Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #188: USA-Qatar recap

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

The US faced the Asian champs in the semifinals of the Gold Cup. A well-organized opponent with ways to score goals. We came out with the same lineup that battled its way to a 1-0 win over Jamaica. Full breakdown, takeaways, timeline.Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedDiscord: https://discord.gg/HSUGJZhbztMerch: 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. Interesting night of soccer. First, the U.S. beat Qatar one to zero. They struggled through a poor first half, took control in the second half, and left it late for Jazi Zardis to stab home the winner in the 86 minute. Then Mexico needed a stoppage time winner to beat a very bright and, frankly, hard done by Canada side in the other Gold Cup semifinal. So it'll be USA, Mexico and Las Vegas on Sunday for the trophy. And the women, the U.S. women defeated the Netherlands and penalties in the early hours of the morning to advance to the Olympic semifinals. So a lot going on. Greg, how are you doing? All right, Bells. Americans be advancing. That's right.

Do you have any quick opening thoughts on this tournament? Because I do, I'm talking about the men's gold cup performance so far. Yeah, and I'll just say for the women on the Olympic side. Yeah. I hope everyone who listens here is also following the women's side. I know we haven't been getting deep into it, in part because I think we just don't have the time to get deep into it, and it doesn't seem like something that I want to just kind of like,

oh, and then the, I mean, most of the time we do just kind of say, oh, don't forget to watch the women as just a reminder. They have this game coming up. But I don't have the time to get into all the tactics and all of the personnel choices. So I feel like that's kind of why we're leaving it to other shows who are doing that. Yeah, I simply don't. I can't recap two games a week. I mean, actually, we've done two games a week with the Gold Cup,

but this is, I'm at my limit. God bless Taylor and Joe and Jordan for doing it, though. Dude, mad respect for those guys and the amount of output that they are producing. Okay, but Gold Cup, we're here focusing on the Gold Cup. Definitely go listen to the women's recaps that other folks are doing, but on the Gold Cup. What are your thoughts that you're having? You're having some thoughts? Yeah, I just think we have to view this tournament.

as a success now. It's been a slog, no doubt, and we've been outplayed in two out of the three last matches, but we've made it to the final and we've learned a lot, I think. Don't you agree? I think we have. I mean, there are definitely still some questions that, like, I want to know the answers to that I think we could have gotten more answers on. Can I run through those real quick before we hit our successes? One would be getting a look at Matthew Hoppe playing up top rather than in the half space. He's a nominal striker for Shalka, so we know that's his position.

He seems much more technical than either Zardez or Dekai. And I think one of the things we've been lacking in this tournament is a solid technical striker play. And so watching what has gone well for the U.S. last two games, what I keep thinking is the ideal setup here for most of these games so far might have been the first 60 minutes running with more of a connecting forward, and then as our opponents have faded, which they've now done in the last two games,

that's when we throw on Zardez or D-K to run into these spaces that have now gotten stretched open. Because we've seen Zardez have a lot of success doing that, but what we've been missing is that first 60 minutes of solid play, and I'm not sure just throwing Zardaz in for D-K would necessarily solve that to start a game. Yeah, I agree. I agree with you there. And so to throw Hopi in at Stryker for the first time against Mexico

would seem a bridge too far. It would have been nice to see Hoppe at the 9 before this. Yeah, and we've been a little bit hamstrung because he's been one of our better wing performer. So it's that question now in this roster. If he had started on the up top in one of the group stage games, you know, does that put us in a spot in a bind for who would play on the wing,

which is another kind of thing I wish we would have seen more of is a little bit better wing play throughout the tournament to help us gauge some of these things. But, you know, that's where we are in this tournament. So with what with the roster we have, I think the last two games, the two knockout games, have done us, I've done a good job of giving us data. It's not always what we hope to see, but it's, it's, experimenting is, I think, been fruitful and that the information is good information now. Yeah, and the problem, as I see it, isn't that we get a chance, you know, it's such a tragedy that we didn't get a chance to see more winger options, although it would have been nice to see them. like, I don't know, Caden Clark or Cade Cowell or, you know, whoever.

I think there's a lot of possibilities, Jesus Ferreira, Paxson, Pomacall. But the real problem is that without good wing play, you can't test the other players on the field, specifically the striker the way you want to. So that's the missed opportunity, I think. Because we have a lot of good wingers, you know, and now we have Hoppe who can deputize as a winger effectively.

I'm talking about with the A, with the A squad. Right. And I guess that'd be one of the sort of surprise wins here or surprise pieces of information is that Hopi can maybe do a job. We'll still have to see because, again, things get a little loose with him, but he has had some bright moments out on that wing. Yeah, and less, I would say less loose last night than he was against Jamaica.

Definitely a better overall performance from him. And I mean, you go back and watch that game again, basically all of our Danes. in the first half comes from his feet and he creates some danger in the second half too before he comes up. Yeah, we'll hit that, I'm sure, in the chronology. Yeah, I'll get into sort of some of the differences between Jamaica and Qatar as we get into the lineups. What other big sort of takeaways do you have? Matt Turner. Matt Turner is a monster, I think, is fair to say. You're the goalkeeper expert here. Why don't you tell me what you're thinking? So what I'm thinking is, you know, there's now all this talk about should there be a competition

for the number one. And it still seems kind of ridiculous to me that you would even need to call it a competition. Like at this point, for me, given what we've seen, Turner, given what we've seen not just in these six games, this isn't just like a five-game sample size we're dealing with Turner. We have this statistical backing for Turner over the last two and a half years. He's just been outrageous stopping shots. And so shot stopping in MLS is not necessary. I mean, the difficult shots for goalkeeper are difficult shots for a goalkeeper. That's how they're measured.

And there isn't necessarily going to be a swing from league to league. Right. Because they measure the shot, the difficulty of the shot after it has left the striker's foot. And Turner's just amazing at saving those. For me, the burden of proof at this point needs to be on the other two guys who want to compete, or the other however many guys you think are in the picture to overtake him. And so, you know, people talk about, well, if Stefan and Horvath aren't playing, should Turner jump him?

It's like, well, if Stefan and Horvath aren't playing for their clubs, they won't be able to put together like the necessary data to show that they can stop shots at the level Turner does. And right now, you know, Horvath, maybe he can. I don't know, we haven't seen him play that much when he has been a excellent shotstopper. So he could have a case. For Stefan, that's not really the case. We've seen him play.

He played a half a season in Germany. He is not an elite shotstopper. Like he's okay, but he's not anything that's going to explode any models with his shot stopping. Yeah, I promise I won't promote the Discord, but one more time in this podcast. But you did put a bunch of clips of Stefan. Stefan's technique footwork issues on the Discord in the goalkeeper channel. And I think it's pretty clear he's not as good of a shotstopper as Turner. I mean, if you don't believe the numbers, I mean,

believe the clips it's uh it's pretty clear i guess for me it's more it's more a battle between horvath and and turner at this point i know i i have no confidence that's how burhalter thinks about it but that's how i think about it horvoth was a hero in that uh mexico nations league final and you know he should continue to get some kind of opportunity but boy turner those two saves last night in the first half from turner were to my uneducated eyes just outrageous and And that could have, I mean, somebody said that could have been, that would have been two zero if it was any other U.S. goalkeeper. I immediately agreed with that. And then I regretted agreeing with it because I don't know for sure.

