Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #288: U20s v Canada recap

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

A pretty interesting game! Matt Hartman and Belz do a "quick take hot take" a la Grove and Rockwell, right after the game. Full timeline in a wild match mostly dominated by the US, and some quick takeaways at the end.0:30 intro and lineups9:30 the timeline1:02:00 quick takeawayssupport 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. Okay, that was an interesting game. It's a couple minutes after the full time of the U.S.U.20s 2-2 draw with Canada at the Concaf Championship in Honduras. And, man, it seems like we should have won that game, right?

Yeah, I'd say so. I'd say so. I don't think they release X-Cats. for Conca Caff few 20 games, but Paul Carr's not going to have the tweet on this one, I don't think. Right. But man, I would imagine that would be pretty lopsided. I don't know that it would look like too dissimilar from St. Kitt's game.

We didn't create as many chances, but... It's pretty close. Man, was it just one-way traffic? Yeah. I think we were probably, I think, a little better in this game than against St. Kitts. I mean, in the attack, but still, you know, I got on the Discord, somebody said, hey, Bells, Bells is saying we should be more clinical in the final third when we won a game 10 to zero. This is the mentality we need in American soccer.

You know, it's like a, it was more buildings than food, by the way. And I, you know, I get it. But also, I think that that kind of came up again tonight. We couldn't, we did get two really nice goals, but we had a lot of occupation of Canada's. final third and you know but we couldn't we couldn't get the the ball in the back of the net enough to get the win obviously right um it really is while watching the game i thought like a couple times like man imagine if we were able to bit to bring ricardo peppy to this tournament right yeah we're so good at getting the ball into those those spaces like into danger areas and

this team just doesn't have the like attacking piece to tie all of that chance creation together. So, I mean, it just would have been so much fun to have Peppy in this team. But that should be six points without him, hard to complain. Yeah. Yeah, well, let's do the lineups. And then we're going to have a pretty robust timeline here. So the USA started with only three players started who started against St. Kitts on Saturday.

The goalkeeper was Chris Brady. I know you, you're a fan of his. he started over Antonio Carrera and then who started against St. Kitts and then Michael Halliday, Marcus Fricanis, Brandon Craig and Maricio Cuevas across the back line. So Quavis moved from right back to left back and Halliday

who subbed on against St. Kitts started at right back. Noah Allen was on the bench in this one. Daniel Edelman was the six. Jack McGlynn and Diego Luna were the nominal eights. And then the front line was from right to left Quinn Sullivan, Paxon, Aronson as our as our false nine because look as you mentioned we don't have really a

striker on this team and then Kate Cowell has the left wing and there will be a lot to talk about there there will be I was surprised by the centerback choice I think for Kranis is probably the lesser of the two LDA Galaxy centerbacks so I would have thought there would be Neil Jalen Neil getting this game next to Brandon Craig Um, outside of that, the concern as it has been from the roster drop is that we have too many samey guys that can step on each other's toes. I'm talking about like in this game from the starting line up particular. McGlynn, uh, McGlynn Luna, Sullivan, Aronson are all most comfortable as those like working in the half spaces. So, um, I thought from the beginning that we might end up with like a too many cooks.

not enough waiting staff situation with where we have all of these chance guys and not not really um where they we might be a little bit hard to yeah no finisher it might be it might have a situation where um we're just like we just find ourselves up against the brick wall because there's not really anybody that's uh gonna make those runs into the box uh for these passy guys to to get the ball to but I don't think it ended up being that big of a problem in this game. No, and we're going to have to bleep out the word finish in this pod. But, yeah, yeah. I mean, McGlynn was dropping deep next to Edelman a lot, which I think was good.

You know, when he gets on the ball, he's really fun to watch. And we'll talk more about McGlynn, of course. But what did you, Daniel Edelman does not come up a lot in the timeline. What did you make of his performance at the 6th tonight? Yeah, I mean, it was a very Danny Edelman performance. Like, you kind of ask him to do a job and he did it, I think, in this game where he was basically like, for the majority of the game, anytime Canada found an outlet where they got the ball to the middle of the field, Danny Edelman either put pressure to allow the team to get back or just outright fouled the Canadian. with the ball at his feet. I think that's like incredibly valuable in a team like this.

We're like if that guy at the six was like if you had McGlynn who you said, like you said, dropped back a lot next to him. If you had him start there, I think that there may have been several more dangerous Canadian counter attacks over the course of the game. I know Danny Ellerman not showing up on the timeline is probably not a great sign in terms of his ability to affect a game going forward. But we have so many guys that can do that that I don't necessarily think it's necessary for him.

Even if he could definitely show more with his forward passing than he did today. But it's just not necessary because of the team construction. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah, he doesn't show up in the timeline in a negative way other than like one or two moments either. or so. And I should mention we're doing this, like I said, we're doing this right after the game, haven't had a chance to watch it twice. So this is kind of like in the Total Soccer Show, quick take, hot take tradition. Canada's lineup is worth talking about, I think. They had

Ben Alexander in goal. He plays for the, he's a white caps youth player. And then Kishon Ferdinand from Montreal, Jamie Wright-Label from Bristol from the Bristol City U-18s, Mateo Campania, also a whitecaps player, and Quasi Poku from Forge FC across the back line. And then Kobe Franklin, so they're in a, I think, a 4-4-2. It turned into a 6-3-1 as the game of progress. But their bank of four in the midfield was from right to left. Kobe Franklin, a Toronto FC2 player, Rita Zuhir, a Montreal player, Justin Smith, an OGC-Nise B player, and then Cameron Habibula.

a whitecaps player on loan to Pacific FC. And then the two strikers were Gabriel Pellegrino, an SC Freiburg U19 player, and then Lowell Wright, York FC, X TFC, U15 player. And so this is not, you know, this is a team that is not on the level of the U.S. team, at least in terms of, like, professional experience. Yeah, definitely.

