Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #189: USA-Mexico Gold Cup Final recap

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

The US men faced Mexico in the second tournament final in less than two months, with a B squad and frankly nothing to lose. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedDiscord: https://discord.gg/ayz9QekfeRMerch: 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. Hey, hey, hey, we're the champions of Conccaf for the second time in two months. The U.S. defeated Mexico 1 to 0 on a Miles Robinson goal in the 117th minute. How appropriate it was for the winner to come on a lovely dead ball from Kellan Acosta and a textbook header from Robinson. The two heroes of the night, we celebrate again. Greg, how are you doing? Bells, I'm doing great. Eight win summer for the fellas. And I'm going to say that the present is bright. The present is bright.

Yeah. What do you think is the brightest thing right now? What are you feeling brightest about? The thing I'm feeling brightest about is absolutely the depth we have now established. I'm not saying that we are suddenly like the dominant forces in Concca Gaff and that we can even dominate Mexico or expect to on a regular basis. but we talked after the last couple of, or in our last recording we talked about how at this point the roster had become cute proof.

Like it was hard to imagine picking a player that we'd be like, all right, like I don't really see how he gets into this roster. Now I feel like we're at the point where we're going to be like leaving out several players that we want to see, but they will be like blocked out of a place by other players that we really want to see. And I'm talking like 28 players deep come these extended camps for World Cup qualifiers. Yeah. We're getting to the point where we, like you said, we're going to leave off players.

We wish we're there. We can get into that, some of that list, I guess, a little bit later. And it's not even just players we wish we were there in the scuffed sense of like, man, I really wish this, like we could see this player. Like, you know, we have big dreams for a lot of prospects or hopes to at least see them. Now we're going to be talking about leaving off players who have played key roles in wins over Mexico in in cup finals. That's like the level of player that we're talking about when we say we wish we could see this guy. It's not like I want to get a look at him.

It's guys who have actually now done it at least once on the real stage. And I have no idea how they're all going to be squeezed into a camp. I don't think they can all be. Yeah. Another thing to be excited about, I guess, is the fight and the spirit of this team under Burrhalter, which I know is not your favorite area. of discussion, but you were even talking about it last night in the group chat, that you, that there's a lot of heart. And I think that's true, man. These, these players battle for each other.

You can see even the guys who've been benched since game one of the Gold Cup running out and celebrating wholeheartedly. I saw Jackson Ewell and Jonathan Lewis, you know, absolutely participating in that celebration. And you love to see it, the togetherness and the, um, just the battle. Yeah, and I've always loved the togetherness in that sense. I don't read too much into like body language of celebrations, but even like the 2019 World Cup when we weren't doing very well on the field. And you'd have like you'd have Josie Altador like on, you could see him on the sideline

totally backing Jazi Zardez who was taking a ton of heat and who still, you know, takes his fair share of heat more than his fair share. And even then I remember saying like, it's great that the players are doing this. My thing with the fight and the spirit and the heart was always more about, I'd even said, it's more about how we're set up tactically and are we setting up tactically to allow that fight and spirit to show itself on the field, not just, you know, when you're giving guys hugs in the locker room, but now it's like, can we actually go out there and hunt together? Can we, can we wreck guys as a unit? And we are, I think now, the last two games against Mexico at least,

We are firmly in the camp where we are doing that. Yeah, we seem to raise our level when we play Mexico, the level of intensity, which is necessary. And I think even James Sands, who had kind of a rough outing again last night, or at least not a perfect outing, man, he was, the full 120 minutes, he's battling and, you know, making sliding desperate challenges, which there was plenty of need for. So all very positive 2-0 versus Mexico Dosa Zero as several people have said

And why don't we get into the lineups and the timeline Let's do it Okay so the US came out with Turner and goal of course and James Sands and Miles Robinson at centerback Reggie Cannon replaced Shaq Moore at right back George Bello replaced Sam Vines at left back and then we had my preferred midfield of Acosta at the Eric Williamson and Sebastian Leggett at the 8. And then wingers were Areola and Hoppe and Zardis started up top at Striker, which seemed like it was going to happen.

And it did. It did. And again, very happy with the midfield setup. I was very surprised because I wasn't expecting to see Eric Williamson in that lineup. I was excited to see his name in there because, again, I think the amount of bite he provides. out of the guys in this group is the best out of anyone besides Acosta. So that's, you know, we've been honed about this for a while about adding that edge, that steel to the midfield in particular.

But you could almost make the case that this is the Adam Bell's Cage Match 11 out of the guys on this roster. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think more for Canon for Moore is kind of a wash in terms of cage match. And it turns out Bello was actually a little bit of an improvement on Vine. which I did not expect. I did not expect Bella to play as well as he did. But yeah. Cage match 11.

As we're talking about Richard, as a side note, we're talking about Richie Ledesma earlier today on the Discord. And you were questioning his cage match ability. And it is a paradox of my life that I'm like this famous Richie Ledesma Stan. And he is not a cage match animal the way I like our players to be. But, you know, sometimes you've got to live with the inconsiderance.

consistencies in your own life, in your own heart. Well, that's what you, you want to cage match midfield so that you can put a player like Ledesma out there. You need this, he needs a security detail. He was designed for, to be a half space merchant. And then, okay, Mexico's lineup was, now this is, obviously this was a B team for the U.S. This was a kind of an A minus team, I think, for Mexico, missing, uh, not, I'm not going to abide.

I'm not going to abide a team, B team talk on this podcast. It's not going to happen. Really? We had, we were, we have a roster of multiple backups. Yeah. Okay. Mexico's was a, I just want to make the point that Mexico's was, this was not a full A team for Mexico either. Okay.

It's an A minus team. They're missing Chuck E-Lazano. They're missing, obviously, Raul Jimenez. Who else? M. Ocho is in the Olympics. Yeah, that's right. Diego Linus is at the Olympics. Which where they're about to compete for a medal.

Right. Interesting times for Mexican soccer fans. Anyway, the goalkeeper is Alfredo Talavera. Chaka Rodriguez and Jesus Gallardo at fullback, Nestor O'Rajo, and Ector Moreno as the centerbacks, Ache Ache, Ector Herrera, and Jonah dos Santos. I'm going all out of order here. Jonah dos Santos are the eights.

Edson Alvarez is the six. and then Tecateo and Oberlin Peneda are the wingers with Roelho Funis Mori as the striker. I don't think any big surprises there. A good Mexico team. I mean, at least on paper, a good Mexico team. We'll get into whether they're actually good later. They're good.

They've got the finishing yips. They've kind of had them through this whole tournament. Yeah, and it's not just the finishing. It's a little bit of a lack of cutting edge in the final third. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, like a bit of a bit of the last pass yips, which I still think bears out in finishing over this kind of a short sample because when you're not making that perfect setup pass, the finish gets a lot harder.

You're having to force your finish through a tighter window or whatever you might. Those kinds of things take place. The XG estimates sort of range depending on which stat surface you're using. But in general, Mexico had the better of the chances last night. It could be a gap up to a goal, of an expected goal, down to, you know, a fourth of a goal, depending on which stat service you use. But in general, I think we were hitting at about seven, we were on either one, the consistency was that we were about 75% of whatever Mexico produced.

So if some services are giving more XG, they're giving us more and Mexico. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Second minute. Let's start the timeline. Second minute, first kind of scary moment of many for the U.S.

Sands passes it back to Matt Turner, and Turner takes a way too casual touch, and Funis Mori gets there first and touches it and then goes down. I don't think it was a penalty, but there was definitely a shout, and it was a scary moment. What did you think? So I don't even think it was a casual touch. This wasn't like he thought he had. It was just an absolute, like, shocking touch. He just sort of brick-footed it

Way too far away from himself You could tell it surprised him He didn't expect it to go that far And then he very thankfully pulled out of the challenge Or he for sure would have been VAR'd into a penalty Because Funis Mory knew he was coming And so Foonus Mory wasn't expecting him to pull out of the challenge So if Turner's foot had gone all the way in

It would have for sure been a penalty Yeah He was not going to get to the ball first There was a little bit of contact even without him putting his foot through the, you know, through the play. But he pulled back enough, I think, that the referee waved it off. So there you have it. There you have it. A little bit of the Turner foot skills.

You know, we talk about his ability to play with his feet. I think the biggest consolation prize, though, to having Matt Turner in goal is the fact that he didn't give up an entire open play goal through six games, which I think has a lot of value. Quite a consolation prize. Yeah. No, that's the knock on Turner is his feet, and that was a big feat moment. But, you know, he also, maybe his distribution was a little slipshod throughout the game, but I don't know. Yeah. Well, I'm on board with you, Greg.

Let's make Turner the number one. Give Ethan Horvath a chance to compete with him. What's the latest on Horvath? Has he found a club yet? He said Nottingham Forest. He signed a few weeks ago, but he has not appeared as far as I know. They just had, I think, their last friendly of the season canceled, and I think they start their league or they're playing in the EFL or the league cup this weekend.

But he's going to have a – Forrest has a competitive game in five days. Shame on me for not knowing that. Okay. Fourth minute. Hold on, hold on. I know we're under our first item on the timeline, but on the goalkeeper front. When you say give Horthath a chance, do you mean like, do you expect us to just straight rotate goalkeepers through the three-game windows at all, any rotation?

