Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #186: USA v Canada recap

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

A two-striker setup for the first time in the Berhalter era! Yay! Plus we talk about injury replacements, and then suggest fantastical non-injury-related roster changes.Here’s the link to Half-space Merchantdeiss, the Scuffed store: https://my-store-11446477.creator-spring.com/ Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. The U.S. got an early goal and then white-knuckled their way to a 1-0 win over Canada to win the group and avoid Mexico in the semifinals of the Gold Cup. So, mission accomplished. We play either Jamaica or Costa Rica on Sunday in the quarters. And yet, hmm. Greg, how you doing? I'm doing all right. I feel like we should. to hold off on the mission accomplished banner until we actually reached the semifinals. Yeah. The wind to avoid Mexico in the semifinals doesn't look as good if we don't make it to the

semifinal. That's true. It was a rough game. It was rough, actually rougher on rewatch for me than it was initially. And that's usually not the case. Usually you get caught up in the swirl of online negativity about a game. And then you watch it and you're like, wait a second, it wasn't that bad. had the exact opposite experience with this one.

Well, how did you go into it? As soon as you saw the lineup, how did you go into it? I felt okay. You know, I mean, I received your point about this being the first time we're going to do a two-striker formation and it not looking good, you know, or maybe presumably wouldn't look good. And I, you know, I acknowledge that. But I still thought, you know, I liked most of the choices.

That's fair. And, you know, my reservation's like, okay, well, we haven't trained this before. It's going to be a lot of different rotations for central midfield that, you know, none of them are drilled on. But, I mean, also, they're professional soccer players. It's not a, we didn't, Berhalter didn't invent a formation out of whole cloth. So it's not, you know, an inhuman ask. Should we talk about what the lineup was just in case anyone who listens to us somehow isn't aware of what the U.S. lined up with? Right.

So we did, we had Matt Turner and goal. and then a three-man-back line of Zimmerman, Sands, and Miles, just like against Martinique. Shack Moore got the nod again at right-wingback, Sam Vines, at left-wingback. The midfield was Gianluco Busio, Sebastian Leggett, and Kellan Acosta. I'd like to hear how you think that midfield was set up, because I'm not sure I have a clear grasp on it. And then we had essentially, especially in out-of-possession, we had a two-striker formation of Zardis and D.K. pressing up front together with not to great effect I would say uh yeah not not not not not throughout the match uh there were there was some effect early on but but but the

effect waned yeah I think it's fair to say I mean vines vines over George Bello in this game was a I a choice that I I agreed with I thought vines and I thought vines had a decent game especially defensively um I would I was happy to see busio over over Yule again in the midfield just to get more information and more information we did in fact get. So this is where I'm going to veer off totally. And my biggest frustration with all of this, this whole match in the 352 especially, was the quality of the information we're taking in. And the apples to applesness of it. And this is a huge frustration for me.

And probably it traces a little bit all the way back to roster construct. and how we found ourselves at this point. But even with some of the players we had, I don't think we were forced into this lineup, into this shape. And I was really not excited to see it, as I said, like new formation, new midfield rotations, two strikers, which you've never done before. You know, I was still open to it possibly looking good

because these are, again, decent players who play soccer for a living. But then when it did just look like a slog, that was my big frustration. Yeah. And I'll say now, I don't know that like a couple of changes here and there to the shape would have made it better, would have like made us cruise to victory. But if it had been a slog with those changes made, we at least would have been able to glean some useful information from it about our, about some of these players that because of these changes,

I just don't think we can really draw any conclusions from. Or it's very, for me, it's much more difficult. Yeah, I mean, I get that. So the argument would be it was so, things were so disjointed. People were thinking through their, their rotations and their movements and their next moves so much that they were kind of neutralized as players on the field, like the tactics, hamstrung everybody? Yeah, there was very little coordination.

There were a few sequences that really stood out because they were coordinated, but everything else looked like one person sort of playing on an island or maybe a two-man game somewhere playing, playing as a group, but no coherent like, you know, shifting and interchange. And that was devastating. And it was devastating to our ability to hold the ball. Burhalter said himself, like the midfield just couldn't hold the ball. And it's like, well, of course not. Like, you know, one of the huge changes to playing two guys up top

and is from what we've done for the entire Burrhalter era is we've just removed a player from midfield. So of course we're going to have a little harder time controlling that space. All through this time, since 2019 on, since Burrhalter took over, we've been operating at almost like a 325 or a 235, one of those sort of formations. and even in those roles, it's always been with like a dual 10, right? And usually it's with a dual 10 and a striker who will come back into midfield and try to join up play.

Zardas who does that, had been doing that for the last two years with not great effect, but he was still coming into play that way. And then in this game, not only do we not have any kind of like a false nine type striker, we have two very much non-fals nine strikers, but we only have one-10. when we possessed, it was Boozio stepping up into that 10 roll, Acosta and Legette as like dual eights, and James Sand stepping up from that backline into like the six quarterback distributor role. So we lose a 10 and neither of the forwards who are up there are interested or able to come back and like connect in midfield and help us control that space. So we completely abandoned

anything that had been working for us in the past as far as holding midfield. And unsurprisingly, we had no foot hold in midfield. Yeah. Yeah. And then we also were played through with just incredible ease. And that's something that became more true as the game went on. Canada was just breaking down our block. What do you call it?

A mid block easily. No problem at all. You know, just a pass to the middle of the field. Somebody turns and they're basically tapping the ball around box like their Manchester City for the next five minutes and we're holding on for dear life. It's very, it was very discouraging. And you say as the game went on, but it was almost like a light switch. Like it was almost like a hard stop where we were actually possessing pretty well.

And I do want to give some credit to, I guess what I'm calling James Sands Rinkle, which is, you know, if you're the opposing team looking at this, you're like, oh, they're playing a back three. So you might set up your press. Like teams at this point are, you know, okay, back three. Here's how we're going to set up defensively. And then he would kind of set up like that, but then suddenly he would move into that six roll for the diamond. And we would play out of that. So that might have caught him by surprise a little bit.

We had a couple openings where we could pass the ball possessed through that midfield a little bit. But then after the water break where, you know, you don't usually get timeouts in soccer, but this is like a timeout where the team can huddle around the coach. I don't know exactly if Hurdman just made changes. They also made a sub when Aconola got hurt and added a sorrel. More midfield type. Yeah. Yeah.

