Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #248: USA v Honduras recap (WCQ11)

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

A crazy night in St. Paul. Luca gets his shot. Striker position remains unsettled. Set pieces carry the day. support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedsign up for our weekly newsletter: https://scuffedweekly.substack.com/ join 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/rfzSEZJwsvnWSCxW7 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 U.S. beat Honduras, of course, 3-0. In a must-win game in St. Paul on Wednesday, we're here to recap it. Greg, how are you doing? I'm all right, Bells. We got our three points in the freezing cold. We played a minimal, but still, I think, important piece of that personally to have shown up because it was rough. It was, it was, yeah, as everyone knows,

it was very, very cold, an aggressive, hostile cold. But I just want to thank everybody who showed up at Lake Monster Brewing and rondowed and sang. and chatted with us. I had a blast. I think a lot of people did. And these events are always a big encouragement to me. So thanks everyone.

It was fantastic. That was my first game that I've been to this cycle. And it was super fun. A lot of great people showed up that, you know, got to interact with in real life. Finally, the Rondo was awesome. Probably a dozen people out in the frigid air going for it with boots on. One of them wearing only socks in their sleep shirts. There was some Yehu out there.

just shoes off totally. He wasn't going to mess with the boots. So it just went in his essentially bare feet. The surface, though, I'll say we were playing on this concrete right outside the brewery. Probably a little bit better than the surface in Hamilton, if we're being honest. So I think we've got to lucked out with the playing surface. No, I'm going to go into a little bit here. It gives me these great ambitions for what I want, like, a game day experience to be for future scuffed events.

Like the Rondo is fun, but obviously the cold is working against full participation there. I want to get like game days like just have like everyone who's there early like have like a 10 or 11 a.m. Full full blown like five aside where for a couple hours we find a place at a park or whatever and get a real game going. End it early enough to get ready and then do the actual pre game festivities that we definitely participated in at the brewery. But I feel like we could get there. I feel like we could have a scuffed sponsored five aside. And if this kind of thing already exists somewhere, I want to get into it. I don't think it does.

And a lot of, a lot of people do, you know, a lot of people listen to this podcast do actually enjoy playing soccer. So, yeah, let's do it. Let's try to make something like that happen. All right. You know, in Nashville, we had a couple goals. Somebody brought some goals. Tuttle, Tudor Ramen brought some goals and set those up. And we played a little bit, but it didn't get, it didn't get too out of hand.

Now, this will be scheduled. Like, I'll bring the bibs. So like we'll have a real five-side winter stays kind of a situation. It's going to happen. We're making it happen. And on the singing front, which I'm the sort of director of singing at scuffed, I think we did a respectable showing on singing, oh, John Luca. But I learned some lessons from that. I think I need to get like a group of people close, you know, 20 to 25 enthusiastic singers, close to me wherever I stand up to sort of build critical mass.

It was a little, the participation was good, but it was kind of scattered around the room. And so, so we're in a process of continual improvement here. That's what I'm saying. Very similar to the United States men's national soccer team. Yes, yes, yes. So the lineup, the lineup on this, I mean, Fridid doesn't do it justice. It was, it was, I don't know, dangerously cold is a guess true. I do want to take issue with that a little bit.

But I mean, do you, very, very, very cool? Do people want like a couple of the anecdotes about it? Like, standing in the stadium, holding my beer and got jostled a little bit. And before my, the beer that spilled hit my coat, it was frozen. It was chunks of, like, snowball just falling off of my coat. Yeah. Beer froze instantly in the air. Yeah.

If you did, like, a beer shower, it would be a hail storm. Yeah. So, so, I mean, you guys have heard all about that. The USA lineup was Matt Turner and Goal. Reggie Cannon at right back replacing Sergenio Dest, who started both of the first two games of the window. Walker Zimmerman and Miles Robinson as the centerbacks. And then Anthony, with his third straight, start at left back, just rugged over there. He's indefatigable.

And then Kellan Acosta stepping in for Tyler Adams at the 6, who's out with a hamstring strain. And then West McKinney and Luca de la Torre as the eights, Luca giving Eunice, Musa, bit of a spell. And then Tim Wea, Ricardo Pepe, and Jordan Morris across the front line. Christian Pulisic got to start the game on the bench. Any thoughts from you, Greg? Yes. I mean, these are not full, like, guaranteed players in this lineup.

You know, these are some curveballs, right? Yeah. So just cannon over desk right away, like in a must-win game with everyone available, Serginio Dest is our starter. This is a must-win game. So it's just kind of curious about what? whether or not it's like the sport, this is a sports bra rotation

or if Burrhalter feels like Canon is, offers something, you know, some level of, uh, fit that against this opponent. I don't know. Like,

it surely it's just rotation, right? I think so. Yeah. I think, yeah, it's got to be rotation. And ultimately didn't really matter that much because the right,

you know, I mean, Canon, I guess got into the attack a little bit. Dess probably would have done more in the attack. but like there was no chance of Honduras scoring in this game. Yeah, that is 100% true. It did allow us to get the shot of Dest on the sideline in his, in his gear, blowing like breath rings.

Yes. With McKenzie looking at him, which for me is probably, that's, that is the greatest moment to have come out of this game. We'll get into some of the Burhalter moments later, I'm sure, but that's the best, that's the best image from this game. It was beautiful. It was the childlike wonder from Sergenio as he saw his breath. Luca de la Torre, right? Like, you see that name in the starting sheet. That wasn't like, oh, well, we'll for sure have Luca in the midfield for this one. Had no idea if you would play at all this window. So to see him starting kind of a big deal, right?

Yeah. I saw some, you know, some of the tinfoily type of folks on Twitter saying, well, the only reason Berhalter is starting Luca in this game is so that he can look bad. And then he'll be justified and not having given him a look up to this point. I'm like, good grief. That is some 70 chess right there. But anyway. For me, it's the opposite.