Or do you think he's picking one and running with it until the actual on-field performance demands a change? I don't know. I don't know what he's going to do. All right. Fourth minute. Well, I mean, just trying to think in Burrhalter's shoes, he's got a trust Turner so much after this. tournament, right? That's what, again, even if you said the burden of proof was on Turner to prove that he has it over Stefan, like I don't know how this wouldn't, if, like you would said, if you don't think he's better now, like there's just nothing he can do that will make you think he's better.

It will have to come from whichever keeper's, uh, Burhalter might rate ahead of him, having some poor performances on the field and qualifying. Yeah. And, and as we've discussed in some detail on this podcast, Stefan, has had, you know, some moments that are not great in the last. I mean, basically since this podcast came into existence, but definitely over the last couple months. Thinking of the Nations League tournament, of course.

All right, let's move to the second item on the timeline. There are many more to come. The fourth minute, a lovely move from the U.S. I think you posted a clip somewhere on this. Robinson, it ends with the, well, it doesn't end, but it sort of begins with Robinson. stepping past Funis Mori plays it between the lines to Areola who makes a quick pass to Zardis in Zorn 14 and Zardis taps it wide to Bello. Bellow's cross comes to the feet of Williamson at around the penalty marker and he tries to

have one like a sidewinder on the volley and doesn't hit it right. It does go on frame but it's pretty easy for the goalkeeper. This is actually a huge chance. Unfortunately, Zardis was off sides on the buildup very clearly. That would have been called back. But it's a warning shot for Mexico that like we're going to, you know, we're going to be able to create something in this game. And it is one of the few moments in the game that we created from possession, right? Exactly. And so that's what I was watching.

Like, holy Lord, that was a very slick sequence. And we have not had a game, I don't think, against any good opponent where we have actually had the possession click and be the main driver of our chances. and so I was like, this could be the game. Maybe we are going to just take it to Mexico. Didn't turn out that way. Through possession. It was a bit of a false flag there. We didn't end up generating most of our chances through like actual, you know,

Burrhalter disorganization with the ball. But this was a good example of it at least once. We got one. Yeah. Tidy from, Tidy from Ariel and Zardis, but notable that the entry pass comes from Robinson after dribbling with the ball at his feet.

And I feel like, I mean, there's going to be a lot more to say about Robinson in this podcast episode, but I feel like his increasing comfort with the ball over the course of this tournament, at least in this system, is really worth noting. Like he looked much better on the ball last night against our toughest opponent of the tournament than he did at the beginning of the tournament. And that's a lot. Do you just want to say right now, do you just want to say right now that Robinson will be starting the first World Cup qualifier next to John Brooks?

It's a perfect compliment. I wouldn't be mad about it. I'm as big of a Chris Richards fan as anybody, and I think he's the one who's competing with Robinson for that spot. But you can't argue with Robinson at this point, I don't think. I'm with you. I would actually expect Robinson to start that first qualifier just for the confidence he would have built up in the last three weeks.

and I'm also confident in Chris Richard, so I think we're going to end up over the next couple of windows with a really good, if you want to call John Brooks centerback number one, then having a good 2A, 2B situation where you can rotate them in next to Brooks and potentially even give Brooks some nights off in those three game windows where it's Richards and Robinson.

I'd be totally happy with Richards and Robinson, wouldn't you? Yeah, it's going to be a sitcom. So we're probably going to continue this pattern of like using sort of small moments to make larger points. But there you go. It was a good moment from the U.S. We did some decent stuff possessing through the press, you know, in the first 10 or 11 minutes. I thought I won't get into each individual moment.

And it was a, I don't clock any major chances from Mexico in the first 10 minutes either. There's the Bellow handball shout in the 11th minute. It's just a lovely blind switch from Ace Ache, and Tecateo corrals it and one-toes to the end line with Bellow in pursuit. His cross goes off Bellow's arm, but it's tucked into the silhouette of his body, so I feel okay with it not being a penalty. Same, and I don't even know what the rules are anymore,

for all I know the rules specifically say not to give that a penalty, or they might even say that's definitely a penalty, you are obligated to give it. I just don't care. Yeah. Don't want to discuss the gray areas of the handball rule inside the box. Same minute, 11th minute, on the ensuing corner, Takedito hits it, and Funes Mori rises to put a strong header on frame just inside the near post.

Turner makes a save, which we've come to expect. But that was a powerful header. Even, you know, even though he wasn't like flying into it, still got generated a lot of power on it. is perfectly placed. Tell me what you thought of the save. I thought it was a great save, but I don't know. Excellent save.

It reminded me of, reminded me of Ochoa's on McKinney from the Nations League final because Turner didn't have any help there. It's not like he saved it right in front of a man on the post who would have cleared it out. He had to get all the way to his post to save it. And he did because his positioning and timing and footwork and range are elite. He did a double foot move to generate that jump. Like he, like he, like he shuffled once. and then jumped.

It's called a power step, and it was something you could show to your young players who are going to play goalkeeper. Nice. There's a long break after that when Williamson takes a shot to the head with the ball. I was a little concerned about him and the sort of the concussion protocol, but he came back on, seemed to be mostly okay. 18th minute, another Mexico chance. It's a long ball from Talavera, the goalkeeper.

Gallardo beats Williamson a little too easily, I think, and combines with Paneda and then slides a good ball across the face of goal. There's nobody there. Sfunis Mori is sort of peeling off to go to the backpost, but that's a scary moment. The ensuing corner results in a header for Ace Ace Ache and a much easier save for Turner. Yeah, those are just the easy XG points Turner's been collecting all tournament. So in the 26th minute, we get a very big change. for the U.S. And it's a nice sequence of television images

because just before a Mexico goal kick that's brought on by sort of a lumped ball from Miles, the producers cut to the coaches, first Tata, then Greg. And Burrhalter is saying, let's effing go, just screaming at the boys and like, you know, waving them forward.

And for a goal kick. This is for a goal kick, like waving them forward, you know? Yeah. So either he was waving him forward from the last sequence, like saying get up higher, or he's literally saying like, don't retreat on this kick,

like get up, stay up. Yeah. I also noticed that he, as soon as he said, used that profanity, which we do not condone on this podcast. No.

He looked at the camera and was like, oh no, they just saw me say that. That's what his eyes said anyway. Anyway, immediately Zardis and Leget go to work after this goal kick. Zardis,

Zardis tackles a guy, doesn't come away with it. And then Leggett pokes it away from Edson Alvarez, who takes a heavy touch reminiscent of Turner's earlier in the game. And Legette glides past. Alvarez slips it to Ariel in space in the box, and Ariel's shot is off the near post. This is what we want from Legit though, right? Can I jump in with some Legit love here?

Like, this is good from Legit. This isn't just like, yes, it was a bad touch from Edson Alvarez. under no pressure. Like, it was a, Mexico had solved the initial problem, touch it back to Alvarez. And he just like, again, just like Turner, punches it too far away from himself. But Legette eliminates Alvarez with the touch. He doesn't just win the challenge and win it. Like, he skips past him.

And then he skips past another defender with his pass. So he, the defender commits too many releases it just as a defender, like goes to the end of the challenge, to free Ariola and make sure that there's nobody else around. So this was very good, well done from Lijet. Areola is in. Areola is danger adjacent. He's always very close to being dangerous. And this is another example. Eventually, he's going to get a couple of these to follow if he keeps getting looks with

the national team. Yeah. I learned on Twitter yesterday that you can't say progress to his XG. You have to say regress to his XG, even if he's below it. That's correct. There you go. Statistics. Come on, nerds.

Learn the language. People are so hard on the jet, you know, even in the Discord, which is, you know, even in the Discord, which is sort of a, you know, a scuffed friendly zone. He created this chance. He didn't get a lot of credit for it. And then, I mean, I admit he had a bad second half. He looked pretty gassed to me. But I don't understand why folks are so hard on him, I guess is all I'm saying.

There is that element. Like, I know people want to say that's not the case. It's just on his play. But it's absolutely the case that the MLS guys have a, have a harsher. audience because a lot of people are sort of waiting for them to make the mistake and then pouncing on it. And I think that's the case with, I think that's for sure the case with LeJet. There's a, there's an element of like, he shouldn't be here because he's playing in an average league and we should be looking at other guys. But I just can't help but disagree with

that because I think LeJet has definitely earned the minutes he has gotten on the national team with very good national team play in the past. And even though he's been a little bit off from his usual self, maybe in a couple of games, he still had good moments, and this was a very good moment against Mexico's strongest available team. So I think he clearly provides value in the sense that he's our fourth or fifth best attacker in a full strength setting. Yeah, and I thought he, obviously this big moment, he also had the corner kick, that Hoppy flashed just over. So he's finally hit a good set piece in this tournament. A lot of the times when we were breaking the press, it was going through his feet.

He is tidier in combination than I think the other midfielders are in those really tight moments. I don't know, maybe not tidier than Acosta. I don't know. He was involved in that fourth minute buildup we had early in the buildup where the ball was going across the middle and he was receiving it under like very immediate pressure and he just had a very little clever flick to move it along to keep the play alive. So let's call it immediate. A medium-throated defense of Sebastian Legette, because he did have a lot of rough moments in the second half for sure.