But after that, then it was just like our team and our ability to possess hit a wall and they completely controlled it for the rest of the match. Yeah, there's probably a couple of factors there. I mean, I think Pines is a little less comfortable in possession than Zimmerman. So that has that had an impact. But yeah, they changed from essentially a two-striker formation to like a one-striker formation when Osorio came on. And I guess I'm not a tactical genius enough to know exactly how that played out. but it surely did make a difference. Well, they kind of sat in like a,

they almost played in like a 4-4-2. And so they just matched up like in midfield because again, we just had the two-eights. And they wouldn't let us get out. Like we never were able to play through their, almost never played through. There was a really nice moment at the 32nd minute where it just looked so great

where it was Sands sitting in that back three. Canada settles into their 4-4-2 and we made like four or five passes around our centerbacks to allow them to like okay I'm identifying sort of where my man is and this you saw guys kind of like link up with a cost and legit Canadian guys sort of found their counterpart and then as we were passing suddenly sands just stepped into the giant hole in their four four two and we found him and then he hit buzio as like our 10 and boosio lays it off to leget and we were just like on top of their box and I was like oh that was really slick

That was the one where Leggett clipped it down the wing, down the channel for Zardis. Zardis tracks it down and then passes it back to the top of the box. What happened after that? No, Zardis tracked it down in the box and then just kind of like faced his man up, pretended like he was going to try to dribble him, which Zardez isn't really going to do. And then Zardis tried to hit like an outside of the foot ball to an overlaper. And I think it turned into a goal kick. It was for Legette.

Yeah, and it wasn't. It didn't connect. Well, let's do the Canada. Let's do the Canada lineup. and then move into the timeline. Unless you got something else to say about it before we move on? No, we can talk about Canada. Okay.

Canada's goalkeeper was Maxim Krepos. Their three-man back line was Alistair Johnston, Stephen Vittoria, and Kamal Miller. And then the wing backs were Richie Larea. Started on the right, but ended up switching sides a lot with Tejohn Buchanan, who started on the left wing. And left wing back. And Buchanan was dangerous pretty much the whole game,

a very bright player. The battles between he and Sam Vines were fun to watch. And then Liam Fraser and Samuel Piet in the middle with Junior Jolette, I guess, at the 10 more or less. He was wearing number 10. He was more of an attacking midfielder than the other two. And then Kyle Aaron and Io Aconola, Achanola, who came off with a knee injury after a pretty crunching Sands tackle midway through the first half.

I hope he's okay. wish him the best. So the timeline. Let's do it. Let's start with the good stuff. All right, yeah, we get the good stuff out of the way early, and then we'll see if there's anything else up until that 32nd minute sequence. The right off of kickoff, it goes back to James Sands,

and he floats a ball down the left channel, and Sam Vines wins it and knocks it forward, and D.K. battles for it. Zardis battles for it. It ultimately falls to D.K.'s head, and he hits a firm header right at Gene Lucubusio, who then shuttles it across the middle of the field to Acosta. I mean, we're 20 seconds in at this point, something like that. And Acosta cuts a guy. He gets tackled.

The ball gets tackled off of him, but it bounces favorably for him, falls for him, and then he clips a left-footed ball to the left wing to Sebastian Legette. And Leggett crosses at first time for an onrushing. Shack Moore and Shack Moore thumps at home it's a it's a I'll mention two things it's a beautiful ball from Legett and because I didn't think he had a good game at all

I'm gonna criticize him quite a bit probably but um but it's that's a that's a trickier ball than it looked like to me on first watch it's he hits it on the bounce first time with his weak foot and it's an absolutely perfect cross I mean I know you know professional soccer players should be able to do that I still like it when I see it and and uh and we're up one zero and and things things are feeling good i was in the i was in black

heart st paul uh the bar across from a lian's field in in st paul last night and there were the bar was full of lunes fans because minnesota united had just beaten seattle a few a few minutes earlier and that the bar went wild it felt like uh you know it felt like a real tournament not just a gold cup not just the gold cup and i was calling it like a dead rubber ish because it Again, the only thing at stake was the other side of the bracket from Mexico, which we didn't even know for sure what happened at the time. Mexico still had to win their match, which they did, won zero against El Salvador. But again, even sort of assuming you're going to make it to that game, or that Mexico will make it to the semifinal at this point is a lot of assumptions. Yeah.

By the way, a shout out to the guy. I asked him to listen to the podcast. The guy was sitting next to at the bar, who when I asked if he was interested in the game, he said yes, and they're not going to change. the channel as if I was like as if as if I was in there to watch Formula One or something and I was like I'm here to watch the game bro that's what I'm here for he well maybe he thought you really wanted to see Trinidad versus Haiti not Hayt not Trinidad Haiti versus Martinique I don't know exactly what he thought he didn't think I wanted to watch the game but then I handed him a business card and he was like okay I'll check it out so um that's it one zero and probably the easily the most

part of the game from the U.S., the most exciting, the one that mattered. My next moment on the timeline is in the sixth minute. James Sands' great backward turn with Aconola on his back. And you can see that it's slim pickings out there. But I did appreciate with a very strong center forward on his back, San is able to turn and receive the ball in a bit of a messy situation and bring order to chaos, bring order to chaos. If you have anything you want to throw in here, please just interrupt me.

No, this timeline is going to, we're going to zip through this. Okay. Eighth minute, a good pressing sequence, recovered by Busio in the final third after an errant Canada pass. And he drives toward the box and it's just a mess from there on. You know, his pass to Dike is, I guess, okay. And then Diki can't get it out from under his feet. It gets the bug, falls to Acosta after some more pressing and he just hits a wild pass out of bounds.

Ninth minute, messy from... Well, I'm sorry. I know I just said I wouldn't interject, but this eighth minute one, because it came up again later on in the game in less of an advanced position. But that ball going into D.K.,

I think D.K. still just doesn't have a good sense of where his teammates are around him. Because that ball goes into D.K. from Buzio, and Acosta's running around... It's Acosta, right, that makes the sort of underlap. It might have been legit, but yeah. Okay. But in any event, our actual numbers,

we had like four guys to D. Okay. is left our right side of the channel in that transition moment that's where our players were and instead he went to this to like the short side of the field with numbers wise so he tries to force it to a space that he shouldn't again it's a little thing but those are those are little things that the higher level a higher level player sort of just has that awareness of where our numbers are and plays us in towards those spaces yeah it just didn't seem like that was a situation that dk is going to thrive in unless he, you know, with his back to goal, receiving the ball at the edge of the box.