But, oh, man, if it was Stefan, I think it's probably two zero. In any event, like, I'm confident at some point Matt Turner will concede another goal in open play for the U.S. Men's national team. I think it will probably happen. but I had the takeaway 10 seconds into the Jamaica game that Matt Turner is going to win us a lot of World Cup qualifiers and I still believe that will be the case. He won us points last night.

He was probably man of the match just because of those two saves. Other things we've learned, Miles Robinson is ready to play centerback in a World Cup qualifier. I think that's pretty fair to say. I think he's a perfect compliment to John Brooks. I feel like I already said that last episode, but Bears saying again, he was very good again last night.

Can I just plow ahead because we have a huge timeline here? Yeah, keep going, keep going. Acosta is the second six for now. I think we can safely say that. Not a perfect player, but he's been awfully good and was awfully good again last night. Yeah, no issues with either your Robinson or Acosta takes. Again, these guys aren't necessarily going to be perfect. It's not like that means we're going to be flawless to World Cup qualifying,

but I am a lot less nervous now about those guys being on a roster, those guys starting a game in a rotation. It's like, sure, why not? I think these guys are good enough to win us these points. Yep. And I think, you know, James Sands had a little bit of a rough outing last night, particularly early. He had a very bad giveaway that we'll get into in the timeline.

and he conceded the penalty, so he had a rough game. But I still think he's a useful player. He's shown in this tournament. He's a useful player. Perhaps not as one of two centerbacks in a four-back formation. But definitely I would like to see him again in a three-back formation in the middle and maybe even as a six, you know, as a third six at this point. But again, less urgency now to that being the case.

that we have to have this, given some of our other acceptable options in those positions. Yeah, but I mean, with Tyler Adams' injury history, I think the urgency is never too far away that we're going to need to bring a third six. Okay. And then the only other thing I had in this section is the strikers situation remains unsettled. D.K. has shown he's probably not ready to seize the job. Zardis, you know, Zardis continues to Zardis, and you got to tip your cap to him.

But, yeah, it's not, as opposed to centerback and, you know, central defensive midfield, we have not made progress in clarifying the striker position in this tournament. That's not really, I mean, it's partly Burhalter's fault for running out that 352 against Canada, but I think it's just partly a matter of the personnel at this point. Well, I'll even disagree with you there. I think the picture is clarified a little bit in that before we didn't know if D.K.

could come in and seize the job. Like, there was a possibility that he could have done that. In the same way that, like, Miles Robinson has made it clear he can play in World Cup qualifying. Matt Turner is very obviously a strong candidate for World Cup qualifying minutes. D.K. has not done that in the sense that he, like, it would not surprise me at all if he's left out of the September window. and it'd just be because you know, there's nothing he's shown here that's like, oh, we have to have him.

The question was always going to be, can he come in and combine with midfielders? And he hasn't really done that effectively. And then the other question was going to be, okay, but if he's not good at that, can he at least just dominate a space and bowling teams and Barnsley his ways to scoring chances on his own?

And he hasn't had done a ton of that either, not just converting, but even just creating those chances. Those have been sort of very few and far between. So if he doesn't, offer those sort of values, then it's going to be tough to justify carrying him, I think, unless he, again, unless he explodes for Orlando. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, he's dropped. He's dropped in the depth chart, in my depth chart, at least. So that's, that's going back to that, that is useful information to have gained from the last two games. Just maybe not the answer we wanted, but an answer. Right. And I'll say, you know, I stayed up way too late.

and my brain was blasted this morning because I just got absolutely sucked into that Canada-Mexico game. It was so fun to watch. Canada was very, very good. And this is a weakened Canada team. They don't have Alfonso Davies. They don't have Jonathan David.

They don't have Iowa Aquinole who has an ACL injury. And they were, without Stephen Victoria, their sort of veteran ball playing centerback because of yellow card accumulation. I think they were missing somebody else too. And they just absolutely took the game to L. tree last night. In a way, I haven't, I haven't seen the U.S. do pretty much ever. And that, seeing that kind of cuts two ways for me. One, it's kind of a bummer that we have not been

able to do that. I don't think the talent that, I mean, you could very, very well argue that this Canada side is more talented than our, our side in the same tournament that Canada's team tournament is more talented. Keep in mind, even our win against them came when they rotated somewhat heavily for that game. At the very least, they sat their two best center midfielers, Mark Anthony Kaye, and who's the... Eustacio, who's out on intentional yellow card accumulation, which is very savvy.

But, you know, that's obviously a huge change when you go from your two full-strength center mids to not your full-strength center meds, as we see at the same time. And they still dominated us most of that game. But even with our A-Squod, we have not been able to play Mexico that way, the way Canada did last night.

I mean, they were carving Mexico up, and you could tell it was like, it was a different kind of experience for Mexico and their fans than it has been against Conca Calf opposition for a long time. It felt like a big deal to me, honestly. And so that's, so I wish we could see that from the U.S. with our A squad.

We did beat Mexico, if you remember, in the Nation's League final, but it was not that kind of performance. It was a, we won on set pieces, and we white-knuckled our way to extra time and got the penalty that pool is a very soft penalty that pool of six quarter i'm not trying i'm not trying to minimize any of that i think we deserve to win it was a great win but we didn't play them the way canada did last night and um so that's that's a little bit of a i think a reality

check for burhalter probably hopefully in a more positive vein i think it just makes this whole tournament and conccaf just way more interesting and fun a strong Canada team a strong Canadian men's team is really good for the region. It's good for the U.S. and Mexico. It will make the game more interesting to more people in this country. And I am hyped for this qualifier in Nashville next month, which you are not going to be attending. Shame on you. I wish I could.

No, totally awesome that Canada's stepping up. It's going to be amazing when they add in some of these, you know, very much A-list players for the region. Also awesome would be if Mexico goes into some kind of a meltdown tailspin because they'll still be dangerous. I mean, they'll still be a team full of talented players, but I want, I want as much mess as possible for this, for this regional qualifying campaign. Yeah, it would have been, go ahead, go ahead. It's, it's possible that that could happen, man. If we beat them in this game, the fact that they had the unimpressive win against, I mean, they've had a few unimpressive outings in this tournament. They tied Trinidad. So if they, if that's not just like a one-off,

the tie against Trinidad outplayed by Canada, if they lose to the U.S.'s backup, backups. That could be it. Tata's probably gone, yeah. It could be curtains for Tata. It could be infighting. It could be, I don't know. It just, for me, all that stuff would add to the entertainment.

Jamie Hill made the point on Twitter that if there is a Mexico meltdown after this Gold Cup, it probably bodes well for the dual national wars too, which are definitely, which are not of, you know, paramount importance at the moment and for qualifying, but are heating up with Ricardo Pepe, David Ochoa. Julianarajo, and I think there's one more I can't think of at the moment. But anyway, it's the thing that's heating up. Shall we do the lineups? Should we get to the lineups?