I thought our press was really working. I mean, this is the best example of it, but the press was really working. It makes me wonder, you know, Susayetta said on Twitter that, you know, the big difference between this game and the Nation's League game is that we're pressing with some vigor. And in the Nations League game,

we were sort of happy to let Mexico pass the ball around in the back. does this show that Burrhalter is, you know, gradually evolving into the coach we all thought he should have been at the beginning, which is, you know, a coach who puts the players out there to press and win chances in transition rather than, you know, tiki-tok-eyeing all over the field? I mean, this game work, I think, is a data point for that, right? Like, again, he played.

It also shows that some of those, like, and we've been saying this for a while too, those sort of all-action midfielders is what we were calling them back in 2019 are not necessarily worse passers than the nominal like playmaking, deep-lying playmakers that we had been trying to force into the squad, who often prevented us from playing this aggressive of a press. So, yes, I think this is a good data point for Burrhalter being willing to sort of run with this more aggressive defensive stance and trusting that that will create some chances that you might not get from the possession side.

Yeah. Because I mean, again, I don't think that Hoppe and Zardez and Paul Arjola are your prototypical possession front three, that you're just going to dominate possession and incredible interchange. Like, I don't think that's what you're going to get from those three guys. No. I mean, maybe Hoppe at some point in his career with a better, no, I don't know. I don't even know about that. Okay, let's move on with the timeline.

31st minute. There's a corner kick for Mexico. Gallardo nods a ball into the area, and Funis Mori receives it on his chest with sands on his back, turns sands and dribbles into the six, kind of juggles, dribbles into the six, and shoots from a really tight angle. Turner makes the save with his knee.

I notice it because you can sort of see Sands' limitations in this play. even though Sands did yeomen's work in this game. He, and I still think he's a useful player, he is going to get little brothered by big number nines. And that's what happened in this moment. Right. So he, in this case, he almost like got a double, like Turner almost came over as like the double teaming defender, right?

Turner was like right on top of the play to block it with his knee. Yeah. Excellent approach from him. Excellent job of like staying big and not giving any of the goal. To Funas Mori to shoot at. But yes, like Sands, you're going to have to worry about it, right? Like you're going to have to hope that you get through the game without him getting out physicaled in this kind of tight space. Yeah, there were a couple other moments, which I'll try to mention.

33rd minute, I clocked a 1v1 triumph for Bello versus Jonah Dos Santos. He harries him to the sideline and pokes it out of bounds. He also made a sliding interception on an entry pass from Shaka to Tecateo. a few moments earlier. So this is just a moment to mention that that bellow was quite solid defensively. And I think probably above a little messy, but above replacement value in possession too, like more likely to to do something inventive in the buildup than Vines. I'd give you that.

I think that's fair. Vines tended to always have to just, I mean, he's all tournament all through the Olympics. He wasn't necessarily bad, but he's very predictable. Like he's got to move the ball to his left foot. and, you know, play a pretty simple pass, other than that one moment of absolute total football movement from him versus guitar. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I wonder, you know, I don't know who Burrhalter should bring to that first World Cup qualifying window if it's going to be one of those two. You'd ask me a week ago, I'd been like, fines for sure. But now, I don't know. You don't know, and it's one in a number of position battles where it's like, Don't know either, both. Like, I won't be mad.

34th minute, Funis Mori gets another chance on a lovely bit of interplay down our right side. Hector Herrera to Paneda, to an overlapping Gallardo, who is just very efficient when he bombs forward. Gallardo cuts it back for Funis Mori and he scuffs it after Miles lays out to try to intercept the cutback. Misses the frame completely. I just noticed that Cannon's got to do better in the lead up because it starts with him getting to a loose ball and then missing Legette with a fairly simple pass in the middle of our half. I also noticed, I know I'm doing a lot of talking here, so please interrupt me, but I also noticed just the the choreography of the movement from Mexico in this play is so

nice to watch. You know, Gallardo sees Ace Ache about to pass it to Paneda and he's already on a dead sprint down the line knowing what's going to happen next. And then he receives he receives that pass from Panetta with his right foot, takes a touch that takes him past cannon with his first touch and creates a lot of danger. And I think, go ahead, go ahead, please. This is always sort of the joy of watching Mexico in the buildup, like in their possession. And I think they outpossessed us like 6040, 65, 35, maybe. 6337, yeah.

Okay. But it is just this like, it's not just that the individual on the ball has this technique. It's very much like the aptitude around them. And like you said, it's almost like this understood choreography. And that is almost like a constant, whoever the manager is. So it's not like, oh, this is Tatas, you know, installing this choreography. Like growing up watching Mexico play, they've always just had that knowledge, that like institutional knowledge, cultural knowledge of how to play in this way. And so it is really fun to watch.

And I'm very glad that it ran into a ton of. speed bumps as it got closer to the box in this game and throughout this tournament. Yeah. Yeah, it's deeper than tactics or coaching, I think. That's my, that's my instinct on it. It's like, it's, it's an individual thing. It's how you understand the game as a player. And we, it is something that we have, I feel like we lack as a country, as a men's national team program, basically from the youth teams all the way up. It's not that that seamless choreography is not the way we play, particularly when it comes to the way we move off the ball, where our players move off the ball, you know, two steps ahead.

And I don't know that any system is going to change that. The encouraging. No, and I don't either. And I think that's one of the great things about shifting to this, more heavily emphasized defensive, stance where we can create legitimate chances off of our press, even against a team that is as fluid on the ball as Mexico. Yeah.

And the encouraging thing is that just because you can do that doesn't mean you can score goals, you know, as Mexico has shown us. So I'd like for us to get there someday. 36 minute, very much in the spirit of nitpicking. I found our midfield support when we were springing into the counterattack a little bit lacking. and this is sort of a reference to the point I was just making. Bello intercepts a diagonal and surges forward down the left. Legette kind of slides into a supporting position behind him,

but nobody is like running with any sort of urgency through the middle of the field to show for Bellow. And so he just has to give it away. And I wish that would not have happened that way. And I don't know. I can't speak to whether it's us just trying to be extra safe with our number. and how many we throw forward and deciding that that's not a good enough attacking opportunity. Would you say that that's exactly the kind of attacking opportunity that we do need to take those, I mean, it's a mild risk to send Eric Williamson up, right?

Yeah, I think we need to, you know, if Bello's going to take the ball and we're in transition and he's moving forward, we need people to show for him in the middle of the field and quickly, with alacrity. 38th, go ahead. Were you going to say something? No, keep a move. 38th minute. Turner, save on a deep.

decent Funes Mori shot that comes from Shaka picking the ball up and dribbling from midfield almost to the end line, cutting it back across the box. It's a well-hit shot. It's just not to either side very far, right? Turner covers it up pretty comfortably. I'm saying it's a very good shot and it just, it looks, Turner just makes it look very comfortable. That's the, that's like the one that was off to Turner's left on the ground. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's another one that also is hit through. the challenging defender. I don't remember if it was Sands or Robinson, but whoever the defender was is like in Turner's eyeline, the ball goes through that defender to the area where that defender is taking away a portion of the goal, which again is a much harder save than it looks like because you're expecting part of that part of the goal

to be blocked by the defender. And you see that all the time where the ball goes through the defender's legs and the keeper is almost frozen. And when it goes in, the announcer might say something like it's tough for the keeper there because he could, didn't see it until late, and with Matt Turner, like, that just doesn't matter. He's just there anyway. Wow. I didn't even think of it that way. Man. He's a very good goalkeeper. He's very good at keeping the ball from going into the goal. It's such a big development. Maybe that's the biggest

development of the Gold Cup. It's just him showing that to everybody. Uh, 40th minute, good ball from Acosta to Hoppy out wide after a scramble that starts in our box. This is a moment where you just think thank you, Kell and Acosta. We're like, the ball's sort of pinging around after we tackle it away from somebody in the box. And Acosta just takes a touch and then looks up and sees Hoppy out wide and plays a very good ball to him. Hoppe's ball across to Zardis is not quite good enough. I don't know that it was even on. And it gets cut out.

It falls to Legette, who slides it in for Ariola. So this is another nice, like a minor, but nice little Legette moment. He picks up the clearance and then just plays a very well-weighted pass in for, Ariola who tries to beat his guy and wins a corner right on the end line. On the ensuing corner, Legett finds Hoppe's head just outside the six and the header, which was difficult because he's moving away from the goal. Flash is just wide and over the crossbar. A bigger chance on replay than it appeared in real time. Yeah, it felt like such a throwaway attempt just like, oh, okay, normal, you know, speculative,

throw your head at it and see what happens, but then you see that it was inches away from giving us a salient. Two more notes on the first half for me. I mean, he's got sort of chaotic there for a while, but Bello breaks out after a Mexico corner, and A, doesn't go down when he's pulled from behind to draw a yellow card, I think, on Gallardo, and B doesn't slip it wide to an open ariola

before he gets gang tackled. So just a little naivete from him, but he's a young player. So two points there, right? one, either go down and get the guy the yellow card, or two, if you're going to play through it, know that that tactical foul is coming eventually. I know that they didn't end up even giving the foul as he got sort of like squeezed out by a couple of defenders. But you have to like feel that coming that whatever advantage you think you have is going to disappear anyway because the

defense just won't let you get through. They'll either foul you or, you know, get away with the foul and squeeze you out. So you have to move it to the next guy. You can't just keep trying to take it yourself, you're going to get brought down and lose the advantage regardless. And Ariola, you could tell Aureole was a little frustrated. He didn't get that early, not early ball, but the ball when Bello had a chance to play it to him. 50th minute, so I guess the fifth minute of stoppage time, another Aureola chance. Hoppe and Legette break the counterpress.