I mean, unfortunately, it just didn't look, it didn't look promising for me from the get-go. Can I touch on that too? This isn't a timeline thing. This is just a general observation. The other bit about trying to control possession when you're running like Dike and Zarda's up there, but you're not just hoofing balls up to them is that both of those guys need a lot of help around them when the ball comes into their feet. And by putting them next to each other, that's also one less like, tidy technical center midfielder or winger that they can play to.

So when the ball's going into D-K, instead of having an extra, you know, close combination player around him to play with, he now has that player removed and it's Zardas around him who's not really, that's not his game. And it's the same the other way around when Zardas gets the ball instead of having a tidy player around him. He's got one of the guys closest to him is D-K,

who's not going to come in and combine in these really clever tight spaces. So it's just another way that, you know, it's this sort of hybrid. are we trying to play that possession game link up play or are we trying to just go over to these two guys and let them just battle people barnsley style and we didn't really do either and of course our our attack sort of reflected that yeah we didn't it's it's just a giant elf for burrhalter and i i don't i don't think you know people will be some people will be frustrated with us for being too negative or maybe just frustrated with me for being too negative

but like the the the problem is we didn't we don't have any we don't have any wingers on the on the gosh dang roster, you know? Like, Ariel is hurt, probably. Lewis played himself out of the national team and against Haiti, it appears to me. I mean, and then- We have more strikers. Yeah, Joe Aquini and Hoppy are, I mean, I mean, Hoppe probably should have started, I guess, in retrospect.

He's just a little brighter and more has a little bit more of a spark than Zardis, but. Well, and it goes back to what do we want? want to learn. So if we had started Hoppy in that half-space merchant role again and put DK up top and we, and he, D.K. had still been really ineffective, then we could say like, okay, well, D.K. might struggle in our, in our sort of three, two, five, or whatever that odd man front is that we tend to run. And we've got to find ways to either adapt it to him or we, he might not be the guy. Right. We can't say that because we didn't, we didn't get any, anything close to that look. So this was our first opportunity to evaluate Daryl D.K. in like a competitive

a match against a decent side. And we did. We threw it all out the window. We did something brand new. Right. We just elected not to use the game to do that. Come on, Greg, Berlter. And you're right, but you're right about the roster, too.

Like, Lewis isn't a, I mean, it's funny because Lewis has been so ineffective that we have to switch to three centerbacks, which we didn't bring numbers for. And now, and now we're at a point where we might not be able to play three centerbacks or we're going to have, you know, pines on the field who wasn't fantastic. to make up for Lewis's shortcomings in the wings and it is just a mess. Or at least we thought that might happen, but there might be like a conca calf to the rescue situation

that we'll get into later. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's a bunch of enforced errors that, like, weren't that difficult to predict. Not to mention the talent evaluation problem that Greg Burholter seems to have. So, all right, ninth minute. This is that penalty shout.

for when Zimmerman kind of falls down and takes Lurrea out in the box. It's a chop block, right? He shot blocked him. Yeah, it's a chop. 15-yard penalty. Lera tugged on him to make him lose his balance in the first place. So I think it's fine that there was no penalty given. Worth noting that Vines got one to two to round earlier in the play,

and that's what created this situation. But yeah, a little bit troubling. We can do that Larea tugged on him a little bit. but if that had been, if we were Canada and we were playing Panama and that that was a no call, the screams of Conca Caffing would be deafening. Yeah, not for me, but yeah, probably from some people. I'm not like a big penalty shout guy. You know that.

But if it had been called a penalty, I don't think anybody would have been like, you know, taking it to the high court for an appeal. It looks pretty. pretty callable. 13th minute. I just noticed that Tejanan, a player I was impressed with in this game, worked back to stop Shack Moore on a counterattack.

If anybody from Canada is listening to this, there you go. Congratulations. 14th minute, Buchanan's just cooking on the left wing and he finds Laren's feet in the box and Laren pops it up to try to go around James Sands. And again, I think there's a decent penalty shot. This one probably even more so than the other. Sands has his hands all over Laren.

Laren goes down easily, but he was pulled. More conca caffing. You know, like, again, just if the jerseys were a little bit different and we were the ones going down in the box. Yeah. So it could be 2-1 here pretty easily with a different ref. 15th minute pines comes on for Zimmerman,

who was hurt somehow on that encounter with Larea. Have we heard anything on that? No, we haven't, but is this where we just let her, everyone know again who hasn't found out somehow that Concaf is allowing medical replacements now, middle of the tournament rule change. Yeah, mostly related to COVID, right? That's what the press release says. It is, but then they very easily could have just limited it to COVID exposure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy. I'm happy. I'm happy about it. I'm happy about it. Yeah, Walker Zimmerman, we'll get into who we would like to, who, what changes we would like to see made as a result of this

totally on the up and up rule change. If you think this chronology is just going to be overly tedious based on what you saw happen on the field, we are going to do a full Mulligan roster, a real-time Mulligan roster. Yeah. Later on. So I'll try to pick up the pace. So Pines on for Zimmerman. Messy in the back again in the 16th minute, Boussio plays a pass between Sands and Pines

right after Pines comes on. Sands expects Pines to come for it. Pines does not. So Sands ends up having to make a desperate. tackle on Aconola and he crunches him as Aconola is pouncing on the mistake. Look like a pretty good tackle, but a lot of leg. And Aconola comes off injured a few minutes later too, which is too bad. But I mean, it's an example of Sands being just alert to danger, I think.

19th minute, more an Acosta, slickly released Bousio in behind, and he crosses from the right harmlessly behind D.K. I mean, there's just too many. any Canada shirts in the box. Good Vines ball in the 19th minute after a little combo with Legette on the left. Zardis flicks it with his head at the backpost. There's nobody at the back post. 22nd minute Aconola does in fact come off. 23rd minute. Very good sequence. Buccio cross deflected. You know, it was kind of us working the ball up the right side. And then Buccio's cross is deflected and Zardis flicks it from the near post to the back post for Vines who can't quite get his head around it. 24th minute. So the U.S.

is still creating some chances here in the first half hour. Another decent cross from Shaq claimed by Cropot between Zardis and DK. That was a perfect goalkeeper drill right there. We do that. Every goalkeeper is familiar with that drill where two attackers just run either side of you. They're not going to make contact with you, but they just want you to know they're there as you go up and collect a ball. Yeah, it was a couple feet further out and maybe we get a decent chance on that. a more ball in the 25th minute on the ground for D.K.

