Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #184: USA-Haiti recap

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

Yueill and Lewis start, Busio makes his NT debut, Shaq Moore comes back into the picture, and the Gold Cup is underway. 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 Scuffed, the U.S. beat Haiti 1 to 0 to open their Gold Cup campaign. Let's recap it. Greg, how you doing? Good, Bells. I'm doing just one goal better than Mexico fans are doing at the moment. Yeah, zero zero draw with T&T. Unbelievable. Did you watch that game? I did. And since we're going to talk about the Gold Cup and since we're talking about Mexico, I feel like the first. first place we should start is to, you know, send all of our thoughts to Chucky Lozano, who had the very scary head injury where he collided with the goalkeeper's knee, kind of took a little shove in the back, which propelled him into the onrushing goalkeeper.

Yeah. Really scary scenes and moments there. I think the report is that he's out for four to six weeks, so he'll miss the rest of the gold cup, but we're all hoping he makes a complete recovery. For human reasons and for, you know, the good of Conca Calf as a whole. The game against Haiti was, I think, you know, it's good we got the result. We got the three points. But there's a lot to complain about.

Should we start with the positives? Can you just give me a couple of positives that you took away from the game? So I think we got another version of, or another dose of Cal and Acosta everywhere, where he no matter where you sort of stick him and no matter what role you task him with, he looks competent. And again, everything now in this recap has to come with the Haiti caveat,

and it's the same one we use when we talk about youth teams or all Gold Cup group stage games. Haiti are not a very good team. And they were missing a couple of players going into this one for COVID purposes. COVID purposes, is that how you say that? COVID reasons, I don't know.

There's no good. good way to say it. Somebody had COVID. Maybe. So you need to, like when you're evaluating players, it has to, you know, that's the, that's the only benchmark available to evaluate them against is, you know, the level of competition we're playing. And you just sort of have to take that into account. So it's really important that players like look consistently competent. Because if you don't look consistently competent against a weak team, that's probably, that's probably going to be pretty telling when you're up against a slightly or extremely more competent team. And honestly, we could even go right to that Mexico outcome and performance as a point

of comparison because Mexico didn't get the win. We won. We won the game. Mexico didn't. So, you know, there's the obvious comparison is like, well, you know, we at least won. I would probably trade performances, though. Did you get to watch the Mexico game? No, I didn't watch it. I saw they had like 30 shots in the game and, you know, so I assume that they were more dominant than we were. Yeah, and that's exactly what it was. Like, I think I was 30 minutes into that game, and I was just like, okay, if you're going to have like the bad game, the game that you're going to complain about against a weaker regional opponent, like this is what it should look like. It should look like total domination and for whatever reason the ball just won't go across the line. And that's not necessarily what we see.

And it's the pattern of sort of when the U.S. has bad games, that's not usually what it looks like. It's never the case that we are just, you know, hovering around the edge of their 18 for 75 out of 90 minutes and we just can't get the thing across the line. It's always, it feels like it's a chance creation is difficult. The midfield becomes a slog. And so that's kind of the contrast in Mexico's sort of laffer of an outcome and the U.S.'s win that just isn't necessarily pretty. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of our chance creation came through our right side, almost all of it, really. And it wasn't, this wasn't like Pep Guardiola getting to the end line and then cutting it back to the top of the box.

It was basically Shackmore pumping crosses across the six. And Kalin Acosta, with some, with a couple of nice involvements to connect with him or to free people. Yeah, we'll get to them in the timeline. But, and again, that's what you're looking for. when you're playing a weaker team, is somebody who can just look like a total grown-up playing against out-classed opponents. Acosta looked like a grown-up, I think that that's very clear. I thought Legat looked like a grown-up too.

He didn't have his, like, you know, an amazing game or anything, but he was grown-up. Let's do the, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, no, it was totally going to agree that even as I'm talking about Acosta, he wasn't, none of our guys looked transcendent. No one did. And that might be in part because if you really want it to look great, you might need a couple more guys around you also looking a lot better.

But we had just different places in the 11 that maybe were holding us back a little. Yeah, we'll get into that. Okay, so the U.S. came out in, I think, the sort of classic 433. Am I right when I say that? Yeah, yeah, fairly symmetrical. Turner and Goal, Shackmore got the start at right back. It might have been because Reggie Cannon had a hamstring tweak. might have started anyway, who knows,

but we did get the news that Cannon had a hamster. You don't think Moore would have started. No, he wasn't going to start. No, this was for sure going to be Cannon's game. And I'd be, like, I feel like if Moore was going to get a game, it would have just been the Martinique game in rotation, and then it would have been Cannon the rest of the way. Remember, Shaq Moore wasn't even going to be on this roster.

It was going to be a Raho until, you know, at the last second Arajo decided he didn't want to be captied. And that's why the roster release got pushed back a day because we had to find a replacement for Arajo. The case against Greg Burrhalter in this game continues to strengthen. Oh, because one of our best players wasn't going to be on the roster. Yeah, exactly. Wasn't going to be on the roster and then wasn't even going to start if Cannon hadn't gotten injured.

So anyway, I'm assuming the starting thing, but it's a problem. It's a safe assumption, yeah. Canada at right back, Walker Zimmerman at right centerback, Miles Robinson at left centerback, no surprise there on those two. And then at left back we had Sam Vines. Again, not much surprised. It seemed like he was likely to be the starting left back. The midfield was Jackson Ewell at the 6th.

And then Kellyn Acosta and Sebastian Leggett as the dual eights. And then our wingers were Jonathan Lewis on the left, Paul Areola on the right. And then we had Jawsi Saras at Stryker. So none of those necessarily qualify as a surprise. Ariel, I think we all had nailed on to start. And then I think we knew Legett and Acosta were highly rated. by Berhalter, but I didn't know if they would necessarily start. They were just playing with their club team on Wednesday.

They stayed with their clubs, didn't join the camp until after their club match and then would have had a couple of days of recovery. So again, another sort of testament to their professionalism when they can get into camp on short, on like a short turnaround and give the very, very competent performance performances they gave. But I didn't know that they would start. And then there wasn't, I wouldn't say there was certainty that Ewell was going to get the start at the 6th.

And I would say there was an element of disappointment to seeing his name there and to seeing Jonathan Lewis's name at left wing and then also seeing, let's be honest, seeing Zardaz as opposed to DK up top. Was there a qualifier there? Did somebody mention that D.K. might be having some fitness issues? Yeah, like maybe he took a knock in his last game for Orlando City. I mean, that's the one, you know, I totally support Acosta. the Jets starting at the 8th.