Legette to Zardis, Zardis squares to Williamson, and he plays a good through ball to Ariola. So good stuff from Zazzo. artist here too. I mean, I thought he was pretty good in the holdup. When he had his chances, we didn't find him very much. He didn't have a ton of like balls played into him. It was mostly, most of his clips watching through it back are like challenging 40, 60 balls in the air. But when the ball did come to his feet, I'd agree he was, he was very clean with it, which is not a, not something you typically associate with jazz artist. Ariola's shot barely bears mentioning

but it was left footed from distance and went well wide It bears mentioning because again You see Williamson slide that ball through to ariola Who's like not in on goal in on goal But in on goal enough that you know he's going to get a shot And I don't know about you but you're watching it You still just never think it's going to amount to anything I didn't think that one was going to amount to anything

I thought the first one might I thought the first one might. Well, that one he was in on goal. Yeah. And that one, even I'm going to be like, oh, he could finish here. Right. But that one from Williamson at the end, you just know he's like, he feels how he's going to get caught very quickly. And he's just going to be like, whatever, I'll just kick the ball towards the goal.

Technically, I will have done my part in getting a shot off. Yeah. That's harsh. I'm sure that's harsh. But that is what it feels like after two years now of watching Ariola. attempting to score gets good teams. That's what I feel like when I play soccer. He put me in on goal and I'm like, oh no, this is not good.

At the half, so that's the half. So let me just say thank you again to our patrons. We don't thank people enough for supporting us. We appreciate that. Links to the Patreon and the Discord and scuffed merch, such as it is, are in the show notes. I will say no more about it. 46th minutes the second half begins

Williamson gets right after it in the second half I thought he had a little you know not a fantastic first half what do you think about Williamson I think that's fair but I don't think he was exposed if that makes sense and I mean defensively positionally I don't think that he was just like our center mid was dominated

and I think that's important because I think we did start to get overrun a little bit more after Williamson departed. I think that's true. I think he was not particularly... There were times where I was like, oh, right, there's Williamson. He started because he had been in the first half a little bit invisible. But then when he was out of the game, I was like, oh, man, we do not have a strong, like,

bite in central midfield anymore. And he has offensive bite. We talked about this before, but he has offensive bite, too. Like, when he gets on the ball, you do feel like he might progress it or play a play a pass him behind, which he did. You know, like that one we were just talking about with Ariola right before the halftime. Yep, and this was an even better one, the one you're going to detail right now. Yeah, he recovered the ball out on the top of Mexico's box with Herrera on his back,

and then he turns Herrera pretty cleverly and plays Legit in. I can't figure out if Legit's got the weight of his body wrong as he prepares to receive this ball, or if the pass is just too heavy. It's kind of hard to say. What do you think? It's a little bit of both. Leggett is in, and this is where the timing and the technique becomes so crucial, because Williamson spins the guy, and I'm not saying it's a bad touch,

but it's touch like is far enough away from him where he can't make the pass until he catches back up to the ball. And so Legette is in the window. Legit knows he's in the window. If Legit keeps going full speed into this seam, he's going to run himself offside. That's how tight it is. And he kind of like stops and does like the squares his body to the ball, you know, arms out wide, like showing for it. Like, yes, I'm in, I'm in.

I'm in. And Williamson didn't like play it late. He didn't take an extra touch. He played it as soon as he could get there. And his pass barely got past the sliding defender. So it's not he could have played it at a flatter angle towards Legit. So they basically did everything they possibly could. And it's just the window just wasn't quite there.

Yeah. It was maybe a little heavy. They're like if the pass had been a little, uh, weighted a little softer, then I feel like legit might have gotten to it, but, you know, say lovey. That's, yeah, that's possible. And again, I like that we are, or, I don't know if people listening like it, but I love getting into like that level of ridiculous tape breakdown, uh, on a single play that amounted to a pass to their goal.

47th minute. Mexico comes right back down and Tecotito whips in a left-footed cross. He is able to get the cross off against Bello, but, you know, we're going to let them have some crosses. And Hector Herrera comes in on the back post and tries to sidewinder it instead of heading it, which I think is him getting it wrong. And, you know, his volley attempt is nowhere near the goal. It's a good chance, though, you get, you know, to hit a streaking runner at the back post like that. throughout this whole game a Mexico breakthrough never would have felt like a surprise right like it was always just like oh yeah that makes sense they have good players and they've been

dangerous all game yeah I think it would be a mistake to say that they you know they were profligate in front of goal but but yeah they a few things bounce a couple different ways it could have been a much different game so we need to all remember that and not get cocky I'm sure we won't, Bells. I'm sure if we address this exact roster against Mexico in the World Cup qualifying, we'll all be very cautious with our optimism. Yeah, we will. Will we?

We're never going to see this roster again. So this is a stretch of scariness for us. I mean, Mexico came out in the second half, and pretty much from the 47th minute, that moment I just noted to, you know, almost to when the subs come on, it's all Mexico, more or less. We have a Sands error in the 48th minute trying to play with cannon under pressure in the corner. Just doesn't get it past. I think it's Gallardo.

It might have been Takedito, and then either of those plays it in for Funis Mory in the box, and Funis Mory plays a ball across a pretty dramatic Miles intervention, clears it at the six. another little data pointing against Sands. 51st minute, big... And a data point for Mr. Miles Robinson. World Cup qualifying starter, Miles Robinson. I mean, he was more or less flawless.

I think he got turned once in the second half or maybe that was an extra time. But incredibly good game from him. 51st minute, big Panetta chance as a Herrera cross falls to him on the backpost. This is the one I think that Mexico fans are going to rue the most. He cuts in and has one but misses wide near post. He scuffed it.

He scuffed it. Do you have like a musical note that plays when you say scuffed on the scuffed podcast? That's a level of production value we haven't attained. But I think, you know, he could have gone far post. He could have just put it on frame, you know. Well, you can't. You can't just put it on frame against the U.S. anymore. Well, at least test that thesis.

51st minute, so very shortly after this, Sands is a little too slow chasing Gallardo on a through ball and gets beat another scary moment. I think there's a corner kick ensues. And then there's the Paneda volley with Sands, you know, swinging at it from underneath in the 52nd minute, which Panetta also gets all wrong, which is not a, that's a really tough,

that's a really tough chance to finish. But it's a cross from Chaka Rodriguez, And Paneda just hits it with his shin. And I'd say on rewatch, that's kind of the end of the flurry. We endured it at the beginning of the second half. We gradually, so in contradiction to what I said just a few moments ago, it didn't go until the subs. It went until this moment.

And we gradually got a hold on the game. And then Acosta just took the game over at that point. Is that how you see it? Almost. So 60th minute, a nice entry pass from Acosta to Ariola and down the left. an ariola megs Arawo and then cuts it back for Zardis. It's cut out by Salcedo. Nice stuff from Ariola, I thought.

Zardis is put in by Hopi just a few seconds later with a great left-footed ball, takes it down with his, so Hoppe's on the right wing. He gets a pass from Cannon, I believe, and then takes a touch in and it curls a ball in behind it with his left foot. Now, Zardis was flagged for offside, but I think maybe VAR changes that. it didn't really matter because he missed the goal on his on his 1v1 with the keeper. But the ideas are there, the ideas are good.

Yeah. And I mean, you know, the artist actually does it does some, does well to bring it down with his chest into his path running full speed. You know, on goal is just the finish is off. I do not note all of the moments in the second half, but there are several where, where Acosta is just working hard to get back and taking the ball from the opponent just over and over and he seemed like he got stronger as the second half were on.

He got stronger as extra time wore on. Could he have gone another 120 minutes? I don't know. Probably. Some of his tackles were like awe-inspiring. Like just as someone who appreciates like those kinds of defensive, like they were like sophisticated. The way he contort his body was like watching baseball players sliding around the tag.

That's a good way to talk about it. The way he can do that and like to not just disrupt the ball and break up the play, but to poke it to this specific spot where a teammate is sort of in position to then go the other way. I very much enjoyed what Calan Acosta was doing against Mexico in a cup final yesterday. Yeah, to bring up another other sport comparison, the way he took the ball from people was sometimes a little bit Dekembe Mutumbo-esque. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're not getting through here.

Give me that ball. 66th minute vines and more come on for bellow and cannon. So we get fresh legs at both fullback positions. And then Roldong comes on for Legette. The subs seemed good to me when they were made. What did you think? I kind of chuckled because dual subs for your fullbacks is not a standard substitution pattern

that you see play out in games a lot and again this very much felt like the roster construction issue rearing its head again because you need to introduce fresh legs but you can't use the attacking players that you would normally use to introduce fresh legs so the only way you can do it is by bringing in fullbacks you can run up and down.

Yeah. Yeah I mean Just to go back and beat that dead horse, you know, Jonathan Lewis is one of, is the one winger we have on the bench, and he's, he's basically been benched indefinitely at this point. And we don't have,

and then I guess Joe Aquini is the other winger. He did come on later, but he's not a winger. He's really more of a nine. And, I was surprised it took him so long, because I think Joe Aquini's game against guitar is actually underrated.

