Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #246: Canada v USA recap (WCQ10)

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

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Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. The U.S. went to Hamilton, Ontario and lost two to zero to Canada yesterday afternoon. It was, I would say, a frustrating game in many ways a respectable performance from the U.S., but we gave up an early goal and then we couldn't break down a disciplined opponent. Greg, how you doing? What are you thinking? What's up? I'm just thinking, you know, the roller coaster continues. I don't know that I would call that. dominant US performance. I know there are others who would, but I'm not at least at that point yet. Yeah, that was, that's getting a lot of press.

Burhalter called it a dominant performance in the postgame press conference. Yeah, I don't, I don't agree with that at all. I assume you don't, you don't either based on what you just said. No, my response to that was like, well,

I guess it's not Burrhalter's job to like, you know, cater to the fan base. And it might just be the case of him saying what he thinks his team needs to hear right now. I don't know. I mean, they've got to turn it around for a Wednesday game in similarly brutal conditions. So maybe the last thing you want to do is, you know, harp too harshly on them.

A more brutal, more brutal conditions. More brutal conditions, yeah. Unless maybe the field quality versus Hamilton's turf is like a wash. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, we might as well talk about the Honduras game. coming up because it's in two days and we will be there. At least that's the plan right now. We got the short end of the stick weather-wise in St. Paul because it's going to be 36 degrees early tomorrow morning, Tuesday morning. So there was always a chance that we could get weather like

that. But there was also a chance that we weren't going to get weather like that. So the temperature is going to fall off a cliff throughout the day, Tuesday, and it'll be negative temperatures by early Wednesday. And we may be looking at arguably the coldest soccer game ever played. It's the coldest professional first division game ever played. It's like it's going to be in the running. Yeah. I mean, we can't know for sure at it because like I don't know that anybody really keeps track of that.

But there was a game. The Guardian tried to answer the question a few years ago. And there was a game that Bayer Leverkusen played against Rosenborg, a Scandinavian club. I can't remember which Scandinavian country. And the temp at kickoff was 7 degrees Fahrenheit. That's the coldest one they could find. It'll likely be a couple degrees colder than that at kickoff on Wednesday. And flirting with negative temperatures by full-time, absolute insanity.

Lunacy. And I'm sure we'll talk about that more as we talk about frustrations with this game. Yeah, because it was cold. It was cold in Hamilton. I think it was like what, 20, 22 degrees at kickoff, something like that. All right, let's do the lineups, and then we'll get into some analysis, hopefully. USA started with Turner and Goal, Dest, Richards, Miles Robinson, and Anthony Robinson crossed the back line. So that's one change in the back.

Miles Robinson replaced Walker Zimmerman. And the rumor there was Zimmerman was held out for a minor hamstring. And so we don't know if it would have been Richards Zimmerman again or if this would have been Robinson either way and it would have been Robinson Zimmerman. And we don't know how the cold weather in Columbus affected Zimmerman's hamstring. I'm just going to keep bringing up the cold weather. You're going to beat that drop, aren't you? Well, I mean, it's still like even if even if it's not necessarily complaining about it, which I will do a lot of still. It still is like a factor that could have gone into this injury.

Yeah. Yeah. And we have a couple of other. We have a hamstring for Tyler Adams to report that you already know about. And then a Chris Richards ankle injury, which I don't think there's still any official word on that. Just Berthor said it was maybe a broken ankle after the game. But anyway, let's get back to the lineup. Tyler Adams and Wes McKenny and Eunice Musa in the midfield.

So no change there. And then Erinson, Brennan Aronson, Jazzis artist and Christian Pulisick across the front line. So really it's just, I mean, Aaron, obviously, Wea was not available because of vaccination regulations issue. And so Aronson replaced him. The only real surprise here is Zardis starting over Pepe and Ferreira. And, you know, I probably wouldn't have done it, but I can see the rationale for it. Can you? I can't.

I tweeted it before the game that Zardaz makes sense. to me, but part of me saying that was an expectation that we were also just going to go into this game in street brawl, the way I expected Canada to do and not try to play like a lot of fancy soccer in the 20 degrees on the turf, on a narrow field. But we didn't do that. We went in and actually tried to spread out and play. And at that point, like, I don't really think Zardez is the guy because we know where we could probably infer that Canada was going to do what they did against us in Nashville, which is sit back. just keep their shape, absorb pressure. And at that point, like, I feel like it would be more valuable to have more of a ball playing forward. But, again, I didn't think we were going to try to do that either.

So for me at the time, Zardez was fine. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, he did. He was a little bit of a handful for that three-man back line. And he did a couple of things that were useful. I mean, he was good in the press. But I guess I don't really think Zardis was the prime. problem in this game.

Do you? I mean, I guess he's a problem if we're playing, if we're going to try to play pretty soccer, then he is the problem or is one of the problems? Is that what you're saying? Kind of. But even then, it wasn't like Canada were pressing us, so we needed like a forward who we could really use to relieve pressure in the buildup. Like Canada was sitting back so we could kind of just get up the field and then

sort of play our game with the midfield just having the ball at their leisure at midfield. So even then, it's still going to be more about Zardis's moving. movement in his sort of off ball movement, which is actually one of his strengths. So I don't think that like, I know a lot of people are frustrated with Pepe not being in, but I think, I still think that the Pepey pendulum swung too far the other way where he was the sort of all-conquering forward. I don't really think he's that guy.

I wouldn't have had a problem with him starting, but I would agree that Zardez wasn't noticeably worse or, or the sort of demise of any particular attacks more than other guys. I mean, he had some sort of comic moments, especially with the baggage that he brings. But, you know, Aronson also had those. And McKenney also had those. So it's like a lot of guys are doing those things. Yeah. Okay.

Well, let's do Canada's lineup. They had Milan Borian in goal, a good game from him. And then they had their backline of Alastair Johnston, Stephen Victoria, and Kamal Miller with Richie Larea and Sam Otakugby at wingback. And then they had a two-man midfield of Mark Anthony Kay and Jonathan Osorio and then a front line of Kyle Lerrin, Jonathan David, and Tajan Buchanan, although they were getting, you know, Buchanan in particular was getting back and defending a lot too. So I guess some people were talking about them maybe coming out and trying to play more at home, but that definitely didn't happen. You didn't expect that at all. You expected them to do what they did do?

I mean, I certainly wasn't like betting a ton of money on it, but it made sense to me. Like it was so effective in Nashville. I don't know how Hurdman rates Tim Wea for the U.S., but like if he's really like, Tim Wea has been their only source of goals over the past five games. They don't have Tim Wea. Like, what are they going to do? How are they going to score? And I do like think that Hurdman would have been fine sitting in that shell and playing the game

out to zero zero even. Like I don't think he would have come out even. if they hadn't gotten their early goal, like just keep waiting, keep waiting. If the chance presents itself, take it. If it doesn't, we get a zero zero draw. We go undefeated against Mexico and Canada. We've got an even bigger cushion at the top of the table against the fourth place cutoff line.

Like, we're in business. The fact that they got the early goal meant it was just like zero incentive for them to start sending numbers forward. Like it was always going to be about us trying to break their block down. Yeah. And I think, I mean, it's hard to overstate how important Tim Wea has become for this team. He is, I mean, I tweeted about this. I'm sure you've tweeted about it. He's been really our only source of danger for, I don't know, basically since October, since we won 2-0 against Jamaica at home.

