Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #180: A Nations League sh*thousing review w/Watke

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

Not a very serious episode, as you might imagine, but I'd argue it's a practical matter, especially with World Cup qualifiers on the horizon. Chris Russell (aka @watke_) joins to talk about the big incidents in the Honduras and Mexico victories, and look ahead to the next competitive fixtures.Find Watke (Chris Russell) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/watke_And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlg3hhw6DoStnq5ALzQkcA 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. Thank you for downloading this episode of Scuffed. Got a guest today. Chris Russell, also known as Watki. He's made several videos specifically about gamesmanship and many other things regarding soccer. Has kind of almost created a new genre of video, always short, sweet, and focused on the action adjacent to the action. At least one of his videos has argued for the children of America. to more readily fall down on contact in the penalty area. I'm a huge fan. So are you probably. Chris, how are you doing?

I'm doing a well out of it. It's good to be here. Looking forward to talking through some of these important topics with you today. And that is, children, do dive in the box. Yes, yeah. We'll have lots of advice for children throughout this episode. This is going to be about shit housing. Excuse my language.

Shit housing, gamesmanship, specifically over the, the, two games in the Nations League tournament where there were a lot of stakes. And I think this is a fun topic, but I also think it's very practical. Wouldn't you agree? I would, yeah. Yeah, I really think of the players as active participants in helping find justice together with the referee. So that negotiation, I think, is an important part.

And I think it's not talked about enough. It's kind of a triangulation of justice, really. maybe even a quadrangulation of justice. Yeah, there's a lot of geometry involved in. I mean, let me just try to set it up a little bit. Gamesmanship is part of all sports. We all know that. It's especially, I think, important in soccer.

We sometimes frame it in our context as specifically a Concaf phenomenon. But, well, and obviously Concaf is the venue that's relevant for this podcast. But it's really a fact of life in global soccer. We're seeing it even, you know, in the Euros right now, very clearly. And if you'll allow me to put on my, will you allow me to put on my amateur anthropologist hat? I will, yes. Okay. I think there may be in some parts of U.S. culture this idea that gamesmanship is bad.

You know, it's shameful. And you should just go out and play hard with manly or womanly vigor and, you know, let the chips fall where they may. but that that does sort of miss something doesn't it i think so can you tell me what you think it misses well i think i think it misses how you introduced it it just is a fact that the referee is there and is going to make mistakes and if you're not actively trying to get them to make mistakes in your favor then the other team is going to do that and i don't really consider that that cheating some people do do, but, you know, I think that's the main point of contention.

Yeah, I have to admit, I maybe have evolved on this the more soccer I've watched. I mean, if you had asked me 10 years ago when I was a much more casual fan of the sport, I might have been like, oh, man, that's awful, the faking injury, the time wasting. Mostly, to be honest, I really just want the U.S. national team to win. Yeah. Is that the main thing I care about. And then in non-U.S. national team games, I just really enjoy the. chaos of it. So I don't really have like an ethical reason for thinking shit housing is a good

idea. I just I just really enjoy it. Yeah, I've come to enjoy it a lot more. I guess what I, how I think about it. I've started to really glory in it and enjoy the drama. And I want our players to be, you know, good at it. So, you know, we could get into the etymology of the word. It came, the word shithouse came from Liverpool. If the Guardian newspaper is to be believed, It stands for extremely unpleasant person. And while there may be some Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism embedded in that term, I don't think it's too far off. I think you do want to be unpleasant to play against in all respects.

So with World Cup qualifying around the corner and a World Cup qualifying window, dress rehearsal just behind us, we want to talk about how the U.S. did when it came to this facet of the game. In the past two games, really. We're not going to talk much about the Coast Rehers. or the Switzerland game, just Honduras and Mexico. So, Chris, what are you looking for when it comes to shit housing moments? I'm looking for a clear purpose, first of all.

What are you trying to accomplish? That one's pretty obvious. The second, I think, is commitment. You don't go on half-fire. You either do it or don't. No half-measures on this. The third is I love an element of misdirection, cunning, sutterfuge. be unexpected don't just you know do the same thing every time and then the fourth is team balance

you're not doing this in a vacuum as you're getting up in someone's face or kicking the ball away or or whatever else what are you doing in relation to your teammates you can't go into these things alone maybe you're in a lead role maybe you're a support role and we'll get it all that and then the fifth is game state balance you know what's the score how much time is left the game. Where's the ref heads? Where's the refs head at? Your opponent's head, your own teams, and so on. But it really is the whole thing of, I think, an evolving field of study. Because, you know, we've been talking about shithousing for a while, but are we looking at it really closely in a systematic way? So, like, we're pretty early on. There's a few people working on this,

but, you know, we're kind of the tip of the spear here on, you know, shit house analytics. Maybe we're going to just produce some field notes, you know, and let the more systematic scholarship follow behind us. Exactly. Okay. Well, as everyone knows, the USA beat Honduras 1 to 0 in a pretty chippy game. I thought I was very impressed with Albert Alisa's, the Honduran winger. His approach to the game, he came in on fire, was just ready to get down.