I was fully expecting like this lineup to be in the best position to succeed from like a narrative standpoint because we're coming off of a brutal road match against the best team in the region. And now we're moving to a home game against the worst team in the region. Like Honduras has, you know, you could say they're eliminated mathematically. So they're going to collapse. And they didn't wait to get eliminated mathematically to collapse. They collapsed. I mean, from the moment we scored our second goal on them back in September, they have been collapsing nonstop for six months.

Zero wins. Yeah. So this is a team that's like rock bottom. So in my mind, I was like, oh, this will be great. Pepe will come in after everyone's frustrated with Zardez. And he'll get like this big lift. So when I saw Lucas name on there, I was thinking the same thing. Like unless he really squanders this opportunity, he's in a perfect situation to look good.

And we'll get even more into that as we go through Honduras's lineup. But it was a surprise for me to see his name on there ahead of Musa. So again, I don't know if it's just Burhalter being that confident about what this, even like a somewhat second choice group can do that he's willing to rotate, knowing that some guys shouldn't go three games in a row. I'm not sure. Yeah. I mean, you could argue Musa,

was starting to look tired against Canada. So, I mean, from a rotation perspective, it makes sense to try somebody different. Luke is completely fresh. And he did look good. Like, for the most part, he looked quite good in this game with all the caveats that we'll get into.

Yeah. So, any player, any player who started the first two games, it makes complete sense to have them out. Like, there's, you don't need any other explanation than that.

Then like, oh, this is the third game. He's gone two games in a row. The conditions suck. Like, it's, we got to rotate him. So there's no, I don't have any,

I don't have any of that. tin foil stuff. It's, it was, it's just, it wasn't guaranteed that Luca would be the guy to do it, even if we were going to rotate. And Musa did start three games in a row back in the October window. So, you know, like Burrhalter's willing to do it. McKenney's starting his third here in the midfield. So, yeah.

So anyway, it was just, it was cool to see. And it was just going to be an exciting chance to see Luca do his thing. Yep. And it was, you know, we'll get into this more, but it was, it was a little frustrating to look back on that Panama game. Even with all the caveats, like the weather and the, you know, how bad Honduras is and how hopeless their situation is, you saw Luca do a lot of things in this game that sure would have been nice to get from one of our midfielders in that Panama game, you know. Yeah. No question about it retroactively, retroactively.

Or the Jamaica game. Yeah. You know, the way we were flailing against Panama, like there's no two ways about it. Like rolling the dice with the player that Luca de la Torre is, the same. strengths that he has, maybe they wouldn't have come good. But it's just one of those things where, like, based on how the other guys in the game we're doing, if De La Torre is your guy on the bench, like, you had, we had to have have rolled those dice.

So it does make that sting a little bit more that we didn't even give ourselves the chance to see what a player like that could do. And again, for me, it still comes down to like, he just has this mentality, right? I don't know. Seeing him do it against Honduras in these conditions, knowing what Honduras are sort of what their mindset is does not tell us that he'll be able to do it in any other game the rest of the way. But like the mentality is there. The mentality is clearly there.

He wants to push the game. He wants to push the game forward. And this is what we've been aching for is for Burrhalter to throw a lifeline to any of these midfielders we have. Eric Williamson, Paxton, Pamicole, Luca De La Torre, to give them a run and just say, can they actually push the game forward? And certainly in this case against this opponent, De La Torre was doing that. Yeah. And it wasn't perfect all the time. You know, he had some mistakes, but yeah, the mentality was there. All right, Honduras, Honduras's lineup.

Hey, hold on, hold on. Another guy missing, and I know he started the first two games, but Christian Poole's, like, not in the lineup. Must win game. Yeah. I mean, I've all but sort of demanded that in the run-up to the game for him to just take a break. And it seems to have, I think it's, well, obviously it worked out. But, you know, he comes on, he comes on and scores a pretty nice goal. almost immediately off the bench.

And I do think it was good to take a little bit of the weight off of him and give him some rest. And also maybe these things are not mutually exclusive. Maybe just send a message like, hey, you got to, you know, your spot here isn't guaranteed, bro. You got to like, you got to help us win games. He wasn't really doing that against Canada or against El Salvador. So I fully supported the decision to put him on the bench.

And I think it's still... Not that, not forever. Not forever. You know, go ahead. Even from a man management standpoint to you, I think it's still an easy one because, again, it's three games in a week in these conditions. So I think it's easy to have that conversation and say, we got to give you a break.

You'll come in fresh and you'll have your way with Honduras. Also, a huge shout out to you, Watkey, and Vince for your Paul Rudd approach of just being like, pool sick, do less. Like, just don't do anything and just let the game happen. Because on his goal, it's hilarious. Like, that's instantly what I thought of because he just stands there. While Pepe and Zerman challenged for the ball, totally passive player in the play. And suddenly the ball is directly at his feet.

And he just swings a foot and scores a goal. Yeah. He did not. But then, well, let's get into that in the timeline. The timeline will cover it. Okay. So Honduras's lineup was Luis Lopez, I think, a very good and probably underrated goalkeeper. in the goal.

And then, uh, Gaye, I think is probably how you say it. At right back, Danil Maldonado and Minor Figueroa at centerback. And then Elvir at left back. And then,

uh, Lopez Alfredo, Mejia and Delgado and Rodriguez across the bank of four in the middle. And then the, the sort of headliners, Albert Elise and Romo Kyoto, up top in a,

I guess, ostensibly a two-striker formation. And this is where Honduras is set up, again, perfect for us. I feel like their flat 4-4-2 is a perfect lineup for us to go against, especially for like De La Torre, right, for him to get his debut and for Kelman Acosta too, to help them look totally in control. Because there's so much room in there for them to operate. Honduras was disinterested overall. So you have just a great sort of safety net almost for some of these guys coming into these

roles in this must-win game. Yeah. Yeah. And that's going to be, you know, those, we're going to have to just allow those caveats to hang over everything we say here. It also, I also do want to say in the, and you may disagree with me on this, which is fine, but with regard to the cold, I'm not in favor of games being played in these conditions. I don't think it was a good idea. But I'm also not in favor of just the melodramatic moral grandstanding about it that it seems like there is. The fans were fine. I think we could safely say that.