I thought he was like immense. And I know his artist, scored the goal, so he got most of the sort of plot-its and well-done to him. But Joe Aquini, one, did all the work on the goal, and then two was just massive in actually seeing that game out.

I think he drew like six fouls in 10 minutes, and he did a little bit of that again yesterday. But, you know, going back to those subs that weren't available, we also basically only brought three real eights on this roster, because Busio and Yule are mostly

guys who prefer to sit deep. and Roldon has been playing up in a front three for Seattle. So we brought three-eights, and then we started all three-eighths. So then it was also difficult to, because Acosta is actually now R-6, it was difficult to replace our central midfield and maintain that level of bite. And so Roldon came on for LeJet, so we still had the Williamson-A-Costa bite, but I think you lose a little bit with Roldon in the cage match. And then later on we make the Buzio swap and lose a lot in the cage match.

So, again, the roster limitations cropped up again tonight, yesterday. And we, in large part, because Kellan and Acosta and Miles Robinson just were not interested in letting that matter. Yeah. They were so massive, those two. Okay. Roldon Cross just misses Ardice and Hoppe in the 68th minute. So Roldon comes on. Roldon was good on the ball.

He was good on the ball again, I thought. Yeah, I mean, a lot of. of it was just him getting the ball on the right wing and then playing an early cross or an early like waist high ball. But those seem to be fairly effective, at least in this in this game state. Yeah. And this one, because I think the other ones will probably make the timeline as well because they were both close calls. But on this one, his cross actually was like in the path of the runners, like obviously just ahead of Sardaz and then just ahead of Hoppe on the far post. So all right, next slide.

69th minute, Ariola catches Salcedo in the back. So, Ariola, you know, can't score goals. Doesn't, isn't great in the attacking third. But boy,

does he work hard in the press, and it's effective. And he pokes it to, he pokes it away from Salcedo to Hoppe, and Hoppe is never going to pass the ball in this situation. He just, he dribbles across a little bit and has a shot at the near post. It looked to me like it was on frame or at least going to hit the post

and had Tala Talavera completely beat, but Aaraho heads it away. I'm not 100% sure it was on frame. I'm just saying what it looked like to me. So, and yeah, I thought it looked like it was going to be that Hesu's Ferrer banger from the weekend is what it looked like to me, top bins. But something that struck me as I was watching this is a mental comparison I make to like a Brendan Aronson, who's also very active in the press. and if that had been Aronson instead of Hoppe,

what I feel like we would have actually seen would have been that past Desardez, it would have had to have been immediate. As the ball was loose, as Hopi got there, he had a one-touch opportunity to sneak it into Zardes, who would have been alone eight yards out, but with his first touch not being that pass,

that window closed from their covering Mexican defender, and at that point in the shot, as far as I'm concerned, was at that point in the right point. I didn't notice that window opening and closing for Zardis there. It closed instantly. So yeah. But that's where I see. Brendan Aronson, I think, has that first time pass.

Like, that mental transition from the press to attack isn't for him shoot on site. It's very much like where all the pieces, where could this ball go right now. And I think that's just a Red Bull trait. Well, I think it's also a Brendan Aronson trait. That's what he dreams about at night. I don't know that for sure, just imagining it. So then 71st minute, it feels at this point that the U.S. is going to win the game, honestly. That's what it felt like to me.

And it was all in like transition and all off the press. Everything was just like Mexico getting a little bit sloppy. And then us actually being, I want to say like ruthless, ruthless in the fact that we would go forward. Certainly not ruthlessly efficient in actually converting those into shots that required saves or going into the goal. But ruthless about just like, let's go. We're not going to reset. We're not going to slow things down. Let's see if we can turn this into a chance.

So this next one is Robinson picks the ball up in our half and strides forward, 30, 40 yards, slips it to, I mean, it's a long ball from Mexico's back. I think Sands wins it. It falls to Robinson. He dribbles forward into like acres of space. Ariel crosses it after he receives it from Robinson. And Zardis tries something spectacular, you know, on the volley and misses. and it falls to Hoppe, who shows again that he just has ideas for attacking. He doesn't score, obviously, but he cuts Chaka Rodriguez from his right to his left foot

and then is able to get a shot off. It's only tipped out of bounds by desperately sliding at San Alvarez. I don't know. I don't know what would have happened if Alvarez hadn't been so on the spot, but that was another close one. Yeah, and again, we're showing that we can push Mexico to their absolute brink with this press because these are Mexico's, you know, roughly best players. And we're right there on the doorstep over and over. I know.

Well, no, I just, something I forgot to mention is that Salcedo came on for Hector Moreno, and that is a big difference when it comes to, like, breaking the press. Yeah, I knew that's where you're going when I said they're best players. So Moreno had some kind of knock in the first half, and I can't remember when he came off. I didn't put it in the timeline, but it was early. it was in the first half. But I broadly speaking agree with what you're saying. I just wanted to be fair to, you know, reality

because I did not mention Moreno's getting subbed off. 72nd minute we get the, you know, run-of-the-mill, Ector Arrera red card shout. He definitely cleated Williamson in the head hard. I don't think he intended to do it, but it doesn't matter, right? It's still a red card. No, I'm trying to think of like some kind of a graph that shows the height of the studs going into someone's body. Like, is there a curve?

Because if you go studs up into somebody's shin, you're getting sent off, into their knee you're getting sent off. But I guess if you get high enough, you can go studs up into the back of the skull. And that's fair play. That's just normal, normal run of the middle. It was almost the top of his skull, you know? I mean, his boot came down on the top of Williamson's head. How Ache Ache just continues to avoid getting sent off in these games is beyond me. But he did.

He got a yellow card. And 74th minute, U.S. keeps pounding on the door, a set piece from wide left. Acosta curls it in beautifully, foreshadowing. And Jazi gets contact with his chest and his shin. It just kind of, you know, dribbles over to Areola, who's coming in from the left, and Areola slams it off of D'Alavera from a foot away. So close to be dangerous.

Acosta's set pieces were so good, obviously. 76 minute, Gutierrez comes on for Dos Santos, and Rodolfo Pizarro comes on for Paneda. 77th minute, a big Mexico chance on it. And so I think those subs, actually shifted things a little bit. Mexico started to get back into the game. It felt like, okay, same old thing. We wore them down and we're going to just like close it down in the last 30 minutes. Well, no, no, no, no. Mexico got back in the game.

Shaka works, hoppy, and vines isn't much help, I didn't think, and whips a ball in for a scrum over Sands' prostrate body. So it's just body, people flying everywhere. Sand's kind of on the ground. It's scary. It ends with a corner kick. I think. There were a lot of moments in this game, even like long durations, where our defending felt like a hockey team on a penalty kill.

You know, like win it and dump it, dump the puck down ice. And this was like the classic case of like bodies just laying down in front of the goal, try to cover up the puck, whatever you can do. I mean, I think Hoppe was like lunging with his face to try to just intercept a shot just in case. Bit, bit scrambling. It's all bit scrambling. It was very scrambly. Seventy ninth minute, another U.S. chance.

Hoppy on the end of Williamson ball to the wing cuts in and over-dribbles looking for his shot. He keeps looking for that right-footed shot. He had some passing options at various points and his progression across the top of the box was never going to make a pass once again and then gets tackled. I will say, even as I sort of back-handedly criticize him,

I forgot to mention Hoppe, according to Instat, Hoppe accounted for 1.79 XG on the tournament, which is more than D.K. Orr's artists who are the closest competitors. And he created eight chances, which is more than the six created by a Leget, who was the second best. That's Sebastian Leggett for all of you in the back. So he was the danger man for the U.S. in this tournament. So it's two things, right? He was a danger man, but also the U.S. were not particularly dangerous.

in this tournament. You know, we won our, I mean, I mean, we weren't prolific dangerous. But that's not a knock on our five competitive, no, no, no, not at all. Our five competitive games, we've all finished one zero and it's not like we squandered a ton, a ton of chances.

Most of the time, those goals lined up pretty closely with our expected goals for the day. So it's hard to be like that excited about Hopi's numbers there when when the reality is we just weren't creating just a load of chance. Yeah, I guess I maybe there's another way to look at it,

which is to be more excited about what Hopi did in that context. Like he was creating chances off of like just taking the ball from the wing and cutting in and like hitting a spectacular pass, you know? Like he did that three times that I can think of off the top of my head just in the last two games. And he worked another thing, good thing about. about Hoppius, he just worked so hard. Like, he was pressing as hard as Areola was, as hard as Zardis was, getting all the way back in our box to defend. He's an angry defender, isn't he?

He's an angry chaser. He chases angry, which is good and bad. It doesn't always feel like he's necessarily following the defensive steam while he's angry chasing. But he's out there doing it. He's personally affronted that somebody else from the other team has the ball, and he's going to, he doesn't. Let's do some kind of dumb fouls every now and then. And this isn't, I'm certainly not trying to be condescending to what he did offensively or, or the work that he was putting in defensively.

