Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #176: Switzerland-USA recap

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

A mostly full-strength USMNT faced a solid European team away. What did we learn? @USMNTvideos joins @away_goals and Belz to pick through it. 0:30 intro, lineups and preliminary thoughts14:10 1st half detailed chronology41:25 2nd half detailed chronology1:08:40 quick takeaways 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 Scufft podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Thanks for downloading this episode of Scuff. The U.S. men's national team lost two to one to Switzerland on Sunday. Could have been much worse. Lots to talk about the starting midfield, the ease with which the Swiss carved us up, especially down the flank in the second half. And then what it all means. Joining us today, it's our special privilege to have Sanjiv Damadoran here. known universally as at USMNT videos. He's the crown prince of the comp makers and a much funnier guy than he's going to let on in this episode, I'm sure. Thank you for being here, man. How are you?

I'm doing well, Adam. Thanks for having me on. Excited to get into this recap. And of course, Greg Velasquez. How are you doing, Greg? I'm all right, man. Let's do this. We took a test.

We had a test. We had a test. Let's do the lineups real quick first. The Swiss came out in a 3-4-1-2, according to, Google, I think you could almost just call it a three, four, three with Jan Summer and goal. And I'm going to give the club for each of these guys, if you guys don't mind. He plays for Bruchamp, Munchin, Gladbach. Can you also throw in the transfer market value for each guy, please?

Too late. Can't do that. Nico Elvedi from Gladbach, Fabian Schar, I think it is, from Newcastle, Loris Benito from Bordeaux. That's the three-man back line. And then Sylvan Widmer at right-wing back, Dennis Zacharia from Gladbach. and Granite Jacques in the midfield. He's at Arsenal. And then Ricardo Rodriguez from Torino.

He's played at a lot of clubs in his career as the left wingback. And then a front line of Breland Bolo, Shakiri, and Horace Safarovich, who plays at Benfica. And Bolo's at Gladbach as well. A lot of Gladbach players on this team. And then Shakir, of course, plays at Liverpool. Cool. And then we came out in our customary 433 with Horvoth and Goal, Cannon, McKenzie, Brooks, and Dest across the backline. No big surprises there. Jackson Ewell tested at the 6th,

Weston McKinney, and Sebastian Leggett at the 8th. And then Raina, Sergeant, and Aronson across the front line. Sanji, have any reactions to the lineup? What did you think when you first saw it come out? Happy, sad, and different? I mean, I was happy with it. I was. I mean, it's about, I think, what we all expected pretty much for the most part. I think the right centerback and the six was the main, I guess, and the eight, too, with Legett, was the main point to uncertainty. And also, if we were going to actually put out a first team lineup, I was happy with it. I was glad to see McKenzie. I think he just offers more, especially in the buildup.

And I think he's about like for like with Miazka in terms of defending. I think he kind of showed that yesterday. So no, nothing I was really upset about, no surprises for me at least. I was surprised just in general to see the first team, more or less what I think would be considered a first choice lineup. I think I'm just really conservative on minutes and how we spread them out over these windows. So I was honestly really expecting to see a heavily pre-rotated group of players in advance of the Honduras and Mexico games. The games that I think we would say, I would say matter more. Would you guys agree with that?

Or do you think that because Switzerland is a better opponent, if I can just say it, better opponent than Honduras, that it was more important to get our guys out there, our strongest group out there against Switzerland rather than prioritizing Honduras? I'd say the former. I'd say winning these two nations league games is more important than beating Switzerland. In large part because those are the teams we're going to face in World Cup qualifying. So like, let's prioritize winning those kinds of games rather than, you know, the teams we might face in the World Cup if we make it in 2022. That's my take, I guess.

Sanji. Yeah, I think I feel the same way. Like, I want to win the Nations League. So, I mean, like, like, the friendlies, like testing, like, how we fare against better competition. Of course, I like, I like to see, like, how the system plays and how we can see how these players that we've kind of seen against maybe a little bit lower level. competitions how they stack up in the system but yeah i think i think at the end of the i just want to it's been a while since people won a trophy and like i even if it's just nations league i would like to see us win that so do either you guys think that uh by prioritizing or not prioritizing but

by putting out this strong of a lineup against switzerland does it in any way jeopardize our chances against honduras do you think or or uh even like reduce them slightly minimize them slightly Well, Honduras is going to see that you can just absolutely eviscerate the left side of our defense if you do a couple of things right. So in that sense, maybe, Mel, I don't. Do you think, you think it jeopardizes it? Greg? To be honest, no, not really. I actually think this is going to sound really like, I don't know, borderline arrogant, but I think we're going to roll Honduras, even if we do rotate a little bit. I think that we are just up and down the field

going to be better. Certainly, like, I think we're going to dominate the game and so then it'll just come down to sort of conversion rate both directions, because I do think Honduras will probably get some chances. Not that we're doing a Honduras preview right now. But, no, I still think we'll roll Honduras, even if we do make a few changes. But what I'm really curious to see is if we are going to see those changes,

if John Brooks is going to start against Honduras, because I'm sure if we win that game, he's going to be starting in the final two. Well, I know some people are going to say, like, we're making excuses for the U.S. and everything because we, you know, we lost, period. Berlter sucks. And I, you know, I'm sensitive to that. And I am a little bit sympathetic to the people who are like, hey, we got, if we can't, if we look this bad in the second half against Switzerland, which is a, you know, a solid European team,

European nation, footballing nation on the men's side. And that's going to spell trouble for us in the future. But I do think the real test is Honduras and Mexico. This is a friendly. Let's get ready for these two big games and win them both and get a trophy like Sanjeev said. All right. I'm a little surprised Musa didn't start. If it was truly our first choice lineup, that's my one comment.

Whether it was for Legette or Yule or we did it some other way, I think after watching this game, I want Musa in the same. starting lineup even more. And I'd be happy if it was for Legette or Yul. What'd you think we were missing that Musa would have added? Cage match, toughness in the middle. You know, I've said in the past, and I've thought in the last few days that Musa brings like a certain amount of responsibility and intelligence in the midfield

and covering. I'm not sure he showed that yesterday off the bench, but. I thought one thing that he did offer was he took. more risks than you'll and legit i think right when he came in the first first involvement was he took on a defender it was kind of like a one-b-one duel he won the duel and then he progressed the ball forward and played it out like the cannon or rain i'm not sure who he played it out white too but that ball progression and like risk taking is something that i thought we were really missing and it kind of like it didn't we didn't have that for lack of a better word penetration that he offers so that's

something that i think is very valuable that ball progression and we've seen it time and time again that he offers. I want to see him starting. I think it's really important just to the team and like to ensure that we have something in midfield that may be legit and you'll don't offer as much against these teams like Sotzerlin. Yeah, 100% agree with that. I thought the big thing and I think that it's going to be a thread through all these different timelines that we go through of events, the big thread missing for me was like any real sense of urgency. Like I thought we looked like a team that had a more important game four days later and we were playing like that. And Musa came on and added that urgency right

away because of his tendency. I think it's a tendency of his to just drive the ball at players. And so that was what we needed to put Switzerland a little bit on their heels. And it was totally missing through the first 60 minutes. We were on the ball. I think defensively were very willing to try to go at them and be really aggressive. But once we had the ball, that aggression just wasn't there. Certainly not team wide. So Moose, So it definitely adds that element. And I don't know whether or not, you know, other guys are going to sort of flip the switch in the other game. And it won't make Musa such a stark contrast with his ability to do that.