He had that early incident with John Brooks. I think the camera wasn't right on them, but I think Elise sort of went down in front of Brooks, and then what happened? I think this set the tone. It was some sloppy camera work, unfortunately, but piecing it together from a replay and where players were on the field.

It looks like Elise went down probably with some slight contact from, I think, Brooks. And then Brooks does, which I really love, this from him. He gets behind Elise, puts his arms underneath his armpits, and does the lift up. Obviously, Elise is going to flail there. And then what I really love from Brooks from there is he did some really dismissive get-up signals, and then he shushed another player. And he's doing all this without, you know, giving them anything. He's staying calm. He's really keeping the upper hand through all that. And that's key, that's key with Brooks. And he's really, I think he set the tone for both of these two games. He did. He was my

hero in that Honduras game when it came to when he came to gamesmanship. You know, Greg made a point in our last podcast that I think maybe should be added to your five things that you're looking for, which is be in control. You never be

in a position where it looks like you are going to be the one who loses your head. And I think Brooks, you know, he did set the tone in that way. The big one, the big one from this match. it's probably the one we're going to spend the most time on from the match is in the 27th minute when Sergeant saved that header off the line after Zach Stephan went on a walkabout. So there's an amazing goal line clearance.

And then the ball falls to Jonathan Toro, sort of a wide player for Honduras, and he dies. I think it's pretty clear he dove in the box to try to draw a penalty on Weston McKinney. And the ball goes out of bounds. why don't you oh i'll just say reina sprinted over there to lean over and say something probably very very nasty into tooro's ear and then everything sort of everyone's yelling at each other and pushing what's what sticks out to you from this moment what what are the teachable moments here i think the first thing is the suddenness from rena of thought and movement i mean really before even anyone else knew what was going on he was already leaning over toro in

I've really never seen that happen quite like that. It's pretty unique from him. And the way I like that so much is it helps distract from any. Maybe there was a foul, or the ref could have called a foul. It really distracts from that and immediately does that. And then it also just helps establish the narrative that by acting so drastically, he wouldn't really have done that unless Honduras was acting in, just egregious violation of the laws and spirit of the game.

And ethics? Yes. Unethical. It's good to keep that planning in the referee's head. And then the next phase, I think again, it was John Brooks. He really led the way and was really solid. He was, yeah. He was.

Because that's when the player itself obviously came in and there was a bunch of there. It was a big, the big conflict was basically between Brooks and Elise after that. But I have a question for you about Raina. Do you think he did that intentionally to, um, to draw the refs attention away from the penalty shout, or was it just he was so angry at Toro for trying to screw us over that he couldn't help himself but go over and... It's a good question.

I think probably really it happened so fast it had to have just been anger. That's my sense. Unless he's a genius, which maybe he is. But I wanted to give him credit where I can. I enjoy his He's wired pretty differently Yeah He's a different kind of guy

So You know Even if it is anger He seemed to have some control of it By the time he got there He didn't strike out After he You know

Delivered whatever news he delivered to Toro He kind of You could see he could sort of calm down He got pushed away And he's kind of like Why has everybody mad at me You know kind of like kind of drifts away he disappeared after that i did you i i kind of got the sense what he would

have said is basically a command to get up with an expletive yeah i guess there's no point in guessing exactly what he said but like what was kind of well i would like to guess exactly what he said a command to get up followed by an expletive followed by a uh pejorative label yeah i was going to say a secondary and like get yeah we know i think we both know the exact sentence he said Get the blank up you blank, maybe. Yeah, something like. I mean, we're not scientists or linguists. I was thinking he might have, it would almost be scarier there if he said something that had no expletives in it.

And it was just kind of this cold, like some future threat he was going to do. I think that would be even more terrifying because it's good to have, I'm not saying he should have done that. But it's good to have the other team feeling like there's one player on the team is just, a psychopath, an insane person. Like could run over to the sideline, grab a brick and kill you with it, you know?

Exactly. Yeah, and I, and like you said, Brooks was, Brooks was the big man in this moment. He, he seemed totally, like I said in the recap,

languid in his shithousery. He was very calm and also, managed to be calm, but also completely dismissive. That's your word. And dominant with Elise. So that's great. But there is,

is some, I think there were some, there's some room for improvement in this situation. What would you say? I would say from, Weston was doing okay at there, right? And I would say there was a little bit of weakness in the third through seventh or so spots, which is, you know, that's, that comes with time when balancing like down the line there. And it's actually really tough thing. I was thinking about when Brooks is the leader, you can't overshoot what he's doing too much. Right. And he's not going that high on the level thing. So it's actually sort of tough to know exactly what to do. What I would think to do is you basically, you want to mirror Brooks

to a point and just kind of do whatever he's doing, unless you're right next to him, then you need to do something that doesn't mirror it, but it's kind of complimentary. Otherwise, it looks weird. Yep. But keep that spread out. there was some tentativeness from the guys in there. But I'm not too worried about it. I'm not either. I just want to point out, you know, there's this like this improvised choreography almost going on. And I thought McKenny, McKinney was there at the point of confrontation.

