Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #232: USA v Bosnia recap

Episode Date: December 19, 2021

Quick recap of USA-Bosnia, the final USMNT match of 2021.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. The year will end in victory for the U.S. men's national team after they defeated Bosnia last night with an 89th minute winner from 20-year-old Cole Bassett. Greg, how are you doing? Bell's good. I'm still coming down from that thrilling match yesterday. Just the drama, the suspense, just a real, just like a real great culmination of the year we've had. Right. I, you know, it is kind of hard to, it's hard to get too emotionally charged about it. It's a, it was the record-breaking 17th win, thanks to that late goal for the U.S. Does that, does that do anything for you? Do any of those like calendar year marks that they kept talking about, does that do anything for you, a single thing? I guess seven, the 17 wins in one year thing does a little bit for me. I mean, it does more for me than the, than the U.S. soccer male player of the year. award, I think.

No, I like, it's cool because within those 17 wins, you have real wins over Mexico. But like, for me, all that matters is the World Cup cycle. So the World Cup qualifying, like, how are we doing in World Cup qualifying? With a little tiny bit being, how do we do against Mexico and competitive games? So if all the attention was just on the Mexico wins, I would have been, like, more amped than the, than the, like, repeated. what I feel like it's nonsense about calendar year records. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, we got to remember that this friendly was always about keeping players fit.

I mean, to your point, always about keeping players fit in this winter break and then giving fringe players a chance to, you know, work their way into the rotation for the qualifying rosters. So I guess those were the goals here. Ask what positives he took from the game in the post-game interview. Burrhalter kind of didn't have any. He said it was a tough question And then he said he appreciated the team's perseverance

We won the XG battle 1.44 to 0.43 Although per Paul Carr More than half of our XG More than half of our XG 0.79 of it came from Bassett's goal Which was right in front of the net And I think like two thirds of the remaining amount

was Jordan Morris's header So it was really the two big chances and then again, I don't want to step on the toes of the chronology. Go ahead, step all over its toes. I'm guessing we'll be a briefer. But then it was Pepe's big miss, which doesn't show up on a single game or any XG, certainly not the single game XG because he didn't touch the ball. So it's not a shot.

All right. Well, let's get right into that. Because, I mean, even before we get into the lineups, because I think that was maybe the big disappointment of the night for me, was Pepe not getting his feet. right for that chance and then also being just generally ineffective. That's a perfect example of why people are skeptical of Pepe because he doesn't generate enough XG in like in the run of play in MLS and that's a chance where he makes the right run.

The ball is basically perfect from Lennon and he gets zero XG from it because he doesn't get his feet right and he basically whiffed, right? Yes. And he tried to hit it with his right foot. Yeah, just didn't make contact, shaped his body and feet sort of incorrectly or chose the wrong foot, and in the moment, just missed the ball completely. I feel like it's a, it's a bit of a red herring on sort of the XG discussion because that's that, like that kind of play is not the reason Pepe's not generating XG, right? Like that's a really fluky reason that he didn't get XG. So if you're like a real nerd about it, you'd be like, oh, but that's actually sort of close enough to XG to be like, that's promise.

The fact that he was in that spot to receive that ball in behind the defense four yards from goal, that's like a very good striker outcome. The touch on the ball was a very bad striker outcome, but like my big takeaway from that. Well, he didn't touch the ball. Yes. That's why he didn't get any extra. Right, the myth. But usually the sort of thought behind Pepe's like lack of XG for Dallas is that he just doesn't get into those particular situations enough. Not like he gets there and just misses the touch.

whiffs like that's unusual. It's sad he doesn't get into those situations. But it is, I do think like that after this entire sort of blah soccer game that we watched, like my big takeaway is still, like don't think of any U.S. players as being ruthless finishers.

Like just don't say that about U.S. players. We kind of fell into that trap with Pepe because he scored in his debut and then scored two more against Jamaica a month later. But he is not. some preternatural finisher that you can just rely on to finish every single chance he gets at some unearthly clip like he's not they're just those players aren't uh in abundance in the world uh and peppy is most likely not one of them yeah that's fair and that doesn't mean he's not

good i mean he is just he's a normal striker who you who will probably convert chances at the expected rate he's not going to like be like a one chance one goal guy for his entire U.S. career. Right. Well, as everyone who listens this podcast knows, I'm much more of a mystic than you are. And I, you know,

I'm all about, like, the narrative. And I wish, I think if he had just put, gotten some contact on that ball, put it in the net. It's one zero at that point. It, you know, it sort of changes the way we feel about Pepe completely,

which is, I know, doesn't square with the math and everything. It's not how reality probably really works, but sure would have been nice to get that little emotional boost for him going into the holidays. But we didn't. The lineups, I'll do the lineups real quick. Okay.