I was familiar with a few of these guys going in just because you know, you watch enough MLS Next tape and you end up seeing a couple of these Canadian academies. So Ben Alexander, who was the goalie, I think he's basically as a good shot stopper as there is in the North American youth ranks. He's just like struggles a little bit with a ball at his feet. And I think that was, we got a pretty good showing of that today. Justin Smith isn't an MLS next kid, but he, He's a centerback by trade who the Canadians that I talked to said is basically by far the best player on this roster. And I think that that showed centerback by trade again, but he's been stepping into the midfield.

He played in the midfield for their game against Cuba and was basically their lone bright spot in that game. And I think was maybe their best player on the field again today. Clever past defensively capable. And then Ferdinand and Zuh here are both guys, both midfielder's that have caused American academies, American Academy teams lots of problems over the years. Kind of tricky athletic kids, they probably wouldn't make it onto our roster, but they're certainly not levels below our team. Well, Ferdinand was that right back in this game. And I think the meme where like where is where is kate cowl he's in kishon ferdinand's pocket is probably appropriate right

right okay there was a lot of action this game let's get right to the timeline heavy rain at kickoff pouring rain and the u.s got right to business right at the right at the one minute mark a nice tackle from quin solven and a good little combo uh which ends with with jack mcglin kind of using the soul of his foot to roll it back to Sullivan just outside the Bocke and he hits a I mean a laser beam of a shot that goes just wide and there are gonna be a lot there gonna be a lot of US chances like this where we we look pretty good it just don't you know we just don't finish yeah like a nice aggressive start to the game what you want to see basically

like the first five minutes of this game was just looked pretty similar to any five minute stretch from the same kids game I do think that talking about the rain that the field was playing a little slow and that probably didn't help the type of soccer we were trying to play over the course of the game. Sullivan's an interesting player because he kind of reminds me of Justin Renix a little bit. Okay. Where, you know, you know he can do something good on occasion, but not like an elegant soccer player. and he you know right after that chance that he like he easily could have scored there

in the fourth minute there's a nice combo from from Diego Luna up the gut and we had a lot of these where Luna was just dribbling dribbling up the middle of the field doing a little wall pass with somebody and you know eliminating basically the whole Canadian defense except for the back line and in this case he slips he slips Sullivan in behind kind of between the left center back and the left back. And Sullivan has a shot, but he scuffs this one right at Alexander. And so that's what happened. Yeah, I mean, the beginning of Diego Luna, just kind of making stuff happen,

which was something that continued to happen over the course of the game. I would kind of disagree with your, like, assessment of Sullivan as like not really a player who, not really an elegant player. I just don't think he's really shown it thus far in his national team career. And this certainly wasn't the game to change your mind for him to change your mind if you, if you don't think Sullivan was particularly elegant going in

because he got the ball in a lot of good spots in this game and didn't really make a whole lot happen. I mean, this one is just kind of unlucky. He's hits the ball, but wasn't even the only time that would happen in this game. Yeah, this was a really good. good opportunity. I don't know. We're never going to know what the XG was on it, but it was a good, a good opportunity from a good angle and he just didn't get it right. Already, I'm noticing in my notes that Kate Cowell is giving the ball away a lot. He's lined up on the left wing and he just continually is giving the ball away. It started in the first five minutes and it basically continued all game. What the heck? What the heck?

So again, like I think that we saw early on like we're we kind of forced the ball to him a little bit. I think that it was it's probably like part of the game plan, right? Because we saw the same thing early on against the same kits where the idea being to just get the ball to Cade Cowell, make the other team like take, like recognize his athletic ability and kind of shift his way to try to cover to try to cover. for that. Yeah. He found far less success in this game than he did against Zincats. And, uh, yeah, just, just bad touches basically just wasn't on his game. And I think like we, he saw a lot of the ball in the first like 20 minutes of this game.

And then for the rest of the first half, it was kind of like, all right, let's, let's not give the ball to Kate Cowell because he just wasn't making anything happen. And the Canadian writeback basically didn't have any problem with Cowell all game. And like the one time that he got massacred in a 1v1 was actually Kuevas coming up the field to and got him in a 1v1. Yeah. So just not a good day at the office for Cade Cowell over the course of the 90 minutes. Yeah.

Despite the fact he had a really nice goal, anybody who's listening to this who watched the game, we'll see that he will know that he had a he scored a very nice cool it's it is i thought bob morocco uh encapsulated it nicely on twitter he said you know cowl basically unstoppable in transition it felt like a transition moment the one where he scored but it's everything else that he struggles with and and and certainly you know squaring up with a player from a standstill and trying to beat him one v1 against a low block that's not not that's not Kow's game not and and then even combining and moving off the ball finding somebody's feet moving off the ball didn't seem to be his game at least tonight

and yeah he I mean I don't think he's ever going to be that in combination what what he can do is like he's fairly good like getting his head up and finding a cross into the box or even like finding a player making a run if he picks up the ball a little deeper and this just isn't a team for him to showcase that right like he's basically the guy making forward runs and he doesn't he doesn't necessarily have a target in the box for those crosses so do you think we should stick with this whole um you know put like

is paxin it does paxon a erranton work as a nine like is that should we keep doing that or should it should cow be the nine and erinson be the well i don't know i think yeah i mean i think cowl works better at the nine um if you i mean if you're if I had to make the choice, but I don't feel like incredibly strongly about it. I think that Tyler Wolf and what we've seen of him in that position has looked okay. But like, I mean, there's, I don't think that any of these, anybody on this roster is like going to be a huge improvement over anybody else in that position.

We just, it's just everybody is going to be, you know, trying to do something they're not used to doing. Yeah. Okay. We get a corner in the seventh minute. it's a good one from Brandon Craig. It's a little unorthodox, but we had our centerback taking most of the set pieces tonight. And Marcus Fricanis got his head to it and just flashed it wide.

