Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #283: Tuesday Review — All our enemies are in the mud

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

England, Wales, Canada, Iran and Mexico, all struggling in one way or another. Plus "Americans," Pulisic getting snippy, bringing something to a party, Scally wars, 6 on 6 crime, maybe Gregg is good, Jesus at the 9, substitution-gate, actions not words, and repentance (or a lack thereof) toward Brenden Aaronson.0:30 enemies mudded12:55 "Americans"19:45 Pulisic getting snippy22:40 lip-reading RFP26:00 Puli-Haji penalty ruse34:30 Brenden repentance42:00 Bringing something to a party53:30 Twitter meta discussion1:04:00 Tyler high, 6 on 6 crime1:10:30 Pulisic haircut1:13:40 substitution-gatesupport Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedjoin the Discord: https://discord.gg/X6tfzkM8XU buy our merch: https://my-store-11446477.creator-spring.com/drop us a question at this link and we’ll try to answer it: https://forms.gle/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.

From the USSF approved territories of Georgia and Kentucky, and also from Brooklyn, this is The Monday Review. This is Bells. I've got Vince and Waki with me. We are recording late on Monday night. I won't release this until Tuesday morning, so I guess it's a Tuesday review.

These episodes are usually just for patrons, but the first one every month goes out to the public, and this is that one if you'd like the Monday review delivered to your phone every week. Join the scuff Patreon. Link in the show notes. Let's get to business. All our enemies are in the mud.

England lost to Hungary. In the Nation's League, it was a delightful viewing experience. I liked watching them miss a bunch of close-range shots. And that's kind of the mental state. We want to get them in in the World Cup, where we take a similar approach to Hungary. We keep them under pressure, get maybe kind of a dumb penalty, and then just wait for the English psyche to collapse on us.

And I think we can, that's how we make it out of the group. Yeah, the thing is we're seeing the psyche collapse like happen now, like it's starting now. You know, the World Cup groups were announced. They see big brothers in the group and, you know, the pressure's already mounting. The pressure's already mounting. And then we, of course, we got Wales, who was the little brother to our little brother, Britain. I mean, England, excuse me. But.

And they're there for the taken too. They did not look that good. Well, before we get to them, though, are we thinking England is public enemy number one, pretty much? You know what it is? Number one, number two, number three, wherever they are. I think we saw from this performance that they are in big trouble against us. Yeah. But, but yes.

And I have them as number one. I mean, like all you got to do is think about how they've treated, you know, Christian, uh, Motee Polisic. Is it, is mate? Mate. I think it is Mante. All right. Waki's sort of the pool of psychologist around here. I think it's Maté.

But I'm also not a pronunciation expert. So it's a little bit of a dangerous Venn diagram there. So, yeah, I guess my hierarchy of enemies would be England number one. And then, well, we should talk about whales because you segueed nicely to that. Wales is now our enemy because we now know we will play them in the World Cup on November 21st. That's coming up fast. and the reason they're there is because they beat Ukraine on a mediocre free kick from Gareth Bale that Yarmolinko, Andre Yarmolinko, who you may remember from his Dortmund days,

unfortunately headed into his own goal. But despite the lovely singing in Cardiff, I didn't think whales looked good either. Got outpossessed 6832 and outshot by about a ratio of 3 to 1. Now, Ukraine is actually pretty good, so maybe that doesn't say that much about what. whales but they sure look beatable yes and and they are our enemy now as you point out i do want to be a word of caution their fans in my experience are a lot nicer than england's so if you go at them too hard it might get a little weird response where you feel badly about it last time we played them made friends with a an expert in the welsh alphabet it started off talking some some smack and

then he got a friend out of it though and learned all about that that confusing alphabet. Apparently, it's not as complicated as an alphabet as it looks. Wait, who made friends with an expert in the Welsh alphabet? I did. Oh, you did? On Twitter. By friends, I mean, we just had some back and forth.

Are you still in touch? I'm going to get back in touch. I'm going to send my congratulations and probably come with a few questions about the Welsh alphabet. That's the thing. You can get people to talk to you if you show some interest in what they're interested in. This person didn't care about soccer at all. I don't even know how he found my tweets making fun of Wales,

but anyhow, what were you talking about soccer game? Well, it is, it is kind of funny. You know, strictly speaking, Wales is definitely an enemy at this point. There's no, there's no getting around that. But it is kind of interesting how doesn't everybody sort of feel warmly towards them, towards the Welsh? I mean, before I got into soccer, I couldn't tell you that whales existed to be completely honest with you. Yeah. But, um, sure.

I think of it as very green and, um, you know, a modest people. But what do I know? There was a guy, there was a guy from Wells on, uh, too hot to handle the, uh, reality TV show on Netflix. If, uh, you know, all my reality TV heads out there. What is too hot to handle? Um, so these very attractive, uh, coeds get into a house. And they like can't have sex.

I think I get the show now. Or kiss or any physical touch truly. Yeah. How do the Welsh guy do? Terrible. He did. Okay. That's good to hear.

He did absolutely terrible. He found a girl early and they kept breaking the rules. And the thing is, when you break the rules, you lose prize money. So, you know, everyone's getting mad. They're like, oh, keep it in your pants, whatever, whatever. Isn't that the one part of the game is that that's the only rule? You know what? We don't need to get into it anymore, I guess.

We could. If I could just go over the, uh, Wales results from the past calendar year. Please. And I'm just going to talk about their wins. Okay, so let's see. June 16th, 2021, they beat Turkey in the Euros. Two to no. Okay.

Belarus, they beat Belarus two to three. They beat Estonia by one goal, one nil. They beat Belarus again, five to one. And they beat Austria to get into this game against Ukraine, two to one. And they won this game against Ukraine. What do you make of those results? Because I don't know what time. I have no idea.

Their Elo or whatever is pretty high. Like they would have been a pot two team. if they had qualified, like, independently. But the results, you know, we're not dealing with a, with a Titan here, a juggernaut. Anything, nothing of that sort. So I'm feeling good. Yeah, it's going to be a tough game, but very beatable. I mean, I hope it's not a tough game, but I assume it will be.

Austria seems like a, that's a very respectable victory. Austria seems like a pretty good team. I don't know anything about those Baltic, you know, former Soviet. block nations. For me, the most satisfying mudding of all is Canada, who didn't even play this window because they ended up having to cancel two friendlies. And somehow I was not paying attention to this at all. But first, they had to cancel the one against Iran, which was supposed to be yesterday.

They had to cancel it about a week ago because of backlash at inviting the national team of a country that shot down an airplane with a bunch of Canadian civilians on it. Back in January 2020, Justin Trudeau himself had to weigh in or felt he had to and did. And then the replacement friendly against Panama was also canceled because the men's and women's national teams are on strike now, overpay and other stuff. You know, they just don't have their house in order. Certainly not. Right.

We got our labor business taking care of. We sure did. Yeah, you got to get that worked out. I mean, if you're having these issues, let's get that worked out. I don't know, from the time that y'all wrapped up qualifying until now. I mean, what was that? I saw the three months. We have Burrhalter a hard time for scheduling games in, like, Ohio.

