Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #223: USA v Jamaica recap (WCQ8)

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

Weah, Antonio, goalkeeping minutiae, MMA midfield alternatives, a bad field, a bit of a wilt, and a 1-1 draw in Jamaica. Lots to talk about it turns out.support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedjoin the Discord: https://discord.gg/X6tfzkM8XU buy our merch: https://my-store-11446477.creator-spring.com/drop us a question at this link and we’ll try to answer it: https://forms.gle/vEatDVE6wsMzekep8 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. Well, the World Cup qualification campaign for the U.S. men will stay interesting thanks to the results of Tuesday's matches, including our 1-1 draw with Jamaica and Kingston, which of course will be our primary topic of conversation today. Greg, how you doing? Bells, I am focused on that topic of conversation, but I'm exceedingly nervous about what's going on down in Panama. man panama that's like the big story of the window i mean if you set aside mexico's a sad journey from satsinati to edmonton but like there two come from behind victories over honduras and el salvador uh they're now just a point behind us feel like a team of destiny down there don't they it will definitely come off that way if they managed to finish third in this campaign which is on the table that come from behind against

Honduras was, I think I saw a Paul Carr tweet that that is the first time ever a team has gone into 75th minute down to zero and an away World Cup qualifier and won. No, that wasn't from Paul Carr, it was from John Arnold's. There we go. We've got to get that credit, right? I thought it was even more than that. And I'm not going to fact check it. But I thought it was the first time literally in any situation that a team came back from two down. to win a World Cup qualifier, not just 75th minute on,

but maybe that qualification stayed on there. Yeah. Well, it's, anyway, exceedingly rare and not a result that helps us at all. Yeah, we really need Honduras to tighten things up in the second halfs of soccer games. Right. I guess Honduras giveth, Honduras taketh away.

So with eight of 14 matches played in the, octagonal. We are second in the table now behind Canada who beat Mexico and Edmonton a couple hours after our match last night. So we'd qualify for the World Cup if this were the end of qualifying, but we've got six matches left. And like I said, Panama and of course Mexico are only one point behind us. And for those of you who aren't following this very closely, we really, really, really don't want to finish fourth because that would put us in a playoff. We want to finish in the top three in the table. So we're rooting for a Panamanian collapse, I think. basically.

No, I mean, I'm rooting for Mexico collapse, to be quite honest. And that could happen. Like in the next window, Panama play at the Azteca, I believe third, third match day of that window. They also play at Costa Rica. So Panama could very easily stumble and lose sort of all this magic because they have, they still have to play at Mexico, at the United States, at Costa Rica. And I believe at Canada. No, they already played at Canada. They lost 401.

They have Canada at home. Yeah. So they have these tough games left that, you know, so some of this, some of this, you know, table order is a consequence of just chronology and when you play teams. Like, for example, Mexico having zero points this window. Well, they played probably their two toughest games of the campaign in one window playing at the U.S. and then at a very good Canada. So, you know, some of these things are just sort of a fluke of timing. But if Panama go into the Aztec and next window and steal those points, if they pull that off,

Like let's say Mexico are imploding after this window psychologically Suddenly it would be like the math would shift and we would suddenly be like we want Panama to keep winning and we want Mexico to collapse Yeah Yeah, I mean I'd be I think I'd be okay with that I'm always kind of I'm I have a little bit of the land and Donovan Mexico is my other team just because I want them to be good because it's good for us But I know that doesn't fly with a lot of the a lot of the fan base Well, I wanted to do good

I wanted to do well because I have the Mexican heritage as well. But like there's also a part of me that just has to enjoy like that level of collapse. Like there's just almost like this entertainment. And it's not just shot in Florida. Like even watching the U.S. collapse in 2018 when it's over, you're just like, well, good for Honduras. Good for Panama to be playing in the World Cup or being in a playoff to play in the World Cup. Like there's just that element of like, we didn't deserve it.

So, you know, in 24th. when we beat Panama to send me like I absolutely wanted us to lose to Panama in that game to deny Mexico their world's got birth because it's like you don't deserve it if you're that big of a favorite if you're that much of regional power and you are stumbling that badly like no take a break take a cycle off and get your stuff together I guess I kind of see the the desire for justice in that I mean Panama's panama's got just let's just run through I was going to save this for the end of the episode I'm sorry talking about already let's let's Let's do it.

Let's just do it. Panama's got in the next window. So the January window, Panama has Costa Rica away, Jamaica home, and Mexico away, like you mentioned. That's going to be, those three games are absolutely pivotal for both Panama and the U.S. assuming we don't see a continuing Mexican collapse. And then the U.S., of course, plays El Salvador at home, Canada away, and Honduras at home. a lot everything sort of depends if we're thinking of it as a USA versus Panama thing which I still am everything rides on that window pretty much that that window and then obviously we have Panama at home

in the March window and I think you know even just the idea of that being like a must win game for us is scary right like you just don't want to play a one-off game sort of for everything no thank you so so yes and Jamaica is a different team I think a different team I think a different team just by having Mikhail Antonio, right? Like the goal he scored in the first match day of this window was just an outrageous individual goal. We'll obviously touch on the goal that he scored against us in this game and just sort of the menace that he was on the field where we, I mentioned this in the discord ahead

of the game. I was like Jamaica aren't really creating much, but Mikhail Antonio can score a goal with no support whatsoever. And that's going to be tough for every team in the Ocho. So then the big question becomes, is he going to keep coming into these camps? Like, is he going to come into that camp in January? He's got to come to the January 1 because they'll still be alive. Like, if they, like, totally go belly up in January and they're eliminated mathematically,

then maybe he's saying, sorry, guys, like, I'm not coming for these exhibitions in March. But I think with still some chance of playing your way into it. And in that Panama game, again, anyone who's chasing them, that's a pivotal game. If they win that game. Oh, yeah. that's a big swing if they can win in Panama. So in Panama weren't outstanding. We played them in Panama City and they weren't excellent.

So it's not like they're just playing this outrageous high-level stuff. So if I'm Jamaica, I'm still thinking you've got to shout here. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, even in the Honduras comeback, Honduras, you know, really fumbled that away. Keystone stuff, right? Like Keystone cop stuff. So, yes, I know that we've just shifted this to actually becoming a Panama podcast. We're going to talk about Panama for the next hour and a half.

But it is very, like, I guess I'm just saying, like, as much as they've been a charmed team so far, it's totally possible they have a one-point window in January. Wait, you don't want to hear about my list of, like, winger options for Panama from the U-20 pool? Yeah. So you're still relatively bearish on Panama, I gather. Like they're not going to keep up this tear of results. Yeah, that's what I would say. I'd say that's unlikely.

Even just getting through the January window, I think they're going to be pretty scathed after January. Yeah, hopefully scathed to the tune of zero points. And we get that big win in Canada. That game is marked on my calendar for sure. A win in Canada and we're in. A win in Canada's gravy. I want seven points next window. Seven points and we're cruising still. Well, I'm 100% expecting wins over El Salvador and Honduras at home. So I think, you know, I really want to beat Canada. Nine point window, baby.

I feel like everyone's, everyone, we were kind of all rooting for Canada as this underdog. And now we've totally turned on them. Everyone but Waki. Waki hated Canada from the start, right? I, yeah, I would put myself sort of on the continuum. I'd be a little closer to Wachia on that. Okay. Just an irrational dislike of Canada. I'm calling it irrational. Don't try to rationalize it. Yeah, I don't like Canada at all.

I don't want, I mean, I'm glad that they're good for the region, but I want to beat them badly. And it does bother me a little bit that they beat Mexico right after we did. I didn't quite hear. Did you say, I don't like Canada at all, or did you say I don't like Canadians? at all. Oh, I do like Canadians. And I'm choosing to believe you said you don't like Canadians,

just generally. I find Canadians delightful by and large. All right, let's talk about our 11 Americans who started against panel. Are we ready to be done with the Ocho Math real quick or in touch on it just as needed the rest of the way?

Yes. Okay, so the lineup for the U.S. was Zach Steffin and the goal. DeAndre Yedlin, Walker Zimmerman, Chris Richards and Anthony Robinson. and across the back line, Tyler Adams, Eunice Musa, and Jin Luca Busio as the midfield, and then the same front three we started against Mexico, Tim Wea, Ricardo Pepe, and Brendan Aronson. What did you think of the lineup?

So, I mean, I still would have preferred that Matt Turner start this game, but we already knew that wasn't going to happen. Burhalter said in the press conference, he'd already tipped his hand that it was Stefan. I would have preferred John Brooks over Chris Richards, but John Brooks was not in camp. So to replace Miles Robinson, I think Chris Richards was the correct choice out of the guys in camp. I still think McKenzie is a little too weak in the air going up against a Jamaica team. I also just think Richards is better than McKenzie, so that checks out for me. The Boozio replacement for McKinney, again, it kind of felt like names out of a hat. It was curious to see how he would do

in that role, which I'm sure we will touch on. And the front three made sense. Burhalter with little gamesmanship talking about pool sick would. was like fit to start. I was actually really hoping that that was true because I wanted to see Poulosic get as much of a run out as possible and that meant we could only play him for the first half, fine, but get 45 out. Turns out he was not fit to start and that was a ruse.

So that front three makes sense to me. Or, you know, it could be a ruse when he said it after the game that he wasn't ready to start, you know. Choose your ruse. What about you? Yeah, I agree with all that. I think I was very curious to see Busio play in that role. I had my misgivings, of course.