Yes, yes. All right. Good takeaways. Who ends with takeaways? You got to start with them. Turner and goal, of course. Shackmore, James Sands, Miles Robinson, and Sam Vines across the back. It was the same lineup we played against Jamaica.

There you go. Acosta at the 6, Bousio and Legette as the 8th, Aureola and Hoppe as the wings, and D.K. Up top. Now I'm going to brutalize these names, but here's Qatar's lineup. Barsham and goal, Pedro Miguel, at right back, right wing back, I guess. Basam, Hisham Al-Rawi, Balaam, Kuki, and Abdel Karim Hassan as the three centerbacks. Holam Ahmed as the left wingback.

And then a very active and good midfield in Hassan Khalid al-Hydos. Al-Hydos was the name on the back of his jersey. and then Karim Budiaf, Karim was the name on the back of his jersey, and Abdul Aziz Hatem, Hatem was the name on the back of his jersey. And then the two strikers were Al-Mohes Ali, who I believe was with the U-20s in the U-19 World Cup, and was dangerous. And then Akram Hassan Afif, who is the sort of best player for Qatar.

I mean, the best attacking player, for sure. Right, outside of Matt Turner, probably the best player in the tournament. To date. Just dropping that in there. casually. It was really fun watching Qatar video ahead of this game because a thief was a joy to watch play. So, you know, talking about how we ran a 352 or a 532 against Canada with Dika Hinsardez as the two strikers, like a pairing that wouldn't have made sense even in the heyday of the 442 mid-2000s. Qatar's two up top make a lot more sense where a thief is just the

the guy who goes wherever he wants to, wherever the game takes him, gets between lines, finds pockets, and then just hits just the most delightful through balls with perfect weight, like perfect gaps to find, identifies seams and hits them. And he did a fair amount of that in this game. Yeah, he's very good. He's very good at sensing where the space is going to open up and getting there and receiving the ball, and then, of course, doing something lovely with it.

I wouldn't say he had probably his best game of the tournament but he did but he did draw the penalty and did some other good stuff so let's go to the timeline shall we let's do it

okay fourth minute hoppy receives the ball on the left side and I'm I gotta I gotta jump in already just because we just talked about a thief within within 20 seconds they had actually found space and had found a thief running behind Shaq Moore

they were on their right side line and they hit this long, like almost at midfield, and they hit this long ball across to a fief who was behind us. And the ball was just a little bit too far ahead of him to score on it. But he still chased it down to the end line and then just miscontrolled it. But it was like a warning shot right off the bat of like these guys do not wait around like to sort of dilly dally. If they see a seam, if they see an opening, they're going to try to hit you on it. Sorry, sorry. No, that's okay.

I mean, they had Kareem, Kareem especially, but they had a couple players, two three players who could hit that long switch the diagonal to punish us that way. But especially Kareem, he was very Burhalter-esque as a deep-blowing six. Okay, so that's true. Now in the fourth minute, Hoppy receives the ball on the left side, takes a touch-inside and hits an early ball over the top for DK. It's actually a pretty good ball with his right foot, and it's kind of curling, sort of a hybrid early cross slash ball in behind.

and D.K. can't quite get a foot on it. I think maybe he could have attacked it with his head or brought it down with his chest. He had the space to do that, but he didn't. Yeah, it's tough. He might have also been offside if he had made anything happen of it. This is one of those things where I pointed this out in the Discord, too, when we're talking about guys who we don't think of as remarkable in games, sometimes guys in this group were doing like a-team-level things,

but you got to remember that because everyone is sort of a B-team player, the guy at the end of that is going to be less likely to make it succeed. And so you just sort of forget about it. Like it doesn't come off and you just kind of forget about it. Shack Moore has one later in the game that we'll talk about. But it'd be considered a great moment for somebody if the guy on the receiving end had actually capitalized. But since they don't, it just immediately fades out of your conscious.

Yeah. I'm talking about Hoppe's ball. It was a great ball from Hoppy. Right. I don't know who I want. on the end of that ball, honestly. I guess going back to the striker discussion. And I don't know who I want on the end of that Shack Moore ball either.

You want Peppy. You want Peppy doing it. Be honest. Okay. All right. I mean, maybe. Maybe. I don't know yet.

Seventh minute. Bad, bad giveaway by Sands. And there's this psychological phenomenon, I think, where if you make a mistake in the first 10 minutes, it basically ruins how people view you for the rest of the game. This definitely happened with Sands. People are saying he had. a shocker, but it was a horrible giveaway of a cross-field waist high pass. He just doesn't see the the, doesn't see Al-Hydos and Al-Hydos intercepts it, dribbles forward, passes to Al-Mois Ali at the top of

the box and he cuts in and has his shot flash just wide of the near post through Shackmore's legs. It's a pretty bad play for Sands, not just because a giveaway, but because he doesn't do well tracking back on it either. He kind of, he kind of loses his head and and drifts too close to where he has two defenders covering for him. I think it's obviously Miles Robinson and somebody else. And then he leaves Ali wide open. And it's just, it's not great. So, no, the shot goes through San's legs, not Moore's legs.

Okay. Yeah. And Turner has it covered, which I feel is important to add, which is pretty incredible for the fact that a shot went through nude's legs. Yeah. He did have it covered, didn't he? He had that near post covered up. Yeah.

Something that occurred to me, like all of these times, anyone who watches any soccer and follows along on any given day, you know, when there's a global soccer event, like the U.S. men's national team Twitter folks on your timeline, no matter when a goal is scored, will always ironically say Turner would have saved that. You're going to see it half a dozen times per day. And it turns out that they are not being ironic. Turner would have, in fact, saved that. Okay.

We get... All right, I'm done. No, it's okay. No, I mean, I mean, you've been on the turn. bandwagon, you and John Mueller for a long time. You can have your victory lap for as long as you want it. We get a little joy before the first 10 minutes are up. Vines hits across and that doesn't connect and more gets into the corner before getting tackled for a goal kick, but nothing too dangerous. The first real dangerous moment after this for the U.S. is Hoppe getting a decent chance to shoot

from the top of the box. In the 10th minute, it starts with Sands, intercepting a pass, and then firing one on the ground through the lines to D.K. D. D.K. does manage to turn in zone 14 and pass it to Legette, though it is not what you would say, an efficient turn and pass. And Leggett takes a touch and swings it wide to Hoppe who cuts in and has one. The keeper spills it. It falls to Areola. His shot is blocked, but he is offside anyway.

He and D.K. were both offside on that shot. Yeah, but Aureola very close to being dangerous once again. A long time listeners will remember this as almost a meme. from, you know, that started two years ago, pretty much. 12th minute tackle in the box to stop a Qatar attack. It's Pedro Miguel beats Leget with a clever pass up the line to Hassan Khalid Al-Hydos, and he drives forward and passes to Afif on the left and more tackles a fief inside the box. Luckily, a good tackle.