Like it was a good, a good header, sort of facing the corner where the corner kick is coming from. It sort of glances it off the top of his head and just misses the back pose. Yeah. Good, good corner. Brendan Craig is the set piece taker for the for his husband when yeah for Philly I don't watch a ton of Philly too but when he was in the academy

when he was still playing academy games and whatnot it was always like a little confusing there because he's a big kid right and they have guys that are like Jack McGlynn is perfectly capable of taking you know set pieces so so it's Quavas you know yeah yeah um so like it's a little, it's a little weird given his height. I don't know if you remember back to like the

Geo Raina U-17 teams when Gio was taking the set pieces and it was a little bit like, why is the tallest player on the whole field to take set pieces? It's a little strange. I think it's even stranger when it's a center when it's a center back doing it but And we have Jack McGlynn

with his golden left foot and yeah and his like and Jack McGlynn's like six inch vertical leap. So it makes a lot more sense to switch those two, but I don't know, Craig's delivery is pretty good, so can't complain too much. No. This was a good delivery and a good attempt on goal from Frecrenas.

10th minute, we get a poor giveaway from McGlynn as we're trying to break down the Canadian block. I mean, Canada just packed it in basically from the first minute. And, you know, that's what they do up there. That's what they do up north in Canada is pack it in. Right. Yeah, that was basically, that instance was like immediately followed up by some nice work down the right wing a couple of minutes later, Holiday with a nice little reverse pass to McGlynn who cut in on his right foot and scuff the shot straight at Alexander.

And I think this was everything here was going well, basically couldn't ask for a better start to the game until. Yeah. Well, I do want to say something about that moment because I was I was like, Please hit it with your left foot, Jack. And then he cuts in on his right foot. Maybe he didn't. I mean, from my angle, I couldn't tell. From the TV angle, I couldn't tell if he could even get a shot off.

But I wanted him to hit it with his left. Yeah, the goal for Canada came in the 15th minute. And it's disappointing because it was, like you said, we started the game exactly as you want to start a game. We didn't get the goal, but we were, we were creating chances. And it's just, this goal is so soft. It's so soft.

It's a deflected cross that kind of dribbles to the top of the bottom. I mean, it dribbles by itself. Nobody is dribbling it. It dribbles to the top of the box. Luna is sort of coming back to the ball. And Fercranis is coming out to it. Neither really gets to it. I mean, either could have gotten to it, I feel like,

but neither does. because they're sort of like thinking the other one is. And then Gabriel Pellegrino beats them both to it, pokes it to Lowell right, who is a big, strong number nine. And he basically wins a cage match with Frecranes, Craig, and Quavas. And then, I mean, the ball kind of pings around, and he slides it past Chris Brady, just a cage match disaster.

And it also felt kind of, unlucky to, I don't, I don't know, maybe I'm being generous there, but one zero Canada. Yeah, it's like almost hard to assign blame on this one just because it was like a complete team capitulation. Like I basically everybody, the entire back six like could have done something about this. But particularly at the very end of the play with for Kranis, Craig and Kwebos, just like standing around Lowell Right. It wasn't even a situation where, like, they got out muscled individually. The ball just kind of like popped up on Lowell Right after Kovas tried to poke the ball away.

And it came off of right. And then I don't know if everybody was just like afraid of like giving away a penalty because we're in the 18 yard box at this point. But they all just kind of like watch level right control the ball and put it in. Yeah. Put it past Chris Brady. So yeah, just just the disappointing thing. I think it basically just comes down to the backline not not having a ton of time together. But super disappointing instance.

But I don't if you're not if you're like a Canadian and you're looking to take takeaways from this game, I don't think you look at this as like, wow, that was a nice repeatable goal. Right. It was just kind of on us. We just kind of let it happen. Yeah. It was a nice finish. It was a slow roller into the goal, but it was totally unstoppable for Brady. Yeah.

Yeah, so we get back to the run of play after the goal, and Canada with a little bit of confidence kind of saw really the most of the ball that they'd see for the rest of the game. And a lot of that had to do with the fact that the midfield of Edelman, Luna, and McGillen were less successful in dominating the midfield to the extent that we did against St. Kitts, if you look at this midfield construction compared to the last game, I think we really missed

Alvarado, not only in this period, but in this 10 minute period of the game, but in the first half as a whole. Yeah. Alvarado didn't play it all in this game, and I think that is a mistake.

That was a mistake by Varus. And I also feel like he should have brought subs on faster than he did in the second half. We can talk about that as that comes up, but... Yeah, I totally agree. I don't know. I mean, I like, like I said, I like McGlynn dropping deep next to Edelman.

I'm not sure... I'm not sure about Edelman. Like, I only watched the game once, so I don't know. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't want to say too much because I, because I don't, because I didn't watch the game twice. I don't, I didn't watch closely to see what Edelman did and didn't do. but um yeah because because luna because luna because luna was fantastic i think most of the game

mcglin mcglin does offer something so who's the who's the odd man out i mean i know i know you're saying edelman you know edelman is the is the guy who will foul people and like will is defensively responsible i totally see that but um yeah i mean basically i don't think mcglin started the game that well and like at this point He's like the primary problem for the midfields. And so like, I don't know. I think it's really for if you go, I think you can only really judge players by like the job that's given to them.

Right. So like if you view Edelman as like his job is to to get the ball to the rest of his midfielders and wingers and to prevent goal scoring chances, you know, to defend that back line. Canada has like two, maybe three like even remotely decent chances in this game. And I don't know that like across those three you could blame like give Edelman blame for more than like half a chance. Right.

