips it to Raina, who can't quite get a shot off. Pings around a little bit and then away from danger. Seventh minute. Long ball to Sibichu. I think it was from Aaron Long. It gets confusing to write long ball from Aaron Long.

He knocks it down for Pulisic, who plays a nice slip pass in for Robinson darting in from wide left, and Robinson flashes it across the face of goal just outside of Sibichu's reach. I saw some people criticizing Robinson's pass there, and watching the replay a couple times. I'm not sure there's much to criticize in the pass. It's maybe a little hot, but... It's like, I mean, you're really nitpicking and you're looking at how much clearance he had, how much the past cleared the defender by, the first defender and the defender in front of goal. And if he had room to bring it closer to see what he should have done.

But we're really getting into like how precise should it have been versus how, or how precise did it need to be versus how precise was it. Yeah, this is like really fine calibration. And Raina and Dest are both a tab behind the play at the back post. 10th minute set piece trouble for the U.S. Free kick from a not very dangerous area Floated into the box and headed across by a Northern Ireland player Who I could not identify to the feet of another guy

I couldn't identify with his back to the goal And he lays it off for Lafferty who scuffs it We don't deal with it And then Acosta who is barely walking at this point Dives in and fouls a guy at the top of the box Wreck the guy Yeah, it was really really And then just gave that classic Acosta blank stare

So just to even touch on how hard it was to identify guys, it was your feed like underwater? Did it feel like we weren't watching a high-definition broadcast? No, I actually thought it was okay. All right, because I had noticed when I was on it, the lines felt a little squiggly. Did they? Yeah.

The 80s. All right. Continue. So 14th minute good buildup from Musen, Rana, gets Pulisick, the ball running at the goal. with the head of steam in the right half space and he slips it to Sibichu who tries to back heel return to Pulisic.

This is kind of a nothing moment, but it's just a nice idea that doesn't quite come off. Yeah, and it's nice to have ideas at this point, right? Absolutely. 16th minute, chance Northern Ireland. Miasga entry pass to Acosta, and this is one of the high-profile mistakes from Acosta.

He gives it away, tackled right off his foot as he tries to Soto it, no look to his left. And Rafferty is suddenly an un-goal, and he drags his, effort-wide. Kyle Lafferty, that is the captain. Not good enough from Acosta,

but, you know, the caveats apply. Yeah, and it was like a series of these really weird individual mistakes rather than like an overall, because he'd fluctuated, like, do very good things. And then suddenly he just had that thing where he was stuck in sand, gives the ball away, and Northern Ireland is running at us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Musa also had a couple errant passes. He's coming off a pretty sturdy outing three days earlier as well.

He didn't go 90, but I think he went like 70 some. Yep, he went 70. And again, it's the kind of minutes they're putting in. Like, they are covering ground in that midfield. So it's a big ask. And honestly, as much as everyone was kind of dogging Acosta, for me, and I think maybe, I guess I won't say I think maybe. I have no idea.

A potential lesson for Burrhalter there is how much he can ask his central. midfielders to do in a World Cup window with three matches and whether or not it becomes a priority, say in match one of a window, to get a guy out of the game as quickly as possible once we've established a lead if we can establish a lead or if we can't do that, are we forced to rotate sort of wholesale in that midfield from game to game? Yeah. I think it's funny how like everybody criticized Burhalter for taking Moose off at halftime. Like why didn't the Costa come off as if this is like the game of FIFA where you just get to choose who you play. Like you said, these people are not machines.

I mean, Acosta should have come off at halftime, but it wasn't like, it wasn't like, that wasn't why they criticized, wasn't because of Acosta was tired. It was because they thought Acosta was bad and like people didn't remember that the game was three days earlier or didn't even think about. 31st minute goal USA Robinson Musa and Ream are knocking it around on the left wing and Ream plays it across to Raina in Zone 14 who kind of I think in a nice way sort of drifts towards the ball into a pocket of space that was not being monitored by anybody in a green shirt