I'm glad we knocked that peppy play out before we even got into the lineups. I mean, it was the big bummer, I think, of the night for me at least. Matt Turner and goal, Brooks Lennon, Walker Zimmerman, Henry Kessler, and George Bello across the back line. Johnny Cardo, so it got the nod at the 6th. And then Kellan Acosta and Christian Ruled on at the 8th, Hazes Ferreira, Ricardo Pepe, of course, and then Jordan Morris across the front line. Morris, I guess, was mostly lining up on the right side in this game.

Bosnia's sort of, I guess, we're all calling it a U-23 team, had Sekovic in goal, Borisich, Kudich, Nukic, and Vonyevich, across the back line. Kurpich, Kourluka, De Kanovic, Begich, as the bank of four. And it was, I think, a nominal 4-4-2. And then Lukic and Savich as the double strikers until the red card in the 40th minute. Any thoughts about the lineup? So just for our lineup, I think, you know, my big wish going into the game was that we not have

a cost and rolled on as our dual eights. And we got a cost and rolled on with our dual eights. So I was like disappointed in that. I understand how it is totally consistent with what Burr Alter talked about wanting out of this game, which was, or this camp, the entire camp, which was fitness for guys who are actually in the World Cup group. And so it is consistent to have a cost and rolled on doing that along with Pepe and Zimmerman. It's just for me, I'm like, oh, I just wish that wasn't the purpose of the camp then. Like it just tells me that Berthelter didn't think that out of the field of players available to him,

there were any other worthwhile eights to try out. So instead the eight minutes went to, you know, Acosta and Roldons matched fitness. And I just, I feel like that doesn't service very well for actual World Cup qualifying, which again is really all I care about. Yeah. And they were, you know, they of course came in for a ton of criticism on the internet last night. And I think, you know, for me, they were accost and rolled on were kind of just who you expect them to be. They were, I didn't think they were as bad as everybody thought they were, but they definitely didn't, like, improve in my estimation based on their performance.

How did you feel about how they played? Exactly the same as you. Maybe you don't even care. No, it was exactly the same as you. And we talked about this in the preview, too. Like, if they started that game, I was pretty sure they would be fine. The Bosnia team is not very good. they weren't like lighting things up at all.

It was not like they just were running a clinic on how to destroy a midfield. And I do think Bosnia started out kind of like a 4-4-2-ish. And so we had the run of midfield for a while. And I feel like at some point they kind of gravitated or shifted slightly into like a 5-3-2. But it was like a flat three. So we still had really easy ways to sort of play through them that we can kind of get into later. but no, like a Koston rolled on, weren't running a midfield clinic,

and I'm not saying they should have been, I just mean, or I expected them to. I thought they would sort of be fine against a weak Bosnia team, and they were pretty fine. It just meant that we didn't get a chance to see if somebody else could potentially do that job just as well or better.

Okay, to the timeline. Did you think anyone had like a bad game? Was there anyone who were like, ugh? And was it kind of peppy? Yeah, peppy. I thought Ferreira was kind of bad. Do you disagree with that? For Ferreira?

Yeah. I thought Ferreira was a little bit patchy. I thought he was actually really bright, and I was really excited after his first five touches of the game, first 12 minutes, and then he had a run of like four straight negative moments in a row for him. I was like, ah, nerds. Maybe he's not going to just solve all of our problems instantly for breaking teams down.

Yeah, he did have some really nice. moments very early and then and then I clocked I don't know in the like in the 20s he had a couple of right around 20 minute mark he had a couple of bad moments and I mean I don't think he ever really looked great after that but um okay I've got uh the first thing I noticed was in the third minute peppy being a little tentative a little plotting when he received the ball with his back to goal so he had the big miss which we already talked about but um He also was not, I don't know, he wasn't like pushing the game when he got the ball at his feet. Yeah, he wasn't very sharp, right?