So I just think it comes down to like if the game went a little differently and kind of doesn't get what I think I'm comfortable calling to lucky goals. And we win this game. We're a little bit more clinical on the other side and we win this game for enough. I think that's the type of thing where like man Adelman did a great job at yeah you know like it was a one-way traffic and so just the way it works that's fair yeah I think that's fair and and it's as hard to say like mcglin I mean mclin's goal was so nice you know he hit that so well um it's hard to say he shouldn't have been on the field but I think I think I agree with you

Alvarado from mcglin next time please um All right, 22nd minute, a nice combo again from Luna, McGlynn. I mean, the other thing is McGlynn is very nice in combination. You know, he has good passing vision. He has a little bit of sauce in the way he passes the ball. He absolutely loves a reverse pass, right? Yeah. He clips it over the centerback for Aronson,

and Aronson has a good hit that is just deflected over, I believe, by Campania, but I'm not sure about that. And we're starting to go ahead. good. Yeah, it was a nice little bit of combo play and like by the top by this time we we have regained control of the game. There were a couple of weird moments where mcglin kind of like significantly overhit a short pass to a teammate just kind of like forcing the ball to pop up on them but it was a fairly minor thing like from the 20th minute on it was again um just like completely one-way traffic we were just finding the ball on the

top of the Canadian 18 yard box and just looking for openings. Right. The field was, I mean, the rain stopped at some point. I did not clock the minute where it stopped, but the field was the field that they were playing on drained a lot better than the Kuskat Laan where the senior team played a few days ago. So that's good. But it's still, it's still kind of a sloppy feel.

I noticed that Kuevas, you know, a player I'm a big fan of, have been a fan of for a long time, did not look that great. He couldn't beat his guy. He couldn't use his left foot to any effect on the left side. And that's, I mean, I may just be as simple as he needs to be playing right back instead of left back. Yeah, I mean, it's always going to be hard to tell, right? Maybe it just wasn't his day.

Maybe the field played into it. But I also noticed that his first touch was like continually letting him down in the first half. He kind of cleaned it up a little bit as the game went on, but definitely didn't influence this game as much as I think we would like him to and as much as he influenced the the St. Kitts game. Right. Which we can basically throw out because like, you know, whatever.

I mean, the same kids game. But yeah, both of our fullbacks were okay, but not, I would say not good enough in this game. And we're at this point, we're asking ourselves if we can break down an opponent in a low block and we couldn't we couldn't do it I mean we could break them down but we couldn't score goals and um can is just sitting in their defensive third cow watching cowl go one view one with ferdinand I don't want to beat up on him too much but watching him go one v one with ferdinand was like watching a hammer try to be a phillips head screwdriver

like he just was not working you know yeah like the screw the screw was not entering the wood Yeah, totally. I think Ferdinand deserves a lot of credit here. He did a really good job of getting his hands on Cowell, you know, making him feel that his presence that he was there. And then if you get Cowell with, with his back to goal and you put a player on him,

he's basically not going to be capable of making that turn on a player in a 1v1. And he's not all that great in the combination play, releasing the ball from there either. So really good job. of by Canada from doing from for to deal with cowl and I think it's like when you we start to talk about these players future it's like this is a problem for kate right if he if he's able to solve this and like have a little bit of danger coming in off the wing in a situation where he doesn't have like 30 yards of space i wasn't going to be that mean and say 30 yards but i was like thinking

about saying 10 um we're still like a ridiculous a fairly ridiculous amount of space um like, you know, he's just going to need to get better at it. And if he doesn't, I think we start to talk about him being a right back. I don't know about him being a right back, but maybe him playing more of like an inside role, like more of like a striker in a 442 type of deal, which wouldn't necessarily work with the national teams. But similar role to like Jordan Morris plays with Seattle. and then if he because I do think he does offer like he has a decent shot on him if you're one of those people I believe's finishing is a thing and I think that he he's can be a fairly good crosser of the ball and offer some some moments of good play in the final third it's just he's not a terrible passer too you know when he has a little time to to measure it yeah he's had so he has like one or two insane passes on his in his last or two like there's one pass from like a year or two ago now and in San Jose where he just like

eliminated an entire team with a pass to um I mean this was like four forwards ago for San Jose so I don't know who we don't remember who he passed it to but he's not a bad passer of the ball but uh yeah like I'm I'm increasingly unsure of him as like a true wing option I guess I'd say yeah and and certainly like him you know his his apparent discomfort going to his left makes it weird for him to be a left winger you know i could see him i could see him on the right wing where he just take it to the end line and then cut it back like he'd be really comfortable doing that and that would create you know that would build something for the for the team but he was trying to cut in on his right and just getting dispossessed

constantly right 28th minute a good run from Diego luna again this is a player who was who came up in the El Paso locomotive situation and then just was signed by Rayall Salt Lake. He tries to beat the last guy. So the defense just keeps parting in front of him as he dribbles down the middle of the field.

And they're trying to cover his passing options and he just keeps going and keep going. And then he tries to beat the last guy with a quick right to left touch to go in behind. And the left foot touch is a little heavy. And he goes down on

perhaps no contact. You thought it was no contact, right? Yeah, it was no contact for me. They showed the replay a couple times. I know it wasn't like a sure thing, but I don't think that there's enough contact. There definitely wasn't enough contact for him to go down like he, like he did. And it's a little disappointing because it was just such a good run.

It was such a good run through the defense. And I think that even though it was a heavy touch, he still might have been able to get to the ball if he stayed on his feet. But, you know, it is what it is. Instead, he got a yellow card for simulation. Right. 31st minute, Aronson gets fouled 30 yards from goal and Craig takes the free kick and, you know, just kind of curls it at the goalkeeper's chest. Yep, good play from Luna and Aronson.