After recovery and some quick shuttling from Buccio. Buccio was going to be criticized a lot on this podcast, but I did think he was quite tidy in possession and rhythmic when he needed to be. This is an example. D.K.'s shot kind of awkwardly struck with his right foot flashes wide. Yeah, D.K. in that situation was like running back away from the goal towards the top of the 18 and just had to do like that pivot hit, which he, you know,

nearly put on frame, yeah. And some more good stuff from Sands as he steps past Laron with the ball. Thought Pines was pretty solid defensively when he came on. He did okay in the first half. D.K. loses the ball in the box from Zardis in the 28th minute,

tentative from Leget repeatedly, and Dekay just not clean enough when the ball gets to his feet were my thoughts at this point in the game. So on my legit, watch it was just there is there is a little bit of being tentative but i honestly didn't think it was that bad it's still just a matter of like both those forwards want to run away from you they want to run off the back shoulder the defender uh so again you have one less guy to to to combine with to play a

progressive pass on the floor and make tidy triangles if you if the plan is just to put that ball behind and let those two run after it then that's you know fine then you can do that but obviously we weren't we weren't just doing that we did a lot more against martinique than we did in this game so that wasn't the plan. The plan was still to do the tidy passing possession game, but you had two forwards who just sort of kept running away from you, and you're going to look up, you're going to see them running away, and there's nothing on. You could force it, or you can recirculate, and we just did a ton of sort of boring recirculating. Recirculate, recirculate. That's my, that's my very, very light-throated defense of Sebastian legit. Small-throated, a small-throated defense.

And it's going to apply to our entire midfield. Acosta, too, I assume. Yeah, there's a reason that when they all look really ineffective, it's probably more the scheme than just, you know, three coincidentally poor performances. They also just look tired and hot and bothered. Unbothered. That was my other note.

Legette did not look like a guy who got rested last game, and Acosta did not either. They both were, they looked uninterested at times. Yeah, maybe they were just so mad about the scheme. Could that be? Because if it's not that, if they're not just totally bereft as a result of the scheme, like, then they still deserve some blame for not being up for it. I was mad at halftime. I was like, take legit off the field. He's not up for this game, you know? Well, yeah. And so then it's like, okay, well, is it the humidity? It's, it's the Midwest in the summer. So it's, these are absolutely excuses. You know what I mean? I'm not, I'm not trying to be like, these are good excuses. This is definitely irrationalizing. But heat, humidity, humidity, and advancement already secure kind of, kind of 90 minutes. Are we about to get into how the cornfields perspire in the summer? Kansas City is a heat sink.

It's all that sprawl, all that asphalt. Yeah, unlike any other city in America. 30th, okay, 30th minute, that's the cinematic run and backwards summer salt exhibition from D.K. I mean his touch was just atrocious in this play he loses he loses he loses he's running after it I don't know I mean this comes up later because he does kind of maybe end up getting hurt doing one of these like super exciting falls to the ground but like dude has to chill a little bit because he's he's gonna get hurt um by himself uh I noticed in that one when when he it was a Canada backpass eventually right like his big touch led to a Canada backpass and

And then he was like, oh, I could run onto that back pass. When the Canada guy realized that, he did stick a little bit of a shoulder out. So, and it caused D.K. to run off of his line. If D.K. just plowed through the guy and then tumbled, could have gotten the foul on the yellow card. Got to play for those cautions in tournament play. Yeah. Nice. I think the 33rd minute is the one that you brought up, right?

The nice run of play from Sands and Bousio. Go ahead. So, yeah, so it was just us knocking the ball around. I've kind of already explained it. Sands in the middle of the back three, Canada sags into their 4-4-2, kind of picks up their counterparts, their mirrors, and Sands moves it to the left side of the field over to Robinson, and then notices that Canada's weak side forward is falling asleep.

And so he just very casually drifts up behind those two, but well behind Canada's midfield too. And we just find him. He has plenty of time to take a touch, slips a easy ball to Boozio in a bowl, bunch of space between the candidate's back line and midfield line. And it's like textbook six to ten layoff to your eight looking upfield movement. And if we have somebody on the wing who can, you know, take a guy on, then he's isolated one-on-one just inside the box.

And we maybe have a chance, but Zardist doesn't really, that's not his game. The next few things I have are just Vines, Vines doing some very good defending. And the 34th minute Buchanan tries to take him on on the right wing, Vines steps in, decisively takes the ball away, taps it back to Turner. A moment later, a minute later, he gets between Kyle Laron and a cross. At this point, I'm just thinking D.K. needs to be better. He's getting bodyed by Stephen Vittoria and going sprawling. I wish he'd play like, in this game, I found myself wishing he would play like a big man. instead of like a small man.

It's like a center who's afraid to, I don't know. So for me, part of that at least still goes back to that, the players he has around him to connect with because the calculation the forward's going to make there as the ball's coming up to him. You're talking about like a guy he's posting up, ball coming up to him from our back, and there's a guy on its back, right?

Well, yeah, and then he feels the contact and then he, I don't know, he's like trying to make it, trying to get a foul call or something. Right. And so the calculation there is if you have, have a bunch of guys around you that the connection is on as the ball's coming to, and you're like, oh, I can connect. I'm facing my 10 or I'm facing an 8 who has the space or there's a window, then you're not going to try to draw the foul because in your head the math says, oh, we should just play

through this. When there's no one around you, it's like that old 2007 mid-2000s four-four-two soccer, where everyone's deep, but then the ball gets lumped up to your forward. And his job is just to like win a foul or hold it for like 10 seconds so you can get your shape again. So that's what, in my mind, that's what he's doing there. He's trying to draw the foul because there is no advantage in our shape in our organization. So let's just get a foul and by ourselves that calm to compose ourselves and play out of it from there. Yeah, that makes sense. He sees that he has nothing and so he goes for the hoping for a foul. Yeah, you could still say just hold your ground and hold the ball up and then and do it the other way like like guys would do

in 2007. But, uh, you know, he did a little bit of it. He did a little bit of that, but not enough to my eyes. I guess it all comes back to tactics. It's very frustrating for me to have this conversation and everything. I can't blame individuals. We have to, it's all Burhalter's fault. It's all Burrhalter's fault.