Since we're talking about him, let's just sort of talk about September now. Because it's going to be really kind of interesting where he's positioned himself for the September window. He didn't play any minutes up top. So if we're thinking of him in that depth chart, it's hard to, I mean, we're definitely just sort of extrapolate. from what we saw from him on the wing. And then the wing depth chart is pretty crowded for a full-strength team, if everyone's healthy,

between Pulisic Rainauea and Aronson, who I think are considered the top four. And then Greg Burhalter favorite, Paul Areola, could be the fifth man in an extended camp. So the question becomes like this really bright spot of this tournament, Matthew Hoppe. Is he in two? Does he replace one of the guys that I just named? is he like a hybrid sixth winger slash third forward? Like what do you think his chances are in September? I really don't know. I really don't know because it's a great point.

I think we all sort of thought of Aronson as the fourth winger after that nation's league friendly against Costa Rica when he looked so good. And he also looked good in the spring too when he came in off the bench. But I think I think Aronson, Hoppe, I'm going to have to throw away in here too. Aronson Hoppe, Wea are sort of competing for two spots, maybe three spots, I guess. Then it wouldn't be a competition anymore. For an extended camp, right? And then, but then there's a, there's, you know, I think Conrad Delafonte is, I think

there's a, there's a non-zero chance that he breaks in to this conversation over the next couple months. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what we do with Matthew Hoppe, with a full strength. roster. I have no answer to that question. I don't either. I think that, again, I'm pretty sure that's a good thing, like, because I think the only choice that would actually, like, get people pretty upset would be, like, Ariola in and Hopi out come September.

Yeah. Which I don't think is impossible. Because even though he says, as you like to say, danger adjacent rather than actually dangerous, Arieola does a lot of other things well. He allows other people to, you know, he allows other people that'll look good. That's a tough decision. His pressing, I think, is he's still doing a ton of work. I know we just talked about that work Hoppy was doing. I think he was a little more disciplined in it.

You can even see things. It's hard to know without knowing what their actual assignments are, but there are definitely times where it looks like Hoppe's chasing has actually gotten him in trouble, even like in the early stages of the press where everyone should sort of be on the same song, where his angles are sort of poor. and it looks like he's supposed to be sealing off like the left side line when he's playing in that left half space and they get the ball out to that left side line easily and now the whole team has to like sprint 60 yards back to recover because Bello is one on two. Whereas if Hoppe just denies that pass in, Bello is protected. And that happens way less frequently on Ariola's right side.

So there are those tradeoffs. This is all just our long way of saying I have no idea how it will shake out in September because. Because I don't think anyone's going to be mad if Matthew Hoppe's on the call-up list in September. I think people will be mad if he's not. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a, there's a, there's definitely a, at least in the fans that I interact with, a sort of affinity for Hoppe that, that, that are, Ariola does not enjoy. They, I think part of it is they just enjoy the number of puns that are available to work off of. They're all bad. They're all, uh, even though they're, none of them really quite work.

Like, they're all, like, close to being good pun. It's almost like pun adjacent. He's a pun adjacent player. And I don't think any of them have ever actually come off. Wow. Shots fired in so many directions. Pun adjacent. I like that.

87th minute. Joe Keeney comes on for Ariola and Busio for Williamson. And immediately, I know you've been singing Joe Keeney's praises until your horse over there. But an immediately poor moment. from him after Acosta wins the ball. This is one of those like kind of superhuman moments from Acosta. He just plucks it out of the air. Like with, you know, and unlike Ector Herrera,

there is nobody for him to put his cleats into the head of. He just plugging the ball out of the air, turns and plays it to, to Joaquini. And then Joe Aquini plays a square pass that's kind of, it just looked like he wasn't, he was rattled and not quite ready for the moment. And, and Mexico goes going off the other way. luckily they were not very incisive in this moment, just like they weren't incisive. And a lot of moments in this game.

89th minute, I have to clock that Joe Keeney, poor moment. I had to do it. I know. It's funny that I'm like the Joe Aquini defender when I think prior to the tournament, I was making a very loud point that he has no goals, no assists in like a thousand minutes in the second division in France. Well, you know, we all change, don't we? 89th minute.

Vines goes up for an aerial challenge and heads it directly to an El-Tree player in the middle, El-Tri. Then he's 1v-1 with Tecateo, and Tecotito lifts across at the backpost for that Roldon penalty shout when Arara just sort of like tries to play it off of Roldon's hand. You know what I'm talking about? But I clocked that moment just to say, you know, Bella was surprisingly. good defensively and I thought you know vines is coming on he's fresh he's at least going to be as good as bellow and I don't think he was I think he was actually a little bit of a downgrade at least in terms of outcomes like things just kept going down his side of the field yeah and I think what you want when you put vines on the field is just like safety right like okay the the highs

won't be so high but we'll be safe here and that that didn't feel like it was the case yeah and And maybe that's just a bridge too far, and there is no way we can feel safe with any of our left backs against Mexico. But the outcomes, like you said, the outcomes actually felt less safe than when Bello was on the field. It's a good way to. In this game. This is, it's one, one match. Half a match each. A good moment from Joe Keeney in the 91st minute, early ball across from Roldon,

and Joe Keene comes back to it at the top of the box and cushions a very, like a perfect little layoff for Buccio. I like that, the quickness of thought and the sort of unselfishness there. And Busio takes a left-footed strike, and it's way over the goal. Yeah, shameful. I really liked, I'm joking, that was just a random Busio dig. I really liked, there was a pattern here of Roldon hitting this ball into the top of the box because he had one earlier to Zardez that didn't really amount to much. I think we still got a shot out off of it.

But it was like Roldon's first ball had sort of overplayed Zardaz and Hoppe's run. and his next two in looked like quarterbacks underthrowing a wide receiver intentionally. Like everyone was moving back and then he hit it like behind everyone in that space that was sort of clearing out by people driving forward

and so I could come back and get it. And I don't know if it was intentional for sure but he had two in a row, one to Zardaz who controlled it really well again against the grain of his reputation and then this one to Joaquini who very nicely, very efficiently set it up for Muzio.

Put that on Boussio's right foot and, you know, maybe we're talking about a 1-0 win in regulation. But on his left foot, I would not bet on him scoring from there. He had another one like that against guitar, right? A little bouncing volley attempt and I feel like the trajectory was identical. It went into space. He strikes it so beautifully with his right foot, but not with his left. And so, you know, that's not a totally uncommon. phenomenon among soccer players.

I've already talked about how good Acosta was. So the end of regulation comes. Let's start talking about extra time. There are fewer moments here, so bear with us. In the 91st and 93rd minutes, there's a Hopi chance with his left foot and a Funes Mori chance with his right foot on either end of the field.

Both were offside, I think. And I have the 91st minute chance for Hoppy, noted, just because Acosta tries the Olympico twice on the corner kick. Go straight for gold. Is that how you saw it too? It looked like you. Yes, I think it was intentional. First time it gets headed away at the near post.

The second time, he hits it into the side netting. Out of bounds, side netting. 95th minute, we get some nice stuff from Busio. He plays it to Joaquini after Acosta pockets, Guyardo, one of those sort of like, give me the ball tackles. from earlier that I mentioned earlier. And Acosta plays Boussio into space. Buccio slides it to Joe Keeney,

and he tries to cut it back across with his left foot as he's sliding and getting kind of pushed down. It gets covered up by Talavera, and I think his artist was a little late in arriving anyway. I don't think it was going to amount to anything. Nice, nice ball from Buzio. Nice ball from Buzio there. I got to give him some love because it was a bit of a degree of difficulty

kind of pass. Both Mexico defenders retreating and giving very little room to threat it. And he really put it in the only place he could to create any kind of danger out of it. He's a very technical tidy player. I mean, he had the, he brought that one ball down with his right foot

and then was fouled, I think, a little later than this. That was, I mean, impressive technical work. At this point in the game, people are cramping up, getting, like, stretched, you know, getting their hamstrings worked on. And there's just not a lot of, lot of action from for much of the first period of extra time it's it's pretty it's pretty rough i did notice in the 105th minute a little selfishness from hoppy busio collects a mexico clearance at the top of

zone 14 and slips it wide to hoppy and hoppy has a so on the right hoppy has a pretty bad shot from a bad angle when he could have just squared it to busio in the space between the edge of the box and the penalty marker busio complains this hoppy looks rueful sorry please. No, this was a, this like totally made me think of the 2019 games against Mexico where, and obviously we're in the 105th minute, so things are stretched here. But it was, this was off just a long ball from James Sands, I'm pretty sure, just lumps it up to Zardez, who doesn't even come close to challenging for it. But because Mexico are so far upfield when Sands has the ball, like the Mexico header goes to, goes straight to Busio, who's all by himself, and it's four on

four in like half of the field. And this is something that, again, we've been talking about, again, since 2019 of you don't have to pass through Mexico when they commit these numbers up. Just hit it up where they're not the strongest. Their defenders aren't the strongest players on their team. And take your chances with the numbers you have up there. And this should have been, I think, a much more dangerous situation, 4 v4 with all of that room.

And we settled for a bad shot. Again, our legs are pretty exhausted at this point. Yeah. honestly and Buccio agrees with me on that I wonder if Hoppie's got to be exhausted man We're at the 105th minute he's been running every

I'm not making excuses for him actually It's another roster construction construction issue Where it's like we're sitting on a sub at this point And Hopi can barely walk You're talking about guys cramping up This would have been a time to bring in that Excellent replacement level winger that we have Waiting for us but we don't have that

There were no good, Yeah, it's true. There were no good options after Joe Keeney had been brought in. And you could argue Joe Keeney's not even a great option as a winger, although he, as you have repeatedly mentioned, he did do well. If we'd had another winger, we could have done that. If we'd had another eight, it would have been rolled on out to the wing and the eight into the cage match expert in the midfield. But the guys just kept willing themselves through. Yeah, let's get to the second. half of extra time I have three items.