And he was somewhat of a show of force. But he didn't seem to have a clear sense of purpose. Like he didn't, he was, he was just, he kind of didn't know what he was supposed to do in that situation. So Brooks gets an A plus for me, Raina gets an A plus, McKinney, I'll give him a B, but I think everybody else is just kind of spectating on the periphery and in Pulisick's case, spectating from 30 yards away, which I don't know, we maybe never need Pulisic to get involved in this. He may be above this fray.

Yeah, maybe not these situations. I think he'll need to be in some of them, but not all of them, not early game ones, I would say. And the one other thing, not so much in the defense of the players on this one is, but I've noticed they're stronger in these shit-housing moments when the opponent is the first to take an action that is a little bit when they're the aggressor.

The fact that Raina did the sort of crazy thing, it kind of puts them on the back foot. and for a team like Mexico or the other great teams, they don't care about that. It's almost irrelevant. But I've noticed that the U.S. hasn't learned to act like the other team has done something wrong even when they haven't. That's not exactly what happened here,

but that's, I think, the general, that's the main area for improvement I see. Yeah, pretending as if you have been grievously wounded is pretty important, I think. And I think Dest, Robinson, Mackenzie, Yule. They didn't know. They had no sense of who was wounded.

They were just sort of there watching Brooks and Elise go at it. I think you make an important point about the third through seventh guys taking supporting roles at a lower frequency than the first two guys or first guy. Yeah. And Mexico in particular is very strong going three down to seven. Oh, yeah. masterclass stuff. That's really where a lot of their strength comes from.

We do have to mention in the 61st minute some brilliant time wasting from Honduran Rigoberto Rivas. This is the stretcher incident where he's carried off by the ages of these young women are hard to ascertain, but they're young on a stretcher. McKinney buckles Revis's seatbelt. What did you see here? You know, and Greg Velasquez talked about this last time. If you're in a situation in a second half at home where the opponent's time wasting,

you can't really complain about this. So, I mean, I like it from Honduras, but we don't want to be in these situations at all. I like that we're using stretcher children now. I was surprised by it. I don't know why doing it. And I did look into a little board. There's actually two teams of children, child stretcher children. One was the boys group, and then there was obviously the girls group.

We saw the boys group later. They had a Colorado Rapids patch on their shorts. I don't think this is that important, but some people were asking what was going on there. And I think it was the same with the girls. So this was an academy setup. Okay. And I like that we're getting them involved like that.

And I'd like to see more of it. I don't know why they did it, though. And I really also like that Weston helped strap the stretcher. I think that helped add. absurd element to the whole thing. It seems like Weston, not to, not to downplay his skills in the sort of the meat and potatoes of a of a shit housing moment, but he seems really good at sort of the genial absurdity around a moment.

Yes. He's just, he does things on the field that are pretty different than what other folks are doing. Like he's out there being really helpful with like the stretchers, the medical bags, water bottles. There's a video of him during the Pulitzer goal celebration against Mexico where everyone else is focused on that iconic celebration. He's behind them making sure they don't knock over the ad board because they're like leaning up against it. So he's just there holding it up. Really? Yeah. I don't know how that fits into this, but I think it's something to watch

moving forward. Yeah. Okay. So we got that goal from Pfok. late in that game and it it is a that was a very much a lesson in let's try to get an early goal in one of these games so we don't end up with lots of stretcher incidents in the in the second half but we couldn't get that done but we did win so wonderful let's move on to the greatest sporting event in human history the USA's three two victory over Mexico um the first shit housing moment i have clocked is Burrhalter in the 72nd minute getting in on the action and I know you've you know if you've analyzed the video on this this incident and others very closely what did you see here well basically what happened here is I believe during this uh Zach Stephan injury somewhere the

course of that substitution some water bottles were placed pretty high up in Burrhalter's you know technical area and he wasn't fully aware of so he goes to try the ball's rolling out. He goes to challenge it, trips over the water bottle, stumbles a little bit. So he ends up jumbling up a little bit with the rojo there. It's a little bit embarrassing.

But I like his active involvement in the game in general, though. What was your read on that situation? I couldn't tell if he was intentionally trying to get weird or if it was just, he's just so into the game, he didn't really see A Rao coming and tripped. But, you know, he was too, I think he could have easily been carded for that. Yeah, he's a little bit awkward.

He's a little strangely awkward. Yeah, for a high-level professional athlete, certainly. Yeah. He's very enthusiastic, though, and I applaud that. He also, earlier in the match, made a played a bounce pass with his hands to who was it? Was it Yedlin?

Was Yedlin? Yeah, and the little bit behind him, and I made a video about, but I do think a chess pass there would be a better option. I think he's going to get better consistency. The ball, he's got to gather the ball and just snap it in there. If you're bouncing it off that surface, it's not,

plus he put a little bit English on that ball and it spins. It ends up a little bit behind Yedlin and doesn't really tell it, sent a clear message to Yedlin on what he's supposed to do. Yeah, you want to clear, I, I, a thousand percent agree with the chess pass shout. We need, we need that to be a bam-bam action, so we're moving, we're moving forward, but, you know, we can all, we can all learn from this tape, including Mr. Burrhalter. So there's so many incidents later in this match.