The fans were fine and had a great time. The players were miserable and of course they don't want to play in those conditions, but they're going to be okay. Both of the Honduran players who came off at the half, Luis Lopez and Romo Keoto were able to leave the Twin Cities without serious medical incident as far as we know. We know the coach said that they had hypothermia. We don't know if that was the technical definition of hypothermia, which is, you know, your body temperature drops below 95 degrees.

And, you know, we think, I mean, somebody in Honduras thinks Lopez is going to start. He's the one who apparently had the more serious situation than Kyoto. Apparently he's going to start tomorrow in a league game against Mugua. He plays for Real Espania in Honduras. So I very much hope that both of them are okay just for the sake of them being okay. And that's what we want. But also just to like,

cool off the rhetoric a little bit. Yes, it was a bad idea to play the game. No, it wasn't to play the game in St. Paul. No, it was not a crime against humanity in my mind. And, you know, and the Fed, we got to mention the Fed got a little unlucky with the weather. I'm not given, I'm not, no, but I mean, just look at it. It was 35 degrees two days before the game on Monday. It's going to be 40, 40 degrees on Tuesday. Now, I mean, we talked about this at length. There's always a good chance you're going to get zero degree weather in St. Paul. They were. that they didn't get luckier, I guess. Yes, that's a good way to put it. That's a good way to put it. So, and I think it was a, you know, at the end of the day, it was a pretty cool experience. So even though we shouldn't do it. We shouldn't, we shouldn't do it again. Let's not do it again.

Right. It's absolutely one of those things that you're just talking about how horrible it is as you're laughing through it, right? Yeah. Oh, my God. There's, there's, I have a beer snowball on my coat. Yeah. Although, you know, like, everybody was like super, super careful to get dressed up appropriately. And if you were dressed up appropriately, you were okay.

The main, my main worry going into the game and during the game was the players. Their ears, right? The video of Reggie Cannon's ears where it's like, oh, I don't, I don't know how to diagnose that, but I feel like that's only a few minutes away from it being kind of bad. Frostbite. I didn't see that video. What was it? What was it?

Like his, the tops of his ears, which again, Midwest people who live through the stuff know, like you've got to get those things covered up. We're like, uh, bright red like bubbles.

Ooh, that's not good. So yeah, so hoping that, hoping that, uh, that they didn't like eventually turn totally black and, and,

you know, start to fall off a little bit. But I don't, I don't think they have or I feel like we would have heard about it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um,

to the timeline, unless you want to get into any sort of big picture thoughts before we do that. I don't think so again, Honduras was in a flat 4-4-2, and we were in our sort of standard front five building out of the back setup. Not entirely standard. Like there was way less of our midfield three pulling out wide the way we've been doing where like McKenny. McKenny loves to usually like flatten out to one side of the other, almost in the back with the back two, centerbacks. just collect the ball, look forward, and then play it up. And it just felt like there was a lot less of that going on. There is no need, right?

I mean, there was so much space. Okay, so it's a bit sloppy at the start, I think, predictably, given the conditions, the ref's a little quick with the whistle, and he calls a foul against, I can't remember which hunter and player, but it's Luca Delatore going away from the goal. I think it was a third foul that was whistled by that point. going away from the goal on our right touchline and he gets fouled from behind

free kick for Cala and Acosta and he takes the game's first set piece and bends it just beautifully it's just a delight like the shape of his deliveries is kind of I think singular in the player pool and he puts it right on West McKinney's head

West McKinney is charging at the near post he rises and and punches it in, like punches it in with his forehead, not his hand. A really, really nice header. A really nice set piece. A really nice header. And I guess it's not just the shape of those balls from Kelan Acosta. It's the pace of them.

And, you know, they're starting out high and they're coming right to head high, dropping, you know, right into the dangerous area. So they can't get cut out before they reach their intended target. And that's our first set piece goal of the qualifying campaign. At this point, we're now, we're now even. We were minus one on set pieces, thanks to that Panama own goal, our own goal when we face Panama. Now we're even zero zero for the qualifying campaign, which is a good thing to be. Better than minus one.

And Acosta's set piece delivery is an absolute plus for us for when he's called on to step into games. Like, I don't think there's any two ways about. it. Poolsick has been better in this window than in the past, but the first 10 games of qualifying, first eight or nine games of qualifying, I should say, it has not been very good. Like the set piece delivery has just been really mediocre. And we don't have, it was mostly pool sick, it was Aronson. We just don't have, we hadn't had a reliable set piece taker. Acosta gives us this.

I hope Gio Raina gives us this when he gets back, which it sounds like he's coming back soon because we need it we have a good player with Walker Zimmerman McKinney miles Brooks we have a bunch of players who are excellent in set piece situations and we've got to make sure that we have someone who can competently get the ball in reliably especially mckenny I mean his his timing and his ability to direct the ball where he wants with his head is wow it's so good so good I mean it's been good since he was but a wee last bad at Shalka. So the question is, I mean, I guess Pulisic's set piece delivery was better against Canada, right?

I mean, he is especially the one he put on McKinney's head that drew that really good say from Borjaun. But it's pretty inconsistent still. I think that's how I would characterize it. So I guess the question is, like, is Acosta's set piece delivery, this would be recency bias, I guess you could argue, but is his set piece delivery so valuable that he, you know, he gets a, he gets a little bit of credit against Tyler Adams at the six. He gets a little bit of credit against him. A little bit. Yeah.