and he buys himself space to have a speculative shot from distance and from 25 yards it deflects off a defender at the edge of the box and arcs over the wrong footed keeper who had no chance mala suerte for the northern ireland goalkeeper one zero USA soccer is a funny game yeah that's or I'm sorry raina had three much better chances in the previous game that didn't come off for him and then sort of just

takes a bit of a lucky one here yep it's that expected goals balancing out that's right they all count they all count 38th minute desk giveaway on the dribble and Shane Lavery the Linfield FC player is 1v1 with miasga he does get a good shot off and draws a decent save from Stefan at the far post. I just noticed a couple minutes later a poor ball backward from Robinson where he just, he like tries to play it back to Ream and it goes over him and Ream ends up giving chase and drawing a foul. Yep, yep. That was one of Robinson's, I think few moments where he didn't quite look, look the part. We'll get into that.

Do you have some more? But a question for you, are we, what did you think of the three at the back? I mean, it just sprung that on you. No, so, I mean, I was ready to talk about three of the back. I didn't love how it looked in this game, but I think it should come with the very obvious caveat that we didn't probably have a ton of time to train it. It seems like it was kind of imposed on us based on the players who were available, the players we picked, which I think goes into that.

And again, our two center mids who were asked to do a ton in this setup because none of the three centerbacks would really step up into central midfield. Ream would kind of step up more than the other two and be a possession option sort of shaded off to the left, which isn't entirely different from what we get sometimes from one of those center midfielders when we play with three in there, where like McKinney would flare out to the left side to be that possession player. But when you're doing it with three center mids, they have the sort of flexibility to just read the game and go where they need to. When it's Ream always doing it as a left-sided center mid, it's him or no one. Like, Miasga wasn't stepping up into any space. Aaron Long was maybe doing a little bit of it, but he doesn't have anywhere near the technical chops that Tim Ream has. So I thought it asked a ton of Musa and Acosta to read the flow of the game and figure out where they needed to be and then cover that ground to do it. So it wasn't quite. quite as, I don't know if I want to say scripted or rehearsed, but it wasn't necessarily as obvious to players where they needed to be

and when they needed to be there. I thought. So it kind of gave to me like a bit of a, kind of looked like a lot of players winging it on the ball. Is that kind of how I'd say it? Yeah. Which we happen to be pretty decent at at this point in time. But I guess my problem with the three at the back is the same problem I've had for

for months and maybe even years, it's that why are we, why are we, centerback continues to be sort of a question mark position for the national team. Why are we going to put out a formation that, that puts an extra one on the field?

It's like in this game, what happened a lot was we, we were giving Aaron Long the keys to the, to the buildup. And we, I don't think that's what we want. And whereas in contrast, like back in, earlier in the week, against Jamaica, Dest is coming back and getting the keys to the buildup.

You know, he's the one on the ball with responsibility to progress it forward. I want that situation, not Aaron Long on the ball, you know, having to figure out how to progress it. Or Miaska, like when it's when you're back three is Miasga and Aaron Long. And then again, Tim Rie, who I think is actually well suited to it. But two thirds of your back line or not, I do think that that is a real problem. And again, when you haven't trained it, and don't always know ahead of time where the next guy or where the next pass is going to be, it just magnifies that even more.

Again, luckily, when you have guys like Pulisik, Raina and Dest, and Musa, I should say, too, who can solve a lot of those problems after they've received the ball, that mitigates things quite a bit. Yeah. And I think that's kind of what we saw. It is. It is. We ended up Raina and Pulisic doing a lot of really, really good dribbling to get out of problems.

and some quick combination play, but a lot of dribbling. And I'm not criticizing that. I think it's great that they have that ability, and it's nice to see it. And it was nice to see that they could beat. I mean, they were basically as much of tens as we've seen the U.S. play in a soccer game, I think. I mean, they were just going everywhere. Sometimes Poole Sick and Raina were both over on the same half space just kind of,

because that's where they thought they needed to go. And they had total freedom to go there because of the, I think mostly because of the wingbacks or just because of the, they'd been told, play like a 10, go wherever you want. Well, the wingbacks were in possession, the wingbacks were on a line with Sibichu, a lot of the game. And I have some, so you said earlier, mostly Robinson looked apart, and I'm not saying he didn't look the part as a fullback, but he doesn't look the part as somebody receiving the ball in the front line and then tasked with, you know, creating something. I mean, I know he can beat a guy around the corner, but. That's what I was going to say.