That's fine with me 100%. And same with Ariel right wing. Of the three others in that front, the six, the one that bothers me the least is this artist starting a striker. But obviously, Lewis and Ewell, not a surprise that they started, but sort of expected disappointment, I guess. Yeah, again, we're going to keep talking about this. I'm guessing all tournament that Ewell and Lewis are two of Burrhalter's sort of cute

inclusions that it's not at all obvious that they belong in this group. Even at the B team level where our first choice guys are all, you know, taking it easy for the summer. These guys just don't appear to really help us win soccer games. And that's, again, the other standard. If you can't help us beat Haiti at home, we're not going to have a lot of minutes to spare for you, hopefully, in the future. Dude, I'm so tired of it. But Burrhalter is getting, he's so GD. stubborn about this.

It's like, dude, why? I don't understand. I don't think anybody understands what's going on here. No, you see people like trying to rationalize like, well, let's just see what the, what the rotation plan is or whatever else. But like, I don't even get it with that. I don't understand how there's any need to plan a rotation with you involved when you have three other guys that you could be trying out in that spot.

So you could be running other guys there instead of rotating you at all. And again, we're kind of going to be in this situation where it's, looks potentially. I guess we don't know. Maybe Burrhalter thinks he will did fine there, but based on some of his comments after the game, if you read between the lines about, you know, the lack of people wanting to play the ball forward

and then comparing them to people and the way they actually play the soccer game. Like, Ewell might be losing his spot as we speak. And now he's essentially just like a wasted roster spot because it's hard to envision a scenario where he would get that put back into a game in a meaningful way rather than either booze. getting the start or just totally changing up our formation and eliminating that position altogether.

Well, yeah, and that's not the only problem with the roster because the Ariola went down with a hamstring injury, I think, early in the first half, like around the 10th minute. So he comes off. Nico Joaquini comes on. A player that I'm rooting for and I think maybe could look better in a different role or in a different setup did not look good for most of the game. look like a right winger because he's really just not you know he's a left-footed striker he's not he was he hit a couple of right-footed crosses that's not his game we can't be relying on him to

create danger with his right foot from wide and then so now so now we basically have jonathan lewis is our only winger and he was hands down the worst player on the field for the u.s so we we don't have if ariola's out for the tournament which seems i i don't i haven't heard any news but it seems likely, at least possible. We're looking at the rest of the tournament with only Jonathan Lewis as a real winger on the roster. It's bonkers. Who could have predicted that this roster was strangely constructed?

Yeah, it's really strange, man. And we obviously saw the knock-on effects throughout the game, which I'm sure we'll get into as we get through our chronology. But that was a really, really strange one. Strange decision. The choices didn't seem to make sense at the time. They, nothing that happened in that game. Vindicated those decisions.

Yeah, nothing, nothing vindicated there. Just on that note, you know, we do know Zardis has played some time on the wing, even for the national team. Not super effective there. Joe Aquini has some time on the wing. For Kayan. Yeah. But it's like he's, I checked it. And at least according to transfer market, it's like 900 minutes where he's listed as a winger and he has one goal in that time.

So it's not like, I mean, he doesn't really produce when he's a forward either at a, at a, particularly prolific rate. Yeah, he's not... But he's not just, you know, a real threat. He doesn't appear to be any kind of a real threat from the wing or really up top either. He got in some good spots, but yeah, he didn't... Well, you know, he hit the post one time.

That was a nice... On a... I don't know what the XG was on that chance. It was pretty high. And then, you know, he cut in on his left foot once and hit a decent... Had a decent go at it. put it off just wide of the post.

Let's talk about the- Better than Lewis, more productive than Lewis. Absolutely more productive than Lewis. And yeah, so let's talk about the Haiti lineup real quick. Sure, sure, sure. Go-keeper is Brian Sylvester, who plays for the Inter-Miamy system. And then their backup keeper, by the way,

was one of the COVID strikes. DuVirger, is that how you'd say it? I don't know. Also, their starting keeper, right? I mean, Sylvester would be third choice, right? To be honest, I don't know. So DuVurger has started their last three matches. He started against Bermuda and against St. Vincent in the Gold Cup playing games,

and he started the last Canada game for the Ocho qualifier. Okay. He had that howler of an own goal, but he also made a ton of ridiculous saves. But he had just taken over from Placide, is how I'm going to say it. I don't know whether to use a French pronunciation or a Spanish pronunciation here. but he had been the goalkeeper all through the Gold Cup in 2019, but he's like 38. So they may have just sort of transitioned him.

They might be transitioning away from him. I don't know if that's the case. But yes, Sylvester has not, I don't know if he was capped going into that game. Not that he had a poor game either. No, he didn't. He wasn't the problem for. Get some plays. The backline is left to right Martin Experience,

Le France and Adé at centerback and then Arcus at right. at right back. I thought experience was good. He was a good player. Had a good game. He plays in the third division in France. And the double pivot for them was Levitin Pierre and Alsouz. And then a band of three was Dukens Nazone, Derek Etienne, and Lambese, across the, from left to right. And then the striker was Carnegie Antoine, big number seven. who did create a little danger, I thought. So Lombese is kind of a utility man. He doesn't necessarily play striker for them that often.

He sometimes will play as like a left fullback. And the guy, I think the big attacking piece they were missing was Fronci Piero, and I have no idea again if I'm getting the French pronunciation correct there. But he's the guy who had the hat trick in the Bermuda play-in game. And there were several times in this game where I was like, oh, man, wonder what that might have look like if their best attacker had been there. I think he plays in league two. I think he's in the French second division.

Yeah, I think that's right. And then Pierre, Pierre also plays in the, in League of Doo. And he was good, I thought, number 14. I thought Adé was pretty good, the centerback. I mean, I mean, and not, I didn't watch him that closely. And then they try to do, they try to run a lot through Derek Etienne, who used to play for the Red Bulls, now plays for Columbus crew. I, you know, he, he was active.

he was buzzy but he just like he has been an MLS not a refined player in the final third and that definitely showed um so let's get in the timeline oh before before we do I asked on I asked on the discord which is absolutely hopping right now in case you were wondering uh I asked if I asked for some some one line questions from people slash comments and Joe McGregor's was stop overreacting so okay all right no more overreactions from us. We're going to react appropriately only with the appropriate level of intensity to everything. That's a good one, though, because no matter what's happening, if that's the only thing happening in the U.S. men's national team universe of the time, it's the most important thing.

But definitely there is like the costs we're talking about here. If there are mistakes made by Burr-alter, if there are things we're learning, they're not necessarily significant. It's still frustrating when you're grading against the optimal and what would be the optimal players. selection and what would be the optimal way to deploy things. So when you're grading against that and you have what feels like wasteful decisions, it's frustrating. But then the question always comes back to you, okay, but how costly will it be? Yeah, it seems like it's sort of self-inflicted issues, but what is the cost for not getting

some of these things right? And it's probably going to be small, given the likelihood that, you know, only a half dozen or so of these guys are going to have meaningful roles in the actual. qualification process. Yeah. But it is, you know, we're in the weeds, been in the weeds since 2018, and so we are grading against the optimal. And like, that's why we get paid the big bucks.

