Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #284: USA v Grenada recap

Episode Date: June 11, 2022

As Greg Velasquez predicted would happen, the starting striker got a hat trick. But also, some players made a negative impression and it's hard to see them going to Qatar if they couldn't make a positive impact against a team made up of players from USL and Braintree Town.support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedScuffed listener survey: https://forms.gle/sBXXSaJ8jnP6RZDY6 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. Good morning. We beat Grenada 5-0 down in Austin, Texas last night. How you doing, Greg? All right, bells.

When in this podcast do we wet blanket the thing? I mean, go ahead. Throw that wet blanket. No, I don't want to throw a wet blanket. It was, it's an ephemeral experience. when you get to watch your national team play a team that is so thoroughly outmatched. So just sort of enjoy the evening as it plays out and then sort of move on to the next thing. Yeah, I wasn't stressing.

I was enjoying it. I expected the goals to come, and sure enough, they did. I quite liked Ben Olson, former D.C. United coach, former lots of things in the booth last night, kind of a different sort of. color commentator. What do you mean by that? You got to elaborate. He was so relaxed and just kind of enjoy, he just kind of comfortable in the moment.

You know, he wasn't trying to say a whole ton of stuff. And it seemed like most of what he did say was good or thoughtful. I did disagree with one thing he said at the end of the game. He said, there's not much to take from this game, which I do kind of agree with that. But then he said, except in the negative sense, you know, you can do something to hurt yourself in this game. And he said, but nobody did that tonight. And I pulled some punches out at the end. I thought he was a little diplomatic there.

Because I think overall we agree, right? Like overall we agree that there's, and I think that's sort of the conventional wisdom here is you can hurt yourself in a game like this. You can't do anything to help your standing. Jesus Ferreira scores four goals. I'm like one of the biggest Jesus Ferreira guys out there. None of those four goals really help his standing.

Yeah, I guess I would disagree with that. I think they help him a little. I mean, he didn't, they help his standing in the sense that if he hadn't scored any goals. There you go, okay. He would have hurt himself, so at least he avoided that.

So yeah. It's a trap game. It's a trap game for these guys. You come and you think you can, you can mail it in for 90 minutes. all of a sudden you find yourself having your ticket to Qatar withdrawn. So you're saying West McKinney's not going to Qatar? He's not going to Qatar. He's immune. He's immune to this whole thing.

It is, yeah, so should we talk about who, should we jump right into who maybe hurt themselves? Let's go through, let's go through Grenada's lineup because you got it out here in real nice detail. and I feel like that will help shed some light on why a player could hurt themselves with even like an invisible performance. Okay. Yeah, Grenada's lineup was Jason Belfon in Goal, and he plays for a club called Paradise in Grenada. And then I believe they had a three centerback formation.

Caden Herrick is the lone player who plays for a recognizable first or second tier club. He's only 18, and he plays. place for Queens Park Rangers. He doesn't play for the first team, though. He's a youth player. He was the tallest centerback, I think. And then AJ Patterson, who plays for the Charleston Battery. Craig Noel McLeod of Enfield, also a Grenadian club.

And then the wingbacks were Dejaun Noel Williams of Braintree Town in England and Ashley Charles of Wheelbstone, also in England. I think they're both fifth or sixth. sixth tier clubs and then the sort of double we're obviously very heavily already into territory that like would come straight out of a snaves article of made up english club team club teams yeah i was telling i was telling you before the before we started recording there's a there's a richie jervais clip on from like the british office where he's talking about all these teams or i've talked about all these towns that he covers as part of his i don't know his sales work or whatever and they the

David, the David Brent account uses that clip to make fun of teams who, like in the Premier League and I think at one point when Manchester United was really, really in the mud a couple years ago, he, they said, they posted that clip and said, these are teams that Manchester United hasn't been able to beat this year. Aldershot, Wintersh, you know, Yankley. And Aldershot, believe it or not is one of the clubs Aldershot Town is the club that the striker in the starting lineup for Grenada played for.

Jacob Berkeley Agia Pong plays for Aldershot Town. Also, I can't remember it's either fifth or sixth tier. And then I'm skipping around, but Chavon John Brown plays for El Paso locomotive, also a midfield player. Alexander McQueen plays for the Indie 11.

Carlton Belmar plays for the Colorado Springs Witchback. Switch backs, not the witchbacks. And then Romar Frank plays for Camerhone, I believe. Also a domestic club in Grenada. So we're talking about players who play in the fifth or sixth tiers of England or USL or a domestic club in Grenada. And again, full credit to these guys. They held their own through 40 minutes.

You know, with a little bit of luck, you know, it was completely one side. from the start, but they were giving it their all, and they were, you know, getting a little bit of luck to go with it and a little bit of wastefulness from the U.S. A bit. And they were going to do it. Definitely no disrespect to them. Turner was our goalkeeper.