He wasn't very sharp in possession. I think the moment you're talking about came from a really nice ball in from Ferreira, one of Ferreira's early bright moments where he really hit like an unexpected disguised pass up and broke Bosnia's lines. And maybe Pepi wasn't expecting it. Maybe his touch is just always going to be a little bit rough in these moments. And maybe he's a little bit rusty, right? He's been out of season since they didn't Dallas didn't make the playoffs. So he's a month out of season.

You know, I've seen some other people bring that up as sort of a defense for a lot of the guys. And so I just want to kind of address that now. I think that's a totally reasonable thing to say for a guy who's touches a little bit off or whose timing is a little bit off. But if it's off a little bit now, you know, after a month of off season with a two-week camp already built in to try to get it back, what's it going to be like another month from now in January World Cup qualifiers if they're not playing? any games between now and then. So I think there's like this this a bit of like a worry for me

where if that is going to be an issue of rust and sort of being out of in season, you know, mid-season fitness is going to be an issue. It's only going to be worse in the qualifier. Right. So what are we going to do on that striker? If Pepe's going to be even rustier on January 27th, bring in Pfeck,

scored four goals this morning? Just the four for Pfok. I mean, his name, got to be close. I do wonder, I'm very curious how that's going to play out for the actual selections. If we'll lean more on the guys who are in season in Europe, or if we will sort of just stick to the established depth chart, regardless of whether a guy's been out for a month or two. Yeah. I thought, so the moment you're talking about with Pepe is in the 10th minute, but there was even one in the third minute. And there were a few in the first 15 minutes where he just like, yeah, wasn't sharp. I guess that's the best way to say it. Six minute, we get a nice

turn from Cardoso to switch the point of attack from left to right. And he finds Roldon in the half space. Roldon releases Morris nicely down the wing. And Morris beats his guy and whips one into the six. It skips through, Bello runs onto it, takes it to the end line and stands it up into the mixer. It gets headed away and arcs out to Acosta, who has one on the volley and scuffs it very badly. seventh minute it goes a cardoso rolled on morris again down the right in a in a pleasing to the eye way and morris zips a low ball across that's cut out just before it gets to peppy running at the near post so i'm i'm just going to give a few more well jump in if you want right now but i want to give a few more because i think we did actually do some decent attacking in the first 20 minutes which you know you

could say we should right we should do that that against Bosnia, but it wasn't completely hopeless in the first 20 minutes. It's just we we didn't, we didn't quite turn the screw, you know? I think that's, I think that's the right way to put it. And even throughout the game, I know it got probably a little easier once Bosnia went down a man, but I think there were, there were plenty of these sort of isolated patterns where we looked good. Can a pattern be isolated? Where we looked like, okay, and fluid and like, okay there it is um but you know we can never stack like three or four of those on top of each other in a row to get that final like set up for the final touch for the goal uh really apart from

uh the peppy miss because even most of the other chances well that that's not fair well i'll let the chronology speak for itself we can continue yeah i um i clocked a good win from cardoso in the air in the eighth minute 10th minute we get that combination a lovely combination from acosta and bellow to spring Ferreira down the left wing and he finds Peppie's feet at the top of the box with that sharp low pass I think you were referring to earlier and peppy just takes a couple touches and taps it wide and it gets recirculated we have another in the 11th minute another Cardoso rolled on move to try to spring Lenin down the right channel and rolled on's curling through ball is just nicked out of bounds you know a couple inches more curl on that and it's a

4 v3 on goal and with, you know, with Lenin and then, you know, all the attackers on the left side arriving. Yeah, we got the, we got the off-season curl. He just needed mid-season curl on that ball and we're in. And then, and then we get the miss from Pepe,

which is, it's a big yikes. I know we're not big on that, or you're not big on criticizing strikers for misses, but this is a, this is a pretty, it's a lovely move from Cardoso to Roldon, to spring Lenin in the half space. So as the right fullback, Lenin was really getting into the attack,

even sort of in the half space, you know. Yeah, this is great. And I'll just jump in real quick to interrupt the sequence here to say, I think this is where we were just finding a ton of joy against Bosnia overall or whatever joy you were getting. It was really easy to sort of pin like one guy into a 1B2 for Bosnia out on the wings because of like their, sort of narrow three, we were often able to isolate their, like, widest left player.