I thought he did a couple, did that a couple of times. time so I'm gonna he did it a couple times but like yeah I don't know man I don't why are we why are we running a formation that puts Anthony Robinson as like a basically an attacking winger I don't I don't know if I I don't understand that what's the alternative and I don't mean this like it there isn't what I'm saying give me give me what the alternative would be it'd be dest out there and a four three three right yeah but then dust is all it seemed like dust is coming back more than he did in this game against Jamaica. Yep.

No, I bought that. And Robbins, well, I guess Cannon was the right back in that game. But it seemed like our full, maybe I'm imagining it, but it seemed like our wing backs in this game were further forward than they were in the, and not just further forward, but I mean like consistently always forward. I think that's about right. And I still think like the spacing issues were still there in this game where, like, Dest was forward, but Dest was often like pinched way in.

too. So sometimes you had Raina pinched in next to Pulsick and then Dest was in there too and we essentially didn't have a wide attacking play on the right. Which added, which I think again as to like the issues that Musa and Acosta might have as they receive the ball where you used to always be able to count on someone out there that you could

just, you know, open your hips and ping it out there as a release. And now it's like now as I have to look up and try to figure out where my next pass is going to be and my legs are tired and I'm making more excuses for Acosta and let's just bring him into Nation's League and look at him again. Let's go to the 42nd minute.

Two items here. First, we get a decent chance from another Aaron Long floated ball into the box, chested down by Raina to Cebuchu, who has a good half-vali take on it, but it thwax right off a defender. Look like you make good contact. A few moments later, Raina plays a back pass to Acosta, and this is another big high-profile mistake from Acosta. He slips as he receives it, kind of,

reminiscent of Stephen Gerard and not in quite as dangerous of an area. And on this one, that's one where I paused it too. This was another one where like there were no U.S. players wide at the edge of the 18. Like every U.S. player was inside the vertical line of the edge of the 18. Is that right? Yeah. So Ocosta couldn't like receive away from that player.

I don't know if he would have anywhere if the slip was inevitable. But he had no option to like open up to the sideline and slide an easy ball around. oncoming defender. Yeah, I think he just slipped and didn't. He wasn't going to get any kind of pass off. But Miyazga tracks Lavery and makes a nice tackle. And next moment I have on the timeline is halftime. And off when Acosta and everyone was happy.

No, he didn't go off right away. In came Richards. Everyone was happy. No, none of that. No, neither of those. Legette came on for Musa and Reynolds came on for Des, which I was excited to see Reynolds. You know, after his sort of inauspicious debut for Roma,

wanted to see what he looked like for the national team. And I thought he looked pretty good. Okay. He looked okay. Yes. Would you say, like, again, these are small sample sizes, but from what Cannon did in the first game to what Reynolds did in this game, was there too much of like,

Reynolds just clearly needs to step up quite a bit to hit where Canon's at? attacking-wise, I think Reynolds is an upgrade. He has an ability over Cannon, that is. He has an ability to hit, I mean, he passes the ball very hard. Have you noticed that? Robinson's the same. Yeah. But he makes some passes that I think are they ask questions of the defense.

And they also ask questions of his teammate trying to receive it. 51st minute nice through ball from Pulisic to Raina. Raina can't quite get to it. Proceeded by nice work from Raina to win the ball. And Acosta with, I just noticed this nice moment from Acosta. Raina wins it back from somebody and then passes it to Acosta. And Acosta makes a nice left-footed one-touch pass out of pressure to Pulisic. And then Pulisic tries to slip Raina.

It doesn't quite happen. 56 minute. Just a lovely turn on the. the right sideline from Raina receiving a pass deep from Acosta. If you haven't seen this and you are, have way too much time on your hands, go back and watch this in the 56 minute because it's just, I think Raina's the only guy on the team who can, who does this consistently. The receive, receiving it and turning forward in one motion under really tight, tight pressure.