Let me give the U.S. lineup, Turner and goal. Reggie Cannon, Aaron Long. Sorry, Reggie Cannon, CCV, Aaron Long, and Jedi across the back line from right to left. And then Calana Costa at the 6, Luca Della Torre, and West McKinney as the, I guess, the nominal 8s. Was it really a double pivot today? Like, just we came out and said double pivot explicitly? I didn't think so.

I thought Acosta was still like the primary deep man. But I'm open. Like, I'm going to just give it straight up. We're recording this early in the morning. Less rewatched because we didn't think necessarily the tactical wrinkles would be would be all that meaningful. That might be giving short shrift to using it as a rehearsal match for other things. So we will at some point, I'm sure, give this a deeper look and maybe talk about it more after the El Salvador match.

What carried over? What wrinkles carried over? Acosta, as he often does in games like this looked very good. He loves to feast on the minnows. Not that he doesn't play well against better teams. I'm just saying he really looked good last night. And then the front line was from right to left, Paul Areola, Jesus Ferreira, and Jordan Morris.

And we'll talk about those guys. So you got any more big picture thoughts before we plow into the timeline? No, nothing on the lineup. You know, I think before the game, Burrhaldard already hinted that Haji Wright was going to get, was going to start the El Salvador game, and I believe he confirmed that in the post-match, as that'll be a better test.

And I think he said Ethan Horvath would be starting a Niel Salvador game, too. So if you saw this lineup and we're like, oh, why isn't so-and-so getting their shot here? It's, again, partly because this isn't really any kind of a real audition, because you can't learn anything from it. Anything positive. Yeah. Well, so you weren't celebrating Jesus's hat trick plus one last night? I mean, again, I was celebrating it for him, but, but yeah, I mean, this, that particular kind of stuff, like, that's a wash. And the same goes for, you know, all of a cost is, like, pretty through balls that, like, split four players and put somebody in behind.

It's like, that's cool, and you can kind of ooh and awe in the moment. But there's, the reason those slide rule passes are usually so impressive is because they're so difficult to hit against, like, a really well-organized and high-level competence. defensive shape, which this just is not. This was very much of the, to call back the old phrase, Gold Cup group stage backline. We just had a ton of like, you know, scattered backline defense from Grenada. And it's just sort of easy to pick out those easier, a bunch easier to pick out those kinds of passes.

Same goes for Luca, like his little through balls that you're like, oh, he put somebody through. Like it just doesn't have the same, any kind of like long term meaning. You just kind of ooh and awe in the moment. and appreciate it and enjoy it. And I know that's like, again, kind of the wet blanket angle, but you just have to have that takeaway. What, 2019, about three years ago, we destroyed Cuba 70.

McKenny had like a 15-minute hat trick. Everyone's talking about like how confident we are and how we're, you know, getting all these good reps. And then a week later we go out and lose to Canada and Toronto in like the low point of the, of the Burrhalter era. So, you know, it's just, you can't, you literally. can't take anything from this game positive and be like this will definitely give them good momentum going to the next game it just doesn't really work like that it's just this very false

like uh they're very false positives yeah and i it wasn't just that the back line was scattered the i felt like their midfield you know we could it was so easy for us to find people between the lines in big open areas of space um and then you know especially as the game progressed we got a goal, we got a second goal, and it did seem like the Grenadians started to give up. You know, Luca Deloori could do those FIFA-style dribbles just with people, the waters parting around him, you know. And we'll have to see what this means, because again, Grenada, we didn't mention Grenada tied El Salvador in their first game.

That was in Grenada, but, you know, that sort of, that might give us a hint of what what El Salvador is bringing at this point. Yeah, different sorts of games than the ones we played last week. To the timeline. In the fourth minute, we get one of our first sort of good exchange and ball in behind from LDLT,

that's Luca Deletore, to Areola, and his clipped ball meets Jordan Morris's header, meets Morris's head, I should say. He doesn't get over it and pops it right up in the air for Belfon to claim. I'd like to talk about Jordan Morris here a little bit. Okay. Not that this play was the, you know, the deciding factor or anything.

But he didn't, to my eyes, he didn't look particularly good. And I think my, maybe my biggest problem with him is just how conservative he was every time he got the ball. You know, in a game like this, he gets the ball in the wing. He's generally not making anything happen. and I don't know. Does he have any chance of going to Qatar at this point? I feel like the only way he's got a chance

because I kind of agree with what you're saying. And I think we have kind of seen that from him in the rest of the games he's played for the U.S. And even to an extent with Seattle, where his underlying numbers are really good because he's still getting in really good spots off of the ball, like in front of goal. But on the ball, he's not doing nearly as much as he was.

was prior to his injury. And so it doesn't feel like he's all the way back. So sort of his only hope, I think, to get back is if that's still coming. If that comeback is still coming and he's able to actually like regain some of that explosiveness other than just arriving to make the last touch to try to put the ball on frame. Because I don't, yeah, he's not adding anything and he hasn't been in his national team appearances to like our buildup. Yeah.