And like you, I thought Richards was the obvious choice to partner with Zimmerman. I thought Richards played pretty well, for the most part. The handball shout, notwithstanding. Yeah, I'd probably agree with that. I mean, we'll get into the centerback performance and sort of what they did well, what they may have left on the table that, again, And maybe we're getting all into like hypotheticals about what maybe a John Brooks could have offered. But yeah, I mean, for the guys in camp, this is a solid team.

This is a solid group. Yeah. No, no major problems with the lineup. Andre Blake was the goalkeeper for Jamaica, of course. And then the back line was Javon Brown, Damian Lowe, Liam Moore, and Kumar Lawrence from right to left. The midfield was Javon Watson, 38-year-old Javon Watson, for the record. Devon Williams and Lamar Walker And then the front line was two very good players

And one not so good player Leon Bailey Michael Antonio and Bobby Reed Bobby de Cordova Reed We knew Antonio was going to be a problem You know he came on like you mentioned earlier He came on as a sub against El Salvador and scored a goal Almost immediately that individual run from midfield

and he was obviously the focal point of Jamaica's entire approach last night. Yeah, against El Salvador, as far as I know, that was the only open play shot Jamaica took from inside the 18, ironically. Like they had five shots in the game and most of them were just long range. Hopeful efforts, again, a bit ironic, given what happened last night. But yeah, they just didn't look like a team that was going to create a lot as a team. going to have a bunch of fluid buildups that, you know, carve us up. And I think that's basically what played out. I thought overall defensively, we were very sound. But let's get into the chronology and see just how often, or if we ever were, carved up. Right. Okay. So I'm trying to be more

disciplined and shorthand some of this stuff in the timeline because I really went ballistic last night. But the first 10 minutes of the game, I thought were fine but sloppy for the U.S. A lot of missed connections. There were misconnections throughout the game, just a general sloppiness. And I guess we can chalk that up to the field. Everybody was talking about it. But anyway, we had a missed Aronson-Anon-Antony connection on the left wing in the fourth minute, a Musa giveaway, and a missed way to peppy connection in the fifth minute,

a Zimmerman-Long ball, just kind of to no one. over the end line in the sixth minute and then I missed Yedland to Pepecky connection in the seventh minute. In the eighth minute, Wea calls for the ball from Eunice. It's one of the few times where I noticed actually people talking to each other

that you could hear in the stadium and gets it lofted to his feet. He turns very nicely and goes, but then takes a poor touch and loses his advantage and dribbles over the end line. So, yeah, the field did play a role in this, but there was a distinct lack of sharpness right from the general.

jump that carried over for most of the game. Yeah, I absolutely think that was a huge part of it. And where I saw it come into play the most would, was actually in the play of the half space merchants. So Aronson and Wea, I think with the way Jamaica were manmarking our center mids, right? Like they were touch tight. They'd get touch tight on all three of our center mids,

which means that the next, and they're athletic. These are athletic players. This isn't Mexico where they're going to come upfield, get touch tight, and then there's space to play behind them. Like, this is Jamaica picking, up pressure at midfield, so a really compact block and stay in touch tight on the center

mids around that sort of middle third, just a different, it's going to play out totally different than Mexico, right? So now for me, what I'm looking for is if the center mids are totally marked out of that play, can you pass into the next line? You can't just float a ball up over because there's no space like against Mexico to float that ball forward. You're going to have to find feet. And we did actually find the feet of our half-space merchants early on pretty well.

and I don't know if this is a field, but they're receiving in tight spaces, right? They're receiving with defenders on all sides of them, and they took really safe touches. And I feel like the field played into this. Like tons of their touches were like four or five yards backwards just to keep to make sure they didn't like lose it. And then we would just have to play backward and reset.

So even though we were finding them a little bit, not as much as I would have wanted, they weren't able to get much joy because so much of their energy went into just not, losing the ball that we would just have to start over and recirculate anyway. So I thought that was a running theme. And I also wonder if part of that might have been fatigue. But the fact that we were doing it even from the beginning of the game, I think mostly

it's sort of just that field and just not wanting to give the ball away cheaply. Yeah. I noticed it with Pepey where, you know, he is sort of a similar thing. He had a hard time receiving the ball. And whenever there was a, there was like a close one with one of the centerbacks, at least the first three or four of the game. He lost. He lost the duel. I don't know if you call that a duel or not, but like it just got like taken right off his foot or the other guy would get there right before him. And, you know, that was a little bit of a factor too. I thought peppy hat was

good in combination in this game in the first half, but there were several times where he just kind of got little brothered. Yeah, there was a there was a theme and Jamaica's going to little brother us more than Mexico, I think, at this point. But, you know, we saw this, that those field issues cropping up with like Robinson, just missing, misplaying the ball badly, more so than maybe you'd even expect if you're not high on Robinson's technical abilities at this point. But it was definitely a theme of the field being

something that we had to contend with. Right. Well, we can talk a little bit more about like, you know, should we have prepared better for that? But let's go to the goal. Comes in the 11th minute. I'm going to give the long build up here. It starts with a ball up the left side.

from Anthony to Aronson, and Brennan Aronson settles it and squares his guy up from the left side of the box, but then loses it. Just loses the ball. He presses, gets it back, passes it to Pepey, kind of missed connection, not sure exactly who to blame there between the two of them. Hey, real quick, I want to throw this in there too. Interestingly, when Aronson originally lost that ball from Anthony and presses to get it back, Tim Waya had read the loose touches, and he was, that's why he came over there. He was all the way over to help win it back with Aronson. So we had like two men at the point of, at the point of the ball. And that contributed to us winning that ball back.

And contributes to Yway as over on that side of the field. Well, yeah, I guess we had both half-space merchants in the same half-space, setting up shop in the same bazaar. So Pepe can't quite get to that pass from Aronson. But we keep them pen back because Adams and Pepew win the ball back, and it gets recirculated around the Jamaica box. to Richards, to Chris Richards, who plays a nice little disguise pass to Busio

in a little pocket of space who one touches to Wea, who then squares up and attacks the goal with a pass to Pepe and a run right past, and Pepe just gets his foot to it to lay it into Wea's path, and Wea takes a long touch around some pretty poor defending from Bobby Reed, seems like to me, swims around him, and right as he hits it from a tight angle with his left foot, the ball skips up off the ground,

He just tomahawks it off the far post. Kind of like with a little bit of top spin, a little bit of side spin. Quite a finish. Didn't put his laces through it, but he spun it well over Andre Blake's shoulder and kind of froze him to the spot. 1-0 USA.

You must have been happy with that one. Yeah, Tim Way is the number one fan. I probably can't even claim that anymore. I'm sure he's got quite the following at this point. It was gorgeous, right? And it was so many things that I love about that play. I'll skip over all of the counter pressing and aggressiveness to win the ball. That is also cool.

But that little Richards pass, I just love because, you know, you go back to the Canada game. And we were so unwilling to make those little passes because on its face, like that pass doesn't look like it's going to accomplish anything. Like, I've freeze framed it. And I've got to still, I'll share with the Discord. But Chris Richards map of the field there, like, there's nothing promising. There's no attack that he's trying to salvage by doing that. it's very much just like a, let's just test what happens. If this ball goes into Busio, if there's nothing,

Busio can recirculate it, but let's just get this ball to Busio and see how Jamaica reacts to that. And so the ball goes into Busio. It's like a five-yard pass. It's a nothing pass. But Busio's defender comes up to commit to him. And Busio could do the same thing. Like he could recirculate it there too if you wanted,

but he can also hit it into Pepe, who just has a little bit of space, not a lot. So we do that instead. And now, like, we've taken that center midfield out of the place, who went up to Busio and now another defender rushes up to Wea as though that's going to fluster Tim Wea and it might fluster some of the other players that we might play

in that position in certain games but Tim Wea is a really good attacking piece and he gets that player to commit and still makes the path beyond him and now because that defender's committed, Wea can one two around him and gets it like uses that guy's momentum against him. Great little

combination from Pepe and Wea is now running downhill and we still don't have like a great goal scoring chance yet because his way as running downhill, but he's still like numbers, I think it's 1 v2, right, as he gets that ball, one, 1 v. 1 and a half. So it still takes an excellent individual play. Even after all these little quality moments, it still takes this excellent individual execution from Timway had to score the goal. And this is like the whole reason that, uh, I'm so reluctant to like start the underappreciated guys who defend really well and like put in all his work rates because

like, that's great, but that's not what we need to unlock teams on the road in Kanka Kaff. Like, we need those things usually. But what we've always been missing is this little bit of quality from Tim Wea that can turn like a not goal scoring situation into a goal for the United States. So that's such like a relief. And you have to have these things to overcome little adversity moments and little variance moments that we'll get to at the 23rd minute to get results on the road in Kanka Kav. So the whole game for the U.S. wasn't pretty, but getting this one moment of excellence

with three or four players combined to start it, and then a really brilliant finish from Tim Wea to create his chance and to finish it. Just a huge, huge shift in what the U.S. are capable of. Yeah, it's a good point about how hard soccer is, really, that, like, you know, even after all those nice little moments. And I think the Richards, I think the Richards past, you know, I'm kind of a Chris Richards guy,

but I think that that little pass is, I don't know if we could get that from most of our centerbacks, you know, most of the centerbacks in our pool. It's not much, but it's something. It's a choice. It's like this choice, right?