Again, Luna basically creating all of the danger at this point. Aronson wasn't doing all that bad himself. Just kind of circling around the middle of the field trying to make himself an option. it became like by this point with Aronson and Luna but Luna specifically seeing so much of the ball really became apparent how little

Quinn Sullivan and Kate Cowell were influencing the game yeah I mean definitely not influencing the game but I mean Cal was Cal was still getting on the ball he just couldn't well yeah just could do anything with it

30 third minute Luna darts in behind on the left with the ball and so he dribbles past some people and then Aronson so he's so he's loose in behind the back line and crosses it with his left foot and Aronson and Cowell just kind of watch the ball slide across the face of goal and I'm saying crash the goal boys come on yeah like we need a goal here let's get there right and again I think like with Aronson specifically this is just like his influences his um not influence his like instincts right for but being like an attacking midfielder kind of pop up here where like he he stops his run be like at the penalty spot because you know like that's basically

as far up the field as he is he comfortable going whereas like if we had if we did have like a ricardo peppy here he's at the i think he's at the six yard box ready to to tap that in it's just you know just the guys that we have on the field aren't necessarily used to making that run into the goal. Yeah. All right. What's next? So in the 35th minute

McGlynn presses a Canadian that has the ball on the corner of his own 18-yard box. The Canadian does kind of like a very simple turn in field. And within like three strides,

Jack McGlynn is like 10 yards behind the still trying to chase down the Canadian. I think this is basically the McGlynn problem, right? He offers some great moments on the ball and stuff like that. Like we would see a few of those, several of those moments in this game. But man, it's just super problematic that he can just get ballooned past as easily as he does in this moment.

And I do think like on the whole, he did a good job of like mitigating those chances in this game. but here it's just an instance of what can happen in rearing its head when you have McGlynn on the field. Yeah. Then like a minute later, McGlynn like basically makes up for it

by finding Paxton Aronson with a pretty good reverse pass near the penalty spot and then Paxton would spin and get a shot off, but it's right at the keeper. I think that this was probably like our best chance to this point in the game. Yeah. Paxson having a little, getting a little bit of a case of the Brendan's here,

hitting it right at the goalkeeper. But I love the quick turn and shot. I mean, he gets all of it. And I very, very much enjoy that ball from McGlynn. I mean, we're being critical as is,

as we should be, you know, throughout this timeline. But they're, you know, these are good soccer players. All of them, pretty much.

Maybe not K. Cal, but most of them. And, um, there's a lot of nice moments of combination. and some good passes that like passes that happen where I don't even I don't I didn't anticipate it and all of a sudden it happens and I'm like ooh that's nice this was one of those

39th minute another good combination up the middle mcglin to Luna to Cowell who has a decent hit from 20 yards wide left of the post uh 41st minute another nice combo to spring Halliday up the right flank his choice of ball a cross he tries to cut it back but it's like easily cut out it's kind of pathetic yeah it was a disappointing cross um I don't think there were all too many options like we've talked about here it was only really Paxton that at this point was consistently making himself an option for crosses um and yeah you know there's no guarantee that even if it's like a better cross than the cross that holiday delivered that it was going to be able to make its way through the forest of Canadian players to Paxton's feet.

I want to mention at this point that in the 41st minute, it was like at this point, Canada had barely touched the ball for like, you know, 20 minutes. Yeah, totally. We're totally dominating the game. Right. And I just noted here that McGlynn's quality on the ball is fun to watch. He loves to, he loves to clip a ball over people or like. you said make that reverse pass. What happens in the 44th minute?

Yeah, so 44th minute we get a corner that leads to Luna picking up the ball inside the 18-yard box and dribbling down to the end line. Luna does really well to win a corner, but it's called off-sides for some reason. And I just noted that Luna was basically the only one attempting and winning one-fee-ones. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if Dave the Luna, you know, it's going to be a national team player. I don't know if any of these guys is in the long run, but he certainly was the one making the most happen tonight,

like you said earlier. Most, very fun to watch too. Yep. What did you, so halftime comes? I thought, I thought we'd see some subs. We're down one zero. Come on. Come on, Mikey.

Let's make a move. Yeah, yeah, totally agree. I was thinking Cowell and Sullivan off, so bringing both wingers off at halftime. and move Luna to the wing where he'd be able to see a little bit more of the ball and go 1 v1 more often

and then get Alvarado and Kaden on, put Kaden on the right wing for Sullivan and have Alvarado sit in the midfield next to Brendan Craig. Couldn't be too upset, though, with the first half and given the dominance in terms of possession and chances, one moment of catastrophic defending was the difference.

Canada clearly outmatched for talent, but they are definitely able to hold their defensive shape more than the same kits was. They're not allowing any goals. Yeah, no penalties. It could have been one. It could have been one in the second half, I thought.

But, um, and then Canada brings Lowell Wright off at half the goal score. Yeah, definitely surprising because he was like their only danger man. Um, I don't really get the, the,

the, that decision maybe he was hurt or something I'm not sure could be yeah maybe I thought maybe they're bringing on a faster guy to hit on the counter no subs for the US and then let's go second half sure second half starts with Luna basically immediately creating another chance delivers a good cross after some tricky play up the left wing uh cowell meets the ball in the air um and makes good contact but can't put the ball on frame We've got a little bit similar to the, um, for Kranas chance in the first half. Right, right.

Yeah, and I just think, um, at this point I was thinking like our wingers just hadn't been good enough. Both of them. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And not only in the attack, too, like, I think Sullivan was a huge downgrade from Clark in the press, um, where like Canada didn't basically didn't do anything with it, but they were able to find their mid, play the ball to their midfielders feet more often than then. was perhaps part of the game plan. And Michael Holliday was continually having to run the field

just to try to maintain that pressure for Sullivan. Yeah, that aside, like the attack is the main thing, right? Like if Quinn Sullivan is creating chances, you can overlook that sort of thing, but he was kind of invisible, I want to say, in the first half. and I don't think he was he definitely got more involved with the game as the game went on but I don't think he was

I don't think he was like a net plus for this team on the day no yeah he had those couple chances early and then and then didn't really not much else to say about what he did if we are we do face Cuba in two days and you got to imagine Kate and Clark starts that game

at the right wing uh Cuba Cuba beat Canada and beat St. Kitts tonight. I think what was it, 6-0? Yeah, something like that. They looked like, I didn't watch that full game, but they look like a pretty

competent team. I do think like the thing that's going to be kind of like matches up well for us is that in both of those games, they were like the team in possession. So it's going to be a fun thing where it's like, it's going to test our midfield a little bit and maybe like open up some more of these attacking spaces for. our fairly good group of attacking midfielders to do some more damage. So it should be fun. Yeah.