And then one more question from John is, do you feel Triple G will stick with the current formation or switch to a three-man back line that he went to late last night, you know, for the next, for the upcoming matches? Do you have a quick take on that, Greg? My quick take is I have no idea. Yeah, that's my idea. Sorry, I can't be more help. I'll say this.

You know who I feel like might have helped solve some things would have been Christian Raldon? Can I say that and not incur any wrath? I mean, certainly not going to incur any wrath for me. If we're talking about the available players left in the camp, if Ariel is out, Christian Raldon seems like the guy who could either help fill in on the wings or if we switch to it like a 352, potentially be one of those guys who can play as like the playmaking, one of the playmaking midfielders.

Yeah. I mean, we'll get into that. Let's get into that a little bit more later. Well, no, let's get into it right now because John asked the question. I think we'll probably end up going back to a four, four. I mean, if you put a gun to my head, I'd say 433 is what we go back to. We just have to put like legit and rolled on on the wings, you know. or something like that.

Maybe not both of them. But it kind of does seem like the best option, right? Because then they're basically playing in the half space, which I think they're both comfortable doing to a regional tournament level in the group stages to at least find out. And then you still have Acosta and Eric Williamson could play the dual eights with Busio sitting underneath them.

And I wouldn't hate seeing that lineup trotted out. No, no, I think that'd be a great lineup. I mean, considering what we have, to work with. Yeah, so that, one more question before we get into the timeline. Carl asks, the right side looked much stronger than the left. Totally agree with Carl here. Do we know enough about Bello to speculate on whether he would change that?

My answer is, uh, no. Well, we, we may know enough to speculate. I don't, I don't know enough to say conclusively. I would like to see how Bello looks. I think it's worth trying against Martinique on Thursday. that's my take yeah same same i have no idea how bellow's going to look i assume he will get a runout uh thursday um but just like with haiti that that game will come with probably even

larger caveats uh did you watch canada versus martinique i watched the highlights i saw that it was a four one victory for canada so canada missing alfonso davies still could at will just hit hit hit hit the ball out to their left sideline with with whoever Alfonso Davies's replacement was out there. I didn't actually catch who it was. And he could just do the old hit the ball past the Martinique's right back and then run past him and get to the end line and, you know, cut him out of the play. So if Bell is going to look good, he will look good against Martinique. Yeah. Oh, it was Tom Buchanan, right? He was playing left wing for Canada. Okay. And he's good. He's a good player. Okay. Let's go to the timeline. There we go. I love a chronology.

And there were a lot of chronologies. Yeah, I kind of went, I went ham on the chronology last night. It was busy. I think I saw the first tweet I saw, because I'm never watching in real time with these. The first thing I saw was Watki saying, at least things are happening. So, he wasn't wrong. Yeah, I noticed immediately that Shaq Moore was creating danger down the right. So I have to note that even though there's not a specific,

timeline moment yet uh no no real like guilt edge chance chances created from it but just like we got our penetration through the right side from shackmore combination of shackmore walker's everman and calenicosta which a trio that will come up repeatedly in this timeline third minute uh chance for haiti it's for carnegie antoine he starts with an it starts with an errant pass from sam vines into the box so vines gets it on with his back to the sideline sort of missed, I don't know, he, a miscommunication with, with Legette, I think. Legett makes, is making a run to the end line and Vines passes it square to him and it's a quick

transition because, because Legett can't get back to it. And Haiti hits Antoine in the space behind Vines, which is, you know, completely open. That leaves Robinson, Miles Robinson one v.1 with him. And Antoine does Robinson, which is kind of troubling to see. But then, and you think, well, Robinson's dead, left for dead here, but he fights back. and for the ball and forces Antoine back crisis averted. So a couple, I think a couple things there. Vine's sloppiness and Robinson's recovery ability stick out to me.

So one of the subtle things, and I promise I'm not just going to pile on Jackson, Ewell and everything. It's not like everything is Jackson Ewell's fault. But you see here one of the issues with playing him is that six. because when that first turnover happens, Ewell, who's sitting sort of back behind all of the amoeba of players, his initial reaction is actually to step forward slightly. He's in no position to make a play on the ball,

so he just jumps forward like he's going to jump a pass, and he gets his body and shoulders squared up to the field. And while he's doing that, two of Hades attackers are flanking him on either side, and they're drifting ever so slightly upfield, and that's the pass that they hit. that's their immediate pass out of that turnover is to hit the ball past Jackson Ewell, and he's taken, Ewell has taken himself out of the play and left two attackers deeper than him. So that's just one of those, it's just a read.

And again, I don't want to put all of the blame on Jackson Ewell, but it's just one of those reads that you probably take for granted when an actual, like, defensive midfielder with more of that defensive emphasis is playing. And, you know, we'll naturally, like, sense where the danger will be in one pass or two passes, and will almost subconsciously drift into that area. Yeah. And it came up a couple other times as well, which is why it stood out to me for Ewell in this case.

I didn't notice that, so thanks for bringing it up. And he has a weird way of squaring his shoulders to the play. Like, rather than that sort of half side-on look that most defenders will adopt so they can break backwards if they need to or they can break forward, he has to very inefficiently change his body shape to try to chase his play. And if he's chasing a play, there's not much of a chance of him catching up to it either. Fourth minute, Acosta in the press wrecks Levitin-Pierre

and plays a good pass into Zardis' feet. I noticed this because Acosta was quite active in the press and, you know, he jumped on these chances to, like, create a moment of transition. He plays this ball right into Zardis' feet at the top of the box between the centerbacks. This is sort of a classic Zardis' first touch is negative and he coughs it up.

I mean, I think, I would hope Sergeant could do better there. Maybe even D.K., you know, like take a touch, take a positive touch and get a shot off from about 16 yards. But definitely his artist didn't in this case. Rayna or Pulisic certainly would get something done. Yeah, you're at least, you at least need to extend the play. You can't have the play die right there with a bad touch. So if you can't, if you realize you don't have the space to take a touch and get a shot off, you've got to collect it and draw, you know, there's a ton of gravity for a guy with the ball at the top of the box there. all the defense is going to collapse to you,

suddenly you need to be able to release it to another player who could be in a dangerous spot. Nice play from Acosta. And I'm not dogging on Zardas. This is his limitation. You know, this is the kind of player is. And we're grading against the optimal. Fifth minute, another chance for Haiti.

Yule gets done on a one-two by Derek Etienne. And this was pretty dangerous. This is actually a pretty dangerous moment. a nice, nice giving go, I think with Pierre, but I'm not sure about that. It could have been with Antoine. And it springs

Etienne into the box free. He's one-on-one with the goalkeeper, at least for a beat or two. And he takes a shot with his right foot, and it's pretty bad. Just scuffed it. So again, I promise, I promise, this isn't going to be all coming down on Yule, but this is another one of those

defensive mid-situations where did you notice how expansive the field felt when Haiti got the ball in this situation? No, I didn't. They get this ball out wide and you will just kind of shades along with the play, but we have the numerical advantage here. He has both centerbacks and I think Shaq Moore back there with him, and we have more numbers than them.