Imagine if he had scheduled a game against the country that shot down a plane with a bunch of our. People on it. We would have, Burrholder would not have heard the end of it. I mean, you got, you got one job, man. Did they know that this is going to be a backlash when they scheduled? I haven't looked into it.

I feel like it was a, no, I haven't looked that deeply into it, but I imagine it was, you know, it was a sporting decision. They thought, you know,

surely the entire nation's not going to hold the shooting down of the plane against the national team, the national soccer team. I saw a lot of people taking offense with um it was like the fact that they're coming to canada and the fact that uh the canadian fed was paying them like a hundred thou 200th something like that to come play this game and that's mostly what i saw people taking offense with but who knows yeah and as a result of this uh iran doesn't have a friendly to play this window either so you know one of our enemies and

one of the teams in our group not even playing a World Cup friendly in this, I would say, fairly important international window six months before the World Cup. Yeah. Obviously, a lot of important geopolitical stuff in there, but just from a purely our soccer perspective, it's good that they don't have that game. Yes. Have to acknowledge the importance of the geopolitical stuff.

I'm sure it's very complicated, though. Right. It was a, well, go ahead. Waki, sorry. I was just reiterating that we understand it's important. Yeah. Could I reiterate it too? We can all reiterate it.

Yeah, all these issues are important. It did happen like right after we, the U.S. assassinated an Iranian general. So as is often the case, the U.S. is never not involved. But, I mean, the true question is, is it more or less important than World Cup Prip? And, you know, well, I think we could, I think we can, as a podcast, castes degree that we are against assassination. But we also think that World Cup prep is probably about as important. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. I mean, I'm going to. I don't know if I'm ready to blanket be opposed to all assassinations, but, you know, for the most part, not great. Not a good, not a good policy.

In general, we oppose them. We can revisit them on a case-by-case basis. I think that's, I could get behind that stance. Thank you. We've, we've lost a few Arsenal fans, but that's neither here or there. Because of Osama bin Laden. No, take that out. I didn't know where you're going.

I thought that's where you're going too. Is that not what you were talking about? Yeah, yeah, of course I would. Okay, yeah. Oh, okay. Bells don't take it out. I'm not taking it out. And then last and probably least is Mexico,

among our mudded enemies. They just can't score goals. They got shut out by Uruguay, admittedly a stronger Uruguay team than the one we faced yesterday. And then they got shut out by Ecuador in a zero-zero-zero draw. They lost three-zero to Uruguay,

as most of you know. Raoul is just scuffing shots. The attack looks toothless. Players like Eric Gutierrez just, you know, seems like a nice guy, but just does not carry himself like a winner. Um, so Mexico is also in the mud. I mean, we've got a pretty fun couple games to watch as US fans.

Mexico fans didn't not get that at all these past couple of games. I imagine they're pretty frustrated. Yeah. And this was the, uh, the big thing about, um, like these two games we just had was just like looking at qualifying. Like you could, you could just tell Mexico was not, Mexico was not it, you know? They're not. They're not. Like, it was, it was nice that we got four points.

It should have been six, you know, but they just really are not good. Like, I mean, rivalry or whatever, all you want. Like, I've talked a lot of stuff about them, but I was being dead serious. Like, they're just not that good. Yeah, they're not. I don't think anybody's going to be scared of them at the World Cup. But, you know, anything could happen, of course. But right now, in the mud.

All right. Vince, you were in Cincinnati. You live not too far away in Louis. and you were in Cincinnati for the Morocco game. As you were sitting there, Vince, did you ever get angry and think there should be more Americans here? Okay. Number one, I got a theory about this. And I think it's just because I was in that El Salvador game in Columbus. And there were a lot of, there were a lot of Salvi's there. And I think the thing that distorts it is that the way team buys up a lot of lower level seats.

So like when I was watching the game back, if you look behind Greg, there's like Morocco fans right there, like behind the team's box, the technical area. Isn't that what they call it? But, and if you look when police taking a corner a few times, there's like Morocco fans there too. And I think that distorts people's opinion of like the crowd distribution. But yeah, there were a lot of Morocco fans. And we had like just got back to the car when somebody just pulled up, pull his comments.

And yeah, I don't know. He could have went about it differently, I think. He could have used different words, I think. Yes. Well, he's got a thing where if a game goes well, he still likes to put, he has a complaint section of every post game interview. So he had to complain about something. And I think he just jumped into his mind. He could have worded it better though.

Yeah. I also think, you know, in that same interview or an interview the press conference later, he was asked about giving the penalty to Haji. And do you remember what he said there? I can't remember the exact words, but he said something like, yeah, yeah, he, I just knew that he needed that goal or something and happy that he got it, you know, which is, I don't know, maybe not the least generous way to put it, but pretty close. It's like he doesn't know how to say things in a nice way.

He's been a little bit cranky lately too. I think he was saying it was good for Hodgy's confidence to come in there and get the goal. But yeah, he's been a little bit snippy. I don't know. It just seemed slightly like he's accidentally throwing shade at him. Saying he needs this goal. I don't know that he needed that goal, you know? Yeah.

And that's the thing, like, as I thought about it, is just like, if you're going to be the face of the program, like, we got to, you know, get this man some media training, you know, just a little bit. Better yet, get him some books to read. We could start running kind of a shadow pool of sick press office that we kind of put out what we would have said in all of his interviews and post games. Yeah. Like doing a way that, like, it's clear to him. He can hire us. He can have us just run that for him. But we'll prove it, like proof of concept it.

I think it'd be more fun just to do it as a proof of concept. And even if he wants to hire us, which you won't, obviously. Even if he did, we would say no. You know? Yeah. Yeah. No, you're, that's, you're right. But we'll, we'll approach it so professionally that it'll occur to him.

I'm like, oh, man, maybe I could get them on my team. We would decide not to, on our own to retain our independence. And then the, this whole thing came full circle because I was at a wedding this weekend. my best friends. Oh, actually that I brought to, uh, I brought to Nashville. Okay. Um, good. He got married, he got married this weekend and like there were two people, two separate people that came that know like, I'm doing soccer podcast things and, uh, asked me about politics comments. Really? And yeah. And it's just like, this is why it is imperative that you communicate a little bit better because it's like you know

you got it seems like the reaction at first it seemed like it was going to go worse for him that it ended up going and I think the reason for that is he's just not very charismatic so people just like exactly we can't even can't get upset about this we don't even

we don't have it in us because of how boring he is yeah well I think well I think it goes both ways because I think I think I think that's also part of the reason why there was some backlash to it is because it's just like he's just not a charming person I mean he's in my line am a line he's a little bit charming he's not charismatic he's definitely not charming when the lights are on and the cameras on you know when I'm not sure how many people are to be honest but but yeah he's not I find it I think you could I find parts of his shyness to be charming charming charming is something is

such a complicated word. That's why I prefer charisma. But I guess, you know, we can just disagree on that. How is charisma a less complicated word than charming? Because there's, there's low energy charms, charming. Whereas charisma, you can have a slow burning charisma, but there's a deep energy behind it. A charm. Charm can be almost accidental sometimes.