And I think it could be against those teams that aren't going to come press us really hard. So I don't know what the Venn diagram of those teams are. But, you know, the same way that I think there's a, there might be an opening against the teams that's, sit in a really low block to put in more of a passing six than Tyler Adams. I think there's also that argument that if Adams isn't needed to sweep up a bunch of defensive stuff, that you could go with more of a player who gives us some edge in the attack. And Acosta's set pieces are an edge. Now, the question becomes if Gio Raina is on the field, that marginal edge that Acosta gives you

might drop a little bit compared to what it is right now without Giorina. Yeah. Well, and also, Acosta is a bit, you know, I talked about Pulisic's inconsistency with the set pieces. Acosta's problem as a player for the U.S. has been inconsistency and sort of in the run of play. Like, he can be very good, and he was good on Wednesday night.

He can also be pretty bad, and he was pretty bad against Panama. And you just kind of don't know which Kellyn you're going to get when the game starts. Yeah, basically I would say it's going to be very little of like a edge that you'd give him over Tyler Adams because you just can't be sure that the game's going to play out in such a way that his set piece is going to be the crucial difference. Yeah.

Over over like Adams is just ridiculous defensive work that I think probably does go underappreciated even by us sometimes, you know, when we're talking more about like his two or three turnovers rather than like the countless number of times. Yeah. And even the ones that he doesn't actually break up, but the ones that he prevents just by being in the space he's in. covering the ground he's in reading the game the way he reads it yeah okay um a few minutes after the goal so that's so that's it one zero USA huge sigh of relief for everybody um shortly

after the goal mckenny takes a shot from the like just inside the box that that go that ricoches off of peppy um it's sort of passed in the broadcast like it didn't they didn't show a replay of it i don't think but uh you know we're we're knocking on the door again um um right around the 13 minute mark, Luca Deloire fires a pass into Pepe just inside the box. You get a little bit of that, you know, will to push the game forward from Luca Deletore there. And Pepe, Pepe loses it almost immediately. Pepe gets his nose broken, taking a really, really hard elbow to the face from DeNeil Maldonado. And, you know, we find out later, he's got blood coming out of his nose onto his mouth.

and we find out later his nose was in fact broken, or at least that's what he said on Instagram. That's a tough way to play out the rest of a game, too. You're talking 60 minutes after that with a broken nose, man. And that's a jolt. It was a full-body jolt with the brunt of it being taken against that elbow. That's a connection, a collision. Yeah, it was the connection was sweet, as they say.

1945, 19 minute and 45 seconds. And we get a good chance. Some counterpressing from Anthony Robinson. He wins the ball back on the left side. And then with the outside of his boot, finds Wea's feet in half space, Wea takes a touch to his inside and uncorks a low dipping shot

that Lopez just palms wide of the far post. So there's a, you know, for those of you saying we need Waya on the left and Pulisick on the right, there's a little data point to confirm that position. It looked awfully dangerous. And for those of us who say that the U.S. still takes shots when it's not ready to take a shot. That's another one for me because it was another Anthony Robinson flying past way as everyone's paying attention to Waya totally unmarked.

So a little slip pass there sets up what could have been an anti-Robinson square for a tap-in. I didn't even notice that. It's this balance of like, you know, do you just take the shot when it's on or do you keep being, you know, early 2000s Arsenal, the ball into the goal like what's the what's the right balance uh i think right now we're still too trigger happy with the shots uh but that's also so coming from somebody who dogmatically feels like finding the extra pass and upping your percentages is the way to go yeah play soccer the right way as they say um so yeah acosta i have in my notes here at this point and with no specific time time stamp in mind acosta's very active and solid you know swash buckling into the corner

win the ball back, tidy in the middle, drawing fouls, being kind of savvy, you know, taking contact and going down, able to play some passes with range. I mean, we're not, he's not, we're not saying he's prime Pierlo here, but he, but he is, you know, he is dropping some passes over distance that we don't see a lot from Tyler Adams, for sure. Again, tons of space. I'm not arguing for Acosta to start over Tyler Adams. I'm not secretly trying to do that, just pointing out something. Then we get in the 26 minute a good clipped ball over the top from Acosta to Wea.

One of the nicest passes from Acosta on the night. And he tries to bring it down with Lopez rushing at him and his shot. I don't even know if he really gets a shot off. But Lopez sort of deals with it and it falls to Pepe, who has his shot blocked off his foot. So another good chance. Yeah, the way as timing of the run there is awesome. It helps to time your runs when the guy with the ball. doesn't have to time his delivery.

Like, I mean, just going back to the fact that there's zero pressure on a cost of right, he can just stand there and watch. And so, way is just waiting for his defender to, like, fall asleep for a second, then takes off, sets up, sets up his man and then takes off directly at goal. And it's just so easy, right? It's like, it's so easy to do this against this half asleep Honduras team. And I don't know if way, I really got a shot. I thought he was trying to, like, technique the ball into the goal. I feel like he was literally trying to, like, croiff it, whatever, wherever his feet were.

setting to just nudge it beyond Lopez. Yeah, I don't know what you should do in that situation. Like, I don't know, try to help it along with the outside of your foot, past the keeper out of the air. I don't, I don't know. I did think, you know, way had a couple chances in front of goal where he didn't, maybe, you know, I know you hate this kind of talk, but it could have maybe done a little better.

The only other one I wanted to do was, again, make an extra pass on the one that we'll talk to in a little bit because it was the best moment on the field soccer-wise. Oh, yeah, I know. Sir Gino-Dess and Mark McKenzie had the best moment of the night on the sideline, but there was an excellent moment on the field. There was. 29-minute mark, a good bit of interplay up the left side from McKinney,

and he plays a little reverse pass to Anthony out on the wing who puts a ball into the box. Ricardo Pepey tries an acrobatic finish with his left foot from 12 yards and hits it over. Would have been real special had he gotten that on frame even. Pepi tried an overhead kick against Canada too

that gets lost in the shuffle because of Ariola's two attempts. But we're going for those. I feel like there's a real freedom within the team and maybe even like an official spoken challenge like a race for the first overhead finish. Maybe there was a memo.