And not having him was a real problem. We didn't, we don't have much cutting edge without Tim We on the field. I won't go so far as to say only, only source of danger, but he has been, I think, by far our most effective source of danger. And after him, like, it might honestly come down to, like, Sirginio Dest at number two. So he's been massive for us and missing him to even have as an option off the bench because he is also coming back from injury. So these conditions aren't great for him.

And he might not have been ready to start another game. But even to just have that threat off the bench would have made me feel a lot better going in. not that, again, not that that would have guaranteed us getting that goal back. No. I mean, who were blaming for this? Because surely we knew that, you know, so the story is that he got his first shot and then he got COVID so he couldn't get the second shot. And then, you know, I don't know, didn't have enough time to do it before the window or something. I don't know exactly.

Am I getting any of that wrong? That's why I'm interpreting the story. But there's definitely sort of the. implication there that this is all happening a bit last minute because that means that, you know, we ran out of time to do it if that's what the story is, rather than it being like a choice not to get the second shot, right? Yeah. Yeah, it was a timing. It was a getting COVID and timing thing. But I don't know that anybody has really, you know, given the full timeline. I guess I don't really want to litigate all that. It's too bad he wasn't there. Yeah. It's too bad he wasn't

there. It is possible that somewhere in the front office of U.S. soccer, there was a just giant ball dropped that prevented us from having Timway available. It's possible, yeah. And then why don't we go right into the first goal? Because it did sort of shape the whole game. I mean, on the timeline, I have a few of poor touch from Zardis, a nice switch from Musa and then a poor cross from Robinson. I thought the U.S. press looked good in the opening minutes.

Adams was called on Defend Deep in our corner to track down Richie Lurea. And then what happens in the lead up to the goal is right around the 530 mark, Eunice Musa plays the ball across the field for Dest, tries to spray it out to him. And the ball, the paths is a little light, probably has something to do with the turf. And then Dest, I fault Dest a little bit for not coming over, coming to the ball a little more. But he sort of makes like he's going to come to it. And then Adikugby just darts right in front of him and takes it. And they're off going the other way.

Miles Robinson locks down to Jambi Cannon. in a 1v1 which is good and wins a goal kick, even though it kind of gets bundled over by Buchanan, which he seemed like he was maybe struggling with his footing a little bit, like his balance. And I'm talking about Robinson there, Miles. And then here's the Canada goal. On the ensuing goal kick from Matt Turner,

it's a blooper kind of. I don't know if it got caught by the wind or what, but that doesn't clear the half line. And then Kamal Miller charges forward and thumps it straight ahead at Jonathan Osorio. Osoria uses the outside of his foot a deft little touch right to the feet of Kyle Laren. And then Laren makes a nice pass, a nice square pass to David. And people are like, well, this is a really simple pass.

No, it's not that simple of a pass, you guys. Because that ball... You guys who are saying... Because the ball's spinning... The ball's spinning in like a weird way. And he just catches it exactly right. I know these are professional soccer players, but that to me was kind of impressive. right to David's feet and then makes a run in behind David Meg's Chris Richards to spring

Laren in behind Laren takes a couple touches and then slots it past Turner Turner gets a fingertip to it but not nearly enough and um and it's one zero it's just a nightmare scenario it's exactly what Canada wants exactly what we don't want I have several questions about this for you but why don't you just say what you noticed and all that okay so one of the things I noticed even before this, and I don't know, some of them are in your timeline, but not sort of described the way I was thinking of them, is that it felt already like this soccer ball was a rock. And that was Canada's first goal kick. Bourjean did the same thing, right?

He, he, like, chunked a goal kick directly to one of our, like, up defenders, not even, not even to, like, beyond the first line. Like, he just chunked it right at our guy. Christian Pulis except piece that he chunked, that didn't even get into the 18 before it got cut out. And then Musa's pass to desk that got picked off. Like he badly underhanded it as well. And that can be an effect of a frozen soccer ball.

Like when you kick it, it doesn't have the elasticity that you're used to it having. It's almost like if you just threw a foot saw ball out there instead of a soccer ball. And you're not expecting it. Or if you just don't catch it quite as clean as you usually would with a, with a like properly not frozen ball, it won't have the same effect, right? Like you don't have to be exactly perfect with it.

And so that's just what I'm throwing out there. for the goal kick. It's badly under hit. Zardaz clearly wasn't expecting to be that underhit. The center mids clearly weren't expecting that they were the ones assigned to go after the ball. Like, it was Matt Turner's second goal kick.

His first one was hit also up the middle of the field to Giazzi Zardez in our center mid sort of like built a shell around him in case he didn't win that first one. But that was like the, that looked like the script for it. This one was badly underhit. So McKinney would have maybe had a better path to it, but just like not his assignment. Zardez is supposed to challenge for the first ball

and I'm supposed to like collect after the second one. So Zardez comes in but can't quite make the play on it. So that's sort of addressing the kick. It's not a very good kick. It might be the weather and then just the poor execution from Turner. One more thing about the kick. Like was it a mistake for Turner to kick it when he still had his centerbacks back?

I didn't go back and watch all the goal kicks, but it seemed like that was kind of what we were doing throughout the game. Like our centerbacks would not push forward when he did the goal kick. I saw some people mention this. What do you think? So I don't think that's as much of an issue. I'm sure other people notice this too. That is a very similar sequence to what happened to the U.S.

in the last cycle in the home match against Costa Rica, a Tim Howard goal kick that he kind of tries to finesse rather than, you know, a full launch. And we lose the header. And they came right down our throats with our centerbacks still spread out wide for the goal kick in case we've taken it short. With the rules have changed since then. And you can now have your centerbacks in the bottom. box, which is what basically everyone does to start out with. And there are still plenty of teams that

will launch the ball, even with their centerbacks still standing in the box. Because if you send them all up, then the defense reacts as well. Whereas if you keep them in, then you've also spread out the defense, right? So you're trying to create room everywhere. And in this case, like I think the idea is you could still kick it long, even with your whole team spread out, because your forward's going to challenge for it. And there's no way they're going to head it all the way back up to your, you know, to where your centerbacks will get immediately exposed. Like that will take too much time for that to develop. They'll be able to get up and get touched tight on their guys.

And because we chunked it, because Turner chunked it, that just wasn't the case. They could, they got to attack the ball sprinting forward short of our center circle and immediately move it into the most dangerous space in that situation. Yeah. And I want to give. So I can, I can forgive not moving them up. Okay, okay. I want to give, I mean, I want to give credit to Canada basically in all, a lot of different ways today. I said it's brutal to have to admit that we can't beat Canada, not because I disrespect Canada, but because it's just I don't want to admit that. I didn't want to admit that.

I hate admitting it, not because I don't think Canada's good. I do think Canada's good. I think they're better than us. as a team that goes out and gets results. It's very, I mean, it's, it's inarguable at this point. Table don't lie. Is that what you're trying to say? Yeah, exactly. Well, it's not a complete, it's the completed table doesn't lie. So when we win our next four matches, including at Mexico and at Costa Rica and pass Canada on the last day, then, then the table will be telling the full time.