This exact same sequence pretty much happened a few minutes later, and I'll note it. but this like legit getting beaten by Pedro Miguel turning and just playing it down the line for Al Haidos was a little bit of a pattern. A header on goal from Qatar in the 13th minute after a cross from wide left. Vines tries to see it out sort of, but Alhido just leans past him and nods it on frame. Doesn't trouble Turner too much. That's child's play for him at this point. Poor Vines cross on good work from Hoppe.

Again, Hoppe just picks the ball up at the half and drives down the channel, slips it wide to vines. Vines his marker slips, and then Vines just skies the cross out of bounds behind the goal. Kind of frustrating to see that. The whole, this whole first, like, phase of the game was kind of just frustrating, right? Or was it almost just like, like, there was nothing really happening? Does that kind of sound about right? Well, I mean, I beg to differ. Things are happening.

Several events in this chronology. But from the U.S.'s standpoint, I mean, we're talking, like, the half-est of half-chance moments. something that kind of stuck out to me you know, Qatar are in this 5-3-2 shape, right? Defensively. Kind of a pyramid with a five-man base, three in the middle, like a foosball table and two up top.

Did it seem to you like the U.S. was falling into like the dreaded like dark horseshoe pass map where we just kept passing around our back four and then maybe like vines would hit it up to Hoppy but then it would just have to come right back around. If anyone watches looks at pass maps, the thickness of the line connecting people is like the frequency of the pass happening

we just kept passing it around this little horseshoe around the outside of their 532 pyramid and like very rarely did anything to hit the ball into the interior of that pyramid where we could disorganize them or cause them any stress whatsoever

and that was the biggest theme for me was just how lack like how much there was no incisiveness or ability to penetrate that pyramid of defense. Yeah, bravery, I think, is one thing that was lacking, particularly from Busio. And then, you know, it was just so hard to play through Dika. He was not sharp when the ball came to his feet.

I think Paul Carr might have posted a plot of all of our touches. And I think that's about what, so instead of the pass map with the dark horseshoe, it was just like, there was just no, there were just no touches in that interior space where their defense sets up. So even though we had, what, 60% possession by the end of the game, we did very little with the ball to actually trouble them. And it was almost like they knew that. And so for a lot of that game, I felt like when they would have the ball,

if they couldn't counter on us right away, they would just lob it back up to us and be like, okay, we're going to get back into our 5-3-2 and let you guys just have the ball and knock it around a little bit. Maybe we were wearing them out, moving them side to side, and maybe that's one of the reasons they faded so quickly in the second half. But it was just like, all right, somebody at some point needs to move in a way and pass through a line and break lines in a way that causes them some level of discomfort. Yeah.

Well, I guess that's why I mentioned the poor Vines Cross because, you know, that's an opportunity where we are running full steam ahead and, you know, they're backpedaling. And Hoppe has the ball at the end line. He can, he had the space to pick out a ball. I mean, he didn't have a ton of space, but he had an opportunity to pick out. a ball and and play a dangerous ball across. I know we're not, we don't want crosses to be our bread and butter, but at least, at least when you get there, put it in the mixer, you know, or put it on somebody's head. Don't kick it into the American outlaws.

More sustained pressure from Qatar, Karim, Hatem, and Al Haidos were all good in combination. And so was a fief, as the aforementioned, a thief. Hoppy hits a diagonal switch from the attacking half to Areola who heads it into zone 14. For Buccio in the 18th minute, Buccio brings it down and tries to have one with his left foot from the top of the box, but kind of hits it the same way Vines hit his cross a few minutes earlier, way far wide. And I don't want to pick on Buccio too much, but I do feel like if he and Dike had any kind of rapport, maybe they try to connect in that moment. I freeze framed it.

I didn't post it anywhere just because, you know, I already have enough of a rep as a Buccio critic. But there's a moment where Buccio doesn't even consider the possibility of combining with D.K. there. And I'm not sure D.K. had it in mind either. But, you know, D.K could, Buccio had nobody, had plenty of time. The ball just like sitting in the air for him. He could have dinked it over the top for D.K. to run onto.

But he doesn't even, that thought apparently doesn't even cross his mind and he puts it on his left foot and has a very bad shot. So one of those one of those out for throwing shots. Since we're, since Buzio, this is his first appearance on the timeline. I don't think Buzio necessarily did anything in this tournament to to make his case either for like the September window. I don't think, you know, if we're going to bring four eights and then a fifth spare eight to sort of take a look at.

I don't think Buzio is going to be that guy and I don't necessarily. And maybe people will say he should have gotten more looks at the six in this tournament. But I don't think. he's necessarily going to be in that race either. I think he's just... Come September. Right. He's just got...

He's got plenty of time. He's a young player. It's been good to get a look at him. He definitely does some things well, but I agree. Yeah, we'll watch him in Italy for a month and a half and see come October. Maybe he's lighting up Venice. Right. 19th minute, here's when the Turner time...

This turns into a Turner timeline. Qatar attacks down the right wing again, and again, this is Pedro Miguel, able to play that, pass down the line for Al Haidos with Legit, badly beaten, and it skips through the box and gets recycled to Kuki number 16, and he takes a speculative shot from 30 yards. It's not on frame, but it gets deflected by Sands at the near post. I think it gets deflected by Ali, too, on the way through there. And then Sands accidentally puts it on frame, and Turner makes a very good adjustment to

finger-tip it around the post. And this is where we have real questions about how this gets coded in a stat-keeping log because I don't know if Turner gets post-shot XG saved on this or not. We need to find this out. This is very pressing for me. I don't think it counts as XG for Qatar either. So this is missing from that. I think that it was like 2 to 0.75, the final XG, inflated for.

sure by the penalty that Qatar got in the second half. But missing this shot, probably, I think, I don't, I can't look under the hood on these stats. And also missing a whiff at the six that we'll get into later. So that's the first incredible turner save. And the second one comes in the 22nd minute when Al-Rawi hits a nice diagonal to a fief and he cuts in and has

one, but it spins up and over the back line. It's actually Busio who makes the tackle. Spins up and over the back line. and Hattem number six runs on and gets a very, it's a difficult action, gets a very good left-footed volley on frame. Turner saves it. Talk me through it, Greg. So Turner is, on the initial shot, Turner is moving hard towards the direction that that shot is going. So once it loops up into the air,

it loops back the other direction, he has to very quickly adjust to get his feet set and to decide whether he's going to come get it or not, whether he can. And this is the only place I'll say, because he made the save, I think fewer questions are asked about whether he should have just come and got it originally, whether he would have been able to do that. I don't know if I've seen anyone say that yet. But like in my head, I'm like, man, if that had been Stefan and he would have given up the goals,

he probably would have. Then we'd say, well, he should have come out and got it as it looped up in the air. The shot came from like five and a half yards, right? Was he inside the six? So that's the question. And then it's a matter of, was it be? because of his initial momentum on the first shot that he didn't feel he could really attack it at full speed.