You could call a wingbacker at times, like you said, it kind of looked like a bank of four, so we'd be like an outside mid, but, like, it was really easy to sort of pin that guy. And in this case, it was Roldon doing a good job with, I think, Ferrer to, like, lock him into one spot. It might have just been Roldon and Lennon. But then you caught him blind and you caught the sort of more central defender stepping forward. forward so it was easy to slip the guy in behind. And I thought we could do that a lot against Bosnia. I thought we did. And I think that's how

we ended up with just sort of, you know, a lot of balls being fired into the mixer from Lenin, from Bello, from eventually Reynolds. But this was just a good, this was a good job of like exploiting that weakness for Bosnia in their setup. And this was, you know, this wasn't, I mean, for Reynolds was the, the mixer fireer of the day.

For sure. He was just pumping it in there. This ball from Lenin was a, you know, this was a precision ball on the ground at the near post. And like we talked about, Pepe just couldn't get his feet right, whiffed it.

Too bad. 17th minute, Acosta one touches a loose ball to Morris and he smacks one at the near post, draws an awkward save from the keeper. And Acosta tries to take another one on the volley, and it's blocked. I think their keeper,

I don't know, what's your view on their keeper? He seemed like he didn't, he wasn't fantastic. So they switched at half, right? I mean, I don't think. Oh, did they? Yeah, so he didn't have much to do, really. He was able to, a lot of our crosses, I would say, were Aaron, I mean, I'm kind of getting into the overall goalkeeper performance,

which a lot of it was us just feeding him the ball. I thought Morris kind of struggled with this, and I thought, like, Bello kind of struggled with this. we hit a lot of our service to the goalkeeper's hands, which he was all too happy to just collect for the most part. So we didn't have that many shots from to deal with, and we'll get to his one big moment in a couple of minutes here. Yeah, yeah.

It's many minutes later in the game, but we will get to it in a much smaller amount of minutes than that. So I just thought that this was the point in the game where Berhalter might have felt a little hard done by. we did come out and kind of dominate the first 20 minutes. Generated a lot of moments in the penalty area, but came away with nothing. I'm going to skip most of what I have for the rest of the half, but there was a bit of sloppiness sort of set in,

and Bosnia did get a set-piece chance in the 30th minute on a Lenin foul, and a couple shots that are blocked, or a shot that's blocked, and then a harmless volley from when the ball spills out to the edge of the box. 32nd minute, we get the huge chance for Morris. It's a ball over the top from Lennon to Ferrara. So Lennon was doing not just the half-space stuff, but he was also playing a ball, like a direct ball,

into the channel over the top, on at least two occasions that I noticed, and this was one of them. Ferreira runs onto it, and he hits a good cross, and Morris arrives at the back post, It's a diving header down and hard, but it's right off of Sackovich's knee. And it's saved. Still zero zero.

And I'll get to the header, which I think is just totally fine. But this is the one where it was Ferreira and Roldan working together in this little unit to free up Ferreira behind. Because, like, again, we just created some good confusion for Bosnia on assignments where Roldon drifted high enough up into the line centrally that he got the center back to step towards. him and Ferreira then was clever and Lenin reading it as well was clever enough to see that with the centerback stepping that that wide the defender on sort of the wide left flank for Bosnia didn't realize that was happening so he's not expecting that he needs to track Ferreira as closely if Ferreira goes that's fine I've got my centerback behind me to pick it up but that wasn't the case since Roldan had drawn him up Ferreira takes off Lenin reads it well and finds him and it's a

really nice service from Frera and honestly like a very good header from Morris that just, you know, it's one of those variant saves that happens sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Morris had to really, like, adjust the way his body was moving to get good contact on it. So, yeah, it happens. But overall, that is just a really pretty sequence from me. Like, I was happy with everything that was happening in and around the ball there. Yeah.

On and around the ball. And I think, I mean, I guess I'll insist that there were plenty of those types of sequences in this game. Just, I mean, maybe plenty in the first half. Just couldn't get it done. Yeah, I would definitely say that based on sort of the chatter I heard just before I was able to watch the game, I was expecting it to be much, much worse than what it was. I was like, oh, this is all, this is all mostly fine. I think most of the negative part of the chatter centered on, even the game.

guys who are doing fine if you just think they're the wrong guys to be in the game, you're going to be, you're going to be frustrated. Yeah. And some people, you know, some people are just frustrated by default. That's true.