Okay. Yeah. So you're saying we're going to have a 12 point window from here on out. But I do want to, I really want to give credit to the, to the people involved in this goal because it was a very, it was just a crisp technical quality action from, I mean, really from four different people. Yep. Flawless. Four, four straight actions that were pretty, pretty much flawless. Yeah.

Five straight actions from four different people. Yeah. We're in the weeds a little bit. Yeah. And I mean, do you think so, so if I, if there's a blunder here from the U.S., you know, beyond the poor goal kick, it's, it's Robinson losing his footing as he's chasing Laren. And I, and I, I mean, the thought, the thought crosses my mind. This guy hasn't played since mid-November. He's probably a little rusty. Is this an example of that in the 20, you know, 20-degree weather? Who can say? I mean, it's a game of variance, but that was a bad time for variance to bite us. It was a bad time, and it was, you know,

it should be a basic assignment defensively, right? You're on your man, he passes it, you're expecting his next movement to be the giving go. So you body him off of his run and then just sort of stay goal side of him. And Robinson just failed on the whole thing. He got bodied enough that he lost his footing and then was never able to recover to get goalside again.

So it's a bad one, right? My question at the time was like, okay, so now is there going to be the narrative that follows Robinson, the same way there was the narrative that follows Brooks when he had a mistake that occurred in the sequence leading to a goal where Miles Robinson is now on a crisis of form? Like, is that what we're going to hear a bunch of stories about? Or are we at the point yet where we can be like, yeah, sometimes centerbacks get beat a little bit. And that's how opposing teams score goals sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, no, I doubt that Robinson will suffer the same fate as John Brooks here.

But it may, you know, it may cause Burrhalter to say, oh, well, let's give John Brooks another chance, which would be fine with me. I think the difference between Robinson and Brooks is, you know, you can't watch you can't watch Brooks play and not notice that he, when he's running at full speed, he looks like he's running at half speed. Like, that is a difference between him and Robinson. I know, you know, they both got beat. I'm with you.

I think that like his form stuff is kind of a load of malarkey. But I mean, I'm not saying you're saying it like that, but that's my way of saying. I absolutely think it's a lot of malarkey. And that is exactly the word I've been using even amongst close friends. So, but I do think like it's hard to, it's hard to, you know, I understand that there's a difference there. Brooks does not look like a fast man on the soccer field. Robinson lost his footing here. but generally he looks like he can cover ground and make up for his mistakes.

Oh, and I'm happy to concede that too. I'm happy to concede that in those sort of a 1v-1 agility situations, Brooks is also not one of our strongest players and his record isn't particularly strong there. I just think that we tend to overblow any mistake that leads to a goal. And in Brooks's case, it turned into a banishment. Yeah. Yeah, which points to there probably being something else going on there. So it's 1-0 and the crap.

No, no, no, we didn't wear it on yet. We're not just going to skip over Turner here, are we? We gave Robinson the business. Okay, what about Turner? Tell me what happened on the goal, on the strike. So I guess like the technical thing here is that his footwork at the moment of the strike wasn't great. And the way you know it's not great is that he doesn't actually get to push off with his right foot towards the ball to his right side. if your right foot's not planted at the right time,

then you have to use your outside foot, his left foot, which means that his right foot and knee will just sort of collapse underneath him, and he will get almost no push off horizontally. He'll get almost no ground towards the ball. So it's all just going to come from like hand placement and literally like finger strength. And what we obviously saw was he didn't get his hand far enough

and there was zero strength in the fingers. The ball just smashed right through him. into the goal. So as much as we have, and me in particular, has been banging on about Matt Turner being our best shot stopper here,

this was a very saveable shot. Yeah, because it wasn't, it wasn't side netting, you know, it was like kind of right down. And I thought maybe he's like over favoring the near post

to try to close that down and I don't know, got wrong footed or something, but, okay. And I'm going to be, be really careful about the language here because the same way with Stefan in the Jamaica and in that shot that Stefan allowed against Jamaica, a much more difficult shot, in my

opinion, in this one. Yes, I think so. So, you know, and we had an inquest, right? There was a whole inquest about, does Matt Turner say that? And the whole thing is, don't use like that language. There's no language of Matt Turner would have saved that. And in this case, even saying Matt Turner should have saved that. Like, any one of our keepers in the pool can save the shot that Laren scored there. Horvath, Johnson, Stefan, and even Matt Turner. The whole thing is none of them save it every time. Like if you could recreate the shot in a lab and make the keepers look at it over and over

again, sometimes they would save it and sometimes they wouldn't. And so the issue just becomes like how often does our best keeper save it and how often does our second best keeper save it? And are we picking the right one who gives us the best probability of keeping the ball out of the goal? So while it might sound like a contradiction or like not being fair in the evaluations, even though this is what I consider like a softer goal to allow, like in Turner allowed it,

I don't think that that changes my mind, that Turner is still our best shot stopper, and he should still be our starting goalkeeper. Because over the long run, even though he might occasionally give up a soft goal that another goalkeeper might have saved in the same situation, he still keeps more balls out of the goal than the next best man. But in this case, he didn't do the optimal.

On the night, he flailed a bit. Okay. All right. Thanks for saying that. So the goal from from this point forward or the job from this point forward for the U.S. is to score a goal, get an equalizer and get back into this game. And we couldn't do it. And I think we got to like try to figure out why. I don't feel like there's a lot of different reasons. But the timeline, I have a couple of Pouloset corner.

his first corner. I mean, again, we're pretty uneven on set pieces, which is very frustrating, given that we, you know, our struggles to actually score goals against, you know, and when we need them, that we can't get like a consistently dangerous set piece situation going.

But anyway, we got spoiled, right? We got spoiled in that Mexico Nation's League game where every single corner and it was who Rayna and who was taking Raina and Pulisick in that game? Yeah, yeah.

I think Pulisic was the one who put, I can't remember. Yeah, both of them. But yeah, where McKenny was putting every single ball off the crossbar or into the goal or off Ocho's face. So now we're in this like total dry spell. And it is frustrating. And some of it is service and some of it might be execution or design, play design. But it is definitely worrying because without that goal revenue stream, we are leaning more and more on our half court offense.

That's a good way to put it. Yeah, I mean, the first corner from Pulisic doesn't beat the first defender. The second one's actually pretty decent, and it finds the head of Chris Richards, and he can't quite steer it at the back post. It goes wide. And he's just, he's got Mark Anthony K. All over him. I notice in the 11th minute, our first notable instance of us recirculating possession

when we have a tiny advantage and should rush forward. I think this, on this one, in this case, it was Zardis tapping it to West McKinney's streaming through the left channel and then he um you know he just kind of steps on the ball comes back to musa moussa steps on the ball passes it back to Adams and then it goes back to goes back to one of the centerbacks um so so just like examples of deliberately getting into the half court offense rather than being like oh well the whole point of the half court offense is to create little little unbalancing moments and here we've got them a little bit unbalanced but hold on we didn't get we didn't get here the right way so we got a we got to reset let's start over

Is that how you looked at it? It's like the players were thinking we didn't get here the right way or? No, that's just me being, that's nonsense too, right? Like, surely that's nonsense. I don't know. I don't know what the issue is, man. Like, because it's been, it hasn't always been like that even in this cycle. There was the first Canada game where I thought we were really reluctant to take risks and chances.