But either way, I think he is one of those players in midfield that absolutely does push the game forward with the ball at his feet. Yeah. Yeah. And I just, I noticed like almost right after he came on, he got into a 50-50 battle with some guy. And they were kind of both going after the ball, shoulders into each other. and they i don't know they were like doing a shoulder battle for about 15 yards horizontally across the field and musa won it and i was just like ah thank you because there had been so many so many so many of our players had been losing 50-50 battles i'm not saying it was like a

horrible game for that but uh i saw like i remember a crucial one from sergeant crucial one from erringson one from cannon one from legit where you just like they're they're receiving the ball and somebody comes up behind him and just takes it you know and that You don't see that having to Musa. There was a real, there was a real Uruguay, like, feel to it is what I think I said when I was watching it, that friendly against Uruguay from like two years ago, where both teams were just like, okay, let's just collect our paychecks for this appearance fee, and let's let's go about our business.

We all have bigger fish to fry. And so it's almost like you, you're not even losing the 50-50 shoulder battle. You're kind of just like conceding that you're not even going to really into it. And Switzerland is a big physical team. to. And I would say it was pretty uneven across the field. Like I thought Sergeant and Aronson, you know, for the most part, worked very, very hard in this game. I would say McKinney did not work very hard in this game. No, not throwing shade at him necessarily. Like he, but so it was uneven. Like different players sort of seem to have different reactions to the,

the contest. Should we get into the timeline? Any other preliminary thoughts, Sanjeev? I think one thing that we were discussing earlier is Switzerland have had the same coach since 2014. This is, I'm sure Greg will correct me, this is our fifth or sixth game with our full team, with our, like our start, like our strongest team. So I think there's something to be said about the familiarity they have with their system compared to what we're kind of still learning what we're playing and still trying to get the team working with these new players that we have. really seen before. So I think there's something to be said there. And obviously, Switzerland

are a good team. They're probably one of the better teams we've played in a while. So I just think that's important to note before we dive too deep. And I'll say, you know, there's a 30-minute period in the first half where we dominated this game, you know, from after Switzerland's goal until the penalty that death conceded, we were down their throats. for half an hour. And this is where I throw the wet blanket on it and say, I also thought Switzerland were very much just kind of going through the motions. Fair enough.

Fair enough. You know, when you're full of $15 million players, like when you go through the motions, you look very competent. Right. So that's just kind of the game that I thought we were watching. You know,

the big talk about this is going to be a bit of the test. This will be our first real test. And I just felt like we kind of just showed up to the test homeover because we can always just retake this. SAT in a couple months. It was just a PSAT. All right, let's do the timeline. I've got a lot of stuff here.

So, you know, guys jump in whenever you can. I'd say the first three minutes from the U.S. were pretty ragged. But, you know, just the beginning of the game, poor pass coming back to the ball from McKinney. Cannon just unwilling to progress the ball out of fear sort of to, you know, reference Greg's point about timidness in general or unwilling. willingness to take risk. Lots of timidness. And yet we scored the first goal. Does either of you want to take this timeline item and describe the goal?

What happened? Or should I just do it? This is all you, I want to hear your description of this absolutely poetic sequence. Okay. It starts in the fourth minute with the U.S. throw in from Dest and Sergeant taps back to him and Desloops it back to Sergeant. And then it's sort of like the comical nature of the way we're playing early in

in the early minutes shows up when Sergeant and McKinney run into each other and it scores to Switzerland, but then they give it right back in the counterattack with Ewell intercepting a pass and stepping into a huge amount of space. Greg, I know you noticed this moment as one of those timid moments because we're like, I think we were attacking like six on four or something like that. Yeah, just looked like we were all sort of wearing parachutes and dragging parachutes behind us. Even in these like transition numbers up moments of just like easy, easy, let's not, let's not get carried away here. So everything was just happening very deliberately. Yeah. And it did end up. I mean, it was eight, eight Americans attacking six Swiss defenders in

transition and Ewell dribbles and slows down, taps it to Raina. Raina kind of, you know, casually glides inside with the ball and then taps it wide to cannon, Canon to McKinney to Ewell, Ewell to Cannon. a lot of just tapping it around the ball. And then Cannon taps at to Raina and under absolutely no pressure, he chips a hopeful ball under the box. And it's cleared by Elvedi to the feet of Legat. Even saying that there's absolutely no pressure, somehow an understatement. Yeah, he's just standing there.

Yeah, it was like a very intentional, like, I am not going to come get you. I think he stood straight up, put his hands behind his back, like 10 yards off of him. And it was like, I'm going to challenge you to hit this ball around my body. And Raina did hit it around the first defender's body, and Elvedi cleared it to the feet of Leget. It was a very poor clearance. And Leggett, I think, meant to pass it to Aronson on the replay. And then it ricochets back from Aronson to Leggett,

and then he just tucks it in, side-foots it into the net. Decent finish, a bit of a lucky goal off a poor clearance from Elvede, who ultimately came off at the half, by the way. I don't know. Thoughts, guys? I mean, you could see how I think this is one of the examples that Greg was mentioning about how they were kind of going through the motions. Like I think Raina definitely would have been closed down if this was the Euros. This was something that actually like I think they had more conviction to it because he had, I think John Mueller said he had, he was taking a set piece pretty much out there.

Like there was no one closing him down. And obviously it was a scrappy goal. Like the clearance was poor. but I mean, we'll take it, I guess. Like, I don't really know how much to read into it because I feel like it's such a weird, a weird sequence where there's no pressure, weird clearances, but I guess those happen sometimes.

Yeah, I think you kind of look at what did we do intentionally on that sequence that's sort of repeatable. Like, it's great that we're in the area even to create some scrappy pinball moments, but really you're looking for like what was intentional. So Raina's service wasn't like great. You know, he just kind of hit a hopeful ball in towards where we had a couple of guys. And then I don't know that you would, I'm not going to go as far as to say Legette was passing it to Aronson. He basically pinged it with his left because he had very little time to react to.

So he was just kind of trying to direct the ball, you know, back towards the goal. And I don't think there was anything intentional. Aronson's touch back to Legette. And I think the giveaway there was Aaronson was actually following his touch, his first couple of steps for like go after. like again, it was just a pinball moment. And then the one intentional moment was Legette's very tidy finish. Yeah. I originally wrote it with like the word ricochet like seven times in the sequence.

But I said to, you know, not be so redundant there. Yeah. Six minute. I just want to note that Brooks was turned by Breel and Bolo and a former Shalka legend Breland Bolo, and conceded a foul at midfield by tugging his shirt from behind. A small moment in the game, but would have been a tactical yellow, I think, in a competitive match, and it's worth noting that. Why is it worth noting that, Bells?

Well, just because he got battleshipped, you know, in something of an open field moment. And, you know, the nightmare all along, I think the nightmare, the defensive nightmare for the U.S. is a desk Brooks left side, you know, in transition getting exposed with a slow number six protecting them, i.e. Jackson, E. Jackson, E. E. Jackson, E. E. Jackson, E. We'll. And we did get to see that nightmare play out about a half dozen times. Well, the other part of that nightmare, though, that I just want to get a little preview of is we didn't know how the right centerback was going to deal with things either. So a bit of the nightmare was like, what if our right centerback is equally battle-chippable? So at least, at least I feel like we got some good news on that front.