Somebody, leak the memo, leak the memo. Another just sort of general note, Luca doing a lot of that thing he does where he just dribbles forward and manages to keep the ball. He's not quite Musa or McKinney in that sense, but he's pretty ball secure and strong in the duel.

And he's just out there, I just wrote, he's out there getting first downs, you know? Just get, just another 10 yards. And, Yeah, the ball security, and it takes me right back to what he said in your interview with him, because the ball security is the moment as he receives it, right? He's got the, he's got the awareness.

He's got the, like, field sense. And yes, like, also the technique. I know he kind of like downplayed the technique and was saying it's all about awareness. But this, like, the technique to just, as he's receiving it to sort of eliminate the first player, it's not like he's dribbling at people and taking them on. It's the moment of receiving the balls where he cuts a player out. And then he's just going to be running into the open space. And again, in this Honduras game, once you beat that first man in a flat four-four-two,

there's so much room to run into because the defense, once the first line gets broken, basically just has to start dropping until it can get its numbers compact again. Right. And this is how he play. I mean, this is not, if you've been watching him at Heracles, this is how he plays. You know, he does that. His first touch is good. It often does eliminate somebody.

And then he keeps his body between the ball and the, defender at almost all times. So they either have to foul him or he kind of leaves him behind again. He does that week and week out in the Netherlands. It's not, this is not something special to this game against Honduras. 36, sorry, 37th minute goal USA. Deletore again is fouled this time on the left side line. And it's after like, it's after one of the, pretty much exactly what you just described.

He takes a touch in our, you know, in our half to eliminate a guy and just carries the ball down. The left side, he gets fouled. He gets tackled by one guy and then fouled by another guy coming in the side. I think it was Kaye. And then Acosta takes the set piece this time from the other side. It's another curling, dipping ball that just makes things complicated for the opponent. And Jordan Morris, I don't know, did he get a touch to it as it sails by him? He contested for it.

Doesn't matter that much. Yeah, it was enough to throw off that defender and the defender right beyond Morris, who had the ball like short hop into their hand. And in a different, if they played ended differently, I would have been up in arms about a handball. But as it happened, it fell near Zimmerman. And I don't want to just say it fell to Zimmerman's feet because I don't think that gives Zimmerman enough credit for absolutely bodying whoever was next to him. Like he demolished a guy within a foot of space.

like to create all the time in the world at the six yard box that that can like it wasn't that much time but when you're at the top of the box or at the six yards out that is an eternity to just ram the ball home yeah and he created that again with just that like he's a grown-up yep I mean his first his first touch was kind of nice too I don't I mean I don't know how much he intended it to be but he but if his first touch brought it down right underneath his feet and he got out of his feet pretty quickly because he had to because Lopez was coming out for it. And then he sort of scuffs it, sort of gave it the Ozel, like hit it right off the ground

and bounced it. If it was O'Tzell, we'd be giving him credit for an intentional technique to smash it. I'm not doing that. No, no, no, no. And it's two zero. So then at the half, Romal Kyoto and Luis Lopez both come off. Their manager, Gomez, was the one who said that they were being treated for hypothermia. we've already covered that.

And I do very much hope that there is no long-lasting, you know, damage to them because of that. I don't think there will be. 49.15, 49 minute, 15 second, we get another chance. This is that, this is the one I think you were referencing earlier. So why don't you take it? So this is the one that everyone just wants to watch over and over again, right? Because it's McKenny and Way going up the right side. And, you know, for all to talk about how, how.

stagnant our attack is or has been this qualifying campaign. Like, Wea is a total outlier of that. And it's whoever is playing with him on the right side, is it always involved in like some excellent attacks. And this time it's McKinney and Wea. So the ball is up to McKinney who back heels it into Wea's path. Wea hits it back to McKinney. Then Wea cuts in.

McKinney kind of dances on it for a little bit long enough that the defender sort of frees again. And wea recognizes the pocket to sort of go inside out across McKinney's face. McKenny slips it into Wea and then Wea hits it at the goalkeeper whoever came in for Lopez. Menhivar. Right. So everything is,

this is just so fluid. It's like so elegant. It's just beautiful. And the one thing we needed here was for Wea as he's running onto that to just have the presence of mind to square it. And Pepe has a full like shoulders width of space for a tap in into an open net.

And that would have just been the most like sublime goal that the U.S. has probably ever scored. in World Cup qualifying. Oh man, it would have been, it would have been special. I love that. I love that outside of the boot pass from McKinney to Waya,

because it's all very nice in the lead up to that, but that is the key that unlocks the door right there. I mean, and Wayas move into that space as well. That's what really, you know, opens it up. And I don't, I, you know,

his ability, McKinney's ability to see that pass and his ability execute it with, you know, I don't know, an inch of space to get that pass through there. It's very, I mean, let's say a ball's width with an inch on either side to get that pass through there. It's so lovely. It's great. It's fun to watch.

And again, like, it's not like way a shot was doomed to fail. It's just, like, if he has a big window to just slide it across the top of the box. And I don't know how much post-game work we do on those, like, last second decisions. if it's always just like you do your thing or if it's like, hey, do your thing, but also take a look at this like still frame of while you're pulling your foot back to strike it, this window exists for one more pass for a tap-in. That seems like the appropriate pedagogical method. Right.

Because we have a bunch of them. Somebody posted it on, posted one on, maybe it was a Discord, maybe it was Twitter, about the Aronson volley against Canada as the ball sort of bounced back out of the box and Aronson races onto it right at the top of the box. and smashes it towards goal and it gets blocked. And someone pointed out, like, as the defender stepping up to block Aronson, Serginio Dest is literally just walking right beside him totally by himself.