But the last several home games, I don't think that has been the case, right? Jamaica, Mexico, Costa Rica, and El Salvador. I don't think that's been the case. where we felt locked into resetting, allowing the defense to get their shape. And again, I'm sure that's not the motivation. I'm sure McKinney's not saying, whoa, whoa, this isn't fair to Canada. We got to let them get their shape right. And then we'll come again like gentlemen.

Like it's going to be like, I don't know, I'd be interested in hearing Burrhalter discuss or even some of the players discuss, watched on tape and be like, what is happening here and see if they can even sort of explain what the thought process is. Yeah. Well, we always think of Burrhalter as like this, you know, would be mastermind, like a like a cerebral sort of he's going to, he's like putting all the pieces together. He's very meticulous. And I noticed in the behind the crest video from from the last game, the 1-0 went over El Salvador, all the speechifying that we saw from him was just like get stuck in, get out there and compete.

Come on, boys, let's compete. And I'm starting to wonder, you know, where do we get this idea that he's like, you know, Mr. Soccer? And maybe it is, maybe he's not, you know, maybe he's, maybe he's just telling him to try harder, play faster, try harder, compete harder. And like, we're going to win. And I don't know, because I, dude, I don't know, man, they don't, I know this, it's not a disaster. We're still probably going to qualify for the World Cup. I'm not like, I'm not, the sky is falling here. But we don't look like a team, especially in contrast to Canada, we don't look like a team that knows what it's about and is like sort of free and comfortable in that, you know, system.

We don't look like that. We look, even though we, even though we got 60% possession, which Canada was happy to concede to us. That's the kicker right there, right? Right. Like, I can, I can like, I can imagine, because I kind of think. about it in the reverse in this case especially like I imagine herdman in his in his war room like right after they pick hamilton as a location and i can just see him talking to his staff like you know you drag burhalter is a proud man they're going to spend the whole week talking about mentality and being tough and how and they're going to think that they you know with all this u.s exceptionalism and whatever else and they're going to feel like they can come here and just be tough and play the exact same way in these conditions that they should be able to play anywhere else. else and we're going to like capitalize on that because you can't you can't play that way in these conditions and stack up 30 intricate passes to lead to your goal scoring chances like

you've got to just admit about like admit what you're going to be commit to it and just like keep your shape Canada's best five attacks of the game were all like four passes or fewer like they were never trying to or if they were ever trying to they never successfully like strung together 20 passes and then got themselves an open man on the weeks out of the field for a good look, right? Like, that just was not something that was going to happen in this soccer game. Yeah. So I don't, I don't have a good answer for your, for your Greg, like, Burlter, meticulous,

uh, soccer thinker. Uh, but I just know that like, it wasn't, it wasn't apparent in this game that we had a lot of solutions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's easy to say like they're the, they're the team, Canada is the team with all the swagger because they won.

And of course, when you win, you have more swagger than when you lose. So I don't know if that's just like a, you know, a narrative that you come up with as things happen. But they do feel like a team that knows what they're doing. And even that like dropping in and defending, they just look happy to do it. And they just snap right back into shape. It's all very like, it's all very tidy and very difficult to penetrate. And I don't know. They didn't seem, they didn't seem terribly troubled.

I mean, our best chances came on a Paul aureole bicycle kick. Amazing, by the way. It was amazing. I mean, what would have happened if that had gone in? It would have been awesome. It would have been really fun for the discourse, too. But it didn't. It didn't go in.

And then the other best chance was McKinney on a set piece, which is encouraging. And, like, you know, he lashed that on frame with his head. But they got a good save from Borjaun. It happened to go right above his head instead of. of like, you know, two feet to either side. One foot to either side, that's a goal, you know. So it's just a fresh, soccer's a frustrating game. Because it's, because even, even with all our frustration about the way we played and our

inability to like break, break them down, we could easily gotten a draw in this game. We could have won the game. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. The line, I know, I know some people, there were like some songs and stuff about nine point windows, but there was, when the window, when the lineup came out, uh, when the lineup came out, my immediate response like half half a bit was just like oh definitely a one point window and it was basically because I because of the conditions because of what was going on here because of kind of how I expected both teams to play Canada actually did play that way we didn't necessarily like I just I really thought this was like had zero zero written all over it because it's tough for attacking teams in these conditions like it's really hard it makes it even more impressive that Canada did execute their four or five actions on that goal sequence so perfectly but but it really is.

just like really difficult to string together good attacks in this weather. And it again makes me like retroactively mad that we have chosen St. Paul for our next match. Because like this is this is exactly why Hamilton was a good choice for Canada because they don't need to try to string all those passes together. They don't try to. They just do it the simple way. And that plays in this weather. We do try to do the really difficult things or the tedious things. I'm not even trying to give it a negative connotation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The tidy, fancy, intricate things. And now we're going to have to try to do those again in freezing cold weather three days from now. Yeah. Two days from now. When are you listening to this? It's Wednesday. Wednesday we're going to try to do those things.

Yeah. Most people are going to listen to this Monday night or Tuesday sometime. Let's just plow through some of the timeline stuff, see if anything comes up for you. Just interrupt me if something does. Yeah. I'm going to jump right over to the 19th minute. because we were talking about the U.S. is good chances and you mentioned McKinney's

and you mentioned Ariolas. This is the one where Zardes sort of like is being a nuisance and Brendan Aronson ends up picking up the loose ball just past midfield, cuts ahead and then picks out a great pass to Christian Pulisick on the left wing

lined up in space coming into the box against Alistair Johnston. Perfect. Perfect. It's exactly low of one. Yeah, like for me this is actually like arguably the most dangerous moment of the game for us, and it should be. And even if it weren't Christian Pulisic on the ball,

even if this is like your least technical player, and I don't want to even try to name a name and like do somebody like that. But this is still just an incredibly dangerous situation to have put your team in. The fact that it's Pulisic makes it even better, because he's arguably the best one-v-one player we have ever had in open space. So this is like a super dangerous moment. and it just kind of ends it. Christian Pulisic starts to try to do

Alistair Johnson, takes a slightly loose touch, gets a little clearance from him, but the loose touch allows their next defender to come over and block the shot. Pulisit goes to ground. We don't, it never even really becomes dangerous. Didn't look dangerous at all. Yeah.

Yeah. What just played out there is basically my definition for when we talk about Paul Ariola being danger adjacent. Like that should have been a super dangerous play. Kind of turns into nothing. And that will happen sometimes, right? No one turns every chance to get into a great shooting opportunity.

But it just feels like it has gone that way so often of late for Christian Pulsoc in particular. And kind of for our entire team, but in particular for Pulisic. Yeah, the only player I back to, to like do somebody and get a shot off there or play a dangerous cross is Tim Wea. And he's not even a one-v-one merchant, really. Like he's not even like his Like his primary strength But he at least can get a little separation to to make something happen Pulisick's not getting it

Aronson's not get Aaronson's not getting it in that situation most likely It's a really It's a really discouraging thing Because I think project restart Pulisic You know playing against Liverpool He takes that with his he feints inside Takes that with on his left foot and then roofs it near post Like he scored a goal that way in the restart.