But the pieces that we expected to be battleships definitely did have that happen. Yeah, I mean, in a normal game, Brooks is on a yellow after six minutes. And that is not what we want in a World Cup qualifier. Ninth minute, you guys, feel free to interject here. I don't want to monopolize the conversation. It's called the Bell's chronology for a reason. Although when we do bring on a guest, I actually would love if Sanjee, if you just run away with some of his events here.

I can take the next few if you want. Yeah, go for it. Do start at the ninth minute, if you wouldn't mind. So Eul had been looking pretty good up to this point, but then he had that poor touch, which sprang a counter, but nothing came out of it. But I think it was pretty notable, notable that touch. It just was super heavy and it could have ultimately led to a chance, but nothing came out of it.

And then after that, sorry. Oh, so I was just going to say something about that touch, the touch was really poor. But something else that I noticed about Ewell in this game was his spacing and maybe he just needs more time as a six. But his spacing would very rarely sort of put him equal distant from all of the different Switzerland players in his area. You know, you watch a number six and they'll just naturally gravitate towards like the center of the polygon that's created by the nearest defenders. And Ewell didn't do that very well, I didn't think.

So his touch was poor, but he was also somehow for some reason too close to that attacking Switzerland player so that that player could then immediately capitalize on the mistouch. If he had been in sort of the correct space, he'd have more room. He'd have more room for air and more room if he had made a better touch to then pick out his next play.

Yeah. How did you think, let's just take a side note here. What did you guys make of Ewell's performance overall before we get to the Switzerland goal? I thought he had some nice moments, but then I also thought like his positioning, as Greg mentioned, was kind of all over the place. And I remember one chance from Mbolo specifically where the ball's kind of headed down. And then Eul was a little lethargic to track or to stay with. with with umbollah after he made a run and behind and there was desk out wide who also didn't make

that so there's that clear-cut chance so i thought that was kind of a pattern that we saw often i mean it wasn't always as clear as that chance but i thought he did some good things defensively especially in the first half um but i think i just think his positional awareness like i think it could come with time but I think I would rather see other options tested there as the backup six, but we call it the second six here, Sanjee. The second six. Yeah, come on, get with the program. What did you think, Greg?

All right, so I'm going to give my like episode long cop out here and be like, I think it was really hard to gauge anybody's performance because of the overall sort of blandness of the team. So, I mean, it just felt like we were watching like a photograph of a vanilla ice cream cone. There was just no one really trying to do anything off the ball, on the ball. And so it wasn't really like a mess. Like when we had the ball, it wasn't like a terrible train wreck. It was just a constant like nothing, like just a blah.

And I don't think like Jack's Newell separated himself from that sort of blah-ness. But I don't think he did anything to particularly distinguish himself either. Yeah, because I think he was among the players who was trying very hard in this game. Do you think there's almost like a trend of guys who aren't quite clearly first choice players being like, this is my tryout? And the guys who are clearly first choice players like, hey, we've got a big one coming up. Yeah, maybe they need to have a chat with each other about it because like, because Yule and Sergeant are probably, you know, who probably feel like they have a lot to prove still. weren't getting an assist from Weston or Sergenio on their project of proving themselves. Let's go to the Switzerland goal.

We were pressing super high. This is in the 10th minute, and they broke us down to our left flank through Aronson, Ewell and Dest. Yule was coming up high. Desk came up high late. And so then it's Shakiri and Widmer, you know, an attacker and a wink. back running 2 v1 at Brooks and Widmer picked out Ricardo Rodriguez on the opposite flank with a not very good ball, but it did get there behind him. And then Rodriguez settled it quickly at the top

of the 18 and took a shot that deflected off of cannon and became unstoppable, pretty much. Also a bit of a lucky goal, but clearly showed that we weren't airtight on the left side of our defense, I guess is how I look at it. Do you guys think that Cannon's technique while closing down was the right technique there? He kind of contorted his body in a probably not correct way. And I think it should have been, well, I don't think they should have scored, especially off that shot. I think if he closed it down better, he probably would have blocked it. but just want to hear your thoughts great so i love again breaking down any play like to its

to its tiniest like indivisible piece so uh i'm happy to like talk about canon's blocking technique i feel like no he did and he turned his shoulder he made himself a little bit too narrow like any good goalkeeper knows that when you're going to get into that genuflect stance uh which is like a technique that goalkeepers use all the time and i don't know how often defenders work on that stuff you got to keep like your shoulders and body square to the play, to the ball to take up as much of the goals you can. So no, he should have been cleaner there. But that kind of goes to the point is when we're talking about a detail that minute, there wasn't a lot of other things that those back, that backline did incorrectly on that play as far as Brooks and McKenzie and Cannon to rotate

once the press was beat. I thought they actually did a pretty good job of it. Like all told, this was probably like the fifth best chance that we gave up in those transition moments once the press was broken, it's going to get the attention because they got the goal from it, but there were way worse sequences for our defense that are going to get broken down in the film room. Okay. There was, can I also just talk about one bit, and I'm not going to try to pick on Ewell a ton, and I know we're only on the 10th minute, and we've got a lot of chronology left. I'll pick up the pace. And it's hard to know whether or not it would have made a big difference if it were Adams instead of Ewell, but part of that press is when that ball goes into the guy,

Ewell is on his back tight when I think their goalkeeper, their defenders were kind of under high pressure. The whole idea is to create that pass where they are floating a ball into a guy centrally with someone right on his back. And part of it is making that guy's job incredibly difficult to play out of. And this is where, you know, this was kind of one of the subtler instances of that play. But was it Jacqueso who played? He didn't have any real trouble, Ewell didn't actually trouble him at all. And that created a little bit, I think that created a little bit of indecision for Dest because now he's like, okay, have they broken our press here? Because we have Aronson up and Sergeant Up and all our attackers are up on

the goalkeeper's line. And now that guy has gotten away from Ewell. He's created a comfortable ability to play the ball. Should we drop and regain our shape or do we keep pressing? And Dest didn't really do either of those things. Then when Ewell's man laid the ball off to Dest's guy. Dest went late and that's what he had all the time in the world to pick out the past. But that's where I'm like, okay, if that were Adams, is that play blown up right there one way or the other, either we win it or we foul him. But we actually go after that player at that moment rather than letting it continue to develop.

Yeah, there's a certain, there's a certain skill in recognizing the danger of something like that way beforehand that maybe Adams has better than Yule. I guess I'm just concerned when I see that at how easy it was. And maybe it's that simple. It's like you all didn't do enough to blow up the play. And Dest was confused, but we've got to iron that out, you know, going forward because that's just too easy for the opponent. All right.

So it's one zero, Switzerland. And like I said, at the top, I think we played really well from this moment forward until the, until Rodriguez missed his penalty. I won't go into every chance. There was a bad giveaway from Jacques in the 13th minute. Jet taps it to Aronson and we're off to the races already deep inside their half. Aronson dribbles himself into a dead end. I think it's fair to say of Swiss defenders at the top of the box and gets easily dispossessed.

I did not think Aronson was very sharp in the early going in this game. And then- Bells, I'm sorry. I got to jump in again. Please, please. I clocked this event. because in the first minute, it was just a learning moment for us. In the first minute, we kind of were pressing similarly,

and all five of our front guys, our front three plus Legit and McKinney, got like all the way up. So we had like a line of five. And Switzerland very calmly and easily just hit the ball into a massive gap between that five, and then Ewell in our back three or our back four. So I think it was probably on Legat. Legat got too high too soon. He committed to a guy off the ball.