Okay. Yeah, I'll give it to Waki. because when you talk about charm, it's like beauties in the eye or the beholder type of thing. But charisma, everyone knows what charisma is. I feel like that's more cut and dry than charm is. But you were saying,

I think we generally agree he's not the, he's not very charismatic. He's not the most charming person. What were you going to say about that? If you leave your words up to interpretation, if you're less charismatic, you won't get the benefit of the doubt as much as you would otherwise. If it was Weston McKinney saying,

in it for instance. Right. Well, and also when you, when you imply that people who are not U.S. fans in the stadium are not Americans, even accidentally, and I'm like fairly certain it was accidental. You're going to,

you know, you're going to get in some trouble. Yeah. Yeah. I would like to make it clear. I'm not even talking about that part. Oh. Because,

because I think it's pretty, I think it's pretty cut and dry that he's not talking about, you know, that he's not saying, you know, we got the Americans here, then we got those others. You know, he's talking about American fans.

which we've discussed this before when you talk about international soccer. I mean, as we just talked about with the Iran-Canada thing, you talk about international soccer, you get into some kind of murky waters just because of like the verbiage that you have to use sometimes. Yes. He's been, but as you referred to earlier, Waki, he's been, he's been, he's been snippy. I think snippy almost undersells what he's been. He's been, there's been an anger to his, I'm not talking about.

about press conferences or any of that nonsense. I'm talking about on the field. In his play. Yeah. Yeah. Particularly, I think, it became very noticeable in March. And then it was kind of brewing up. And then Uruguay, he really came out.

He had a full spree of them. Full spree of incident. Should we work through him? Let's work through him. Oh, yeah, go ahead. First out, he comes out very, he had a snippy foul. That's what this file was. I think we need a bigger word than snippy for his whole.

demeanor but you know he goes up and into the guy very clearly that it's a foul and this is something new from him he he very aggressively argues with the ref even though he definitely did do it is this let me jump in is this is this the one um where he's he kind of takes out the right center back for yes okay okay all right he just it's not a big pal but he just gets his arm out and then he he introduces a smirk and he i think believe he did a smirk in this morocco and a very strong smirk against New Uruguay. We had started to see those in March 2.

And then he kicks the ball away. Second half, he's getting into the ref with again. This time he's using curse words. And then he's directing curse words at the opponent, really yelling at them. And then that leads up to a time when he's protesting

when the ref doesn't award a penalty to Anthony. Anthony didn't even fall down. Anthony doesn't even want it, but for we'll say it's still going at the ref. he's taking every opportunity he's doing wild gestures he's pointing to the ground

and then at the end of the game he comes in late into an argument like the 90th minute and he's basically holding back tears he's in angry protest yeah so he's got a lot of energy in there which is good yes it is good

but he's got to control it what about the one where he he gets called for hitting the guy in the face when he probably didn't even hit him in the face Ariambara and then he and then he called him the P word you call it the FNP word Yes

That was the curse word Yes there's so much it's hard to keep track of I think that was the same curse word section Okay Is when he was because he started out You know at the Raff then he switched it I mean that's an aggressive insult You know

I don't know how it plays In like an international soccer game But it's been you know Since middle school that I've like Called somebody that to their face It's I it's possible he was saying F word BS. It's possible.

It is possible. That's true. I'm not an expert lip. We do, we need some more, there was a lot of lip reading opportunities because of particularly during the water breaks, we need to enlist a professional lip reader.

Can you write a lip reading RFP? I think we need an RFP. Because you really, you really do need someone with some expertise. Otherwise, you're just spinning your wheels, trying to see what they were saying. I'm pretty sure DeAndre did say behind the back bounce pass in one.

I'm kind of jumping all over the place. And the video you made? Yeah. I think he made one to Reggie Cannon. That was pretty slick. He did. Well, yeah, it came in kind of over his right shoulder, got up, and then kind of did a force to turn away to then one-handed, left-handed.

right to canon. Yeah, but his transitions are just, they're getting smoother and smoother. You're talking about Burrhalter now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was smooth.

It was just, nah, he can't even really complain about it. It wasn't completely necessary. It wasn't, but I mean, are any of them. But they are,

you know, it's good to see they've really embraced the bounce pass as a team. Yeah, there's like a video of, of McKinney and Yedlin practicing

bouncing ridiculous bounce passes. Yeah, and I think having everyone bought in like that is a way to get the most of the bounce pass. Like in the Uruguay game, we got a really good shot of Berhalter doing it. He did a quick little bounce pass to Scali where he didn't even need to make eye contact with Scali beforehand because Scali knows there's going to be a bounce pass.

They're not even facing each other. Their shoulders are kind of facing the same way, but Burholt can just bounce it down. Scali walks right into the path because he knows it's coming. So we're really seeing everything start to come together on that front. I mean, bounce, you know, it just occurred to me. Bounce passes are a lot easier to handle than, you know, a straight chest pass.

Yeah, I think there's a real reason to do them. What about the X arm signal that Pulisic is doing? Did you guys notice this? He's doing this before a corner kicks, but he's doing it pretty much every time. So I don't know what it's signaling. Does it, did, did you see that we had the, uh, the, the, the false corner and then like, pulley frustratingly walked back to the, to the semicircle and halfheartedly threw up the X again and then, uh, delivered a terrible corner.

I was going to say, maybe, maybe the X means I'm going to kick it over everybody this time. Right. The X is like, well, will this go on the goal? No. No, no, it was like it. It's like a family feud. Nobody's getting this ball. Okay.

This is X. It's such a small signal. too and it's just kind of crossing at the wrists and holding it sadly in front of them. I don't know what what is going on with this because then he does still does a he raises his hand on the next few beats. So there's a double signal

and I think it just makes him feel good. I think it's just a confidence booster for him. So if we could like every every pulley free kick or set piece, every pulley set piece if we could just get a big family feud