There's no reason to sit back and let at the end sort of just walk the ball up into half a field of space and then hit the pass he wants and make his give and go. And it's just one of those things where I think a more seasoned defensive midfield realizes that, hey, we've got numbers here. I can go attack this player and force him to make a decision on my timeline because we're numerically superior. Yeah, it was what? It was like two on five or something like that.

Right. So there's no reason to shade off of him and let him pick whatever, wait for the movement that will open things up for the one, two, and then make the pass under no pressure, and then continue to run and still beat you somehow, which is also suboptimal. Yeah. So an opening five minutes that aren't great for Jackson Yule, and unfortunately it doesn't get any better for him, really. Sixth minute, a corner kick.

We get a corner kick off a good long diagonal ball from Zimmerman to Lewis. I don't know, 50 yards, 50-yard diagonal. The defender gets a toe on it and it goes out for a corner. I'm not sure Lewis was going to get to it or what he would have done with it if he had gotten to it, but it was a good pass. and on the ensuing corner Yule shakes his man at the backpost

it kind of falls to him feels somewhat random and then he he taps it back into the mixer straight across honestly I think he could have had a shot there you know he just didn't have his feet quite right but he put it back in the mixer

and Zimmerman nearly overheads it in or sort of sidewinder overhead hybrid just off the crossbar if Karam's downward and Zardis has another go with an overhead kick and this one is saved by Sylvester. The crowd appreciated it. This was a nice exciting bit of play.

Yeah, good looking set piece. We just came off the Mexico game where our set pieces were outstanding. So it's nice to see us do something good without like the Weston McKinney in God mode. And I've got no problem with you making that decision here. The worst decision you can make is the in between where you can't, don't quite have your feet right, but you try to score it anyway and just waste a chance out of bounds. Yeah. So this was, you know, out of the options available, totally acceptable.

Well done. You will own this one. Okay. Okay. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

Eighth minute. We get our goal. A lot to like about it really for me. So a decisive intelligent diagonal run from Acosta from the middle of the park to the right corner of the box. Just like he's just, he knows what he's going to do and he's doing it decisively. Zimmerman plays the ball to him. It's a nice pass, breaks two lines to get to him

as ariola checks into the channel towards Zimmerman. And then Acosta taps it out wide to Moore who whips a low ball into the six. It isn't the best cross, and so a defender gets a foot on it and it sort of skips through to Zardis. Zardis gets a foot to it as it skips through and he flicks it to the back post

where Vines thumps at home. And, you know, people are mocking Zardis for saying he didn't specifically intend to pass it to Vines, which is maybe true, probably true. But for me, that's a very clever touch and a good idea in a situation that I don't know that that's guaranteed from any of our other strikers. So I give Zardis plenty of credit for that assist. And, you know, Vines did what he had to do, put it away. A freeheader at the 6th, it would have been a shocker if he hadn't done so.

Yeah, no, that's definitely credit to the. Zardaz. And just like we talked about the last one, he didn't extend the play. Like the ball that came into him from Costa earlier, the play died right there. This is an excellent job of realizing that there's no way he's going to get a shout off. There's nothing he can do to score. So he just says, all right, well, where might there be somebody who, you know, hopefully there will be somebody in a dangerous spot over here and keeps it alive. And did you, did you see how Haiti was kind of defending at that point? Not really. No, not. I don't know what you're about to say. the game had been so wide open at that point

Haiti was kind of in their 424 and they kind of oscillate between this 424 is like their default formation where they're just flying forward with all these numbers and then when they get a chance and settle down they defend in a 4-4-2 often so this was still in the 424

and that's how Acosta Reddit too and that's why he moved into that space there's no left midfielder to help with things So that ball from Zimmerman was available because Acosta could sort of had a giant lane to run into where there was just no Haiti midfield. And it was good coordinated movement. Don't get me wrong. Between Ariola and Acosta, right, and more.

But that's sort of what was available. And that's the same reason Sam Vines was wide open on the back post was because there is no right midfielder over there. It's just the two center mids move like shuttling side to side. So they've moved all the way over with the ball to more. And there just is no weak side. help. A little bit of we can we can blame Haiti for defending poorly here basically is what you're saying. Well it's just there's going to be if a teams are going to defend that

aggressively or leave players upfield that much there's going to be openings and again it's a good good things happen when you sort of force the issue against weaker teams. You you exploit the advantages you have both in organization and talent and so that's this is sort of a case of you get the payoff from this when you force the issue. And to Haiti's credit, they did settle, settle in and get a little more conservative and made it more difficult for us to do those things. But we capitalized on it early enough to take the lead. And that's, and that's, you give, we'd give credit to the Haiti coach for recognizing at this point that they probably needed to be more conservative and, or maybe the, maybe the players

made the decision collectively. I don't know, but it did get a lot harder for us to break them down for the next 80 minutes. And I think some of that had to do with Ariola's injury, which is coming right up on the timeline, which I'm going to try to go through a little bit faster. Yeah, we've got to speed this up. 10th minute, bad Ewell diagonal. Just have to mention that.

He tries to play a diagonal to Lewis, and it's nowhere close. 11th minute, Zimmerman to Acosta, again, this time to Areola. Another nice move up the right. And it looked like Areola pulled his hamstring or something as he's chasing the ball down it. He hits across high end of the stands. Sure enough, he was hurt, and he came off for Joe Aquini.

I think this had a big effect on our game, because I don't know. I can't pinpoint exactly why, but Ariola was doing something right that Joe Aquini wasn't quite able to do, apparently. Yeah, and I'll have to rewatch to see, you know, to really get a look at Joe Aquini's movement in conjunction with Acosta and more to see if that,

if things got kind of gummed up, or if it was just a matter of Haiti sagging extra midfielders back and being like, okay, we'll defend seriously, I guess. Probably a combination of the two, as Daryl Grove would say, things can be two things, you know. 12th minute, nice more cross

that nearly reaches Zardis at the near post. Another one a few minutes later. He's just, I mean, at this point more, is just pumping the ball into the six over and over again. 15th minute or so, Yule gets caught on the ball. There were two notable moments like this in the game where he's just too slow on the ball

and he gets dispossessed and it's just not, it's just not acceptable at this point, I don't think, from our six. 18th minute. Another nice combination up the right wing between Zimmerman, Acosta, and Moore results in another good cross from Moore. Now here's 20th minute

is when we get the big chance for Haiti, the one where Etienne hits it off the side netting. It starts with Haiti working the ball around the right to Lombese and Vines chases him into his own half as Arcus, the right back, makes a run up the sideline with Leget tracking him. So at the time when Ricardo Adé, the centerback, hits that good ball to the left back Martin experience, Legette is the one on Arcus and Vines is way forward in the field.