And also, you know, it wasn't like, I mean, people, people want, people want their dreams realized by the national team. And last night did,

last night realized nobody's dreams, I don't think, except for maybe Cole Bassett and his family. 40th minute, we get the red card. for Amar Begich, he just puts his studs into Acosta's ankle.

Acosta does well to, you know, I mean, it probably hurt a lot, but he also acted like he was dead and, you know, out came the red card. It's kind of a bummer that that happened because it takes some of the, I don't know, the experimental rigor out of the game.

But it happened. It totally does. And Bosnia already weren't good enough where it looked like they were ever going to be able to punish us. Like there were moments watching that where it was like, oh, we're exposed here. You know, and they'd be these little openings 55 yards from goal,

but like Bosnia had numbers or we had a guy slightly out of position. But it evaporated like instantly for Bosnia because they're not very good. They're young. They've never played together. You talk about this being like a thrown together roster for us. I think we had like 200 caps in our roster. And again, Bosnia had eight total out of all of their players. I don't even know what it was in their 11 for who started.

but none of these guys have played together for the senior national team for Bosnia. And so they were just a mess, right? Like every time there was a little moment of something that could open up for them, like they erased it quickly themselves. So there were very few opportunities where we could watch our defenders or our whole defensive team shape get stressed, which I always hope to see in any game we play, certainly in friendlies where we're trying to learn about our players.

And once there was this red card, I mean, then it just dropped totally. Like, they weren't even, you know, they were basically just like, you're fighting somebody with no arms at that point. They sat so deep with their shape. So I think even Burhalter, I saw shaking his head when he saw the red card, like, oh, man, this isn't what I wanted. Yeah, I saw a quote from him after the game.

He said it was the worst thing that could have happened. Okay, there you go. For at first, it forced, I mean, Bosnia went really, like you said, went into a really deep low block. And we had trouble solving that for sure. We had a harder time generating chances after the red card than we did before. I will note that in the 51st minute, we got a nice backheel from Pepe that leads to a good Lennon Cross. This is like the one moment from Pepe.

I was just hungry for positive Pepey moments, and that was basically the one. We get a gorgeous move. So in the 63rd, Zardis comes on for Pepe, Reynolds on for Lenin, and Jackson Ewell for Cardoso. Let's talk quickly about Cardoso. I thought he was actually, well, what did you think of him? I mean, he basically gets the same grade as almost everyone else, which is fine with almost nothing that made me really go, oh, all right, all right, Johnny. So, no, I didn't think there was anything like revelatory about it, although my expectations for him in particular were so. low that just being fine, I was like, okay, well, that's, that's a, that's a good game for Johnny,

based on what we've seen from, in Guadalajara. So I was like, all right, he didn't, I mean, in Guadalajara, like, that guy fell on his face, like every time the ball came to him, metaphorically. And so, like yesterday, it was totally different, right? He was very competent and adequate. Yeah. I thought he was, I thought he was, um, I thought he was a little better maybe than you did. He was, he was able to do some, some, some, like, noticeably nice stuff. on the turn to open up space. Anyway, I just think we should be a little bit encouraged about him that he's, you know, he's 19 and he's not, he's not the player.

He's not always going to be the player we saw in Olympic qualifying. I'll give you that. And again, I'm encouraged that he was adequate at all. Like I was like, okay, again, he kind of just did like a little bit of like basic metronoming. Yeah. Which I'll take. Again, it was a super low block. So for Bosnia, certainly for the last 60 minutes.

And so, you know, a lot of it is just sort of, you always kind of doing the same stuff. You look up and you're looking at this block and you just shift the ball 15 yards or 20 yards to the next guy. Let the picture change a little bit. Yeah. Well, I just noticed that he was involved in like most of the attacking moves that we got in that first 20 minute period. But anyway, let's not talk about Cardoso anymore. It's 68th minute. a gorgeous move from Reynolds, Rodin, and Morris.