X to just pop up on the screen, I would be tremendous tremendous because I'll tell you what we're not doing is it's scoring a goal boy yeah we're just not we're not great on set pieces right now um can we can we while we're talking about him can we get into his thought process on the haji right penalty yes please can we get into detail on exactly what happened there all right so we win the penalty Pulisic gets the ball past him where he gets it first and then him and Hajie Wright

come together and you can see the decision made there to have Hadji take it and then Hajie leaves the ball and then there's a beat or two and then Christian you see him realize no he wants to do his his ruse

with the handoff and you see him go back to get it so and then I guess he did a really good job committing that point where he even everyone was out of the box already but he still made like he was going to be the one to take it put it down and then spun out and did the pass so i think it was really good that part of it but he also didn't have a whole a plan for the whole time so it was kind of this improv as improvisional

thing you know as you're as you're describing this i'm getting kind of excited about it because it's um there's a richness to this in the in the history you know sort of as a soccer culture to have this kind of stuff happening he's totally doing it for fun right like he's just doing it he's he's just doing it for fun which is great i think i mean there there could be a reason to do it you know i think it's it seems like a real thing to do but in this time he was he was just getting the most out of it because he'd never gotten to be that that role before in the ruse and he just really he really got as much drama as you could out of it. I guess it does take some of the pressure off of Haji, too, for him to stand up there and

do all that stuff. I like it. I like it a lot. So, so whereas the, uh, when, when I was in Orlando for the, the, the Hesuz one, I, uh, like, I wasn't full by that at all. I, like, I knew Pilly was taking that penalty, right? But this one, like, once I see, once I see Pilly pick up the ball, I turned to my, uh, one of the guys that came with me was my boss. My boss came with me. So I turned to him and I was like,

yo, Pooley's about to take this. He turns around. He's like, oh, he's like, oh, okay, because like Pully's one of the, you know, the only players this guy knows. But, yeah, and I'm seeing the people, you know, the Moroccans convene around Pully, you know, doing what they do. And then, you know, when he, when he bounced, you know, another bounce pass, when he bounced the ball to, you know, to Haji, I was like, what? Yeah, and they cut to the Moroccan players. And after that, they couldn't believe what they'd just seen. They couldn't.

They couldn't. They could not believe it. Yeah, I just watched the whole thing about an hour ago. No, could not believe it. Yeah. It was a great gesture, too. Moved by it is a little bit of an exaggeration, but I was affected by it. I thought it was great.

You know, that, I talked about this on the recap, but. Hadji's had such a harder road to the national team. And there's no guarantee he's even going to be going to the World Cup, right? And I'll guarantee it all. But to have him be here and get this opportunity with the national team after all these years, four years or so. It's pretty cool. And it's cool that Pulisic did this. And I have to say, even though I'm kind of hard on Pulisic for the way he talks in public,

I mean, we spent probably 20 minutes criticizing the way he speaks publicly. earlier. He's in actions speak louder than words kind of guy, I think, you know. And he probably would prefer not to even discuss it. Like he'd prefer not to even discuss the man in the mirror shirt underneath his jersey in Mexico. He just wants to do the stuff and let it stand. But he does as a result of his stardom and the fact that he's the most recognizable name

on the team. He does have to, he ends up having to explain a lot of stuff. and as Waki is so expertly elucidated in the past, he's tired of it. It was also nice that everyone that Haji had kind of been through with it, wait, been through with it, been through it with. Yeah, yeah. Yes.

They were kind of all there. Poulosick and he played with Weston, right, and Luca. Yeah, he and Weston were teammates at Shalka. and Haji and Weston would have been on that two, I think it's the 2017 U-20 World Cup team, but Shalka didn't release them. And that was a team that Tyler Adams was on and Eric Palmer Brown, Luca Deloere,

Josh Sargent was on that team. So yeah, cool. I didn't notice that he decided not to do it or he gave the ball to Hajie and then he came back to get it to do the trick. I didn't realize that until you just explained that. What were you going to say, Vince? No, just when you said Josh Sargent, I said who.

Oh. Now that, he's in the hat. He's in the hat just like everybody else. He's down in the pits like the parabola prophecy foretold. What else? What else, Waki? You're kind of on a role here. I want to make sure Aaron Long gets, I know, he's a player that takes a real beating

sometimes on the internet from people. People like to argue about him a lot. But I want to give him credit for something on a wall, on a free kick that this is against Morocco. Morocco was awarded. And they're setting up the wall and Long is on the edge. And Wea keeps trying to get to the left of him to be the edge of the wall.

But Long arm bars him. He says, no, don't go through there. You don't get to be here. The reason is you're not tall enough. He doesn't say all of this, but you can tell like this is his thinking. And he kind of arm shoves way away. But for whatever reason, Waya comes out again. Long has to block him, slide him again away.

And in the meantime, Anthony Robinson has noticed what's happening. So he's able to get on the other side of Long to take that space, Wayo once. And Ante Robinson is taller than Waya. And it turns out this is exactly what should have happened, because on the free kick, Anthony Robinson gets up and heads it away. Wow. So it's just that little stuff like that, you know. It's going to make the difference against, you know, England or whoever.

We're going to get our walls perfect. Do you unironically believe the reason Long didn't want Way of theirs because he thought he was too short? Well, it seemed like he was trying to set up a wall that the tallest person was on the left. But if the tallest person was supposed to be on the left, why wouldn't Long himself be on the left? I guess the taller of the two edge people. Okay. Wayo was on the other edge. And he's here Robinson is kind of tall.

This is my reading of it. Now I've got to go back and look to see if this is a real thing that happened. But he definitely did not want Wea on the edge. And my theory is that he wasn't tall enough. Aren't that the same height? Am I'm not tripping? Robinson and Wea? Yeah.

I do think Robinson's a little taller. Let's look it up. I'll look it up on transfer market. Whether or not they're the exact same height, I think emotionally in that moment, Robinson was taller and it turned out to really, really pan out for long. So he's my starter for the World Cup. Well, transfer market has Waya a little bit taller than Robinson, so I don't know. Well, this hurts my theory of the case a lot.

I think of Robinson as taller too, but... He is emotionally taller. Definitely emotionally taller. That's not a slight at Wea. It's more just a compliment to, uh, And who's to say it's better to be taller? Well, no. Well, it is, I think.

And this wall was better and it along did a great job. It's the one year anniversary. I just want to briefly note it's the one year anniversary of that crazy Nations League win over Mexico. It was kind of a turning point for all of us, I think. Certainly. Sure was. Certainly a turning point for the scuff podcast. Sure was.

I mean, what a great game. Worth celebrating. Aronson. Brendan Aronson. That's Brendan with an E before the end. N at the end of his first name. Everybody needs to remember that. We should be direct about this.

We've been asked by some to show some humility, to make repentance for criticizing Aronson a lot. I mean, criticizing isn't even the right word. Just sort of like tapping the brakes on him is I feel like what I've been doing. Do you feel like you need to repent, Vince? No. No, not. Not necessarily.

For wanting the most out of our little Brendan, no, we're not going to repent. We're going to demand the absolute most of them. I had told Bells and Greg a few days before, or the day before, I think, that I was going to have, you know, I was going to have Aronson Cam on in the stadium while I was there. And I did. And he played very well. Somebody hit me up on the Discord was like, Aronson played well today, huh? And like, yeah.

He definitely did. He definitely did. We know he played well, Vince. The question is, are you going to repent? He was good in this game. However, I will say this, his three best moments of the game, they came in the same game states that all of his best moments always come in. So we get the goal where he runs on to where Pully makes the chop.

Well, he brings the ball down, first of all, makes the chop. Here comes Brendan running in. Finish. Okay. We get the pass to Jesus at the end of the half. He collects the ball. It's basically a transition moment because I can't remember. It's basically one touch from Eunice up to Christian to Brendan.