Yeah. Yeah, it looked like Landa Donovan versus Algeria. I know. I'm sorry, not against Slovenia. Looked like a carbon copy of that. Yeah. And like he, I don't, I don't know. Is he just, I don't know, we said, somebody criticized.

Somebody sent me a message the other day. He said, you guys keep saying the same things about players every episode. I think he was mostly talking about me. And, like, I know, I know. I'm going to talk about Dwayne Holmes in this episode. I'm going to say all the same things. And I mean, I know I said that I worry that Pulisix lost his step in the last show. And I, but I still worry about that.

And I think this is an example. Like, he, he used to do people like that all the time. I don't know. Well, even when he. I've talked about, I've talked about the conditions, right? Like, so that could play into it like, uh, stiff ankles. Everything's numb. You've lost sensation.

And we're talking about like the most intricate touches that you can possibly trying to do to like dribble somebody at speed in the box to create your shot to avoid running into the cover defenders. So it's tough. And just like with the Matt Turner bit I did, that doesn't mean that I don't think Poole Six should continue to be the guy in here. Like it's not like I'm like, oh, pool six not dribbling very well. Let's put in Conrad de la Fuente, who's a worst dribbler.

Like we need to keep running our best player and we just, I don't know if we just sort of have to hope. Or are you saying we don't need to keep running our best player and he's no longer our best player. I don't know. I don't know. Just that that's possible. I don't know, man.

I don't know if he's not beating people 1 v1. Like, what is he giving us? He's not stretching. That's a good question in the abstract, right? He's not stretching the line. He's not, I mean, he did do, he did have some promising, a promising little one-two combination with McKinney. It's in my timeline here, but I can't find it at the moment where McKinney's return past

to him in the box is just a little off. or just like waited a little bit the wrong way. If, you know, if that, if that comes back to pool of six feet, he almost certainly pokes it through and races in behind and has, you know, something dangerous to, to, to give us right there. But, um, I don't know. I don't know what, what he's given us if he's not beating people 1 v. And that's, I guess that's, that's been my thing all along is his, his, his, um,

I don't know if it's inability or unwillingness, but his, the consistent, lack of cohesiveness around him on the field is somewhat more forgivable when he can just blow by anybody in the universe. And when he can't, it's less forgivable. And I don't even know that lack of cohesiveness was a big problem for him in this game either. I mean, he was, he was okay. He wasn't terrible.

I still am actually very frustrated that we didn't see him flip over to the right side. that's, you know, I mean, if the issue is like every time he gets the ball, he's cutting into the inside, and maybe Burrhalter doesn't see it as an issue, he drew a couple of set pieces, right? Like, he, in decent areas. So Burrhalter could say that's enough of a payoff or the fact that we even got him in that position that we just talked about from that Aronson pass. That's fine, and the goal should be to do that five more times in the game rather than, like, sulk about the fact that he lost it on that one instance. but I am a little bit surprised that we didn't see him shift over to the right at all. I know we'll get to eventually he did end up playing as like a 10 after we made some subs,

but I still feel like just for a few minutes, just see what happens. Him and Aronson can switch. Like it won't bother Aronson to play on the left, right? Yeah. Well, there was, I do want to mention one other good little moment from Pulisic. He bodied, I think it was Stephen Victoria on a floated ball from Antony over on the left side, and then he beats Alistair Johnson to the end line. and lines up to hit hit the ball across with his left foot

and then passes it directly to Borjohn. Yeah, yep. And I don't know that he had much in the way of options to pick out in the box, but I like to see him do a little more there. But it was good for him to get to the end line. I thought Jonathan Osorio, as an aside, kind of a fun player to watch, you know,

really scrappy and just quick decisions. I enjoy. I enjoy the... He's not even a locked-in starter for Canada, but he was, he's doing a lot of good stuff. I enjoy finding the fun players around Concaf to watch. John Arnold has been a huge help for that on the pod with those,

with like the opposition research, but also just like, yeah, these are, these are some fun teams. Like, these are some interesting casts of characters. Well, okay.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Osorio is just a competitor. And, you know, he's involved in the first goal. He,

he's involved in several other chance creation moments. All right, so we covered that, that Pulisic falling down, trying to cut in on his right foot moment. I noticed a really lovely moment of playing out of pressure from the U.S. in the 21st minute shortly after that. It starts with Turner and goes deep to Richards on the left, and then he plays a nice pass forward to, I think it was Adams or Dest. And then Dest. No, not to Dest. It was, I think it was over to Robinson. And then Robinson plays it to Adams.

and then Adams plays it out wide to death. But unlike that play in the El Salvador game where Mousa sprays it to death and it's perfectly in stride, again, it's a little behind desk and there's just really no advantage there, even though we've switched the ball from one side of the other. And I'm sure you're going to say that's because of the cold weather.

I mean, I'm not disagreeing. No. No, not every single thing that went wrong is because of the cold weather. And again, it's possible that cold weather didn't have any of the effects that I'm saying that it does tend to have. But I also don't think it was nothing.

Yeah. No, and the turf was an issue too. It's just that like Canada was able to put five crisp passes together in a row to score their first goal. And we, you know, I don't know, maybe we put five crisp passes together at some point in the game, but I don't, I don't, I don't remember it. Dardis gets a good run and across in the 28th minute. And it, it gets cleared kind of not very well by Canada and falls to Aronson. just inside the box and he takes it first time and it's blocked. I mean, it's a decent chance there.

And then it comes to Musa and he backheels it to Adams, who hits it way over from 22 yards. So, you know, we look like we're knocking on the door maybe a little bit. Just gently. I like both, I like both those decisions. Normally, I'm the one who would say when that ball comes back out to Adams, he should try to soccer a little bit because that's such a low percentage shooting area normally. but in this weather with goalkeeper's hands at the temperature that they are at, I'm all for smashing it directly at the goal and hoping to get the rebound. Again, Canada scored that way against Mexico on a similarly low percentage initial shot

that turns high percentage on rebounds. I'm sure we'll talk about that later. I guess the last thing that we should mention in the first half is, I mean, there's, you know, Pulisic to draw on some fouls, blah, blah, blah. but um 40 second 43rd minute we win a corner after zardis tracks the ball down in the left corner wins a throw we do the mckenny long throw in which didn't seem terribly effective in this game um it's sent out by canada for a corner kick and then we get our best chance of the game up to this point on a good corner from pulisic excellent actually and mckenny's kind of doing a little circle run he loses his guy and gets his second free header in as many games and this time he puts it on frame, but like I mentioned earlier, excellent reaction save from Borjaun. And that's a bummer because that was

that was it. That was our chance to get back in the game. Right. And so that's the difference, right? Like it's an ugly game and Canada got their goal and our goalkeeper didn't make a play and their goalkeepers made the play and we are, instead of a deadlocked stalemate, Canada are winning the stalemate. Yeah. Um, so half time, no changes, no changes.