And experience hits this lovely switch to Arcus and behind. And you're thinking like, where is Vines? What's going on? Why is nobody with Arcus? Because he's wide open. And I think it's mostly, I think it's mostly on Legat in this case. Maybe a little bit on Yule too for not recognizing what was going on, not seeing it. but I don't know that you can really blame fines that much on this one unless he unless he's just wildcatting by going up to like follow even if even if he is he's not invisible while he's doing it so you know legett's made the switch and it's at that point legit's job to stay until you can safely switch back I would say yeah so and I think we actually saw this kind of play out against Switzerland quite a few times and Switzerland were very deliberate about it where from from a normal buildup like they didn't they didn't have that

really disguised switch that Haiti hit to go from right to left initially. Like Switzerland would just hold the ball in the back and bring both their wide players back to draw up our fullbacks. And then they'd look to see if they could catch McKinney or Legette napping and hit the ball in behind them to their man running. So that's what it kind of reminded me of. And sure enough, like we were napping. And then we, in our sort of desperation recovery mode, both Legette and you will work back. to the same space to back up Robinson rather than one going by Robinson, the other one, guarding the top of the box.

And so that's how they ended up with a wide open look rather than a contested look. Yeah. And again, not even trying to say, if anyone, I'd say it was probably on the Jet as well. You actually see Ewell's arm come up calling out that guy who ended up being the shooter. So I think Legette's going to suffer on this one in the video room. That's my take on it too. It's a well-struck shot by Etienne, but he hits it wide, and it kind of looks like it goes in because it ruffles the net,

but from the wrong side. And Etienne knows he's got to hit a perfect shot there to be Matt Turner. Yeah, I mean, so, I mean, he, it wasn't because of Matt Turner that he needed to hit a perfect shot. His angle was he could only shoot at the near post. Yeah, he was trying to roof it, which is the right play, but just missed. Yeah, that'd been quite a finish if he had done it, really. So, you know, we're definitely not dominating this game. We're giving up chances here and there.

23rd minute, Joe Aquini can't cross with his right foot, but he, so he couldn't, you know, he had a couple chances to cross with his right foot, and it just looked like he wasn't going to be able to do that in any sort of dangerous way. So he chips one at the back post. After another nice bit of interplay from Zimmerman and Moore, that cross is cut out,

basically all our danger is coming through Zimmerman's distribution and Shackmore from wide right and I got to say you know I'm I thought I mean Zimmerman rose in my estimation in this game because of that and he I thought he played I didn't see any problems from him defensively do you disagree uh no maybe a few maybe a couple issues defensively in those uh I don't want to call them jail breaks they weren't jail breaks for Haiti running the other way But for the most part, no, I agree. Again, it's an issue where we weren't getting the distribution from the position that you would normally get the distribution from or that you'd expect it to. And so I feel like Zimmerman did a good job of taking on more of that responsibility.

I appreciate how you're softening the blow by calling it the position that you would normally get the distribution from. Isn't that some amazing passive sentence structure? Well, I don't want to harp too much. Yeah, in part because it feels like. yesterday may have been the end of that era of the Jackson New Old the Six era. But we'll have to see. I'll have to see.

The end of that era has been called before. Okay. And then 36 minute, I just want to mention this, Legette was offside, but there was a really nice combination between he and Shockmore. More kind of wins the ball towards Leget. Lajette comes from offside to in front of the center back and flicks it with his left foot in behind for Moore, who's doing sort of that run that Fabian Johnson did against Turkey in the pre-World Cup tune-up in Seattle,

where he just slammed it with his left foot. One of the nicest goals in the national team history for my money, chipped in behind by Michael Bradley. So it's a little bit of a same feel to it. Moore doesn't put it in the back of the net. It didn't matter because he was off, because the legit was offside anyway. And I slowed it down and it was pretty clear to me that he was offside, even from a poor angle. Anyway. Good moment, though.

Good aesthetics. Yeah. We need some good aesthetics when we're playing weaker teams. In the 42nd minute, Lewis wastes a good transition moment, dallying on the ball. And this is probably a good time to say, Lewis, I don't think he did anything positive in this game. Did he? I haven't checked his yet. I did the UL rewatch, which is why I feel okay saying, you know, what his weak spots were,

because it's not just a couple that stood out in the mind. It's like, okay, there were these and there weren't any, you know, big positives to balance them out. I think the Lewis rewatch will go about the same way. I don't know. I don't remember a positive that would balance out any of the ineffective moments. Yeah, no danger created. I mean, he was active in the press. You got to give him that.

He was pretty, he worked hard, pressing Haiti and did create some uncomfortable moments for them. We were stagnant. I thought we looked pretty stagnant for the last 20, 25 minutes of the first half, as opposed to, we had, we created some stuff in the first 10, 15. And then Ewell gets caught on the ball again in the 42nd minute. Another more cross in the 43rd minute. Zardis probably should have gotten a foot on this one on the bounce. But it's raining. and you know, this artist is not someone that we criticize that much anymore on this podcast.

47th minute, so second minute of stoppage time. A good little bit of work from vines to cut inside from the left and break down Haiti with a good pass to Acosta in the middle of the park. And this is where one of the nice moments from Acosta in the game, he just turns and pings it in behind to Joe Aquini. And then you see that Joe Aquini is not much at running in behind. doing stuff with the ball from the right wing. His wind-up takes forever.

He tries to cross it with his right foot. I'm not sure there was anybody there, and the cross is blocked by experience. That 22-year-old playing in the third division of France, who had a very nice game, in my opinion. On the ensuing corner, Legett ends up lifting a ball at the backpost, and Zimmerman heads it right at Sylvester. So another decent chance on a set piece.

Walker Zimmerman's set-piece monster. Yeah. I mean, that matters. when you're fighting for that, probably, I don't know, I don't even know what centerback spot we're saying is up for grabs now. I feel like it changes every discussion people have.

Let's settle it here. Which centerback spots are up for grabs? Well, three, three and on are up for grabs, in my opinion. I think it's, I think Brooks and Richards are, for me, and that's not, I'm not Greg Berthorthor,

obviously, but for me, Brooks and Richards are, like, locked in. And then everybody else is fighting for three, four, five,

seven. McKenzie. Mackenzie. Yeah. Mackenzie is probably in pole position for number three, I guess, but it's hard to say. So we could maybe say McKenzie is the guy to beat for a third spot right now? Yeah, I guess. I think that's fair after he beat out Zimmerman.

I'm sorry, you beat out Miazga, clearly in Nations League. Yeah. I mean, Zimmerman's more dangerous. McKenzie on set pieces, no doubt about that. And probably more athletic than McKenzie. Yeah, we don't have to get into that too much, I suppose. Well, I just wanted to know which, I kind of want to think about which, which of these, like, are they, are Zimmerman and Miles both competing for essentially

one remaining spot, or is it, is it still kind of a free-for-all after Brooks? And then what we assume is the number two spot locked up by Richards with Aaron Long's injury. Yeah. I think it's, I mean, I think it should be open. I think it should be open to, I think Robinson and Zimmerman should both have a shot at McKenzie's spot. I imagine, imagine maybe we'll see five centerbacks in the camps and, maybe not. I'm just making stuff up as I go here. We will.