It's not just the technical execution. It's like the choice to do that instead of just being like, oh, I'm facing Walker Zimmerman. I'll just play it to him. There's not, you know, like, we keep the ball moving and let's go. It's that little choice to be like, maybe we can penetrate here. Right.

and even after all those moments, you still need, like, I don't know, wonder strike is a little strong, but that's a pretty remarkable hit on goal to beat Andre Blake. So 14th minute, Robinson, I have Robinson not sharp clocked.

He loses the ball after receiving a good Zimmerman diagonal. It's kind of dummied by Brennan Aronson. And you mentioned this earlier, but Anthony did not get comfortable in this game. He was pretty good. defensively, in my opinion, but really kind of a mess when he got on the ball. And he got on the ball a lot in open space in the second half. Yeah, I think that's mostly fair. I think he had a couple of good interactions with Brendan Aronson, but a lot of the interactions would eventually fail. And

usually it was like Robinson's touch that let him down. I do want to comment on that ball from Zimmerman because that German diagonal was like a restart after Tim or Tyler Adams got fouled on the sideline. That was very John Brooksish. That was one of his only good like long passes that would make you be like, oh, maybe we don't need Brooks after all. But that was like the one. Yeah. So then you come back to a picture of John Brooks hanging in your bedroom. We get a good 16th minute.

So another, this is the other sort of shining. moment of the game for the for for the u.s i thought we get a good entry pass from yedlin to peppy um yedlin on the right touchline plays it into peppy's feet and peppy just clips a rainbow into the corner for wea and way this is i know you're going to agree with me on this but this is really nice from waya to you know the ball's the ball comes down at pretty much like a right angle from the ground and bounces once and then right off, like he takes it on the half folly without even taking a touch from the end line and swings it across the penalty area.

And Ricardo Pepe meets it so well, so well first time and just thrashes it into the ground and it's blocked by, I think, Javon Brown, the right back as Blake dives to his right. But it was a, and then Aronson gathers the rebound and takes a shot that didn't look quite as imposing. But there's a really good chance. It's like very close to being two zero at this point.

Thanks to Tim Wea again. And, you know, Ricardo Pepi, involved in both of those moves too. Yeah, that was another fun, just moment of technique from both, both Wea and Pepe. Where it's, that's how beautiful soccer can be, right? Like that fluidity of motion. So just something that you can enjoy while you're watching.

and something that almost led to a two zero lead. And I was thinking at that point, I'm like, oh, we're going to get another goal and we're going to run these guys. You know, it's the new era. The new era is continuing and expanding. And, you know, that's just how my mind and my heart work. But it was not to be.

I don't think you're alone there. Like, it felt like we were better. It felt like we were getting the looks. And I don't think that it's wrong that we are better. Like, we are definitely a better team. And Jamaica, through this qualifying campaign, have not been super, like, resistant. They haven't been great at shutting things down. They're, like, their lines haven't been terribly organized.

There have been openings. And I think they actually did a pretty good job in this game, actually, of closing those things down. Like, I do think they were pretty tight, and I think they were pretty compact. That's not to say they were perfect, and we couldn't have exploited them a little bit more. but overall, like, it wasn't nearly as ragged as it was in the U.S. when they were playing. Right, right. Well, we didn't really exploit them anymore after this other than, you know,

I guess Buccio's, you know, Buccio's hit from distance. But we had a pretty good stretch of play from the goal, from Ways' goal to about the 20th minute or so. And the last action I clocked is a sharp little combination for Bousio and Pepi, and then Boussoe kind of plays a through ball to nobody from near the top of the box. The 21st minute we get a Damien Lowe studsy challenge on Aronson and then a pretty poor free kick from Jean-Luca Bousio that Karam's out of bounds off of Wea, who is just closer than the closest defender to Bousio.

And then in the 22nd minute we get the goal for Jamaica. It is... So on the ensuing goal, kick after after that Buccio free kick. Zimmerman heads it all the way back to Blake. Zimmerman was winning everything in the air.

Blake then kicks it again and Zimmerman wins the duel again over Antonio's head, but he heads it short just over the heads of Adams and Musa to Devon Williams who heads it right back to Antonio. Now Antonio is in a little pocket of space to turn and go because Zimmerman has retreated

after the aerial duel and Adams. if we're nitpicking is a little flat-footed here. It's pretty bang-bang-bang in his defense. But this is, I know you're going to get me for doing the litigation of the thing that leads to a goal, right? Yeah, yeah, I am. I'm going to come to Tyler Adams' defense here when we're done with this. Okay. It is pretty bang-bang in his defense, but this is the kind of danger that we love to see Adam snuff out,

I guess is how I think about it. He pursues hard. perhaps over pursues, and then Antonio shifts and takes a couple touches inside. And you've all seen it just unleashes an absolute blast from about 35 yards. Stefan waves at it, but it goes in. It's moving all over the place. And Adams is kind of like, well, okay, you know, have a shot from this distance after Antonio goes to the inside of him. I'm not coming down too hard on that.

So, yeah, so on this play, right, like that second long, ball from Blake that goes up. Zimmerman wins the header, but it's not even necessarily that he retreated. Antonio was doing this to a lot of guys. Zimmerman went up for the header and they collided in the air and Zimmerman wins it, but the collision basically is the retreat. Antonio, just with the contact he makes, sends the room back five or six yards. So Zimmerman is like, okay, now I'm back in position because I bounced off Miguel

Antonio. Yeah. And then as that second ball, that I guess third ball, if you want to call it, that the header comes back over the midfielder's. as it's getting to Antonio, Adams, like, gambles a little bit as though Antonio's going to lay the ball off. So Adams, like, cheats back for Antonio to lay it off,

upfield away from him. And this is, like, maybe it's not technically the right thing to do, but this is where Adams is so quick that he can do that. And then immediately when Antonio reads it, because Antonio is very good, it's like, nope, I'm going to go forward then. Adams can catch up to him. Like, that's the quickness that Adams offers.

Like, he can make that gamble, not have it right, and then quickly get goal side of Antonio. in. So that's the Adams strength. That's the quality. He overpursues enough. And again, Antonio's good to read Adams, you know, having to commit to get back. And that's when he takes it inside. And even then, Adams is probably thinking, like you said, this is okay that he's cut inside of me because he's 35 yards away from the goal. And these, you know, I've read enough John Mueller and American Soccer analysis to know that this is a super low percentage area of the field for someone to shoot from. It's not an important part of my defense right now to,

like close a shot at all costs. And he's basically right, right? Like, that's actually the, I mean, giving a guy a shot there is not what breaks your defense. Okay, yeah. Well, should we get into it? Like, what? The shot goes into the goal. What did you make of, um, I mean, let's be, let's be clear.

This was an amazing hit. It was a very, very good shot. Yes. When you give this, give away the shot, when you allow the shot to be taken from here, uh, you are banking on this kind of shot, not actually having the trajectory and velocity that it has. It rarely does. This one did.

It's Kiva, right? It's Kiva all over again. Darlington Nagby didn't close a shooter down from 40 yards because it's one in a million that the shot has the trajectory and velocity that it does. And even then, it's sometimes often still saved. Maybe God hates this. So this shot from Antonio has the velocity and trajectory that it does. it's an outstanding hit. It would take an outstanding save to keep it out of goal,

and we didn't get an outstanding save from Zach Steffin here. What did you think of his footwork? I think it's the same thing that we've pointed out before. We've broken it down in the Discord. We were doing that back in July. We went back to that conversation. Stefan is rocking on his feet. You know, as this play is developing,

you can see it from the angle behind. like he still has a little rock up and is still coming down well after the shot has been taken. And this is where it's like he doesn't need to have done that, right? There's nothing disguised about Antonio's shot. Yes, the velocity is unexpected. But, you know, he took a full windup, stepped into this thing, right? This wasn't a quick pullback, no windup. He smashed it.

Oh, yeah, this is like Nolan Ryan playing a fastball on the first pitch of the game. So Stefan had like the rhythm should be the same Whether this shot comes off Antonio's foot as a cannon Or whether he like, you know, doesn't hit it very well And the rhythm of for Stefan is to have been like Already sinking down from his last bounce Into his crouch, coiled up like a spring As the shooter makes contact

So that he can react and explode as needed And he cost himself a little bit of time And when you cost yourself a fraction of a second When the guy hits the ball as hard as Antonio hits it you really cut down on your chances to save the wonder strike that Antonio hit. So this is where it gets into, right? And it's like, people are saying, well, it was a rocket. And like, come on, be serious.

You can't say Matt Turner would save that shot, which is obviously where this conversation is going. But it's, for me, it's ridiculous the other way to, for anyone to say with any kind of certainty, no, Matt Turner doesn't save that shot. It's unsavable. Like, it was inches away from Stefan's hands, right? It's not that it was out of his range. she didn't get there in time.

His hands got to where the ball went after the ball went past him. So for me, it's a late, it's a late motion. And the other piece here is Stefan chose to go with both hands for some reason instead of just going with one arm. So he gets less extension by going with both hands. That has something to do with anatomy, right? Like you can, you can get more extension with one arm than two. Yeah, you can reach your torso.

I mean, you basically add a little bit of like shoulder and I'm acting it out if you can't tell a little bit of shoulder and torso like a rotation as well to gain an extra like quarter of an area. I mean an extra two or three inches. And these are the margins we're talking about here. In the last podcast, when we talked about how I still prefer Turner, it's not because Stefan's going to give up howlers every week. I know that became part of the narrative because he did kind of have a howler moment against Honduras in the Nations League. But it's not mostly going to be howlers, right? or ever. He might not have another howler in his U.S. career.