So the 37th minute chance for Canada that's wasted by Jonathan Osorio, it's, Vines intercepts a pass, it pops up on him, and then he gives it away. He's just too casual, doesn't recognize, that Buchanan is behind him and when he takes a touch Buchanan comes in and just wrecks him and then

uh hullett and Buchanan nicely work a chance for Osorio inside the box he hesitates I don't think he wanted to have one with his right foot and he tries to put it on his left foot and can't get the shot on goal it gets blocked kind of inept from Osorio honestly yeah canada not great in the attacking third part of that because of some good miles right that was a Miles Robinson block I'm pretty sure and he had a couple of those where it's just very good closing down because you never know like that if we aren't blocking that shot as we saw against linens when we had guys in the picture to block a shot but but didn't get the block right bad things can happen if you're noticing a trend at this point in the game and Canada is in our

half most of the last portion of the second of the first half and the final two items are just all caps danger 45 minute all caps danger 46 minute and vines clearance at the back post the ball sneaks through and vines just gets to it before Alistair Johnston and knocks it out for a goal kick I think so Canada's just knocking on the door like a top four Premier League side bullying Brighton and Hove Albium

we can't get out of our half because our front four can't connect passes which Greg has explained in some detail I think front six really so once the ball went past James stands his feet our connections deteriorated quickly. Yes.

And I'm not saying it's because the midfielder's were all bad or can't connect passes. For me, it's just a big part of us not being in an optimal shape. And we made no changes at the half. We came out exactly the same way. 46-minute pines starts to have a little bit of a mare, horrible giveaway, plays like a floated ball, it to nobody.

And Kyle, I think Kyle Laren gets to it first and forces a decent save from Matt Turner. There's more, there's just danger, danger, danger. 47th minute,

more intervenes on the back post to prevent something. Laren turns Sands in the 48th minute and he just kind of waltzes into the box, has a shot blocked by Robinson.

I think you mentioned that earlier. That was Sands. is probably worst moment, right? Yeah, and it wasn't so terrible either. I mean, it's not like he got, well, he did get beaten pretty thoroughly, but he did. And I want to just kind of point out here that, again, because of our weird midfield shape, this is Sands Moore as a sixth than a centerback.

It's still not good that he gets beat here, of course, but it's not as bad as a centerback getting beaten, having no one. You know what I mean? When Sands gets beat a little bit, he's still pursuing from that side and he's got his centerbacks to help. And this also will apply a little bit. This is going to be more, more very mild defenses of Busio and Legette and Acosta. Because as we get into that 532 defensive shape, Sands is still like the hybrid six centerback.

So those other guys are like these eights. And so they're expecting to have some help from the six behind them as they close people down. Even as they tackle, you're usually tackling towards another player. You're not always tackling on your own on an island. You're usually like moving in concert. and there just wasn't very good concerting. Yeah, you notice that when, you know, Buccio, that clip, I think Matt Doyle put the clip on Twitter of Buccio getting worked by Piet.

And you can see Buccio lifting his hands as he's running behind Piet like, where's my help. Right. Sands is super far back from him. And Leggett is, there's a huge gap where Legat would be and a huge gap where it would be to him. So there just aren't these tight connections. And again, it's good that Canada weren't very good. And this is the other bit of the 532. So even when Buzio gets beat there, it's like, okay, well, now Canada runs into our line of five.

And this is where our 532 held on and got us our clean sheet because Canada weren't very good at breaking that down. They initiated a lot of good attacks to look at that five-man back line by just sort of splitting our foosball-style-three-man midfield. Yeah. But then they couldn't do anything against our five-man foosball line of defenders. Yeah. The five's always harder to break down in football than the three. Maybe there was a bit of a penalty shout on Donovan Pines on a dangerous Canada counterattack. Buchanan pushes the ball to Lurea out wide and he goes down easily.

I think on the replay it doesn't look like it doesn't look like a penalty to me. I know you're going to say that. No, I'm going to say Canada is doing the right thing here where after a couple of really close shouts or very controversial ones, you give the referee as many chances as possible to make things right. In the ranking of penalties that could have been a penalty, I think Sanzas is probably number one, then Zimmerman, then Pines. But there is that cumulative, there's often a cumulative effect on the referee where the more there are, the less of a penalty it needs to be to blow the whistle.

Yeah. So 51st minute, good defending from Miles Robinson out running Buchanan down the right side. I just thought that was good to see, you know, Becannon, Becann would have, like, absolutely cooked John Brooks in that situation. Or Tim Ream. Or Tim Ream or maybe even Madmiasga. So it's good to see Miles, you know, he's positioned well and he has the, he has a physical tools to stay out in front of that. Fifty-fifth minute, a good Busio ball down the channel for Zardis, and Zardis gets it, gets to it at the end line and crosses it just over Dike's head. nobody else is anywhere near the box

so it's not much of a chance ultimately. 90 degrees in humid. I don't know what the temperature was. Cornfields are just pumping out the moisture. 58th minute Cannon comes on for Moore who is did look pretty tired and I did not think Reggie Cannon was an improvement.

I'm, you know, call me a prisoner of the moment if you want, but I'm going to say Moore has leaped Cannon in the depth chart. Right back. I'll still put them in some kind of a cloud of no one having an upper hand. But it is notable that Shaq Moore has been subbed in all three games. So assuming that, I'm not assuming that there's like a strict minutes restriction on him.

I think he came out in like the 75th minute against 80 and then the 60th minute against both Martinique and Canada. But they're definitely, they definitely seem to be mindful that he's not a 90 minute player at the moment. Because I don't think, I don't think these are tactical substitutions. I know people were saying they wanted to shore up and help. Donovan Pines out, but I don't know that Cannon's marginal defensive improvement is worth using a substitute on. I'm not even sure it is a defensive. I guess that's what I'd say.

Another bad Pines giveaway and a desperate tackle. I mean, he does do pretty well to cover over his own mistakes sometimes, but the mistakes, there are too many mistakes. He was Anthony Robinson-esque in his, in his, in possession. Yes, he was. Well, I was going to say there's no way Anthony Robinson makes. This is a situation where Pine seemed to be a bit of a roster filler from the start. Yeah, that's true.