And in this moment in the 13th minute, you can see like Leget very clearly like checking his shoulders, identifying where Shakiri was in between the lines and took that pass away first and then waited for the poor touch and took it there. So rather than overcommitting early and letting him just get between our lines, he did a much better job in the 13th minute to create that sort of chance off the press, which is what we're going to live and die by. It seems like against good teams. It seems like he sort of, so he sort of baited Jacquesa into the poor. pass in a way. Well, I noticed, I just noticed how, you know,

Aronson sort of looked like a mess after he got the ball from Legette. And then nobody else was moving with any sort of intention or, or even energy. I mean, Sergeant was moving with energy, but if you go back and watch this play, it's just a good example of how he's not very effective off the ball. He's still not that effective off the ball. he runs you guys may disagree with me on this but he ran right into erinson's path he didn't drag the center back across erinson's face and he didn't drag center back away from erinson to the right he just sort of didn't either and then ran right into erinsen's path and then erins erinsen's

surrounded by four guys and sergeant isn't in a place to receive the ball so it's kind of like what he did was counterproductive and then everybody else who was of the five it was a five on five attack in transition in that moment. Everybody else just was kind of jogging along. Legette, McKinney, Rana, loping along on the, out wide. And so we didn't, nothing came out. Aronson. Nobody caught up to the ball, right?

Right. Aronson and Sergeant were the only actually two guys who met the defensive line at the top of the box. And maybe you could say Aronson needs to sort of have that pause. Yeah. Out to develop. But that's where if there's no urgency, then that's an unnatural pause. If everyone's moving full speed and you're in that zone playing,

then you wouldn't need to pause there because your guys would be flying up field. So like you have to take into account that some of your team is kind of coasting. So I got to wait for my men's league team to show up here. Yeah. And then it fell to McKinney after the, after Aronson was dispossessed. And he's kind of standing there. And Aronson and Sergeant, neither of them moves into open pocket of space. So McKinney just whips it out wide to Dest.

and then Desk kind of overly casually gives the ball away trying to take a guy on, which was a little bit of a casualness was a bit of a theme for Sergenio in the game, I think. So I'm not following my own promise to skip some of these items, but I thought Horvath came off his line effectively in the 21st minute, even though Widmer was called offside on a ball and behind. 24th minute Raina drives forward after a Yule recovery, forward pass and he slips it wide to Leggett who chips a ball at the back post where nobody is running. This was a little bit of a promising moment.

28th minute, Leggett gets a golden chance off of the press. And this is where we start to see the press really create some opportunities, some more opportunities. Aronson dispossesses Shar the central center back right next to the goalkeeper. And then Sergeant pokes it backward to Leggett, who side-foots it with his left foot and just misses the near post. It was actually a yard or two wide. if it had been on frame, it would have been a brace for him, which is ironic because I don't think he was playing all that well in the game up to that point. Any thoughts on that moment, guys?

Sanjif, you've been quiet for too long. I mean, I just think you see sergeants and probably Erison's best quality with their pressing on display, especially when we created that chance. Yeah. You see like they're so they they both work very hard in the press which is something that I enjoy because it creates chance like this created a chance that. Beginning of the second half and I think we're kind of starting to see a little bit of how how I guess aggressive we're going to play a press at times because I was a little surprised we played it that high because Yule was almost in the final third at times pressing down and closing. down. So I think this sequence was maybe a glimpse into what we could see, especially if we have Adams, if hopefully we can see him healthy with the national teams. I think this chance was a

pretty good glimpse at what we could potentially see if we continue to play this high press. But obviously it broke down at times. I thought it was the most effective around this 20 to like 35 minute mark. There was a time where Somer was on a time. heavy pressure outside of his like outside of the goalie box so it's out of the 18 so I think the press was really shining during this 20 minute runout and I liked what I saw from it I liked what we could potentially see from it with I think Adams is probably the the main thing to it and we created good chances off of it so and it's going to cut both ways because especially against a team like Switzerland. The other thing this kind of highlights is how committed Switzerland were to playing

out of the back, the fact that they even let it get to the point where Aronson's dispossessing or disrupting their centerback on the end line, basically. We won't really see that in Conca Cap very much because Honduras is not going to let it get to that point. They will have already hooked the ball up field. And tied to that, Honduras also won't casually be able to play through our press later in the game because they won't have even tried to do that. I don't think. I'm not expecting Honduras to be that patient and that disciplined and sort of also that savvy all over the field because you need all of your guys sort of moving in these patterns together to find these openings in the press and I don't think we're probably going to see that too much which is why this was an

important test to find where those I think on TSS they call it the holes in our net you have to find out where those holes are and this Switzerland was a very good game to do that at least Okay, awesome. So 30th minute, decent chance for Aronson. We win a physical battle in the midfield when Ewell crashes into the back of Jaka and it falls to Aronson and we're off in something of a transition moment. Legette drives forward and taps at wide desk, deskt, taps it to Raina, who spots a good run from McKinney to the back post, chips it to him. McKinney settles it way wide, plays it back to Cannon, who squares for Aronson, I don't know, about at the penalty mark or, a little bit to the right of it.

And Aaron, a nice quick turn and left-footed strike draws a solid save from Summer. So I would call that kind of a half chance. It wasn't, well, three-quarters chance, let's say. It's an errands and three-quarters chance. It's a D.K. 99% chance. Right. Well, that's one. We just kind of skipped over that.

Anyone surprised that Darrell D.K. Just not on the roster for this game when we know he's not going to play in the team. Yes, that's a good point. I was surprised by that. I'd like to see him, man. I'd like to see more of him. So I guess we won't get to see him until the Costa Rica friendly.

So yeah, that results in a decent chance. And then the 35th minute, Sergeant gets a headed chance on a good ball across from Cannon. Maybe he gets nudged a little bit as he goes up for it, but he biffs it, a blooped header that's one-handed down by summer.

Doesn't even give him the respect of grabbing it with two hands. And then the great Dest chance off a corner kick. Ewell wins a good battle with Breland Bulla at the top of Switzerland's box after a corner kick and pokes it to Dest, who takes on a couple guys and gets the ball on his left foot and hits it right at Summer from point blank. It just can't beat him.

But that was a good chance too. That was the Dest sauce. And really, you know, you talked about how Dest had sort of a casual air about him for the whole game. I think it was like a mixture of casual and then just this almost necessity for Dest. and a lot of times Raina too, to his defense, basically revert to Hero Ball because of the sort of lack of urgency and movement around was like, okay, well, I'm just going to, I'm capable of doing a guy, so that's what I'm going to try to do. Yeah.

And in this case, the Hero Ball was, is going to go on his Instagram. And then Desk gets the, gets called for the penalty a few minutes later. It's a ball over the top to Widmer, I think, isn't it, Widmer? Yeah. the wingback. Our listeners want to know who it was. Desk's a little slow to follow the run, maybe. And then when Widmer tries a volley at first time across the box, it hits

Desk's forearm. Clear penalty for me. I know not everyone agrees with that. Anyway, Rodriguez missed the penalty wide. And we're getting close to halftime. Any thoughts, guys? I think we kind of, the game got a little, not scrappy, but a little, lost a little flow after that solid period that we had.

had. Switzerland was kind of starting to turn it around. I thought we played pretty well up to this point. I think you've mentioned a few times the 41st minute, that penalty, it kind of stemmed the tide after a pretty decent start, at least. I mean, I'm not going to read too much or look too much into the handball. Obviously, he could have been a little quicker in reacting to the run, but I don't really like to talk about like the handball rules and what's not a handball.