It's going to be about these goals at the margins. Like at the very limit of being able to save a shot, Matt Turner is just going to save more of those than Stefan over the long run. So maybe Matt Turner doesn't save that, but over the long run at these margins, Matt Turner should basically be the guy. That's my breakdown. I mean, I'm obviously heavily influenced by you on this,

but you're not saying Matt Turner, Matt Turner would have saved that. You're just saying it's ridiculous to say he wouldn't have saved it because maybe he would have. I would say, yeah, it's ridiculous to say he wouldn't have. And I think it's incredibly fair to say that he's going to save it more often than Zach Stephan. Like he is. I don't even know people who are arguing at this point that Stefan is as good of a shot stopper as Turner. I feel like most people have conceded that entirely.

So like I just, from there, sitting Matt Turner on the bench, sitting this like goals shot stopping savant cheat code on the bench for me is going to cost us points over the course of qualifying. So I think that was their takeaway like within within five minutes of the Jamaica game in the gold cup. I think my text to you was like Matt Turner is going to win us points in qualifying. And this, that goal we just saw last night is why? Because those are shots.

If it's going to take an outstanding save, like my money's going to be on Turner. Yeah. Well, I don't know that I don't know that I know anybody personally who is arguing that that's not true that Turner is the one more likely to make the excellent save. But I'm sure there are lots of people riding in on tiny little motorcycles to my Twitter account to say stuff like that. So they're common. They're out there. Well, there was a wave of people being like, no, come on. Again, B-series Matt Turner doesn't say that. And again, I almost think that's like a very transparent attempt to like deflect criticism away from the choice, the choice to go with Stefan because it just seems ludicrous to me for a shot that was, again, that close to a goalkeeper's fingertips to be like unsavable. There are plenty of shots you see where a keeper like at full extension is still like a foot away from a ball that goes into the top corner, you know, like off the post and in.

This was not one of those shots. Like this wasn't one of those. This is very much in the realm of saveable. It just would have taken a very good safe. Yep. Okay. Well, bummer, bummer, bummer, bummer. So I'd argue after the goal, it was dispiriting for us on the field.

And I do think that like that sort of belief and confidence does matter. It seemed like we had it in the lead up. to the goal, and we didn't have it after the goal. But we did get a nice little sequence in the 28th minute, an entry pass from Zimmerman to Busio, a quick little touch to Wea, and Wea's wheeling into Zone 14 with the ball at his feet. I mentioned this one, even though it didn't come to anything really,

because he has Yedlin open, wide open, and unmarked off to his right. Did you notice this play? No, now I'm going to have to review it because I have a missed, the moment in the 17th minute that I skipped over in her chronology where it was a similar, not a similar do you mind if we do that after this one? I'll time travel after you break this one down

for us. Yeah, well, okay, way is running clear into zone 14 with the ball at his feet and he has Yedlin unmarked off to his right and he, if he plays it to him it's, Yedlin's so open at least for a moment before Kamar Lawrence realizes it that

Yedlin could have almost gotten in and had a shot. And, but more likely he squares it for Pepey if he gets. Instead, I don't think Wayas sees Yedlin. And instead, he tries to shove it into the feet of Pepe. And it gets broken up and sent the other way. A little missed opportunity. Go back to that 17th minute thing. Okay, because that one's about decision-making.

And this one in the 17th minute is kind of a similar pattern. But it's actually about Yedlin not making the run. So it's a Jamaica throw in in the 17th. A little bit of head tennis. I think Chris Richards gets a nice little nod down to Busio. But then it goes back to Zimmerman. He nods it to Adams. Then back to Zimmerman with a really nice ball up to Busio's feet as like a backboard.

Busio with a nice ping to Brendan Aronson. I'm sorry, Anthony Robinson. And then Anthony Robinson pings it directly into the feet of Pepe. And this is like slick, really slick stuff. I think it might be our slickest, you know, full team buildup outside of the goal. but Pepey with a really good layoff to Boosio again who's spun off and beaten his man up field and this is where Wayas the half-space merchant

he's pinched way in and he's making a good vertical run we have all of Jamaica shifted over with all of these little combination passes and the entire right side of the field should be open for D'Andre Edlin but D'Andre Edlin is standing watching the whole thing develop from midfield so it's just one of those so Bozio ends up trying to jam it vertically into Pepe and Wea and Arensen who are all making like the same run into the same corner of the 18 and it's like very easily

cut out by Jamaica. But it's one of those where like your textbook ideal here, all of this buildup should lead to this wide open extra man running in from the right flank. And that run just doesn't happen. Okay. Yeah. That's the, that's the one I mentioned earlier that I had in the 18th minute just with much more detail.

It's where Busio just kind of plays it over the end line, right? Yeah. Or he just, he plays it. into Andre Blake's hands. It just rolls harmlessly to Andre Blake. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's, so I guess this is an opportunity to say, it's not like we were toothless in

this game. This wasn't us versus Panama or us versus Canada, Canada. Or even, I think it was maybe even a little better than us versus El Salvador. We put attacking moments together. We just didn't, you know, we didn't convert enough of them into clear-cut chances, I guess, the issue. After that 28th minute missed opportunity I mentioned earlier, I clock several misconnections, Waya tries to spray it wide to Yedlin and just misses him out of bounds.

In the 30th, Yedlin hits a diagonal to no one in the 31st. Poor backpass from Buccio kills the flow of a decent spell of possession in the 33rd, just untidy. That Yedlin one, the Yedlin one makes me think about, because I was watching a lot of our long distribution from the back. And again, going back to the Brooks omission, like, outside of that Zimmerman long diagonal, like there just wasn't that long ball threat.

And I'm not saying we have to have that. Like that's the key to unlock in Jamaica. It was just noticeable almost because we kept trying to do it actually a little bit more than maybe we should have with like zero, zero return. Yeah. And I think people, some people have asserted over the months that Chris Richards is an excellent ball playing centerback. Like he can ping those long balls.

And I just have not seen that as big of a fan of Richards as I am. I don't think he's going to provide that right now at a really high level the way Brooks does. And certainly Zimmerman mostly doesn't either. Yeah, for Richards, I'm looking more. I mean, I'm expecting more of like the pass into the feet of the half space version or the pass into the feet of that. He's good at that. Yeah. He's good at that.

Yeah, I agree. Okay. Well, speaking of Richards, I have a moment in the 34th where he fouls Antonio and the shout. part of our half. Nothing comes of it. I just noticed it because I thought he and Zimmerman actually did a good job of dealing with Antonio's physicality for the most part. He he did not, I mean, his physicality, his quality, everything, dealing with him as a player to be reckoned with. Outside of the goal, you know, he had a couple sort of connections in the, in the, maybe in the attacking third, mostly in the middle third.

But he didn't dominate this game or anything. He just scored an amazing goal. Again, I think that's totally fair, and I think it was a good test for Richards because we probably shouldn't have been taking it for granted that he would come in here and be sort of unfazed by a World Cup qualifier on the road. Like that's a pretty good chunk of data on Chris Richards. Yeah.

And facing the third leading goal score in the Premier League, who is very much in form. I say that because I know I know how much you love when people talk about form. I didn't do my form rant on Timwaya, but I might still. Please do. All right,

I'm doing it. Timway hasn't scored a goal a club goal since like February. So for everyone who's like, you got to be scoring goals, you got to be producing at the club to get into the national team. Like, that's not Timuea.

Timwaya, I think, has two assists in 700 minutes this season. You got to go back. to you got to go back a long ways to get to find a lot of Timway on the stat sheet for Leal. It just, it doesn't matter. He's still a much,

much better player than the alternatives. Just evaluate players on a case-by-case basis. Yep. If you said it once, you said it a million times. 36th minute Zimmerman dumps it for the third time that I can remember into just in behind. So not ideal.

Long distribution referenced that earlier conversation. But he keeps winning duels in the air, so that's a positive thing from him. 37th minute, nice little sequence, entry from Yedlin to Pepe. He manages to get it flicked on in behind to Wea. I say manages to get it flicked on because I'm not even sure he's the guy who got the touch on it, but he was there challenging for the ball. And Wea's cross is cut out. 38th minute, some decent 1v1 defending on Bailey from Anthony Robinson,

who I thought was, like I said earlier, pretty good defensively. The ensuing corner skips on through to the back post pumped in again, and this time it's deflected by Adams, off the shin of Adams' left leg, I believe, into the body of Richards. His arm is tucked in, but he kind of leans into it, so it comes off his shoulder. The rules expert, Christina Uncle, said it was not a handball,

handball, so I'll go with that. I'm just, I just don't believe any of those things are like binary things. like it either is or it isn't. If that gets whistled for a handball, it's going to be tough to argue with it. So it's just like we're living dangerously on that particular play. Yep.

Yeah. 41st, okay, 39th minute, a nice little outside of the boot pass in behind for Pepey. And he's, that's from Wea, and he's a little flat-footed running onto it, gets taken out, loses the ball. Just gets sort of little brothered casually

by, I believe it was Damien Lowe. And then 41st minute, nice little combo from Yedlin to lay it off for Aronson on a Zimmerman entry pass. So the pass is from Zimmerman to Yedlin. He lays it off for Aronson. Aronson, squares this guy up down the wing and cuts it back. A really nice pass to the top of the box to weigh his feet. And Wea takes a few touches and tries to bloop it in behind for Bousseo, but the pass is a little heavy. And this was another, like, good sequence for me.