Were you wanting to see, was there anyone that you were like, this, this player would change the game? I guess the way I think about it is I could, I could imagine any lineup, not any lineup, but a lot of different lineups working and a lot of different lineups not working. You know, starting from the beginning of the game, would it have made, I don't, I'm not ready to say it would have made a big difference to bring on Pepe at the half or to, or even to bring on Ferreira at the half. I think we needed something to break our way. We needed to capitalize on a Canadian mistake of some kind or score on a set piece and just see, you know, see what happened. But in my mind, I don't see like, oh, if we put this guy in, that's definitely going to, like, fix this situation. Yeah. And even, like, trying to change tactics around, it's, like, something that I kept thinking about was how Canada weren't leaving themselves open to American counter attacks, like, at all.

Like, they were leaving numbers back. back. There was one instance in the first half where we did actually, like, they had sort of drifted up in mass, partly because we had drifted back in mass, where even Zardez was inside our box defending, and Aronson was sort of the highest man up. Anyway, we finally broke out of that and got at the pool sick running in space, but they were touched tight to him because, you know, they could be so high on top of us. Fowld immediately took the yellow card. And it was just most of the time, they just had several safeties back. Like, they were just really, sitting back. And in my head, I was like, would we have fared better if we had done that?

But then I think about the chances Canada actually had. And like their goal came off of a goal kick. Like there's no, it's not like we gave up the goal because we got exposed for trying to play too open. And, and they ran back the other way at us. We weren't super open. Canada also not generating chance after chance after chance on the counter. It was just sort of in a way destined to be a really ugly game. And I don't know, I don't know specifically what sort of tactical wrinkles we could have thrown in to have given ourselves more chance to score in this ugly soccer game.

Yeah. I don't think there's an obvious, obvious solution. I know people want to say Peppy is the, like, you can't start Zarda as that's been the problem. But I don't, I don't know how much there is to that, to be honest. Well, I will say, I promise this isn't just because I saw him almost score a bicycle kick. And then he also, he also just moments before that bicycle kick had a pretty, what it looked to me like a pretty nice effort on the half folly that was blocked. That was, that was another, he like left his feet for that one too.

It was two acrobatic attempts in the span of like 90 seconds. He was feeling it. Yeah. And it's not just because of that. I did, I, there is part of me that would have rather seen Ariola than, um, than Aronson. Um, to stretch the line. I know, you know, we've, we've, you have called Ariola.

danger adjacent and I've never disagreed with that. But I do think like he's somehow back him to be a little more dangerous, a little tougher than Aronson. You know, he's more of a grown man. I don't know that he's, I don't know that he's going to beat anybody more than Aronson is, but, you know, he's going to put a, he might put a good shot on frame every now and then. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't feel strongly. I didn't mind, I didn't mind the Aronson's start either. I wouldn't have cared about either of them. I think I said something similar to that in the buildup to the game too of like literally just pick pick two. I don't. It doesn't matter. Pick two wingers with way I'm not available. And also kind of thinking Pulisic might need a break more than more than like wanting to bench him.

But Ariel off the bench did give us a nice spark. I do want to say that Aronson did have some like a couple of good moments. He did. He did. Kind of are easy to forget because they either just didn't lead to anything like he was the one who played that ball to Poulsock. If Poulsick scores there, it's an Aronson feed that got it to him.

That was a good moment from Aronson. And he, you know, he had that, he had that shot in the, what was it? The 59th minute, a good pass from McKinney,

and he receives it on the half turn, semi-respectable, left-footed effort. I mean, it's a comfortable save for Borgian, but in these conditions, hitting that shot is also valuable. In Zardez finished the play directly on top of Borgon.

So, so like, it was, the pieces were there. if the bounce had gone our way, you know? So, yeah, so I'm not trying to say Arjuna didn't do anything. Ariola was a bit of a spark, though, off the bench, and it was right away that he came on. He and Reggie Cannon were, like, actually doing some things on the right side.

I was a little confused about the Canon for Dest Switch. Dest having a pretty great game. I don't know if it was just his metrics starting to fade or what, but this is still just saying Ariola wasn't a problem when he came on. He didn't hurt us at all, and he gave us a little. little bit of a boost, I thought. Yeah. And I thought Canon, you know, Canon was a little bit of a boost, too, even though I agree with

you. you, Dest had a very good game, probably his best defensive game in a while. The other, just to be totally fair to Brendan, another good moment we skipped over in the first half was the 27th minute. He got a pass for miles through the lines and received it on the half turn and kind of left Mark Anthony K in the dust and he races forward and spray it to the corner for Antony. So, you know, plenty of times people have tried to spray it to Anthony in the corner in the was behind him or didn't quite, you know, didn't quite work out.

This was a perfect pass. And Anthony takes it, you know, tries across it on his first touch and just doesn't beat the near post defender. But that's another good moment from Aronson. Like, there were a few. So, Frazier, Liam Frazier comes on for Mark Anthony Kaye, sometime in the late 50s. And then we get Pepe for Zardis, Morris for Aronson, and Acosta for Adams. In the 69th minute, it looks like Adams is favoring his hammy.

Not super surprising in those conditions. I know. It's terrifying, though. So hopefully he's not out for very long, but it seems highly doubtful he'll be playing on Wednesday. And then in the 70th minute, we get a big chance for Canada. Dest is, we're trying to work it around the back. Dest attempts to loft the ball forward with his left foot, and it's blocked by Otikubby. won by Buchanan in the air to Osorio who just immediately plays it to David's feet at the edge of the box.

And I did think I noticed Callan Acosta not taking a very good approach angle here in this situation. I mean, you know, he's kind of caught in no man's lane. But anyway, David steps right into the area and has a good shot with his left foot. A good low, hard shot. Turner spills it, which is kind of reference what you've been saying. There, yep, there we go. And then Turner saves Kyle Laren's attempt from very close range. That was the biggest chance for Canada in the second half.

Bigger even than the goal, actually. Yeah, in normal, in normal temperatures, I think Turner just collects that and it's no rebound. In the freezing cold weather, he needs to have prepared not to try to catch that ball and to have just, again, hit it out for it, even for a corner. Otherwise, like, push it out as far towards the sideline as possible. Again, I'm telling off a professional athlete how to play this game, that's sort of just what we do on the podcast. but that's just it was at least something to watch for right we saw we saw Canada win their game by doing that to memo Choa so we'll need to watch for it again on Wednesday so it's not a it's not irrelevant like we still have to go through this again yeah yeah and I I want to say at this point I guess there are there are a lot of just like in the El Salvador game a lot of crosses that don't beat the near post defender and or just go straight to Borjaon And I just think we got to like we got to call somehow find a way to calm down and and be a little more composed, a little more, a little more guileful in the final third. It's it's, it's, um, we, we look like we're in panic mode.

It seems like when we get into that final 18 and it's just over and over and over again. And we're not, you know, we're not doing anything surprising or dangerous. Yeah, nothing clever. Like we aren't doing anything clever. And here, like, I'd be a little bit more sympathetic to just saying the condition sucks. So sure, just fired into the frozen bodies. Like, the more intricate you try to get the, like, it's a much higher fail percentage in bad conditions, right? But yes, I still, at the same time, I'm still just like, but still just hit a better cross then.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's on Robinson. I mean, it was even on Wea in the last game. Everybody kind of definitely Pulisic, Peppy, Cannon, have them all clocked for balls into the box that either didn't find anybody or didn't beat the near post defender or the goalkeeper. So that was a huge chance for Canada in the 70th minute.