So I think this was the game that probably hurt him because it just kind of shows that he's still not there yet because if he couldn't do it against Grenada, then again, why would we expect it to just be, why would we expect you be able to turn it on against Wales, against England, against Iran? Right. You can sort of see the, at least I can sort of see the rationale for his, continued involvement. He is a line stretcher, you know, at least we think of him that way, somebody who can run him behind and get on the end of a pass and we need that from our

winger's some of the time at least. But it's sad to see that his explosiveness, or it seems like his explosiveness hasn't returned yet. And that was, you know, his biggest weapon, really, just being an animal physically. But it's not back. I don't, I think he's got, he's got Giorina ahead of him, Christian Pulisic, Tim Wea, Brendan Aronson's playing in the midfield now, it seems, but also Brennan Erinson ahead of him, and Paul Arieola, so probably not going to make the trip. And I imagine this was maybe his swan song for the cycle. I mean, maybe he'll play against El Salvador, but that seems like it would be a little bit of a waste to do that.

Yeah, and again, it's, he's going to have to. I feel like he's going to have to show something with Seattle. Like he's going to have to show that he has his entire game back, not just be able to get, because, again, his expected goals numbers are pretty great right now because he is getting into good spaces for that final ball for Seattle. But it's all the other things that he probably needs to be doing to get into the national team that he's not really doing.

It's nice to be on a team with Ruiz Diaz and Lodero. too, I think that helps. All right, fifth minute, Jedi gets him behind and his service is really poor, hits it way too hard kind of to nobody. And it's a little bit of a theme, I think, in the first half. You know, CTV, I thought was dominant in the air in this game, which was nice to see.

But there was a poor header from him in the eighth minute that turned it right back over to Grenada, and then they turn it right back over to Luca and then he just kind of he kind of weaves his way through the left side of the Grenadian defense and then takes a heavy touch right before he tries to shoot and you get you sort of see that

you get a little bit of the sort of Nagby heat map vibe from Luca sometimes I was gonna I was gonna compare it to the Musa run from the friendly last week because again I still think like when you get to that point and you've dribbled that many guys, like you are running out of steam. You're kind of like losing a little bit of control every time with every new guy you get past. So it's like once you've done all that, just touch it to anybody close to you and let them take over with a little bit of

fresher legs, a little bit more breath, a little bit more oxygen. Because that last touch definitely let them down. Yeah. But again, it's all just sort of a wash. He's looked like the same. I mean, he hasn't played any really, really good conference. competition, or like we haven't seen a full 90 of him against the best of our competition, but he's played the same in every appearance for the U.S. He's always looked pretty good, I think. I think 12-1 actually put it well. I saw him mention this, is that while you can't really take anything away from the actual content of the performance,

like the fact that Luka just wants the ball constantly does go a long way, because we actually have seen us, even in low-intensity friendlies, with some center midfielder. who don't put that kind of stamp on the game who aren't really don't seem interested, don't have the urgency to actually do this kind of thing. And that's a mentality we've talked about too is like we need guys who have that mentality and Luca has it for sure

and that was definitely on display. Yes, I agree with that. 13th minute, another weaving run from him. He passes it to Ferreira who turns and strikes it with his left foot right off the defender. So Jesus had 11 shots in this. game he was he was he was doing his thing where he gets into good spots just racking up xG uh i mean

kind of that that particular shot like because of this the discussion that went on on the onlines ahead of this game about hey sus and his finishing i don't know if you were privy to it or if you were paying attention a little bit privy yeah i was laughing for a lot of reasons one there was going to very obviously be like this microscope on all of his shots so his first two or three shots were all like I knew it was going to be like, see, he can't finish, even though they were all actually very low expected goal. Like, they'd have a very low XG number attached to him. Then we got into some higher numbers as the night went on.

Yeah. I know. Tuolman kept saying that there were a bunch of easy chances in the first half, and I don't think that was exactly correct. There were chances. We get our first training ground corner routine in the first half in the 15th, 16th minute. It's from Acosta to Ferreira, and then he tries to chip a lofted ball to the backpost for McKenny.

McKenny and Belfon clatter into each other, and there's just kind of a long delay as everybody sort of sorts out their physical needs. But it doesn't, it doesn't, it isn't that threat. It's kind of, it's kind of nice to see that. I love the technique from Ferreira there, and we'll call back to that here in the second half. Mm-hmm. One of those gorgeous slide rule through balls from Acosta in the 19th minute. He disguises it and plays Cannon in. And I promise I'm not just, I didn't come in here just trying to pick on everybody,

but this moment from Cannon was frustrating to me because it's a really, really nice ball. And Cannon's running on to it. And I don't know, he just can't get his feet right or kind of doesn't approach the ball in the correct way and he ends up sliding desperately at it and trying to get it across to ariola who's crashing sort of right in the face of goal and it and cannon's touch is just not it doesn't do anything it just it gets cut out easily he doesn't he can't even really attack the ball and i'm thinking like what what why so yeah i mean d bottles it here and and this is exactly why i thought that first lineup and system we ran against

or against Morocco, I'm sorry, was such a smart move by Burhalter because if you don't have Sergenio Dest, you just, you shouldn't act like the next guy up can just jump right into the desk role and even give you like an approximation of what Dest is going to give you. And this is just, I mean, I know this is just one play. Yeah.