Brendan gets the ball, AVP. It was a vintage AVP. It was the definition of an AVP. Right. Vintage AVP. But that doesn't mean it was a transition moment. Was it definitely a transition moment? Look, because the third one came just off the buildup,

but it's still, he still collected the ball, just, you know, the AVP is of AVPs. But anyway, collects the ball passes to Jesus. Hazus gets a shot off. Boom. Okay. Same thing with Haji. Collects the ball in the same type of situation. Makes the pass to Haji, nice pass chance.

And so, like, it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do know what you're saying. So that chance to Ferreira was long winning a ball, like winning a goal kick, heading it to Moosa. And then Musa and Pulisic flicking it over somebody and then Pulisic juggling it over to Aronson. So it's like kind of like a transition moment. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's all I'm saying, man. Like that isn't a departure from anything that we've been saying so far in Brendan. Is it? Yeah. I guess, I think I agree with that. No, we criticize him every week pretty much. I still don't think he's very good one to be one. Like, so he can't, so he is the fourth winger.

I think it's pretty clear he's our fourth best winger. But we saw at the end of the Uruguay game, he couldn't, like he just can't beat a guy one-on-one. And way a can. And I think a lot of this, my feeling, towards Erison has always been like sort of Aronson versus Waya, people not giving way enough respect and not acknowledging how integral he's been to success of the team over the past seven or eight months. And then, you know, Aronson, people say, well, Arons has got to be in the 11. People are saying that now. Arons has got to be in the starting 11. No, it does not have to be

in the starting 11. He is our fourth best winger. He's probably, you know, if, if Geo Rain is healthy, I'm going to say for me he's probably our fifth, eight, maybe fourth. I don't people are going to yell at me for that. He did play really well against Morocco and so that I have to take that information into account. But I don't know. I'm just not convinced that like in a really, really important game, he's going to be better at the 8th than Luca Delo Tore or Giorina if we ever get to see Gio Rana in the midfield. And so in the end, I repent for perhaps.

some snideness along the way and some disrespect. But ultimately, the situation is unchanged. He is no higher than the fourth winger. And I think it's, I think where people will debate, me is on where he sits in the eight depth chart. I'm just, I mean, obviously, Burhalter thinks of him as a head of Luca Dillotauri at this point. I think that's pretty clear.

But, I don't know, when Raina comes back, is he going to be ahead of Raina? He's going to be coming in off the bench. I'm happy about that. I think he's a great player to come in off the bench at the World Cup. Tim, like the whole thing that started me down this path was him versus Tim. And you know what? I don't have to show any humility because guess what?

I was right. I was right. Okay. Lucky, lucky, be the ombudsman here. You were, how were you right? Because it wasn't, it wasn't Brendan versus Tim. In the end, we got this twist. And now Brett is playing in the middle.

Well, why is he playing in the middle? He could be playing on the wing if he was better than Tim Weyer. Answer me that, Chris. Well, because he... Riddle me that. I guess he wanted to play in the middle. I guess he said, coach, I'm ready to play in the middle. I don't need...

Me and Tim, we had our head-to-head battle this past six months, and Tim won. And now I would like to play in the middle. Bygones, be bygones. Nah, but I have always said. This is not a indictment on what I think he can be as a player. It's just like a personal taste type of thing. And I will say he showed me a lot more on the dual front in midfield than I thought he would. He made some very impressive tackles.

He didn't get little brothered against Morocco. I don't think he very much got little brothered against Uruguay if at all. there were some there's been calls for us to stop talking about maybe it's not directed just us but the little brother thing they want people want us to um is it too highly gendered oh it wasn't even thinking about that no no that hasn't been a complaint i've seen it was i think it was more just the little part so i was thinking we get upgraded and like big brandon or a little big brandon big little brandon big little brandon yeah he he he brought uh Like, okay, for those of you who are listening to Monday Review, the first time, for the first time, I played college football. I played an offensive line. Okay. So when you're, like, let's say when you're like, when you're blocking, okay, is everyone here familiar with like a pool in football?

I am. Like an offensive line pool, like a pulling guard or something? Yeah. Were you a guard or a tackle? I don't know if I've ever asked you that. I was both. Okay. mostly a tackle guard in emergency situations but anyway so when you pull like my my offense of line

coach always had this saying like when you get there you got to bring something to the party so bring something to the party is like when you get to the man you're supposed to get when you pull you knock him out on on one end of the spectrum would be bringing something to the party and then when you didn't bring something to the party he would say you're like massaging your way into it so Brendan used to massage you're massage you. his way into some challenges. Now, he's bringing something to the party. He really, I mean, he little brothered someone else.

Yeah. He did a couple times against Morocco. I do think, yeah. So bringing something to the party just means like hitting somebody hard, finding somebody to hit and hitting them hard instead of just sort of like, what would be the opposite, like pulling and then just not finding a defender to hit? No, no, no. You get there and you let them bring something to the party.

where you let them deliver the blow. You know what I'm saying? Well, I completely misunderstood the spirit of the phrase now. I thought it was more like, yeah, you come to the party, but you also have to have brought a little bit something too when you get there. And that's pop this guy in the mouth. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying.

Okay. Like it's either hit or be hit. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And Brendan, bring it, he's coming to the party and he's hitting someone. Be the aggressive. He's bringing party favors. He's bringing some.

solo cups, some pawns. I don't think he's something I would trust to bring something good to a party. Hey, who needs to repent about Aronson now, Waki? Well, I don't think any of that's changed. I mean, I don't, I wouldn't, if I'm having a house party, I'm not, like, I'm not having Brendan be in charge of the hors d'oeuvres or something really important like that. Really? He seems like a responsible.

I think he can grow into being kind of, maybe he could eventually be, the guy who kind of brings the main dish if we're doing a potlock. Well, if it's a pot lock, everyone's just going to bring a main dish. Yeah. So a potlots work. What was I saying? Oh, I was, um, he was playing a Nintendo Switch in a photo on an airplane. Okay.

He looked a little bit young when he was doing that. That's all I'm saying. Okay. He's a young man and he'll, he'll fill into his role. Let's see. Scalligate. Well, do we, do we need to wrap up? Brandon, I do feel like it's important to our listeners because it has been sort of like a running joke with us.

And he was awfully good in this window in a position that I thought he was not going to be good in. So I guess I, you know, if he starts a World Cup game at the 8 because McKinney is hurt or something like that, I won't be that mad, I guess. It'll be okay. Yeah, I think he's good. He's good at soccer. Yeah. why not why why why why why why why am i over complicating it why am i over complicating why we're sorry you're so sorry that you got upset by that people and we we think he's good and we do we do

apologize we do apologize on behalf of all of us thank you yeah but it doesn't accept not for me i've already did i've just i've just done it should we talk about joe scally yeah joe scally Joe Scali The war rages on The Scali Wars Can you guys give me an update on what's going on With the Scali Wars?