It's actually in the bylaws on Skype. I guess you're not allowed to. Right. So I'm not really too concerned or upset about the penalty or whatever happened there. Like it happens. But yeah, I think I think it this kind of represented us starting to lose a bit of a hold into the game around this time. With the caveat, Greg, that it's the, that everybody was, there was a lack of urgency on both sides. I think it's fair to say we were the, we were probably the better team in the first half, slightly.

And that's not nothing. I think that when you heard Burrhalter Sound all sanguine in the post-game press conference and saying like, you know, it could have gone the other way, if we finished our chances, which is kind of a thing that coaches say, you can, you can see how he sort of thinks that, based on the first half. Yeah, and I kind of would agree with it, and it goes back to what I said about Switzerland, when you have a bunch of $15 million players

who are just kind of going through the motions, they can still look pretty competent. And I think that you could almost apply some of that to how the U.S. looked in the first half too, where not everyone's going full speed all at once, but enough guys have enough competence that we don't get played off the field by a half-hearted Switzerland team. So that's like my take.

away. Is that us playing half-hearted against the half-hearted good team? Didn't get played off the field. Yeah, half-hearted is a good word for it. So then... Progress. Right? I mean, strangely enough, it is progress. So at the half, Switzerland made three subs, and the U.S. made none. And the subs for Switzerland were Stephen Zuber from Eintracht Frankfurt, came on for Shakiri, Atalanta midfielder Ramo Froyler. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that, right, but he was a good player, came on for one of the centerbacks, Bonito, Loris Benito, and then Dortmund centerback, Manuel Akonji came on for Nico Elvedi. And so they went from a three-man back to a four-man back. And Froiler and

Zuber were big influences on this game. They were both really good and made a lot happen. 48th minute, first first good chance came on a set piece for Switzerland from a corner, Zacharia, headed it back across. And Josh Sargent held on Fabian Schar and Schar missed the frame from point blank with his head, tried to send it back to the near post or the far post, which depending on your perspective, and hit it just over. I don't understand our set piece defending a lot of times, like what's going on. Well, it's like, I feel like set piece defending is like 90% commitment anyway. And so in a game, I'm already saying, our commitment is pretty lackluster to see guys sort of

ball watching not really a surprise there it is very much on brand for this contest i it made me you know somebody asked in on twitter have we when was the last time we scored a goal on a set piece well yeah a goal on a set piece have we scored one under burrhalter i don't know i'm sure long have a a goal in the gold cup yeah he did you're right but it's not good that we're going back to the twenty so something to something to you know monitor going going Going forward is our set piece, defending and attacking. 52nd minute, golden chance, wonderful chance. Raina off the post from the press, a good find from Sergeant.

It starts with Cannon losing the ball, trying to receive a pass from McKinney, and then pressuring Zuber into a terrible pass intercepted by Sergeant inside the box. He turns and taps it to Raina at the top of the area. Raina sizes it up and takes a shot with his left foot, freezes the keeper, but the shot Karam's off the post wide. Sanjeefe, how you feeling? How did you feel about that shot, that moment? I mean, the press again, I think that was our,

was that our best chance that half? I can't remember if we created anything else of no other than that. I think it was our best chance, though. So, yeah, the press was good. I mean, Zuber, I don't know if he, I don't know how much that was just him being lackluster to make that pass or that, like that poor of a pass, or if he was trying to clear it or what,

exactly happened there, but I mean, the press, I think it had an effect on that. And it was pretty instrumental in creating a chance right after the press. I remember especially when Burrhalter started, he always talked about, I can't remember exactly what he would always say, like, disorganizing to create chances or something along those lines. And I think we started to see that this game, as I mentioned earlier. We had the Big Jet Chance, then we had this half chance too. So you kind of see a little bit of what he's been talking about through. his time starting to show. Obviously, it wasn't like a one-on-one with the keeper, like, sit or chance or anything like that.

But having more chances like that throughout the game, I mean, it's something I can always get behind. Sanji, that's a great callback. It was unbalanced the opponent or disorganized the opponent with the ball. Right. And so it's kind of, it's not exactly what he was referring to. Right, because we've switched. And so now, just very much like the, the, the, the.

press is the best creator. We've, we've now tried to disorganize the opponent off of the ball without the ball. And it was kind of interesting because again, in this game in particular, we very rarely disorganize them with the ball. We actually did have a lot of moments where we did beat them with the ball and we had them disorganized. But when you're playing a really good team, that sort of they organize, they reorganize very quickly. So it snaps back into, into their shape. And we were never playing with enough urgency or risk-taking or boldness

to capitalize on those moments when we did have them a little bit, a little bit disorganized. Yeah, the moment of disorganization lasts for a very short window. You got to like strike while that iron is disorganized. Right. 53rd minute, a sergeant header wide. Good buildup from Raina and Destin Legat. This was an example of us disorganizing the opponent with the ball to some extent.

down the left flank. Desk gets in behind and hits a good left-footed cross. Sergeant meets it early and heads hard and well wide of the near post. Would have been a wonderful goal. But that's a tough header from that angle to put it on frame. 54th minute, our defense starts to show its cracks. Dest is slow to get back after another Rondo session in the Swiss attacking third with Legette and Raina.

And then Zuber finds Mbolo out wide isolated against Brooks. which is just not what we want at all. And Bolo does Brooks just by passing the ball around him and then smashes it off of Horvoss's head as Horvath comes out to meet him. Horvath a little shook up. Brooks thought Horvath was slow to react based on the replay, I think, but I'm not sure.

I don't know that that's really Horvah's responsibility to come out that far so quickly. Greg, you can correct me if I'm wrong. But anyway, a good chance that Mbolo does not. convert. I mean, you might if you just know that John Brooks is a defender who the attacker is just going to do the old U-11 hit the ball past them and run a bit. But it's more just about, again, this isn't really a John Brooks mistake when he gets done this badly. I'd like him to do better in these situations. But once we're facing Mbolo faced up against John Brooks with half of the

field to play, the system has failed us somewhere along the line. So we need to, we need to, we need to find ways to not let this happen. So where did the system fail us on this one? Man, I'll have to, I'll have to rewatch this one. Sanjeev, have you seen it? Somebody had posted it, so I wanted to, I think maybe Sean Brooks has posted it, but I'll have, I'll have to re-watch it. That's okay. That's okay. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, Zuber coming from the left and just like dribbling inside with the ball and then he hits essentially a diagonal pass out wide to Mbolo and Dest is just slow to get back. He was way up in the opponent's attacking third. I think he got a little frustrated by something that happened up there

and he just didn't get back fast at all. Dest will definitely end up on video looking the worst of it because it's sort of his flank, you know, so it's like where is he? He's gone. But I also think that my general thought watching was that our eights, both our dual eights, were also so lethargic or just so uninterested. And I honestly think at this point our entire team between the press and even our offense is predicated on having hyperactive eights. And so when they're not their normal hyperactive selves, I think it'll show in moments like

this where Switzerland have all are very comfortably able to get the ball into this midfield area and hit that long switch from left to right, their left to their right. And so I think that's going to be a big deal too. So hopefully a switch is flipped in Nations League and our eights go back to just buzzing everywhere all the time. So you don't get to pick your head up if you're Swisswinder Honduras. You don't get to identify where that space is and say,

oh my God, we got John Brooks 1 v1. This is what we're doing. So, you know, that's basically the big hope is that I'm taking on faith that we won't look this casual. Unis Musa. Do you think Musa and Adams will fix this issue? Because you're going to have this. He's going to be pushed up.