But overall, I think it definitely holds up that, you know, Reggie Cannon just is not the same level of attacker as Sergenio Dest. I don't think I'm telling tales there. So, so I still, still think that it was a really good move in that Morocco game without Dest to just keep Canon home and use Wea as that wide right attacking player. And I'm hopeful that in any other games as we need attacking, if Dest is not available, that we keep going that route and don't rely on Reggie Cannon to be are in our line of five attackers. That's a key attacking piece.

Right. So if we're looking for tactical flexibility, Canon is useful because of that Morocco experiment. But if we're just talking about like a straight up right back, I feel like even Yedlin, who is not, you know, who is not an elegant attacker either, is better in getting forward at this point than Canon is. Canon was so conservative on the ball too, just like my criticism of Jordan Morris, he,

and it was the same in that, it was the same in the Morocco game, maybe that was more of his assignment in that game. or more of his instruction. But you didn't see, I don't know that I, I don't know that he made a incisive forward pass in either game. I could be,

I could be missing something, but there weren't a lot of them if there were any. Yeah, he had the one to, I think he played one into Haji, down the seam in the, in the Morocco game. Okay,

but no, I mean, it was, it was, the pickings were slim. I guess, I guess what I'm trying to drive at is, absent the tactical wrinkle with him,

him as a stay-at-home right back slash right-center back. I'm not sure he has helped himself that much. But that tactical wrinkle is a big deal, so that's a big thing to say absent of. Yeah. No, I think it makes people, again, bring back the idea of, like, is there anything really separating canon from a Shaq Moore from what we see? I know Shaq Moore is not a perfect player either, so I'm not trying to be like, oh, well, we got to get more in here who would definitely give us a lot.

But it's just like that that's kind of where my mind goes is, you know, after Dest, we really just have a bunch of, you know, a bunch of floor players. Yeah. At right back. Well, it should be noted, Shaq Moore is playing in the promotional playoff, I think, today for Tenorifah, or the first leg of the final in the promotional playoff. So he's busy with more important stuff than Grenada and Austin. And the Nations League, how dare you?

Yeah. 24th minute couple nasty tackles on LDLT and Jesus in one sequence on the ensuing free kick which I think is taken by Acosta long collides with Belfon the goalkeeper and then we get another sort of long injury break I promise I won't do a whole bunch more timeline items I just I do want to say in the 28th minute we get a we get a good quick release shot from Ferreira from the top of the box after a nice ball from Jedi. So Jedi's on the left side line and he just plays it on the ground to Ferreira's feet as he peels off into

zone 14. Zone 14 being the zone directly in front of the penalty area. And I just I just appreciate I'm not trying to be a Jesus for a apologist here but I do appreciate how quickly he can get a shot off. It's It's like sort of the opposite of Josh Sergeant. It's his like, he's got this velvet first touch, right? And you can make all the caveats you want about Grenada's

quality. But that, that, his ability, like, take that first touch to set up his shot, has been consistent through all of his appearances. And,

you know, you've, you've probably seen the Justin Moran clip of, like, his first eight shots with the national team through qualifying. And I think, think it was put in, you know, in service of saying he's not a good finisher. But like when I watch that, and I think when like the stateners watch it, they're going to be like, oh, this is a very good,

this is making a very good case for why Jesus Ferreira should be the starting nine for the U.S. Men's National team, because so many of those are him getting to good spaces and him having the wherewithal and the quality with his first touch to eliminate a defender to set up a shot. And that's actually super valuable. And so again, we kind of just see that first touch on display here. Because regardless of the quality of the opponent, it's definitely clear that that was an incredibly efficient way to bring down a ball coming in hot and turn it into a shot on shot towards goal. I think it went just wide, flash wide. And probably what Justin is thinking of is the shots themselves are not, you know, he doesn't necessarily punish the ball and like when he takes a shot.

And I'm okay criticizing that personally a little bit. Like he doesn't, he doesn't hit it hard always or whatever. But yeah, I agree with the, like the quickness. It's not just the first touch. It's how quickly he gets his feet set for a shot. He just, it's just bang, bang. And then he hits it softly two yards wide of the goal. It's awesome to see.

It is. There's a good aesthetic to it. And I think that's what Drew Me de Ferreira to begin with was like, I just love the aesthetic, whether he was ever going to contribute at the level of the national team or not. Like, I like watching him play. I do too. He's kind of a wheeler and dealer in the buildup too. He tries stuff. 43rd minute we get the breakthrough.

It's Jesus Ferreira, as you know, West McKinney tries to lift a ball over the top to Ferreira down the right channel. And one of the Grenadian defenders, I think it's Herrick, cuts it out kind of impressively. But it spills right to, you know, like by reaching out with his boot behind him. and it spills right to Ariola just outside of the box and Ariola dribbles straight to the end line tries to square it to Morris in front of the goal

but that gets cut out and spills to Ferreira who's kind of behind the play now who takes three quick little touches reference our just past conversation to set up a shot on his left foot and he tucks it in far post 1-0

and I think this is actually a you know it's actually a pretty nice goal. The build-up's not that nice because it's a bunch of accidents, but the finish, the left-footed finish and the touches to set it up are, I think, pretty good, actually, from Ferreira. Yeah, I mean, he's tidy. Again, you don't know that any of this is going to apply against a better team, but you still just see that he has some tidy footwork with the ball at his feet.

And just glad to get the goal, because, you know, it isn't the case in games like this. you can start to tighten up as it stays zero-zero, and the other team will just stay more focused. It's just like human nature. And we saw, you know, once we sort of broke them here, their body language changes, and they just can't maintain the, like, concentration to keep us from pouring it on.

Yeah, the half came, and right after another quick shot from Ferreira, after an exchange with Wes McKenney, But the half came, and then the first U.S. goal came in the 54th minute. Asus gets his brace. Should we talk about the subs? Should we get through the subs? Because there were just a couple of changes here? Yeah, I'm just recklessly skipping timeline items here.

So Tillman comes on for McKenney at half to play center mid, and Zimmerman comes on for long, so we're going to get some Zimmerman-CV time. And a couple of interesting things here, depending on how interesting you find them, I guess. One is that Tillman's going to be like the center mid in this 433. The other thing is Zimmerman steps in and plays left centerback and CCV stays on the right. And I believe someone can maybe correct me. I think this is the first time Zimmerman has played left center back for Greg Burrhalter. I think he has always been on the right.

It's always been long or Richards or Miles or whoever as Zimmerman's partner playing on the left. and he looked a little uncomfortable at times like shaping his body for some like simpler passes early on so I just I just kind of took note of that McKinney I just wanted to touch on it because you know he came out at half probably still ramping up to fitness like what was your take on McKinney I mean yeah he looked like he was just

vibing out there a little bit and he was pretty he doesn't look like he's totally in shape yet and uh and his You know, his touch was pretty loose several times. I mean, we're talking about this on the Discord last night. He gets a pass on stuff like this. Maybe forever, like, it doesn't kind of matter how he plays in these games,

as long as he gets back to fitness with Juventus or wherever he ends up this fall and is ready to go in September and November. That's what matters. Yeah, I think that's right too And I just You know we're hustling through the timeline But he just kept trying to hit balls through all first half Similar to what we saw cost them

And most of them were super Ineffective But he did quietly have like two of the better passes all night We skipped over these But he put Ferreira in behind centrally And Ferreira had like a touch out to the left And it had a really tame shot Oh that left footed shot

That was frustrating I was grim on your behalf when that happened. And then he put Morrison. He put Jordan Morrison, and Morris couldn't even get a shot off because it took him a super long time to square his body and then tried to get it back to his right foot, which was his trail foot,

which allowed the defender to slide in and clean it out. So anyway, I just wanted to point out that McKinney did have a very vibesy first half, but even doing that, he still managed to hit a couple of nice through balls. I'm glad you brought up those two chances because I think the more extreme ends of the fan base we're starting to getting restless I guess is a generous way to say it at that point when after that tame left footage shot from Ferreira

and then the you know because Morris tries to bring it on his right foot and then you know presents it to the defender who's chasing him at that point but he could have very easily taken another touch and then squared it with his left foot for Ferreira on the back post but he was probably like he was probably thinking like hey Haseus has already gotten like six shots today I'm not going to give him another one that's the difference though being able to create the shot yeah I was

hoping Morris would use his massive frame to like seal that guy off and not just allow him to like I mean that guy got the best of all worlds because he gets to slide into an exposed ball knowing that he's also going to get to clean out his opponent which is just for a defender that's like that's how heaven. Yeah. So McKinney off at the half, and we don't see him again, of course. We should talk about Tillman, but first let's talk about the goal in the 54th minute.

It's a nice little move, starting with a good pass from LDLT. I keep saying LDLT because it's so much easier to write than Luca Delator. But Luca to Aureola between the lines, and I thought Ariola was quite a bit better than Morris, much more active and, you know, buzzing around. But it's still a little frustrating how negative his first touch was. So much as time, you know, he'd come back to the ball. Sometimes he would take like a 20-yard touch back towards the half-the-half. I'm like, Paul.

They stand out, don't they? Those touches stand out. Yeah. Take it, just play on the half-turn a little bit. They're not pressing us or anything. You know, they're not on your back. He takes a touch. It's not as negative as some of those other ones I was talking about,

but it's still backwards a little bit, but it goes across into zone 14, and then he plays a pass with his left foot in behind for Ferreira, who is kept on side by one of the wide defenders in that ragged back line. And Ferreira takes one touch, does some feet setting. He's kind of one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and then he slots it bottom corner left. 2-0, USA, a nice finish.

There we go. And, you know, there is much here. I like Malik Tillman putting his shoulder in when the ball didn't get to him as it went to Ariola. They were running like a mesh pattern here. And he manages to clear out whichever defender would have been able to make a play on Ariola to let Ariola really see the whole thing. Yes. Yeah, that was a nice screen there.

We score our next goal almost immediately on a short corner from Acosta to Ferreira. and instead of, you know, chipping it to the back post for McKenny, Ferreira just hits it hard, curls it just inside the near post high, and gets his hat trick, 3-0. So, and I think we've missed another big Ferreira chance in the timeline here, where De La Torre puts it on its head and he heads it over from, like, the near post. Okay. But I'm only bringing it up because, like,

Like, you know, that got another, you know, cascade of calls for Ferreira being a poor finisher. But then he hits this shot. And it's like, this is sort of just how goal scoring works over the long run, right? Sometimes you're going to miss the easy ones and score the hard ones. Sometimes you're going to score the easy ones and miss the hard ones. Sometimes you're going to miss all of them on a given night. And over time, it's just going to converge on you scoring roughly the amount of goals that you'd be skeptical. expected to score given all of the chances that you've had.

Because, you know, I'm still seeing things like, yes, he scored four, but he should have had five or six or seven. And it's like, that's just not how it works. You don't just say, well, he scored all the ones he had, plus he should have also scored these easy ones. Like maybe you could have scored the easy ones, but maybe he wouldn't have scored that, that ridiculous one off of the corner kick. And that's just how expected goals sort of works.

That's like one of the few things we kind of can say. about finishing is that eventually for these players who are established at this level, it's just going to converge on whatever chances you're actually creating. Yeah, I know, like I always say, my mind knows that knows that's true. My heart cannot get on board with it completely. Look, it took baseball fans a long time to be okay getting rid of the sacrifice bun, and eventually soccer fans, I think, are going to get there and know that it sucks in the game

to see a guy miss something especially in an important game and an important moment the Wando effect that we all can take with us and know exactly what we were doing when that happened but then now be like

yeah I mean sometimes guys miss those and it's not like it sucks because it can cost you that result but it's just it's essentially just become like a truism that I think we're moving towards accepting yeah Are we?

Well, I guess the things that that come to mind are, one, different players, you know, different players have different abilities to hit the ball and how they can strike. Like, we all know Alex Mendez, just to take a sort of obscure American example, Alex Mendez can hit the ball more cleanly and harder than Paxton Pomacall, right? like we know that even though they both have things to recommend them as players like some people can just hit the ball better and so you so

that's I think people know you know people have been watching these players play and they see yes Hazers is getting into these spots no doubt but like some people can hit the ball better than others some people can calm themselves and execute in a difficult moment

better than others I mean I know this because I know about it myself in the negative. Like as a, you know, as a Sunday league player, I get in front of the goal and it's just like my mind goes out the window, you know? And, and I, and I, and I know that some people aren't like that. Some people are, some people are calmer in those moments. So I don't know. It's, it's a, it's a hard, it's still hard for me. I just want you to know, I just want you to know that it's hard for me. All right. Well, I'm here for you. I'm here for you, Bells. But, my whole thing still is that the four goals doesn't change, you know, Azus's

standing in any meaningful way for me. But it doesn't, I mean, he didn't need to change his standing because his, he is the guy racking up the, like, uh, chances for the U.S. Like we, we, we and he get more, uh, chances set up more chances per 90 than anyone else we've tried it forward. And it's not even really close. Yeah. Um, so, so it's like, again, somebody else is going to have to do a lot to take it over.

So if Haji Wright starts against El Salvador and like scores on. his first touch of the game, you know, if he converts his first chance, I think you're going to get this course of like, see, that's what a striker is supposed to do. But like, if that's all he does, if he just gets the one goal and one, like, that's not going to be enough because you have to have what's sustainable. So Haji to take over needs to do things that are like sustainably high level. It's not going to happen. He's not as, he's not as good at as Hesus. I'm not ruling it out. I'm just saying like, that's what it needs to be. It's not just like, did he score one goal on one chance? That's essentially what happened with Pepe. And I was trying to

push back on that kind of narrative from the start when he scored three goals on his first like four shots for the national team and there was that like narrative of we finally have a guy who converts the chances you get for him and it's like guys that's that's not sustainable what he did there is awesome but we can't expect him to just score you know on 60% of the chances we create for him that's not what will happen and that's what kind of you know balanced out over the next seven or eight games It doesn't mean Pepe's bad. It just means like what we got really excited for in those first 180 minutes of Pepe was never going to be what Pepe was actually going to give us. Right.

And then for what we're looking for is somebody who's giving us what Ferreira is doing. And, you know, I think we have a couple of decent other options. But for me, it's still just like the starting spot goes to the guy who's getting you the most chances. Yeah. And I feel pretty confident that's going to remain. Ferreira and he's probably going to be the striker at the World Cup because I agree. I agree with you. I'm just trying to sympathize with the emotional side of this and, you know,

shout out to the rabble. Yeah, the heart loves people who steal bases. Stealing bases is exciting. Wish more people would try to steal bases. I'm doing baseball. You love baseball so much. All right. The next goal is

comes in the 62nd minute it's Luca just driving down the super highway that is the middle of the field in this game at this point he gets an assist with a pass to ariola who takes a touch and then manages to kind of stab it around Belfon

he's crashing on the left side and it's sort of a through ball I don't know what's going on with Grenada at this point crashing is exactly the right way to put it because he's literally like I mean he's falling over as he hits it because he's having to fend off that recovering defender

and like he's fallen to the ground as he hits it. But it seems very Ariola-esque, doesn't it? Real scrappy. Real hardworking. So I'm glad he got his reward too. Yeah. Ariola got a lot of reps in the attacking third and I think he was okay.

He was okay. We get an Aronson cameo at the end and at the end, you know, the last 20 minutes or so, he'd a couple of moments from Aronson, I think bear mentioning, one is when he cuts a guy on the right side of the goal and then tries to chip the goalkeeper with his left foot and misses you know misses the upper 90 on the back post by not very much would have been a nice goal do you think he was I think he was trying to shoot you're smiling

you're smiling like he was like he was an accident I'm smiling because it just felt good to be like in this whatever three zero game or four zero game at this point and then Brendan Aronson comes on the field and he clearly looks like a grown-up amongst the grownups who'd been playing, you know, like we'd already been dominating Grenada, and then Aronson comes on and, like, looks even a level above what we've been getting so far. And, you know, like, you see that, and then you still know that we have Tim Wea and Christian Pulisic. Like, Pulisik's just sitting around in street clothes, and it's like, oh, man, I'll just use this time now to say, you know, I'm sure you're seeing this too, a ton of people putting out all their different 11s that try to get all, you know, as many of these guys on the field as you can.

And I always just start laughing because, again, when we started this project, it was like, will we have a team that's good enough to qualify for the World Cup? When we started this in 2018, we have to get rid of everybody, not punitively, but just because we have a super old, mediocre player pool. A little bit punitively. Will we have, like, good players who can play? And now we're like, can we get this $30 million man into the 11? Or is he just going to have to come off the bench?

Yeah. And it's just like, so I see all those different ways of trying to do it. And I'm just like, yeah, sure, do that. Yep, do that one too. Let's do this one too. These are all great. Keep them coming. It's just such a different universe. It totally is. And we're sitting here, you know, saying, too bad that Jordan Morris, who was already at best, like our fifth winger, is not showing well in this game.

It's a first world problem, as they say. We're still not France. I'm not trying to say we're France, everyone. So don't say that we're like, we're not winning the World Cup, but we have some nice problems compared to 2018. I think that's at least fair to say. It's definitely fair to say. I just have a couple notes. Canon not making any forward passes, even at this point in the game.

The goal for the, the last goal for the U.S. comes from some errant some work. I mean, we're pressing them high, I guess, or I don't even know if we're pressing them but they give it away in their own defensive third and it's passed to Aronson and inside the penalty area he's got a lot of room to dribble at the end line and the goalkeeper

comes out to close on him and he pokes it inside for Ferreira for a tap-in. The definition of a tap-in kind of bundles it in. Look I mean it was behind him it was to his left foot like it was not an easy fit. No I don't even care this was this one

came on like a long Malik Tillman run I believe leave, but then Malik kind of gave it away too in a similar vein to, you know, Musa or Luca after the end of a long run. Malik, I thought started out. I was like, okay, this guy looked, I mean, again, knowing that it was against Grenada and it's hard to look bad. I thought he was looking okay. And then what happened was Malik started to look kind of bad, right?

He did look, he looked bad for his last, I don't know, the last 20 minutes of the half. Yeah. So, you know, it just, like at first I was like, is he going to make a push here? And it's not like, I'm closing the door on him, but it just seems like, I'm, like nope he's probably not making a push he's he's also trying to compete for a spot where we are pretty deep uh and pretty established um and probably not enough there that it's going to warrant too much more exploration again barring like big things happening for his club it it occurred to me that maybe the you know 93 degree heat at 10 o'clock at night ungodly heat uh was getting

to him you know he either it doesn't get like that in bavaria i don't think but you know everybody's playing in the same weather yeah i thought he was i thought it got pretty rough there towards the end of the game for him anything else we have el salvador to look forward to and i really am looking forward to it again i know they tied this grenada team uh three four days ago but i'm looking forward to haji like i'm i'm hoping he can do some things that are like oh he could also be a uh you know a chance machine whether it's uh in the buildup in his holdup play whether it's his movement and ability to like get those windows for himself whatever it is like i'm hopeful that we see that uh i just i just the only thing that like i want to avoid uh is extended

finishing conversations i know you have to say the the stuff about haji because just to to demonstrate your even-handedness and everything but i've i've i like i think haji's fun to watch and his goals are really fun to watch, but he's not going to be a chance machine. I don't think. I don't think there's any evidence that he's going to be that kind of player for the U.S. He's also not a big, he's also not a big holdup striker. He's not like a, he's not like a guy you can just use as a target up there. I'm glad he's getting this opportunity and I'm excited to see, excited is not the right word,

interested to see what he does against El Salvador. But I just don't think we should expect him to be anything. like what we're getting from Ferreira. I don't expect it to look to look like what Ferreira looks like when he's out there because I think he's again, he's just got a completely unique skill set for what the rest of the pool is doing.