And then in the 76 minute, Arriola for Musa and Canon for Dest, immediately we get a little joy up the right side. You mentioned this earlier. Cannon combines with Ariel and hits a ball across the box, doesn't find anybody. And then we get a decent attempt at PEPI, but it's right at Borgon. And then in the 80th minute, a long spell of patient possession from the U.S. seemed awfully patient to me who was, you know, biting my fingernails off watching the game here in North Georgia. But the ball squirts to PEPI on the, so it's, I think it's an Acosta diagonal towards Cannon.

Yep, it's a nice little ball, yeah. Kind of challenges for it. and it squirts up and to the end line for Pepe, and he just takes a shot from an impossible angle, and it goes well over. On the replay, you can see that Morris is arriving in the box unmarked, just to just rifle it on the ground to him. It's probably a tap in.

So that's a little disappointing, but... I think the bit I had was that Jesus Ferrer definitely doesn't attempt that shot falling down out of bounds. Now, keep in mind, like, he would have had to have hit that cross also falling out of bounds. Like he's sprinting out of the ball as it's approaching the end line. So he's going to have to pivot and turn his body and do something with it. But I totally agree the correct play then is to just extend to the play rather than hope that there's somebody in the danger in the danger zone.

Rather than thinking you're going to roof that ball in the position you're in. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you watch the replay. Morris is there. And he puts his arms out. And Morris is a pretty nice guy, I think. He's not a complainer out there.

He's not a complainer out there, but he goes, he puts his arms out. He's like, come on, man. And that's just, I think just another example of a little bit of a, a little bit of a lack of composure in the box. You're saying that that's really hard to pull back across the goal. I don't think, I don't think, I don't think it's that hard. No, I won't go that far. I definitely think you get that, you can keep that ball.

Like I said, just extend the play. I think it might turn into more of just sort of like a blind hit it somewhere. Like, I think it'd be really difficult to have actually, while he's racing at the end line, looking at it because he's running from into out too a little bit right that's true so he's his hips aren't looking at the field so he can't see where morse is so he'd have to turn find him and be doing all that while executing but he could have just been again hit it blind into that dangerous corridor back towards the pk spot back towards the six anywhere but to borgon or out of balance yeah there was just a little one point window right there between um

between the near post and um richie lorrella or somebody um but we didn't go through it. 84th minute, Richards gets hurt. And this is really sad. I think, I mean, hopefully he's not hurt too bad. It's still possible, but he takes a little bit of a messy touch. And the sub-EK. Ugbo gets his foot in there, and it causes awkward contact with the ground for Richards

when he tries to strike the ball. And he's down in a lot of pain. Like I said, Burhalter said it was maybe his ankle was broken. He said that after the game. And we played with 10 men from, them then on. So basically for the last 10 minutes of action. In the 86 minute, our long throw-in finally pays off a little.

The long throw-in from McKinney. With Areola, you know, it just pings around in the box a little bit, and it falls to Ariola kind of heading away from the goal on the right side of the goal mouth, and he takes it off his chest and tries to have a sidewinder volley. It gets blocked. It looked like it was a decent effort. to me. Love the ambition.

I absolutely, again, we get so into the weeds of the tactics and all of that and sometimes can forget that soccer is all about these moments of improvisation. Yeah. And it's by far my favorite thing in the game. So I want to make sure Ariola gets his due for even attempting it and basically like executing it other than having it blocked by the near defender. Yeah. I mean, who knows if that gets through there.

Maybe it's a goal. And then a few moments later, we just keep, we just keep thumping it into the mixer. We're in panic mode here. It's like, let's just get the ball in the mixer. And again, it falls to Areola. And he takes it on his chest and tries a bicycle kick that is just wide, just wide, maybe a foot wide. And it is kind of ironic that he looked like the most dangerous player in the penalty area in the game for the U.S. Good on him. If he's adding this, then we are, we will be cooking. I imagine Burrhalter will want to start him on Wednesday. Is that your prediction?

Is it way of Areola? I think, yeah, that's my, that's my prediction, yes. I mean, what are my predictions worth? Absolutely nothing. But we, Pulisic wasted another free kick. You know, his free kicks were, I don't think any of them was on frame in this game. This one was kind of the most perplexing because he tries to, I think he tried to catch the goalkeeper out, right? And sort of chip him from 35 yards or something.

but he didn't. And that's not the one that's frustrating for me in these conditions. I know Burjohn did handle a couple of balls hit at him with pace well without giving up rebounds, but they were like right into the breadbasket kind of a thing. I feel like it's so important in this weather to be able to smash that ball even in the range of the goalie. Like usually it's really hard to score these because you're trying to put it in exactly the postage stamp size corner that the keeper can't get to. Here, it doesn't matter if the keeper gets to it. it can still turn into a really dangerous rebound.

So make sure you're smashing it almost directly at the keeper. Even if you're doing that, like that gives us a real opportunity to clean up rebound. So it was really frustrating to see him send these free kicks over the frame. Yeah. Okay. And then the final goal comes, the goal comes in like the 94th minute.

It's a long ball to Oda Kugby. He takes it down smoothly, kind of racing into the middle of the field, turns Miles Robinson leaves him in his dust and races toward the goal beats Turner from 20 yards a nice finish and the game is over

over over the sequence leading up to that goal is just like 40 seconds of US panic ball and again I get it that we're talking you know in the third minute of extra time so we know it's like just lump it forward but it is just a disaster of like head tennis or just like guys

running full speed with their leg up in the and just jump in to knock it onward. Like very little composure as we tried to scrap for that last goal. And then eventually falling to Canada and then actually showing quite a bit of composure. I know the pressure is all on us at that point. Yeah, that goal. Really nice, really nice play to exploit Robinson being all alone there, which, you know, of course, he can be all alone. We're down a man.

We're down a centerback and we need a goal. But I thought it was just really clever how I think Robinson tried to, to force him to make a pass to the offside player because whoever was up there with, Ata Cugabe was well offside. So he like forced him into this circle, but then out of Cugby was just like, no, I'm just going to take it myself.

There's no one else around. You don't have any cover. So good recognition from him and good execution. Yeah. Yeah. And the goal, the goal didn't really mean anything. I mean, it was insult to injury, but there's nothing to analyze there.

I don't think. not that much to analyze. For the people who are really keeping track, I believe we have a six-goal edge on Panama in the goal difference column. But I also actually don't know what the tie breakers are for Concaf head-to-head if it's a tie for fourth

between third and fourth. So I'll have to do that homework for the next pod. Yeah, we have some homework to do. I should mention before I forget that we're, since we're both going to be in St. Paul, we're both going to be traveling home on Thursday.

It's a very strong chance we will not record that. And also because that's the end of the window and there's plenty of time for everybody to ruminate on the results, we may not record the recap of Wednesday's game until very late Thursday or even Friday. So please understand. Please understand our dilemma. If you're upset about it, you can blame the weather in St. Paul because that's what's going to cause the slowdown. But let's do a little quick, Before we get out of here, and it's, you know, it's a testy time.

It's testy on the Discord. It's, uh, we're all, we're all a little frayed from losing to Canada. Me, most of all, I wrote a song about a nine point window. I'm the, I'm the biggest loser here. Um, I was hoping to sing it in St. Paul, but now we don't have, you know, we don't have, that's not, that's not in the cards. And, uh, and, you know, the energy that we could have had for that get together in St. Paul is is going to be diminished.