We should see five. I'd expect five in these three, three magical windows. All right. Keep going with chronology. Okay. Half time came and went. And then the 50th minute, another decent chance for Haiti, a good ball from. Arcus to the top of the box, and Antoine gets, you know, just on rushing, gets a foot on it, puts it right at Turner.

That came through our left side again. 51st minute corner kick that Joe Kinney whiffs on pretty much at point blank with a free header. Now, it traveled near the header, the head of the defender. So I personally would have missed it completely. That those are hard to, you know, something about the ball going right by the head of the defender, in front of you is very disorienting to me at least. But I would like Joe Keeney to do a little better there. That's fair.

54th minute, a little attack sprung by Acosta to Legette. So Acosta plays the key pass out of pressure in the back to Legette, who drives forward through the middle and finds Joe Keeney wide. This is where Joe Aquini cuts in and has one on his left foot. It's a decent go, just wide of the far post. And in the 62nd minute, things start to look a little brighter. Buccio gets his debut coming on for Yule and D.K. comes on for Lewis. The crowd in the West Kansas City Metro goes wild for Buccio. I mean, they've cheered every move he made, every touch.

Good on them. That's great. Yeah. That's a great atmosphere. It's a nice moment. And this is when Zardis moved to the left wing. Yeah, the front three, the front three just still didn't make any sense. And I, I, so we're at this point looking at D.K. Zard. and Joe Aquini as our striker and half-space merchants. Yeah. And D-K, you know, D-K had almost no impact on the game. And I don't know, you know, is that disappointing when we're assessing D-K? Or is that just kind of game it was?

I don't know. It's tough, man. So here's why it's tough, because D-K comes into the game. We're playing, we're flanking him with Zardas and Jiao-Kini. this very obviously is not a personnel group that lends itself to like the beautiful game. Is that fair to say? I think that's fair to say. Disorganize the opponent with possession, at least with those guys in the roles of, again,

Target Forward and Half Space merchants. So, but we're not going to switch. We're not going to just be like, okay, well, let's just start hitting the ball up to these three fellas and letting them, you know, destroy a mediocre Haiti back line. So we're in that in-between zone where no. one's really set up to look very good, but we still managed to put some things together, which is nice. Yeah, it was just disappointing that D.K., you know, D.K. didn't, I don't know that he had a single positive, really positive moment, you know, in nearly a half an hour. So,

Acosta, 65th minute, Acosta to Moore, and he beats a guy and keeps his feet in sort of dramatic fashion and fizzes another one in that, that, uh, hits, like, D.K. heel a little behind him and it loops up and it gets recycled to Acosta and this is another really nice moment from Acosta just slips a lovely outside of the boot pass to Joe Aquini in behind. Joe Aquini hits the far post with his left foot. He opens up, I think he does pretty much everything right. His first touch is good. Opens up just hits the post. Gets all of the post. It doesn't graze it and I don't know what the XG was on that shot, but it's a pretty good, pretty good Focus here for me is Acosta's past because I thought that was fantastic.

Now again, on all of these, we're going to get to the next one too when we talk about it, but Haiti's backline is a mess. And it's got that sort of gold cup group stage, messy backline feel to it where if you're looking at the ball come back to Acosta from Moore, what you end up seeing are like two separate lines from Haiti. Like they have their left back and their left center back kind of up high, pressed up high with Moore and Acosta. and then their right center back and right back are like four yards deeper than that on their own line that they're holding.

So you see Joe Aquini just sort of drifting. And normally, you know, if you're just looking at him and those two defenders next to me, we're like, oh, he's like three yards offside. But then you know, your eyes kind of scroll down and you're like, oh, they have weak side defenders just totally out of the picture. But holding the guy outside. So it just goes back to those. It's still a great outside of the football. Like the technique is still there and he still has to split the defenders to get. it into the path of Joe Aquini.

But Joe Aquini has such a massive head start on the defenders defending him that is probably not going to exist in the knockout rounds. Okay. I didn't notice that. I didn't know anybody was holding him onside. I thought maybe it was just really well timed. Okay. And then 69th minute, a moment of danger up the right from Haiti as Zardis pursues.

got to credit him for that because he's playing wing now and he's playing defense all the way back into his own six. There's a cut. There's a cut back pass and more cuts it out. So I appreciate you giving Zardas the credit for pursuing the play. But this is also, and I'm not trying to blame Zardis here because he is a center forward. He hasn't played wing probably in three years. But he's pursuing because he got beaten so badly down the flank that he had to chase the play. So the ball got played.

into Sam Vines's man. And so, who'd pinched in a little bit, almost like a half-space merchant, and Vines was up on his back, and the guy held Vines off very easily. But while he was doing that, Zardaz's man raced past on the overlap,

and Zardaz kind of fell asleep for a second, and that's what sprung it. And again, Zardaz did good to try to recover. But it was definitely just like, maybe Zardaz shouldn't be playing on the wing in 2021. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, no doubt about that. I just think it's cool that he,

stuck with the play because I'm not sure everybody would do that, you know, in a game like this. I mean, maybe everybody would. I mean, we'd be mad at him if he didn't. But I also noticed that Moore is the one sort of bailing us out here. There's some sense, at least online, that more, you know, more looks better as a wingback than he does as a fullback. Like, the question is, can he defend? I don't know where that comes from exactly.

I always thought he was like a pretty solid defender. And this is an example. 72 minute, a poor touch from Acosta at the half, and he gets a yellow card for a professional foul to stop a dangerous counter. I think it's definitely a poor touch. He also gets put in a tough situation by Bouscio, who's on a kind of galloping up through the middle of the park, and then just I plays a pass to Acosta in a sort of a no-win situation

surrounded by three guys. And this has been one of my knocks on Buccio is like these safe passes. are not always safe, you know? Just because it's safe to get it to the guy's feet, doesn't mean you should make the pass. I don't care how many points you get from Fop mob for it. I'll push back on this one a little. There were a lot of passes from both Eul and Bousio,

not necessarily Bousio, but Ewell had a lot of those where they're like technically forward passes, but they're forward passes to a guy whose only option is very clearly to like bounce it back all the way back to the defenders probably, which whatever, those have a place in building rhythm. but Acosta as the grown-up here, his first touch should be a lot better. I agree, I agree 100%.

Yeah. He can get out of that situation by taking a touch and passing it backward. But anyway, I just had to grind my axe on the Bousio Fop mop thing. Love you, Tootle. Love you, Tudle, Roman. 72nd, no, we already did that one. 76th minute, Sands and Williamson, James Sands, and Eric Williamson come on for Joe Aquini and Moore.