He's probably being caught out a lot. That's just the nature of how he plays. And with that, if we're keeping dust on the left, you're going to have Brooks Isolid 1 v. Do you think hopefully an increased, just increased, increased conviction, from our midfielders, our eights, and hopefully Tyler Adams back there,

do you think this will fix this issue because it's something that we saw a few times where Dest is caught out. Brooks is by himself, and they play a one-two around him, or something happens where he's by himself, and you don't really want, that's not where you want John Brooks at.

So do you think this, getting Musa and Adams and hopefully getting a little bit more effort would fix this, or is this just something we have to complete? completely revisit. So when you're talking about fix it, you're talking about, are you kind of almost saying, can we play Dest on the left,

or will teams just hit blind balls when they win it out into that channel and be like, all right, well, we don't know for sure what the space situation here is, but we're just going to trust Albert Elise to beat John Brooks to the ball in this space a couple of times a game and make something out. Yeah. That left side being exploited, I guess is kind of my question. I don't know, man, but if we can't, then we're going to have to change, because our other fullback would get forward too. If it's Anthony Robinson.

If it's Sam Vine's like they'll get forward a little bit. So it's not like, you know, Dest is unique in that sense. Dest is much better at it. So we tend to think of him as the attacking fullback. But Reggie Cannon gets up on the right side too. So I don't know. I don't know if there's an answer. If we have to leave a whole or half of a person back to protect John Brooks in transition, I'm not sure.

or if we can just count on more pressure upfield and more energy from our eights to not let guys pick their heads up and find that pass. Right. It's scary, man. This whole conversation is a little scary because, like, it all depends on a guy who's like, I don't know, has he played in like 10% of national team games over the last two years? I love Tyler Adams, but he's just not healthy that often. and that's the whole, you know, if we don't have him,

then we're going to just be giving up like 2.0 XG every game down the left flank. That doesn't seem like a good future. Let's find out now. Let's find out over the next week. Yeah. We got a little joy with McKinney. I just wanted to note that McKinney in-out run to the left wing that Brooks, spotted him on and found.

And then McKinney beats his guy and cuts inside and his cross is cut out for a corner. Just that McKinney run to the corner is a good weapon. They use it at Juventus. We ought to use it for the U.S. Men's National team. And we didn't. That was like the one time we did. 57th minute, another huge Mbolo chance.

This one is even better than the first. It's not complicated buildup. It's a long clearance from Jan Summer to Safarevich, the big number nine for Switzerland, who chested down for Froiler in the center circle. Freiler lobs it first time in behind Brooks and Dest. Now, Brooks was tracking Safarevich, so he's not on, he's not on Embolo, who's making this run from deep. Yule had been grappling with Embolo while the ball was in the air, but released him as

Safarevich chested it down to do what I'm not entire. fairly sure. And then Dest was wide and perhaps could have picked up Mbolo but didn't. So you will brooks and Destin transition. Not great, Bob. Can I fight back on this

narrative? Fight back. This one might be Mark McKenzie and it might be one where McKenzie's positioning was so far off that he actually gets himself out of any blame because when you're working as a centerback tandem on a long ball. like this was a goal kick, right?

It wasn't a goal kick. It was a, it was from the run of play. Okay. Still. If McKenzie is tighter to Brooks, and when Brooks steps up, McKenzie's natural motion should be to drop and be central, like essentially to intercept the path between the ball and the goal a little, or to cheat that way.

But on the video, McKenzie is like eight yards deeper than everyone else, but he's still shifted way out to the right. You're right about that, for sure. Because my first thought was, oh, man, like McKenzie's so far deep. He's going to be holding everyone on side. It didn't matter because the Swissone attacker was still on his own half when they hit the ball over. But McKenzie was nowhere to play that sort of center fielder that we at this point associate so much with Aaron Long and his role with the team. And we didn't, that was not there on this, on this chance. So McKenzie almost got over to block a portion of the goal once the shot was being taken. But he was late. And part of the reason he's late is because his position. positioning was 15 yards over to the right instead of being in a more natural spot to play centerfielder. You know, now that you mentioned that, I think I saw a quote from Burrhalter that he wishes McKenzie had been tighter with Brooks, not specifically on that play, but just in general. Yeah, he said more compact.

And for me, my thought was that meant higher up because, again, looking at in real speed, you'd be like, holy shit, McKenzie's keeping everybody on side. Again, the offside wasn't the issue on this one. it was how far shaded off the center line he was. I see. Okay. Yeah. But I mean,

that could be the same. Compact can be side to side and vertically. Okay. So just trying to come to desk defense on this and maybe a little bit, a little bit, you will. But overall, I do want to say McKenzie looked very reassuring back there for what we,

for what was kind of an unknown going into the game. This would be what probably has one shining bad moment, right, in the game if it, if there is one. Yeah, and it's still just, it's such a bang, bang thing. Like, okay, if you're off by this much, a really good team can punish you with a breakaway, a clear chance on goal. So, it's a clever ball from Freiler, I will say. Clever ball. All the timing is right. Like, it's just something we haven't, we've talked so much about some of these other opponents we've played, even Wales and Northern Ireland. They're just not capable of punishing you. Like, they don't have

the quality to exploit these mistakes you make. Switzerland exploited the data of them with chances. They just didn't convert very well, which kept the scoreline pretty respectable. Yep. And Bolo did end up one v.1 with Horvath, even though McKenzie did make an effort to get over, Horvath gets big and makes a save. 61st minute, three subs for the USA, Ream for Brooks, Musa for Leggett, and Acosta for Yule. And I think it's fair to separate out what happened before these subs from what happened

after them. In some ways, the game kind of deteriorated at this point. I mean, it had already begun deteriorating for the U.S. thanks to those two Mbolo chances. But there wasn't like a, I don't know. I guess I don't know what to make of those two chances. They're very different. The two chances come from very different things, you know.

And they're not the same. They're not the same thing. Those two big Mbolo chances, even though they end up looking the same. One comes from like a long goal kick. One comes from a diagonal from the left side. one comes from a deep run from a run from deep from umbolo the other comes from umbola just parking out wide

so I don't know not sure what to make of those so it's good that we can be beaten in a variety of ways um yeah uh the goal the Switzerland goal came right after the subs it was uh it was the winner it turns out pretty interesting comes after a long spell of Swiss

possession right after the subs and then a quick turnover and Raina gives it back to them and they put 19 passes together before Zuber receives a nice disguise pass from Jaka and drives at the box from the left channel, clips it across and it skitters through to Mbolo who can't handle it. And then it bounces off of desk awkwardly. It's all a little comical at this point. Back to Mbola who swings and misses as Riem challenges and it squirts back through to Zuber who's continued his run after making the cross and tucks it in under Horvath.

umbollah with another run from deep what did you guys make of this goal sanjif who whose fault is it whose fault is the goal i think it's hard to pinpoint it on one person um i think we saw acosta losing his umbollo losing that run um i disagree i thought it was mckenny you guys both think it was acosta but mckenny was standing right next to him yeah i guess i guess they're both kind of sandwiching in Bolo. So I guess, I don't know, one of them lost, someone's got to stay there. I think we all agree on that.