Is it the spin on the ball that's kind of making it flutter in the air and sort of has a bit of light, makes it difficult to judge? In any event, he chooses to react to the next piece of play and gets himself set really well. And so on the next touch, he just has outrageous reflexes and body control and gets that hand to it. And also, like, the ability to direct the ball correctly,

Like not to just, you know, swipe at it, but to push it out wide of the goal frame. Just really exciting to watch a goalkeeper play soccer when they're doing these things. Yeah, I noticed he was able to get his feet set so that he could really push off with that right leg to get towards the ball. And the more you watch it slowly, the more you realize how good of a shot it was and how good of a save it was. You know, with that caveat of maybe you should have come out and clam the ball to begin with. set aside for a moment. Well, yes, again, his shot, at this point, the eye test is now, if anyone had any doubts about the stats, like the eye test is backing up everything.

Yeah, I think at this point, if you don't think Turner's a better shot stopper than Stefan, you will never think Turner's a better shot stopper than Stefan. And again, he will give up a goal at some point, and he might even give up kind of a saveable goal. But, like, he basically has builds up enough credit that, like, that's going to be expected, too. Like, he's saved, I don't remember how many goals going into this game. I think he'd already saved, like, three and a half goals in his five games as a national team keeper so far. And again, we're talking really small sample sizes there. But in his club career, too, like, it's all just there for you to check out if you're really into the numbers.

It's something cool. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so I'm going to kind of skip over some stuff here. We win some corners. Acosta gets into a spat in the corner, on a corner where he's like, he gets pulled down or pulls somebody down. This is in the 26th minute, just giving us a little bit of a foretaste of things to come. And then Qatar gets a big chance on a cutback from wide.

It's flashed over, I believe, by Hatem. and then here's that 31st minute move from Moore to feed DK in the box great move to beat the first guy

off the dribble after the Total Soccer show guys mentioned this but this play begins with Hoppe coming all the way back to the centerbacks

and cycling possession around to more and Hoppe's ability to you know just make stuff happen I think is a little

bit on display here anyway more ends up beating his guy and then just firing the ball in low for D.K. In the channel. To be fair to D.K., it's a tight window. It is his favorite right foot,

but even if he does everything perfectly, I'm not sure he gets a good shot off here. He does not do everything perfectly. He takes a poor touch with his left foot and the chance evaporates. But it's a good moment from Shackmore, I think. Yeah, and again, D.K. has half a step here, which for a guy like D.K.,

you know, something we talked about after Nations League and his Costa Rica showing, was that it felt like D.K. was a guy who only needed that half a step and then would not let a defender back around to make up that ground ever. Whereas with Josh Sargent, you see it and defenders can more easily get that advantage back. And this was an example of D.K. not showing that. Like he had the advantage. The ball came in. He had the defender sealed off away from the ball. Would have been able to keep him sealed off to turn and have his shot. and wasteful first touch and the chance is gone.

Yeah. But a very good pass from Shaq Moore. Like that should be a great goal-scoring, goal-creating chance for Shaq Moore. Yeah, when you say Peppy's the one we want on the end of that chance, I do kind of sympathize because I run, I cycle through all the options. And I think, well, Sergeant, I don't know that he's going to be able to get any separation on a centerback there, you know, even if his touch is perfect. Like probably what he does is he cuts him to his left foot and then try.

tries to shoot from there. Maybe he scores that way. Tim Wea, Jazi Zardis. There you go. Waya's a great shout. Zardez comes in and has like a similar, he had a similar situation in the first game from Cal and Acosta where Acosta hit almost the identical pass after a... I remember, yeah. Counterpress. And again, Zardez did the same thing. Like, just gives the ball away because, you know, that's not his strength.

I'm not trying to even, like, ding him. It's just that's what those guys are. But yeah, Tim Wayo would be a really good shout for something like that. Yeah. Okay. I don't know about Pfok. I'm not sure. I'm not sure either about Pfok. He's got to have it on his head.

Just clip it into his head. He scored more goals with his head, I think, over the weekend. Midweek. Was it the midweek Champions League qualifier? Yeah. Did he score with his head? And it might not have been with his head. I don't know.

I don't know. Okay. Next item is 35th minute. Bulem. Kuki plays a good diagia. to Pedro Miguel and he crosses it from the end line for a fief at the penalty marker. Sands is just a little slow to get to it. I want to note that because it's kind of a looped cross.

And then in the 35th minute, also Boussio is dispossessed on a recovery at the top of the box. Just a little too languid, unearned languidness, I would say. And it's a quick one to and a cross that deflects off fines and is covered up by turn. The ref calls it a corner, but it's really not. And 40th minute, DK wins a long ball. I think it's the first time I noticed it, and then Hopi gets dispossessed, and then Qatar just waltz down the field,

and a thief beats more and feeds Hattem at the 6, but he whiffs on it. And this was actually a pretty good chance. No XG awarded. Yeah, this was a nice night for Qatar to have a very off-finishing night for us. Yeah, right. Worked in our favor.

And then my last item from the first half is Shaq plays an early ball into the box for DK and it's a couple feet over his head. I wonder if he should have gotten to this one too if his timing were a little better. I don't know. It's hard to tell from the angle. But it does kind of go along with some other things D.K.

was doing in the game where it did kind of look like he was tiptoeing a little bit. And I know people have been asking if his shoulders all the way recovered whether that affects how committed he is going into 50-50s or 40-60s, I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I don't know what that, the injury situation. It did seem like he was favoring his shoulder a little bit.

So there's potential for a mulligan there. Before we get to the second half, let me say a couple things. One, thank you to our Patreon subscribers. Your support helps us a lot and we appreciate it. If you are not a subscriber but are interested, you can find links to Patreon, our Patreon page and the Discord server in the show notes. It's all explained in there. We also have several scuffed t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies for sale, and that link is in the show notes too. So we are ad-free except when we advertise our own stuff.

And I'll just throw in one more ad for the Discord. If you ever want to get in there, there are generally going to be, very, very much. video clips from select events in the timeline that we can break down an even further minutia in the larger group setting of the Discord. Yeah, it's great. And there's a lot of smart people in there having a good conversation most of the time. We're, you know, we're learning. We're figuring out how to do it exactly right.

But I think by and large, it's a really nice community. To the second half. 53rd minute, D.K.'s really struggling in possession, but he does get a great chance from this lovely curling ball on the ground. hit by Hoppy with his left foot from the left wing. DK's 1V1 with the keeper and hits it first time right into the keeper's sliding legs. I'm not going to get too down on him for that,

but it is a big chance. And Hopi again, creating the danger. Yeah, can I just kind of break this down a little bit for the goalkeeper side? Please do. Just because I know it's going to be, it's already, you know, in the meta-discor, sort of the comparison point is going to be

Zardez's finished for the goal. And a reason why, all right, so clearly Zardez is a guy doing the job and DK's not. But in this case, it's just, it's a very different finish from what Zardez ends up with. So Hoppe's ball comes in

almost from the sideline where he'd gotten free. It's a great left-footed curling ball, but it has to travel a long way and it's only going to go to Daryl DK, right? There's no one between the ball and DK that might intercept his path that the goalkeeper needs to worry about.