107th minute that Zardis chance with his left foot. Another sort of, what is it? Like thrown behind the receiver pass from Roldon from the right wing. So an early ball at the top of the box. Jazi collects it in about the same spot that Joe Keeney collected that other one that he laid off for Buccio. And instead of laying it off for anybody, he turns and takes a couple touches with his left foot and has one right at Talavera.

Okay, here's the goal. It starts with a pretty straightforward breakout from Sands to Busio to Joe Aquini. Joe Aquini is fouled by Alvarez in the open field. It did not look to me like Joe Keene was going to do anything with that ball, but he just got crunched by it's in Alvarez. I was finally catching up to the live broadcast here as I was watching on a slight delay,

and I think I finally got to also turn the audio on as my children had gone to sleep. And I think I could hear in the background, I think I could hear the commentator, correct me if I'm wrong, saying, like, Hopi's nowhere near this play. Like, he was just walking behind the play, not even in the screen. Like, we weren't sending anyone.

It was just Joaquini and Zardez, I think, like in the attack at that point. And totally, so it's just like a totally unnecessary foul. We've got no legs left. Wouldn't have surprised me if Joe Keene had just, like, taken it to the corner. Right. Just go straight for penalties.

but he got so he he got fouled and acosta takes the free kick pretty quickly and it's just a beauty of an in-swinger from the left channel i guess he'd say right on miles robinson's forehead he's actually being marked by it's an alvarez too so kind of a rough sequence for for number four for mexico who outside of that had a really good game i thought he's a he's an impressive player to me and Robinson rises and nods at home just textbook right underneath you know hits the ground about a foot from the goal line and bounces up into the net Talavera doesn't really have a chance he tries to take his shirt off but it's too tight as he's as he's celebrating the goal and it's one zero USA mobbed in the corner

scenes that's that's becoming our favorite corner I know it's a different stadium but that corner in particular. I think it's actually called the stanky light corner at this point. It was dubbed that in 2009, I think. But that was awesome, man. That was, what a moment. Are you sure that it was, I think that was a prepared, I think that was a rehearsed celebration, the fake, the fake jersey.

Oh, you think so? I think so. He was already smiling about it. He would have, I mean, if he wanted that shirt off, it would have been torn into shreds. He would have found a way. I suppose that's true. He's strong enough to pull the shirt off. I suppose.

Yeah. Waki's going to break that down. He will for sure get a real, real analysis on the... Yeah, I forgot to mention that Waki has a good breakdown of how annoying Matthew Hoppe is to play against, which is really, really good.

A lot of the videos focused on his face. Yeah, I mean, what should we say about this? We scored a lot of set pieces against Mexico. They need to learn to defend these set pieces. Because Acosta's set pieces are good. He should keep taking those. What else?

So we created more chances in this game than we did in the Nations League final. And again, it was almost entirely, almost entirely down to transition and the press and the counterpress. But those were productive. I mean, I think we're two and a half, roughly two XG on the day. And I don't think that's underselling it. I'm not sure how they scored Zardez is that he was flagged offside for. Not that we need to debate the single game XG, but like there were, you know, it matches the eye test. There were a lot, we were in quite a few times in the run of play via the aggressive defense.

Yeah, more chances than are the nation, more chances from the run of play than the Nation's League final. More chances than we created against Canada a week and a half ago, whenever that was. I think it's more chances than we got against Qatar too. for sure it definitely was guitar we only had the two chances in the second half where the decay save and the Zardez goal and Jamaica like I think it's fair to save more chances than we created against Jamaica

so soccer's a funny game man very much just a bunch of dudes again I think the 11 here was the exact given the guys we had here the exact to throw some guys out there who were going to be up for it and our guys were up for it most specifically

Kellan Acosta and Miles Robinson who deserve another mention for just like probably sharing the man of the match honors in this game. And Zardaz is getting a lot of love for the work he was doing in the press and because he was

cleaner on the ball than we usually expect from Zardis. So, you know, I do think it's fair to say the expectations for Zardaz on the ball are low. He definitely exceeded them in a way that is worth celebrating yesterday. But the amount of work they were doing in press was impressive and it was all of the front three so zardas definitely doing a ton of it uh but

hoppy and ariola also really important in that group to turn some of those sort of like nothing plays into dangerous chances for the u.s yep now we have to see which ones will get left out in september well you know speaking of oh let's let's let's do the last time line i'm i just want to say that in the 119th minute vines is too easily beaten down our left side again this is like right after the goal, which is similar to something that happened in the in the guitar game where he was beaten right after the goal for that one and created some danger. Nothing came of it, but it was a little bit of a nervy moment. And then we saw the game out.

Gold Cup chant. He actually got done against Jamaica at the end of the game soon, where he got spun super bad. And then Robbins then to block it on the end of my heck. Jamaica were like in, I mean, not in. They were in that like perfect cutback zone all by themselves because he was, Vines was totally taken out of the play there. It just made me think of it because similar pattern.

Three games in a row where right after we score, he nearly gives up. No. I don't think the Jamaica one was right after we scored since I think we scored early in that game, right? Was that the game we scored early? Oh, Bells. No. Well, I'll have to check it because somebody pointed out that it didn't make our timeline. Don't roll your eyes at me.

It didn't make our timeline. And I had thought that it did because I had watched that play a bunch of times. Like, oh, man, yet another bellow. or I'm sorry, you had another Miles heroic act of defense. Yeah, no, it was. It was definitely in the Jamaica game. I can't remember something happened

in the Qatar game. So anyway, two out of three, maybe three out of three of the last games. This happened. But let's not dwell on that. Let's be positive here. We are the Gold Cup champs. So since the year 2000,

we've won six Gold Cups and Mexico's won five. That's a very arbitrary time frame. Never mind that fact. more importantly FIFA rankings we got some FIFA ranking math going on and I believe according to Jordan's

nerdery like we are just behind Mexico either like 10th or 11th but more importantly like well within striking range of pot one with 14 World Cup qualifiers ahead of us which are an opportunity for tons of FIFA ranking points

and this is actually a huge deal. I mean, this is a big deal for eventually qualifying for and advancing out of the World Cup group stage. Yeah, because it means you could be in a group of life rather than a group of death. The absolute best team to be is the weakest team

in pot one. Yeah. No, it's not the, you want to be the best team in pot one, but this would be amazing for our for our group stage chances. Yeah, and Jordan, for those of you who don't, aren't tracking this stuff very closely. Jordan is at Nat Fan 9 on Twitter and he's been calculating

the likely FIFA rankings which come out August 12th meticulously since the beginning of the summer. So he's like he's pretty confident that he's got it right and that the U.S. is going to be 10th when those rankings come rankings come out. Mexico will be 9th. We're like quite a ways ahead of Germany now which seems a little odd but we'll take it. Don't don't drop points to North Macedonia in World Cup qualifying Germany. So we've covered... 171-1, Bells. I think since the Canada loss,

Greg Burhalter in the U.S. are 17, 1 and 1. Pretty good against a lot of easy games in there. But we're winning the one that matters most, which is beating Mexico. So we've covered a lot of the takeaways as we've gone here. But, you know, one thing with Robinson I wanted to ask you is, is it, you know, does his emergence reduce the need for a healthy John Brooks? I mean, yes, in the sense that Brooks was one of our nailed on, I mean, the nailed on centerback,

and it was a crapshoot, especially once Aaron Long went down. And because we still haven't seen Chris Richards in any extended time for the U.S., it was a crapshoot to see who was going to be number two. and McKenzie got the nod in Nations League and was acceptable and then shocking in sort of not equal measure, but shocking twice against Mexico in ways that make you nervous about what that might mean for World Cup qualifying. The hope is that he'll sort of settle that down and it won't be an issue, but it definitely was not a, McKenzie didn't settle the question, we'll say,

of who our non-John Brooks centerback was going to be. and I think now we definitely have Miles Robinson as one of our non-John Brooks centerbacks who I don't think anyone will be nervous about starting World Cup qualifier. It doesn't mean that he won't make mistakes over however many minutes he sees in qualifying, but he's going to play a big part in qualifying. And again, his name on the starting lineup doesn't make me squirm at all. Yeah. Well, I mean, the issue with Brooks is we have.

some reason to worry that he will always be healthy. He had to get a good year health-wise last season. But, you know, if you remember, he was missing with injury in the key months of the last qualifying campaign in 2017. So, you know, it's been, I think, a thought that many of us have had over the past year or so is, you know, boy, I hope Brooks stays healthy, because without him, we're in big trouble. And it does feel like that's less of a concern now. Well, again, even if it means we can rotate him for these windows, because maybe part of the reason he was able to stay healthy is because he wasn't jetting across the Atlantic for World Cup qualifying games

every couple of months. Yeah, we could. So if we can just ease that load, I mean, I'm feeling good. I feel good about those three in particular. Brooks, Richards, and Robinson, and I know Richards is still a bit of sight unseen, but I just think the only thing he's missing that Robinson now has is that Robinson got his opportunity and got to show what he has. And I'm expecting that Richards will be able to do the same at the same or higher level.