I think in the slack I just put classic, like classic coasting, like Acosta's just watching his guy, McKenny's doing the same, like they're just, they're both just watching the line of defenders dropping to try to do their desperation defending and not interested in doing any desperation defending of their own. Right. But off air, Sanjee, have you had some thoughts about the way Musa attacked the,

attacked Jaka, right? Yeah, I just think, I don't, I think Jaka's not going to be Moussa off the dribble. Like, that's, he's, he's not quick enough, and Moussa's quicker than him. And I think the way he closed down, there's so, there's what, like four of our players on to the left of Jaka, so there's only one way he can only pass to the right. I think the way that Musa closed down, he opened up his body. It was a good disguised pass, but I think the way he opened up his body, he pretty much gave Jacques that opportunity when if he closed down from the other way.

I think he wouldn't have had anywhere else to really go there. And I think he was also a little slow, a little timid in closing down that space because, as I said before, he's not going to get beat off the dribble by Jacques. So I think he could have been a little bit more assertive in closing that down. I know Greg thought Aronson had some issues. I'm not completely sure if I agree with that, but I mean, if you want to give your... So as Moose is closing that pass down, Aronson is shaded out to the right, which is what you'd expect, because at that point he was playing right-wing or Raina had switched over to the left.

And so I feel like the man out there is Aronson's sort of responsibility, even if it's sort of Musa's job to shade the play away from there. Sometimes guys, you know, beat that little shade body shape of pressure and find the right pass. But Aronson broke upfield expecting Jacquesa to just drop the ball back, I think. So he was already starting to apply pressure onto the back line of Switzerland. And that's what allowed just a free man out wide. And Jacques did a good job finding him. And so if Musa was making a mistake, Jacques had punished him for that.

And then it's Cannon sort of facing a bad situation. And still a lot of things had to go correctly for. for that ball to get over to the far post. It was a really clever sort of dinked ball through like a line of U.S. defenders to get back there. I think that's part of why McKenny and Acosta were ball watching is because they didn't expect to see that ball float through everybody. Do you think that Aronson should have dropped back then

to Mark Zuber when Jaka picked up the ball then? It's sort of like splitting differences. So yeah, I think he should have been holding a little bit longer. Like you can't go up field yet. You have to wait, and I know you're excited to go put that line of pressure on. That's what you've been doing all game. But I think he did need to hold deeper for longer until the play developed more.

Okay. And then do you have any, do you have issues with how, how Dest was? I mean, obviously the clearance was, I mean, I mean, a little ballerina display there, but. Well, same thing for him, that ball getting to Death surprise him too. And that's why he got so wrong footed. I do think Dest as the canon got put in the situation. So once the ball goes out wide and everyone's dropping, you drop and you tighten up. So where I think Dest was still blackluster, that's like the word of the day,

was in tightening up with Tim Riem and getting the back four to shift all the way, get tight and protect the goal. Dest is still like out wide of the six yard box. So, you know, that guy who's out on the sideline, even if you're clocking him, he is not a priority. The priority is the goal. So you tighten up in front of the goal, create your little shell there, and then defend from there.

And Desk didn't wasn't urgently getting back to do that. And again, like, I'm not even trying to be that critical. I'm like, okay, it's the end of your men's league game. And you've got another, it's a double header. Like I'm, I'm kind of like fine. It sounds terrible. But I'm kind of like fine that the guys were on cruise control because they have another game four days from now at altitude.

So I'm, I'm definitely making excuses for them. But in the textbook, Desk's. should have been much tighter to ream as that play started to get more and more dangerous. Right. I think it was just all around a bit of a defensive breakdown from multiple parties. That's where I'm at. Yeah. And I think the, I guess I think the lackluster nature of things was starting to show itself

in the way Switzerland could just pass around us for, it felt like a long, long time, basically from the subs until the goal. Well, not, yeah. I mean, okay, that reminds me. We're not going to do all the every last moment in the last 20 minutes. But I do think Switzerland was a better team, as you have sort of pointed out here, Greg. They got two really big chances. Zuber did Cannon once and found Freuler unmarked in the box.

Freiler blasted it over. That was in the 81st minute. That was right before Canon came out, right? Do you want to give your Canon take? On rewatch, I'm not quite as hard on him as I was. initially. I don't know, it's just, it remains kind of unsettled, I think. That's my take on Cannon. He's not great. He's not terrible. He had some good moments. He had some bad moments. That kind of describes a lot of people's game yesterday. What about you guys? Go ahead,

Sanjee. I think I'm feeling the same way. I would, there was a moment in the 70th minute when Cannon and Raina played a nice combination at the top of the box, and Raina flicked the ball out to Cannon. And he would have had a 1B1 with the keeper, but he was a little – he couldn't lunge to get to the ball to take the touch inside. So he was forced outside, and he had to cross into, like, six different defenders. I think that's just his shortcomings. He's not going to make that touch perfectly.

And I think the ball was a little in front of him, but I think if you have, I don't want to say Yedlin would have got there, but like, I think, I just think those are his shortcomings, especially attacking. He's not clean enough, especially in like the final third, because that would, would have been a 1B1 with Sommer or, I think it was still Sommer at that point. So I think just he's not going to, I mean, he got beat. I mean, just now we were talking about how he got beat. So I think it's important to note that Canon and Raina appear to have reconciled from the last camp because there was some real bad blood between those two.

We did see some improved, I think while Keith tweeted out some improved body language from Raina, a clever, or a nice thumbs up on, I don't remember what it was after, but that's always great to say. Calais Acosta ball, maybe. I was surprised it didn't make your chronology, Bells. Positive body language, 62nd minute. I'm so firmly in Raina's camp anymore that I don't even notice his bad attitudeisms. He just seemed like especially in the first half of player who did not want the ball and did not want to take responsibility to move it forward. That's going to be our fullbacks, basically, I think, outside of desks.

So that's why I say it's unsettled. I didn't like that about Cannon's game, but I don't know who is going to be better in that way. Yetlin had a good cameo. I feel like everyone just wrote it off because it was eight minutes. But in that eight minutes, I thought Yedlin at least came in and was like, guys, it's still a real game. Let's play. And he was going after things. I mean, there weren't a, it's like a tackle football coach, like, love the intensity kind of thing.

But I did love the intensity. Yeah, he had that one, he sort of had like a one-time volleyed pass to McKinney that I noticed from the side. Let's just, let's get a... Do your 82nd minute, do your 82nd minute for sure. Okay. Way a chance on a good McKinney ball into the box. McKinney plays a cuts in from the left side and then plays a ball in the ground to weigh a way a way receives it well.

And then it's just blocked by a Ray Comer, a sub on a last ditch lunge. I felt like it was the first time McKinney had done anything incisive all game. And it sure was nice to see in the 84th minute, 82nd minute. that's that's the way a angle right there right that's what when people talk about what waya offers it's that off the back shoulder of the back line like it didn't look like we had anything really going and suddenly we have tim waya facing goal after a very nice touch to to create then the shot up from that pass do you do you guys are you guys do you think way i misplayed it i've looking at the replay the only way he gets that shot off is by just like toe poking it before the guy slides in But I don't know, you can't wind up and get that shot off. So, so there, like the very optimal play would have been a slightly closer to his body touch, where he didn't have to take the one, the two extra steps. So if he had just slid it out, planted shot, then he would have gotten the shot off.