So we'll get into the 93rd minute is when Herrera slide. tackles Horvath's chest and face. A pretty major gauntlet thrown down here. And Herrera's old enough to know, if not, before he does it, immediately as he does it, that he is probably crossed the line. And I thought we had a good show of force. We got Brooks, McKenzie, Jordan Theosin, Subotchu, Pfok, and Yedlin, a raid toward Herrera with the ref there.

Yedlin starts to step to Herrera. And Lazzano, speaking of that third to seventh guy for Mexico, Lazzano just comes flying in and chest bumps Yedlin pretty hard. Solid technique from him. Really diverting attention from his guilty teammate and expanding and diffusing the conflict, which I think is what you want to do when your guy is the offender.

Yedlin pushes Lazzano and tells him to get the F off me. And then McKenny, in his typical sort of genial way, I don't think he had any ill intent, comes in and wraps up Lizano from behind. And here's where it gets kind of nasty. Herrera's instant reaction is to grab McKinney's throat, which to me is a weird thing to do. I've never done that in any context. And it really pisses McKinney off.

I think he was close to crossing the line there. But credit to him, he didn't. Then he, you know, it goes into an extended bit of litigation with Herrera and others as cool things start to cool down, although there's other stuff going on in the periphery. So walk us through this a little bit. Yeah. My question for you is, because I'm really not sure of this, is the throat thing a deliberate or a tactic they are trying to do?

It's just something that happens in the moment, because it does seem to be happening a lot. Gwaya also got a choke from Alvarez in that same sequence. He was kind of on the edge of the screen, so this didn't get as much attention. And then it happened again at the end of the game, too. And I'm just wondering if this is a deliberate tactic, Seems very, very risky.

And I just don't know if I like it as a tactic. I also just don't like it in general, but I don't know what they're thinking here exactly is. I don't either. I mean, it happens very briefly. We should be fair in that way. It's always like just a quick grab and then the hand is removed. But there's no way to take that in a friendly way.

And I thought, by and large, Alvarez in this moment was more of a peacemaker than a guy causing problems from the Mexico side. But yeah, I don't know. I don't understand it. You think it was a, you think it's a deliberate instigatory tactic? I think it might be. I think it's, I guess it's, it looks shocking, but it is kind of subtle. There's no rapid movement on the arms and it's likely to get a retaliation.

But I'm really not sure. It's really kind of a mystery on this. For me, Wea gets sort of a passing grade here, but he didn't push anything in a certain direction. He just was sort of there dealing with Alvarez. Mackenzie looked upset. Didn't assert himself in a big-time way. I didn't notice anybody else good or bad.

I think, yeah, they did well there. I think it ended up being kind of a standoff, probably a tie between Mexico and them in terms of who won that exchange. One thing I like for Mexico is they had their bench players come in pointing at Americans who were doing things to the ref. And that's something that we didn't have. So as we get more sophisticated, that's something we should be doing more of. And that's kind of what made me think.

Maybe the whole thing was a retaliation trap with the choking. If they're putting a couple of chokes in and then have another. the guy is running in pointing out, you know, guys getting upset or maybe swinging their arms. But everyone did well not to do anything that's going to get a red card or anything there. Do you think they draw it up? Like here, I'm going to run a, I'm going to run a retaliation trap on McKinney. You come in and ID him for the ref? I think, I bet what it is is they don't even have to draw it up anymore. They're so, they're so veteran, have this veteran savvy. They probably have a pretty good shorthand for talking about.

it. But yeah, I'd say, yeah, I'm going to run the trap. I'll be on the unlined penny on coming in there. I'll keep an eye out, see who's really popping off the most. We'll see if we can get one of these guys in the book. Well, McKenney ends up insisting on a fist bump from the Panamanian ref. As, you know, the argument sort of drifts towards the center circle and out there, that's when he gets the fist bump from John Pity, which is a nice moment, a nice jiffable moment. And Also, I think, is practical because McKinney is constantly, I think, engendering goodwill with the ref. Like, that is, that's something he's done since his early days at Shalka, smiling and talking. And, you know, he's never in the ref's face, abusing the ref.

He's just trying to be friends. And that's important. That's, it's, it doesn't obviously seem like shit housing as it happens, but it is giving cover and support for future shit housing. Yep. I think. And then moments later, McKenney. is sharing a water bottle with Edson Alvarez, so, you know, maybe it's all, maybe it's all theater. 96 minute of regulation, the game was paused for the anti-discrimination protocol because of the

chant, the L-Tree chant. I don't have a lot to say here, but it was very surprising, that just visually surprising when they've cut to this blue screen with a step one protocol sign on it. Yeah. And that lasted, I guess, a minute or so, and they were back to play. Yeah. And you noted there was no chant at the Mexico Honduras game yesterday, Saturday. That's what folks were saying on Twitter, and I didn't hear any. Somewhere in there, a dude ran behind Kate Abdo, Gooch, and Dempsey on the CBS set

and just went flying over a railing with security guard. Now, obviously, there's no teachable moment here for the U.S. players, but it was fun to see Clint Dempsey smile. At that. Yeah, he was really, really in his element here. It's a really good game analyst fit. It's hard to imagine a better one. Yep.