And I think having at least three of those guys with four options for number four who are also were feeling okay about puts us in a pretty good place. Yeah. And I agree with you that McKenzie didn't settle the spot. There's a, there's, I mean, there's reason to be optimistic that he will become a utterly dependable centerback, you know, one who like we could write in pen on the team sheet or on the roster,

but he's not quite there yet. He's just a little too, not just in that Nation's League final against Mexico, but in his games in Belgium. He's just a little too mistake prone. And he doesn't have elite lateral quickness and he isn't elite in the air. He's slightly undersized.

And so there's enough, there are enough question marks there that he's not, I don't think he's on the level of a Robinson or Richards for me. And I, and frankly, I'd be more comfortable with Zimmerman than McKenzie right this second. Right this second. That's very much subject to change. But no, I like those three. Again, it's all conjecture about Richards and his place in the group.

It very much could be Alexei Lalas having the last laugh when Richards is left out of the 23 entirely come September. You know, Richard's just played in Byron's friendly. They've got the Super Cup, and I think they have a Pocall match coming up, and they'll have the Super Cup coming up soon. So I wouldn't surprise me to see him get some competitive minutes for Bayern Munich. Seems like that should be enough to get yourself into a camp. And there's still a month left in the transfer window, or, you know, a month minus two days.

So that move to that loan to Hoffenheim could still very much materialize. Yeah, for anyone keeping track of the calendar, it's probable that the September roster will be finalized. I mean, the September roster will definitely be finalized before the August 31st transfer window closes in the Bundesliga. So if it is a late transfer for Richards, it would happen after we already know who's coming in September. But that's why it's important that even if he doesn't transfer,

he's healthy, he's playing games for Byron now. I was worried that he would be injured, would miss sort of these games, you know the transfer would be up in the air and he wouldn't have played at all at that point like I could see him being left out of December September camp since he doesn't have a long track record with Berhalter but the fact that he's going to be I'm expecting him to be playing rotational minutes for Byron Munich that again I think that's going to be good for an invite yeah well we would we would I would like to do an episode about Ocho rotation you know over the next few weeks where we really get into like

how is this September window going to play out? We don't know how it's going to play out, but we can talk about some of the possibilities. And, you know, when you talk about Brooks, maybe Brooks, we don't want Brooks to travel as much. Maybe we just fly him down to San Salvador for that game against El Salvador. And then, you know, set him up at an Airbnb

at the border of El Salvador and Honduras for the week. And then, you know, he just leaves, He just lets the Canada friendly in Nashville happen without him. And then he shows up in San Pedro Sula for the Honduras match. You know, there's a lot of ways to, there's a lot of ways to skin this cat. I love the idea of leaving like a base of players who don't travel between games. I have no idea what that does for for team culture.

But as far as like logistics and keeping people fresh, just being like, all right, you four are going to play in the first home, like when we have two home games, you're going to play in the first home game. You're not going to go anywhere. And then we'll just see you when we come back for game two. Game three. So that's the centerback situation.

Very, very positive news, I think, with Miles Robinson's performance. Let's talk about the second six. Second six is sorted, huh? Like, it's Kalina Costa. The only reason it's not Galan Acosta is because you might choose to throw Kelan Acosta in as your first six and move Tyler Adams into one of your dual eight also with Weston McKinney, which I'm not opposed to at all, especially if Eunice Musa is not available in the September window. Which he very well may not be. I mean, that's the smart money right now. He won't be, right?

Based on a report of an injury, right? That was going to keep him out four to six weeks, and that was last week. So, yeah, it's going to be, it'll be tight. And it just starts to feel like we'll be okay if he's not. And it could be an Acosta Adams-McKennie midfield, which takes us all the way back to November, 2017 in our friendly against Portugal. We've come full circle here. It's so crazy. I mean, that he was sent home from a January camp, and now he's, now he's, I'd be even happy with like Adams is the six and it cost is one of the eights. You know, I'd be fine with that.

Triple pivot. It's a triple pivot, Bells. I mean, he's a little bit gold dangerous, a little bit more gold dangerous than Adams. We've talked about Hoppy. We've talked about Bellow. I feel like it's kind of hard to say who should be the left back, who's brought in this upcoming window between him and Vines. I'm assuming Anthony Robinson will be there.

And what else? What else should we discuss? Anything? I mean, Pot 1 Bells were almost locked on for Pot 1. if we can if we can just continue never losing soccer games through this world cup qualifying campaign we're a top eight team in the country in the world you said after that uh or yeah right before that can't the second canada match the one that we had to win uh i think it was in orlando that you didn't think beralter would change like would would make the change from that that creamy 442

you. I didn't. I didn't think you would. Donald Norman wrote a really well thought out piece on why he eventually landed on we should keep Burrhalter. Because after that Canada loss, you know, there was discussion about that. And it was basically, you know, I don't want to put words into his mouth, but what I kind of read it as coming down to was we don't necessarily know that anybody else would be able to do it better. So we'd be giving up Burrhalter for an unknown. And instead, it was better. It was better to to just hold tight and hope that Burrhalter figured it out. And my response was, all right, so you're basically saying he just needs to call up a bunch of different players than he's been calling up and change all of the ways that he's been asking

those players to play for the last year, which sounds to me an awful lot like you may as well just hire another coach. Like you've got to change your players, you've got to change your tactics. So you could either dump Burhalter and bring in a guy who would definitely do that or cross your fingers and hope that Burrhalter figures that. out and Donald was saying, well, I actually kind of think it would be better to just cross your fingers. And lo and behold, we crossed our fingers and Berhalter has called in a bunch of different players and he's changed the way that he asked them to play and we are winning some soccer

games. Yeah, it's remarkable. We weren't calling for him to be fired just to be clear to everybody who's sort of a more recent listener than that. But we were really frustrated with that first, with that first, especially with that first Canada game. And I don't think, The interesting thing is I don't think Burrhalter would see it. He wouldn't describe it this way if he were. I mean, I've never seen him describe it this way. Like that was a sort of pivotal moment for him as a coach. I've never heard him say it that way.

But it sure appears that way. Like he did change. He didn't completely change. He's sort of remained committed to that ball playing six and tried to force Jackson Ewell into the lineup and tried to force. You could even argue he's tried to force Gianluca Buse. into this lineup for the same reasons. Will Trapp, Michael Bradley originally.

But in the two games that have mattered the most since then, he's abandoned it almost completely, or just said, all right, well, I'll make sure that we have somebody in there who can dominate in the space, and whatever passing I can get from them,

I'll take his bonus. And again, it's not as though Acosta's passing has been any worse than any of the more nominal playmaking. sixes. So we haven't really lost anything there and we've gained tremendously, I think, in what we've been able to do in other ways of generating goals. But I'd totally say, I mean, it's absolutely fair to say that Burrhalter has, I think, fixed it. I think the Jackson Yule will start against Honduras and then, again, his inclusion in the Gold Cup roster inexplicably with

Jonathan Lewis, I'd assume those aren't going to carry over in September. We're talking about who's a September call-ups might be. So he's, I think Burr-Hawks. Halter has fixed it. And you could, I think you could say he silenced his critics and he's kind of done it in the way of like giving some of the critics what they wanted. Like he's, he's done that. But I'm happy. Like in that sense, I'm thrilled to be silenced to be like, oh, right. There's literally nothing wrong with what we're doing at this point.

This is fantastic. Yeah, we're not doing enough to disorganize the opponent with the ball. But maybe that's the, maybe that's part of the adjustment is like we're slow, we're gradually giving up on that as a. as sort of like the main thing we're trying to do. And I have to shout out Matt Hartman. He's saying a long time ago, we should just, we have players who understand how to press, a lot of them play in the Bundesliga. Why don't we just come out and smash people in the mouth and, you know, dispense with

all this fancy Nancy nonsense. And then win, you know, win chances in score goals and transition. It does feel like Berthelter is moving in that direction. not he's not 100% there, but he's moving there. And like you said, I don't think he'll ever say we're abandoning possession. And I don't think you should. I think you should, just like when people are saying, you know, we have to choose between the possession and the pressing.

You don't necessarily have to do that. You can try to get goals from multiple streams. So I just feel like we can continue to fine tune whatever possession we're capable of. and work to create chances that way, but definitely don't play against what our talent pool is very good at. And for everyone who's on board, very on board with Giazzi Zardez,

as potentially being like our starting striker, like this is, yesterday is the perfect game for him. That's the game plan if you want to play Giazzi Zardez as your starting striker. Yeah. 36% possession, but all over the field,

uh, being an absolute nuisance. and turning that into a couple of XG in a night. Well, the thing about possession is, like, going back to our conversation about Mexico earlier, I really do think it's about the players and the culture of, you know, the soccer culture in your nation.

So, like, we have players who can possess the ball, you know, like, we have a bunch of those. And it just doesn't feel like that needs to be the point of the whole scheme. You know, it'll, it'll happen if it happens if you're able to, if you're able to do it. Even if you're a pressing team. I mean, R.B. Leipzig ends up knocking the ball around a lot, a lot of the times against weaker opponents. We're going to end up knocking the ball around too.

So that's my thought on that. Yep. The red bullification of the U.S. men's national team. Well, there's more to say about the pool and about September, but for now, let's just leave it this. Good time to be a U.S. men's national team fan. Thanks for listening to us. We'll see you.