By the way, you're not going to be able to join me. Marcus Cherez is going to be there for that recap. All right. Let's see. The goal, the U.S. scores a goal in the 50, around, I think it was the 53rd or the 52nd minute. it's Jack McGlynn banger We've sort of obliquely referenced it already It's from a short corner

Passed to Diego Luna And he dribbles away from goal a bit And then squares up a defender And then a defender kind of Is attracted to him from the top Sort of the top of the box Luna just drops it for McGlynn McClint, McGlynn takes one touch

And then hits a rope Pass the keeper At the near post He got all of it And you know We knew he had a good left foot Yeah, it's what he brings, right? Like that, it's, it's just a world-class goal.

Couldn't place it any better. Like, I. Smatched it. Yeah, absolutely perfect, basically. Not a great game to him from this point. I didn't think, but it's just kind of, you know, the Jack McGlynn thing. We're like, if he can order, if he can offer a thing a moment or two, like this of left-footed magic per 90, it'll continue to be worth finding him minutes on the field,

especially if it's going to be a game similar to this where you have control of the ball and control of the midfield. Yeah. I mean, maybe that's what Varus was thinking, is we need McGlynn in there because Canada's going to be, you know, sitting back. And I don't know that you can really blame McGlynn for the goals either, the goals that Canada scored either.

Can you? No, no, no, not at all. Yeah. This happened after the first goal we scored and after the second one, but we just were absolutely bearing down on Canada in the ensuing minutes. Sullivan hits the post, and then Aronson has a hit that gets blocked before it gets the goal. Yeah, the Aronson shot was Luna again with a good delivery into the box. Pretty clear by this point that he was the player with the best ideas in the attack.

I thought we were unlucky not to score really. The Canadian defender, Poku, was his name, did really well to get a piece on Sullivan's shot. And still it hit the post. Right. And then around the 55-minute mark, Aronson gets perhaps hurt after Colin Sullivan cuts it back to him in the box. The ball skips, I think, off of Canadian players.

well, off of a foot, and then I think off of a hand and falls to, I'm not 100% sure it was off of a hand, but falls to Aronson. And then he uses his thigh to sort of dink it past the guy and then gets cut down like some knee-to-knee contact. It was Campania. It did not get whistled. But for me, that's a penalty kick. That's what I think. The contact? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, I didn't. get to watch it twice so I don't not sure it looked like it might be in in real time but the game kind of like you know just kept going we kept having to know down stuff that happened so I didn't get to take a look at it again I'm gonna be curious

going back to it later well Aaronson was down for a while and he did get back up and kept playing 57 minute mark we give up a shot from Habibullah one of those outside midfielders not sure how it happened but but it was a tame shot right at Chris Brady.

Yeah, so this one was a bouncing ball, like, around head height to our backline. And Craig and Friconis just miscommunicate. And it just leads to basically both of them jumping into each other, whereas they're making contact with the ball. So not ideal, but this is, to my knowledge, their first time playing as part of a centerback combination. So not all too surprising and that something like this could happen. And not a great chance comes from it considering both of our centerbacks, you know, basically whiff on a ball. Collided.

Yeah, they get back behind the play and between the ball and the goal. And it's a tame shot like you mentioned. I think at this point, Canada is fully reliant on the U.S. making mistakes to get any offense going. 60th minute we oblige Danny Edelman does he just he gives it away

around the half line but it does come to nothing 61st minute Cade Cowell cuts in after a nice little pass into a pocket of space from Diego Luna like you said

he's the ideas man and Cowell has a hit from distance that goes well over at this point I'm thinking like we got we gotta bring some subs on got to do it

right yeah I don't really know like what the, what the thinking was to this point. I don't remember, I don't have the, the Canadian subs down, but they, they made like,

well, they had all five of their subs made like by the 80th minute. And, you know, we're like, we were well behind them and making changes, uh, on the field.

So I didn't think that like, we mentioned like the giveaway from Edelman, our centerbacks kind of combining over the last five minutes in game. It was kind of the one point in the second half where things kind of got a little dicey for us and I just thought that it would have just made a ton of sense to bring in some bring in like I was we were I think both calling for like Alvarado specifically for to add some yeah like a little bit more of a changed to the game in midfield yeah I mean what are the chances that that McGlynn was going to get another have another banger on this

night bring in Alvarado for him um and yeah I like that I like that logic. Once I'm a glen, it's very elementary. Right, once he does like, you know, hits that shot with his left foot where it's like, that's the chance. If it does, it goes in,

it doesn't. It's like, well, well, what are the odds, right? It's like if you want a big hand in poker, like, get out of there. You know? Just sit out. Yeah. Head home. Let's see. So I was not that impressed with Paxonair. I mean, I know he, I know he, his XG probably is, his XG numbers are probably going to be pretty solid.

But, um, I don't know. All things considered, he did, there was, there was a chance in the 63rd minute or wasn't, it didn't even become a chance, just a moment where Diego Luna is, is cutting in from the left. And he slips the ball in behind to where he thinks Aronson is running, but Aronson's just standing there, not running. And, um, I don't know. I think a lot of people were pleased with Aaronson's performance tonight. I don't know that I was so much.