And he plays it to Pulisick and we're off to the races. That is Raina's, uh, I don't know, X factor. for me the ability to do that. I mean, it's all of a piece with his cage match ability. We already talked about Pulisic and Raina as the nominal winger's. 59th minute, we win a penalty. It starts with a probing ball from Brian Reynolds. From wide right, he plays just an early, absolutely driven ball.

It's driven so hard at Raina, who kind of dummies it for. see but you I don't know if he means to dummy it but it does go through his legs and it falls to see but you who lays it off for Pulisic who dribbles into the box and draws a foul it was a was it a harsh penalty or who cares it was a penalty you can't it's it's a penalty and friendly don't stick your leg out like that it's not worth it's not worth the the XGs that penalties come with right versus just letting the guy dribble away from goal Pulisic did score on the penalty it was A very poorly taken penalty, I think is fair to say.

What was poor about it? It was low, right? It was on the ground? It was low, and it was about a foot and a half from the goalkeeper. Okay. All right. I guess I just hadn't watched it closely enough and thought it was at least like off to the right side of the post, like to the right of the goalkeeper, between goalkeeper and post. But if it was too close to the keeper, I'll give it to you.

If the goalkeeper and the post are like, what is it like? Four yards. Four yards? It was within the first yard, definitely. Okay, I need to watch it closer. I don't know if Pulisic's the guy for Penns in World Cup qualifying, but maybe he'll improve. Richards, 62nd minute, Richards comes on for long,

Aronson for Raina and D.K. for Sibichu. And, I mean, it's kind of a fun, it's fun to see all these guys. 65th minute, nice ball from Miyazga to Robinson, who does Aberdeens, Maddie Kennedy and zips it across. It ricochets through to Aaron's. but it's a little too hot and high and he skies it over. It definitely catches the foot of a Northern Ireland player on the way through. 68th minute, this is a bad sequence from Acosta,

and it's amazing he's still on the field at this point. Reynolds intercepts a pass and taps it to Acosta, who has all kinds of space to turn into, doesn't try to and plays it right back into pressure to Reynolds. And it's just, I don't know, this is just irritated me in the moment. then as two defenders close on Reynolds, Acosta doesn't shift his weight to be ready to receive the ball in the center of the window that Reynolds has, which is rapidly getting smaller.

So Reynolds hits one of his trademark very sharp passes right past the feet of Acosta, and it's a bad giveaway in the middle of the field, and it results in a decent shot on goal for Northern Ireland. So, I don't know. Too many minutes. Too many minutes. Too many minutes. Too many minutes.

Too many minutes for Acosta. No, too many minutes. minutes for Acosta. Yeah. I'm blaming minutes. Probably. And again, it's possible that Acosta just is not good enough, doesn't have the quality. I just don't think that we, I'm not going to be willing to make that conclusion based on what I think, again, was a game that was asking too much of him.

Yeah. Seventy second minute Luca Del Aetore comes on and I think he looked pretty decent. Like. Decent enough that he could have started this game for Kellan Acosta. Yeah, right. I don't know that we talked about Delatore too much after the Jamaica game, but he's been a really pleasant surprise in this camp. He looks strong.

He looks like he can handle the physicality of international soccer, which was kind of what I was worried about with him. Well, yeah, at least in these two games, he doesn't give the ball away cheaply, which is all he's, I'm guessing all his job would entail us to just, again, be that complimentary player with some of the much better players around him. Yeah. And if he's more than that, excellent. Yeah, it's a nice, it's a really nice

little bit of info on him. Seventy seventh minute, fantastic through ball from Pulisic to D.K. I love the weight on it. D.K., as he's jostled by the pursuing centerback, tries to roll it past the sliding keeper with his left foot, and the keeper gets his left toe to it, and it pops up and gets cleared. Really good chance. And the movement from D.K. is actually a sneaky decent. He He pulls off of the shoulder of his marker as Pulisic gets on the ball and then just sees that there's just enough space and finds the seam that Pulisic plays into. Any thoughts on D.K.? I've been doing a lot of talking here.