So if Aronson just settles the ball towards Desk, and that's exactly like the kind of thing I'm looking for, is you've got the defense scrambling now that you've created one shot, and can you actually trade that shot for a way higher percentage one with a simple pass? Nothing complicated. If it's complicated, no, just take the shot. but simple stuff can you can you trade up well i hope that that's how it's approached like

here's a here's a here's a here's the video we'll pause it right here do your thing but you know consider the possibility that we could have we could have gotten a tap in for for ricardo here um so still two zero in the 53rd minute uh just got to mention that accosta went for goal i think he did it on purpose went for goal on a set piece from 30 yards and um I kind of enjoyed that. He tried that. Don't let that keeper cheat out too much. He does draw a save.

The keeper just pushes it over the bar. We should also mention too, and we could have mentioned it right after we talked about Zimmerman's goal. At this point, the game is completely over. Like, it was probably over at 1-0, but at 2-0, like that was it. And I think everyone in the stadium knew it, the players included. You know, Honduras attempted two shots.

One of them was from midfield. There was nothing in this game for them. and it was very much a running out the clock exercise from that point on. Yeah. That being said, I'm going to still do a few more items here. Oh, totally, because,

you know, it was a chance for us. It was basically just like an attacking reps situation. Yeah. In singular conditions. A decent chance for Pepe on a feed from Morris. There's like a cannon sort of tries to fire one in from the right side and weigh a, battles for it and kind of it sprays to Morris. Morris takes a touch and then squares it to

Pepey at the penalty marker and he drags his shot wide. Not Pepe's night. Maybe we should talk about this. Not Pepey's night. And the striker position remains unsettled, I guess. What are your thoughts on all that? I think that's absolutely the case. I went back and watched all of Pepe's moments and what I always think to myself is like, okay, if this was Zardez playing in this game, giving this exact performance, what would the discourse be? And it would very much be like,

why is he still out there? If Zardos did everything Pepe did, and that doesn't mean Pepe did everything wrong, I'm sort of baking in what the sort of general opinion of Zardaz is, and looking at it through those glasses, it would be like, he's not bringing anything, he's not adding anything.

Why is he still out there? Because Pepe didn't really do anything, right? I mean, he connected one or two really simple times in midfield. And that was the extent of his involvement. And again, I'm not saying this to like try to bag on him. We weren't doing a lot of things. Yeah, that's true. But take Zardis out of it because we can agree that the discourse about Zardis is like pretty unfair and over the top.

You know, take, I do agree that the discourse would be you just, if Zardis plays that same way in this game, then he's going to get, you know, dragged on social media for sure. And Burrhalter will be dragged for starting him. And anybody who doesn't criticize Berhalter for starting him would be dragged too. But like take all that out of it. It's, I mean, he did, he did have the flick on on the third goal. I mean, he didn't do nothing. He didn't, but he didn't, you're right.

He didn't do a lot. And that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying he was atrocious. I'm saying he felt like kind of a non-factor out there, which is, again, not, also not an abnormal thing for a striker over the course of the game. Sometimes they just don't have much involvement in the really important plays. And I think that's essentially what it was. So I guess the best I can say is we'll see, you know, I mean, we'll see.

We'll see how Josh Sargent plays over the next couple months at Norwich and how Peppy plays and how, you know, I guess D.K's going to be injured for a little while so we may not get to see much of him. but, you know, it's an open competition, I think, for those minutes. But here's my question now at the end of this particular window. We had three strikers in camp. They each got one start. Who had the best performance out of the three strikers for you? Well, I know. I know it was Ferreira.

You resigned to, all right, fine, fine. It was Ferreira, but you had big misses. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. I appreciate you. I appreciate you not bringing the big. Big myth discourse back. Yeah, we got some detail on the stats bomb XG for that shot.

It is, I mean, like, very, very, I'm sure you're very, very excited to share this with everyone. Greg. Okay. So, yeah. What do we learn? Statsbom takes into account the height of the ball, which other ones don't. So they would treat other, other sources would treat the, uh, Ferreira chant against, uh, El Salvador that he put over the bar as, as the same as they would if it was just a ball on the ground that

he was tapping in. Stats bomb does not, so it still came out as a 0.45 XG chance. But again, a little, that adds a significant degree of difficulty hitting it in when it's chest high. Yeah, it's, it halves the XG of the chance, almost, almost. I think it was 0.75 by the more, you know, by the more traditional or the, you know, the less accurate extra measures. And we'll have to, we'll have to, maybe we can ask what it would have, what that same shot would be

if it's attempted with the pelvis rather than with a foot. Because it takes into account what your, what body part you're using. Yeah. I'm all for that. I'm all for the pelvis attempt there. This was all just to say like out of these three games, you know,

we went in, in my mind saying strikers unsettled. Out of these three games, the striker who had the best showing in my, for me was Jesus Ferreira. Now again, Zardez is at a disadvantage here because he's the one playing the best team by far and he's doing it on the road on that turf.

and we were kind of a mess overall once we got out of the final third. You can definitely say that's partly because of who's playing striker. But it just seems like if you weren't locked into somebody before this window, I don't know how you'd come out of it being like, oh, this is, we found the guy.

No. Unless you're just going to say, well, we scored the most goals while Pepe was in. So that must mean that peppy's the guy. I don't know that anybody's saying that. I guess, yeah, I think Ferreira probably moves up a little in the pecking order. Although, you know, you could argue

Pepe had a tougher sort of run-of-play assignment than Ferreira did, playing in zero-degree weather. I don't know. I don't know. I guess you could kind of slice it any way you want to back up whatever narrative you want to push. One more bit on that is just talking about Hesu's Ferreira. I'm really excited to see what he does with Dallas this season.