With very little, it seemed like there wasn't a real intention to using that much. I thought it was like he got his minutes against Martinique and against Martinique still look pretty shaky while we're up 6-6-1. But now with going to a back three, one injury puts him on the field. and I don't think we were wanting to go this route, but here we are. Yeah. Good ball from Robinson wide to Vines. I mean, not an amazing ball,

but just a good firm chest high ball to Vines. And Vines plays it into Zardis, who collects it at the N-line, and then back out to Vines, and Vines is fouled. We get a set piece. The set piece is hit by Leget. It's too close to the keeper,

even though D.K. was right there to nod it in. I don't know why. Bousio was taken off of set pieces for this game. That's like his best quality right now. And Lijette's the guy. We go back to Lijet, who's, I think his set pieces have been pedestrian for the most part in this tournament.

Even going back to Nations League, they weren't great. So what are we doing, G, Gigi. I don't know, but it's going to make it, I mean, if that's how Burholter rates it, that it will make it a little bit even harder for Bousio to stay on the field because, again, that's something where

if he's not offering you that, then it's one less thing to justify his place. Well, yeah. I mean, I guess I'm more take issue with him not being given the responsibility in this game. He's better at hitting set pieces than legit. I don't think there's that much debate about it. Then we have in the 64th minute at that moment where Boussio got worked by Piet, you've seen the clip. We talked about it earlier.

I'll just add, even though, okay, maybe he's hoping for help defense, still soft as F. You know, that is not acceptable. and it's it's just not going to work it's not going to work no thanks 65th minute Cannon miss on a good cross from Vines a very good chance

and he misses very badly bounces off of Busio would have been hilarious if Busio got a goal from that one of the stats we got said that Canon wasn't credited with a shot on that so they didn't they didn't rank I wonder if it was a pass completed on his radar

he's a pass completed in the box. The G plus on that's off the charts, right? More danger from, okay, I'm just going to read these next few ones. 67, 67, 71, 74, 75, and 76. Danger from Canada. Acosta foul in zone 14. Can't get out of our half. Long water break. Ewell for Busio, rolled on for Acosta, Hopi for Zardis. These subs were long overdue. Any thoughts? No, I was laughing before when you're going through these

And like one of the highlights was like a nice firm pass from Sam Vines to another teammate Yeah, Robinson to Vines Robinson defines I think I think the Yule sub still doesn't make any sense I don't know I don't know what that helped us do he doesn't settle the game down He I mean he's he at this point is a like here's footsteps in his head so loud that He is he has that like frenetic energy about him every time he gets the ball in the middle of the field like oh man It's almost coming. It's almost coming. I got to move it. I got to move it. And I think he still managed to have it taken off his foot, like almost his very first involvement.

So it doesn't seem like he's going to help you calm the game down. Could have been a chance for an Eric Williamson to come in and see if he can do that job. Because again, it's still more like an eight when you have James stands behind you. So it's not like it's a pure six role at that point. Yeah. Yeah, you will. I don't, yeah, I don't understand you will. I think he's up to 920 minutes at this point. Unreal.

Just going to keep that running total going. Unbelievable. And we didn't get to see Williamson in this game. And maybe there's a calculation made that Williamson is just a little too casual on the ball. We mentioned that after the Martinique game. But, boy, we need some attacking vibrancy in this game. And not because we needed a goal, but just because you can't, you normally, it's not a good idea, just let the other team sit on top of you for 60 minutes.

Yeah, which is what we did. So 76 minute, more danger from Tejohn Buchanan. Cross whips through, but nobody gets to it at the back post. 79th minute, he curls one just wide. This was very close to being a goal. He's isolated wide left with Roldon after Canada has just parked in our attacking third for a long time, and he curls it just wide, nearly goes in. Can we say Roldon kind of?

had his some real struggle moments here. Yes, we can. Because again, the cliche is that like, oh, well, we just need to add some experience, some veteran guile to calm things down. But to think that, like, players who don't have a ton of talent, just immediately because they've been around for a while will calm things down, isn't necessarily the case. So, again, I don't know if that is going to get rolled on any more minutes as we go to the knockouts,

despite the fact that he's nominally, or not even nominally, but one of the only guys left who can play in that half-space if we go back to having half-space players. Yeah, anybody's guess on that front. They're not even, I can't even call them merchants anymore. These are just half-space occupiers. Half-space shelf stockers. The 81st minute is Hoppe takes the ball from Tyler Pash.

This is the last good minute moment I have in the game from us. takes the ball from Tyler Pasha in our half and gets out of our own half nicely by dribbling and past him and then draws a foul. And I swear, that was like a drink of cold water in the middle of the Sahara Desert to see something like that

because we just weren't doing anything positive at this point in the game. Right. And again, it's damning by faint praise because it was a good, a nice little move for Hoppy, but at no point it was like, oh, now that he's beat these guys, we've got a real attack on.

Like, it was always just like, how long will he be able to dribble through this in this like dead end until he draws a foul yeah people in the discord are like try hoppy at the nine he's like definitely a lock starter for the rest of the for the rest of the tournament i'm like i don't know man he did like one good thing maybe two by comparison to everybody else he looked he looked he looked he looked good but yeah i i'm i'm not quite as you know high on him as i think a lot of other people who are near and dear to us maybe well it's it's almost just like a default thing, right? Before we knew the Concaf reinforcements were on the way,

it was very much just going to be like, I don't know, no one could really look that bad compared to what we just saw. Yeah. And that good reminder that the Concaf Reenforcement segment is both, it's on the way in this episode, the reinforcements are on their way in reality. So don't leave us. Don't leave us. What'd you say? I said presumably. I don't know how it works. It says they have to be like determined seriously ill by a Concaf medical community or medical physician. I don't know. Yeah, medical committee, I think it is what it is. He needs a doctor's note from Concaf.

So the last thing I'll mention is, D.K. was hurt before that hoppy moment. He came down hard on his shoulder and what looked to me like a theatrical flop after getting hit in the face. And we got a long break because of it. And maybe D.K. got hurt because of it. We haven't heard anything, but it looked like his shoulder was bothering him. And that just, I think, goes back to him just kind of falling down a little easy in my eyes. Bottom line for me is nobody comes out of this looking good except Vines and Sands and Robinson. And I want to say, if you don't mind, I want to say something about Sands.