Yeah, he didn't really come out as like a positive or a negative for me. It's like I don't, I think it's really harsh on like a kid that's not used to playing the position to like call him out for not having a great game when we think that both of his attack partners were worse. Right? So I don't know. That's fair. It's, I think it was a hard, uh, he,

kind of a hard night for him, just like in terms of the service that he, yeah, the role and the service he was getting from his attack partners. Okay, 64th minute, Canada comes right back down and Kobe Franklin has a shot from distance with his left foot. It's palmed wide, probably unnecessarily,

but can't blame him at all by Brady. The ensuing corner kick is, I don't know which Canadian met it with his head, but it was a more or less free header inside the box and he headed it straight up into the air. Right. So I thought this was another moment of Quabas not really looking by himself. He kind of clumsily goes into a tackle on Kobe Franklin as he comes down,

as he makes his way downfield, then just kind of gets left behind the play. And I thought, you know, we mentioned it a little while ago, but still no subs to this point. And I was starting to get a little nervous because Canada was growing into the game. Yeah. And we should also mention this game doesn't really matter, right? Like, I guess that thought just occurred to me that we should make that clear.

Like, it matters. It matters in the sense that like all these games matter. But we're going to, we're going to advance to the round of 16, almost assuredly. You just have to be the top three in the group, right? You have to be in the top three in the group, but being third in the group puts you, makes it so that you have to beat Mexico to even get to the playing games. So playing, finishing third in the group would be like slightly disastrous because you like, you don't want to play Mexico in a game where like if you win it, you're still not even guaranteed that you're in the Olympics. So I don't think that would be great. And I think that to this game, if it mattered or not, like, if we lose this game and then lose to Cuba, who if you lose to Canada, you can theoretically lose to Cuba too, right?

So, yeah, that you're probably third in the group at that point. And then you're playing Mexico in your second game of the knockouts instead of probably in like the fourth game of the knockouts. So I don't think it didn't matter, but like the extent to which it. mattered is like it mattered like you know like size six font italicized matter yeah well I guess I guess all I'm thinking is it's okay for there to be some learning happening in these games it's okay for there to be some experimentation with the lineup which is you know these this group of players doesn't have a bunch of reps together they have this that Revelations cup basically that's it um

Oh, yeah, I probably said that. I probably didn't say that very precisely. I agree with you in spirit. Okay. Thank you. 66th minute we get Caden Clark for Quinn Sullivan. What did you think of this? Yeah.

Yeah, it's a good change. Like we said, like I probably would have made it earlier, but I think Sullivan needed to come off. And Cating Clark's not a bad guy to come into that role on that right wing. So good sub all things, consider. What did Caden do as soon as he came on? So he drew a good save, right? A pretty horrible turnover from one of the Canadian midfielder's.

It was, I think, the Montreal kid. Ball ended up right at Caden's feet. And he just takes a touch and tries to recreate McGillin's goal. Just tries to fit it into that upper right hand. The goalie's upper left hand side doesn't quite find the height that McGlynn managed to get on his ball and Alexander makes a good diving save to his left to deny Clark

what would have been a pretty superb goal. It's a good hit. Yeah. 69th minute goal Canada. It's a hopeful cross from our left side and Michael Halliday goes up for it and just hits a textbook header down. Well, textbook is a little strong

but he hits it down right at the goal line where it's difficult for Chris Brady to handle and he can't, he does get some fingers to it, but he can't keep it out. And it just kind of squibs across the line. 2-1 Canada, own goal from Halliday, the right back. Very brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal. Yeah, and not much else to say, right?

Like, that just can't happen. Holiday cannot put the ball there. It looks like he might have been, screened and saw the ball late, which make a little bit more sense. But he has to be aware of where the ball is heading at that point. And man, just like basically the worst spot he could have put in. This ball trickles past Chris Brady, who then proceeds to stare daggers through Michael Holiday as he walks back up field.

So, and just super unfortunate. I think he looked at him and said, bro. Bro. And it just felt soft. It felt soft from the U.S. Two incredibly soft goals. And these are just kids, but we got to do better than that. But then, you know, less than four minutes later, we get a goal.

We get a goal back. It's Diego Luna coming back inside the half, inside our half, and picking up the ball and just turning and playing a gorgeous outside of the boot, ball and behind for Cal. He runs onto it. So it's he's already sort of Luna's already sort of eliminated the back line there and Cowell cuts in on his right foot and hammers it into the far corner.

It's a very, very good finish when he has a little space to work with. This space comes to him courtesy of Diego Luna. That's that that's basically exactly the ball he played to Paxton. Paxton's second in the St. Kitts game. He plays that same like slightly clipped, but like perfectly placed to catch him in stride. Cowell has to cut back in and it's like one of the very few times that a Canadian defender made a mistake in this game and in emergency defending by letting Cowell cut back into the field basically and uh

on his favorite right foot. Right. Yeah, we talked about like basically or already in this podcast like you, you push Kate Cowell to his left and see. You can let's let stuff happen from there. But a cow will make some pay and it's two, too, too. Yeah. And now the rest of the game is, I mean, we did get a couple of chances. We just like after the first goal, we kind of poured on for a while.

Tyler Wolf comes on for Paxson-Arensen. What did you think of that sub? Yeah, again, like fine sub. I think I still would have liked to have seen Alvarado on the field just to turn up the pressure even more. but like you said, Paxton didn't have a huge impact on the game. I think he even faded as the game went on. Tyler Rolf had a fairly good game in that

in the first game of the tournament in that False Nine role. I think he's maybe a little bit more mobile in terms of like doing some Jesus Frere type getting into spaces that makes the defense worry about him so yeah he seems a little better suited for the role maybe in Paxton does but but again like you said earlier I'm not I'm not don't feel strongly about that we we got we have a moment in the seven 75 minute mark where the ball is just scampering across the Canada six at one point

Caden Clark it's this Cade Cal Caden Clark situation is just ridiculous but But Caden Clark is kind of chasing it. He doesn't quite get to it. But the ball spills eventually to Diego Luna. He draws a good save with his left foot. We, you know, we're knocking on the door for about, you know, for about two minutes there. And then things go quiet from the 76 minute on, I would say, not that much happens, really. Yeah.