They've signed Paul Ariola. They've also just brought in a really young Argentina striker, or winger, I'm sorry. So he's going to be like in a pretty exciting front three on paper for MLS and we could really see him blossom. Paxon Pomechal is going to move to the midfield for that team. That's basically. Well, I mean, that's what everybody's saying, including Paxon himself. I should say the hope is like he gets the start. I think he's definitely being thought of as a central midfielder now.

Oh, I see. So the hope is like he makes a job his. Let's all put a lot of hope in FC Dallas. FC Dallas television watching experience because that never goes wrong. No, there is, I think there are legit reasons to be excited about how Dallas is going to look and play. And Ferreira is a big part of that. But that, yeah, that's the striker conversation from this window, I think. That is a good, I think that's a good way to sum it up.

Not too long. Nice and substantive. Well done, Greg. 59th minute. Morris picks up a loose ball after a Honduras goal kick and he drives at the box and has a shot from the edge of it. Ultimately a pretty comfortable save for Menhivar and then Menhivar gets knocked in the head by a way across attempt.

I will say, and then there was a little bit of a concussion protocol there. I don't think he got a concussion, but wea was not at his sharpest in this game. But then the thing is, even when he's not, he's probably our best attacker. So he's, for me, it's, you know, we're doing the new quarterly power rankings. Just put those on the Discord for anybody who listens and is also on there. And I, you know, for me, it's like, for a long time, it was like Christian Pulisic number one, Tyler Adams number two.

And, you know, you could, you, anybody who's listening could be like, hey, this is a dumb way to think about the game of soccer. But, you know, just suspend your disbelief for a moment. He was one, Pulisic one, Tyler Adams two, maybe John Brooks, three. West McKinney somewhere in there four or five. That's how it was for a long time. And I would say now it's pretty clearly, at least in my opinion, West McKinney number one, Tim Wea, number two. Yeah, and Walker Zimmerman number three.

Like, I don't think, I think it's basically like a cut and dry top three. And then after that, it's just going to be a fight for fourth. You really think Walker Zimmerman's number three? No, I'm not, I'm not saying that. But I think, like, I totally keep rolling with McKinney and Way out, because those guys seem to have the most effect on our team when we win soccer games. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know if I, I don't know about Zimmerman at number three, but I do think, I mean, Zimmerman's got it. He's up there now. He's moving up, moving on up.

In the 64th minute, Pulisic, comes on. Also, just real quick, Walker Zimmerman has an amazing, angry man goal celebration. Oh,

man. Like, just the intense, like, I hope he scores. every other game so we can get that that reaction. We still haven't gotten one of his towering set piece headers for the national team, or at least haven't recently.

So it seems like that's coming. It was from like really early in the Burrhalter era. I'll have to pull up his celebration there too because again, when you watch that, it does just make you like feel good about having him on your soccer team. Yeah. I was trying to read his lips. He's a powerful man.

We're trying to get him on the podcast. I think I you know a lot of our attempts to get people for interviews are just pipe dreams. But I think this is this could actually happen. I'm not saying this about him just because I think it'll help us get him on the podcast. No. I just he's got some good goal celebration posture. Yeah. I tried to read his lips after the and I could not figure out what he was saying.

He wasn't saying let's go. I don't think. That's what I'd say. Oh, that's I just say that all the time. If I were, if I scored, well, let's go. Let's F go. 66 minute. So Pulisic comes on from Morris in the 64th,

and then in the 66 minute we get the third goal. Another good set piece delivery from Acosta, this one on a corner, and Pepepe meets it in front of the first defender, flicks it into a chaotic area where it falls to Zimmerman. Again, it just kind of settles off of him. I have this time to Pulisic. I don't know that he intended that,

but it falls right to Pulisic, and he takes it first time. just strokes it into the side netting, easy as you like. Quite a pleasing to the high finish for me. And it's 3-0 with 20-some minutes to play. And the rest of the game, there's two, I think there are two more incidents worth discussing, but the game was, as you said, already over.

Well and truly over here. Yeah. But now it's over, over. What do you, you know, a lot of, I've listened to a few other podcasts, and a lot of people were saying, well, it's good for Poolsex confidence to get this goal. You know, he kind of went to the,

He went to the corner flag, towards the corner flag, kind of like, with a arms outstretched shoulder shrug kind of thing going. Probably because he's like, I didn't do anything for that goal. That one just came to me. Maybe. Or I read it as kind of like, come on, guys. Give me a break. Come on.

I don't know. Like, I don't want to do too much like body language stuff. But like as much as we're talking about how, you know, that goal came from him. not doing anything. He did get on the ball a lot of other times in this game and like did things with it, where it looked more like his, his like actual quality of touch was present. Plenty of chances to like start running at people. And, and those little slalums and cuts looked a lot more on point. It did. I didn't even think to like credit it to the fact that he just scored a goal. I think it is a more relaxed situation here being up three zero in a game

that, you know, Honduras have no interest in trying to come back into. And, also I do think the field quality probably plays into it where this field is a good, you know, well-maintained surface that had heating. So it wasn't a frozen block the way it was in Canada. So when we, you know, constantly talk about that missed chance to dribble Alistair Johnson in Canada, part of that is it might just have been really difficult because he's on artificial turf that he's not used to and, you know, the elements played into it and you're going to make more mistakes dribbling in those conditions. Yeah. But he looked good, right? He did. I was just going to say, I was just going to say the, the Roldon shot that went over, our last, you know, our last, the last time we threatened Honduras's goal. It was, it came from a poulous, a sithing Poulosick run with the ball from the left touchline into zone 14 and he played it right to Roldon's feet. Nice to see him skip by a couple guys is what I thought when I saw that. So yeah. And then, should we mention Burrhalter taking pictures with fans?