So Sands is now in the middle of a back three And Williamson is in the middle And Acosta is out to right back So we're really, you know Just running all kinds of experiments here So we've got we now have Williamson and Busio In front of a back three right? Yep

Acosta at right back Vines is still at left back I guess wing back at this point And then we have this front three of Well what do we have as the front three I guess it would be oh no just Sardis and Zardis and Dike as a front two. Who would be the other midfielder?

Sebastian Leggett right there. That's right. As our number 10. No, actually, there was a bit of triple pivotness to it too. Like you saw when when Boozio came in, there was a lot more of like Boosio passing and then cutting, which was one of the other issues I had with Ewell so much, was that not only could he not like play forward in that,

as part of that back three with Zimmerman Miles against Hades 2 forwards. Like he had to be safe all the time, couldn't play forward. But then even when he would get pressured and release the ball, he couldn't break past that defender who had overcommitted to him. So you're just getting nothing from it.

Whereas Buzio was playing and then he would move forward. And then you would very seamlessly see Legette sometimes come back to play. Williamson would come back and play in that deeper space to protect the back line. So there was some, we did get a little bit of the triple pivot. Cool. I didn't really notice that.

I'm glad to hear it, to see it. 77th minute we get this really electrifying moment from Buccio. It's good work to win a header by Leggett. And then Zardis heads it firmly to Buccio's feet, which I appreciate it. And then Buccio clips a clever ball down the left wing for Vines. I know you're going to poo-poo the whole thing because of the back line of Haiti, but it's still a clever pass. And then Vines' cross is cut out, as are almost all of our crosses in this.

this game and it falls to Busio at the top of the box and he meets it on the short hop from I guess about 20 yards and just crushes it right at Sylvester but right on but on frame it was it was going to go in if the goalkeeper's not there and if it's one or two yards to either side it probably is a goal um or at least it's a much tougher save and now I'm thinking my skepticism about Busio was misplaced one solid volley and that's it he's your new regista no I mean, I still have my, I still have some skepticism about him, but he, this was a nice moment. It would have gone. As Stu Holden said on the broadcast, the roof would have come off the children's mercy park if that had gone in.

And then just once again, for all the sort of Busio narrative that exists out there, like, there's nothing wrong with being skeptical about any player who has yet to actually do it. Like, it's different from saying someone shouldn't be there versus I'm not sure if they'll be able to do it, you know, against. Honduras away or against Mexico at home. Those are just two completely different things. So I'm still not sure if Busio can do it. It's not like last night was amazing. But I'm also not sure if Daryl Dike can do it.

And I'm not sure if Brendan Ardenson can do it. We still have to see that happen in those actual environments before we can say it for, you know, for sure. There have been games where Christian Pulisick doesn't do it, you know? I mean, it's hard to do it. You can't always do it. Yeah. But Buccio was, I mean, let's just get into the whole Buccio thing. Because there are like three people on Twitter who are very angry with me for not rating Buccio enough.

And I'm very aware of you guys if you listen to podcasts, which I doubt they do. But I'm very aware of that. I, you know, watching him in the 2017, I'm sorry, the 2019 U17 World Cup was a frustrating experience. He was not good at anything in that tournament. and neither was Raina, really. So I probably affects the way I think about these players way too much. I'll cop to that. And I also have to admit, he sort of proved me wrong last night.

I said that on Twitter. He played well. I thought he played it even better than you thought he played, I think. I was a little more impressed than you were. I thought he brought a lot of rhythm to the game that we didn't have when you was there. There's like particular, like little stuff. Like that one time where he just sort of touches it and leaves it for, for Sebastian legit to go through.

Yeah. The aesthetic. We love the aesthetic. That's right up my alley. That's my Jesus Ferreira stuff right there. Well, it's the aesthetic, but it's also just rhythm building. You know, the game starts to come a little more naturally for everybody and did when Bousseo was on the field for the most part.

I mean, outside of that, I think slightly unwise pass to Acosta. And then he had a little bit of a hospital ball right at the beginning that didn't end up hurting us at all because it bounced right back to him. But, no, I totally agree. I mean, again, it's the Marquis Delgado effect, right? We love Markey. So, Busio is basically just the Marquis Delgado of 2021. I thought he was fine, too.

But it just goes, it's still a situation where it's against Haiti, so you can't really prove anything in the positive way against Haiti. Like, you just can't do it. Shaq Moorhead was involved in everything. That still isn't going to tell us that much. It's only if you're really bad that it proves something. So we learned a lot about a couple of things. of the guys on the roster who couldn't do it against Hady at home.

We learned that some other guys should get another shot in the next game and hopefully get a bigger opportunity in the next game. But you can't, you know, you just can't prove something that you belong against Hady. You just can't do it in this? It's just an unfair part of the game. Can we talk about that? So the sequence that got us on this whole thing was his good diagonal into vines, right? Yeah, as a clipped.

I mean, to call it a diagonal makes it sound like it's a 40-yard pass. It's just a little clip. It's a little clipped pass to the corner, right? So, yeah, so I'll post the screenshot of it. But it's, again, it's just that gold cup back line where boozyio is all the time in the world because it's a really good ball from Zardaz off his head. So he gets to survey the whole field. And you have, like, four Haiti defenders in like a eight-yard radius around Busio. And then you have one lonely Haiti centerback who's, like, barely above the box.

The penalty marker. Yeah. himself and so you just have a free onside run hilariously like haiti's left back is scrambling to work up the field to get even with the defenders closest to busio to like hold the offside line not realizing that there's another guy 15 yards deeper than him uh so we have i mean busio just has to hit the ball anywhere in in the green grass and he's gonna he's gonna put four guys in on goal he does so instantaneously though that's what i like about it and it's a it's a good feathered ball Oh, I love when you talk about a feathered ball.

I'm just saying this doesn't have to be, you know, Fabregas springing, whoever Fabregas would have been springing in the last few years. Yeah, I forget who it was springing. Somebody will tell us. But this isn't, again, I'm not harping on Busio for doing anything wrong here. And it wasn't, I don't think he did much wrong in the game. Just we, it's hard to make any real conclusions about him other than let's start him. against Martinique and Canada. I just don't want people to think I'm a stubborn asshole,

which I very well may be, but not in this case. I'll take an L on this happily. I'm glad. I'm glad Bousseo is better than I thought he would be in this game. And he was definitely better than Yule. I don't think anybody could disagree with that. And if anybody does disagree with that,

they're corrupt and they're on the take. I'm just kidding. 79th minute, good challenge from Buccio. So he had some good defensive. actions too. Good challenge from Bousseil. He gets a little hurt when somebody lands on his foot kind of a scary moment, but he was okay. And then the last moment I have

on the game, are you raising your hand? Nope. Nope. Okay. Turner's box control I'm a little worried about on that very last sequence. You know, I mean, it seems like he got fouled. He got like boxed out. But, you know, he kind of comes out and

flails at it after it bounces up in the air and then everybody's running jumping all over the place. It could have been a goal. It ends up with Buccio at Buccio's feet and he holds a guy off and gets fouled at the edge of the box. Basically the last moment in the game.