Like, I thought this was a solid play. It also highlights just how much Jamaica we're going to try to put on our centerback. to beat him, it's very much like the tackle football defense dropping nine guys into coverage. Like Zimmerman is just like kind of standing on the ball for probably like 10 or 11 seconds in the back, just kind of watching things develop in front of him. Like might have had Aronson in the pocket to play early,

doesn't hit him there, but doesn't matter because you can just keep watching these wide receivers run their routes. And then finally does hit a good ball to Yedlin. and it is a very nice little combination for Aronson to race behind his man who was kind of tied on him at that point. And again, like, you have to get a lot of things right to create a goal scoring chance. And Wea, like, makes the right read for me. Busio makes the right run. And it's way overhead.

But it has to actually get that, it's not like it was a gimmy pass to slip Busio in. Like, there's very little room to put it between the centerbacks and the goalkeeper for Busio to do anything with it. So it's just, you know, those are the most. margins we're working with. Tight ones. Tight margins. It's a good, 43rd minute. We get a good Moosa run and he tries to play Aronson in behind.

And so Musa gets the ball in our defensive third skips by a guy. The way he does so delightfully. And then he kind of plays a hospital ball in behind for Aronson. He gets absolutely wrecked. I guess I wish, I mean, Maurice Adieu said this on the, on the, telecast, but I wish Musa had held the ball a little longer in this situation and waited for something more to develop. So I missed that in the telecast, but we broke this one down on the Discord and we came to definitely the same conclusion. Like I feel like it was actually a pretty terrible decision, all things told.

Musa be in my rationalization here is like, oh, that must have been the strep throat talking because Musa gets by that first guy and there is nobody else. Like there's nobody else. It's four on four. So you've got Pepe running up field, Wea, Aaron, or Wea's catching up to the play, basically on Musa's line. And then you have Pepe and Aronson both, you know, 30 yards ahead of them. And again, we're talking about Jamaica here. This isn't a team that's like always got its organization like airtight.

Like you have to put more pressure on them here. Unless you're feeding Aronson in to literally be in on goal. Like for me, this is really the wrong choice in a pretty big miss as far as decisions goes. because again a chance to run four on four at full speed with no one within 15 or 20 yards of Musa like we had to put more pressure on Jamaica here and we gave them a very easy out to just muscle Brendan Aronson off the ball 2 v 1

it went from 4 view 4 with no one on our ball carrier to 2 v 1 against Brendan Aronson who's you know our littlest of little brothers yeah he's not you don't want him running I mean if it was way a maybe you know but right you don't want you're not asking brennan erranton to write a challenge for 10 yards to take the ball into the box right so that was a big one that was like that was a big sequence for me and it's just that one hurt to watch again yeah we're gonna i feel like we're just going to have moments like that from musa that we're going to

have to accept you know he's he's so young i mean he's so good that it's we're going to have to accept it i think oh of course yeah definitely but just as far as like you know opportunity costs there or a player like Musa. It's a much more dangerous situation because it's Musa the one dribbling. I just wish we really would have gotten a little more payoff on that. Watch to see what would have happened if he just kept running into the box with that ball.

So I guess I'm now just repeating what Marisa Edo said. Well, good to cover it. All right. Half time comes. This looks looking like this is going to be a long podcast, folks. So buckle up. But there wasn't much in the second half. Yeah, I just noticed Pepe's started to get a little looser in combination.

He gives it away right away in the 46 minute. 47th minute and he faded, I think, in the second half. Would you like to see Ferreira come on earlier? Oh, yeah, I definitely would have. But I wanted to, oh, you're talking on this is Pepe's loose blade. We'll get to, yeah, I think I would have. And I know other people would have preferred to see more of like a target striker, like a traditional target, either like a DK or a PFOC or a PFO or.

like a healthy Zardez. But I do think there, again, I do think there would have been value in having a player like Ferreira who could come back and get the ball from our centerbacks. And I think that was like the big missing element. And we're going to get to it here in your next event because it was happening in the buildup to this next play from Musa. But I thought where we were missing a lot was in our ability from the back line to pick out those half-space merchants' feet when the center mids were being manmarked.

And you'd think Hazus would have come, like would have, would just rambled around and found little pockets of space. Yep, I think he could have found pockets. Now,

maybe it just would have been, it's just the case that we were getting into those pockets and just being missed. But yeah, I do. I think if Jesus is in there, you're looking for it more

and he could add. I'm not saying he's going to like totally tip the game. I just think we had to keep finding more and more of those chances to penetrate Jamaica's sort of defensive shape with the ball in defeat.

Yeah, because some people will say, well, Ferreira came on and he didn't hardly do nothing. And I think it was late enough in the game that the opportunity for that, what you just described was probably, that window was closed by then, don't you think? That's kind of my thought,

but that could just be me, me just sort of explaining it away. You know, like, I kind of do think that. I kind of do think like we were kind of done looking for that at that point. And it was more just like, all right, well, whatever, we'll just give the ball to pool so they can see what happens. So my next thing is, yeah, don't get me started on that. 47th minute, Musa and Richards give it away once each in quick succession. Richards runs to compensate and fouls a guy, a deep free kick that results in a shot from distance that goes over from Greg Lee,

who had subbed on for Kamar Lawrence at left back at the half. And I wonder, did you notice any difference in the way Jamaica played as a really? result of that substitution? Because here's why I asked. We, Wea had, Ware was highly involved in the first half. And he was a, he wasn't totally uninvolved in the second half.

He had a few moments, but much quieter. And Burrhalter mentioned the press conference. It was about, it was about fatigue for him. They, you know, they were tracking his data and it wasn't, looking good. But I wonder if Jamaica did anything to sort of shut that down that you noticed. I, I didn't notice anything. and it wouldn't surprise me at all.

It was fatigued way I ran his face off against Mexico for 89 minutes. And he was, he was making, like he was moving quite a bit in this game too. So that probably checks out for me. I did want to be super nerdy, though, on the Moussa giveaway that you just talked about with the 47th minute.

Please. All right, because it's, it's one of these, like, very deliberate, like switching fields moments for the U.S. where we have the ball on the right side. It's the Moussa Mitz, barely factors into this, by the way, just to give you a heads up. We have the ball on the right side, building around the back under no pressure from Jamaica.

We're just kind of looking, and Tim Wea is in the pocket, but he's totally covered up, right? There's no way to get this ball into him from Zimmerman. We shifted around to the left, and now it's Chris Richards on the ball, and we're looking, and Brennan Aronson is tightly marked in the hat in the pocket. Like, they're in the pocket, but there's nothing there. But while we shift it to the left, Jamaica's midfielder, who had been on Wea, like, cuts in hard to the inside to help. cover up our midfield, right?

Our three center mids. And then we shift it back to the right. Really slowly, like there's very little urgency to any of this. But just that simple shifting left and right, as the ball gets to Zimmerman, Wea is in this massive pocket in the half space. And he's like, there's a giant window to hit it to him. And this is where I feel like we just aren't looking for it anymore. Like we've stopped trying to hit these penetrating passes

because we just hit like a ball out to Yedlin super easily around, but not into the amoeba, just around the outside of it. And by the time we actually do feed the ball into Wea, they've gotten their center mid-back goal side of him. And all way I can do is hit it back to Musa, and now we're crowded again, and Musa ends up giving the ball away. So it's just, this is what I mean about just like,

there were these moments where it's on, but we didn't have necessarily the urgency or the real commitment to hitting it in there. And when we were, we weren't getting a ton of quality, but you have to keep sort of hammering it in. You have to keep trying to initiate those attacks, or it's all going to fizzle out. which is what happened it did all fizzle out it felt like it's kind of the opposite of that

remember how you said i remember how you said uh on that west mckenny goal against mexico they were both he and frero were both feeling it it's kind of infectious a contagious uh you know will to combine seemed like we didn't we never got we never got that pandemic off the ground you know what i mean no definitely not It was very isolated, those moments of a fun combination. And again, the field can play into that. Like when the field, you can't, you can't have those sort of effortless fluid movements. Like everything has to be, you have to look the ball in all the way to your foot.

You can't have that sort of sixth sense of where the guy's going to be because you're too focused on that last second bubble of the ball. You know, so, but again, that's why when the window's there, you have to, like, we have to do everything we can to capitalize on those very first. open windows or or again it will just totally fizzle yeah okay um 50th minute erinson Robinson combined in the corner and we get a poor touch from Robinson as he tries to weave past a guy on Aronson's return path this looked like a pretty decent opportunity to me and I think a lot of times this is the kind of touch that Robinson can make you know that little outside of the foot left-footed touch past a guy and then he's on the end line and he can roll it back to whoever he wants to

but he just plays he just touches it right out of bounds it's kind of a his night in a nutshell a little bit um right so that's where you you you you ask was is it the field is it the is it a bit of fatigue or is it just you know again anthony running up into the limits of uh the consistency of his touch but he does he does have that little subtle touch in the bag uses it to sort of run around defenders anywhere on the field he's he's done those kinds of thing yeah In 52nd man, we get that good chance from Bousio, a shot from 22 yards. The sequence starts with him winning a second ball and advancing it up the left with the dribble. Then he exchanges with Aronson and plays it back across the field to Moussa.