I can try to summarize it I mean There were a bunch of The most typical thing That you would But go ahead Bells I'm sorry I think Vince

You're participating in them So I want to get a more objective Point of view Before we get someone who's involved Okay You know Scali As many of you know Started a lot of games

That Bruce to Wynch Gladbach, a perennial, you know, top eight team in Germany. And they weren't very good this year. We played a lot. And then he kind of got ignored by Berhalter in the fall. He was only 18 at the time, I think, right? Is he 19 now? And then he got ignored.

And then he didn't get called up in March. And I think that was when things got kind of crazy, where a lot of people were very angry. They didn't get called up. and they thought it was, this was, yeah, you know, some people thought it was MLS bias. Some people thought it's just like Burrhalter's dumb. And it did get, I think, pretty heated around the March window

when the March roster came out. And I think there are a lot of people on Twitter specifically who are very mad about that still, who didn't think it was that important for Scali to get called up and who are mad that so many people were so vigorous and their advocacy for Joseph Scali in March. And so I think that's what the war is. Either you're a dumb USMNT Twitter,

knucklehead, who just reflexively calls for any young player in Europe to be called up. Or you think, you know, Scali was absolutely terrible and should never see the national team again after his performance against I-Iraquire. I guess the main reason things got rekindled is because he was pretty bad yesterday against Uruguay. Pretty bad. He was eager, though.

Very eager. He was very eager. Spirit was willing, yes. And after the game, I think Burrhalter, to keep his confidence up, complimented him on being out there and giving it us all. Yeah. After the Uruguay game? Yeah, he said he hung up. in there.

And then noted that he had to change positions, you know, midway through the second half. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, man. I mean, he showed his versatility. You know what I'm saying? He was ass on both sides, you know, against Uruguay. You know what I'm saying? I was excited for the Uruguay match. Because, you know, my boy's getting a start.

Like, let's see what he's got. And the first half happens. And, you know, it, like, it was bad. Don't get me wrong. It was bad. But I'm like, look, he cleans itself up on these challenges a little bit. He'll be all right. Then the second half comes around.

He's getting caught on the ball, like, like on his, on his better side. You know what I'm saying? And I was just like, Jesus Christ, this is a horror show. To the point to where I'm pretty sure he was getting looked off by his teammates. I think that's true. I do think that's true. Yeah. Like I saw Walker Zimmerman look at him a few.

times was like, nah. Not today, Joe. Pilly looked at him a few times. Nah. Like, okay, he was, he was ass. Like I said, ass on both sides. You know, equal opportunity. He gave you the right cheek and the left cheek.

Yeah. So, but the Morocco match, like, I just watched that before we record it, but before we're recording now, I thought he was pretty good. He was okay? I thought he was okay. Like his Okay, so he got burnt by Hakimi that one time

But first off, he recovers and makes the play Because I mean, you know, you can say it's because Akimi got the ball caught up in his feet And that's true, but he didn't give up Drew a foul on that play, right? Ended up getting fouled after getting beat. And then his first involvement in the game, Hakeemie tries to push it past him

And he wins that. duel and gets a foul there. And so I'm like, okay, like that's a give and take. Um, the penalty wasn't a penalty. Like, that happened right in front of me. Like, come on now. He didn't touch that man. The TV showed he didn't touch that man. So that's, that's a, that's a non-issue. And then, like, once I finished the game, like, I'm thinking of myself. I'm like, did this man, like, not, did he misplace one single pass? I look at the stats. He's 22 for 23 passing the ball. His one miss pass was a cross that went out for a corner. So I'm like, bro, and three of six on duels. And I'm like, bro, what? I mean, if you switch the order of the performances, okay, we're not getting a whole much of victory laps after the after the, after the, after the Morocco match, if that was a second match, that's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. And then the thing is, go ahead. There.

you know, the smart and rational U.S. men's national team Twitter, which is probably what they would call themselves, as opposed to, you know, toxic USMNT Twitter. They keep doing this on like every kid. They get hyped. And it's like, fam, y'all have been proven wrong so many times that like, like, I can't believe y'all still doing this. You know what I'm saying?

Like, if you're listening to this podcast right now, you're listening to this pod because Bill. and Greg were right about most of these damn kids. You know what I'm saying? Who was leading the charge? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I've certainly had my misses and have definitely, how should I say this,

moderated my rhetoric. I'm talking about myself personally. Had my missus moderated my rhetoric over the last two years. Yeah, I think, I keep thinking back to Sergenio Dest, who was really good for young. IACs and you know I was saying like we should got to bring this guy in he's like really good he's knocking on the door of the iax first team you know iax was like incredible at that time uh I think that's the year that they lost in the championship league semifinals when he didn't when he hadn't quite broken in yet and um and that was people were like man this what are you

talking about he's a second team player like well you got to watch you know watch and play see what you think, you know? And, you know, boy, he turned out to be pretty good, right? And, but, you know, I've also been a big fan of Ledzma and he's still not really hit. So, got to take my lumps too. I mean, sure, but I guarantee you a lot of people weren't on the Western train. A lot of people weren't on the way of train. A lot of people. I mean, name them. That's what I'm, that's what I'm saying, man. Like, and they keep going back to the well, oh, USMNT Twitter. you said the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That means Greg was right.

Like, bro, I'm not trying to hear it from you. Okay? Get out of my face with all this mess. Y'all kill me. Kill me. No shame. Y'all going to ask for some damn humility. What about you?

Where are your receipts at, sir? Because I know you was tweeting, because I know you was tweeting Z-Lab Mata back in 2018, talking about, I mean, come on, dog. I'm not trying to hear it. I am not trying to hear it. You're trying to tell me this man going to play against Morocco and Uruguay, and you're going to take a victory lap off those two games when George Bello put in a horror show against Panama? Yeah, we should get into the Bello Scali thing a little bit.

I'm just not trying to hear it. Yeah. The Bellow Scali comparison is interesting. I think, you know, I had somebody on Twitter tell me, I don't spend that much time on Twitter anymore. I try not to get too involved in anything. But I did get involved yesterday. when I responded to one of these jokes about USM&T Twitter 06777, you know, being an idiot. And they were dunked on that hypothetical Twitter user for calling for Scali to get called up and saying like, this is maybe Burrhalter is smarter than this person.

And I responded sort of like tongue in cheek or at least like half serious. Well, that same Twitter user was right about Anthony Robinson before Berhalter was. And then I found myself, unfortunately, in an extended conversation with one of these accounts. And at the end of it, I said, why are you so hostile? And like, did I do something to you? And he responded, I assume it's a man. He responded that I personally have catalyzed a lot of the people who have been abusive to him on Twitter. He used that

He used that word catalyst I am the catalyst For a lot of the abuse that he has suffered on Twitter And then And then he said And that's why the irony of me Asking why he's so hostile is so rich You may be one of the worst

Worst Catalyst to anger I've ever met I mean Yeah I don't know I don't know. I got... Maybe not the worst, but I wouldn't... I wouldn't put you as a driver, unfortunately. It would be a nice, nice thing to have, but...