No, keep running through the chronology because he hits a couple of more times and then we can go a little bit deeper. Okay. 81st minute, another D.K. chance. This time a fantastic through ball from Deletoree, who surges upfield through a crowd and looks like a good player. That's what I wrote. just doesn't just look like a good player looks a lot like Brendan Aronson, which is who I thought it was.

Yeah. Right. It's hard. It is a little hard to tell the difference between the two from a distance. D.K. He's shot from an angle. It's kind of, it gives it on his right foot to the left, the goalkeeper's left, which is kind of like the money zone for D.K. But his, his shot from an angle is palmed wide by Connor Hazard.

82nd minute. Another D.K. chance for. a glancing header on a lovely Pulisic cross, one of those inswingers from Pulisic from the left side. He does get his head to it, I think, but it doesn't get enough. And it sails wide. Sales wide by like 18 inches, right? Yeah. Like it bounces right at the foot of the post. Yeah, really, really racking up the XG there. Yep. And this is Mr. U.K. That's where the XG is balancing out because he absolutely is killing his XG in the championship. So he needs, he needs it to work out somewhere to get back to even.

So now he can get back to the championship and triple it. Yeah, right. No, it's promising that he's getting in these good spots is, I mean, that's a really good sign, right? Yes, 100%. And remember in his debut in January, he had a couple of looks in that game, too, a couple of times that he got to smash the ball on frame. So I think these are all good positive data points for D.K.

with the national team. Still not a lot of data points of him like connecting in the buildup, I don't think. I don't think he had too many of those combinations with the tens. But it didn't get a ton of opportunities for it either. Right. So it's somewhere you're looking at it.

Instead of checking back to combine, he found a way to get played through, which is better. So it's not like he went a whole game and couldn't get involved in. the game, which is what would really start to worry me about it. Yeah, he definitely made an impact when he came on. Eighty-fourth minute, Brian Reynolds beats his guy around the right and fizzes the ball. I mean, I hate to keep beating this dead horse, but he absolutely fizzes it as a cutback,

and it flashes past D.K. I mean, D.K. D.K. doesn't even try to touch it. It's going so hard past him. And Legette arrives at the top of the box and gets really good contact on target, but it's saved fairly easily by hazard. Mostly notable for the fact that Reynolds is generating something again there. And the fact that Legette is excellent at somehow taking those crosses and putting them on frame, which is not easy, as we've seen from other players who've skyed them. I thought you were going to see he's excellent at arriving in the box. And I thought you stick to your principles.

Stick to your principles. I refuse to engage. 88th minute. Goal Northern Ireland. Nealm again, the Aberdeen player who came on. with a screamer from a tight angle. It's a hopeful ball forward that isn't dealt with in the air by Miaska or Ream, and it falls to the guy in front of Richards who just kind of knocks it forward with his hip.

I don't think Richards is really at fault on any of this. No. It's met by McGinn flying in from the right wing, and he smashes it past Stefan. Now, goalkeeper expert, was this... Could Stefan have done better here? Yes, he could have done better. like this wasn't an unsavable shot.

There are times where a guy can hit it, a volley that is unsavable, where I'll say he should have done better. And if you watch it in slow motion, it's pretty obvious, actually, is that goalkeepers work on rhythm to get themselves set. And the rhythm is basically determined by when the attacker is going to make contact with it. And so on this situation with the ball that's looping up like that, it is very apparent when the player's foot is going to strike the ball. Like, you know exactly what he's going to do as he's stepping into it.

and so you give yourself a little bounce and so your feet are like you're up in the air and then as you're settling into your like bounce you'll hit your feet will kind of the balls of your feet will get back on the ground right as the guy hits the hits the shot and then you can react and you're coiled like a spring

and you can explode out at it. When you watch this you'll see that the guy hits it while Stefan is still still sort of up on those and it's not like a big jump you're almost just like lifting off your toes and then settling back down Stefan's up at like the highest point as he hits it. So then he has to wait for his body to come back down and then he explodes up in the air.