There's no getting around it. So that's a bummer. But no, no, no. Like quite obviously, that outcome in Canada makes the St. Paul game even more important. So I don't know where you're getting this from. Now it's now we're suddenly like very little margin for error territory for our two remaining home games. This is a huge game now.

Yeah. It's a must win. We've added this. Yeah. And we've added this uncertainty to how well we will handle the cold despite the week of, of talking about our mentality and how, you know, we can, we're tough. So now it's like, all right, well, are we going to? I mean, obviously we can.

We have, we have some players who can do this, but will we? Yeah. Boy. I'm asking rhetorically. And I build up, I'm building suspense for the, for the tailgate and event in St. Paul. Good. Thank you.

Yeah. No, I mean, it's true. It is a, it's a more important game than it would have been if we had gotten three points in Canada. It's just we don't, we're, we're, I think we're all. feeling a little embattled, I guess, is how I look at it. What do we think of Burrhalter right now? What do you think of Burrhalter?

So my opinion hasn't really changed much. I think he's basically like a replacement level U.S. coach. We have a lot of good players. We have gotten results against some bad teams, mostly at home. You know, after his very first game where he trotted out this sort of 3-25 formation with some tactical wrinkles. but, you know, just very clearly setting up this possession offense. You know, my big takeaway was like, what will matter is if he can do this on the road in Concaf.

Like, this is where Greg Burhalter will earn his paycheck, and this is where we'll see if we can really turn a corner. Now, this was before we had six new Champions League players, right? Right. This was January 2019. We have added a ton of talent, but we have not seen anything like that sort of would, imply that we have turned this away Concaf corner. Like I don't think there's anything suggesting we have, which means we're basically just performing at the same level roughly that we had

in the other cycles where we qualified for the World Cup. And for some people, they might just say that's good enough. So long as we qualify, that's good enough. I don't know. I feel like I wish that we were performing at a higher level that's at least some like demonstrates at least some progress given the influx. of talent in the pool. I mean, we're definitely,

we're definitely the protagonist all the time, pretty much. I mean, we'll see if we're the protagonist when we go to the Azteca. But I mean, we were, we were a protagonist against Mexico. We are the protagonist in every other game we play. Home or away, pretty much.

So, I mean, I guess he could, he could say that that is a way to change the way the world views American soccer. But, um, But, you know, I mean, the signature win of qualifying, the signature performance of qualifying is obviously the 2-0 win over Mexico in Cincinnati. And that, frankly, has lost shine since then. You know, I mean, it's still Mexico.

It's still awesome to beat them 2 to 0 there. But they just drew Costa Rica at home yesterday, two days ago. They lost to Canada. they drew Canada at home. Canada's the new, like, that's the new standard. That's the current standard in the region. And we can't, we couldn't beat them. We couldn't, we didn't look particularly threatening.

And, um, right. Mexico were undefeated through six. And then we and Canada collectively have sent them into a tailspin. Right. So maybe we get, maybe our signature win is, our signature win is what led to Mexico's. fall from grace, if it is a true fall. You love talking about momentum, don't you? Yeah, yeah, I mean, maybe.

You're right, you're right. It's, it's, so yeah, I think is Burrhalter a terrible coach? Probably not, but is he giving us anything extra? Are we getting, are we getting more out of the, out of the player pool because of him? Boy, it would be hard to argue that outside of that win over. Mexico, which I think is caveated by the tailspin that has followed it for Mexico.

They have a lot of the same troubles we have. They have a lot of possession. They can't score goals. 25 shots against Costa Rica, but not high quality chances. And that's where our friend XG does come in and say, these are all pot shots from outside the box. Like, there's nothing

to these, so they're just pat in their shooting stats. Yeah. That's Mexico. That was Mexico against Costa Rica. Yeah, and it took Mexico two late goals to beat 10-man Jamaica. So, yes, it has definitely been a rough ride for them as well. Yeah. And there's...

It's the Herdman era. We're in the Herdman era of Concaf. The women had their Herdman era, and now he's taking over the men's side, too. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I would listen to Allocation Disorder, and they talked a lot about the, just the savviness of this Canada team and the youth of the U.S. team. And I don't know. I guess I can't rule that out where it's like they're just a more, they're just savvier than we are and we are, you know, it's going to take us some time to get, get, I don't know, the mentality to win these games.

I don't know. It sounds so cheesy when you say it. No, but we've been tweeting about mentality all week. I do want to like pump the brakes on like the roller coaster because, again, it's the roller coaster definitely very coincidentally. follows like the home away schedule exactly. So it's like we can at some point say this is just a case of we play a good game at home and then we play a tough game on the road.

And so everything's great. We just beat Mexico. Now everything's terrible because we were bad against Jamaica and now we look really good against El Salvador. And now we're bad again because of Canada. And now we have our home game coming up and all will be right again if we beat Honduras. To just be like the, so I do wish that we didn't have to endure the roller

coaster. Like, I do wish that we, one, we're just a little more savvy ourselves in the narrative about what's, what the difference is between these performances and it just being home and away. But I wish we, I do wish we were at the point where we could reliably get good performances on the road. And that's not even about yesterday's game, because like we kind of said, our performance wasn't a shocker yesterday. It was, we have had some shocking performances on the road, though. And so that's, that's where I get is this, this is the kind of game. that is very predictable, right? This ugly game in Canada against a good team.

They're well coached. They have some good players, some good pieces, even without Davies and Eustacchio. And the conditions are terrible. And it's like, this is why we needed to bank more points in the other games that people were kind of brushing off. Like, oh, well, it doesn't matter. It's like this happens.

We didn't get, you know, full points against El Salvador or Jamaica. We lost in Panama. Like, it's Conca Gap. It's like, yes, but we have these really hard games down the line. and these performances and playing like the way we are might not be what we should consider the acceptable level. So it's almost like this, again, this retroactive disappointment. It reignites the disappointment in these other games

against much worse teams where this loss to Canada hurts us so much. Yeah. And then the last thing, I guess the last thing I'll say is Burrhalter's not getting fired. It's not even worth it's not worth talking about. I don't even know if I'd fire him if I were in charge. No, I wouldn't. It's too late. It's too late to fire him.

Oh, zero chance. Even if you decide that Burrhalter is not the guy, I don't think he's not the guy to get it. I still think I'm really confident we're going to get qualified. So it would be like even if you felt like the team just is not looking like you want them to look for the World Cup, you would still be like, okay, this guy's going to finish the job that this particular job of qualifying us, which again, we're two home wins away from doing. with almost no help, right?

Like, we don't need much help. We just beat Honduras. We beat Panama. And that's pretty much done and dusted. So, like, he's going, we're going to get, we're going to qualify. I love just very fundamentally saying that there's no way we will not qualify for this World Cup. Yeah. I think we're going to qualify too.

And the neighbor kids are riding their motorbikes now. So it's time for us to shut it down. Because you're going to go outside and run. ride motorbikes with the neighbor kids. Well, yeah. No, definitely not. Definitely not. All right.

We'll see, hopefully we'll see a lot of you in St. Paul, like Monster Brewing, 2 p.m. on Wednesday. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.