All right. 94th minute in extra time. Herrera just tries to murder Wea, Steads up. I mean, that's an exaggeration. He didn't try to murder him, but he did come in studs up and doesn't get a yellow, which would have necessitated a sending off. There was a lot of anger from the U.S. players about this. even the

Univision broadcasters were convinced it should have been a yellow Que Suerte for Mexico was a phrase I heard as a slow motion replay unfolded

how do we react to this setback? I think we handled it pretty well it was a pretty bad no call there or no card there I noticed this particular

referee has some pretty interesting ideas about what aren't yellow cards. I was watching him. He reffed Canada, Haiti on, I guess, Saturday. And he would miss things like this. He has some different priorities when it comes to giving cards. So that's just something to be aware of when you're going to the game,

who the ref is and what you should be expecting. He's almost an active participant in the shithousing at that point. Safety wasn't, in general, was not a huge concern. consideration of him. But he's very, very entertaining. He was entertaining. I think he was just scared to send Herrera off in such an important moment. That's probably it. But he wasn't scared to point at the penalty spot, so let's get into that. Pulisic won that penalty by falling down in the box, an example for all children in our country. Because I think the, I mean, we can argue about it, but whether that was a foul or not, I think is at least debatable.

Yeah, it probably wasn't. But I think there was one camera angle that was, it looked like it was, the far one, and it went with that. And I think that's the lesson here. Like, the ref is going to have a different point of view. So if you're a kid and you're playing in the league, you know, there's not even far he can go through. Definitely hit the ground to put it in the ref's hands.

Just dive. No discussion. Like you said in that, who was the striker who kind of like tried to soldier through getting ridden like a pony for a couple yards. CJ Sapong. Yeah. Yes. No.

But it doesn't matter. I don't remember who it was. So then he comes out and, well, there's a couple other things that happen first. First, he goes over to the screen. Pity does. And Tata gets sent off for putting his arm around Burhalter and Pity to look at the monitor. And I thought this was just Tata being a nice guy, you know?

like hey we're all in this together fam yeah let's take a look at what let's take a look see here it was a very funny scene I've never seen that either he just like he reached out stretched away just wrapped his arms around the tube I think it should have been allowed

I think it was fine in this game I also like that they have the var right there between the benches I know made me feel good to see that like that sort of togetherness from the gaffers yeah great moment One of my favorite moments from the game. But it was not allowed.

It's not allowed. So he was sent off. And then he and Burrhalter have a laugh about it with Hector Moreno. And pity comes away from the video screen, jogging towards the penalty area and just points to the spot in dramatic fashion. Full body sort of pullback. Yeah. Like he's throwing a javelin almost.

That's exactly. exactly what it was. And it talked about this in the last podcast as well. It left him very little room on the next penalty calls. But he couldn't have known there was going to be another one. Yeah. That was like a game ending call he was making there. So it's just like he's just in a tough spot and he's got to do it. And unfortunately, there was another penalty later. He couldn't up, up himself on that. Greg, yeah, Greg did say he didn't leave enough in the tank. But like you said, you can understand. It's the 108th minute of the seven. second period of extra time.

Yeah, got to empty the tank there. Yep. And let's see. Polisic scored. Very nice penalty. And then he's off to celebrate in the corner with his shirt off. Oh, you wanted to mention something pre-penalty here. Yeah, because this is a dynamic that's in the next penalty as well.

Linazz is in trying to disturb Polisik as getting ready, you know, getting his head, wander around him in the way. And there's a shot from the stands. So this is how we saw it wasn't on the broadcast. Adams comes in. It's kind of, he does the thing where you got to kind of mosey the guy out of there without it escalating at all because that delays in more. So that's just a really interesting balance to have to strike there. And he does a very good drop of it. Basically, you put your hands behind your back and just gradually push them away. And they're going to keep coming back, but just staying at it and kind of corralling them out is a unique skill to have. You need someone who can do that.

Yeah, I think, I saw that clip on Twitter with the caption, Tyler Adams is like the bouncer out of clubs and like, who do you know here to Linus? The production, the TV production is something we should talk about here. Why not just show the whole area more often? You know, they're always doing these close-ups with people and... I don't know. Yeah, it makes it, it's frustrating. It makes the job of a shit-housing detective that much harder, really.

Yeah. Yes, it does. It makes the normal video editors or normal highlight editors jump harder too because sometimes you lose some, you can't see what's going on in the game. That too. So, Pulisic runs to the corner,

surrounded by his teammates, removes his shirt, and then we have just a lot of stuff flying down from the stands, hitting people, most notably Giorina. What do you think? What do you see here? A lot of credit to Pulisic for actually running over that corner to lead the celebration

like that. He didn't have to, that could have gone differently, and we wouldn't have gotten that amazing photo. Other than that, it was just kind of chaos, I guess. Everyone I thought was really good in the celebration. That was the one of their best celebration. I've ever seen. Yeah.