And the shot like hits his fingertips, like it grazes his fingertips. If you, if you're a volleyball referee, you'd notice the telltale like finger being bent backwards that shows that it was touched. So he had his fingers there. That split second is the difference between, you know, an extra two inches of fingertip, putting it over the bar and what we saw, which was, you know, it knocking his fingers back and settling nicely into the goal. It's an amazing strike. It's a ridiculous hit. But if you're just saying, could he have done better?

Yes, it was actually savable. Yeah. He bounced. I mean, I noticed the same thing. I wouldn't have had the terminology to, like, explain it all. But yeah, his bounce is just a split second late. Right. I mean, that's all it is.

And it wasn't out of his reach. Right, exactly. So it's not out of his reach. And, you know, he only has to sort of defend the goal up and down there. There's no way that it can really, because of the tight angle, you don't have to worry about going left or right. So it's just a matter of protecting sort of the vertical space you're already in. And he didn't get there in this game.

Bench him. Just kidding. Just kidding. The debate continues. Yeah. And then we got to mention the 91st minute, the Big Robinson Chance on a nice pass from D.K. Again, Daryl Dekay, making his presence known. Pulsick flicks it on to D.K.

I think it's a header from Richards or Miasga. Pulsick flicks it on to DK. And then DK outside of the boots, it just rainbows it over the back line for Robinson, who is charging at the goal. And Robinson takes a kind of a comical touch off his knee into the keeper. And that was the last major action of the game, I think. There we go.

A lot of chances. A lot of entertaining, like a 1-1 playground ball. A lot of minutes for Kel and Acosta. Still really struck by the ball security and problem-solving ability that you mentioned earlier. I probably mentioned it several times already in this podcast of Raina, Musa, Dess, and Pulisic in particular. They are quality, and they make us such a different team than we were in the last quality. World Cup qualifying cycle. Yeah, and just talking about it now, the difference is so stark between what we were watching

in Guadalajara with, you know, obviously players who are inferior to the guys who are playing in Belfast, but just so night and day with with Raina and Pulisic's comfort level and then death doing just whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Yeah, they can break the press. I can't wait. I can't wait for us to play Mexico again. I'm so, I'm so interested in that. Just to see how this full-strength team can deal with Mexico's.

press. It's going to be awesome and it's going to be like, you know, the team has very nearly picked itself, like a full roster of players that there are very few question marks and the question marks that are there like, yeah, flip a coin, doesn't matter to me. So that June roster announcement is going, I'm going to be, I'm excited about it just to see all the names in one place, hopefully. And of course, since we're huge nerds, like those coin tosses at the bottom of the roster are still going to be a huge deal to us.

Yeah, there's going to be a lot of people for whom. those are a big deal. Tim Riem, like everyone was mad that Tim Rame was starting in a three-back, three center-back system. That was kind of bizarre to me. Like, Tim Rame very obviously belongs in a, like, that's the only way he was really playing with for us before was, as a stay-at-home left-back. That was basically a third centerback.

Yeah. I guess I was, I was, yeah, I was, I thought Richards was, I should mention, I thought Richard was fine when he came on. No, no, no major mistakes. Nothing, like, really stuck out. long was long is continues to be not ideal as a ball playing centerback or in possession but not like a total disaster so it's it's still kind of muddy it's muddy what's the what's the answer back there i don't know well you know obviously the answer isn't eric

palmer brown who came in and didn't play in either game um it doesn't necessarily feel like Mark McKenzie is the answer right now. So it feels to me like Brooks, Long, Ream, and Richards probably have the top spots for the back for it, unless you're going to say that Miazga is ahead of Richards? Are you going to say that? You going to go on record right now, Bels? I'm not. I'm not.

I don't think that makes any sense because Miazga will get beaten for pace, not as much as Brooks, but he will get beaten for pace, you know. So we need, like we talked about last. last time we talked about the national team senior national team we need brooks need somebody to compliment him long fits that bill and richards does seems to as well okay there we go nation's league centerbacks settled all right so there's been a lot of podcasts in a short period of time we're going to take the rest of the week off and uh we'll figure out what we're going to do next after that we'll get the board together for a retreat.

Jackson Hole. Good to see you so much, Greg. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.