Sure. What do you have for us, Bells? I don't really care about it, honestly. Some people, Hercg Gomez was saying it's like, it's so disrespectful that if he was playing for Honduras, he would be two-fitting somebody the next time he gets on the field. Herc knows this stuff better than I do. I did not know that that was that disrespectful. And then, you know, Matt Doyle was saying, it's so disrespectful.

I love it. And so I don't have a strong feeling. I guess I just didn't realize how disrespectful that was. I can see it. I mean, again, it's sports. There's always ways that you look for the locker room material. And I could totally see this being the case. The moral side of it, again, like, I don't have any time for people who are like, it's sports.

It's like a sports disrespect, right? It's not like a real, real world disrespect. Yeah. But I could see, you know, people having that approach. Like it's definitely, it could definitely be taken as like this full heel turn move from Burrhalter. I don't, I don't really care one way or the other. We don't play Honduras again. Lucky's videos.

Wucky's video is good though because he notices that that Burrhalter checked the crossfield camera to see if it was on him. And sure enough it was. And then he looks, he looks away, he looks back. And then you could see on his face the moment where he realized he shouldn't have done that. You know. That's probably where it lands, right? Like, oh, I should probably be, you know, paying more attention to the game that I'm the head coach of. Yeah.

I mean, it was 3-0. There was a significant stoppage. I don't know. So, yeah. If you came here for a strong opinion about Burhalter getting pictures with the fans. Sorry to disappoint. It was a bad picture. I mean, the picture came out pretty terrible.

Did it? Yeah. Oh, Berlter. Burrlder's not going to be like, oh, that was my good side. Not going to be framing that one. So this all sets us up for a nail-biting window in March. That's Mexico away, Panama at home, and Costa Rica away. Basically, you know, barring some crazy stuff going on, we just need to beat Panama at home.

And we go to the World Cup. So not quite, right? I know that you can kind of talk yourself into circles with the math, but the math isn't going to be that clear because Costa Rica have been doing enough. Like they're actually the sneaky ones. If we beat Panama at home, which we very much will be huge favorites to do, we're free and clear of Panama who has been our main worry. But if it's just a three point window and we lose in Azteca and we lose in Costa Rica,

Costa Rica can catch us with nine points and pass us. So that actually becomes sort of the new the new sneaky worry is Costa Rica's away match in that window and then whether or not we go into Costa Rica on the final day of qualifying where Costa Rica win jumps ahead of us and no other results would even matter.

It just comes down to we need a draw or a win against Costa Rica. Yeah, I know, but like Costa Rica plays Canada first. I don't know. The chances of them getting a nine point window just seemed pretty low. But I know it. I know it's possible. Yeah.

Canada's, I mean, yeah, it's, it's nerve-wracking for me to have that be the case. So a point in Mexico City would be massive. Yeah. In Mexico,

you know, and then Mexico basically in the same situation we're in with regard to all of this. So they're, you know, they're playing for their lives. That's going to be a, that's going to be a tough one. But yeah,

it would go along. way just to get that just to get a point there um yeah we'll have to go ahead the panama math is straightforward we've got a four point lead on them uh if we beat them in the home game uh that's it right they're they're dusted they can't catch us again uh it's it so it all comes down to like that costa rica because if if we don't get the points against panama then then it's almost like Costa rica will probably will probably catch us and pass us unless we win away to costa rica yeah so so yeah So it actually still isn't as free and clear as we really wish it were despite our six-point window. We needed that Canadian nine-point window.

So Canada just pulled off the nine-point window in a window where they played away from home twice. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear about it. So like talk about like just an outrageous run that they're on. They played the second place team in the region and beat them at home and then went on the road in Conccaf, which we've been told over and over. You can't just go on the road and winning Conccaf. and they win twice, and they are cruising. Yeah.

They're on another level from us in terms of managing games and getting results, that's for sure. Oh, boy, I'm getting... These last two minutes have made me a little sick to my stomach. That Costa, again, that Costa Rica run is nerve-wracking for me. So Costa Rica on 16 points right now, a nine-point window for them with two home games in March, puts them at 25. and we're at 21. So we would need four points to stay ahead of them.

We've got them destroyed on goal difference. We're plus eight on goal difference. So it's really unlikely that we lose out on that. But we got to make sure we're with them on points. Yeah. It's going to be, yeah. I guess I'll just quit making, you know, audible noises of discomfort here. Anything else we should talk about?

We'll have to figure out what we're. going to do over the next few weeks on the podcast. We will, we'll do something. Rest assured of that. Well, we got a ton of new club situations to monitor is what we're going to be doing. There's a lot of, there's a lot of movement, and we haven't really ever summed all of that up yet. Yeah.

Somebody suggested a transfer window reset episode, so maybe we'll do that next week or something. Like Kevin Parades could play for Wolfsburg this weekend, and that is just, like, that just got back onto my radar as I was looking at the playbook. I'm like, oh, that's right. Cool Basset. There's a lot of cool things. He jumps into a Europa League chase for Finord. Actually, don't even know if that's true.

I just guessed that based on the history of the club. He's not registered for their European competition for the remainder of this season. I'm just saying a meaningful race in the table to be in. For sure. Again, I don't even know if that's true. I just said it. Journalistic standards have been a shambles. A total shambles.

Like we are just going to repeat any rumor that we hear. And when we aren't repeating rumors, we're just actively making things up. Okay. Fine word. Yes. Yeah. They're technically in the race for the title. Yeah.

Six points adrift of Iax at one. And there are four points behind PSV. Yeah. They're very much in the hunt for both the Champions League and Europa League. Hey, quit. We've got to save this. We're saving this for our big wrap up of transfers. We can't do this now.

Okay. Stay focused. Eyes on the prize. Four point window. We need a four point window in March. Well, I should say special thanks to Vivi and Jonathan, who made the song sheets for the get-together on Wednesday. Incredible. I really appreciate that, you too.

And thanks everybody for coming to that again. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.