Right. I almost took it as a compliment, but not one that I really deserve, you know? Because it's like the whole... Number one, okay, like, I bet you probably have some takes about Tim Wea after that Panama game then. You know what I'm saying? After the Waya Panama. And then somehow, you know, he's not starting.

over Paul Ariola until he gets hurt in warm-ups and look where we are now. Right. Look at what we are now. I like how enthusiastic you are about these arguments. Do you enjoy them

or is it something you feel like you have to get out there and do to get on the right side of it? How do you experience it? Well, if we're just arguing about players, that's different. But this is a whole different thing where it's like,

you know, it's just a continuation of like the toxic U.S. Mids National Team Twitter discourse. And you can see it play out through proxy arguments, which Scali ends up being a proxy argument. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I guess so. This is why I get so animated about it.

It's just like, please, if the point of that tweet was Greg Burhalter is a better judge of talent than you, then explain to me why he's going to be. going to start Paul Ariola over Tim way in that match. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, well, it's like, are we not allowed to criticize the coach's decisions or, like, that's the whole point of what we're doing, right? I mean, it's not the whole point of what we're doing. It's a big part of what we're doing.

I mean, we're talking about the best teams we've played in, what, two years, three years, in three years? The two best teams? Yeah. Guadaguay in Morocco? Right. Yeah. Canada might, I think Canada might be better than Morocco,

but I don't know. Who could say such a thing? I just want to say I do think Burrholder is probably better at coaching soccer than most people on the... On Twitter. Who are listening right now. On Twitter. Yes. I feel pretty confident. I feel extremely confident saying that, actually.

I mean, you're right. But that's not what that person meant. You know what I'm saying? He was veiling that in that. He's saying, I'm better than you. Would there have been a way to say? say that without it being that's what he was saying? Well, it's just nobody has any manners. Nobody knows how to disagree, not nobody, but a lot of people don't know how to disagree in a way that

they don't start using the second person pronoun. Like, you said this, you do this, you do that. You know, just state your point. You know who does it well. Greg Flasquez, Bob Morocco. They both do it. They don't accuse people of doing certain things. And I'll tell you, like, to answer your question. When I get involved in Twitter almost only when someone is criticizing me directly, you know, and this person was saying that I'm a, I'm delusional because of that tweet, quote tweeted it. He said I was being, I was delusional to think that Anthony Robinson deserved to be called up before he was. And so that's when we got into it. And then it ended with me, you know, being the catalyst of all his sorrow in life. So I would say you may be using

Twitter in just completely the opposite way of that's healthy to use it. Really? I mean, if you're just doing it, wouldn't people disagree with you? No, I don't. No, it's not when people disagree with me. It's when somebody says, like, labels me somehow. You are delusional or you are, I don't know. But I'm definitely open to the possibility that I'm using it entirely the wrong way.

I think it's probably good just to not, you don't use it that much. seems like a good thing actually. I would spend a lot of time on it if I sort of got involved in all that stuff. I don't know how people have the energy for it. You don't do it either, right? No, I can't even, I couldn't even pretend to be interested in it at all.

Like, I don't even know what to say. I don't understand. You understand. I find it strange how everyone, not not everyone, but most people watch the game or their view of it is, or at least talking about it is imagining that they were the coach, what they would do.

I just don't know. That isn't how I watch soccer at all. But that seems like to be the way that most people do it. And that's where all this stuff comes from. So I can see how it would be really interesting for people if that's how you watch. I'm trying to think if I watch it as if I were the coach. I definitely don't think. I don't think that's how I do.

Watch it. We're kind of like, yeah, or kind of from like active activist as though you're an active participant in it. Like as a fandom thing, which is a real thing. Scali, I guess the last thing I'll say about Scali is, last thing I'll say, not trying to shut down the conversation, but the last thing I'll say about Scali is he is auditioning here. He didn't play well. I didn't think against Uruguay. But he's auditioning for a spot.

for which the bar is incredibly low. It's George Bello right now. And I'm curious why you think, I mean, they both have looked out of their depth. What's the difference between them to you guys? Well, Vince. Well, go ahead. Go ahead, Wachie. Sorry.

I think they're very similar in terms of just how good they are. Yeah. I think I need to. They're kind of roughly in the same neighborhood. What do you think, Vince? Dude, I think Bella would be nice if he just, like, he'd be looking like he don't practice with the team he plays with sometimes. Like, that's the only way I can put it. Like, bro, do you be at, like, are you deep in the stuff that we're saying to you?

Like, are you, like, the game playing the stuff on the board and all this? You say the same thing about Scali. He's running all over the place. Yeah, he's running all over the place, but at least at least he's running. But George just be like, sometimes it just seems like be short-circuiting a little bit. But like the, you can see the talent is immense. Yeah. Like just just the pure, the pure talent is absolutely there.

It's just, he just needs a little bit more season. Like, yeah. But I mean, as we saw with this, uh, you had to go out performance, the, the floor, um, The floors are probably equal. Which is low. Great. It's a low floor. It's a low floor.

George has had January camps, you know what I'm saying? World Cup qualifying camps. Like you would think he would have been further alone. And so if I'm projecting the two out at this point, puts Cali in the lead right now. One thing is in the first half of the Morocco game, I had the stretch where I was feeling, I wouldn't be that confident with Anthony Robinson being our left back at the World Cup. It was a very emotional response and immediate. And I was overboard.

But then having the other folks come in and then eventually Anthony coming back in your way, I realized, no, I am comfortable with Anthony Robinson. And he can do it for now on. And we don't really need the other folks. We don't need to play anybody else at that spot. But I do understand the point because he gave the ball away. five times in like 15 minutes at the start of that Morocco game. I was like, geez, that's.

Yeah, bro. He plays like that sometimes. He's not a perfect player. No, but, but he's still very good at the same time. Yeah. It's, it's weird that way. It's interesting how, I mean, wonder what it's like for those guys. Because I think Bello and Scali are friends, the last I checked, last I knew.

and Bello, you know, sort of had that backup left spot, left back spot for the taking. Like, I mean, if he played marginally well in that spot, he'd be going to Qatar, going to a World Cup. And he doesn't, he seems to be a little bit on the outs now. Scali gets a big chance. Scali gets a big chance.