They're just playing triangles on the right side, and I thought Reynolds brought a nice little bit of fluidity in his movement, and also he was pumping in those head-high crosses. But they played some triangles around that left side of Bosnia's defense, and Kost was making a little darting runs off to the inside, and Reynolds gets the end line for a cutback after a Roldon plays him in behind. of course the cutback is cut out so it's i just spent a lot of time talking about something that resulted in very little it was another good pattern and it was another example of us just sort of

having our having our way is too strong but like finding that uh overload towards the sideline where uh bosnia either just didn't have the setup for it or elected to let us have it out there thinking that we wouldn't be good enough to make anything of it and for the most part that that thinking was probably vindicated yes 75th minute couple of points moments in attacking transition, one from Ferreira and Acosta, where they just kind of like give the ball away at the top of the box. Peter, sort of petered out is the phrase that comes to mind. And then another from Zarathis, Ferreira and Roldon, mostly on Roldon, just a huge,

heavy touch in the center circle and transition to give it away. That one felt kind of emblematic of the evening when it happened. Yeah. Just, go ahead. There was, even before Roldon had his heavy touch, like, even that little breakout already was lacking, like, rhythm, like the passes were just a beat off and, like, slowing, guys had to, like, slow their run to get to it. And that's even from Ferreira, who usually hits, like, a really nice rhythm pass. So we'd already lost the fluidity. And then Rol D had that horrendous touch and ends up, like, turning into a scramble, foul situation in the midfield with both guys laying on the ball.

It looked like a basketball, loose ball situation. But time out. just for the most part, I thought Raldon on the ball was pretty good, which I think Roldon is often, I think that's often the case for him with the national team. If he gets the ball, if he's in a position where he can get the ball in like a little bit of space, he usually makes good decisions and executes fairly well.

So in this case, I thought this was like one of his, one of, a few, he had a few sort of like on ball missteps. My issue with him is still just whether or not he can really secure the center of the field when we don't have the ball. And I think there was still plenty of evidence last night that he cannot, that he's not a guy I'm going to feel too comfortable with.

I agree with that. Yeah. Pitch control was not there from Roldon. Cowell and Bassett come on for Ferreira and Morris. And, you know, I noticed a couple good moments from Bassett, one in the counterpress. He puts a ball on Cowell's head from wide left. doesn't get, you know,

Kyle doesn't get good contact. That was in the 82nd minute. Hold on, hold on. Before you skip ahead to Bassett and what he does when he comes on, like he came on for, like Morris came off at that point. You got to give me your Morris review. Oh, I think very promising, you know.

Like he's a guy who can beat people 1 v1. He seems pretty good in combination. I think it seems likely he'll be in the qualifying roster. at the end of January. All right, all right. You're a little higher on him from last night than I am. I was glad to see him back. I think it's awesome that he's back

and that he got to play in this game. For me, it felt like he's not there yet. Just still a little bit rough with those last touches. There were definitely moments where you're like, oh, that's the Morris that we remember. Like his ability to, you know, not necessarily shrug a guy, but to buy a yard or two on the wing with his burst. He's a real like short burst kind of quickness and speed power guy

But I just felt like there was not there was really nothing there at the end of it Other than the header that he got on the end of So for me it was like there was nothing that we saw from there was like oh he's all the way back And he's gonna he's definitely on this roster I'm like I feel like what we saw yesterday and knowing that he's still not gonna play any games because he's an offseason for a month Wouldn't surprise me if he's in camp but I wouldn't at all be surprised if he's he's left out completely for this camp and we wait until he gets more, you know, matches under his belt, or if he's there but doesn't really have a role to play on the field.

Okay. I guess, I mean, I guess there will be some of the factors involved in that will be the health of other players in the pool. Certainly, certainly. But he seems like a decent Timway, right-wing corollary, I guess, to me, even though I can't disagree with what you said about his sharpness. In contrast, Cal was not a decent corollary for a way at right wing and didn't think he had a shining outing. Totally agree.

But again, for a lot of these guys, we do have to remember this. This isn't to make excuses for any player, but it's like this is just a nice good moment for, what is he, 17, 18 now? He's a kid. Yeah. So this is a great time to be like, oh, awesome for him. And to not get ahead of ourselves with a lot of these guys, but to just sort of enjoy what it probably meant for Cade Cowell to get into this,

get into a national team game. And that alone is sort of a worthwhile thing. For sure. I get all sentimental with some of these kids, Bell. Sure you do. 84th minute, Gomez comes on, Jonathan Gomez comes on for Bello. I thought Bello was kind of exactly what he has been,

which is like not terrible, not great. Yeah, and this is where it really hurts that Bosnia weren't good and then that Bosnia got the red card. Because the big thing for Bello so far for me with the national team is him reading the game better and getting like in the right spots defensively and offensively. And there was just no way to really gauge that in this kind of a game for him to see if sort of he's making progress.

because that's my hope. Like that's a switch that he could potentially flip. And, you know, on the ball, he's usually been, you know, fine for the U.S. And at times, like, really dangerous and effective. But positioning, he just seems really naive. So the hope is that he has that sort of a, you know, leap forward over one of these extended camps. This would have been a good one to see it. But there was just no way to tell that.