So, it's like kind of. the period where the Canadians are, this is kind of when they move to that like 631 right, where they're kind of just defending as a group on the top of the 18 yard box and we get like four or five minutes here of

just moving the ball left to right just trying to to find an opening and it just kind of doesn't happen for a little while so don't mind it but again it just kind of calls back to like the big difference between seeing

it's in Canada being that Canada was just far better at defending in numbers and structuring their defense yeah books us on from a glen in the 84th minute uh mcglin was perhaps struggling with leg cramps uh luna well what happens there's something in the 87th minute that's kind of good yeah so this is again like kind of kind of like in their very low block i mean like like Luna picks with the ball and basically is like, I've had enough of this. And he just decides to run directly at the Canadian backline. Somehow, like after I think like a small series of deflections, pushes through the Canadian ranks and manages a shot that deflects off of

Knight LaBelle, who is one of the Canadian centerbacks, he had Wolf Central. And I think like there was a small window of opportunity to play a quick ball to him. And Wolf basically would have been in on goal. But I don't mind. Luna taking the shot. It was another, an instance of good emergency defending and goalkeeping by Canada.

Okay. Yeah, that was a, that was near, it felt like it was nearly a goal. I think Wolf could have done better there, but that's a tough one to adjust to that ball. That's like knee high,

just deflected off the defender. After the rebound off of the Canadian defender. Yeah. Yeah, that's rough. I'm not, yeah. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not blaming him much at all. Luna draws a foul 30 yards from goal in the 91st minute. We get five minutes of stoppage time.

And then Craig takes the free kick and he hits it well this time, flashes it just wide of the post. And after that, you know, a little bit of naivete from pook's dust to foul Ferdinand in the 94th minute on the end line after trying to dribble him. Just recycle possession, my man. We need it. We need a chance here. This is just him trying to do some hero ball stuff

where he has the fresh legs and he's just trying to like, you know, do whatever he can to create a chance here. And then, you know, Ferdinand, the Canadian does well to sell the foul basically.

And a little moment of concafing, which we saw in this game, there was a moment earlier in the game when, I think it was Ferdinand too. It might not have been, but a Canadian defender gets hurt off the field and basically gets like pushed by the Canadian coach onto the field. So play has to stop.

But yeah, like this moment from Pukes to getting called for a foul on the end line was basically ended up being our last chance of the game where if he managed to recirculate that ball, I think maybe get another half chance, but it was always going to be super difficult this late. Yeah. Good. Well, there was another one where Caden Clark and Ferdinand both went up for an aerial challenge and, I mean, it looked like just a basic aerial duel and Fernand made as if he had been sniped from the rooftops. Yeah, another definite cell on that foul.

What probably wasn't even a foul, right? It was like just a 50-50 well. I don't think it was a foul at all, yeah. I don't think it was even called as a foul. but yeah a good I think probably a good learning experience like we need to we need to tidy it up in the back what are your takeaways

yeah I think it was like I mean this this is as happy as I'll ever be with a draw against like weak or opposition I think that we basically dominated the game beginning to end outside of like a few small moments and we did that with I think a good amount of players on our team

not playing particularly well the wide players being the wingeres and fullbacks i don't think did enough over the course of 90 minutes holiday and quabas i don't think played to the level that they're capable of as we've discussed at lane sullivan and cowle were disappointing um and i you just like everything there's a little bit of like there's always this thing in like the back of your head right watching this tournament where it's like everything that goes wrong it's just you could always think like man but What if we had Kevin Paredes or Carter Puppie? It's like none of this really matters that much when it's your C team

and you can just like mentally plug in your A pieces and say, just tell yourself that wouldn't have happened if you had those guys. Except that, you know, this team has to qualify us for the Olympics. And, you know, we can disagree about how important that is. I think it's a very reasonable, there's reasonable people on both sides of that debate. But, but, you know, we want to qualify for the Olympics. And I don't know. Yeah, my takeaway is I want to see more of Alejandro Avarado.

And I want, I do want to see less of Cade Cowell as a left wing. I could even, I could even, I would even be happy if it was Cowell on the right wing and Caden Clark on the left wing, you know. I think there's a lot of different ways to do it. Yeah. I don't know how I feel about Paxon Erinson as a striker. I wouldn't be mad if it was Tyler Wolfe. And then definitely, like, bring Noah Allen back into the starting lineup as the left back and put Kuevas at right back.

That's my... Yeah, yeah, definitely. Absolutely. That's, I think, like, one of the major things. That and, like, I think Jalen Neal is probably an improvement over either of these centerbacks, but, like, particularly, for Kronis. But like I just don't think like it was that I think it was probably just like a pretty good

performance at the end of the day. Like what do you make of the Canadian goals? Do you think like there is or is there individual players who who you blame for those? Like is does that instance of holiday putting the ball on the net make you like think that he like you don't want to play you want it to be Kueva Sen Allen? It's, it's, I mean, that doesn't help. That doesn't help Halliday's case. It's not the main reason.

I think, I think Quaivas is a better right back than Halliday. And I think Alan is a better left back than Quaivas right now. So. Right. Yeah, I don't know. I just think it's unlucky, man. It's just an unlucky. It was.

No doubt. Result. Unlucky, but also like for, if I'm going to blame anybody, I guess for that first goal, I mean, Halliday obviously. it's the blame for the second goal. Pretty unlucky for him. But if I'm going to blame anybody for the first goal, it's probably for Kranas.

He needs to just come flying in there and smash that ball away. And not like sort of defer to Luna who's coming back to the ball. Like you need your centerback to come in and say it's mine and then crunch it. Let me just say that we're going to keep doing, we're going to keep recapping these U20 games.

There's going to be sort of a rotating cast of people. There's even going to be somewhere I'm not involved, because I'm going to be traveling at the very end of the month. But Matt will be back after this next one. So stick with us. Thanks for listening. We'll see you.