He does, I think he works obviously in a back three. It seems he will work as a second six behind Adams. And maybe like you were talking about earlier, there's a wrinkle where we kind of do both. you know um in the same game sans sans has the seems to have the ability to do both he's a he's a he's a tough intelligent defender and it turns out a pretty brave line breaking passer at least in these last two games so the funny thing is burhalter brought him into this tournament we don't know for sure but perhaps as a as like a last resort when ccv and was it epb both turned down call-ups reportedly that's the report but we don't know

know if they turned down call up simultaneously. So order of events is important here because if CCV was the fourth fullback and he turned it down, then EPB could have been CCVs back up and turned it down rather than, rather than Sands being the odd man out and benefiting from those rejected offers. Well, and then Burrhalter went out of his way in the press conference where he was talking about the roster to single out James Sands as someone that's really has no experience internationally. And like, you know, just to lower expectations about him and Pines both, you know, as if they're the same level of player.

And this is his first, these are his first caps with the national team under Burrhalter. And he's been, I think, very clearly the standout player of the tournament for us. So, so it's possible. It's possible he was the third centerback all along. I don't think so, though. And we just have to acknowledge that it's possible. Never mentioned as a six. and I still don't know if he'll be used as a six.

I mean, more than he already was. I mean, you could say he was used as a six in that game because of our, you know, blended roles. But it was all what he was talked about when Burrhalter specifically talked about guys who could play the six and he name checked five guys. James Sands was not one of them. Yeah. It's really, it's a very discouraging commentary, I think, on Burhalter's talent assessment. It's a real problem, man. It's a real problem.

Like, Vine, would you say 920 minutes for Vines now? I mean, not Vines for you. Yeah. Yeah. And again, you know, Sands was injured at the end of the MLS season. Like, he broke his foot, so he missed like three months. So that December camp where it was all MLS guys, he might not have been fit. I think he was fit for January camp, but he didn't, he wasn't called in.

And it might have been just like too soon. Maybe New York City wouldn't want him to go. I think that we heard that that was sort of the reason then that he wasn't part of the Olympic group was. was because he couldn't be at those camps so we wouldn't want to bring him in and mess up the extraordinary chemistry that our guys showed in Guadalajara. So it's just this issue of

the idea would be where would he fit in and a call up. But yeah, it just doesn't seem like there was ever any urgent attempt to get him in groups. Yeah. Because I think that's bad. I think that's pretty bad thing.

And it's a mark against Burrhaler that we have been so, we have given Jackson, Ewell so many chances. And this is not to, this is not to pick on Jackson Newell. If I'm Jackson Newell, I'm taking every call up I get. I'm going to go out and do my best. It's like he's doing, he's doing what he can.

But at a certain point, it's on Burrhalter. You've got to try out more people. Sands is clearly a decent candidate at minimum for that job, that second six. And now we're seeing that it's like, it could, we've sort of fallen into this realization that it could work as sort of a sort of a high. like a like a three at the back slash 443 that can it can be both in the same game at different points in the game and sans seems to have the intelligence to figure out when to go and when not to go so that's awesome that's a really positive thing underscored by a really negative thing that burholt

berthor just kind of like backed his way into it uh and just going back to that 433 you know five-man back line or even if you just want to call it in the possession and not worry about the defensive shape, but just the fact that Sands can float between the back line and stepping up ahead of the centerbacks. Tyler Adams did that against Panama in that friendly window where he played two games finally back in November against Northern Ireland, I'm sorry, against Wales, he very much sat in front of the two centerbacks, but then against Panama, there were times where he would drop in their line and play that deep depending on how Panama were pressuring. So Sands and Adams in that regard, I think could comfortably do either.

Ewell can drop back into that centerback line. Of course, anyone can drop into that line and just distribute with all the time they get back there. The issue is he's never a threat to then, like, burst forward and put any pressure on the midfield line once he gets the ball in that space. And that's the huge difference we saw with Sands. And to some extent, Busio as well in Busio's minutes, and to at least put some level of stress on the next line of pressure.

Yeah. And I was surprised at how. how much Sands did that, stepped by a guy with the ball or play a pass into a tight window. He did that a lot. And both last night and against Martinique, no big issue with Bousseo from me in possession.

It's just the defensive, his defensive softness is a non-starter at this point. I don't, I don't love, I don't love his, I mean, I haven't, but I still wish he would have been put in a slightly better situation than he was put in yesterday. Okay, I mean, yeah. So just for everybody, all the Buccio boys listening to the podcast, let it be noted.

Greg is saying he's not, it's not a non-starter for him. It is a non-starter for me. So bring your criticism to me. I want, in our next game, I want the priority to be Sands as the six, whether that's his hybrid six role or like a pure six with two centerbacks behind him. I want the minutes now to go to Sands for a while. Yeah, same. So we can agree on that. I also thought, two more positives,

I thought Sam Vines was very good defensively in this game. He is still a bit tentative in possession. I think that's been a trend basically since Olympic qualifying. Like he doesn't push the game forward. There were, he had, I noticed one chance in the first half where he gets the ball on the left wing. He could play it to Busio, who's kind of making a diagonal run into. out and he doesn't he just steps on the ball turns and plays it back to mild rumson's that maybe that's because of the the shape we were in i think it's also a bit of a dispositional thing

with vines he's not a very he's not very inventive in the build-up but he can put it in good cross and uh he played he played good defense last night so credit to him any any rebuttals on vines no i i kind of assume the rest of the minutes are vines as barry barring catastrophe for him. Yeah. Vines is. No, that's right. As someone with a z at the end of his name,

you've got to have two of them. Miles Robinson, also very solid as a defender, and I think he's shown he's a reliable option at centerback in World Cup qualifying, even if he's also pretty tentative in possession. Should we move on to the fun thing? Yeah, we get to let our imaginations run here. So this is Greg's idea, do a roster mulligan,

and just pick, make any changes we want to make right now from the 60 man roster. So pull in anybody from the 60 man roster and replace anybody on the current roster right now. If you could do that, what would you do? Well, so here's what we kind of have. Zimmerman potentially hurt, Ariola potentially hurt, Cannon potentially hurt with like legitimate injuries. There's like running jokes of we're going to feign some ankle knocks or some COVID exposure for some guys we'd like to replace. D.K potentially hurt too, right? Yeah, DKs.