So the entire time that ball is traveling, Qatar's goalkeeper takes five or six steps out to meet where it's going to intercept D.K. And so when you say he hit it directly, into the keeper. It's partly because the keeper does an excellent job of being directly in front of Darrell D.K. And it's a good technical save too. He goes with the Genuflect technique and has legs played so there's no room to put it under his legs. The goalkeeper does a very good job to deny this shot. I'm saying it's a very good save. And all of those people who say he has to

score there just have to understand that players don't always score there. Right. I definitely I certainly am not saying that he has to score there. I mean, the one thing I, you know, in watching the replay, watching the slow motion replay from my stuffed couch, is you could see a possibility where he opens up his body and hits it far post, you know, a little bit. But, you know. Definitely. It's just that that window to that far post is still a very tight window.

So it looks like he went to try to go through the keeper's legs. If it was intentional at all, that was the closest. window he was hitting it to would have been through the keeper's legs, which again is a normal spot that strikers finish. You have that window, you have the window to either side or you try to clip it over if you think the keeper's going low. And it's a very good save, very well executed by Qatar's goalkeeper. Do we have any players in the player pool who can chip the keeper in that moment? I'm sure. I'll have to think about it, but I'm sure we do. Just with the cool, the calm coolness to just say, kittink. And, yeah.

I don't think. We'll open that up to the Discord and get a ranking of players who would have clipped that ball over an onrushing goalkeeper. Yeah. I mean, Hopi kind of comes to mind, actually, as like somebody who might try that kind of thing. Anyway, 53rd minute, the ensuing corner, it's, okay, I should mention right after that D.K. Chance, Acosta slips a lovely little pass between the lines to Hoppe. And Hoppe's dribbling into the box, and he tries to Meg. guy and loses it. But that's a dangerous moment, thanks to Acosta and Hoppe. On the ensuing corner, it's a fief, Hassan Khalid, and Hattem going the other way. And this is sort of the, you know,

the big moment of the game. Really, the 53rd minute had a lot of action in it because Sands tackles a fief. There's penalty shout. Play continues, but it does go to VAR and the penalty is awarded, which I think is fair. Don't you? Oh yeah, definitely. He like puts a puts a stick in the spokes there. He might have touched the ball barely, but I'm not even sure he did. So in the long interlude between the action and the actual penalty, and it was a solid seven minutes from the foul to when a high dose takes the penalty, there is... Because play continued.

We went down the other way, and Paul Ariola got into a scrap with somebody way up on the other side of the field, and I think they both got yellow cards. And then... And then the VAR happened. I wouldn't say the ref had a, like, a great... control of the game, but that, well, let's not get into that. So the main thing here is that Waki made a video about Kellan Acosta's shit housing in the interlude between, especially between the call, the VAR ruling that it was penalty and the actual shot, which was at least two minutes.

Acosta is just, Kastas just in there playing the role of deadpan silent movie comic, kind of, Charlie Chaplin. And he, he's just annoying. Ahaitos, who's about to take the penalty, he doesn't, he doesn't get too excited. Acosta doesn't. He's always just, he's always just sort of buzzing around being annoying and, but without, without getting too emotional. And like, you got to watch Wauke's video because it's really, it's a really wonderful breakdown of this.

And, uh, Oh, hi does misses the penalty. Do you have anything to say about Acosta's shit housing here? Because I know the, the people want that. So just over the whole game, he's excellent at sort of being the refs buddy or just sort of like I think he's very deliberate in the way he plays referees. Because he's a six, right? He's playing as a six. His job is to break stuff up. He's fouling people constantly.

You know, like he is committing a lot of fouls. They're always sort of towing them. Sometimes they're very obviously not towing the line. They're deliberate tactical fouls. Other times he's sort of like trying to disguise tactical deliberate fouls as like, you know, not tactical accidents yeah and so I think he's actually really good at

his body language with the referees is always just like it's almost like the Chappelle bit where he's just like I didn't know I could I didn't know I wasn't allowed to do that so he's just constantly playing this like playing dumb feigned innocence like I didn't know that we couldn't

grab that guy by his waist I thought thought that was allowed all right just a foul I'll back up and give the 10 yards so he's just very good at doing that and avoiding, like, escalating tensions with the referee. Yeah, yeah. Playing dumb is a good way to describe it because he looks kind of wide-eyed and, like, his mouth is open a lot of the time.

Just like a little kid who isn't quite sure what's going on when he does definitely know what's going on. So that's cool. We love to note, you know, good shit-housing developments. And I think Acosta has been really good in that front. 62nd minute I know you hate this stuff but I thought the near-death experience

of the penalty enliven the US immediately we even before the subs came on we got a little exchange down the left wing and a legit cutback is cut out and he did actually have Busio drifting at the back post you know I mean it's very difficult

to pick people out in that crowd of bodies but that was a dangerous moment so the reason I'm pushing back now because I do tend to hate that stuff is like the psychological side of it. I think it was just a matter, two things. One, I think Qatar were starting to fade.

This penalty came off of a corner-kut counter, so it was a clear chance for them to run. But otherwise, they weren't running as much to start the second half. I didn't think. And two, I do think there was a bit of a tactical wrinkle here from Burrhalter to start the second half. And I think he said specifically,

no tactical changes. We just said we needed to win more duels. But I think he's, I think he's scamming a little bit there. The thing I noticed was I thought there was way more emphasis on Sam Vines going in to play as like an inverted fullback center mid in possession. So when we'd start building instead of our dreaded horseshoe with Vines just getting a pass out towards the flank from Miles Robinson, he was like stepping up a line and getting really tight with Kel and Acosta. So when the ball's on the right side of the field, you would think that Vines is playing center mid next to Acosta. And what that did was that freed Sebastian Legat up. in the first half, it was Leget kind of

in those spaces tighter to Acosta, and now Leggett was free to go anywhere. And something else we talked about in the Discord was you know, as much as we talked about Legit as being sort of the third eight for a while now, he was best in 2019.

He almost played exclusively in 2019 as one of the dual tens as like a half space guy advanced higher up on the field. And he was very good at that. He's sort of or at least he's he's solid at that he's he can buzz around uh try to make things happen in tighter spaces um he's not he hasn't been effective the last uh few months playing as a as more of an eight more of a box to sort of yeah yeah to be an engine and to like playing these they're bigger

spaces but there's like less little clever things you can do um and once he was free he was popping up all over the place left side of the box right side of the box these little movements these little combinations near the top of the box. And I think that was a big change. So I think the subs that we're going to talk about in a second are going to get a lot of the credit for the change. But I think between the 53rd minute chances and the stuff we saw in the 60 second minute,

I think that tactical wrinkle had already had an effect, plus guitar were starting to fade. Then when you throw in these subs we're going to talk about right now, that was like the tipping point. Hmm, I had not identified that clearly. but it does make a lot of sense because I noticed that Legette was popping up, you know, even after the subs came on, Legette was popping up over on the right wing, and he was a part of some of the nice combination play that we saw from the subs, you know, specifically rolled on and Canon who came on for Busio and Moore.