Then Moussa dribbles through a couple guys and kind of comes across the top of the box and lays it back for, well, lays it across for Buccio. Buccio stops the ball with the sole of his foot and then just uncorks one that dips over the crossbar. Blake probably had it covered, but it's a good hit. I did a freeze frame of Blake's extension there, and it was very technically clean with one arm up, that other shoulder drops. I think our best bet would have been for Boosio to hit that ball off of the crossbar,

off of Blake and end of the goal. As Boosio gets older, he'll learn that. And then we get a big chance for Jamaica in the 53rd minute. kind of a broken play on our right flank. It starts with, actually, maybe you should tell where it starts with, because I forget, but I know it starts, the direct sequence starts with Antonio playing it out wide. I can't remember how he got the ball in the first place, but. There's a little bit of like head tennis or pinball right outside the box just shifted to our right side.

And I am, I want everyone to know, I am not putting this chance on Ju and Luke Abuzio. but because I watched this play so many times and I think Matt Hartman tip me off to this too so hopefully I'm not going to get Matt Hartman a bunch of hate for singling out Busio here either but like there's this head tennis going on and Busio is very much just like on the periphery of it always like he never quite sniffs it out or never quite engages

in the ability to like win the ball and it's not always up in the air I'm not even saying like he never jumps up to try to win a ball like it's head tennis pinball with the ball at feet sometimes too it just kind of squirts out of a scrum. And then it's like, if that's McKinney, like he's in there, right? Like he's got his shoulder through somebody and either that ball's his or it's incredibly disrupted. And so it's just one of those things that I talk about pitch control.

And Busio is a center mid here. It doesn't control any area of any of that entire scrum. So it was just something I know that was notable. And since you asked about how it started, I felt like I had to throw it in there. Okay. Yeah, good. I mean, I do want to talk about the Busio Weston tradeoff a little bit later. But after it pinball's around, Antonio comes out with it at the top of the box,

and he plays it out wide to Lamar Walker. And Yedlin tackles him, and there's just kind of a lull where the ball doesn't, isn't really claimed by anybody. Walker claims it. And Yedlin and Moussa are in the vicinity, but neither really closes Walker down. and he just whips a ball into the back post, at the back post. Anthony Robinson intervenes pretty awkwardly,

and it comes off the inside of his right leg back across the face of goal to Bobby Reed. It sits up pretty high for him, so I don't think it's, you know, that easy of a finish. I know the guys on, like, I mean, I have to defer to people like Charlie Davies and Clint Dempsey. They're a little better at soccer than I am. They were saying, I mean, I think one of the guys on that in that show

I was saying it's easier to, it's harder to miss than to score there. No, that's nonsense. I don't buy it. I'm, I don't buy it either. I'm pushing back against the expert soccer players who actually score those goals for a living. It's at a, it's at a tough height to, like, have it do exactly what you want to do. Anyway, he gets it, that being said, he gets it completely wrong and skies it over. And in that moment, we lost the XG battle.

I think we ultimately lost the XG battle by a score of 0.77 to 0.58, according to Paul Carr's tweet. And then it slipped away as we settled into a pretty bad slog of a, you know, last half hour of the game. So I don't know where people, I don't know where everyone sits on the, on the Wando Belgium scale of whether that was a sitter, whether it was harder than you think. But we know it's a good chance. This is a good chance for Jamaica, of course. For sure. But it's, it's, for me, it's probably a. harder one than the Wando

chance. And it's just because of how high the ball is, right? He have to get over it. And the other piece here that maybe people are ignoring is, Zach Stephan makes a very good play on this sequence. Like, he reads it instantly, reacts instantly, and he doesn't go low. Like he leaps at the

ball, so he stays high to intercept the shot at the point where the ball is. And that's a big deal because he's actually taking away a tremendous amount of the goal, where if this is, you is on frame, a lot of that frame is covered by the body of Zach Stephan. So you don't just get it on frame.

Anyone who says all he had to do is put it on frame, that's not right. A lot of his shots on frame would have deflected off Stefan's body and been saved. So Stefan deserves a lot of credit for making the goal smaller on this play, for sure. Yeah. Because there's just no way Reed can hit that ball down. It's just not, like physics denies him that opportunity. He's got to, I mean, if he hits it down, he's got to basically. hit higher on the ball, right?

Yeah, I don't know. Kind of bring it up, do a side, like, I don't know. It'd be difficult. Okay, so that was a, you know, a heart-stopping moment. We're finding ourselves attacking through Anthony and Erinson up the left quite a bit. It isn't particularly working particularly well. I think the 55th to the 65th minute, we did control the game. So kind of after this chance, until the subs started coming on,

but Anthony's passing was pretty wild and at one point he drilled many of you will remember he drills it at Aronson's chest from about 20 yards I'm sorry 12 yards away and there's a really poor cross from Yedlin in there I laugh at the I laugh at the Anthony to Aronson moment because again all these since now that we've made Aronson the little brother so many of those things seem like things you would do

if you're messing with your little brother yeah well Poulosick 66 minute well I thought it was interesting interesting, Dempsey said on the post-game show that he credited that spell of the U.S. controlling the game, you know, that 10 minutes before the subs came on to the players saying to themselves, oh, no, it's subtime. I got to start, like, showing. That I'm willing to listen to from an ex-player.

That's like a tremendous piece of psychological insight. Yeah, it's very interesting. It's very plausible, right? Because they know it's, we were getting close to the hour mark. Better show that I'm not the one who needs to be taken off. But Wayek and Musa came off. And now we learned after the game that Musa had strep throat. Pulisic and Acosta came on for them.

And then in the 68th minute, Junior Fleming's came on for Bobby Reed, Ravel Morrison for Lamar Walker, and Anthony Grant for Javon Watson. And I think Jamaica started to press a little bit, press a little higher. Like they saw that they could get something out of this game, something more than one point. And they were nearly right. Well, once we take our best attacker off the field, the best attacker in the pool off the field,

like you feel a little bit better about taking some chances if you're Jamaica. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to disagree with that right now, honestly. Let's talk about Pulisick a little bit. In fairness to him, he's hurt or he's not totally fit. That was what Berthard said after the game. But he added very little to this game as a sub. And if we go back to the Mexico game, he obviously scores a huge goal.

He didn't add a lot in that game other than the game-winning goal. And I think this is going to be a little bit of an issue going forward. What did you think of Poulosick? I thought it felt very like Poulosick last cycle, which is that he can get on the ball, and if we don't have anyone else around him who's doing anything, he will dribble by the first defender very easily, and the second defender will come over and wipe his legs out.

And I feel like that happened several times, right? And that can be valuable on a team where we're hitting good set pieces, and we have some set piece monsters who will convert them. but we don't have that right now. Against Mexico, our set piece taking was really poor. In this game, because Buzio started, I thought it would be better. Erringson took them in against Mexico, and I didn't think they were very good. Buzio had one or two in this game, but then once Pulisic came in and started drawing all the

fowls, Pulisic also took all the set pieces, and I didn't think they were very good. So I don't know if Buzios would have been better, but again, it's one of those things where, from what we've seen in Buzio for Venetia, his set pieces have been pretty dangerous, reliably. So I was a little disappointed that he wasn't the one on the set pieces once we started drawing a lot of them in good attacking positions. Yeah, somebody was reading off his set piece stats, that is Buccio's on the Discord post-game chat the other last night. And they're very good.

He's like high 80th percentile, into the 90th percentile on basically all the sort of danger creation stats from set pieces. Yeah, and I didn't think... I thought Pulis' Pulis' first one was pretty good the first set piece he took, but then they were not good.

And he was basically just setting up on the left touchline and asking for the ball. You know, like he would... We would go into the attack with Anthony on the ball, and it's not like Pulisic was making a lung-busting run in behind.

He was just kind of like trailing off to the side at one point even pointing at his feet. And just like holding hands with Aaron's with Anthony running down the sideline, right? Yeah. Yeah, we got to get more out of him, man. We got to get more out of him. It's like when it looked like when alignment recovers a fumble and then and then like

the DB runs up to him and it's like, just give it to me. I'll go with it. That's what made me think of because you don't need, you don't need to usher Anthony Robinson down the field. Anthony Robbins is excellent at this. Like run ahead of him and the two of you add some pressure. otherwise it's just like Robinson taps it to you and now he's done with the play and now it's your turn to do the dribbling. Yeah, it's like a relay race or something.

I mean, because you know, because Anthony knows when he gives the ball the pool, it's like he's not going to get it back, you know. It's not coming back to him. The relay race is perfect. I mean, complete with like the body language of like leaning back with your arm like, come on, hand it to me now. Yeah. And then the other guy just kind of stops playing. Well, um, so. That was definitely the pattern on the left side,

so we didn't really get anything going once Bullisick came on. Sevent second minute, there's a ball in behind for Antonio, and he beats Zimmerman and Richards to it. I'm not sure he was trying to chip Stefan, but Stefan came way out and got big, and Antonio's shot slash pass. I don't know exactly what it was, but it didn't go towards the goal.

It went across the face of goal. And it ended up being pretty harmless. So I hated this decision from Stefan, if I'm honest. Like for this one, there's no reason to come out here unless you're going to unless you're getting to the ball first to collect it with your hands. Because what you've done is you've left the goal empty where any shot on goal now by the guy who's going to get to the ball first scores a goal and you don't need to come out here to like close the angle or anything.