The photo is so great because it looks like Tim Wea is like dancing next to Pulisic as Pulisic is shushing everybody. Ray is just Rain is just soaking it all in smiling at the people.

Pointing at Bullisic. What did you say? How much he loves the... Oh yeah, he just, he gets so much joy from the suffering of others. Like he just makes him really happy.

Oh, we got it. At the beginning of this window, the team was, they must have been in Switzerland. They're watching Pulisic play in the Champions League final together, and he misses that goal,

and we have the reaction shot of them doing it, it was in the US videos. And Raina is in the, sitting at the back, you're seeing everyone react. He doesn't move a muscle as the goal is being missed, and then you just see him.

him smiling ear to ear. Oh, no. Happy as a clam that Pulisica has missed this goal. Well, everyone else is having a normal reaction. He's just so happy. And then to go from that to being just the same amount of happy that Pulisica has scored because he's getting to see people be upset about it. He's a chaos merchant.

I don't know. I don't know. I've gotten some guff over the years for being. anti-Rana. So I want to be clear with everyone. I'm not assigning Rana. I am. Being happy that Pulisic missed against I think it's great. He might have just, maybe he's a Manchester City fan. It's possible, but I don't really buy that. I'll go so far as to agree with you 100% that he was happy to look into the faces of the Sad Mexico fans. It might, it might not have been that he's actually

happy at the Pulisic goal, but he might have some Gallo's humor or he, Okay. That could be how he experiences the... I think that's probably more likely what it was. We can have slightly varied interpretations of these events. I think that's fine. Yeah, I just don't want people to be mad at me. Well, somebody will be mad at you.

Actually. Yeah, they will. And then Raina pays, you know, whatever his interior life is, he pays for his smile by getting hit with some debris from the crowd. Now, I have had a... a lot of disagreements on Twitter, on Discord, on Slack, in my direct messages about what exactly hit him. I don't know how closely you've sort of zaprooted this, but... Pretty closely, because I was in the same place. I thought what was supposed to have hit him was

the diet cup, the paper cup, because you see it, which doesn't hit him. It goes right by him, and his flinching and going down is timed perfectly to it. But if you slow it down a lot closely and I think most people actually did see this. I didn't see it until like yesterday. There is a can that comes in and hits him in the back of the head or the upper neck area. So that that's what that was and it did hit him. I couldn't see it for the longest time. I still haven't seen it.

I mean my because I, because my interpretation is he got the, he got the paper cup of soda sort of to like the chest arm area like maybe a grazing blow and then a empty plastic bottle bounces. But the frames per second, you know, that one shot we have of it that's got like the colored box, a black and white background colored box around around Raina. That's the one I was looking at. I slowed it down a lot. You got to go frame by frame.

You can see the can if you do that. It's briefly in there. Okay. Yeah. All right. I trust you. I trust you on that. So he did get hurt. I mean, that must have hurt to get hit by a can from, you know, above. Which is a bummer. I really. wish he had kind of been faking that whole thing because but he wasn't yeah it would have been an amazing an amazing instance of gamesmanship from him because not only was he if he had been pretending to be hurt which apparently he was not but if he had been pretending to be hurt he's doing that after having been already subbed out of the game all celebrating a goal I didn't think of that it's a real shame

it's a real shame that he it actually had him I think he was fully capable of you know know, having done that without it hitting him. Well, now he has the muscle memory to do it. Yes, exactly. 119th minute, well, do you have anything else to say before we move on about this? I was just thinking as that was happening, like, they have to go to Azteca soon, and that's going to be intense. I guess it's always intense, but especially now, it's got to just ratchet it up quite a bit

there. I wonder if we're going to deliberately choose not to celebrate in the corner if we do score there. I think that would probably be a good idea to not do that. Because I notice even when we dogpiled at the end of the game right in front of the box, there were still bottles like almost getting to them. Yeah. Stay in the center of the field. Mexico in the 119th minute desperately chasing a goal.

They get a corner kick. This is when McKenzie gets called for a penalty. Again, not sure it's a penalty, but if you give the U.S. one, you've got to kind of give this one if you're John Pity. And he does. And now it's Gordado versus Horvath. There's some gamesmanship before this penalty, too, though. Let's talk about it. Acosta takes the annoying role there, and he does a very good job getting in Godotta's face.

And he does a good job of staying involved longer than I really thought he was going to be able to. The ref pushes him out, and he gets pushed out by a player. but he keeps coming back. And what's great is he makes sure it turns into an escalation there where there's a little bit of a bunch up and not much, but a little pushing. That slowed it down more. So that was good.

He did better than Linus did on the Pulisic penalty. So we got one up there and that was a difference in the game ultimately. Yeah, and you know, Linus perhaps feeling his own deficiencies in this moment. Not as a player. I thought he's a fantastic player, just for the record. but his deficiencies in trying to distract Pulisic tries to get in close to the to between Acosta and and Brooks and they just they just say absolutely no no sir no that's not the channel he should be trying to get through they send it back a few yards that was that was really nice

and then of course Guarvath saves Guardado's penalty after the ball comes back to him in the next 20 or 30 seconds, he goes down with the ball and sort of, you know, holds it close to him, his face buried in the grass. There was a good slow motion shot of that from the end line. And I really, it's, they come over, I believe Reggie can and they get down on the ground. They touch his foreheads with Horvath and they're hitting him on the back. And it's really sports is the only place where that's how your coworkers congratulate you. They're just screaming at him and hitting him.