Yeah, probably fouled, but I still think he should do more to swim around that guy and force the issue for the referee rather than just kind of letting himself get boxed out and then kind of sticking the paw out at it. Did well to smother it, a little bit at the guy's feet in the last instance where he denied any shooting angle and then did get his hands to the ball.

And then it was cleaned up from there. Okay. What about Turner's distribution while we're on the topic? It wasn't great, right? No. You looked very uncomfortable with the ball at his feet. Even just receiving the ball, right? I mean, is that what you kind of saw?

Yeah. First touch would kind of surprise him. Yeah, I haven't done full forensics on. it but my sense of it is he was uh he didn't he didn't like to have the ball at his feet so something to watch uh we've already talked about burhalter's stubbornness with regard to those who shall not be named and then uh well we can talk about it one more time and again just because ariola's out and it now it feels like we have two more guys who within 40 minutes of this game it was clear that they are probably jumped on the depth chart you know what I mean like

we were you will came into the game on a bad trajectory from Switzerland and Honduras. Not playing well in MLS either, by the way. But that's Switzerland's very good. And then Honduras, you could say, well, maybe just the moment got to him. But again, then to have this happen after 40 minutes against Haiti, where it's like, oh, man, no, there's just something really off here. Means that, again, it'll be hard for me to see him going back into a game in a meaningful moment.

So now you just have, you're carrying a guy who you can't use. and I'd say the same exists for Jonathan Lewis and he was supposed to be your number two winger and your number one went down with injury so you're suddenly left with like a really thin personnel group. Yeah. And we're going to be relying on the versatility

of a lot of players who are either who have proven it like Acosta who's versatile. Legette has been versatile for us and then the versatility of some other guys like a Matthew Hoppe or Nico Joaquini who have definitely not proven it. So it will definitely be interesting as we get into

Canada and hopefully the knockout rounds, which we're pretty much we can feel good about entering, but that quarter final is going to look diceier and diceier as we go here. Let's pray Acosta doesn't pick up a yellow against Canada. Yeah, yeah.

And that was a good professional yellow from him after a bad touch. So, you know, you put that moment up against him at the Azteca back in 2017, I think it was, when we drew them. He didn't. He could have fouled. I think it was Chichorito before the ball went out wide de Vela for the equalizer.

And he didn't. So personal growth for sure for Acosta. The only other, okay, I wanted to say vines and Joe Keeney didn't look good to me. But I'm not quite so mad about their inclusion because I was more curious about them. I think we still needed more data. And I want to give them both a little bit of a mollig. Vine's because he's playing with Jonathan Lewis on the left side. And I'm not trying to be mean, but I just think Lewis is really not good at anything right now at this level.

Like you said, he's probably better than us at anything we are good at. You know, he's probably better at soccer than we are at anything. That's probably fair. But, yeah, he's not, he'd be hard to play with if you're the left back, I would think. and then Joe Kinney's so obviously uncomfortable in this role on the right wing. Now, I mean, he's missing chances closer to goal too, so I don't know. But I wouldn't hate to see a little bit more of him. I wouldn't hate to see a little bit more of vines.

I would like to see Bello against Martinique. And then my last thought is Shackmore was really, really good. Did you throw a little party about that last night? That's what I've been saying it right all this time like we just have We've just sort of given spots to players without really taking a long look at the pool and we just A lot of people I think are just dismissive about some of these options we have like a shack more Like a Dwayne Holmes and it's just like well what the Spanish second division okay like they can just kind of laugh it off While we're talking about where Aaron Herrera fits in the right back depth chart and

There's just it's just it should this should be a little bit eye open and I don't know, you know, should raise some questions about some other players who have sort of perennially been on the fringe without ever getting a shot. I don't know if that will actually happen or if, I mean, again, Shackmore wouldn't have even been in the camp if Araho had accepted the call-up. So he looked, to me, he looked like an upgrade on Yedlin. I mean, again, like, who knows with the level of competition and everything. but, you know, he was up against, he was up against experience, who I thought was one of the better players for Haiti. He had his way with some of the other American players. And I thought, I mean, I thought more was, got the better of him for the most part.

And so to me, decent chance he's an upgrade on Yedlin should be challenging Cannon. I think somebody in the Discord said, if we, if Canon starts this game, we don't get that level of performance from our right back, most likely. and it's a different soccer game. And I am inclined to agree with that. I'm not like going to sign in blood. I thought more pushed the game more than Cannon would. I feel like Canon's a little bit more deliberate. Not that Canon won't go forward.

Yeah. But on the ball at least, I thought more was more like, let's go. Like the tempo, let's get things moving vertically. And that helps, or in this case, I think that helped with the rhythm he developed with Kellan Acosta, because Acosta was much the same way of like, let's make something happen. Like, let's actually see if we're better than the defender who's up against us, because we should be, quite honestly. Yep.

So more Acosta legit, I thought played pretty well. I thought Zimmerman played pretty well. Robinson, we haven't really talked about. What did you make of him? He did try to hit a couple of line-breaking passes, too. Again, where I don't know if we'd get impatient because it wasn't happening elsewhere. but he was trying to like play a couple of balls through not too many and not to much effect. So he didn't really do much, I guess I would say.

He wasn't asked to defend all that much. And he mostly just kind of tapped it over to Ewell who would tap it back to him and eventually would get to Zimmerman. And then things would happen. Is that unfair? Do I need to rewatch all his touches? No, I think distributionally there's not there's not much to say about it. I think he was very safe and not, much like Turner, not super comfortable with the ball at his feet.

But, but yeah, I thought he looked formidable defensively to me. And I think that's a useful data point. If we're looking for something, you know, in a pinch, we need somebody to partner with John Brooks who can just defend and cover ground. I mean, he's going to be able to do that long role at least servicably. Just like for a lot of these guys, the real question will be a week for, you know, Sunday when we play Canada. Yep.

And that's when we're going to see whether Shaq Moore can defend right now. Would have been nice for that where Davies coming at him. Yeah. I mean, nice from a data collection point of view, and maybe not nice from an outcome point of view. Well, do you think, hold on, before you abruptly end this, do you think, do you think Cannon's playing against Canada? Do you think Shaq Moore is, like, taken over right back?

because that'd be a heck of a leap. I think it's going to be another test of Burrhalter's stubbornness, you know. There have been a lot of these. He was stubborn about trap, stubborn about Roldon, and now Roldon maybe he's back in the picture. I don't know what's going on there. Definitely stubborn about Yule and Lewis. Now Burhalter's being stubborn about reinserting Roldon.

Why didn't Roldon get in that game yesterday? Why doesn't Burrhalter do exactly what I want every stage? But, you know, I think Cannon is kind of one of his guys. and we'll see. We'll see. I bet Canon plays against Canada and then the real question will be who gets the knockout game.

Okay. And hopefully there's more than one knockout game but I'm not ready to say that yet. Okay. Yeah, I'm not ready to say that either. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.