But back to the timeline. Yeah, I should have mentioned it on that. Go ahead. I should have mentioned it on the 52nd minute with Hoppies crossed to DK because part of that was deep. Hoppy was so far wide because Leggett was now higher up in the half space, which pushed, you know, Hoppy didn't have to come in as much, so that's one of the reasons he was, he was hanging out out there more often. Again, he was still floating here and there, but that was definitely like a, I think an

emphasized change was for Legit to get out of that Kalanacosta space, and it was Vines picking up that slack. Professor Velasquez, ladies and gentlemen. But, no, I really appreciate that insight. And I also noticed Vines in that inverted position, and it annoyed me because he's not, you know, because he's just not so, he's not very great on the ball. You know, he's not. Yeah, he knocked a couple of passes out of bounds, but he ends up, I think that sequence you just talked about is legit, Vines keyed that whole sequence with his initial pass and his movement. And he was actually, oh, no, this is a different one.

We're going to get to his total football moment. Oh, yeah, he did have a total football moment. moment. So, sorry, go on. Okay. Yeah. So the subs, the subs come on, Roldon, Cannon and Zardis for Bousio Moore and Dike. And, you know, the narrative says this is where everything changed. And it did, it was around when everything changed. So the narrative is not all wrong. I think the press got a little more vigorous. I'd say thanks to Roldon. Zardis wasn't much cleaner initially in the buildup than Dekh was. But, but, you know, you already described what was happening with Legat, which I think probably explains more of what happened than anything else.

But the fresh legs matter, though, because again, I think guitar were starting to fade. And so now when you throw on these, like three active players, and all three of these guys were active, Zardez's press was good. He has a hand in the goal with his press in the lead up to the turnover, and he had an almost identical one where he forced the goalkeeper to hit a similarly poor clearance that Legette headed up almost identically, like two minutes before that. So Zardaz was active and there were consequences to his activity, positive consequences. And it undoubtedly Qatar was fading.

I mean, they looked really gassed, especially after that penalty miss. Not that the penalty miss made them more aghast. I'm just saying like it started to really become apparent at that stage of the game. Coincidentally, which happened after the penalty miss. Although there was a Qatar player who said that took all the wind out of their sales after the game. game. But that could have that could have been the final straw but the wind the wind was very much leaving their sales prior. Yeah, they were stuck in a doldrum over by the lap of those islands. I've derailed us.

Our 69th minute cannon combines down the right with Roldon and ariola and wins a corner with a whipped ball into the corridor of uncertainty. Zardis is lurking just behind the outstretched foot of the centerback. I do think the key thing here, you know, aside from Lajette's freedom is Roldon's willingness to show decisively for the ball and shuttle it under pressure back out wide for Ariola to tap it to the underlapping cannon. So I think Canon's freshness versus Moore's lack of freshness is probably a factor. Katar's fatigue is a factor. Lajet's freedom is a factor, but I think Roldon for Buccio is for me maybe the most obvious factor because Buccio is not brave at like showing in those

little pockets of space and then making a forward pass. He was, maybe he would receive it, but it would immediately go back to the guy who passed him the ball. And you got to do that sometimes. But Busio was doing it almost every time. And I think that made a big difference. Because here's the thing people are like, well, Ariolo was really bad in the first half. He was,

he did not look good in the first half. Ariole looked really good after, in the second half, especially after Roldon came on. And I think you got to chalk some of that up to Rodon versus Boussio. It could be. Like, I'm not sure. I would say I would agree that Bousio was mostly invisible through this entire game for him. And when he wasn't invisible, it was like, oh, that was a wasteful shot or, oh, that was a hopeful, you know, vertical service.

So I don't necessarily disagree with that, that Roldon would have come in and change things for the better. I'm really curious to see whether or not like the that coordinated, their coordinated movements played into it because that's something I think Roldon is very good at. And I think Ariola also relies on that. So they weren't asked some questions for the, for the final. For me, it's just like, all right, so how do we get the most out of these guys

against Mexico? Yeah. Well, I think it's also about assessing Boussio and Roldon, too, like just for the long haul. And I didn't think, whether it was all Buccio's fault or not, they didn't, they weren't in sync, Aureole and Buccio and more in the way that canon Ariol in rolled on were. 77th minute, Vines, wasteful cross, seemed like a lot of that, just gets blocked out of bounds. And then we get this lovely move down the left wing from Hoppe Vines and Zardis, as Greg said,

it's his, Vines' total football moment. Hoppy entry pass to Vines in a real tight window. Vines takes a touch and then back heels it to Zardis. Zardis taps it out wide for Hoppy and then Hoppy with a quick outside of the boot square for Vines running at the near post and he is beat to the ball by a split second by one of the big centerbacks. Very, very lovely in fact. We got to get Vines more reps cutting in front of that defender. Yeah. If we want to get him to finish these chances off. It's tricky.

I mean, Vine's seems like he can do a job, as they say, if needed at left back. But there's a lot left to be desired. So it's good to see, I guess so it's good to see him do something nice like this now and then. That was a very, that was a very entertaining moment, probably my favorite moment of the game on the U.S. side, other than Roll Don's dummy. Which is coming up soon, I think. Williamson and Joe. We've got 99. nine minutes to talk about. Williamson and Joe Keeney come on for

ariola and Hoppe, so the wingers, and Williamson slots into that eight roll that Busio had started the game in, and Roldon moves out to wing. And Williamson immediately plays a good ball in behind for Zardis. It comes to nothing, but 86 minute, Acosta, go ahead. Sorry, I got to just jump in, because I think this was a very similar case to that ball that that hop he had played in for for decay in the first half the ball that he floated in and it's tough to deal with because it's coming in from an angle that your first touch is going to be difficult uh but like we that ball had zardaz into into the box like free and clear and zardaz

just miscontrolled it or i don't even know if he got a touch to it but if he can control that uh or or even get that touch suddenly when that uh guitar centerback like smashes into him you've got a penalty show. Right. But we didn't, we didn't maintain the advantage. So again, it's just an advantage existed and we lost it. Yeah, it was a clipped ball about chest high or about chest high when it intersected with Zardis's place in the, you know, three-dimensional plane. Okay, 86 minute. This is where we see the rolled on dummy. Acosta intercepts the ball and plays a penetrating past Williamson, rolled on, dummy. He's at Williamson's into the box, and he's, you know, he's dribbling at the goal, and he goes down looking for a pen with a guy on his back.

I think it probably goes down a little easy, and there's no call, and we lose possession. But we're knocking on the door, and this is different than the way it felt at the end of the Jamaica game. Don't you think? Like, we got a late goal against Jamaica. We got a late goal last night. But in this, last night, it felt like we were going to score. Yeah, it was coming. It definitely felt like I was coming.