And Horvoth is just such a lovable player. I really like when he does well. He just has this aura, and he had the whole thing in Belgium. And I like that his style, his haircuts, not that good. It's not, like, not that important to him. Yeah. He's got kind of a modesty there. It's like his mom does it with clippers, just a number two clipper.

I'm pretty sure he cuts his own hair, actually. Yeah, because I basically had that haircut for a while. He should stop doing it. I used to do that, too, back in the late 80s. Yeah, he just seems, he seems every time he has a victory, you are reminded of, this is Ethan Horvath, every time he has a victory in life, whether it's like getting a clean sheet in Champions League for Bruges

or the incredible performance he put on this game, you look into his face and you were reminded of all the sadness. of what he's been through. Yeah, hopefully he ends up at a, this is an actual soccer thing. Hopefully he ends up at a good, there's every reason to believe he will. He's a good goalkeeper,

and I, and was dramatically underrated by this podcast, by me. Hopefully he's not, you know, so lonely in his next, in his next landing spot. Yeah. Yeah. Then we have this pitch invader,

some yokel in a white, in white athletic shorts, and a black athletic shirt. Again, we have to depend on the, you know, amateur footage from the crowd to really see what happens here. But it appears that McKinney stepped in to prevent law enforcement

that is security guards from brutalizing the young man. Yeah, it was McKinney and I don't remember which Mexico player, but two of them ran in there, which is good. McKinney's just really active in a lot of different ways in this game.

Kind of the center of everything. My one issue with the pitch invader is he didn't really have a clear plan. I didn't think we're not clear enough. But I did like the big arc he did. And reentering frame was a nice little surprise we got there. So good commitment from him on that. Yeah, I guess his plan was just to be out there as long as he could be. And I feel like he could have done better.

He could have been out there longer than he was. you know yeah he's if he had because they pretty much went down the first he didn't evade a security person once they were within once they had you know access to him defensively he didn't do any evasions but the the slightly slick grass did him in you know with his big with his big white sneakers i wanted him to plant and cut in a left footed plant cut in midfield that would have been nice yeah maybe get it on his right foot and curl it at the far post he needed somebody to provide some service though 129th minute

we get another barrage of projectiles from the stands this time when Pulisic Pulisic is just trying to waste time in the corner and he does I guess he gets whacked and makes the most of whatever injury he claimed I'm sure it hurt I'm not discounting that and it's just a shower

of beer cups the funny thing here is one of them is aimed squarely at Pfeffok and Pfeck I mean this is this is a wonderful moment from him he he ducks his head effortlessly almost like doesn't nothing none of the rest of his body moves but his neck and head ducks and it hits Henry Martine behind him yeah that was obviously there was some nastiness going on around which wasn't great but uh that duck was fantastic Yeah, I did not realize at first how much nastiness was going on.

There were some racial abuse from the stands. Yeah, on a serious note. That's really, really sad to see. And I mean, I guess I hope something can be done about that. So some more throw-ins in the corner and then the final whistle, dog pile on Ethan and some more bottles thrown, but don't quite get to the crowd of bodies in Zone 14. We want to look ahead because, again, this stuff is going to matter a lot. I was, I think if you follow me on Twitter, you saw I was looking at some old footage from qualifiers in the 2010 cycle.

And these games in El Salvador and Honduras are serious. Of course, the Azteca is, but these away qualifiers are going to be tough, tough, tough. And really amazing atmospheres. And we're going to have to be, we're going to have to follow all of the Chris Russell, you know, directed. here. We're going to have to follow all your points to get this right. I mean, in terms of what I'm looking for, what do I expect from the different guys, I think Brooks and Weston, they're kind of the clear leaders. And with Adams in there, too, when he's back and healthy, he's the big part of that.

When he's, you know, fully back. And it'll be really interesting to him and Weston balance each other out, what their exact roles, how they fit together. but I think that's the core leadership for me. Yep, I agree 100%. I think Adams has done a lot of Concaf stuff in his career, even though he's played in Germany for the last couple years. You know, he was in Concaf Champions League

and has been in Central America to play games. So I think he's going to be a big player in this respect. I can't wait to see him flop at the slightest touch from Herrera or Guardato. You know, like if somebody grabs his neck, he would make a meal out of it, you know, down and rolling around. Potentially he could step up and be more important than Weston in this regard. But we'll have to see. I think center back is obviously a question for other reasons as well.

But I think McKenzie's in a good spot to learn from Brooks. The question is, does he have what Brooks has? But it'll come with time, especially with center back. You need Conca Calf reps. It's just so much more nuanced of the role. And then maybe it could be Richards as well stepping in there. I think Brooks's height does is a big advantage, you know, because he can sort of see over everybody.