It's a big advantage to be in this camp. Four games, two of them that should be pretty, I mean, should be pretty comfortable, I think, for the U.S.? Fascinating situation on the very fringes of the roster. The Tyler Eunice double pivot, the fact that Tyler was so high in the press, I thought that was interesting. Because we even got some, we got some six-on-six crime there in the, you know, as Morocco was building up, like Tyler's pressing their six.

and I think that's a that's a that's a wrinkle we haven't necessarily seen before and like I like it because it's like and and that was part of the issue like when the we're pressing and if the ball gets switched out of that press then we got Tyler as our furthest up midfielder and a lot of the times I looked at it and Brendan was the last one back usually it was just like I guess Tyler took the position took Brendan's position and then it ended up being like a Brendan

Eunice double pivot at that point because a lot of times they were kind of like level but uh yeah it was like just not having Tyler back there led to those situations probably being a little bit more dangerous than they should have been but I like the idea though because it's like you got your because a lot of people like okay everyone makes the the Tyler Adams Conte um comparisons, right? And it kind of frustrated me because I'm, because I'm like, they don't play alike at all. Because Conte, like, if you look at where Conte operates, especially on the ball, like, he's, he's mostly like box to box. And where he's doing his defensive work at, too, it's a lot higher up than a six would be. Like, he's usually, he hasn't played a lot as a lone

six. Sorry, he tried to do it. And it didn't go well. But so with him, with Tyler being able to play higher up in the press, it lets them do some of that Conte work. And so it's like we got our, in the double pivot, we got our dynamic defensive player and Tyler Adams. Then we got our offensive dynamic player in Eunice. And I think that works kind of well. It felt at times in the Morocco game like a triple pivot where like all three midfielders were interchangeable.

And parts of the Uruguay game, well, less so, I suppose, but definitely a double pivot against Uruguay felt like. Yeah. Things are evolving. Yeah. And that's how I kind of clocked that Luca was playing the six. Because when Luca came on, he took Tyler's position in the press and he was doing the same things.

He was getting up high in the press too. Yeah. Yeah. He was running the same The same thing Tyler was I was like this man playing six right now Which it turned out he was but That's interesting as well

Do you guys feel like Do you guys feel like the Personnel and tactics decisions are getting More complex Or the discussion is getting more complex Well it used to be We just kind of had to remember A 433 and maybe a fullback

Would go into the middle part That was the first thing Yeah, that was the first thing. And then it got simpler from there. And now it seems like he's back to adding more new things to keep track of with this two in the midfield and what's going on with the guys in front of them and all that. Yeah, Reggie Cannon playing sort of as a right centerback in the buildup. And then the fact that we have better options in midfield with now Aronson, Deloere and potentially Raina. and then, you know, there is still the possibility of rotating Waya or Pulisik out for a game

and starting somebody else on the wing. And we have this MMA midfield that is sort of a proven winner for us. It seems like there's, it's getting hard to keep track of what we should do. I'm not even sure what we should do, you know? Yeah. I was thinking about it last night and I, you know, I'm getting close to the point where I might say that triple G is good. I mean, he's definitely good in some ways, for sure.

But you're saying good, like capital G good? I mean, you know, he still has his quirks. He still does weird things. But, I mean, when's the last time he's got it wrong, so to speak? Well, you know, I think having quirks and doing weird things is, it works to its credit, really. So I completely agree with you. When it comes to in-game setup, like I think he's doing his thing. He's doing his thing, I think, personally.

And yeah, it's just interesting to see. Well, I guess the one thing, the one thing that's sort of bugging me right now is long getting all these opportunities, you know, despite his leadership in putting the shorter Anthony Robinson in over the taller Tim Way. on the wall. I think I do so wonder about him. He's not very good at distributing the ball. He is definitely better in the air and like sort of a stronger, more physical centerback than Chris Richards is, I think.

So I'm a little, I'm not like sure it's a bad idea to keep giving Aaron Long chances. Well, obviously Richards is hurt. But, you know, there's a potential for long frustration for me. Other than that, I feel like he's getting everything kind of right. And he might even be getting that right, too. Like at this point, we're back to a centerback hat without Chris, without Miles.

You know, we're back to where we were, you know, when it used to be John Brooks and whoever else we pull out, you know. So now it's Walker and whoever else we pull out. And now, you know, Aaron Long was getting that shot, you know, he split. He split time yesterday. So we'll just see how it plays out He hasn't he hasn't been terrible He's been terrible on the ball But yeah

Everything else is whatever Should we quickly talk just before we go Talk about Pulisik's haircut Is Is it um Is he growing a mullet I saw people saying that I'm

I'm until he does it I'm suspicious Because he's kind of a tinkerer With his hair styles he'll play around with it around the edges he doesn't really commit to really big projects like that so you know he's more inclined to just kind of copy his teammates haircuts I mean with it's Chelsea it's a little bit tricky because there's a group of players who seem to all be kind of copying each other so it's I'm not sure to what extent he's following

and leading here in this case I think he's just following Jesus Ferreira's haircut it does seem like that is the case yeah So I'm not so sure about it turning into a mole. I would love for it too, and I'd love to be proven wrong. But as of right now, no, I don't think it's a mullet. I said that was going to be the last thing. But what about the striker situation? How are you guys feeling about Frera?

You know, not his haircut so much his play? I'm happy you brought this up. I still think he's good. I still think he's good. Like that touch that he took away from the defender to get that shot off in the Morocco game and like the it was the early part of the game like the shot from the top of the box

the left footed touch before the right footed strike yeah yeah like he just does those things like he's able to he's just able to get shots off man and you see he's able to get the shots off he's able to find itself in good positions he wasn't that good against Urtegui I thought his overall play was kind of lacking

he still found itself you know two good chances and it's just like I'm I'm still in the I'm still in the hazes camp. On that one shot, he needed to kick it harder. The one shot against Uruguay or? The Uruguay, that first one. Like Tim Wayo would just smack that ball.

Yeah. Just hit a little bit harder. That's my one note. Otherwise, he's doing a great job. Also, head that ball in. That cross. I kind of hit him in the face. Just get a little bit higher and had it into the goal.

Like, I feel like the one thing he could have did on that header was maybe like, try and not overrun the ball, but, you know, it's easier said than done. I think he got thrown by the Euro way defender may be going to kick it. Yeah. I think that was a factor. Yo, and then that, the way he made the run to receive that pass from Brendan on the chance before half, like, I think that was, like, I like that as well, the way he got into his blind spot, in the center back spline spot to receive the ball there.

You know, he just, he found the chance. He found the chance. And, you know, I mean, that's all I can ask for him at this point, man. He's to, I think he's been playing pretty well. One other thing is the substitution gate. I think it's a fairly minor note, but, you know, Uruguay just went ahead and used a seventh substitution in this game. It was bold

Yeah And then we had a couple of very handsome U.S. soccer officials come out and try to negotiate for a seventh sub for the U.S. I don't know, I mean, I assume that's what they were negotiating or hopefully they weren't negotiating to like

It was a big to do It was overwhelmed Stu Holden was emotionally overwhelmed Sorry, go ahead Well, there's a lot going on A lot of unexpected things One of those U.S. soccer officials, they did a bounce pass earlier in the game. They did a really sharp overhead bounce pass.

I know you guys don't care about bounce pass as much as me, but I just want to give credit. It's kind of spread throughout the organization. It was a guy whose name happens to be John Terry, I believe. Huh. Well, good job, John Terry. But not that one, you know. It's not that one. Yeah, like I would say that we should communicate more or better with our opposing team.

Because maybe we get a better Uduguay starting lineup if the manager isn't under the assumption that he has unlimited subs. Yeah, we've gone for quite a while here. We better shut it down. All right. Let's go. Thanks everybody for listening. See you.