I mean, maybe. I don't know. So let's do the realistic ones first. Zimmerman, Ariola, D.K. And who was the other one? Cannon. Canon. Yeah.

Even though Canon came in and played, I mean, there's still, there might be some doubts about his ability to play extended minutes. Yeah, you might just have to slip a 20 to the medical committee and you can get approval. So for the real, let's do the realistic ones first. if you could replace those four, which is possible, apparently. So let's start with Zimmerman, because I think there's a lot of knock-ons there for our formations. But they have to come from the provisional roster.

So your only centerback choices if you're doing like for like are Che, CCV, EPB, Kessler, or trustee. Yeah, I guess to be super realistic about it, CTV's not coming, right? I assume not. So let's say Kessler. I'll say Kessler. You're going really safe, huh? I'm disappointed in you.

I'm taking Che just because I want to see him play as a right centerback in a three-man back line. And then we still have Pines as our very, like, insurance option, like he kind of is, like he was brought to be. No complaints from me, although, you know, it doesn't seem likely. And then for Ariola, who would you bring in? So for Paul Ariola, I'm bringing, I'm bringing Paxton Pomacol. Yeah, I'm good with that.

I want a half-space merchant. Pomacalls looked really good for Dallas last week. Not exceptional, but just very much like, oh, this kind of style of player in this energy, and this on both sides of the ball, in the press and in the tackle and in possession, and in transition. I'm like, oh, this would help us so much when comparing him to what Jonathan Looves. was bringing and I know again that's an exceedingly low bar at the moment but that's that's who I'd want to see okay for Canon I'll bring a raoh for the banter yeah just to just to see what

happens that's what I've got to okay and then oh for DK I'll say peppy same same same I mean that is that's if we have if we're going to go full molligan if we're not going full molligan then I'm not doing like for like for dk. Uh, we'll give those minutes to one of Hoppe or Zardez or Joe Aquini and I'm bringing another half space merchant because we need those. So I'd bring Clark or, I'll just say,

I'm actually going to say Ferreira because that's my guy. So, uh, we'll run Pamicole and Ferreira underneath a striker. Okay. I mean, I would not, I would not be mad about that. All right.

So let's do the fantasy version where we can just replace anybody we want on the roster with anybody we want without regard for what Bralter might do. Let's start. Well, not anyone we want. They still have to be on the provisional. Yeah. Let's start in the back. Because I'm starting all the other goalkeepers and we're dropping Guzon and once again for a little bit more banter, Ochoa is coming in.

Okay, I love it, but are you sure Ocho is on the preliminary roster? Oh my days. No, you're correct. He's not. Okay. So scratch that. Caught by my own rules. All right. Leave Guzan on. All right. Defenders. I'll take I'll take Shea or CCV for Pines

If we're replacing Zimmerman as well If he does need to be replaced Then let's bring both of them Shea and CCV Forget about Henry Kessler when we're in Fantasyland That's the thing I do have Henry Kessler Kessler and Jers So I have him in

Because I'm even in my imagination I'm still respecting CCV's wishes to stay in Europe to get ready for the preseason. Okay, fair enough. With Spurs, I think he's playing games for Spurs at the moment. I'll take Paredes for Bello at left back. I've got that too. And Bello hasn't been, he wasn't atrocious or anything,

but I don't think he's going to start anymore. All right, I get it. But I don't think he's going to start any more games. And he already got a couple weeks with the team. So now I'm just going to alternate. So this isn't necessarily based purely on play, but just like, all right, well, now we have a chance to do this mulligan. Let's get Paredes some minutes.

or some books. Also a Rao for Canon in the Fantasy Land. I've seen enough Canon. No, I'm not saying like throw them out with the bathwater or anything. Just we know what Canon's about. Let's, I think Moore is better right now. It's bringing a Rao. Yeah, and mine's actually like, because I'd love to have dropped Cannon,

not love to drop him because I want to drop him, but same thing, because he's a little bit injured and picked someone in for a different position. but with Moore's inability to go 90, I still, again, I want to keep this pretty realistic. So we're going to Raho. Okay. And I'm taking, I'm dropping Busio and bringing Nyman, dropping Yule and bringing Basset.

Okay, I see it. I'm dropping, I'm keeping Busio. You can back up Sands for that six roll, knowing that we also have a Koston Williams in there, but I'm just dropping Yule and I'll add later higher up the field. With those five, If we've got five midfielders between Williamson, Acosta, Sands, Legette, and Busio, we have the number six covered one way or the other.

Okay. And then, yeah, I'll take Palmacall for Lewis. Cowell for Joe Aquini. I mean, I guess it could be Clark. I think Cowell probably would have more impact in this tournament, just because he's just some ferocious. And then, that be for Zardis. Yeah, I'm just.

dropping Lewis, Nico, and Zardas as well, and I've already dropped Ewell, so I've got Pomacol and Ferreira starting with Cowell and Clark underneath them. Okay. Backing them up, backing them up. That would be fun. It's not going to happen, though. Yeah, probably not. And then I do have Pepey up there, so that was my extra man for Ewell.

So I've got Pepe, D.K. and Hoppe is my striker choices. Big picture, we are fine. You know, we're moving into the knockout. rounds with three straight wins and, you know, a week to sort of get things sorted out in camp. We play either Costa Rica or Jamaica, and it's going to be Jamaica if they beat Costa Rica. Otherwise, a draw or a loss for Jamaica means we face Costa Rica. Anything else? The reinforcements are going to be a big deal, and it could definitely be a chance for Berlter

to save a little bit of face because, again, we were in trouble here. Between Pines, Ewell, and Lewis, we had three guys who I definitely would not want to rely on in a game, and it's tough to really make a workable formation not using those guys. I mean, you could do it, but we're getting real thin. We're getting into Roldon and Legette as your half-space guys. You know, it's not ideal. It's about as bad as it could be after winning the group. Like the Chrysian outcome is definitely what played out.

But we get a reprieve here with the roster at least. Well, your move, Greg Berhalter. We'll see. I hate that I always have to put his last name on there because it feels like I'm talking to you. But yeah, your move. We'll see what he does in the coming days about the roster. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.