And again, the flip side from the first half was it did not feel at all like it was coming for Qatar in the second half. I'm saying so the first half guitar were all over. I was going to say, what are out of your mind? It felt like it was coming in the entire first half. It was a miracle that we weren't down 3-0 at the time that it felt like it was coming. But it never felt like we were going to lose. It didn't honestly feel like Qatar were going to get one. No, no.

They did. And that feeling just sort of solidified. It kept solidifying as the game went by. Partly because a fief had come off at this point. Feefe was no longer on the field. He'd already faded pretty badly, and now it was just like they had no one to really try to build through, and that played out after we get our goal.

Yep. So here comes the goal. Just moments after this, Williamson goes down in the penalty box. Qatar tries to play it out, and you mentioned Legette intercepting the ball with his head. He does so to Joe Aquini, who turns and drives at the penalty area and works a one-two with Willis.

Williamson. It's not a perfect one, too, but it works. And it comes back to Joe Keeney. The guy marking him falls down as their legs get kind of tangled up. And then Joe Keene takes a touch towards the end line. And I think plays a very nice pass with the outside of his right boot into the path of the onrushing Zardis who slides and stabs at home. Also, I think quite a good finish. I mean, an underrated finish. He has to slide it between the goalkeeper and a Katari defender who's closing in from his right puts it in exactly the right spot, makes it look easy, 1-0 USA. And so this is where I'm just, it's a fantastic move.

The move's great. Probably a little bit of luck on Williamson's return ball to Joe Aquini, because I think it megs the Qatar defender who like is afraid to hit a poor clearance and so gets his feet all wrong like he was there to hit it out or to clear it somehow but just misses the play on it. The actual finish from Zada is. So the difference here between Dike's saved shot is Joe Aquini basically beats the goalkeeper here. So Joe Aquini being so tight to the goal has forced two defenders plus the goalkeeper to be all the way over at the near post.

So when he's playing the ball over to Zardas now with an outstanding pass, and Zardez is winning the race to that spot, which is exactly what Giazzi Zardez is very good at, the goalkeeper is not between the ball and the goal. The goalkeeper's out of the frame for Zardaz and is desperately scrambling to try to dive back into the frame. So again, in this case, it's Zardaz just keeping the ball away from the length of the goalkeeper's dive, which he does, he does well. But that's, it's the difference here is Joe Aquini has opened the goal for Zardez rather than

D.K. having to actually beat the goalkeeper himself. Yeah. Again, Zardaz does everything right. This is not criticism of Zardis. It's basically just criticism for anyone saying. Who's saying that? Who's saying that's, that's, that's, that's, as soon as D. the D.K.

Miss is sort of the the cherry on top of DK's not great performance. He was already kind of struggling. And then to have that miss, everyone's talking about it being a big miss. And then when Zardez scores his, it's like, okay,

Zardez should be in. I'd probably pick Zardez over DK for the final regardless. But the one person finishing one and the other one not finishing the other isn't necessarily the predictive moment that I think people might be making it. Yeah, I don't know who's making it.

I just hope you're not in like a 75 tweet conversation with one of those burner accounts that you have a Stockholm syndrome situation with. Yeah, I mean, that'll be said. That'll be said for sure. Start Zardis because he finishes his chance and D.K. doesn't. And I think you've made a very good case that they're not the same situation. Well, thank you. I still, again, I wouldn't have minded if Zardis started a start a good case,

this game. I prefer D.K. just for more information, which I think is great, and I think we can use that to now move him farther away from September, but I wouldn't be mad. You've actually talked to me into Hoppy at Stryker earlier in the conversation, which I was sort of ambivalent about, but now I'm like, wait a second, yeah, we should we should start Hopi at Stryker. We should not, not against Mexico. Against Mexico, we should just go ahead and run with Zardes. We should have, it would have been nice to have started Hopi at some point in the tournament, but Sunday night is not that night. Okay, well, it's too late.

I've already been talked into it. I think that's what we got. I mean, should we do a few more takeaways? Reiterate our takeaways? Well, I just want to also throw in. Qatar did get like that dead cat bounce at the very end of the game where they were trying to throw everything forward. Again, just without a, and they had like dangerous or dangerous adjacent moments

where it was like, oh my goodness, they're running at you. And sometimes that just is inevitable in the dying moments of a one-gold knockout game. But without a fief, like it always just sort of ended hilariously for guitar. Like they just hit some ridiculous. They had like options running at the top of our box and a guy would just like take a full swing at a 35-yard shot and send it into the throw-ins side. So again, not anything we did poorly there, just a matter of it did still have a bit of franticness. left in it at the end. Yeah.

Things got a little heroic from Qatar late, which I guess tends to happen. Yeah, Turner, I mean, it seems to me like we've got Turner, Acosta, and Miles. Yeah, as like legit World Cup qualifier roster players from this group. And I think Sands and Roldon are, you know, kind of making a case. Sands Roldon and Vines are definitely on the fringes at this point, wouldn't you say? Is Roldon? It's going to be tough, man. Like, it's hard.

It's hard to feel out where Roldon is. It wouldn't surprise you, right, if Roldon is named to an extended roster for September. I'm not going to be super excited to see him there, but I'm going to be like, okay, well, we're going to bring 28 guys. and I guess Raldon will be there. Yeah. But how about like a Joe Keeney and Williamson? And also don't forget we have at least 90 more minutes of soccer to see some of these guys. And some of the guys who made this push against Qatar could well have another runout here before it's all said.

I want to see more of Joe Keeney and Williamson for sure. And it wouldn't be mad if we got to see both of them start against Mexico. But I think it's, well, Williamson, I feel like. There's some likelihood that he'll start over Buccio. But I don't think Joe Aquini's going to start. I think he's going to be Hopi and Ariola again on the wings. Maybe rolled on instead of Ariola. None of those would surprise me.

I would actually be a little bit surprised if Buccio starts. So whether that's Williamson coming in for him or if Bertharlder doesn't think Williamson is ready for a final with Mexico, which, I mean, I think that'd be overly conservative to have that be a reason to hold him out. he could start Roaldon there I actually wouldn't love that either I don't love Roll Don as an eight against Mexico in a final I'd much rather have him playing up higher

but so I guess what I'm saying is I would really hope Williamson is the other eight for the Mexican game I hope so too and I don't think it's out of the question at all and this game this Mexico game is gravy man I mean we I don't know that many of us expected to get this far

with this squad In a lot of ways, we didn't, we shouldn't be here right now. I think Vegas knew how good Matt Turner was because they had us, they had us favored in both those games. And I think it's safe to say that Matt Turner gets us through those two games. The niggling concern for me continues to be, can we get our A squad to play together in a way that breaks down a team like, teams like the teams we've been. playing in a way that's noticeably different from the way we've been playing in this tournament.

And I don't, I'm not sure. Like, in other words, are we just doomed to a slog all the time? Like, even with Pulisic and Raina on the wings and, you know, McKinney in the half space or, you know, in the middle of the field. I do worry about that, yes. All right. Well, I'm prepared for a slog on Sunday. Like, I'm hoping that we can turn that game into a slog a little.

bit. That's my hope. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. Have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday.