Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #285: El Salvador v USA recap

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

Another draw in San Salvador, but one that ended up being a lot of fun.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. We come out of San Salvador with another draw, and I got to say, this one grew on me. It wasn't a lot of fun in the first half, but it got more interesting as we went, and I was pleasantly surprised by the fight we showed in adverse circumstances after conceding in the first half on the road. What do you thinking, Greg? I'm thinking that that was a great spectacle of a soccer match I wish it wasn't one of our few chances to prepare for our World Cup match because I don't know that it did a ton of World Cup preparation but it was I really enjoyed watching the mess yeah well I mean you're I know you don't go in for this sort of thing but does it is there any is there anything to the sort of mental toughness and team building

narrative that is kind of out there from this? I think there probably is, yeah. I mean, I'm not saying team building isn't a thing. Like, I think team building is probably really important. And I think, I do think that the atmosphere in the locker room, the atmosphere of the group that we kind of have as the core group, I think that matters.

I think the fact that they seem to be adjoining each other. You know, you and the Monday review crew have talked about how at times it almost seems like they're goofing around, like with the penalty kick antics. Like, for me, that it does matter. Like that they can be that relaxed. and able to sort of enjoy themselves. I think that can have an actual like, provide like an advantage as you get into the more stressful times

of World Cup group stage play. Right. I thought there have been times over the last two World Cup cycles where we're away in Concca Calfe, we go down a goal and it does not feel like we're going to score one. I mean, it felt that way against Panama in October. It felt a little bit that way against El Salvador. We weren't down one, but it was a draw,

and it didn't feel like we were going to score in the second half. And this game, it felt like we were going to score in the second half. I don't know. I could be attributing too much to it, but that feels like a step forward, a step forward for us. That the goal was inevitable? I don't, I'm not saying it was inevitable. But we were knocking.

No, I'd agree that we were knocking. I'd agree that El Salvador was never doing anything to, like, make it seem like we'd get punished for knocking. So, so yeah, I feel like it was more promising than the Panama away match in qualifying. I'd say it was more promising than the second half of the Jamaica match away in qualifying. Again, we weren't losing there. But we're never doing anything that was like, oh, we're going to, we're going to steal it. We're going to get something here.

Being able to bring West McKinney in off the bench helps quite a bit on that front. the XG was according to Paul Carr 0.87 for the U.S. and 0.16 for El Salvador. The shot that they scored on was 0.02 XG. So this felt so similar to the Canada

qualifying game going into it just on the conditions. It was like the flip side of bad conditions instead of rock hard frozen turf on a really narrow field. It was just this you know, unplayable muddy surface.

So it was always going to be tough for attackers because that little precision or that, you know, you know, to create those goals, you need four or five moments of precise play generally, uh, certainly the way that we tend to try to play. And any of those moments is going to,

is going to be evaporated by the surface. So, um, you know, at times we did a good job adjusting for that. At times we, we didn't. Uh,

but, you know, the same sort of thing applies to El Salvador, they were never going to create much. And the goal they got was a screamer. But again, it goes back to sort of the fluky style of goals that we conceded throughout much of qualifying

when we did concede. Yeah. I will say, though, the field looked horrible on TV. And it was, and it was, you know, if you fell on it,

you came up covered in mud. But it did seem like when they were passing the ball around, they were able to play soccer on it. And not with the precision that you need to ping, ping, ping a combination for a really nice goal. But it wasn't like impossible to play out there. I guess I was just a little surprised by how rarely people were just slipping on the ball. And that passes were generally getting to teammates' feet. Yeah, that's totally fair.

We got the preview the night before with Canada going down to Honduras and playing in that monsoon. And that was unplayable, right? That was the ball, you know, moving, you ping a pass 12 yards, thinking that it's going to get to the guy, and it just stops dead halfway in a puddle of water. And so, you know, I was kind of getting ready for that. And one of the words, here in Doyle, one of our favorite Canadians, used to describe Canada's play in that loss at Honduras was naive.

He said they were just too naive. You had guys, like, repeatedly falling for the same puddle trap, thinking that they could just dribble through it. No, no, we couldn't dribble through it this time. I guess maybe next time I'll be different. So that's really what I thought this game would give us. It's not going to give us a lot of information about our ability to disorganize the opponent with the ball. It's going to tell us who do we have that can sort of solve these problems and not be naive?

That's what I was kind of watching for through this game was who's going to be naive. And the other thing was how is our shape off of the ball? Because that doesn't matter really how the surface is. We should be able to organize off of the ball either way. So those were kind of the two things I was looking to see in this game to maybe learn something from. Did anybody seem extra naive to you in this game? There were not puddle traps. I mean, Musa was dribbling all over the place.

Yeah, it looked great. So it looked like everyone kind of did the normal thing that you do in those conditions, which is kind of tiptoe a little bit because you don't trust that the surface underneath you was going to hold for a hard plant. And then Musa was just like, no, nuts to that. I am gone. And then people just couldn't catch him. They were tiptoe and he was going full blast. It's like he was wearing snow tires and everyone else was like, you know, just spinning the wheels on the ice.

So that was eye-opening because I don't know how he managed to do that when no one else could. What are snow tires anyway? I've never understood. I only use it because you're a Minnesota guy. Well, yeah, I've bought them before not really understanding the purchase, to be honest. All right. So should we get to the chronology? kind of cover some some big picture stuff first let's do the big picture stuff first if you don't

mind i just have a couple of questions so so why was burhalter so um let's get right to this why was burhalter so pointed in his comments about had you right i can read the quote it's uh it's not exactly right but you get the gist of it um it's always difficult when players get a get an opportunity and they don't capitalize on it it's difficult for the coaches and it's difficult for teammates We thought he could be a force, but it just wasn't his night tonight. It doesn't mean he all, Burrhalter went on to say about Haji Wright, of course. It doesn't rule him out in the future where he's going to go back to his club and try to keep playing well. It was just an unlucky night for Haji.

Why he's so pointed? I didn't think Haji was outstanding or anything, but I didn't notice what was so unlucky about his night, I guess. I was I was floored by this comment to the point that when I saw it you know on the tweet that I think everyone saw was it Kyle Braun is that who Kyle Bonn yeah so I saw the tweet and I was sure I was sure that he had that Kyle had mistakenly put Hajie in the tweet instead of Horvath because Horvath is like a guy you have to kind of address the howler you know I mean you can't you can't dance around the howler so you'd take it head on and say yeah it's it's a tough night for him and you know tough for the coaches and team nights, but, you know, we blew it. I have no idea. I have no idea how that was the, like, the takeaway on Haji Wright's, 45 minutes of soccer in the mud bowl. No idea how that was the assessment.

I'm just not, I really don't know. I'm also a little bit like stunned. There hasn't been any follow-up, or I guess I don't know. I haven't seen any of the press conference. So I don't know what the context of the question and answer and follow-up were. what I was floored by that. I mean, he went like nuclear. It was like Plotco and like, kind of like unnecessary, right?

Did you hear Flotko's comments after the women's roster were announced? That Kristen Press wouldn't be on the roster even if she was healthy or something like that? It brought me instantly there. It's like, oh, well, I don't know why we had to say all that. And the thing is Greg Burrhalter is very deliberate with his framing of things generally in press conferences. Sometimes people take his deliberate comments and like maybe extrapolate on their own and make these leads. But I don't think that's the case here. Like that's when he's saying it was tough for his coach the coaching staff and his teammates, like that is a really weird way to frame something.

Yeah. Well, it has to be that he wasn't doing some things that he was supposed to be doing. But I don't know what they are. I don't know what that could be. So we'll get into the timeline. And the things he did do were create the two better or create and get him the end of. of the two best chances for the U.S. of the half. He had the layoff header on a cross that he put down for Eunice Mousa to smash a goal

that the keeper just sort of saved without knowing much about. And then even his own shot, he did create the shot himself. He received it in a good space 1 v.1 and then, you know, created a big window to shoot from and hit it wide, which, as everyone who listens to this knows, we're not dinging him for hitting it wide. We're happy that he created the shot and got in the space. Yeah. So yeah, I just have no idea in that kind of game in those circumstances.

Can I give you my theory? Or do you have any theory on it? I don't. I'm dried up. I'm confused. What's your theory? My theory is that Berthalter considers him like a Barnsley ball style striker. And I went back and watched almost all of Jordan P. Fox interactions with the ball for the U.S. national team since he's come over all the way back to the friendlies back in 2020.

And like what stands out about it is almost every ball that goes up to Jordan Pfock is coming up to him in the air. Like when he was playing up at top for us, we were we were hitting the ball up to him in the air like the old school target holdup man. And you know, it'll be this clumsy. He's not bad at like holding it up. But it's this kind of clumsy, not in rhythm, play where he holds it up and then knocks it back 15 yards to another guy as we kind of get our shape. And Haji was kind of dealing with the same thing in this game. Every ball that went up to him was just a ball launched up in the air. And you don't expect him to win and control all of those.

So that's not what the metric is. He controlled his share. Other ones he didn't really get to it all. Some of him he just battled for and lost. So I don't know if Burhalter is just like really reluctant to ever want to even go to Barnsley style stuff. So when he does and it doesn't look great, he's just like, nope, this is the wrong direction for the team. So we're doing something else. I don't know if like it's even the right style to commit to that Barnsley way with these forwards

rather than just be like, no, these let's see how they do passing into their feet, the way we would for Ferreira or Pepe. But that's like my theory is that we barnsleyed it for a little bit and he didn't love the outcomes and he just pulled the plug on at halftime. Well, that does square with his comments that like we were trying to play direct. We were hoping that he would be a force up front and it was an unlucky night for him. I don't know.

I thought it was unlucky. My thought going into it was like, oh, this is terribly unlucky just because, again, no attacker is going to thrive in this, in this muck. I mean, Ferreira didn't thrive that much in the second half.

Ferre was similarly invisible with a couple of impactful moments, just like, just like, Hadjured had a couple of impactful moments. So it just comes down to, Like, yeah, man, I don't know. I really don't know. Well, I guess we'll just have to live with the mystery on that.

For now, at least. The other thing, a couple other things I wanted to talk about. One, I had some people talking to me on social media saying that was the shot from Lerene that went in, the goal was definitely deflected. Like with, you know, with supreme confidence, people asserting this. I don't think so. I don't think it was deflected at all. and I think it was a fantastic pickout to catch Horvath napping but from a good player.

So I'm just going on the record saying that. I watched the replay from every angle several times. I don't see it changing its trajectory at all. It's just he just, it's a Golazzo. Yeah, that's it. He pumbled it directly at the near post. It gave me a full inverse Brentford vibes from their promotion. final in like 2020.

Yeah. When the guy Joe Bryan replaced. Yeah. Took that free kick from 40 yards out. And it was them taking Brentford's analytical approach to things and punishing them for it.

The analytics are going to say that the keepers do better to cheat out more towards the cross and overplay the cross. And Fola must have studied Brentford's use of analytics and been like, hey, we've got an opening here on the reverse end to punish them for this if he's cheating.

and they punched him. And I think that's what happened here. I think Horvath was cheating out towards the cross. I'm going to put this in the naive category because you can do that so long as you're still capable of covering the near post. But when you can't plant your foot to push off back towards your near post, all you're going to end up doing is standing there watching it and dropping your head as you probably see your World Cup hopes slip away.

Right. Poor guy. I feel for him. I mean, I'm not saying it's not his fault. It is his fault. but I still I can still feel for him. Yeah, it's his fault. It's still like a one and a thousand thing.

I mean, it's his job to cover it. It's not Reggie Cannon's job to cover a near post shot. It's Reggie Cannon's job to deny a big portion of the dangerous service that the guy could put in, which is what Cannon was doing. If that guy decides to hit the ball up the near post, it's the keeper's job to catch it comfortably and outlet the other way. Yeah. Well, it also, the trajectory of the shot was disguised or hands. hidden by Cannon's body right at first. So that also contributed to the way Horvath was taken by surprise.

But anyway, that was on purpose, folks. Just for the record, Brenford's goalkeeper who gave up that goalkeeper, that near-post shot, if you want to call it a howler, stayed Brentford's keeper, saw them up into the Premier League the next year and has had a very actually positive shot-stopping season for Brentford in the Premier League. So just a little context. Keep your head up. Keep your head up, Ethan.

Yeah. Definitely keep your head up, Ethan. It just feels bad for him because he had that he had that Howler. His first, I think, cap for the U.S. When he played against Portugal across. Yeah, 2017. Yeah. And this is only, this was only, I believe, his seventh cap for the national team.

So the cap to howler ratio is pretty high right now. I know that that's a small sample. size, but that's why I feel bad for him. All right. What else? I think that's about it. We talked about the team aspect and like, you know, the experience of them going through this together.

And I think that can only be a positive. These do like make you think of like, I mean, we would have all played in games like this, right? Just horrendous conditions on fields that you slip and slide in. You remember them fondly. Yeah, it's kind of fun. It's like a big slip and slide. Burrhalter's quote was the one I noticed was, quote, it was a good takeaway and a good end to the June camp,

and it really brought the guys together in a good way, and quote. And I do think that's, you know, that's all sort of cliche stuff, but it is credible. It seemed, especially after Jordan Moore scored the Equalizer, that these players were into it. They were fired up and they were really, really pleased to get the equalizer and get out of there with a draw. after the 90 minutes that had preceded it.

I thought Pulisic continues to be intense and gritty and push, you know. A little angry. Yeah. Which is not who he was a couple years ago, I don't think, for the national team. And that's good to see. You know, I'll say this too for that goal we gave up. I think it did have a positive effect because in a game like that, I think it would have been easy to just sort of take a, you know,

El Salvador weren't creating anything. They were outside of like a couple of half chances early. There was just nothing there for him. So we could have just sort of made some business decisions, run the clock out, run the clock out, get out of that rain, get to the locker room, be done with it. But because we give up the goal, that's no longer an option. Right. Now we have to, like, now we have to get it back because it's just bad form to run the clock out of a zero one loss.

Although again, even from a nation's league competitive standpoint, we're still okay. hey, we had points to play with. Because El Salvador dropped points against Grenada, you know, we knew as long as we hold serve at home and beat Grenada on the road, we're fine to advance to the semis and final whenever those happen. Right. And just for the record, El Salvador and Grenada have played both of their, they're both their home and away legs together.

And so we have four points and they have, El Salvador has five, but we have a game in hand. So basically all we have to do is beat them at home and we advance. Which does, you know, I do care about that. I want to advance to the Nations League final again. I mean, we might even get to play Mexico again if they can meet us there. All right, let's go to the lineups and the chronology. El Salvador started Mario Gonzalez and goal.

I thought he had a pretty good game. Brian Tamaccas, Gomez, Ronald Gomez, and a guy named. Rodriguez at centerback and then Alexander Larine at left back and then a midfield of Oriana Martinez and Landa Verde and then front line of Reyes Bonilla and Enriquez and then the US started Horvath and goal of course Ethan Horvath Reggie Cannon CCV Aaron Long and Anthony Robinson across the back line Adams at the 6 Musa and Aronson as the other midfielders and then

Timwaye, Haji Wright, and Christian Pulisic across the front line. So I think a lot, you know, people were pleased to see that Wright got the start, even if it wasn't a wonderful situation for a striker. And, yeah, it was good to see Horvath get a chance, I guess. Any other lineup notes from you? It just looked right away like it was going to be that 3, 325 in the buildup, but it didn't kind of turn out to be that, given that Arensen was the center mid, and we put Cannon back in there as the potential stay at home.

home right back. So it didn't end up being a 3-2-5? I thought it looked more like the 4-2 build-up style that we used against Uruguay, where Cannon and Robinson would both sort of sit back a little bit tighter than they would normally do, certainly than Robinson, even in the 3-25 from the Morocco game, Robinson would get higher to get on that attacking line, whereas here he sort of stayed home and it looked like it really turned into a 4-2-4. Okay.

Okay. All right. So the field was really bad. It was really bad two weeks ago for the, I think, the league final, which we talked about this on the Monday review. Like you said, there were a couple early chances for El Salvador, right in the first two minutes, a wild strike that goes well wide from Christian Martinez, one of the fielders. And I think you noticed some stuff about Reggie Cannon on this play.

Yeah, this was my first look at like maybe a little bit of a naive decision. and it starts with us being comfortably and control of the ball. Mousa hits a big switch in our attacking half. So we're attacking and Mousa hits this big switch to Cannon who's right in the center circle. And he put a lot of air under the ball. So Cannon does have to worry about, you know, a pressuring defender catching up while the ball's in flight. But Canna's first touch is just terrible here. And I kind of chalk it.

It seemed naive to me. Like, again, you're in these bad conditions. You know the ball's not always going to behave the way you want. His first touch, there's no, there's no excusing it. Like a ball out of the air behaves the same way. way a ball out of the air is going to behave. That's right. But he puts it on the ground in between him and the pressuring defender rather than

like, you know, doing a more nuanced, elegant turn where you like pivot as you're controlling the ball away from the defender, like that kind of basic stuff. And the defender just pounced on it immediately. And that was that, that he was off and running. Cannon then in his pace to correct it, like overcommits once and lets the guy hit a pass out wide to the open man, to his open teammate that became open because Camden. and overcommitted, and then Cannon pursued that player and overcommitted again and actually kind of wiped out CCV who was there to cover him so that the guy could turn both Canon and

CCV to play that ball inside where his teammate proceeded to take a super low percentage long range shot. Yeah, hit a goal's width wide pretty much. Another, Canon's also involved, you know, 30 seconds later on after a headed chance. This is a good cross from the right side, and it's Bonilla, I think, who gets on the end. end of it right at the penalty marker pretty much. And I can't remember if he hit it over if it was saved comfortably, but it was a, which one was it? Do you remember?

I think he heads this one over. Okay. Canaan was only marginally involved here. And it was kind of like a, this reminded me a lot of a Uruguay chance where Yedlin came out to meet a man up high on the sideline and like actually gets to the ball and the like guy kicks it off his shins and then by a kind of a lucky deflection, ends up with it again beyond Yedlin. And this was kind of a similar situation. Cannon went out to meet a ball, meet the Salvadoran player with the ball. He goes sliding in, which I think is, again, a bit

naive because he slides going to take you eight yards farther than it usually does. So he slides himself out of bounds. And the ball maybe fortunately, but whatever, still stays with El Salvador. And they're just now running at us when we have no right back. So they do a very similar pattern to Uruguay, where they switched over to the other side of the field, off to the right. And this is the pattern that I think was our biggest defensive issue for the entire window. And it's our organization when the ball goes wide on tracking these runners through the 18. And I think literally every single centerback and weak side fullback partnership that we put out there has lost the guys. So here, the ball gets switched over to the right, just barely.

It's just shaded off to the right. And the guy has all the time in the world to pick his head up. CCV ends up with being surrounded on either side by runners. Aaron Long is probably too far away from CCV where he's not defending. any of the runners, even when they're going to go into the space that he should be protecting. They hit it over CCV's head, who's maybe cheated a little bit too far with the near runner, maybe not. It's hard to know. It's a unit vulnerability that I think has been on display the whole, again, the whole window. Cannon's not back in the play because he slid himself

out of bounds way up at midfield. He's, you know, whatever, five yards late. So we end up with a wide open backpost runner who has a chance to put El Salvador in the lead two minutes in. I don't know what the, you know, what the fix is for that as a unit problem. What is it? What is it, Greg? What is it? I don't know, but it has been, it's been every pairing. So it's not just like CCV. I know he had the high profile one against Morocco, but even in that one, he didn't have centerback help because long had been pulled up out of the play and got spun up by midfield and never made it back to defend the backside of CCV. So it's just, when it goes out wide,

you sort of have this three-man crew, two centerbacks and the weak side fullback, and they have to coordinate and get their spacing right to account for these runners. I don't think we've ever been like totally outnumbered. We just haven't gotten the spaces right. They got one guy who'll hit a seam and draw one guy and that creates a bigger seam behind or in front. And then they hit that play. So we've seen, we've seen it with Zimmerman and Long. We've seen it with CCV in Long.

And now we've seen it involve the fullbacks. Yedlin, Cannon, Scali, Bella. it's happened to all of them. Yeah, interesting. Just to focus on Canon for a second, it is not good for him, I guess, to have these defensive struggles or naivete, naivete struggles,

because he's not, in this whole window, he has not been very good on the ball. He doesn't make forward passes. He seems jittery. Like he's just, he's too nervous to make a pass, a penetrating pass or an incite. passive pass.

And I don't know. I know we can't take big things away from this game. But if you take the window as a whole, I did not think Reggie Cannon was impressive. I totally agree. I know that people like him for the sort of tactical flexibility. He can offer us a stay-at-home right-back. But I think that's probably overstated as well,

because I think there are probably a lot of different ways you can accomplish that stay-at-home right-back without defaulting to Reggie Cannon. But I don't know. the options not like trying to creep up behind it would be shack more Joe Scali and and so I feel like it's that common US men's national team thing where maybe the guy who benefited the most was the guy who just wasn't there in Shaq Moore and you just hope that maybe maybe he'd give us a little bit more not I wish you would cut that that sentence out the

way I just said it but that could be some people's takeaway from this camp what part what sentence do you want me to cut out I just said he could give you a little bit more. And I was referring to Shackmore. His last name is the same word as a word I used later in another sentence. I got you. All right. Yeah.

And Moore, of course, is in the middle of a promotion playoff with Tenerife in trying to get into La Liga. So, yeah, I think he and Cannon, Moore's not a world beater either, but I think he and and Cannon are pretty close. It'll be interesting to see how that shakes out. all right I'm not going to do a detailed chronology here for the whole first half but let's talk about that good set piece

that ends in the Eunice Musa shot with his left foot it's from Pulisic whose set piece delivery was not good at the beginning of the game but started to get better I think as the game went on this one loops across and right challenges

Hajjee Wright challenges the goalie for it and nods it back towards the top of the box Eunice is arriving and he hits it with his left foot kind of right at the keeper, who is out of his goal but still in front of the goal. A pretty good chance, a very good chance, actually. Really good chance. And if you're looking...

Go ahead. Musa probably makes a chance look better than it is because of how well he struck the ball on frame. You know, a lot of times that shot can go, can get skied or go wherever, not on frame. So he makes it look like a more dangerous chance, I think. But the key here is Haji Wright in what he can create because this is sort of the thing that he and some of the other more target strikers, the bigger builds can do.

You know, Ferreira is not going to hold one guy off and beat the goalkeeper up to a ball up in the air. No. To create a chance like this. So that becomes the question is how do we value this? Is there at least, at the very least like situational needs where this could be more valuable than whatever we're getting from either Ferrer or Pepe? and I just, I continue to think there is. I continue to think that we do need this skill set on the roster for the World Cup. Just as one option among three or.

Yeah, I think we, I think we, I'm really hoping we have three strikers on the final roster that has been unofficially, but reported, now actually like reported to be 26. Yeah, I was just going to say that. And so it seems like everyone is now operating as though it's 26. The next set piece ends with Tim Wea just throttling Brian Tamacus in the face with an overhead kick attempt. It was pretty, it was a sharp, it was sharp contact, I guess. Did they, I didn't know if we got any advice from Uncle Joe on the broadcast here, the referee consultant for Fox. Would that be a red card with VAR? I was worried about that.

I don't know, I don't understand the rules, though. I don't know the rules. Goalkeepers and bicycle kick attempts seem to get a little bit of like grace in these situations. Yeah. If you ever want to kick somebody in the face, just make it look like a plausible bicycle kick attempt. And you've got free reign. Well, Wea, We had seemed to feel pretty bad about it and kept checking on Tomakis. And he was, he seemed pretty shook up.

I don't know exactly. He did play most of the rest of the game. Well, I just want to make it clear. I'm not just talking about it on the soccer field. I mean anywhere in life if you want to kick somebody in the. if they just make it plausibly bicycle kickton. It's just at the supermarket. Wherever.

Okay. Let's see. 31st minute, we get that good chance for Haji Wright that you mentioned earlier. It starts with a combination of passing from Musa to Long to Aronson to Adams to Musa through the middle of the field. And then, as was so often the case in this game, Musa just bursts forward, glides past guy and taps it into a little pocket in zone 14 to Pulisic who turns and slides a pass to right just to Dominguez's right to his R-I-G-H-T right and then Haji takes a touch to his left

like he said he kind of hesitated and then dragged the ball to his left and has a shot and it goes off the side netting wide you said earlier it was a big window he created well he definitely he definitely created a window it was a pretty I think a pretty small window but he But he created a window and he... Tight angle. I just mean there was no question he was going to be able to get that shot off. That shot wasn't going to get blocked by the trailing defender. That's what I mean by the window.

Okay. But yeah, I thought that was a really positive play. It was, again, really similar to some of the looks we've gotten from Pulisic to Ferrara to slide that ball off of the defender's shoulder, controlled it well, this touch. And then, again, Haji here with a little bit of mis, like a little bit of deception, just enough to slow the player down and then burst past him for that for that, for that shooting window at a bit of a tight angle so it's not like a not like one that's certainly not a gimme as we all know right no i uh i thought it was pretty i thought it was good and it was

the whole musa bursting through the middle of the field thing which we feel it feels like we've talked about a lot on this podcast is um man what a what a wonderful repeated repeatable pattern of play um it's gonna work it it'll i can't imagine it not working against anybody, you know? I mean, he's just really good at that. And he seemed to be better today, or last night, at releasing the ball before he lost it, and finding somebody's feet. So I think that's really positive, and I'm happy to see it. It's a fantastic shortcut to disorganizing the opponent because they have their shape. They have everyone accounted for. And then Musa blows by that first player, not even, again, not even just creating a passing window. He blows by him and seals him off

and the guy can't get back around him. And then a lot of times in doing so, I feel like it's almost sneaky enough that it also takes the covering defender out. Like a lot of times you'll see the covering defender take a poor angle to him. And maybe that's just concafish, but I thought it was similar in the Uruguay game. So he ends up blowing by two guys. And I feel like a common sight is Musa driving with the ball with like two players in his wake chasing him. So it really is. We used to think we could get this from Pulisick out wide where he could beat a guy 1v1 on the width.

But Musa doing it in the middle of the field for me is like almost more valuable to set up these. this sort of a conveyor belt of AVPs. Yeah. We're still not, we're still not great at converting those AVPs into, you know, high XG shots necessarily, but we're not,

we're not that bad at it. And then- We got a good one today. Really happy with the one yesterday. The 36 minute is when El Salvador scores their goal. It's a cross from the right that arcs over the penalty the area, I mean, from our left, from the U.S. is left.

And then Lerine arrives, gets the ball, lines it up, takes a touch with the outside of his foot, and then just rifles it past Horvath at the near post. We discussed it at the beginning of the show. But it was kind of deflating, I think, and how much guilt does Horvath deserve here, Greg? We did already talk about it, didn't we? But certainly quite a question. I think it's going to fall on him. I mean, you can chalk it up to, again, just an incredible fluke.

But it's definitely like, it's his job. I'm not someone who's like keeper should never get beat at the near post. But this near post shot is his job to have covered. And he just was cheating the cross too much and couldn't get his feet set to push back towards that near post. Bummer. I don't know how badly Burholder is going to like ding him for it. Like, I don't know if he's Burhlders are going to be like, yeah, That's a weird one.

Well, it seems unlikely we'll encounter that kind of a shot in these kinds of conditions ever again. So it doesn't really affect things. Or if he's going to say, positioning's an issue, I can't have my starting goalkeeper being out of the frame of the goal. You know, there's no way I would ever play somebody who would do that. So you can't be on the roster, Ethan. Now, who's up next? All right. Half time.

Yeah. If anybody's not, if anybody's listening to this for the first time, that was Greg doing a bit about how Zach Stephan always gets out of the goal. It's not a bit. I mean, it's just a recurring theme. All right. Hesu's comes on for Haji Wright. At the half, we already discussed Burrhalter's postgame comments about Haji. And then Weston comes on for Brendan Aronson, who was, I think, as usual, active, pretty good on defense.

I didn't notice him really contributing that much to the attack. Our attack wasn't vaunted in the first half. Yeah, this is a game where the ball probably should be played up in the air. Like, again, you can predict the ball that's up in the air. There's no bounces up there. So it makes sense that this is a game that, like, Haji makes sense for this game. When Hesu's coming on, I'm like, oh, this doesn't really seem like a game for Hesus. It does seem more like a game for West and then Brendan.

that was like, yep, this will be good. So that was just my thought going in is I didn't expect too much in the way of like tidy combination play from from Jesus up top. Although he had some. He did have some and I... A few. Yeah. Okay.

I would say right as, right after the half, right after the half, we saw a couple of good combinations between Musa and McKinney. Musa can burst forward, but so can McKinney. and our first chance of the second half comes when there's a give-and-go from Wes and Jedi and West bursts forward and plays good outside of the boot ball to Jesus. Jesus rounds the keeper wide left and tries to shoot it with his left foot, but it's from a tough angle and it's on the ground and it gets cut out by one of the two defenders on the goal line. I guess the only way for him to score that is to sort of loft it at the back post.

Would have been quite a finish. Yeah, great recognition from Wes. Awesome ball from West. So a little bit of the Madrid's about it. And then a good burst from Jesus because he is, he starts out two or three yards on side and times it well with Wes. And by the time he gets to the ball, he's two or three yards beyond the centerbacks.

So it was just about beating the keeper. And then once he beat him having the wherewithal to get it around the two trailing defenders that he had just beat, and that just didn't happen. Yeah. I like the connection there, the connection. between Ferreira and McKinney.

59th minute, well, 56th minute, there's a decent cross from Jedi and the headed clearance falls to Moose at the top of the box, and he tries on the volley after chesting it into the air and doesn't get it right. I guess you could say he scuffed it.

And Craig's shaking his head. So embarrassed. If I hadn't done the Shack Moore a bit earlier, I would have let you get away with it. 59th minute. It's another good chance for the USA. Aaron Long gives it away in our half, but then El Salvador gives it right back to him, and it's some quick ping, ping, ping up the field.

Adams to McKinney to Eunice bursts into El Salvador's half past two guys. This is one of the burstiest bursts of his performance tonight. Last night, I keep saying today and tonight, he slips it to Wea veering in behind from the right. and Wea just plays a return pass. It's really nice. Back to Eunice. I think he was trying to play it to McKinney, but it doesn't matter. It goes to Eunice, and he takes a couple touches, kind of one-on-one with the keeper,

and hits it right at the keeper. Excellent stuff until the finish. And I did think the keeper did pretty well there. Yeah, I mean, I was thrilled with it. This is exactly what I want to see is that release. I mean, the big thing is that release ball to Wea, right? We've seen Unis drive through and then not quite sure, not quite be sure exactly who to pick out to take it off of his feet. And this time he did a great job getting it to Wea.

And because he did and because Wea was very good, we get this return pass and we get a really good chance. Probably our best chance of the match other than the Morris School. Yeah, the two headers in quick succession. We, I thought at this point I was like, you know, the U.S. is playing pretty well. This is where that stuff about fight and, you know, going, you know, giving it a good try in adversity and not giving up is starting to show itself. 61st minute ariola comes on for Wea. In the 63rd minute, Tyler Adams throws Darwin Surin to the ground and there's a fun sequence of a yellow card coming out and lots of people pushing and shoving. I don't know if, does Waki have a video up about that yet?

I don't know. Is this, is this the second one or is this the first one where McKinney's doing the jaw in motion? You know what? I'm wrong. I was wrong. It was in the 76th minute that Adams throws Sarin to the ground. So, third minute, I think it was... Is this after the red, right? Yes, you're right. But the 63rd one might be where they start doing all the jawing. Yeah, that's right. In the 70th minute is when Aureola gets his red. Hold on. Can we go back to the 60th to the jawing? on one.

Yeah, I'm going to do a naive bit. Please. So in that little scrum where McKinney's doing the quack in motion, which I love, I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not going to be on about like respecting the opponent or anything like that. That's sports banter. The reason I hated to see it was because I'm like, man, Weston,

this game doesn't mean anything to these guys. And they're not better at us than soccer. And one of the ways teams that aren't better at you at soccer can get one up on you is by cleaning out your legs any chance they get. So when Weston is, you know, doing this visible thing that all of El Salvador's players can see, it's not, it's no longer just like one against one back and forth where maybe that guy will look for you.

It's like everyone on El Salvador might be looking for Wes at this point. And I know Wes is a big kid, he can handle himself, but I was just very much like, don't give him a reason here to wipe that ankle out. Like, let's just, let's just all be gentlemen here and see if we can get through this without turning it into a, into a blood feud. Yeah.

So I kind of chalk that up to being a little bit naive to what some outcomes could be once you start once you start sort of putting that target on yourself. Maybe he just welcomes it. Maybe he wants people to come at him like that. But man, I was just like, like, I was kind of like a...

Praying that he wouldn't have a season-ending injury. I was cringing. I mean, nothing really bad happened to McKinney. He didn't get taken out ever, did he? No, I don't think so. And again, I don't know, that might all just be sort of fun sports stuff and everyone's kind of in both sides, going to have it a good time, but you just never know. And again, when the game doesn't mean anything, when you have these conditions where you're, the,

the sloppiness of the field turns into a sort of just a 90 minute 50-50 battle. Like that's a perfect situation for anyone who wants to to have that plausible deniability to be like, no, I was just sliding in for the ball and wiping people out, which we are kind of going to get to in the 70th minute. So, okay, let's get to that. Seventyth minute, Ariola gets his red. He's sliding to get to a ball, a loose pass from Tyler Adams, trying to combine down the right channel.

And he slides in, and he leaves his foot high and, like, just below Lorene's knee. And Lorraine goes down like he got, you know, really, really hurt. And the ref shows red immediately. It seemed harsh to me, but he did leave his foot high, so I don't know. So I have no idea how much of the rest of this the referee saw. But there was like a back and forth here between these two guys that was almost like an NBA style like, you know, scrums in the paint that escalate over a couple of trips up and down the floor. It all happened in our attacking box. But the ball had been out wide on the left like a minute and a half earlier.

And Ariola is on the far post and he's kind of like trying to jockey for position a little bit, kind of like a post-up player in the paint. And the El Salvador player almost puts him in a little headlock like he's going to give him a nugi. Like he's totally little brothering him badly here. And Ariola in that moment reacts and actually like two hand shoves him up around the shoulders. So it's like a very visible thing. I don't think the referee saw it though. And then on the ensuing like the cross never gets to him, but the ball kind of gets worked back out to the left. And another cross comes in and ariola goes up to get it.

And he just gets smashed by this guy with the body and knock down right there. And so I feel like Ariola is seeing Red a little bit here and sees a chance to at least go in and do what I think is an acceptable level of cleaning somebody out or what the referee deemed an excessive level of cleaning somebody. Yeah, the contact wasn't there wasn't much contact at all. I mean, it was very, it's not like he followed through with his momentum and his feet. He just got his foot kind of just touched the guy. Yeah, the big difference here for me is even though his foot was high, he didn't slug. slide through the man's legs. He slid in front of the guy's legs. So he's showing him, Ariel is kind of showing him the top of his boot rather than going in with the studs.

Because when you go in with the studs, if you catch somebody in their foot, you'll, you'll snap a shin. But if you go in or in front of him like that with the top of your foot, then if there's contact, then Ariel's leg is just going to bend and give and you won't have a leg breaker situation. Right. Bend and give in the way it was designed to. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well. So, yeah, I thought it was harsh. But it was definitely this back and forth.

I think it's even a reach to say that that was a naive one. I actually thought his two-handed shove was the worst moment where if an AR or a VAR catches it, you know, like they can just say, yeah, you can't put your hands there. You're off. Okay. Too bad for Paul. He's on the field for, oh, 10 minutes at the most. And then we get a 75th minute set piece from Pulisic that kind of drew.

drifts just over Musa's head. He tries to maybe tries to go at it with his foot and thinks about going with his head and tries with his foot again and doesn't make any contact. I don't know if he could have gotten to that with his head. The angle that I saw it on wasn't conclusive about that. Then Adams throws Serren to the ground and that whole scrum ensues. And then in the 80th minute, Rodriguez gets the red card. It's a Ferreira-Musa combination in transition. Musa's bursting forward, he plays it to Ferreira.

Ferreira stops and tries to play a throughball to the streaking Musa, and Rodriguez pulls him down. It's a dog so, red card, and Eunice gets an absolute face full of mud from it. So this is when it starts to feel really fun, I think, all this stuff going on. Yeah, so this is Ferreira's probably best moment, and it's a pretty, you know, standard Ferreira control and then a nice, a nice through ball. I kind of almost want to say the ball is behind him a little bit, but it's hard to tell.

I do. I thought so too. Yeah. Because of the scrum that ensues. I definitely think it was generous to call this an obvious goal scoring opportunity because of the weight of the past and because there are no obvious goal scoring opportunities in these conditions. Like you could give somebody a 10-yard head start with the ball. And on that mud, like you just don't know what's going to happen. And so I'm sure referees aren't instructed to take that a new account. Right. Yeah, it does seem like there was a little bit of evening it out going on.

Both red cards were plausible. Both were maybe a little bit soft. Unis takes, well, Morris comes on for Adams and Luca Deletore comes on for CCV, not in their respective positions. We just took a center back off and played with basically, I guess it was basically canon and long as our centerbacks for the last 10 minutes or so. Yeah, kind of looking like a 3-2-4. As we were building up with,

Jesus and Morris sort of up high. Okay. So for anyone who thinks Morris could be that late-game target forward option over Pfeffer, Aji, this would have been his tryout for that. And I don't know, you know, I don't know that Morris really, other than the goal he scored, which was fantastic, I don't know that he really did anything else in the game of note. Well, he got on the end of the header for the handball that went uncalled as well.

Oh, that's true. And this is exactly what we talked about for Morris and where he looks like in his return to full speed since his second ACL a year ago now, is that he's getting into the right spots, and he's doing that for Seattle. And that's exactly what he did yesterday, was get into those spots to make a play in front of goal. And I would say he made two play.

I mean, it's sort of generous to say he made the play for the guy to choose to put his arm up in the air to handle a ball. That was VAR probably would have been a penalty. But, I mean, but the second one, you know, no question. He absolutely fathers the defender to score that header. Yep. Yeah, you're referring to the uncalled handball in the 88th minute on a, I think it was on a set piece. And he tries to nod it back across. in the 85th minute there was a

Pulisic had cut in and taken a shot from distance that went well over and then I should also mention the 81st minute Eunice took the set piece after his after drawing the red card and hit a pretty good one that drew a good save from Gonzalez yeah totally sorry to make you time travel

there back to those other men that's okay now I think we're caught up yep we're caught up and now we're to the goal it's a corner kick from the right and McKinney is free and he gets a good header on it on goal saved again by Gonzalez and it's recycled out wide

and Luca Deloere loops a ball at the back post and like you said Jordan Morris father's Alexander Larine the goal scorer for El Salvador and then cushions it into the corner past Gonzalez 1-1 and the boys were fired up they loved it. Poulosic was fired up apparently they

They chanted Jordan Morris's name when he came into the locker room after the game. So more evidence of a good team culture, which I think really does matter. Anything on the goal? What's that? Anything on the goal? I mean, no, I don't think so. It was pretty exactly as you explained it. Great ball in from Luca.

I was still trying to figure out how El Salvador got it so wrong because Morris gets the header. It's three on one at the back post. So any of Morris, or I don't even remember now who else was over there with him. But it was like we had somehow totally outnumbered them there in the 90th minute of a 1-0 game. So some really poor work from El Salvador to see that out. But that kind of confusion happens on set pieces. And actually, Morris in particular has done a good job for the U.S. of capitalizing on those confusing moments in quite a few games in his national team career.

Yeah, you know, it's hard to imagine some, you know, any of our other attacking players outside of like, you know, Haji Wright, I suppose. I can imagine him doing it. But it's not, Jordan rising and getting over somebody and heading that ball in. It's not something a lot of our wingers are going to be able to do. No, not the wingers, but the fact that this is on,

you know, the after effects of a corner kick, we do have those guys, right? We've got those kids that we've got Aaron Long, we've got Westham McKenney, P-Fock if we decide to use him. So we have some guys who can get up for those balls late in the game if we're chasing a goal to go for it. And I think our best chances in this game came off set piece. I think even Musa was off a set piece from the from the Haji Wright header in the first half, his left-footed volley. So I'm just kind of going to keep hammering on this. I think we want that skill set in the bag for late in World Cup qualifying matches.

I don't think that even if Ferreira and say Pepe are the front runners right now for the strikers, but I really hope we include a aerially dominant striker in the roster. Yeah. It feels like we're going to. But boy, that striker, you know, the list of strikers to get called up in September is going to be fascinating. I don't know that I can predict it right now. I mean, I can predict Ferreira and I feel like probably peppy. but Frera is the only one who's for sure. That feels right.

At 26, that feels right. So we got a busy couple weeks coming up. There's the U-20, the U-20 Cockcaf Championship starts actually on Saturday with the young men facing St. Kitts and Nevis. Then the women are going to be playing Columbia at the end of the month. So we've got to do a roster reaction on that, kind of a roster reaction. preview. The roster's been out a couple days now. So anyway, if you want to,

if you want to support the podcast, which is ad-free, join us on Patreon. The link is in the show notes and in our Twitter bio. And anything else, Greg? No, this is a good window. This was a fun one with some real, I think, good World Cup preparation mixed in with some spectacle. Yeah.

And we'll try to, you know, try to wrap it up in more detail as the summer goes on. lots of time before the next U.S. game. So we'll come up with something. There were some good lessons. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks everybody for listening.

We'll see you.