Yeah. Right. Well, happy to see going. Gomez come on for him. And in the 88th minute, I clocked like three Reynolds balls pumped in from wide in a row. So we were just giving the ball to Brian and he was just, he was just hitting it at the mixer. And then in the 89th minute, we get our goal on a moment just like that. Reynolds pumps another ball in from wide and it bounces around. Zardis wins the loose ball off the back post and lays it off for Gomez just at the 18.

It's a nice little layoff allowing Gomez to step into it. And he takes a quick, decent shot with his left foot, low and hard enough to draw a save. And the keeper parries it. But Cole Bassett pounces on the rebound and tucks it home for the 89th minute winner and the 17th win of the year, Greg. Calendar year records. It's nice to see that Gomez plays a part there Because we had so many shots that went wide or high

And like well wide, well high Throughout the game To have somebody just come in and, you know, put a good shot on frame It makes a difference. And so I was glad to see that Although we have, there's very little we can say Else we can say about Gomez's performance, I think, from this game. Yeah, that's again, happy for Cole Bassett to have that moment

really a good play from Zardes because not only did he have that nice little touch to go as but he was like the target of the first Reynolds ball so it's like he was at the middle of the six so it's just sort of that good awareness that Zardaz tends to show like he's never checked out of a play ever so that ball is into him and when it doesn't get to him and sort of falls apart in the scramble he's already moving before like go or before the Bosnia player sort of fluff his touch six yards away and so Zardez is able to keep the play alive with a really nice touch to Gomez. So, I mean, that is something, right?

Like, Jazi's artist does not shut off. Yeah. Hard to criticize Jazi too much these days, given the alternatives. What else? Anything else? Tell me what you've got from it. Yeah, I just, like I said, I think the Pepe's poor outing, including that big miss, are kind of depressing for me.

I thought Cardoso was actually, he was better than I thought he was going to be. I guess I'll leave it at that. I thought Ferreira was also kind of wasteful. I thought Morris looked dangerous and useful. Rold on in Acosta, Bello, kind of who we thought they were. Lennon was useful in the attack too.

But I did think by the time he came off for Reynolds, Reynolds was a welcome change. Yeah, totally, I feel like they were different styles. I know Lenin's a big service guy too, and that's what Reynolds was trying to offer. Like Lenin does that for Atlanta. He hits a lot of good balls into the box for people to try to get on the end of. And we saw him do that. So, yeah, there was no one who, like, played their way out of contention.

It really just comes down to, like, did we look at the right players or not? And I don't really, it's hard to get too worked up about it, to be quite honest. Yeah, we'll have to just, we'll have to just be patient and, you know, see what happens in the January camp and then get ready for the next window because it's a crucial one. It's very crucial. We have to, we have to get some points and hope for some Panama, not points. Yeah. I wish Paxton Pomacall would have been in this game. That's what I'll say.

I wish I would have seen him because it did still feel like very low energy. Would you say that's fair? I mean it always Yeah it always feels a little low energy When Roldon is getting on the ball Even though he I don't think he I don't think he played poorly Like he had some poor moments

But he also had some good moments I'm not dogging on Roldon But it did feel a little bit Low energy yes Yeah it's lethargic And so that's where I wish we had at least One guy out there who was like No we're gonna go we're gonna like

Actually test whether Bosnia's low block is Cable rather than just sort of plotting around letting their low block be successful by default. Yeah, give me some 2019 Sebastian Leggett push that game. There you go. That's what I'm hoping, Pomacall, and soon Dwayne Holmes will bring. I haven't been able to watch Dwayne Holmes' goal from the weekend. Thank you for giving me that in to mention Dwayne Holmes in a podcast episode about

a December MLS friendly. All right. Let's get out of here. Thanks, Greg. Thanks everybody for listening. We are, we're going to do the Monday review tomorrow. Please rate and review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to it and consider supporting us on Patreon. We'll see you.