He has a commanding presence. And McKenzie doesn't quite have that. So he's going to have to find his own creative way to dominate. Yeah. And the way I have the player pool organized in my head, I think of Richards as one of the bigger personalities. And I, too, am optimistic that he'll grow into a solid international caliber shithouser. I haven't, I guess I haven't watched quite enough of him to see a lot of shithousing,

but he does seem to have that, the edge that would translate well to it. But that kind of leadership base from all those guys, I think Litz-Rena, he's kind of a wild card. It kind of frees him up to go do his thing. I don't think he's a leader, and maybe he won't be for a while, but he's a really good piece to have in their shithousing piece because he can mix it up in unexpected ways, and I'm really excited to see what he does there. And then with Pulisick, we kind of touched on that.

I think his key is going to be getting fouls, trying to get bookings on fouls because he's going to get fouled so much, and then drawing penalties. Yeah. And if we get a little extra from him here, and they're great. if not that's okay i think he's good he's good at that you know he doesn't he doesn't try to fight through fouls he goes down he grabs his ankle um yeah i think of i think of rena just to go back

to rena for a second i think of him as kind of like you know in those video games where you have the little uh like the little goblins who can uh make bombs and then like burrow under walls and like blow things up i forget what they're called but like they're like the demolition Yes. I think that he could be like that. That's exactly it. What were you going to say? One area of concern I have is that second eight position.

I don't know exactly how that's going to look, who's going to be there, but I don't know what we're getting. We were a little bit weak. Yeah. It's telling that we haven't mentioned Sebastian Leggett yet on Spockets. Yeah, did not come up. I think he's just too nice and too handsome. Man, is he handsome, though?

But, you know, Tim Way is handsome, and he managed to get his throat grabbed and shove some people around a little bit. So it's not a disqualifier, handsomeness. No. But we need to see a little more from, maybe Musa steps up there. But I don't know. Yeah, I don't want to put too much on Musa in this way. Yeah, I don't, yeah. And I thought we weren't getting a ton from our fullbacks.

Maybe that's normal. maybe that's okay Death doesn't really He's kind of his own whirl Isn't he? I don't think he's going to be a shithousing Dynamo out there

He's over there thinking about what kind of slingshot he's going to buy Yeah There's a video of him Staring it And he put up a I guess TikTok of him Looking into the camera

And then swerving his slingshot Past a Minivan I think in Miami Beach Was it in Miami? Yeah, it looked like an American city. I don't know what it was. He was also wearing a Bulls jersey.

It was a great moment. Not going to shit house, though. Yeah, maybe he'll figure it out. He seemed a little, just generally speaking, disinterested in that aspect of the game. And Robinson, I felt like Robinson didn't, Antony didn't quite know what to make of it all when he had opportunities. Canon Canaan gets in there Reggie Cannon gets in there

That's true I have some questions that Stryker is like the last main thing I have I don't know exactly I kind of like DK he was good in the celebration

and then in the rain of protection wall But I don't know exactly what we're looking at there in terms of Stryker shithousing It's not a strength I don't see it as a strength

No I mean DK's a I think a pretty nice guy Which is not always a an advantage here. You want to be, you want to have a little bit of a diabolical streak. Sergeant, it should be mentioned, is, I would say, at least in the Honduras game,

was pretty counterproductive for us when it came to this. How so? Well, I thought he was trying to, he was going around pulling U.S. teammates away as if to make peace, you know. Terrible. In almost every phase of life,

we want peacemakers. Not in this phase of life. Somebody needs to have a talk with Sargent. Stop trying to pull people away. Let's just let these things play out. Yeah, at least don't make it worse for us if you're not going to add anything. Go over and stand with Pulisic and kick dirt, but don't come over and pull players away from the point of confrontation.

Because, yeah, if you're doing that, just like being in the area, you're crowding out another guy who could have been there doing something in that space you're doing. So, yeah, you can't be clogging the area and being counterproductive. And also, D.K. is huge. So I think whether he is nicer than sergeant or not, he's going to be a point of confrontation presence that nobody's going to mess with him. We'll see. We'll see how that goes. Anybody you're looking for, you know, in the future to sort of join in and be a plus plus place?

Something about Pomacol. I just have a good feeling about him. He used to be seen as maybe nothing like a shithousing player, but I think we've seen a little bit more of it. He's a lot bigger now. That size will help.

And he seems to have a bit of an edge getting in. I think he could be useful if he can break through at some stage during qualifying. He understands how to how to pretend to be injured for lack of a better way of saying it. I'm trying to think

who else could be uh bring us some benefits on this front nobody else really immediately jumps to mind from the gold general gold cup group well i think aden you know aden morris who was um who is out for a long time with a knee injury does seem to be have a little bit of that sociopathic streak that we love to see yes hopefully he comes back yeah and that's a long ways away All right, Chris Where can people find you? I think everybody who listen to this podcast know who's you are Know who's you are

I'm on Twitter If you search W-A-T-K-E W-A-T-K-E W-K-E-W-K-K-K-E Okay It's the first time I've ever said Watt-K-K-Loud. Seriously? No, I guess.

I won't put it in the show notes then. Hey, man, thanks a lot. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Anytime. Thanks everybody for listening. See ya.