But I think Haji could easily look like, I mean, I think he could be available. You know, if we assume like Wea and Pulisic are going to be starting, I think he's a guy who could make himself available for danger. You know, like as Poollick and Weir are doing

really dangerous things, we know what I can do out wide to create for other people. I think Haji could, any striker, you know, who steps up in this kind of situation, could add to that danger by being in the right place, by, you know, holding off defenders and being that player, that way our pool that can feed the ball to in, you know, six yards out from goal and score some tap-ins.

Like, that's my ultimate goal here is to see Hodge right score three tap-ins and be like, yes, that's what we're after. another sort of guy to compete with Pfok on the getting into the right spaces for Tappins front. All right, let's go, Haji. Let's go. Other than Morris, who hurt himself, I think a little bit in this game, who did anybody else? Tillman, I think Tillman hurt his stock a little bit. Yeah, I mean, Tillman was kind of setting his stock price.

It's hard to hurt yourself when you're, but yes, I get what you're saying, yeah. And he took a whole spot in the roster So that you know his stock You get a little bit of stock just for doing that Sure sure sure So I think this is one for like rolled on to In just the sense that he was kind of invisible The things that only the only few things that stood out to me

Was when the ball did come to him And he like ended any rhythm or any momentum we had going forward He definitely didn't have like any kind of a shocker But I feel like when you're auditioning You for for the He came in as a wing, right? As a half-space guy, which is where we're super deep.

Like, you probably need to do something to really stake a claim. And this is his first opportunity on the field since the Honduras home qualifier. So he hasn't, and he got like five minutes in that game. So he hasn't been on the field. So he finally gets on the field after being in all these camps and not appearing. And he just didn't really make anything happen. And so if the rosters are 23 for Qatar,

it gets to like is Roldon going to be able to have any Is he going to be able to get one of those tickets? No, I don't think so. It's, it doesn't make, it wouldn't make any sense. Sorry MCB, but it's just not It doesn't make any sense. Also, George Bellow,

he got, he got his first appearance for a little while last night. What did you think, would you make of him? So kind of the same thing. Israel Donnell, he actually did have a couple of like truly negative plays, which I just don't think you can do against Grenada when you're already on the fringe. And again, you can't use, like, jitters. Like Scali, you can at least be like, hey, first game, I was puppy dogging it a little bit, but, you know, I'll clean the puppy dogs out after a second cap or a third cap, you know.

Bello doesn't have that luxury because he's been in a lot of extended camps. He's been in like month-long camps for, like, Cupcake and Gold Cup. So like what he is is who he is at this point and if he's kind of struggling and looking jittery against Grenada Like I just don't think you can use him on the field so it doesn't make sense to bring him as a left back backup because you can't play him in World Cup So I feel like Bellow's race might be run for this cycle again barring like a total turnaround At the club level where he just looks like he's going to dominate the double Bundesliga Yeah Yeah, I think that's really well said

So probably Morris Rodon and Bello. I mean, Roldon's going to be in camp for vibes and assistant coaching, which I'm not making fun of that. I think there's probably something there. He may be in camp for those reasons, but it seems like it would be a waste of a spot to put him on the World Cup roster.

And definitely I agree with that it's the case with Bellow. Yeah, certainly at 23 players. At 23 players, like it's, height for to get into that attacking group because we have so many already nailed on players and we have like positional needs where it's like okay well we got to bring a i mean clearly a second forward at least so even if no other forward does the kinds of things he's was doing it's like we're bringing at least two and hopefully three uh and we've got four nailed on wingers and we've got ariola pushing to be the fifth uh as one of like gregg's uh favorite guy so that for any

anything rolled on's going to do to get into a 23 it just just seems impossible. I feel like people are talking about like he will because he's a big, you know, locker room guy. But man, it's, it's hard to see how he, how he fits in there on a tight roster. Yeah. Is that your kid or is that my kid that I hear? People are, people are waking up at the bells in Velasquez households. It could, you could be here. And mine's singing up. He just sat up and he's singing a little bit. He likes to sing. Yeah. Sing to the windows in the morning. All right. Let's, you know, the U20 roster came out for this, this Concaf Championship. We'll try to talk about that at some point on some episode. This is the Grenada recap. We've got El Salvador coming up in a couple days here, a few days. Thanks everybody for listening. Thank you, Greg. We'll see you.