But instead he had, he slid it out in front of him, step, step, plant shot. So there's the margins are narrow. If we're playing, if we're playing Trinidad, and a January friendly, like he dribbles around the keeper and walks it in while everyone's standing still. But we're not. We're playing real teams now. Yeah. Anyway, it was good to see that sort of back shoulder spacing and run from Timwaya and McKinney finding it with a great pass. Now, we need to get into some takeaways and get the heck out of here.

So what do you guys got? What do you take from this match going into Honduras, Sanjeev? I think my main takeaway is I want Musa to start. I don't know if I play him at the six per se, but I think he needs to be one of the eights just because, like, as I was talking about earlier, he offers that increased ball progression, just that increased urgency.

And I don't think, I really, I don't think it matters to whom, that much who's playing against Honduras because I think we should beat them like with, with whoever there, but I think for games like against Mexico, I would like, I would prefer, I think to see Musa. And another thing, I know we're looking, I'm looking ahead a lot here, but I'm a little bit worried about who is playing up top against Mexico because you get, you're not going to get Sibatu. He just, he looked like he was running in the last as well as well he came on. He was, especially if we're playing a press, he's not clearly not the option there.

And I mean, Sergeant offers that with the press, but I don't think we saw too much from his holdup play or his off ball movement. So that's just one thing that I'm kind of nervous or curious to see hopefully when we get to play Mexico, what happens there. Yeah. Sanjee, I love that you're worried about looking too far to advance two games from now. I think Bells has his 2026 World Cup roster. Yeah, right. My big takeaways are that Horvath and McKenzie look good. I think when I saw the lineup, there were like five guys.

I was like, okay, these are still some unknown guys. I hope that they, I hope a couple of them look good. And Horvath, for all to talk about like, oh, he's not getting any regular minutes, how are you going to play a backup keeper? Horvath, that's twice now, once for his club where he didn't play for eight months, and then suddenly was starting a Champions League game and did great. in a win and now and then lost a spot immediately once miniola came back from COVID and then went nine more months without playing and came back into this game and looked great so it's one of those

things where it's nice to see that he can do that he can go long spells without regular time come in and be a very good shot stopper I also thought he looked good with his feet I don't know how you guys felt about it but we played through him a lot Switzerland were up they were trying to take jackson yule away with Shakiri. And so there weren't a lot of like very easy, obvious passes. He had to find the next layer of pass on the ground. And I thought he did that really well, either hitting McKinney or waiting for an angle to open up and hitting another pass. So I thought that was really promising too because the Rob-on Horvath had been, he doesn't play with, he's not very good with his feet. So I thought he was very much acceptable playing with the ball with his feet. But yeah,

otherwise McKenzie, I thought was the lone outfield player who not necessarily drizzled with glory, but at least, at least looked able. And we wanted to see that from him. We did. So I think that's a good, a really good step for us. Did he give off a whiff of glory? I mean, if you were near him, if you were, if you were downwind, you would definitely like catch some of the glory. But I do think for the next round of games to not look, I'm willing to look two games ahead. We need to see that urgency. We got to see the team buzzing. And then it's going to be really interesting to watch how teams decide to attack John Brooks if that's going to be the game plan. Because I think Honduras will lump the ball forward early. As soon as they went, I don't

think they're going to try to disorganize us. I think they're going to say they're already leaving three guys, hit it up there, see what our two and a half can do against their three. And we're going to get a couple of runs at goal. Yeah. Is Kyoto in their camp too for Honduras? Kyoto, Rodriguez, Elise, and I think who's their other, who's their other sharp attacker? It might just be, it might be those three is like they're, they're really good attacks. Either way, those two, those two attacking John Brooks one-we-one. It does not, that does not spark joy for me. It brings to mind those two attacking Graham Zussi and DeMarcus Beasley back in 2017.

For what it's worth, we're not, I don't think we're doing a full Honduras preview. I hope we see Destin Robinson paired up for that game. and it's less about defense liability and more about I think Honduras can be had by just letting guys attack him around the flanks and I think Robinson can, I mean, I'm not going to be mad if I see Dest and Pulisick linking up on the left side,

but I think Robinson can get a lot of joy just beating one v one, whoever goes out to meet him, and I think Desk can do the same on the right. So I'm hoping to see a lot of that. That's my mini Honduras look ahead. Cool. I think, I agree with you,

McKenzie and Horvath were both pleasant surprises and how well they played. I thought we saw some of Legette's limitations in the game. He lost some physical battles, and though I can't pinpoint the blame on him, I thought our midfield was softer than when Musa plays as an eight. And also, I thought Legit was timid in transition, in possession, lots of tapbacks to the guy who passed him the ball. And in some cases, he put his teammates in a tougher spot than if he just turned on the ball and picked his head up.

So, you know, I know we've got a reputation as like a legit fan club podcast here. Let it let the record show that I am, I was disappointed in Sebastian yesterday. Anything else? I don't think, I guess big picture, there's always a lot of doom and gloom on Twitter. There's always a lot of people like, you know, apocalyptic sort of talk after a loss. and I even felt a little bit of it watching the game in real time, but I do think on rewatch there was a lot more to be encouraged about and the problems were somewhat isolated

against a good Switzerland team, like Sanjeev said right at the top. This is a good team, a bunch of Bundesliga players. There's some Premier League players. There's some Syria players in a League of one player, a league of uh, it's a good team. And we played, we didn't, we were not the better. team, but we were not played off the park. We had some serious defensive shortcomings that came to

play, but we were not, it was not like we were in, and they were in another league from us or something. Yeah, I think, I think we definitely had some good buildup patterns. That sergeant header, like, early on in the first half off like the desk and legit combination there, that was one that stuck in my head. And obviously with our pressing, we created a few chances. So, I came away encouraged. I was a little surprised to see. I guess, I mean, obviously, to be expected, like, how disappointed some people were. Like, I get we looked pretty terrible at times defensively.

But I think Switzerland's about Mexico's level, I think, in the ELO rating. So our problem is we look good for a little bit, and then we just fall apart. So I think we saw that. I mean, obviously, we saw that again. We see that against Mexico at times, that three-no loss. But I came away encouraged with how our press looked in the first half and beginning of the second half. And I liked what I saw from some of the build-up patterns,

but obviously there's stuff that we need to iron out. And whether that's just a systemic issue with having Brooks and Dest out on the same flank together with how they play, or if it's something that can be fixed with having Tyler Adams or just having just being more aware of what those issues are. I'm not completely sure, but yeah, overall. Just having eights, eight who cut off that pass to the wide, to the wide attacker. Well, let's do it. Let's roll Honduras.

Let's take Mexico toe to toe and let's see how we come out the other side. Yeah, I mean, that's the real test. Like, because like you say, Greg, this was a, this was a maybe a, there was a last. of urgency on both sides in this game. Well, that will not be an excuse against Honduras against Mexico. So tune in. Tune in on Thursday. Paramount Plus.

We'll be recording a podcast on Friday morning or Friday sometime. Thank you, Sanji, for your time. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Good to see you guys. We'll see you.