There's no shooting opportunity for Antonio if he gets to this ball, right? I know he hit that miracle shot from earlier, but this is not that situation. He's not stepping into a shot. He's like running away from goal to catch this ball at the edge of the box. And both our centerbacks are bearing down on him. They're like almost, you know, right next to him. So for him to, he's not going to get a shot out of this. So Stefan actually creates a moment of danger that Antonio hadn't created.

If Stefan just stays home, our centerbacks go and deal with him 2 v. And the only way this becomes dangerous is Stefan abandoning the goal. And Antonio hitting a good shot into an open net. So I didn't like this decision at all. Another possibly unfortunate or suboptimal outcome would be for like what, God forbid, if Junior Fleming's were making a run into the box at that time because there was nobody there. No centerbacks, no goalkeeper. And the ball that Antonio played across just kind of rolled across the face of the goal.

I mean, it was a, you know, it was a long ball. So maybe we all knew that there wasn't anybody coming with him. had been anybody coming with him, then it would have been a big problem. Seventy-fourth minute, we get a shot from Ravel Morrison from 22 yards after Fleming's and Antonio kind of knife through our right side. And I noticed some Boozio's sleepiness on this moment. You know, he just does not recognize that he should be helping to prevent a shot from that area.

pitch control. That's the future. It's a future stat that we're waiting on. We're waiting for somebody to have a user-friendly way of describing pitch control that we can all understand post-game. A positive moment. 75th minute, we get a little dime from Adams to Yedlin, kind of a disguised pass on the ground.

And I think Lee gets a foot to it, but Yedlin gets the end line for a cutback, and he has peppy showing at the penalty marker, but he tries to pull it back further to Aronson, and it gets cut out. The ensuing corner from Pulisic is not that bad. I have at my notes. It's okay.

All right. All right. And again, I wouldn't mind Pulisic taking them if Busio's not on the field. But for me, I want Busio taking set pieces while Busio's on the field. We also talked about this in the Discord chat. It's the last time I'll mention it. But that is the Discord chat. But like Vince made the point, the politics of Busio demanding that he get to take the free kicks over Pulisic are, you know, pretty much impossible.

Like, you can't do that. You can't do that. So it has to be coach's instruction, let Jel Nuka take the set pieces. Right, right. Your pregame where you have listed out who takes this corner, who takes set pieces from here, who takes penalties, it would have to be Burholter making that call. Buzio is not going to wrestle the ball away from Pulis.

Then we get 77th minute, Ferreira for Pepe and Ariola for Aronson. And then 79th minute we get the second time. Pouloset gets up at the ball on the left touchline and dribbles inside and gets fouled. This time his free kick is bad. And just to sort of keep beating that drum. And we start to wilt a little bit down the stretch. Bailey wins a corner down the right in the 84th minute. It gets palmed away by Stefan.

Another corner results in Richards just sending it into the atmosphere. And the third corner gets headed in the goal by Damien Lowe. he gets called for a push on Zimmerman, which maybe there was, but... It's soft, right? Well, it's the kind of, if it's a foul, it's the kind of foul that almost never gets called. So, I would, so again, foul calls for me aren't binary,

but this is absolutely one where if that ball is in the back of the net and Jamaica's celebrating and there's no whistle for a foul, I don't think we give it a second thought. Like, oh, he was all over. you know Zimmerman he didn't wrap Zimmerman up he didn't like totally climb over the top of him so I guess what I'm just saying is I feel incredibly fortunate uh like total opposite of Maurice I do unfortunate in 2010 that this was called a foul yeah 100% I don't have a yeah I guess your your thing about it not being binary is probably a good way to think about it

because I don't have a strong opinion on whether it technically was a foul not, just don't think it often gets called. And I'm not one, I'm not one, yeah, thank goodness it is. I'm not one who's like, you, you know, can't do zonal marking. I hate zonal marking on corners. But you see a weakness of it here. And that's, that, you know, Antonio gets a good runway to run up. And Zimmerman's trying to go straight up.

So it's, it becomes easier for Antonio to, uh, bulldoze Zimmerman on this play and get a better leap. I also just wish that like... It's low. It was low. Oh, I'm sorry, Lowe. I also just wish that Anthony Robinson would have done more because he's the one standing next to Lowe when the kick is about to be taken to just disrupt Lowe's movement. So he's in Anthony's zone to start.

He gets his runway, the three yards, three steps over to where Zimmerman is in the zone. And it's a free run. So it's just where like, as that ball's hit, Anthony's got to just give a little hip nudge or something, an arm bar, anything to just put low off of that runway. And instead, Anthony and Tyler Adams both just kind of like hop upfield away from the play where they can do absolutely nothing. So just a little bit of poor individual execution in the moment from Anthony there that gives low that opportunity.

So yeah, living dangerously on that play for sure. Yeah. And I think 85th minute we get sort of an ariola diving header attempt that they never sure of replay of it, but it looked like it was on frame. It was heading towards

the goal and gets blocked. It was on a cross or something from Pulisic. Couldn't watch it that closely because there was no replay.

But the 90th minute, Jamaica gets another set piece and it's narrowly missed by low. And then we didn't look likely to make anything happen in the final minutes.

Honestly, the state of mind seemed to be, let's get out of here with a point because Jamaica was bearing down on us. And we got out of there with a point, which I wouldn't say I'm happy about, but was relieved about given how things were going.

Yeah, certainly the way the last three and a half minutes went with them having the ball in our net. It makes a point feel a little more like a good consolation prize. That's right. So we already talked about Stefan versus Turner. Well, what we didn't talk about, though, was the distribution side, which is that, you know, you, again, even the people who are arguing for Stefan and Burrhalter very explicitly said that, you know, Turner's distribution is costing us possessions. Zach Stephan didn't do anything to distinguish himself in possession, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, I saw, I saw some of that debate playing out on Twitter and students.

I'll say that that giveaway that Stefan had where he ran out to the sideline, outside the box, and then just hit the ball directly to a Jamaican center midfielder is by far the worst giveaway of any of our goalkeepers of this qualifying cycle so far. Like I know Turner had the high profile ones in Panama. This one was much, much worse. Right. Because he was outside of the goal. Yes.

Like it took two really terrible Jamaica touches, is to eliminate the danger. Jamaica, the first center midfielder, like, skied his first touch up in the air, and then still hit it to a guy who was in a dangerous position because Stefan wasn't recovered yet farther upfield. And that guy had a horrendous touch as well. So it took Jamaica bottling their situation

to eliminate that danger that we very much inflicted on ourselves. Can you imagine the toxicity? If that had, if the player, I can't remember which player it was, but if the player had just taken a touch and just played it right into the goal. Yikes. It would have just been a total hubris situation, right? Not even in an unjustified way. Again, it's totally like rational.

I don't agree with it, but it's totally rational to be like, you know, we want to have this goalkeeper who can play the ball of his feet. That doesn't mean he's going to be immune to mistakes. Although I think the nerds would say one of the issues with playing the goalkeepers who are good with their feet is that they take more. chances with their feet that cost you as well. So that's the, that's, you already have a tradeoff just in the attempts to play with your feet before you even get to like the shot stopping differences. Right. And the tendencies.

Well, so we didn't have a different approach to play at Stryker for those last 20 minutes. Are you bothered by that? Let's just deal with this question pretty quickly. Like, you know, some people would have liked to see maybe D.K. be able to come up and off the bench, obviously wasn't in this camp. You assume Zardis would be, would have been here if he were healthy.

Maybe he's a little bit of a different approach from Pepe. I'm not sure he's like that much more physical than Pepey, but a little bit. So where I'm at here is I don't think that would have made much of a difference in like, are we just going to start lumping the ball forward? Like I feel like our buildup would have looked similar and been similarly ineffective.

If it's, if it's PFO or D.K. Or Zardaz up top for the last 20 minutes. I do think you could add a, set piece edge though. So if our attacking chances are coming from Pulisic getting fouled a bunch of times, adding another target on the field who could score on a set piece matters, right? Like we're already down McKinney.

We're down Brooks by coach choice. Like we don't have a lot of setpiece targets there. It's Walker Zimmerman and who. You know, like we hurt ourselves in those scenarios if set pieces have become our primary attacking revenue source. at the end of this game and we are taking poor set pieces and have poor targets to aim at

then it's then that's why that's why we're like well one one's fine we'll take the point it makes it does make it harder to be like well we could steal a point without actually having to create very much we kind of lose that option no chance of stealing a point there

in the last well definitely in the last 15 all right well yeah I think I think that just that raises the point again that Burrhalter needs to sort of seize control of the set piece taking especially with Busio on there especially given that is one of Boussio's best qualities and he you know he does have some weaknesses which we've

discussed and we're let's talk about Buccio a little bit I thought we missed Weston a lot that's I think that's pretty inarguable we do have to figure out a way to compensate when we don't have one of him or Eunice that collect the collective energy of that midfield with when it's all firing on all three cylinders is, I think, something to be hold, and it's what gave the team. It's dynamism against Mexico. And I think Busio's a good player. He's just a different look.

So I looked up some stats, and I don't, I know we don't, these stats don't necessarily mean that much, but Busio had, this is per Y Scout, which is, I know has some, there's some skepticism about the quality of their data. but it's what I have and I'm just going to use the same source for all the players so he was 9 of 13 in duels five recoveries three interceptions one progressive one run and zero touches in the penalty area

against Jamaica McKinney against Mexico was 11 of 17 duels 10 recoveries so not that big of a difference on duels kind of a big difference on recoveries seven interceptions three progressive runs and four touches in the penalty area And I think, you know, you were talking about how Weston will just put his shoulder into a situation and help control the pitch. I think also his, his willingness to go forward, his willingness, not just with the ball, but without the ball, his willingness to get into the penalty area and try to make stuff happen is a big difference between him and Busio. Like, Busio did not touch the ball in the penalty area.

He did not, didn't, I couldn't tell that he made any runs into the penalty area. Well, he had the one run he was making one way overhit it. That was a good run. That's true. But I would agree. I would mostly agree. And I think what we get to is, you know, Busio's not going to be McKinney.

And thinking that he's just going to go in and replace all the things McKinney does would be a bad way to approach it if you're trying to game plan out, like a Weston McKinney replacement. Like, okay. Right. We'll just change guys and change jersey numbers, but everything else will be the same. That's not going to happen, right? So I don't know what the best matchup would be or what the best plan would be for getting the most out of Gianluca Bousio in this situation.

I don't, where I get to is I don't know who would have been a better option. And part of that's just because we have so many untested options. And some of our most tested options fell really flat in their last outing against Panama. So it's like we do have to sort of roll some of the dice And we rolled Boozio's number for this game And he wasn't terrible by any stretch, I don't think He wasn't involved in some of the slick buildups He just he just

You know, when you're contrasting him to Weston McKinney He's going to fall short Yeah I think I guess what I'm coming to is I really want to see Giovanni Raina In the middle as one of the eights just because he's an athlete. He's a big, strong athlete that doesn't get the ball taken from him easily at all.

And I don't know, he doesn't have probably McKinney's work rate, but he has some of the same, like, abilities to get to push the game forward. And definitely more, I would say, more goal dangerousness than, well, yeah, somewhere. He's maybe a little more refined in the final third than McKinney. I would take it, man. I wouldn't hate it. If one of those, if McKinney or Moussa is not available,

I definitely do not hate the idea of Rana stepping in and bringing Pulsick off the bench to take Rana's spot with Way on the other side. So you got Ayrton as your starter still then? No. It's Rana and Wea as the starters. But if you have to drop Rana, I'm sorry, it's Rana and Wea as the starters. But if you have to drop Rana into midfield, you've got this great. replacement in Christian Poulsick to come in. There we go.

Christian Poulsick is now... He's now the best third string winger we have ever had. Remember how much... Remember the whole thing about how I said he wasn't going to be a starter by 2020? He scores one goal in like 40 minutes and we're like he's washed. I took so much... I took so much... I think it got out.

I took so much crap for that. Saying that privately. He's literally missed like two straight months of action. Scores a goal in his first 30... like first 30 minutes of World Cup qualifying minutes. And we're like, get him off the field. He's done. Yeah.

I mean, people are going to, I mean, people on Reddit are going to accuse me of being a clown. So let me just be clear. I still think Pulisic should start. I do on the left side. And then put Raina as one of the eights. If, yeah, well, if one of them, if one of Musar, if one of Musar, if one of Musar McKinney is unavailable. I just can't get around it.

All right. Well, no, let me put you on the spot here. I got to do this now. If you're starting Musa McKenny and Adams in midfield, who from Pulisic McKenny or a Pulisic, Prana and Wea doesn't start. If we have this dream scenario where everybody's healthy, and it's the Panama home game where we have to win it.

Well, the Pulisic we saw last night, it would have to be right now, no, no, no, no, no. You don't know which Pulisic you're going to get. You've got them, you got to write your team sheet out. I mean, how would you drop Waya for Pulisic right now? That would be nuts. Wouldn't it? It feels, yes, it does.

It feels nuts to drop Wea in any, like for anything right now, doesn't it? Yeah, I think, well, you've talked me into it. It's Raina, it's Raina, it's Raina and Wea. And maybe it would, you know, we need, we need Pulisic to, I don't know. I don't know what's going on there. How do we get him to be more of a, how do we get more out of him? So what we have here as a blessing is the January three match window

because we don't have to make that call. They will all three play a lot. And then we'll get to say, all right, now after seeing all three of them, assuming they're all healthy, like again, like make big plans. Yeah, make big plans. Then we'll then come the definitive March windows.

We will have like, we'll probably have drawn a conclusion and we'll see full, full strength, must win points. What do we go with? Yeah. Because I think

it is very clear that the Musa McKinney-Adams midfield has to start if they're all available. And like, you know, let's say we have to win a game tomorrow. They're all available. They have to be the starting midfield.

So one of those three, if everybody's healthy, doesn't start. unless, you know, unless Greg gets crazy and, like, does the whole geo as a false nine thing or something. Well, and people say runway up top as a, as just a nine, but that also feels crazy to me because it's effective. Like, you've had this way, Timway is tearing things up from the wing. So moving them out of that wing is still like, you're still changing what has just been our best attacking feature for the entire time Timway has been on the field. Yeah.

And I think, you know, I guess here's, I'm going to get a little mystical, but I think one of the reasons we have to go with that midfield is because there's a collective power to it. Like, like, I think, I suspect that McKinney, the addition of McKinney in this Jamaica game makes Musa better, makes Adams better. So there's just so much, there's just so much stress put on the other team in the middle of the park. and it just compounds on itself. You know, like we, I know it's different game states, but we won 45 out of 72 duels from our three midfield players against Mexico,

32 recoveries and 19 interceptions. Against Jamaica, it's 30 out of 49 duels, 22 recoveries and 12 interceptions. So I'm just like a much less active. Yep, and I have to caveat your duels research here by saying, like, the game plan against Mexico was to literally create duels, right? We were literally drawing them up

and then hitting a ball forward to create a dual situation, second ball situations where we thought we would outnumber them with McKinney and Moussa against Edson-Avarez. So that was like the specific game plan. Definitely not the case in the Jamaica game, right? We're not like trying to create duels

for Buzio to win. No, that's true, but I'll caveat. Your caveat. No, no, no, no. What is this? Yep. With, they were, Jamaica was creating a lot of this similar, similar situation. That's fair. That's fair.

That's fair. To Antonio. Yeah, they're floating balls up to Zimmerman, and Zimmerman's hitting them back, and now it's a dual situation on the other side of that. Yeah, I'll give you that. Fair enough. I've been caveated. I've been reversed copy outed. I think that's it for this game for me.

Do you have anything else? I'm just going to throw in still. There's no, there's no panic here, Panama are adding a lot of nervousness because they just keep getting points. But I would have liked a better performance, of course, against Jamaica, but four points from the window for the math, like that's a solid window for the competition we were facing. Yeah.

Well, yeah, totally. And I think we should mention real quick that that game in Edmonton in the snow had to have been a magical night for all the Canucks in attendance, especially Ida Cugby jumping into the snow after Kyle Laren's second goal. Yeah, forget the, forget just the fans and attendance. Like that magic was coming through like off of the Paramount Plus stream. Like that was, I was feeling that. And it was after a really disappointing US game, but I was still just like, oh man, this is really cool.

Yeah, it was magical even despite the fact that the, the commentating team was like basically a PR spokesman, folkswoman for the Canadian Federation and a guy who was like really corny. That guy was really corny. Soup's corny. Hey, more homers. More homers in broadcasting for me. I don't care if I'm, even if it's a homer, like if I'm watching a Jamaican homer for the Jamaica U.S. game, I would take that in a heartbeat.

It'd be to just adds a little, adds a little flavor for my fan experience. Sure, sure, sure. I'm sorry. I don't have the journalistic integrity that you do. No, I'm not. trying to be sanctimonious about that. I just, yeah, whatever. It was magical.

What was happening on the field was magical. And man, Mexico, I don't know, any news out of the Mexican Federation this morning, this afternoon? No, I'm sure they're very level-headed about it and realize that that was a really tough window and that getting zero points from that window, while not great, can't be too unexpected. Yeah. I'm sure their fans are also being rational about it. it's it's 3.47 p.m. Eastern time 2.47 p.m. Central time right now and I have not seen any news of Tata getting fired. So.

And for Canada, it's a party, man. They're top of the table. Undefeated in the octagonal. After trips to the U.S. and Mexico and Mexico at home. So basically their three most difficult games. And it was their first win over Mexico since 2000 and their first World Cup qualifier win over Mexico since 1976. again per Paul Carr. And yeah, we already talked about Panama. I think this is a way match to Canada is going to be huge. Can't wait for that. That's January 30th location to be determined.

Stephen Goff at the Washington Post reported a rumor earlier today that Canada wants to host it at Ted Horton's field in Hamilton, Ontario, which is close to Buffalo, New York. Niagara Falls. That sets up some interesting decisions for the U.S. Soccer Federation on where to put our qualifiers, which bracket that one. I'll throw this out there. If the U.S. do have like this mild collapse or shocking collapse down the home stretch,

like it could be the case that an already qualified Canada is our last hope because that's the last game of the round is Canada Panama. Right. So we could be in that scenario where we're relying. on our neighbors to the north to bail us out if we don't take care of our business. Yeah. As noted Ray of Sunshine, Matt Hartman put it, the candidate could have nothing to play for in that game.

Nothing but like the relationship strength of Greg Burhalter and John Hurdman. Yeah, hopefully that comes through for us. Nine points. We need nine points in the next window, guys. I don't care. I don't have a model. I'm just saying it. Greg, anything else?

No, we've definitely covered a game that didn't deserve this level of tediousness. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.